I had a ton of fun in Paris despite my not being able to speak French. I learned pretty fast and by the end of the trip I was able to buy some things in a market with only speaking French when the stand owner didn't speak English.

Friday: We got to Paris via the Eurostar and met up with the tour guide. We had our first encounter with a gypsy and the French military (my thoughts were: "Hey! Look! Cosplayers..oh...those are REAL machine guns...O.o"). We were a little scared but got over it pretty quickly. Then we had part of a tour of Paris, stopped for a quick lunch and got back on the bus. We didn't actually get to the hotel until about 16:00 (or 4pm). After unpacking and getting freshened up, some of my friends and I went to eat dinner, see the Eiffel Tower and get some crepes. All were just great. Though, we couldn't go up the tower because it was closed.

Saturday: This was the day I was supposed to go to the Louvre. Instead, I got a taxi and went to Japan Expo. I got a lot of funny reactions when they found out I was an American. They were all super surprised and pretty confused as to why I was there since I don't speak French. But I had fun and I met a girl who was an English major and she helped me out a lot. She translated everything and explained what was going on. I love the fact that I actually got to hang out with the people of the country rather than just look at their relics. That always seems far more exciting to me. So, then afterward I went back to the hotel and met up with my friends again to go on our boat tour. Except, I still had my purple wig and contacts in. So, The day before when I was with them, a lot of people glared at us, ALL of us. Saturday when I had my wig on, however, they didn't glare at me, only my friends. Throughout the day I kept getting mistaken as being French. ^-^ That made me happy.

Then on the boat tour itself we had a great time. We didn't really pay much attention to the guide but we were laughing and joking the whole time. I also found out that another girl in our group besides me likes anime! *squee* The girl who told me took me to meet her after the tour because appearently she was just sitting somewhere else on the boat. So, the two of us got to talking and it was really refreshing to be able to spend that much time talking about anime to people. My friends on this trip have been girls who don't know any anime except Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z (but I still love them!). So then a couple of the girls decided they wanted sushi. I was just completely shocked when they asked me and I guess they could tell by the look on my face cause they asked "Do you not like sushi?" I just grinned widely and told them that I loved them. They were a little confused but that's ok.

We found this sushi bar by our hotel that was great. It was totally authentic and really fresh (and best of all, not that expensive). The waiter saw us come in and was so surprised to see that we were Americans that we got special treatment the entire night. I guess when Americans come to Paris they don't usually stop in at a sushi bar but it was just soooo good. We didn't even get back to the hotel until about 00:30 (12:30) and then I stayed down stairs in the bar with some friends talking until about 1:30 (no drinking).

Sunday:My roommate, Lauren, her friend Frank and I went to see Notre Dame in the morning before we left. As we were walking there, we passed this open air market that had everything you can imagine for cheap prices so we decided to come back to it after we were done at Notre Dame. And we did. We got some yummy crepes for cheep and I bought two bottles of rose wine for when we celebrate my birthday on the 18th. So, we started walking back to the hotel cause we realized we were running a bit late but figured that they would take a head count and realize we weren't there so they wouldn't leave us. We were wrong. On the way back, before we completely even left the market we saw the group walking to the metro station. That's when we remembered that we were on the “screw you” trip where the faculty didn't give a damn. Luckily we all made it on time to the train station (and apparently there were at least eight or nine other people who missed the meet up time).

On Monday, I went to Camden with someone else who wanted to go but didn't know how to get there, so I offered to go with her since I'd already been there once. We looked around some in the stores and bought a couple of things. Unfortunately the market there was closing so we couldn't really shop there. Then we wondered around the Lock for a while. When it was time to leave we headed back to the main road a different way than the way we came and I'm sooo glad we did. I found a Gothic and Lolita shop. We didn't have time for me to buy anything so I went back Wednesday and bought a jumper skirt, shoes, a bow, a and a coat (it has bunny ears!!!). I'm really excited and I've got the feeling I'm going to be spending most of my money there. Cause I can actually try on the dresses and see how they look on me. I'm dragging my mom there to my buy me my birthday present too. ^-^