An American in Paris

Today was wonderful :)
We woke up in our awesome hostel and had free breakfast including real coffee... Carissa went to Versailles with some friends she met here while Crystal, Ames and I went on a walking tour to see the entire city. We had a great story-telling tour guide, a girl named Narini who was from Boston but has been studying at the American University in Paris for the past three years. She was very knowledgeable about the history of Paris from Rome to Medieval times to the Renaissance to the Revolution to the Enlightenment to the World Wars to Sex and the City and made it so exciting.... I felt like I wanted to go back to school to become a history major after that.
We saw: the Louvre, Arc De Triomphe, Parc du Monceau, Palais Royale, Pont Neuf (New Bridge), Grand Palais, countless towering Roman statues, Fountain at St. Michel, Hotel Des Invalides, Notre Dame, the Egyptian obelisque (which the Egyptian govt. wants back... sorry! No can-do), the opera house, some weird interactive black-and-white striped art cylinders sticking out of the ground with little kids playing on them and all sortsa fun. The coolest story is to hear how Paris was saved from Hitler's destructive hand. When Nazi forces occupied the ~most beautiful city on earth~ Hitler ordered one of his most loyal generals to bomb Paris the moment it looked as if the Allies would reclaim it. The General (whose name escapes me) could not do it, however, and while TNT was strapped to everything from the Eiffel tower to the Royal Palace, the only thing he did was drop bombs in the river Seine and set fire to the part of the Grand Palace that was all stone, so nothing of importance was destroyed. Cool story ah?

After that, C-Rain, Ames and I gathered some blankets, bagguettes, cheese and wine and walked several miles to the Eiffel tower and had a late afternoon picnic on the lawn there called the "Parc du Champs De Mars." I brought paints and did some painting and sketching. We laughed and caught up on the simpler things in life.... stretched out on the grass, looking up through the trees at the ginourmous metal asparagus above us, listening to some concert in the park nearby. It was a picture-perfect end to a picture-perfect day. Thank you God for beauty. Soon it began sprinkling, so we packed up and headed towards the south quarter to the Gare de Lyon to get our Eurail Night tickets then had quite the late night odyssey getting back home to the northeast quarter. The highlight was catching the a glimps of the Eiffel tower's light show, it glitters and glows like a sparkler on the fourth of July, every hour on the hour.
Back at St. Christopher's hostel we've met some great people, and I do confess I REALLY love speaking english and not getting a perplexed, furrowed brow in return. :)
Tomorrow is Moulin Rouge and the Louvre before taking the night train to Florence! AH! pray it goes well, we've never done this Eurail thing before and I sense we're on the cusp of another grand adventure.
looooooove!
LOVE YOU DADDY!