Thursday, January 3, 2008 PARIS

We got off the night train at 7:30 am to find ourselves in a cold, unwelcoming train station. Hello Paris! Let me tell you, the night train is something we are glad to be done with! Imagine 12 hours in a cramped seat that does lean back pretty far but if you dare recline back much the person behind you speaks angry french. Of course none of us actually knew what these words were but the tone of voice....yeah, we can definitely understand that!!! So back to the train station. It was FREEZING cold and we immediately missed our warm country of Spain!! There is no where to sit and relax, it is an outside station but eventually Amanda spied an expensive looking restaurant By that time we would do anything for some heat because we had just found out our apartment wouldn't be ready until 10:00 am!!! We settle into some chairs with all our baggage under the disapproving eye of the french waiter and ordered a croissant and coffee. The prices are ridiculous! Hello Paris again!! While we waited, some of the girls went to get directions to our new apartment. The one we had reserved previously did not have working hot water so the owner had kindly found us another one. The adventure to find it was amusing, seeing as LeAnne knows about 5 words in french and that's the best we have!!! But once we found it we fell in love with it and settle in. Catie and Maria arrived at noon and after that we went grocery shopping to stock our new pad!!! Moms, listen up.....you won't believe this but....WE COOKED DINNER!!! yep, that's right. We cooked. We had noodles with butter and cheese on them, fruit salad, bread and I don't remember what else. Anyhow, it was good. The food shops here are delightful, we are surrounded with bread shops, meat shops, fruit and veggie shops and tons of pastry ones too. It is a blast going to shopping for food! Whenever we feel like it we can run across the street and buy a rotisserie chicken for 5 Euro, a fresh croissant or a long loaf of bread. After dinner that night we decided to visit the Eiffel Tower which was AMAZING at night! It is all lit up and sometimes the lights blinks so that it sparkles. We were all beside ourselves with excitement that we were actually in Paris and touching the tower!! It costed us around 3 Euro to climb the stairs to the second floor but after that you had to pay for an elevator to go to the very top. So we settled for the second floor and most of us were extremely thankful that we were not allowed to climb any additional stairs cause we were already hurting!! After coming down some of us knew we needed to immediately replenish some of those calories we had burned up so we bought french crepes. YUMMY!!!!!!!!