Paris, Nantes, Köln, and Molly Anderson

Paris is a beautiful city, but on the other hand all the myths of France are true. It was the most annoying city to travel through. Every train that you board requires a reservation and you probably need to get it 2 days before because the trains get so full, the people are rude and are unwilling to speak english even when you ask in french, and the hostels are really bad.

After I had gotten settled in my hostel I decided to take a long walk around the city. From my hostel I headed towards Notre Dame to get a few good night shots, then headed to the Lourve, and finally to the Eiffel Tower. Notre Dame was a beautiful cathedral, but I still like the one from Cologne a lot more. The Lourve is absolutely huge, I would guess that you could fit 10 football fields in it. It is a beautiful building and after contemplating if I like the glass pyramid or not, I decided that it goes well with the museum. Outside the museum is the Arc de Triuph, or so I thought. When I saw it for the first time I was really not that impressed with it because it was not that big, but the next day I found out that it was not it. I guess the real thing was in another location of the city. Finally after 3 hours of walking I got to the Eiffel Tower. I must hand it to the French, it was absolutely huge. I thought it would be like 300 feet tall, it was like 900 feet tall. I didn't go up it, since I was planning on going up it with Molly Anderson from Bethany Beach.

The next day (10/31) I had to switch to a hotel because the hostel did not have any rooms for the night. I missed the bike tour that I had wanted to do because I could not find it, but was able to find it after a while I found it and was able to do the 4 pm bike tour. When I got to the bike tour I found out that I was the only person that had showed up so far. The girl that was running it was from Texas and a really fun person to talk to. When we were about to give up on other people coming a man from New Jersey showed up. He was a retired navy pilot and currently and enterprenuer/ commercial pilot. The tour guide took us out for 3 hours, but did not see much more than when I walked the previous night. Afterwards I went to a bar with the American guy; he paid for the drinks and a few appetizers, but I would rather not have had his company since he told me the most discusting stories. He didn't seem to get the hint he should stop telling me them eventhough I did not respond to any of them.

In the morning (11/1) I went to the train station to go to Nantes to see Molly Anderson. I had already told Molllz that I would be on the 12 o'clock train, but could not get a reservation for the train until 6:30. I tried to find internet to send her an email that I would not be on the 12 pm train, but had to walk the entire citz to realize Paris does not does not have internet cafes. I had to go back to the hostel to email her, I finally sent an email at 3 a half hour after my train was suppose to arrive. When I went back to the train station I bought National Geographic about hunting and memory loss, it was a good way to pass the time. I finally got to Nantes at 8:30, but did not see Molly there, so I headed to her place. I didn't have a map except for one that I had copied off of google maps and it didn't have any major roads on it. I ended up spending about two and a half hours looking for her place. Along the way I asked a french guy for some help and he just told me to go away. I was really to kick his ass since it was 10:30 and I didn't know where to go, typical french. I got really close to where she lived but could not find the last road, I saw a couple walking to their car so I asked them for help. They were very kind and gave me a ride just up the street to where I needed to be. I finally found Molly and was excited to see her; I showed her some of my pictures; she introduced me to her friends and professors; it was a great time.

Over the weekend Molly was meeting her friend Chris in Cologne Germany, she invited me to go, so I accepted. In the morning (11/2) I tried to go the train station to get a reservation, so I could be on the same train as Molly. I turned out that when I tried to go out the door at 7:30 I found out that you need to have a key to open the door. I ended up waiting until 8:30 until someone finally came down stairs that I could ask for a key. I could not get a reservation for the same train as Molly to Paris, but was able to get the one the hour after. I was pretty annoyed because I could not get a reservation for the same train as Molly to Paris, and inorder to get a train from Paris to Cologne I had to spend 88€. When I finally got to Paris I ran to Molly's train and kept looking in the windows to find her. Finally after I had looked in 20 cars I found her and luckily she saw me because the train was suppose to leave in 3 minutes. Since I did not have a ticket for that train but the next one to Cologne I asked her for the hotel information that we were staying at. Molly suggested me ask if I could get on the train even though I had the wrong ticket and fortuently they let me on.

When we got to Cologne we headed to the hotel. Hotel was verz fancy, a Sofiatel. Mollz had only paid for one person so I had to sneak in. As she was checking in I walked to the 2nd floor and waited until she found me. The room was small, but nice. We went to the train station and got a bratwurst and then to the hostel I had stazed at before and drank a beer. Mollz wanted to look at the ice bar across the strrat so we went over there and got a shotand then headed back to the hostel for another beer. I checked my email and sent some emails to friends and family. We then headed back to the hotel for some much needed rest.

The next morning at 7am Molly's friend Chris Hanley arrived from Cairo. Chris went to sleep and Molly and I went down to the pool and hot tub, which turned out to be awesome. The pool was all black graniteand had light to make the rock glitter, on the side of the pool thez had stainless steal tube benches that that blew air out and caused the water to bubble, Mollz and I enjoyed this novelty. We were switching from the pool to hot tub everz five minutes and continued this for about an hour and a half. Soon after we went up to the room and woke up Chris and we all got ready to go out and see Cologne. When we got to down town we went inside the Cathedral took some pictures and then moved on. We then headed to the Roman German museum. Chris was verz interested in this because he studies ancient historz and some theologz. This museum was not to interesting because they only showed pots and items from general life. We left and outside between the museum and cathedral we found a protest of turks wanted to build a mosque in the middle of Cologne, This was interesting but did not paz much attention to it at the time. We moved on to the Chocalate museum which was suppose to be the real life version of Willz Wonka. This was intersting to Mollz and Chris, but I had alreadz been to on in Bruges, so I was not that interested in the information. I did enjoz the making of the chocalate because of the mechanical machines and the flowing milk chocalate. At the end we bought a few samples and gifts for people back home.

For dinner went to a Burger Kin in the center of town. We then headed bacvk to the hotel to sit in the hot tub for a few hours. At 11 the pool shut down so we left, but the night was still young. The hotel was hosting a party, so we headed to it. It was fun, but we were the onlz people under 30. I think I enjozed watching the old men bust their moves, which weren't too impressive. After of a couple of hours of poorly picked music we went back to the hotel room to sleep.

The next morning (11/4) Mollz and I headed to the pool and sa una. Chris came later since he woke up late. We then headed to the cahtedral to clim to the top of the right tower. Zou wounät think it would be verz manz stpe but Molly and Chris counted and almost go to 500 steps. From th top we could see all the turkish protests with communist and turkish flags. We went down to where the protestor were and Chris and I pretended to be participants as Mollz took phots. I think we then went to a cafe and got coffee and cake. Later on we went to an old pub that served beer in oak kegs. I had been to this place earlier in this trip, but I wanted Molly and Chris to see it. We got some traditional German food, I thought I might be sick afterwards because it was such a heavy meal. After this we went back to the hostel and I check my email and bought flights for the family reunion and Molly and Chris headed to mass at the Cathedral. When they got back from mass we headed to the hotel to soak in the hot tub and drink Jager Bombs and champaign. Next stop Interlaken.