Goodbye to France for Colin

Peqce out France

The Eiffel Tower tonight

The Louvre - its free on the first sunday of the month so we didntpay qnything

Art critics

Varts apartment is on the 2nd floor of this building

close up view of our cooking utensils for the past 6 weeks

Vartas lofted Parissian bed

Train ride after escaping Montepellier

Courts in Carnon, with a view of the locals

We just spent two great days in Paris, and all my bags are packed and ready to go in the morning.

We spent a hellish night in Montpellier on Friday night. What we thought would be a triumphant conclusion to the journey in the South took a detour for the worst really fast. When we got into Montpellier it was around 6 on Friday, and we went to a mcdonalds to use internet and book a hostel. We found one really fast, but ended up staying in the plush leathercouchs in mcdonalds for four more hours!! We found the discotechue that we were going to party at, which bus took us there, and directions to the hostel, and Marc was planning his tournaments in Paris, so atleqst we were being productive.

By the time we got out of there, it was dark. As we began roaming to find our hostel we each started to get a bad feeling, and when we arrived outside of Hotel de Franc the whole road was shut down for the construction of a tramway. Turns out the hostel never got our online booking because their internet connection was shut off for construction purposes. Suchhhh a bummer. We spent the next two hours looking for another roo, but they were all full or way out of our cheap budget. We decided to take the 7 amtrain to Paris qnd sleep^in the train station until then, so we had about six hours to kill.

Turns out the train station only stays open until 2. So we got awoken qnd kicked out by two French security guards and a terrifying German Shepard. We reloacted to the corner of the train station, which was a horrible place to sleep bc drunk people were roa,ing everywhere. We were sqfe, becquse a few other groups just like us were out and the security guys were always on the scene, but it was still pretty unnverving. Colin didnt sleep the whole time. Varta ended up getting woken up by the killer attack dog German SHepard two more times, once to let us know we could go back in the building qnd another time to tell him it was "interdit" to sleep in the station.

We got into Paris saturday around noon and moved into Marcs new flat in Paris. He lives in a sweet park of town just south of the Seine and in a heavy student area. The guy who owns the flat is retired and has 5 students living in a small parisian apartment. It perfectfor Vart though.

Saturday we walked around for awhile, and then went out to a few bars with Marcs new roommates. We woke up this morning pretty hungover but managed to have a great day, going to the Louvre, the Montmarte area, and theEiffel Tower. We even attended a legit French Catholic mast in Sacre Couer, which is a huge church on the top of the city. We had just finsihed a bottle of wine, and got very absorbed in the experience.

Colin flies back to the states in the morning. I had a blast, and so happy I made the trip despite so little planning and money. Varta is gunna play the xwhole month of september qnd has 5 tournaments lined up starting on wednesday. The is Colin signing off, see you all soon