Jun 18, 2003 23:14
Seems that there’s quite a bit of trouble after last night’s party. Rick apparently “lost” some of his traveler’s checks (maybe in all the bottles of wine he bought), and everyone hates Jonathan now. He really is a jerk. He went up to the party last night and took advantage of a lot of the drunk girls (making out with them and probably some other stuff too).
Well anyway, Ohio left us to go to Chenonceau. Jeff went with them. Because of that, we actually got to wake up late today (8:00). Today went pretty slowly. The first thing we saw after exiting the hotel was some sort of parade with a band and a guy making a speech and stuff. It was for the people who died for France. Some lady said something to me in French, and I didn’t understand her. I just shrugged, and that seemed to be a correct response because she just went in front of me to get a better look.
We went to the Louvre next. We got off at the wrong stop, so we had to walk around and find it. It was free for students, but we had to split up into small groups or we wouldn’t be let in. I went with the adults again. We saw Winged Victory, Venus, and Mona Lisa, among others.
After that we went shopping for a little bit (at a sunglasses store!) and went to the American Express place to get money. There was this really nice guy who worked there and talked to us in French and English. He gave two fanny packs away to people whose names he drew from a hat. They ended up being me and Alex. He also suggested that we go to Galleries Lafayette for lunch so we did. There was a rooftop restaurant but it was too expensive, so we went to the self-serve place instead. I got fruit salad (good!) and normal salad (gross!) Some people wanted to stay and shop at the Gallerie, and some wanted to go to the Opera so we split up.
I went to the Opera ( 3.00), and almost all the ceilings were painted and very beautiful. The Orchestra (main area where the operas are performed) was closed because someone was rehearsing a ballet. (I think it was Cinderella.) Mrs. Feinstein kept trying to sneak in through all these doors and even tried to persuade this guy to let us in. He wouldn’t, but right before we were going to leave, the Orchestra opened. The ceiling was really bright and abstract and looked so out of place there. It was cool. I ran into a couch when I went in there, and I ran into the same one when I went out. We went to a gift shop and I bought a 3-D card for my grandpa and Sarah ( 7.00).
We went back to the mall, and there was this guy playing one of those monkey music boxes. He had a sign behind him that said “Peace” and a cat and a dog asleep in a tiny bed together. I’m not joking. We still had half an hour left, so we decided to go shopping. I bought a French magazine called Elle that came with a perfume sample ( 2.30).
I asked a couple of people if they wanted to go find a bookstore with me but no one did, so I had to go alone. I was worried about being the last person there and getting yelled at for going off alone, but I had to find french manga (Japanese comics) for Ami (my sister)! So I found a map and looked it up. I went to the level it was on and ran around like crazy until I found it. (I didn’t realize until later that there had been an escalator straight down to it where I came in until later.) Then I ran around like crazy in the bookstore until I found a sign that said “Bandes Dessinees” except the only thing there was French comics. I was trying to decide which one would be the best when, for some reason, I looked over to my right, and there they were! Some little French boy was sitting in front of the shelf reading them. (Just like in America!) When I saw how many French manga there were, I started wishing I had asked Ami which kind to get. I looked and looked and finally decided on Fruits Basket (sic) because it sounded familiar, and it was the classic example of Japanese people trying to use English on something to make it sound cool: It’s almost correct except for one glaring grammatical mistake, and it has nothing to do with what the manga is about. At this point I felt like I had wasted hours, so I ran through the store, bumping into several people, and bought the manga very quickly and all in French! (though I didn’t say very much)
Then I ran upstairs (still taking the long way) and ran around until I found some people from my group and sat down with them. They told me I still had 15 minutes left. Oh well. It wasn’t enough time to go buy anything else anyway. I opened the manga to make sure it was good, and it was such a shock to be able to understand it after only being able to piece together the story from random words and phrases in Japanese manga. I waited while everyone slowly trickled back and smelled some fruit shoes that reminded me of Halloween. I talked to Sean about favorite Disney movies, and Jarod told me about some comic he found called Tin Tin and the Dominatrix (apparently).
There’s something I (and a lot of other people) noticed about Mrs. Crawford. She’s always calling someone’s name like: “Kimmie?! Kimmie?! Kimmie?!” (her daughter) or “Ciiiiiindy! Cindy?” (Mrs. Hinkle). She sometimes even does this when they’re standing right next to her. Some people in the group have started making fun of her (in a friendly way) for this, especially John and even Mrs. Feinstein. I even caught a complete stranger walking by making fun of her.
We went home to meet up with Ohio for dinner. While we were waiting for them, we played B.S., Poker (I won), and five seconds of “Extreme” Uno. Dinner was okay, but I couldn’t really enjoy it because I got really homesick about halfway through it. Then we went to take a boat ride on the Bateau Mouche (a medium sized boat that drives around on the Seine).
Jeff made another joke today (I’m paraphrasing here): “Okay when we get on the boat, they’re going to go through the safety instructions, and you should pay attention because you never know when we might run into the odd iceberg.” Everyone laughs. “No, I’m serious. 1912: Worst trip I ever had.”
On the sides of the seats, there were these little remotes with eight numbered buttons that give you a choice of languages for the voice that talks about the stuff you’re passing. Here were the languages: 1- French, 2 - English, 3 - German, 4 - Spanish, 5 - Italian, 6 - Russian, 7 - Japanese, 8 - Chinese. I listened to all of them for a minute or so to discern the language and then stayed on Japanese the whole time. The highlights of our ride: waving to random people on other boats and sidewalks, being mooned by two separate groups of guys, and watching a guy pee on a wall. It was great.
We went back to the hotel and went on the rustiest escalator ever! My ticket didn’t work in the machine for some reason, so I hopped over the turnstiles. I’m now officially a criminal in two countries! I half to take a shower now. I feel so dirty!