HOWDY!!! I am finally in wonderful and amazing Paris!!! The last 2 weeks of traveling have been such a blast: I got to see some awesome stuff, hang out at brasseries drinking wine with friends in the evenings, eat 4-course meals every night that lasted for 2 hours, and rack up some very funny stories about travel mishaps.

Yesterday afternoon we pulled into Paris, so I am now settled into my room at the Foyer (it's a little small and there's not much furniture, but it's not like I will be spending much time in it anyway). Then last night some of us went out for another lovely dinner and then painted French flags on our faces and parked it outside at a bar to watch France play Brazil in soccer --- we won OF COURSE, and it was so much FLIPPING fun to be watching it. Everyone gets so into it, and after the game was over everyone was hugging and people get in their cars and drive around honking their horns through the streets. Even the ambulances and police cars would drive by honking and waving, and there was a huge group of them. (We also got hit by celebratory water that someone threw down from their apartment!) Someone told us that everyone heads down to the Champs-Elysees after France wins, so we're going to watch the game down there Wednesday night and then get in on the crazy celebrations afterwards -- we also decided to buy some t-shirts to wear!

I have tons more to write, but this has already taken me forever since the keyboards are so different here, so I will keep updating (hopefully semi-regularly), and maybe at some point I wil even backtrack and include some things I skipped this time around.

As they say over here, A Bientot!!!