Saket Vora

As we got ready in the morning, I saw that Laure had sent me an SMS. It was great news – she gave us a meeting place and time where we can meet her for lunch. Hopefully check-in at the hotel will go smoothly and we should be able to make it ok. We took a taxi to Brussels Midi cause it’s a shady area and after a slight mix-up on the train (we were sitting in our numbered seats in train car 17, not 16 as our ticket said) we were on our way to Paris.

We arrived in Paris just fine and made our way to the metro. My mom says that when we were in Paris ten years ago, she was surprised at how easily we had navigated the Paris metro. After so many other cities under our belt now, it was no problem. We found the hostel soon enough and checked-in, though we couldn’t enter the room until after 5pm. The lady at the desk was quite weird…I asked if we could leave our bags somewhere and she just pointed at this sheet of Rules and said to read it first. I mean, this isn’t the first hostel we’ve stayed at. After I read the rules, I asked again “where is the luggage room” and she pointed me to it. Silly. We then went back out to the metro and we had about two hours to use up before meeting up with Laure. To the Eiffel Tower! We took the metro again to Bir Hakim and got out of the station and immediately the Eiffel tower loomed above us. It is quite an arresting sight. We walked towards it snapping photos every five minutes. It was partly cloudy, but as we moved out down the Champs de Mars, the sun began to break out above the clouds and slowly the entire tower was bathed in light. It was very nice. We walked towards the south-east, trying to find a café or something to have a cup of coffee, but no real dice. We didn’t have a good map, so we just wandered a bit. I spotted this building with its gold-leafed dome glinting in the sunlight. It is called Invalides, and it is a grand hospital that Napoleon built for his injured soldiers. Finally it was about time so we took the metro to St. Michel. Laure said for us to meet in front of the fountain at St. Michel, and we got there a bit early. Promptly at 12pm, I spotted her walking up the street. She had to quickly finish a call with her father then I introduced her to my sisters. She told that me that Kahina was coming too, so we waited a bit. Kahina then came and was so kind to bring some chocolates. I wish I had bought some flowers for them, but I forgot. I’m sorry! Hungry for lunch, they led us through some of the side streets where university students in Paris often frequent. Laure and Kahina helped decipher some of the menus and we found a nice place. We talked about Brussels and Amsterdam and our previous trip to Paris, and I touched base with them about people leaving in Lund. Marion and Helene were flying back today on the same flight from Copenhagen. Kahina brought this handy guide and she and Sachi looked through to see which museums were opened on Christmas Sunday. Laure and I sketched out a plan for the day, so we gathered up our things and headed out. We first headed north, across the bridge to the Cite, a small island where the city of Paris began. Kahina made an excellent point about train reservations for Caen and to Geneva. Kahina led us to this huge shopping mall where she knows of a SCNF office. It was amazing. Kahina led us down this maze of escalators and crowded hallways (full of holiday shoppers) and into the SCNF office. We got to the desk and Laure and Kahina talked with the clerk in French. She would look up some information on her computer, tell it to Laure and Kahina, then they would turn to me and translate it to me. I would respond, then they would tell it to the clerk. The best part was when Laure turned to me and started speaking in French, then suddenly caught herself. I really wish I knew French at that point. Poor Laure. She and Kahina were so amazingly helpful to us. Kahina had to leave us at this point, so we said goodbye. L Laure still had some time before another meeting, so we walked over to the Louvre. I forgot how truly enormous the museum is. It sits in the grounds of the palace that Louis XIV was raised in. We entered the Louvre and explored some of the wings.