In France

Well hello there.
I was in North America less than twenty-four hours ago, and now I'm in good old Paris, France, sitting on a futon that will be my bed for the next few nights, with une omelette, un peu d'un patiserrie chocolat, et d'Orangina in my estomac. The trip over here was uneventful for the most part. Charles de Gaulle International Airport isn't really anything too impressive. Actually, it's downright ugly in parts- certainly not the luxurious Parisian architecture I expected. It's not too terribly confusing, and neither are the public transit systems, so we made it to our apartment at Rue Pascal without too much difficulty. It took a couple of phone calls to Monsieur Thiriet and a little bit of shivering out in the one-degree-celsius weather that we were all a little underdressed for before we actually got into the apartment building and into our apartment, but we're all settled now, and Paris is fantastic. I wasn't too tired when we got here, but Kirsten and Lindsey were completely exhausted -Lindsey's ears took a major beating on the plane, so she was ready to sleep for a while if not die- so I went out to explore a little and take a few pictures. We are definitely right in the thick of things here, and there is a lot of activity right in our neighborhood. The door to our apartment is right next to the door of a cafe, and the cafe itself, I believe, is directly underneath where I'm sitting right now, just down about 30 feet or so. To the right outside our building is the famous Marché Mouffetard if you go down a block or two. Big old outdoor market next to a cool old church with nice bells that were tolling noon or something similarly eventful when we arrived. All in all, it's pretty much what we expected, but with friendlier people so far. There was even a guy playing nice music on an accordion for spare change in our metro car today. "Welcome to Paris," he said. We're talking about doing Notre Dame tomorrow, as well as whatever else is in that area. Should be awesome. I'll put up pictures. Here are a few from today. Enjoy.

Kent