Bonjour!

After 9 hours of travel (including a really brief layover in Dublin. I want an Irish accent!), we made it to Paris! I’m really happy that we didn’t run into any mishaps, like lost items or broken limbs… though I did find out that my sister isn’t the most reassuring travel companion. Yes, Justine, you get a special shoutout.

The other day, my sister spouted off some crazy story about a man who beheaded and gutted a guy on a Canadian bus (you think I’m kidding? Check it out: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7537675.stm ). Which, of course, made me really, really anxious about sitting next to strange crazies on buses/planes/modes of transportation. So when my sister ended up sitting next to me on the plane, I was pretty relieved.

And then the plane began to take off.

Normally, I don’t get nervous during flights. Heck, I spend most of them asleep. But just as I was about to actually fall into a Dramamine-induced slumber, my sister decided to start talking about:

• How the brace position snaps your neck on impact, meaning less suffering for the victims of a plane crash (totally not true, Justine: http://kwc.org/mythbusters/2005/06/mythbusters_killer_brace_posit.html . Way to be a wiener)

• The story of a private jet that crashed and demolished some guy’s family (his wife, kids, mother-in-law) and home.

• Childbirth mortality rates. And lots and lots of blood loss.

My sister got to sleep that flight. I did not. I kept trying to make myself feel better about flying by playing peekaboo with the adorable red-headed, blue-eyed baby across the aisle, but the baby totally lost interest in the game before I did.

Anyway, after a good nap, my sister, mom, and I wandered around the Latin Quarter for a solid couple of hours. I have never seen so many bookstores in my life; the Latin Quarter would be my book Valhalla if only – IF ONLY! – I could read French! More motivation to learn, I guess. First, we refueled by eating some sandwiches at a café called Les Petits Écoliers, staffed by a nice, smile-y bald man who cooked prepped our meals on a teeny, tiny stove:

Then, with the aid of a certain, incredibly awesome Paris map – provided by a certain, incredibly awesome Elspeth – we got lost, got found, got lost again, got found again… I would have taken more pictures, but my camera ran out of battery power.

And on the way home, I had to power up my camera one last time for the U of C geek in me:

[Oh boy, is anyone as excited about this as I am?]

And with that, it’s off to more reading and sleeping for me… tomorrow, we tackle the Eiffel Tower! Hope the rest of you are enjoying what’s left of winter break/ringing in the new year right!

xoxo,
D