Paris

On February fourth I go to the Edmonton Airport at 7 am. I only forgot...my oboe! I got through security and saw... Monsieur Bérubé! But it turns out our chaperone was his old teacher or vice principal or something...small world. We got to Calgary and met up with the 57 kids from there. There were eight of us from Edmonton - that is, flying out of Edmonton - but almost 30 from Victoria and 25 from Vancouver, then I guess 15 from other places. There were 6 people alone from Canmore and Banff, too of whom know my cousin...small world. Then we all went to Toronto and had dinner. I had poutine and an Iced Capp to be Canadian. The Edmonton kids were small enough to be our own little group instead of splitting up - it sort of stayed that way for the time we were together in Paris.
The plane ride wasn't bad, and we got to Paris near 10 am local time. There were people with light blue OSEF rainjackets waiting for us - they were friendly and welcoming. We put our luggage in trucks depending on what method of transportation we were taking to get to our host families, and then we got on one of three tour buses.
We went to Sacre-Coeur first. The church was really nice and it is on the top of a hill. But there were people trying to weave tourists bracelets and then charge them lots. Two wanted to weave me one but I said no a lot of times and they seemed surprised I was talking french and kind of stopped bothering me. But someone :) ended up paying 30 euros!
Then I think we went to Flunch. It's sort of like a fastfood place only more healthy and better food. In France it seems like you have smaller portions of many foods instead of bigger portions of a few foods like in Canada. It was a bit confusing but I survived.
Then we went to Notre Dame and that was cool. The OSEF sightseeing approach is "be back in an hour". As opposed to choir tour with ECC :). Then we went back to the hotel and got assigned rooms. My roommate happened to be the niece of a lady my parents know from Calgary that was at this dinner thing the day I left...small world! The dinner was a bit confusing. It was this sort of interesting salad bar and bread and some meat and desserts. Then I sat down at the wrong place. I wasn't sure I would be full but I wasn't hungry after. I went to bed by about 9 pm after being mostly awake for 29 hours. I didn't really feel the jet lag much but I think it was underminingly there - I didn't feel like I was completely there near the end.
The next day we got up earlier than scheduled and went to the Louvre for an hour. I had ham as part of my breakfast, which was surprisingly good. This way of sightseeing - being governed by deadlines instead of interest - makes for people who are less braindead at the end of the day, but perhaps more physically tired. One hour in the Louvre isn't very much...but we saw the "Monna Lisa" so it's all good! Then we went to the Champs-Elysées and under the Arc de Triomphe for an hour. They have quite the goldplated McDonald's M! And quite the dice...don't ask.
Then we had lunch at a different Flunch that had a bathroom sign with an arrow pointing at a customer. And then it was to the Eiffel Tower. We only went up to the second floor but it was still really cool. It was cold, windy and perhaps rainy though. They sell pasta in the shape of Eiffel towers! It seemed to be faster to take the stairs down than the elevator, so we did. We then went on a boat ride on the river Seine. It was really cool and intriguing but relaxing at the same time. Since a big part of the historic part of Paris is on an island surrounded by the Seine, there are many bridges connecting the island to the mainland. So we went under a lot of decorative bridges, some of then with statues or gold on them!
Paris is a bit like a whole city of Whyte Ave. It's pretty intense. There also seemed to be streets where all of the shops had the same theme, for example wedding stores. The buildings all looked older with periodical character. The ones in Caen do too even though they were mostly rebuilt after WWII, so maybe I don't mean periodical. In Paris, keeping in mind that in Europe the ground floor is floor zero, they buildings usually only have balconies on the second and fifth floors, the reason being that people would put their children on the fifth, live on the second and the rest were for servants or rented or something. It would be cool to have and apartment like that!
The next day I got up at 8 - some people had to get up at 5:15 to catch a bus to catch a train. Then Ambre and her dad picked me up and had coffee and a pain au chocolat, which people actually have for breakfast, at the hotel restaurant. Two and a half hours later we arrived in Caen!