An American Airline in Paris

Here is all my recent photos. I hope they all made it. But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning.

I left PDX on time, no troubles or problems with luggage (my bag was 48.5 pounds. whew). My trip to Texas was quick and I got one last bite of america before I left, some chicken mcnuggets and some terrible water. Texas has awful drinking water. Then, the last leg, that turned out to be miserably long. However, the contrasting pilots proved most entertaining; one was an uptight and reserved frenchman who talked infrequently and covered only the safety topics. I don't even think he announced when the drink cart came around. Then, the other pilot, an overly excited Texan who evidently just couldn't get enough of his job. He greeted us with an exuberant Howdy! and told us everything from the flight path to the altitude.

Then, Paris. My friend molly, depicted in some of the pictures below, met me at the airport and helped my get a ticket into town, where we stayed in the luxurious hostel below.

Paris Airport

Fancy hostel room. actually remarkably expensive

Front Desk w/ Molly

After about 30 seconds of closing my eyes (no exaggeration), we hit the town and saw everything from the Eiffel Tower

To the louvre and the arc de triumph and all the streets and people in between

Then off to Poitiers...

This is the train ride to Poitiers. Only about 2 hours and although I was so tired i just about had loose bowels from sleep deprivation, I couldn't fall asleep due to excitement or...whatever. When I finally got into the train station, below...

train station

City streets

I got a ride to my host house and breathed deep for the first time in what seemed like months.

My room and house are all below. Its really nice, 4 stories tall but very narrow, old wood and stone, with a patio and a gorgeous view of the city from the second floor.

Living room/main floor

Patio

Right side out of my window

Left side out of my window

My room. Obviously, in grand Moreno tradition, settling in entailed: my suitcase exploding, my gin broke out and I slept for about 14 hours.

And as the last image, here is what has been accompaning every single one of my meals:

I mean come on. come ON. sheesh, these people are incredible. Thanks for reading, sorry it took so long, and I will try to be more consistent. Love you all.

ps: here's my number here. I think its free for me if you call into my phone, so feel free. We're ahead by about 9 hours, so just keep that in mind. 0687646737. I think there's some extra numbers in the beginning for the country code, but you'll have to look that up :p

French Mot du Jour: il fait soleil: it's sunny