I think I'm gonna like it here

Well, these last few days have definitely been fun! Friday I finally got to do some research at the Wallace Collection's library. Then the rest of the day was pretty chill. Then, on Saturday I had my meeting with Ian. We met outside the Wallace Collection and talked about my project for a while. He said that it sounds like it going pretty good and should turn out well. Made me feel a bit better because I feel like I haven't got much done. Then again, I have been trying to contact a lot of people and work out where I can research. So it's been a good start I guess, now is the time when I can really get to work!

After that we went into the collection and I showed him around a bit. It was kind of cool how much I learned from that one day of research because I was answering a lot of his questions and looking at stuff I recognized stuff I've read about. Who da thunk reading helps you learn? Then came lunch! Yum, we went to Pret and had a nice lunch sitting outside. After that we made our way to the Imperial War Museum and along the way, he showed me some of the sights and gave me a little bit of history on them. That kind of tour I like more because it's more personal rather than one guy leading a group around. So that was fun. Then we got to the museum and went through the WWI and WWII exhibits. That was fun because we both knew about them so it made it more interesting. The neatest/weirdest thing I saw in there was a painting of Hitler where the artist lightened his hair and gave him blue eyes. Thought that was strange, but interesting.

After all that excitement, we took a bus back to my pub where we met up with Carly and went out to dinner. After talking for a while with Ian, he had to go so Carly and I went to do some karaoke! I did the Devil Went Down to Georgia and Are You Gonna Be My Girl by JET. So that was fun. There, we met a guy who came to our table to ask if we would sing in a duet with him if his partner flaked out. She didn't but we talked with them for the rest of the night. He was from Missouri and I think she lived in Nashville(?). We talked, we laughed, we played pool. A good night. Ended up going to bed at 5am though. But that's okay cuz I didn't have anything to do on Sunday.

However, it was a very relaxing day. I slept in till about noon then got up and tried to find breakfast since the hostel's breakfast ended at 9. I walked pretty far and settled with Pret, it's not breakfast, but it's pretty cheap and really good. Can you tell I go there a lot? It's pretty much lunch every day. Anyway, I ate and read for a bit in Green Park which is a park right next to Buckingham Palace. Then I found a nice patch of grass in the sun and took a little nap. Unfortunately, I was woken up by protesters in the street. But that was ok because it was time for me to head back anyway. Carly, Andrew (Missouri Guy), and myself were going to go out to dinner at 6.

We ended up at a Thai place because my nose has been a little stuffy and I wanted something spicy to clear it out. I got jungle curry with duck! It had a little heat but I can safely say that England has no idea what hot is. And that's coming from me! It was still good. The neat thing about this place is that it opened about a week ago and is a restaurant/karaoke bar! So we got to do karaoke 2 nights in a row! How fun right? Even better, we were the only ones in the restaurant so we picked songs for each other without telling and then we had to go sing it. We walked all around the restaurant singing a lot of different songs. haha fun. Then, 2 guys came in to eat so we figured we should probably not disturb their meal with our "beautiful" voices. So we went back to my pub and had a pint before bed.

Today I got to do some more research at the Wallace Collection but around 1 the fire alarm went off. It wasn't a drill and I don't know what happened, I think an electrical fire. When we were evacuated, I went to get lunch (yes, at pret) and by the time I got back, the last of the people were stepping inside. So I ate outside and while there, a few electrical vans pulled up. So there's my reasoning. After that excitement, I came back to the hostel and did something even more exciting, laundry! Now my clothes are clean once again! I just got back from dinner at an Italian place and had a Belgian waffle for dessert, awesome. It was so good! Topped with ice cream and berries? Oh yeah. I think I'm gonna like it here.

CERN: European Center for Nuclear Research

I'm back from Geneva! It was fun to go to a get away from London for a bit. Even being there for that short of time, it felt more like Europe that London does. That makes me excited for my travels and to get out of here. I also liked it because it is a very clean city. Even the huge lake the city surrounds is clean. You can see straight to the bottom, I don't know for how deep, but it's crystal clear! I wonder how they do it...But it was cool, I bought myself a new Swiss Army Knife! FROM SWITZERLAND!!! Neat right? I think so. I was however confused about money. I could not keep the conversions straight in my head, even know I don't know how much stuff cost. The Swiss franc and dollar are about even, but menus seemed really high. So when I was walking around looking for a restaurant, I finally had to say forget it and just picked one. It didn't help that I've been thinking in pounds for the last 2 weeks...

So my flight out there was flawless, I took a bus to the airport and got there in good time. After I checked in and walked though the doors to get the through the security check point, my jaw dropped a little because there was a line of 100 or 200 people. I was like "crap, this is gonna take forever!" But it didn't and for the amount of people, it went really fast. The US should take some advice from our foreign friends. When I got there, I took a cab to my hotel which ended up being really close and literally 1 block from the France Swiss border. So that was cool. Then that night I was going to try to walk to Geneva Center but didn't know how far it was and didn't have a map, so I started to walk. Then it was starting to get dark and I was like, "I'm not gonna make it any time soon, and if I do, I still have to walk back." So I found an Italian place and ate there and walked back. It wasn't a bad walk except that I ate a lot and then walked back fast so my tummy got a little upset, but I told it to calm down and it did. There was really only one scary part on the walk and that was just before I got to the hotel I had to walk though a pitch back section of the walk. It was DARK! Fortunately, I had my little LED light that showed me the way!

My hotel room was nice enough, it was a 2 star hotel and yeah, it was. On the pamphlet in the room, it said you could rent DVDs and after channel surfing, I found of the 10 channels, 1 was English and it was CNN...But they didn't have any DVDs anymore, that was an old service. So I watched something French for a while. Then when I was going to go to bed, the Pursuit of Happyness came on and it was in English with French subtitles so I was like sweet! and watched that then went to bed.

In the morning I got up at 8 because when I picked the hotel it said it was close to CERN and I wanted to get there early to be sure I was at the right place and all. I asked someone where it was an he directed me to it, and said it was about 8km away. I know that 8km is a long way, about 4 miles or so, so I walked, and walked, and walked. There are no signs around the said I was going in the right direction. And there were no buses on the road I was on. Finally, after walking for a while, I saw a bus that said it was going to CERN. Awesome, I'm on the right path. So I kept walking and found it and found where I needed to be. But it was 3 or 4 hours before my tour! So I walked to France again and found a little place to eat. When I got back, I went though the little Microcosm mini museum they had. There was some neat stuff in there and some that I learned about last semester in Modern. That was cool. It worked out very well that when I was done with that museum, my tour was about to start!

I have decided that I really don't like tours very much at all. Even something like this that I'm interested in. They are not interactive enough for me. I don't want to go a see stuff not working, or something that I can't play with. Going places and hearing someone talk about it is not my cup of tea. There was some cool stuff, of course, but eh, whatever. Anyway, we saw a few different particle accelerators which was cool. One of them is where the first 9 anti hydrogen particles were made. Cool huh? I don't really know how they did it, but I took a picture of the plans! haha! Then we saw a few sections of the LHC (Large Hydron Collider). It's weird to think of protons spinning around in little packets in there, but they do! The LHC is a particle accelerator that is a big circle around Geneva, 27km (that's 16.7 miles for you American folk) in circumference. Quite large. The point of it is to recreate the environment seconds after the big bang to see if they can recreate any atoms. So it has to be really cold. 1.9 Kelvin I believe he said. 273K is room temperature and 0K is absolute zero. Cold. They cool it down with liquid helium and recently, part of it broke and let loose a lot of helium, nothing bad really happened, except that they have 2 months work to fix it before they can do any more experiments. So it was still a neat tour, but I would have liked to had more interaction, but that's just me I guess...

After the tour I took a bus to Geneva Center and walked around there and saw the big fountain. That thing shoots high. And it's a very pretty city in general. I also realized on coming back that I think fewer people smoke there. Not something I thought of there but when I came back to London and started to walk around, the person in front of me was smoking and then it clicked that that never happened. Maybe I was there for too short of time. After dinner, I took the bus back to where I knew, because I didn't feel like getting lost on the bus, and walked back the rest of the way. Again, I had to go through that dark place, but I still had my flashlight!

Now, remember how the flight in went great? I can't really say the same for going out...I got up in the morning, showered and packed and checked out because I wasn't sure when I needed to check out. My flight was at 5pm and check in was at 3. So I had some time to kill. I started off by finding the airport because again, I wanted to know where it was before I got lost. Unfortunately, there isn't much to do around the airport...so I pretty much stayed in there and read until I could check in. Then at the gate, our flight said it was going to be late and leave at 17:10. Not a bad delay. Yet. They announced that they would be boarding but stopped because they said that they didn't have clearance for take off anymore or something like that. So we waited till we could board. Then, they told us that there were no flights into or out of any London airport because of a major problem with communications. Finally we got to board and fly out. We ended up being delayed 3 hours I think. Fortunately, my book was long (The Hobbit). I took the same bus back into Paddington. The bus company and airline work together so it was waiting for us, how nice. Originally, I thought I would have time to get on the internet when I got back because I didn't have a room booked for that night. We were scheduled to arrive at 17:45, but now it was much later. So I went to my hostel and asked if they had room. Since they were filled when I first booked, I thought maybe they would have had a cancellation. They didn't. So I went down the block and they were full too. Down the block again and they had a bed for the night so I stayed there. Thank goodness I found one and pretty cheap £13.

After I checked in, someone at the pub started talking to me, just general information and what not. Then she asked if I wanted a drink so I said uhh sure. So she bought me a pint and we went outside and talked to her friends. I ended up talking to them for a while. They were all slightly older than me, late 20s early 30s but we had good conversations. I mentioned I didn't really like London and one guy kept trying to think of what I should do because he did not want me to leave London or England thinking that I didn't like it. So he suggested I go down to Devon or Somerset (by the coast?) and spend a few days there because London is not England. So I might do that for a few days to see the "real" England.

Today, I went to the Wallace Collection's library and finally did some research. I do not like reading facts out of a book...Boring! Whatever, I need some information but I'm trying to set up a few more contact meetings cuz I've sent out a bunch of emails to various places (Leeds, Edinburgh, Ireland) so hopefully I'll get an email back saying "come here" and I will.

Tomorrow I have a meeting with our group leader so hopefully he will be able to give me some advice. Only one way to find out though!

That's all for now, hopefully it's enough for you.

Reading is FUNdamental

The last few days have been non too adventurous. But not boring either. On Saturday I got together with Carly again and we went to watch a rugby match at the park. I don't understand rugby very well...Then for dinner I had my first real English fish and chips. Tasted like fried cod! We also got an appetizer of nachos and it was terrible! But fun to have anyway. It was Doritos topped with partly melted cheese, guac, sour cream, and salsa. Pretty bad, but funny. Then we went to my pub and had a pint before bed.

Sunday, I walked to the Museum of London, which is on the other side of London from me. So I got a nice walk in the process. It was a neat museum, lots of stuff they dug up from London and the surrounding area. They had some cool medieval stuff too which was interesting to see. But it was just your basic museum. But it was fun. On the walk back, I walked past St. Paul's Cathedral. That was big and churchy. That night, I had the best meal I think I've had in Europe. It was a 3 course deal. First course was a salad which is always great. Then I got a Lebanese Mixed Grill which had kabobs of chicken, lamb and some sort of lamb loaf, a small salad, hummus and pita bread. It was awesome!

Monday I went to the book store to get some different books. I was done with Monte Cristo, didn't like the Sea Wolf by Jack London, I dunno, guess I don't like naval stories, and didn't want to read Mark Twain's short stories. I wanted something that would take me a bit longer like Monte Cristo did. So I picked up Animal Farm, The Doors of Perception, The Hobbit, and a William Golding one I don't remember the title of. That should keep me busy for a while!

Today, I am getting ready to head over to Geneva for a few days to take a tour of CERN, my original project. I had to sign up for a tour 3-4 months in advance so now that I am not doing the project, I'll take the tour for the sheer pleasure of seeing the largest physics lab in the world! Neat huh? I'll stay in Geneva, well actually my hotel is in France but minor details, for 3 days and head back to London on the 25th to continue my research. I'm not sure how internet access will be over there so you may have to wait till I'm back in London to read more!

My bus leaves in a half hour so I better get going!

A Good Deed Done

Today I met with one of my contacts after chasing him for a week. The meeting was very helpful and he said he would email me a list of contacts/places to see/reading material. Also, at the Wallace Collection there is a library that I can go to by making an appointment. That will help me since I haven't been able to find any sources and I'll know that those are all pretty good ones! I also got to hold a couple swords which was cool. It is amazing that people were able to make such pieces at that time.

After the meeting I walked around aimlessly for a while. As I walked past a 78 (just turned) year old lady, she called me and asked if I could help her. She needed help carrying a bag of groceries to her apartment. Since I had no destination and nothing else to do, I helped her. She was a funny little lady. Right off the bat she started talking to me and told me she was a little injured because she fell off the train and when she was young she dated a guy from Minneapolis and the girls these days don't dress lady like, with their short skirts and with rings in every hole. She has 2 grand daughters that are real ladies. One was 29 and the other 23. They both attended a really nice private boarding school and are ladies. Finally when we got to her place, she thanked me, told me I had done a very good deed and said that there are some gentlemen left in the world. I was honored!

Not much else has happened after that. A lot of walking around and thinking of what to do. I ended up going back to the hostel and took a long nap. Then, more walking around looking for something light to eat because I wasn't really hungry after eating a PB sandwich, but I wanted more that just that. I ended up with a simple sandwich and the hopped online.

I still have an hour left but I can use it tomorrow too, so I think I'll do that. Goodnight all!

Less Exploration, More Information

The new hostels is definitely better than the last. I've sat in the pub a lot and watched football with a pint. Good way to spend the evening. And the staff are cool too. So it's been a good place for me so far. Unfortunately, when I booked it, Friday and Saturday nights were full but I asked today if any spots opened up and there was. So for 2 nights I'll have to move from a 6 bed room to a 16 bed room. That's a lot of people...But then I'll move back into the 6 beds. Not a big problem, and if people snore, I have ear plugs! And if I snore, well, that's their problem isn't it?

Nothing very exciting has happened. I did get back to Hyde Park and saw Peter Pan's statue. He just won't grow up! That's about it for adventures. Well, this might not be an adventure, but more so a quest. Because I forgot my alarm clock, I went to try and find a cheap watch or small alarm clock. You cannot believe how hard it is to find a cheap watch! The cheapest one I saw (when actually looking) was about 60 pounds. Now, back in Deptford, I went to a market and saw a watch for 5 pounds, but I thought to myself, I can find a better one for just as cheap somewhere else, so I didn't get it. I was WRONG! Clearly. If I were at home, I could have found a watch right away, no problem. In fact, I challenge you, my faithful readers, to find a cheap watch in the cities (not on the internet!). Preferably one with an alarm. Report back to me on how much it cost. Bet it's less than 60 pounds (about 110 dollars).

Well, after a few days searching in any type of shop I could think of, I finally went into one that had small alarm clocks for 10 pounds. After so much frustration, I bought it so I now have a clock for my room. If I need it on the road, I thought I could stick it in my bag. Or if I am really desperate, I can buy one of those 5 pound watches and stick it in my pocket. I don't really want anything on my wrists, not my style you see.

I have been trying to keep myself well fed because it is an easy way to save money by not eating right? Well, I am forcing myself to spend at least 15 pounds a day for food. Yesterday I went to the grocery store and bought some apples, clementines, tuna, and bread so I have a few meals there. That might be my lunch or snacks for the day. I can even make myself a peanut butter sandwich in a bag lunch because I have a few sandwich bags with me. Yay! Lunch in the park!

The last few days I've woken up with a bit of a stuffy nose and lightly sore throat. I do not want to get sick over here, that would suck. So I put some echinacea into my nalgene so I'll be drinking it all day to boost the ole immune system.

And as of today, I haven't gotten to do much for my research. I'm still waiting to hear back from my contact at the Wallace Collection. He said he would email me today a time when we could meet. Nothing yet, but it's only 1pm. I have tried to go to libraries and research out of books but I have been to many libraries and have not found any books on arms and armoury. I searched the database of Westminster libraries and there was one in the westminster reference library, but it didn't seem like that good of a source. It was about the evolution of all weapons, "from flint axes to machine guns". I might go look at it anyway, but that's kind of far away. Maybe I'll just by my own book.

Lastly, I have been able to get on the internet for free an hour a day because I got a library card with the Westminster libraries that is for internet use only. If I wanted to upgrade to a card where I could check books out (I don't) I would just have to give them an address. Pretty helpful though. Even more so that my hostel is about 6 blocks away. I've only got 10 mins left on this session so I'm gonna check a few more things and be kicked off.

Until next time friends, same bat time, same bat channel!

Mitch Andrejka: Live at Hyde Park

The earplugs helped a lot. I was able to sleep through the night and having a good nights sleep under my belt, I felt a lot better. I went to the Wallace Collection today to meet with the contact but when I got there, he wasn't working that day. So I'll go back today. Instead, I looked around the collection for a while and it's a pretty cool place. Lots of armoury stuff and paints and what not. After that, I wondered around Regent Park and thought about going to the zoo but didn't want to go alone. I also thought about asking to play soccer with some guys in the park but chickened out...Whatever.

After Regent Park I went to Hyde Park. There are a lot of neat statues in that park. Even one of Peter Pan! I missed it though so I'll go back to see it. The statue of Achilles was cool though. Then it was starting to get late and I was starting to get hungry so I found an Italian place and had a meal there. I'm not used to eating at a nice place alone. Usually I will have some company to enjoy it with, so a little lonely came back, but then I got the food and it went away again! I had a real Caesar salad and spaghetti! Yeah, it was good. After that I walked to find where my bus would pick me up. Somehow, I stumbled upon Piccadilly Circus, I don't really understand what the attraction to that place is. But I guess that's just me. Anyway, I caught my bus and headed back.

I had only booked my hostel for 3 nights so now I am moving to a different one that is closer to the places I need to be. I did not like sitting on the bus for an hour getting back and forth. My new hostel I booked for 9 days and is just north of Hyde Park. This area feels better to me I think. But then again, I got used to Deptford too. It's still morning here so I don't have any more adventures from today, but I'll get on again later to tell about them!

Destination: London

Thursday was our departure date and I don't have a clock yet so that means I don't have an alarm yet, but I needed to be up at 730. So what did I do but put an alarm in me! Gross...But not really, I chugged 2 bottles of water before bed so I would have to wake up early. Works every time. After a little breakfast, Carly and I were off to the bus station. We arrived at the station with plenty of time to spare, which was good because I would rather be early to something I have never done before than be late and miss our bus out...

So we goton the bus and had a simple ride until we got to the France/UK border where we had to get out and go through customs. The French customs went fairly quickly but when we got to the UK to show our passports, one guy took a very long time with Carly by asking her a lot of questions, many of them probably not important to anything but he made it seem like they were. So she took the longest and was the last one through. From that point our bus drove into a train to take us through the chunnel. Pretty cool way to get through if I do say so myself.

The rest of the ride went smoothy and eventually we were at Victoria bus station. We ate dinner at a pizza place near by, then tried to help each other figure out where we were going. Eventually we told each other good luck and have a good trip and went our seperate ways. I rode the bus to Deptford and found my hostel soon after.

That night was kind of not what I wanted. I had been tired from going to bed late and waking up early in Paris so I wanted to get a good night's sleep. I went to sleep pretty early but was woken up around 3 by one of the people snoring. Not nice. I hoped that he would stop soon which he did, but then someone else started to snor even louder. Not nicer. Then wouldn't you know it, the other guy starts up again. So after a bit of dealing with that I got up and watched some TV until I was tired enough to think I could deal with it. I returned to bed at about 5 and forced myself asleep. Today I bought myself some ear plugs...

I walked from Deptford to the Tower of London today (4 miles maybe?) and had a look in there. While I was there, they had a demonstraition of different siege machines. After the demo I went to talk to one of the guys. After a bit I told him about my project and what I plan on doing. It turns out he is an armourist and knows of a guy who would pretty much be all I need for my project. So I got both contacts and will try to find that guy tomorrow.

Being the first day away from Paris and the rest of the group, I am feeling kind of lonely because London is such a big place and I don't know anyone. In addition to this morning's incident it was a tricky first day, but the sun came out in the afternoon things felt a little better. We'll see how tomorrow goes!

Bonjour Paris!

So the first day in Paris was spent walking around getting accustomed to Europe and the metro and whatnot. I didn't have much fun. But the next day I enjoyed much more. It started out by taking a walk to the Eiffel Tower with a girl in the program named Heidi. But we didn't know how to get there and we weren't about to use a map! So we wandered around for a while until eventually we found it! It was pretty neat and really big!! After that we went our separate ways because she had something to do. So I walked by the river for a while and it was really nice. No one really bothered me or anything. I just got to walk. There were however 2 "incidents". The first time happened and I didn't really know what was going on.

Here's the story: I was walking along the river and in front of me a woman bends down and picks up a gold ring she found on the ground. She walks up to me and asks, in English, "is this gold?" I said "I don't know". She kept asking me that and then wanted to give it to me and I refused. What do I want with a stupid gold band? She really wouldn't take no for an answer. So after saying it about 20 times I ended up walking away.

Later on in the day and further down the river a man in front of me bends down and picks up the same looking gold ring and attempts to approach me but I did not give him a second glance. He was like "Sir! Hey!" and he even tried to whistle but I wasn't gonna waste my time. It wasn't until after I told the story back at the hostel that someone said they probably were pick pocketers which makes a lot sense. Fortunately, I kick booty-butt so I foiled their schemes!

So continuing on with my walk, I saw a lot of cool statues, the Arc du Triumph (from afar) the obelisk (awesome) Notre Dame (huge) and a holocaust memorial. So it was a very nice walk, long and alone. Then later that night a large group went back to the Eiffel Tower to see it up close when it was lit up. We also brought a bottle of wine to share. I opened it with a corkscrew but have never done it that way before. If you ever do, make sure you have it on a sturdy surface. I was just holding it so it spilled all over one side of my pants, on my shirt, and a little on my jacket. That made me a little peeved. So I went to the bathroom to wash it off as well as I could but it was still a big stain and now with a big wet splotch so it looked like I peed myself... Awesomely, when I got back to my room I used my tide bleach pen and by morning the stain was gone. A good day.

On Sunday, I was going to go to a museum with a bunch of people but then some left early or something and it was whittled down to me and Jasmin. She was supposed to get me at 130 so I was waiting in my room reading.(Count of Monte Cristo; very different from the movie but I like it) I waited a long time, when I looked at the clock it was 215 so I was like oh, nice. I found out later she had taken a 3 hour nap. So I went for another walk this time around Le Jardin De Luxembourg. That was a nice walk too. I walked around looking at the art and listened to a community jazz band for a while. Ended up a pretty nice day.

On Monday a few of us went to visit the catacombs but when we got there, it was closed because all museums are closed on Mondays in Europe so bummer. Then we got lost on the way back, but not badly. That night 4 of us went out to eat with the advisers and Ian said he would buy me a beer so he did. I got some sort of Belgian ale that he said he tried and didn't like, but I liked it.

Tuesday, Carly and I went to the bus station because we are both going to London. So we hopped on the metro and got all the stuff worked out to hopefully have a smooth departure. On the way back, we stopped to find Jim Morrison's grave. It was hard to find because the graveyard wasn't put together quite logically so lot 79 was next to 28 but eventually we found it so that was cool to see. That evening a few of us went out with our advisers again and I had a 3 course meal that was 2/3 really good. The first course I had escargot, which is seafood so why wouldn't I like it? Then I had roasted leg of lamb with au gratin potatos, yum! However, for dessert, I tried to go European style and got saiette au trois fromages, three cheeses with a little salad. The salad was nice, but the cheese was...stinky. STINKY! icky. I started out with a brie which was fine, then moved to a type of goat cheese I think, not too bad either. But then I got to the last one, don't know what it was but it was TERRIBLE!!! I could barely get the piece I ate down. From then on I couldn't stomach the others and ended up giving up. It was bad, but still fun to try anyway!

On Wednesday, we successfully got to see the catacombs and that was nifty. 6 million Parisians are down there. That's a lot of bones... I got some creepy pictures of skulls and whatnot, so that was fun and kind of eerie. Then we came back to the foyer and I have been having a very relaxing afternoon reading on the terrace. Yet another lovely day!

I leave for London tomorrow. I will be taking the bus with Carly who is also going to London. We weren't sure how the bus got over the Channel but when we asked the bus people, they gave us a choice of a ferry of taking the chunnel. We didn't think that would be an option, but apparently it is. So hopefully around 2 o'clock tomorrow we'll be under the English Channel! I'll let you know how it goes.

Airport Fun

So on my day of departure I wake up at 6am. Not because I was nervous, but because I was woken by a dog barking...Whatever though. So I had some time to kill so I made sure I was all packed (for about the 10th time) and did some other last minute things. Our itinerary was to fly into Chicago O'hare then on to Paris. Unfortunately, there was some bad weather in Chicago so we were delayed an hour. That meant we would have to get off our plane and run to the other gate to get to Paris on time. Lucky for us, they waited a little bit longer to make sure we got on ok.

Next came the 9 hour plane ride. That sucked because if you know me, you'll know I'm not meant for small places. Plus, the guy in front of me had his seat reclined the whole flight which gave me even less room. I wasn't too happy.

We finally got into Paris and to fight off jet lag, we haven't got to sleep yet. So I'm also a little tired. It probably didn't help that we have been walking around all day either...in the rain... So it has started off as a great trip!

And please mind the typos. The European keyboard isn't QWERTY so my fingers are confused... this is q sentence typed hoz ,y fingers think it should be typed; So itùs close; but not auite right1