Paris, Part I

I'm finally getting a chance to post about Paris, and I'm going to split it up into a few separate posts. Mainly, they will consist of pictures. I would talk in detail about everything, but I'm afraid since I've put it off due to lack of internet, my thoughts are not as fresh. Also, I want to kind of move on to Cambridge.

But let's start with the first day! As I've said, Jessie and I stayed in the 5º arrondissement (left). Right near the Latin Quarter (right).

Mainly, Jessie and I walked. And walked and walked and walked. As I posted before, we hung out outside of the Louvre. The best way of give you an idea of this would be a video. Two of them, to be precise. Let my stupid voice speak for itself. (Note: I'm the worst filmer ever, so you're just going to have to live with my shotty camera work.)

Notre Dame Cathedral

This is one of the buildings that I was most star-struck with. I can't explain why -- I also saw it more than any building because it was right next to where we were staying. Unfortunately, we never went inside; the crowds were insane, and I honestly didn't want to deal with that many people.

No matter where we went, it was crowded. Paris being a major, international tourist attraction, and all. And everything was pretty excruciatingly expensive, simply because so many people are more gullible than they should be.

Shakespeare and Co.

One of the most famous bookstores, apparently, and one of the few that caters to English speakers. This bookstore was pretty amazing, though, like I said, INSANELY overpriced. A book that would normally be about $13 in the States cost about 15 euro. Not cool. It was really nice to look around it though.

There was also a really cool part of the store that had rare and out-of-print books. If they hadn't been so expensive, I'd probably have walked away with more than I could carry.

Maybe it's good that they were over-priced.

Jessie and I did our best to avoid paying to do almost everything. Other than the Metro and food, we did pretty well. (The Metro in Paris, by the way, is probably the great form of public transportation on earth, with regards to convenience, price, and cleanliness. So... yeah.) We stayed around the 5th, mainly, and chose to postpone the bigger attraction to a later day.

I'll keep this one brief, since I updated about our first day (kind of, sans pictures) while I was in Paris. For now, this is what you get of Day One.