Reflections

by John Siegmund

Day one of our journey started out like any normal flight. We arrived at the airport extra early so that we would not have to rush. The flight went well despite the majority of students not sleeping much, if at all, on the plane. That plane ride did spark the catch phrase of the trip courtesy of Foshee and the show "Archer": DANGER ZONE!

We arrived in Paris early in the morning and had some trouble finding the hotel. It was situated in an alley in the Latin Quarter. That first day we visited Notre Dame and then walked around Paris. After dinner, the students that did not go to sleep went to the Louvre, including myself. At the Louvre I saw the works of David, Da Vinci and others. In my opinion, the Mona Lisa is overrated so I spent about 5 seconds looking at it and then pressed on to more interesting paintings including the Coronation of Napoleon and the Cardinal Richelieu.

The next day after getting little sleep, we visited the ever so famous Eiffel Tower. I had been to it before so it was not mind blowing, but it was still cool to see it again and to climb up the second level. The coolest part for me was seeing the French soldiers walking around defending the area (oh, the irony). Our next stop was at the Arc de Triomphe which was short and sweet. Later, while eating lunch at McDonalds, we saw Bianka come running up to us and we realized she was lost and we had forgotten about her. This would happen again with Jazzy J at Sacre Coeur and we would later find her at a Metro stop. “I can find my way, Jazzy J can't”. Speaking of Sacre Coeur, it was very busy when we went. There people everywhere, tourists, performers, gypsies and beggers. You couldn’t take pictures inside and they charged six euros to go up to the top which is too much. And that concludes the second day.

Our third and final day in Paris consisted of us taking a river cruise of Paris and choosing different areas where we wanted to see more of. I decided to stop at the Louvre again because there was more artwork that I wanted to see. We left Paris via Gare St. Lazare and took a train to Bayeux. This part of the trip was where things got interesting. Everyone started to smell like burning rubber and the train stopped in a small no-name town that was not in Mrs. Adams list of the 200 biggest towns in Normandy. We had to stop because of a brake problem and of course, the French got out and started to smoke cigarettes and be French. We finally got a new train 2 HOURS LATER and we finally on our way to Bayeux. When we arrived at the train station, I had a combination of nervousness and excitement but was exhausted at the same time.