Like they say in Paris.....blee blea bluh bleh

well, it's been awhile since i've written now...2006 is gone, i had my first christmas in england, and now i'm in paris!!

christmas and new year's were awesome...mom and kate were out to celebrate and we got to spend christmas with a friend of mom's from seminary in this awesome little english village called alrewas. the only thing that could have made it better is if it had snowed, for a white christmas. hopefully, we'll all keep in touch and get to see each other again some other time!

after our relaxing almost-week in the countryside, we headed into london to see the sights, etc. new year's eve was fantastic...katie and i headed out into the streets in search of people celebrating, and boy did we find them. first we tried by going to picadilly circus, but although there were bunches of people hanging out...it didn't really look like they were hanging out for anything in particular...so we followed the crowd, made our way down to trafalgar square, where there were wall-to-wall people, quite a sight to behold! but while we were there, we realized that we weren't very far from where the fireworks were going to be taking place, so we continued on our journey. eventually we set up camp near the River Themes, making sure we could see the london eye, because apparently you had to be able to see the london eye to see the fireworks. sooo...we hung out there for awhile, watched the cool projection on to a nearby building, and started to count down the minutes, you know, all those new year's things... after awhile, we realized that not only could we see the london eye, but when we looked down the road, we also had an incredible view of big ben!! so when midnight came, we got to count down while big ben struck 12....sweet!!

while we had been waiting, kate and i were debating whether or not there were people allowed to be in the london eye to watch the fireworks...well, that question was quickly answered when the fireworks started...they were actually being shot off FROM the london eye! it was an incredible fireworks show (katie even said that they were comparable to disneyland...that's a pretty big deal!). at one point, all the fireworks shot off were this sparkly-gold-dust-looking type, and it made me think of fairy dust...you could practically see peter pan in the distance. (well, i was thinking happy thoughts anyway) Quite the new year's experience.

A few days later, it was time to continue on to Paris...the next first big step on my european adventure. i flippin love this place...it's quaint, it's sophisticated, it's snazzy, and i haven't had the "bitter snobby french" experience with people here at all. in fact, everyone's been quite nice, and even above and beyond friendly.

before i came here, my thoughts of paris included berets (sp?) and bauggettes (more sp?)...turns out sometimes stereotyping people is pretty on target...the first thing i saw when i got of the train in paris was a dude wearing a beret and eating a bauggette. i win.

i've been doing all the ultimate tourist stuff...i met some people in my hostel to hang out with at nights, which is great...a bunch of aussies and south africans, and even a few americans, etc.

so apparently, the parisians originally hated their big dumb eiffle tower. i tried to look on in with distain like a local, but i couldn't help but get all giggly inside. for me, the eiffle tower is a symbol of romance, of defiance, and of creativity and innovation...kinda like paris itself. in fact, i sort of now look at paris like it's an aged ornery teenager. i also think that paris (if it could speak) would go around saying "i do what i want!!" haha

oh, and news flash!!: the eiffle tower LITTERALLY sparkles (pun intended...get it...news flash? :)) some genius decided that they should install stroble lights all up and down the tower and have them go off at random, so it actually looks like the tower is sparkling. i'm not kidding when i said this place is awesome!!

the french part of it all has been kinda interesting...i can't help but think of the friends episode where joey's trying to learn french from phoebe. je flue! (that doesn't mean anything...i think, but it sounds cool though) his dumb phrases keep going through my head as i walk around.

sheesh...there's so much more to say and talk about and all that good stuff, but i think i need to go eat a bauggette or something...i heard they put you in jail if you don't have a pastry every half hour or so.