Day 70 - As you might have probably guessed from the title I'm in Paris right now with Jeshua. All day I've been so excited to get here and I even ended up leaving my marketing class early. I made it to the airport with plenty of time and took a quick cat nap on the plane. Our arrival was a little goofy because we landed on the runway at 7:30pm but didn't end up getting to our gate until 7:50pm. CDG is a gigantic airport! You need a bus or train to get in between terminals and it's super confusing. Luckily, Jeshua knew where to go for the most part and worked together to get to our Airbnb. Our place is conveniently a minute away from the metro and we had to use a couple codes to get into the place. It was kind of a complicated process but we figured it out! After we settled in and checked out the place, we left our stuff to grab some dinner. Jeshua found a couscous place called L'abribus, just a 5-10 min walk away from our place. It was amazing. We order beef and chicken couscous and it was ready surprisingly quickly. My first thought was that it had to be microwaved or something but the meat was really tender and not overcooked at all. I don't know how they did it but props to them. By the time we got back to our place it was pretty late and we decided to plan out our next few days here. So far, I love Paris (for the 3 hours I've been here). It reminds me of Bilbao and Chicago a lot and it makes me feel like home. It's also great to see a good friend and explore a new city together. P.S. I wrote this on Thursday but for some reason the entire weekend the website did not want to let me publish my posts. Day 71 - Our day started at around 9 am with Jeshua's alarm with really no concrete plans in mind. Our rumbling stomachs took us down the street to a wonderful cafe where we had the biggest breakfast of our lives. For 15 euro we ate a half a baguette with butter and jam, a croissant (a pan au chocolate in my case), a cup of coffee (hot chocolate for me), a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, and a giant ham and cheese omelet. It was delicious. ESPECIALLY the hot chocolate. It was made with really chocolate so I had to stir the bottom once in a while but it was the best hot chocolate I've ever had in my life. If there is one thing I could take home from France it would be that hot chocolate. After our huge breakfast, we waddled to the metro on our way downtown. Instead of transferring to another train we decided to go up and check out the neighborhood where we ended up finding a little flea market where "real people live." It was definitely a different part of Paris. Even though we bought unlimited metro passes, we decided to explore this neighborhood more and head downtown at the same time. We ended up walking pretty far, discovering little things here and there and even finding a palace! It was a nice way to explore a new city, instead of just going to tourist attractions. Although, those were fun too and eventually ended up seeing most of them unintentionally. Because the lines were so long to get into the Norte Dame and Eiffel Tower, we decided to do them later in our trip. (In hindsight, that probably was not the greatest idea...) By the time we got back to the apartment we were completely exhausted. After resting for a bit, we ventured out to the grocery stores to get some food for that night and the next few days. Dinner was well received with delicious pork chops, peppers and salad. Instead of going out that night like we had planned, we decided to stay in and thank God we did. Friday night while we were still in the room listening to music and talking to Bobby and Eli, we found out about that terrorist attacks. It's weird how despite all of the sirens we heard, we didn't think anything of them. I received a message from my friend Joe asking about the attacks and that's when I looked at the news. It couldn't have been more than 10 minutes after the first suicide bomb by the stadium went off. I think it was one of the weirdest and scariest situations I've ever been in my life. I was completely safe in the apartment but I was more worried about all the people who were out including our Airbnb hosts. The entire night we sat awake constantly checking the news. More than 100 hostages taken inside the theatre. 20 people confirmed dead. 50 people confirmed dead. Police are storming the theater. Over 100 confirmed dead. State of emergency. Borders closed. Flights restricted. Another attack. More sirens. A lot of anxiety was rushing through all of us. The decision to text my parents and tell them not to check the news but to know that I'm okay. Keeping calm because I knew nothing would happen to me. Our Airbnb hosts didn't get back home until 3:30 am, they told us they were only 200 meters away from one of the shootings. I don't know how but eventually I was able to fall asleep. Day 72 - Saturday we didn't worry about setting an alarm because we weren't sure if we could leave the apartment or not. While making breakfast our Airbnb hosts assured us it would be fine to go out but warned us that most things would be closed. We did a lot of sight seeing that day, which was very heartbreaking because we couldn't even get inside gardens. Everything was closed. There were surprisingly a lot more people outside than I would have thought. It was almost as if nothing had happened. If it weren't for the constant sirens, I wouldn't have known anything happened. Around the corner from our apartment was a beautiful cemetery, so we decided to go there first. Each grave had a little "house" on top that had an altar and kneelers to pray. Some graves were from the 1700's, some were small, some were really impressive and some were completely unique. The cemetery was so big they put in little street signs at every intersecting walk way, which for the amount of people buried there makes sense. Imagine trying to go visit your relatives and not remembering where they were buried. After the cemetery we made our way downtown to sightsee, making our first stop at the Louvre. Of course, we couldn't go inside but it was nice to see the outside. We wandered our way around the city, thinking that at least the gardens would be open. HAH. No. Oh well. I understood. I wasn't mad; it just gives me a reason to come back. The Eiffel Tower was closed as well but I'm pretty sure I made my way onto a news station because I was frolicking behind one of the reporters. By the end of the day, there was not much else we could do so we went home and made dinner. Later that night we went out for a walk and after 10 mins found one of the restaurants with bullet holes in the window. Someone had spray painted a frown underneath it. There were flowers, candles, news reporters, and people praying. In that moment there were no words to describe the atmosphere and even sitting here now writing this I can't explain it. We stayed there for a while to pay our respects before heading home. Day 73 - We ended up staying up super late on Saturday so Sunday we didn't wake up until 1:30pm or so. By the time we made breakfast and got ready for the "day" even though we ended up leaving at 4pm. I mean, it's not like it mattered anyway because everything was closed and we had already done most of the things we wanted to do. (Or better said: Seen most of the things we wanted to do.) We found a basilica on top of a hill where you could see most of the city and we were allowed to go inside even though mass was going on. It was gorgeous. I lit a candle and prayed for the victims and their families to represent that even in dark times there is still a light. We left the basilica and found the sun setting, a beautiful moment for pictures. Our next stop was the Arc de Triomphe. It was a pretty cool site and we ended up walking down the street finding a closed Christmas market, a palace and a beautiful walkway toward the Eiffel Tower. Before we went home, we bought crepes. Mine was pretty good filled with nutella and bananas but super expensive. From what I saw the entire time I was there though, the price was pretty typical for crepes. Day 73 - We spent our last morning in Paris watching the second democratic debate with Bobby and Eli while packing our suitcases and getting ready for the day. Even though the Luxembourg gardens were closed, we still went to see the outside. We wandered around the area, finding a comic book store, the University of Paris and ended up at the Norte Dame. Since we didn't get to go inside the first day we decided to take advantage of the short line and explore inside. First, it was HUGE. Second, SUPER OLD. Third, INSANELY BEAUTIFUL. Obviously they had done restoration work but they did a really great job. We spent a while there before eating our last meal in Paris at a restaurant. I ordered a ham and cheese salad with Beef Bourguignon. Both were great and the waiter supplied us with unlimited bread. I also stopped at a bakery to pick up some very expensive (but totally worth it) macaroons. We headed back to the apartment to pick our our suitcases before we made our way to the airport. I thought it was going to take us a lot longer to get there and we ended up arriving with a couple hours to spare. Oh well, I'd rather be early than late. Despite the fact that we were super early I almost missed my flight because they didn't display the gate on the screen until 15 mins before boarding and luckily I heard the final call over the intercom. I ran to my gate and found a big line so I wasn't too worried. While I got out my passport, another final call was made and I realized I was at the wrong gate. I ran out of line and across the way, to be one of the last people to board the plane. THAT was scary. I arrived in Bilbao about 2 hours later, waited for the bus and walked home. I was welcomed home with hugs from my host brothers saying they were very worried about me. I felt very loved. :) Despite loving Paris, it was good to be back home and I really did not expect to miss speaking Spanish, but I did. We talked for a while about what happened before I caught up with my family back in Chicago and went to bed.
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