In the City of Love!

Salut, tout le monde!

This one will be an old-fashioned written post (I didn't even pull out my camera today, amazingly!). After a freakin' loooooong day, I am now in the City of Luuurve - Paris, France! We're all safe and sound at the hotel (we actually arrived before noon today), but we had a crazy frustrating and stressful day as we ran into a problem with our EuRail passes (curse you, French rail system!). Originally we wanted to reserve a seat on an overnight train from Paris to Rome on the night of January 2nd, but when we arrived at the station haggered and sleep-deprived we were told that the entire train was booked and we had no feasible way of getting to Italy. After refueling with some Turkish food and checking into our hotel we got to work planning an alternative route. So with the help of the AMAZING hotel owner (seriously, he is so freaking friendly and helpful - and he brought us free expresso!) we managed to sort out a new plan for the final leg of our journey. Me, Steph, and Amberle will be spending one extra day in Paris and then heading on a 21-hour(!!!!!!) journey to Rome on the 3rd, and then flying back on the 7th (Julie unfortunately had to ditch her plans of visiting a friend in Northern Italy and will be flying back to England early on the 1st). So it was a really hectic day, but now that we've got most of this sorted out we're excited to explore such an amazing city as Paris and spend New Year's here! (we're going to watch Amelie tonight to get ourselves pumped for tomorrow :P). And I'm really looking forward to practice my French - already I've spoken more French in one day than I have in years, and no one has made fun of me yet, haha! (Mom, I know you'll be proud :P)

Anyways, I'm tired as heck right now, but I'm glad that we're still going to Italy and have a comfy bed to sleep in tonight. Hope you're all doing well (and feel free to send me a message - I love checking my email and Facebook and blog and getting updates from home!)

Love,

Madalyn