EF Tours or Bust

Here are some pics that people posted on the facebook group.  

This is our whole group Day 2 

Day 1: my lunch buddies at Notre Dame.

 Thankfully the morning was a classroom session.  We got to wake up a little later and we only had to go downstairs to the conference room.  No bus.  No walking.  Just sitting still.  I stayed in my scrub/pj pants.  The session was very informative and a much needed rest.  The EF staff just went over a lot of things from fundraising to prepping students for tour to planning future trips.  It was great.  I feel a hundred percent more confident and excited about my Spain trip.  I also learned that you can take razors on airplanes now.  Did y'all know that?
This sassy girl kinda responded to me sarcastically, "no you can't bring like RAZOR blades but yeah you can bring razors."

What I said, "I'm not crazy.  We couldn't bring anything after 9/11.  Not even nail clippers."   Some people backed me up.
What I thought, "Last I checked we hadn't won the war on terror and excuuuuuse me for not studying the TSA website."  Anyway- bring whatever you want now I guess... except big bottles of liquids.  They still haven't let that go.

Here's Vanessa presenting something.  

Lobby waiting to start the afternoon.

We had a quick lunch in the hotel and then off to Montmatre Hill.

Here is Kaitlyn, my tour consultant.  I've been talking to her since March.  She is all of Mississippi's tour consultant.  Suuuuuuuper nice.  Close to cloying.  (thanks for the new word Chris Rob).  She's really great and helpful and I love her.

I had to take this picture.  John's red beret.  He'll probably get a Georgia logo on it when he gets home.  

 Tristan took us up the back way of Montmatre.  One of the French teachers (the one who was always late) who had been to Paris 7 times said she learned things and saw things on this hike up that she never had.  Tristan's the real deal.  I heart Tristan.  Montmatre is like the most expensive place to live in Paris. It is quiet and quaint and lovely.  

Tristan showed us an apt. building and you could see the little gold plates by the door of the residents.  They were names like Manet,  Monet, Picasso etc.  Nooooo these guys don't live there silly.  They are fake names to disguise the current famous people that live there.  Tristan listed some names (French famous people I guess) and most of our faces were like "durh?" with absolutely no recognition of these names.  USA only please ;)

French play ground

Headless bishop

 Tristan explained something about the headless bishop.  I was having trouble paying attention b/c my back was killing me.  But whatever it was... it was a little hard to believe and had to do with religion.  To our "Is that true" question Tristan asked, "Who was that guy that walked on water?" 

and we were like "Touché"  ---but one guy was like "Moses." --only a few of us near him heard him.  

Cute little houses/apartments  

We came to this street that was a dead end of lovely homes.  Tristan told us to go look at this door and notice the name.  So we went.  We looked.  I was clueless.  The little sign to the right says "Downing Street."  Assuming he would explain it I didn't ask anyone what it was.  

Tristan, "I have had high schoolers ask what this means and I'm like 'Oh my gosh.'"

Ok so now I'm definitely not asking him what this address means.  10 Downing St.?  As we walked on a few of us started whispering and asking each other what it was.  Whew.  I'm not the only one.  My roommate said Mary Poppins?  Then someone cleared it up.  The address of the Prime Minister in England.  Am I supposed to know that?  Then I tried to remember the address of the White House.  That took a few of us.  We came up with 16 something ...1600? yeah that it.  1600 Pennsylvania Ave.  Confidence rebooted.  

Here's a big rock... next to this botchie ball court. Or some club ... maybe it was ping pong?  Anyway, big rock. 

Don't touch... (not really)  some legend about a witch.

Walk around the rock and boom.  There's the Eiffel Tower.

 

That's where we're headed.  To La Sacre-Cur (sp?) It took me forever to remember how to say it.  The closest I could get at first was Sacreblur (like the chef in The Little Mermaid)... Church of the sacred heart. 

I remember really loving it when we came last time but photos inside weren't allowed.  I was really looking forward to going inside this time.

But once we get up to the top of the hill and get our free time, that quickly changed.  Kathryn, Mandy, and I were walking around the corner when we saw a big crowd leaving.  Not running.  Just leaving the area by the church.   (moments before we had seen a small cop car full of like 6 cops come zooming by and I swear the back window had been hit with something large).  Then we heard banging of metal and other angry mob noises.  Then we heard flares shooting off and we retreated.  Finally, when we saw people walking back towards the church (and it never seemed like people were frantically trying to leave), Kathryn and I wanted to go check it out.  Mandy: "No.  Black people don't walk towards scary noises."  But she came with us.

Found out from a french boy that it was a Palestinian protest (by Palestinians living in Paris).  They had originally planned it and tried to get permission but the police said no.  So the noises we heard were the police trying to shut it down.  Protesters had tried to slam the gates shut to block the police car.

We saw the Palestine flags and watched as protesters came down the steps by the church.

Theses yellow signs said "boycott Israel"

Broken bottle... i know... not amazing.  But pretty sure it was broken during the skirmish we heard.

The protesters moved down the steps further to the second tier.  We inched closer and watched from the top of the hill.  Then the cops came marching through with their little shield things.

Here are the protesters organizing at the bottom of the stairs.

These ladies held up a sign that said "Palestine vivra  Israel assassin"

They chanted some things and a boy got on the steps waving a flag "Les Miserables"-style.  The crowd loved that.   Then the cops pushed us out of the area all together and shut the church down  :(

Weeeeee cop and fire vehicles here.

We went around to the restaurant and shop part of the hill.  All the cafes and souvenir shops were closing.  We went to the restaurant where were supposed to meet up with the group like an hour later.  But by the time EF tour people showed up the protest had calmed down and shops were opening back up.  So I did some souvenir shopping.  I didn't do ANY the last time I came.

Then we went to the hottest meal of the trip.  Maybe my life.  Pretty restaurant.  But like everything else, insufficient AC.  

Here's my 3rd meet and potatoes dish.  When we all eat together like this we don't get a choice of the food.  It was so good.  But the food was soooooooo hot.  I managed to eat maybe a 3rd and then I was like nauseated I was so hot and full.

Scott.  He has led several tours as a teacher.  He called me Em from like Day 1.  Like he'd known me forever.  He was one of my faves.

I don't know if you can see but I am wearing earrings.  I had just bought them.  Primarily so that when people say Hey I like those earrings I can say, "I bought them in Paris.  They are my Paris earrings."  And I also really liked them.  

After dinner we toured our way down the hill.  Picasso worked here.

Several places Tristan showed us were in the movie "Amalie" which he pronounced Emily.  I took pictures with plans to one day watch the movie.

Montmatre hill = windmills.

Café where there's a sex seen in Amalie.

Then the red windmill.     Here we have the Moulin Rouge and a weeeee firetruck.  I wonder if french boys are as in love with firetrucks like american boys are... I bet not.

 It was fun seeing it all lit up.  Last time it wasn't.

Roomie and the Moulin

Big vent that blew air up.  Nothing about me in this picture illustrates how windy it was standing on it.  Just heather's hair. Well, and my cheeks.  That's from the wind.  Please take note of how straight and lovely Heather's hair looks.  She straightened it that afternoon when she got all gussied up in her black pants and wedges to HIKE up and down Montmarte hill.  Anyway, I point out her hair because THAT is the reason our outlets blew and we BARELY had enough batteries on our phones to make sure we got up in time the next day for our flights.  I tried to call the hotel lobby to get someone to fix it but that was hopeless.  I basically didn't sleep after Heather left at 4 am due to fear of missing the bus.

Really great picture of the group on the vent.  You can barely see my head to the left.  John took it with his good camera.  So much better than iPhone. 

I bought this post card.  Eiffel Tower and kittens.   These are a few of my favorite things.  What are the odds?  They didn't have puppies and the tower.  Or bunnies and the tower.  Just.  Kittens.  I may submit a pic of Richard Parker for publishing.

Went by a few shops in the red light district.

Since it was our last night in Paris and I was lucky enough to have the later flight the next day, I said yes to that drink with the EF staff.  We found a Irish pub / club.  But Heather is keeping is 'Merica with her coors light.

A whole bunch of young'ns came in lookin all clubby, cute and slutty.  We almost saw boobs and two hineys.  They were from Australia.
Tristan: "Australians are tall.  See how tall they are.  They are also not very educated.  Or they don't know a lot about stuff when they come here.  They are also not that interested in learning it.  They are more interested in having a good time."

The bar was getting packed with all these Australians.  We left after about two drinks.  In the metro we tried to see how many of us could fit in a photo booth.  I'm only in this because Tristan and Kathryn were holding my legs up.  It was one of my favorite moments of the trip.  We were all cracking up.

Another Mississippi girl.  (originally French and maybe also Egyptian) but she lives in Hattiesburg and has for a while.  There were about 6 or 7 of us MS folk total.  And many people taking students from Title 1 (that means bad off) schools.  It was pretty incredible to hear about.
Her name was Kelltoine?  We called her Kell. Unlike the other know-it-all french teachers, you weren't even aware of how French and experienced Kell was.  She had lived in France and has a sister who still does.   She was so beautiful and a very lovely person.  We also called her Eva Mendez.

Au'revoir..or something like that.  What a bon bon time we had.  Off to the airport now.  Bus ride-bleh.

The Paris airport has awesome seating.  So comfy.  They even have lounge chairs in some parts.
So much more fun going home b/c I knew people.

The 8 hour flight was not bad.  The guy next to me was a little too talkative for my taste.  And he started to get on my nerves.  He was from Michigan (we flew into Detroit)
Michigan:  "So don't y'all call us yankees"
Me:  "um... not really.  I mean yeah, that's a term that has been used before. But I can't remember the last time I heard someone actually refer to northerners as yankees."
Michigan: "So what do you call us?  Northerners?"
Me:  "I guess.  We don't really call you anything."     ---- Get a life dude.  We don't talk about you.

Waiting in the airport in Detroit we all started missing little things about France.  The language.  The food.  I had gotten into a tiny habit of saying "merci" -- I wanted to say it to the lady who took my boarding pass.  But I caught myself.  Dinner options at the airport were Chili's or McDonalds.  I wasn't ready for the golden arches yet.  Obviously there was no major reverse culture shock -- we were only there 3 days.  But a little bit yes.  It was really fun hearing my travel mates talk about the things they missed.... reminded me of the feelings I had after leaving Spain.

Joe picked me up from airport Sunday night and I was DONE.  I could not even move Monday when I woke up.  Vertical was difficult.  The one outing I had was to help Joe get our car from the shop and to Walmart.  MISTAKE.  I was a zombie.  It was a bad idea for our marriage.  Once I got outta there I went straight back to bed.  I didn't start feeling normal until Wednesday.  You can't even call it jeg-lag.  cause it wasn't that.  It was pure exhaustion.  But soooooooooooooooooo worth it.  Thanks EF.  You're the best.  I'm sold.  MERCI.