sweet sweet PARIS

The 23rd of August. Emphasis on 23. the number that is evil. If you’ve seen the movie 23 you’ll know why, if not, go rent it. So we wake up at 6 to go to paris. There’s about 16 people going to paris from the ship. Madness. We get to paris and split into two groups, those going to the Louvre and those who have never been to paris and going to see the sites. Our first stop was the Arc de Triumphe. Holy shit that thing is huge, and right in the middle of nowhere. It was pretty sweet, we walked under the 5 lane circle drive and got up under it. Turns out it’s a memorial to the unknown soldiers. I’ve notice nearly every country has one. Thoughtful. But yeah, so we did that and then headed to the Eiffel tower. That is one of the few monuments that’s as big as you think it is. It was crazy and the line to get inside of it was over 2 hours. And seeing as how we only had 4 hours to see paris we didn’t much have the time for that. After that we bought an all day pass for the metro trains. We took that to the catacombs. This place was crazy. Turns out during the late 18th century paris had run out of room to bury the dead so they used this underground quary to put the bones. Over 6 million people were reburied or buried here. They arranged the skulls and tibias to make a wall and then just threw the rest of the bones behind them. The whole thing was just bones and skulls, over a kilometer long and 30 meteres below the ground….i think. After that we jumped back on the train and went to Notre Dame. Oh yeah, before that I stopped and got a crepe…had to. So yeah, get to Notre Dame and its f-ing huge too. These people were not subtle. It was cloudy and rainy all day so the stained glass wasn’t as brilliant as it could have been but that cathedral was massive. I can’t begin. So AFTER THAAAAAAAAT jeff and I headed to see the Moulin Rouge. That’s right, the original. It was pretty sweet, located in essentially the sex district. Took some sweet action shots and then headed back to the train. That’s where the drama begins.

Turns out the train station at the port…2 hours from paris….passed out expired train schedules so when we go to get on the 3:50 train back to the ship its not there. There’s not a train coming till almost 5. it’s a two hour train ride and all aboard is at 6:30. you do the math. We get a hold of the port authority after about 30 minutes of panic and they arrange to get us taxis at our home port to get us to the ship faster and after about 1.5 hours into our homeward bound train ride they let us know the ship is going to wait for us. Imagine the stress level before that point. We get on the train but have to split up because there aren’t enough seats. We get to La Havre, our port, and get off the train to meet the rest of our group. They aren’t there. We look everywhere, they aren’t there. NOWHERE. Finally we can’t wait any longer, we have no taxis for us, they all left so we have to wait even longer for a taxi. Finally get one, there’s 7 of us, we’re missing about 7 others, so we head to the ship. Turns out the rest of them bolted off the train took the taxis and made it back to the ship. We got to the ship at 7:15, they are ready to pack up the gangway. We get in, the NEWcruise director (who has quite the reputation) pulls everybody but me cause I already went to my room to her office to hear the story and says she’s gonna go fight with the captain. He wants to give us PINS (basically a bad thing) but she’s going to fight. The others…shaunacy, new girl andrea and the other people are already changed and chillin in their rooms. We all meet in the hallway and were like what the hell. They figured it was just a “fend for yourself” situation DESPITE us saying we all need to stick together. The ship won’t leave if nearly 20 crew members are missing. But I guess that never crossed their minds. I was very stressed out and let some smart ass comment about self-absorbed people come out of my mouth and felt bad cause it wasn’t necessary. I went to the gym to relieve some stress and came back to apologize to shaunacy cause I actually care about her. I could give two shits about andrea. I start to apologize and shaunacy jumps in and starts telling me how offended she was. I cut her off and said I’m trying to apologize, let me apologize. She doesn’t I go to leave, she stops. I tell her it wasn’t necessary for me to say those things and it came out of stress not anger and despite the situation we all made it back ok so its not a big deal. She finally said it was ok and thanked me and I left awkwardly. Guess its gonna take another few weeks before she’s cool with me again. The cycle continues. And now we’re leaving 30 minutes late and the waters are rough. I swear man……this day

Lesson of the day: the French are ugly, maybe that’s why that hate Americans so much.
Lesson two of the day: I’m tired of always thinking about others in situations like this. It only pisses me off cause some others don’t. Only a few of us actually take the time to think ahead of the next second.

p.s. I’m still stressed out, I’m just worried whats gonna happen. The whole ship is already talking about it. I can’t wait to see what gets taken away from the cast this time.