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I finally arrived last night after three flights (two of which with loud babies nearby; one of whom actually pooped himself during the beverage service stinking up the whole plane), had a night of rest, and am now up to tackle the monstrous pile of crap that’s piled up over the last month. I was a little horrified by the pile of mail awaiting me, much of it seemingly important. Then, there are all my money-making schemes and other assorted matters to attend to.

The last couple days of my trip were spent in and around Paris, mostly wandering around. I of course made sure I went to Berthillon again for more ice cream and also spent a day at Versailles, which is just massive. I’d never realized how big it was until I saw it in person

I arrived in Paris this morning after a very long day of travel and am now just loafing around the hostel using the wireless internet. I was actually going to go to bed rather than continue using the internet, but apparently, there’s no way to save the remaining minutes on the card. I might as well use them all. I did pay two euros for it!

After getting into CDG, I took the RER in and dropped off my bag at the hostel. Then, I hied my way to L’As du Fallafel to meet a friend for lunch, amazingly getting there right at noon, which is when we agreed to meet. Considering I don’t have a phone or regular internet access, coordinating meetings is a giant pain, so I’m amazed whenever this sort of thing works out. How did people ever meet up before the era of cell phones?

Afterwards, I just slowly wandered around Paris, seeing a bunch of sites and taking some more pictures. After hours of that, we met up again for dinner, ate some French food, and I left to head back to the hostel. Since then (and before), I’ve just been thinking about sleep.

Tomorrow, I think I’ll head to the big cemetery nearby to see some famous graves and then to the Louvre for the remainder of the day. For Thursday, I’m thinking about doing a day trip to Versailles before taking the overnight train to Rome. Of course, I need to figure out if this is even feasible, and I still need to reserve my seat on the train.

Later on, I think I’ll try using Rome as a base for day trips to the Vatican, Naples, Pisa, and Florence. Maybe I’ll end up spending more time in Italy than I originally intended, but I still need to figure out how to loop around Eastern Europe back to Paris in time to catch my flight back to the USA. Obviously, I haven’t truly planned anything aside from tomorrow, and even that is still very much up in the air.

I hope my roommates tonight aren’t total douchebags.

Wow, this took forever to do, especially considering I took these photos in March. Oh, well.

This and many, many more photos are now up in my gallery. I’ve been busy editing, tagging, and uploading over the last few days, and to think that there are still hundreds (if not thousands) more to sift through!