Searching for a Destination Unknown: This Day in History v.3

When Hannah and I realized we had both gotten into our perspective programmes in London and were sharing the news with Sami we all had the bright idea of celebrating somewhere BIG for NYE that year. Where better than Paris? Two summers before my London programme, I did another study abroad in Bristol, England and Sami came to meet me at the end to patrol the streets of London. Hannah was also studying for a month in Paris that summer as well so Sami and I decided to fly to the city to have fun and also meet up with Hannah. Man, I really miss just jumping on an airplane and jetting off for two hours and then landing in another country! So when it came to making our master plan for the festivus holiday, we all decided to descend upon Paris again to wreak havoc! Danielle also decided to jump in on the plans after coming from Spain visiting our other friend Leah. (Man, I have such bad ass friends!)

I went home to America that Christmas and on my return, made a connection in London to Paris. I think I had to wait the entire day for my connection and I remember trying to sleep in the waiting hall at Heathrow trying to sleep and hold on to my luggage at the same time. Not an easy task I tell you. I finally made my connection but I mistakenly told the girls that my flight arrived way earlier than it actually did. When I finally got into the city I realized that my phone didn't work outside of the UK...oops! AND to top it off my phone was dying (where the number was stored and I don't have a pencil/pen to write it down). I finally find the place we are staying (we rented someone's flat while he was out of town...pretty bad ass) buuuut its just this large building and I don't know the exact flat number...uh oh. So I stand outside and try to whisper/scream the girls names but its night time and its quite outside and I'm afraid of waking anyone up. Some random old angry lady leans out her window and yells something in French to me. I am soooo scared and worried. I set out to find the phone booth I remember seeing a couple of streets over, however, I soon learn that I don't know how to use the machines! (Come to find out Danielle had come outside to check if I was outside while I was gone...figures). Now, I'm nearly in tears at this time and don't know what I'm going to do. Thankfully, I find this random group of guys and a girl on the street and they can speak broken Franglish (what I call my mix of french and english...you'd think after 6 years of French I could do better, but NO) and they let me use their mobile. The girls were so scared and thought I had died and said they were about to call my mom in America in the next 10 minutes if I didn't show up. What an EVENT!

Note to self: I promptly got a sim card for my mobile to make calls outside of the UK when I travelled!

Anyways, after the initial panic the rest of the trip turned out FABULOUS! I think we were there for 4 or 5 days so plenty of time for food, wine, and good times! For NYE we decided to just walk the streets since we didn't want to pay to get into a place..but DAMN it was COLD. We stood in front of the Arc de Triumphe and ended up meeting some random Lativan guy and his friends who shared "milk and cookies" with us...some mixture of burbon and cookies I think. And there were supposed to be fireworks that night too at the countdown but for some reason they didn't end up going off and it was after midnight before we realized it!It was pretty dangerous afterwards because people were throwing empty champagne bottles and glasses. And there was a mass exodis to the metro stations and we had a problem with random people groping us on the tube because it was so crowded. Ick. But all in all, we had a great time, as can be seen in the pictures below!

The girls under the Eiffel Tower

Sami and I in front of the Louvre

Out on the streets NYE...Freezing our butts off!

Partying at a random Irish bar in Paris that we stumbled upon

Sami and I in front of the Louvre again

Hannah and I eating the BEST icecream EVER. We have this EXACT same picture from 2 sumemrs before when Sami and I visited the summer Hannah studied abroad in Paris. Except Hannah's purse was a few (ok, a lot of) shades of orange brighter!