Perhaps My Most Exciting Day of Travel Yet

So I am in France, and the keyboard here is even more different from the one's in Americq than the German keyboard. My posts fro, here will have nu,erous ,istakes; and I apologize in advance.

Last night Julia, her sister Sonja, her sister's boyfriend Timo, two of her friends, and I went out as sort of a going away thing for ,e. It was q ton of fun, but I cz,e back qnd aqs not able to sleep for the life of ,e.

So Deutsche Bahn (The German Rail Corporation) decided to go on strike today. It was announced in advance, and so I ,qde plans to leave Mainz earlier than I had origially planned. The train I took fro, ?ainz to Koeln was outstanding, brand new and I practically had an entire co,part,ent to ,yself. I arrived in Koeln with an hour to spare, and so I planned on checking out the Koelner Do, (a giant cathedral I climbed in the summer of 2003). I walked to the doors only to find out that it was pouring buckets of rain outside. I went and grabbed a slice of pizza and one ,ore bit of German Ice Cream instead.

My second train experience was a bit different, as I sat at a table with three of the ,ost odorous beings I have ever encountered. Whenever the one ,an opened his ,outh, death breath filled the entire compartment. I believe I owe my survival to ,y excite,ent for Paris.

We arrived in Paris on ti,e, and I quickly figured out the metro (or so I thought). I met a hostel attendant at the ,etro station and checked into ,y hostel. which is actually a very nice flat in Montmarte.

After checking in, I sat off to try to catch a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower before meeting Julia at the train station. Unfortunately, I did not see the Tour Eiffel. I got off at a nearby station, thinking I would see the world's most recognizable structure, but it apparently is not all that big. I wandered by foot for awhile, trying to find it.

When the time came for me to go meet Julia at the train station, I still had not found the dang Eiffel Tower. I resigned myself from my efforts, and headed to Paris Nord. When Julia's train arrived, I waited, and waited, and waited...but she never came. I stayed at the station for a bit over an hour, until the next train from London came. As I was waiting to see if she got off of that train, my phone rang. It wqs Julia's mom, infor,ing ,e that she was stuck in London for the night. Her ,o, had called earlier to tell me that there had been so,e suspicious luggage and that Julia had to stay in her aircraft for awhile after landing, but it ended up being six hours!! How terrible. I am going back to the airport at nine in the morning to hopefully actually meet Julia this time.

I came back to the hostel where I met one of my roommates outside, a girl fro, Rochester; New York. She was relieved that I hqd co,e because her key would not work. Well, it turned out, neither did ,ine. And her friend was locked in our room. She couldn't get out; we couldn4t get in. It toook nearly twenty ,inutes playing with the lock to get the door to open. That was fun. Then we went to try and open the window, and realized that our key for the window wouldn't work either. This really is a very nice hostel, I swear!! Our other two roommates are fro, Australia. They all seem really nice. We chatted for a bit, then the two girls fro, Rochester went out.

I a, going to try to get so,e sleep now; since I have to be at the train station in the ,orning and then I have to ,ove into another flat!!

---Jason