Paris!

So my trip to Paris was really amazing, a little cold, but overall very good! I was a little worried abou

the fact that I´m technically an illegal immigrant since my tourist VISA expired in October but when I went to the airport I had no problems getting through, they didn´t even really look at my passport. I arrived there on Friday night after going through Frankfurt, Germany and found my hotel pretty easily. About 5 minutes after I had gotten there I got a call from the front desk that there were two boys downstairs to see me. It was my hermanito, Nacho, and his brother Martin. Nacho is a foriegn exchange student that stayed with my family when I was a senior in high school and the first we ever had. I call him my hermanito even though he isn´t my brother by blood. It had been about 5 years since I had seen him when my parents and I went to go visit him and his family in Argentina so I was very excited to see him again! His brother was only in town for one night for work and so they went to have dinner with the company and I wandered around the neighborhood a little bit. Nacho told me that the hotel was right around the corner from his house, which I didn´t know when I booked it. I just asked what area I should look in and it was a complete coincidence that it literally was right around the corner! The next day I went to the train station to meet my cousin, Nichole, who was coming to Paris for the weekend to meet up with us. She is currently living in northern France, teaching English to primary school children in the Normandy area. I hadn´t seen her for about a couple of years and she looked so European! We made our way to the hotel, found a place for lunch, and then called Nacho. The four of us met up on Saturday afternoon and walked around a little bit before Nacho had to take Martin to the airport to catch his flight home. It was both Nichole and Martin´s first time in Paris so seeing such amazing things like the Eiffel tower, Invalides, Notre Dame and much more was amazing. Then we met back up with Nacho for a late dinner before he took us to his apartment (or flat as they say it in Europe) to talk, listen to some of his favorite music, and just hang out. Since the hotel was literally right around the corner, we had no problem getting back okay. On Sunday, Nichole and I got up and went to see the Arch de Triumph and have lunch before meeting up with Nacho who had to work in the morning. Currently he is starting his 4th year in Paris working on his PhD in genetics having to do something with immunology. I´m so jealous because his native language is Spanish, he is fluent in English, and now fluent in French. I can barely manage with two languages! We walked around some more and it was really funny because I forgot that Nacho smokes and he said he wanted to buy some black market cigarettes because they are cheaper. After he got done he said ¨The transaction has been completed¨. We went to a favorite bar of Nacho´s before meeting up with his friend Matias and seeing things like the artist neighborhood, the Opera house, and the Louvre. Then we had a wonderful dinner on Sunday night at a Seafood restaurant where we all ordered the EXACT same thing. I´m talking down to the drinks. We had mussels in a cream and tomato sauce and creme brouleigh (I have no idea how to spell it right) for dessert. It was so much fun. On Monday, of course Nacho had to work so Nichole and I went walking around looking for a place to buy some French cheese for my Spanish family. We lost track of time talking in a Starbucks where we stopped for something warm and made it back to the hotel in time to check out and get Nichole to the train station and me to the airport. Thankfully, I found some cheese in the train station so it turned out okay. I was sad to say goodbye to my family since it was so good to see them together and share a bit of Paris with them. I had to fly to Milan, Italy before getting back to Madrid, but again I had no problems at the airport. There is so much more about the trip but I´ll add more later. Until then, here are just a couple of photos! Besitos!

Steph