back 'home'

I am happily back 'home' in london after our whirlwind trip of paris and amsterdam. Having been to Paris before, it all felt very familiar and comfortable. Everyone in Paris is super polite, and when Americans dont reciprocate, they get offended. So everyone we met was super nice and cool as my minimal french helped solve any potential problems. The first night there abbey and myself ate crepes then hung out down by the canal. It was a huge scene with tons of kids our age just hanging out in groups with wine and beer and flittering about from group to group. It was the same canal that Amelie skips stones down. This is the common precursor to the night as clubs in paris dont open until midnight. After that we met up with a bunch of our fellow americans and took the metro to Pigalle, where Moulin Rouge is located and is a super seedy area. We went to a club there that cost ten euro to get in, and included a free drink, but then every drink after (including water) was also ten euro. The men there were super forward and would just literally grab you and kiss you on the cheek to get you to dance. Luckily, we had two guys with us, and we had met a couple of gentleman austrialians prior in the day, so we would just migrate towards them to keep the french at bay. We also did the louvre, the musee d'orsay, the eiffel tower, the champs elysee, etc. After paris we took the train thru brussels to Amsterdam. Amsterdam was super pretty, really small, and not nearly as shady as I had expected. The red light district overall has just a vegas cheese quality to it, and if you didnt think about what the women were really selling, it was just funny. We went to the Van Gogh museum and the Ann Frank house, and a good number of the kids I was over there with were tripping on something the whole time...which was...eh. Yesterday(monday) was just a looong day on the train back to paris, then back to london. I started school this morning, and it seems like it will be pretty easy, aside from the fact I have 107 pages to read tonight. Right now Abbey and I are going to H & M cause my purse broke in Paris, then after we'll preobably read in Hyde Park. Overall, I'm super happy and am feeling really inspired in every possible way. I miss everyone alot, but I'm taking lots of pictures. I really hope my cats arent dead.
<3, natali