Paris

Traveling alone is rough. I understood a surprising amount of French as we got off the plane and fought like mad for a spot on a bus into the city. I got it so late that I never really booked a place to stay and just planned to meet Devon in the morning. She had told me of this pizza place that was open late, so I found my way there fairly easily and spent the wee hours of the morning slowly devouring a pizza with an egg on it. They kicked me out at 5AM when the closed and I napped in a bus stop until the metro opened and rode it around for a couple hours until a little cafe was open where I spent the rest of the morning. So yes, I didn't tell my parents or anyone else who would worry that I spent a night on the streets of Paris. Kind of. No, for you worrisome types out there, I'm sure I was never in any danger, it was just uncomfortable.
After some confusion in the train station, Devon and I finally met up, stowed out luggage, then headed out to see the city! Devon was such an amazing tour guide and I saw all the good stuff and none of the lame stuff in like five hours. It was exhausting, but I had some amazing gellato, got my picture taken in front of like forty thousand famous places, listened to her play the piano for a crowd in a bookshop, and realized I was incredibly tired and kinda smelly.
We had plans for dinner with some of Devo's friends in Paris: Melissa and Philippe. They had met in America while Philippe was studying abroad there and Melissa had come to France and they were now engaged and it was also Philippe's birthday! This meant a phenomenal meal in which I actually ate asparagus and enjoyed is (don't tell anyone, they might get ideas). Philippe also happens to be a high class French wine connoisseur, so being his birthday, he broke out some of the really nice stuff and tried to teach us a lot about fine wine tasting. It was a phenomenal experience. They ended up very generously offering to let us stay the night, so Devon canceled our other lodging plans and we settled down in their little Parisian flat. I was amazed by how much I had seen and done in one day, how much sleep I was lacking, and how incredibly wonderful our hosts were, though I had just met them.
Easter morning dawned in Paris and Melissa gave us American candy (Reese's Cups to be precise) for our Easter baskets! By this point my thankfulness for their hospitality was almost overflowing until they gave us bus tickets to get to the train station so we could make it to Caen that day. Paris and the sights were nice, but I will never forget such amazing and unexpected friends as Melissa and Philippe.
On our train ride to Caen, Devon and I got to do a bit of an Easter Sunday Bible study (since we hadn't had time to go to Easter Mass at Notre Dame like we wanted to), and we arrived in Caen sometime after lunch.

That story will wait for another time of me procrastinating from my homework, but for now, here are the pictures of Paris: