7/2 - Paris

Woke up this morning at 8am feeling like crap. Not nauseous or headachy, just tiiiiired. Brett had to drag me out of bed to go to our 11am free walking tour that started on Ile-de-la-Cite. I'm really glad we did, because the guide was really great, and it was the only wholly good group experience we've had so far. The tour was 3 1/2 hours of walking, so we were pretty tired when it was over, so we got groceries and made ravioli and green beens with diced tomatoes. The kitchen really sucks at this hostel, in that there are no saucepans, only gigantic pots, one "sharp" knife which is tiny and not at all sharp, no towels, no cooking utensils, and in the "clean" utensil area there was a butter knife with old peanut butter all over it so I had to wash everything we used because I didn't trust it. And then once I washed it it stayed wet because there were no towels. Sigh. Our food was really good, though.

While I'm on this subject, let me list the things that are awful about 3 Ducks Hostel. First of all, there's only one key per room, so apparently you get the key from reception when you come in (and by the way, reception is A BAR) and then if you're the last person in your room to leave you lock the door and give the key back to reception. Very annoying. There is also a lockout that is not disclosed when you reserve your rooms every day from noon to 4 pm supposedly for cleaning, which completely sucks. In addition, the bathrooms consist of 3 outdoor toilet stalls and two outdoor shower stalls. They're enclosed, but still. They're in the courtyard where everyone congregates, like the common area, so if you go in you have to maneuver around people to get there. There are a couple bathrooms upstairs, but when I tried to use one during lockout today the cleaning lady who was sitting chatting on the steps gave me a ration of shit in french about how those bathrooms were only for the people upstairs. The thing is, when we got back today, a guy was pulling the wreckage of the wall between one toilet and one shower, so there's in fact only 2 toilets and 1 shower for everyone downstairs, one of which broke later in the evening. Anyway. She yells at me in french, grabs my hand and leads (drags) me to one of the downstairs bathrooms, opens the door, and points and says "THIS is where YOU go." I was super pissed. And it's not over. Also there are cracks and drafts in the door so you can't shut sound out, and the bar and patio where everyone hangs out is literally - I swear literally - less than 10 feet from the doors of the rooms.

It's supposed to be one of the best hostels in Europe, but in fact it's so bad that we wanted to switch hostels until we discovered the no refund policy. Luckily we leave early tomorrow morning.

ANYWAY. After lunch we went out to the Louvre, where we saw the Winged Victory of Samothrace, the Venus de Milo, the Mona Lisa, and some super cool greek sculptures before they closed and we had to leave. Then we walked down the Champs Elyseesm which is much longer than I realized and very very crowded, to the Arc de Triomphe. Place Charles de Gaulle, which surrounds the Arc itself, is this huge crazy roundabout where there's an accident every 6 minutes. They don't even let pedestrians cross it, they just built a tunnel under it so you can walk around under the arc, which is truly massive. It really looms over the champs elysees, even over the trees lining it and the inexplicable grandstands that are being erected at the moment. It's rather intimidating, not very celebratory. We were exhausted from all the walking, so we didn't go up for the view, but went back to the hostel, got some snacks, and then tried to occupy ourselves until bedtime. It was so loud when we finally went to bed that we couldn't really sleep, so we didn't exactly sleep well.