Paris :)

Then we took a packed train from Toulon to Paris, and about 20 minutes before getting in, we heard from our friends in Paris that they were stuck in Lyon so we wouldn’t be able to stay with them that night. I called the two hotels that I know in Paris but no luck there. We thought of everyone we knew in Paris but ended up staying with a random friend-of-a-friend Chilean who lives in Paris. So Andrea and I called him, explained how she got his number, and basically asked if we could crash there for the night. It was slightly bad timing because his mom was there visiting from Chile; but they were awesomely hospitable and told us to come on over. It made for a slightly awkward situation but beats sleeping in a train station or street. He had a really nice studio about two blocks from the Louvre – good location! We slept on yoga mats on the floor in the same room as his mom sleeping on the couch – a bit uncomfy, but it was incredibly nice of them to let complete strangers stay with them. It’s crazy – there’s kinda an unofficial network of Chileans who seem to just open their homes to each other. I guess it’s not even just a Chilean thing at all – I’ve had tons of French people, or other Europeans, offer me places to stay, either with them directly or with their family/friends. I’m not so sure that this same mentality exists in the US. Sure, if you know someone personally, it’s not a problem to stay with them, etc – but I don’t think it’s as common to open up our homes to friends-of-friends, or foreigners who are traveling, etc. Anyway, here it’s awesome, very welcoming, and obviously helpful for travelers on a budget.

Friday morning we got up and went to the Opéra in Paris, my planned meeting point with Tiffany and Jon (referred to as Grube in the rest of this post). So I was walking down the street with Andrea, heard someone yelling my name from across the street – and that couldn’t be anything else but my friends fresh from good ‘ole Minneapolis! More to come on our visit together when I have more time to write ... but here's a quick picture of us being idiot American tourists in front of the mini Statue of Liberty replica on the Seine: