While on the TGV heading towards Paris, I’m clearing my head of my first trip to make room for the second! First of all, I missed my train this morning…it was at 6:23am, so that was my first mistake thinking that I would actually get up. Mistake number two was going to sleep. But I’m finally relaxing in first class (it was only .20 centimes = a quarter cheaper than second!) and just planned out my next 4 days in Paris. 
Two weeks ago I went to run the Paris 20km (12.6 miles). Originally it started off with just Sarah and me, then George, who wanted to run the 20km, then Marc whose grandparents have an apartment there, then Ariel, Kaitlin, Rebecca, and finally Becca whose parents were flying into Paris from the states. SO we crammed EIGHT people in a ONE bedroom apartment that’s comfortable for TWO. Three people were in the bed every night, one/two people on a fold out chair, two/three people on the floor…we had a nice rotation going for 3 nights. (The picture of us in the elevator should give you an idea...)Arriving Thursday night, we just decided to walk around and sit at a café.
Friday morning we started out at the catacombs. It was very cool in a morbid kind of way, containing the bones of 6 million unknown Parisians, most of who were killed during the plague – for sanitary reasons the citizens emptied their cemeteries in 1785 into many miles of underground tunnels from limestone quarries. Each transfer/procession from the cemetery was led by a black veiled and then they stacked the bones (very neatly I might add) into piles of 5 ft high by up to 80 ft deep! A plaque was placed with each cemetery’s bones to identify 
where they came from and when – saw my birthday a few times : / At times I wished that I were a little shorter and that I had worn a hat walking under those moist ceilings :) It was a really cool place! Leaving, the security guards checked our bags to make sure we didn’t steal any bones – there was table full of skulls behind them!
Since we only had 2.5 days of tourism to hit up the big sites for the three “Paris newbies”, everything seemed a little fast and hard to take it all in. 
From the top of L’Arc du Triomphe (L’Étoile above), to Les Champs-Elysées, 
to Sarko’s house and the embassies (Kaitlin got yelled at for taking a picture. If you didn’t know, it’s illegal to take pictures of embassies.) to Le Louvre 
(below)
(below) 
(Le Louvre is free for students on Friday nights! I’m definitely going again tonight since it would take about 8 visits to see everything.), and then to and Indian restaurant to complete the day!
Day 2: every large race has “pre-race” activities (free samples, music, ect.) so Sarah, George, and I went there first thing, met everyone else at the Opéra Garnier (left) - more for the attendants to be seen than the actual show = beautiful, extravagant lobbies!!! and Phantom of the Opera’s inspiration - and then Notre-Dame (the same day that UNC beat Notre Dame in football!!! Got to hear some of the Saturday night mass, and then the security guard made me move – I didn’t know why at first, but then the priest walked right in front of me with his little posse!). That night, Ariel made a wonderful “Pasta-Pump-Up” dinner and the runners went to bed early. 
Race Day! It was a sight to see people piling on the trams with their numbers pinned to them and their “pusse” (timing chip) attached to their tennis shoes – the whole world has definitely caught running fever. Over 20,000 runners stood under the Eiffel Tower ready – I just wanted to finish :) Marc brought an American Flag to wave for the 3 of when we went by…I got SO excited when I saw them and heard them cheering that I started running towards them tripping over everyone! We ran the first 8km in a park, which was perfect with its shade and dirt trails – I’ve also never seen so many people pee in my life! Coming out of the park we ran along one side of the Seine about 6km and then the crossed by Musée d’Orsay to finish the race under the Eiffel Tower. I really wish I had a camera with me to take pictures - people could tell I was a tourist: I would slow down and run to the other side of the street to look at EVERYTHING! There were bands all along the way to keep our moral high, and I’d say it worked - they sure made me laugh! Although I did almost have an emotional break down at about the 12km…people were lined up at the bridges to cheer, and one (bigger) lady was sitting on the side wall and tried to jump onto the side walk as I was running towards her, but she FACE PLANTED into the road right before a car drove by that almost ran over her head!!! Luckily the driver was paying attention and it swerved. For the next 2km I was on the brink of tears thinking about the fact that I almost saw a lady die and if I would have stopped the race (I was the closest bystander). 
After the race while taking pictures by the tower, we saw a “turf fight” between the guys that sell the little Eiffel Towers and the army guys with their big automatics ran over to break it up. With our American Flag and singing of the UNC fight song, we had a blast in front of the tower! I wore my medal as long as possible. We ate lunch in les Jardins du Luxembourg, walked around more, ate dinner at a Couscous place, and then the girls decided to go out on the town! (below: lost, huge map, no one else wanted to be in the picture...)
We had no idea where we were…but just looked for things that were open (basically nothing on Sunday night). We finally saw a few bars open... 1st bar: I walked in and thought people were going to kill me ("The Black Cave"), 2nd bar: guys making out everywhere (gay bar "The Bear's Den"), 3rd bar: Spanish Tapas, guy working outside that invited us in seemed nice - walked in and sat down and a guy got on a table and started dancing/taking off his shirt ... gay bar as well. We were the only people in there, so we stayed, they played what music we wanted, and we danced with the gay bartenders. 
(I had to pee after the race...but didn't know how to work the time capsule toilettes...so Rebecca came to rescue!)
Oh and can I just add the weather was BEAUtiful ALL weekend – just perfect (as you can tell from the pictures).
mmm...Le Tour Eiffel
