Stranded in Paris

I've probably spent about 6 hours out of the last 12 on the internet at my hostel in Paris (thank god it's free!) trying to figure out where to go next. I booked a super cool and cheap train to Nice for this Saturday without thinking about what I'd do til then. The train runs only at night and has a discotech in it! It's essentially a party train, so I couldn't pass that up! But that left me the problem of figuring out what to do this week. There's still plenty to see in Paris, but I wanted to go check out Mt St Michel or the D-Day beaches in Normandy. Unfortunately it woud cost at least €30 to get anywhere and then there are only hotels for at least €40 a night which is just too expensive. The places where there are cheaper hostels cost at least €60 to get to by train. So basically, I'm stranded in Paris until Saturday, which certainly isn't the end of the world.

Staying here though isn't cheap either. My current hostel is very far from the city center, and the metro is quite expensive, so I've booked a hostel right in the center of town for €30 a night. At least that way I can walk to all the gardens and have more freedom to roam without having to schedule my entire day around transportation. So now I have a full 4 days to just roam the city, read, write, learn french, and try not to spend too much money. It's probably better as my french is atrocious (I can say 'do you speak english' very well now though!), and leaving the city would just be one huge comical misadventure after another.

I've also spent my online time trying to figure out the rest of this damn trip. I've got at least 4 or 5 leads on some good farms and eco-villages that I'd like to visit, and I have another couchsurf (CS) stay in Aix-en-Provence next week with a marketing student who wants to move to Santa Monica. Hopefully I'll find a few more CS stays in Provence, but if not, the plan is to stay in a hostel in Nice - Sun, Mon, Tues (with day trips to Cannes and Monaco), Marseille - Wed, AIX - Thur (CS stay) and then I booked an overnight bus to Barcelona for Friday evening. So by next Saturday I'll be in Spain about 2 weeks ahead of schedule!

I also have been taking lots of photos but unfortunately these computer stations don't let me upload anything, so I'll have to wait to get some photos on here. I did manage to get some music on my ipod though, a ton of Bob Dylan, Bright Eyes, Vampire Weekend and other great bands from a super cool dude from Fresno, CA! Who knew they had cool people in Fresno! And I found a great english language bookstore where I exchanged my old books and got Simone de Beauvoir's memoir entitled, 'The Prime of Life'. So far it is wonderful, and I can actually recognize the places in Paris she is writing about! I feel so french!

Okay, that's all for now, but pictures will come soon. If not tonight, tomorrow.