Jesus I cannot believe that today is the last day of the trip!
Where did the last three weeks go? If I can look back and reflect on one fact about this trip it would be this: time flew by way too fast. I mean, we did divide and conquer, but it will be hard to remember every little thing we've done!
After getting my tired, danced-out ass back to the hotel after 6 am today, I was ready for bed. I slept until noonish when I was awoken by a phone call to our room phone from Iggi wanting to know what we were gonna do:
"What else are we gonna do? This is Paris, we're gonna walk around!" I said and hung up le phone.
I took le shower and sat in le bathtub with le water pouring down on my head and body. I was just a wee bit hungover. By the time I got to Iggi's room, Mikey was already there and I learned that Cloe and some of the others had gone to the catacombs and to see the cemetery where Oscar and James are buried.
Another small group had headed out to do some last minute shopping, (like we hadn't already done enough) whilst scoring some last minute Absinthe to take back to the states was also on another group's agenda.
Me? I was hungover as all hell and just wanting some pizza. We left the hotel and got one of those street meat and cheese crepes- and it was really good- till it started tasting really gamey and started making me a bit nautious. Where is a McDonald's when you need one?
We decided to go to the flea markets in the north of the city one last time. I needed another suitcase to haul all the rest of the shit I'd bought in the last three weeks back to America. When we got off the Metropolitan, we walked a few blocks and I could smell it: that smell that every American knows all too well: The smell of freshly fried Chicken McNuggets and French Fries. Yes, I found myself a McDonald's and I felt that my prayers were answered! I always say one of the best cures for a hangover is greasy fast food, and I had just hit the jack pot.
I bought Jenny a dress at le flea market (remember, she had no money) and myself a few shirts, two pairs of sunglasses, and a pair of shoes that Iggi was trying hard to convince me not to buy because he was sure they were knock offs. I didn't give a royal Marie Antoinette fuck if they were knock offs or not, 20 Euros was worth it! Lastly I bought a hand made, leather man-purse/satchel and love it. (Even though the damn bag still to this day -nearly 3 years- later smells like the dead animal it was made of!)
I had heard that some of us, including Professor Zusman, were going to eat a last dinner together at a restaurant down by Le Bastille. So the gang left the flea markets and headed back to the hotel to get ready for an early dinner.
We did just that. The restaurant was the most interesting group I had dined with on the entire trip. But in a weird way, I think it was a great last meal together because it meant that we got to experience a little bit of each other before we all left. I wouldn't have dared doing so for myself, but a few of us ordered escargot and I actually tried it. It tastes like garlicky, buttery rubber, but still I felt accomplished that I at least made the effort and tried the nasty snails.
After dinner was when our first of a few goodbyes began. Tessa and her aunt were going on to Barcelona, Spain, after spending some time outside of Paris, and so her aunt had come to pick her up. I remember sending her off to her and having a really joyous goodbye with her. I started out cool with her, then hating her, then trying to get along with her, then liking her, then having her leave. So a ping of sadness filled my heart when she walked out of the lobby and onto the streets of Paris; headed for her own new adventure. That was the last time I saw Tessa. (Even to this day.)
(I'll always remember the day that she and Rachel were quarantined in their hotel room in London and I brought them soup. Tessa answered the door iin nothing but a pair of pink panties! Literally, she opened the door with one hand and used the other arm to hardly even cover her nipples on her huge, Native American gozongas. She was so weak at the time that she could barely even lift her arm to grab the soup. Rachel was probably in the bathroom ralphing, poor thing. So Tessa was left to fend for herself. She grabbed the soup with her thin arm and gave me a little show that I could've cared less to see. Poor Tessa, her swine flu, and those huge boobs!)
I went up to my room and started packing. It all began to start to feel like a dream, but I was -in a way- glad that it was coming to an end. There is only so long that you can party that hard and get so little sleep; yet, be up all the hours we have been up whilst, running around the city as much as we have. AND ALL THE WHILE IN SCHOOL! I had tried a few times to get a group to go onward to Amsterdam from Paris at the trip's climax, but in the end, I am glad that didn't happen either.
One thing that I noticed that struck me as odd was that I was packed before Andrew was. In fact, his stuff was still everywhere when I decided to leave my room and go up to Ernie and Iggi's at around 11 pm.
I asked them if either of them had seen Andrew and they said that he had gone out with Rachel and Xavier, our hot young tour guide that had taken us to the restaurant a few nights prior. I had heard that Xavier, Manon, Rachel, and Andrew had spent the day together, so this made sense…but I wondered where they currently were.
We made some drinks in their room, just like we had every other night on the trip. Probably gin and tonics. Over the course of the last three weeks, Iggi and Ernie's room had not only become the gathering place, but the place where we kept the bar, smoked, and held comfort sleep overs. I looked around the walls of their room for what could have been one of the last times and started to get really depressed about the whole experience being over in a matter of hours.
"Let's go walk around Paris," I suggested, wanting to get out of the room and breathe in as much of the city as possible.
Of course Iggi put up a fight about going anywhere. But finally I was able to convince the boys to walk around. By now, after having drinks, shooting the shit, and them packing, it was late. By the time I convinced them to walk around it was well after 1 in the morning. No matter! Paris is the city of lights, damnit! The city where there is always something to do and always somewhere to go, even if it just means walking by the river.
And that's what we did. We walked along the Seine on that last night of nights and admired the majesty that is Paris. And she served us well. The twinkling lights in the trees being reflected in the water of the river was so beautiful that it made me wish I lived there. We walked along the brick walls of the river for over an hour before coming to some stairs and a park.
There on the landing of the stairs was a drum circle, pounding away at 2:30 in the morning. On the stairs were lovers and friends in scattered groups of twos and threes sitting there enjoying the music and enjoying the night. One of the couples near to us offered us some wine, and I took a drink, though a few people in my group thought it was gross to being drinking out of a wine bottle after someone else.
As they say, ''When in Paris…''.
We sat there on those stairs for a while, and for a long period, all of us in my group were quiet. We just listened to the drums beating, the couples inaudibly murmuring around us in French, and to the waves of the river gently splashing onto its walled banks. Looking out onto the water, not only could you see the reflection of the lights from the buildings and on the trees, but the moon light as well was being reflected off of it's surface.
The air was cooler than it had been the previous few nights, yet this warm breeze kept blanketing us with its love! I sat there on my butt with my legs extended fully out in front of me: one crossed onto the other at the ankle, and I put my arms behind me and on the ground to let myself sort of "recline" into the gentle breeze! It was lovely. Eventually enough time had passed where we each got up, one by one, and without saying anything, we left, and headed home.
We had about an hour to spare before we had to be downstairs in the lobby with our bags to go onto Charles de Gaulle to fly home. My plan was to take a quick shower and change into comfy clothes for the long flight. When I walked in my room; however, I was not prepared for what I was going to encounter:
I walked in and I heard the shower running. I used my key to get in and apparently I wasn't very loud when I came into the room. Because what I saw when I walked into the room was Rachel and XAVIER making out on my bed! They weren't having sex or anything, but they certainly were startled and embarrassed when they noticed me standing there with my jaw down to the floor! Then the shower water shuts off, and before I can say, "WTF?", Andrew comes out of the shower and out of the bathroom. He was dripping water everywhere, wearing nothing but a towel around his waste and a towel wrapped around his head like a woman.
"Oh hey Koelen," is how Andrew greets me.
Then Rachel clears her laugh and kinda giggles at the situation and says to me, "How was your night?"
Apparently, Rachel, Andrew, and Manon had gone to dinner with Xavier and ended up on a dance party on a boat that cruised the Seine River all night!
They danced and drank the night of way on a friggin' boat! The three of them had barely gotten back to the hotel only to discover that Tessa had NOT left just yet and that she and her aunt were upstairs in hers and Rachel's room, both topless with titties hanging out everywhere, snoring-up-a-storm asleep. So hence why Rachel was in my room with Xavier.
I told them to "make it quick, make it count." and then I retreated into the bathroom. I showered for plenty of time for a make out session or more, got downstairs, and loaded the bus.
We said goodbye to Ariana and Aurelia as they were the two that were also staying on and touring Europe. The rest of us were done. I don't think any of us slept last night, and I don't think a lot of us will be sleeping much on the trip home because these damned journals are due and a lot of us didn't do them.
