1st Stop: Paris

So let's rewind back to September. After finally compiling the mountain of paperwork necessary to study in Poland and enjoying a few wonderful send-offs with friends and family, I was off to Paris for a six-day tryst with my favorite city before continuing to Kraków.

I stayed at a slightly-grungy, but very charming hostel in the Latin Quarter, around the corner from where I had lived for a semester two years earlier. My agenda was to see the few sights that I had missed out on in my previous stay (Versailles, The Catacombs, Palais de Tokyo, and a neat fondue restaurant called Le Refuge des Fondues), hit a couple of my old favorite spots, and see some old friends.

Mission accomplished. I did all that, but didn't really take any pictures of the sights. You want to see a picture of Versailles? Go to Google Images and type in Versailles. There'll be 100 billion better pictures than I could have taken. Besides, it was raining when I went. By the way, one of the coolest things about Paris is that almost all of their museums are free for students. Incidentally, one of the coolest things about the University of Maryland is that their student IDs don't have an expiration date.

If you're ever in Paris, go to Le Refuge des Fondues in Montmartre. It's a riot of a fondue place where they serve wine out of baby bottles and seat everybody on long, communal, Viking-style tables. That's all I'll tell you. The rest, you'll have to discover for yourself.

Here's a photo of me on the streets of Paris with some really cool people (Slovenian, Kiwi, Aussie, and Canadian) that I met at my hostel:

If you've never had a drunken night on the streets of Paris, put it on your bucket list.

Lastly, here's a poster at one of my favorite watering holes in Paris (where they still remembered me!):

On Monday, September 16, I said adieu to Paris and hopped on an EasyJet flight to what was to become my new home: Kraków, Poland.