Lend me your ear and I'll sing you a song...

Jamal, my housemate, and I went out last night for one beer and ended up coming back at 2 in the morning. While we were looking for a bar near the house, we lost ourselves in the streets of Chatillon. I asked a girl our age for directions and she ended up being really funny and she screamed when we told her we were American. “Americans! Ahhh I love Obama!” She yelled. “Where in America?” “Texas” we said. “Ahhhh!” she screamed again, “you are cowboys then.” She introduced us to her 2 friends who were also hillarious and we all talked and walked around for almost 30 minutes. After they showed us to the metro stop we said our goodbyes and Jamal and I were on our way. It was at that point when we decided that we needed to celebrate our arrival a little bit. We picked a metro stop that sounded cool, Invalides, and went to the nearest bar. In the bar we hung out with a group of girls that we met and talked about our Paris experience thus far. At this point I had been in Paris for about 5 hours so I didn't have a whole lot to talk about.

Jamal and I decided to go explore some more, so I got the number of one of the girls in the group and we left. It was at this point when I saw the tip of the Eiffel Tower in the distance. We made a beeline toward          the 1000ft structure stopping at a few bars and a grocery store on the way. 

After we absorbed the silent power of le Tour Eiffel for a few minutes it began to drizzle. Which was perfect because there were 2 girls with umbrellas on the other side of the tower that I wanted to talk to and now I had a conversation starter! We walked around with them for about an hour before we realized that the metro had shut down for the night. I got their number and Jamal and I put them in a cab so that we could figure out what to do.                                                                           Neither one of us had been to an ATM since we arrived and we spent most of our remaining euros on drinks.

We jumped in a cab and waited until the meter reached 15 euros so we could tell him to stop. To our surprise, and more proof that only SOME french people are rude to americans. The cab driver said it was no problem, consider it a welcome gift to the country. Amazing. We thanked him, tip toed up the 3 creaking flights of stairs to our rooms, and fell into a blissful sleep. Not a bad first night!