I got soul but I'm not a soldier....

The past couple of weeks has been filled with excited things. I went to a soccer game at the French stadium (France vs. Austria). France won 3-1!!!

I also went to several museums including the Louvre, and Musee d'Orsay. Apparently if you spent 3 minutes on each piece of art work in the Louvre, it take you several months to get through everything. Needless to say, I did not get through everything. Not even close. However, what I did see was very impressive. Actually, the least impressive thing I saw may have been the Mona Lisa. You can only get as close as 15 feet away, and when you do, there is so much glass around it that you can't really get a good look at the painting. Bummer.

I do have good news though! I solved the Da Vinci Code...I looked at his paintings and realized that Tom Hanks was right. Da Vinci was trying to tell us something, the figures in his art were pointing me in the direction to solve the mystery of life. I followed the clues and ended up in....drum roll please......the womens restroom. I was confused too but at least I solved the mystery.

This weekend was the Nike+ Human Race 10k!!!!!! I woke up early on saturday and journeyed all the way across Paris to the Jardin d'Acclimatation and the Bois de Boulogne to run 10 kilometers. It was a tough run but I managed to get 3rd place! I know, I know, 3rd place is not that exciting and many of you might even consider 3rd place to be the second loser. Nevertheless, as I write this I am looking at the finish line banner which they let me take home as a souvenir. It says "arrivee" which, at the time of race meant, "Alex when you reach me you can lie down and eat this free apple sauce they are going to give you." So I kept on running and finished about 8 seconds behind 1st place.

That night me and my 2 friends Matt and Laura, who were visiting for the weekend from Limerick and Rome, respectively, went to Sacre-Coeur. Sacre-Coeur is a beautiful church that overlooks the city. Many people go there to hang out or drink wine. There are always people playing music there and it's a great place to get a good view of Paris. Today I went for a run and decided to run toward the Sacre-Coeur to get a look at  it during the day for a change. After running up the 300 hundred or however many stairs there are, I wanted nothing more than to lie down in the grass and look out over my new city. Unfortunately my legs had other plans and I almost collapsed while walking toward the grass that I had chosen. Instead I enjoyed the view and the music from a concrete ledge by the church. Still not half bad.