La grande ville

For the moment, I'm loving living in a big city. I love never getting in a car. I love taking the Metro everywhere. I love being able to get pretty much any type of food I want within a 10 minute walk. So far, this trip has been much better than driving around North Carolina.

For some reason, I was under the impression that the French were not that environmentally-consciencious, but that is not so much the case. The showers in the hostel  we staying at only stay on for about 2 minutes at a time. While initially annoying, I can greatly appreciate water conservation. They have giant recycling bins all over the streets, which is also great. However, I'm not so sure that recycling within businesses or homes is so big, so we'll see. In addition to a great public (but expensive) transportation system, Paris also has bikes all over the city that you can rent right on the street.

Yesterday, we went to the Louvre, the biggest museum in the world. We saw the ruins of the first Louvre and several famous Italian paintings, including Raphael's. Apparently Napoleon stole a lot of what is currently in the museum.

Sunday we move into our host family's homes, so I'll have more to report then.

A demain...