Day one in Paris

Well my Valentines Day was spent traveling across the world.  My first flight was from Salt Lake to Chicago and was at 11:30, it was a very small plane and a tight fit.  I tried not to sleep because I wanted to sleep on the long flight.  I was traveling with a married couple from Idaho the whole way, I was nervous about what it would be like traveling with people I didn't know for the next 15 hours.  It turns out we hit it off right away. And we were friends together for the whole trip, it was nice to make such good friends.  The picture of the right is just before we landed, and is really my first view of France.  I lucked out and on my first ever international flight was not a full flight.  We were booked on the last row of the plane, but the flight attendants told us the flight was not full and we might be able to get our own row if we spread out. Of course we did, the front of the plane was full, but the back was almost empty.  The three of us all got our own row.  I choose to be in the middle with three seats so I could almost lay down flat.  I didn't get a ton of sleep, but I got a lot more than I would have if I had to sleep sitting up in a chair.  On the way out a took a picture of my bed.  Now right as we landed I was super excited, but my excitement was calmed when a "Code Red" announcement was made.  "Code Red" is never a good thing, they then began asking for a doctor.  The flight attendants in back took some medical stuff up towards the middle of the plane, and came back and said it wasn't really serious.  But a lady was on the ground when we passed her I felt so bad, and happy it didn't happen in the middle of the flight.

We went through customs and made our way through the airport, I guess we were the first of the teachers to land so the leaders picked us up and then we had to run to pick up some more people who were landing soon.  We had to wait around at the airport for a couple of hours before we got to go to the hotel.  While we were waiting I found the Mona Lisa in the bathroom.  Who knew the Mona Lisa was really in the bathroom of the Paris airport.

 We finally got to leave the airport and went to the hotel for just a minute.  I met my roommate for the weekend, she was from Alaska.  I'm glad I didn't have to travel that far.  We talked for a minute and got ready for the rest of the day.

We walked to the subway and got a quick lesson on how to navigate the subway, it was a crazy experience with 50 people and the rest of the normal people in Paris.  We went to the shopping center right outside the Louvre Museum.  But before we went in they let is get lunch on our own...my first experience in ordering or really even interacting in French.  I don't know enough of French to order in French, so I picked something that looked simple and could basically point to.  Before I went into the museum I took a picture of the cool inverted pyramid just outside the entrance of the Louvre.  It was very impressive.

I only had a few things I really wanted to see in the Louvre.  I made sure that I went right to the Mona Lisa.  It is so impressive, I knew it was small...but it was still over whelming and amazing to see in person.  This is the closest you can get to the Mona Lisa, but I didn't care.  I was so excited to see her.

 
Another piece of art I wanted to see is called Winged Victory.  It was actually on the way to the Mona Lisa.

The third piece of art is Venus de Milo.  She is a famous Greek sculpture, I think she was my second favorite piece of art that I saw.

So the Louvre also has a large pyramid that you walk under on your way out.....

 Here is what it looks like from the outside.

I have no ideal what this is, but I thought it was really funny, so that is why I had to take a picture of it.

We found out later that to see everything in the Louvre you would be there day and night for 39 days and only looking at each piece of art for one second.  So needless to say we didn't see everything.  After leaving the Louvre we had a walking tour of Paris.  We stopped by the river and I thought it was a good time to take a picture with me in it, as proof I was actually in Paris.  This is the Seine River, the river that goes through the middle of the city Paris.

This is the oldest clock in Paris, they just barely restored it.  It is awesome and what's crazy it is just on the side of a building.

We then made a stop at Notre Dame, an 850 year old church.  It is amazing, to think that they were able to make sure a beautiful building that long ago.

I haven't been in too many Catholic churches, it is still awesome to see the candles.

My first day in Paris concluded with a French dinner.  While everyone else was ordering wine or beer I got French Sprite.  The main course was duck, I have never eaten duck before, but it was actually pretty good...kinda salty, but still good.  We went back to the hotel and crashed.  At that point we had basically been going for two days.  The hotel rooms were nothing special, but it was a bed and that is all that mattered at that point.  I basically passed out and I don't think a bed had ever felt so good.

Running totals

I have been going to a gym regularly for a year now and I love it.  It has been a great change that my life needed.  I love going to the gym after work and getting out all my frustration in a natural healthy way.  One of my goals for 2013 is to keep track of how many miles I run during the year.  For anyone that knows me, knows that I am not a runner.  I have been working very hard to learn how to enjoy running or at least not hating it.  Maybe after a couple of months I will make a goal of how many miles I want to run over the year.  At the beginning of the year I had no idea what would be a reachable goal, so I have trying to keep track every day.  

I know it is odd, but actually prefer running on a treadmill than outside.  I like to see exactly how fast I'm running and how far I have ran.  That and it is healthier to run inside in Salt Lake during the winter, we have the worst air quality in the country.  In January I ran around 28 miles.  I have no idea if I can keep that up the rest of the year, but it will be fun to see if I can.  I am about to get way busy with boys tennis starting in about three weeks, so I guess I'll find out soon.  

Hello February

I don't think I have ever been so happy to see January be over and February to come.  Even though I don't have a specific reason why January was tough, it just was. Maybe because we got twice as much snow as normal, or the fact the average high temp in January was 19 degrees....but no event that made it rough.  I even had a vacation in January, so I don't know why I'm complaining.

I look forward to February for one BIG reason...I finally get a stamp on my passport!!!  I will be going to France for a few days in two weeks.  I am starting to get super excited and stressed at the same time.  I have already had a few dreams about not making my flight or something going wrong with this trip.  I know it is going to be a crazy adventure, I mean who goes to France over the weekend???  I doubt I will ever adjust to the new time and I hope it doesn't rain the whole time.  Even if it does, I will get to see the Mona Lisa in person.  I teach about that painting every year and now I finally get to see it. 

I never would have imagined that France would be the first stamp on my passport, but now that it is going to happen I'm happy with it.  I have always said I didn't want Canada or Mexico to be the first place I go.  Well I guess France isn't the first place, in high school I went to the Bahamas...but I don't count that.  You didn't even need a passport then.

Give me about another week and then I will really start to stress out.  I'm really worried about sleeping on the plane.  I don't sleep on planes, but I know if I don't, I'm going to struggle.  We land at 8:30 in the morning and hit the ground running, no naps, no nothing.  I'm the type of person that if I don't get sleep, I actually get sick.  So that is the last thing I need is to make myself sick from not sleeping.  So if anyone has any good ideas on how to rest on a plane, let me know.