French for Peep Show

Well, forget the cello. The cello was cool, but the Running of the Bulls was *****SUPER COOL*****

I mean really super duper amazing...the biggest party and the best time of my life.

I can't write many details right now because

1) I'm in Paris and have slightly more interesting things to do (I just had to get online to book a hostel in New York) and

2) As the parenthetical comments in #1 imply, I'll be home soon enough anyway and can talk about it in-person.

That's right...I'll be back as of Sunday, just 5 short weeks later.

Yes, this is a big time bummer. But I don't have any money left, and the bills and students loans I have back home are looming menacingly overhead. I figure it would be a bit nicer to go traveling again when I can get those things under control and not be worrying about it.

But Pamplona...let me just say a bit about this. It was inSANE!!!! Sooooo many people. Sooooo much fun. Has anybody seen photos of the big square where they kick off the festival every year? You know, the sea-of-red-handkerchiefs-and-near-rabid-with-enthusiasm-Spaniards? Well, I happened upon that square quite by accident and found myself in the heart of the madness. And it was a very invigorating sort of madness. And of course there were the people jumping off that monument (mostly tourists, mostly Aussie tourists at that--the Aussies are ridiculously crazy and great!) and the Sangria a-flowin' and sleeping by the bank of a little river for a half hour total in two nights and the 14 hour busride from Barcelona to Paris afterward (three days, yes three days without a shower covered in the champagne and sangria and beer and eggs that landed on me during the celebrations).

Paris has been quite calm, relatively.

I'm staying in a cute little hostel in the Montmartre area of the city.

Montmartre is French for "peep show."

Just kidding, but there are a TON of peepshows around, though the area is nice otherwise. I saw about 600 monuments yesterday and am about to head out for Round 2 today. Paris is beautiful and ugly at the same time. Kind of like every major city...it's got its attractions mixed with the comfortable littering tendencies of the locals. I can't think of a place I'd rather be at this moment...except maybe Pamplona :)

I leave tomorrow and will be in New York until Sunday, then back to L.A.

:(