day 22: 10 days left in Paris!

Today:
another failed attempt to ascend notre dame today. LAME. apparently the line is 823043253 people long and you have to come super early to get a spot. it wasn't that way last time! foiled again. so all we did (maggie, kate and i) was walk around ile de la cité. we took pics with pt. zero, saw st. chappelle (but didn't go inside), saw la place de châtelet, and checked out the grand opening of paris plages. all in all not a bad day...even just walking around seeing random stuff is fun, because it's all new to me. i have most of the utmost essentials checked off my to-do list so the next two weeks will just be filling in the cracks. topping my list is: euro disneyland (sunday!), actually going up the eiffel tower (hopefully sometime SOON), le marais, and a couple museums that i would love to go to if i have the time...musée d'orsay, musée de rodin, musée de quai branly. (i feel that i should give museums more time than i do, because i feel stupid and uncultured if i don't go to them. but i'd rather be doing something outside.) also, if i had the chance, i'd like to go up the arc of triomphe, and tour montparnasse, and see bois de vincennes/bois de boulogne. let's see what i get done in the next couple weeks.

Planning my Italy trip is stressful as fck. Sorry, I keep bitching about it. But it's a great experience for me. I'll probably have to plan my own travel later in life, and it'll be great that I had this experience planning this. I already have a future trip in mind, once I meet a friend or LOVA with which to travel: go to Paris for a few days, so I can be back and show that person around, then go to the south of France (Nice, Cannes, Marseilles, Monaco, and maybe even Cinque Terre/Liguria!) for the rest of the time. SIGH. <3 <3 <3 I am going to prioritize traveling so much. I am going to fight for it.

I AM SO EXCITED FOR NIHON MACHI. I'm going this weeek!!!!!!!!!! Nihon machi!!! I'm so deprived here. Everything is European as fck. It's not like it'll be a magical world where I become transported to Japan, but I think it will remind me of home a little bit. I really miss my Mitsuwa runs and my Nihonjin <3 Saya! さみしいいいよ～！(that was just to show off that I figured out how to add Japanese to this computer's settings.) And the food will be a welcome break from all the freaking baguettes and SANDWICHES. No kidding, like, you think it's so stereotypical, but baguette is EVERYWHERE here. AND cheese. AND wine. Stereotypes have their origin in truth.

Mkay, that's all for now. I think things are beginning to crystallize a little bit! At Notre Dame today, it was one of the first days things felt real. I'm sure that I will leave before things turn entirely real, though, and my experience will remain the fleeting fantasy that it is. :) Paris. Me.