Paris is mentioned in 21 posts, which ranks #9 overall for places. It is most often associated with these...

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I arrived in Paris late, and feeling a tad under the weather. I'm not sure if it was the travelling, it being the end of a long week, or perhaps the hangover that was beginning to fester, but I felt like crap. I had written the address of my hotel on a piece of paper as one website suggested since none of the cab drivers speak English there. I managed to make it into my room around 10pm.

All I wanted to do was go to bed, but first I forced myself to walk out and get a picture of the Eiffel Tower all lit up at night. Then I took a shower and fell asleep. I was a tad obsessed with the Eiffel, I took about 30 pictures of it from various angles and times. Maybe because it's so phallic, I don't know. But that was the only thing I really wanted to see in Paris.

The next day I didn't feel much better but I thought a brisk walk might help, so off I went to the Eiffel. There were long, long lines waiting to go up each of the four elevators so I nixed that from my plans. Instead I walked up to the Arc de Triumph and snapped a picture. I'm such a horrible tourist. All I could think is that it looked exactly like the pictures I'd seen. I felt nothing toward it. This, coupled with feeling like crap, had forced me to a new low. I couldn't even appreciate history, I didn't need to be there, I should just go home.

But before I did I walked down a street with a bunch of people on it. Hello?! Shopping! I bought some really cool, really Euro stuff. And then I felt much better. I knew the key to happiness was dropping a few hundred Euro. I can't wait to debut it all here. It was like my favorite store here in Dallas: Source Paris, only like one after another after another after another. I was in heaven.

That's really all I did in Paris was take pictures of the Eiffel, walk around briskly, and shop. I found stereotypes about the French to generally be true. Waiting in line for McDonald's this woman shoved me out of the way and then stood in line in front of me. Whathefuck? And the receptionist at the hotel was a fucking bitch. Some guy came in around 11 to check in and she said, "Check in is at 2pm, Aur Revoir!" And he was like, "Well could I just leave my bags or ..." She turns and says louder, "Aur Revoir!" and then turns away. I was like omega I would fucking slam her face against the desk if she did that to me.

I was all too happy to leave Paris. It's a big stinky city full of rude people. But I do love the Eiffel. I liked sitting and eating lunch in its shadow just like I've always wanted to do. I also took a long walk along the Seine, another thing I've always wanted to do. And why? Duh, because I want my life to be like an ABBA lyric:

I've decided to kind of split up the next few blogs into a few different entries. If I were to try and tell you all about my week in one, it would be far, far too long. I'll try to do it in under 5 though, so they can all remain on the main page. Hopefully you've scrolled to the end so you can read them in order.

So Thursday night we decided to treat ourselves to a last-night-in-Malmo type of party. Keith and I went to the Pickwick, the only pub we found that had a true "Happy Hour" as we understand it. I brought my camera with me because I had failed to take a single picture the entire two weeks. I felt so stupid stopping and taking pictures of stuff we'd passed a hundred times before. There is nothing to transform yourself into the perfect tourist like a few Heine pints. We were snapping pictures of everything and everyone and laughing our asses off. So now it's time for dinner.

We would meet Paul the Englishman and the Dweeb in the lobby every night at 7 before we walked to dinner. So around 7 Paul comes down before the Dweeb and we all kind of looked at each other and at the same time said, "Let's go!" Well, really, Paul said, "Shall we?" but same idea. We decided that for our last meal we would enjoy some free time from the Dweeb and it was a great time. We had many more beers with dinner before heading to our favorite little Irish pub for some darts. I was so on fire the first round. They were both like, "Damn, you did learn a lot the other night." But trust me, friends, as the time went on and the beers went down, I started having trouble even hitting the fucking board. It was getting sad so I had to excuse myself.

The next day I was so hungover and tired. I was pretty much just blatantly sleeping at my desk without trying to hide it. What were they gonna do about it? Around 2 I split a cab with Paul the Englishman and we went to the Copenhagen airport at Kastrup. We said our goodbyes and split ways to find our gates. I had a couple hours to kill so I decided to exchange some money into Euros when a familiar voice said, "Better yet, why don't you waste those Kroner on pints?" Oh, Paul the Englishman! He'd found me as we both waited for our flights so we sat and got drunk one last time. It was pretty good for my nerves because I had no fucking idea what I was doing or why. Just going to Paris for the fuck of it. Tres not my style. So off I went into the great unknown. I still miss Sweden, but as you'll see ... it was not the best part of my vacation afterall....

I am going to officially change the spelling of my name from Deighvyd to Dävid. Not only does it look cooler but it would be grammatically correct here. They have all kinds of vowels that we don't have: ä, ö, ü, å, ø. We have all the vowel sounds, but our vowels can completely change their pronunciation based on the letters before and after them. Theirs are always the same, which is why they needed a few extras. The only one I've figured out is the å which actually has a long 'O' sound. If I get lucky later, I may be showin' my å face. å! å! å!

I spent a lot of money today on plane tickets. I'm really leaving Malmö next Friday and heading right for Paris. Then to Berlin. Then back to Copenhagen. I am so nervously excited. It's still a ways away though and I've gotten a lot of great advice on how to travel. It should be really sexcellent to get around a little bit. Although I spent a lot, it was a lot less than I thought I was going to have to spend. My ticket from Berlin to Copenhagen was €16, which is under 20 bucks. Score! I am flying on the Southwest Airlines of Europe. Should be interesting. I gotta find hotels now. Money, money, money. Speaking of, I FINALLY heard some ABBA at the hockey game last night. I had assumed it would be the only music they played here and was sorely disappointed to find out I was wrong.

I'm about to head out to a Biljard hall now with Keith and Paul, and the little douchebag that it is here with us. I'll have to tell you all about the douchebag later, he's a blog unto himself. He is the dark cloud on the this silver lining of a vacation. Anyway, so I gotta run, just wanted to fill you in on a couple more things. Läääääääääääääääte.