Paris, Day 2 - Lessons Learned

This morning, we all got some much needed rest. We were going to get up pretty early but due to some bad alarm programming we actually slept in until about 9:30. After milling around the apartment for an hour or so, everyone else left and I got my stuff around. There's a really cool top-loading drum-style washing machine in the apartment, but no dryer. I did a load of laundry and dropped them off to dry at the local laundrymat to dry while I sat off to find lunch. After another sandwich kebab (lol) I picked up the laundry and went back to the apartment. After deciding a nap was the order of the day, I crashed for a couple of hours and then set off on my own private adventure. I took off walking, and had no real idea where I was heading except that at 4:30 I was to be at Notre Dame. Today, I became a true frenchman as I was caught up in a protest over education spending (or something like that). I came out of a street and as I attempted to pass some people I was met by about 50 others joining a crowd of thousands protesting. There were cops everywhere and Canal TV was there also. It took me a couple of minutes to get out of the mess and was blocked from going the direction I really wanted to for quite some time. I later found out that there was another protest about something else going on in another part of the city.

I met the rest of the crew at Notre Dame at about 4:45 and we wandered around for that part of town and eventually made our way to Ile St. Louis where we had dinner at La Taverne du Sergent Recruteur 3 hours of stuffing our face with sausage, cheese, bread, veggies, beef, duck, dessert, and more. Then the drama unfolds....Will had his Passport stolen (or lost) in the subway. NOT good. We dug on the internet and after phoning the Police department figured out exactly what we had to do....it's going to require a trip to the Police station, a photographer, and the US Embassy.....