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feb 2nd, I guess?

I managed a bit of sleep on the plane, but not much. I'm ok, though. 

We just got out of the Paris airport and have organized ourselves into 2 buses. It's about 1 o'clock here, and four am in Victoria at the moment. 

We haven't actually started touring yet, but the plan for today is lunch at beaubourg museum, then a boat tour on a "mouche" boat on the rivière Seine. I'm looking forward to today, but am starting to feel the effects of jetlag. You know you're disoriented when someone says "last night" and you don't know when they're referring to. 

So the first place we went to was called Flunch (for lunch). It was a fast food/salad bar/ restaurant. What was really interesting about it was that at first, it looked like any other little place on the street corner, but when you went in you went underground into this amazing little haven of wonderfulness. The food was average, but the setting was pretty neat.  

Next we walked to Notre dame and took some pictures. It was really amazing. On the way though, we had to make our way through a gigantic Chinese New Year celebration. I think everyone in Paris was there today. There was even a permanent carousel. 

Notre dame was cool, but we had to move on pretty fast so I didn't have a lot of time to appreciate it. I couldn't get it in one photograph, it was so big. 

We are currently stuck in a huge traffic jam in our tour bus. I have to say, they have no traffic rules here. None at all. We are supposed to go on a river boat next but we might not get there in time (even though we could get there in five minutes if there was no traffic). The driver is having a heated conversation with the driver next to him. He just got out of his car and walked up to us, and I think he was swearing in French but I can't understand any of it. ... Now he's back in his car, still yelling, and... Yes! We made it to the bus lane. The whole bus just cheered and jeered at that car. Ha. 

Anyway, traffic jams aren't fun, but I think we just witnessed some real Latin temperament/culture there. Totally different from Victoria.  And we're out of the traffic jam now. We have gained 200m. On our way. 

...

Ok. That boat ride took about three times longer than expected. It's 7pm now and we are all back in the bus, talking about how every single one of us fell asleep multiple times on that tour (including me). It's dark now, and the Eiffel Tower is all lit up and it looks very pretty and romantic. They also put up Christmas lights that sparked like paparazzi cameras all over the tower.  I think a lot if the boat tour was lost on us though, just because everyone is ready to go to sleep. And we still have to eat dinner at the hotel. We took pictures of the Eiffel Tower and all the old buildings. We are. So. Tired. And we just learned that we have to wake up at seven tomorrow. So no more blogging today. Too tired. 

P. S. The water bottle dilemma: in the bus on the way to the hotel, they gave us plastic water bottles. I opened mine up, and the cap fell and I lost it somewhere on the ground. I wasn't about to go rooting around under the seats (especially since everyone was dead quiet and sleeping), so the way I saw it I had two options: drink all of the water so that I could go to sleep like everyone else, and I forget what the other one was (I'm tired, ok?). So I drank a lot of water while half asleep for 20 minutes. Now I'm at the hotel and I'm really really really extremely tired and I'm going to go eat dinner. I hope it's good. 

Update: diner was amazing. I didn't end up taking any pictures, though. It was chicken, gravy, Mashed potatoes, and cheesy cauliflower and broccoli. They also had a HUGE array of desserts, including crêpes, Nutella, île flottant, and some peachy thing. Ok good night.