this is seriously what i was doing 15 years ago....

I have always been a faithful journal keeper. Since I was 8, there have been very few stretches of my life that I haven't kept some kind of record of. I have boxes and boxes filled with all kinds of journals. I think that's why I took to blogging so quickly--though I still keep a journal cuz I can't have you guys knowin' ALL my bidness!... :)

Well, in the search for some insurance papers in the deep, dark recesses of my garage last night, I ran across this:




My journal from the summer of 1993. I had just turned 18. And I was in Paris with my German friends. My oh my! What a difference 15 years has made! You HAVE to read this!.......
(slightly edited for the sake of time!)


Saturday, June 19, 1993



We were so tired this morning that we skipped going to Versailles and slept instead. When we were finally up and around, we went back to the Pompideau and spent hours looking for the Baskin-Robbins we'd seen the day before. Couldn't find it. Dang!--I sure wanted some American ice cream!



I started to feel really homesick about 10:00, and so even though it had to be like barely 5:00 am in Idaho, I called. It's strange how much I've been thinking about home lately. Last time I was here (in Europe), I never wanted to leave--and now I can't wait to get home and see everyone again. Loved hearing my mother's voice, tired as it sounded! She told me she's been helping Troy and Mark with their business (getting them cards made) and so she sees Troy nearly every day. Says that he misses me a lot and is moping around the place waiting for me to come back. You can imagine the smile that brought to my face!



Later this afternoon, we finally made it to the Louvre. We walked for what seemed like FOREVER to see the Mona Lisa. I guess I'm not too sure why millions of people go to see an ugly woman's face trapped in a bullet proof glass box--but, now I can at least say that I've SEEN the Mona Lisa! I really enjoyed the Roman and Egyptian stuff more than all the 'tourist paintings'.



After the Louvre, we wandered around a park for a while and watched old men play petanque. Then we took the bus to the newer part of Paris. Looked more like L.A. or Boston than Paris. We shopped at Toys R Us, browsed a car exhibit, and saw a half hour movie about space in the Imax dome. Funny that it was about space because the little frenchie man we bought our tickets from told us it was going to be about beavers!



We ate lunch at some Hollywood themed diner. The waiter looked at me really weird when I ordered Root Beer and brought me out a can that had to be at least 4 years old. No ice. The food was awful. Still spent $24.00 on it!



We also had a lot of fun just looking out our window today. There were two little boys in the apartment across from us that would come to their window and laugh as Miriam and I made faces at them. Then they'd hold up the ice cream they were eating to show us. In another apartment, there was a little old lady who fed the pigeons out her window and sat tending her dog. We got her to wave to us. Another apartment had a guy we nicknamed "Discoman" because he likes to play his music REALLY loud at all times of the day and night. We didn't see him today though--just heard him. Above us was Klaus and Achim's room. They kept leaning out and singing "Hip Hop Hooray" and "Pretty Woman" to us. It was a lot of fun!



Since it was our last night in Paris, we wanted it to be memorable. We agreed to go to a disco with Klaus, Achim and some of their friends from school. First we stopped by a cafe' so the guys could play pool. I paid 21 Francs for a small Coke. That's $5.00!!! I bet I've spent at least $50.00 just drinking pop here.



When the game was through, we headed down the St. Michael in search of a disco. "La Lokomotiv" was it! 100 Francs (about $35.00) got us in. We decided to make it worth our money. We danced nearly non-stop from 11:30 until 5:30 the next morning. That's a LOT of dancing! I have never been hit on by more guys in my life! Young guys, old guys, tall guys, short guys, a guy from Mexico, guys in suits, guys in leather (you getting the picture?)---all of them were after women, and I guess I'm a woman now. They never seemed to take "no" for an answer either. I'd tell them I didn't speak French, and they'd keep right on talking in some strange half-French, half-English language. Yeah I should have known--every European knows enough English to get by. I finally caught on and told them "Alamagne" which is French for "German". Only one guy immediately switched over and started to speak German to me. Glad we had our guy friends to keep rescuing us!



When 5:30 finally rolled around, 8 tired people (one Spaniard, 3 Germans, me the lone American, a Croatian, a Yugoslavian, and a Turk) came dragging out and back onto the Metro to catch an hour of sleep before the bus left to take us back to Germany. WHAT A NIGHT!


*******


All I want to know is: How the flip did I do all that in ONE day when today I could barely manage to take a shower, put away my laundry, return a shirt to Old Navy, and write this post?!?!



We'll have to drag out my old journals when I get blog stall again soon.....



Thanks for reading :) !