May 19th: Bonjour Paris!

 This morning started off quick making sure everything was packed and ready for us to depart from London. Paris being one of our most anticipated locations on the trip even though it is sadly the shortest stay of our duration we wanted to make sure we made the most out of the stop. I waited forever to get into an elevator due to being on the 1st floor and carrying two massive bags with me so I ended up being the last one to join the group. We made our way to the bus stop where we had to get onto two different busses and trust the process that we would end up at the station together, which thankfully we accomplished! We grabbed our lunch and began to go through the passport and customs process before we were allowed to board the train. I was super excited myself because my passport got its first stamp! Gathering our bags onto the train took some team effort but we eventually made our way to our seats. The unfortunate part was that most of our seats were facing the opposite direction of the way the train was moving causing some concern of motion sickness. Nonetheless, we all used the time to either catch up on journaling or getting in the extra sleep we missed from London, personally I did both. Side note: the underwater train really isn't that cool it just goes through a tunnel but going through the countryside in both countries was very pretty.

We had officially arrived in Paris where our new WorldStrides guide met us to bring us to our hotel. By the luck of the draw we made it to the first bus right on time which would've been tragic if we had missed since we would've had to wait 20 minutes for the next one. She gave us some good recommendations for where we should eat or shop. Dropped our stuff off and took a stroll down the street to see what was around before heading back to the hotel to begin to get ready for our first day of Paris. Watched the video of the Paris Olympic pitch where the country pitches a city to the Olympic committee and makes there bid. Then we met with Dr. Kim to have a discussion on the video we watched on the Paris bid where we discussed key points such as sustainability and who goes to the bid. 

We got some free time to explore the city where we did some shopping and relaxing prior to our big event: the Seine River cruise. We dressed to the nines in dresses for the girls and the guys got dressed up as well. The cruise we took is the same route that the Olympic opening ceremony took when they cruised down the river to the venue for the rest of the ceremonies. The cruise had a multi-course meal with some true French cuisine. And they also featured live music! Some of us went adventurous with our selections for food ranging from foie gras, tartare, veal, and monkfish cheek. The food was delicious but I think the best part was the spectacular views from along the river. We had lots of pictures taken and was able to see the Eiffel Tower sparkle on the hour which was a once in a lifetime moment. We wrapped up our dinner and took the metro back to our hotel where we concluded another great day of the Olympic Odyssey.