Europe Trip: Day 4, May 24th

In the morning I worked on stuff like sending out couch requests and planning for the rest of the day, so I didn't get out the door until around noon. The plan was to go to the Louvre and then head over to Notre Dame or one of the bridges there called Pont Neuf.

So I took the metro over and the Palais Royal station is directly connected to the Louvre, so you don't even have to go outside at all. I bought my ticket in one of the shops, and headed in. I took my time and didn't leave until around 4pm.

After leaving the Louvre I transferred to the right metro, but when I came back up to ground level I got turned around and ended up heading away from Notre Dame. So I worked my way to the bridge, Pont Neuf -- partly by accident -- and took a break with a view of the Seine river. Just to prove that my sense of direction is a failure, I crossed on the wrong side of the island, so I had to walk back over the bridge over to the other side in order to get to the station.

On the way back to Igor's place, I texted him saying I was on my way back. He told me that he was on his way to pick up Bruno from the airport, meeting him halfway. So I went and got a drink down the street at the only cafe/bar that was open on a Sunday. Okay, actually I got two drinks. Then I headed back to Igor's and he made dinner, which we ate around 9pm. That left me enough time to finish the very last part of my packing and head over to my new hosts place at about 10pm.

My new hosts name is Thomas, and he has two Master's degrees in Engineering and in Public Administration. We went and had a drink and he helped show me where to go tomorrow and gave me a little mapbook that shows all the streets in Paris, since my map only shows the major streets. Should be helpful in case I get lost again, I just have to know which district I am in and the name of a couple streets.

I have all of tomorrow, and then some of Tuesday until I leave on the train for an overnight ride to Munich. I have a host set up for all 4 nights, so I should be good to go. Now I am looking ahead to Vienna, and hopefully soon to Verona/Venice (and I have to look at the train to Verona/Venice as well).