What a day! The first flight from RDU to JFK (New York) was about as normal as one could expect. It was a very small plane, but the flight was smooth and we arrived on time. We met the coolest flight attendant in the history of aviation. About two minutes before takeoff, a man attempted to return to his seat toward the front. "Where are you going?", she demanded. "To 6E," he meekly replied. "You can have a seat right there in 10C," she declared. And with that, it became obvious to all where the balance of power rested. We wanted to get a picture of her to show here, but we weren't sure what the regulations were about that.P>

From there, we went to our next gate and waited about four hours for our flight to Paris. Finally, we got to get on a large plane. Unfortunately, we were delayed on the runway about an hour and got rerouted, which added another hour to the trip. Jason was convinced it was a bad dream and that we would never be able to get off the plane.

We got our luggage and went through customs with no problems. The problem was getting from the airport (about 20 miles outside of Paris), with all of our luggage, to the hotel. We bought a week-long rail, bus and metro pass for each of us and, 5 switches and 14 sets of stairs and escalators later we arrived at our hotel... in the rain.

After checking in, we used the miniscule elevator to get to our rooms, which the owner was nice enough to put together. We will try to upload pictures tomorrow so that you can get an idea of how small the rooms are. There is literally only enough room for the two beds and the inflatable air mattress in the girls' room. We have moved their luggage to our room so that there is a place for each girl to lay down. Once the tears were dry, we set off for a tour of the metro system (which I still say is the best I've ever seen in the world). We changed some money and ate, then travelled to the Champs-Elysees to visit the Virgin Megastore and pick up our tickets for Saturday's World Cup soccer match. Things are going much better now, as we just got some pizza in our stomachs and we will be going to sleep soon. You'll get the details for tomorrow's experience soon;