(E.A. Part 16)

Tourist Center Cross

Day 16.

Today, as usual Daniella woke up again. It was around 7:15 and we were all really tired. We got dressed and packed our bags. We left our rooms and met up with Cole and Tyler at breakfast. We sat with everyone and ate bread and orange juice. Afterwards we got our bags and left the hotel. We drove for a couple hours until we got to a big Cathedral. We walked around the church for a little bit and it was huge! Everything was made out of marble and rock and it was really cool. It was kind of a Gothic styled church. In the upper right corner of the church there was a giant cross and a whole bunch of different colored lights surrounding it. But you had to put a 20 Euro Cent piece in the foot of the cross to turn all the lights on. I'm guessing it was just a tourist attraction. We walked out off the church and saw a bunch of giant puppets everywhere. We took a group photo and split up into groups to tour. We had about 3 hours to tour the are so we used it well. Me and Cole hung outside and listened to music while the girls went shopping in a shoe store. Next we went to a clock department store. It was really odd and there were so many clocks. I think the cheapest one was 65 Euros. We negotiated with some street vendors and I got some Shutter Shades that were originally 25 Euro, for 1 Euro. It was pretty cool. Then we walked around some glass shops and saw a few cool things like giant glass animals and portraits of different buildings and rivers. Then we came upon a marry-go-round and we decided 3 Euros was worth a good joke picture on a kiddy ride. So we rode that for about 2 minutes of fun and then left. After hours of shopping we got back together as a delegation and went to lunch. We walked up to a building to then be shown down stairs and set up at our own tables. I sat with Brian, Cole, Maddy, Daisy, and Allyson. We had salad, Sprite, and salmon. The Salmon was alright but the salad had a really odd dressing on it. Once we were done eating we left the restaurant and made our way towards Gary, who was waiting for us at the bus station. We had a long bus ride to Paris. About 7 hours, and it wasn't gonna be fun. We watched Journey to the Center of the Earth to pass time and Liberty, Cole, Allyson, Joe, Tyler, and just about everyone on the bus played cards for a few hours. We played with iPods, iPads, and iPhones for awhile. I think we must have tried to sleep but it was around the middle of the day so no one could. We stopped at a restaurant about 6 hours into the trip. We all sat down and waited patiently for our dinner. There was a stage in the room and Mrs. Berrie thought it would be a fun idea to have the kids performance. So she asked around if anyone wanted to show us their talents and the only person that did was Adam. He got up on the stage and started break dancing like a pro. hahaa, he did the worm too, not sure how. When our food came out we were all really hungry. We had some bread, fish, and mashed potatoes. We drank red flavored water and ginger ale. We all had to go to the bathroom but it was kind of hectic. It was a uni-sex bathroom and it was all too awkward. There was one stall and a urinal. No one used the urinal because everyone was watching and it was out in the open. It took about 45 minutes for everyone to use the bathroom. Afterwards we all walked out to the bus and got in. We drove for another hour until we got to our hotel. It was pretty huge. The outside didn't make it seem all too great. But the entire wall was made out of glass which I guess was pretty interesting. We got to pick our roommates this time so me and Cole had finally gotten to room up. The lobby was really cool. There was a coy pond, trees and plants, an XBOX arcade room, snack bar room, a soda bar, and a lot of futuristic furniture.We got our room keys and made our way towards the elevators. We were all on a different floor. Cole and I got a room on floor six and we didn't want to wait for the elevators so we put our luggage on our backs and sprinted up the stairs. We went up 12 flights of stairs with 14 steps per flight..... do the math. We were really tired and when we got to our room we were kind of disappointed. This was our last hotel of the trip and we were expecting it to be first class 5 STAR. But it really wasn't. We expected a balcony. There wasn't one. The room had one huge bed and a couch. An oddly twitchy Television and a mini fridge. The mini fridge was locked because there was alcohol in it. The bathroom was pretty cool. There was a bidet, an open shower, and a Jesus mirror. There was a room right next to the shower room with a toilet in it. The Jesus mirror was a mirror that wouldn't fog up when you take a shower. It was really cool. Whilst we were in our room, Cole threw his bag on the floor and we heard a crack. I guess his home stay family had given him a jar of honey and it broke in his bag all over it's continents. The honey wasn't even all that good and he was about to throw it away anyway. We cleaned his bag up and found that 65 dollars in US cash had been covered and he threw it all away. I called him in idiotic human being and dug out out. We figured out that if we were careful we could wash it. We soaked it and carefully scrubbed the US currency until it was clean. We then through away the stuff that was to sticky and broken and we went downstairs to where we got some soda and French treats from the lobby to store up for the night. it was a pretty fun day!