Friday 12:15

Bonjour. Made it to Paris successfully. My flight from Omaha to Chicago was only 1/6 full and there was no security line at all which means that I could have had Thanksgiving dinner and still made it with plenty of time. Darn it.

By the way, Charles De Gualle airport is a dump. Then took some bus that took forever to dump me off at the Arc de Triumphe (see pic below) It's kind of chilly here, but tolerable. I was told to expect snow which should make things pretty. Hey, and a couple of people have already stopped me and started talking French, so maybe I don't look like that big of a toursit. As usual, you can spot most Americans a mile away. After walking about for a couple of hours passed the Louvre and such I found a cafe with pizza and Wi-Fi. Score! From my window right now I am looking out at the Cathedral of Notre Dame. That is my next stop before I try to find this dump of a hotel that I have for tonight. I want to go out to a bar, but my book says that there are a lot of gays in the area I'm staying in. (Personally, I don't know how you tell a gay French gay apart from any other French guy.)

First impressions of Paris: I think it is hard to capture the feel of a country/region in a city this big. It reminds of D.C./Chicago, etc;. Can't wait to see all of the sights and then move to a smaller place.