The Great French Rendezvous

I got back last night from Paris which was just fabulous, I had so much fun. Sean, Niki, and I left on Wednesday and after 3 buses and 2 planes met Bertram in Beauvais, France which is an hour and a half bus ride from Paris. We got in to the actual city pretty late but still went straight to the hotel that Westmont’s Europe semester was staying at. Unfortunately when we didn’t show up on time the guy’s went to get crepes on the other side of town. An hour later they finally came walking down the street so Bertram, Sean, and I quietly walked down the opposite side with our heads down, acting like nothing was going on. Sure enough as we got closer we heard a “No Way!” from Charley who came barreling across the street and almost knocked us down with a hug. Bo and Zoradi quickly followed and with that the reunion had begun…

It turns out that Bertram’s cousin lives down the street from the Eiffel Tower but normally just stays at her boyfriends place, so that meant a free room for the 4 of us visitors! We only got to sleep for about 2 hours that night but it was fine by me because in the morning we got to see the rest of our friends who had been sleeping the night before. The whole group ended up being Davis, Zoradi, Charley, Sean, Mikey, Me, Bertram, Bo, and Newty. Dr. Pointer and his wife Barb, who are the leaders of the trip this year, invited us to tag along for the day which we happily did. We went to some cathedral which I actually don’t remember the name of or much about because all I did the whole time was talk with all my friends and other random people that are on the trip about what’s been going lately. After lunch a smaller group of us went to the catacombs which are where a ton of people are buried from the Black Plague. We went down the longest spiral staircase ever, which I ran down and got really dizzy, and came out in a tunnel that went on for a while and then eventually brought us to bones, thousands and thousands of bones. At first we we’re kinda taken aback, none of us really knew what we were going to see, and walking through stacks of bones and skulls was definitely not expected. Here’s a pic of what it mainly was, they were all just sitting there, you could touch them if you want and if you were a really weird creep you could easily have just put a skull or two in your bag with no-one noticing. From left to right again you have Davis, Zoradi, Charley, Sean, Mikey, Me, Bertram, Bo, and Newty.
Sean’s older brother Brent is the tour manager for the band Cold War kids who are currently touring Europe. They happened to be playing a show in Paris Friday night so Thursday afternoon Sean, him, and I walked around the city and went up the Eiffel Tower while the others studied for a test they had that night. We got up the tower at 6:00 which was perfect because we saw the city lights, a little bit of a sunset, and strobe-lights which go off all over the tower once and hour. The strobes might sound cool but when you´re on the top and they go off you just get really dizzy.
Later that night we went to Planet Hollywood to celebrate Dr. Brother’s daughters birthday whom I don’t know but I did get a 10€ dessert courtesy of Westmont. It also gave me a chance to talk and meet with a lot of the other people on the trip, it sounds like they are having an amazing time traveling around Europe but a visit from us for the weekend was a refreshing change of pace.
The next day we met under the Eiffel Tower and went to another church and hung out and messed around. We were in an artsy part of town where a bunch of artist had painting for sale or you could get a portrait drawn if you wanted. We decided that it would be a very good idea if we got a group caricature drawn to immortalize forever our beautiful faces on that wonderful day in Paris. Mikey went first, and we all about died laughing as the drawing started off looking nothing like him but in the end you can definetley tell and it was really funny. Mikey hated it but we all got a good laugh. Bertram was next and came out looking fairly decent, but after him was Zoradi who, well it just wasn’t good. We call the face our new friend Luke, I guess he didn’t have enough prominent features for the guy to draw off of so he just made a new person up. Mine turned out alright, the beard helps a lot and then Davis probably turned out the best. Newty and Sean went last and as you can see look decent. If you click here you can see a larger version, http://picasaweb.google.com/kkewley/Paris/photo#5131900855585995474

We all were laughing our heads off at the final picture, I’m laughing just writing this and I hope you’ll be able to share in a bit of the fun.

That night was the Cold War Kids show which Brent got us into. The venue was really cool, it was down the street from the Moulin Rouge which sounds kinda cool but we discovered that basically it just means the red light district. Anyways, inside was nice and one cool thing was the floor moves when people dance or jump on it. There were springs in the bottom so when a few people started jumping to the beat it caused the whole floor to move up and down a little. It was really rad and made you feel the music instead of just hear it. The Cold War Kids were good, they have a very unique sound and put on a fun show. Afterwards we saw Brent for a bit and he gave me a whole bunch of messages from Tim Chaddick who’s the pastor of Reality LA. He told me the day before that Tim was his pastor so I asked him if he could give me some sermons because I’ve listened to all the ones I have from Britt Merrick a couple times now. After the show we went and got crepes which are my new favorite treat, once I’m back in the States we’re going to need to figure out how to make those things. The banana, nutella, and coconut was simply amazing. Unfortunately that crepe marked the end of our reunion. The group was leaving early Saturday morning for Switzerland and Bertram was also heading back to Italy. Bertram leaving was not only a bummer but meant that we had to be out of our cozy little room by 6am. We spent Saturday walking around the city and then took a bus back to Beauvais so we wouldn´t have to wake up really early and do it the next morning. Overall it was a great little trip and I had an amazing time seeing some of my friends again.