Paris

In the evening we transferred to a Paris-bound train in Toulouse, a provincial town in southern France. In the train station a older French gentleman stroke up a conversation with me, even though I spoke very little French. He was very friendly and bought me beer. I found out he had worked in China years ago. I felt really nice that Chinese people have friends over the world.

In Paris we met up with Fernando's Argentinian friend, who hooked us up in a hostel in a grand old school building. We hang out with him in the gay sector of the Marais district and met up with my friend Derek from Berkeley who happened to be in Paris to attend a conference. We spent the day touring the Louvre museum, which I didn't get to see the last time I was in Paris. We took the metro around town to Eiffel Tower and other major sights. A beautiful view was had on the top terrace of the La Samaritain department store, just a short jog from the Louvre.

For my return trip I bought a train ticket from Paris to Frankfurt, but it turned out I needed to go back to Lisbon since the airline doesn't allow boarding the flight in Frankfurt. I had to purchase an extra flight to Lisbon in order to catch the return flight home.