London

Hey Everyone,

Well, I made it to London but I'm exhausted. I left Vichy at 2 pm and then I sat next to the window on the train but it was hot and they guy next to me didn't smell that great. I got to a Paris train station and then had to take the metro to the other train station. (One train station services the south, while the other services the north.) I checked in with the train and went through the French and British customs. To be honest, I heard the British lady's accent and struggled to hold back the laughter. Anyways, I waited around for my train and I was going to go to the waiting area for my coach even though my train wasn't there yet. But the guy who was checking the tickets called up somebody and said I could just go on this train. So I caught an earlier train and there was nobody sitting around me and I even had my own power outlet so I could plug in my laptop. Went through the chunnel-it wasn't too spectacular. I got to the London train station and got on the Underground-Both were better and cleaner than the ones in Paris. In Paris they didn't have any luggage carts so I was sweating like crazy trying to get from one train to the other. But they had them in London. London>Paris. I foung my hostel very easily and there are a lot of Americans here. They have a couple of tv lounges, free internet, free breakfast, and a restaurant and bar in the basement. It's really nice. Tomorrow I plan on going by Trafalger Square and hooking up some walking tours to do all day or maybe the bus tour-haven't decided yet. Then I'll come back and get up early for my flight. For me it's going to be like 5 a.m when I get back. Can't wait to get home!

I'll see y'all soon,


Zach

International Children's Day

Today is International Children's Day and of course France closes down for it. I hate holidays, I can't get things done...and the 3 euro cafeteria is closed.

Anyways, I leave Vichy tomorrow and will be without means of communication until I get back to Tulsa. My plane gets in at 11:15 pm on Thursday, June 4th. It's going to be great to be back.

See y'all soon.

Zach

P.S.

I did some research and it looks like I'll be flying from London to Minneapolis on the same model of plane as the Air France one that they think crashed on its way to Paris form Rio. I checked some more and it looks like it has a pretty solid safety history, so I'm not too worried.

Hey Everyone!

Well, finals went OK. Sorry it's been awhile. I'm done with school and on Tuesday I'll be going through the chunnel to London for a couple of nights. I can't wait to get back home. I applied for some jobs at OU and I checked my voicemail and they wanted in interview for an Upward Bound/teaching assistant job for the summer. So I might be going ahead and going back to OU pretty soon, but it really depends when they need me for the job whether it be for June, July, or both. I'll come visit everyone on the weekends except for Natalie and Klayton, but maybe sometime I can fly out there for a little while...maybe after the baby's born.

We've had some good get togethers here in Vichy. A couple of weeks ago we had a graffiti party where everyone wears white t-shirts and everybody writes something on everyone's shirt. The week after that we had a formal get together where we all dressed up and went down by the river and talked, ate, and drank. Last night, we had another as kind of the final get together because people were leaving today and plus yesterday was the last day of finals.

Oh, and 21 Oklahomans are here now for a month long summer program. It's been nice to talk to them every now and then. Anyways, I'll talk to y'all later.

FYI

Hey Everyone,

This post is mainly for Dad and Paul-I heard the new Star Trek movie is really good. So...Dad and/or Paul want to go see it in theatres then I wouldn't mind going with you when I get back. But if you all can't wait that long that's fine, too. I'll be home in a little less than 4 weeks.

Zach

Tired.

Hey everyone,

I made it back from Paris okay. It was very tiring especially since we had a party the night before we left for a Swiss and French girl who were done with their sememster and were going back home. It was about a three hour train ride there and we found our hotel just fine. We went to Notre Dame (it's like most of the cathedrals in France, nothing too special), Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart), which was a neat church high on a hill, the Arc de Triomph, Eiffel Tower (we took the stairs to the second level and then you had to take an elevator all the way to the top), Pere Lachaise which is a cemetery with a lot of famous people like Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison, La Defense which is the business district right outside of Paris. They had some tall and interesting looking buildings. It was kind of weird because we went on a Saturday and there were hardly any people around compared to NYC where there are always people everywhere. On Sunday, we went to the Louvre and saw the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo and then we waited for our train in a cafe at the train station and birds would fly around inside and would come by and take your food if you weren't paying attention. I don't think I got any diseases from it though. All in all it was a pretty good trip.

I'm looking forward to seeing all of you when I get back. Talk to you later.

Zach

Update

Hey Everyone!

Friday morning I'm leaving for Paris. I'm going with Crystal and Jana (Americans), Lucia and Martin (Slovakian), and Jiao (Chinese). We're spending two nights there and then leaving Sunday evening. Classes are going good.

Well, watch out for the swine flu...

Zach

Coming to America

I booked my flight back home today. I'll be in flying in from London and will arrive in Tulsa at 11:16 p.m on June 4th. Unfortunately, I have 3 hour layover in the great city of Minneapolis. I'm going to spend two nights in London with one day travelling to and from and one full day to sightsee. Flying out from London turned out to be a lot cheaper than flying out from Paris and that's including the price of trains from Vichy to Paris to London.

It's beginning to look a lot more like Spring and Summer; I can finally where shorts and T-shirt outside. I remember Paul and Lyndsey telling about how to dress in France, but the funny thing is when we went to Lyon I saw Crocs store. It was surprising.

It's common to get potatoes on your pizza.

Even though Coca-Cola is well known over here none of my friends have heard of Coke floats and they've never heard of Root Beer floats let alone Root Beer. So, I was thinking we might get together and have some. Some of my friends were put off a little by adding liquid sugar to solid sugar and eating it. But it is gooood.

Also, I have confirmed you can buy beer at McDonald's or "McDo" as the French like to call it. Speaking of beer I haven't seen any Budweiser. The main brands seem to be Heineken, Kronenburg (Danish or German), and 1664 (French) and you can find Coronas but it's not standard to serve them with lime.

I found out (via Wikipedia) one of the wineries we visited had committed wine fraud in 1998 by adding water, milk, and fruit additives to their wine.

My Norwegian friend brought me back some Norwegian brown cheese which is really good. It's made with cow's and goat's milk with some caramel (I think) which gives it the brown color. The Slovakian girl brought us all back a little bottle of 40 proof Slovakian alcohol.

Well, have good day.

Zach