I went to Paris, and I saw Jordan. My Jordan! As in, known each other since we were small, spent a million Lebanese conventions and bored summers together, lied and told people we were cousins or sisters... I think this was the first time in two years that we have seen each other for more than a few hours, and it was great. It was nice to see Jodain too, of course.

Seeing people I know from the States is sort of surreal, two separate worlds colliding. Even after someone from across the Atlantic visits, I keep thinking I see other people from home. The faces of passers-by transform into those of the people from home--people I played soccer with when I was a child, people I went to high school with, even family members. It's also times like this that I wake up and can't remember where I am. After a few minutes of crossing off possibilities--I realize I am on my mattress directly on the floor (RIP shitty Ikea bed) and that the sun is seeping in through the slightly uneven curtains I made myself, which means I am in Nancy.

Friday I took the earliest train (almost missing it and forgetting to bring their wedding present), and I got to their swanky hotel by 8:30. Jodain came downstairs and brought me up to the hotel room where Jordan was getting ready, which was good because if I had first seen Jordan in the lobby, I would have screamed and cried and hugged her in front of a lot of snobby hotel workers, and as it was, I got to do it in the privacy of their hotel room. After a big omlette-y English breakfast, we hit the Champs Elysees where we went into shops like Luis Vuitton and admired thousand euro keychains before hitting Sacre Coeur and enjoying lunch in Monmartre. We made it to the Musee D'Orsay about 30 minutes before it closed--why do they even let you in at that point? It's not enough time to see anything at all. This is where we said goodbye as Jordan and Jodain had a boat tour of the Seine to catch.

Boo hoo.

At this point, I called Sarah, who was just getting off work at her new internship, and we hung out for a few hours before I had to return to Nancy. Sarah's boyfriend is in charge of some refugee camps in the Sudan, and he has been evacuated to the capital of Khartoum due to political unrest in the country. And less serious though still frustrating is her hunt for an apartment in Paris--there is serious competition for housing in that city, and until she gets it resolved she's couchsurfing with friends. So...we had plenty to catch up on even after just a week of not seeing each other, and she walked me to my train.

Carlos measures the quality of my blog entries by the number of times his name appears so I have to mention him at least once in this one to cheer him up because he is sick with the flu.