I finally have clean socks again

Sandy's post makes our little afternoon hike sound like a stroll in the park. I almost died. Well, OK, probably not, but seriously, it was the longest walk of my life. OK, probably not again. But those backpacks were heavy, I had to go to the bathroom, and I was starving. Thank goodness we finally found the hostel (which has free internet, by the way!)

We did some laundry this afternoon, because quite frankly, our clothes smelled worse than it has ever smelled before. Paris is quite a bit warmer than London, and much warmer than Ireland was, so we thought we'd start off with a clean smell again. The laundromat was just down the street and turned out to be quite the experience. We figured them out just fine in French, mostly off of knowing how to do dorm laundry so well, but the best part of the experience was the creepy man who kept wandering in off the street to try to talk to us. He smelled like alcohol, as well as some sort of illegal substance, and he was cackling in all sorts of voices. Plus, in case he hadn't noticed, we don't speak French. And he was creeping us out. But at least we have clean clothes again, and we'll be ready to take on Paris for the next few days. We're going to try to get to the Eiffel Tower tonight, and then we'll see what happens from there!