Couch Surfing

I really don't know where all the cliche's come from, perhaps because Europeans in general don't smile as much as Americans, but I haven't encountered a single outlandishly rude person in Paris.
Everyone has been so great and helpful, even coming up to me and asking if they can help when I am looking at my map. In addition, I've been given three random phone numbers from people I had a conversation with on the street, and now I'm staying on a stranger's couch for free.

Yesterday James and I had a great day. It was Sunday, which have been lazy days for us and this Sunday was no different. We got up around noon and had breakfast, then James went down to the Champs de Mars, which is the lawn in front of the Eiffel Tower. I agreed to meet him a little later and bring some wine, jam, butter, and a baguette.
Ahh the life.

Anyways, so before I got there I decided to look on couchsurfing.org real quick to post that James and I needed hosting for the next night.
I joined an emergency couch surfing group for Paris and wrote a little ditty about how we fell in love with the city and decided to stay longer past when we had the apartment rented till, yada yada yada.
Before I could even close my computer to leave I already had a message! It was crazy.
Two seconds later I was Skypeing with my new CSer friend Junior, who conveniently lives ten minutes walking from the Tour Eiffel. I told him James was already at the lawn but that we would meet him in and hour and go back to picnic.
My life just felt so beautiful as I walked quickly to the Eiffel Tower to meet James. Along my walk I passed flower shop after flower shop, and finally passed a boulangerie that was open on Sunday and got a few pastries and a baguette.
James was playing guitar when i met up with him, and before he could even set it down to get something to eat a russian couple came up and asked to join us for the picque-nique and play James' guitar.

Literally two minutes later James and I found ourselves not being serenaded to russian folk music and singing while eating lovely french pastries, but surrounded by a French high school girl and her Spanish exchange student friend.
And it doesn't end there! After leaving Anne, Nuria, Leif and Natalia to go to Junior's apartment we walked back to the Champ de Mars to meet with more couchsurfers (CSers).

Junior, who is not Parisian himself but from Brazil, was hosting Maugerite, an Italianne, and we met up with a French girl who was my age (I think her name was Bernadine) who was hosting her friend Joseph from Prague while he studied in France. Again, we ended up at the Champ de Mars, this time finishing out the baguette, and with a whole new group of people.

James and Joseph started playing guitar for a bit and then a crazy homeless guy from Finland came and took James guitar and serenaded us some Led Zeppelin.

People are so beautiful, and James and I were able to look back on our day and say we "pique-niqued" in front of the Eiffel Tower with a russian couple, a french high school girl, a spanish high school girl, a brazilian man, an italienne, a czechoslovakian man, a french woman, and a random Finlandaise homeless guy.

We both got to use our French a lot, which was awesome and difficult but mostly awesome. Maugerite, the Italianne, was better at French than she was at English, and Bernadice the French girl could only understand English but only spoke French.

That night we went home for naps, dinner, and a movie, then packed because we left our lovely apartment this morning.

I really wanted to cry (and still do) over how beautiful it was to live there and how much I am going to miss it. Through couch surfing we found housing near the Grande Arche at La Defense, which is on the very North Western edge of Paris in a ville calle Courbevoie. Four hours later (we got lunch and really took our time) we found ourselves as Chez Jessica, a lovely Angolan who moved to Paris 5 years ago and just recently opened her house to couch surfing.
Staying with her has been wonderful so far. After taking naps James and I went into Montemartre and saw the Moulin Rouge, which was honestly disappointing and surrounded by many (sexy stores) but then we walked north towards the Sacre Couer and ate dinner at this really great cafe.

Twas a wonderful night and I can't wait for tomorrow. We're in Paris till next Sunday, when we leave for Nice for a week and a half to stay with James' uncle. I'm ready for more exploring and I hear the south coast of France is really something else.
Mediterranean Sea, here I come.

Well...it's 1:50am here and we're both passed out on Jessica's sectional, but all is well and I will try to update more later.

Bonne nuit!