Giri Giri!

My city keeps on evolving... seriously, it's like a new city. Who knew that this cold, rainy pretty much all basque-people populated city would become into such a pretty and full of tourist city! Seriously, I think I hear more English than Basque nowadays! So June marks the start of the "GIRI SEASON!" You see, I've learned that "Giri" means tourist, so if you're ever in Spain and people call you "Giri," they aren't saying bad things about you, they're just calling you a tourist. This picture is the beautiful sunset from the port here in my city~ Isn't it just pretty?

This past weekend I got to go to Paris again with my American friend Amanda. It was SO GREAT going there again! I just love Paris so much, I seriously am contemplating living there haha! But yea, I had a great time with Amanda and I was surprised on how much I remembered from the city. I felt like a local! I pretty much knew where things were~ and to my surprise, my 9th grade French is still working wonders for me! haha But the highlight of this trip was our 1st day there. We pretty much visited a lot of the big touristy sites and we left the Eiffel Tower for the end because we wanted to be up there during the sunset. However, they said that the top was closed till the next day...bummer, so we decided to go get dinner and rest up for the next day. But suddenly, we realized that there were tons of police and they were closing off streets. Obviously, something was going on. So me being the super curious person that I am, went up to a very nice (and nice looking) police man and asked him who as coming. He responds with "OBAMA" and we were like "WHAT?!" and then corrected himself and says "MRS. OBAMA." So we knew that Michelle Obama was coming~! We were waiting on the bridge for a good 30 mins and another police man kicked us out (he was being funny about it too) and told us where we can go to get a good sight of her. So we went to the end of the bridge, and waited again. After much waiting and excitement we see a rush of police cars and dark-window-tinted cars and we start screaming like madness. They then opened up the streets around the Eiffel Tower again so we went to see if we could go see her. But in the meantime we see a bunch of people walking to the park towards Ecole Militaire (sp? Military school) with pizzas and wine and blankets... so we figured she must be giving a speech so we went there and tried to find a seat in the sea of people... after searching for a decent spot of grass, we then realized that it wasn't a screen for a speech but for a MOVIE! Oh EPIC FAIL! So we decided to give up again, but some people were still crowding around the Eiffel Tower, so we went thataway to see what was going on. And then after couple of minutes we see people cheering and waving and guess what it was MICHELLE OBAMA (and her kids who I didn't see) coming down from the tower into her car!!! She was leaving and right in front of us her car stopped and SHE WAVED AT US!!! It was pretty exciting! But the funny thing is that there were more people to watch the movie in the park than to say hi to her (which doesn't surprise me having lived in Europe for 5 months). But I still think it was cool being waved at by Michelle Obama :). We didn't get to go to the tower that day, but we did go the next day and going up those stairs totally gave me buns of steel and I almost died, but I guess it's good training for the Camino!

Anywhoo, the other hands on girl (Jennifer-picture on the left) left for home yesterday, and I had this Canadian girl who stayed with me for a week last week and left today, so my apartment is once again just me. Feels weird being alone again but at the same time it feels nice to have just "Esther space" again. I've started cleaning my apartment (and still got way more to go--if you know my situation you know why I have to clean so much -_-) but I hope to change things around and get stuff prepared for my guests who will be joining me in NOVEMBER! WOOT WOOT!