Almost Speechless - Almost!

Its been a whirlwind day, or two, I've lost track of time. All I know is I landed at the aiport at 7:45 am Tuesday. It is now 2 am Wednesday (8pm Tuesday in the East Coast) and I have slept 2 hours since Saturday night.

After I landed, I was supposed to meet a shuttle bus that would take me to the hotel I am staying at for the first 2 nights. The shuttle showed up at 10:50. At first it was disappointing as I was hoping to have my one free morning to see the city on my own. My 5 hour window was now down to two.

I got to the hotel - my room was not ready, so a guy on the program from Baltimore, who happened to arrive at the same time told me of a kosher tunisian restaraunt a few blocks away. He and I walked there and have a lovely lunch. French food (well this was actually Tunisian food cooked in France) is all its cracked up to be, delicious and fine.

After lunch, I got my room, and then immediately I had to leave with the group. We went to the UJF building - where we did some ice breakers to get to know the other participants already there. UJF is the equivalent of the UJA (United Jewish Appeal). We also met the head of the social services programing there and I learned that because France is a welfare state - the government gives the UJF 100 million Euro (that's 150 MILLION DOLLARS!!) for their social/welfare programs. The Jewish community donates 5-10 million Euro on top. Also, the government gives them 70 million Euro (again that's over 100 million dollars), for the Jewish Schools, which by the way they have 33,000 students.

We then got on a bus with a famous French historian and the Israeli contingency who had come straight from the airport. All in all we are 45 particiapnts. I will tell you more about the participants in a later blog.

The historian took us all over Paris - with him we saw - a statue of Alfred Dreyfus  being demoted from the army. (You know, the guy who was on trial for treason - that Theodore Herzl covered as a journalist - which some say is the reason he became so passionate about having a state for the Jews.) Then we walked a few blocks and saw a statue of Madamme Rothschild - of the Rothschild family fame. We got back on the bus and headed to Ecole Miliitare - which is where the actual demoting of Dreyfus took place. It was a pretty intense event here in Paris - thousands came to see him be humiliated - the ceremony is a ceremony for any demoted solider - but becasue he was Jewish it was a much bigger deal and there was a huge crowd. We saw many other of interest to Jews sites - a lot that deals with the Holocaust too - I kept thinking about that book - 'Sarah's Key'. We drove all around the city from the bus I saw L'Arc De Triumphe, and more. I am sure I am leaving stuff out - but you get the gist.

Across from Ecole is The Eiffel Tower!! So I got my 1st up front view of it. We then went to the last Jewish Community Club in Paris, where people can come and learn, have youth group activities, and the like. There we did ice breakers with the Israelis - and then we went off to dinner with a local french person. After dinner we walked Champs Elysses (it's a very wide boulevard with expensive stores) and then we walked back to the Eiffel Tower and took a night boat ride on the Seine. We navigated the Metro, which by the way is so clean! And now we are at the hotel. I have to wake up in 4 hours, so I am going to go to sleep now, but before I do - 4 things:

1: I forgot to tell you the coolest thing - I got blessed and have my own room tonight! I get a roomie tommorow - but at least for tonight I get to watch tv, blog, and not worry about keeping someone else up!

2: I appologize if I rambled too much on this one - chalk it up to major exhaustion.

3: I took pictures as we walked today for you guys, but I forgot my cable to connect it to the computer - I hope to borrow one from another particiapnt soon.

and last but not least - 4: Please comment with any questions you may have for me, or if you want to hear more about something I havent told you about - I really want you to feel as if you are right here with me.

Bonne Nuit;