May 26th
We had the whole day free today. After breakfast I hit the town with Mark, Liam, Keegan, Austin, Erin and Parker. There is a lot to see in Paris, but we took it chill and went with the flow. First we visited a church up on the hill in Paris; it had a nice panoramic view. The streets below were filled with tourist shops, and we ran into some other exchangers (we always do, just because we only know a few places in total as a group). But we broke away and went to a big park in the middle of town to relaxx a bit. We  were in town while a huge anti-gay marriage parade was going on as well. It was truly massive, and disturbing for me. We were all pretty awe-struck, but managed to do our fair share of heckling as the paraders passed by us. By the time we had gotten Pizza Hut pizzas, eaten and walked a little more it was almost dinner. We took the subway back to the hotel and met up with everyone else. We had a program in the evening and we all took the subway together (about 100 people) to the Eiffel Tower for a night-time boat tour. The tower, streets, museums and bridges were all only illuminated by the street lamps and passing cars. It was a memorable moment for sure, also it was freezing cold.