Bastille Day!!

My first weekend in Paris was spent couchsurfing. Now, many of you may not know what this is. My roommate and I joined almost 2 years ago when we became roommates and it's been the best experience ever. Basically, you offer your couch for travelers to sleep on when they come to visit your city. It's a cultural exchange and through it we've met the most incredibly fantastic people from several different countries: France, Belgium, Singapore, Canada, Australia, The Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Turkey, and Texas ;-)
So, since I've hosted so many people, it was my turn to be hosted. Emily, Allen and I were hosted by this little French guy named Raphael who works as a computer programmer. He loves Anime, Japanese, and Improv comedy. He lives in a pretty cool neighborhood in Paris proper and we were able to enjoy all that Paris had to offer even though the program hadn't started and we were already in France.
The first evening was spent doing these preset walks that our professor gave us (we're required to do at least 4 of them by the end of the program). I saw the Eiffel Tower for the first time and got to eat a pain au chocolat (chocolate croissant) in France! Mmmmm....
But, the most incredible part of the whole trip was waiting on a bridge in eyeshot of the Eiffel Tower on the evening of the 14th of July and for the firewarks show. Bastille Day is the French National Holiday and they create an amazing 45-minute long fireworks display surrounding the Eiffel Tower. The fireworks even shoot off of the tower. It was literally the most incredible fireworks show I've ever seen! I shot some videos of some of it before my camera's battery died and posted them on Youtube.
The funniest part about hanging out with Raphael was when I told him he was the "bomb-diggity" His English wasn't bad, but he had a very thick accent, so when he asked what this word 'diggity' meant, it sounded a little like an Eastern Indian accent with an emphasis on every syllable in the word. It was hilarious. From the moment I said that word, he would use it over and over again for everything. We laughed so hard. Of course we explained to him that the word 'diggity' is not used very commonly in the states. Emily actually told him "There are only 5 people in the United States who use that word. One of them is Dan, the other 4 are over 50 years old." So I use silly words...