I spent this past weekend in Paris! It was awesome, I really enjoyed it. This past week before Paris was pretty uneventful, I was just catching up on sleep from my Interlaken trip. I volunteered officially for the first time with the elementary school. It was fun to meet all the kids, and the ones that I worked with were very advanced english speakers. One little girl even gave me a postcard that she had gotten from a museum. It felt great to volunteer. Also last week, my field trip was to a church called San Miniato and it's up on the hills with a beautiful view of Florence. The church was from the medieval times and it was very dark and almost creepy. There weren't many windows, and the church was split-level, which is very unordinary for churches. It was a cool field trip, I really like that class.
My weekend was so awesome!! I traveled with my friends this weekend, and my roommates did a mix of staying home, and some went to London. I was excited to travel with a different group! There were seven of us but we accomplished so much in just two and a half days and it worked out that we all pretty much wanted to do the same things. Our flight to Paris was at 7:20 AM, so we were pretty exhausted all weekend after not getting much sleep before the weekend either.
We got to Paris at 9:20 AM on Friday and took a shuttle to our hotel to check in and meet up with the other girls who had come in on Thursday night. After meeting up, we started planning out our day. First we went to grab some breakfast. We each got a pastry and split a baguette. The bread is AMAZING in Paris, I don't understand why Italy's bread sucks. Also, the pastries were all so good no matter what you ordered. The metro was just about 20 feet away from our hotel, right across the street. We figured out the metro pretty quickly. The metro is so efficient and convenient, I'm surprised it isn't like this in the U.S. After we planned out our route, we decided to go to the Louvre first. We saw the Mona Lisa, which in my opinion wasn't all that impressive. There was a really cool egyptian exhibit in the Louvre which was my favorite part there. There was a real live mummy! The Louvre was unbelievable huge. I couldn't believe how long it stretched around. After the Louvre, we headed to the Orsay Museum and it was also cool. I liked the Louvre better but Orsay was cool. Orsay was mostly paintings and sculptures. We saw a lot of Van Gogh, which was a lot cooler in paintings than in books when we just learned about them. I definitely have a lot more respect for the artists we've learned about now that I can see the real paintings. We also saw Monet, and Degas. After the Orsay, we headed to Notre Dame!!! It was a really pretty church. On the way there, we saw love-lock bridge and there were so many locks on there, it was adorable. We got to Notre Dame, and when we went in, mass was going on. It was actually pretty cool, but there must be pretty annoying for the people actually trying to listen with all those tourists around. After Notre Dame, we tried to head to a fondue place but it was way too busy, so we just grabbed dinner somewhere else. The meals in France were so cheap, they were 15 Euros for a 3 course meal with an appetizer, entree, and dessert. It was nice because we don't have that in Florence. After dinner, we walked around a bit and saw the Moulin Rouge area. We were so exhausted we just went home and went to bed because we were getting up early the next day.
On Saturday, we woke up early to go to Versailles! It took us so long to get there because Versailles is on the outside of the city. We thought we knew how to get there but we had to switch so many trains because they kept ending. Finally, we realized that the one train we needed wasn't going to Versailles that day and we had to take another that would take us in walking distance. It was probably a good hour or so of travel time, but it was completely worth it. Versailles was my favorite part. I loved seeing the palace. The palace was where Louis the 14th, 15th, and 16th stayed, as well as Marie Antoinette, and another Marie. I loved all the rooms. They were incredibly gaudy and overwhelming, but it was awesome to picture living back in that time. Even the dauphin's apartments were nice. We thought we were done looking around until we walked outside and realized the gardens extended very far, and there was Marie Antoinette's estate down there. My friend and I walked down there and wanted to see the estate. Unfortunately, we had gotten separated from our friends earlier and they had our tickets, so we had to pay just to see the estate. The estate was much more home-y and quaint than the palace, but it was still very nice. The one funny thing is how small their beds were, because they were much shorter back then. After Versailles, we headed to grab some lunch. We all got grilled cheeses and fries. Their fries are pretty good -- I mean they are FRENCH fries after all. The grilled cheeses were cool because they put cheese in the middle AND on top, and I love cheese. After that we headed to the Eiffel Tower!!! Honestly, the Eiffel Tower is cool but it's brown and somewhat ugly. It's really pretty when it's lit up at night though. Apparently the guy who built it ate lunch everyday under the tower because that's the only place he couldn't see it. We waited in line and we were planning on taking an elevator to the top. Me and my friend Abby were freaking out because we don't like heights that much. The top ended up getting closed while we were in line so we could only go to the second floor which is about halfway up. That was a little easier to handle than going all the way to the top. We still got great views, and it was cool. After the Tour Eiffel, we went to see the Arc de Triumph. It was big, and to get to it you have to walk down stairs underground and then back up, since the intersection is so crazy. Under the Arc de Triumph, they had their tomb of the unknown soldier, which was very pretty. They don't have a guard that watches it like the U.S. though. We then headed to another great dinner, where they gave us free white wine with raspberry. It was delicious. After that, we headed home and slept.
Sunday morning, we just took our time getting to the airport. When we got there, our one friend found out that for some reason she was on the later flight. I think Expedia messed it up. The flight home was okay, we hit a lot of turbulence which really freaked me out. I was glad to be home after a busy two weeks of travel.
Paris was awesome, but I'm so glad I'm studying in Florence. Paris is way too big of a city for me, and even though the metro was convenient, it still took a good amount of time to get places, and you can't really walk anywhere. The metro is quick, but you have to switch trains a lot to get specifically where you want. I always like having the option to walk places. The other thing about Florence, is that I feel a lot safer here. In Paris, there were a few sketchy incidents that occurred. My one friend was getting money out of an ATM machine and there were some young, about 13 years old, boys near by. I thought it was kindof weird that the boys were so close, but then I felt bad for judging them so I just ignored it. Apparently, when my friend got to the screen where you pick the amount you would like to withdrawal, the boys covered the screen with a paper, pressed the maximum amount button, and were trying to grab her money before she could. Luckily, a french man from across the street ran over and yelled and them, and they ran away. My friend got out 250 more Euros than she planned but at least she was holding them and not the boys. There was another incident where we were getting off the metro and some man was getting on and all of a sudden, four policemen ran and pulled the man off the metro. That was scary because we hadn't even seen policemen or security on the metro until then. And then in the airport on the way home, there was almost two women fighting. Some cashier came out from behind the counter and pushed the customer and I thought for sure there would be a fight. It was quite an interesting weekend.
This week I've just been relaxing and getting ready for midterms next week. Next week, I'm supposed to start playing soccer, which I'm very excited about, but I have 4 midterms next week and I'm supposed to play in 4 soccer games. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to go to them, so we'll see how my studying goes. I have a lot of studying to do. Most of my midterms are essays, which makes me a little nervous seeing as I haven't had essay exams probably since high school. I have a lot of studying to do!!
Cannot believe my family will be here in 8 days!!!!! And Matthew will be here in 2 weeks!!! I am so excited to show them around Florence and I'm also excited to see Rome!!
Ciao ragazzi,
Katie
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