Swans

Time to tell you about my goings-on in London this week. Bria and I don't have class on Wednesdays (most people don't here...still haven't gotten used to that, but it's a beautiful thing to have a mid-week weekend), so we decided it was time to cross off another item on our to-do list: see Swan Lake performed by the Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House!

The hard core season ticket hopefuls

As tickets are pretty hard to come by, the best way to obtain them is by waiting in line in the morning at the ticket office, so that's what we did. Up bright and early at 7 a.m., we headed down to Covent Garden and joined the line. Little did we know it was also the first day of public booking for next season, so a line trailed around the entire building. Luckily, though, this also meant the Royal Opera House brought out free coffee (a beautiful thing on a cold morning waiting in line).

It ALSO meant that the seasoned veterans in line knew Bria and I should get in a separate line for day tickets. We followed their advice and it paid off exponentially; at 10:00 a.m. when the ticket office opened Bria and I were then first in line in front of people who had been there longer than us, and we were able to score amazing tickets close to the stage from the side for only £27. For crazy good tickets to see the Royal Ballet perform Swan Lake? Worth it.

The view from our seats (albeit a bit better than actuality)

We had some time to kill before the matinee performance at 2:00, so we also headed over to Waterloo to buy theater tickets! Look at us being cultured. Upon arriving in London, I saw that Hedda Gabler (my favorite play by my favorite playwright, Ibsen) was playing at the Old Vic and it became a must-do while I'm here. After reaching the box office, we were clearly having a wildly successful day and bought FRONT ROW tickets to Hedda Gabler for October 31. Seriously, the center two seats in the very front row. I can't wait. The ticket woman even asked us if the seats were okay for £12.

What a joke.

The Royal Opera House! C'est Magnifique!

So after killing some time at Starbucks (and me taking a quick cat nap on a table—getting up at 6:30am is hard), it was finally 2 pm and we headed back to the Royal Opera House. Despite seeing the iconic Tchaikovsky ballet numerous times on video tape, I've never seen it live, and the Royal Opera House was a gorgeous place to do so.

Overall the performance was excellent; the leads were absolutely divine (Odette's painstakingly slow finger turns were unbelievable) even though a few of the wobbly soloists left some to be desired. But hey, I'm a ballet nerd.

Swan Lake was fantastic. I'm already looking forward to Hedda in a couple of weeks and hopefully get more rush tickets to see other Royal Ballet performances—they're doing a combination ballet in a month that I'd love to see.

Anyways, my dearest MOTHER is now in London for a week...I can't wait! We're going to do a lot of the touristy London things that I haven't gotten to thus far, so hopefully I'll have a lot of exciting things to write about next week!

'Til then, hope everyone in the states is surviving the election for better or worse. Talk to you soon!

PS: Here are those Holland fries pictures I promised from the Amsterdam Trip:

Before

After

Amsterdam

Our first morning in Amsterdam!

Hello! Sorry it's taken a while to report on my trip to Amsterdam last weekend, but I haven't had much downtime this week between schoolwork, adventuring in London, and of course hanging out with the Ellison crowd who I missed last weekend.

So here's the down and dirty on my trip to the capital of the Netherlands. The Parisian day-by-day blow seemed to work decently well, so I'll do the same here.








Day one:
Also known as the longest day ever. As we are poor college study abroad students, we opted for the cheapest flights that allowed me to only skip one class. That meant a Friday flight at 6 a.m., which meant a bus from Finchley Road that left at 3:52. Thank goodness Bria was there for me with a piece of toast that early in the morning.

YOLO, right?

Our hostel in the Jordaan neighborhood

So of course we miss the last Night Bus down Finchley, so we trekked all the way and hopped on the bus without a problem. A sleepy 45-minute ride (not too bad for a London airport), and we were at Luton, a pretty small airport to the North of London. Security was a bit odd but relatively lax, and at 5:30 IN THE MORNING (still dark) we headed out to the runway and had an Obama moment climbing the stairs directly to the plane. It was seemingly filled with excited drunk guys (Amsterdam for the win) and after 45 minutes—the same amount of time it takes to get from Minneapolis to Chicago—we were in the Netherlands. Crazy.

We arrived in the Centraal Station and headed straight to our hostel in the Jordaan neighborhood, about a 20 minute walk. It was a little unnerving at how deserted central Amsterdam seemed to be, but apparently it was just too early at 8am.  Anyways, we made it to our hostel, in the middle of an authentic, young neighborhood on the edge of Amsterdam, checked in, dropped our bags, and headed straight to the Anne Frank Huis (only about 5 minutes from our hostel), a museum in what was the warehouse that Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis during World War II.

We bought tickets online the night before to avoid the 2 hour plus line and arrived a bit early, so we bought bagels and coffee and spent some time  exploring the streets and canals of Amsterdam.

Outside of the Anne Frank Huis—no pictures inside allowed!

The Anne Frank House was really an incredible experience. Though Otto Frank decreed that there could be nothing but empty rooms throughout the house (in honor of those lost in the Holocaust), there were miniature dioramas of what each room looked like when the Frank family was hiding there, along with testimonies of friends of the family who helped hide them and who survived concentration camps themselves.

We also saw the real pictures that Anne herself had pasted onto the walls of her room to liven it up, that were still there decades later. We also saw the window she looked out of each day, wishing nothing more but to feel fresh air and see the sun again. On display was a photo of Anne's Kindergarten class (with death dates and survival methods for each child) as well as her original diary. The whole experience was very profound and completely unreal. A necessary reminder of the evils and good in this world and how each day is to be cherished.

After we finished at the museum, we headed back to Central Amsterdam to take a bus tour of the city that came free with the Holland Passes we bought. Traveling through the entire city, we listened to a guided tour and stopped at Gassan Diamonds to get a tour of their diamond factory. They even took out some of their most impressive jewels to show us. Too bad I didn't have an extra 9,000 euro in my pocket. Sigh.




Apparently Amsterdam is known as "The City of Diamonds," which shows how little I knew about Amsterdam before we arrived. It's an incredibly city with a very different vibe than either London or Paris. Canals weave throughout the entirety of Amsterdam and there are more bikes than people within the city limits. Throughout the weekend, we saw bikes, bikes, and more bikes. Young people on bikes. Old people on bikes. People texting, holding their children, and reading books on their bikes. It was pretty impressive—I wish more cities in the states were as bike friendly as Amsterdam.

Yep, that centerpiece is a new testament Bible.

Continuing, we got some lunch from Cafe Hefer, a cafe that has been around since the 17th century. Wowza! After grabbing some food, we headed back to the Hostel to crash for a bit. We even picked up some authentic Dutch chocolate sprinkles (trying to seek refuge from the hailing winds and rain), which apparently you eat on bread with butter and microwave. We didn't know about the latter part so we ate it taco-style. Still delicious, but we definitely got a few weird looks from our Hostel Mates. SPEAKING OF WHICH, were quite entertaining. As we booked our trip about four days ahead of time, the only hostel we could book was a Christian Hostel. Which was fine, but pretty entertaining at times (especially when we got back into our room early in the morning on Sunday from going to bars). They had bible study and church services, and sometimes broke into prayer in the cafe. Good times.

Friday night, we had plans to do something that as a music major, was very high on Bria's list: we headed down to the museum district to get student rush tickets to the Concertgebouw! For those who don't know (I certainly didn't), the Concertgebouw is one of the premiere orchestras in all of Europe, and the world. And for only 12.50 euro, we got great seats in the middle of the house aaaaand FREE UNLIMITED DRINKS:) Including Heineken of course and cappuccino, both perfect for displaced Londoners who had been up since 3 in the morning.

For those wondering (and more cultured than I), the symphony played a selection of Strauss (with opera), a new-age-edgy piece by someone who is still living, and Death & Transfiguration. The last piece was just amazing. I couldn't believe I was seeing my first symphony at one of the best in the world!

Outside the Concertgebouw!

After being incredibly sophisticated travelers, Bria and I decided to give up the act and head to McDonald's, which I can tell you is very expensive in the middle of Amsterdam and apparently they don't have ranch sauce (I was laughed out of Mickey D's when I asked for some for my chicken nuggets. Who knew).

Our tour boat!

 

Day Two:
Our original plan for Saturday was to act like real Amsterdaam-ers and rent bikes for the day and explore, but alas, it was raining just as much as the day before. Neither of us brought much rain gear, so that meant a change of plans. We began the day with the best way to see the city—a canal tour from Central Amsterdam that gave us more of an insight to the history of the city and the canals that were used throughout the centuries for defense and transportation. Whoever thought of building a huge city on land below sea level must have been pretty ambitious.

The famous view of all 7 bridges in Amsterdam.

After the tour, we we did some souvenir shopping and realized we were starving. We ducked into a Dutch restaurant, and, after lunch, we decided we were STILL starving and went to get some of the famous Holland fries—from a stand voted the best in Amsterdam! Om nom nom nom nom. They were HUGE and absolutely delicious, topped with ketchup and mayonnaise just like the Dutch like it. I'll post a picture later, as it was my duty to hold the fries, the picture is currently on Bria's camera.

As it was STILL raining (seriously, it never stopped. miserable) we decided it would be a good afternoon to go hit up the Van Gogh museum, which we had also pre-bought tickets for (look at us being organized and well-prepared). The Van Gogh museum is currently being housed at the Hermitage museum, so we headed down one of the main canals, stopping at a canal-side street market along the way which was great fun! We also meandered through the infamous red light district on the way to the museum.

The "dancing houses" of Amsterdam—so called because they seem to sway side to side, a method used by rich old Amsterdaam-ers to make their houses appear bigger (and sometimes due to rotting stakes).

After waiting in line for a bit, we entered the museum and saw many of Van Gogh's most famous works: Irises, Sunflowers, Cherry Blossoms, Olive Grove, and many of his self portraits. Pretty cool! We also explored the Hermitage's Impressionist exhibit while we were there.

Back to the hostel to chill (and nap) for a bit, and then Bria and I took it upon ourselves to explore some of Jordaan's night life and went to four different bars, tasting the different Dutch beers we had never heard of before—and Heineken for good measure. At the fifth bar we went to, we actually met a girl from La Crosse, Wisconsin, who went to Madison and was currently studying her post-grad in Manchester....small world! She was visiting her boyfriend in Amsterdam, who was also at the bar with his Dutch football team. We ended up hanging out with them for a bit before heading back to our hotel pretty early in the morning. This is what study abroad is all about, my friends!

Day Three:

 Sunday! The day that was supposed to be as sunny as it's name sounds, at least according to the Weather Channel App. Alas, when we woke up however, it was raining. No, pouring. Day three of horrible weather commences.

Given the weather conditions, we realized fairly quickly that biking was not going to be an option, which was kind of disappointing, but what can you do.

So we headed back down towards the museum district and the neighborhood of de Pijp to look around and snap some photos with the Iamsterdam sign, any tourist must.

"R" for Rachel, of course!

You've never pancaked like this!

 As it was now raining with the ferocity of a small hurricane, Bria and I ducked into a nearby restaurant to partake in some traditional Dutch pancakes! Bacon & cheese, absolutely delicious. With a quick trip to the Heineken brand store, we headed back to Jordaan to grab our stuff and headed back to the train station. Of course, as we made our last trip through central Amsterdam, the sun began to pass through the clouds FOR THE FIRST TIME ALL WEEKEND. When we were leaving. Of course. As we were trekking with our heavy bags, it actually became hot. Of course. It was like Amsterdam was willing us to actually come back again, apologizing for the monsoon all weekend.

It may not have been a twinkling Eiffel Tower, but it was still a special way to leave Amsterdam in its own right: seeing the sun for the first time in three days. At this point, Bria and I were absolutely knackered (to use a proper British term), but somehow we made it back to Shipol airport, Luton, and Hampstead.

Uni

Outside the KCL library; never going back to NU.

Hello everyone! Lots of exciting news to impart, so I will lead with that before I get to the boring stuff (aka my first couple of weeks in class).

First, this weekend—well, really, tomorrow—I'm going to AMSTERDAM. A few days ago Bria and I sat down to plan some trips, this weekend worked well schedule-wise, and we booked! Still can't believe I've been booking trips to major European cities on days notice, but we decided you only live/study abroad once. So Netherlands, here we come.

This week we also planned the rest of our trips. Over reading week (reading be damned), we'll be heading out to Italy to spend two days in Rome, a day in Tuscany, and one in Florence. Then, at the end of November, we'll be going to Barcelona for three days with some of the British kids on our floor as a last hurrah. Still can't believe I'll be seeing so much of Europe while I'm here; between the stress of scheduling and booking and budgeting, it feels great to have everything planned out. I could not be more excited.

My library...casually used to film Dumbledore's office.

....So how am I paying for all of this, you asked? Well the original plan was to use more of the money I've been saving up for the past four years to travel above and beyond my living expenses. HOWEVER, I just found out two days ago that I am a recipient of the Study Abroad Excellence Award from King's College. The best part? It comes with a £2,500 scholarship. That's $4,000—never have I been so happy about the ridiculous dollar/pound exchange rate!!

Anyways, on to more mundane topics. After hopping off the train from Paris, I successfully made it to my entire first week of classes. Uni (apparently not college here), while pretty similar to school back in the U.S., does have some major differences.

First, all of my classes are in one building. Yes, one building. This would be great except for the fact that everyone else has all of their classes there too. That makes for really horrible passing time traffic jams worse than high school, with hundreds of college students pushing past eachother to attempt to make it to their next class in 10 minutes (or just make it out of the building and be able to breathe).

Proud of my cooking: puff pastry pizza!

It's also definitely different having a commute to school—though this is a fundamental part of going to a city university rather than Northwestern in suburban Chicago. It's not too bad: a bus to a tube to another tube line, all taking about 30-40 minutes. It also makes for good bonding time as we head down the the Strand Campus together. One of the perks of being in central London is that many of my classrooms have these insane views of Big Ben and the London Eye. I still stop every time to look at them—I only have three months to appreciate, after all.

The lectures have really left a lot to be desired thus far (both of my English professors literally stand in front of the class for an hour reading off of a notepad in monotone), but I'm hoping it will get better. We also get a list of about 6 page of books that we can choose from to read. Combined with the fact that books are generally impossible to track down means hardly any reading gets done. For now, I certainly don't have much inspiration to actually do school work—sorry Mom and Dad. But it will get done...eventually...

Harriet and I in the Ellison Kitchen.

When not in class, life in Ellison is fantastic as always. The floor generally cooks dinner together, and sometimes when we feel like avoiding work we head over to the student bar for drinks and pool (which, apparently, I'm much better than the British at...well at least Tom).

Last weekend, we even had an American day as Mel, Bria, and I headed to another touristy outdoor market, and I led the entire crew to a Chipotle off Baker Street. They hadn't even heard of a burrito before—shocking, I know. I didn't know people like that existed out there. Needless to say, they converted pretty quick.

After that, we came back and watched the 'Cats (American) football game, which was fantastic until the fourth quarter. Then the heartbreak set in. Ah, well. I'm in England with some wonderful friends—I guess an NU football victory would be too much to ask for.

More next week from Amsterdam! Miss you all at home.

Paris

Hello! Sorry for the long lag between posts, but as I'm sure you can imagine, returning from Paris to kick start my first week of classes here has been pretty insane.

But enough about that, let me tell you about Paris—perhaps the foreign locale I was most excited to visit. As there is simply too much to write about, I shall split it up into days and hopefully make this novel of a blog post easier to read.

Our first afternoon in Paris!

Day One:
Once the adrenaline mentioned in my previous blog post wore off, I was able to sleep for an hour and a half on the train ride...when I woke up, voila! I was in Paris!

After waiting in line for about twenty minutes for train tickets (I swear, there are tourists even worse than me out there), I headed on the RER B to meet Maddie and Molly at Bourg La Reine. All went according to plan, and I made it to the stop just fine. And then waited. And waited. And waited. I saw no sign of Maddie and Molly outside the stop, so I attempted to call, text, and even Facebook chat them to make contact. Alas, they were at a different part of the station the whole time, waiting for about 45 minutes. Turns out our phones can't call each other. Note this as a premonition that will come back to haunt us.

First glimpses of Paris

When we met up, all was well and we headed to Maddie's host mom's house. A small three-story home nestled into the reccesses of suburban Paris, it was full of charm and Frenchness at every turn. It was so incredibly nice of Maddie and her host mom to let us stay with them—we even had two little made up mattresses in a room of our own to share for the weekend.

The most delicious falafel in the world (okay, at least in Europe).

After plotting out our weekend adventure with help from Maddie, we headed to the Monoprix supermarket to grab a baguette and Speculoos (like Nutella, but cookie flavored) to hold us over until we made it to lunch. Then back on the metro and off to the Jewish corridor of Paris for the best falafels outside of the Middle East—no joke, these were absolutely incredible. This is where the stuffing our faces commenced, a common theme to the entire weekend.

Demolishing the falafels (no food minus bread for something like eight hours), Maddie went off to run some errands and Molly and I headed to climb the Notre Dame. After waiting in line and running to the bathroom (note to all: finding a restroom in central Paris is easier said than done—I snuck into a Subway restaurant. It was great) and Molly thinking I had gotten killed on my way to finding a bathroom (seriously, how did people live without cellphones?) we successfully climbed stairs on stairs on stairs to reach the top of Notre Dame.

Our view from the top of Notre Dame.

Needless to say, the absolutely breathtaking view of all of Paris was completely worth the climb. What an introduction to the city! It was an amazing feeling to see one of the world's greatest cities from one of the world's greatest landmarks with one of the world's greatest friends (cue the awwww's now).

From there we headed inside the cathedral, a beautiful and serene place. We took in the gorgeous artwork and lit a prayer candle for a missing student from Northwestern recently found in Lake Michigan—a reminder of our connection to home and that life is perilously short.

Obviously still hungry, we got our first authentic French crepes—nutella, yum!—and waited for Maddie outside of Notre Dame. And waited. And waited. And waited. Turns out she was there the whole time. For an hour. No cell phone mishap #3.

After finding Maddie, we hopped back on the Metro and took it to the Arc de Triomphe (gah!!!) and strolled down the Champs Elysees, the Michigan Avenue of Paris and contemplated buying Louis Vuitton Handbags and Mercedes.

....Except not.

For dinner, I bought a jambon et fromage crepe and we sat on the steps of the Bastille Opera and people watched, including the French biker gang that has congregated in front of us. Ah, Paris.

Day Two:
Somehow Molly and I successfully woke up around 9am. Our first stop? PASTRIES. We headed to a French bakery and I got this delicious flaky pastry with chocolate and custard. Seriously, these things taste nothing at home like they do in France. And in France, they're super cheap. It's heaven.

Un hot dog, madame?

After stuffing our faces (again) we headed to the catacombs, just to find out that they were closed all weekend due to a ventilation problem. Concerning, much? So we changed plans and decided to hit up Marais and do some shopping in the morning instead. Molly and I both bought an item from a little French boutique-y store and some more items from the chain Bershka. I got an adorable embelished sweater, a black bow-printed dress, and a lace pale pink top. All very Parisian. C'est magnifique! Shopping in Paris is a dream—Anastasia wasn't lying about that one.

After shopping, we had obviously worked up an appetite (see the recurring food theme yet?) and began a search for cheap sandwiches from an authentic boulangeries. Apparently, though, we were looking in the wrong area of Paris, and couldn't find one after searching for an hour. After Rachel began having a mental/food break down, we headed back to Bastille and grabbed poulet et gruyere sandwiches, a french style hot dog (gourmet with a baguette and fancy french cheese), and a flan. Om nom nom nom.





Because that food obviously was not enough, from there we headed to Angelina's, an incredibly famous tea house in Paris known for their decadent hot chocolate. It might have been €8 per serving of hot chocolate but, let me tell you, it was worth every penny. Rich, thick hot chocolate with fresh cream to stir in. I don't think I've ever ingested anything more incredible in my life. Parfait!

Sufficiently in a chocolate coma, we journeyed to the Eiffel tower, and elected to bypass the two-hour-or-more-wait line to climb to the top and enjoyed the view from below.

Our accordion player friend in Montremarte

Back on the train we went (so much train. so much train). To close out our day in the city, we headed to Montemartre, which has a stunning view from the church at the top of the hill. Best views in Paris (see below), which, considering all the other views I experienced on the trip, is really saying something. As the sun set on Paris, we enjoyed the views, took pictures, browsed through shops, and ate gelato, all while being serenaded by a pretty attractive young man playing the accordion and singing in French. Molly even got to hear him sing Que Viva Espana, which was pretty exciting for her.

Heading back to Bourg La Reine, we met some French guys on the metro who chatted with us in Spanish and gave us wine (why don't people in America do that?) and stopped to buy authentic French pizza (well, maybe not, but it DID have four French cheeses on it and was absolutely delicious). The night was filled with struggles as we met Maddie's friend from Carleton, Katherine, late, went to a student bar with a rude waitstaff, and almost failed to catch a taxi home in the early hours of the morning, but hey, it's Paris. Life is magical.

"I love you" in about a thousand languages

View of the Eiffel tower from Montemartre

Day Three:

And here was the day I was perhaps most excited about! Versailles! Coming to Paris, I knew that was one thing I definitely wanted to do. After my friend Maddy from home showed me one of her favorite movies, Marie Antoinette, directed by Sophia Ford Coppola and starring Kristen Dunst, I became fascinated with the glamorous world of the French court in the eighteenth century. I even read the entire 600-page biography of Marie Antoinette and felt quite scholarly (thanks, Mads).

Anyways, we awoke around 9 a.m. and were greeted by a HOMEMADE FRENCH BREAKFAST. Yes, Sylvie (Maddie's host mom) decided to surprise us with a huge pitcher of Angelina's style hot chocolate that she made from scratch (chocolate bar and all), a fresh baguette, and two kinds of homemade jam. This made our life. Sylvie could not have been more sweet!

After sufficiently stuffing our faces, we took about an hour train to Versailles and headed to the palace. Unsure of where to go from there, we met some American students studying abroad in Amsterdam and visiting Paris for the weekend. Together, we found the right line to enter for free (!) as students in the E.U. We grabbed free audio tours and map and began to explore the centuries-old chateau.

Versailles was just as spectacular as I imagined. The splendor involved was just striking—it was hard to imagine that this was once someone's home, especially while at one point the French people were starving. Each room was plated in intricate gold leafing, extravagant furniture, and painting after fresco after stain glass from the world's greatest artists. I even got to see Marie Antoinette's bedroom and the secret door she used to try to escape the revolutionaries.

After grabbing some sandwiches and pastries for lunch, we headed to the gardens. It was an incredibly beautiful day (70s and just barely cloudly) and the most perfect day to enjoy them. The grounds of Versailles are just massive, lined with hedges and fountains and sculptures at every turn. Being a Sunday, we also were serenaded with 18th century classical music and were greeted with magnificent fountain shows. Imagining that this was once a normal Sunday of the French royalty—strolling Versailles—was pretty unbelievable. I wonder if they know how good they had it (besides the whole head-getting-chopped-off thing).

French onion soup. FROM FRANCE.

With enough extravagance for one day, we did a bit of touristy shopping (get excited friends & fam) and headed back into the city. We strolled the Seine, shopping at the little stands that lined the river, looking at old books, paintings, and posters. After picking up a few of our favorite prints, Molly and I decided to splurge on a three-course authentic French dinner. Sitting down and enjoying a nice meal was a beautiful thing. We both ordered French Onion Soup, Steak Frites (mine with Bernaisse sauce). Molly got Sorbet for desert, and I got creme brulee. Fantastique! (Sick of my very limited French phrases yet??)

From there, we headed back to the Arc De Triomphe to make our way to the top. After being a bit late after not being able to find the metro stop for a bit (cell phones come so in handy people. Really.), we successfully climbed to the top to see a fabulous view of Paris at night. At ten o'clock, the Eiffel Tower lit up all sparkly-like and it was an unbelievable way to end our fast-paced weekend in Paris.


At that moment, I realized that you can really only skim the surface of a city like Paris in three days, but it was an incredible experience to do so with some amazing friends. The night view of the City of Lights, with the Eiffel Tower in the distance and cars racing around the Arc's round-a-bout is something that makes you not want to leave until you've fully explored every inch of the city. But I know I'll be back.

Back Home:
In the morning, Molly and I took off awfully early, but, of course, still made time to stop at a little corner bakery to pick up not one, not two, but three pastries for the road (all gone by the end of the day). As the station announced my train back to London St. Pancras, I thought to myself, "time to go home." While London may only be my home for three months, it certainly feels like home to me now. It was surprisingly comforting to land in London, hop on the familiar Tube, and (eventually, after running to my first class in the rain) coming back to Hampstead. Apparently the tea that Tom made me before I left so as not to forget the UK worked pretty well.


As I returned to my dorm room/prison cell, I was met with a dozen or so notes from the girls on my floor welcoming me home (Jess, you're the sweetest!). More on my first week of classes later this weekend, when I am sure I will be continuing to avoid doing work. You can see more of my pictures from Paris at the album link here. A bientot!






Things I learned from my trip to Paris:
-I apparently look French. I was approached about ten times over the course of the trip by people asking me directions in French. Does that mean I don't look too touristy? Luckily, I took French for a year in eighth grade and remembered how to say "Je n'parle pas Francais. Je suis desolee" (I don't speak French, I'm sorry). Never thought remembering that phrase would come in handy.

-Traveling in a foreign country where you speak hardly any of the language is a pretty disarming experience. Also factor in that you have absolutely no way to contact anyone you know (apparently Parisian pay phones don't exist). But it was so, so worth it. No major mishaps occurred and I came back feeling more independent than ever after traveling through France alone!

-Europe is just as much about the people as it is the places. From the French guys who spoke Spanish on the train to the dozens of German teenagers we had to dodge while leaving the Arc de Triomphe on our last night, Paris (and Europe as a whole) is truly international. That's something you can't find in the states, so you have to take advantage of the amazing people here while you can.

-Courtesy of Molly: Go to sleep when the trains do. You don't ever want to try to catch a taxi to the South of Paris in the early hours of the morning.

Paris bucket list for next time:
-Climb the Eiffel Tower
-See a French ballet
-Successfully visit the catacombs
-Hit up Musee D'orsay and the Louvre
-MORE FOOD.