Paris!

Notre Dame... Look closely and you can see the gargoyles!

Eiffel Tower light show from the top of the Arc de Triomphe

Champs Elyssee

View from the top of the Eiffel Tower

SO GLAD I got to see Meghan! She's blogging too-- check it out! meghantravelstheworld.blogspot.com. I literally laugh out loud every time I read it!

Arc de Triomphe

SO cool.

Kicking off Unofficial with a Nutella crepe and a beer. I should remind everyone that I'm legal in Europe :-) (and less than three months to go until I am in the US, too!)

Chateau of Versailles

Carolyn and I in the architecture studio... we're 3 for 3 on celebrating at least part of Unofficial together!

This weekend in Paris was SO much fun! I expected to like the city, but I didn't expect to LOVE it as much as I did. It was such a beautiful city with a really cool energy. I had heard all of the ¨Parisians are rude; they'll be mean to you because you don't speak French¨rumors, but we were very pleasantly surprised by how great everyone that we met was. It was awesome!

We got to Paris on Thursday night after a loooong day of traveling (five hours on a bus, two hours on a plane, one more hour on a bus). We were so excited to get to our hostel! We got there and there was a line out the door to check in, so we decided to grab dinner in the hostel's bar/restaurant while we waited for it to die down. During dinner, Carolyn called and we made plans to meet in Versailles the next day... I was so excited! After dinner, we all jumped on the internet for a little bit and then crashed for the night.

The next day, we woke up, had our hostel breakfast, and then got ready for the day. Jenny, Betsy, and I took the metro down near the Lourve and walked around that area for awhile. It was Unofficial and we were all a little homesick and upset that we were missing it, so we decided that celebrating it in France was definitely necessary. We got some lunch and some drinks (I had a Nutella crepe for lunch. No big deal.) and then got in contact with Carolyn and started to make our way to Versailles. We got on the RER train and made it out there! Carolyn met us at the train station and after about five minutes of crying and screeching and hugging and jumping up and down and making a scene, we all headed out to her school to meet up with her friends and to celebrate Unofficial with them. Carolyn's friends were a blast and we spent a long time hanging out in their architecture studio before heading over to the Chateau of Versailles to continue the celebrations. We hung out in the gardens and then took out boats in the Chateau's pond. It was SO much fun despite the intense Oak Brook Bath and Tennis flashbacks of people not knowing how to paddle the canoe that they took out. But we managed to get back in successfully and had an awesome time. After that, we went back to the studio and Carolyn and I went and got some dinner to catch up. I can't even say how great it was to get to see her and catch up. We all ended up staying in Versailles that night and had such a good day catching up with U of I kids.

The next morning, Carolyn came with us back into the city. We got off at the Eiffel Tower and decided to go to the top. We had gotten the tip that morning to climb the stairs to the second level and then take the elevator to the top from there. VERY good advice! The stairs are tough (670 of them!) but it's definitely worth not waiting in the loooooong line and saving 10 euro! Getting to the top was SO cool. You could see the whole city and it was incredible. And there are a lot of safety measures for anyone scared of heights! After the Eiffel Tower, we walked down by the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Elysses (I might be totally butchering the spelling of that). We grabbed some lunch and did a little shopping before parting ways. Carolyn headed back to Versailles and Jenny, Betsy, and I went back to the hostel for a much needed nap.

After my nap, I got a hold of Meghan!! She said that she was going out to dinner with her parents and her Italian and invited me to come with! I met her on the metro and we walked to her foyer to meet up with her parents. It was SO SO SO great to get to see the Hartsells!! We went out for dinner on Champs Elysses before going to the top of the Arc de Triomphe to watch the Eiffel Tower light up. It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen! After the light show, we went out for a drink and then they were nice enough to take me all the way back to my hostel. It was SUCH a fun night and I can't thank the Hartsells enough!

The next morning, we woke up and were really unsure about the whole Daylight Savings issue. We had gotten an e-mail from our program director, but (of course) just kind of skimmed it and assumed it was telling us to change our clocks ahead. Turns out we don't actually spring forward until the 29th! Weird! In any event, we played it safe and pretended like it was an hour ahead. Better to wait an hour for a flight than to miss it by an hour! We walked around a little bit, saw the Notre Dame, which was extremely impressive, had some lunch and some crepes, and then headed back to the hostel to grab our luggage. We had checked out that morning and had left our bags in the luggage closet there. Now, when we left, the closet was essentially empty. Buuuut when we got back, this long, narrow room was FILLED to the brim with backpacks and suitcases. So we ended up literally hiking through suitcases to get to ours from the back... it was pretty funny! 

After a metro ride, a bus ride, waiting at Beauvais airport for a few hours, a plane ride, another bus ride, and a cab ride, I made it home! It was a long trip but SO awesome! I can't wait to go back to Paris one day... although I think I might try to learn a little more French first. Repeating "bonjour" "oui" and "merci" can only get you so far!