Je t'aime Paris!

Hey Ya'll! Hope everyone is having a great week, I've been super busy this week but this afternoon things have finally started to slow down, so I wanted to tell you guys about my trip to Paris! We left very early Friday morning, we took a cab at 3:00am, then a bus to the airport and our flight was supposed to be at 6:05, but it was delayed an hour and so we ate breakfast in the airport and then waited by our gate. The flight was only an hour long and with the time change we got into Paris around 9:30 and then took a train to our hostel, which was really cool, it was called St. Christopher's and there are a lot of them all over Europe.

We had a 10 person room and there were 5 of us so we made 5 new friends haha. It was interesting to say the least, but we did meet some really cool people. We met a guy from Brazil and another guy that goes to Loyola but was studying abroad in Scotland and we met some girls from Australia, it was a lot of fun. Once we got there we just walked around a lot, we walked all along Champs Elysees and we saw the Arc de Triomphe and climbed up it and then we went back to the Louvre around dinner time because it was free for students and that was really awesome.

Me, Ellie and Mary Katherine at the Louvre!

The Mona Lisa

The Arc de Triomphe, we climbed all the way up it...

It was a VERY long way up!

But the view was definitely worth it :-)

By the end of the day we were exhausted and so we just had dinner at the hostel and hung out in the restaurant/bar downstairs. On Saturday we had a walking tour that was free, and I wasn't sure how much I was gonna like it but it was amazing! Our tour guide was a girl from Australia who was so enthusiastic and funny, and we went just about everywhere, the tour lasted almost 4 hours, which was super long, but it was so much fun and we got to see a lot of cool stuff, we started over near Notre Dame and worked our way back towards the Eiffel Tower.

Notre Dame! We visited on a Sunday during Mass which was kind of cool

Us with the really scary Hunchback of Notre Dame haha

We went back to Notre Dame on Sunday during Mass which was pretty cool

I don't know if you can tell in this picture, but he is holding a massive gun, and these guys are all over the place in Paris! They were really scary

We ended by the Eiffel Tower and so we got tickets to go up, we took the stairs to the second level and then took an elevator the rest of the way up, it was so amazing and since it was getting dark we stayed until all of the lights came on, which was awesome!

At the top!

We went to Versailles on Sunday, it was just a short train ride from Paris and we went on a tour of the Palace, and luckily since we are students in the UK we got in for free! The Palace was huge and beautiful! Just as an example...

There were a ton of huge fire places

The Hall of Mirrors....

Paris was also really pretty at night...

We just hung out in the bar that night and watched the hockey game, which was a lot of fun even though we lost :-(

On Monday me and Mary Katherine went back to the Eiffel Tower again...

We just walked around and then we went to Montmarte and saw the Moulin Rouge which was pretty cool and then we went to the Musee de l'Orangerie, which had Monet's Water Lilies and it was a pretty small museum which is one of the reasons why it was my favorite haha. Our flight was at 9:45 that night and the flight was fine but when we took the bus home, there was an accident on the highway and they shut it down so we were stuck for a while until the police told us to back down the highway and turn around because our bus was at the back of all of the traffic, so that was an interesting experience, but we got home faster that way and so we got home around 1:00am. That is the abridged version of my trip, I have plenty of great stories (ask me about the lady on the subway) but not enough time to type all of them out haha.

I have a really busy week this week too, last night we went to go see A Midsummer's Night Dream with Judi Dench (She was M in a lot of the James Bond movies...) and it was SO GREAT, it was hilarious, I don't think I stopped laughing the entire time. Today I had a midterm and tomorrow we're going to see another play and then on Friday we're going to Stonehenge at 5:30am, so we can get underneath the ropes before it's open to the public which will be pretty cool and then Chelsea will be here on Saturday, I can't wait :-)

Hope ya'll had a great week and weekend! And I know a lot of ya'll are about to have spring break so I hope you have fun wherever you're going even if it is just home, and that it's restful and relaxing, I know you all deserve it after midterms :-)