Versailles

Well another week has gone by, which means I am a week closer to being home. It's not that I don't like it here. The city is beautiful, the friends I have made here are awesome, but it's the French that don't seem to care about anyone but themselves. I thought America was cocky but the French bring it to a whole other level. I'm trying very hard to write properly because I haven't been paying attention to my grammar lately and while learning another language is great it is putting a huge block on my english writing skills. Yesterday I went to Chateau de Versailles. I went with my group, but only 30 of us showed up. The tour was for roughly two and a half hours, it was very interesting. The gardens were magnificent, but half of the main parts of them weren't open due to the weather. They don't open until middle to end of April regularly. We walked through the castle itself, the bedrooms, apartments, etc. Each room was more decorated then the next. With velvets, silks, gold and marble what isn't there to love about this place? I love Marie Antoinette so seeing her portraits, beds, statues was very exciting to me. I am currently working on a project for my French Politics and Economy class that is based on her life as the Queen of France. The walls had either velvet fabric covering them or silk. Back in the day they used velvet for the winter times and silk for the summers, isn't that fantastic? This place is like a designers dream, I kept thinking about HGTV and if they were around during Marie's time she would have had her run of the company. She loved floral patterns and light fabrics, so while walking through Versailles you could tell what rooms she had redecorated. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were the last king and queen to live at Versailles due to the French Revolution. I think that's a pretty cool fact. Overall it was a fun mini-trip but I definitely want to go back there when it is warm and the fountains are on. Anyway spring break is right around the corner, and I cannot wait for that.

Till next time!!

Champagne!!

This weekend I took a day trip to the Champagne region of France, which is absolutely spectacular. I went with about 60 students from my program. The day was very overcast and gloomy but the country side was so beautiful. It was a little flat but the little towns that I saw were so cute and nice. We spent the day going to two different champagne galleries or caves, first one being Taittinger Champagne owned by Francois Taittinger. The gallery itself was about 30 meters underground and there were tunnels that connected it to the second place we visited, Notre-Dame De Reims which is where the kings of France used to be crowned. I thought it was funny how a champagne gallery was connected to a church, but hey the French know how to have a good time. This Taittinger gallery was smaller then the other one they have, it housed around 3 million bottles. There were these hallways that went on forever some over 1 km that had bottle after bottle stacked. It was very exciting learning where and how the champagne comes from. Taittinger seemed to put more heart in to their champagne, they aged theirs between 8 and 10 years. The second gallery we went to was that of the famous Monsieur Mercier of Mercier Champagne. Mercier's establishment was way more of a production then that of Taittinger. They seemed to want to get their product out faster without putting as much heart in to it as Taittinger. The establishment as a whole though was a lot larger, in fact we had to take an underground tram for our tour, it was nice to not have to walk but harder to take pictures because it is so dark down there. They had a room down there that housed wines from 1923. I guess it was a good year. The galleries were on the Avenue de Champagne which is considered to be the most expensive street in the world because of the millions of champagne bottles that lie beneath it. Moet & Chandon's galleries are on this street as well. It was a really fun trip but very exhausting, I went to bed right when I got back in to Paris. Today I worked on multiple projects for my classes. Can you believe there is only 9 weeks left? It's gone by so fast. I'm now looking forward to Spring Break which has broken my bank but its going to be amazing. I need beaches! It's been raining here I feel like almost every day. I didn't expect the weather to be like this at all, but life is full of surprises. I'm excited to return to the states.

1 month down.

Bonjour mon amis!
J'ai étudié à Paris pour 1 mois. Le c'est fou! J'ai deux plus de mois et quinze jours pour aller. Je n'ai rien appris. J'utilise freetranslation.com. Mon français est horrible. J'écrirai dans l'anglais plutôt.

So, I have been here 1 month today! It is crazy! I have two months and fifteen days left. It's going by really fast. I have been sick for over a week now, started with flu-like symptoms but since then I have moved on to a sinus infection to a sore throat to double pink eye, then back to sinus infection/sore throat which brought me to the pharmacy today. It sucks but I figure now that I have had pretty much every sickness in the book once I'm better I will hopefully be immune for a while. All though I have been sick I went to London for the very first time with my friend Allie. We took the chunnel which is the train that goes under water. I slept the entire way there and back so that was good. London by the way is awesome! It's great, it made me want to get to Ireland that much faster. I thought Paris was expensive I was wrong, actually London is. The pound literally took out my wallet ripped apart threw it on the ground stepped on it and then gave it back a.k.a. I'm broke. The first day all though deathly ill we saw everything, and walked everywhere. One thing I didn't think of was the rain that happens like everyday there. Luckily thanks to Allie I stayed somewhat dry. We did the London Eye and saw all of the London scape. We went to the Palace, Hyde Park, Parliament, Big Ben, Tower of London, London Bridge and Platform 9 3/4 from the famous Harry Potter which was the main purpose of me going to London. I stayed in a hostel for the first time, it was nothing like what I'm used to, but luckily the people there were super nice and the rooms were semi-decent and we had these four funny irishmen as roommates. The first night Allie and I hung out in the bar that happened to be on the main floor of our hostel and we were figuring the irishmen were going to come back to our room really drunk and loud like the stereotypical irishmen, but no! They went to see Chicago (that is something that I would do, not a bunch of young irishmen) I thought it was hilarious. We met up with Allie's close friend from home Julia and she was really fun we went on a pub crawl with her. I also went to the part of London my Nana stayed in when she lived there and the street that Papa and her got married on so that was my sentimental part of the trip. I almost didn't want to leave on Sunday. I think I preferred to be there then Paris just because the people are nicer, taller and have manners. Unlike the French who don't talk to you, are less then 5'5 and have their noses in the air. And the English buy drinks for women unlike the French who I'd presume would ask a woman to buy a drink for them!
Anyway this weekend my sorority sister Jac maybe coming to visit but she is trying to figure out living situation, and then on saturday I am going to Champagne with my group to have a little wine/champagne testing. Champagne is in the south of France. The best part of France if you ask me is the South. As previously stated my favorite place in France is Cassis which is located in the Provence region.
I'll probably write the beginning of next week unless something dramatic happens this week.
Love and miss!

Sarah came to visit!!

So this past weekend Sarah and her friends came to visit. She is studying in Italy in a small town between Firenze and Roma. She came with two of her friends they were both super nice. We went to the eiffel tower light show which was absolutely beautiful. I could watch that forever all though it only runs for the first ten minutes on the hour from like 9 pm to 1 am I believe. It just so happened that this past weekend was the coldest that we had to deal with since I have been here, so going to the eiffel tower was fun but we ran out of there as fast as possible. I definitely want to go back when it gets warmer and hang out there. In Paris you are allowed to walk around with alcoholic beverages aka bottles of wine which is fantastic. We all still feel like we are doing something wrong since it is so strict in the states. I was also thinking about how when I go home I will have roughly two and a half months before I'm legally allowed to drink which is going to be weird seeing that drinking a glass of wine here is so normal for all ages. I just think its going to be interesting to have to wait for those months...
I went to the catacombs, it was very cool. I actually didn't know what to expect at all I figured it was more like graves underground everywhere, not mounds of bones from floor to ceiling for god knows how long. It was weird, I don't think there is another word that can best describe how I felt when I was down there. I do know one thing climbing those 84 steps to get back up to street level was one of the happiest moments because I was just glad to have survived going through that. The pictures don't do it justice at all because when you are down there it is eerie, quiet and damp. It was something out of a horror film. Speaking of I went to an American theater here where they have french subtitles instead of the films being dubbed over with French voices. I saw Shutter Island starring my favorite actor of all time Leonardo DiCaprio. I would definitely recommend it, but it isn't anything like the trailers for it. I thought it was going to be scary at the edge of your seat type of film, but it was actually one big twist more like a mind game. I enjoyed it. Since Monday I have been sick and pretty much living off dayquil and nyquil so if this doesn't make sense its because of the nyquil. I'm going to London this weekend so there will be lots to talk about next time!

Love and miss!

Club Experience #1 and more to come.

Last night we went to Le Mix which happens to be like 4 metro stops away from us. Us as in like 10 people from my study abroad group and my friend Sarah from home, and her friends so we were a rather large group. It was international students night which meant that if you brought a state id you'd get in for free with no cover. It was actually kind of funny because they had a sticker table with different flags so I got the Etats-Unis one which is the US but then I switched to French when I felt confident enough haha. We got there around say 11:30 and stayed till 3:30 well everyone else stayed but Allie and I got kicked out :/ woops. Well we were invited to dance in the VIP section which was exactly the same as any other section, but there was this one French girl who was there that hated that we were there and she got a security guard and kicked us out. I went to le toilett before we left because the only form of public transportation was the bus and there was no bus that went to where we needed to go. Sooo we hopped on the bus and got off the closest stop possible which was still 3.4 km away (2.2 miles) that we had to walk. Mind you it was in the 20's F last night, so around -5 C but we had on tights. It was freezing and my feet were killing me. We finally got back to the dorms and I realized I left my room key in my room and the front desk was closed so I just passed out in Allies till about an hour ago and was finally able to get in to my room. Overall it was a great night (no sarcasm there).