Would you like some Fish with those Chips?

The past 3 days have been the best 3 days yet during my stay in Europe. London was absolutely incredible! It was beyond refreshing to hear english and the people there are way more friendly and more happy. There is a obviously a HUGE difference between Paris and London. The moment I stepped off the train into St. Pancras International I knew that London was going to be awesome, and it was.

Let me begin at the train station in Paris...Kirsten (the girl I went with) was lost and we could not find each other. Also I kept looking up at the screen wondering why there were 2 dots next to our train number...I finally asked someone and learned that it meant that Eurostar departed from the first floor and I was on the ground floor. I ran upstairs and I found out that I have to go through customs and passport checks and security. As I was standing in line for passport check, I saw Kirsten at the front of the line and we learned we had to fill out an immigration form. At this point, our train would be leaving in 13 minutes. We were frantic and filling out the form in a hurry and when we got to the man, he asked us a thousand questions..."Why are you going to London?" "What are you doing in Paris?" "Where are you staying in Paris?" "How long are you staying in London?"...and on our immigration form there was a space for a UK address and I told the man that we are just there for vacation and we don't have an address and we were just staying at a hostel. He replied "Well I suggest you find an address then." After I hurried to find the papers for the hostel and writing the address down and finally getting cleared, the security checkpoint was next. Thank goodness we didn't have to completely undress to go through the metal detector. After security we started running to our train but it was too late. The doors had closed 4 minutes before departure. So we got on the next train and we were off to London. On the ticket we noticed that it was only an hour long ride...this was our first blonde moment. There's a time change between Paris and London so after an hour we were confused as to why we were still in France and that we thought the chunnel everyone talks about was a scam! We soon realized that the ride was 2 hours long and that London is an hour behind Paris! We had a good laugh!

When we got to London we first exchanged our Euros to Pounds and then we headed out the door to find our hostel and it was very close to the train station which was perfect. Our hostel was very nice and with the lounge area and the flat screen tv it was a perfect area to relax in the evenings after long day of walking through the city. The first day, we put our stuff in our room and we booked it to start our day of site-seeing. The tube, which is like the metro in Paris, was a 2 minute walk away and as we were about to buy our day tickets, a older man came up and asked if we were buying day tickets and I said yes and he handed me his and he said he was finished with it for the day! A free day ticket!! It was super sweet of that man and it saved us 6 pounds! Me and Kirsten decided to just split the other ticket for the day! The tube has much higher security than in Paris and they are very strict upon who gets on and who gets off. You always need your ticket with you because you need it to enter and exit! Also, its much CLEANER than Paris. And the seats are so nice!

After getting off the tube we walked everywhere! We had a photoshoot in the yellow flowers in Hyde Park, walked around the Buckingham Palace (which wasn't that impressive), walked to Trafalgar Square, and finished off our first day at the Tower Bridge. We stopped to get Hot chocolate at Cafe Rouge and when we left we went back to see the Tower Bridge at night and we walked across it! It was beautiful. We saw the london bridge lit up and the HMS Belfast lit up in many different colors. We headed home and we ate dinner at Pizza Express and I got a cheese pizza with Strawberry Gelato for dessert! YUMMY! It was so good!

The second day we got up early and once again got our tube ticket and got going! We visited more parks and more monuments and we had another photoshoot at the Chelsea FC soccer stadium! It was so much fun! It started to rain but we kept on going and we finally found a grocery store and I bought a baguette and some bananas for snacks. It was so hard to find a grocery store! There wasn't one near our hostel so we had to always search for one elsewhere. We then tried to hunt down Wimbledon and for some reason the tennis courts are hidden and we never could find them. We gave up and headed back to an area that we recognized. We kept on walking where the bus driver told us to go but it just felt wrong to keep walking that way so we just headed back. It was annoying to not find the tennis courts but atleast we tried to find them! The courts are more outside London and are more in the suburbs which is not what we had expected! I think next time I go to London I will have a better map and idea of where to go! Trying to find the courts was kind of a spur of the moment thing which didn't work out well! During our site-seeing we had found PASTYS in the tube station and I thought of my Grandma! We were looking for places to eat and I recognized the shape of this amazing goodness and I told Kirsten about them and she wanted to try one so Kirsten bought one with pork and apple I think it was and she liked it! They had all kinds of Pastys and their traditional Pasty was the same exact Pasty my Grandma makes!...Another reason why I LOVE London!

The last day we hunted down the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain in the Kensington Park because we couldn't find it the day before. Once we found it we were completely shocked! It was such a letdown! There was no fountain! It was a stream of water that went in a circle. We took a sad picture and walked away from that so fast! But we were happy to have found it because it was frustrating to not find it! We then took pictures in a traditional telephone booth and kept checking things we wanted to do off our list! After doing some last minute things, we went back to the Irish Pub that was next to our hostel and Kirsten had some fish and chips to get it out of her system. She was dying to try some and she finally had them. It really is just breaded fish and french fries....no biggy I thought. Around 4 in the afternoon we headed back to our Hostel to get our backpacks and we went back to the train station to hangout before our train left. At the train station I bought a chocolate cupcake (because everyone seemed to be buying them and they looked SO GOOD) and I bought some traditional lemon curd. When I got back to Paris I tried the lemon curd and it was AMAZING.

The train ride back to Paris was awesome. I sat next to Freddie Keen. He is a musicien in London and we talked the WHOLE 2 hours and it made the time go by so fast. I'm sure people around us got annoyed but I didn't care! I had so much fun talking with him because once he told me that he was in Dallas/Fort Worth last year to play we couldn't stop talking! He said he wants to go back to Austin and play there! He told me how much he loved Sonic Burgers! It made me want a slushy so bad! I asked him if he is going to play in the Dallas area again and he said he doesn't have a schedule right now because he is in the middle of recording but he definitely wants to go to Texas again! I told him he if ever does to let me know and I will drive him to Sonic to get a burger haha! (He doesn't know how to drive so I offered to drive him!) Anyways, we had the best time talking about movies, music, sports, etc. He's a very friendly guy and another reason why I love London so much more than Paris! A Parisian probably wouldn't have said a word to me during the train ride!

Overall, London was SUPER expensive but I absolutely loved it and for some reason I felt like I didn't want to go back to Paris. In London people where brighter clothes and they smile and laugh more. They just seem happier than the people in Paris. The atmosphere was relaxing and more loving. It was definitely more me.

Spring break 2010 was awesome and I'm ready to start classes again! I'm not really ready to start doing all my big presentations but it'll be over with faster than I know it and I will be back in Texas in the sun! My next adventure is in April to the Loire Valley in France!

Mid-Spring Break

Today I met with my professor from UTA who came to Paris for his spring break. Whenever I see a familiar person in Paris it makes me love Paris even more! We met at St. Michel by the fountain and then we walked a little while until we found a cafe. We had some cafe au creme and talked for a good hour. After we stopped at a boulangerie so I could get a baguette :) and he got a crepe! We then walked over to Notre Dame and sat and talked there for a while before we finally departed. It was a relaxing beautiful day in Paris with the sun out and I didn't even need my jacket it was so warm. Well...a light jacket was perfect.

Talking to my professor made me realize how much I have grown and how independent I have become. It's very easy to learn to be independent in Paris. I think that if anyone has the chance to they should study abroad during their college education. It is truly life changing and worth every second. You learn so much about yourself and how you want to live your life. I know what type of person I want to become and how I want to live my life. Before coming to Paris, I was literally a disaster and I had no clue what I wanted to do in my life or how I wanted to live it. Now I have found peace and control. But my professor did say that I will have reverse culture shock once I get back to the US and I will have to get used to the US again. Hopefully I can bring my love of walking and being outdoors and doing things by myself back to the states with me. I know I can't bring baguettes home with me but this heavenly tasting goodness will lead me back to Paris in the future.

I've been in Paris for 2 months now and I am half way done already. Time has flown by and each day I am loving it here more and more. French kids are absolutely ADORABLE and I will always remember the time I saw a kindergarden class outside for a walk and each boy had a hand of a girl and they were bundled up so tightly with scarves and hats and mittens. They were nonstop talking in french and o how I wish that I could talk like them in french. It was the cutest moment and it made me want to take one of those kids home....just for a day and then give it back! haha! Besides seeing the darn tootinest kids, the beautiful monuments, different cities in France, and meeting people from all over the world, I enjoy my independence the most. From the time that I first arrived at the airport and basically had an emotional breakdown on the phone with the ISA director, I have become stronger as a person and I know that anything is possible if you just tell yourself to "just do it." (I totally agree with Nike.) There's not a person in this world that can make you do something. Only you can. Just believe in yourself and get out there in the world and do it. Make it happen. My professor and I talked about how dependent Americans are and that many women my age are so focused on finding the right man and getting married and already starting families. At my age, I am still young and I think that if women do not have the independence and strength to be on their own, they should find it in themselves before they go looking for it in a man. A man does not complete your life. Money does not complete your life. In Paris, there are SO many single people and I remember my ISA rep Christelle tell me "I don't need a man! I got myself!" I admire her. She is super outgoing and friendly and always smiling and happy! She's just the type of woman that I want to become! Overall, I think that I could live in Paris and be happy. J'adore le metro and I'm going to miss that the most! I love walking to wherever I want to go. I love the family lifestyle here...going out during the day to work/school and coming home and spending time together in the evening. Parisians don't sit at home during the day. They get out and find something to do even if they don't have work. And there is always something to do in Paris which is another thing I love. Tomorrow I leave for London and my professor told me to compare London to Paris and see if after 2 days in London I still want to come back to Paris. This is because I told him that whenever I went to Bordeaux, Cannes, Nice, and Monte-Carlo, near the end of my time in those cities, I just wanted to get back home to Paris. For some reason when I travel to other places now, after a few days I start missing Paris BEAUCOUP. I love it here. I love the Parisian life. While me and Michele were in Nice, we overheard a few people say "sont Parisians" while looking at us and that made me feel good. Although Parisians are thought to be somewhat stuck-up, atleast they didn't call us stupid Americans.

Right now I am packed and ready to leave for London in the morning. I will be staying for 3 days and I get back to Paris Saturday night. Then spring break is over for me. I have an essay to write that is due Wednesday and I have to start studying for my last midterm.

First half of Spring Break 2010

Last Friday, after my midterm I went home and I packed and got ready to leave for Nice, France. It was a long day of waiting and finally after dinner, I left for the train station to take the night train. Me and Michele left at 22h25 and arrived in Nice at 9h. The sunrise was beautiful and the hills in France are extraordinary! The scenery was amazing and I could definitely see myself coming back to the south of France in the future!

Our first day we spent in Nice. We walked along the Promenade des Anglais and walked all around the port and through the city. We took tons of pictures and walked up to a lookout and seeing the French Alps off in the distance was beautiful. The snow-capped mountains looked like a painting and hopefully I will get to see them up close before I leave Europe in May. Near the Palais du Justice we stopped and got some Gelato. I got Strawberry and chocolate. The strawberry gelato was absolutely AMAZING. I could live off of that ice cream. The sun was warming and refreshing and the fresh air was the best part of our vacation. In the evening a motorcycle parade went through the city and they were escorted by policeman. It was probably 2 miles long of motorcycles and it seemed like forever for them to pass us while we waited to cross the street and get to the beach for the sunset. We watched the sunset on the rocky beach and 2 guys came up to us and talked to us for a while. One of the guys, named Julien, was originally from Morocco but lives in Nice and the other didn't speak English so he just sat there and made hilarious faces. We sat and talked and enjoyed their company while the sun finally fell. It was a beautiful sunset with pink, red and yellow streaming across the sky. Because it got cold we strolled back to the hostel and hung out for a while then fell asleep.

The next day we took an unexpected trip to Cannes, France. There wasn't much to see there but it was only 1Euro to take the bus and we were finished site-seeing with Nice already! So we relaxed in the sun at the sandy beach for about an hour then walked around a little and found a few tourist spots. Because I had hurt my foot on the rocks in Nice we didn't walk as much as I would have liked and I was super bummed. I most likely sprained my ankle which is a HUGE blow because I still have London to walk around in the second half of my spring break. Anyways, after a day in Cannes we left on the bus to head back to Nice. Because my foot was hurting so bad and the sun was already set, we went to bed early so we could get up early and leave for Monaco. Plus we had to be out of the hostel by 10am.

Our last day we went to Monte-Carlo, Monaco. We saw the Casino, the Opera, the Palace of the Prince and his church he attends and his gardens. Monaco is very small so we pretty much saw everything there that there is to see besides the more suburban areas of the city. Monaco is much more upper class and there are nice cars, more SUVs, well-dressed people and they wear fashionable clothes. I loved how they dressed with brighter clothes and not all black or grey like in Paris. The atmosphere in these cities seem to be much more relaxing and easy-going and more friendly. (so unlike Paris). I enjoyed Monaco the most and I could definitely see myself going back there to vacation! It was such a tropical place and its very beautiful but there isn't a beach. You need to take a bus to outside of Monaco to get to the beach. Our ride back to Nice was beautiful. We rode along the coast through the hills and the houses were spectacular. Most were white and fresh looking. We could tell the people living in these houses were upper class and because the houses were well kept and BIG.

Overall the Mediterranean Sea was beautiful and Monaco was my favorite of all the 3 cities. Hopefully my foot will be better by Thursday because I'm off to London with Kirsten (yea we have the same name but we say it differently!) I'm super stoked and I can't wait to hear English!!

Wonderful Week in Paris

Wednesday was a perfect day! I went to my classes all day and then I left my last class early to go to the France vs Spain soccer game. I met Jenn up at school and we left to the Stadium from there. My host brother told me to take the RER B so we did and we ended up in Zone 4. That was bad because our metro cards only work in Zones 1 and 2. Luckily I had 2 extra metro tickets from ISA the first day we got here and I had just never used them. I think it was a sign from God haha! We met some really nice French people along the way who told us to follow them who were also going to the game but they had their tickets ready and ran off without us. Once we got inside the station we had to buy 2 more tickets to get on the right train. We finally got on the right train and our last stop was the Stadium! It was HUGE!! It was like a football stadium in the US. I loved it! We got to our seats and we were in the second row to the field! I loved our seats because we were mainly surrounded by kids with their dads! Although there was a little problem with a group of guys near us who were in the wrong seats but would not get up until the police came, the game was relaxing and so much fun! Soccer here is a completely different story. It's so FAST and the game seemed like it was only 20 minutes long! It came and went. After France lost 0-2, we left the stadium to find the metro and after going the wrong way at first, we got back on track and found it! In the metro we were surrounded by guys. I think we were the ONLY 2 blonde girls on our metro going home. We were sqooshed right in the middle too! I have to admit that it wasn't so bad because we were surrounded by guys our age! haha!

Thursday night was the Opera. We saw the ballet La Dame aux Camélias. As I entered the opera my eyes were blown away. It was spectacular inside and as the lady pointed to my seat in the very back row, she told me that that was the best seat in the house! And it was! I was in the very middle of the very back row! Although the seats were horrible to sit in, I loved the ballet and it was beautiful! It was 3 hours long with 2 intermissions. It was basically about a prostitute who fell in love with a man but then got sick and died. The colors of the costumes and the dancing was amazing!

Friday, I spent the evening with a few friends, Dipesh and Marie. Marie just moved to Paris from a town south of Paris and she spoke English fairly well so it was a night of learning french and teaching english. She has a car and offered to take me and Dipesh out to Brittany (which is on the West Coast of France) and she has a friend there with a big house and we could stay with him for the weekend there! I don't have my hopes up but I do think that would be fun! We drank wine and ate cheese and chocolate the whole evening and I wobbily walked myself to the metro and then on home!

Saturday, some Texans came to Paris :) Katie, Berkeley, and Meredith arrived at Gare du Nord around 12:15 and then we were off to a full day of site-seeing! It was fun being their tour guide and I took them to as many monuments as possible! I had not seen some of the monuments that I had taken them too so it was also a site-seeing day for me! We finished off the night with the sparkling of the Eiffel Tower and then we came back to a cafe near my apartment. We ate dinner and then hung out for a while. After we went back to my apartment to pick up their things and my host family offered that they come in and sit while she called a taxi for them. It was VERY nice of my host mom! I'm very appreciative that she did that! The taxi came within 5 minutes and they were off to the airport! I think it was a successful day in Paris for them! They got to see a Parisian home, the neighborhoods, and a lot of the tourist spots!! I'm glad I got to see some familiar faces! It made me feel more at home in this big ol city and I feel like I can actually live my life here!

My next big problem...trying to find somewhere to go for Spring break. I'm going to have to book something FAST and my host mom wants me out. I have leave for a week and I have no one and no where to go. If I can't find someone to go with I'm going to book a week in Montpellier by myself and do some site-seeing there. Plus I have midterms this week. The week after is spring break. Time is flying by so fast!!!

Salon International de l'Agriculture

Today I woke up early and I went with 2 other girls (Christelle and Beatrice) to the Salon International de L'Agriculture. It's held annually and there were four different sections that you could walk through. One section was filled with livestock and all the milk you could drink. We got a free cup of milk with caramel syrup in it. It was the BEST milk I have ever had! While we were in that section a large herd of people were surrounding this one particular person so we went to investigate. Christelle told us that it was a Prime Minister of France from a few years ago. I took a picture of him and then I turned around where Christelle and Beatrice were and I soon felt a hand on my shoulder and as the Prime Minister was walking by it was his hand that had touched my shoulder and he said to me "Bonjour la princesse!" His name is Jean-Pierre Raffarin and he was the Prime Minister of France from 2002-2005. After he said that I was kind of shocked and I smiled at him and said "Bonjour!" I knew this day was going to be a day that I would remember for the rest of my life! After we left the animal section, we then went to taste wine and cheese. The cheese was spectacular! And of course I tasted some Rose wine :) Then after tasting tons of cheese, we left to go see the another section that was filled with food and candy and ice cream. Not so much free taste testing so we didn't stay in that one too long. The last section was about environmentally friendly things. It was interesting but not much to do. There were lots of things for kids to do though. On our way to the last section a Chevy pulled up in front of us with American flags flying from the sides so we decided to investigate this person and see who it is. We saw a black guy at first and thought it was Obama but sure enough...it wasn't! lol! It was some other guy who had bodyguards and was American. I have his picture so I'm going to try and find out who it was!

After a relaxing day at the Agricultural fair, I went and sat out on the bench in front of the Eiffel tower because it was such a BEAUTIFUL day. It was warm with the sun and clear blue skies! Although I ran into a little trouble with a Parisian who wanted money from me I walked away and started enjoying my day again!

Tomorrow I have a full day of classes and then I will be leaving my last class at the break for the SOCCER GAME....FRANCE VS SPAIN :)

Weekend in Normandy

First let me start off from last Sunday. February 21, 2010 was the Chinese New Year and a parade was being held in Port d’Ivry so I went and although I couldn’t find Michele I watched the parade by myself and had a wonderful time! It was very crowded and loud! The costumes were amazing and there were strings of fireworks that hung from the trees and as the end of the parade came to you the fireworks would go off. They would burn the fireworks from the bottom and would move all the way up the trees! I took video of it so I can remember it! The music was so much fun to dance to and I had a wonderful time experiencing their culture and bringing in their new year!

This past weekend I went to Normandy with ISA. Saturday we woke up at the crack of dawn to get to the ISA office in time for our departure and we were out on the road at exactly 8am. (We live about 45 minutes away from the ISA office so it was a pretty early start for us.) Our first stop was the Memorial de Caen, which is the American Museum and Memorial of WWII, the Cold War, and a reflexion about peace and Human rights. It was VERY interesting especially the short film we watched in the theater. It was all action and no narrator during the film so the silence was really moving as you heard the waves of the ocean on the beaches of Normandy and then it would go back to the scenes from D-Day with the sounds of bombs exploding and men running on to the beach. I took plenty of pictures to remember this museum! I got my both my Grandpas a little something from here and I’m so excited to bring it back to them!!!

After the museum we headed to Omaha beach and had a guide through the cemetery. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable about many stories of the soldiers and they were extremely interesting. After he took us to a few grave sites we then walked down to the beach to take a few pictures. I wish we had had more time to walk around and be able to do more. The time we had was short so I was not able to go all the way to the end of the beach and put my feet in the English channel. There was lots of water on the beach (like large ponds and streams that ran along the beach.) I did not realize how BIG that beach was and walking to the Channel was a long walk. The beach was quiet and the sounds of the waves from the ocean was peaceful. To think of what happened on that beach many years ago was moving and I couldn’t even imagine the tragedy on that beach because it was so beautiful on that day I was there. I was able to tough the water with my hand and it was cold, but I still wish we had had more time to walk around more and take more pictures.

After the cemetery, we then went to Pointe du Hoc. Although the Ranger monument was under construction it was still interesting to walk around the holes in the ground where bombs had exploded and the bomb shelters under the ground.

The World War II Pointe du Hoc Ranger Monument is located on a cliff eight miles west of Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, which overlooks Omaha Beach. It was erected by the French to honor elements of the American Second Ranger Battalion under the command of Lieutenant Colonel James E. Rudder. During the American assault of Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, these elements scaled the 100-foot cliff and seized the German artillery pieces that could have fired on the American landing troops at Omaha Beach. At a high cost of life, they successfully defended against determined German counterattacks.

The place that gave me goosebumps was in the bomb shelter underground. We walked down these muddy steps to see 2 doors with that led to 2 empty, dark rooms. The vibe was intense and it freaked me out a little bit. We took a few pictures and got out of there! We continued to walk around the site and then we went back on the double decker bus to go to our next site.

We then went to an Apple Cider farm and had Apple juice, Pear Juice, and Apple cider wine. The tour of the farm was interesting and the process of fermentation of the juice and wine is very lengthy and expensive. After the tour we had about 5 different samples of juices and wine. We also were able to taste different kinds of confitures (jams) and other spreads on some bread. I bought some Lait Pralin and some Confiture with cavascados J I’m very excited to bring them back to Texas and have my family try them because they were DELICIOUS! During our taste test Gabriel (our ISA director) started throwing bags of candy to us for us to share and they were again amazing! I didn’t buy a bag of the caramels because I knew I would eat them within 2 days and they wouldn’t even get close to coming back to Texas with me!

After our first day in Normandy, we went to our Hotel in Caen, France and our hotel was absolutely amazing! The shower and the bed were the best parts! I took pictures of the room because it was so nice! I would have to say that it was probably one of the nicest hotels I’ve ever been in! I did not specifically pick a roommate so they just gave me one and who would have thought, her name was Kristen! She goes to school in Tulsa, Oklahoma and she was very sweet! We went to bed early after watching some rugby and soccer! The bed was super comfortable and I wanted to take the bed with me back to Paris! The comforter was big and fluffy and the bed was nice and firm which was perfect for my back! (My bed at my homestay isn’t the best because it is very old and I just sink right in it which sometimes makes my back ache.) Anyways, the breakfast in the morning on Sunday was awesome and then at 9am we were on the bus and leaving again to our next destination!

Although Sunday morning was gross with rain and HORRIBLE wind, the sun came out in the afternoon and it was beautiful for the rest of the time! We arrived at Mont Saint Michel with extreme wind and rain and we hauled it to the entrance! Tommy, my new friend and he’s from Texas too, had a poncho on and I just about died laughing seeing him run with the wind blowing him and the poncho everywhere! It was quite hilarious! I had my scarf wrapped around my head because the umbrellas were useless and would have blown away into the ocean the wind was so strong. As we made our way up the little walk to the church it was like a cute little town on this rock. We had a guide that took us around St-Michel and we got in trouble with the priest during one of the services they were holding (he was super angry and made us get out). They love American tourists J. Anyways the church was beautiful and then after we grabbed something to eat and headed back to the bus and took more pictures as the sun came out! The wind almost blew me away it was still so strong! We got back to the bus and then we were off again!

After we just left Mont-Saint-Michel, we stopped at a small place and we were given a tin full of chocolate cookies. They were so good and I’m surprised I didn’t eat them all yet! We then started making our way back to Paris. Along the way we stopped at a gas station and I picked up some candy and the whole bus basically had to go to the bathroom because we didn’t go at Mont-Saint-Michel because personally I didn’t want to pay to use the bathroom there. Plus I didn’t have to go that bad…ok Too much information. Moving on…haha.

The weekend was overall wonderful! I met so many new friends and I had a great time! The weather was perfect on Saturday and somewhat on Sunday! I can’t complain though because the trip was ideal and very relaxing for me! This week I have A LOT to do…Today this morning I went and got another month pass for the metro, I got my jersey for the soccer game on Wednesday, and I got some more jam for my baguettes J! Now I have much needed homework to finish and maybe later I will go walk around the eiffel tower to take a break from writing my papers!

Wednesday = France vs Spain Soccer Game at Stade de France

Thursday = Ballet at the Opera

Saturday = Katie, Berkeley, and Meredith come to PARIS!!