****Warning! This is REALLY LONG**** (It is 6 pages long in microsoft word...there are probably some typos)
Thursday September 18th
We had grammar class like normal in the morning and the hurriedly ate lunch. We had to meet our director at the SNCF train station by 1:40. After lunch Michelle and I rushed up to my room and made a couple croissant and nutella sandwiches for the train ride. The ride was about 5 hours so we knew we would get hungry along the way and didn’t want to pay the outrageous prices of food in the snack bar of the train. We had gone to the grocery store the day before to get the nutella (we got the generic brand but it tasted the same) and croissants. It is really convenient because there is a cheap grocery store and the post office a 10 minute walk from the college! We left the college a little later than we wanted to but since we walked faster than normal, we made it to the train station with time to spare!
The train left at 2:10. I was pretty excited because we were taking the TGV which stands for trains à grand vitesse or high speed train and in 1981 the TGV held the world record for the fastest train. I know that is 27 years ago but I was still excited about! Since we had 5 hours I figured I would get some reading or journaling done during the train ride. However, that plan didn’t last long. About 5 minutes into reading my book I had to stop…I had a headache and wasn’t feeling well. I can’t read in cars but for some reason I expected the train to be better, I guess I was wrong! I think all the trees and hills were passing by the windows too fast for me! So needless to say I didn’t get anymore reading done and either slept or chatted for the remainder of the journey. We arrived in Paris around 7:20. We took the metro from the train station, made a couple changes and headed towards the hotel. I’m glad we did it as a group or I probably would have gotten lost! For the first night I was in a room with 7 other girls! It was pretty crowded but it worked.
Once we got settled in, a bunch of us headed towards the Eiffel Tower. We got off the metro and turned a corner and all of a sudden, there was the Eiffel Tower, glowing blue and sparkling a few blocks in front of us! It was really neat! It just happened to be 9 pm and the Eiffel Tower sparkles every hour on the hour for 10 minutes. It was too late to take the stairs up so we took the elevator. We decided to go up to the top floor right away and then spend some time on the first second level. The line was pretty long but it went fairly quickly so it wasn’t too bad of a wait. The top was neat but I think I like the second floor better. Most people where done surprisingly quickly but Michelle and I didn’t want to leave yet so we stayed while everyone else left to go find some food. There is no way to explain how cool it is to be standing on the Eiffel Tower with the wind blowing in your face and enjoying the lights of Paris at night! It was the perfect first night in Paris activity! We were enjoying ourselves too much to have it cut short. The metro stop was really close and we only had to go through well lit areas so we figured we would be fine on our own. It was pretty chilly and so about half an hour later we decided to head back to our hotel. The rest of the group was waiting for the metro when we got there…apparently they had waited for us for about 10 minutes, not wanting to leave us and then they had been waiting for the metro for the last 15 or 20 minutes. The metro arrived about a minute after we got there, perfect timing! I was tired even though I hadn’t done much and went to bed right away.
Friday September 19th
We had to get up for breakfast at 7:15! Since it was so early I just put a sweatshirt on over my PJs and went down to breakfast. We each got half a baguette with nutella, jam, butter and cheese to choose from as a spread, orange juice, coffee/tea/hot chocolate and fruit cocktail…it was the perfect breakfast for me! At 9:00 we headed out for Montmartre as a group. Our director’s ex-husband (who is the co-director of our program and came along because they wanted their two girls to come to France and thought it best to have both parents here) led us on this excursion and told us lots of information along the way. It was cool to learn about the history of the area and Sacre Coeur. After several stops to take pictures or hear facts we finally made it up to the top of Montmartre and had a choice to go into Sacre Coeur/climb the steps to the top or wandering around the village and artist shops. I chose to go up into Sacre Coeur. It was one of the narrowest staircases I think I have ever been in! And there were a TON of stairs up to the top! However I was not disappointed by the view once we got to the top. You could see really far and it was a beautiful day so the sun was shining and it was really nice! We went down and went into the church. It was really beautiful with many intricate mosaics and stain glass windows with bible verses on them. I really liked it. A couple of us sat down to pray for a few minutes and it ended up that mass was about to start! So we got to hear mass in Sacre Coeur! We couldn’t stay for all of it because we had to meet back at the metro stop to go to lunch at noon and mass started at 11:30.
For lunch, we all meet up at a restaurant called Vins des Pyrenees. We had to choose two courses out of the three options. Our choices were raviolis in a cream sauce, some salmon dish and a fruit soup. Since I am not a fish fan I chose the raviolis and fruit soup. The raviolis were AMAZING!!! I can’t even describe how good they were! There were chives and grated cheese on top. The fruit soup was interesting. There was ginger in it and it just didn’t go together in my opinion. Oh well.
We had to meet at the Louvre at 5:40 so we didn’t have a ton of free time in the afternoon. Some people were going to the catacombs so I went with them. I definitely would never have put the catacombs on my to do list but a bunch of people in my group wanted to go so I thought why not go. It was so strange and really shocking actually…It was piles and piles and piles or
bones and skulls. It was crazy! I couldn’t believe how far it went on. I was expecting to see a bone here and there but it was walls of bones the whole way!! I’ve never seen anything like it and I don’t think I’ll ever see anything like it again! I can’t remember exactly but I think the catacombs were created because the cemeteries in Paris were over crowed and then there was a plague so sorts and they needed somewhere to bury all the new people so they dug up the old graves and put them underground.
When we were done with the catacombs we headed to the Tuileries to spend a few minutes roaming the gardens before we had to meet at the Louvre. The
Louvre is SO huge!! I think we spent about 3 hours in it and were absolutely exhausted! It was a group activity but we got in free. I guess Friday nights it is free for students under 26, thank you ISIC card. It is amazing that there so much art all in one place! The Mona Lisa was disappointing but there were plenty of other amazing painting to make up for it! There is a really HUGE painting that I like on the wall opposite the Mona Lisa, not as famous but much more interesting in my opinion. It was getting late and we were hungry so we made our way back to the area around our hotel and found a gyro stand for dinner. It isn’t like the gyros we eat in the USA but more like the Kebabs we sometimes get at the college. Anyway, it was very tasty. We wandered around while eating and ran into a gelato shop that a family friend suggested…I was too full but it was near our hotel so I was set on coming back. I was tired so I went to bed right when we got back to the hotel.
Saturday September 20th
We met at 9am and went to Place de la Concorde and the Arc de Triomphe. We got a mini history lesson by the Obelisque…did you know it was stolen from the Egyptians? I didn’t! We strolled up the Champs Elysees and made our way to the Arc de Triomphe. It was free as one of the “journees du patrimoine” events but surprisingly the line to climb to the top wasn’t long at all! We climbed right up (more stairs, yippee!) and spent so time taking in the magnificent view and wide avenues coming out of the Arc de Triomphe. It was a beautiful day. We then had free time. Michelle, Laura and I decided to go to the Musee D’Orsay. Instead of taking the metro, we took our time and wandered down the Champs Elysees again, stopping at Monoprix to buy some water, and crossed the Seine and found the Musee D’Orsay. We thought the Musee D’Orsay was supposed to be free as well but it was only reduced price which we would have gotten with our student cards anyway. Oh well. It was definitely worth the 5.5 Euros. We went to the top floor first since that is where the Impressionist painting are and everyone told us to make sure we see them. I now know why! I REALLY like them!!!!! I 
would have to say I think impressionist paintings are now my favorite! There were so many famous and really beautiful painting on this floor! I couldn’t believe it! It was truly amazing! Degas, Van Gogh, Monet, Cezanne…you could get up so close and see the brush strokes and the layers upon layers of paint that they used. I could have spent the whole afternoon on this floor! We went down and wondered through some sculptures and other paintings. The huge clock at one end of the museum was really cool as well! I would have to say that I liked the Musee D’Orsay better than the Louvre.
We were absolutely famished by this point so we found a café that sold sandwiches and went and sat by the Seine to eat them. It was peaceful and great. Initially we wanted to go to the Musee Rodin as well to see “The Thinker” but we didn’t have enough time. Instead, we went to Trocadero and did some people watching and picture taking with the Eiffel Tower. Then it was time for the boat ride on the Seine. This was another planned group activity. We met at the Pont De L’Alma and took a Bateaux Mouche. It was a nice way to see the city and but got really cold during the last half hour.
Our director didn’t come with us because she had other some things to do. We were to meet her at a restaurant for dinner. We got done with the boat ride half an hour before we were supposed to be at the restaurant. We needed to take the RER to get from where we were to a stop a few blocks from the restaurant. Well, there are two entrances to the RER and we all went in the wrong one. Unlike the metro, we couldn’t switch sides without going out. It took us awhile to figure out we were on the wrong side and then we thought we would need another ticket to get in and there was some craziness while people got tickets from each other. However, most of us were able to use the ticket we had just used to get into the other side so it all worked out in the end. But we were late. Once we got off the RER we speed walked to the restaurant which was farther away from the train stop than we were expecting. It was a Moroccan restaurant but I
can’t remember the name. We had a room all to ourselves in the basement. Most of us sat on couch type benches in a U shape and the rest sat at a normal table. It was really comfy but a little crowded. They brought out bread and 4 appetizers for all of us to share-some type of spinach, cooked carrots, and I can’t remember what the other two were. They were really good. For the main course we had a choice between couscous with lamb and veggie and a chicken dish cooked with lemon and onions in this special pot. Since I’ve had couscous I opted for the chicken. It was very tasty but they somehow counted wrong and I didn’t get my food until everyone else was almost done eating!! But it was really good so it was worth the wait. Then it took them FOREVER to bring us our mint tea and Moroccan pastries for dessert. The tea was good but the pastries weren’t the best. The dinner had taken way longer than expected so we all just went back to the hotel and went to bed. Even though it took really long, I’m glad we went because I had never had Moroccan food before.
Sunday September 21st
Versailles! I’m really glad we got to go to Versailles! Our director already had our tickets and I’m glad she did because the line to buy tickets was really long!! We got audio guides with our tickets which was really nice! I listened to mine in French J We first went through the palace part. I started out with Michelle and Neva and we shortly met up with two guys from our group. However, by the time we got done with the first section, we had lost each other. I had no idea where anyone had gone. We were more or less together since we were all listening to the audio guides but none the less, I had no idea where anyone was. So I just continued on. The second part was WAY more crowded than the first! The buildings were really cool with all the paintings, old furniture and walls that looked like they were carpeted! At one point during the second section I ran into one of the guys from our group but the crowds were so huge (reduced 
price here too due to the “journees du patrimoine” so there were a ton of people!). I didn’t spend as much time in each room since it was all starting to look the same. I found the famous hall our mirrors and wasn’t all too impressed. Don’t get me wrong, the ceilings were ornately painted and amazing chandeliers but it didn’t impress me as much as I was expecting…there were other rooms that I like better. I was starting to get worried that I would spend the whole day along since we had the whole day free, we could leave Versailles when we wanted and didn’t have any group activities planned for the evening! I wasn’t in the mood for tackling Paris on my own so I was disappointed. Magically when I was returning my audio guide, I saw a bunch of people from my group leaving the gift shop! Perfect! They were heading out to get some lunch. We were all given money to buy lunch with since it would have been hard to meet up as a group 
to go eat together. We ventured into the town and found a small restaurant. I had a croque Madame…basically a grilled ham and cheese with an egg on top. It was kinda burnt on one side but still pretty good. After lunch, we went back to the palace but didn’t go inside. We walked around to see the gardens. You really couldn’t see much without buying a ticket to go into the gardens. I really wanted to see the gardens so I as sad because everyone was saying that they wanted to go back to Paris to do this or that. I ran off to take a few pictures and when I went back to the group magically the two guys had decided they wanted to stay and go into the gardens!! I was so excited! Like I said before, I didn’t want to be left by myself for the rest of the day so I wasn’t going to stay in the gardens if everyone else went back to Paris even though I really wanted to. Now I 
didn’t have to! And 3 is a good number too, one thing I learned on this trip is that it is hard to do things as a large group!! I wasn’t disappointed that I stayed either! The immensity of the gardens was incredible! Rows and rows of hedges, large expanses of green grass, trees and more trees and some pretty flower beds! There were a bunch of fountains as well. The neat thing about the fountains is that they were completely powered by gravity, no electricity. They were only on from 3:30-5:30. We sat at the edge of the biggest fountain and watched it turn on. There were some ducks and a swan swimming around the fountain before it turned on. This may seem odd but I actually really enjoyed watching the swan and ducks while we were waiting for the fountain to turn on. We took a 20 minutes rest on one of the lawns before strolling through the orangerie and headed back to Paris.
We had planned to meet some people at Sacre Coeur at 6:30. We got off at the metro stop close to Sacre Coeur. There were a bunch of people waiting to take an elevator out…we had never seen an elevator in the metro stations before and decided to take the stairs out since they were right there. Well, they were NEVER ENDING stairs and after we got to the top understood why everyone was waiting for the elevator. We didn’t know exactly where we were but we knew Sacre Coeur was at the top of the hill and we weren’t so we climbed up about 3 more flights of
stairs and up streets until we found it. The steps were really crowded but we managed to find 4 friends and after waiting awhile figured that was everyone who was coming. Turns out Michelle and Neva were there at the exact same time too but they didn’t know about the planned meeting there and we didn’t see them. We looked at some shops and paintings and then decided to find the Moulin Rouge while it was still light out. We knew it was in the general Montmartre area but didn’t know where. We asked someone for directions and they said it was down the hill and to the right….well we were walking for a while and didn’t see it so we asked for directions again to make sure we were going in the right way. We were on the right track but it was just farther away than we expected….we ended up asking for directions one more time…we were never going the wrong way, it just felt like we should have been there already. We finally found it, took pictures and hoped on the metro to get dinner near our hotel. We went into a cool looking church for about 2 mintues before we had to leave…it was closing for the night. We got gyros again. Since some people were getting crepes, another girl and I went back to the gelato shop 
(Amorino) I had seen a few days ago. I got dark chocolate and raspberry. Let’s just say I think it was THE BEST ICE CREAM (well, gelato, but same idea) I HAVE EVER HAD!!! It was worth every cent (even with the bad exchange rate)!! I was tired but since it was our last night I didn’t want to go to bed. Bad at the hotel I hung out with some friends and then people decided they were going out. I didn’t part take in the taking an hour to decide what to wear and how to do my hair but went out with them anyway. We ended up going to a salsa bar and there were only like 5 other people in the bar but that was fine. It was pretty fun.
Monday September 22nd
Last morning in Paris! We had to be back at the hotel at 12:15 to leave so we didn’t have too
much time. I got up earlier than my roommates, ate breakfast and headed out by myself, which is what I wanted to do. I hadn’t seen the Centre Pompidou yet and I really wanted to. It was near our hotel so I just walked. It was a perfect morning! Clear and slightly crisp! It was so fun walked along with the people going to work and the other students heading off to school. The Centre Pompidou doesn’t open until 11 am so I wasn’t able to go inside but that’s ok. There was a neat fountain right across from it and I spent some time there and then circled the Centre Pompidou and looked in the windows…all I could see was some cool architecture models on the ground floor. I hadn’t done any shopping yet so I set out on a mission to get some quality shopping in in the next hour and a half. I wandered down a random street in the direction of the 
hotel and found a really cool and cheap bookstore. I got a book on Monet and a Mega Kakuro puzzle book. I had never seen this puzzle before but it is kind of like a sudoko and kind of like a crossword puzzle and the book of 940 puzzles only cost 2.5 euros so I got it since it looked like fun and I figured it would be good for me so my math brain doesn’t turn to mush not having any math classes this semester. I started one while waiting for the TGV to start but had to stop a few minutes later and haven’t had time to work on it again. They are challenging but fun! I stopped by Notre Dame on my shopping adventure since it was on my way. I sat on the edge of the Seine and just spent some time looking at the detail of one side. My morning was going perfectly!! The artists were 
just opening up their stands along the river and I spent a bunch of time browsing through their art. I got a poster but decided to hold off on the paintings since I had seen them for cheaper. I was running out of time so I went to a nearby area with a ton of little shops. There I found almost everything I was looking for including the perfect painting for cheaper than the artist stands along the river! I was hungry and only had 15 minutes before I needed to be back at the hotel so I stopped at a little pastry shop and got an amazing looking raspberry tart and something for the train ride. The train ride back was uneventful and I just slept or talked. We made it 
back to the college in time for dinner but the walk from the train station back to the college felt SOOO long. We were all tired and hungry. My roommate was really excited to see me and didn’t stop talking throughout all of dinner.
This week:
I already told you about my Cinema class. On Thursday I started French Civilization. The prof had a list of 13 names but for some reason 25 people showed up to the class. The room was crowded since it wasn’t made for that many people but she is going to figure out what went wrong for class tomorrow. Besides the large number of people, the class seemed pretty good. We talked about French schools last time…I had learned some of the information before but there was definitely new information too. We had a Mexican Fiesta night for dinner! It was really good but the line was long (it was a buffet instead of each table getting a platter of food like normal) and we were all late to senior seminar!
On Friday I only had grammar and then I was free! I went into town and window shopped. I stopped at Monoprix for a mailing envelope to mail Emily’s birthday gift in J. When I went in, I noticed there were some dark clouds coming but I thought the rain would hold off until I got back to the college but I was wrong! It was raining by the time I got out of Monoprix! Now I was 30 minutes from the college without an umbrella! Darn! I walked as fast as I could to the post office and then back to the college. The rain felt kinda good and I was soaked by the time I got back.
Thursday September 18th
We had grammar class like normal in the morning and the hurriedly ate lunch. We had to meet our director at the SNCF train station by 1:40. After lunch Michelle and I rushed up to my room and made a couple croissant and nutella sandwiches for the train ride. The ride was about 5 hours so we knew we would get hungry along the way and didn’t want to pay the outrageous prices of food in the snack bar of the train. We had gone to the grocery store the day before to get the nutella (we got the generic brand but it tasted the same) and croissants. It is really convenient because there is a cheap grocery store and the post office a 10 minute walk from the college! We left the college a little later than we wanted to but since we walked faster than normal, we made it to the train station with time to spare!The train left at 2:10. I was pretty excited because we were taking the TGV which stands for trains à grand vitesse or high speed train and in 1981 the TGV held the world record for the fastest train. I know that is 27 years ago but I was still excited about! Since we had 5 hours I figured I would get some reading or journaling done during the train ride. However, that plan didn’t last long. About 5 minutes into reading my book I had to stop…I had a headache and wasn’t feeling well. I can’t read in cars but for some reason I expected the train to be better, I guess I was wrong! I think all the trees and hills were passing by the windows too fast for me! So needless to say I didn’t get anymore reading done and either slept or chatted for the remainder of the journey. We arrived in Paris around 7:20. We took the metro from the train station, made a couple changes and headed towards the hotel. I’m glad we did it as a group or I probably would have gotten lost! For the first night I was in a room with 7 other girls! It was pretty crowded but it worked.
Once we got settled in, a bunch of us headed towards the Eiffel Tower. We got off the metro and turned a corner and all of a sudden, there was the Eiffel Tower, glowing blue and sparkling a few blocks in front of us! It was really neat! It just happened to be 9 pm and the Eiffel Tower sparkles every hour on the hour for 10 minutes. It was too late to take the stairs up so we took the elevator. We decided to go up to the top floor right away and then spend some time on the first second level. The line was pretty long but it went fairly quickly so it wasn’t too bad of a wait. The top was neat but I think I like the second floor better. Most people where done surprisingly quickly but Michelle and I didn’t want to leave yet so we stayed while everyone else left to go find some food. There is no way to explain how cool it is to be standing on the Eiffel Tower with the wind blowing in your face and enjoying the lights of Paris at night! It was the perfect first night in Paris activity! We were enjoying ourselves too much to have it cut short. The metro stop was really close and we only had to go through well lit areas so we figured we would be fine on our own. It was pretty chilly and so about half an hour later we decided to head back to our hotel. The rest of the group was waiting for the metro when we got there…apparently they had waited for us for about 10 minutes, not wanting to leave us and then they had been waiting for the metro for the last 15 or 20 minutes. The metro arrived about a minute after we got there, perfect timing! I was tired even though I hadn’t done much and went to bed right away.Friday September 19th
We had to get up for breakfast at 7:15! Since it was so early I just put a sweatshirt on over my PJs and went down to breakfast. We each got half a baguette with nutella, jam, butter and cheese to choose from as a spread, orange juice, coffee/tea/hot chocolate and fruit cocktail…it was the perfect breakfast for me! At 9:00 we headed out for Montmartre as a group. Our director’s ex-husband (who is the co-director of our program and came along because they wanted their two girls to come to France and thought it best to have both parents here) led us on this excursion and told us lots of information along the way. It was cool to learn about the history of the area and Sacre Coeur. After several stops to take pictures or hear facts we finally made it up to the top of Montmartre and had a choice to go into Sacre Coeur/climb the steps to the top or wandering around the village and artist shops. I chose to go up into Sacre Coeur. It was one of the narrowest staircases I think I have ever been in! And there were a TON of stairs up to the top! However I was not disappointed by the view once we got to the top. You could see really far and it was a beautiful day so the sun was shining and it was really nice! We went down and went into the church. It was really beautiful with many intricate mosaics and stain glass windows with bible verses on them. I really liked it. A couple of us sat down to pray for a few minutes and it ended up that mass was about to start! So we got to hear mass in Sacre Coeur! We couldn’t stay for all of it because we had to meet back at the metro stop to go to lunch at noon and mass started at 11:30.
For lunch, we all meet up at a restaurant called Vins des Pyrenees. We had to choose two courses out of the three options. Our choices were raviolis in a cream sauce, some salmon dish and a fruit soup. Since I am not a fish fan I chose the raviolis and fruit soup. The raviolis were AMAZING!!! I can’t even describe how good they were! There were chives and grated cheese on top. The fruit soup was interesting. There was ginger in it and it just didn’t go together in my opinion. Oh well.We had to meet at the Louvre at 5:40 so we didn’t have a ton of free time in the afternoon. Some people were going to the catacombs so I went with them. I definitely would never have put the catacombs on my to do list but a bunch of people in my group wanted to go so I thought why not go. It was so strange and really shocking actually…It was piles and piles and piles or
bones and skulls. It was crazy! I couldn’t believe how far it went on. I was expecting to see a bone here and there but it was walls of bones the whole way!! I’ve never seen anything like it and I don’t think I’ll ever see anything like it again! I can’t remember exactly but I think the catacombs were created because the cemeteries in Paris were over crowed and then there was a plague so sorts and they needed somewhere to bury all the new people so they dug up the old graves and put them underground.When we were done with the catacombs we headed to the Tuileries to spend a few minutes roaming the gardens before we had to meet at the Louvre. The
Louvre is SO huge!! I think we spent about 3 hours in it and were absolutely exhausted! It was a group activity but we got in free. I guess Friday nights it is free for students under 26, thank you ISIC card. It is amazing that there so much art all in one place! The Mona Lisa was disappointing but there were plenty of other amazing painting to make up for it! There is a really HUGE painting that I like on the wall opposite the Mona Lisa, not as famous but much more interesting in my opinion. It was getting late and we were hungry so we made our way back to the area around our hotel and found a gyro stand for dinner. It isn’t like the gyros we eat in the USA but more like the Kebabs we sometimes get at the college. Anyway, it was very tasty. We wandered around while eating and ran into a gelato shop that a family friend suggested…I was too full but it was near our hotel so I was set on coming back. I was tired so I went to bed right when we got back to the hotel.Saturday September 20th
We met at 9am and went to Place de la Concorde and the Arc de Triomphe. We got a mini history lesson by the Obelisque…did you know it was stolen from the Egyptians? I didn’t! We strolled up the Champs Elysees and made our way to the Arc de Triomphe. It was free as one of the “journees du patrimoine” events but surprisingly the line to climb to the top wasn’t long at all! We climbed right up (more stairs, yippee!) and spent so time taking in the magnificent view and wide avenues coming out of the Arc de Triomphe. It was a beautiful day. We then had free time. Michelle, Laura and I decided to go to the Musee D’Orsay. Instead of taking the metro, we took our time and wandered down the Champs Elysees again, stopping at Monoprix to buy some water, and crossed the Seine and found the Musee D’Orsay. We thought the Musee D’Orsay was supposed to be free as well but it was only reduced price which we would have gotten with our student cards anyway. Oh well. It was definitely worth the 5.5 Euros. We went to the top floor first since that is where the Impressionist painting are and everyone told us to make sure we see them. I now know why! I REALLY like them!!!!! I 
would have to say I think impressionist paintings are now my favorite! There were so many famous and really beautiful painting on this floor! I couldn’t believe it! It was truly amazing! Degas, Van Gogh, Monet, Cezanne…you could get up so close and see the brush strokes and the layers upon layers of paint that they used. I could have spent the whole afternoon on this floor! We went down and wondered through some sculptures and other paintings. The huge clock at one end of the museum was really cool as well! I would have to say that I liked the Musee D’Orsay better than the Louvre.We were absolutely famished by this point so we found a café that sold sandwiches and went and sat by the Seine to eat them. It was peaceful and great. Initially we wanted to go to the Musee Rodin as well to see “The Thinker” but we didn’t have enough time. Instead, we went to Trocadero and did some people watching and picture taking with the Eiffel Tower. Then it was time for the boat ride on the Seine. This was another planned group activity. We met at the Pont De L’Alma and took a Bateaux Mouche. It was a nice way to see the city and but got really cold during the last half hour.
Our director didn’t come with us because she had other some things to do. We were to meet her at a restaurant for dinner. We got done with the boat ride half an hour before we were supposed to be at the restaurant. We needed to take the RER to get from where we were to a stop a few blocks from the restaurant. Well, there are two entrances to the RER and we all went in the wrong one. Unlike the metro, we couldn’t switch sides without going out. It took us awhile to figure out we were on the wrong side and then we thought we would need another ticket to get in and there was some craziness while people got tickets from each other. However, most of us were able to use the ticket we had just used to get into the other side so it all worked out in the end. But we were late. Once we got off the RER we speed walked to the restaurant which was farther away from the train stop than we were expecting. It was a Moroccan restaurant but I
can’t remember the name. We had a room all to ourselves in the basement. Most of us sat on couch type benches in a U shape and the rest sat at a normal table. It was really comfy but a little crowded. They brought out bread and 4 appetizers for all of us to share-some type of spinach, cooked carrots, and I can’t remember what the other two were. They were really good. For the main course we had a choice between couscous with lamb and veggie and a chicken dish cooked with lemon and onions in this special pot. Since I’ve had couscous I opted for the chicken. It was very tasty but they somehow counted wrong and I didn’t get my food until everyone else was almost done eating!! But it was really good so it was worth the wait. Then it took them FOREVER to bring us our mint tea and Moroccan pastries for dessert. The tea was good but the pastries weren’t the best. The dinner had taken way longer than expected so we all just went back to the hotel and went to bed. Even though it took really long, I’m glad we went because I had never had Moroccan food before.Sunday September 21st
Versailles! I’m really glad we got to go to Versailles! Our director already had our tickets and I’m glad she did because the line to buy tickets was really long!! We got audio guides with our tickets which was really nice! I listened to mine in French J We first went through the palace part. I started out with Michelle and Neva and we shortly met up with two guys from our group. However, by the time we got done with the first section, we had lost each other. I had no idea where anyone had gone. We were more or less together since we were all listening to the audio guides but none the less, I had no idea where anyone was. So I just continued on. The second part was WAY more crowded than the first! The buildings were really cool with all the paintings, old furniture and walls that looked like they were carpeted! At one point during the second section I ran into one of the guys from our group but the crowds were so huge (reduced 
price here too due to the “journees du patrimoine” so there were a ton of people!). I didn’t spend as much time in each room since it was all starting to look the same. I found the famous hall our mirrors and wasn’t all too impressed. Don’t get me wrong, the ceilings were ornately painted and amazing chandeliers but it didn’t impress me as much as I was expecting…there were other rooms that I like better. I was starting to get worried that I would spend the whole day along since we had the whole day free, we could leave Versailles when we wanted and didn’t have any group activities planned for the evening! I wasn’t in the mood for tackling Paris on my own so I was disappointed. Magically when I was returning my audio guide, I saw a bunch of people from my group leaving the gift shop! Perfect! They were heading out to get some lunch. We were all given money to buy lunch with since it would have been hard to meet up as a group 
to go eat together. We ventured into the town and found a small restaurant. I had a croque Madame…basically a grilled ham and cheese with an egg on top. It was kinda burnt on one side but still pretty good. After lunch, we went back to the palace but didn’t go inside. We walked around to see the gardens. You really couldn’t see much without buying a ticket to go into the gardens. I really wanted to see the gardens so I as sad because everyone was saying that they wanted to go back to Paris to do this or that. I ran off to take a few pictures and when I went back to the group magically the two guys had decided they wanted to stay and go into the gardens!! I was so excited! Like I said before, I didn’t want to be left by myself for the rest of the day so I wasn’t going to stay in the gardens if everyone else went back to Paris even though I really wanted to. Now I 
didn’t have to! And 3 is a good number too, one thing I learned on this trip is that it is hard to do things as a large group!! I wasn’t disappointed that I stayed either! The immensity of the gardens was incredible! Rows and rows of hedges, large expanses of green grass, trees and more trees and some pretty flower beds! There were a bunch of fountains as well. The neat thing about the fountains is that they were completely powered by gravity, no electricity. They were only on from 3:30-5:30. We sat at the edge of the biggest fountain and watched it turn on. There were some ducks and a swan swimming around the fountain before it turned on. This may seem odd but I actually really enjoyed watching the swan and ducks while we were waiting for the fountain to turn on. We took a 20 minutes rest on one of the lawns before strolling through the orangerie and headed back to Paris.We had planned to meet some people at Sacre Coeur at 6:30. We got off at the metro stop close to Sacre Coeur. There were a bunch of people waiting to take an elevator out…we had never seen an elevator in the metro stations before and decided to take the stairs out since they were right there. Well, they were NEVER ENDING stairs and after we got to the top understood why everyone was waiting for the elevator. We didn’t know exactly where we were but we knew Sacre Coeur was at the top of the hill and we weren’t so we climbed up about 3 more flights of
stairs and up streets until we found it. The steps were really crowded but we managed to find 4 friends and after waiting awhile figured that was everyone who was coming. Turns out Michelle and Neva were there at the exact same time too but they didn’t know about the planned meeting there and we didn’t see them. We looked at some shops and paintings and then decided to find the Moulin Rouge while it was still light out. We knew it was in the general Montmartre area but didn’t know where. We asked someone for directions and they said it was down the hill and to the right….well we were walking for a while and didn’t see it so we asked for directions again to make sure we were going in the right way. We were on the right track but it was just farther away than we expected….we ended up asking for directions one more time…we were never going the wrong way, it just felt like we should have been there already. We finally found it, took pictures and hoped on the metro to get dinner near our hotel. We went into a cool looking church for about 2 mintues before we had to leave…it was closing for the night. We got gyros again. Since some people were getting crepes, another girl and I went back to the gelato shop 
(Amorino) I had seen a few days ago. I got dark chocolate and raspberry. Let’s just say I think it was THE BEST ICE CREAM (well, gelato, but same idea) I HAVE EVER HAD!!! It was worth every cent (even with the bad exchange rate)!! I was tired but since it was our last night I didn’t want to go to bed. Bad at the hotel I hung out with some friends and then people decided they were going out. I didn’t part take in the taking an hour to decide what to wear and how to do my hair but went out with them anyway. We ended up going to a salsa bar and there were only like 5 other people in the bar but that was fine. It was pretty fun.Monday September 22nd
Last morning in Paris! We had to be back at the hotel at 12:15 to leave so we didn’t have too
much time. I got up earlier than my roommates, ate breakfast and headed out by myself, which is what I wanted to do. I hadn’t seen the Centre Pompidou yet and I really wanted to. It was near our hotel so I just walked. It was a perfect morning! Clear and slightly crisp! It was so fun walked along with the people going to work and the other students heading off to school. The Centre Pompidou doesn’t open until 11 am so I wasn’t able to go inside but that’s ok. There was a neat fountain right across from it and I spent some time there and then circled the Centre Pompidou and looked in the windows…all I could see was some cool architecture models on the ground floor. I hadn’t done any shopping yet so I set out on a mission to get some quality shopping in in the next hour and a half. I wandered down a random street in the direction of the 
hotel and found a really cool and cheap bookstore. I got a book on Monet and a Mega Kakuro puzzle book. I had never seen this puzzle before but it is kind of like a sudoko and kind of like a crossword puzzle and the book of 940 puzzles only cost 2.5 euros so I got it since it looked like fun and I figured it would be good for me so my math brain doesn’t turn to mush not having any math classes this semester. I started one while waiting for the TGV to start but had to stop a few minutes later and haven’t had time to work on it again. They are challenging but fun! I stopped by Notre Dame on my shopping adventure since it was on my way. I sat on the edge of the Seine and just spent some time looking at the detail of one side. My morning was going perfectly!! The artists were 
just opening up their stands along the river and I spent a bunch of time browsing through their art. I got a poster but decided to hold off on the paintings since I had seen them for cheaper. I was running out of time so I went to a nearby area with a ton of little shops. There I found almost everything I was looking for including the perfect painting for cheaper than the artist stands along the river! I was hungry and only had 15 minutes before I needed to be back at the hotel so I stopped at a little pastry shop and got an amazing looking raspberry tart and something for the train ride. The train ride back was uneventful and I just slept or talked. We made it 
back to the college in time for dinner but the walk from the train station back to the college felt SOOO long. We were all tired and hungry. My roommate was really excited to see me and didn’t stop talking throughout all of dinner.This week:
I already told you about my Cinema class. On Thursday I started French Civilization. The prof had a list of 13 names but for some reason 25 people showed up to the class. The room was crowded since it wasn’t made for that many people but she is going to figure out what went wrong for class tomorrow. Besides the large number of people, the class seemed pretty good. We talked about French schools last time…I had learned some of the information before but there was definitely new information too. We had a Mexican Fiesta night for dinner! It was really good but the line was long (it was a buffet instead of each table getting a platter of food like normal) and we were all late to senior seminar!
On Friday I only had grammar and then I was free! I went into town and window shopped. I stopped at Monoprix for a mailing envelope to mail Emily’s birthday gift in J. When I went in, I noticed there were some dark clouds coming but I thought the rain would hold off until I got back to the college but I was wrong! It was raining by the time I got out of Monoprix! Now I was 30 minutes from the college without an umbrella! Darn! I walked as fast as I could to the post office and then back to the college. The rain felt kinda good and I was soaked by the time I got back.
At the Louvre!
Dinner was the best meal every! It was kebab…we had it one other time earlier in the semester so I was really excited when I saw it on the menu. It is a warmed up tortilla and you put lamb (it has some spices on it, it is very tasty!!), veggies (lettuce, tomato, onion) and a ranch-ish sauce inside. We also had steak fries. Dessert was this tropical pineapple freezy thing that I wasn’t all too excited about. However, the kitchen ladies rolled out a tray with left over raspberry tarts from lunch….since I was sitting close to the kitchen I was lucky enough to get one…best meal EVER!
