This weekend I traveled to PARIS! We flew in late Thursday night and navigated our way on the train then subway and finally arrived to are hostel a couple hours later. Friday we started off the day bright and early and headed down to the Effile Tower which I've seen in a million of pictures but seeing it up close was unreal. From there we headed out to Musee De L'armee an old French army museum, some famous palaces that I of course forgot the name of, went into the lourve saw the famous painting of Mona Lisa, climbed up 400 stairs (not to mention spiral tight staircase) to the top of Notre Dame over looking all of Paris. The benefit of studying abroad is that having a visa gets us into most of these museums FO FREE! One of the girls I traveled with had a friend studying abroad in Paris, we met up with her for dinner where I had a hamburger, egg, cheese crape was unique but tasted great. After dinner we decided to go back to the Effile Tower to see it lit up at night and to go up to the top. Most of us are eager and impatient and didn't want to wait in the line for the elevator so we decided to walk up all the stairs to the top, we lost track of counting soon after we started but I think I heard there was around 700..so thats over 1,000 stairs in one day it was safe to say we were exhausted! Saturday we went to Arc de Triomphe and decided to skip out on walking to the top of that after all the stairs the day before. We went shopping or I guess "looking" since no one could afford to actual get anything on the famous Champs-Elysees street. One day I'll go back and actually be able to buy something. From there we jumped on the train out to The Palace of Versailles where the royal family lived until the beginning of the french revolution. It was fascinating to be able to walk through such a huge Palace and see where a family lived. My favorite room inside the house was the room of mirrors and seeing the bedrooms with furniture still intact. Versailles is also famous for the acres and acres of gardens surrounding the palace, unfortunately this time of year all the flowers and plants are dead from the winter but it was still beautiful to walk around I can only imagine what they look like when bloomed..guess I'll have to go back sometime in the summer. From the Palace we all were invited over to my relatives John and Claudia for a home cooked meal which we were all thrilled about seeing how its been a long two months away from home. It was great to catch up with family that I haven't seen in over 15 years. Sunday was a short but packed last day in Rome. We headed to the jewish quarters where we went in vintage stores and ate the best falafel in my life, which I guess is true because it was also the first time I have ever had a falafel before. Before I started study abroad I considered myself a picky eater I'm slowly but surely breaking out of that shell. After lunch was a struggle walking around not only with my backpack on but a full stomach. Before we left we saw the pantheon and St Etienne du Mont chime (The famous steps of the church from the film Midnight in Paris!) Sad to leave Paris but also happy to be back in Rome. By no means do Italian men smell good but they smell a lot better than french men..had a rough 2 hour flight home sitting in between two not so clean men.
Other news..
-Ate one too many nutella crapes this weekend
-Still so thankful of my parents for supporting me on this amazing experience
-Mom comes in two days (Thursday) so excited to see her this is the longest we've ever gone apart and also to have oatmeal and peanut butter back in my life :)
-Finished the book Extremely loud and Incredibly close, was amazing I suggest everyone to read it then watch the movie!
-MSU won big ten champs for basketball (couple days late..news travels slow in Rome)
-Less than three weeks until spring break (Seville, Morocco & barcelona)
-February is coming to an end which means the half way mark for study abroad :(!!
-My life just doesn't seem real
Rome wasn't built in a day
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