Sorry it's been so long since I've blogged...everything has just been super busy over here but...
So I spent possibly one of the best weekends ever in London with my friends!!! Well I guess it didn’t start off so great! I was waiting in the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris when I got a text from Ellis that the hostel we had booked was absolutely disgusting. Usually I would have been worried to receive a text like this, but I got really worried when Ellis told me that Martha, our one friend who could rough it through a gross hostel, was crying because the hostel was so nasty. To say the least, before I got on the plane to go to London, Ellis and Martha were in the process of getting our money back from the hostel and booking us a hotel.
I was so lucky because my flight to London was on Air France instead of Easy Jet or Ryan Air. So not only did I actually have an assigned seat, but they even served me a snack and a drink on the plane!!!! I felt like royalty. When I got to the airport I hopped on “the Tube” towards our hotel stop. The direction of tube was towards ‘Cock Fosters’…say that in an English accent and maybe you’ll understand why I was laughing the whole way there. Once again Ellis, Martha, and Charlotte were there to greet me at my tube my stop. I truly wish I could describe how amazing it was each time to see my friends in each of these amazing cities all over Europe, but it is just too hard to describe! But to say the least I was so happy I literally could not stop smiling!!! I didn’t get in until later Friday, so that night we just ate dinner near our hotel. We happened to find this amazing burger place! It was the most American meal I have had in two and a half months. Not only was it an amazing burger and fries, but we were able to eat it with all the ketchup we wanted. Ketchup is very hard to come by in Europe, so we were thrilled. I know I slept better than night because my body was so happy to have beef.
The next morning we woke up really early because we decided the best way to do London was to hop on one of the open top buses and buy the day long tour. We started off by taking the two and a half hour long tour all the way around the city. It was an absolutely beautiful day and we had the best time seeing all the monuments. When we finished the entire tour we stopped to get lunch. We ate at the most delicious restaurant ever!!!! I always thought fish and chips was so cliché and pretty much just fried fish and French fries, which it is...but the place that we ate at was amazing!!!! The fish and chips were truly incredible! We could have stayed there for hours eating our meals!
After lunch we decided to go to the Tower of London to see the crown jewels. It was absolutely breath taking—they were SO big! Afterwards, with the tour we bought, we got a free boat ride down the Thames River. It was so pretty because the sun was setting as we took the ride. We got off the boat at Big Ben and Parliament, walked to Westminister Abbey, and then to Buckingham Palace. I wish I could describe all of these amazing places, but I just can’t. All I can say is that I definitely want to visit London again one day SOON!
We grabbed a quick dinner that night and then walked over to Abbey Road. We literally took a million pictures as we tried to recreate the moment with the Beatles. After that we walked over to Big Ben to see it at night. It was spectacular.
It was really sad leaving London Sunday morning—not only to be leaving our friends, but to be leaving a place where they spoke ENGLISH. To say the least we were all missing America, but we were excited too because we are meeting up the next weekend in Paris for Claire’s 21st birthday!!!!
Claire and I met Ellis, Martha, their roommate Marrissa, and Virginia Friday afternoon in Paris. When Claire and I got there, the 4 other girls were visiting Versaille because they had flown in Thursday. So Claire and I ran to grab some groceries and then decided to grab a glass of wine at a café while we waited. Well this one glass of wine turned out to be the most entertaining we’ve had yet! It started when this woman walked by in this humongous hat! It was literally probably two feet tall and about a foot wide. It kind of looked like hair but then it had all these swatches of fabric in it. We tried to get a picture but were too slow. Then this little girl came zooming past us on her scooter. This is actually pretty normal for France, but then a few feet behind the little girl was her mom, also on a scooter. We literally died laughing. Then we saw a guy on a motorcycle get hit by a car. The guy flew off his motorcycle, only to hop right up, give the guy in the car a mean look, pick his motorcycle up and drive off. Claire and I had our phones out to call 911, but no one around us even seemed phased by what had just happened; it was crazy!
We finally met up with the other girls and went to our apartment. We found this great little apartment near the Eiffel Tower for the weekend. It was so much more fun than having three small hotel rooms. That night for dinner we went back to the fondue restaurant where you can drink wine out of the baby bottles. It was just as much fun as the first time! We woke up early Saturday and were definitely dragging a little. But we made it the Notre Dame, inside the Louvre, down the Champs d’Elysee, to the Arc de Triomphe, and to the Eiffel Tower. It was a really busy day but we had so much fun! That night for dinner we went to a cute little restaurant near our apartment and had the BEST French Onion Soup.
It was really, really sad leaving them Sunday because it was the last trip we all had planned together. And it was REALLY strange thinking that the next time we were all together we would be in America…
Our IES program planned a trip for us to go see Normandy one weekend. We left early Saturday morning and went to Caen. One of the professors at IES is a history professor at the University of Nantes so he came with us to explain everything. When we first got to Caen we went to look at the church the William the Conqueror built, St. Etienne. It was so beautiful and really neat because part of the church is now an abbey and also the town hall. After the church we went to World War II museum in Caen. It was AMAZING and truly touching. We also watched this really neat movie at the museum that showed D-Day from both the Allies and the Germans point of view. One side of the screen showed the Allies storming the beaches and the other showed the Germans. It was really cool. After the museum we went and checked into the hotel. It was SUCH a nice hotel compared to the other ones we had stayed in with IES. And that night for dinner they had the best buffet meal with chicken breasts and salad! It was a taste of heaven for all of us.
That night was my friend Jesse’s 21st birthday so we of course went out to celebrate that! Caen has a river kind of going through the middle of the town and all the bars line the river. It was a really fun atmosphere with a lot to do. But we of course ended up at an Irish Pub—for some reason we always end up at Irish pubs, but they’ve also always been fun!
Sunday we went to Arromanches, the beach that the British stormed on D-Day. It was really cool! The blocks that the British dropped right off the beach to stop the waves were still there as well as some old boats and stuff. It was so amazing to see!! The cliffs were so steep! It’s hard to imagine how those soldiers climbed them all much less while the Germans were firing at them! After Arromanches, we went to Bayeux. It was one of the cutest French towns I have seen yet. It was so small and so quaint! I’m sure it gets busy during the tourist season, but it was really cute when we were there! We went to see the tapestry that Mathilde, William the Conqueror’s wife, made to depict the Normand invasion of England in 1066. It was like 70 meters long and so beautiful, especially considering how much time and effort she must have put into making it!
Aunt Dotty and Rebecca were in France and I was going to meet up with them in Bayeux and take the train back with them to Nantes. When I realized what a small town Bayeux was I was certain I would run into them. While my friends and I were walking around trying to find something for lunch we passed a hotel, I ran in to see if maybe it was the one they were staying in and sure enough it was! It was SO AMAZING to see both of them! I really can’t describe what a comfort it was to see them and know they were in France! And so surreal—I usually see them in Saluda, NC or Walterboro, SC and here we were in France together! I left my IES group and took the train back to Nantes with them. It was suppose to be a 2-3 hour train ride that turned into a 6 hour ride. For some reason our train went all over the Normandy region making a million stops in small towns. Then at one point the train was going so slow the three of us could have walked faster than it was going! It was kind of annoying, but also gave us time to catch up!! It was so great being with them!
When we got to Nantes I took them to their hotel to check in and then we went to a creperie for dinner. I’m going to have to figure out a way to make crepes/gallettes in America because they are so good! The next day I met them at their hotel and we toured Nantes and even did a little shopping! It was so much fun showing them where I’ve been living for the past 3 months! And of course shopping is always fun. That afternoon they took the train back to Paris.
The next weekend I met up with them in Paris. We had such a fun weekend together in Paris! I loved just seeing them, much less being with them in Paris!! Friday afternoon we took a boat tour down the Seine River. It was so gorgeous and we timed it perfectly because the sun was setting as we took the tour. I loved seeing all the beautiful bridges and being able to see all the gorgeous monuments from the river. After the boat tour we went to Rue Cler. It is a really cute road that they knew about with all of these restaurants on it. It’s really cool because cars aren’t allowed down the road. We ate at the BEST Italian restaurant. As an appetizer we all split a green bean and mushroom salad. It had this delicious dressing on it—it was a little spicy I guess, kind of had a taste of Dijon mustard it or something. I’m not sure what it was but it was SO good. Aunt Dotty had risotto with tuna, Rebecca had a pizza, and I had pesto gnocchi. I definitely want to go back to this restaurant and would recommend it to everyone! After dinner we grabbed a bottle of wine and went to sit at the Eiffel Tower to watch it sparkle. It is so beautiful at night and truly takes your breath away when it sparkles at night.
Saturday we woke up and went to an outdoor market that is only open on Saturdays. It was so much fun! There were millions of things there from clothes, meats, fruits and veggies, jewelry, everything. After that we went to the Maurais. It’s a neighborhood in Paris with a lot of shops and less touristy. It was really fun walking around and everything. We stopped and ate lunch at a park. It was a beautiful day and there were a million people in the park, so we all had fun people watching! After lunch we walked over the Pompidou. It’s an art museum but all the pipes and everything are on the outside of the building. It was really neat. That night Aunt Dotty and Rebecca had made reservations at Le Soufflé. None of us had ever had soufflés before so we were a little nervous. Well, the soufflés truly blew us out of the water—they were DELICIOUS! Aunt Dotty started off with an asparagus one, and I think it was my favorite one of the night. I had a tomato basil one, and Rebecca had a spinach and goat cheese one. Then Rebecca and I each got salmon and avocado and Aunt Dotty got chicken and mushrooms. For dessert we each got something different and passed them around. Aunt Dotty got the chocolate soufflé, Rebecca got sorbet, and I got crème brulee. This restaurant was so good and so much fun because it was so French.
Sunday they had booked a day long tour to Giverny and Versailles. Giverny is where Monet’s house is and his gardens. I didn’t know what to expect, but it was absolutely breath taking! Probably one of my most favorite things I’ve done yet. His gardens are absolutely beautiful! We went at the perfect time because everything had just bloomed! And it was so much fun going with Aunt Dotty because she knows so much about flowers and was able to tell us the names of everything that we were looking at. After Giverny we ate lunch at a delicious restaurant and then went to Versailles. The chateau is gorgeous and we loved touring it, but the gardens definitely stole the show. The fountains were on for the first time that Sunday and we were able to walk around and see them all on. The gardens are beautiful but seeing them with all the fountains on and the classical music playing is something I will truly never forget. It was amazing.
After such a big day, we decided to grab dinner at a restaurant near the hotel. Aunt Dotty and Rebecca had eaten there the first night they were in Paris and had said how good it was, and sure enough we had another delicious meal together! Aunt Dotty and Rebecca had to leave early Monday morning and saying goodbye was a lot harder than I expected it to be. We had such an amazing time together and I am so lucky that they were able to come visit me in France! It means the world to me that they came and I loved every minute we spent together!
These next two weeks we sadly have a ton of schoolwork. But the weather has been gorgeous in Nantes the past week so yesterday some friends and I took the afternoon off from schoolwork and went to a park to soak up the sun. After a long afternoon in the park with some wine and speculous (it’s a French spread that tastes like graham crackers…it’s SO good) we all had our first sunburns of the year. But it was worth it for such a fun afternoon and our bodies have been covered in jackets and jeans for the past three months so it felt good to just sit in the sun!
Next weekend Aunt Sassie, Patrick, and James are coming to France!!! I’m so excited and can hardly wait to see them!!! Then the week after that my mom is coming and we are spending my spring break in Paris together. I am so excited to see her and know we are going to have such an amazing time! Then two weeks after that I will be on a plane home! I can’t believe how fast this semester is flying by! It’s even weirder signing up for my senior apartment and senior year classes for next year!! Ahhh!
