Let them eat cake...

Ok, so I know I said I would write about Andalucia, but I just got back from Paris soo...that's what this blog is about. Basically, look at the pictures from Andalucia and that should be sufficient. So, this past weekend Anne, myself, Ali (Anne's friend from AZ studying in Seville), Alison (Ali's roommate), Maeve (Anne's other friend from AZ studying in France), and a few other girls all went to Paris. The weekend started off crazy, like so many of them do. Anne and I realized that we had booked a flight to leave Madrid at 5:45 am!!! This meant that it was too early to take the train/metro which don't start running until around 6 am. So, we ended up going to Madrid Thursday around 1 am and spending the night in the airport! Needless to say I was pretty exhausted when we first arrived in Paris and all of us passed out in the hotel room from like 2 in the afternoon to like 7 in the evening. When we finally woke up we decided to go see the Eiffel Tower which they light up at night!

The next day we took a walking tour of the city. This was cool for two main reason. 1. It was free! and 2. It was run my young people (our tour guide was 24) and therefore they made it a lot more fun than being stuck with some stuffy, boring tour guide. We hit up all the major sites and the tour guide would tell us stories/fun facts for each of the places. That night was everyone went out, but I had to stay in the hotel to do a lame take home test for one of my classes. And, clearly it was for the teacher that I dislike the most! So, that was pretty lame.

Anyway, so the next day (Sunday) we got up early and went to the Louvre which is free on Sundays (score!). The line wasn't even made at all. We got there a little before it opened, but once they opened we just walked right in! So, we hit up all the majors spots: Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, Winged Victory of Samothrace, and Liberty Leading the People. After the Louvre we wanted to go to D'orsay, but the line was ridiculously long so we decided not to go in. Instead, we walked along the river where they have green box things that they open up into little stores and headed towards Notre Dame. We sat outside of Notre Dame for a little bit before going in, however, here is the problem with sitting down in a touristy spot. There are gypsy all over the place in Paris that come up to you asking for money. However, their opening line is not something like do you have money or whatever. No, it's something much sneakier. They come up to you and ask you if you speak English. If you make the mistake of saying yes they had you a piece of paper with some sob story for you to read and afterwards expect you to give them money. Now, fortunately other people in our program had already been to Paris and warned us about this, so we didn't get caught up in it. But, it was pretty ridiculous because literally you can't sit for two seconds without having them come up to you. And, they say, "Do you speak English?" and we're all like,"No" even though that is clearly a lie.

Anyway, that night Sean's friend Luis (the one from Mexico studying in Paris) met up with us and we all went out to dinner and then he took us to the most breathtaking place to see the Eiffel Tower. Ok, so the coolest thing about this trip was that while we were at the Eiffel Tower watching it sparkle (b/c they turn on sparkle lights every hour on the hour) it started to SNOW! Yes, SNOW! It was like something out of a movie. It was possible one of the funnest nights of my life because it snowed the entire night. After we left the Eiffel Tower we just walked around the streets of Paris playing in the snow and having snowball fights! It was amazing!

Oh, and the other thing about Paris is that they people are some of the nicest people I've encountered in Europe. We honestly didn't met one rude person (contrary to the stereotype). Overall, the trip was awesome. And, this weekend I'm off to Mallorca in the Balearic Islands.

Besos