Parigi

Deep breath before I dig into this blog entry. Okay, here we go! This past weekend I was in the amazing, wonderful, breath-taking, rather large, and freezing Paris! It was a trip we booked a few weeks ago and I can't believe it has now already come and went. Time goes so fast here. I feel as if I barely have time to pause and think or take anything in. My worry is I am going to come home and feel as if I never left. As if I am still waiting for the trip to happen.

Thursday I had class until 12:30 and then rushed home, packed my super tiny backpack to the brim with the warmest clothes possible, and headed to the train station. I met up with most of our group and we boarded an hour long bus to Pisa. We got there a little too early (3 hours to be exact) but we passed the time playing silly games (animal game, anyone?). We boarded our Ryanair flight and my flying jitters boarded the plane with me. These girls are so sweet, though, and I had two hands to hold as we took off, were in the air for only 1 hour and 15 minutes, and then landed at the Paris Beauvais airport. I got a kick out of Ryanair. They give you absolutely nothing for free and are constantly airing commercials, selling things like smokeless cigarettes, and pretty much trying to squeeze any extra bit of change out of you. From this airport we had to take ANOTHER hour long bus to the actual city of Paris. And after this we took the metro for 40 minutes to our stop, then had to walk another 20 minutes to the actual hotel. In the end, we had been traveling for about 10 hours!!!! TOO MUCH. We all marveled at our amazing and FREE hotel and then cuddled up in bed and conked out.

We woke up about 2 hours later than originally planned, what do you expect from a group college students sleeping in down comforters, and then had our first free breakfast of the trip. It was divine!!! Croissants (chocolate, plain, with jam, nutella, peanut butter, you name it), baguettes, cheeses, meats, fruits, yogurts, cereals, juices, pancakes, crepes, eggs, etc etc. We were all in absolute Heaven as we devoured plates and plates of this food. We waddled back to the room, grabbed our stuff for the day, and did our usual metro ride to the city. We saw the Eiffel Tower first and it was even more mind-blowing than I had prepared myself for. The color was different than I expected, it was more brown, and there was intricate detail on the metal which I had never thought of. The size was.....no words. We took hundreds of pictures of this beautiful thing every 5 steps and could literally not get enough of it. Another world-famous monument to check off my list!

Next stop: the Arc de Triomph! We decided to walk everywhere this day (I think small Florence deceived us to believe we could walk any city in one day....) and eventually we made it to the long street of fancy shops leading to the Arc. We strolled along and had world-famous macaroons from Laduree (worlds can't describe how tasty they were. My personal favorite flavor was flower petal), came upon grand buildings that we still don't know what they were, passed fancy car dealerships, a castle aka Abercrombie and Fitch, and many more shops. The Arc greeted us at the end of this long and exciting road and again, I felt like I was in a movie. We had to take a tunnel underground to get to the center of the Arc, but seeing it so up close was mind blowing. The details!! This is something pictures can never do justice.

Side note: the architecture in this city was my favorite. The perfect word for it is: classy. Elegant. Beautiful. Grand. Delicate.

Anyways, after the Arc we headed back along the same road towards a huge, lit up carousel. Ever so slowly, the temperature started to drop as the sun lowered in the sky. By the time we reached the carousal and the amazingly gorgeous park next to it, the sunset was in full bloom. The Eiffel was in the distance sparkling and the colors were magnificent. What a site! This view had part of my attention, but about 98% of my brain and body was thinking of the cold at this point. IT WAS FREEZING!!!!!! Nothing could prepare me for these temperatures. And then the wind came. And we still had to walk through the once gorgeous park to the Louvre. And we were starving. And we had to wait for 2 girls to meet up with us. Let's just say people were showing their true colors. I look back and laugh at it now, but during this moment we were all beyond miserable. When the friends finally met us, we had a very expensive dinner and FINALLY headed to the Louvre where it was free admission for students under 26.

I am not an art person. Honestly, I still don't quite understand what makes certain paintings or sculptures so amazing and famous compared to all the others I see next to them. But every single thing I was looking at in this museum was famous, had a crazy history, and it just blew my mind. The museum was MUCH too big and we had way too little time there, but we saw the important things (ie the Mona Lisa) and even saw an AWESOME mummy exhibit. I wish I could have someone next to me at all times that could explain to me the history and stories of everything I was looking at. After the Louvre we made the long trek back to the hotel and, once again, passed out cold.

Day 2: ah I am writing so much, yet again! Today's morning was a repeat of the previous. We started at the jardin du luxembourg where the vast trees, fountains, and castles captured our attention. The cold snuck in, too. These places are just so open that there is no protection from the gusty wind. After meandering in the garden for a while, we headed to the highest point in Paris, a church called Saint Pierre de Montmartre. This was perhaps my favorite part of the trip because we had to climb through the narrow, and very local and cute, streets of Paris to get to the final destination. We passed by so many adorable, classic French stores and areas with painters and just French people! I loved the authenticity of it all. At the church, the views were breathtaking and the church itself was larger than life. The Pope even visited it once!

Highlight of this part: Our friend Jazmine getting "pick-pocketed". If you know my aunt Jojo, think of her in a smaller and a little less scary form. Anyways, we were leaving the church and getting onto this tram thing. I passed through the entrance thing right before Jazmine but when I turned around there was a lady shoving a clipboard in her face. Within seconds 5 more were around her, grabbing her, and yelling. Jazmine pushed through them with a look of disgust on her face but our friend who was living in Paris told her to check her bags. Lo and behold, her wallet was gone! Upon seeing it was gone, Jazmine YELLED, "OH F*** NO!!!" She crawled back under the entrance and was about to chase the gypsies but luckily they dropped the wallet! Not many people can scare gypsies. Jazmine sure can :)

After this we walked along the Seine to our next destination: Notre Dame. The walk wasn't as cold as we had feared and we passed by street vendors, and bridges adorned with "love locks". Such a romantic city this is! The Notre Dame was also AMAZING and soooooooo grand. I could definitely see quazimoto living there. We took our time in this warm haven and once we exited we headed to a more local place to eat. The girls we had met up with took us to their favorite, and cheap, place to eat where we had 3 courses for only 9 euro! It was so nice to relax and enjoy the food, wine, and company. After vintage shopping for a bit, we took the metro back to the hotel as complete zombies.

Last day: I opened the window to let the sun in and....was met but a winter wonderland!! I literally screamed and everyone followed suit. We had not expected it to snow, at all!!! We went through a minor freak out over our flight possibly being cancelled but soon we were reassured and we packed up our stuff, filled up our bodies with the yummy food (we even took some to go for later), checked out, and ventured out into the white world. Surprisingly, the snow seemed to make the outside air seem WARMER. I was borderline frolicking in it before we reached the metro. In the city the snow had left a thin layer of white along every surface, painting Paris in a much different picture from the rest of the weekend. It was magical.

We saw the Eiffel Tower again (we unfortunately couldn't climb up it like we had planned because the stairs were too icy) from two vantage points and then re-boarded our bus to the airport. The entire traveling plan was repeated and 6 hours later we were back in Firenze. Home sweet home!!!

I honestly missed Florence, and Italy in general, throughout this trip. Italy was definitely the right decision for my choice of living. Who knows, maybe I'll live here one day....

Sorry this was such a long entry! There is just much too much to say! And I even skimmed over some things!

Ciao!