exhausted from it all!

i dont even know where to begin! and i have SO many pictures!

Paris was AMAZING! We woke up at 8 everyday, and I have never walked more in my entire life. The weather was BEAUTIFUL, so during the day we got to go around to literally every museum possible. In the afternoons, we had free time to go visit whatever other sites we wanted to make it to. We would then go out as a group at night.

I am completely exhausted, and I cannot even remember where all I went, and all the days run together in my mind. Seriously. Luckily I have it written down:

Eiffel Tower twice, Notre Dame twice, Louvre twice, Sacre Coeur overlooking all of Paris, shopping on the Champs Elysees, up the Arc de Triomphe, night cruise on the Seine, Pont Neuf, Picnic by the Eiffel Tower, Pantheon, Sainte Chapelle, Saint Dennis (pretty much ALL the kings of France are buried here), Museum Rodin (the famous "thinker" statue is here), the Army Museum to see Napoleons grave, Jardins de Luxembourg, Jardins de Tuileries, and I know there were other museums and such that I just cant remember...

All of our group could barely even walk at the end of the trip. It was SUCH a great experience! Im not going to bother to sit and upload pictures right now, so I will have to get them done in the next few days.

Some funny things that happened to me during the trip:
-At the Middle Ages Museum, I was walking down stairs and my ankle turned, so I literally fell on the floor. None of my friends were around--the only people there were an old french couple, who didn't say a word or even make any expression at all. They just stared blankly at me as I got up off the floor....smooth.
-A persian woman came up to me at the Louvre and wanted a picture with me, she thought I was famous. I said no...first time, and most likely only time, that that happens to me.
-In the metros, you have to put your ticket through a slot, then walk through the turn stile, and push the swinging doors open. When coming back from Sacre Coeur, I walked through the turn stile, pushed the swinging door, then realized my purse was still stuck on the turn stile...naturally, I decided to bend over and unwrap it from around the turn stile, forgetting I had already pushed the swinging door. POW it swings back and cracks me in the head. Im actually glad all my friends saw...if Im gonna do something THAT ridiculous, then dammit, someone needs to see it.
...needless to say I had a quite visible knot on my head the next day.

ANYWAY, we just got back to Montpellier. Our final for Le Midi is on Wednesday, so the whole group is going to the beach tomorrow to lay in the sun all day and be able to study together. This time-- Im wearing some SPF.

Well, I better get back to my host familys house -- Im sure theyre wonderin where I am!

BYEBYE

ps MOM...means of reaching the top of the eiffel tower:
1. take an elevator all the way up
2. cheaper option - walk half, elevator the rest
and yeah i laugh thinking about going up there together too.

the whole time we were in paris, whenever i would see a cute couple having a picnic in front of the eiffel tower, taking a riverboat dinner cruise together, etc, I would turn to my friends and say, "i cant wait to do that with my mom."
romantic times ahead, mom, romantic times.

J'adore Paris!

I just put up TONSSS of pictures -- they even go onto the next page! So make sure you look at them ALL so that I didnt put em up for nothing!

We arrived in Paris YESTERDAY (thursday) at 3 pm. We have already done SO much since then!!

BASICALLY here are the main things weve seen:
-Luxembourg Gardens
-Saint Sulpice
-Eiffel Tower
-Notre Dame
-Pantheon

The pictures show EVERYTHING ive been doing in Paris, so it would be pointless to write it all (and i just really dont feel like writing a lot) .... :)

side note -- its really funny here because a lot of their movies are american movies, so they keep the titles in English, but make them simpler for French people to understand and translate. some good examples I have seen:

-the new movie "The Hangover" is called here "Very Bad Trip."......how catchy.
-the dance movie "Step Up 2" is called here "Sexy Dance 2"....cuts right to the point.

Anyway, Ill try and keep putting stuff up when Im not busy! We are only staying here until Monday so we have a LOT to do in a few short days!

EIFFEL TOWER! love of my life.

the stairs were numbered...needless to say, this was not very far up...

i saw this written on a beam on the eiffel tower...seemed fitting after my freshman 29

beautiful view overlooking a SOCCER FIELD and the Seine!

EIFFEL TOWER! love of my life.

SO many stairs to climb!! i almost had a heart attack when i dropped my lens cap and it almost bounced through the cracks...

hello, pretty background of Paris.

so TALL!

my favorite.

PANTHEON

big columns!

apparently this is where i am to be buried...

VICTOR HUGO!

PANTHEON

HERE LIES ALEXANDRE DUMAS...aka wrote my favorite book, The Count of Monte Cristo. aka Dumas in Gregs favorite word.

Braille, as in braille...yes.

HERE LIES ROUSSEAU! so many famous dead people here.

PANTHEON

VOLTAIRE BURIED HERE!

yes.

PANTHEON

this is AWESOME! this swinging pendulum measures the rotation of the Earth throughout the day.

NOTRE DAME

love stained glass windows!

me in front of Notre Dame

NOTRE DAME

AT SUNSET! GORGEOUS!

i love black and white setting :)

POINT ZERO - center of Paris.

from across the river

random...

i just really wanted to put this up :)

LES DEUX MAGOTS!! MONSIEUR B!

SAINT SULPICE - biggest church in Paris

i thought this was really cool

SUCH a pretty organ

Jardin de LUXEMBOURG

never too far from home...

Jardin de LUXEMBOURG

A Paris!

I finally got the pictures up from the past weekend! YAY!

For dinner last night, we had a salad with HUGE chunks of potato and grilled salmon--SO SO SO delicious! My host mom put out different dressings we could eat it with...one of them was a tube of a mixture made by Heinz that is half mayonnaise and half ketchup. Apparently its really common here! I ate it with a chunk of potato, and it was actually very good!

We had a great group last night at Australian Bar -- most of the students from UGA, and then some from Columbia, some from Switzerland, one from Mexico, and one from England. VERY FUN!

My presentation went really well today in our Le Midi class. It was the last day of the semester! We have our last Accent Francais class today as well. My class is doing some sort of activity out of the classroom today - some assignment around the city - but I am not quite sure what the concept is yet.

Tonight, after dinner, I am going to pack, because tomorrow morning we leave for PARIS!!! We do not have to be to the train station til 10 am, so I will get to sleep in about an hour later then usual.

It is about 2.5-3 hours on the train to Paris, if I remember correctly. In Paris, we are taking a class from 9-1 in the morning, with free time all day after that. We have some really cool things in mind to do during the free time. Hopefully we get everything done!

We got to choose and separate into 3 groups with different themes for Paris, there is: Francophone Paris, Napoleon Paris, and Medieval Paris. I chose the medieval one, because I LOVE this time period! We'll be touring the city to see different monuments, museums, etc. that correlate to this. This is going to be the best 3 credit hours of my college career.

I'll have to use the computer at our hotel to keep yall updated on what we are doing!
Next time I write, I'll be à Paris!
CIAO!!

CARCASSONNE - OLDEST MEDIEVAL CITY

Welcome to Carcassonne! the train station.

some of us outside of the city walls!

CARCASSONNE - OLDEST MEDIEVAL CITY

just beautiful.

hayley and i!

inside the cathedral, actually its a Basilica

CARCASSONNE - OLDEST MEDIEVAL CITY

stained glass marvel!

cathedral inside the castle walls

Cassoulet : beans, sausage, and some other rando meat

very well known dish of carcassonne -- it is the "must have" if u go there

...oops...

CARCASSONNE - OLDEST MEDIEVAL CITY

tourist!

i want to hang this going down the stairs to little school (il sool).

TORTURE MUSEUM!!!!!!! bum bum bummmm

taken over the wall of the castle overlooking the city