The end of Paris.

(I haven’t written in awhile because of my computer problems, but hopefully it’s all fine now.)

Well, we finished the France study abroad part of the trip on Sunday. Last week was our last week in Paris, so we did all of our favorite things one last time, plus some other fun things. Here are the highlights...

--I went to see two French movies last week, “Un Conte de Noel” and “Mes Amis Mes Amours”, plus the play “Tartuffe” by Moliere. It’s amazing how much more I can understand as the movie or play goes on, just being completely “in” the language. I still didn’t catch every word, but I still really like that kind of thing because it’s good practice.

--Over the week, we split up into groups and had tea with our French teacher at a really nice tea place called Mariage Frères. It was such good tea. I had Pleine Lune, which was an almond vanilla black tea. Another one I tried that I really liked was chocolate caramel flavored. Mmmm.

--We saw Saint Chappelle, a beautiful church with wall to wall stained-glass windows, and the Consiegerie, which was where Marie Antoinette and other prisoners were held before they were beheaded. It’s interesting that they are right next to each other.

--On Thursday night, we had a really nice group dinner at La Cadole. It was a three course meal. I had duck (a.k.a le canard) for the first time, and it was delicious. Most of all, it was just a really fun time to spend with the group, hanging out and taking a really long time to eat a nice French meal.

--We went to the Musée de l’Orangerie, which was built specifically for eight huge water lily paintings of Monet. They are beautiful. There are four wall sized paintings in each of two elliptical-shaped rooms. It was definitely one of my favorite museums. I wish I could have just sat there by myself looking at them.

--We had a picnic lunch sitting on the Pont des Arts, which is a walking bridge over the Seine. It was sunny and beautiful, just sitting and overlooking the river and the sights of Paris.

--We had dinner at a crêperie one night, and so Kaleigh and I split a dinner crepe and a dessert crepe. The dessert one we had was SO good. SO good. The best crepe I’ve ever had. And then our teacher said we could all get a dessert crepe (it was a group dinner, so our “cultural fund” was paying for it), so we decided to split it again! Haha. It was really funny, and a really great French crepe day.

--On our last day, we got up early and had breakfast on the terrace of a cafe.

--We took a group boat ride on the Seine, which was really fun.

--Saturday night, the last night, we went up to the Eiffel Tower. It’s lit up blue right now celebrating the fact that France is “head” of the European Union this year.

Now I’m in London with my mom and sister. I took the Eurostar (a.k.a the Chunnel, the underground train that goes from Paris to London). It was weird because I fell asleep before we went underwater, and then I woke up afterwards, so I didn’t even get to know I was under the English Channel. Haha, oh well. We’re going back to Paris on Wednesday, so hopefully I’ll be awake then. I’m really excited for Paris, to show my mom and sister around. Plus, I’m kind of having withdrawals/culture shock from not being there anymore, and being in this foreign city. Whenever I see a French bakery here in London, all I want to do is go smell it or something because it’s familiar. And their metro system isn’t the same at all. Anyways, I’m really enjoying London and I’m excited to go back to Paris one last time for a few days.