Hello all!! I apologize for lagging these past few weeks. I’ve been traveling so much and for this first time in weeks, school started becoming a priority. Who would’ve thought? Anyways, I’m back to this blogging thing. As I write this, I am sitting on a bus on my way to Northern Italy for our school’s “spring break.” Let me tell you that there is nothing springy about this trip- it’s freaking freezing and there are absolutely no breaks in our busy touring schedule. A few weeks ago (January 29-31) my friends and I visited Paris.
We had a very early morning flight and arrived in Paris at 8:45. We took a bus into Paris and by noon we had already found our Air BnB apartment. We found a good bakery for lunch and I got a chicken curry sandwich and a lemon macaroon. Our apartment was in a really cute neighborhood so there were tons of little shops and more importantly BAKERIES! We went into town next and visited the Effiel Tower and we walked up the Arc de Triumph. Everyone thinks that going up the Effiel Tower will give you the best view of the city, however if you go up the Arc de Triumph, you can get a view of not only the entire city, but also the Effiel Tower. Standing on top of this monument was one of the most surreal things that I’ve experienced since I’ve been here. All of the streets meet at the center of the city where the Arc is.

After visiting the Arc de Triumph, we went to the Louvre Museum. We got in for free because students get in free after 5pm on Fridays. I saw a lot of the artwork that I’ve been studying in my art history course and of course I saw the Mona Lisa. It’s really beautiful, however it’s also very small. After walking around the museum for a few hours, we realized we were starving and we went to dinner. I forgot to mention that we took the metro (or subway) everywhere!! We have mastered this skill in each city and I can proudly say that I can get you anywhere you want to go in Paris if I have a metro map! Once we got back into our neighborhood, we found a cute little café for dinner. I ordered a salad- not just any salad. This salad had cantel cheese- which I’ve never had before, but it was delicious, tomato, sautéed potato, and a fried egg on top. It sounds really weird right now, but I’m telling you it was one of the best salads I’ve ever had.  After dinner we went back to our apartment and got ready for the night. My friend Katie knows people everywhere, so we went her friend’s flat party. This party was a little different from what I’m used to. However, the people were really nice and we all had a good time. We left around 1 am and as soon as we got back to the apartment, I crashed.

The next morning, we went to a French bagel place for breakfast and I got a nutella bagel. After breakfast, we got more food at the pastry shop next door. They had these raspberry macarronades that was basically a raspberry macaroon with raspberries and cream in between the cakes. I ended up getting another one later that day because it was so good! Afterwards, we went to the Notre Dame Cathedral and the lovelock bridge, which are right next to each other. By this time, it was full on raining, but we kept going! For lunch we went to another café near the Cathedral. I ordered a sandwich with a cute little fry basket. I should’ve gotten what Katie got- coddled egg. It was a pot of coddled eggs with bacon and potato. I was very jealous of her meal and I kept stealing bites, which didn’t make her very happy. The next place we went was no surprise, Laudree! This is a very famous macaroon shop in the high-end district of Paris. It sits on a street filled with stores like Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci, and much more. I got six macaroons: pistachio, salted caramel, vanilla, raspberry, tea, and rose flavors. We ate our roonies in a little bar we found and I ordered a ginger tea to go with my expensive pastries.  

Afterwards, we went through the Louis Vuitton store just for shits and gigs. There were hot men standing in each window, just looking hot. Like that is their job- to stand there all day and look sexy in a suit. We walked through each room and joked about buying the ridiculously expensive bags and shoes. The workers kept following us in and out of each room- it was quite the experience. We got dinner in a restaurant right by the Eiffel Tower. I got the same salad from the night before because I wanted it one last time before I left. At 9 pm, the Eiffel Tower’s lights started twinkling. We watched the light show until it ended and afterwards we got crepes. We basically ate pastries the entire weekend. We took the metro back home and quickly packed up our bags before going to bed. We woke up very early around 4 am and took the metro to the bus to the airport. We got back to Rome with half of our day to spare, which we spent studying for our art history midterm. Overall this weekend was one for the books. My favorite part of Paris was the food and the atmosphere.
Pictures from Paris--------------------------------------------