The city of love on the weekend of love!

Who misses their boyfriend? I do! :) Paris was amazing. I thought it was going to be grungy and filled with creepy men, but I was so wrong. It has become one of my favorite cities. Luckily for us, we took an overnight bus from London to Paris on Thursday night. It was long, but not too exhausting and we were in Paris, France the next morning. We stored our bags into our hotel. It was adorable about 3 blocks from the Eiffel Tower. Our breakfast was amazing and we loaded up on energy for the day. We had a 'typical' French breakfast? with two pieces of bread, ham and tomatoes in the middle, cheese melted on top, and a fried egg on top of that. Really delicious. We also tried some French coffee, pretty much a straight up shot and it was intense.

So after that we went to the Louvre. This place holds so many painting, sculptures, and other artifacts. You can really see history through art. It was also fun, because many of the paintings and sculptures we saw we recognized from discussing in our humanities class. Our next mission to complete brain overload was the d'Orsay. Because of time limits, we mostly looked at the paintings on the top floor but glanced through the sculptures. Another place that our brains and eyes were just exploded with color, light, and information. We completed both museums by 2 pm. Isn't that insane? Some people take multiple days for each one! We only had two however, and had many other things on our list.

After lunch we headed to the Notre Dam Cathedral. We actually got to go inside and listen to a Gregorian chant service thing. This church was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. The alter was so grand. We walked through the church around the alter and then walked around the outside. It was literally freezing. So, what do you do when you're freezing? Buy a crepe. I had the most scrumptious crepe ever. Duh...we're in France. But, anyway it was wonderful. We walked around that area for a while and then headed back to our hotel. We 'accidentally' took a 3 hour nap and then Elizabeth's friend from another Pepperdine program arrived and there were four of us! We went to dinner near the Eiffel Tower and took a short walk to see it at night. That is a must see if life! We crashed as soon as we got back.

Our second day began with breakfast and then a walk to the Eiffel Tower. We were thinking about climbing it but the lines were longer than the Finding Nemo line at Disneyland. So we opted out, took tons of pictures, and went to the Champs Elysees. This is a major shopping street which leads down toward the Arc de Triomphe. We also got Starbucks, a must in foreign cities. Just so you all know, it still tastes better in Seattle. Then we boarded the Metro for Versailles. We explored the castle, grounds, and Marie Antoinette smaller house and little village. It was huge. I will hopefully get pictures uploaded this week so you can see how large the grounds were.

We took the train back in and then went to the Moulin Rouge. Obviously, we did not go in but definitely got some pictures outside. Then we had a birthday dinner for Alexis. And sadly, we hurried back and Meredith and I got back on the bus and headed home. I hope you all get a chance to go to Paris, because it was a truly amazing city! Cheers!