(The president's house- le palais d'elysees- waited in line for 5 hours to see it!)
Salut mes
amis!
Vous me
manquez beaucoup! Paris est encore
très maqnifique et je suis très contente.
J'avais beaucoup d'amis qui j'adore.
Depuis mon blog
dernier,
je suis allée Barcelone en
Espagne,
et Londres!
J'adore les deux!!
Ok enough torturing you now with my French :). But like I said everything is going very well. I am still in love with Paris and having the time of my life. I am making some great friendships that will be very hard to leave behind come December. But luckily I still have 2 glorious months here before I have to think about that. I am so so so glad that my friends and family encouraged me to have this experience. When I think about how close I was to backing out I can't believe that I almost missed this. I am definitely blessed. Not many college students have these experiences and I am thankful that I have!
Well my classes are going pretty well. I am getting A's and B's in my grammar class which is exciting and I got all A's in phonetics which is shocking
lol. My host mom said she could hear improvement though which made me feel good. Speaking of the
fam, things are going great! I feel like I'm fitting in more rather than just feeling like an awkward guest. It has been a lot of fun to get to be a part of a big family for once since I don't have that. It makes me miss Matt though when I see them fighting (which they do a lot)
bc I realize how lucky I am. I wish he was coming with my mom in a few weeks. :( But, I am pretty much able to hold a semi-decent conversation now. It occasionally takes me a few tries to express myself correctly but I can understand 90% of what they are saying and I can respond which is a good start. I am definitely not fluent, and I probably won't be when I leave but I will be much closer. I notice that I think in French a lot which is cool. I also make a point of sending my texts in french and talking to my friends in french when we are online. we are all still bad about talking in french when we are together tho
bc we slip into
English very easily. I got very excited thought he other day because I had to go to a
tabac to recharge my cellphone minutes and I had a full conversation with the guy in French without any hitches and when I gave him my '
American' credit card he was surprised because he said he couldn't tell that I was
American! I don't know if he was lying or not but I was like sweet!!!
Well two weekends ago I took my first trip outside Paris to Barcelona Spain and I loved it!! It was an AMAZING city. I went with 7 of my friends here and we were all able to stay in a hostel room together! It was kind of like the camp experience that i never had. There were some disagreements in the morning time regarding when we should get up
lol but we all worked it out. We got in very late Friday night after a
looong day of traveling so after we struggled to find our way to the hostel (not speaking the language and having phones that wouldn't work didn't help the situation) we got some quick fries and went to bed. Saturday we walked ALL day and saw a lot of the touristy stuff: the
gaudi buildings, La
Sagrada Familia, the
gothic area,
l'arc de triomf (i like ours better) and some more stuff. Then we did some shopping and I did a lot of trying on but no buying. Thank goodness because my bank account appreciated it. :) We ended up watching the sunset at the port which was beautiful and then eating an amazing dinner! We had so much fun together and then we went home and
got ready for the magic water fall thing which was
soooo cool. And then we went out for a fun night on the town! Then on
Sunday we found the BEACH and basically stayed there
alllll day! Then we had another amazing dinner and went to an Irish pub and played cards until 2:30 in the morning when we started making our way to the bus station that would begin our hellish day of traveling. We did not get home to Paris until 2 pm Monday and we left Barcelona at 3 am Monday morning. Ya not so much fun, but still totally worth it!
So then this weekend I went to London to visit my
ROOMIE!!! It was
sooo needed and a wonderful reunion weekend. Now I am just waiting for her to come visit me. Friday night again it was late so we went back to her
adorable flat and she cooked me spaghetti and made me
typhoo tea. She knows me well :) and then we just spent hours talking and later that night I met her awesome roommates who I liked very much. Saturday we got up nice and early (for me at least) and bought chocolate chips so that David could make us chocolate chip pancakes! They were
sooo yummy. I missed my crepes though for the weekend, but having real pancakes was great! Eventually we got our butts in gear and went '
sploring! We finally experienced the greatness of Camden market and i bought a skirt that I am absolutely in love with. I hope I can find a great shirt to go with it soon so I can wear it. Ash and I match now :). We also went to top shot and another dept. store that I can't remember that starts with a P. We were on a mission for cute bangles and boots, but alas we found neither. Then we had some yummy pizza hut and went home for a little bit. Later that night we went to dinner at... BISTRO BENITO'S!! It was so wonderful to be back and it hadn't ch
anged a bit! The little old man was there and called us beautiful girls again and the son of the other old
Italian man was still there and his son who was a newborn last time is now 2 and he has a 7 month old beautiful girl! He gave us a free drink again.
C'est la
bonne vie! We both ordered the exact same thing as always right down to our bottle of wine! We are creatures of habit. After dinner we walked down earls court and visited all our old
favs. Then we walked along embankment and took some pics of parliament and Big Ben and the Thames River. All in all it was a great day! On sunday we had some yummy tea at the place where the Queen loves to have her tea! Then we walked around Trafalgar Square and took all the quintessential London pics including me climbing on the Lion. Then we attempted to go to Hydes Park but it was dark and we were weenies so we checked out London's arc and this cool war memorial instead. I think every european country must have an arc. Paris' is the best though. :) So sunday night I actually got my roomie to come to the Ice Bar with me!! We had a blast. It was so cold and not exactly what we expected, but as always, we had so much fun together. I was sooo sad to say goodbye to her. I love having our awesome deep talks followed by our random crazy moments. She is definitely one of the best people I have ever met in my whole life and the only thing that could make Paris better is if she was here with me. :) There is no one I would rather be homeless with next semester ash!!
So in just 2 weeks I get to see my mommy!!! Yay!!! I am tres excited! But for now I am going to go to bed. I promise I will try and update more often. Love you all very much and miss you bunches.
Bisous a vous!
xoxo
Laura
isit 4 chateaus. C'était incroyable! Don't get me wrong, I love Paris and it is the first big city that I could see myself living in, but it was quite a treat to get to explore other parts of France outside of the city. It reminded me why I do love the more quiet countryside areas. (perhaps why I'm dating a farm boy :)) We could not have asked for better weather and the landscape was breathtaking. Nous avons visité le Château Chambord, le Château royal d'Amboise, le Château Chenonceau et le Château royal de Blois. Mon château préféré était le Château royal d'Amboise bien sûr! The picture on the left was the view from the top of the Château royal d'Amboise. On the other side it looked out over the ridiculously cute little town of Amboise and then this is the water and homes side! I was like ready to move in tout de suite! Chenonceau was also situated on a gorgeous lake and the wake through the forest to get to there was incredibly romantic and amazing! There was even a beautiful chestnut horse grazing on some grass which we passed on our walk to the castle. The architecture of all the château's was really wonderful as well because of how ornate and gorgeously different they all were. The last one we visited, Blois, had parts from 4 different architecture styles as each King who lived there changed it according with the style of his time. It had gothique, flamboyant, renaissance and classique architecture all in one château. Pretty cool if you ask me! We learned the history of each of the château's as well and most of it was fascinating (with a tad bit of boring thrown in there as well. After all we did visit 4 in 2 days!) All in all it was a great way to spend a weekend!
