Paris!!

We went to paris this weekend!!

It was so much more fun than I was expecting it to be. I've been there twice before so I didn't think there was that much left for me to see, but this time I had an entirely new appreciation for the city.

Michelle, Joe, and I lucked into finding this really good hostel for really cheap. It was only 25 a night and it was in a really good location!

Friday we started out at the Luxembourg Gardens and then went to Notre Dame, the outside of the Louvre, and St. Germain. Then we walked up the Champs-Elysees towards L'arc de triomphe. Later we went to La tour Eiffle and on a boat tour along the Seine river.

The Luxembourg Gardens were pretty cool. The flora itself was not that striking, but there were many statues and a very beautiful palace with a huge fountain. We got inside part of the palace and found an art show. There were the works of 3 different artists but I really only liked one of them.

Notre Dame was just as I remembered it: huge and imposing. I took much more time to enjoy it this time than I ever had before. I think I liked St. Germain better though. Notre Dame is so big that it's really hard to see it as a real church. St. Germain was much more intimate, as was Le Sacre Coeur.

The Louvre was pretty cool to see from the outside. It is absolutely massive. There's just no way that pictures can really capture how big and ornate it is. We decided not to go inside because we didn't want to pay and the volume of art inside was intimidating.

The Champs-Elysees was nice, but the stores were way too pricey for me. We went to this Adidas store that was too cool for school. They had all these "games" that could measure how fit you are or how good your balance is. And where they were selling shoes, they had computers attached to the couches so you could custom order exactly which ones you wanted.

We finally got to L'arc de Triomphe which is basically a tomb for the Unknown soldier. It's pretty much what you would expect it to be. It's huge and looks just like you see in books and movies.

Our boat tour was really nice. It was only 11 Euros and it took us past all of the major sightseeing places that lie along the seine. It was a really nice way to see the sides of the bridges, which are unbelieveably intricate and ornate.

Saturday was a little less busy, but still just as amazing.

We started out by going to the palace of Versailles. We were going to go inside, but the line was huge and it seemed expensive, so we went to the gardens instead and it only cost 6 euros. The gardens were massive. They even had a small citrus orchard on one side. There were tons of fountains and probably hundreds of statues of different mythical characters like Hercules.

After versailles we tried to head over to Montmartre and see the painters, but it was really cold out and we didn't find them. We ended up walking past the Moulin Rouge and then we up to Le Sacre Coeur.

The Moulin Rouge was much less impressive than I thought it would be. The movie made it seem huge and rowdy, but it was actually pretty small and just seemed to be in a kind of seedy part of town.

Le Sacre Coeur was incredible. It's on a huge hill in Paris so you can see everything for miles. The inside of the church is gorgeous. We were only allowed to take pictures outside though. But there was mass going on when we came in and all the nuns were singing in french.

The most impressive thing about Paris was its Metro and RER system. The metro system is immense. I absolutely could not believe how big it all was, how quickly the subway and trains came and went, and how efficiently everythin was run. The prices were great too. 1.60 for one ticket, 11.60 for a pack of 10, or 6.60 for an all day pass that allows you to use the RER (train) system too.

The worst thing about Paris was that it was definitely a major city. It smelled like urine everywhere we went and it was not hard to get to the wrong side of the tracks.

Dijon

Our group of students is staying in Dijon, France. It's beautiful here and our commute to school is amazing. We get on a bus and drive through town into the center of the city and along the way we pass historic churches and theaters and a palace.

This building is our school. They built around the old building front so it's actually inside of the school now!

I'm taking operations management with Lance Matheson. He's a really fun teacher and it seems like he has a lot of life stories to tell so I'm probably going to try to get him to tell us some.

Across from the school there's a really good (and really cheap) bakery where I got breakfast and lunch today.

All the bakeries (boulangeries) here are so good. The french really know their bread.

After class, Taylor, Brent, and I went to find gelati and the post office. Somehow we managed to get lost on the way to the post office but sometimes that's better in a new city. So we got to explore more of Dijon and see the little shops and markets that we hadn't gotten a chance to see yet. We did finally find it though and then we found gelati. I got passionfruit. It was pretty good but I got some great gelati while we were in Nice over the weekend.

We tried to go to the farmers market but it was closed when we got there. I did get a chance to go to it between classes and I saw some really neat stuff. I saw a man scaling fish right in front of the customers and the poultry still had heads and feet and sometimes feathers attached. They had huge cheese wheels and tons of salted fish and fresh vegetables. Some of the other vendors were selling clothes and sunglasses and bags and shoes. There was one dress I found that was gorgeous but by them time I went back to buy it, the vendor had packed up and left.