Normandy and Mont St-Michael

Mont St Michael


American Cemetary


Monument at the cemetary


such a pretty beach!!!


Sunrise in Paris!! (hope i never have to see it again)

Well we left saturday morning before the sun was up...I do not do well with mornings. It was a three hour bus ride to Normandy and I slept most of the way haha. But of course within minutes of waking up I'm irritated. I cannot stand stupid people. This girl in the program asked if it was warmer in Normandy...yes idiot, we just drove three hours north and to the OCEAN...its totally warmer, I hope you brought your bathing suit. As you can see I'm still irritated. Common sense should be a human requirement. Anyways...our first stop was a museum which actually had some interesting things in it. It outlined WWI, WWII, and the Cold War. It was interesting to see France's perspective on those wars considering I have only learned about the US involvement. I'd love to go to Germany and see how they sugarcoat WWII. (If they do). I took a ton of pictures for you Dad because I figured you would've loved to see this museum, so I'll email them all to you instead of posting a hundred pictures on my blog. I'd be home for summer by the time it uploaded (no joke). Then we were off to Normandy. I had no idea (or maybe forgot) that the French gave the US the land off of Omaha beach. It was cool to be on American soil in France and see the American Flag everywhere. IT WAS AMAZING!!! I got to put my feet in the other side of the atlantic ocean...and that water is WAY colder than plymouth water. Seeing the actual cemetary was a little weirder than I expected. Everything is lined up so perfectly and I had no idea that there were names on the crosses and I had no idea they had the star of david for the jewish soldiers. (It makes sense, I just never thought about it). Apres ca we went to Pointe du Hoc (where they gave the signal saying they had conquered the beach and disarmed the weapons) which was pretty cool to see the actual bunkers still intact. After that we had a "surprise" and went to an apple farm (Normandy is known for apples and cheese, it was cow country) and we got to try fresh apple and pear juice, apple cider (its alcoholic), some sort of apple champagne (GROSS), and calvados (EVEN more disgusting), it was like a whiskey? Something like that. It was cool to see the process. They use 28 different kinds of apples (most of which you wouldn't want to eat apparently) and they produce over 70,000 bottles of apple champagne a year. People are crazy to actually want to drink that but whatever. Apparently there was a time a long time ago where the water was so bad in France that northern france lived off of apple products and babies were even given the calvados. Must've been before child protection services was created because giving your baby whiskey doesn't seem kosher to me.

Anyways, after finally arriving in Caen where our hotel was we were able to actually eat. We went to this little restaurant and I got french onion soup and duck with roasted potatoes. Soooo good. We went out for one of the guy's 21st to a rum bar which was pretty cool. It had palm trees and the floor was even covered in sand. We had to brave the monsoon to do all of this, but we were in Normandy so I guess we had to experience the weather the soldiers experienced in 1944? I dunno, but we joked about that on the walk back. It was also nice to sleep in a bed with a real down comforter, I contemplated bringing it back with me but wasn't sure how that'd go over with ISA (who I am officially not a huge fan of, but thats another story).

Today we went to Mont St-Michael and braved yet another monsoon...I was NOT a fan, AT ALL...being basically on an island in the ocean walking up over 300 stairs to the very top of a mountain just was not what I wanted to do in crazy winds. But that's just me. The idiot who asked if it was warmer when we first got to Normandy asked why it was so wet out. If I had been near her, I would've pushed her into the water. Zero tolerance for idiots. "Why is it wet?" "Hmmmm idk, its not raining or anything, and we're not surrounded by the ocean in high speed winds" STUPID! The church was so beautiful though so luckily for her I forgot about her comment pretty quickly. Steph, Bay and I went off on our own when our tour guide started singing songs and taking forever to get through one room. We went exploring and took a bunch of stupid/funny pictures. Then we got lunch which consisted of a caramel toffee crepe and soft serve ice cream 20 minutes after the crepe. I shouldn't be allowed to live on my own, I eat like a 7 year old would if given the choice. Whatever though. After lunch on our way to the bus the sun came out...figures. Anddd now I'm finally back after a (surprise) 5 hour bus ride home. Not a fan. But its nice to be back in Paris.

Le premier semaine des courses sont finis!

Well the first week of classes is over (thank god!). I'm surprised that I remember as much french as I do, it has been over two years. My language professor is really nice and I don't have a problem understanding her which was nice. However my french fashion professor is IMPOSSIBLE to understand, maybe its because I don't know the english equivalents of the fashion vocab because I know nothing of high fashion haha. Whatever. My cinema class in french is really cool, we study movies from the 60's-present time and talk about camera angles, lighting, and movement (so far). Learning the lingo in french won't be too difficult. Ending the week with a class in english is SO nice, after all that french my head was spinning, it just stinks that its 4 hours long! (all my classes in french are only 3). Four hours is a really long time to talk french policics and economics. Its okay though. We're headed to Normandy tomorrow morning and Mont Michel which I think is really cool! It'll be cool to see the beaches. I'll definitely be taking a ton of pictures!!

Barcelona is finally booked!!

45 euros round trip for the flight can't be beat! We're going Friday March 12-Monday March 15th. I'm so excited! Betsy is going to have the best spring break ever, I hope shes ready! We also tentatively planned the remaining trips. Right now Prague is penciled in for April 1-5th, Dublin April 16-19th, Copenhagen when mom and gram and grampa are here April 21-22nd, ITALY the week after (Venice, Rome, and Sicily), and then Amsterdam May 13-17th! I may skip our trip to Versailles and go another time so we can go to either Vienna or Berlin because I really wanna try to fit one of those in if possible. SO EXCITING! I hope all of these places happen. Its so nice because the flights are so cheap, none of them are more than 150 round trip and the hostels are all mostly under 20 euros per night.

Today Steph, Bay and I are going shopping and exploring Montmartre where Le Sacre-Coeur is...heres a pic of it.

So it should be fun. Well I'll update again when I get back from Normandy. I'm sure there will be a ton of new pictures!!!

Six hours of classes in French = headache

Ugh so classes. Not a whole lot of fun. At 10 this morning I had intermediate french for three hours. Surprisingly I understood 90% of what was being said. It really is amazing how quickly languages come back to you. But near the end of that class my head was starting to spin from constantly translating everything into english. Going off to my french style and fashion class which was also entirely in french was even worse than I thought. At least with the language class I knew what to expect. Not only do I know barely anything about fashion and the vocabulary associated with it in english, but I was entirely lost in french. I could translate everything but the important, fashion related facts, into english. Fail moment if I've ever seen one. By the halfway point, I could literally feel my brain hurting. It felt the same as it'd feel if I had spent 12 hours in the UNH library doing finance problem after finance problem. I definitely miss my major already. At least with finance there is only one correct way to do something whereas there are like a thousand ways to say the same damn thing in french. At least I don't have any homework and I don't have to buy any textbooks so far. It definitely is a change though. I miss math haha. My professors were at least nice, but its not like they could speak in english if I didn't understand something because I have class with german, austrian, japanese, chinese, and korean students and they don't speak english soooo its a bit of a challenge. Whatever though it's only day one so it can only get easier (I hope). Sorry for the boring post, but I have no new pictures or anything to put up. Normandy and Mont Michael should be fun this weekend so I at least have that to look forward to!

OMG THIS IS UNREAL!

Just booked my trip to Bergamo, Italy to go boarding in the Alps at the Dolomiti Superski!!!!! AHHHH!

dad i've found my next car!!!

So we still have yet to book our travels haha figures. We don't know what we're waiting for but then again none of us has gone ahead and done it. Hopefully today London and Barca get booked! Yesterday was so much fun even though I walked for 5 hours straight and my legs and feet felt like they were going to fall off! We woke up and took the metro to the Champs-Elyssees and walked to the Arc de Triomphe.


(Paris financial district! My future place of employment?)


(I live in the most beautiful place on earth!)


Luckily for mike I had been there before because he was about to start dodging cars to get to the center where the Arc is but I told him there was a safer option which included a tunnel haha. Since I stupidly forgot a copy of my passport I had to pay to go to the top but mike didnt. It was sooo awesome up there, it was such a perfect day (for once) and we could see everything! Some of the shops we did go into were so cool!


We went into this car store (or sort of car museum) and I found my next car, its even cuter than my bug if you can believe it. But they don't sell them in the states yet so I'll have to wait.


We found this street that was supposed to have really good shopping but quickly found out when we passed a gucci baby store that it had really good shopping for millionaires, but it was still cool to see every big designer in the world all on one street! I saw my third bug, i'm going to keep track haha.


We also went in the Swarvosky crystal store and the staircase was all crystal which was really pretty!


After that we went to the place de la concorde and walked the jardin de tuileries which is basically the backyard of the louvre. Its going to be so pretty in the spring!
(Place de la Concorde)


(Jardin de Tuileries...thats the Louvre in the back)


L'opera!


Then we met up with everyone else at the Galleries Lafayette which is pretty much a massive Nordstrom, and has the expensive prices too. Last night was one of the guys in the programs 21st so we all went over to his apartment before heading to the bar and it was so much fun. The bar was an irish pub which was a ton of fun except for the fact that it was a sauna and you could barely move anywhere easily haha but whatever. I'm in paris so I can't complain!






Today I'm completely exhausted from yesterday so I'm planning on just exploring my neighborhood (we apparently have the best ice cream in Paris, but I have yet to find it and I usually have a sixth sense about that). Classes start soon which will be good but I have a feeling I'm going to miss my math classes VERYYY quickly! C'est tout!

A word to the wise, the french transation of "shots" is not pretty!

Here are some pictures from last nights boat ride down the Seine...


(The Louvre)


(The Notre Dame)

The past two days have been a blur! I finally got a good night sleep (thank you nyquil!) and the jet lag is officially gone!!!! I woke up early and went for a run, but me with my fabulous navigation skills was unable to find the park that was supposed to be 5 minutes from my apartment. Who misses an enormous park?! Weird...then we were off to the louvre! The pyramids totally remind me of the da vinci code...love that movie! Oh and thankfully I'm not superstitious of birds (ahem dad...) because there was a dead bird or duck in the pool at the foot of the pyramid. C'est dommage...The louvre is HUGE! They say it'd take some crazy astronomical period of time to see every piece in it so thankfully I can get in for free whenever I want because I'm not sure I could mentally handle the entire thing in one day. It was an experience to have a guide, but its not something i'd ever do again. In the two hours we were there we saw only one wing and it was all of the big touristy pieces of art that I saw last time I was here...next time I'll explore by myself.
(Steph and I by the pyramids!!!)


(My favorite...the winged victory!)


(Soooo da vinci code)


(And such a big let down...its about 2 feet tall...)


(A food court...if you notice the chandelier made out of wine glasses...oh and this is a mcdonalds cafe)


The one thing I would have been okay with missing from home is the weather, but sure enough Paris wasn't going to let me down in that department. In the time since I woke up it rained three times and then was super sunny. Figures. Oh and by the way! Parisians totally have the BEST taste in cars! I've seen two navy blue bugs since I've been here...its fate...if you look closely you can see it in the left side of the picture!


Anyways last night was officially my first night out in Paris (aside from the laid back night on monday) We went to this tiny bar that Dina's friends knew about because they had friends playing there. Who knew they had Reggae music in France haha. It was a lot of fun, shots for 2.50 euros! Thats insanely cheap for Paris! We spent almost ten euros on that on monday! The bartender was super nice and helped us learn slang terms in french and told us the cool places to go to and only charged steph and I 13 euros for 8 shots...shouldve been 20!
(First shot of the night...tequila of course)


(andddd such an instant classic)


(shes awesome!)


(notice the new bottle hahaha oops)


(and such a good late night snack...crepes with nutella and bananas!)


Today (the 19th) we're going to start planning all of our trips for march! We're thinking Prague then Dublin then Amsterdam or London? Yay!!! It's so nice to have all day today to ourselves and not have to report somewhere at a certain time. Hopefully Steph and I will go see some sights like Montmartre, le sacre-coeur, and maybe the moulin rouge and the red light district haha since its so unsafe to go there at night! Anyways, salut!

Getting two hours of sleep and passing my oral placement exam...une probleme? Au contraire!

Here are some sights...


yeah thats what you think it is...parisian chocolate is weird...


this is L'institut catholique de paris (where I'm studying!)


Eiffel Tower from L'ecole militaire


Reminded me of the Paris version of times square...the place was huge!



Wow so I'm totally running off of two hours of broken sleep! The people across the hall threw a huge party and between that and the damn elevator that is on the other side of my bedroom wall, I was totally incapable of falling asleep and staying asleep. Luckily it didn't affect my placement exam! I totally rambled on and on about UNH and my summer job and my plans for after college for five minutes that the professor barely was able to ask me any questions (therefore I wasn't able to answer any incorrectly/misunderstand him haha) He passed me with a parfait and I'm allowed to keep my bomb schedule of classes tuesday-thursday!! Yay for a four day weekend! I cannot wait! After that we all went to a restaurant that is designed for only students and a three course meal is only 2.90 euros! The food isn't much better than UNH dining hall food but for the price it's totally worth it if I'm in a rush. The weather is very rainy and gray today but it didn't matter, after that one of the guys in the program and I went to the eiffel tower and walked the grounds of the military school right behind it. In spite of the bad day, it wasn't a bad afternoon (even though the clouds covered the very tip of the tower). I went shopping in the area near school, loveeee that they have an H&M here and the clothes are even better here than in the states. We ended up stumbling into such a good shopping area that had the Montparnasse which is probably the only skyscraper in Paris and its only 59 floors lol. The area was cool though it had billboards and bright advertisements and reminded me of Paris' version of times square (way less chaotic). We went on a ride on the seine on a bateau-mouche (which translates to ugly boat lol) and it was soo good to see the sights...but SOOOOOOOOOOOOO cold! I ended up giving up and going below where it was warm, I figure if I missed anything I'll catch it in the spring when normal people do boat tours. The dock was sooooooo far from my apartment, it took me almost 45 minutes to get there by metro. I'm so exhausted from today and not sleeping last night that I cant bring myself to go out (even though I want to) so I'll probably be super lame and just relax for the night. I'm so glad that I passed my oral exam, today was such a good day.

Happy hour is so fun!

Today was such a good day! Paris has a tendency to be like seattle and be really gray all the time so it was sooo good to wake up to the sun shining through my window haha. We had a meeting at our program office and my roommates and I got soooooooooooooooo lost! We were almost 45 minutes late and everyone had to wait for us. This is why I need my blackberry :(. After walking the same street back and forth about ten times we finally realized the reason why we couldnt find the correct rue is because we were on the wrong side of the road. Typical for me. After the meeting a few of us jumped on the metro and picked a totally random stop and got off. It was such a cute area! We went to this tiny hole in the wall restaurant and all got falllaffell, which was so good considering we're in france. We ended up at a wicked nice bar for happy hour and we totally felt like some celebrity was going to walk in at any moment. It was so nice and would've been totally out of our price range if it hadnt been for the happy hour prices. Here's a picture of it...


The bars here are so cool looking! The first bar we went to was a huge circle and the entire menu had all american drinks on it (made with french liquors but still) and the last bar of the night looked like it could be an upscale sushi bar in new york city or something, here are a few pictures of them...






The jet lag is finally almost gone, its been quite the struggle to wake up at 9 am knowing its 6 am back home and I NEVER get up at that time haha. It'll be so nice to not be so tired all the time, its difficult to think and speak in french when you're exhausted...english is just so much easier. Its also frustrating because as soon as french people hear my accent they only want to speak in english...I just wanna be like I'm here to learn your language!! haha.

Oh here are a few pictures of my apartment (apparently we got the shaft and got one of the worst apartments, but I personally don't think its bad lol)




(the view from our balcony!!)


I cant wait to start traveling, we were talking during happy hour and there are three of us with four day weekends so we're going to be travel buddies haha. Get ready for europe betsy! We're planning to go to Amsterdam the day after you get here for the weekend and then going to Dublin the following weekend (it'll be so much fun since its going to be the day after St Patricks Day). We also talked about planning trips to Prague, Barcelona, Germany, London (obv chels), and Italy (during spring break).

Well I have a 10 am placement exam tomorrow (hopefully I don't bomb it so I can keep my awesome schedule), hopefully I can get my pictures uploaded to facebook soon! Salut!

First official day in Paris! (awake at least)

So its only 5 pm and so many random things have already happened! We had orientation at 930 am and on the way there I tried to order a croissant and ended up with two and saw a guy totally bite it when he fell off his motorcycle in a rotary (he was okay). At orientation I found out I have four day weekends every week woooooo! But I have 16 hours worth of classes in three days which will be intense! Yay for plenty of time to travel to amazing places on the weekends though. Apparently I have to pronounce my words more clearly because every time I've got to order "some" of something I end up with two...oops haha. And then the one time my roommate and I clearly ordered two of something we ended up with one. Whatever, minor details. OH and, do notttttt buy a hair dryer in Paris! I fried mine from home this morning and blew the fuses in the entire wall haha oops, so I had to go find a new one. The store had them all lined up on the wall on display and had a guy at a desk nearby where you had to tell him which one you wanted and then if youre paying with cash he writes you a slip you take up a floor to a register where you pay for it and then you have to go down two floors to the basement to wait in another line where you give a guy your slip and he gets what you want out of the warehouse...wayyyyy too much work for a stupid 14 euro hair dryer! Definitely won't be doing that again. We're going out tonight to a discotheque which should be a fun time! I swear I'll put up pictures sometime haha. SALUT!

Je suis arrivee!!!

Yay I'm finally here! I cannot believe it. The trip was great, except for the fact that the plane to new york was 5 feet wide and the woman next to me on the plane to paris hated life. Butttt other than that I cant complain, I'm in Paris! On the ride to my apartment I saw a navy blue vw bug! Parisians sure do have good taste in cars! My apartment is soooo much bigger than I thought, I had envisioned the worst, ie bunkbeds, shared kitched, mini fridge, outhouse, yeah you name it and I thought it. Its crazy because Paris is like secretly wicked catholic and shuts down hardcore on sundays. Nothing aside from touristy places was open! We ate at this little fondue restaurant even though none of us got fondue haha, maybe next time? The city is beautiful, we started off at the Notre Dame and could see the Eiffel Tower so we figured it was walking distance...NOT! 45 minutes later we arrived...oops, great idea lauren, sorry roommates. After having to ask the police officers (who wear sailor hats, btw) for directions to the metro we finally found our way home safe only to find that while walking up the 6 flights of stairs the lights went out and we lost track of how many floors we had climbed and tried to break into the persons apartment directly below us. I'd say it was a successful first day. Up early for orientation tomorrow, 330 am east coast time! I'll post pictures as soon as I'm no longer falling asleep!