Things I've learned in Paris

-ICELAND SUCKS
-French men are CREEPY! (well European men in general)
-Common sense is not so common.
-Art Nouveau is not always a good thing
-the French don't know what mexican food is
-I can bullshit essays in French just as well as in English
-Not all cities are like Boston
-When you go grocery shopping, bring your own bags, or you have to pay for them
-Milk here does not need to be refridgerated (gross.)
-Cottage Cheese doesn't exist
-neither does cheddar
-The French stuff their turkey with meat on thanksgiving-they don't know what stuffing is
-They don't cook their meat, and you can order raw hamburger meat as a meal
-People pee in the metro-I've seen it, at 2 pm on a week day
-One of the pillars in the Eiffel Tower doesn't have an elevator, it just has stairs (learned that the hard way)
-The French actually DO know English, they just refuse to speak it
-French men see nothing wrong with following you
-Mace is necessary to carry around on a daily basis
-Wearing shorts without tights is like foreplay to the French men
-If you smile on the metro or look like you don't want to slit your wrists, everyone automatically knows you're American
-the Boston accent makes speaking French very difficult
-Boston is truly the best city on the Planet!
-Don't eat an entire package of cookie dough just because you're depressed, you will end up throwing up
-ICELAND SUCKS AGAIN
-French universities are extremely easy and are set up like a high school
-Pub crawls always seem like a fantastic idea at the beginning...until you get halfway through and its only 11 pm.
-Maybe the Irish are doing something right by always being drunk-they're always so happy!
-The French could learn from the Irish...
-You can't buy any cheese or wine products that are not French...the French think theirs are the best in the world and therefore do not import
-Happy hour is the best invention ever.
-You can get a good wine for under 5 euros
-One of my roommates is a klepto...no big deal.
-Everything you need in life can be found in Durham, NH
-Crashing a Black Eyed Peas after party and hanging out with friends of the President of France's son will be the highlight of your 21 year existance
-Stereo Love will forever define your friendship with the threesome
-Tequila solves all problems
-Actual Opera's at the world famous French Opera House SUCK!
-There ARE slums in Paris, I know this because I live in them...true life
-Thank god for Cory Clements...I never would have survived living in my apartment without him
-French pastries will make you fat
-EuroDisney is a fabulous way to cure a depression caused by friggin Iceland...until creepy men follow you home
-Your sisters at Alpha Xi Delta are irreplaceable
-Going abroad isn't easy...but totally worth it.
-Special K diets actually do work
-Planning a trip to go snowboarding in the Alps will be your favorite trip of all of them
-Renting a car and sporadically driving to Milan for dinner because you missed your exit will be one of the best idea's you ever had abroad
-Buying a hairdryer in France is like trying to buy a TV...they make you pay for it on a different floor than you picked it out on and you have to pick it up from a different floor than you paid for it...its a procedure, believe me.
-Speaking in French for four months will ruin your English skills and it will take you 9 hours to write a 7 page paper in English because you spend half of the time thinking of simple words that you can't remember
-Cory Clements has the best idea's of what to cheers to while taking shots. Period.
-Europeans wear jeans and sweaters to the beach over their suits...freakin' weird.
-Sometimes what you're looking for is right in front of you
-Love isn't real.
-Save the best trip for last...Dublin you were amazing!
-Do make amazing friends...even if you can count them all on one hand, knowing life wouldn't be the same without them is enough
-make sure you take the time to spend entire days drinking while traveling whether its on a free walking tour of Prague ending in chugging absinthe at an absinthe bar by the castle, going around dublin to the guinness factory and jameson distillery and drinking guinness on the bus tour to the cliffs, or spending the day in venice drinking bottles of wine and sangria and ending it with a 173 euro dinner...you wont regret it. and as long as you can still remember the days, thats all that matters.
-Do realize that you'll probably only get the chance to live in Europe once in your life, so do splurge a little and worry about your bills when you get home...everything will work out.
-Don't forget what it is that made you want to go abroad and don't for one second think you made a mistake
-Everything truly happens for a reason and if something is good in your life, it'll still be there when you return.
-Don't underestimate the power of friends and family and realize that feeling homesick and alone makes you human
-Don't take yourself too seriously
-DO PICNIC IN THE PARK!
-Do wear 4 inch heels every chance you get...who cares if you're almost 6 feet tall, you're only "young and beautiful" once...haha
-Don't forget where you came from, you speak American, not English!!
-I can relate anything in life philosophically to Harry Potter haha
-I never want to grow up...
-don't cry on graduation day because you're four thousand miles away from half of your best friends while they're graduating...there's nothing you can do about it
-oh and...ICELAND SUCKS.

Dublin - THE HOMELAND!!

By far the best city I visited in Europe! So glad I saved the best for last. For starters the people were SO FRIENDLY (could have something to do with them being drunk all the time...but whatever) and the city was beautiful. I was surprised! You could walk everywhere and it was just bursting with tiny pubs and happy music and GUINNESS! It resembled Boston a lot in the way the roads were set up (not a grid haha and confusing as hell) and the buildings (mostly brick). I loved it! So we arrived in Dublin (Iceland finally cooperated) and our hostel was so easy to get to for once haha and it was actually centrally located which was also a first. We were located right near the river and a 5 minute walk from the bar area and trinity college. We couldn't check into our hostel right away because it was only 10 am, so we left our bags there and went to get lunch and walked around and saw trinity college, saint patricks cathedral, and christ church. Then we headed back to the hostel for a much needed nap (we had to be up at 5 am in order to catch our flight on time). We headed out to dinner at a little pub and got pints of guinness and I had a steak and guinness pie...it was so good! Then we decided to do the pub crawl so we headed to the first bar (it was still light out haha) and it turned out that it was our lucky night because we ended up being the only three people on the pub crawl so we had our own private tour. The pubs were all really cool and exactly like I pictured irish pubs to be like. Lots of guinness and lots of jameson. For once we were surrounded by people who actually LIKED americans haha. Imagine that? At one pub I was sitting there by myself because Steph and Andy were off somewhere and the guy sitting next to me asked me what part of Ireland I was from. I told him I was from the states and he laughed and said you could've fooled me, you look Irish. So we got into a huge convo about how my grandmother is Irish and he knew the village her family came from so it was cool. I guess I never thought that having dark hair, light eyes, and freckles was Irish but apparently it is. The next day Steph and Andy went on the bus tour to the Cliffs of Moher and I waited at the hostel for Bay to get there (she had an exam on the day we left so she had to fly there the next day). We went and got bagels for lunch (I had forgotten what they were since france doesn't eat them). Then we went and took pictures of all the things I saw the day before (it rained the first time I was there so it didn't make for pretty pictures) and then we went to the guinness factory. It was UNREAL! Its like a HUGE compound in the middle of Dublin! The factory setup was really interesting. The tour was a self-guided tour (thankfully, I HATE guided tours, I get bored), and you followed the process of how to make guinness and what makes it different than other beers. We got free samples and even got to pour our own free pint from the tap. On the top floor they have a gravity bar which is this huge glass circular room so you have 360 degree views of the entire city. It was beautiful! After that we went to the Jameson distillery haha. No wonder why Dublin is full of drunks, their two main attractions are alcohol factories! The Jameson tour was a guided tour and super expensive so we opted to just walk around the factory and buy our own drinks from the bar haha. We even got chocolate truffles that were Jameson flavored. SO much better than the stupid guided tour! That night we went out to dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe and split nachos and chicken wings (things we also cannot get in france). On our way home we got a pack of guinness and snacks and parked ourselves in front of the tv at the hostel for the night. We had to be up super early the next day for our bus tour of the Cliffs. We woke up the next morning super early and met our bus at 730 near the hostel. We got breakfast at McDonalds (I know shocker...but you can get bagels and cream cheese at McDonalds in Europe). Our tour guide was really funny. He entertained us with stories of Irish myths and even told us a funny one about a famous american political family. Ask me about it sometime...its entertaining. Telling it via blog just wouldn't do it justice. The tour took us from Dublin (on the eastern coast of Ireland), out by Galway (the western coast). Who knew you could go from one side of the country to the other and back via bus in one day!? Ireland is beautiful! I've never seen so much green in my entire life. We made a few stops before the Cliffs at various monuments that didn't have too much of an effect on me. Churches just aren't very interesting in my opinion. But the scenery I saw from the bus was gorgeous! Turns out Bay had packed the rest of our Guinness from the night before haha. Typical American's. But whatever. We finally arrived at the Cliffs and let me tell you they are well worth the drive. The sheer size of them and the size of the straight drop to the ocean was enough to take your breath away. Its amazing how the grass grows right up the edge and then...NOTHING, just a straight drop into the Atlantic. We hiked along them until we came to a sign that said danger do not go beyond this point, and naturally we kept going. A lot of other people did too. And yes I'm sure you're saying to yourself well if they jumped off the bridge would we have followed...and at that point the answer was probably yes. Once you got off the main tourist path it was even more beautiful. There were huge untouched fields full of flowers and nobody was around to ruin your pictures. We got out as far as the rock that Harry Potter 6 was filmed at and then turned around and headed back. Of course we had to see where HP was filmed, since we're such avid obsessive fans haha. But let me tell you, that bus ride back was AWFUL! It was just our luck to be stuck behind this god awful family that decided to take their 2 year old daughter on a 14 hour bus tour! HOW RUDE CAN YOU BE?! What child at that age would be okay for 14 hours cooped up on a bus seeing things she doesn't care about nor will never remember. I wanted to kill the parents every time she screamed...which let me tell you was OFTEN! It was horrible...I thought Bay was going to kill someone. Just our luck right?? But we were in Dublin so we can't exactly complain. Once we finally got back we were STARVING! We stumbled upon a burger place like Johnny Rockets and got chocolate milkshakes and burgers. Let me tell you it was amazing to have a cheeseburger with jalapeno peppers on it and the best part was my stomach didn't even bother me after. Maybe I can incorporate those back into my diet permanently (JUST KIDDING...kinda). That night the three of us just relaxed and got ready to head back to Paris. Andy flew out sunday night because he had class on monday and we flew out first thing monday morning. Definitely the best city and I wish I could go back. If I could pick any European city to live in it would be Dublin. Maybe I'll find a finance company there after college and grad school haha or maybe I'll work for the finance department for Guinness...what do you think?? Oh and the best part about our hostel...it was the old recording studio for U2...does Litton Lane ring a bell for any of you U2 fans??? It should.

First night


Welcome home lauren...


obviously haha


<3


Trinity College


more of Trinity


Dublin's famous shopping street!


Dublin Castle


Saint Patrick's Cathedral


Christ Church


GUINNESS!


"the essence of guinness is all around you."


yeah they even had a waterfall in the factory


obviously!


dublin doors!


annndddd Jameson


outside the factory


let the bus tour begin! hellooo irish countryside


abbey


at some tomb? dunno


there they are!! Cliffs of Moher!


epic.


it was as close as i could get without having a panic attack...i think i did pretty well!


HARRY POTTER SCENE!


bye ireland... :(

Spring Break: ITALY!

I'm such a procrastinator that even updating my blog reminds me of homework, hence why I haven't updated it in weeks. Sorry about that! Iceland decided to give me a break and stop ruining my life and actually let me get to italy!! Can you believe that?! How nice of them...I still think they suck but whatever. Italy was AMAZING! We flew into Venice late monday night and of course we got lost once we got there and ended up in the center, which was really cool so we took some pictures and got some gelato and eventually figured out where we were supposed to go. Our hostel was actually really cool, it was a campground 15 minutes from venice center and the three of us had our own little cabin with our own bathroom. Having your own bathroom and a very clean place to stay is VERY rare for 11 euros a night haha. We woke up early on tuesday to see as much of venice as we could since we were leaving for Rome early wednesday morning. We took the water taxi to Murano Island where they do the Venetian glass blowing. The water taxi was really fun even though it was a bit chilly but Murano Island was BEAUTIFUL! We got to see an actual demonstration and the guy made a horse in 5 minutes...it was crazy. I also had no idea that when glass is hot, it is orange until it cools, I thought that was interesting. Then we went to the showroom and the pieces they had there were insane! I took pictures even though we werent supposed to haha typical american. After that we went and had our first authentic italian meal, I had gnocci in a cheese sauce...SO GOOD! Then we made our way back to Venice and got Sangria (yeah we're idiots and drank all day...it'll play a sufficient role in the plot in a few minutes) and then we took a gondola ride. Venice is so serene, even though our gondoleer was some creepy guy named marco who kept trying to get Bays number. After that we just walked around Venice and went and saw San Marco Square which is a big shopping area on the coast with a huge cathedral and museums. For dinner we found this little seafood restaurant on the side of one of the main rivers and us four idiots who had drank all day racked up a 175 euro bill, guess that was our splurge of the week haha. But the food was AMAZING, I had a scampi risotto that had some sort of shrimp like creature in it, can't remember the name, and we split three bottles of wine. After that we just got gelato for dessert (yeah we ate it everyday) and headed back to the hostel to get ready for traveling to rome.

Water Taxi's!!


Murano Island (where venetian glass comes from)


glass blowing show! so cool!


i wanted it...but it was 450 euros...not exactly in my budget


GONDOLA RIDE!


beautiful.


San Marco Square


Military section of venice


View from our restaurant!


What we stayed in in Venice and Rome...may as well go camping

We got into rome at around 10 but didn't make it to our hostel until 4 pm because again we're idiots and we got lost. But in our defense rome IS veryyy confusing, it's so old and half of the streets aren't marked and we obviously weren't intelligent enough to get a map at the airport and we don't speak italian soooo we were pretty much screwed. The bus claimed to drop us off near the vatican, LIE...we walked in the direction of a building we THOUGHT was the vatican...turned out it was a bank. Stupid architecture. But we ended up just realizing defeat and got pizza for lunch. Then we got lucky and stumbled upon some americans with a map who pointed us in the right direction. Our hostel in Rome was pretty much exactly the same as our hostel in venice because it was a campground...the only difference is it was almost an hour bus ride away during rush hour (which seemed to be 24 hours in rome). So by the time we got back we just decided to shower and head BACK to rome for dinner. We got lost heading back to rome and ended up taking a cab to the vatican and we found a cute little italian restaurant right on the river that was cheap for dinner. I got homemade ravioli in a tomato cream sauce which was obviously amazing and then for dessert bay and I got tiramisu. The next day we woke up super early and circled everything we wanted to see in rome and set out to do it. Since we got lost the day before we had to squeeze everything we had planned on seeing in two days into one. Who knew you could see all of rome in one day?! We managed. We started at the vatican museum and saw the Sistine Chapel and then walked to Saint Peter's Square and saw the basilica. I thought it was cool to see where Angels and Demons was filmed. But we didn't get to see the Pope riding around the square in the Pope mobile which was a bummer. Then we decided to get lunch and we went to the original alfredo restaurant in rome where they mix the sauce right in front of you. Obviously I enjoyed it. Then we were off to the Spanish Steps which were BEAUTIFUL! We got gelato and took a few pictures on the steps and then headed to the Trevi Fountain where it is rumored that you will find true love if you throw a coin over your shoulder into the fountain. Its been two weeks since I did that and I don't see any prince charmings anywhere...so I'm going to assume its a LIE. But the fountain was gorgeous so it makes up for it. After that we headed to the Pantheon which of course was under construction so it looked ugly from the outside but it was cool to see the inside. Since I'm such a Dan Brown fanatic, I think its cool to say I've been to the main places in both the books Angels and Demons and the Da Vinci Code (since that one took place in Paris). After the Pantheon we were finally on our way to the Colusseum, which words can't even describe. We were walking and all of a sudden we turned a corner and all you could see were Roman ruins lining both sides of the street and at the end was the Colusseum, which was weird to see with tons of cars and modern technology surrounding it. They charged you an arm and a leg to get in and since we weren't european union students we didn't qualify for the discount, even though we study in the EU...bull but whatever. It cost us 12 euros to see it but I'd say it was definitely well worth it. The structure was MASSIVE, I still can't believe I was there. Anyways, after that we were all exhausted and sunburnt so we headed home and got dinner.

Vatican City at night!


Inside the vatican museum


Sistine Chapel


Saint Peter's Square


Romeeee!


Original alfredo restaurant...yum


Spanish Steps


Trevi Fountain


trying to find true love?


Pantheon


Inside the Pantheon


Roman ruins


Colosseum


Inside the collosseum


amazing...

We had to be up an in a taxi on our way to the airport at 530 am in order to catch our flights to Palermo. I say flights because come to find out Steph and Bay somehow booked a separate flight than I told them but luckily they both left at about the same times. Sicily was like stepping back in time. They wash their clothes in bins outside of their houses and the women cook and clean all day and thats pretty much it. You could tell the city was definitely poor, but the food was amazing and SUPER cheap...an average dinner came to 15-20 euros including wine which was unheard of. We pretty much spent every day there at the famous Mondello beach which was just what I pictured the Mediterranean to look like. The water was a beautiful turquoise and the backdrop was just HUGE mountains. It was definitely unlike anything I've ever seen. I didn't want to leave and go back to Paris. The food there is so good, all of their seafood is obviously really fresh and I ended up living off of salmon pasta, although one night I did order an entire white fish because they claimed it was the specialty of Sicily. It was good, but I can't say I'd ever order it again since I spent most of my time spitting out bones...yucky. But it was an experience. When monday came around we were so depressed to head back to Paris since we heard it was 45 degrees and raining the entire time. Surprise surprise. But oh well...I've got to run to class but I'll update the pictures soon I swear. After class mom and gram and grampa will be waiting for me! I'm so excited I'm going to have zero concentration giving this stupid presentation in french on Yves Saint Laurent...ask me what I know about high fashion?! NOTHING! I'm a girl who'd rather be on a beach with a six pack then running around in some ridiculous outfit and 5 inch heels. Oh well. Thats life in Paris.

Palermo, Sicily


Almost at the water...


there it is!!!!


so pretty...


Opera House


Mondello beach!


beautiful.


check out the mountains in the background


i actually look tan...weird.


I'd go back in a heartbeat.