Animals Galore

     It's been quite a week! So last weekend we went up to Monmartre and saw Sacre Coeur and walked around a bit. It was the first nice sunny day and we wanted to take advantage! It was really windy up there though, but that was okay, because the views were incredible. 

    On Thursday, it literally was like the worst day ever. So the class I have is at the campus an hour north of Paris and obviously I have it at 8:30am. So I leave my apartment around 6:40am and the metro ride to the station is about 20 minutes since I have to switch lines to get there. The train after that is the one thats 51 minutes out to campus and it's so so so confusing because the line splits. So you really have to pay attention to which line you're getting on. So I get on, and what do you know? The train I was on was going the wrong way. So I got off, was completely lost, and couldn't figure out how to get back. I looked at the schedule and saw that now I wouldn't get to class until 9:30am so of course my teacher wasn't going to let me in, so i just hopped on the train to go back on. Oh and I forgot to mention that it was raining, so when I was walking up the stairs I slipped and fell and people just walked over me. I guess it doesn't matter if you're at Penn Station in NYC or a metro station in Paris! People are ___. (you fill in the blank). I walked back in to my apartment around 8:45am and obviously had to call home because I was all in a tizzy even though it's a 6 hour time different. Sometimes you just need your mommy!

     Friday we decided to go to Bercy Village which is a cute little strip with shops and pet stores. How do you make your crappy day better? Play with puppies obviously! So we went into the pet store and got to play with some puppies which we decided to name Francine. Seems appropriate. Too bad we couldn't keep her though. Then when we were at Starbucks we saw a pigeon with its foot missing on one leg so we named it pegleg. After we had our fill of walking around the super tiny, but cute park, we decided to go to the Eiffel Tower and watch the lights come on. Then we went to a really good Italian place that we like on the Champs Elysées. 

    Then yesterday, we had the windows open because it was gorgeous out, while we did some homework. The lady across the hall from us has a cat and they were outside tending to her window garden. We heard the cat meowing so I poked my head out the window and saw it staring up at me. So of course, we tried to get it to come closer so we could pet it, but instead, it jumped through the window and ran and hide under my bed! Oops... But the lady never even came over to see where her cat went! So I tried to coerce it out from my bed and tried to pet it a bit but it just hissed and scratched me. So we didn't really have an option to get it out until it went out on it's own. I think it was only hiding for like 5 minutes, but still. 

    Today's been a fun-filled day of reading, papers, and homework. This next week will be a good week though since I only have class on Monday and Thursday!

sacre coeur

monmartre

love wall

sacre coeur

view from scare coeur

francine

francine

bercy village

roomies

bercy park

 peg leg

bercy park

bercy park

eiffel tower

arc de triomphe

 surprise visitor

Brussels!

    Sorry I'm so late in posting! We left early Friday morning for Belgium! It was only an hour and 22 minute train ride which was really nice. When we got there it was freeeeeeezing and we didn't have a map yet, so we basically wandered around until we found where we needed to go. A little sketchy I know, but the city is so small that it didn't really matter. We found our way over to Grand Place, which is one of the nicest squares in Europe. Of course it started to snow, so we went into a little café and got some waffles. Once it stopped snowing we walked around and saw the Manneken Pis. I still don't understand why everyone loves this statue so much, I'm not the biggest fan of it, but it's a part of the culture so we had to see it. 

     We went in and out of a bunch of cathedral's which was really cool. Every way we would turn there would be something else that we wanted to see, whether it be a museum or a statue, or whatnot. The weather was so weird, so it went from snowing, to blue skies, to rain, to snow again. We were so cold and tired by the end of the day that we were totally ready to go home. We definitely did not need to take such a late train home. We had plenty of time to do everything 3 or 4 times, which we did in some cases. 

     We went to a really good restaurant that had amazing chicken caesar salad wraps and wifi! All of the signs were in french and dutch which was interesting to try and decipher what was being said. When our feet couldn't carry us anymore we went to the park to sit down and people watch for a bit. We got lucky because the sun decided to come out for a bit so we sat and basked in it. When we were trying to kill two hours before we had to head back to the train station we kept going in and out of chocolate shops and were sampling everything. We finally settled on ones that we liked and then headed to the station. It was a long, cold, and wet day, but it was fun!

manneken pis

eating belgian snow

belgian waffles

lindsey and i in the snow

musée de la ville de bruxelles

porte de hal

grand place

town hall

st. michael and st. gudula cathedral

st. catherine's cathedral

wildewoud cathedral

snow!

Parisian Days

    I'm so behind on updating! Last weekend we went to the Marais which is pretty much the only place in Paris that is open on Sundays. We had lunch there and walked around and went into a bunch of stores. Then it was just getting ready for the first week of school to start! On Monday we had an orientation and then I had class from 1:30-4:30 then 4:30-7:30. It was a long day, but I really like my classes so far. My social and cultural studies teacher looks like a french Mrs. Doubtfire and my psych teacher is a stereotypical southern California teacher. Tuesday I have my art class which I really like. We got to a few museums which will be nice. I don't have class on Wednesday which is nice to have a bit of a break in the middle of the week. Then on Thursday, oh man, Thursdays are going to be a struggle. I have my marketing class which is at a different campus which is an hour north of Paris. I left my apartment at 6:40am and got to the school at 8:10am for my 8:30am class. It was so stressful trying to figure out how to get there, I barely slept at all the night before.

    Friday my roommate and I wandered around the Louvre for a few hours. Did you know that if you spend 3 seconds looking at everything it would take you 3 years to see everything? Crazy, right? We went back to the Louvre today to do homework. I have such a tough life. 

mona lisa

louvre 

eiffel tower

louvre

louvre

eiffel tower

arc de triomphe

arc de triomphe

champes elysées

pompidou

pompidou

louvre

louvre

louvre

louvre

eiffel tower