"Ma Vie en Dublin"

Monday: Lindsey and I were one of the few people to stay behind after the Normandy tour. We checked out of our hostel at 10 am and had a few hours to kill before our train back to Paris. We walked around the town with a few other Abbey-ians and eventually arrived to Paris around 3 pm. Lindsey and I had to decide where we were going to stay the night, since the airport we needed to fly out of early the next morning was an hour away from Paris. We found a cheap hotel 3 miles from the airport and so we had to take a shuttle to Beauvais. The shuttle was awful. 60 people in a bus with no airconditioning. Hot and smelly. Yuck. Beauvais airport is the size of my high school so we had to wait about 20 minutes for a taxi. We arrived to our motel a while later and grabbed some dinner at a diner next door and hit the sack- we had to be up at 5 am.

Tuesday: We arrived to Beauvais airport early and had to wait in several lines for Dublin. A huge school tour group of about 40 fifteen year olds were on the same flight as me. I misread my checked bag weight limit and thought I could carry on 50 kgs of luggage…. Boy was I wrong. It was in fact 15 kg. There was no post service to ship a bag home or anything and I would have had to pay 120 euro (200 dollars) everytime I flew (which was 3 more times). Long story short, I had to say goodbye to: 2 pairs of jeans, 2 shirts, my blowdryer, a bag full of brand-new beauty products and about 4 books. I was definitely not in a good mood at all. Luckily though, I feel asleep straight through the plane ride. As soon as we landed, I was in a good mood. I think it was because of the Irish. I freakin’ love the Irish people. As soon as we went through customs and all that, we were outside waiting for our bus and the weather was SO cold. It was snowing too… Nice. We had a nice 25 minute drive through Dublin and we arrived at our hostel a while later which the help of a nice Irish local to pointed us the right direction. When we walked in, the 2 male receptionists (which one looked like an elf, no joke) offered us a warm towel to dry off with and a shot of vodka. I accepted the towel. The hostel was AWESOME. Young people, lots of information, warm 3 story building facing the river and funny signs and posters everywhere. They told us a good place for lunch was the Brazen Head Pub, which is the oldest pub in Dublin. It was a block over and it was really good! I had a bowl of chowder and Irish soda bread. After a long nap, Lindsey and I walked around the city and found a good pub to go to for dinner. We ended up at an Italian place that offered a free bottle of wine with dinner- couldn’t refuse. After that, we found a local pub and I had my first Guinness. It was a lot better then what I expected!! We hung out there for a while and then headed back home for a good night’s sleep!

Wednesday: Woke up and showered and walked around Dublin some more. We stopped by some churches and looked in the local stores. We had a quick lunch and then went to some vintage stores. We were really cold and tired again so we were lucky enough to find a cinema that was playing Alice in Wonderland! We had been wanting to see it for so long and in france, most of the cinemas were playing it only in French. The movie was awesome! After that, we went to the shopping district and did a little shopping (window shopping for me). We went back to the hostel to pack up our bags and warmed up some more and then went to an American diner down the street for a cheap and quick bite. Vanilla malts and a cheeseburger later, we were in bed by 8pm because we had to be up at 3 am to catch the shuttle to the airport to leave for London.

"Ma Vie en Normandy"

Saturday: Train ride to Normandy!!! This was my favorite part of the first week. I LOVED Normandy. Saturday was a slow day, just unpacked and had dinner at a cafe.

Sunday: Sunday was the most important day of the whole week for me. We were up early and toured all the beaches from WW2 and went to Pointe du Hoc. We saw German miliary weapons and saw craters in the ground 15 feet deep from 60 years ago. Omaha Beach was very cool. I saw and understood how the Americans had to climb over this massive hill. I don't understand how they did it. The weather was shitty and it made the day even more emotional. Dr. Mackaman lead the tour and he told us so much about D-day. I learned so much.

The turning point of my trip occurred at the American Cemetery mainly for some reasons I won't post online. However, one thing that Dr. Mackaman asked us to do was to find a solider and thank him. I decided that I wanted to find a private from Texas, because chances are was that he would be around my age. The solider I chose was Charles L. Kestler, Jr. I bought him a metro ticket to Paris to thank him for giving me the chance to be able to come here. It was the emotional I had ever been on this trip and probably will be. Another thing that was important was the Dooley Brothers from Texas too and seeing Theodore Roosevelt's son's cross. The cemetery was beautiful and it was so nice to be back on American soil for a hour. All the plants (included the grass) was grown in the US, so it was oddly familiar and comforting.

That night we went back to our cute little hostel and CRASHED! Physically and emotionally exhausted we all were! A quick dinner made by our hostel and a shower later, we were back into bed because Spring Break was about to start!!!

More tomorrow :)

"Ma Vie en Paris"

Wow. It's been nearly a month since I've last updated this blog. It feels like a near eternity. I've decided that I'm going to update the next few blogs of each city I visited with the pictures included so this blog isn't long!

My first week of my vacation was Paris, Versailles, Normandy and its beaches. We arrived to Paris by bus on Saturday afternoon. We were extremely lucky to have our own hotel rooms, it made everyone more sane and a hot shower to yourself was the best treat. Saturday basically consisted of checking in, un-packing sort of thing. After that, we went on a couple hour walk around the Latin Quarter, which was the neighborhood we were staying in. We grabbed some dinner and had to hurry home because we were seeing a Oriental Cabaret. The cabaret was DREADFUL. Very very high school production, but we all had a good laugh about it afterwards. Bedtime was early because we had a long day Sunday.

Sunday: Hopped on the RER (a metro line) and toured Versailles. It was beautiful!! The lines were long and it was SO crowded, but we had a GREAT time. We had lunch in Versailles and rode the train back to the city. My friends and I took a long, needed nap afterwards. After that, we had a quick pizza in the Latin Quarter and went to a little market to get some soap and shampoo sort of thing.

Monday: Day 1 of our 3 walking tours. I was with Dr. Mackaman, who is the director of the Abbey Program and he's a genius of French History. He has a PhD and all that good stuff, so I knew this French Revolution walk I was going on would be amazing. We walked EVERYWHERE!!!! The Panthenon, Notre Dame, lots of churches, some park that I don't remember the name of and the area around the Louvre. It was a great walk!! We walked from 10 am to about 5 am. Needless to say, my friends and I took it easy that night. We ate McDonalds, which was a huge treat and hung out at the hotel with our friends and some of our professors.

Tuesday: Another walk with Dr. Mackaman. The walk was about modern France and post-revolution. We went to a museum and saw the infamous "thinker" statute. We also saw the Eiffel Tower!! It was my first time to see it, and it was AMAZING. The weather was a perfect 74 degrees and Alexis and I ate lunch underneath it. The walk ended early for us, so we had a great afternoon to wander around the city. We went back to the Notre Dame and did a little shopping and had a cup of coffee. I loved the Notre Dame so much! Alexis treated me to a pedicure for my birthday and we had a lame pedicure a block down from our hotel, so we had to walk back with those little flip flops because we had boots on. It was so funny! After a shower, we all headed out to see the Eiffel Tower "sparkle" and to get some dinner. Long story, a taxi cab ride back 2 hours later, we ate dinner close to our hotel. Saw the tower sparkle 3 miles from it. LOL.

Wednesday: Our free day!! Slept in a little, and had a picnic in the Luxembourg Gardens. We read and had a great sunny afternoon. Katie and I then went to H&M, which is one of my favorite stores! That night, a bunch of girls and I went to a bar in the Latin Quarter by the river called the "Le Who" Bar. It still to this day is my favorite place in Paris. It was a live-music bar sort type of thing. The duo that played that night sang all of our american favorites from U2 to Oasis. Needless to say, after a few glasses of wine, we were all singing along with the band and had the best time.

Thursday: I went on a walk with my French professor. The walk was through the immigrant part of Paris. It was SO cool. We went through the Chinese, Muslim, Indian, Spanish and Korean neighborhoods in Paris. The weather was very rainy and we went to this cool discount department store and I got some cheap beauty products that I needed badly! That night, almost everyone from the Abbey came back to Le Who Bar. The wine was flowing and the music was loud and it was a GREAT night again.

Friday: Louvre day. Went in for a while, but didn't stay too long because it was SO crowded, and for those of you who know me know that I HATE crowds! LOL. We had a lunch and I went with Alexis to get her tattoo and then we took a metro up to see the Moulin Rouge. We didn't realize that the Moulin Rouge was in a bad part of town, so we took a taxi home. It was so fun, that taxi ride!! That night, we ate gyros in front of the Notre Dame for dinner and spent another night at Le Who. We arrived back to the hotel pretty late at night since it was our last night in Paris. :(