GUESS WHAT! Hannah and I went to PARIS for our long weekend break (meaning we get Wednesday – Sunday off from school). And guess what else??? I completely fell in love with this magical city. If there is ever a perfect time to use “magical” as a descriptive word…it’s right now, in this situation. I didn’t realize just how much I would fall in love with Paris. I don’t know if that’s because of the stereotype that the French can be rude (which, by the way, we did not encounter once!) or that it was such a common place to visit that I thought it would lose its charm (which, by the way, it hasn’t!)…who knows. But, the point is, it is one of my absolute favorite cities and I’m already dreaming about the day I can hopefully go back to visit.

We left on Thursday morning and hopped on the TGV (high-speed bullet) train right into Paris.

And during the train ride, I finally got to catch up on the magazines my mom had sent me in a care package (it had been a while…there just aren’t enough hours in the day so I was happy to finally be able to flip through all 3)!

After taking the bus from the train station to the closest bus stop to our hotel, and after a nice older French man offered to point us in the right direction when he saw we were confused (see…they aren’t rude!), we arrived at our hotel! It had little dancing people on the walls, which I just adored.

And then, we went off exploring! There was so much charm just walking down the streets, from the architecture, to the colorful doorways and buildings, to hearing the French language (I think it’s the most beautiful sounding…and even more to die for when little ones are speaking it!), to the smell of freshly baked croissants and baguettes, to everyone’s adorable outfits! I couldn’t get enough of it!

Here are a few snapshots of the city! Isn’t it just darling??

More to come in the next few days!

Okay, this is the last South of France post, I promise! Here is a little video of the entire trip…

The song used in the video is You and I by Ingrid Michaelson.

(Read about all of the adventures here: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5)

On day 5 in the South of France in France, we only had the morning to do a little more touring because later that afternoon we were heading back to school. Back to the real world. Back to midterms. (Spoiler alert: I survived midterm week…but barely!)

We started off the morning visiting an ancient bridge in Avignon…apparently here is where they would sing the song “sur le pont d’Avignon on y danse…” and dance on the bridge (Haven’t heard the song? Me neither, but apparently it’s famous and I was one of the few who didn’t know it!)

And then our friend David asked to take a cheesy picture of Hannah and me holding hands looking off into the distance…

And then we headed to the Palais de Papes, and in English that means The Pope’s Palace. Back in the day, the Popes lived in Avignon in this grand palace. Unfortunately, all of the cool rooms forbid photography so I couldn’t take a picture of the Pope’s bedroom or of the amazing frescos we saw throughout the building. The only rooms left of the palace we could take pictures of were hallways…nothing exciting so instead I took pictures of the outside! Pretty cool huh?

^^The boys bought swords at the gift shop. And they play fought all throughout the streets. They crack me up!

After touring the palace, we had lunch and wandered around the town. And guess what happens when we have free time and we have seen all the sights…we shop and then I see a fluffy cozy scarf that matches my snow boots perfectly so how in the world was I supposed to pass that up? And then we run into a churro stand where the guy is making them fresh in front of us so how in the world was I supposed to pass that up? I didn’t pass either of them up.

Then, it was time to jump on the train back to Lausanne. A lot of us tried (and we really did try) to do homework…but most of us passed out. I got about six pages into my history textbook before falling asleep. We were all exhausted after our field trip, but we had so much fun! I can’t wait for our EFT next semester! Want to guess where we are going? I’ll tell ya…TURKEY! Yay!