I like these too much to not post them...

Here's a few photos from my last three or four days in Paris:

On the day we were officially done with finals, we stayed up all night and watched the sun rise from Sacre-Coeur

Look closely and you can spot Sacre-Coeur through the glass panels in the clock at the Musee d'Orsay

Me on the night of our farewell dinner

FINALLY! The Delacroix painting Girl Seated in a Cemetery, which I based my final project on for a class last semester (at the Louvre)

Canal St. Martin, as you may have seen in Amelie!

Wine and friends on my last night in Paris: sitting on the Champ de Mars in front of the Eiffel Tower

On U.S. Soil!

Unfortunately my first U.S. experience in four months is occurring in the Philly airport: luckily I have not spotted any mice yet, (you may remember that when my flight was delayed for 7 hours on the way here, I was in a mouse-infested area. eww).  Also luckily, they have free internet, so I can make use of my extra-long layover and recap my last few days in Paris.

I spent my last week revisiting some of my favorite places in Paris: the Louvre, the Musee d'Orsay, Luxembourg and Tuileries Gardens, and of course the Eiffel Tower.  I ate crepes, fondue, frog legs (!!!), and quiche.  I spent my last night sitting on the Champ de Mars in front of the Eiffel Tower, drinking wine with friends and watching it sparkle.  

I sad goodbye to my friends (sad), and goodbye to Paris (worse).  I said goodbye to my host family (though they were great, this wasn't as hard).  I don't think I can put into words what an amazing experience my four months studying abroad were.  I showed up speaking basically no French, and now I can get by just fine on my own.  I still can't quite believe that I lived with a French family for four months and spoke only French to them!

I think what I am even more proud of beyond developing my language skills is that I have become much more independent and confident in my capabilities.  It certainly was not easy: I was the only one in my program who lived outside of the city, I got harassed more often because my red hair makes me look very, very not French and therefore a fun target for creepers, and the whole language barrier thing didn't help either!  This was the first time that I have lived without a roommate I was close with: that means I suffered through all of the 4am night bus rides followed by 8am classes all on my own.  Luckily...the negative things are few and far between in comparison to all of the positives.  I am so lucky that I was able to do something so enlightening and enriching at such a young age.  

I'm about to catch my flight home to Connecticut (I instinctively typed Paris first...), and I can't wait to spend the next week and a half catching up with family and friends (and also catching up on sleep..and American culture...and seeing Molly!)  Then, it's off to DC to intern   I'll report back soon on my reverse-culture-shock observations and also with my pictures from the past week, as the two I've put here are stolen from a friend!

Paris When it Sizzles

I must say that studying isn't quite so bad when this is the view...I know I'm spoiled.  In front of the Eiffel Tower is the peace monument.

What a wonderful weekend!  Saturday's 4 hour long French exam was challenging, but I'm just relieved that it's over with.  My host family was gone for the weekend so I had a few friends over to celebrate the completion of our grammar classes...then we all went out together to continue the celebration.

Today I slept in and met friends for a great lunch.  We had a wonderful time and that's when it really hit me: I only have a week left in Paris.  Now that the weather's great and I've established an amazingly fun life here, the last thing I want to do is go!  I've gotten close with the people in my program, we've all become quite familiar with the city, we all have our favorite bars and other places to go.  Why leave NOW!?  (Note: Leaving will not be ALL bad because I am super excited to see family and friends and to be in DC for the summer.)

After lunch, we headed to the Hotel Carnavalet, a museum that showcases the history of the city of Paris.  I'm glad that I saved it until now because I know quite a bit about the history and geography now, and also because the information is posted only in French-- now that I'm more comfortable with the language, I could understand most of it.  

Coming up this week.. I'll be babysitting, prepping for Wednesday's oral exam and Thursday's civilization class exam, shopping, picnicking, and just being out and about as much as possible!  As for the not so nice things, I'll need to squeeze in some packing and probably a mental breakdown at some point because: I come home in seven days. 

A great weekend in Paris!

A few fun things that we've done this weekend:

-Got a picnic lunch at the Grand Epicerie, walked to the Luxembourg Gardens and picnic-ed

-Climbed to the top of the Arc de Triomphe and watched the Eiffel Tower sparkle

-Went to Sacre-Coeur and Montmartre

-Had a successful dinner with my host family

-Went to the Louvre

-Walked around Notre Dame and the Latin Quarter, saw my classroom

My friend Kim and I at Sacre-Couer.

The view when you walked just outside of our hotel.

The Eiffel Tower sparkling at night, seen from the Arc de Triomphe.

I've been letting the visitors take the bulk of the pictures so here is the only proof that they are actually here!

Tonight: Easter dinner at a restaurant called Chez Francoise, and heading off to Brussels tomorrow morning!

PS: On the metro there are some seats that are on a hinge/spring so that when you stand up, they fold up to make more room for people who are standing.  Yesterday my Dad stood up to get something out of his bag, didn't realize that the seat had folded up, and sat back down again!  He was practically on the floor by the time he realized his mistake...it was hilarious!

What a wonderful weekend!

This weekend has been lovely.. nice weather combined with friends visiting from studying abroad in London!  Friday we all went out in a big group to a few different places and had a blast.  Yesterday, a friend's host family was gone for the day so two of us went over for lunch.  She lives near the Arc de Triomphe in a massive, beautiful apartment with fantastic old-style molding and ceilings.  I love to see where people live so this was really fun for me.

Then we enjoyed the lovely day and went for a walk down the Champs-Elysees towards the Louvre.  Even though it was a really long walk, it felt great to be outside.  We stopped at the Petit Palais on the way.

 Mostly, the structure of the building impressed me much more than the art on display because the floors were very intricately mosaic-ed and the cielings had incredible moldings and paintings.  They did have this Monet painting though which I loved, it is not as dark in person:  

Then we met up with the Londoners for hot chocolate at the Louvre and got out student Louvre cards which get us in for free there and at the Delacroix museum which I am very excited to see!  

Our program basically gave us fake student ID cards that say we are studying Art History which gets us into lots of museums for free.  At this point the Londoners wanted to go down and picnic by the Eiffel Tower but some of us split off because a) it was very cold and b) until then I had successfully forgotten it was Valentines Day in the "most romantic city in the world" and I didn't need to see fifteen proposals to remind me!

Instead we went to some strange Greek restaurant that had a boar's head mounted on the wall because it had a 10 euro menu and they hustled us in by offering free sangria.  Afterwards we ended up going out with some French guys that one of the girls in my program knew.  That was fun even though they spoke only French (very rapidly!) to us, so it was a major effort for me to follow the conversation.

Have I mentioned that out of the fifteen people in my program, three of us are named Lauren?  We are all friends too, so when introducing ourselves to the French guys last night, 3 out of the 5 of us were Laurens.  I don't even know what kind of impression that makes.  

Phew! Thank gosh for Sundays because after typing all of this out, I'm tired just thinking about it!  Today I think I'll mostly do homework, and go to another girl's apartment for dinner.  Also, I am booking my flight to Prague today!  I found a great 2-for-1 flight deal online, so me and a friend are going the weekend of March 13-15.   

A nice day.

After class, a nap was pretty tempting but I couldn't waste a day without rain or snow!

Here's the view of Notre Dame if you take a left out of my class building.

Then, turn left again and hit Shakespeare & Co, a really famous English/American bookstore. 

Then I had to take a test to be placed into a phonetics class and the woman told me I was in the highest class-subset of my level.  Awesome!  

I can't believe I hadn't taken this photo until today..we definitely have a family photo from a few years back in the exact same spot. Someone should have pointed out how much I blended into the bush though.

The Thinker in the sculpture garden of the Rodin Museum-- I know nothing about sculpture but I DO know this is baby's pretty famous.

Overall, a good day!  I'm definitely going to sleep well tonight-- all this walking on cobblestone streets all over the city can really tire a girl out!