On the campaign trail :)

So my visit from Michelle was followed by a visit from POTUS himself, Corey Dwyer. (I can't even tell you how excited I was to have people from home come visit me here- I know I've missed everyone from home, but I guess I didn't realize just how much.) He's currently back-packing through Europe for 3 weeks with one of his best friends from home, so we decided to meet for lunch on Wednesday and I showed them a little of the city, including the Champs-Elysees (which I actually hate with a passion- sorry), the Arc de Triomphe, and Notre Dame. We even got to climb the towers all the way to the top, which was something that I hadn't done yet and had been wanting to do since I got here.

POTUS and FLOTUS

The view up top is gorgeous...

Other than that, I haven't done too much this week. Just finishing up exams and saying goodbye to some good friends who returned to the U.S. yesterday. Naturally we had to celebrate their time spent in Paris- meaning we went to one of our favorite places for one last hurrah: Le Mazet.

Notice that I just keep dancing in the background and ignore everyone else. It happens.



Other randoms from the week:

1. This is what happens when you take all of your exams early and technically your grade is already calculated, but you still have to go to class anyway. This picture is actually quite accurate. Credit goes to Erin, the only other American in history class with me.

2. I'm starting to think that I frequent certain places too often. Like the Lebanese restaurant near St. Michel- the guy in there knows me by name and offers me free baklava (he's also a complete flirt, but since I'm getting free food, I'll just ignore that part). This also happens at Lizard Lounge and Le Mazet, where the bartenders definitely know our group as soon as we walk in. Oops.

3. I get back to the States in 23 days (don't ask me where the past four months have gone- I have no idea). I don't know if I'm exactly ready for that, but I do know that it will be nice to get back to real life finally.

MICHELLE!!!

MICHELLE CAME TO VISIT!!!! AH!!!!



Unfortunately, this is our only picture together, but whatevs. One of my very best friends is doing a tour of Europe with her mom (happy belated H.S. graduation?) and their first stop was Paris. Now, I knew I missed the girl a ton (that goes without saying), but I didn't realize how much I missed her until we met up at their hotel on Saturday morning. We were only able to spend a few hours together between Saturday and Sunday (stupid jetlag and official touring stuff), but it was so SO good to see her :)

Next up to visit: POTUS himself, Mr. Corey Dwyer.

I think I'll stay put for awhile...

As you all may have realized, I've travelled quite a bit during my time in Europe. However, not only is it expensive to travel almost every weekend, it's also tiring as hell to be constantly on the move. So instead of depleting my bank account and pushing myself to exhaustion (both are generally thought to be bad ideas), I figured I'd stay in Paris during the month of May and explore the city that has been my home base since February but haven't seen too much of because I've been so busy. Even moreso, I'm getting the opportunity to share the place I've called home with a few friends that happen to be visiting during the month :)

First to visit (during the first weekend in May) was Cassie- Tom's friend from Frankfurt who generously showed us around the city and let us crash at her place, so I tried to return the favor. I showed her around Montmartre, Notre Dame, and St. Michel before we met up with Boubacar and Romain- two guys who also studied with Junior in Bonn. Later that night, we were treated to a picnic right in front of the Eiffel Tower- it was gorgeous :)

Montmartre- a very picturesque part of Paris

As tacky as some French think it is, I love the sparkles :)

The next day, Romain (who is a history teacher) took Cassie on a walking tour of the city, and  I decided to tag along because, believe it or not, there are still parts of Paris that I haven't seen yet. We started off in the Luxembourg Gardens, then saw the Pantheon, Sorbonne, St. Michel, Notre Dame, the quais of the Seine, the Louvre, Place de la Concorde, the Champs Elysees, and finally, the Arc de Triomphe (which I hadn't really seen yet, except in passing- I'm not really a fan of all the tourists surrounding the Arc and the neighboring Champs-Elysees). We decided to go up the Arc and see the view from the top, so after arguing with the ticket vendor for free admission (she wanted to see my passport to confirm that I was a legal resident of France- funny story: I don't carry that on me everywhere I go, lady), I got my free ticket and we climbed the 250+ spiral stairs to the top. And the view was amazing- you could see the entirety of Paris laid out before you.

284 stairs later...

After all the walking (and all those stairs), we were pretty tired so we relaxed in nearby Parc Monceau for a while before we headed the Romain's friend's apartment, where a Champagne Party was being thrown (note to friends in the U.S.: we need to have one of these).  There were about 35 people crammed in a space the size of my Eickhoff dorm room, but we made it work. It also turns out I'm not nearly as awkward in French social situations as I originally thought. The people there were really nice and forgave my conjugation errors and verb tense mistakes. And all was forgiven/forgotten when Cassie and I talked everyone into having a dance party :)

Bachelor party gone wild at Parc Monceau. Apparently, bachelor/ette parties are a big deal in France. Here, the groom was dressed up as Mario from Super Mario Bros. (complete with pillow in the middle to fluff up his midsection) while his groomsmen had t-shirts with different characters from the game. It was pretty epic.

Partytime. And legit- it was the size of a room in Eick.

Stealthmasters (that were dying from heatstroke) haha

Unfortunately, I didn't get to see Cassie on Sunday or Monday- womp womp :( But I hear she had a great time at Versailles and the Louvre with Boubacar :)

I haven't really done too much else lately, to be honest- just finishing up papers and exams as the semester winds down, and releasing some stress (which is basically non-existent here for me; it's wonderful) through a little bit of bar-hopping and dancing (sorry Daddy- but I promise I've been smart about it!) :) Most of the American students are leaving within the next week or so, so many of the final exams are being given early- this means that I'll essentially be done with classes by May 30th (my last art history exam) and I'll just have to attend class for the following two weeks. And as I just typed that, I realized how little time I have left here: only 29 more days until I step on American soil again. It's crazy how fast the time is flying by.

JGiP: International Edition

1. I swear I live in the United Nations. We just got a new roommate- her name is Evgenia (sp?) and she's from Russia. She's 24 and has already completed her PhD in her home country in International Economics. Next week, fellow American in moving in, and when Evgenia leaves in the beginning of June, another girl from Russia is moving in. By the time I leave in mid-June, I'll have lived with 3 girls from Brazil, 2 girls from Venezuela, 2 girls from Russia, a girl from Spain, and 1 from the U.S.

2. I'll let you make your own caption:

3. To the people reading my blog in Denmark, Singapore, Spain, Russia, Colombia, Australia, Iran, and Pakistan: thanks? I have no idea who you are, but I appreciate it.

Nice is nice when it doesn't rain.

I know, I know, I'm really behind on this- but I promise to catch up! As you all well know (and read about), I went to Germany for the first week of Spring Break, which was a lot of travelling- 7 cities in 9 days, essentially. For the second week of break, a few of us figured "Why not head to the south of France and just relax on the beach for a few days?" In theory, a good idea. When it came to fruition, it was still a good idea- however, the weather didn't feel like cooperating...womp womp :( But we're troopers and made the best of it :)

The first day in Nice was a bit unexpected- it was 60 degrees and a little windy, with a bit of drizzle. Had I known that, I definitely would have worn shorts! Since we had gotten there a bit later in the day, we (me, Grace, Jessica, Michele and Eddy) walked around the town a bit to get the lay of the land. Vieux Nice (Old Nice) is a cute little area (a.k.a. tourist central) and the beach was beautful! Crystal blue water that's in no way polluted :) However, the beaches are gravel, not sand, so they're a bit uncomfortable to chill on...

The next day, we took our chances and headed to Antibes, a small beach town about 20 minutes from Nice by train. It's quite popular with British retirees- who knew? Unfortunately, the weather was still pretty sucky- overcast and a bit windy, so we walked all around the town to see what it had to offer. For as small as it was, it had quite a bit- even a Picasso museum (which I didn't get to go in). Antibes is also one of the few places along the French coast that has sand beaches- granted, it's not like our sand back home (it's a bit coarser), but it was still better than the giant rocks/gravel. When the sun did come out for about 30 minutes, you know we hopped on that beach to soak up what we could!

Everyone looking at the dead jellies that washed up on the shore (I swear they follow me). Sometimes I forget that some people don't live near the beach and have never seen these things before.

Later that night, after a dinner of what else but pizza (Nice is literally 30 minutes from the Italian border- all the signs and whatnot are in both French and Italian), we headed over to Checkpoint, which was described as an Irish disco pub in our tourist pamphlet. How can you resist that? Add in the fact that we went on a Thursday when it was Student Night (a.k.a. happy hour 'til close) AND Latin Night- yeah, a good time was had by all. And I learned a few things that night: 1. Europeans can't dance. If that wasn't already confirmed in Berlin, it was definitely proven in Nice. 2. Apparently I can salsa? Who knew...

The next day was the Royal Wedding, so naturally we found a British pub and watched the entire event like the complete girls we were (sorry Eddy)- complete with a full English breakfast and pimms (like a British sangria). It was adorable.

The sun decided to come out for a bit, so we went to the beach for a bit, then I decided to check out the Modern/Contemporary art museum- it had a pretty decent collection- lots of Yves Klein, a few prep drawings by Christo, a bunch of American pop artists. I headed back to the beach after that and caught up with the girls, and we decided to head to Monaco for a few hours since we were so close (maybe 20 minutes by train?) Note to future travelers to Monaco- plan for more than 2 hours there. Seriously. We made the slight mistake of thinking: its not that big, it couldn't take more than an hour or two to explore. WRONG. We forgot to take into account that Monaco is all hills with no flat land whatsoever, and all the streets wind up and down said-hills. All that being said, Monaco was gorgeous! Once I marry rich, I'm coming back- otherwise, there is no way that I fit in in this place.

Monaco!

Clearly this street was named after me...

The town/country/principality/whatever-the-hell-it-is was getting ready for the Grand Prix later this month. They already started barricading off the streets that they race through- I couldn't imagine trying to race through those damn things.

Casino Monte-Carlo

For me, the best part of the whole trip to Monaco was the train ride to and from. Not that I didn't love it there, but the train ride takes you literally right along the coast and you can see the bluest water I've ever laid eyes upon. Completely picturesque and adorable.

The next day, me and Grace left the others and headed to Aix-en-Provence for a day before we had to get back to Paris and start classes again. Aix was awesome. A smaller town, but not two small. There's a large university there, so the town definitely had a younger feel to it. And it was the birthplace of Cezanne. What's not to love? hahaha

Cezanne's workshop! I had a complete art history geek-out moment.

Aix has these little plaques all around town marking the "Cezanne Trail:" where he was born, where he was raised, where he lived for two months in a random year, where he met with some guy one time for two hours...They really try to milk it for all it's worth. But I loved it.

They have cupcakes in France?!

Why yes, yes they do. And delicious red velvet ones with real cream cheese frosting, at that too.



We walked around for the most part during the day, then grabbed some dinner later. While at dinner, we met these two really nice ladies- one was from Chicago and the other from Nashville. And they legit could not speak the language. And didn't really make an attempt to- it was pretty entertaining, actually. Eventuall they noticed us speaking English and were excited to run into fellow English speakers, so we chatted with them for a few minutes. Apparently they were touring France (they had rented a car and were driving everywhere- oh dear god) and were headed to Paris the next day, so Grace and I gave them a few recommendations for things to do/places to go/where to eat since we know the city (somewhat). They were really nice, but completely sloshed by the end of the dinner since they DOWNED the goblets of wine throughout their dinner. And apparently they felt compelled to give us a bit of motherly advice. Like a said- entertaining.

The next day was Sunday, meaning it was market day (one of my favorite things about France)! We didn't have too much time to spare because we needed to catch our train, so we walked through it a bit before we needed to head to the train station...

Unfortunately we had to leave after that and get back to reality: Paris. Which really isn't all that bad, when you think about it ;)