The one about 10 days with nothing but my backpack and my camera…(part 1)

HI! Me and my fellow spring break girls
Marissa (left), Brit (middle) and I!

First let me start of by apologizing for my lack of blogging, it’s not that I don’t want to…it’s more that I have other priorities first. I have been extremely busy with school, and I also was computerless for 10 days while I was on spring break. So this lovely little blog will be all about my spring break adventures. I warn you it will probably be really long, and it will probably include a large number of pictures but hopefully it will make for an interesting read. Also, putting this experience into words will never do what I have seen and experienced any justice. And hopefully now that I am back I can get back into the grove of blogging. Here we go!

Spring Break 2012: April 24-Mar 4     Destination(s): Paris, Amsterdam, Barcelona and Nice

It was a jammed pack, crazy, fun, exciting adventure and it all started crazy right from the beginning. Let me begin with background information. Italy is known for its transportation “strikes.” This means often times they will decide that they are going to have a strike and they let people know beforehand. So there had been rumors of a strike on Friday April 24^th, when basically every Umbra student was leaving, eventually this rumor turned into the truth. But don’t worry, it was only affecting certain times and certain flights and it didn’t interfere with ours!...or so we thought. Midnight the night before we were supposed leave, we find out that our plane was cancelled. We needed to find a solution and we needed to find one quick! Sam looked up other planes and trains and we found a solution sort of…take a train from Perugia to Rome at 5am, to catch a plane at approximately 10:30am. There was however one minor detail, we had no way to get to the Perugian train station since the mini metro doesn’t start running at that time…we decided to walk...ha funny. So, long story short, I woke up at 3 am, after having gone to bed at 2:30 am due to last minute packing. We got everything and everyone together and left at 4am. Running to the train station was quite the adventure. Someone tripped and fell…hard. Let the serious of unfortunate events begin. Swollen ankle. Miss the train. Call taxi. Taxi takes forever. Taxi finally comes. Taxi takes us to train station. Catch next train at 6a.m. We now have a serious time crunch. After arriving at the Fiumicino airport we ran to the check in, and then proceeded to run all the way to our gate. Barely making it, we got on the plane and were off to PARIS!

Paris-Upon arriving we first found our cute little hotel. It was a nice place, small, but I can’t complain. We had a private bathroom, 3 beds and a place to keep our stuff which is all I really needed. On Friday, we had a pretty low key day considering we were all running on minimal amounts of sleep and a crazy series of events. We ate, and wondered around just taking it all in. We saw the Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower from afar, and we walked past the Louvre (which was extremely close to our hotel)!

First view of the Eiffel Tower

Streets of Paris

My First meal in Paris...yum

Creme Brulee...DELICIOUS

Saturday was when the adventure began! We first went to the Louvre! It was amazing!!!! It was something I have talked about in my French classes, and always wanted to see…and finally I was seeing! I saw the Mona Lisa among countless other pieces and they were all incredible and beautiful and it’s crazy to think that I got to see it! Then we ate lunch. I don’t remember what I ate in what order so I will just tell you know some of the things I got to eat—croquet monsieur, omelet, steak and potatoes, banquettes (way better than Italian bread, probably the best bread I have ever eaten in my life), croissants, sandwiches, crepes, pastries, crème brulée, and I got a ginger ale which sounds trivial but was really quite exciting because they don’t have that in Italy! Anyway, after that we went to Montmartre! Think MOULIN ROUGE ahhhh...and Sacre Coeur!! It was awesome, awesome, awesomeeee! Then, drum roll please, we saw the Eiffel tower, up close and personal at night. This too was amazing! It was again, something that I had been talking about my whole life and I was now getting to see in person. We were only allowed to go to the 2^nd floor because the top was closed for the whole week which stunk but it was what it was! The view was amazing, and I managed to snap some pretty cool pictures (see below).

hi, behind me...the Louvre!

Here we come Louvre

YAY we made it!

The famous pyramid outside the Louvre

Inside, getting ready to see the Art!

Hello Mona, nice to meet you!

Brits Favorite!

Memories of Pisa?...

People posing outside the Louvre

cute little girl!

oh...they got me...

but here is a good one!

Monmatre....Sacre Coeur!

Hot Vino...

Finally!

I got to see the Moulin Rouge!

attempting, and failing, at the Can-Can!

First close up climpses of the Eiffel Tower

Marissa, Me, Brit!

The view from the Eiffel Tower

Sunday we started off by going to Versailles which was also unbelievable! The palace is truly superb with décor and it is massive. Words cannot begin to describe this place. We wondered around the whole palace and got to see the hall of mirrors, the garden and even Maria Antoinette’s quarters. Versailles took a large chunk of the day up and we saw the Arch de Triomphe later that night. 

Versailles!

the gold detail of Versailles

hall of mirros

Jumping in the Garden

Crepes!

Arch De Triomphe 

Monday it was time to say goodbye to the lovely city of Paris, but we went out with a bang! First, we went to Laudree’s which was an adventure within itself (and I will tell you guys all about it in person). For those of you who don’t know, Laudree’s is a bakery, and I had probably the best croissant ever from there. We finished by seeing Notre Dame! Climbing the massive cathedral was a challenge within itself, but we accomplished the task and saw yet another gorgeous view of the city of Paris! Then we headed to the train station and before you know it we were off to Amsterdam!

Notre Dame

Bye Paris.
View from Notre Dame Cathedral!

Paris was a beautiful place! Surprisingly, I was able to navigate real well (Thank you Madame Fitch who taught me the metropolitan so well in the 10^th grade). I was also shocked at how much of the language came flooding back to me…which probably has hurt me now that I am back to Italy! Yes, I would recommend this lovely city to anyone! If you ever go…hit me up and I will give you some tips! Hopefully I will get to go back again someday and explore the city a little more!

Next post: Amsterdam!

Merci! Au Revoir!

Arielle