Bonjour Mon Ami! Paris and France in general have a royal and regal feeling I don’t think I’ve ever felt in any other city I’ve been to (other than England of course). We had a long weekend and decided to take advantage of it by going to Paris for five days and take it all in. I arrived early with Alyssa and because it was going to be just three of us, we decided to conquer everything we knew Brittany wouldn’t want to see. We started at the Louvre and learned that with our Visa, we are student citizens of the EU. Anyone studying abroad should know this because with two weeks left abroad, we learned this in Paris. The Louvre is like any of the big museums you’ve ever been to combined and then some. Our guide told us that in a lifetime it wouldn’t be possible to see all of the art that is stored there. What I thought was the best part of it was seeing statues and art pieces from past Art History classes that I had only seen in slideshows and that I actually knew about. We didn’t stay in the Louvre long because we knew we would be back later that weekend and decided to go to the Musee d’Orsay since it was so closeby. The museum is in an old train station and is filled with more modern paintings than that of the Louvre. Ballerinas by Degas and post-impressionist interiors by Van Gogh filled the walls and I was able to see the brush strokes of the live paintings
I had seen my whole life. As a little girl, my mom loved to show me Degas’ work because I was a ballerina and we even have a smaller version of the famous ballerina statue in our living room. The only disappointment was that the starry night was on loan to the MOMA (yes, ironic) but we were able to have a rest from the Renaissance art that filled our lives in Florence to learn about different art movements.
As a kid I could only dream that the day of me going to Disneyland Paris would arrive, but I feel like as a 20 year old I was more excited than any of the kids there (other than Alyssa and Brittany). Because Britt was turning 21 that weekend, we decided to surprise her with tickets and the best birthday anyone could ask for. Every moment of the day was filled with another magical
moment, whether it be the rides or the atmosphere, I trulyunderstand why Disney is the happiest place on earth.When the park was closing we started walking towards the fireworks and found out that all of the rides we thought were closed opened up later and we went on the thrilling rides before making our way to the castle and watching the sky light up. Our final stop was to find the Glo-tini’s that were highly recommended by all bloggers and lit up to different colors with a switch. Spending the holidays at Disney, Disneyland Paris no less, was something I would recommend to anyone who has the opportunity to.
The next morning we started our day with fresh crepes from a street vendor and a tour of the city. The tour was through a company called City Free Tour which is done around the world and is completely free for anyone who signs up. We learned about Paris and ended at the Louvre where we spent a little more time and I was able to see the Mona Lisa in person. For anyone who hasn’t seen it, the painting is very small and because it is hung on a very large blank wall, it appears even smaller. This time I decided to go to the Renaissance section of the museum because since we were learning about Renaissance art in Florence, I wanted to see all of the paintings that weren’t in the Uffizi. Our next stop was the opera house, Palais Garnier from the movie Phantom of the Opera where we learned about the history of the people
who would attend performances in the hall and the elegant clothing they would wear. The painting on the ceiling of the house is a Chagall which was colorful and brought a playful atmosphere to the room. We ended our night on a champagne boat tour of the city and saw the eiffel tower light up on the hour to bring the whole night to a magical end.
Our fourth day in Paris was actually in Versailles, even though we had planned to only be in the city for a couple of hours, we ended up there until it’s closing time. I loved this tour because we were the liveliest of the group and I was able to learn a lot about the grounds of Versailles while making everyone on the tour laugh. There are four fountains in the gardens, each of which are designed after the gods of each season. On the last one, the guide asked the group which one we thought it was and I joked that I wasn’t sure of the answer. He was very kind and was like “well, we have seen winter, spring, and summer, so this one is…” and missed my sarcasm completely. It was a very fun tour and we got to see where Marie Antoinette spent most of her days and where she is said to have spoken the words “let them eat cake”. We tried to do aphotoshoot but because it was so cold we ended up having to take turns carrying coats. We made it just in time to walk through the interior of the palace and into the hall of mirrors to have the view of the garden before it closed. Back in Paris, we made our way to the Arc du Triomphe to see the
lights and the city at night once again. We made it to the famous Laduree where I got the fanciest box of macarons and experienced an authentic Parisian moment. This was Brittany’s birthday night so we found our way to an amazing restaurant and celebrated!
The final day in Paris was a somber but exciting one. We had heard that the Victoria’s Secret models had arrived to Paris that day and ended up taking pictures at the same places we went! We did the tour of the Eiffel Tour and went all the way to the top! The city is much bigger than you would think and it was so cool to see it from above after venturing through it for a couple of days. We only had a few hours and by the end of it we had to run as fast as we could to the front of the tour to get our pictures and take a cab right to hotel before we missed our bus to the airport. And of course, since we were early, it was necessary to get some more macarons for the road.
