Yet Another Adventure

Yet another holiday and come and gone here in France. I am really liking these long random vacations I keep getting! I have can say I have officially started the whole typical American part of my trip. We hit three French towns during our break; Paris, La Rochelle, and Bordeaux. I don’t even know where to begin when it comes to these cities! Although I will say, the weathers gods have made it clear that they enjoy watching us suffer when we travel. It never stopped raining on us! I can only hope during the May backpacking trip we can avoid this unlucky fortune. I am also going to apologize in advance for the long post this will most likely be. I just had such a great time I can’t help but share everything.

So for starters, we headed out to Paris for a quick weekend trip. I arrived Friday and we went nonstop from the moment I arrived until the moment we left. If you have me on Facebook, you already have an idea of the things that we did but I will go into details anyways. We decided that on Friday we were going to save all the money we could and just walk to all of our destinations. If you are able to do this I would highly recommend it! We got the chance to see so much more of Paris and the city is breathtaking! We started out with the Love Lock Bridge and Notre Dame since they are so close to Gare d’Austerlitz (where I arrived). We apparently arrived at the worst time because the lines were absolutely insane! So instead of just standing in the rain for an hour and wasting time, we made our way to Shakespeare and Company , which is also really close, to check out the famous bookstore and get out of the rain for a bit. After a while there, the lines calmed down and we were able to enter Notre Dame. It really is beautiful! We might have cheated and went into one of the cathedrals in Limoges first which is built in replica of Notre Dame so it didn’t really wow me like it should have, but nonetheless beautiful! From there we made our way to Saint Chapelle Cathedral and Marie Antoinette’s Conciergerie (where she was imprisoned), it is amazing how it has held up! I was blown away by how beautiful a prison could be. When walking through, you also get a look at the different cells for different parts of class. Talk about drastic differences! From there we headed to the Louvre and the gardens. I could hang out there for days! The Louvre unbelievably large! We went in just for Napoleon’s apartment and that alone took us at least 45 minutes, worth every minute might I add. Walking from there is the best part! You walk through the gardens and down to the important things…. Champs Elysee!  I am a loyal Gossip Girl lover which means I obviously had to stop at La Duree! Let me just get this out there, ONLY GET MACAROONS FROM THERE! We decided to have tea and a dessert and it was the worst decision I have ever made! That still pains me to admit. We ended the day with a trip to the Eiffel Tower. It is something that I have dreamed about for as long as I can remember and when everyone talks about it, they always mention it is really nothing spectacular, but I have to disagree! There is something about it that I just found mesmerizing.  After a long day of sightseeing, the hostel we were staying in was the only thing on my mind. St Christopher’s by Gare de Nord is amazing! We met some really amazing Canadians who really made our first hostel stay memorable! We ended out trip with Justin Timberlake. I have always had a major crush on him but after seeing him live, I think it’s safe to say I am in love. His show is to die for! I am still not over that experience! I pretty sure in 50 years I will still be on a high from that one!

After only an hour of sleep, we took the train to La Rochelle. Lucky us, when we arrived I thought we were in the middle of a hurricane! After waiting it out as much as we could in a coffee shop, we decided to brave the wind and rain. Unfortunately, we only had time to do the three medieval ports; I guess you could call them. Talk about a hike! It was so much fun though. The town is beautiful!  I can’t even imagine what it would look like with the sun shining. The harbor makes for a great stroll through town along with some really great restaurants. We only stayed there for a few hours unfortunately though.

From there, we were Bordeaux bound. The city really is all that it is cracked up to be! The best part of the town is that is perfect for just strolling and seeing everything. It is really easy to walk your way through the main attractions. We had to take our luggage with us throughout the whole day but it was so worth it! I hope to make it back one more time before I leave to do a wine tour. Bordeaux wine is extremely famous so why not enjoy a nice tour of one of the most famous spots in France?! One of the highlights of the trip is climbing all the way to the top of the tower by one of the cathedrals in town. There were over 200 steps and it was a nice reminder just how out of shape I am! Once at the top though, you have the most amazing view! You can see all around the city. It really is worth all the spins you will endure while walking up and down the spiral stairs!

Now it is time for finish up one more week of class and get ready for our next adventure: backpacking Europe! I can only hope that trip will come out being just as amazing, or more, than this last one! As always, hope you enjoy some of the pictures to go along with my journey!    

Love Lock Bridge and Notre Dame

Gardens at the Louvre 

Eiffel Tower before it was lit up

Two of the ports(?) in La Rochelle

Climbing the last one was the best!

View from the very top of the last pic

Tower in Bordeaux we climbed

View from the top

Mini castle we climed

Friends Can Make a Place

I think this may be the hardest part of the whole trip. As everyone is getting ready to go home for a few weeks, maybe even just a week, I find myself feeling slightly jealous. I can’t believe I’m even saying that since we have booked our hostel for Paris to see Justin Timberlake, but it is slightly true. It has really had me thinking about things lately. I can’t say I am ready to go per say, but it would be nice to have a weekend home and eat some good ole Mexican food or sleep in a normal bed. As I talk to my friends back home about this I find myself repeating “I want to combine my worlds”. I say this like it is impossible but is it really?! I am still young and have complete control of my future. Why can’t I sit down once a week and enjoy a coffee or tea and read?!  Or enjoy a good crepe with good friends. I am acting as if I will leave all of this behind once I leave France. We set goals for ourselves every day, big or small, what is wrong with having “me time” once a week as a goal?! If anything it would probably be good for my sanity. As I sat down and made my schedule for next semester, I am reminded that I do not get to have this relaxed lifestyle like I do now. The least I could do for myself is take some of France back with me. So this is me making a vow to myself to be better back home. I will, maybe, learn to make my own crepes. According to my lovely French friend, Fabian, he is going to teach me because it is just so simple. So friends, be prepared to have to eat crepes when I am missing my French world!! I will force others to indulge in an easy lifestyle once a week for an hour or two with me also. As college students, finishing college at that, life is extremely stressful. Tea/coffee is good for the soul! I am a firm believer in that now. It would do us all good to sit and just catch up. Once again, I have been reminded what great friends I have back home. I took them for granted a bit before I left so from now on, that will be our time! They have no choice in the matter anymore (Brooke, Lexi, I’m talking to y’all!!).

                Enough of my rant! Brooke was asking me today if I was even alive so I will catch up on my past few weeks. There hasn’t been anything super exciting, just living the French life. We have seen Tal perform, which in my opinion was slightly a waste but I found two French songs I like so there is a silver lining! Other than that, things have been pretty calm. I am taking advantage of the good weather when we have it. This town was made for the sun! Fabian has taken me downtown on a Sunday and given me a wonderful tour of the town. It is always nice to have such a great friend to take a Sunday stroll with. Not to mention I found me some homemade jam that I am thoroughly enjoying! So many sweet people in the market that day! I swear I would be 500lbs if I actually lived here. All the sweets are to die for and they do not take no for an answer when they are offering free samples! Just to add to my obsession with tea, I have had the chance to grab tea with Kate, from OU, and she showed me parts of the city I have never seen. You just haven’t seen pretty until you have sat on the side on a French river with a good friend! It just doesn’t get better than that! It will be things like that that I miss more than anything! I have met so many amazing people! I am still working on convincing them that Texas is the place for them! Fabian and Toni are on my list! Texas is calling y’all’s name!! It’s hard not to fall in love with a place like this when you have great friends to share it with! 

When In Rome

“Spring break” came a little early here. We had our first week break this past week and of course spent it traveling. If any of you have me on facebook or even follow me on Instagram, I am sure you were quiet ready for me to get back to Limoges and stop with all the pictures, but I just couldn’t help myself! We had an amazing week!

The first few days, we spent them around Limoges, checking out the fine arts museum and the gardens and really just enjoying the town. I am not a huge art lover, but the second floor of this museum really stole my heart! There were so many absolutely beautiful paintings. I even got the names of a few of my faves. My number one artist was Elie Lascaux! The details in his paintings are amazing. Fun fact of the day, he was born in Limoges! A few others were Paul Ranson and Suzanne Valadon. If you ever get a chance, definitely look them up! Helpful hint though, Suzanne Valadon’s Blue Room is the one I saw that I fell in love with and I would stick to googling that!  Out behind the museum is a beautiful garden. Nice view of the city and really just made you feel so relaxed. People were out on the benches reading and have picnics, it really is impossible to not be at peace there!

Now for the interesting part! Wednesday, we took off to Rome! Longest day of travelling and worth every single second of it! Rome is amazing! We didn’t get there until late that night but Thursday we were up and ready to go! Unfortunately for us, we spent the first few hours of our day completely lost! I think it is safe to say that the entire day we were pretty much lost. But that didn’t stop us. We found our way to the Vatican and roamed through various parts. We went through St Peter’s Basilica first. The amount of detail and art in one place is truly amazing! Everything is so grand and beautiful. The Roman’s spared no detail! After a few hours in there, we went on to The Vatican Museum. Let me just say that if you are ever going, do it the other way around! The museum is huge and honestly absolutely amazing and we spent so much time in the basilica that we missed out on a few things in the museum because we were just so exhausted. But we still hit the highlights and spent plenty of time in those areas. For me, looking at The School of Athens was one of my tops moments. I spent tons of money taking a class at Tech to learn about all of these things and I remember seeing all of the famous art works in the Vatican Museum in this class and even thinkings “yeah yeah yeah that will never apply to me” and there I was standing in front of this magnificent piece of art and suddenly that class I took seemed so worth it! Then there was the Sistine Chapel. There are not enough words to describe the feeling in that room. I could stay in there for hours just admiring everything. There is not an inch of that room that isn’t painted I don’t think. It was everything, and so much more honestly, than people say it is! Lucky us, the rest of our time it was raining, but that didn’t stop us. We enjoyed the Coliseum and even got to actually sit in some of the parts of it. My favorite part of the entire trip was definitely the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. That alone is a full days’ worth of exploring! Once again, everything was so grand and just mind blowing that people built these things so long ago and here they still are.

We made it our goal to go to a different restaurant every day and try the pasta. For a girl who eats nothing but pasta typically, I was in heaven!! Our last night there, we stumbled upon this little restaurant near the Spanish steps and decided to just go on in. Best decision we ever made! Homemade ravioli, great Italian wine, homemade tiramisu, and of course a nice latte to finish off our meal. I am pretty sure I ate enough in those few days to last me a lifetime! But like they say, when in Rome right?! This honestly isn’t going to do Rome justice, but it was a nice start and a great first trip! I am already looking forward to the next! If anyone has any suggestions on places to go or things to do, I would really love to hear them! Until next time!

xoxo

Immercion At It's Finest

Okay seriously, it’s only been three weeks since I left Texas and already I feel like I am living a completely different life and slowing changing into this Texopean. Yeah I went there! We are starting to come up on our first break, which I am going to assume is much like our spring break back in the States, only a few weeks after starting classes. No complaints here though! As we begin to throw around ideas about where we want to go during that week, it has finally hit me. I AM IN EUROPE! Rome, London, Paris, all these cities I have only dreamed of going are all highly possible options at any time I want. I really feel like I am living someone else’s life. This truly is an amazing experience. But we can save those details for later, on to my latest adventures!

This past week, we finally started classes. What an eye opening experience that has been! I have already made a promise to myself that when I come across a foreign student or even just a tourist, I will be so much nicer! This is hard, possibly the hardest challenge I have come across in school. I sit in classes and have to have pictures to even get an idea about what is going on. Val and I have “joked” that we are back in kindergarten, but unfortunately it is so true. We are learning the French alphabet, numbers, months, everything! It is so much harder than I ever expected. With that being sad, it is also so rewarding when I can go up to someone and know I am saying the correct thing in French, which is usually just ordering my own drink or understanding what my bill is. Baby steps really are key in situations like this!

To add to our French immersion
, we decided to go check out Musée de la Resistance Limoges. The museum takes you through the entire Resistance part of history or as we know it WWII. It was so interesting to see a different side of the history. Obviously that was a time where the entire world felt the effects, but seeing and reading the things that France and other countries that were occupied by German soldiers went through really opened my eyes to a completely different side. I couldn’t imagine living through the fear of the enemy coming in and taking over my house or even my town. The world that all of them once knew was gone in an instant. There was live footage of events that took place. We even got to watch Philippe Pétain give a speech in Limoges! It was amazing to see the city back then. I could even point out buildings that I walk by every day. As you moved through the museum, it takes you through times of the holocaust. There was an entire wall dedicated to pictures taken, I’m going to assume when they were liberated, at the concentration camps. This was one of the most touching moments I have ever come across. Seeing people like that is truly heartbreaking! It is simple to see it in a text book while learning, but standing there listening to what they went through and seeing names of people who died really put things in prospective. I firmly believe everyone should go see anything from this time period. It really is such a humbling experience.

On to happier things now! I haven’t really had a chance to really brag on Limoges until now. First things first, the shopping is actually pretty great! They only have sales in France twice and year and lucky me, the winter sale is right now! Needless to say I am enjoying it! I did actually find out this last week that the first café I went to was actually the best in town. I so believe it! I now have my favorite place for coffee and my favorite place for tea downtown. I could seriously get use to this lifestyle! It really is fabulous! I think my absolute favorite part of the town is La Vienne. It is the river in town where a lot of people go to work out or feed the ducks. I swear it is impossible to be anything but happy there! It is beautiful! I put pictures up on my Facebook, but they really don’t do it justice. As much as I have complained about Limoges, it really does have so much to offer and I am so excited to continue falling in love with it.

I have finally hit the point in my program where I can’t imagine missing out on this opportunity. I am frustrated every single day at some point, whether it be because I can’t seem to remember how to say a certain word or I really just hate my professor, which is the case in a few classes, but at the end of the day none of that matters. I have embarked on this journey and I am in France living the life! I turned twenty one day and I really expected to be more homesick because I wasn’t getting to spend it back home with my friends, but what I failed to realize is I am spending it with my friend, just not the friends I ever imagined! People have gone out of their way to wish me a happy birthday and everyone wants to join in and celebrate with me. As cliché as it sounds, I am so blessed to have met so many wonderful people! So here’s to a great year and the most wonderful 5 months abroad! 

La Vienne River 

La Vienne River where the ducks normally are

Propagranda in the museum

Holocaust photos (sorry it's so hard to see)

Best place to get tea!!!

Light At The End Of The Tunnel

After my first week here, I was honestly so worried I might not make it to the end of this program. The lifestyle change is a lot to handle, honestly. I really felt like my entire world was turned upside down and I had no idea how to deal with it. By the first of this week, things really started turning around. We actually know people and have “our bakery” that we like going to and we understand the city more and more every day. It’s the little things that seem to make a place feel more like home. Gosh that alone feels weird to say.

Monday we had our first meeting and met so many amazing people! I have had the chance to go grab drinks or coffee with girls from all over the world! It is the most mind blowing thing to sit around and compare countries or lifestyles. Everyone lives much different lives and yet we are all so willing to learn about the others cultures. By the end of the semester, none of us will even be remotely close to the same. It seems impossible to leave without becoming extremely culturally rounded.

Language is another thing that really blew my mind. I have always heard that when you go abroad people would ask to help them with their English and in return they would help you. That idea never really made sense to me until now. I am not only learning French, but I am also learning Greek and Spanish. I have met an amazing British girl and even we compare the differences in English.  Every new person I meet, we exchange languages. It is so much fun! There is no way that we could all learn all the languages in just a semester but when we are all at lunch or wherever we might be, we talk about how to say things in every language. Last night, it was an Italian girl’s birthday so most of the students in the Erasmus program went out for drinks and we all sang happy birthday in every language! Hearing all the different versions of a song we all sing was really fun. The poor girl had to sit through five versions of the song!

I’ve been saving the best for last of course. I have been here for a week and a half and I can tell you with certainty that I have made lifelong friends already. We have our own little group going and I can’t imagine being here without them. My “wifey”, Isabel, is a Venezuelan that goes to Oklahoma State. She’s one of the first girls I have met here and we have been inseparable since.  Valerie is my fellow Red Raider and luckily we have been together since our plane took off from Dallas. Toni is from Durham University. She’s our Brit friend that will forever be her name in our book. Maria is from Greece. She was the first girl we met here and has been so amazing! These girls are really such beautiful people inside and out. I am so lucky to have met such great girls so fast! 

The Week is the Hardest

Oh my this week has been a long one. We arrived in Paris on Monday on the first day of the national taxi strike! No taxi no problem for us.  This strike was something to see. All the taxis would park their cars in the middle of the highway and cause this huge traffic jam! They just sat around and enjoyed their cigs. We sat in traffic for 30 minutes just trying to get around them! Perfect start to a long week. Arriving in Limoges was so overwhelming! We came with absolutely no wifi anywhere! I quickly realized my life revolves around my phone. We had no contact with anyone but us. Thankfully there's three other girls with me. We would have gone crazy without each other these past few weeks. One thing we learned very quickly is they definitely do not baby you! You figure out everything on your own. Without speaking the language, that is so much harder than it sounds. Without Amalee, we would be completely lost! She has been our lifesaver this week. With the French, if they don't like you or don't know you, you won't get anything done. We have officially got on her good side and magically everything got done today. No complaints here. Finally came out of the dark ages! We have even found people to take us out. It's all finally starting to get better. We are getting acclimated and we might just make it after all.  I have had a few people asking about the food. If anyone of you saw the picture on  Facebook, you'll be relieved to know we have avoided that so called ham since!  We decided to be adventurous and try a new sandwich the other day and it looked and tasted like raw bacon!! By far the most disgusting thing iv ever had in my life!! We had to take off everything but the cheese. But that cheese sandwich was amazing. We have been living off of sandwiches all week. The lady at the bakery actually helps with my French now. Best bakery I've ever been to! We tried their macaroons for the first time tonight. People do not exaggerate those things. If you haven't had one you are missing out! So far though the French life is getting better and better! I never thought I'd say this but I'm so ready for classes to start!

Let the Countdown Begin

Here goes nothing! This time next week, I will be arriving in Paris and beginning of my next few months of indulging in the European lifestyle. I can hardly believe I really just said that. This semester has flown by, like everyone said it would, and yet I feel as if I have been waiting a lifetime to get this trip started. As I begin packing my bags and checking off my lists, I realize just how unprepared I am! I am a notorious over packer so how in the world do I pack for five months in one bag?! This whole concept is mind blowing to me! Besides the fact that I am going to one of the most fashionable places in the world and I wear tights and a tee shirt just about everyday…. if that doesn’t scream American I don’t know what does. For any other flight, getting off the plane in my comfy clothes and rushing around to get to my hotel would be the most perfect thing. This time I am still trying to fathom that I will be stepping off a ten hour flight in Paris then making my way around my dream city without knowing anything about where I am going. Lets hope the train station is made for those of us who can only read when using the google translate app on the phone. As all of this sinks in, I am finally realizing that this is my new reality. I am getting to live my dream! So as my very first blog post comes to an end, let the countdown begin… 6 more days!