One week until spring break!

The weeks here are flying by. I haven't once found myself saying TGI Friday like at home because every day is amazing! One of my program advisors once said to my group, "you'll have good days and bad days here, but your bad days will never really be bad..because you're in Paris." I loved that. Right now I'm really appreciative of being in Paris because I was just angrily planning my classes for next semester knowing I'll be back in freezing Wisconsin. Just kidding, I'm excited to come back. But I've definitely had a really easy semester compared to normal, so the adjustment to real college again will be a big struggle.

With spring break coming up, I figured the days would slowly pass, but this week went so fast. On Wednesday my art history class went to Musée d'Orsay for the first time and it was magical. I honestly liked it better than the Louvre, which feels wrong to say. But I recognized so much of the art, and that's just a great feeling. D'Orsay used to be a train station so the whole set up is just really amazing.

The museum also currently has a Van Gogh exhibit going on, so of course I went to that! I felt my 5th grade art education come right back to me; it was great! All the classics were there (besides starry night, sadly) Pictures weren't allowed, but I managed to snap one.






Prior to going to the museum, I wandered around near the museum doing some exploring. Believe it or not, there's still so much I haven't seen. I grabbed some lunch and walked through the Tuileries garden, which connects the Louvre to the Champs Elysees. It's beautiful.

Louvre in the background

As far as school is going, I don't have too much to do. We rarely get homework, all of our grades are tests and papers. So May will be very stressful with lots of presentations, papers and exams when school is finishing up. Something interesting I learned is that giving presentations in class is super American. Apparently other countries don't put nearly as much of an emphasis on public speaking skills as we do. Half of my french class (all of the non-americans) had NEVER given a presentation in French before. That's just crazy to me. But otherwise school is going great, I'm not stressed out at all like I constantly am at home. I had my midterm in my French class on Tuesday and it took three hours. Unbelievable. It was super easy but still! 

Another observation: Paris might even be more beautiful at night. 

Food updates: 

• It's kind of crazy that I haven't tried much french food, but unfortunately it's very difficult to find affordable french food. My host mom doesn't make anything super french, other than when we have our course of various types of cheeses! This week she made me curry chicken and rice. YUM. 
• This week I finally made it to Le Marais, which is a historic, Jewish neighborhood in Paris. It has so many cute little shops and restaurants, and is definitely known for the falafel! So I tried a huge vegetarian falafel pita and it was amazing. They just handed me this heaping pita out of the "to go" window and I was left to chow down in the middle of the street. 
• My french teacher spent 6 years in Japan so she always has all kinds of crazy facts for us about Japanese culture. Well she suggested we go to this Japanese patisserie right by the university (apparently it was in Bon Appetite magazine in the United States). So I went after class (literally right around the corner from the building my class is in) and I got two macaroons: sesame and yuzo flavored. Très bizarre but I'm glad I tried it. 
• Lastly, I'm getting so good at grocery shopping! I feel like a regular now at the grocery store I go to; I know where everything is, and what brands are cheapest :) I do miss cooking though. I have really just been eating very basic meals that require little preparation because it's a little awkward to cook in someone else's kitchen.
• Milk. At the stores, milk is not refrigerated. It is also often sold in packs of 6 1.5 liter jugs. So my host mom buys the 6 pack, they stay unrefrigerated, but the one we are currently working on is always in the fridge. Very strange. Even stranger..it's SO GOOD. Best milk I've ever had. 

Normandy

More traveling!  I went to Normandy for the weekend, a region in France which would be any french student's dream come true to visit. It was definitely one of my favorite weekends yet!!!! This was a trip I signed up for with my program, so there were about 40 of us traveling together. There were only 7 of us from the Wisconsin program, and the others were students also in the ACCENT program just from other states.

What was coolest about the weekend was that we saw so many places, we stayed in one city, but then traveled to 4 other cities to explore. On Friday we left Paris bright and early and drove 5 hours to Mont Saint Michel!!!! Mont St Michel is something all french students learn about in school because it's such a famous monument in France. It's a huge medieval castle basically on an island.

amazing

One of the coolest parts of Mont St. Michel (and all of Normandy) were the tides!!! At Mont St Michel specifically, the tides come in and out every 6 hours. When we arrived the castle was surrounded by sand, and when we left it was covered in water like in the picture. 

before the tide

That night we arrived at our stunning hotel in the city of Saint-Malo, France, about an hour from Mont St Michel. Saint-Malo, home to a seaport, is surrounded by water also and adorable and quaint. Full of narrow roads and cobblestone streets. Another great part of Saint-Malo is the wall. There's basically a mini great wall of china surrounding the city, which was built during the 100 Years War and is the only "original" part of Saint-Malo, the rest was destroyed during the war. You could walk on the wall, around the whole city in probably 30 minutes.

wall on left, city on right

view from on top the wall!

another view

this was the busiest part of the city; also where our hotel was

Friday night we were released to do our own exploring, after being given tons of suggestions of where to go and eat. Since we were right on the Atlantic Ocean, everything was seafood of course. I went out to dinner with the other Wisconsinites and half of us ordered mussels  ( not me ). After dinner we hung out at the bar on the first floor of our hotel, trying the spiked apple cider that Saint-Malo is famous for!

Saturday morning we had a brief walking tour of Saint-Malo and we caught all the beautiful ocean views. Afterward, we took our tour bus about an hour to another adorable city called Dinan for the day! We had a brief group tour then were given a couple hours for lunch and exploration. This was one of my favorite parts because this city was also very charming and along a river.

aw! 

just soaking up the sun and the cuteness

For lunch, we were instructed to try une gallette, an unsweetened crepe and of more substance than a crepe with nutella or something. We chose a restaurant right along the river and dove in (to the gallettes, not the river).

Yum! After lunch we did more exploring. 

When we returned to Saint-Malo, it was about 3:30 PM and we had the rest of our day to explore! We went to the beach! Like Saint Michel, we got to experience the tides at Saint-Malo, the beach was massive because the tide hadn't come in yet, but at around 5:30 PM we were told the beach would be closing since all the water was approaching. Before the tide came, all these huuuuge rocks were visible, and you could walk to this little castle house thingy, but after the tide came the pathway to the castle was covered. So before we climbed all over the rocks and had a really great time! 

view of Saint-Malo from little castle…where the sand is gets completely covered by water!

cool rocks

Later that night we went out for pizza and then walked along the wall and the beach. Then stopped along to ocean to take in the sounds of the waves. Here's a pic of the gang!

The next day was basically why I signed up for this whole trip: the Normandy landing beaches. Saturday night was finally when we had to set our clocks ahead and then we had to meet up for breakfast at 7:00, so really 6:00..   everyone looked pretty rough that morning. We drove two hours to Omaha Beach, which is also where the American military cemetery and memorial are. Apparently, some of the Normandy beaches still have small canyons from bombings and trenches, but the beaches we saw looked like normal beaches. Very peaceful. The land around the beach, which was covered in grass, was, however, super rough and canyon-like. 

What came next was completely unreal. I had mentally prepared for a moving and emotional visit, but I didn't expect how heavy and strong the power of the sights would take over me when I saw the cemetery and memorial. Seeing over 9,000 graves of the young americans who died. Especially when the dates on the graves are mostly all within the same week. Something interesting that I didn't know prior to the visit was that this land is considered U.S. soil. There are American flags and "United States of America" engraved on the walls. 

This last picture is part of a wall listing all the names of soldiers who were never found. Between this wall and the gravestones in the cemetery, a couple people in my group saw their last names. I can't even imagine what that felt like for them. It was crazy to me to even see "Wisconsin" next to someone's name. After Omaha beach, we made our way to another beach part of the Normandy beaches in Arromanches, France. Another normal-looking beach, but there are still pieces in the water from a man-made bay created around 1940. We had an hour here for lunch then we were on our way back to Paris. 

On a happier note, this weekend was amazing!! I love the little cities of France just as much as I love Paris and I can't wait to see more of it! 

random updates

We just had midterms and spring break isn't for a month! My mind is so full of planning European excursions… as of right now I'll be in Italy for a few days and then my mom is coming to Paris for 10 days!!!!!!!!!!! :) Being this far away for this long has really made me appreciative of family and friends at home. I LOVE ALL OF YOU WHO READ THIS THANK YOU FOR BEING YOU! <3

It's really freaking me out that this whole thing is halfway over already :( I can't imagine going back to reality and being stressed out all the time with real college. So scary! I've already been looking into many ways I'll be able to come back, I learned from the UWM professor that's with us in Paris that UWM offers 1 or 2 year-long programs to come to France and teach English. It's not considered studying abroad because most students do it after they graduate. We also had a "mixer" with UW-Madison alumni who now work and live in France. Although it wasn't at all what I expected, we were told it'd be lots of people with dinner and it just sounded really great and dinner-party ish. In reality, we were in a conference room where an overly enthusiastic lady acting like we were 12 years old introduced us to 4 UW-Madison alumni and they talked about their lives. Okay, it was actually really interesting, I was just pretty disappointed we didn't get food. But what they had to say was soooo good to know. Unfortunately, it didn't seem very helpful to me, because none of them had the goal of ending up in France like I do! They just kinda ended up here with good luck in their careers. One man who's been here 10 years is a medical writer and his summary of being here was "living here is awesome, working here sucks." He repeatedly said that France is not the U.S., don't expect it to be the U.S. He further explained by saying people here aren't motivated like Americans are, they don't work as hard as americans do, they don't know or care about their job like Americans, and businesses are very slow and unorganized. I've been learning so much and realizing how much the U.S. runs everything. We are the Walmart of the world. It's one thing to learn about the U.S. being the most developed country and whatnot in school, but it's another thing to see it in real life. Half the time I'm very proud, but mostly I hope we don't come off as cocky as we sound.

Fun story for you about more ways people try to get money from you on the street. I was sitting on the metro, minding my own business when two 25ish-year-old guys get onto the metro with a karaoke system. They start singing sarcastically and dancing very dirty, using the poles in the metro car and all. My friend then points out to me that their pants have Velcro down the sides…. Yup they went there. Within seconds they're doing a striptease to the music. They were being so goofy and sarcastic I was laughing soooo hard, everybody was. Then they casually walked around the metro car in their underwear holding out a cup for money. 

In one of my classes where we always have field trips, we just went to Le Palais de Justice where all the court cases are heard. Lawyers wear black graduation gown type thing during court. We sat in on about 4 different hearings for a few minutes each. Then afterward my teacher explained what they were talking about since this was a whole new set of vocabulary I know nothing about and could barely understand. It was fascinating. 

As far as real-life goes, not everything is glitz and glamour for me. I had a little hair dye party in one of my friend's apartments with a couple friends who also wanted to update their roots. We bought cheap box dye and got to work! It was so fun. If only I could afford to have my hair done at a glamorous Paris salon. Another "real life" thing I'm still doing is NETFLIX. Well unfortunately Netflix doesn't work but trust me, I've found other ways to watch shows. I've already watched all eight Harry Potter movies, two show series and I just started my third. So there's that. I'm still normal. 

Fun fact about my new European knowledge: I'm a master at military time and I'm starting to understand the metric system! 

I'm still in Paris

I haven't said much about Paris in a while because I've been traveling so much! Trust me it's still ah-mazing. The initial "omg I'm in Paris" thing has worn off. I almost wish it was still like OMG LOOK AT THAT OMG LOOK AT THIS! WOW OMG! But at the same time, it's a relief that I adjusted well and still love everything! I'm very busy with school..exams and papers and such (I have to remind myself I'm here to go to school..). It's weird to see everyone at home on spring break and I only just started school a month ago. 

The Jardin du Luxembourg is right by my University, and I've been there about 3 or 4 times in the past week or so to study/have a picnic/do homework. It's perfect. 

This picture doesn't exactly capture the mood because you can't see the millions of people who are actually here. There are groups of people every 5 feet trying to soak up some sun on their lunch break. It has been so packed every time I've come. And I love coming here because it's one of the few times I've seen Parisians forget their "class," and by that I mean they're all lounging around, taking off their sweaters and scarves, pulling up the bottom of their pants to expose pale legs, laying down on benches, sleeping, eating, laughing, being LOUD for once. It's so interesting. Who would have thought Parisians are actually just like you and me?? 

This was my first weekend in Paris in a while and it was sooooooo nice, I forgot how crazy the weekend get here. Tourists everywhere. There's nowhere better to people watch than the streets of Paris. The other day I was waiting for my friend outside of a store, probably only 5 minutes by myself, and 3 groups of tourists with maps and hats and sunglasses asked me for directions. Love it. 

I'm not sure if you remember me talking about Galaries-Lafayette, but it's a department store filled with designer brands that I wish I could actually shop at. But a few weeks ago my friends and I signed up to go to one of their fashion shows! So we went to it on Friday, and it was pretty cool if you think wearing socks with sandals or mixing cheetah print and camouflage looks good. Everyone in the audience was so obviously tourists as well; taking selfies in front of the runway and whatnot. Another really strange thing about it was at the end when they had all the models come out in their last outfit, they played a line spoken by Obama to a techno beat. He was saying something about accepting all races and backgrounds, and they just played it over and over while the models stood their to our applause… 

After the fashion show we kinda just wandered around, and the fun thing about wandering in Paris is that you always find something awesome. Like the Moulin Rouge..

 

The last time I saw the Moulin Rouge was my first day in Paris, so being jet-lagged and zombie-like I couldn't exactly appreciate the significance at the time. Again, tourist-central. My friend and I were trying to take pictures and we were asked by probably 5 groups to take theirs. 

Random things:

I went out to dinner on Friday night to an Italian restaurant and paid 20 euros (~$27) for wine, pasta, and tiramisu. This is an awesome and rare price for restaurants here! It was delicious, and a nice treat because I hadn't been to a restaurant in Paris in a couple weeks! I was feeling great about it until the next day when I did some grocery shopping, got enough for about two weeks, and that cost also 20 euros…. merp. 

Another weird flavor I found…tastes just like a McDonald's cheeseburger. Yum? 

I can't believe I haven't talked about dogs yet! Paris is so dog friendly and you'll see them everywhere. I mean everywhere. They're welcome inside, outside, and anywhere public. There are always dogs on the metro. I've even seen a couple people holding cats, maybe going to the vet? Gotta get there somehow. This dog in the picture was inside H&M. Also, dogs in Paris tend to be "purse dogs" and I think this is because Paris is so condensed and there's not much room for exercising a big dog. But what was interesting was that in Madrid, we saw tons of big dogs, probably because they have more space! 

Amsterdam

I've been in three different countries in the past week; I'm exhausted.

I took a bus with a friend for a short weekend trip to Amsterdam. A fun surprise was that we drove through Belgium and stopped in Brussels!
My friend has some friends in Amsterdam, and other friends of hers were also visiting Amsterdam from Germany, so there was this whole group who knew each other and then me (I played it cool, guys). It was really nice because instead of wandering around the city, they were able to show us some cool things and hang out. On Friday night, one of them hosted the whole group at his apartment for a little dinner party and it was so fun! He made homemade garlic bread and homemade pizzas.

In the two days we were there, we walked about 10 million miles (like usual) and saw about 3,000 rivers,. the saying that Amsterdam is the Venice of northern Europe is correct because every single block is a new river. 

  my favorite picture that I took!

 We also saw about 50,000 bikes, (my friend's friend told us before we arrived that he'd lend us a bike so it'd be easy to get around..we laughed, not getting why he'd lend us a bike..but then we soon figured it out upon arrival) literally everyone in Amsterdam BIKES EVERYWHERE. There are bike lanes and sidewalks, it's really intense. Bike racks hold like 100 bikes, and the bikers are super aggressive. They will honk at you if you get in their way. I only saw about 10 cars. I was even asked twice if I wanted to buy a bike. 

We went to the Anne Frank house. I feel stupid because I forgot to take a picture of the outside of the house.  Unfortunately, you weren't allowed to take pictures inside, so maybe that's why I didn't take one outside either. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect of it, but I definitely wasn't expecting what it was. They had built a new building around the entire house, and on the inside of the house is no furniture at all. They kept it empty to give the lasting impression of houses being raided during WWII, which is effective because I could feel the emptiness and loss that the family experienced just by being in the empty rooms. They had some original objects like the walls in Anne Frank's room still had her posters and pictures hanging up. The whole thing was very a moving and emotional experience, I'm really glad I got to go there, even after waiting almost 2 hours to get in. We wanted to go to the Van Gogh museum but that was another 2 hour wait :(

part of the line to get in 

On a way different, note.. my friend's friends walked us through the Red Light District. I didn't really know what this was before being in Amsterdam so it was shocking, to say the least. The red light district is a concentrated area of legal prostitution, strip clubs, etc. Apparently, there are Red Light Districts in lots of capital cities in Europe, who knew. Her friends were shocked that we had never seen prostitutes before, so there's another huge difference between European vs. American laws..Hah. It didn't seem real.

It's kinda pretty in a weird way

This area of town was definitely the central area for nightlife. I couldn't take one step without someone running into me and mumbling "excuse me" in random languages. So walking by a million bars, LOOK WHAT I FOUND

Cafe Wiener. no big deal

I heard a huge variety of languages in Amsterdam, more than in Paris. Mostly Dutch obviously, which is not cute at all. I missed french :( After Dutch, there was a lot of German. That was hilarious because I've never heard anyone speak german other than my family, so it suddenly was like real-life german. 

And also, like every other place I've been to so far, everyone speaks English. At this point, I'm just becoming amazed by how many people speak English fluently. It also makes me feel like I'm missing out on something. All these people probably learn English from when they're little, why don't Americans learn a second language as if they need it to survive in life? It makes me wish I could have started french at a younger age so it would come easier to me, as English probably does to Europeans.

 

My favorite part of Amsterdam was definitely the intricate architecture.

 

An observation is that all the dutch people looked very "northern;" big beards, big coats, heavy accent. I imagine this is how southern states view us midwesterners. Other than the cold and windy weather to remind me it's still winter, it was another fantastic weekend abroad! After two weekends of traveling though, I'm pretty excited to be able to stay in Paris this coming weekend and soak up the sun next to the Eiffel tower :)

One last thing… I finally found Dr. Pepper! Only at the train station though, nowhere else in the city. This is the only time I've seen it since I've been abroad; thank you Amsterdam!