Mon Amie Jenna Marie à Paris

present for us :)

walking along the Champs-Elysees

The Notre Dame

the bird is actually eating right out of the kids hand!!

being inside the Notre Dame was a completely amazing breathtaking experience!

an entire bridge of love locks!

i made it to every big thing on this sign!

goodness gracioud i miss pizza!!!

i've always thought that people make too big a deal about the eiffel tower....and its one of those world monuments that is reprinted over and over and over again,  its just a tower after all right?

but actually bring there i finally got all the hype...... the sheer size and the number of people who have climbed this thing is mindboggling!

so many stairs....

Le Sacre Coeur

every train door had warnings in all these languages, but we couldnt think of a reason they would choose the bunny?

the Pantheon

Luxenburg Gardens

 

the Lttle Statue of Liberty

the bridge by Jennas home

Dinner from Mama!

haha french crepes and buckwheat pancakes= delicious!!

THE OPERA GARNIER

a new ceiling painting

this building was just stunning. so much marble and gold and wide open space made bigger with huge mirrors. i could have continued wandering the rooms for hours.

\

The Louvre!!!
HUGE!

it was full of amazing pieces but by the end i felt that they tried to pack too much into one place. the louvre was impressive because of its size and the number of famous works that can be found within its halls, but there was so much that, as i walked out, i felt like i hadnt  really learned something new.

i still loved it though!

the Aphrodite

the crowd in front of this one little painting was nuts!

yes its the mona lisa, but still....

Psyche and Cupid

the three graces

the number of different languages offered for the Louvre maps was crazy!

Wine and mousee night!!

Rue de Clare

so... when jenna and i first started talking about studying abroad this year our childhood came back to us and the idea that we had to have a Mary-Kate and Ashley style baggute fight in front of the eiffel tower came up... it was joke.

 that then became too funny to ignore so we actaully did it :P

I had missed this girl so much! everynight  we ended up saying goodnight  like 15 times because we kept finding more things to say or talk about. there were so many times that we would start to say or do the exact same thing that it was almost creepy haha. we were never that bad as roommates last year! but for whatever reason, we were definitley on the same brainwave length and it lead to some hilariously special 'sister like' moments

(classic annoying tourist shot)

another trip to Laduree

such good macaroons!!!

The Musee D'Orsaay
and the giant 'Benjamin Butten' like clock!

one of my favorite exhibits was a miniature model of the Opera Garnier building, since i had seen the real thing the day before, and loved it so much, it was great to see it from a totally different perspective.

I went back to the Notre Dame area for lunch again and this time there was a giant protest going on outside the cathedral. when i asked a police officer what was going on, he didnt realy speak much english but we fumbled through conversation and by the end i understood that the protesters were there sharing their unrest about the problems in Egypt.

after going into the church again, i ate the french onion soup and ice cream that came in a meal deal and brought the pizza home for jen and I to share. a bottle of wine and a caprese salad made for a perfect meal :)

a wonderful moment of my trip was learning that my mom and jenna had been emailing for weeks planning a birthday surprise :)

mom sent money for a special dinner out amd to get tickets to a special classical concert in one of the oldesst churches in Paris.

The Paris Classical Orchestra and the head violin soloist in the Nations French Orchestra put on a show including Vivaldi's Four Seasons, Mozart's Little Night Music, Albinoni's Adagio, and Pachelbel's Canon.

Everytime the music paused, it would take a few seconds after the musicians had stopped playing for the sound to actaully stop reverberating from the vaulted ceilings! There were multiple times that Jen and i realized we werent breathing properly :)

after the concert we went for coffe and tea :)

and ended the night walking along the Siene :)

I loved Paris so much more than i'd thought i would. honestly, the only thing that had really drawn me there was visiting jen but i loved everything about that week! hopefully i'll get to go back before i head home this summer :)

stay tuned for upcoming stories from Espania!