Goodbye.

Well, I’ve reached the end. It feels so surreal, but my four month stint in Europe is now over. I’m actually writing this on the plane ride back. I think I’m at 7 hours down, 3 to go. Until Dallas at least. 

I spent my final days in Paris mostly cleaning and packing during the days and hanging out with friends at night. I wandered some, and just tried to take it all in. This has been such an incredible experience all around. I don’t think I would trade it for the world. 

It’s a little weird writing this. Well really, it is a lot weird. I’m kind of at a loss for what to say. I’m not sure it’s possible to sum up 4 months of living in a place into a blog post. I talked about this last night with a friend, or somewhat did. His university was making him write a 10 page paper on his experience studying abroad; a pretty ridiculous feat. 

I am excited to get back to LA and the sun, and family and friends, but I feel like I really meshed with Paris as a city. That sounds pretty ethereal and silly, but it’s true. I love LA, but I’ve never felt like it was necessarily my city. Maybe it’s too big, maybe I haven’t explored enough. But I’ve always imagined myself as more of a northern California girl. I guess I vibe with it better. That being said, I feel so at home in Paris. It is my type of city for sure. Though I couldn’t possibly quantify why. 

I was pretty sad to be leaving. I hope to have the opportunity to live in Paris again someday, or maybe just Europe. It is just such a different way of life. I think people are more relaxed and just take life a little slower. Which took me a while to adjust to. It actually frustrated me a fair amount for a while. I’m used to such a faster pace of life, and learning to slow down is difficult. But seriously, most people here get 5 weeks of paid vacation. What do you even do with that much time off?

Either way, I had an incredible time abroad, an amazing experience, and I’m really so so grateful for getting to do this. I’m sad it’s over, but can’t be anything but ecstatic over the whole experience. 

However, this was my abroad blog, and now that I’m not, I believe I’m done with writing. Thanks for all those that read and kept up with these. 

Au Revoir.

thinking back and looking forward

Things I'm going to miss:
• the metro!
• having no commitments in life
• having travel be so quick and easy
• walking to get groceries
• making dinner every night
• baguettes.
• the warm pan au chocolate I just got from the bakery
• macarons
• the school bar (with 2.50 euro pints)



Things I can't wait to get back to:
• my bike and bike riding
• mexican food
• real breakfast food
• the beach
• really warm weather
• sushi
• all my friends and family



Things I could do without:
• Traffic
• having to pack up this semester's worth of crap into tiny suitcases

Venice and Prague

I think all of my photos from Venice can be divided into one of two categories: photos of narrow roads (I suppose more corridors) or photos of Canals (which can be subdivided into bridges, just water or  gondolas). But seriously. It's true.
Venice was really beautiful and I spent most of my time there just wandering around. Unlike Rome, there really isn't that much that one has to see while in Venice. There are some cool churches and plazas and what not, but I think you really get more of a vibe of the city by wandering the winding streets. I would get lost, find myself and get lost again.
The weather in Venice was absolutely gorgeous and I think I actually wore shorts and tank tops both days. This made the wandering even nicer. Besides the few important sites, there are a TON of shops in Venice. Mostly selling the famed Murano glass, but many selling Venetian masks as well... and pastries. Lots of yummy food.
There really isn't too much of note from my time in Venice. It was lots of fun to be there and I loved the winding narrow streets. Definitely plan on going back at some point... assuming it doesn't entirely sink by then.

After 2 days in Venice I traveled on to my final leg of my trip: Prague. It was a pretty perfect way to wrap up my abroad experience. I got to just hang out in another cool city with my best friend. I had been to Prague once before, about 5 years ago. This meant that we could spend more time hanging out and just browse the various historical sites. We did make it up to the castle and across the Charles Bridge, we also went to see the clock tower, etc. but I also got to see Julia's neighborhood and spend time there, see where she goes to school and eat at some of her local hangouts.

 The weather in Prague was also really nice the first day...  until it wasn't. Julia and I got absolutely soaked when caught in a pretty epic downpour. I personally really like thunder storms, especially when the weather is on the warmer side. I think that's a result of having grown up in Texas with storms being a pretty normal part of life, but I was pretty stoked on being in the storm.














I made sure and had a few different types of Czech beer, which is entirely necessary. I also got to meet some of Julia's friends from BU who just happened to be visiting as well. It was pretty cool to put faces to names of people I had heard about.

Prague was great, and a really great culmination to my time abroad. As I'm typing this, I am sitting in my room where I can hardly see the floors. I am definitely in the throws of packing.

I have about 2.5 more days in Paris, and of my abroad experience. It's pretty surreal that it is already over. I'm still not completely ready to leave, but I know I'll still be very happy to get home.

When in rome...

How cliched can a blog title get? 

Anyways, I'm currently writing this on a train from Rome to Venice, a train I'm not positive I'm even on the right car on. I got to the train station (which was about 5 steps from my hostel) nice and 45 minutes early being paranoid and enlightened with the fact that while traveling in Europe I have had to run through airports too many times to count. Anyways. Got here early and my train was on the boards but didn't have a spot in the terminal yet. Time kept ticking away and when it was 10 minutes until my train was supposed to leave I started getting concerned. I met a nice British man who was supposed to be on the train with me. We both figured the train was late. A few minutes after the train was supposed to leave, it vanished from the departures board. Which is never a good sign. I went to the nearest kiosk and it turns out they routed the train to a different train station. A totally logical option. So I missed my train but the guy quickly wrote something on my ticket and was like go to the next train and ask for a free seat. I did as he said and the conductor said go to car 4 but there aren't probably seats... I found a seat, but I'm not questioning whether I am actually in train car 4 or not. I guess I'll find out when they come to collect tickets, which makes me nervous. I don't like getting in trouble with authority. 

I got into Rome late on saturday night (more realistically sunday morning) and took a shared bus thing from the airport to the train station. In another last minute running excursion, I managed to get on a bus and went to an open seat at the back and sat down. A few minutes later the girl sitting next to me asked if I had an Italian SIM card, which I didn't. We then naturally struck up a conversation and ironically, turns out she graduated from the same high school I did, but two years earlier. Naturally this happens. This is really why Canada gets the reputation for being so small. Oh you're from Canada? I have a cousin in Toronto, do you know them? It gets asked too much, but it occurs too much as well. We talked for a while and she had lead a pretty absurd life but it was cool to meet someone so randomly that had such a close connection. 

I got to my hostel in Rome which was by far the least fun/cool/nice hostel I have stayed in so far and the most expensive one as well. But I suppose that's the way of Rome. I crashed pretty hard and was woken up nice and early by the lovely girls in my room. I figured since I was up I would get a start on my day. For the day I planned to walk to Coliseum, Palatine Hill, Forum etc. I ended up walking all over most of Rome, which seems to be a theme of my trips thus far. Not only did I go to the old ruins of Rome, and take the obligatory "I'm a Trojan in the real Coliseum Fight On Photo" but I also made it to a whole bunch of other famous places like the Piazza Navona, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Spanish steps, etc. etc. But seriously, Rome is filled with old stuff to see. As eloquent as that was. The map made Rome look a lot bigger but literally everywhere you wander you can run into something. 

I took a class on Rome back Freshman year which made the trip pretty cool, but I wish I had come back then and remembered all that I learned about Caesar and Augustus. At one point I really knew a lot about that. Though that may have just been the temporary point before midterms and finals. Hard to know.

My second day in Rome, I deemed my Vatican day. So I suppose it wasn't really spent in Rome. I think it would be badass if you got a passport stamp when you went to the Vatican, but I suppose that would be a little difficult and pointless. Either way, the line to get into the Vatican museums (the only way to see the Sistine Chapel) was absurd. I had read up some stuff online before hand where it said that there are tour guides who will walk up and down the line saying stuff like It’s a 3 hour line, get out now, take our tour and you’ll cut the line. They all also said that the line is only usually an hour or so. But I managed to pick the day that was an exception. May 1 is a holiday in Italy so all the Italians were on holidays, and the Vatican was closed. Meaning the only day people could go was the same day as me. Big Mistake. Sure enough, I had been in line and tons of guides had come around offering their 45-50 euro tours. I scoffed and turned away. Until I started hitting the 1.5 hours in line marker. When the people in front and behind me sent a scout to the end of the line and immediately decided to give up, I realized my prospects were dismal. When I was contemplating hopping out of line and giving up myself when a young tour guide I had seen before came over. He said “You are still here?” obviously shocked. Then started with the well how much can you afford business. I told him that honestly I could probably pay 20 euro and that was it, which I knew was an absurdly low price. He thought about it then said okay and pulled me out of line. He took me to the ticket office wrote something special on a card, handed me 10 euro out of his pocket and sent me on my way. I still don’t know how, but I managed to get a tour guide promoter to pay me 10 euro to take the tour. Awesome. The Vatican was as much of a Zoo inside as out. The guide said that he hadn’t seen it like this in 10 years, since they re-did how people waited in the lines. 

It was cool to see all of the amazing art in the Vatican, as well as the Sistine chapel. It was really beautiful and intricate. After that we went to St. Peter’s basilica and the huge square outside. 

  

Rome was pretty and cool, but I think I would have enjoyed it more had I had more time, and had there not been so many people. It was pretty insane how crowded places were. Sorry for the novel, apparently I shouldn’t write these when I don’t have anything else to be doing with my time, as this is the result. Now I’m off to the canals of Venice. I figured I needed to see it before it sank into the sea. 

Istanbul

 Man, I seriously don't even know where to start. At all. This was such an incredible trip and probably one of the cooler experiences I've had in life. It was a total whirlwind and we did so incredibly much. Kristina and I met up with Candy and Amy at the airport around 5 pm on thursday and were going straight until we left (stupid early) monday morning.

I think that we saw too much to honestly try and explain it all so I will go with general feelings and impressions of Istanbul. Other than that, I took wayyy too many pictures, so I put too many on here as well, but Istanbul was too beautiful to not.

I guess to start off with general impressions I was most amazed at the hospitality there. I assume a large part of that was the fact that we spent a lot of time with locals, and therefore weren't just annoying toursits.

The first day we spent walking around the old part of Istanbul and saw the Haiga Sophia/Blue Mosque/Cisterns/Grand Bazaar. All along the way we would stop in at shops where Amy had friends, and literally everywhere we went we were offered Tea or Turkish coffee. Naturally, it is considered rude to not accept their hospitality, so over the course of the day we had something like 5 teas and 2 coffees. Though they were all super super good. Turkish coffee is intense, but right up my alley. Though I definitely ended up drinking coffee grinds 80% of the time.

 Beyond the hospitality of the shop keepers, all of Amy's friends were ridiculous. They literally wouldn't let us pay for things. Sometimes we could slip some money in here and there, but most of the time they took care of it. They were so so generous and were insistent upon doing so. We were their guests and they wanted to take care of everything. Its a super big change. The amount they took care of us was incredible. Whenever we would walk places they would always kind of protect us with an arm or what not. It was a really interesting experience. But I am so thankful to all of them for taking such incredible care of us.

The weather was beautiful most of the time we were there (minus a freakish down pour while we were waiting to get into the Topkapi palace) and the views were incredible everywhere we went. Istanbul is known as the city with 7 hills, so it really lends itself to incredible views. Not to mention I could never get bored of having views of water.

Now this may be my ignorance, and probably is, but I had absolutely no clue how huge Istanbul is. Its a city of approx. 16 million people and seemed to keep going on for ever. It's hard to judge it, but on the map it really just looks like a dot. It actually wraps around the Marmara sea, so when you are standing on one side of the sea you can point to the other side, and it's still Istanbul. I typically have a really good sense of direction but I was all types of turned around.

Additionally, Istanbul is the only city on both the continents of Europe and Asia. Amy lived on the Asian part, so I can now say I've been to Asia, which is pretty cool.

 The 3 ish days we had there were absolutely incredible and I really do want to go back, but for much longer, and not just to Istanbul.

We went to this funny little place called Miniaturk that had miniatures of all the famous monuments in Turkey (including the airport...). It was pretty cool to see all the places we had seen in real life, but I was absolutely shocked at how many incredible sights there are in Turkey in general. I really feel like I need to go back and spend a month just driving around and exploring.

It was so cool to be in an entirely different society. I loved my time there, but question if I could ever live there on my own. Amy is pretty damn impressive to have done so. Its a beautiful place, but it does sound like it could be really unsafe. It was crazy the comments that Amy would make in passing that are shocking to us, but normal life to her.

She talked about how they bring out the riot squads for the football (soccer) games because fans are so intense and insane, they literally kill each other.

Culturally, it was so different. Especially due to the Islamic religion. One night Erhan took us into a mosque at one of the prayer times and explained everything to us while the prayer was going on and it was all so interesting. It's incredible to learn more about something that I really don't know much about. I barely know anything about christianity, let alone Islam.

Overall, it was an incredible trip and experience in general and I really can't thank Amy and Erhan for showing us around. They really made the trip all that it was.

Relâcher

Relâcher, it's what the weirdo yoga teacher here always used to tell me to do. Apparently I moved to quickly for his liking. He's more into the zen yoga, not the Vinyassa flow I have practiced before. Anyways! I feel like that word nicely encapsulates what I have been doing lately. Which is... Well nothing! 

 The weather has been kind of gloomy and drizzly which just adds to how nice it feels to stay in bed. I've also been trying to study some for my remaining final, which doesn't add to the unproductive nature of my days. Its funny, I have done most of the necessary touristy things in Paris, so I've been spending a lot more of my time just hanging out in my neighborhood at the local cafe and what not. I really like my little neighborhood and its nice to feel at home here.

So it may have been an exaggeration when I said I have done nothing. I have done final things that I needed to cross off my list. For starters, I finally went up la Tour Montparnasse. It is a 59 story building in Paris that everyone hates because it ruins the otherwise perfect skyline of Paris. It towers absurdly over all of the normally 5-7 story buildings that mark the face of Paris. In fact, it was after the completion of Montparnasse that Paris ruled that skyscrapers were not allowed to be built in the city center. A rather wise ruling. There is something a little gross about standing looking at the beautiful eiffel tower and seeing this massive black building in the background. 

But regardless of how ugly it makes the sky-scape look, it sure has great views of the city from it! I haven't been up to the top of the Eiffel tower, and now doubt that I will, but its cool to see the city, and all the sites I can recognize from above. Plus from Montparnasse you can see the Eiffel tower (duh), but that's cool. 

After hanging out on the roof for a while, we decided to go to dinner at our favorite restaurant, but had some time to kill so we wandered over to the Luxembourg gardens to just hang out for a while. It was quite peaceful and relaxing and just generally nice to get some time just hanging out with people while I still can!

We then walked to Chez Gladines and had some wonderful, cheap, decadent french food. The place literally never disappoints. Its too damn good.









Mark and I then planned to visit the Georges Pompidou Centre the next day and see the modern art exhibits. It was cool and bizarre, as I believe modern art should be, but realistically the stuff is just wasted on me. I enjoyed it, but I sure as hell don't understand any of it.

Side note. It may be ignorant of me (or rather, probably was) but I had absolutely NO clue that Picasso wasn't that old. I definitely thought he was from a time long long ago, but no. He died in 1973. What? Blew my mind. Anyways, it was cool to see some of his work as well, but just continually makes me question what the hell was going on in his head. He must have been one hell of a strange dude....

The little struggs.

This past week was somewhat similar to the one before it. In that I didn't do anything too eventful, just kind of living life. Which really isn't as much fun to blog about. But I suppose here I go! 

Last weekend a friend from USC was in town and I got to spend a day exploring with her which was fun. We went to the usual spots like the Arc de Triomphe and walked down the champs-elysees which was cool. We then went into Angelina's for some of the famed hot chocolate and pastries. I clearly got over the trauma from last time. Anyways! We were sitting there and I was wearing a SC hoodie, because those are literally the only mid-layers I brought. Some guy then walked by and was like I like that logo or something as clever, and it turned out that he was a Marshall Alumni from the class of '83 or some such. Small World for sure. 

Emily and I were going to go to the cinema museum to see the Tim Burton exhibit but the line was absolutely insane and we ended up dumping that idea and just walking around the park area by the museum. Its pretty cool to still be finding parts of Paris I don't know at all. The place we were in was the Bercy area and there is a big sports arena type thing there. There was also a graffiti-filled skate park which was mostly being used by BMX bikers or people on rollerblades. Who knew that was still a thing?

 I had another final on tuesday, meaning I have 1 final and 1 project still due, so to celebrate being done Supply Chain Management I went to Disneyland Paris with 7 friends. It was pretty fun and a little weird. Its so strange being in a place that is so similar to one at home, but so far away. Like you would find yourself in certain parts of the park and I would completely recognize it from Disneyland in LA last summer. It was kind of comforting. There weren't too many huge rollercoasters, but we rode all of them and space mountain twice. The second time we rode space mountain I was sitting in the first car of the coaster and when I got off at the end my face was filled with tears from the wind on the ride.

The picture to the right was from the Small World ride which I still can't believe I got talked into going on. The ride is annoying, the dolls are pretty creepy and that damn song just gets stuck in your head forever. Either way I did enjoy their representation of LA being next to both San Francisco and NYC.