The tourist life.

This weekend I was a super tourist. It started with the catacombs, but I managed to knock a whole lot of items off my "must see while in Paris" list.

On Saturday I slept in late then met up with 4 other exchange students at the arc de triomphe. Apparently with your student visa (or maybe residency, I don't really know) you can climb the arc for free, as well as get into a lot of museums for free. Great to know. Either way, armed with that knowledge we went up to the top of the arc, which was pretty cool. It's way bigger than I had imagined it was and it offered a lot of great views of Paris. You could see the Eiffel tower, well obviously, but you could also see the Louvre and other notable land marks like the Sacre Coeur.

Once we were done we walked down the Champs-Elysees all the way to the Louvre. Of course we had to stop at Laduree on the way. They are particularly known for their macaroons, so naturally I bought a box of them and fulfilled my obsession, for a short time at least. It is really a bad habit for me to have acquired. They are quite expensive and get eaten wayyy to quickly. Along those lines, I also made the lethal mistake of buying a jar of nutella for myself. Bad news bears for sure. I have probably eaten half of the jar already...

Anyways! On Sunday I called up my tandem and made him be touristy with me and we decided to go to the Sacre Coeur. Which is a really pretty, but actually not all that old, church that sits up on a hill and also has some pretty views of Paris. We walked around the grounds and the church and the area it is in. The area is a little strange in that when you are near Sacre Coeur it feels like you are in complete little village. You lose the idea of being in Paris completely. Its just a small little bustling town in itself. We started walking and went down a set of stairs and there was a trio of policemen nearby, they stopped us, which is always highly disconcerting for me. The asked if we had seen any gypsies up on the top of the stairs. I found this to be a really odd question, and didn't quite know how to respond. I had been warned of gypsies, etc. etc. but I had never thought they actually looked any different. Axel assured me otherwise and promised to point them out at some point. Weird.

Either way, we continued to wander around the city. We walked to the Moulin Rouge, not gonna lie, it was a little disappointing. Maybe because my first instinct was imagining scenes from the movie... probably a little unrealistic. We then took the metro to Madeleine and looked at the church there and walked to the Opera before settling down at a cafe and getting some coffee.

It was a great weekend all around, but I don't really want to go back to classes. This whole studying thing is really cramping my studying abroad style. But alas, it is necessary. I also almost have my bank accounts set up, which has been a huge frustration. I can't wait to have easier access to money!

Next weekend though, I will be meeting up with Julia in Berlin. Two things I am definitely very excited for.