(Noelle, Me, and Victoria in front of the Eiffel Tower)
(yummy lunch)
(Arc de Triomphe)
(top of the tower)
(bonjour!)
I'm a couple days behind... so, before we get to Paris lets talk about Thursday (June 5th)...
Thursday we had class. That was class. Thursday night, Kurt, Noelle, Jared, Ricky, and I saw Lord of the Rings The Musical. I didn't like it. The spectacle was amazing; some of the coolest, craziest stuff I've ever seen at the theatre. At one part in the show there's all of this wind, smoke, and confetti and it makes the audience feel like they're in a wind tunnel. The set was unbelievable with all of its vines that reached into the house and unbelievable scene changes. To be perfectly honest, the story kind of sucked. I'll give them credit for trying to cram three huge books into a three hour show, but not much. They threw way too much information at the audience very quickly. A lot of the lines were extremely corny and ridiculous. The music was good. The two female leads who sang all of the haunting elf music were fabulous, but it got old after a while. I'm glad I saw it, but I won't be going back. After the show, Ricky and I took a walk by the Thames until about 1:00am. The Eye and Big Ben were still lit up and that's always a beautiful sight. Some lady who was drunk and probably not too with it to begin with came over to us and played a recorder and talked about Santa Claus in a language we didn't understand. Awkward, but pretty amusing. When we got back to Schiller, Trevor, Mal, and Evan were in my room, so we all stayed up a bit longer.
Kurt, Noelle, Jared, Savannah, Victoria and I left for Paris about 2hrs after I went to bed. Luckily, I slept the whole train ride, which was good because the whole going through the tunnel thing kind of freaks me out. When we got to Paris, we hopped on a coach and did a three hour bus tour. We saw the Opera House, Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, etc. It was a great tour. Our guide, Jude, was just full of information, much of it very useless, but fun. We checked into the hotel after the tour and I found out I was rooming with Kurt, which was pretty funny. After we got settled, we took the metro to the Champs-Elysees and mostly did a lot of window shopping because everything was soooo expensive. We went in the huge Louis Vuitton store (designer handbags and shoes galore for those who do not speak twenty-something girl) and that was pretty sweet. We went to some souvenir shops as well and picked up some postcards and whatnot. I got a t-shirt that says "J'aime Paris" Then, we made our way to the Arc de Triomphe and had a brush with death crossing the road because we didn't realize that there was a tunnel under the busiest, most chaotic road in the world to get to the middle of the circle where the Arc de Triomphe was located. After this adventure, we went back to the hotel to take a little nap and freshen up. When everyone was good to go, we took the metro to Montmartre to take some pics in front of the Moulin Rouge and grab dinner. We got deeeeelicious crepes at a stand on the street. We then met Jude at the metro station and he showed us to the cabaret show. The cabaret was amazing! Jared got pulled up on stage to be assistant to this crazy acrobat and I have never laughed so hard in my life. There was lots of great dancing, juggling, and some pretty cool contortionists. We all got a glass of champagne for the show as well. Afterwards, we retired for the evening so we could wake up early and go to the Eiffel Tower.
We woke up around 8:30, showered, and grabbed a delicious breakfast at the hotel, which I then proceded to throw up. I don't think my stomach was used to real food. We (except Noelle because she didn't feel well) went to the Eiffel Tower at about 10. It doesn't look as big as it feels when you're on the top floor. It was an incredible view. Paris is gorgeous. It doesn't have all the tall ugly buildings and smog that most US cities have. We finished at the tower at about 1:00 and Jared, Victoria, and I made our way to a sandwich shop while Kurt went to to the French Open. We, once again, got delicious sandwiches and sat in a little park and ate them. It felt like something from a movie! We met Noelle after lunch and took a long walk that would eventually end up at Notre Dame. We sat outside at a little cafe and had coffee, then did some shopping. Nobe and I both got really cute dresses at this fun clothing store we found. We met up with Kurt at Notre Dame and it rained as we took our pictures and looked around. It was truely amazing. We met Jude and two girls from Florida State who were also on our tour, Dana and Marla, soon after and walked to this cute little French restaurant across the river. Some people, like Kurt, were brave and decided to try the whole snail thing. I, however, did not (although I did help Kurt pry one of his snails out of the shell), but instead had a ham and cheese crepe and salad, salmon and rice, and an ice cream puff pastry dessert. We were all extremely pleased with our meals and it was a lot of fun getting to know Dana, Marla, and Jude as well. After dinner, we took a boat cruise down the Seine. This was probably the coolest thing I've ever done in my life. The Eiffel Tower twinkled, Noelle and I shared a bottle of wine, and all the couples along the river would stop their major amounts of sucking face to wave hello (or "Bonjour" in this case). It was a beautiful night and something that I will never forget.
Sunday we got up early to go to the Louvre. Kurt, Noelle, Jared, Victoria and I went to the Mona Lisa right away. That was pretty groovy. Lots of tourists taking lots of pictures though and you can't get very close. Then, all of us split up to wonder by ourselves. It was really nice to have some time to myself to explore. I went through all of the Greek statues and the Egyptian exhibit they had. Then I was feeling kind of faint because it was really really hot in the museum, so I took a little walk around the gardens outside and wrote my parents a postcard (I've written postcards for many others as well, but unfortunately they didn't give me the correct stamps at the post office the other day). We all met back up for lunch in the garden and then we broke off. Noelle and I just wandered around the gardens and got some ice cream, while Jared and Victoria left to shop and Kurt checked out one more exhibit. Kurt, Noelle and I took the metro back to Montmartre because Kurt wanted to get a hoodie at one of the souvenire shops there. We had one last delicious sandwich for lunch then went back to the hotel. We all met up and got on a bus to the train station, then made our way back to London. It was nice getting to see all of our other friends and tell them about our trip. Evan and Ricky had gone to Belgium for the weekend so we swapped stories and pics. I watched an episode of The Office with Rick then went to bed.
Thursday we had class. That was class. Thursday night, Kurt, Noelle, Jared, Ricky, and I saw Lord of the Rings The Musical. I didn't like it. The spectacle was amazing; some of the coolest, craziest stuff I've ever seen at the theatre. At one part in the show there's all of this wind, smoke, and confetti and it makes the audience feel like they're in a wind tunnel. The set was unbelievable with all of its vines that reached into the house and unbelievable scene changes. To be perfectly honest, the story kind of sucked. I'll give them credit for trying to cram three huge books into a three hour show, but not much. They threw way too much information at the audience very quickly. A lot of the lines were extremely corny and ridiculous. The music was good. The two female leads who sang all of the haunting elf music were fabulous, but it got old after a while. I'm glad I saw it, but I won't be going back. After the show, Ricky and I took a walk by the Thames until about 1:00am. The Eye and Big Ben were still lit up and that's always a beautiful sight. Some lady who was drunk and probably not too with it to begin with came over to us and played a recorder and talked about Santa Claus in a language we didn't understand. Awkward, but pretty amusing. When we got back to Schiller, Trevor, Mal, and Evan were in my room, so we all stayed up a bit longer.
Kurt, Noelle, Jared, Savannah, Victoria and I left for Paris about 2hrs after I went to bed. Luckily, I slept the whole train ride, which was good because the whole going through the tunnel thing kind of freaks me out. When we got to Paris, we hopped on a coach and did a three hour bus tour. We saw the Opera House, Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, etc. It was a great tour. Our guide, Jude, was just full of information, much of it very useless, but fun. We checked into the hotel after the tour and I found out I was rooming with Kurt, which was pretty funny. After we got settled, we took the metro to the Champs-Elysees and mostly did a lot of window shopping because everything was soooo expensive. We went in the huge Louis Vuitton store (designer handbags and shoes galore for those who do not speak twenty-something girl) and that was pretty sweet. We went to some souvenir shops as well and picked up some postcards and whatnot. I got a t-shirt that says "J'aime Paris" Then, we made our way to the Arc de Triomphe and had a brush with death crossing the road because we didn't realize that there was a tunnel under the busiest, most chaotic road in the world to get to the middle of the circle where the Arc de Triomphe was located. After this adventure, we went back to the hotel to take a little nap and freshen up. When everyone was good to go, we took the metro to Montmartre to take some pics in front of the Moulin Rouge and grab dinner. We got deeeeelicious crepes at a stand on the street. We then met Jude at the metro station and he showed us to the cabaret show. The cabaret was amazing! Jared got pulled up on stage to be assistant to this crazy acrobat and I have never laughed so hard in my life. There was lots of great dancing, juggling, and some pretty cool contortionists. We all got a glass of champagne for the show as well. Afterwards, we retired for the evening so we could wake up early and go to the Eiffel Tower.
We woke up around 8:30, showered, and grabbed a delicious breakfast at the hotel, which I then proceded to throw up. I don't think my stomach was used to real food. We (except Noelle because she didn't feel well) went to the Eiffel Tower at about 10. It doesn't look as big as it feels when you're on the top floor. It was an incredible view. Paris is gorgeous. It doesn't have all the tall ugly buildings and smog that most US cities have. We finished at the tower at about 1:00 and Jared, Victoria, and I made our way to a sandwich shop while Kurt went to to the French Open. We, once again, got delicious sandwiches and sat in a little park and ate them. It felt like something from a movie! We met Noelle after lunch and took a long walk that would eventually end up at Notre Dame. We sat outside at a little cafe and had coffee, then did some shopping. Nobe and I both got really cute dresses at this fun clothing store we found. We met up with Kurt at Notre Dame and it rained as we took our pictures and looked around. It was truely amazing. We met Jude and two girls from Florida State who were also on our tour, Dana and Marla, soon after and walked to this cute little French restaurant across the river. Some people, like Kurt, were brave and decided to try the whole snail thing. I, however, did not (although I did help Kurt pry one of his snails out of the shell), but instead had a ham and cheese crepe and salad, salmon and rice, and an ice cream puff pastry dessert. We were all extremely pleased with our meals and it was a lot of fun getting to know Dana, Marla, and Jude as well. After dinner, we took a boat cruise down the Seine. This was probably the coolest thing I've ever done in my life. The Eiffel Tower twinkled, Noelle and I shared a bottle of wine, and all the couples along the river would stop their major amounts of sucking face to wave hello (or "Bonjour" in this case). It was a beautiful night and something that I will never forget.
Sunday we got up early to go to the Louvre. Kurt, Noelle, Jared, Victoria and I went to the Mona Lisa right away. That was pretty groovy. Lots of tourists taking lots of pictures though and you can't get very close. Then, all of us split up to wonder by ourselves. It was really nice to have some time to myself to explore. I went through all of the Greek statues and the Egyptian exhibit they had. Then I was feeling kind of faint because it was really really hot in the museum, so I took a little walk around the gardens outside and wrote my parents a postcard (I've written postcards for many others as well, but unfortunately they didn't give me the correct stamps at the post office the other day). We all met back up for lunch in the garden and then we broke off. Noelle and I just wandered around the gardens and got some ice cream, while Jared and Victoria left to shop and Kurt checked out one more exhibit. Kurt, Noelle and I took the metro back to Montmartre because Kurt wanted to get a hoodie at one of the souvenire shops there. We had one last delicious sandwich for lunch then went back to the hotel. We all met up and got on a bus to the train station, then made our way back to London. It was nice getting to see all of our other friends and tell them about our trip. Evan and Ricky had gone to Belgium for the weekend so we swapped stories and pics. I watched an episode of The Office with Rick then went to bed.
Monday, we slept in and awoke to a beautiful day. Mallory, Greta, Ricky, Amanda, Evan, Dan, and I went to the park by the Eye to study and memorize lines in the sun. I got a bit of a sun burn. The rest of the evening was spent studying and rehearsing- not the most fun. Rick and I went for a walk until about 2:00am. We keep trying to take pictures with our cameras at night, but none of them really come out.
No comments:
Post a Comment