Rainy Paris

We had our second long weekend of our trip here November 10-14th.  The school planned a trip to Paris, so a group of us signed up for that trip - the first school trip we have done since London the first weekend here.  The only thing I disliked about Paris was that it rained the entire weekend.  Other than that, it was really fun.  We stayed at a nice hotel that had a free breakfast, so we took advantage of that every morning.  We didn't get there until late Wednesday night after taking a train to London and the Chunnel to Paris.  After settling into our hotel, we walked around the area and got some dinner at a small sandwich stand. 

Thursday morning we got up early for our first day in Paris.  It was a bummer to wake up to rain, but we still trucked out and enjoyed the streets of Paris.  We did some shopping first as we made our way to the Louvre.  By the time we got there, three out of six umbrellas had been ruined by the wind and I was pretty miserable.  We got into the Louvre for free because we are students, so that was nice.  We spent a couple hours looking around, although we could have spent all day - the place was huge!  On our way home from the Louvre, we stopped at the local grocery store and got some food and wine.  We ate some food and some of us took naps, while others scoped out the area around the hotel a little more.  At night, we decided to take our bottles of wine to the Eiffel Tower with us and watch the light show.  It was gorgeous, and I absolutely loved it, we could have spent all night there.  I had to rush home that night to have a skype meeting with the group I am going to China with in May. 


(Side note:  For those of you who don't know, I was chosen for a student-faculty research project on ethics and information technology in China.  We leave at the end of May and are gone for about 3 weeks.  We are still working on funding for the trip, but hopefully with the grant, all costs will be paid for - even airfare.  It seems like a great opportunity, and I just couldn't turn it down.  Funny how I'm not even home yet and I'm already planning my next trip.  I am one lucky girl.)

Back to Paris - Friday we did some more shopping in the morning, I got a new jacket and some souvenirs.  Then we went to the Notre Dame, which was gorgeous.  After the Notre Dame, we headed to Galleries LaFayette to see a free fashion show.  They put one on every Friday, and you have to e-mail them to reserve your spot, which we had done earlier in the week.  Once we got there, we couldn't find where we needed to be and finally a worker told us that they have fashion shows "every friday, but not today."  So we were a little disappointed, but we were able to go out onto the 8th floor terrace and look over the whole city for free, so that made up for no fashion show.  That night all the other girls got "Paris haircuts" and they all looked really cute!  We decided to meet up with the rest of the guys and go out for the night.  We all got our own cheap bottle of wine again and just walked the streets by our hotel.  Eventually Veronica, Candace and I got into a club called Cafe Oz where we hung out until 4:00 AM.  It was a really fun night, but we definitely didn't get enough sleep.

Saturday we woke up early for breakfast and decided to walk down the Champ Elysee and see the Arch de Triumph.  Along the way we stopped in Louis Vuitton and a bunch of car dealerships that were displaying their latest and greatest.  After that, we hit up Montmarte and climbed up to the Sacre-Coeur Basilica (the famous white church).  Both the church and the view from the top of the hill were absolutely gorgeous, it was only a bummer that it was rainy and extremely windy, so we couldn't enjoy it for a very long before we were searching for shelter.  After that we walked down to the Moulin Rouge and took some pictures of the outside.  We were all pretty tired from the day, so we went home and napped for a while.  Some girls went out for the night, but most of us just stayed in and hung out in our dry and warm hotel rooms.

Sunday morning we looked through some souvenir shops and made sure to get some crepes, as they seemed to be all over Paris.  We left Paris at 1:00 PM and made it back to the castle by 6:00 PM.  Overall it was an amazing trip and just makes me want to go back when the weather is better - I feel like I have so much more to see there.

The weekend of November 19th we just had a weekend at the manor.  Candace and I went out with our British meet a family for Jen's birthday on Friday (which happened to be my REAL mom's birthday too. Happy Birthday Mom!!)  Then on Saturday, Candace and I went to York with the family to do some shopping and sightseeing.  We had a great day away from the manor.  Saturday night we had a costume ball at the manor, a Halloween in November, which was really fun.  We dressed up as pageant girls and had a blast eating good food (for once) and dancing the night away.  We leave tomorrow for Greece and we will be there for five days and I can't wait for some nice warm weather right off the ocean.


Less than a month before I come home and I can't wait to see you all!! 

Candace's 21st in London

Wow, time is flying - I can't believe it has been so long since I have updated my blog.  I am sorry, school just seems to be taking over my weeks and we have been gone every weekend, keeping me very busy! On November 5th, we went to London with our school for a field trip to St. Paul's Cathedral and the National Gallery/Portrait Gallery.  St. Paul's Cathedral was really neat - we got a tour around the inside by a professor, and then were able to go up to the top (a LOT of stairs) and look over the whole city.  It was kind of rainy and cloudy out, but the view was still gorgeous.  In the afternoon, we headed over to the National Gallery.  Since I had already seen it with my mom, we decided to spend some time eating at a nice restaurant.  After that, we headed back to the buses to get our luggage for the weekend.  We got a free pass down to London, and if we decided to stay the weekend we had to find our own transportation home.

Candace's friend Ryan has an apartment in London where he is studying abroad and said we (Candace, Veronica, Talia, Holly, and I) could crash at his place for the weekend.  He met us at St. Paul's cathedral and we went to his house right away.  It was pouring rain out, but we decided we still wanted to go out to celebrate Candace's 21st birthday (Nov 2).  So we got ready and headed out to a pub crawl.  We went to a couple different places and ended up at Ministry of Sound, which is supposedly one of the best clubs in Europe.  Due to the rain, and the fact that we had no idea where we were compared to Ryan's apartment, we took a cab home and crashed for the night.

The next day we just HAD to go to the only Chipotle in England for lunch, and then we went shopping for a couple hours.  In exchange for a place to stay, we promised to make Ryan and his roommates a home cooked meal, so that is what we did on Saturday night.  It was the same meal we had made my mom the last time we were in London, a pasta with olive oil and vegetables.  After that, we just relaxed and went to bed early because we were so tired.

In the morning we left early to catch the first train back to Grantham.  We just barely made the train in time.  To add to our stressful morning, when the conductor came to collect my ticket he told me that I had the wrong ticket.  Turns out, the ticket office in Grantham gave me a ticket from Grantham to London, instead of London to Grantham.  Despite my attempt at explaining the situation, I had to pay a 57 pound fee to buy the correct ticket.  Trust me, I was not happy.  After talking to a couple people from the company, I am currently working on getting all my money back, but I have learned now to check the train ticket before I leave the ticket office.

Overall, it was a fun weekend, and our last in London before we come home. Miss you all, Love you!

Amsterdam

I'm sorry for not updating this as I should.  The days seem to go by so fast and each weekend we are off to another country.  On October 29-31 a group of us went to Amsterdam to see the gorgeous canal city.  There was a lot of students from our school there, but we traveled with 14 of us (6 girls, and 8 boys).  We flew out of East Midlands early Friday morning (the same day they found the bomb on the cargo plane - a little too close to home if you ask me).  The 14 of us were split up between three different hostels, so the 6 of us girls set off to find our hostel as soon as we got there.  We stayed in a Christian Youth Hostel, as we were told these were the safest and nicest to stay at in Amsterdam.  We checked in and took a quick nap, as we had gotten up at 3:00 Am to catch the taxi to the airport in time.  Then we explored the city for a little bit.  We walked around the streets by all the cafes and canals in between streets.  We visited the "I Amsterdam" sign and saw the outside of the Van Gogh Museum, but decided it was too expensive to visit. 

On Saturday we woke up and explored the city some more - only to realize that our hostel was in the red light district.  Our hostel was very nice and I'm glad we stayed there, but it was ironic that it was in the red light district.  While exploring Amsterdam on Saturday we came across a couple Halloween pub crawls and decided it would be fun if we did one as a big group.  We ended up choosing one that let the first ten girls in for free.  Guess what? We got in for free.  We didn't have very good costumes because we had been told that Amsterdam doesn't celebrate Halloween (which they really don't, very few people were dressed up).  We did pull together some costumes and had a very fun night walking around Amsterdam.

On Sunday, our plane didn't leave til later in the day, so we had a good day to do some last minute shopping and visit the Sunday markets.  It did rain a little on Sunday, so that was a bummer, but we still had fun.  Once at the airport, we had a two hour delay and didn't end up getting home until 12:30 in the morning and we all had a British Studies quiz the next day.  Overall, it was a really fun weekend with good friends.  I would love to go back to Holland sometime in the summer when all the tulips are in full bloom, but as for now, I had a great time in the Netherlands.