Un Viaje Espectacular: Bienvenue à Paris

At times, it still feels like I'm living a dream here. Some days I wake up and I don't know where I am, but I soon realize again once my host mom knocks on my door saying "Kendal! El Desayuno!" (breakfast). Then, I realize how difficult it is to speak fluent Spanish in the morning.

As unreal as it feels, time is passing faster than I had ever dreamed of, and I only have a week longer in Alicante. Then, it's off to Sevilla for another month. Time flies so quickly here!

Apologies for not writing sooner, but I have basically been traveling my ass off (excuse my French). But speaking of France, I just spent the last weekend in Paris, France. Paris is a city that I (and pretty much everyone else) have always dreamed of going to, to see all of the famous sites and meet the ever-so-snobby French people. We left Alicante at like 5 in the morning on Friday, in order to get to Paris and still have a full day there. Once we got to Paris and took our stuff to the hostel, the people in charge basically said "here's a map of Paris! Have fun!" and we were given free time until later in the afternoon. For being from Iowa and having no idea how to work a big city metro system, I would say my friends and I figured it out pretty quickly. We did a bit of shopping before heading back to meet the program directors in Paris and finding out what else we were doing that weekend. Then, we went on a walking tour of the city (and I mean a TON of walking--Paris is HUGE!) and then got dinner at this cute little Bistro near Notre Dame. My friends and I decided that we had to see the Eiffel Tower the first night we were there, so we hopped on a metro and headed over to the other side of the city, where we drank wine, ate bread, and watched the Eiffel Tower through the sunset. I'm telling you, it couldn't have been more picture-perfect.

On Saturday we headed out early to the Louvre Museum, aka like the biggest art museum in the world, to see the Mona Lisa and the ancient Egyptians and Zeus and all his Ancient Greek friends. The Louvre is way too big to explore in one day, so we basically only got to see one wing of it. Then, we wandered around trying to find a non-touristy place to eat crepes, and stumbled upon a cute little diner with drinks and crepes for lunch. After lunch, we had designated activities where we got to see the less touristy side of Paris. My activity was La Recyclerie, which is an old train station on the edge of Paris that has been turned into a cute restaurant and garden, where the real hipsters of Paris can go to plant things and sell their DIY items. It was a really interesting place to go, but the neighborhood was a bit sketchy if you know what I mean.

Saturday night we went to this huge, really old restaurant where we had super French food: chicken and french fries. French fries are French, right? After that, we went to a hilarious one-man comedy show, put on by a native Parisian who basically makes fun of every single culture, including Paris. The show was called "How to Become Parisian in One Hour," and let me tell you, I was laughing my ass off the entire time (sorry again for the French, I guess it stuck with me over the weekend). Then, we decided to explore the town on Saturday night, and ended up finding a quaint little bar near the canal where there were no tourists. Of course, we stuck out like sore thumbs, because we are tourists. Also, did you know Parisian women don't wear dresses? Yeah, we didn't until then either. But they only wear pants.

Sunday we had the entire day with no planned activities, so we headed out of the hostel early to explore the city. We ended up walking basically the entire city, all while shopping and hitting the final sites we hadn't seen yet. Although my feet hurt now more than they ever have in my entire life, I must say that when I arrived home to Alicante around 1 in the morning, I felt pretty good about life. And then I slept for about 10 hours.

This last week is all back to reality, with a 12-page paper to complete, an oral presentation to give, and a final to take. Then, it will be time to celebrate with the Alicante festival de Hogeras, which are giant, expensive statues that are all over Alicante during the festival, only to be burned on the last day. The festival starts next weekend, so I will get to be here for the first couple days of it, before I head southwest to the extreme heat of Sevilla.

Some more pictures to share: