Katie in Paris : 2013

I got back from Italy/Switzerland Monday night and headed to the airport Tuesday morning to pick up my best friend Kelley. We’ve grown up together in Southington, but she goes to UC Berkley now. She’s studying abroad in England for the summer and decided to come to Europe a week before her program starts to visit me in Paris! We had planned this months ago, and it was so crazy that she was finally here. It was awesome to see her after being apart for so long! We got her settled in my room and gave her some time to process the fact that she was in Paris. Then we got a delicious lunch with my future roomie, Mary, at Place St. Michel. We then went inside Notre Dame, explored the Marais, and headed to the Eiffel Tower of course! By then it was getting late, and we headed back to my place to relax. It was a great day in Paris!

The next day, it was raining when we woke up, so we went to the Louvre. After a few hours of exploring, we took fun pictures with the pyramid and then walked through the Tuileries. We continued to walk up the Champs Élysées and stopped for tea and macaroons at L’Adurée...so Parisian of us! We admired the Arc for a while, grabbed pastries at my favorite pâtisserie by Notre Dame, and then headed back to my place. We then got ready for a fun night out in the city.

Thursday, we slept in because it was pouring and pretty cold. We had plans to walk around the Luxembourg Gardens, but that wasn’t a great mix with the rain. Instead, we went to an amazing crepe place by the Panthéon so Kelley could have her first crepe in Paris, but also see some of the sights! Kel, Mary, and I each had some delicious crepes, and we ran into some of our other friends at the restaurant. Because the rain was pretty bad, we just hung out at the cité for the rest of the afternoon. Eventually, it cleared out for our UConn farewell dinner. Our directors planned a final dinner for all of the students in our program. Kelley was able to join us, and we had a wonderful dinner reminiscing about our past five months in the city of lights. After the dinner, we enjoyed another fun night out in Paris!

On Kelley’s fourth day, we started off our morning by walking through the markets on Mouffetard and enjoying some pastries. We then headed up to Sacré Coeur and marveled at the beautiful art in Montmartre. Luckily, the weather was starting to clear out! We got crepes at Place St. Michel and then headed to our wine tasting reservations. In the course of two hours, we tasted one champagne and five wines (two white and three red) in an adorable wine bar by the Louvre. We learned about all the different regions of France that produce wine and champagne and how to properly taste it. We had lots of fun and definitely had a bit too much wine. Thank goodness for the unlimited baguette! We spent the rest of the night hanging out at the cité with our friends.

Saturday was a pretty weird day. Had I not extended my trip to stay with Kelley in Paris, I would have been going home. I had to say goodbye to all of my friends from UConn as they parted for the States. I’m definitely glad I have a bit longer here, but it’s still only six days. I remember when that number was five months. Luckily, my friend Mary is also staying here for a few more weeks, so we tried not to think about how soon we are heading home. Instead, Kelley and I focused on our trip to Nice! Around 5:30 pm today, we headed for Gare de Lyon to catch our train. We were super excited for some sun and ocean views! We had a three hour train ride from Paris to Aix-en-Provence and then a three hour bus ride to Nice. We arrived around 1:00 am and got to our hostel by 2:00 am. We were exhausted so we went right to sleep.

We woke up around 8:00 on Sunday, had breakfast at our super trendy hostel and made plans for the day. Once again, weather.com lied to us and said we were going to have nothing but sun and warmth for the whole week. When we looked outside this morning it was cloudy and cool...awesome. So we sacrificed our beach trip for a day in Monaco; I’ll take it! We were off to the land of fancy cars, beautiful casinos, gorgeous coastlines, and overpriced everything. Fun fact about Monaco: it’s not in France, it’s its own country! We started off with Monte Carlo to see the infamous casino and posh cars, cafés, and shopping districts. It definitely did not disappoint. We were amazed by the luxury. Not only is the casino well known in the James Bond movies, but it also appears in Cars and Madagascar 3! After walking around Monte Carlo, we headed to the Oceanographic Museum, AKA: the aquarium. We had lots of fun looking at all the creatures. After this, we stopped for a delicious lunch of pasta and then took a tour of the Prince’s Palace. Every room was so well decorated and completely gorgeous. We walked through the St. Martin Gardens and then made our way up to the Exotic Gardens. These were really awesome. They are full of crazy plants, many of which are different species of cacti, all growing right into the side of a cliff that overlooks the ocean. We also did a tour of a cave that goes inside the cliff. It was a legitimate cave with stalactites, stalagmites, and over 300 steps to climb both down into the cave and back up. It was really awesome. By then, we were exhausted and headed back to our hostel to have some dinner and relax. Our first day in the French Riviera was a success. I’m not into “hashtags” but this post calls for #seriouslyfancyliving!

Monday we woke up around 8:30 am, and the sun was shining! We had breakfast and headed straight for the beach in Cap D’Ail. It was a small gorgeous beach with crystal blue water and partially surrounded by cliffs. It was a 25 minute bus ride from Nice, but it was great because the beach wasn’t too crowded, so we were able to lay out and enjoy the view. We stayed here for the entire day and were so sad to leave. Around 6:00 pm we headed back into Nice, had some yummy dinner and then hung out at our hostel for the rest of the night. It was a perfect day in the south!

Tuesday was another gorgeous day in Nice. We had breakfast and took the walking tour of the city from our hostel. Our tour guide was hilarious; he held a baguette in the air as we walked from place to place so everyone could follow him. We saw all the major sites of the city and ended with a nice picnic on castle hill overlooking the water. After the tour, we walked back into the old town and through the narrow cobblestone streets, admiring the shoe and lavender boutiques. We then walked along the English Promenade (which looks over the ocean) for a while and laid on the beach under the sun. It was a beautiful day. We had a nice long lunch (Kelley tried escargot), and then we walked around the town before heading back to the hostel. Kel wasn’t feeling too well so she went straight to the hostel, but I stopped to see the gorgeous Russian Cathedral. It looks like it’s straight out of Moscow. We spent the rest of the night hanging out at the hostel and getting ready for our early morning train. It’s been a perfect three days in the south, and I’m so sad to leave!

We left our hostel around 6:30 am Wednesday morning and took our six hour train ride back to Paris. We got settled at my place and then walked around the Luxembourg Gardens while there was still a little sun. As soon as we got on the metro, it started to downpour and thunder so we had some French onion soup and expresso at a café near the Eiffel Tower. When the rain stopped we took some great pictures with the Eiffel Tower on the Champ de Mars and Trocadéro. We then got our last macaroons at L’Adurée on the Champs Élysées and went to the top of the Arc to watch the sunset and see the lights of the Eiffel Tower come on. It was one of the clearest, most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen in Paris. It was a perfect night.

Thursday, Kelley took the Eurostar to London to begin her study abroad adventures, and I started packing for the end of mine.