Today was a great and busy day in Paris! I woke up around 6:00 am and went for a run around le Parc Montsouris and le Cité Internationale. Our campus has 40 houses, each for students from a different country. Each house looks as if it were in that country, so the architecture of each building is different. After my run I took a very cold shower and had some breakfast with other students from UConn in our dorms. We then ventured on the RER for the first time (a super fast métro) to visit the closest Monoprix, a Paris superstore with food, cleaning, and cooking supplies. Afterwards, we walked around the area; it is full of cute shops and open-air markets (marchés de plein air) with fresh fruits, vegetables and seafood. There were even shops selling fresh, homemade pasta and sauces! We also stopped in a small Greek shop (shout out to mon père), and the owners were so nice! I then stopped at my first boulangerie and purchased a fresh baguette! The bakery smelled amazing, and I couldn't get over how many different kinds of breads and pastries there were. After our shopping excursion we had a meeting about classes with our advisor and then took a cruise on La Seine. It was a bit cloudy and rained intermittently, but it was beautiful. We saw the tour eiffel for the first time, and it is most definitely a sight to see! Unfortunately the wind was so rough on the boat that we were a bit more preoccupied with keeping our fingers from freezing than staring at the tour eiffel. Nonetheless, it was a great first sight. We also saw Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Bastille, and many other buildings and famous landmarks. Afterwards, we went to Conforama, a store similar to Bed, Bath, and Beyond (I finally found a tea mug!). We then went back to the le Cité to drop our goods off and headed to our first true dinner in Paris. We went to dinner at L'Hydophobe; a small delicious restaurant. They had vegetarian options (woot woot) and amazing wine! I also tried some of the cheese, which was great (although my morals were a bit confused). We also ate so much fresh baguette (an endless supply) and the dessert was an apple-filled crêpe with ice cream and a hazlenut/caramel sauce...yes, it was as amazing as it sounds. I ate so much, but we did so much walking throughout the day that I didn't feel overly full. After diner, we hit up another grocery store where I found tofu! And then we headed to " downtown Paris" for a night on the town. While we had wanted to do a lot of exploring, we only got to see the tour eiffel. Once we got there, we were so mesmerized that we kept staring at it and tried to take pictures of every angle. We also kept staying a bit longer to see the lights flash (the lights flash on the hour for five minutes and flash at different speeds; we stared at them for the full five minutes each time and tried to decipher the patterns of the flashes). Seeing the tour eiffel made me feel as though I had truly arrived in Paris; it is a sight I have been waiting to see for years. It is massive and beautiful and no pictures do it justice; this is a must see at some point in your lifetime. After seeing the tour eiffel at midnight, we headed back to la Cité; however, we tried to experiment using the public transportation by challenging ourselves and taking a different route home...that was interesting, but we definitely know how le métro and the RER work now. Overall, it was a great first night on the town, and I am excited for the weeks to come!   

Fun Facts...

LOL= MDR mort de rire (dying of laughter)

OMG= OMD oh mon dieu (oh my God)