1. Reims Excursion: My program to a day trip to Reims, which is in the champagne region of France. We started off the visit with a cookie tasting at one of the one of the oldest cookie factories in all of Europe. Next, we had a few hours of free time, but seeing as Reims is really small and it was rainy and cold, my friends and I opted to take a nice long lunch break at a Belgian-style restaurant after visiting the Notre Dame de Reims. After lunch, we had a tour of the Pommery champagne house followed by a champagne tasting.
2. Roommate Weekend: A few weeks after fall break, Riana (my roommate) and I decided to have a roommate weekend. It was super fun! We visited Galeries Lafayette, Bon Marché and the Grand Epicerie. We also visited the Marais and worked on a photo project for one of our classes.
3. Amani's Visit/Thanksgiving: The week of Thanskgiving, my best friend, Amani, came to Paris to visit me! Although I had classes all week and couldn't really see her during the day, we still managed to get in a lot of fun activities together. The first day of her visit, I showed her around the neighborhood in which my school is located.
That Tuesday evening, we went to a Paris Saint-Germain game together. We actually wound up getting separated because our tickets were for seats on opposite sides of the stadium from each other. It was still super fun, though. Oh, and by the way, Paris kicked some Amsterdam butt! ;)
Wednesday, I was feeling pretty sick so, like the wonderful friend that I am, I stayed home and slept after my classes were done. I felt a little bad about it, but we did fun stuff the rest of the time.
On Thanksgiving, Amani and I accompanied one of my IES friends to Montmartre to visit Sacre Cœur and finish up some pics for my photo project.
That night, my program hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for the students and professors at a rather fancy restaurant. It was a great dinner, complete with turkey and sweet potato. Yum! Afterwards, Amani and I accompanied some of my IES friends to an open-mic poetry night at a small, artsy cafe in the Belleville area.
Friday was Amani's last day in Paris, so we made sure to cram in as much as possible. I had a visit to the Maison Européenne de la Photographie with my photography class. Afterwards, Amani and I met up with a small group of IES friends and staff for a guided visit of l'Opéra Garnier, the famous Parisien opera house in which the story of Phantom of the Opera takes place. It was so beautiful and we were both glad to have had the opportunity to see the opera house. After that, we spent some time at the Louvre, mainly focusing on seeing the famous stuff. Then, we climbed up the Arc de Triomphe (my 3rd time doing that this semester) and then walked down the Champs Elysées to explore the Christmas market.
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| The first selfie... |
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| More Opera Garnier |
4. Casse-Noisette at Opéra Bastille: Finally on to this past week! Monday, I found out that I had won free tickets to see the ballet Casse-Noisette, known in English as the Nutcracker (!), at the Opéra Bastille. I was so excited because I've always wanted to see that ballet and I promised myself that I would see at least one type of performance while in Paris, whether it be a ballet, opera, musical, etc.. Opéra Bastille isn't nearly as extravagant as Opéra Garnier, but it is also much newer and more modern. It was still a super cool experience and the ballet was UH-MAZING! (that's definitely how you spell that) Check another thing off of my bucket list!
5. Lille Excursion: Yesterday, my program took a day trip to Lille in the north of France, very close to Bruges. Lille is the region of France where beer, speculoos and maroilles (a type of cheese) is made. The visit began with a guided tour of the original part of the city, which was constructed in the 11th century. The tour was followed by an independent couple of hours in the city, which my friends and I used to get lunch at a small crêperie and explore the Christmas market. Then, we met back up with the IES group and had a private tasting of regional specialties at a small, family-owned shop located on the oldest street in Lille. We got to taste three kinds of French beer, maroilles cheese, sausage and crackers made with said cheese, gingerbread, speculoos cookies, speculoos waffles, French lemonade, and candies made from violet flowers. After feeling like my stomach was going to explode from so much food, it was time to hop on the train back to Paris. And now, here I am, writing to you all about my month of fun stuff. :)
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Maroilles tasting |
Hope you enjoyed the pictures! More to come in these final two weeks :( .
P.S. sorry for the lack of captions on the photos, the site I use decided to be stupid and difficult.
