le petite palais fountain and sculpture gardens (with my friend sarah pretending to be a sculpture)



leaving le petite palais to go to the louvre




salvador dali museum

my home base

for five weeks i shared a tiny little apartment with three other fabulous girls. we had one bedroom, a living room, bathroom, and the kitchen was a part of the hallway. despite our cramped accomodations, we had an absolutely fabulous time living together in paris.


this is the view from my balcony.









the tiny closet that i shared with one other girl for 5 weeks, with only five hangers for the two of us.




this is the boulangerie across the street that i went to all the time. they had the best baguettes ever.

keep checking back!

hello all!
i have not updated this in a looooooong time (i can't get wireless access at my hostel, so i'm at an internet cafe and can't upload pics). regardless, i have just spent a fantastic week in london meeting up with old friends and making new ones. today is my last day in london. once again, my jet-setting dad is in the same country as me, so i get to see him today! how exciting!

my flight back home is early in the morning, so i'll be back in the great state of colorado in the blink of an eye. the past month and a half that i've been gone has positively flown by, but it has been a fabulous experience and has once again sparked my travel-bug.

keep on checking back in, as i'll update this site within the next few days and upload pictures so you can see my adventures too!

carnival!

Parisian carnivals are a blast!!

in the tuileries gardens of the louvre, there is a huge carnival set up with all kinds of rides and games and food.



it was fabulous!! we rode the ferris wheel at night and when we got to the top, all of Paris was lit up and sparkling beautifully. what a treat!




this was actually one of the most fun things i have been to in Paris!

dad, this pic is for you. we went to an art nouveau house and the facade was absolutely gorgeous.

this picture is taken inside of the catacombs. we took a tour of the catacombs which stretch underground the majority of the left bank of paris. they are massive, beautiful, and so peaceful, not creepy like i was expecting.

of course, we had to go to notre dame cathedral. it was kind of anti-climactic as there were thousands of people there. we were herded through the church en masse.

i love going to the old churches here just so sit and think and look at the fabulous architecture. notre dame was beautiful, but it had a much different feel to it, as it seemed more commercialized and busy than the other churches i've gone to. still, it was a fabulous place to go (2 blocks away from st. chapelle also. gorgeous).

monet

on wednesday, i went to giverny, france to visit monet's house and his gardens. i got to explore his lilly pad ponds, gardens, took a tour through his house, and hung out in his town. there is an adorable little church in giverny, where monet is buried in the cemetary behind (where lots of sheep also hang out).

being in such a beautiful old town makes me think of growing up in my town in england. i thought i was only a city girl, but being here, i could definately see myself living in the country (for a bit). how beautiful is this!

saturday june 16th

on saturday, rea and i went to the Arc d'Triomphe. it is absolutely gigantic! so much bigger than i ever thought! we had to go through an underground pass to get to it, as you would otherwise have to risk your life trying to dodge the oncoming cars. for a fee, you could take the stairs all the way to the top for a fantastic view of the city (which we didn't do, because it would be so much cooler to see the city at night with the lights than it would be during the day).



(the pic above this is rea at the Arc)


(yes, this is me in front of one of the sides of the Arc d'Triomphe. it really is that big)



eventually, we left to walk around the Champs-Elysees. high-end stores line the road... you can even buy a car from one of their boutiques! we stopped in to see a movie at one of the theaters (which turned out to not be as good as we were hoping). it is called "Coeurs Perdus" (broken hearts) with John Travolta and James Gandolfini. it is one of the most graphic, violent movies i have seen in a while. it was a riot to see the movie with french subtitles and to know that the majority of the people in the theater didn't know what the actors were saying without the subtitles. the theater itself only had about 20 seats, and we had to go down a back staircase to reach our theater, which would have been a complete fire hazard in america, but the french don't seem to mind that kind of thing.

we caught a late metro back to our 14th arrondisement after the movie.




(yes, these trees on the Champs-Elysees are acutally square.)