Paris, France

We had a very successful trip to Paris! Everything we wanted to do we did. It was so fun! 

The first day in Paris we went the the Louvre. The Louvre is ginormous! There are so many different painting, sculptures and other pieces of art that you can see. You could easily spend a whole day, or longer in there. I am not the biggest art fanatic, so I actually was very overwhelmed by how many people were there. Luckily, I was with a group that their main focus was to see the Mona Lisa and that was about it. After the Louvre we went to the Love Lock Bridge. All of us were able to put our lock on the bridge and lock away our love...even though I still have no clue to whom that will be, it was still fun to do! After the Love Lock Bridge we traveled to the Arc de Triomphe. Even though there was some construction going on on one side of the arc, it was still beautiful! Then we quickly went and bought some macaroons and went to the Eiffel Tower! Obviously I could see it while we were exploring the rest of the city during that day, but this was the first time I got to see it up close! Funny side note: While we were going to the Eiffel Tower we wanted a cool video of us standing underground as the Metro drove by and have all of our hair fly around. This sounds lame, but Mikyla was going to make a video of the trip, so we thought this would be a perfect addition to the video. We were probably standing there for a good five or six minutes and right when we heard the train come we were ready, but it definitely failed. An old man decided to stand right in front of Mikyla's camera and block all of us, then he preceded to cut us off so he could get on the train. He was completely oblivious to this all, but we got a good laugh out of it. This story might have been a "you had to be there" kind of thing. But I promise you it was hilarious. Anyway back to the Eiffel Tower... I loved the Eiffel Tower, so obviously we had a photo shoot in front of it. This was not the one and only time we went to the Eiffel Tower, we went back pretty much every night so that we could see it "sparkle". After the Eiffel Tower we had a fireside with the Paris YSA Ward. Professor Hill was the one that put this whole thing on, it was really good! Once we were done at the fireside we headed to Notre Dame and the Sacre Coeur cathedral. Then at night we went and hung out by the Eiffel Tower to enjoy the sparkling lights.

The next day, we had a business meeting with Disneyland Paris to learn about the history of Euro Disney. After our business visit we were able to spend the day at Disneyland Paris. It was a different experience at Euro Disney then at the Disneyland in Anaheim that I am used to, but it was still fun! But it did rain while I was on the Autopia ride, and I was not prepared for it.. I did not have my rain jacket on me, it was with one of my friends in the car in front of me. So for about five minutes I had to enjoy the rain beating down on me during this ride. It was awesome. And I looked really good after it..

Our last day in Paris was so amazing! We were able to walk around and go shopping through the city. We were able to get crepes. Crepes are unreal. I was in love. After our pretty relaxed morning a group of us decided to jump on the train to go to Versailles. The only person from our group that did not come with us was Rachel Swendsen, I'll get to that story after Versailles. When we got to Versailles, Carly Davis and I wanted to reenact a statue, but we had to find the perfect statue. We of course needed someone to take our picture so Zoe came along with us. The only problem with us doing this was that we lost our group we were with, and we honestly had no clue where they were. This was a problem on our study abroad because once you lost someone for the day, you couldn't contact them by just texting them because none of us had a plan, so we could only communicate through wifi. But Carly, Zoe, and I decided to make the best of it and just have fun. I don't know why this came about but we decided to do jump on each other's backs and make a three person tower (don't worry we were able to capture this wonderful moment in pictures). Right as we started doing this we ran into the rest of our group, which we were totally pumped about. Once we were done at Versailles it was time to go back and meet up with Rachel. We had a specific place to meet up with her. Once we got to where we said we were going to meet, we were looking for her everywhere and could not find her! Finally after about five minutes, Rachel comes running up in a completely different outfit then when we left her. She basically went on a shopping trip by herself and got everything brand new. And by everything I mean all the way from her shoes, socks, pants, top, scarf, and even a new lipstick. She looked like she totally fit in. Her story behind it all was hilarious. One thing that we all learned from this study abroad is that Rachel is one of THE BEST story tellers ever. After meeting up with her we went back to the Eiffel Tower for one last time. Paris was amazing! One of my favorite places for sure.