Week...I Love Emma Watson

It was the night before the Paris excursion and I waltzed into Mitchell’s room to see that we have both packed absolutely nothing yet. I suppose this is typical of us, but nonetheless, we finished packing our clothes, said goodbye to Mandy for a couple weeks and went to sleep.

We woke up the next morning, and somehow arrived to the Hofgarten before the bus left us. After tossing our bags under the bus we clambered in, and we found ourselves in the back, because cool kids sit in the back. We started on our way to Colmar, and next thing I knew, my eyes were opening and we were halfway to Colmar. After a short restroom break, we got back on our way and my eyelids fell shut again. I opened my eyes and we were in Colmar. We unloaded the bus and made our way into Colmar and it was a nice little, quaint town. “Good morning Belle!” was all that was going through my mind. And I suppose Emma Watson was fluttering through my head as well. I fell in love with Emma Watson twice. The first time, Hermione, and the second, Belle. But yes, the quaint French town made me relapse to Beauty and the Beast. It was a really nice day out. The sun was shining and it warmed not only your body but your soul as well. Just being outside at that time felt super refreshing and made me feel warm and bubbly inside. By the time we arrive it was lunch, so we all split up and went food hunting. I joined Camella and Co. at a small faster food place and got a small pastry pizza thing. Due to the fact that we did not have to be waited on, we left with plenty of time to go explore Colmar. We wandered around and they all stopped to get gelato, I wasn’t feeling very gelato-ie at the moment so I passed. We kept on our adventure and eventually stumbled across a bench that was out in the sun, so we took advantage of the nice weather and just sat around for a bit. It was very relaxing just taking in the fresh air and warm sun. It was nearing the time to meet back up so we scurried back to the designated meeting place at the “front” of the town. We then went through a museum, by this time I think I was starting to get all museumed out. And after that we hung around for a bit longer in Colmar, then hopped on the bus to Beaune.

The drive to Beaune was not that bad, well it was long, but because I slept the whole time, it felt reasonable. We arrived in Beaune and dropped our stuff off in the hotel and departed for dinner. It was a nice, quaint French restaurant and the servers were very friendly and kind. More importantly, this was my first experience with escargot. It was brought out in a dish with pits that the escargot was in. They were soaked in melted butter and garlic so I’m not actually sure if I enjoy snail, but this preparation of it was very good. What was also nice was the wine that they brought out for us. We drank wine, ate our main dishes, drank wine, ate our dessert, and drank some more wine. We were about to leave but we were halted by the owner who then talked to us and explained a French traditional post dinner song or something like that. After we all laughed it off we went back to the hotel, some people went out to walk around, some people went to bed, and some of us went to watch a movie in their room. A few of us gather in a room and watched Monuments Men, which was…decent, and then we all went our separate ways and went to sleep. The next morning we got up and approached the Hospices of Beaune, where we learned about medicinal history. After we finished this tour we all split up to adventure around. Mitchell, Katie, Whitney and I all wandered around looking for ice cream. We ended up near our hotel and after we got our ice cream we realized that we did not have much time left until we needed to meet up with everyone so we headed back. However, we had a couple of detours on our way back, which included climbing up wall, ducking under fences and laying down in holes that were on a castle wall. We met back up with the group eventually, and slightly late. We then walked back to the bus and continued our journey to Paris.

After yet another bus ride, we were in Paris. We put our stuff away in our rooms and we proceeded to walk into Shannon’s room to wander out on their balcony. We had around an hour to kill, so Mitchell and I took the liberty to walk around Paris a little bit. By the time we realized that we should head back soon, we realized that we did not know exactly where the hotel was. So, we ran up and down some streets until finally we stumbled across the right street and met back up with everyone. We met our guide Julian and headed out into Paris, more specifically, we went to a crepe restaurant and had some of the best crepes I have ever had. I never imagined having a savory crepe, but it was really good and the dinner crepe was good as well. We then had some free time, so a couple of us decided that we wanted to see the Eiffel tower and other things so we went out and made our way towards the tower. We got to the tower and I was all lit up and shining. Then all of a sudden, it started flashing! We all turned to each other with excited smiles and looked at the tower in awe as it flashed through the night. We walked around the tower to the grassy side, and I ran away from the group to take a picture. Then I hear a voice ask me if I wanted to buy a miniature Eiffel tower, so I declined. This conversation escalated quite quickly, as he then proceeded to offer me cigarettes, alcohol, weed, and finally cocaine. I said no to drugs, are you proud of me mom? To get away from the vendor I ran back to my friends and we continued on our way. We pretty much just walked around not really knowing what we were going towards. After wandering around for a bit we decided to retire and went back to the hotel for some sleep.

           

The next morning we woke up and we were guided around Paris by Julian. We saw the tower again, the Arch, and other significant Paris landmarks. We also had some of the best macarons I have had in my life. After we went around some more, and all met up again to see the Notre Dame. After that we had free time before meeting at the Eiffel tower so Mitchell, Lexie, Austin and I all wandered around. We stumbled across a gift shop where we go in trouble for taking pictures while wearing their stuff. They “forced” us to buy something, so we all got postcards. We all started getting hungry so we headed to a café and had the best stuffed chicken and ratatouille ever. It started getting close to the time we were supposed to meet up, like maybe 30 minutes or so, and we thought that we should start getting ready to go. We look up how to get there, and apparently we wandered a long way so it was about a 50 minute trip. That being said we were late. We did mention that we were going to be late. But when we got to the meeting place no one was there, so we walked around the tower looking for them. Yeah, they kind of forgot to tell us that they went inside. It fine though. It’s not like they could’ve sent a message saying, ”Hey we went inside”, but instead they just got mad at us for being late. Oh well. That’s over so it doesn’t matter anymore. We managed to cut our way back to our friends and rejoined the group. We made our way to the top and it was nice. The view was cool and all the lights were out and the city was glowing. We took all of our pictures and then decided to head down. We however wanted to take the stairs so we went down to the middle of the tower and we took the stairs down. As we were heading down the tower, the lights started flashing and it looked so cool from our perspective, inside of the tower. We got to the base of the tower and we ended the night.

The next day was the Louvre day. We all gathered, once again. And headed out. Again. All together. We got to the Louvre and we split into two groups and toured around. We saw art of all sorts, from sculptures, to paintings. We then made our way to the infamous Mona Lisa. It was super, super, super… overhyped and underwhelming. For all that it is hyped up to be, it is just a portrait of a women. There is not much to it, and it is not even large, or abstract, or weird. It is normal, and once again, overhyped. However, we did see an older man sketch a wonderful drawing of a painted man. The speed and accuracy at which he sketched was amazing and it was one of the best parts of the Louvre for me. This was however because how we were toured, it was kind boring and we also had to leave after a couple hours and we did not get to explore it on our own. Anyways, we then got the chance to do what we wanted to, so a few of us went to a place that I don’t remember the name of, but it was on top of a hill and it had a really nice view. The only problem is that it was really, really, really windy and everything was just blowing around. We visited a church and some shops and just wandered Paris some more. We then made it back to the hotel and had to finish up math homework, which was a terribly awful was to end our day.

Today was Versailles day. We got there and the palace was massive. And gorgeous. And I assume super expensive. We got to handle the tour ourselves so I just wandered around room by room until I got to the end. The palace was magnificent and super over the top, but I suppose that’s how most palaces are. The grounds were really nice too even though not everything was blooming yet. After our touring time we all gathered and had a huge “picnic” – I say “picnic” because we were eating inside – full of bread, meat, and cheese. It was really filling. We “learned” how to properly eat like French, but everyone knows that the French are just pompous and have a superiority complex, so I did not bother remembering any of it. After eating we all gathered for our final picture and headed back to the hotel to gather our things. This was the first-time Mitchell and I split ways to travel, so it was kinda weird. My travel group made our way to the airport, and boarded our place and to Venice we went.