However, on May 12th we had our 'cena de despedida' (goodbye dinner) on a rooftop of a hotel overlooking the Cathedral. Absolutely gorgeous views!! It was definitely a hard night though because I had to say goodbye to nearly all of my friends. Everyone was leaving either the next morning or within a few days. Honestly, I never expected to get so close with so many people over a period of 4 months but I definitely did, and I miss them all SO much now that they're not here. Fortunately, most of them go to UW-Madison so we will be reunited soon enough :-) Below are some pictures with my friends and one of my Professors:
PARIS!!!
So that party was Thursday night, and I left bright and early Friday morning for a weekend in Paris :-)
We arrived and got settled in and by 4pm we were ready to head out and start sight-seeing! We started out by heading to the Louvre because it was free for people under 26 on Friday afternoons/evenings. I'm not a huge art person, but I did enjoy seeing some of the classic pieces like the Mona Lisa!
After visiting the Louvre we walked down Champs de Elysees, which is one of the main shopping streets in Paris, to the Arc de Triomphe. We didn't go up in the Arc de Triomphe because we planned to do that with Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower and we figured that would be sufficient, but it was very cool to see it!
That night we were exhausted from traveling all day so we went back to the hotel and planned to get up real early the next morning. We started out Saturday by getting supplies for a picnic to have lunch in front of the Eiffel Tower. So we bought a large baguette, cheese, lunch meat, stopped at a bakery for some fresh pastries, and of course had some champagne. We went and sat and ate French food and drank French champagne while sitting in front of the Eiffel Tower...perfect start to our Saturday! We ended up going up in the Eiffel Tower right after eating and although the line was fairly long it was worth it in my opinion.
After our trip up the Eiffel Tower we took the train out to the Palace of Versailles. We were originally planning to go into the palace, but upon learning that it was 15 euro and we'd only have 3 hours, we chose to just go through the gardens. The gardens were one of my favorite things we did while in France. They were so beautiful and we ended up going during the music and fountain show, so all of the fountains were going and they had hidden speakers throughout the gardens so you heard it everywhere, it was magical :-) I would highly suggest that if you're planning to visit the gardens, you do so during the afternoon when the fountains are on.
That night we went up in one of the tallest skyscrapers in Paris to get a view of the city at night. Unfortunately, the outdoor part was being remodeled so we could only stay inside to take pictures so they didn't turn out very well. This was a little bit of a disappointment but it was cool to see the city lights at night, and of course the Eiffel Tower.
The next morning, we went to the Luxembourg Gardens to walk around. We were warned that there would be scattered showers throughout the day but being the truly intelligent people we are, we both forgot our umbrellas :-/ So, our walk through the gardens was spoiled half-way through and we had to take shelter in the area with all the trees. On the bright side, the park was beautiful and we found the miniature Statue of Liberty.
After the gardens we walked to the Musee D'orsay. Photography isn't allowed within the museum so I unfortunately have no photos of this. However, I highly recommend it! The building itself is a train station that they converted to a museum so it's really open and bright and the detail on the ceiling is beautiful. I enjoyed this museum more than the Louvre because it had a lot of Monet and I love his work!
We ventured to Notre Dame after the museum. Definitely a beautiful cathedral inside and out. We took the time to climb up it to see the gargoyles, which was my favorite part of it. I'll be honest, after being in Sevilla and having the third largest cathedral in the world here, I found Notre Dame a little less exciting. That being said, the gargoyles made up for the cathedral itself in my opinion!
The last stop on our agenda was the Eiffel Tower at night to celebrate my friends 21st birthday! We went out for dinner and got crepes with cheese, sausage and egg...yummmmy...and then made our way to the tower to make it in time for the light show! Of course, we stopped to get crepes with nutella and banana :-) And so we sat in front of the Eiffel Tower eating crepes and drinking champagne. Pretty good end to our adventure I'd say!
So, with these pictures I end my incredibly long and much overdue blog post! As it has taken me so long to actually do this post, there are only 5 days left until I come home. I honestly feel like I'm living in a dream right now and cannot believe I come home so soon!! Starting to think that leaving from study abroad is the dictionary definition of bittersweet, because although Madison is my true home, Sevilla has felt like home for me as well over the past 4 and a half months.
I'm going to go on a picture taking spree the day before I leave so I'm sure I'll be posting those...but who knows, by that time I may be able to show all of you when I'm standing next to you :-)
Hope all is well, can't WAIT to see you all!!!
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