Easter Weekend in Paris!

This blog is not going to have many pictures because my internet won't load pictures very well right now. 

Easter weekend in Paris was amazing! Although I did miss everyone back home. I might have finally gotten a little bit homesick that weekend. So Friday (April 6th) afternoon, Lauren and I set off to find a park that's by our foyer. It's called "Parc Montsouris" and it's beautiful! It's more natural than the Jardins around here, so I like it of course. 

On Saturday, April 7th, I went with my Swedish friend from school, Mathilda, to the Pompidou Museum! It was really cool! Although it's a lot bigger than I thought so we didn't get all the way through. After about a half and hour, we just went straight up to the top because it's supposed to have a great view of Paris. And it really does!

On Easter Sunday some of my friends and me went to the International Easter service in the Notre Dame! The line to get in was REALLY long! The picture below shows it. See all those people? Yea that was the line, and it kept going past that photo! But it was a nice day, so I didn't mind.

Me standing on point zero, aka, the middle of Paris!

I couldn't take an Easter without deviled eggs! So I went out and bought stuff for them! Although the only mustard they had was Dijon, so they had quite a kick to them! (Dijon mustard's spicy!) Not quite as good as back home, but it's the best I could get!

So that was roughly what I did Easter weekend! 

And today is actually the beginning of my 2 week spring break!! So don't be expecting me to blog again until the beginning of May because I won't have access to internet and I'm backpacking it up like a pro, so I definitely won't have room to haul my laptop all over Europe! I'm going to Florence, Rome, Munich, Berlin, Galway (Ireland), and Dublin!!

Wish me luck and I'll talk to you soon! :)

Nantes, France

I'm still playing catch-up, but I'm getting closer!

So last weekend, Anna and I went to Nantes, France to hang out with our friend from high school studying abroad there for the weekend. 

We arrived at the Nantes train station at about 10am Saturday, March 31st. Chelsea (our friend) met us and we walked to our hotel. Apparently that weekend was Carnival de Nantes, and there were a ton of little tents and stands selling clothes, trinkets, you name it, everywhere. It was a huge market! Once we got settled in, we walked around a bit. We went through one of Nantes' big famous churches (I forgot the name).

Our hotel room (with Chelsea in it)

After we wandered around the church/Nantes a bit, we met up with some of Chelsea's friends from her program, bought some picnic stuff and went down to the grassy area outside the moat of the castle in Nantes. It was a beautiful day for a picnic by a castle! 

After our picnic by the castle, Chelsea took us on a tour of the castle! I'm glad I got to see it because I'm not sure if I'm going to make it to any of the other Loire Valley Castles...

Then we walked around another church, Cathedrale de Nantes. This one has been recently renovated because it caught on fire and was also bombed in the past. 

We walked through a Japanese Garden a bit before going to a Creperie for dinner. You order a dinner crepe (in this region of France it's called a Gallette)  and then a sugar crepe for dessert. You're also supposed to drink a cider drink with it, so of course, we did. :) It was all wonderful!

For desert I got an apple crepe with vanilla ice cream and some sort of ginger bread

Chelsea got a flambeed crepe! It looked cool, but I didn't like the bit I got very much.

Sunday:

We slept in and had a lazy Sunday morning, which was much needed and appreciated. When we finally got out and about, we had another picnic on a grassy area by the river that runs through Nantes. It was a little chilly so we went into the Museum of Natural History for a bit. I really enjoyed that of course.

Where we had lunch

Hedwig and friend!

They also had a great sea shell collection

We set off to find a parade in the middle of the afternoon. We stopped for coffee then churros dipped in nutella on the way to finding a spot. Unfortunately, a fire started across the street from us, so the parade got re-routed. Since we just found the parade the first time by happy coincidence, so we didn't have any idea how to find it the second time. 

Churros with Nutella! Yum!

This is what we saw from our spot

Since we didn't know where to go for the parade after we got cleared out because of the fire, so we went back to the hotel to hang out a bit. Anna's mom had sent Chelsea's birthday present with Anna... Champage! So we decided to pop it open. Only... When Chelsea popped it open... 

It sprayed all over Anna and her bed! HAHA!

Aren't we smart?

We went to a sushi place for dinner (which was delicious!) And then we went to another Creperie for desert. This crepe was my favorite: caramel syrup and vanilla ice cream, with walnuts on top!

Monday:

We walked over to a park across the street from the train station to see some goats before we left Nantes!

Tree in the park with weird plant spheres on it...

Pretty yellow poppies!

This time we made it on the train not sweaty and with time to spare !