Nice, France: First Visit to the French Riviera!

This past Friday, January 21, a few of us were ready to GET OUT of the city. Big time. School was being.. well, school, and Paris was being... well, Paris. So we decided to go spend the night in Nice, France! We all had a lot of work to get done so we decided one night was probably for the best.

It was B-E-A-Utiful!

ooooo pretty!

I loved seeing the Mediterranean Sea (my first time.. yay!) and being on the beach.. even though it was covered in rocks... weird.

castle hill in the background

christy and I!

It was kind of cold.. so that part was lame. But it was still so pretty!!! We just kinda walked around... climbed up the hill thats in the background of those pictures... so. many. steps.

stairs we climbed up!

view from the hill.. i love this picture for some reason

more views..

andddd a sunset

We also walked around the old town, which was really pretty. It had all these fun colored buildings which reminded me so much of my mom! She loves beach houses like that..

yay :)

We also went to the Marc Chagall museum which was pretty cool (but on top of another hill..)

and explored the city some more...

random city shots

So Nice was really.. Nice! (had to do it.) I have way more pictures on facebook too if you want to check those out!

In other news.. it is exactly ONE MONTH till my bf comes to visit me! I'm so excited! And I'm also excited for the next month in general.. here is my travel schedule: 

jan 28-feb. 1: florence/pisa

feb. 2-6: athens, greece

feb 10-12: dublin

feb. 18-20: london

feb. 24/25: jay comes.. barcelona 25-27

so. excited. I realized I don't really get much done when I stay here in Paris for the weekends.. so I'm just going to travel as much as I possibly can! (Big shout out to Nance and Bruce for making this all possible .. LOVE YOU!)

Thats all for now! Miss and Love you all!

xoxo,

-A

School Assignment: Pere Lachaise Cemetery

For one of our classes, a class about French architecture and focusing on the house, one of our visits was to Pere Lachaise Cemetery. It is one of the biggest cemeteries in Paris, and many famous people are buried here, such as Jim Morrison (NOT Van Morrison, which I kept saying for days.. whoops).

This was part of our class because the tomb is considered the "forever home" of people. Pere Lachaise was really interesting. The tombs are practically stacked on top of each other and there are multiple people in some of them. One of the was opened and we looked down (creepy, I know) but it went down REALLY far. There are also a great variety of tombs, from huge chapel looking structures to concrete slabs.

graveyard

prettyy

I really like this picture!

sooo big. 

I think you can click to enlarge the picture?

So besides that.. not much else has really been going on. School started back up .. blah. Today we went shopping.. all the sales are happening now but I still think everything here is crazy expensive. Like 40 euros for a t shirt expensive. (and that's after 50% off!!) So I just bought some make up that is illegal in the US. Well, I don't know if its illegal but they just aren't allowed to sell it there. (Lancome Ombre Absolue Eyeshadows if you must know! Love them.)

We also got MACAROONS for the first time. I have NO idea why I have never tried these little delights. SO good. Also really pretty. 

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

yes, yes I did take multiple pictures of my macaroons.

I got Pistachio, Chocolate, Raspberry, Salted Caramel, Red Fruits and Lemon. They were alllll delicious but my favorite was def. the pistachio. Lemon was a close second. Christy got some other flavors which were also good, except the rose one. Oh well. Live and learn I guess!

I also booked tickets to Barcelona for when the best bf ever comes to Paris to visit me! I'm really excited about that and about all the other travel plans we have for this semester (hopefully Nice, France this weekend!!)

xoxo,

-A

Bvlgari Jewels (aka almost getting my camera smashed)

YAY we got to go to the last day of the Bvlgari Jewelry exposition at the Grand Palais! It was in the main hallway under the glass roof so that was pretty cool to see in itself.

yay!!!!

glass roof!

exhibition space

And as far as the actual jewels go.. they were stunning!!! I loved it. Some things I didn't know about Bvlgari Jewelry was that most of the gemstones (so not diamonds) are not facet-cut. They are just polished so that they look shiny, but not sparkly. Really interesting I thought! (I love gemstones. So does my dad.. ask my mom about it!)

Also.. APPARENTLY you are not supposed to take pictures where the actual jewels are. I got caught attempting to do so by a huge security guard and he demanded that I showed him my pictures. Luckily, I flipped quickly through them, so he didn't see anything. YAY for pulling the "dumb American" card!!!

illegal picture

Maybe not worth it though because the pictures I did get were super blury!! oh well. It was fun anyways.

xoxo,

-A

BACK to PARIS!

Hey guys! Sorry I haven't been updating. I was home in Atlanta and also in VA for winter break.

It. Was. Awesome. I had a great time seeing all my favorite people! I got to see my wonderful boyfriend...

adorable. I know.

A lot of friends, and my amazing family! 

awesome Christmas outfits!

Pretty sad I didn't get a whole family picture. Maybe my mother will figure out how to upload them to the computer and email them to me! (doubtful.. sorry mom! love you!)

Anyways, I had a fantastic holiday. My dad even made me a turkey with stuffing for Christmas dinner since I missed Thanksgiving! Best. Dad. Ever. I hope you guys all did too! 

SO I got back to Paris last week. The 3rd of January to be exact. And I have to say, I was not all too excited to come back... I LOVED being home. But, here I am. We were under the impression we would have class on the 3rd, but we didn't. So we just got to hang out and do a bunch of fun things! (also get caught up on Paris time.. and sleep a lot..)

We went to a fantastic place called "Breakfast in America" for dinner. Don't hate. It was delicious. (and perfect for our home-sick-ness)

yummmm

We also tried to go to the Grand Palais on Sunday but the line was ridiculous. So we just walked around, the weather here has been actually really nice! I took a lot of pictures too, surprise surprise. 

hoping that tomorrow we can go to the Bvlgari exhibit! fingers crossed!

champes elysees all lit up! so prettyyy

look at that traffic.. yikes

Yes, that is a ferris wheel next to the obelisk. 

No, we did not ride it. (I wanted to..)

I was reallyyy excited about the champs still being lit up. So fun. 

Today we went to Musee d'Orsay which was really cool. Its a 19th century art museum, and we got to see paintings by Renoir, Monet, Van Gogh and so many others. It was so cool, but we weren't allowed to take pictures inside. LAME because the interior architecture was also quite stunning.

So thats about it for now. I'll try to stay on top of updates (new years resolution?) and facebook pictures! Seriously hoping we can see the Bvlgari jewels tomorrow. 

xoxo,

-A