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

DONE with Fall Semester!

So we had our final review today. Well. Final Review until we get back and have another one January 6. But whatever. WERE DONE! and now its winter break!! These past few weeks have been suppeerrrr crazy. Getting snowed in in Scotland, then coming back for finals. Yikes!

For our visual arts class, our final was an art exhibition. The project was to make an installation piece somewhere in Paris. It was a pretty cool experience. Heres a few shots:

all of our etching plates

my instalation

(parc plante: text is random peoples thoughts.. kind of controversial but people loved it)

ali karimis project

pauls project

jacks project

So we are done with school. and I can't stress that enough! I'm going to Atlanta tomorrow.. aka this time tomorrow I'll be with the best boyfriend everrr! can't wait. While Christmas shopping though, the Galleries Lafayette were deckeddd out and looked so fantastic!

prettyyyyy

yayyy christmas!

Also.. its been snowing in Paris!! 

viewww from my window! blizzard

Well, thats all for now! See you tomorrow, USA!!!!

xoxo,

-A

Scotland Trip!! aka too much snow

So this is kind of late.. it IS finals week. So, obviously the best time to post on my blog. Procrastination at its finest!

So, two weekends ago, Jack, Zane, Christy and I went to SCOTLAND! We flew into Edinburgh and took the train to Glasgow the day after Thanksgiving to visit some friends, Jennifer and Lisa, who are studying there. They cooked a FANTASTIC thanksgiving feast for us!

YUM.

all the Georgia Tech kids!! love it.

We went out that night and it was SNOWING!! I love Christmas time too because all the little european cities turn into CHRISTMAS CITIES! (And I just love Christmas in general. duh.)

rando in the back.. but SNOW! 

The next day we took the train back to Edinburgh and went to the castle. It was SO pretty!

oh you know, just hanging out at castles. standard.

view from castle

flat christy and alyssa! 

if you never had a "flat stanley" you wouldn't get it.

We also went on a Scotch whiskey distillery tour.. which was cool

largest whiskey collection in the world.. its also like 3 times this big.

Then we walked around.. like I said.. little Christmas towns!

yay!

We also went on a ghost tour! which was kind of cool.

The next morning we were supposed to leave at 8 am.. but then got snowed in!!!

woohooo!

And then were snowed in.. for 3 more days.... whoops. It would have been cool except we had to spend most of the day at the airport trying to get out and didn't get to see more of the city except at night!

view from Carlton Hill in Edinburgh!

So, Jack and Zane ended up taking a train to London and from London to Paris on Monday night, and I got a flight out of Glasgow Tuesday evening, and Christy got a flight out of Glasgow Wed. night! So that was pretty hectic.

But I LOVED Scotland. I really would like to go back in the spring.. when it is not snowing!

In other news. I'm going back to Atlanta Friday!!! I'm so excited. and VA shortly after that! Can't wait to be back home and see all my favorite people :)

xoxo,

-A

happy thanksgiving!!!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the US! I'm so thankful to be here and so thankful for my awesome family, wonderful friends, and amazing boyfriend :) I do have to admit I'm a little sad to not be home for Thanksgiving.. first time away in 22 years! yikes! I miss everyone but am grateful to be in PARIS! (and my dad promised to make me a turkey for Christmas! Thanksgiving is ONLY my favorite holiday..)

Anyways. So this past weekend we went to Rotterdam and Amsterdam and took a bus tour of some other cities; Utrecht, Delft, and around the country side. It was amazing!! We stayed at these crazy looking hostels in Rotterdam..

So the first day, we had to ride BIKES. I was seriously scared to death that I wouldn't be able to ride (if you know about the infamous "ride bikes home from the bar story" you know why!), but turns out I was ok at it. The bikes were super tall so starting and stopping wasn't super graceful, but my feet didn't even touch the ground!

woo bikes!!

We toured around Rotterdam.. which was pretty cool. Its a unique city in the fact that after WWII, they were so severely bombed, they just wiped the city flat instead of trying to restore it. As a result there are a lot of crazy modern buildings and sometimes you feel like its a cartoon, but somehow, it works.

van nelle factory built in the 1920's (crazy right! looks so modern) 

tobacco and coffee factory.. now is rented out to whoever wants it!

old Rotterdam (boat town!) 

Amsterdam and Rotterdam were both founded as cities because they were ports.. and are both basically build on top of water

Kunsthal by Koolhaas in Rotterdam

We went to Utrecht on both day 1 and day 2.. first to the old city and to see the Rietveld-Shroder house and museam...

Rietveld-Shroder House. No pictures allowed inside which is such a shame because it is SO COOL. Everything is operable and it just all works so well. Built in the 1920's so it was wayyy ahead of its time. 

old city of Utrecht.. 

its actually above sea level! notice how low the canals are to the houses!

Rietveld's Red-Blue chair

We also visited the University of Utrecht's campus. It was pretty neat.

Koolhaas' Student Center

library.. oooooo. pretty!

We also went into Amsterdam, but only for a few hours. Amsterdam was similar to Rotterdam, but prettier. There was a really cool architectural project there that I liked a lot. A strip of apartments was given to various architects and they were given a set of requirements (have 4 floors, a garden, etc.) and the result is actually quite beautiful. These apartments sell for millions apparently. 

this is only half of them.

Overall, the trip was awesome; we got to hang out with some of the French kids in our class too so that was fun. As always, I have tons more photos on facebook so check them out!

Tomorrow morning, Christy, Jack, Zane and I are going to Glasgow and Edinburgh, Scotland, for the weekend! Super excited about that. 

And in 14 days, 23 hours, 41 minutes and 49 seconds I'll be back to the United States! Crazy how fast this semester has gone.

Miss and love everyone and hope everyone had super delicious meals!!!

xoxo,

-A