Jun 2008

Bonjour...So, I've been in Paris for about 2 and a half days so far and it's been pretty great other than the language barrier. Fortunately, unlike us Americans, most people know multiple languages and English happens to be a popular one. The weather has felt like summer...we have finally been able to break out the shorts and dresses and leave the jackets behind. Friday, when we arrived, our professor Danny, Britney and I went to a cafe and ate a late lunch and walked to Notre Dame. Since we walked (and kinda took the long way) we got to see the Seine River, Musee d'Orsay, the Louvre and many other amazing buildings. After that we got some AMAZING gellato in the Latin Quarter which is similar to the French Quarter but for the young crowd. It's a very cool place. We also got to see the gathering fountain that college students supossedly gather around often. We then walked back to the hotel around 7 and because of the long day and month I took a nap and didn't wake up until 11 pm. Then I did a little homework and went to sleep. Saturday, we slept in until about 9 30, went to the Louvre for about 3 hours, ate lunch at another cafe outside to people watch, walked around a few shops, and looked for the catacombs for our scavenger hunt. Unfortunately, by the time we found out where they were, it was closed so we had to postpone it until Sunday. We then visited Frederic Auguste Batholdi's grave for our scavenger hunt. He is who built the Statue of Liberty. After that, we headed back to the hotel to shower and have a mini wine and cheese party in one of the girls' rooms before we went out. We just so happened to be here for the biggest party night of the year. It is at the end of final exams and is a Music festival will small stages with bands all throughout the city. We went back to the Latin Quarter, found a great seat outside a cafe, and watched the night unfold. We left at 2 am with the party still rockin, but we knew we'd have plenty to do the next day. That brings me to today. Alex and I woke up and took the metro to Montmartre and visited the Basilique du Sacre-Coeur which was absolutely beautiful and had a great view at the top of the hill. Then we wandered around the town a little and did some souvenir shopping before heading back to the hotel to meet up with everyone else. We met up and then headed to the catacombs. They were very interesting (although kinda creepy). It took us about an hour in line and about 45 minutes to walk through. It was amazing to see this mass graveyard that someone had actually decoratively arranged bones in the 1800's so that the public could walk through. It had thousands of thousands of human remains which was just astounding to see in person. After that adventure, we headed back to the Latin Quarter for lunch and gellato. Alex and I broke off from the group again and sat for over an hour people watching and eating and talking. I think this has become my favorite part of Paris. It's part of the culture and it's great to just sit back and take in the rest of the world around you. We picked up some more gellaton which was again awesome and took a picture at our last scavenger hunt stop. This is where we called it a day, headed back to the hotel, and I just finished working on our Public Relations presentation that we are giving tomorrow in class! There's so much more to do in the next two days! I'm so excited. I still can't believe I'll be back in Baton Rouge in three days...It just hasn't quite hit me yet!

Auvoir!

Sorry it's been so long but we've been busy and I could never find the chance to write. This also means that this one will be short and probably not as specific as I wish it could be! So last I wrote, we had seen Avenue Q....Friday we had class, picked up some great tickets for a good price to the Lion King and then got a few extra scavenger hunt clues. Lion King was absolutely extravagent and absolutely AMAZING!! The dancing, the singing, the costumes, the props...everything was amazing. During the weekend, we saw the changing of the guards at buckingham palace, had a day trip to see stonehenge and bath (a city with roman baths from the natural hot springs), and did some shopping. This week we have had class a few mornings, visited parliament and westminster abbey, taken a tour of the london tower, taken a trip on the london eye, visited oxford, seen wicked and had high tea, visited JP Morgan's Public Relations department, visited the Prime Meridian in Greenwich, seen the Rosetta Stone at the British Museum, taken the same picture the Beatles took on Abbey Road at 530 AM, seen St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, and of course visited the rest of our scavenger hunt sites. It's been amazing! There are still so many things I want to do in London so i guess I just need to come back soon!! For the next five days while I'm in Paris I won't have any Internet unless I pay for an Internet Cafe so unfortunately I'll just have to write in a word document and then post it when I get home! Pictures are slowly getting up on my PhotoBucket but they'll eventually all be up!! Thanks for coming by again,

Cheers from London!

So, on my birthday yesterday, we packed up our things and took the train to London. After passing by the Kensington Gardens, we pull up to a great looking Columbia Hotel. We moved in and got cleaned up and decided to go out to dinner for a birthday celebration. I decided that I was having sushi withdrawls so we went eat at a place called Yo! Sushi. It was great and a very cool place. The way it worked was that they had different colored plates that were color coated by price. The food was placed on a conveyer belt and went around the large bar that we sat around in the restaurant. Then we picked up some ice cream before heading back to the hotel. While getting ice cream, we discovered the most amazing dessert ever; it's a belgian waffle with ice cream on top...It is AMAZING!!! This morning we had class once again in a great classroom. We had class in the Kensington Gardens. After class, we went pick up tickets to see the musical, Avenue Q and had some lunch. We then went get a picture with Harry Potter's platform 9 3/4 for our scavenger hunt. We also got a picture of the Sherlock Holmes Museum for the scavenger hunt too. After, we met up with the group at the British Library. It was a major chance of a lifetime. We got to see the original Magna Carta, Guttenberg Bible, written lyrics to a variety of Beatles songs, books from Da Vinci and Sir Issac Newton, Mozart, Beethoven, Beowulf manuscript and much more. It was the most amazing experience. It's hard to believe that these renowned, historical people actually touched the documents we got to see. We then went back to the hotel for showers and getting cute for the show. The show was AWESOME. It was funny but had quite interesting topics to talk about. It was a 7 person show and they used puppets and great music and discussed life issues seen in a modern big city. It was set in New York. Now, we are in the hotel and doing some homework. So far, London is GREAT! I'm excited for all that's to come...I know there's a lot to do in this city and it'll be a packed week.

Unfortunately, the past few days we have not had Wifi access because we switched hotels in edinburgh and it's 6 pounds to use 1 hour of internet...in other words $12/hr. which no one obviously wanted to use! Right now I'm in a Burger King so that I could check emails and do a little more research for our school work since we're going to be on a 5 hour bus ride tomorrow and I'll want to get some writing done, so i need some sources. Anyways, this will be a little short because I have a bunch of stuff to get done before leaving BK. In the past few days, we've checked out the National Gallery of Scotland, the Edinburgh Castle, Holyrood Palace along with having class, checking out some stores and going out to Dropkick Murphy's. On Sunday, Elizabeth and I also went to mass at St. Mary's Cathedral and didn't realize that we would be there for a mass not in our language. We aren't sure what it was but we are thinking either Polish or maybe Russian...not really sure but our proffesor informed us that there were a fairly large amount of Polish people around here so that's what we're leaning towards. It was an interesting venture. Everything in this city is so awesome. It's build amazingly and has a great history. I'm so happy we've had a few days here but am also very excited to leave tomorrow for London. (not to mention tomorrow's my birthday!) We'll be there for about 9ish days and hopefully I'll be able to keep this more updated because hopefully we'll have internet that's free!!! Sorry about this being so short...but keep checking out my photobucket album and all it's pictures!

Cheers,
Chelsea

So, we arrived in Edinburgh on Thursday and checked in at the Cairn hotel which is very close to the Royal Mile. After settling in, we headed towards the Royal Mile to check out what's around. We walked through the beautiful park on Princess St. and then went find a bar that our professor suggested. It's called the tron and it's specifically for college students. We picked up some dinner from a cool little place called walkabout...it kind of reminded me of a dave and busters but without so many games. We then took some showers and went back to the Tron! It was a lot of fun and we met a few people and got some interviews for our project. Yesterday we had class in the park and then went check out the shops on Princess St. and had some lunch. Then we took a shower, took a nap and went down to a tour called the city of the dead. It was a haunted graveyard/historical tour. It was pretty cool..but not as fun as it was made out to be. We then went out to a bar called the Three Sisters. It was really big and had a dance floor and we saw about 4 different bachellorette parties and a couple bachelor parties. They like dress up with some type of theme out here. It's pretty interesting and funny all at the same time. The people are quite shameless. We've decided that instead of celebrating my birthday we're going to throw me a bachellorette party and it's gonna be really funny! We figured it would mean free drinks...it could be fun. The bar closed around 1 and so we were back in the hotel by about 145 and we hung out in the lobby for about an hour and 15 minutes and then headed out for our 3 am hike up Authur's Seat to watch the sun rise and see the entirety of Edinbourgh. We were in for quite an adventure. As we were walking towards Calton Hill on our way to the mountain we were to singing Father Abraham and a random guy started singing with us. We started talking and told him we were going up to Arthur's seat and asked for better directions than we already had. Instead of just telling us...he decided to walk with us and be our tour guide up the mountain...it was THE hardest hike i've ever participated in, but soooo worth it. It was absolutely beautiful to see the city from that high and unfortunately we didn't get to see and AMAZING view of the sun rising because of the clouds but it was beautiful. Then we hiked back to the hotel by 6 and slept until noon. We showered, ate lunch, and waited for the group to take the bus to Rosslyn Chapel. It was very cool to see what we saw in the Da Vinci Code live. It wasn't very cool that there was some scaffolding around it but it was still pretty and cool to walk around. There was definately some great sculptures and stained glass. Now, we're just hanging out and most of the group is going out tonight but I'm taking a break to try and get rid of these allergy symptoms and do some homework and get some good sleep! Well, thanks again for coming read!