my avoir Paris

It has now been a whole week that I have been loafing around my Georgia home and I have to say that this vacation to America has been really nice, but I am kind of wondering when I am going to be going back to Paris, that's my new home isn't it?

But, I guess I have to settle back into normal life now (for at least the short amount of time that I am home). Though, having been separated from my time in Paris for a little while now I've had the opportunity to reflect a small dose. I have broken up my 2012 into three parts: 1. Paris-all about me 2.India- all about serving others and forgetting about me 3.Provo- figuring out how to find balance in the two. So really if you have read the book "Eat, Pray, Love" then my year is much like the character in that novel.

I can't say that letting go and choosing to give myself everything I wanted was too hard for me. Indulgence is easy. I ate everything I wanted (and probably a little more), I didn't even pack my tennis shoes, I slept in, only had a few classes, didn't hesitate to make some fun purchases, and went anywhere I could every chance I got. Life was hard. But I think that I needed it. A little bit of time to set aside all the craziness (figuring out "what I'm doing with my life," taking classes, dating, making plans) and just focus on what I wanted, and what I needed.

So how am I going to carry this over into my life? Obviously my wallet, my physical fitness, etc. would be doing rather poorly if I lived like this for much more than I did, but it made me realize how important it is to set everything else aside every once in a while. My Fall semester was really insane, I didn't take any time for myself, and instead drowned in my crazy schedule, along with all the craziness around me. If I had maybe just stopped here and there, and focused on me, not the future me who I can get crazy stressed about, but the now me who needs a little time to herself, then I might of been able to get a better handle on things.

So since you have had to read through my blog posts for 3 months about all my me time, I am right here giving you permission (and in fact insisting) that you take a me day at least once this summer where you get whatever you want. If you are familiar with the show "Parks and Recreation" they call it a "Treat Yourself Day." So, go do it! Have a treat yourself day. You deserve it.

In honor of the City of Lights, the most perfect city I know of, a song (Ellie Goulding: Lights) and some pictures from my last days in Paris...

A lovely view from a little part of Paris that I am sad I discovered so late.

The view from the top of Eiffel Tower. It may have taken us 4 hours in a line, on a surprisingly cold April Monday, but we made it up. It was so cool picking out all the sights that we had become familiar with and get a better feel for how Paris is all planned out.

After a boat cruise as a last hurrah for the whole study abroad group, a few of us went to ride the carousel next to the Eiffel Tower.  Seriously though? Carousels and the Eiffel Tower= to of my absolute favorite things.

And on our very last night we went to see Paris's classiest lady sparkle one more time. Nothing but magical.

paix. amour. et Paris 

my extra day

Rejoice! We have a leap year on our hands which means a whole extra day to enjoy my year and celebrate a fantastic life. I absolutely love holidays. Any reason to find a little extra joy in life is ok with me. Me and some other girls decided that when in Paris, there is no better way to ring in our supplementary day than by dressing up French (horizontal stripes, berates, and mustaches of course). And, to make our day truly Parisienne we ate crepes for lunch, and finished off our day by leaping by the Eiffel Tower. Four years from now when I look back at my last leap day. I think I will be pleased.

Me and my blondies McCall and Sydney. With mustaches whipped out of course. 

leaps for leap day!

do you have any idea how hard it is to capture three people all leaping at once??

paix. amour. et leaps



p.s. excuse my dust while I am working on reformatting my blog! some of the moving around I've been doing has messed up formatting in previous posts, so just pretend like they look good....I really like to make you work with your imagination here, huh?

my extra update...cause I forgot some stuff in the last one...

Somehow I completely forgot to mention that I took a group trip to Chartres on Friday! How did I possible forget this?? Well, the whole group jumped on the train for an hour ride (I had every intention of reading my book the whole time, but luckily my group is so fun, that I couldn't help but chat instead. woops.) Chartres is an adorable town home to Chartres Cathedral which was the true attraction of our groups visit. We got to take in the gorgeous stain glass windows with the help of two private tours from Malcolm Miller, famous for his studies  at Chartres and his lectures that he gives. I had previously enjoyed a tour from him with the fam a few years ago when we visited, and I either learned a ton more...or forgot what I had learned last time. I've seen a lot of cathedrals in my time, ya gotta excuse me every once and a while when I get confused.

in case your wondering how big this guy is...I'm that little dot up that little person on the top of the steps. But, I don't know I'm pretty small so maybe that doesn't say much.

Well, as a bonus treat my friend from high school Keith Thompson is studying abroad in Tours, France right now and was in Paris for the weekend, so we got to hang out for a few hours and take in some Paris sights together. 

Naturally we started by meeting under the Eiffel Tower...

And then made our way over to the Arc de Triumph at the end of the Champs-Elysee ..

and then climbed up to the top! 

It took us a little while to get this picture, because we had to creep on other people's conversations  until we could find someone speaking French or English..I just don't even know what languages half the people up there were speaking. Darn tourists...

Then we ended with some hot chocolate to warm up after nearly freezing to death . It's getting seriously cold here.

Welp, there you have it. I thought about waiting till next Sunday to post this stuff, but then I realized so much else would probably happen before then!

paix. amour. et warming hot chocolate

my life in France

Honestly can't believe that I have been here for a whole week and at the same time I feel like I have been here for forever. But, here a few things that I have learned about Paris so far...

1. bring an umbrella. apparently the sun doesn't shine in Paris in the winter

2. a map is a necessity at all times. I probably spend about 60% of my time lost or just blindly following other people...who are sometimes lost

3. treat yourself to something absolutely delicious everyday...you're in Paris. why not?

4. apple cider is an alcoholic drink here...my roommate learned that the hard way. hahahaha. don't worry she realized before she drank too much. even the program director got a good laugh out of that one. 

5. Sometimes its ok to just chill in a cafe for the afternoon, sipping hot chocolate and reading. You don't have to go go go all the time when you are going to be here for 3 months. 

Well...you probably wan't to see some pictures huh? Theses are pretty much all the same ones from facebook, but maybe I can give some better commentary on them here.

who doesn't want to just casually stroll by the Eiffel Tower when they are walking around? nbd.

obviously we have had to have some photo shoots

Macaroons. One of those things you have to treat yourself to.

this is my train station that. Its about 7 mins walking from my house and 20 mins to ride into the city

this is the Hotel de Ville. One of my classes is Paris Walks, which pretty much just gets us to go to various places around the city and has us do little mini readings on them so we know what we are seein. 

this is me and my roommate Phoebe (love her). this was also part of one of our Paris walks 

Notre Dame...I hate that I think of that horrible Disney movie when I see this place. Haha

In this picture is Me, Sydney, McCall, Rebecca, Christina, Brooke, Hilary, and Phoebe. Love every single one of um. So lucky to have such a perfect group to enjoy such an incredible city with.

this is the Palais du Justice. It's kind of like America's Supreme Court.

Well, this is basically what I have been up to. I hate to give you a boring play by play of what is going here, but I'm still not quite sure what exactly to post about because there is so much going on and so much that happens in a week (I might have to start posting more!). So really if there is anything that you are interested in hearing about let me know (blog comment, facebook, e-mail...you know where I am) and I would love to post about it!!

paix. amour. et getting lost