J'adore Paris: A preview

Paris has long been my city... I mean that in the sense that I have been obsessed with Paris and French culture since I could remember. Having studied French since the 10th grade and not putting my French to use was always a hard thing for me, but since I am now on this side of the world, going to France is easy and realistic. It's also fun to force myself to speak and understand the language. It makes me happy when I can carry a conversation! 

Rach has been to Paris many times, but agreed to come along. In early March, we set off for three fantastic days in Paris. We stayed at this CUTE hotel named Hotel Allegro Paris. It had been recently remodeled and looked quite posh. We loved it! Again, our luck worked for us as this hotel was located along the 1 Metro (which is where every touristic spot is located, basically).

Rach was a sport and came along to the Louvre. I had seen only a small portion of it on my last Paris trip and loved revisiting it. My only real disappointment is that Madonna of the Rocks (which I completely missed last time) was on loan to the DaVinci exhibit at the National Gallery... in London. Go figure. I also saw Venus de Milo for the first time, or, as Michael likes to call her "The Naked Lady with No Arms." Studying in my program at school really has me thinking about the paradox of low-brow v. high-brow art, and what Walter Benjamin refers to as "the loss of aura" of an art work. As these pieces are housed in the Louvre, they are exposed to people from all corners of the world. There's a lot of theory to consider in that argument, but it was so interesting to visit one of the greatest museums in the world with that knowledge. It was insane to see people walk past a piece of art and not even realize what they were looking at!!! Every time someone did something like that, I wanted to pull them by the arm back to the piece and explain to them what was in front of their eyes. Ungrateful tourists...

We were also able to visit Musee de l'Orangerie which houses several of Monet's best. I had seen Monets in the past, but never so many under one roof. I about fell over. I was in impressionist heaven. We did a few other touristy things like hanging out in the Jardin des Tuileries, shopping along Champs d'Elysees, eating baguettes, visiting the Eiffel Tower, l'Arc de Triomphe, and the Opera Garnier. I ABSOLUTELY love theatres. I love sitting in theatres and visiting when a show is not going on. Visiting the Opera house was fun, but also disappointing because I missed out on seeing the auditorium... again. One of the highlights of the trip was visiting Euro Disney. I believe I'm just missing Asia now... 

Again... I really need to stop relying on Rach to serve as my photographer. She also has the best Paris photos, but here are a few shots detailing my love affair with Paris.

cutest hotel room of all time

Winged Victory as gorgeous as ever

The Grand Gallery in the Denon Wing

There she is again!

No words. AMAZING.

The naked lady with no arms!

Eros & Psyche

I need this, s'il vous plait. 

GORGEOUS. I love, love, LOVE the Louvre and the history behind it all. 

Rach inside the Napoleonic Apartments in the Richelieu Wing.

Taking a bit of a break at the Jardin de Tuileries. 

Musee de l'Orangerie. 

We named this Michael and Alex. Ask me if I remember it's real name or who painted it? I do not.

LOVED this shot. I took this outside Musee de l'Orangerie looking out to Place de la Concorde.

A compilation of a gorgeous day spent in Paris.

Hilarious really. Since when is Big Thunder Mountain so thrilling? Or terrifying (in Racheal's case)?

Worst photo ever? Yes. Are we great at this? Yes again.

Beauty!

The light show

Opera Garnier. It is such an amazing theatre house. 

No wonder Andrew Lloyd Weber found so much inspiration here!

As close as I got to Notre Dame. No way in HELL was I going to climb to the top again... Maybe next time and if it is absolutely the first thing I do. This was taken at the end of day 3... by that point, I was pretty much dead. 

More to come!

Prague

A few months ago Racheal and I decided that we really wanted to go on a trip with the boys (read: the boys= our friends Michael and Alex). We assigned them the task of choosing a place, and for several reasons, Racheal and I ended up being the only ones going, even though going to Prague was their idea.

I LOVED Prague. It was absolutely freezing. It was probably the worst weather that I've experienced (probably EVER). It wasn't raining or snowing, it was just bitterly cold. I am sure we looked foolish sporting as many as 5 layers, leg warmers over our jeans, gloves, hats, scarves of all kinds...

We were there January 31-February 3 and spent all of our time right in the heart of Prague. We stayed at this gorgeous hotel called Hotel Caesar Palace. It did not house a casino, as one might think... It was very centrally located, and provided walking access to all the major tourist spots that my sweet friend Emron had highlighted for us (Emron served his mission in Prague and shared his Google Prague map and insider knowledge).

We spent a lot of time walking around, looking inside shops, feasting on both Czech and 'American' food, picking out glass beads for our moms and admiring the architecture. Prague is the first city I have visited that was EXACTLY what I thought it would be. It was charming.

Here is a little preview of the trip. Racheal, who is the better photographer, has more photos that I will share later, but these are a start...

view from our hotel window

view from the Jirasek Bridge. On the first day, I took an early morning walk through the city. 

I loved the colors! I especially appreciate that green building.

View from Old Town Square

At the Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square

View from the clock tower. One of my favorite things about Prague is the red rooftops.

View of the square from the top of the tower. Glorious.

The other side! :) 

View atop the Petrin Tower. It resembled a baby Eiffel Tower. 

We climbed to the top and were handsomely rewarded!

A compilation of our adventures. The bottom three were taken on the way down from the Prague Castle. 

As mentioned, Rach has the better pictures... ones that actually include me in them! I will post as soon as I can get them. 

I promise, more is coming

I feel like the last 3 months have been sucked into a vacuum (BTW, does anyone else feel like a completely incompetent speller when spelling that word??? Ask me if I just spelled it 7 different ways. Yes). 

I don't know where time has gone, and I am glad to see it gone. January and February both had one exciting event each to be exact, but other than the mentioned events, nothing of consequence has happened. In fact, I very much dislike January and February... possibly more than I dislike October. 

But, thankfully, it is March. The month of my birth. Hurray. I will be blogging soon with updates on my Prague and Paris trips and a few other things worth mentioning that pertain to March and March alone! My sweet, sweet, little Dell computer has died a tragic death and has been replaced by a lovely MacBook Pro. Consequently, none of my photos are on the Mac and this is affecting both my ability to blog and my ability to sing along to showtunes, as Dell also houses my entire iTunes library.

I have one class left in my entire MA. The very thought of it kind of makes me cry. I love school. I don't want it to be over. I don't feel as though I have learned everything I needed to, but alas, Monday is my last class. How will I prepare? Probably by not doing this week's assigned reading... or will I? 

So let's recap: January sucks, February sucks, I went on two trips. They were great. Racheal is a fab traveling companion. We've been to Nando's quite a lot. We love Windsor Castle quite a lot. My computer died. The IRS bought me a new one. I got an ugly wardrobe in my room. Tashi visited in London for about 5 minutes. We missed the Oscars and that was tragic. My coat rack broke. I bought a blue raincoat. I like it. I met the cutest boy named Eddie in January. He's kind of a big deal but then he dated Taylor Swift. I made an entire Pinterest board showcasing amazing men's fashion. I'm proud of it. Eddie wore a velvet suit. I got sick but now I'm okay. I wrote this blog post and now I'm late for Devin's party.

And scene.

Thanks for tuning in.