Spring Break! Part 2 (Including the Royal Wedding!!!!!)

So here is a break down of the rest of my Spring Break:

Tuesday (Venice):


We were all really glad to finally be at the last stop of our Italian Spring Break adventure, because we were exhausted.  Walking EVERYWHERE is tiring in itself, but just traveling to all these different places has been a killer!  And this is why we decided to take it easy today and spend the day on the beach!!!

Luckily the weather cooperated, which was great because I had checked the weather earlier in the week and it had said it was going to rain.  But it was actually the nicest day of the trip so far!  We took a water bus to get to the beach.  It was really neat how much water surrounded us, and we had to take a boat to the beach we were going.  And actually the best part about the ride there was that we didn't have to pay!!! I mean, we were supposed to, and we tried to, but no one would take our money.  So sad...

The beautiful beach!

But anyway, once we arrived we had the best time!! We got there around noon and since it wasn't yet the tourist season (and it was also a Tuesday) there were hardly any people on the beach.  It was warm enough so that we could actually swim in the water.  This was a nice change from a few weeks ago at Brighton, when the water was freezing.  And we also spent a good part of the time laying on the beach just soaking in the sun.  Although I did take a break from this to bury Anna in the sand.  Needless to say there was sand everywhere and because we were out in the sun all day we got sunburned.  Mine wasn't too bad, but now I've just been itchy for days.  Whatever, it was still a really good day.

Anna got sunburned :(

Once we ate our obligatory pizza for the day, we made our way back to our hostel.  But this time we actually had to pay for the water bus, and this was not fun because it was expensive!! So I'm kind of glad that we didn't have to pay the first time and that we hadn't taken too much public transport because that would have broke the bank!  But once back at our hostel we were pretty much done for the night.  Anna got a terrible sunburn (she was so red!!), so we chilled in our room until bed.

Wednesday (Venice, London):


Today was again mostly spent walking around to the various markets in Venice.  We took a lot of small back streets and found tons of really cute little stores to shop around in.  Then after a bunch of walking we came across a bigger market that sold tons of different kinds of food: fish, vegetables, fruits, herbs, spices and so on.  We hadn't had a lot of fruit lately (with all of the pizza) so we decided to get some strawberries and eat by the water.  They were suuuuper fresh and so delicious! I hadn't had strawberries in forever and it was really nice to take a break near the water.

Sights in Venice

Afterwards, we visited the Bridge of Sighs and we also really wanted to take a gondola ride on the canal waters underneath the bridge.  So we got a gondolier to take us on a short ride in the waters nearby.  It was really fun, and something you can really only do in Venice.  When we passed important sights, our gondolier would give us some fun facts about the things we were seeing.  It was really fun and relaxing on the boat.  Although our gondolier apparently had some important business to attend to because he kept answering his cell phone!

The Bride of Sighs

But basically this was the extent of our day, and later on we had to catch a plane back to London to make it back in time for the Royal Wedding!!!!  The flight itself was terrible...it was RyanAir again, so what else can you expect.  But once we got back to London we still had an hour and a half coach ride back to Vandon House.  So it was a really long ride when all we wanted was to be home in our nice, warm, clean beds.  But eventually we made it!

Thursday (London):


So we were really tired after all the traveling it took to get home last night, but this morning a bunch of people in our program went out to Buckingham Palace to see all the people gathered there.  I came out awhile later and apparently a ton of stuff was happening even before the wedding started.  Some of the girls in our group chatted with Meredith Vieira and Matt Lauer from the Today Show in between their broadcasts.

A bunch of us had planned to camp out the day before the wedding to make sure that we got a good spot to see all the processions.  And some people wrote out signs such as 'Iowa hearts Will & Kate' and 'Don't worry Harry is still single', so we actually attracted a bunch of attention.  People kept coming over and interviewing us and taking really random pictures. It was a little weird but hilarious at the same time.

Getting interviewed...

And from our vantage point near Clarence House, there were quite a few Royal sightings!  I didn't personally get to see much, but there are people in our group who have amazing pictures of the Royal celebrities.  Before I had arrived at the campsite, Camila, Prince Charles's wife had been walking around and actually stood on out campsite blanket!!!

We also got to see a lot of wedding attendees driving in and out of Clarence House on their way to dinner.  And this was pretty cool, except we didn't really know exactly how was driving past.  Another person we got to see was David Cameron, the Prime Minister of England walking down the street toward us.  And a couple of people got to shake his had, which is pretty cool since hes like the 'president' of England.

But the hands down coolest thing that happened before the wedding was that Prince William and Harry came out of Clarence House and visited with the people camping out on the streets!!!!! And again people from out group got to shake their hands and visit with them!  It was crazy, most people who live in London their whole lives never get that close to them!!!  And all of this happened before the actual day of the wedding!!

But after awhile the excitement and entertainment lessened when we remembered that we were camping out.  On the street.  All night.  Not really my idea of fun, especially since it was cold.  But honestly, this was a once in a lifetime chance, so I knew I had to do it.  But I'm going to be honest.  It wasn't the best night sleep I have ever had.  Although it was an interesting bonding experience for most of the people in our program...

But the next morning we were up bright and early in our amazing spot on the Mall.  This wasn't because we wanted to be up bright and early, but people were encroaching on our spot like vultures.  Not classy and we were not happy about it.  And it wasn't like it was teenagers either.  These were full grown women ready to kick us out of our spot!!! I mean, who does that.

But besides the extremely rude people behind us we had a great (but tiring) day.  Here is the breakdown of our Royal Wedding experience:

700 AM:  This is around the time that we got up and we had to wait (standing, the whole time) until the next event on the line up.  We did get to see some things, such as cleaning crews and military bands.  But they were only so interesting...

One of the many military bands

Guards setting up along the mall

1010 AM:   Prince William and Harry left Clarence House, which was only like 50 ft from where we were standing.  This was extremely sweet, and helped to make our hours of waiting much better.  It was so cool to be able to see them dressed in their uniforms for the wedding.

The princes driving past

1010 - 1051 AM: We watched tons of cars drive past delivering wedding guests to Westminster Abbey.  Some memorable sightings included Prince Charles and Camila and the Queen and Prince Philip.  The Queen was so cute in her pastel lemon outfit and I actually got a decent picture of her driving past!!! We were pretty pumped when this happened but...

The Queen!!!!

1051 AM: Then Kate drove by in her wedding dress!!!!!!  It was so exciting when this happened!!  And then we knew it was so close to the actual event!  And she looked so pretty!!

Kate!

1100 AM: The wedding officially began! I hadn't thought that it was going to be interesting for us along the parade route during the wedding, but luckily I was wrong because they broad casted the ceremony live from speakers along the route!  It was so sweet, and nice to hear Kate's voice for the first time.

1215 - 1240 AM: Royals drive past us on the Mall on their way to Buckingham Palace.  This includes William and Kate, the Queen and Prince Philip and other princes and princesses.  But seeing Will and Kate in the carriage was definitely one of my favorite moments of the experience.  They looked so happy!

The bride and groom

The Queen again!

125 PM: Will and Kate step out onto the balcony at Buckingham Palace, with many of the members of the Wedding Party.  To get to be able to see this, we had to walk in a crowd of thousands upon thousands of people led by police.  It was a crazy experience.  I have never (and don't really want to be again), been in a crowd of that many people!  But we did get to see them kiss!! And by standing on my tippy toes, I got some blurry pictures of them (people would not stop waving their flags!).  It was amazing.

The wedding party!

But just like that it was over.  Except of course for the 30 minutes it took us to get out of the crowd and back to Vandon House, which usually only takes like 5 - 10 minutes.  And as you can probably imagine, I was exhausted.  So after a quick shower, I took a 'nap', which in reality meant I slept 4 hours until dinner.  It was glorious and I am so glad that I camped out because we really did have an amazing view of all the goings on of the wedding.

I can't believe that just happened.  And I can't believe we only have 2 weeks left to go!!! Let the countdown begin...

Spring Break! Part 1

So the reason I haven't written in awhile is because....I WAS IN ITALY AGAIN!!

It was finally our Spring Break, and it started last Thursday.  It took a crazy long time for it to get here because Easter was so late this year, but it was really nice to have this break right before we leave for home.  It is so crazy that we only have 2 weeks left in London!  I love London, but I cannot wait to get home!!

Anyway here is a break down of the past week or so:

Thursday (London, Rome):

Today we had a class trip to the Cabinet War Rooms before our break 'officially' started.  I wasn't really looking forward to it, especially after my recent visit to the Imperial War Museum.  The things that we see are really interesting, but also pretty depressing.  However, I actually really enjoyed the War Rooms.  These were rooms built specially for WWII to protect the Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister at the time and his cabinet from bombings.  The reason I liked it so much was that the rooms were, for the most part, left the way that they were during the war.  It was a really unique way to learn about the British governments involvement in the war.  Included in the field trip was a museum about Winston Churchill's life.  This was also really informative, and they had many artifacts and information about his life.

But after that was said and done with it was time to get on a flight to Italy!  Luckily this time we took an EasyJet flight (much better then RyanAir!!) and the process of getting to airport was not such a hassle as the last time Mom and I flew to Rome.  It was actually really easy, and we even had some time to kill.  But by the time we made it to Italy it was already pretty late, and by the time we actually made it to our hostel it was even later.  So basically we just had time to get something to eat really quickly and then go to bed.

Friday (Rome):

So this pretty much the first time that I had stayed in a hostel the entire time I had been traveling in Europe.  We stayed in a YMCA in Bath, but that was actually really nice.  And the hostel we stayed in Rome, the Mona Lisa, was most definitely not.  The guy who ran it was kind of an idiot and the profile on the website we booked it from was totally not right.  And so long story short, our hostel sucked!

But luckily we didn't stay in it at all during the day (we weren't allowed to anyway...), and instead we explored the city.  We didn't use any public transport at all, so this equaled A LOT of walking!  First we found the Trevi Fountain.  I had seen it before with Mom, but this time I threw a coin in and made a wish (I'm not going to say what it was though, so that it comes true).  We spent a little time here taking pictures and just checking out the incredible carvings that made up the fountain, but after this we were a little hungry and so we got our first margarita (cheese) pizza of the trip.  And I'm not kidding when I say this but I'm pretty sure we ate at least one everyday of our Italy trip.  I love pizza but this was a little extreme.  Its just that its seriously the cheapest thing on the menu!  Oh, and there was A LOT of gelato as well.  I'm pretty sure we had one each day as well. But to be fair, it is pretty much the best food on the planet.

The Trevi Fountain

After the Trevi Fountain and the pizza, we walked over to the Spanish Steps.  I wasn't really all that impressed with the steps.  I thought they would be larger and give a better view, but really all you could see from the top were the people crowded on the lower levels and the really annoying guys trying to sell you crappy toys and souvenirs.  Not really my idea of a good view...

The Spanish Steps

Then after only a short while at the steps, we moved on to Vatican City.  I thought it was going to be REALLY packed because of the Easter weekend, but at the time we went, in the early afternoon, there really wasn't a giant crowd.  Most of the people in the courtyard were waiting in line to see inside St. Peter's or the Vatican Museum.  Unfortunately, it was sold out so we didn't get to take part in the extreme line for the sights.  But we did spend some time in the courtyard, which was set up for a service later that night.  There was a crazy amount of chairs set up.  And we tried to get as close to the inside of the building as we could...but this wasn't very close.

Vatican City

Since the service wasn't for several hours later and we didn't have any transport (other than our feet) we went on in search of our next sightseeing adventure, some Roman ruins.  Well, after walking for about an hour and a half, we came upon some ruins and spent some time taking pictures.  But we really didn't know what the ruins were of, so it wasn't that meaningful.  However, just up the block were some more famous sights, Il Vittoriano and the Piazza Campidoglio.  Mom and I had previously seen these sights on our trip, but this time we actually climbed the stairs to the piazza, and saw the pattern on the courtyard and the replica statue by Michelangelo in the center.

The Piazza with a replica of Michelangelo's statue

Pretty much after seeing all these sights (and walking to ALL of them), we were pretty much exhausted.  So it was onto another late dinner, and then back to our scurvy hostel.  I wasn't too thrilled about staying there two nights, but luckily this was our last one.

Saturday (Rome, Pisa):

The next morning we got up pretty early.  This was mainly because the idiot who ran our hostel told us the water would be turned off at 7:30 the next morning.  But it never turned off.  The only thing that happened was that he sent people up to use our 'private' bathroom.  Aaarrgghhh...and that wasn't even the worst of it.  We had asked him like 12 times if we could leave our luggage at the hostel until we left to get on our train later that afternoon, and he had said yes.  But then when it came time to leave our stuff, he said we could because he had to 'clean'.  Yeah. Right.  Whatever, we are leaving a terrible review on hostelbookers.com, so at least hopefully some people will be saved from staying there.

So with ALL of our luggage in tow we made our way to the Pantheon and the Colosseum.  And as you can guess, this was not the most comfortable or enjoyable walk of my life.  But we made it and we saw both of the sights.  The Pantheon was new for me, it was sooooo big!  And we were wondering what happens when it rains because there is a giant hole in the ceiling...fun things to think about.  And the Colosseum was just as spectacular as before.  Amazingly huge and crowded with tourists and vendors.  I am already tired of people trying to sell me things and we only just got here!!

Views inside the Colosseum

Pantheon Views

Luckily, it was almost time to catch our train to Pisa.  After a quick lunch we got on, and after about 2 hours we were in Pisa!  And most importantly, our hostel was AWESOME!! Ok, not really that awesome but still like a million times better than the last one, so we were pumped.

Sunday (Pisa, Florence):

There was another perk included in the hostel.  They offered a free tour of Pisa to all guests staying there.  This was really nice for us because we actually didn't have any idea of what we wanted to see, apart from the Leaning Tower.  The tour left from our hostel and took us near the river, tons of old churches, and other historic buildings.  We learned what an important part the large University plays in the city and about a smaller school where only the super smart can attend and they get all of their tuition payed for.

Eventually we made it to the area where the Leaning Tower was located.  I hadn't known before I visited that the Tower was originally supposed to be a bell tower for the nearby church.  We also learned some more fun facts, such as, the bells in the Leaning Tower can not be played all together for fear that it will cause the Tower to collapse and that they have actually stabilized the tower using the help of engineers and architects.
The tour was really nice, but it was also really long so once it was over it was time for a pizza and then on our next train to Florence.

The baptistery and church near the tower

The Leaning Tower!!!!

This train ride was really short, only taking about an hour or so.  And then we quickly found our next hostel, which was also really nice.  The guy running the hostel was hilarious and he gave us some tips on places to visit and eat at.  For the first night we visited the replica of David and the old bridge, just like Mom and I did on our trip.  Then we did something new.  We trekked up this giant hill to get really beautiful views of the city.  The trip up the hill was awful, but we went at a really good time so we got pictures of the city in both daylight and at dusk.  It was so beautiful!

Views of Florence

Monday (Florence, Venice):


Today we basically spent the whole morning shopping in the markets of Florence.  We were looking for souvenirs, but some of the people who were selling things were really creepy.  I don't really enjoy people standing over my shoulder while I'm trying to look, so I probably would have bought some more but because of the creepiness I didn't.  Oh well...

But after a quick lunch, we had a bit of bad luck.  We had originally thought that all of us were on a 5:30 train to Venice.  Unfortunately, this was not the case.  Anna and I were actually on the 4:30 train and Emily and Renae were on the 3:30 train.  But this was bad news because that meant by the time we checked the times, Emily and Renae had already missed their train!!!!  And then when we went to see what we could do to get on the same train, we learned that all the trains were sold out for that day!!!!! The woman said that they could ask the conductor when the train came in if they could get on.  But because Anna and I had to get on ourselves, we had no idea if they had gotten on!!

I did get a picture of the Tonarelli Tobacco Shop 

before we left Florence though!!!

It was a pretty stressful situation.  For the whole ride, we had to worry whether they had joined us or not.  Because if they hadn't, we wouldn't have anywhere to sleep that night!! So imagine our relief when we saw them running toward us when we arrived in Venice!!! Definitely a relief, and to top it off our last hostel was also excellent.  So we really only had one crappy accommodation, which in the long run was pretty amazing.

We spent two days in Venice before heading back to London for the Royal Wedding!!! I'll let you know what happened in my next post!!

Holborn and Brighton! (To Brighton Your Day!!!!)

For one of our required classes, British Experience Seminar, we get assignments to visit different places in London.  So yesterday for this week's assignment, I visited a place in London called Holborn.

Its really crazy how places that are really close together in Central London can be so different from each other.  Holborn isn't very far from Leicester Square and Charing Cross, but it is so much quieter than either of those places.  And the first thing that we visited was a quiet little park, called Lincoln's Inn Park.  It was filled with blooming trees, people walking their dogs, and...construction workers.  But it was still really cute.

The entrance to Lincoln's Inn Park

Bloomin' Trees!

And right next door is the former home of Sir John Soane, who was a famous British architect.  His most famous design was the Bank of England in 1788.  But his home is now the sight of the Sir John Soane's Museum.  The museum is really unique and also really eccentric.  It was free to go into, so we did.  And every nook and cranny of this house is filled with 'stuff'.  Most of this 'stuff' were pieces of Egyptian architecture and sculptures.  They were just hung on every wall and available surface.  There was even a full size Egyptian sarcophagus!!!!!!

The entrance to the Sir John Soane's Museum

It was weird.  And if this was actually how Soane had decorated his home, he would have been an interesting person to meet.  I wonder how easy it was to navigate a home like that?  I guess its not exactly how I would choose to decorate a house, but to each his own...

After we finished at the museum, we moved on to a courtyard in the middle of some of the law offices in the area.  It was a really pretty area, with a fountain in the center and buildings on all sides of it.  There was also a large church and tons of flowers and plants.  I really enjoy all the wildlife.  I wish it was like this in Iowa at this time of year!

Sights in the courtyard...

The last place we visited in Holborn was the Temple Church.  This church was built in the 12th century for the Knight's Templar.  It was a beautiful, round building, which was interesting for a church, and it is apparently well known for having very good music at its services.  It was a fun little day trip into Holborn!

Temple Church

Then today, we went as a group to Brighton, which is right on the Southern end of England and also on the water.  We got there around noon, and unfortunately it was both cloudy and windy.  Boo.  For the past few weekends the weather has been really nice, so we were really hoping that it was going to be nice for us, but it definitely wasn't swimming weather.

Initially, as a group we toured the Royal Pavilion, which was the home of King George IV.  The interior of the house was really different, especially for the time period.  In the giant banquet room, the chandelier was decorated with dragons and there was a large one on the ceiling.  It was crazy, and it also made me wonder why someone would want to decorate a house like this...Of course, there were the typical elegant sitting rooms, and music rooms, as well.  But we've seen this before, so we quickly toured the house and made our way to the beach!

One of the entrances to the Royal Pavilion

The beach was very pretty, but it was the pier that I liked the best.  It was really large.  It had to be because there are several restaurants, shops and park rides on the pier.  We spent about an hour or so just walking up and down on it, and then we ate lunch (noodles!!!) on it too.  Once we got our fill of the pier we walked down to the beach, which was obviously only a few steps from it.

The Pier!!!!

And the beach!!!

The beach is very different from any other beach I've been on.  First of all there is no sand.  The beach is entirely made of rocks and pebbles.  Which doesn't exactly make it a comfortable walk down to the water, which was freezing by the way.  We still walked in it, but when the big waves came in, it was a little cold on my toes...and we also sunk into the rocks, which made it hard to escape.  But we laid out on the rocks for awhile, and luckily it started to warm up.

For awhile, we shopped around and looked at the little shops around the town.  But afterwards we headed back to the pier, and by this time it had warmed up considerably.  The sun was out and it was decently warm.  So we took some of the free deck chairs and just sat on the deck.  And we stayed here for about an hour, soaking up the sun.  It was so niiiiicccceee....we didn't do that much in Brighton, but it was still a nice day anyway, especially since I am getting worn out from all the traveling.  I love it, but it is so tiring!!!!

Spring Break is coming up!!!!

Madame Tussauds and...Paris!!!!

Last Thursday, Anna and I took a trip to Madame Tussaud's in London.  Even on a Thursday it was packed with tourists and student groups so it was difficult to take pictures of the beautiful wax stars, such as Robert Pattinson, that you wanted.  But it was also really cool as well.  Some of the wax sculptures looked so real, which could also be really creepy because they were so lifelike!

We saw such wax figures as Robert Pattinson, 

George Clooney, and...

Hitler!

There was a 'scary' part of the exhibit, which is really similar to haunted houses around Halloween.  There were actors that would jump out at you and obviously try to scare the crap out of you.  And this would have been frightening if there hadn't been a giant group of French tweens in front of us who screamed bloody murder before I even noticed someone had popped out.  Not fun.  Something else that wasn't fun was when one of the girls jumped backwards to get away from one of the actors, thereby causing me to bite her head.  Ow.

Once we got away from the tweens it was pretty cool again.  There was a part of the exhibit which featured murderers or people who had been beheaded in the 1800s, when Madame Tussaud first began making her wax creations.  There was also a really cute ride, where you went around in a London 'taxi' and got to see a history of London through wax figures.  So other than the French teens and the rampant B.O. stench, I would have to say that the day was pretty much a success.

So when we had to leave later that night to get on our coach to Paris I was still in a pretty decent mood.  We took a coach because the trains to Paris, while freakishly fast, are ridiculously expensive.  And we kind of planned the trip at the very last minute, like seriously the day before.  But it turned out really well.  We left Thursday night and got there about 8:00 am on Friday morning.

I was a little nervous about going to France.  A lot of people from our program had been there and had told us that the city was dirty and the people were unfriendly.  But we didn't have a bad experience.  In fact, we had a great time.  I was worried that we would have a difficult time getting around the city, especially since Anna was the only one of us who knew some French.  However, using the Metro (which is similar to the London Tube) turned out to be really easy.  We used it all weekend to get around the city, and it also took us to and from the coach station, so basically it was really handy and I'm pretty sure it was only easy because we  use the Tube so much back in London.

But anyway, right when we got to Paris we found our hotel (which was located just steps from a Metro stop) and dumped our bags near reception, since we couldn't check in until later in the afternoon, and we went straight to the Eiffel Tower.  It was so weird seeing it for the first time.  Everyone has seen pictures or video of the tower, and they know what it looks like, but it is really different seeing it with your own eyes.  First of all, there is a garden underneath it.  Did you know that? Because I didn't.  It is also crazy big, not to mention how ridiculously tall it is.

The Eiffel Tower

and the garden underneath!

We decided to take the stairs to the first and second floor (because we are poor college students), and boy did we get a work out.  There are 360 stairs to each floor, for a total of 720 steps that we climbed!!!  I could totally feel my calves on the way up...but once we reached the first and second floors we just walked around the perimeter taking in the views.  From up there we could see the River Seine, the Arc de Triomphe, among other spectacular sights.

The weather this weekend was also really nice.  It could be really warm with the sun beating down on you, but if you stepped into the shade you could easily cool off.  It was perfect.  Unfortunately, you cannot climb up to the highest levels, so we had to pay to take the elevator there, but it was worth it.  Although from the very top you can't really recognize much of the cityscape that you are seeing, it is still really neat looking out at the city.  It expands really far in all directions.  It is amazing just how large these European cities are that we are visiting.

Well once we bought our tickets and gave some random Italian girl some gum, we made our way onto the elevator to the very top of the tower.  It was crazy high up.  You could seriously see for miles in all directions.  It was pretty awesome.  And they also had champagne for sale up there, not that I got any of it, but it was an option.  But since this level is understandable much smaller than the others we had visited we didn't spend as long on this on, and we made the (long) journey back down.

Views from the Eiffel Tower

The whole Eiffel Tower visit took about 3 hours, so when we were done it was time to check into our hotel room! And notice how I said hotel, not hostel.  Yeah!  Sooo nice not to have to share a bathroom with a complete stranger.  And our hotel was pretty nice.  Small rooms, but nice nonetheless, and we didn't have to worry about some random person stealing our passports (which happened to another girl in the program!).  After a short break, which included a nap, we were on our way again.  This time we headed for the Lourve.

Outside the Lourve

However, we brought the Rick Steve's book about Paris, and he told us that we should wait until after 6:00 pm to visit the museum because then it would be discounted.  So after taking pictures of the outside, we had to wait in the glorious sun until it was late enough to go in.  What a hard life.  Although Anna did get roped into (literally) getting a lame friendship bracelet from a guy from Kenya.  And it got even harder when we actually got in the museum and found out that that day it was free to everyone under the age of 26.  Awesome.  So basically our time in the Lourve consisted of seeing the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and the inverted pyramid before leaving. Just enough art for me.

Famous art in the Lourve

After a lovely nights sleep in our hotel, we got up bright and early (really, only like 9) and started our day.  This consisted of buying pastries in a shop near the hotel (and Anna dropping hers 2 minutes later) and then we saw a pigeon sitting in the spikes that they put on top of things to keep birds off.  Bahaha...that was an awesome start to the day, and also set the tone for the rest of the day as well.

First we tried to take the #69 bus on a little tour that Rick Steves recommended, but unfortunately for us that morning the Paris Marathon was taking place and the bus didn't stop there that morning.  So we scrapped that idea and moved onto visiting Notre Dame.  We found our way there pretty easily, and took pictures of the extremely ornate church.  It was really beautiful, but it was also really crowded on a Saturday so we didn't actually end up touring the building, but we sat outside for awhile looking at building and planning our next move for the day.

Notre Dame!

And finally we decided upon vising Sacre Coeur for our next move.  We took the Metro to get there, but to actually get to the church we had to climb a ton of stairs (apparently everywhere you guy in Paris requires you to climb stairs), so by the time we reached the top we were really tired and ended up spending about an hour in the area.  First of all we watched a ton of other people getting scammed into buying the same bracelet Anna did, which was hilarious when it wasn't happening to us.  There was also some really good musicians playing the area, so we decided to eat lunch there.  I had a humongous hotdog covered with cheese, a cookie and a coke.  Suuuuper nutritious!!!

Sacre Coeur

Once we had finished up, we left to go visit Moulin Rouge.  And by visiting, I mean we went to the outside of the building and took pictures, then immediately left.  After this we decided that we should probably wash our hands (Anna put hers in bird poop, she struggled a lot through the trip if you couldn't tell), so we went into a Starbucks.  I know what you're thinking...Emily probably bought a frappiccino.  Well let me tell you.  I did not.  I totally have self control (when I'm poor), but we did meet some fellow Americans.  One woman was from Michigan and she gave us some hand sanitizer, which was lovely since the line for the bathroom was ridiculously long.

So after this we thought that maybe the marathon runners might be done, so we made our way back to the bus stop to try taking the bus tour again.  And this time it actually worked!  We were picked up by an actual bus, and when I say bus tour, I pretty much mean we just rode the bus and looked out the windows.  After awhile of this, we got off at the Pere Lachaise Cemetary, and we were going to go inside.  It has a lot of famous people buried there, such as Oscar Wilde.  However, we apparently cannot tell time and we got there just as the cemetery was closing.

Luckily we had a backup plan.  This plan involved us getting food (french bread, of course) and going to eat it in front of the Eiffel Tower, so that we could see it lit up at night.  You might think this plan would have been easy to execute, but no.  Apparently, you can 'reserve' bread, so even though it might look like its for sale, its not.  Tricky.  So we had to travel all over looking for French bread in France.  Ironic, huh?  But we did eventually find some, along with strawberries and cheese and we made our way back to the Eiffel Tower.

We sat down in a grassy area, with a bunch of young people, whom I'm assuming were French since I couldn't understand what they were saying.  And we waited for dark, so we could see the lights on the Tower.  Well while we were waiting some kid around our age came up and asked for a corkscrew.  At least thats what I think he said since I can't understand French and he had an unopened bottle of wine in his hand...well we couldn't really help him out with the corkscrew situation, but that didn't stop him from (trying) to talk to us.  And I say trying because he didn't know any French, so he had to (try) and communicate through Anna.  It was pretty hilarious.  But it ended with him asking us to Salsa Dance near the Lourve, and Renae freaking out trying to get away from him.  I thought it was funny, but she snuck out the back while he was going to the bathroom so that he couldn't see her leave...oh Renae.

The Eiffel Tower at night!

This was our last full day in Paris, because we had to leave around noon on Sunday to catch our coach home.  So on Sunday morning all we did was visit the Arc de Triomphe and buy souvenirs before leaving.  The Arc was pretty amazing.  It is obviously huge, and the carvings are really intricate.  It was interesting to see, but we were so not up to climbing the stairs to the top.  My calves were about done...but that sums up our time in Paris.  I could go on about how gross and uncomfortable the ride home on the coach was (soooooo much B.O.) but I will spare you the details.

And finally....The Arc de Triomphe!

Paris was great, but I can't wait for Spring Break and then being back home!!!!