DISNEYLAND PARIS

Easily on of the funnest days I have had since I have been in Europe was at
 DISNEYLAND PARIS!!!

And if you know me at all, you know how obsessed I am with all things Disney. Like, this girl wants to work as a Disney Princess on summer obsessed. Don't judge.

So when I decided that I was going to study abroad, I knew that I had to find a way to Disneyland Paris.  Thank goodness that two of my best friends over here wanted to go to.


So we dedicated our second day in Paris to being at the happiest place on earth.

We ate lunch at Hakuna Matata Restuarnt from the Lion King!













Then we went on Pirates of the Caribbean which is a lot like the one at home in Disneyworld.  The only different is that things were out of order and no Jack Sparrow :(

Next up was Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril roller coaster which was really fun.  We literally laughed through the entire thing.  And the French just stared at us and then proceeded to ask is we were okay since they do not make any noise on roller coasters. Weirdos. 
Then we ventured to Space Mountain 2 which is SOOO much better than ours it's rediculous. It goes upside down and shoots you out like the Hulk. So fun.


Then we saw Michael Jackson star in the 80's 3D film Captain EO. Talk about hilarious. I took some videos of it.  So funny.

The castle is modeled after Sleeping Beauty's Castle so it's all pretty and pink. It is quite short though, along with almost all the buildings at Disneyland.  We also walked through some sort of submarine thing, went on the Haunted Mansion (which didn't really look like a mansion and it had a lot of the same stuff as ours, but there were a lot of skeletons in it). We also went on Buzz Lightyear before heading to MGM, or Hollywood Studios.

Their Hollywood Studios is SO SO SO much better than ours, it ridiculous. They have an entire Toy Story area, a Cars area, and The Crush Coaster from Finding Nemo.  That was the best ride I have ever been on.  You sit 4 to a turtle shell, 2 facing forward, 2 backwards and Squirt talks to you (in English) while you ride the current in the semi-dark, spinning and going up and down hills and drops.  I could have road on it for hours. 


Unfortunatley, it closed shortly there after so we had to head back to the hotel but it was such a fun day.  Now the only other Disney park I have to go to is Disneyland Tokyo since I have been to all 4 Disneyworld Parks, and I went to Disneyland in Cali and California Adventures when I lived in California.  It will happen. 

Have a magical day!

Paris=Love

I ABSOLUTELY LOVED Paris.

 It is a beautiful city.

The architecture is just stunning and oh so elegant.

I seriously could look at it for days.

<Thank goodness I took over 400 pictures during this trip>

Really, how could you NOT love this city?

So the first day we got to Paris around 10 pm since we had school in the morning/afternoon. <just to clarify, we is me and my friends Julie and Sara.  Julie's friend Katilynn joined us too on occasion>

Then we went and ate Chinese food- super random, I know but super yummy.  Plus, Chinese was the only food we could find that was open at 10:30 at night.

The next morning we went to Versailles! Home to French royalty and Marie Antoinette. We also found a Starbucks where I proceeded to have pancakes (!) which I had been craving and a hot chocolate. Walking into Starbucks was like walking into a good friend home.  It was so nice.

So back to Versailles.  The palace is HUGE and there is so so so much gold.  It is somewhat sickening.  I took a bunch of pictures of rooms but I will only show you my favs so I don't bore you to death.  Oh, and can I just add that although Versailles was huge, could Marie Antoinette pick a more obvious place to hide before she was beheaded? "Oh, I'll go to the place, they won't find me there." Really Marie?

So moving on.  The picture to the right is of the hall of mirrors which was beautiful.  I loved the chandeliers.


Next is the king's room followed by my favorite room- the queen's room.
This is pretty neat, the fabric and bedspread and everything are original!









The queen's room was so pretty- it had yellow and blue flowers all over it.
I kind of want it to be my inspiration for my room next year but I am not sure if I am totally into a country flowered theme.

This is a picture of Marie Antoinette's house.  Since she didn't like her husband, he gave her this house as a gift so she could live here.  He never spent the night either- he would just come visit her.  What a poor, unhappy couple.

This is Marie Antoinette's bedroom.  It was super cute but the bed was really, really tiny.  She must have been short!









 This is me and my friends/travel buddies- Sara, Julie and me- with the gardens of Versailles in the background.

Next up was the Louvre.  Sara and I went while Julie met up with her friend Kaitlynn.  We managed to to see everything important in just about 2 hours! I would consider that a success.  I am sure there is some we missed, but my mind was slowly being filled up so many rooms filled with beautiful things that I was being overloaded. 

 So I saw the Mona Lisa which was pretty darn neat.  I knew it was small, so it wasn't a big disappointment.  In fact, it was bigger then I thought it would have been.

We also saw Egyptian artifacts, Etruscan artifacts, royalty crowns and dishes, lots of paintings, the statue of Venus and some others.

 We saw moats since the Louvre used to be a castle. This was nifty.

 Then at night we went to see the Eiffel all light up. It is so pretty and so much bigger then I thought it would be.  It's huge and amazing.





It was a great, fun day!

Rome

So here is Rome in a minute.  After we went to the Colosseum, we went to the Roman Forum, which is really just a bunch of ruins but they date back to 1BC- 3 AD which is super, super old.  There are temples there dedicated to Roman gods, such as Romulus who is though to be one of founders of Rome.  There is also this huge house for the Vestile Virgins, which is where girls would go to live until they were proper marriage age.  They would have to clean the temples and stuff every day but they got the best seats at the Colosseum and were married to high ranked people because of their virginity.  But if it was found out that they weren't a virgin, then they would be killed.

 So then we went to the Pantheon which is the round building with a dome with a hole in the top. The hole is not covered by anything and since it was drizzling outside, rain was also coming into the building.  The Pantheon tricked many people though because the front of it (the porch type area) is square so when people walked in, they would be in awe that the inside was perfectly circular.

After the Pantheon, we had dinner then went the to Trevi Fountain.  This fountain is super pretty.  We made out 3 wishes and took lots of pictures!

The next morning, we went to the VATICAN! The museum was huge and completely overwhelming.  There was so much stuff to look at, from the marble floor to the molding on the wall, the to frescos on the walls and ceilings to the statues in every room.  It was a little insane.  I did see some very famous stuff though.  You end your museum tour at the Sistine Chapel which is somewhat overrated.  I took a picture even though you aren't supposed to. Woops.  There are so many people in the Sistine Chapel and there are guards that stand on a raised platform screaming at us to be quite, move in closer together and not take pictures.  Not exactly a Holy place when all that is going on.

Anyway, then I go to go to St. Peter's Basilica, which was my favorite part of the entire trip. I wish I could have spent hours in this church.  It was ginormous and so so so incredibly beautiful. There was so much to look at and so much beautiful art.  I can't even begin to describe how neat it was to be in there.






So that's Rome! It was a busy, fun weekend.  We saw a TON of stuff and learned a good deal but it was great to be home (!) in Florence.  I think everyone in the program agreed that Florence is better then Rome.  It's just smaller, less chaotic, less American and touristsy, less traffic, and less dirty.  I am probably just biased though but let me tell you that I LOVE Florence.