Day 232!

Ciao! Still here! I am just getting around to posting my pix from my spring break trip to PARIS! Mariella's mom came to town during our spring break, and the three of us ladies went to Paris. Mar's mom has been five or six times before, so she was our own personal tour guide. I LOVE PARIS. It is easily my favorite place that I have been so far! We were there from March 29-April 2, and we did all of the touristy things we could possibly fit in. We arrived Monday evening, so we just got settled and planned our week.
Tuesday we went to Sainte-Chapelle, "a gem of High Gothic architecture," and the Conciergerie, the prison where Marie Antoinette was held before being executed. We also saw Notre Dame and wandered the city a bit before stopping at a cool vintage shop called King of Frip that was right by our apartment (which was in a wonderful part of town, by the way, right on the Rive Gauche). We went to a long-established restaurant called Chartier for dinner, and I had steak tartar! Sooooo good!
Wednesday we started with the Arc de Triomphe and then worked our way down the Champ Elysees looking at all of the shops. We stopped for "tea" at Laduree, where I had a delicious cappuccino and a pistachio eclair! Yum! Laduree was sooo pretty, all decorated in light greens and pinks. As Mariella pointed out, it felt like being inside a faberge egg! I also bought some macaroons to go. I had to try macaroons in Paris! (They were also delicious, of course, and were gone by the end of the day!) Then we were pretty tired of shopping, but had one more errand to accomplish on the Champs Elysees: get beer at McDonald's. Which we finally did, but only after learning that you have to order something salty first. So we followed our "tea" with french fries and beer:) We continued on to the Louvre, walking through the Tuileries gardens. The Louvre was great, but so overwhelming! Mariella and I just darted about seeing the main attractions, like the Mona Lisa. We were getting a little worn down by that time. We stopped for dinner on the way back to the apartment and passed out once we got there!
Thursday was our last full day in Paris. We started by taking the train out to see Versailles. Due to some ticket issues, I ended up just going through on my own. I buzzed through, seeing the things I wanted to see (mainly the Hall of Mirrors) and then we walked around the gardens for a bit. Versailles is sooooo beautiful and decadent, but also a little overwhelming! We had lunch at a TEX MEX place! haha It was funny to find a tex mex restaurant pretty much next door to Versailles, but it was sooo good! Then we took the train back into town and headed to Sacre Coeur, a beautiful church up on a hill overlooking the city. It was a beautiful day, not rainy like it had been the rest of the week. It was in that neighborhood that we finally found crepes! We had been wanting them since our first day in Paris, but had some trouble finding a place. After dinner, we bought a baugette and a bottle of pink champagne to take to the Eiffel tower, our grand finale. Once we got there, we realized we couldn't take up the bottle, so we drank our champagne underneath while waiting in line. But we snuck the bread up and had a baugette sword fight on the first floor of the tower. We made it to the very top of the tower, and it was so cool to see the whole city spread out before us at night! The tower sparkles for the first ten minutes of every hour at night, and it started sparkling while we were up at the very top! We also got to see the whole thing sparkle because it started up again by the time we got back down. It was so beautiful, I love the Eiffel Tower so much and would live at the top if I could!
Unfortunately on Friday, we only had time to wake up and get worn out selves to the airport to catch our plane back to Bologna. It was such a good trip though, and I really hope I get to go back!!!
We got back to Bologna Friday afternoon and rested up that night. Saturday morning, we hopped on a train to Genoa to spend Easter with Mariella's aunt and uncle and cousins. We spent Saturday night and Suday morning there, enjoying being with an Italian family (i.e. eating a lot of good food), then took the train back to Bologna Sunday afternoon because Mar's mom was flying back to the U.S. on Monday. Mariella, her mom, Nic, and I had a lovely Easter dinner. Mar and her mom made American breakfast for dinner! We had pancakes and eggs, and it was sooo delicious! Overall it was a really great Easter break, and it was over wayyy too soon:-/
Now it's back to the grind. Classes are actually almost over, and the craaaazy studying for exams will begin. This is my last week of my Italian Literature class. If all goes well, I will be done with school for this year by the end of May... ugh speaking of which, I need to do some studying!
xoxo

P.S. PIX from PARIS heeeere.