Alors, I don't really want to go into a whole lot of detail about what I did. So here are some highlights/thoughts about what I did/saw/ate:
-The first night of my trip, I got into the train station in Paris, then had an hour and a half walk to catch a bus in a different part of Paris. Although it was midnight, it was a friday and there
were people everywhere. Paris is absolutely beautiful at night, because all the monuments and buildings are lit up, and compared to a smal
l city like Nantes, there are amazing things to see just about everywhere. I think that walk was one of my favorite parts of my trip.
-In Milan, I stayed with Rachel in her apartment. She lives with 3 other IES students and Italian RA, and it
was super fun staying with her and cooking dinner in her apartment. Very different from my experience here in Nantes.
-Things I saw in Milan: the Duomo (cathedral), which is the 3rd biggest in the world. I went up on the roof, and it's really an impressive building. Puts the cathedral here to shame. Also, the Last Supper (you go in with a group of 2
0 people for 15 minutes, because it's in a small room in a church). I also just did alot of walking around on my own and looking at all the stores and parks and fashion week stuff that was going on.
-FOOOD. I did so much eating in Milan. I ate gelato every day (I had coconut, banana, strawberry lemon, white chocolate, milk chocolate and chocolate orange. White chocolate was the BEST). I also ate a massive calzone, little fried calzone-like things filled with cheese and stuff, and aperitivo. Aperitivo is amazing. You go to a bar/restaurant place and for 8 euros or so you get a fancy cocktail and a buffet
of as much snack-y stuff you want. Excellent deal. Other highlights included lots of coffee and brunch at California Bakery, an American r
estaurant with excellent bagels.
-My favorite part of my time in Italy was the day I spent at Lake Como. Lake Como is in the pre-Alps, and the deepest lake in the world. In the summer it's super touristy, but in the winter it is DEAD. I saw two other families touristing around, but that was it. I took the t
rain to Varenna, which was sort of unsettling deserted, but also beautiful. I walked around for awhile, then took the ferry across the lake to Bellagio, one of the main touristy towns. It's on a peninsula that ju
ts into the lake, and I decided to get a better view of the lake and tromp up to the hills outside of town. My walk included some walking on the highways sketchily (not a real highway, and pretty deserted, so not too bad), walking through picturesque little villages and attempting to avoid angry stray dogs. There are lots of little paths and churches on the peninsula, and I got a pretty good view of the lake and Bellagio when the sun was out (which was about the only 30 minutes of the whole day it was out). It's probably one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, and I had a fantastic time just walking around by my lonesome.
-After five days of Milan, I was a little burned out on big cities. Thus, I feel like I didn't properly enjoy Paris. I was incredibly sick of tourists, people trying to steal from tourists/asking for money from tourists/selling stuff to tourists, and creepers (especially creepers in Paris, who are obnoxiously persistent). I am so incredibly glad to be living in Nantes, where people just leave you alone to go about your business. I don't know if I could ever live in really big city.
-My favorite part of Paris was Pere Lachaise, an enormous cemetery filled with the graves of many a famous French person (although the only one I actually found, since I didn'
t buy a map, was Honore de Balzac.)
-I was in Paris with my friend Katie, who is studying abroad in Nantes with me. Her parents have friends in Paris, who we stayed with for two nights, which was also one of my favorite parts of Paris. Asides from being super nice and feeding us copiously, it was also really interesting to see how people in a different part of France live. We spent alot of time just talking with them, and I love how French people will tell you their opinions on politics and whatever else so freely. Conversations here are so much deeper and thought-provoking than most of the conversations I have in the US.
It was a great trip, and I think being away from France made me appreciate it
so much more (especially the fact that I speak French so well! Italian was a struggle. I just wanted to speak Spanish all the time).
Now I'm officially halfway through study abroad. Hard to believe. But the weather is getting nice here in Nantes and the next two months here should be fantastic!
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