París *sigh*

If ever one could fall in love with a city, I'd say I've done it. Paris makes my heart beat. I cant believe my time there is already over. The city is fabulous! Definitely my favorite place so far. And I've decided that I don't care how cliché it is to like the Eiffel Tower... cause I love it! I now understand the fascination with it... I managed to spend nearly every night hanging out around it. There's thousands of tiny lights on it, so at night time, every hour on the hour, for 9 minutes - it twinkles... it's really beautiful. The only thing I didn't do was go up to the top. **Gasp** I know, probably sounds retarded... but I figured that I've seen just about everything one can see in a weeks time in Paris and figured that I will for sure be back again one day, hopefully with my future family, and would love to have something special saved for that visit. So the Eiffel Tower it is. Maybe that will be my new criteria for dating... "So have you been to the top of the Eiffel Tower?... Oh you have? That's great... gotta go!"... or "You haven't? Me neither!" DUN dun dun.. Ok.. Completely Kidding..... moving on...

A few friends and I started the week in France early because we wanted to see Normandy the day before we met up with everyone else... And even though the bus we took there forgot to pick us back up (awesome) I'm still really glad I got to go there. I brought back some rocks and seashells from the shore... some for my Grandpa who fought in WWII and the rest for my mom who will undoubtedly find some use for them in our ongoing backyard art show. :)

The rest of our week in Paris was spent quite productively...

We went to a million museums... ok, more like 3... but they were each great. Of course the Louvre was one of them. I've always heard it's huge and that it would take months, if not years, to really give each piece it's fair share, and now i know what they mean. It's massive. And I only spent about 4 hours there, however - though short, I learned a lot! I'll elaborate.... So, I went alone, a slightly overwhelming thing in itself when one realizes how enormous it is, but I had my Mona Winks book in hand (the best European tour guide around.) Well, I was standing in the middle of the room, holding the book up, spinning in a circle, searching for a painting it was referring to... (i'm sure i looked brilliant) when low and behold, an older French man approached me and pointed me in the right direction. Well, we got to talking, and turns out - he used to give tours at the Louvre for years and ended up giving me my own personal tour!! (In English, thank God.) It was great!! :) I saw Venus de Milo, Napoleon's apartments, Leonardo da Vinci's masterpieces, and of course, the Mona Lisa.

The Louvre beat the Orsay Museum a hundred fold... especially in light of the fact that while headed up the stairs at the Orsay (once again alone) I tripped and fell flat on my face.. in front of EVERYONE, everyone except for a familiar face who could laugh w/ me. Ya, go figure. I think i'm forever cursed w/ tripping. You'd think it'd get better w/ age...

Other productive uses of our time included:
shopping on the Champs d'Élyseé.... I purposefully got lost in the biggest Sephora store I've ever seen!!
Climbing to the top of the Arc d'Triumph.. not as easy as it looks my friends. :)
Taking a day trip to Versailles, the Palace once belonging to Henry XIV... Oh my gosh... this thing is INCREDIBLE. If you're only going to see one palace/castle in all of Europe - make it this one!! Henry XIV wasn't messing around. A few of us rented bikes and rode through the gardens for a good hour and a half but probably only saw 1/5 of the gardens. They were beautiful... they seriously thought of everything! We were also fortunate enough to run into our professor who was taking a carriage ride through another part of the gardens and fountains and were invited to jump on board - to which we reluctantly - ya right - enthusiastically accepted. Then we toured the interior of the palace - wow wow wow. We finally concluded that night with worship/chapel in front of the Eiffel Tower. Not a bad day. :)

Another particularly good night in lieu of Sarahs birthday = 10 girls dressed up, pizza, French guards - under the Tour d'Eiffel, followed by dessert on a boat anchored on the Siene River facing Notre Dame..... ya, i told Sarah good luck with my next birthday.. :)

One of my favorite parts of Paris was visiting the church, Sacré Coeur (the Sacred Heart) and Montmarte. The church possibly topped Notré Dame. In fact, it did. Notre Dame was insanely gorgeous, but it was gothic and dark inside... granted, i realize that was kind of the point...but still... So Sacré Coeur is this magnificent white church. We climbed what felt like a thousand stairs to get there, but it was completely worth it. We walked inside just in time to hear the sound of the nuns singing the most beautiful acapella song that echoed through the entire church. WOW. We walked quietly around the sides of the church to the individual chapels, and had some good time to ourselves to sit, light a candle, pray, reflect - all the while listening to their worship.... it was perfect. Afterwards, we headed down the street a little bit to the artists district, Montmarte. Another highlight. This is exactly how i pictured Paris... crooked streets, cobblestone everything, cafés, and artists everywhere... some selling, some painting, some asking to draw your portrait.... we ate a late dinner here and soaked it all in. Later we walked back down the hill and saw the Moulin Rouge.... being that tickets are nearly 85 American dollars, we decided against attending... but we of course snapped away some good pictures outside as if we weren't cheap tourists. :)

So, despite the awful rumors you may hear (or possibly spread yourself) I actually didn't have any trouble with the French people... and I'd like to say it's because my highschool French really paid off - but that'd be a big fat lie... my highschool French got me nowhere, except to take a picture w/ the cute French guards underneath the Eiffel Tower. :) In my experience - the French were friendly as long as I was friendly.

Anyways, Paris is undeniably number ONE so far. Im anxious to see if anywhere else will top it... I almost hope it will just because of how great that city would have to be. :)

Everyone at home is greatly missed. Thanks for your prayers, I know God has heard them as He is blessing our time and keeping us safe. And thank you for your emails - they always make me smile.

Love, Love, Love, Melody