All set for spring break. Finally.

After annoying an SNCF employee for about 45 minutes yesterday at Gare Montparnasse, Jon and I finally have our spring break plans finalized. But that stressful process came with some unfortunate sacrifices and left us with some important choices to make.

We planned to take a train from Paris to Marseille on Sunday, but alas that is not the case. The SNCF decided to extend their strike through the weekend, so there aren't any trains going to southern France until the weekend is over. Also, since Monday is a French holiday that I'm unfamiliar with, the trains are either ridiculously expensive or even worse, full.

So that leaves us with a couple options: First, we could just go with our current plans and take a train to Nice on Tuesday. Or, we could rent a car, and make the trek down to Marseille on the highway...

12:20 a.m.
So it looks like we're driving to Marseille at about 8:30 on Sunday morning, and we'll be doing our trip as planned. Just to give you an idea of what's ahead for our trip, here's our long list of cities for the two-week epic adventure:

• Marseille
• Aix-en-Provence
• Nice
• Antibes
• Cannes
• Villefranche
• Eze (Google it)
• Genoa
• Cinque Terre (Google that too)
• Rome
• Florence
• Venice
• Zurich, for about 2 hours

And that doesn't include our ridiculous roundabout trip from Venice to Paris. For that trip alone, we're stopping in four cities in three countries before arriving home after midnight. Milan, Zurich, Basel, Strasbourg, and finally Paris. Good thing I bought The Little Prince in French, should keep me pretty busy..

Really though, I can't remember a time I've been more excited in my life. This will be a trip I'll always remember, and can't wait to get it started. It should be quite an adventure, and I look forward to writing about it in a couple weeks. By then, I'll have to sift through thousands of pictures, but for now, I'll leave you with one of my favorites from the top of Arc de Triomphe. À Bientot!

Finally, some sun!

About a week ago, when I was in the midst of writing my 10-page term paper for my art history class, something very troubling occurred to me. It's now April. Normally I would be happy - the weather is getting nicer, trees are starting to bloom, and Parisians seem less snobby than usual. But then again, it's April 6, and that means that my program ends in less than two months. Not good.

So after calming down, I put things into perspective. Over the next seven weeks, I'm going to Chartres, Aix-en-Provence, Marseilles, Nice (and surrounding towns), Cannes, Venice, Florence, Cinque Terre, Rome, Giverny, and hopefully Amsterdam. Three countries, 11 cities, then back home.

Really though, this nonstop traveling started this past weekend with our trip to Barcelona, which was by far my favorite trip so far. First off, we were able to stay at my friend Annie Miller's apartment (palace) in an incredible location in the city. That, coupled with her encyclopedia-like knowledge of the city and its landmarks made it an unforgettable trip.

Barcelona is the first city I've been to in Europe whose architecture rivals that of Paris. Clearly influenced by the famous architect Antonio Gaudi, who built incredible sights all around the city. Most notable are the Sagrada Familia cathedral and Parc Guell. They are straight out of fairy tale books and were a great contrast to the gothic architecture I'm used to in France.

Sagrada Familia

Parc Guell

View from Parc Guell

The pictures don't really do it justice, but these were without doubt my favorite parts of Barcelona. That's a pretty ridiculous statement to make considering the amount of amazing sights we were able to take in in the three-plus days we were there.

The weather in Barcelona was pretty much perfect throughout our entire visit. It hovered around 70 degrees with sunshine throughout, and I was outside for most of the time in a t-shirt. Unfortunately, our return to Paris brought us back to reality, with temperatures in the 40s and 50s once again...but not for long.
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So at this point, I got really busy (lazy) and haven't really had a lot of time to finish this entry, so please forgive me.

This week completely flew by. First, not having class on Monday threw me off a bit, and the fact that my sleep schedule has been on Barcelona time all week didn't help my cause. With that said, I will say I had a really fun week. We got closer with our awesome Parisian neighbor who took us to a great club, and on Friday we went to Montmartre again, which was lovely.

And since the weather got a bit nicer (high 50s and sunny), we were able to spend some time outside, and we even got to explore a new park/garden called Lac de Buttes Chaumont, a true gem in the far northeast district of the city.

Lac de Buttes Chaumont

Aside from that, not too much is going on at the moment. My friend Annie from Wisconsin is visiting us for a couple of days, and in one week Jon and I are going on our epic spring break. Before I finish though, I thought it would be fun to show some pictures from the Luxembourg Gardens that really illustrate the change in seasons.

Winter

Still not quite there...

About freakin' time!

Alright, that's it. Hope you enjoyed, and I'll try to get another post in before I go on spring break.