Dec 6-9 Paris!!

My dream came true last weekend, I finally went to Paris!! I have wanted to go to Paris for a long time and being able to go this weekend was such an incredible experience!! We only had 2 full days there, but we packed everything in like the incredible tourists that we are. We went to the Arc de Triomphe,  Notre Dame, the Latin Quarter, The Louvre, St Michel's Fountain, the famous shopping street Champs- Elysees, and of course the Eiffel Tower! The Eiffel Tower was the most amazing thing ever to see, I first saw the top of it when we were on the metro and I got butterflies in my stomach I was so excited!! We went during the afternoon to see it during the day and went back again at night to see it with all the lights. We took the elevator to the top and walked around too, which was awesome. Overall we probably spent at least 4 hours of our trip at the Eiffel Tower which was perfect, I could have stayed there all day! We also spent about 3 hours at The Louvre, and probably only saw about 1/16 of the entire museum! It is huge! We saw the Mona Lisa, statues by Michaelangelo, Cupid and Psyche, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace, which were all amazing. The night that we went there were a bunch of art students walking around and you could ask them information about the paintings and they would tell you all this information about them which was really cool.  On Saturday we went to Versailles and walked around the palace and the gardens, which were gorgeous. The palace was giant, we probably only saw a very small portion of it but it was beautiful! We got to see the King and Queens bedrooms and the dining room where the public could come and watch them eat, which sounds weird. We also ate crepes and chocolate croissants to complete our Parisian trip!

Arc de Triomphe in the rain/snow/hail

The Seine River

Lock Bridge where couples come and put a lock on the bridge symbolizing

their love and through the key into the Seine River

The Seine

Notre Dame

The ladies in front of Notre Dame

Inside the Cathedral of Notre Dame

The Pantheon

The Eiffel Tower!!!

My favorite picture ever!

The Louvre

Winged Victory of Samothrace

Mona Lisa!!

The Palace of Versailles

Inside The Palace of Versailles

Marie Antoinette's bedroom

The gardens of Versailles

Nov 30-Dec 2 Munich!!

I went to Munich a few weeks ago with a bunch of people from our study abroad program. We had so much fun, it was one of my favorite trips! It was really cold the entire time, which reminded me of how cold I am going to be when I get back to Colorado. Barcelona is really nice because in the winter the coldest it gets is 50's during the day and 40's at night. When we got in on Friday we wandered around the city and went to the famous Hofbrauhaus for dinner that night. The restaurant was so cool, it was in a giant building with huge tables all over. You just walk in and sit wherever you want, usually at a table with other people that you don't know. Their was live music and people dressed in traditional lederhosen outfits. The food was delicious and of course there were giant beers! I have noticed that many of my trips have been to cities where beer is very popular which hasn't been going very well for me since I hate beer. I am always very out of place at a restaurant when I'm the only one who is beerless. But that's ok, I ate pretzels instead. We also went to two different Christmas markets. There was one in the middle of the city in an area called Marienplatz and one a little farther away in an area called Theresienwiese where Oktoberfest takes place. The markets at Theresienwiese were nice because there were a lot of big tents that you could walk in that were heated, so we could escape from the cold for a little. The Christmas markets were very fun, there was a lot of food, hot wine called Gluhwein, and kiosks selling all sorts of stuff from clothes to clocks to jewelry. On Saturday we went to Dachau, the concentration camp outside Munich. It was extremely sad and hard to see, but we learned a lot and it was very educational to see. Our flight was early on Sunday morning and we woke up to snow! One of my friends is from India and was so excited to play outside because she knew she would not be seeing any snow for a long time!

The view on the way into Munich

At dinner with new friends we met at our table. They were on their

way to the Munich soccer game!

Outside at the Christmas Markets in the city center

At dinner

Christmas markets in the city center

In the city center

Dachau Memorial

The view from the top of St Peter's church

Hofbrauhaus restaurant

All the beer at Hofbrauhaus

St Peter's church

Shops at the Christmas Markets

At the Christmas Markets in Theresienwiese where Oktoberfest is held

Live music at the Hofbrauhaus 

Nov 24- Andorra

Yesterday, 2 of my friends and I took a 3 hour bus ride to Andorra. Andorra is a tiny country between Spain and France located in the Pyrenees mountains. I think the entire population is about 86,000 people. We pretty saw pretty much the entire country in one day since it isn't very big. We couldn't figure out what the primary language was but people were speaking Catalan, French, and Spanish.  It is really good for skiing and they have a ton of shopping. We walked around the town, saw the old part of the city, ate some delicious crepes, went shopping and bought some bagels because they are nowhere to be found in Spain.

Nov 18-23 Adventures with Tyler!

Last week Tyler came to visit me in Barcelona, which was the sweetest thing in the entire world. We had so much fun and he got to meet some of my friends. We went to Park Guell, the castle at Mont Juic, Sagrada Familia, Barceloneta beach, and ate lots and lots of tapas. It was so great to see him since I miss him like crazy out here! We had so much fun together and I can't thank his parents enough for helping to send him out here for Christmas!!

 Sagrada Familia

 Barceloneta Beach

Park Guell

At "Chupitos", a bar with 100 different kinds of shots. We had some that one that was on fire, one that had a chocolate bar on top, one that you had to roast a marshmellow over before you drank it, and one with a cherry gummy candy inside. They were all so delicious!