The Penultimate Parisian Post

This last one will be a description of all the touristy things I did after Barcelona before I went home. After I've had a bit of time to process, I will add another post that assimilates what I learned while I was here and general comparisons between Parisians and Americans (it's not as one-sided as you might think). Woohoo!

So. much. snow. No one knew what to do with it! Paris basically got shut down.

The best bookstore!! 

Friday, I had a visit at the Pompidou and then tried to go up Notre Dame. It was closed. I tried again the next day, and it had just closed, again. Woohoo!

Saturday, I went to Montmartre for one last time. Cupcakes and Moulin Rouge! Yay!

Yum, cupcakes!!

My friend Joseph performing in a Christmas program at his French Protestant church

Studying in the Louvre for my art history final yielded a sighting of another copy of Marat Assassiné

The last day, I took full advantage! We started at the Eiffel Tower/Trocadero Christmas market.

It was so absolutely perfect and disappointing at the same time. I was planning to go up and ice skate on my last day. I now have still never been to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

In the architecture museum, which is right by the Eiffel Tower! Look how good we are at construction!

My next and final stop before dinner was the Grand Palais, where I saw the Bvlgari exhibit. Below you can see some examples of the super expensive jewelry, which continues to be a big seller today.

 

After a final host family dinner, I went back out to hang out with a few friends one last time and say goodbye. The next morning, I took the Metro to the RER at 7 AM and somehow got my luggage to the airport. It was a success. After waiting on the plane for an extra hour (and there were no personal screens i.e. NO CAVEMAN CRUNCH--best video game ever-- ROAR...) but my flight was still nice and uneventful. I then did a fast turn around in Minneapolis... which turned into a less fast turn around when the compass on our plane broke and we had to switch planes. Luckily, for some reason they had one in their hangar so we were able to get going about an hour later, and I was only about an hour late! Since then, I've been home enjoying the time with my family.

à bientôt for my last reflective post, and then au revoir! It's been fun :-)