PARIS! :-)

So. I went to Paris this past weekend! (October  8 -10) And it was brilliant! It was much more admirable than I had ever dreamed it would be.

To be honest, my expectations about Paris were pretty low, just from listening to what other people had said about it. That they were glad they went, but wouldn't go back, or that it was dirty etc. But when I got there, I was actually pretty blown away. It ended up being way more historic and beautiful than I had ever thought that it would be! Which was such a great surprise. There was so much to look at and so many things to see, that I was so exhausted from taking it all in.

We got there in the late afternoon on Friday, and went up to tour the Jubile Church. To be fair, I'm not quite sure what the full name of this church is! I even looked at all of my brochures, but they are all in French. I guess I need to learn how to read French. Or I could probably look it up? But that requires more time. But anyways! They were selling glasses of wine, nuts, chocolates, etc. all throughout the streets. So, of course we had to join in the festivities, and tried just about everything. We wandered around a little longer and ended up eating at a cute little cafe. Which had excellent food! Paris has such wonderful food, I don't think you could ever eat anything bad there. They have such fresh breads, and all sorts of meats, and of course lots of wine! I had the best French Onion Soup on Sunday! Dad, you would have loved it! It was so wonderful. I don't think I'll ever be able to have a bowl again back in the states!

Saturday we woke up extremely early and toured Notre Dame, the Louve, and of course, the Eiffel Tower. Notre Dame was actually quite impressive. It was massive, with so much rich structure and history, that we were there for hours. The Louve was really neat, because I got to see the Mona Lisa! Which was more beautiful in person, but since it was blocked off from about a 15 ft radius, you couldn't get up close enough to it to really appreciate it. I did take loads of pictures in the museum though, mostly of all of the other paintings that I had recognized from learning about them in school. I was just so excited because I actually knew all of the symbolism and background information about each of them. The museum is enormous, and we only went through probably a forth of it that day. You could spend ages in there, but we had other stuff to see, so we didn't go through the whole thing!

We went to the Eiffel Tower at around 4 or 5 in the afternoon on Saturday, and I must say, it was way more remarkable than I had ever expected! I just stood under it in awe for a good long while, just thinking how impressive it was. We went up to the top around sunset -- which was quite perfect, because we saw the city during the day, but then we saw everything lit up at night! The river flows right next to the Eiffel Tower, and there were colours of all sorts from the city reflected off of it, and it was absolutely stunning. ( maybe that's the art nerd in me, I'm not sure! )

We were just up on the Eiffel Tower, and I just stood there in awe, and it literally took my breath away! I never thought I would say that about Paris, but it was amazing. I also took loads of pictures of the Eiffel Tower at night, which was magnificent as well. I guess if I had to suggest, I would definitely recommend going up the Tower at night! I think that was my favourite part of the whole trip.

It was such a great weekend! It really really was. It worked out all pretty well, and was worth every penny. (A little expensive penny!) Actually -- My trip wasn't too bad, considering I was already over here on this side of the world, transportation was pretty cheap. Everything went pretty smoothly, except our one friend Zack, actually got pick-pocketed on Saturday. Which was kind of a bummer for him, because it was such a hassle! I was walking right next to him and these two or three young boys started harassing him about signing a "petition" and unzipped his fanny pack in the midst of it all, and stole his wallet. It all happened so fast I don't remember exactly, but luckily, that's the only thing they took, because he has his camera, passport, etc in there as well! I'm not sure why they didn't attack me also, but I did had my belt thing on under my shirt..

so thanks Grandma and Grace for giving me those! :-)

They are so helpful! I wear my very often! And I held onto everyone else's important things in mine after that incident. I don't think I will ever travel to a big city like again that and not wear one of those. Also.. just for future reference: Don't wear a fanny pack when you go places! I think it's a direct target for things like that.

But other than that, the weekend was great! He still had a good time, and he only lost about 50 euros out of it, so he wasn't too upset. We got back around 8:00 England time on Sunday, and was exhausted from all of the walking we did. But I had to stay up pretty late to finish a project that was due the next day!

( Don't worry parents, I got it done and turned in.. with an A of course. ;-) lol. )

I should probably stop writing now, because this is mighty long! I took hundreds of pictures, but I'll try and only post the really good ones! ( Just for you Brother Brent.. I know you think I take too many pictures )

But don't worry! I'm going to get them all developed when I get back, and make a gigantic album to show all of you :-) And Brother Brent will look at it also. And he will like it. hehe!

Pretty trees!

Ritzy but sweet apartments / cafe. I wonder how much this costs to live in? Too much I'm sure

Random street picture that I like :-)

The cops had such pretty horses! But they were fenced in and wouldn't let me pet them.  And I couldn't speak any French to ask them nicely.. so they probably thought I was just crazy.

Cute cafe -- They are everywhere! I didn't see one club or bar there.. only cafes, which I thought was very strange.

The very pretty Jubile church!

Statue and Paris streets

The sun was rising, I thought it was so pretty. And yes -- we were up very early that weekend!

Eiffel Tower!

Me, Zack, and Jess!

Up top the Eiffel Tower. We got there right at sunset!

But looking out over the city was WAY prettier at night! -- This was my favourite part of the whole trip :-)

Another. : -) Again. Favourite part! It really was breathtaking. I can't even describe it.

The bridge at night!

Paris streets -- everything looks the exact same! Needless to say, we got lost a few times! (And yeah, this photo got out of order and it wouldn't let me put it in the proper place.. Sorry! )

Eiffel Tower lit up!

And again, by the river

And again, with me :-) I look photoshoped in there.. but I swear I was actually there!

Me being random. I thought these were pretty fall colours though!

Fountain

The Louve! ( The art museum where the Mona Lisa is! )

Inside the Louve :-)

Monument inside the Louve

Me and the MONA LISA!! I have loads of these pictures, but I will only post one. It was pretty awesome!

The art museum! I didn't realize the entrance looked like this, but it was pretty neat.

Me by it! I thought I was so sweet

One of the bridges in Paris

Random buildings -- but they were still so pretty.

Bridge

Notre Dame!

Doorway - It was so lovely.. So many beautiful sculptures

The inside of Notre Dame -- It was gorgeous, I wish you could see it in person.

It had just such a massive structure.. it was so impressive.

Statue outside of Notre Dame

(Sidenote --- Just before I posted these photos on here, I knew I had a lot of pictures but my iphoto just gave me the count: 817! pahaha! I about died. That's a lot of pictures! ) But, that's alright, I just tried to pick a few good ones! :-) I guess I should go back and delete some.

I hope everything is well back home!

Thanks again for checking up on me and my blog :-)

Harry Potter Castle!

Hello again! 

Last weekend we went to go see the Alnwick Castle, one of the castles that Harry Potter got filmed at! It was gorgeous. Extremely big and quite lovely. I absolutely love Harry Potter, so this was really exciting for me :) I'm kind of a nerd in that way. There is just something so creative and imaginary about the books, I just love it.
There is a family that actually lives there between October and March, which I find very strange, because the rest of the months are just for tourists who walked around their house, while they go live somewhere else!

I think that only the first and second movies were filmed at this castle. They used I think four castles around the UK to film the movies, but the tour guide basically told us that almost everything in the movies are so computer generated anyways, that not much of the actual castle would even be recognized.
It was still so wonderful see, because of its massive size and beautiful structure. I absolutely love old buildings, just studying their architecture and gorgeous framework throughout the place. The inside was so elegant and majestic as well, I could have looked around for hours. I don't have any pictures of the inside though, since people still live there, it's forbidden to take pictures inside.

I took loads and loads of pictures, but I had to cut some of them out because a lot of them are just redundant anyways!

That is really all for now, I will have another post coming soon to talk about my trip to PARIS I went on last weekend! Which was amazing.

I hope everything is going well back home, and I will see you all soon enough when I cross the pond in December!

Thanks for checking up on me and my blog :-)

HARRY POTTER CASTLE!

This is where they filmed the first flying lessons ! 

Inside the courtyard

This is an amazing tree house that was close to the castle -- i want to live here someday! 

Friends!

Me

Percy Family Castle

:-)

The countryside of the Harry Potter Castle! So beautiful. These pictures don't show how pretty it really was in person

 They had random sheep all around -- that's what the white is!

Inside of the entrance

Me being random. 

Cute little boy acting as a knight. He was so adorable

More Random

Forbidden Forest! This didn't have anything to do with the movie, but it's still pretty sweet.

Flatmates!

Guten Tag!

Everything is going well over here in England! It has been a little rainy lately, which I guess is a good thing, so it gives me an excuse to sit in and do my homework! School has been going pretty well, just this past week we got into the swing of things, and it came on pretty full force! A lot of research and sketching, that is for sure. I really do like all of my courses so far, except my one history class is pretty boring! But the guy is pretty funny, so I don't mind so much. Plus, I can sketch while he talks :-) A lot of my courses deal with learning new design concepts and models, added in with communication and presentation techniques. Which is just lovely!

Also! Before I forget, I figured out how to work my heat last week :-) Which is just, wonderful. I don't have to sleep with a sweatshirt or socks anymore! yay! I'm sure Grandma is glad to hear that!
I had to tell all of my flatmates how to work it as well, so at least I wasn't the only one who didn't understand it right away! You have to turn on a switch every time you use an outlet, but this switch was located in a different part of the room, so I just thought it was broken. lol.

Speaking of, all of my flatmates (roommates) are very very nice! I'm so lucky to have gotten such a great group of people. We can all relate so well, because this is a new experience for everyone, where we don't know anyone! They all finally got here and moved in sometime last week. They consist of a great American girl from Maryland, a girl from Malaysia, a sweet little girl from Australia, and a guy from Germany. The guy's girlfriend, and a couple of other friends are always around, which is kind of nice because there is always someone to talk to! Which is perfect if I want to push my homework off for a couple more hours. :-)
We cook together a lot, and have been having big meals lately, which has been fabulous! My australian flatmate's parents own a restaurant and serve chinese food there, so she likes to share some of her cultural food and cooking techniques with us.

I feel as though I'm definitely getting a cultural experience living with people from around the world. I really enjoy learning about how different their lives are from ours, and understanding a little bit about their backgrounds and upbringing. It's also very interesting to experience how others view Americans and relating it back to my own life and beliefs. 

I also went to a Newcastle United football (soccer) game last week Sunday! Maybe it's just because I like sports, but I thought it was very fun and a great experience. It was actually a lot more exciting and intense than I thought it would be. It was really fascinating seeing it live versus on the Tele, especially with the rowdy crowd all around us! We did lose though 1-2, which is a bummer, but it was still a very good game, especially the second half. We went out later to some pubs with my new British friend to meet up with some of her friends. :-)

I hope everything is going well back at home! 

Thanks for checking up on me and my blog!  :-)

Me and Hanna, a very wonderful German friend :-)

They are such great friends to me! We have been going to a lot of places together

We all went to the City Centre mall the other weekend -- the biggest mall in Europe! or so they tell me

At the football game with Alex (Britian) and Jennyann (Sweden)!

Newcastle United Stadium!

It wasn't a big game, but it was still packed. the empty sections on top are set up that way on purpose.. to separate the home and away fans! I guess they weren't kidding when they say it gets rowdy.

We had pretty good seats!

Some Friends!

Some more friends! -- Both of them are from America lol

I finally had my first fish and chips! And yes, they were very good

These are not my roommates, but some of us had a family meal together :-)

Karaoke night!

turned into dance party night

Friends  :-)

John Smith's Beer. One of my favorites here! Dear Big Brother Brent, if you could please learn how to make this kind for me that would be great :-)