The Louvre and Giverny! Loving Paris.

This is me at the Louvre with a fellow Gator! There is this girl who took French with me at UF who is also in Paris. She’s doing a different program, and is only going to be here for a month, but it was so cool meeting up with her. Her name is Christie and she’s a chemical engineer. She’s super friendly and it was so so amazing seeing a familiar face, even if I don’t really know her that well. The Louvre was great. I also went with Caroline (the girl from my previous post). I didn’t realize how big it is, so we actually didn’t get to see everything. I tried to cover the most famous parts though, so I thought I would share a few pictures with everyone.

This is inside that famous glass pyramid with Caroline. We thought we were really cool because they offered maps in all different languages, and we grabbed the ones in French, which is what we’re holding up in this picture.

Being inside the glass pyramid was actually super warm and stuffy. It was beautiful, of course, but we didn’t stay up there for long. I think the glass pyramid is actually the main entrance of the museum, but the line was ridiculously long, so after we got our pictures in front of it,  we walked around and found another entrance, near where the metro station was, and then just walked up the stairs to the glass pyramid once we got inside. It was really crowded that day because on the first Sunday of every month a lot of museums in Paris are free of charge, so we took advantage of that, despite the large crowds.

So, as you can tell, this is Venus de Milo. I surprisingly got a really good picture. It was really hard because, of course, the crowds to take pictures of one of the most famous statues were quite large. I eventually just had to stick my camera up in the air and shoot, and I was really happy with the outcome. I wish I would have had time to just take it all in, but Venus was just too famous and too many people wanted a picture. I lost Christie and Caroline a few times while trying to get pictures throughout the day, but in the end it was a good trip. I might go back later to see more and have more time there. I had a late start, and then had to be back for dinner with my host mom by 7 p.m.

This is me at Claude Monet’s Garden in Giverny! This is my favorite place I have visited so far. I went there last Friday for a day excursion with my class. Everything felt like I was in a fairytale. All the flowers were just so gorgeous and the weather turned out to be perfect. It was the first time the temperature hit 80 degrees! I fell in love. The Impressionism museum there was also a highlight of the day. I just had such a good day there, and it reminded me of why I took this trip to France in the first place!

This is Claude Monet’s house.. I went inside it and got to see all these beautiful paintings and photographs. Everything inside was so picturesque. I felt like everything was taken out of a postcard and placed in front of me. It was unreal. I’m so happy this was included in my IES program because I might not have taken the trip otherwise, and would have missed out on something so special!