I’m already halfway through with this semester?? Where in the world is the time going?
October brought about some visitors for me. First, a friend of mine living in Germany who came to enjoy the city for a weekend, and secondly, my parents! My parents took ten days off of their normally scheduled lives to come see London and obviously, me. I took them to see the Westminster area and while I was in classes, they went to the British Museum and the Tower of London. They had so much fun in the city and it was wonderful to see them after so long.
The grand finale of my parents’ visit was a weekend trip to Paris. None of us had ever been to France, so this was a real treat. We took the underground train (the underground part only lasts like, 30 minutes) and arrived in Montmartre where our rooftop flat awaited us. On the first day we went to the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, full of multiple smaller chapels and gorgeous stonework and stained glass. On the second day, we were much more conventionally tourist-like. We started the day with a trip to the top of the Arc de Triomphe, and then walked to the Eiffel Tower for another beautiful view. The Eiffel Tower had a wait time of 90 minutes for tickets, but since I was raised near Disney, I had been preparing for this for my entire childhood. After we descended from the tower, we went on a cruise on the Seine River right at sunset. The purple sky in the background of the famed cityscape was truly a sight like no other. On our final day, we got up very early to be in line for The Louvre before it opened to maximize our time there. We overheard on the cruise that if you were to visit every exhibit and listen to all the provided audio commentary, it would take about 4 months! We crammed as much as we could into about 4 hours. We saw the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, the Mona Lisa, and a breathtaking recreation of what Napolean’s residence in the palace looked like.
Paris was truly the most beautiful city I’ve been to yet, full of history melded together with modern life. As someone who has studied french for 4 years now, it was quite interesting to finally get to use some of the language to get around and converse with the local people. I’m thrilled that my parents and I were able to experience Paris and I hope we’ll all find ourselves there again.