I'll be taking a brief hiatus from blogging for the next two weeks while I jaunt merrily about Europe for spring break. But never fear! I will be back in May with lots of pictures from my travels.
My first stop will be Florence to pay a visit to Gina and Hallie. Then I'm going with Gina to Greece for a few days. Then it's back to Italy where I'll hop on a train to meet my friends Vanessa and Malorie in Cinque Terre, and then finally we're heading to Lucerne, Switzerland. Should be quite an adventure.


P.S. This weekend marked two months that I've been here. That means it's halfway over. How is this possible? How does time pass so quickly??? Must continue to make the most out of every day.

Fly away home

A week or so ago, I made the big life decision to invest in my own little basil plant, and it turned out to be a great idea. Then today when I had the window open a little ladybug stopped by to have a rest on the leaves. Where do ladybugs live in a big city like Paris?

I got to spend Easter weekend with my good friend Hallie who came to visit from Florence

On Saturday we went for a walk in the Jardin des Plantes and then went to the Grand Mosquée de Paris and had mint tea and north African pastries

 All of the beautiful colors and patterns in the tea room at the mosque, along with the birds flying around inside made for a perfect atmosphere

Today we went out for an amazing Easter brunch, and I went to an exhibition at the Grand Palais. It's the first "major" holiday that I haven't spent with family, so I was really happy to be able to spend it with close friends.

 Also: on Friday I took a cooking class where I learned to make traditional French baguettes and another kind of bread called a fougasse. I brought my bread home and Hallie and my roommates and I took it to the park down the street from my apartment and devoured it. So now that I'm an expert, I'll make for everyone back in the States.

This past weekend I went on a trip with my program to the Loire Valley, about a three hour bus ride from Paris. We went to four out of the 300+ châteaux in the region and had a grand old time.

First stop: Château d'Amboise

Leonardo da Vinci lived in Amboise at the end of his life, and he is allegedly buried under this chapel.

 The castle tour was followed by lunch and exploration of the town of Amboise

...and getting a little too excited about the blooming flowers

 The next stop was Château de Chenonceau, which is everyone's favorite

On Saturday night we stayed at this bed and breakfast, which is actually technically a château itself

The view out of our window was lovely and we awoke to birds chirping instead of sirens, motorcycles, and other Paris sounds.

The next day we went to Château de Nitray. This castle is inhabited by an actual, real-life Count who also makes wine. He showed us a few rooms of his Downton Abbey-esque home and let us taste some different kinds of his wine.

The last stop was Château de Chambord. It was quite cold and windy (inside and out), and everyone was pretty castled-out, so I apologize for not taking many pictures of it.

In fact, now that I look back at this post, I realize that I really didn't take many pictures of the castles themselves. Oops. Hope you enjoyed it anyway!

Edit: Oh! and I forgot to mention that on Saturday night we had dinner in a fancy restaurant that was actually a cave. I didn't get any good pictures of it but I thought it was a cool thing to mention, right? Right??