What a Great Week

Hey everyone! I know its been a few days since I have written, so I thought I'd give a quick update! This past week was really exciting.

We had the day off from school on Monday so Lindy, Emma, and I visited Les Invalides. We saw Napoleans tomb and a WWI and WWII museum. It was very interesting and a nice way to spend the afternoon. Then that evening a group of us were craving some American food, so we took a much needed trip to the Hard Rock Cafe. I would have to say that I absolutely loved it!!! My family visits Hard Rock Cafes all over the US, so it was nice to visit the one in Paris. We had to wait for an hour for a table, but in the end our food was fantastic! It was a nice touch of home.

On Tuesday it was back to school where we started our Marketing class. Our professor is really cool and is very knowledgeable. The enitre day was devoted to Marketing and we worked on three case studies. It was nice to work on something besides our group project! Tuesday evening we hung out around home because we had to get up really early on Wednesday.

On Wednesday the class took a trip to the town of Reims (Champagne country) and visited Veuve Clicquot. We had to leave pretty early in the morning in order to be at the train station in time for our 8:50 train, but it was worth it! Veuve Clicquot is a very fancy champagne company that has been in business since the 1800's. We recieved a tour of the cellers and then got to taste some of their champagne. (I enjoy this more than wine) It was a lot of fun and very interesting to learn about how the champagne is made. After the visit to Veuve Clicquot, we wondered around the town of Reims and learned about two of the famous churches there. It was amazing and I really enjoyed the smaller town feeling!

Thursday and Friday were spent back at school working on more marketing stuff. We did a few more case studies and learned about the different types of payment methods and point-of-sale risk transfers.

Today we are planning on visiting the Catacombes, so I will be sure to update about that as soon as we get back. Overall, things in Paris are going great and it's weird to think that we only have a week left here.

Monuments that Tell Stories of Paris

After being in Paris for a few weeks now, I feel that I have learned so much. The entire trip has been like a huge history lesson. I've decided that if I had grown up in Paris, I would be much more interested in history. Living in the US, it's hard to see a large historical site. But in Paris, you learn about an amazing historical event and then it's only a short trip to the actual location of the very event. This makes it so much more interesting.

This weekend I bought a book titled Monuments that Tell Stories of Paris. It's a children’s book, but it's amazing. It talks about a bunch of different famous monuments in Paris and it gives a short history of them. It's the best book ever. A lot of the monuments in the book we have already been to. Claude has taken our class to a few of these locations and what she has told us has been retold to me through this book. I can't wait to bring it home and be able to tell everyone about all the different places in the book. It's my goal to visit all the locations in the book before I return home.

Trip To Versailles

Yesterday a group of us took a day trip to Versailles. It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. The Chateau of Versailles was the ultimate royal palace; it was the seat of French power for more than 100 years. It kept the members of the royal family safely cushioned from their subjects in Paris, that is, until the invasion of the Revolutionary mob.

The inside of the Palace was full of extravagant décor and breath-taking paintings. We saw the King’s State Apartment and the Queen’s Apartment. They were both amazing. The rooms were fully decorated (even the ceilings were painted and covered with gold). Between the King’s Apartment and the Queen’s Apartment is where the famous of mirrors is located. There are more than 350 mirrors in the room and when the sunlight from the opposite windows hit the mirrors, the room is full of beautiful light! This is the room where the Treaty of Versailles was ratified in 1919 (which ended World War One).

The inside of the Palace was amazing, but the gardens were by far the best part. I spent hours wondering through the maze like gardens. There are over 200 acres of gardens which are all perfectly landscaped and full of fountains. There is also a canal which you can boat on. Even though it was raining while we were there, I still thought it was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen in my life. This is something that I would recommend everyone try and see in their lives.

Adjusting To The French Way

Well it's been a while since I last wrote, so I thought I'd give everyone an update on life in Paris. This week was a lot different than last week. Most of the excitement of being in Paris has rubbed off and now we are actually living in France. This has been a bit of an adjustment for a lot of people in the group. I feel that I am doing a pretty good job of adjusting to the French way of life and following their standards, but it's hard to get a group of 40 college students to all behave.

When people say that Europeans refer to Americans as loud, they weren't lying. By French standards, Americans are very loud. The French speak in a much softer voice than any Americans and what we consider normal talking level they would consider loud. It seems that most people on the trip have become good at talking at a softer level, but there are still some people who have a hard time keeping their voices down.

Overall, I'm having a great time in Paris. We just got done with class for this week and I'm very excited for the weekend. In class this week we visited the Conciergerie. The Conciergerie is the prison that was used during the French Revolution. It is the prison that Marie-Antoinette spent her last few months before she was beheaded. I thought the Conciergerie was really cool because it was different than any other place we have visited. We also worked on our group projects this week, which I feel we are doing very well on. We have a lot of ideas of places to visit and things to do, so I will be writing soon with the weekend story!

A Great Day In Paris

Today might have been my favorite day in Paris so far. It started out with school where we proposed our ideas for our group projects. For our project we have to pick a US product or service and export it to Europe. It's really hard to think of ideas of things to bring to Europe because they have almost everything here and Europeans seem very happy with what they have. After a lot of thought, my group decided that we should export Inta Juice to Spain and Germany. Some of the other groups came up with really good ideas too (such as Chipotle and mobile dog grooming services).

After Management class we had a very long lunch break that was spent deciding how to create our school blog. Both UNC and UNF have to create a blog about the group’s experience. It seems like ours is going to be really great. We have really smart people on this trip from UNC that are all good at different things; this should make the blog really diverse.

We ended school with a French lesson. I feel like I am getting better at understanding and speaking French. It is a very hard language to learn so I enjoy all the practice I can get. Today we learned the French alphabet and more restaurant lingo.

After school we had a simple dinner from the Monoprix (a local grocery store) that was pretty good. We decided to spend the rest of the evening strolling around in the area of town near Notre Dame. It's a really beautiful part of town! We went in a few shops and then we went to Shakespeare and Company Bookstore. (It's a pretty famous book store) It was really nice to look at the books and the entire upstairs was full of very old books. After strolling the shelves for a while we took a break at a next door cafe and had drinks and a fantastic dessert. The cafe was so perfect; it had a great view of Notre Dame and live music. It is exactly how I imagined I would be spending my time in France.

Now I'm off to bed to get some much needed sleep. I really am starting to miss everyone from back home but I'm having a great time here in Paris!

Good night!

My First Week In Paris

So I've been in Paris for about a week now and I still can't believe it. Paris is such an amazing city! I feel like everywhere I look I see something beautiful and full of history. Through out the week we have done a ton of stuff, I feel like I have seen so much but I know there is a lot more to see.

On Wednesday we had a cultural outing to Notre Dame. It was so beautiful! It took hundreds of years to build and you can tell. Walking inside is breath-taking. The stained glass windows are even more amazing than I thought they would be. I really love the gothic architecture used on the building. Notre Dame is located in a erally cool part of town and after we were done exploring the church we walked around the shops for a while. After that a group of us got off on the wrong metro station and ended up walking along the beautiful Champs-Elysees. We saw really high end stores and got caught in a rain storm (but I had an umbrella, so it was okay!) It was such a great day to see the city.

On Thursday, we went with the school to see the Louvre. We spent some time in class talking about the history of Paris and of the Lourve and then we went as a really large group. It was hard going with a group of 40 people because it was very easy for people to get sepperated (which happened a lot). It made it difficult to hear what Claude (our teacher) was telling us. Even though it was really crowded and stressful, we got to see and learn a lot of really cool stuff about the Louvre. But we were on a tight schedule on Thursday because the Wine Club at EBS had invited us to a wine tasting and dinner that night. Because of this we did not get to see a lot of the paintings.

The wine tasting was really fun. We went as a really big group and worked our way through 3 different metro lines to get there! Once we all crowded into the basement celler the French students told us about all the different types of wines we were drinking and where the came from. It was such a good opportunity to talk to actual Parisians. They were all so nice and answered all of our questions!

On Friday we didn't have school so it was nice to sleep in a little bit! We spent the day doing some local shoping and then decided to return to the Louvre because its free for people under 26 on Friday nights. We got there a little early so we did some walking around. It was nice to look in the cute suvioner shops!

Once inside the musem we saw some amazing art! The Mona Lisa and the statue Venus de Milo are some of the famous ones we saw. I really enjoyed all of the sculptures that we saw. I feel like we saw some of the most amazing art work in the world. Even though we spent a couple hours there, some of us still would like to go back another weekend because there is a lot we didn't get to see. I mean it is the world's largets musem.

Yesterday a group of us girls decided that it would be nice to get a different view of the city, so we went on an open-top bus tour. It was a really cool way to see a lot of the wonderful things in Paris. It gave us tons of ideas of more places we would like to visit while we are here! It was also nice because we got to learn a lot about all of the buildings we have been seeing. (It was in English!!! Yay!)

After a fun filled day, we decided to enjoy some food and wine at the park near the eiffel tower. It was a great way to have everyone together and just relax. It's so nice to just chat and watch the eiffel tower sparkle!!!

Today has been a pretty lazy day so far. Emma, Lindy, and I are going to get together soon to work on the beginning of our group project (we have to pick an american product to bring to Europe) and to work on our French homework.

This week has been so amazing. I can't wait to see what the city of Paris has to offer me for this next week!!

My Top 10 Things To Do While In Paris

Yesterday was our first day at the European Business School and I think it's pretty cool. It started by making our way to school, which takes about 45 minutes or so by metro. (I'm actually pretty good at navigating my way on the metro, I was able to read the map and get a group of us to the Eiffel Tower) Once at school we met a lot of the professors and had a nice breakfast. The school is located in a really pretty part of town and everyone there seemed really nice. We are going out o dinner with some students from EBS tomorrow night. It should be pretty fun!

In one of our classes we talked about taking risks and how they can change your perspective on life. Going along with this, we all came up with a list of our top 10 things to do while in Paris. So here is mine:

My Top 10 Things to Do While In Paris
1. Visit Montmartre - It's supposed to be beautiful and full of street vendors and artists. It is home to what Parisians refer to as "the hill" which is the highest point in Paris. There is also a small vineyard located here (that’s right, inside of the city).

2. Get Lost - I've heard that getting lost is the best way to really experience the French culture. Doing something by pure chance can be the beginning to a great experience (sure it might be scary, but what's life without a little risk?)

3. Visit the Catacombes - the catacombes are located 65 feet below the streets and contains the world’s largest repository of human bones. They say it's not for the "faint of heart," but to me it sounds really cool!

4. Go Dancing - The Latin Quarter is full of clubs and bars that are supposed to be incredibly fun!

5. Visit Monte's House - Located outside of Paris, the cottage that Monet lived in and the inspirations for many of his paintings are here and it should be beautiful.

6. Go Shopping - Everywhere from Champs-Elysees (where the high-end stuff is, i.e. Channel) to small local markets. Paris has it all!

7. Spend an Afternoon in the Park - Most of the Parisians love doing this, it's supposed to be very relaxing. I would like to take a picnic and explore some gardens.

8. See the Sex in the City Movie - We found out that the movie premier in Paris on May 28th and will be playing at a nice cinema on Champs-Elysees. The girls of the group have decided to have a girl’s night out and see the movie!

9. Have a Romantic Date - We are all very busy, but it would be nice to go out one night with just Tyler and experience the romance that Paris has to offer.

10. Cruise the Seine - The Seine is the river through Paris and I would like to take a dinner cruise to see the sights.

Let me know if you guys can think of anything else that I can't forget to do while I'm here.

Bonne nuit! (Good Night)

Getting There is Half the Fun?

Some people say that "getting there is half the fun," well....I am not one of those people. The trip to Paris from Denver started out very exciting. Things went very smoothly as I made my way through the Denver Airport and I was thinking it was going to be a great day. But then, as we began to board the plan, we found out that there was a "ground stop" in Chicago and that we would be delayed. After being delayed over 3 hours we finally left Denver. While in the air we all feared that we would miss our plane from Chicago to Paris but thanks to a lot of hard work the airline held the plane for us in Chicago. When our first plane landed in Chicago it was a mad dash to the next plane (which was only 4 gates down, so our entire stay in Chicago was under 5 minutes!). As we ran onto the very full plane of angry passengers (because they had to wait for us) we did pass Lindsay Lohan which was pretty exciting. That plane ride was the longest I have ever been on (just over 8 hours) and I tried to sleep but it was not a big success.

But, through all the crazy stuff, we all made it to Paris. Arriving in the Paris Airport was crazy. It was my first experience of not knowing the language and to be honest, it was a little scary.

I spent my entire first day in ahh of the fact that I was actually in France. We were taken to our hotel, which is amazing, but has very small rooms. Then we went to lunch and saw the Arc de Triomphe. It was amazing! Even though we were all really tired (seeing as we had not slept in over 30 hours) most of the UNC kids went to dinner at a really cool cafe and then we walked along the Seine and got a nice glimpse of the Eiffel Tower.

I can't believe that I'm actually in France and experiencing all of this! I hope everyone is doing well back home and don't worry, I'm having a great time in Paris!

Love you all!

I Leave Tomorrow!

I can’t believe it, I leave for Paris tomorrow! I’m getting more and more excited with every passing minute. This has been a really long week and it feels so go to know that finals are over and I have finished my Junior year of college. It seems like these past three years have gone by really fast. I got done with finals on Thursday and then spent the rest of the day shopping for my trip. Now I am back home in Colorado Springs and I’m finishing getting ready for this amazing trip that is ahead of me.

I feel like I am about ready to leave! I have my packing done and to my amazement I got everything in one suitcase. But now I am worried that it’s over 50 pounds and I’m going to get charged for that. So today I’m going to weigh it and figure out if I can take anything out to help make it lighter. (But still…I got everything in one suitcase!!!) So today all I have to do are a few little things and then I’m ready to leave! Yay!

Yesterday my boyfriend Tyler (who is also going on the trip) and I bought a really nice camcorder that I am so excited to take on the trip with us. Now I will be able to post videos on here for you all to see and after the trip I’m going to make a DVD. I think it will be the perfect way to document the trip.

I guess that’s all for now, I will try and write as soon as I get to Paris so that I can let you all know my first impressions of France!

Bonjour!

Bonjour! For those of you who do not know, my name is Nicole and I’m just finishing up my Junior year at the University of Northern Colorado. I’m very excited because I will be using this blog as my way of communicating to friends and family while I spend a month participating in a study abroad program in Paris, France. To say the least, I’m very excited for this trip. I can’t believe that in 9 days I’ll be in Paris. I’ve been looking forward to this for months and it’s hard to believe that it’s actually happening. As much as I am looking forward to this trip, it’s hard to be excited when there is so much to do before I leave. Not only do I have to do all my packing and shopping, I have a week of finals to look forward to. I have four finals and a group presentation to do before the fun can begin. This semester has been very full of group projects and hard work, so it’s been hard to prepare for my trip but I think I’ll do alright. A trip to Paris is the perfect reward for the most difficult semester of school yet. I have finals until Thursday afternoon and then I’m going to spend the rest of Thursday and Friday cleaning my house, doing laundry, and packing. I’m going to try and pack light, but I know that this will not happen and that I will leave for DIA with two full suitcases and that I will arrive in Paris wishing I had packed lighter. But what can I say….I just don’t travel lightly!

Besides being super excited for this trip, I am also a little nervous. I have never been out of the country before and I am a little afraid of experiencing some sort of culture shock. However, I do think that I will adjust quickly! Also, I don’t speak French. I have been reading multiple French books and trying to teach myself, but it is a little scary to be put into a situation where I don’t know the language. I hope I will pick up enough French too help me while I’m there, but I’m sure that the language barrier will be the largest obstacle to overcome while on this trip. Even though I’m scared, I am still really excited and I know I will make the best out of this trip!

I hope that you will all read along as I share my travel experiences, please leave me comments, give me your advice, and help me make the best of my trip to Paris.

Au revoir!