Paris + Spring = Samantha outside all the time!

Since Hunter left, I've been slowly getting back to what I consider to be normal life here in Paris, which means preparing for my classes every week, spending time with my friends here, and sightseeing around the city whenever I get the chance, especially with the sunnier days becoming more and more frequent. It's starting to really sink in that I only have about 3 months left of my study abroad experience, and while that may seem like a long time, I feel like it will pass by me so quickly and I'll be back in Atlanta before I can say Au Revoir! There are still quite a few things that I want to experience before my flight on July 1st, such as:

• visiting more museums
• checking out all the parks
• seeing a fashion show
• watching a soccer match
• seeing an opera at the Paris Opera house

...and so on. My mission from now until July 1st will be to check off the entire list!


Now I know a lot of you back home already know this, but my cousin, Maren, who also was doing an internship abroad in London and blogging about it just like me (the link to her blog is on my blog too, in case you forgot- scroll down a bit and you'll see it), actually came to Paris for a weekend a little while ago so I got to finally meet her!

Unfortunately, we didn't get to spend much time together at all (just a few hours really), because we met up the afternoon before her flight back to London, but we still had a good time! Let's see... we talked about how her experience abroad was, how mine is going, how our families are, we poked fun at our grandmothers a little (don't worry, it wasn't too bad, ha ha), and so on. I took her and her friend to see the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Elysées and made sure she got to Charles de Gaulle airport on time. So it was brief, but I really enjoyed meeting her.

And I don't know if she's still there or not, but she told me she was taking her mom to see Barcelona, too, so I hope that went well.





And lately, I've been trying to push myself to go outside as much as possible to see Paris while I still can. The other day, I met up with Monica to take a stroll through the center of the city.
We ended up in the Tuileries gardens, and here's a picture of me by the north side. See how green the grass is now? Spring has definitely hit Paris.

Me and Monica!

Monica is really into watching soccer, and the day we were wandering around, one of her favorite teams, Liverpoole, was playing so we had to find a pub to go watch the game. I'm not usually a big fan of soccer, but I thought I'd go anyway and be a good friend.
We found this bar tucked away under this old building called "The Highlander". Sounds cool, right?

Here I am standing in the alley where the bar was.

And here we are in the bar. You can see the game going on in the background. The match was really close the whole game, and it wasn't until the last few minutes that Liverpoole scored and won. I was quite surprised by how much I enjoyed it all! I was yelling at the tv almost as much as Monica even. We also met this British couple and a French man in the bar who were also following the match, and it was fun talking with them about how poorly Liverpoole was doing and so on. I didn't know what was going on half the time, but it was still interesting.






Here we are having fun watching the match! This made me really want to go see a live match at Stade de France.





After the game, we continued walking around.
Remember how in Amsterdam they had these pee deflectors on the corners of government buildings? We found them in Paris too! They weren't as high tech, though, so I was a bit disappointed.




As we kept wandering around, we found a band playing by the Seine!






We also found this tiny little park connected to a bridge on the Seine. It was like a little peninsula jutting off the bridge, so you could see the water all around.
We found a lot of couples there passing time, and it made me wish Hunter was still here to see it too.



And when it got dark, we were still wandering around and caught an Eiffel Tower light show:

Ah, Paris!





Like I said before, I've been trying to stay outside as much as possible, and it's been pretty easy so far because of the nice weather. The other day, I went to go have lunch in the Jardin de Luxumbourg after my class.
I found this greenspace where everyone was soaking up the sun, and I decided to join!

Here I am listening to music and enjoying my sandwich!

And on another day, Monica invited me to go have a picnic with her and some new friends by the Eiffel Tower!

This was our view!

This was our picnic! One of the girls brought some homemade bread, which was so so good.

Me and Monica relaxing on the lawn!

Here's me, Monica, and our friend William!

And last but not least, I took a video of our little experience:


I'm definitely enjoying Paris in the Spring!

Bisous XOXO