After surviving my first full week of teaching, I felt like I had definitely earned a fabulous weekend getaway to Paris. So, after a week of long days and late work nights where I was constantly looking down at this...
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| My work table at home. |
It was so fabulous to be able to look up at this...
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| Beautiful Paris! |
But don't worry. I didn't run off to Paris on an impulse...although I may have to try that sometime since it's actually something I could do now. No, we actually planned this trip way back in August at the Washington, D.C. orientation. And man, am I ever glad we did! I traveled with fellow Fulbrighter Christy who flew down from Scotland and met me at the Eurostar station in London. We took the train over Friday night, and we met up with two other Fulbrighters: Natalie, who flew out from northern England, and Susan, who took the train from Rouen, where she is living, to Paris. Back in D.C., we were sitting around the bar after our long day of meetings, talking about how much we wanted to take advantage of every opportunity that came our way and travel as much as possible. We certainly crossed one of our must-see places off the list last weekend.
Susan has a wonderful friend Laurent who lives just outside of Paris, and he put us up at his house. And after living in Paris multiple times and taking many students travel groups through the city, Susan knows the city in and out. We were so lucky to have her as our unofficial tour guide for the weekend. I would have been totally overwhelmed without her! Laurent and his friend Fred met us Friday night, and we stayed out way too late checking out the nightlife...till 3 a.m.! Then Saturday, we got up for a whirlwind sightseeing tour. We saw a lot more of the city than we expected to, and we even had time to stop for a fabulous three-course lunch! Later we had dinner with Laurent and more of his friends. We were all pretty wiped out Saturday, so we decided to take it easy and made it home around midnight. We slept in a little later Sunday, then had a nice relaxing brunch before checking out the Eiffel Tower and a couple more sights. Then, before we knew it, it was time to head home. I had such a fabulous weekend, and I've never been so happy to be so tired!
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| With Susan and Christy, right after we arrived. What a good first stop! |
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| Outside the Louvre |
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| Outside the Louvre |
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| Paris is for lovers. Here's a bridge where they all leave their locks. |
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| There are so many pretty things in Paris. Gorgeous architecture and beautiful signs galore. |
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| La Conciergerie, where they imprisoned Marie Antoinette |
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| Inside a gorgeous church. |
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| Gargoyles keeping watch over the church. |
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| Outside Notre Dame de Paris |
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| Notre Dame de Paris |
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| Where cool writers like Hemingway and Ezra Pound hung out in the 1920s. |
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| The awesome old French collection of Shakespeare I bought at Shakespeare and Company to add to my collection of neat old books. Most of the books in my collection are westerns, so I'm happy to add a little style and class with some old Billy here. |
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| Beautiful water fountains like this can be found all over the city. They were put in a long time ago to improve the drinking water in the city back when there just wasn't enough clean drinking water. |
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| Standing in the Rue du Chat-qui-Peche (The Street of the Fishing Cat)--the narrowest street in Paris |
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| Where we had our fabulous three-course lunch. |
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| I loved all the fun Metro station signs. |
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| Another fabulous Metro station. |
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| Montmartre. We didn't fight the crowds to go inside, but we did enjoy the gorgeous views looking down on Paris. |
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| Looking down from Montmartre. |
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| Moulin Rouge! |
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| Arc de Triomphe |
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| My tasty breakfast and new favorite food--croque madame |
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| Yay! The Eiffel Tower! |
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| I now feel the need to pose with plastic ice cream cones...and yes, we did have ice cream at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower and it was divine! |
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| Later, we stopped in this garden for a little rest. |
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| The other side of the garden. |
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| Then we decided to take the water taxi around for a bit. Here I am waiting for it to arrive. |
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| We had some great views of the city from the water taxi along the Seine. |
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| I'm on a boat! |
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| I thought this guy was pretty neat looking. |
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| Very fun to cruise past the Eiffel Tower on the boat. |
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