Hello, everyone. It’s been tooooo long. I am SO behind on blogging that it’s not even funny, but I’m about to catch you up. I am now home from my semester of traveling the world, but before I can tell you about the overall experience, and why you should travel internationally, and how I’ve been changed as a person, I must – first – fill you in on the remainder of my journey. So for the next few days look for updates from around the Atlantic, because my voyage maybe over, but yours is far from done. Now… where were we?

September 19, 2014

I went to Paris yesterday. I’ll go on and show you an Eiffel Tower picture because I know you want one.

I trotted around the city to see all the highlights and cram in as much as possible in the few hours I had there. With incredible speed, I saw the Tower, Notre Dame, the Arch de Triumph, one of the lock bridges, and the Louvre. I didn’t get to go inside the Louvre so I didn’t see the Mona Lisa; I hear it’s a little bit of a let down anyway because contrary to what most people believe, it’s actually the size of a regular piece of printer paper.

I feel like I don’t need to talk about Parie much because many people are familiar with it from the movies. There’s that, and also the fact that I was on a mad-dash to see everything possible in my time there. I will say, however, that I was able to have some authentic crème Brule from a restaurant there and, “Have mercy.”

For today’s agenda, I had to go on a field lab for my Great Monuments class. Yes, I will remind you once more that I am actually in school as I am off seeing the world and whatnot.

The lab entailed visiting Rouen, a medieval city that has been made famous for Monet’s paintings of its cathedral and also because it’s the place where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake.

I had the opportunity to see both of these historic spots and also toured an old clock tower. Walking through a museum was an added bonus. It had a large selection of Monet’s paintings, which made my day because he’s my favorite!

The oddest part of the day was walking through a cemetery for Bubonic Plague victims. I learned that it was basically a large pit that bodies were thrown into and slightly covered. It was a little eerie, especially since there were depictions of skulls, and plagued people, and masked voodoo-looking thinks to ward off the black death. My professor’s quote upon entering the cemetery was encapsulated the experience: “There are dead people by the thousands just inches away from your feet.”