Paris!

The first night that we were in Paris we walked to the Eiffel Tower! It was amazing and a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be. We went in a big group and were there to see it light up and we went to the top. It was an amazing view from the top, I loved it! Our first full day there we went to the Musee D' Orsay, which is a famous art museum. We saw a ton of famous paintings there and then walked to Notre Dame. That was also amazing, the architecture was really intricate and it was impressive to see. We also got to see the Louvre, which of course has the Mona Lisa inside. I'm going to be honest, the Mona Lisa was not nearly as big as I though it would have been and wasn't that impressive. The museum itself was amazing though. It was huge! I shopped for while down the Champs D Elysee and saw the Arc D' Triomphe. Overall Paris was awesome, it was a ton fun, with a lot of really cool things to see. Everything is very spread out so it was definitely a lot of walking and doing it all in two days in probably not recommended, but it was great.
I am in the Czech Republic now and it is beautiful. We got to Prague Thursday night and already leave tomorrow morning. This is a really beautiful city and a really fun place to walk around. Tonight we are having a dinner boat cruise down the river, I am very excited! We head back to Austria tomorrow, to stay at the castle. It is the last leg of our trip, back to more work. School definitely has not been the priority these last few weeks, so I will have a wake up call monday morning! I hope you are all doing great and I can't wait to see all of you!

So I am living with a French family....

I am in Brittany, France for the week and we are living with host families from the area. My family is interesting and I am wondering why they wanted to host somone, when they make no effort to get to know me. Besides that fun situation, we have been doing a lot of events with the French sutdents here. We go to classes with them, eat meals together and go on business site visits with them. I sat in on a German class, which is confusing enough for me, but then the default language was French! It was one of the more confusing hours of my life to say the least.
We have not done many blog worthy things in the past week but on Monday we leave for Paris and I am sure I will have things to tell from there! I hope you all are doing well!

Franceville!

I am currently living in Franceville, France. It is a region of Normandy, so while I have been here we have learned a ton of information about the invasion of D-day. We are living in a house, but it is considered a French Institute. We are learning a little bit of French, which is making if very difficult to keep all the languages straight! Everyday we go on "excursions" all day, usually to something related to D-day. Yesterday we visited Omaha beach and Utah beach which are the beaches the American forces invaded on D-day. We also watched Saving Private Ryan, to prepare ourselves- I didn't really enjoy that movie, but it was good to watch. We went to the cemetery of the dead soldiers and were able to see the graves of the brothers that inspired the story of Saving Private Ryan. The silver lining of the story, if you have seen the movie, is that in real life 2 of the brothers actually lived. One of them was a POW and survived, which is not shown in the movie.

We are going to a soccer game tonight and continue our French part of the trip for the next couple of weeks. Starting Monday we live with a French family for a week- could be interesting, but I am excited. I come home a month from today, which is crazy to me. We have time with our host families, a few days in Paris, a few days in Prague, and then we go back to the Schloss in Austria until I come home. While we are at the Schloss we go to Vienna for a weekend to visit a Christmas market- I am really excited!