The End.

Well, my time in Italy is all up. I have very mixed emotions over it. I am glad to be home and to see everyone, but honestly, Tuscania has become my home. I felt like I was moving away from a place I had been forever. It was honestly one of the hardest things I have ever done. I have moved 8 times in my life being an Army brat and none of those times have affected me more than this move back home.

I took all my finals and I think I did good on all of them. Cinema was pretty difficult, but I think I did pretty decent on it...even though the teacher is out to get me! Italian was a little challenging, but, again, I felt pretty prepared for it so it wasn't terrible. There was no final in sketch really. We just went over all of our work from the semester. Then cooking and wine were both really easy cause the teachers just gave us the answers pretty much while we were taking the test. I am going to miss all of my teachers...well not my cinema teacher haha, but they were all just so great. They were all so humble and nice and warm-hearted. I actually enjoyed going to school this semester. My favorite class was definitely cooking. He was my favorite professor and the class was always such a blast. I have learned so much from that class too. I loved it!

The last full week felt so surreal to all of us. We were packing all of our stuff little by little throughout the week and having our final inspections. We were doing everything we needed to but at the same time it didn't feel like we were actually leaving. We never really thought this day would truly come. It just didn't seem real. It didn't hit any of us until our last moments there. On Thursday night we had our farewell dinner. It was at the same place that we had our welcome dinner. We had a 3 course meal and all of our landlords came and our professors and a few locals. It was like one big family dinner. The staff gave speeches and they all ended the same. They all said, "You come as students, and you leave as family." and it truly did feel like they meant that. After the dinner we got the bar, Mr. Kat, to stay open late for us and we all went out to celebrate. It was so nice having everyone together in one place and just having a good time.

Friday was really strange. It was our last day in Tuscania. Me, Caroline, Jenny, and Sara all got up early and made breakfast together. We made french toast, bacon, and mimosas. It was such a great breakfast with just the roommies. It was our last hoorah together. Then we went to the local market one last time and wandered around town. Then we went to school to print our boarding passes for the airport and say our final goodbyes to the advisors. That is when it started to hit us that we were really leaving. I was doing perfectly fine until I gave my first final hug. As soon as I wrapped my arms around the advisors to say goodbye I started to tear up. This was really happening. I am going to be leaving these people that I have seen every single day for the past 3.5 months of my life. How am I going to function without them? It was such a strange and unwelcome feeling. We all finished our packing and a few of us went out to eat together that night and then we went out on the town one last time. We went to Cafe Del Duomo first. I got to see the volleyball guys one last time and I got to have one last Green Jamaican drink one last time. Then we were off to Mr. Kat one last time. We had a great last night out with everyone. Then we had to say our goodbyes. Me, Caroline, Sara, and Connor were leaving at 4AM to go to Rome for the airport so we did not go to sleep that night. We left Mr. Kat at 2AM so that we would have enough time to finish packing before we got picked up. So we said our goodbyes. I think that I have been the least emotional person this whole trip, but once I started to hug everyone I was a complete wreck. I am tearing up thinking about it right now. I knew it was not going to be easy to say goodbye because it never is, but I was not expecting it to be that hard. I didn't want to let go of anyone. I had to soak it all up. I was crying so much that my vision was blurred and my face was red. I have never been so sad to leave people before in my life. I really do consider these people my family for life. Then it was time to start the roommate goodbyes. Those were even harder. I have lived with these 3 girls for the past 3.5 months every single day. We became so close in such a small amount of time. I honestly feel like I can talk to them about anything and everything. I love those girls to death and we will always be friends. They will all be bridesmaids in my wedding one day. They became my best friends. Saying goodbye to them was the worst feeling ever. It made my stomach hurt. Caroline was always so fun to be around and she understood me so well. We were pretty much twins. Jenny was the sweetest girl I have ever met and so smart and beautiful. We had so much nerdy things in common and she gave the best hugs in the world. Sara was like the mom of the group, but the coolest mom ever. She is one of the strongest and most amazing person I know. She has so much confidence and spunk and she is just such a great person overall. I strive to be like her one day. I love you girls. You are like the sisters that I never had.

I had no problems really with the flight. It was just really long and tiring. I got home at about 9:30PM. My best friend Alyssa was at my house along with my mom and brother. My dad came to pick me up at the airport. It was really strange being in a car driving home. America is so boring looking. It is so plain. Even the plain areas in Italy were exciting and gorgeous. Here it is nothing. I stared out the window the majority of the time just missing everyone already. I feel almost awkward being here. I still find myself using Italian words every now and then without realizing it and laughing at random things that no one understands. It is a weird feeling and I dont like it. I dont like it at all. I think the culture shock has been much greater coming home than it was going to Italy. Nothing has changed here. No one has changed here. In a way it is comforting, but at the same time its boring. I am ready to go back to Tuscania now. I really do feel out of place. It was so weird going to bed in a different room and without a roommate. I dont like not being able to walk everywhere and recognize everyone in town. I dont feel like myself here. I think because I completely let myself go and didnt care what people thought while I was gone and I really got to find myself in Italy and figure out who I am, and here I feel like I have to be the same person that I was when I left. I dont feel comfortable here like I did in Italy. I feel judged here and like people are expecting certain things from me and I just feel like I cant completely let myself go and just be me here. People already know me as one person and I feel like I cant just suddenly change just cause I was gone for 3.5 months. I like the me that I was much better in Italy rather than the reserved person I am here in the US. I even feel closer to my friends that I made in Tuscania than I do with my friends that I have known since I was 10 here. It is really sort of an out of body experience and not a very good one. I cry at random moments because I miss the small town of Tuscania, the advisors, the social life in Tuscania, the friends, the roommates, the atmosphere, and I miss myself and how I was in Tuscania. I no longer feel at home here. I feel at home in Tuscania. I had so much more confidence in Tuscania and now that I am back here I am going back to my old ways already. I judge myself more and I critique myself harder here. I dont like doing that and I dont know how to shake that off here. I had no problem with that in Italy. As much as I missed my friends and family while I was gone, I think I miss my life over there more. Dont get me wrong, I am happy to be home and to be in my own house and sleeping in my own bed, but I really feel sorta lost here. I am sure this feeling will go away because when I fist got to Italy I was home sick, so I think I am just experiencing the same thing again. It is just all really bizarre.

Studying abroad has been the most terrifying, shocking, strangest, stressful, emotional, and the most amazing time of my life. I do not regret one second of it and I would not take back anything (even being pick-pocketed!). It was so thrilling to go somehwere where you do not understand a word of what they are saying and learning how to live on your own without help from anyone. I really think that everyone should study abroad at some point in their lives. It opens your eyes to the rest of the world and it makes you a better person. I learned so much in such a short period of time and made friends that will last a lifetime. When I think back on everything that I have done, it baffles my mind. I went to Tuscania, Pisa, Venice, Florence, Rome, Montebello, Montalto, Viterbo, Tarquinia, Paris, Dublin, Theseloniki (sp?), Madrid, and a million other little towns all in 3.5 months. How many people can say that they have done something like that? I am just so blessed to have this life. I am so blessed to have the opprotunity to do everything that I have done. I am just so grateful for everything. It was the time of my life and I will never forget it. It is something that I will be able to talk about for the rest of my life. I can't wait to go back.

Until next time...ciao!

Ross Siblings Taking Over Italy

Okay, by now we all know how terrible I am at updating this thing. So instead of trying to give you every possible detail, I am just going to catch you up and whats been happening!

So, my older brother TA (most people know him as Steve) came to visit me! I was so excited that he was able to come!! We had so much fun and I am so glad that I got to share my experience with him!! It was so nice to see a familiar face too after being here for so long. I picked him up at the Rome airport on April 19th and we immediately started sight seeing since I picked him up at 9AM, so we had the whole day ahead of us! We found our hostel and got our stuff put down and then we were off. Didn't really have much of a plan of what we were gonna do, but we knew that we wanted to see all the famous sights and we had to figure out how to do that in 2 days. We started to wander around near our hostel which was nicely placed right near the train station, so it was a good central location. Rome had a lot of vespas and motorcycles! it was crazy! My brother and I were both really fascinated by it!

Anyways, when we hit the main street we saw a tourist bus that was a "hop on, hop off" bus. It took us to all the major sights that we wanted to see and you can get on and off on any of the busses all day. It was a really convenient way to get around...and we got free headphones with it...score! (my other ones broke, so a new pair made my day!). Our first stop was the Colosseum. Oh. My. Goodness. It was so cool!! I have always wanted to see it and so has my brother so it was really awesome to see it in person and not just on the movies! It was absolutely everything that I was expecting and more. It was so interesting to hear about all the random and fun facts about the Colosseum and the history of it. It was really fascinating to learn about. 

After stopping to eat some lunch...right next to the Colosseum...no big deal...we got on the bus again and headed towards the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain. I really didn't know much about the Spanish Steps to be honest, I just know that they are well known. I can't really tell you their significance or why they are famous though, haha....oops! Oh well, they were still really beautiful to see! Then the Trevi Fountain...now don't make fun of me, but let's be real, the main reason I wanted to see the Trevi Fountain was because of the Lizzie McGuire movie. haha. I wanted to be just like here and make a wish in the fountain and that is what motivated my desire to go there. Again, I do not know the history of the fountain but I know it from many movies like Lizzie McGuire, When in Rome, and La Dolce Vita. It was gorgeous! And, of course I made my wish...threw 3 coins in there insuring my return to Rome someday in the future.

After the Trevi Fountain we headed back on the bus again and just sort of rode it around so that we could see everything, but the sights that we didn't know about or care for too much, we were still able to see but didn't have to get off the bus to look at. It was really convenient and nice. I really enjoyed the bus tour. Then we got off at the train station and headed back to the hostel. We were both really exhausted since I woke up early and my brother was a little jet-lagged. So we took a nap before our night started. The hostel has a bar-crawl that you can sign up for every thursday-saturday and since we were there on Thursday we decided that It would be fun to do. It was 20 euro for my brother and 15 for me since it was ladies night...i was also able to get half off on all the drinks, and we got a t-shirt with it. It started out in the bar inside the hostel and there was free pizza, all you can eat at 8PM and then from 9-10PM it was free and unlimited drinks. We hung around there for a while and everyone played flippy-cup. It was a lot of fun. Then we all took a metro to the first bar, where we got a free shot upon our entrance. My brother and I were pretty lame though and we got really tired and went home before going to the second bar....haha....oops. I wish we could have stayed out longer, but I was really exhausted and i know for a fact that my brother had to have been dying from no sleep, so it was kind of nice to get to bed. 

The next day we got up and went on a tour of the Vatican. We were told that the tour would be about 3 hours long and it ended up being around 4 or 4.5 hours instead. Wow, was it tiring! The Vatican was absolutely gorgeous though! Everything about it was so beautiful. The outside, the inside, all the paintings, all spectacular to see! My brother and I were the youngest ones in our tour group everyone else was 30+, but thats okay, it was still really great. It was good that we had a tour guide cause otherwise we would have gotten lost and would not know about anything we were looking at. Statues everywhere, amazing paintings, and then the Sistine Chapel! It was extraordinary! We were not allowed to take pictures inside the Sistine Chapel and everyone had to be quite. It was extremely crowded in there too! It really was something else though. I can't imagine painting all of that including the ceiling! It was crazy cool to see! The Vatican was huge and a little overwhelming to take in all at once, but I am so glad we went and took a tour of it!

After the tour we had to find our way back to the hostel...and of course there was a transportation strike in Rome that day. No metros. No busses. No Trams. We were really far from our hostel too. So we wandered around for a few hours and went shopping and eventually we noticed that the metro was running again. Thank goodness! We had to get to the train station because my roommate, Jenny, was meeting us to stay in Rome with us that night because she was picking up her parents the next morning really early from the airport. When we met up we wandered around and did some touristy-souvenir shopping...of course...and found a nice restaurant to eat at for dinner. My brother and Jenny got along well, I knew they would and we had a good time laughing and joking around. It was a fun night.

The next day we got goin in the morning and caught an early train so that we could get to Tuscania to relax for a day and a half. We didn't do much in Tuscania while my brother was here. Saturday night we went to Cafe Del Duomo so I could show him a typical weekend here and then the next day I showed him around town and we just kinda bummed out that day. We both needed that day break so that we could reenergize for Florence on Monday!

We got going really early on Monday morning. We caught a bus to Viterbo at 7:20AM and our train was leaving from Viterbo at 8:30AM to get to Florence. Well, we get to Viterbo and we get lost...majorly! We couldn't figure out how to get to the train station for the life of us! It was getting really frustrating after a while and by the time we finally got there we missed our train. So, we had to wait 4 more hours for the next train to get there at 1PM instead. Eventually we made it to Florence around 5PM, when originally we were supposed to be there by 2PM at the latest. But, alas, we made it, and in one piece. We had a roommate in our hostel and he was from England. He was very clingy...he was kind of annoying. He had been there for a month already...just cause he could and he never shut up! He was nice, he just didnt know when to quit. We went to bed kind of early though since we were tired, and we didnt want to talk to our roomie. haha

The next morning we got up bright and early. It was raining that morning, which was kind of a bummer, but we werent gonna let that stop us. We found another "hop on, hop off" bus and decided that it would be a good idea to take that since it worked out so nice in Rome. The first half of the day we didn't need it though. We stopped at the Duomo first. Wow. It was so amazing! It almost looked fake, like a piece of cardboard that someone painted or drew on. It was really amazing looking! We got in line to go inside, which was free, and then after searching for a while, found where to go in order to climb to the top of the duomo! It was about 8 euro to climb the stairs but it was so worth it! The stairs were such a pain though! There was no room to climb, it was very narrow and very steep, and half of it was spiral stairs. Just when we thought the stairs were done, there were more...and more...and more! It was crazy! It was worse than climbing the Eiffel Tower! I swear! It was totally worth it at the top though! My legs were so shaky after all that climbing though! Phew! It was beautiful though to see all of Florence from up there. It was great!

Afterwards we wandered around a bit. My brother bought a leather wallet for only like 50 euros cause everything was half off. It was a good deal! I wanted to buy a leather jacket but even with the half off it was still 300 euro, so i gave up on that dream! We bought our touristy stuff as well and i was finally done buying stuff for friends and family back home. It was a nice feeling to not have to worry about that anymore! Then we went to the Ponte Vecchio and Vecchio Plaza and saw the Uffizi and the "statue of David"...it was actually a fake one...but we pretended like it was the real one!

Then we were really hungry so we decided that we would look for the pizzaria where the Jersey Shore cast worked when they were in Florence and we knew it was near the Uffizi so we wandered around to look for it. We had no luck though. We were getting lost. So we just ate at the Hard Rock Cafe. We needed a break from pizza and pasta so we went and got us some burgers! It was so heavenly tasting! I usually dont like bacon on my burgers but for some reason I ordered one and it also had friend onion rigns on it and it was the most amazing burger ever! We also got a souvenir glass with our drink cause we got some special edition drink or something so that was cool. After eating, like in Rome, we just kind of rode around on the bus for a while and looked at other sights like the Michelangelo Plaza. It was at the top of this hill and you could see everything from up there! It was beautiful!

Then after being gone for over 12 hours of the day, we were pretty pooped out and headed back to the hostel and went out to eat before we got back so that our roommate wouldnt eat with us! We thought we dodged a bullet but then he sat...on my bed...ew...for like 2 hours talking with us. So annoying! Eventually i got him off my bed so i could go to sleep!

It was another early morning for us, mostly cause we wanted to get out before our roomie woke up! We are so mean...oh well! Our train back to Tuscania didnt leave until 3PM so we had all day to see things and shop around. We were determined to find that Pizzaria that day too! As we were wandering around we got to see a parade. It was a national holiday in Italy that day...Liberation Day. It was a small parade, but hey, a parade is a parade! It had an old people band, it was really cute actually. 

After sitting for a while and wandering around some more and exploring, we finally found the pizzaria!! It is called O'Vesuvio. It was really cool to see. They had pictures of the Jersey Shore cast all over the place and they had signatures on the walls and had pizzas and paninis named after all the cast members and their clothes were still hanging up in the back of the store. It was really cool and fun to see. The pizza was really good too! I'm sure that place is tired of Americans coming in and taking pictures all the time, but it really was awesome to see.

We still had a few hours until our train left, but we headed to the train station anyway since we had seen and done everything that we wanted to. Then we arrived back in Tuscania around 7:30PM along with Jenny and her parents. I took my brother out to eat at Dal Patate, the same place I went on my birthday with the pizza that takes up 2 plates. It was delicious as always. Then my brother had to get up by 6:30AM the next morning on the 26th to catch his taxi back to the airport so we went to bed early that night. 

I was so grateful that my brother was able to come out here. It was such a blast! I mean, how many people can say that they got to hang out and run around Italy with their older brother?! Not many! It was so awesome! Like I said earlier, it was so nice to see a familiar face and it just made me miss home. I have been doing really well about not missing home too much, but since my brother was here and being so exhausted from traveling, I have come to the conclusion that I am ready to be home now. I absolutely love it here and I really do consider Tuscania my home now, but I miss everyone at home and I miss my own bed. I am excited to get home and tell everyone about my trip and everything that I have learned. It has been great!

Until next time...ciao! 

J'aime Paris!

Yup, I’m pretty horrible at keeping up with this whole blog thing. Sorry! Ever since spring break I have been having problems with getting pictures and having time to sit down and write it. Alas, I am finally going to tell you all about Paris…a month later! Anyways….here it goes…

We left for Paris on Thursday March 29^th at around 1PM. Nothing really happened this day. We spent a lot of time at the airport and then once we flew into Paris we had about an hour and a half bus ride to town to get to our hostel. It was really sort of magical to ride in at night. My first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower was at night, when it was all lit up. It was beautiful. It’s one of those things that you have always dreamed of seeing in person and was skeptical of if it was really real cause you always see it on TV and movies and paintings and then when you actually see it in person, it just hits you like a ton of bricks and it takes your breath away. It was great!

Our hostel was pretty nice. I mean, it was nice for being a hostel. 

The beds were not comfortable and had strange sheets and comforters on them, and the bathroom was kind of gross looking, but actually it was nice. I found it really funny that their toilet paper was pink. It was kind of weird though at the same time. Anyways, we were split up into 2 rooms and we got together that night and decided on everything that we wanted to do over the next 2 days.

The next day we started our Paris adventures! We got started at around 9AM and figured out the metro system for first time. The metro is awesome! It is so efficient and easy to use….even I knew how to work it, that’s how easy it is. The metro is so fast too! We never had to worry if we missed out metro train because, literally 2 minutes later another one was there. It was so great and easy to use the whole time we were there. We were also able to buy a 2 day, unlimited metro pass for only like 15 euro or something like that. It was definitely worth it cause we used the metro for absolutely everything.

Our first stop was The Louvre. Wow! It is amazing! I could have spent all day in there.

 I’ve always enjoyed looking at art work and in museums, but I usually get kind of sick of them after a while, but not in this place. I really enjoyed it. It was so interesting to see and they had so much beautiful artwork in there. I love how they had it structured too. It was all just so perfect. Of course we had to see the Mona Lisa, the Venus, and the Cupid. The Mona Lisa was much smaller than what I ever expected it to be. 

It was actually kind of funny because you walk into this room and the painting are ginormous! They are taking up the entire wall and then directly across from the largest painting in there is the Mona Lisa which is like the size of 1 or 2 pieces of computer paper. The crowd in that room was nuts! I felt like I was in a mosh pit, it was crazy crowded! I could see the Mona Lisa through the whole in the wall of people every now and then and I had to fight my way to the front. It was totally worth it though. It truly is an amazing piece of artwork. It was pretty much the same thing with the crowds for the Venus and the Cupid. 

They were all equally amazing to see in person. I cant even explain the feeling you get of amazement when you are there in person looking at these masterpieces that you have only seen in pictures in textbooks and on TV. It was really amazing. We made the decision together before we went in that we would all go see those 3 things and then leave because the Louvre is so huge and amazing that any of us could have spent all day there and we had a lot more to see!

As we were getting ready to leave we noticed that 2 of the girls had gotten separated from the rest of us and we had no idea where they had gotten separated. So we decided that we would just go outside and meet them by the glass pyramid and hope that they would find us. After about half an hour we finally found them. It was beautiful outside by the glad pyramid. It was really cool to see these older looking buildings and then al of a sudden right in the middle of it all there was this really modern looking pyramid all made out of glass. It was awesome! Such a sight to see!

Then we were on the Arc de Triomphe!! On our way there we decided to do a little shopping!....of course! We found some cute little stores to go into and of course did a little souvenir shopping! Cant go anywhere without getting touristy souvenirs! As we were walking away from the shopping center we could see the Arc in the distance! Wow!...again! Everything about Paris is just so ….Wow! I don’t know a better word than that to say! It was so huge!

 I didn’t expect it to be so huge I don’t think…well I didn’t really know what to expect with it, but it exceeded every expectation I could have possible had. The closer we got the more astonished I would get. It was so massive and once you got close you could see all the detail and to think of it being built, it was nuts! I loved being directly under it. It made you feel so small and that you were somewhere really important…it sounds kind of silly, but that is how it made you feel. It was gorgeous! But we had to keep going…so much to do…so little time!

Our next stop was The Champs-Élysées…and of course, it was amazing and beautiful! We wondered on it for a little while and did some more shopping! Then while I was waiting on the rest of the girls to get out of a souvenir shop this older and bigger man came up to me and started to speak French to me and I was just like “umm, no French.” And so he asked if I was American and I told him that I was and he was like “Oh my, you are so beautiful! I just love you! I love you!” and I was like “uuuummm, okay, thanks?” He then asked if he could take a picture with me and asked if I had a camera so I lied and said I didn’t have one and so then he asked if he could kiss me! So I told him “uhm, no I don’t think so, Im okay.” Haha and he grabbed my hand and kissed it and then told me how he loved me again and then finally left. I decided it was not a good idea to stand by myself anymore so I went back inside haha.

Then…the one thing I was the most excited to see (next to the Eiffel Tower of course) was …The Moulin Rouge!!!! AHHHHHH! I was such a happy camper when I saw the Moulin Rouge! It was absolutely amazing…words cant even describe how happy I was! 

I was just so giddy and happy! It was like I was living my favorite movie! I was great! I really wanted to go into a show there and originally I was planning on it, but the girl that was gonna go with me backed out on the last minute and I was really upset. BUT I was glad that I at least got to see it in person. It was everything I hoped for and more! I was so absolutely excited and happy to be there! My face was hurting from smiling so much!

By this time it was almost 6PM and we didn’t want to go back to the hostel so we decided to go to the Eiffel Tower and just chill out for a little while. They have some grassy areas right next to the Eiffel Tower that is perfect for just hanging out. There were so many people there relaxing in the grass. There were couples having wine together on a blanket. There was a group of friends celebrating a birthday. There were groups of people singing and playing guitar. It was the perfect chill spot!

 The Eiffel Tower is so beautiful to look up at too. It was so nice and relaxing. Then one of the girls we were with, Filomena, knew someone that lived in Paris and he speaks both French and Italian and he wanted to take us out to eat with some of his friends so we went back to the hostel to get changed and drop off all of our stuff and met up with them at an Italian restaurant and a pub to hang out. His name is Dario and he brought his girlfriend and his 2 other friends with him. We all hung out for a few hours just talking about nothing and everything. It was a lot of fun! We were all pretty pooped out from the day so we went back to the hostel and just hung out there for a while. We even took turns reading The Hunger Games out loud before we went to bed. It was a great first day in Paris!

The next day we wanted to be up and going by 9AM again, but we didn’t leave until almost 11 because some of the girls took a long time to wake up and get ready. We headed out and made Notre Dame our first stop of the day! 

We finally got there and were so amazed by it and I went to hand Caroline my camera so that she could take a picture of me in front of it and when I handed it to her, I thought she had it and we both dropped my camera and it fell and broke…..sad face. So, my camera no longer works and it is the only one that I have here with me. So the picture of the Notre Dame was the last picture taken with it. I am now forced to share a camera with someone else the rest of my time here in Italy. I was pretty upset, but what are you gonna do?! Oh well. Just gotta shrug it off, nothing I can do about it! I didn’t let it ruin the rest of my day…I was in Paris after all! Outside of the Notre Dame there were people dressed as hunchbacks and scary-death like and old-fashioned looking people. They were so creepy! They would come up to you and try to scare you. It was actually really entertaining to watch them scare people. It reminded me of Fright Fest at Six Flags. We took a look inside and it was gorgeous, just like every other European church. Gorgeous. Words cannot even describe how intricate and pretty everything was. Beautiful.

Then we heard about this Shakespeare Library place that we eventually learned was called Shakespeare and Company. It was the coolest book store I have ever been to! It was so old school looking and books were everywhere! They were stacked to the ceiling and they were in every nook and cranny. It was so cool. They had old, beat-up leather chairs to sit in and it was just so cool. 

The upstairs had the childrens book and those were fun to read. I even bought one of them haha. It is called ‘The Astonishing Adventures of Awesome Man.” And let me tell you, it is awesome! I love the book, it is so cute! Then upstairs they also had this thing called the Mirror of Love. On it, people left notes about love and friendship and family and Paris. Some of the notes were from the 60’s! It was really cool, so I decided that I needed to leave a part of me on the mirror so I wrote a note and added it to the thousands already there.

 It was really cool to leave something there and I hope that someone reads it one day and it makes them smile. It would be a lot of fun to go back there some day and try to find it again. Maybe one day I will.

After getting some lunch we went over to the Sacre Coeur. Wow!...i know, everything I say sounds the exact same, but seriously, everything took my break away. It was so gorgeous. This amazing palace looking dome/chuch sitting atop this beautiful hill with thousands of people sitting on the steps below and beautiful colored flowers everywhere with the greenest grass you could think of.

 It was beautiful! We trekked all the way to the top and went inside and of course the inside was beautiful with the stained glass windows and beautiful dark wood details. It was gorgeous! Awesome, it was just awesome!

It was starting to be late afternoon slash early evening so we wanted to go to the Eiffel Tower and climb it to the top and then when we got down we could watch the light show that they put on at night. So, we got on the metro and it was a long ride to the Eiffel Tower and all of a sudden this group of guys all in the same t-shirt with a picture of this guy and woman on it, get on the metro along with this other weird guy. This other guy had a snow white costume on, complete with garter and black wig, and he had clown make-up on. He was pretty strange and creepy lookin. All these guys looked like they were havin a good time though, they were pretty entertaining haha. The snow white guy was asking the metro if anyone wanted to buy his balls….then he held up this thing that had different colored wiffle balls in them. It was really funny. Then he saw all of us. He came over and we couldn’t understand him since he was French and he was huggin us and they were taking pictures with us (on their cameras). It was so funy! They were goin to the same place as us so we were on the metro together for a while. Soooo funny. Then on the metro there was a small add for the snow white movie with Julia Roberts in it and he ripped the sign down and pointed at it and them at himself and started to laugh. It was too funny!

Finally we got to our stop and we parted ways with Mr. Snow White. We made it to the Eiffel Tower and we got in line to pay for tickets to walk up the stairs. Then after about an hour of being in line we noticed that we hadn’t moved at all. Which would be understandable if the line was long, but it wasn’t. We were towards the front. Then all of a sudden we see the French SWAT team come out.

 They had their glass shields and everything! It was totally nuts! So finally we found out that there were some peace protestors on the second level of the Eiffel Tower and they had a huge banner hanging off the side and so the SWAT team had to evacuate every single person from the Eiffel Tower and then they had to go up there and take care of the protestors then come back down and then they would start selling tickets again. We were told it could take at least 2 hours so we left and went to get some food instead and decided we would come back later. We were also extremely cold. The day before we were in tank tops and now we were freezing with layers on! So we went to this little resteraunt that was super expensive. We got a small soda for 5.10 euro! And my glass had some nasty booger lookin thing on it so they had to get me a new one. It was gross…but the food was good and we were inside out of the cold. Afterwards we went back to our hostel to get more layers of clothes on and then we were back at the Eiffel Tower. This time the line was moving fast…mainly cause most people were taking the elevator instead of walking and everyone I was with hated me. I have wanted to climb the stairs of the Eiffel Tower since I was 10 years old. It’s gonna sound silly, but I want to climb them cause in the movie Tuck Everlasting they talk about climbing all the stairs and ever since I saw that part, I have always wanted to do that. Everyone wanted to take the elevators, but I told them that I was walking even if I had to do it by myself and then they eventually all joined me! We got there when it was dark out and so the tower was all lit up!

 It was so amazing, it was truly a dream come true! It was the most magical place I have ever been to and the most amazing feeling I ever had. I was so over joyed that my eyes started to tear up. I was doing something that I had dreamed of doing for the past 10 years of my life and it was coming true. It was just…amazing and astonishing. Then we began our trek up to the top. So. Many. Stairs. Actually, to be exact there were 1,665 steps. Yup, I climbed every single one of them. 

It was so satisfying and I felt so proud of myself when I got to the top. It was the most amazing feeling anyone could ever have. They don’t let you climb all the way to the very tipy top, you have to take an elevator up there, but that was okay I was still really proud. The top was so awesome! You could see everything from up there! It was so windy and amazing. It was great! I didn’t want to leave! While we were at the top the light show went on…they have one every hour….so now I can say that I climbed the Eiffel Tower and I was a part of the light show. Amazing. It was great!

 Then we began our journey back down so that we could watch the light show from outside of the tower. As we were walking with our hot chocolate in hand we saw a couple on a bench together. They looked very cute. Then all of a sudden the man gets down on one knee in front of her and we all start hitting each other saying “oh my gosh! No he isn’t! oh my gosh!!” and we think he heard us…oops haha. We tried to keep it down so we didn’t mess it up and then all of a sudden he puts both of his hands in fists and pumps them in the air and looks at us and shouts “She said YES!” It was so amazing and awesome and romantic! Being proposed to in front of the Eiffel Tower right before the light show! Oh gosh, it was just so magical! I just love Paris!!

Then we found a spot to sit on the ground and we watched the light show for the 5 minutes that it was on. Basically they light up the Eiffel Tower and make the lights go in and out so that it looks like it is sparkling. It was so pretty! Gosh, I totally fell in love with Paris! I will definitely be back at some point in my life! After the light show we were getting ready to leave and then these 3 guys in their early 20’s probably came over to us and they spoke Italian, French, English, and Deutch! It was nuts! They were all really nice and they seemed like they would be a good time to hang out with but we were all just so tired we didn’t stick around and talk to them much. We had to be awake in 4 hours!

Me, Caroline, and Abby left at 5AM to catch our plane at 8AM. Filo and Elm had a later flight that night so they stayed an extra day. On our way to the bus to get to the airport the line in the metro that we needed to take was shut down until 10AM for some repairs so we took the metro as long as we could then we had to take a taxi the rest of the way, but at least we got there. We finally got back in Tuscania by 3:30PM. We took the metro, a taxi, a bus, a plane, a bus, a train, and another taxi all to get home. It was hectic. But we were so glad to be back. Exhausted. It was a great trip, it just took a lot out of us. I loved everything about Paris. Ireland is still my favorite, but Paris ranks right up there with it. It was so great! I LOVE PARIS.

Again, sorry it took so long to do this, I was waiting on pictures again and had to find time to type it all up, but here it is none the less. I will be much better with updating, I Promise! I wont have as many pictures anymore though since I no longer have one, but I will do my best!!

Until next time…ciao!