Sorry it's been so long.. Lemme tell you about Paris!

Hey there blog-readers!

So sorry it's been so long since I posted.  I've been busy traveling the world/having the best four months of my life, so don't be mad.  Since London, Mom visited for a few days.  That was fantastic.. going out to eat and having some glasses of Chardonnay with her and enjoying a few nice steaks as opposed to the chicken fingers I make myself way too often was definitely a nice change of pace.   Not to mention she took me shopping even though it's her least favorite thing to do! 

My friends here were all big Debbie fans, naturally.  Especially after she came to The Cellar Bar with us and had a pint with us and showed off some dance moves never seen before in Galway!  We also went on a trek at the place I rode horses before in Galway and luckily it was a beautiful day so we got some more pictures and Mom got to brush up on her riding skills before she starts preparing for next year's Oklahoma! ;-)


Meghan, Emily, Mary and I went to France last weekend for three nights because Ireland had a "bank holiday" or what I'm presuming to be an excuse to have Monday off after Halloween weekend... I'd say the motto here is work hard, play harder, but I don't think I can honestly say I've been working hard in classes... oops!  I attend class and take some notes but it's nothing like St Mike's where there are constant tests/quizzes to prepare for.

But back to our trip to Paris.. We had a 6am flight out of Dublin, so we had to leave Galway around 1am to get a bus there early enough and we landed around 9am on Friday so we literally did not sleep Thursday night.  I did try, but I just can't sleep on buses/planes.  Can you??? Does anyone have advice for sleeping on them cause it would help me SO much!  If I had a euro for every bus ride I wish I could sleep soundly on......

So when we got to Paris we were somewhat delusionally tired but found our way to the hotel in the north-east side of Paris. We had lunch, went to the Louvre to see a few pictures and the Mona Lisa [which was actually kind of small and disappointing, but still creepy because she literally doesn't take her eyes off you despite where you stand in the room]  and then saw the Arc de Triomphe and then went to bed pretty early to feel human again.

The next day we did an awesome but FREEZING (it was barely 40 degrees and windy) walking tour of all Paris.  Our tour guide was a young kid from NY who moved to Montreal when he was 18 and then to France, fell in love with it and never went home! I could totally see myself doing that in Ireland..... so if I never come home, don't say I didn't warn you all! ;-)
He told us all about the history of france during the world wars and about different tortures/guillotine beheadings and then we met up with CJ and had lunch with him for a bit..

ALSO best part of Paris -- i got to see Christina from St Mikes!!! She was visiting there for the weekend too. We had a GIANT loud squealy hug in the middle of the sidewalk in front of a restaurant with outdoor seating - proving that the loud americans stereotype is true but we couldn't help it!!  I was so excited to see her.    THat night she came with me and my friends on a sunset cruise around the Sein River where we got to see the Eiffel Tower all lit up/continued to freeze our butts off.

Bad news was Emily's wallet got pickpocketed that night.. it was like a magic trick, the guy went in her zipped purse and grabbed it while she was trying to cross the street and then disappeared.. luckily she canceled her card and had almost no cash in it, but unfortunately her passport was in it which made for a stressful night trying to find a copy of her passport and get copies of IDs together so we could fly back home. Thank you again Tom Murphy the irish immigration man who let her on the flight. Cheers, we owe you one.