I was hoping that by traveling to the South I would get nice, warm weather....NOT

Mediterranean Sea!

View of the port

Chateau d'If

After my Parisian adventures in the beginning of my holidays, I headed south, to the town of Marseille to meet up with my traveling partner.  I was expecting Marseille, being in the south of France, would have beautiful, WARM, sunny weather. Well, I got the sunny/beautiful part; but I did not get the warm part. Nevertheless, we managed to have a nice afternoon exploring the nearby Frioul Island.  The views were beautiful, and I even go to see the Chateau d'If, which is from one of my all time favorite favorite books/movie, The Count of Monte Cristo.

After our afternoon of exploring, we went to Patacrepe, a crepe place (obvi) for dinner. My dinner crepe was of course delicious, but it was my dessert crepe that was FABULOUS!

A crepe with Kinder chocolate in the middle, surrounded by whip cream w/malt balls on top. It was a good thing I shared this baby!

Remember that time I fell in Paris....twice??

Ok, so the only person who will understand this blog post title is Stephanie, and hopefully she will chuckle like I am doing now as she reads it.

Stephanie came to visit me all the way from Madrid for a few days. It was wonderful to catch up and spend some quality time with her, especially since I won't be seeing her for quite awhile (insert sad face here).  Even though we had some rainy and chilly weather, we still managed to get to a lot of the Parisian hot spots .

We had tea at the Cafe de 2 Moulins, which is from the movie Amelie.

Had to visit the Eiffel Tower!

We also took a boat tour.  This was a first for me! It was pretty seeing everything at night.

Went inside Notre Dame

Lunch at Le Petit Pont, across from Notre Dame. Best meal of the trip without a doubt!!

Finally we took a tour through the Montmartre district. I love this little square that sits at the heart of Montmartre.

Thanks to Stephanie for coming to visit! Our European adventures are not over! 

Stephanie is finishing up her second year teaching in Spain. If you want to learn more about her Spanish life, check out her blog here.

High Five for Friday

Time to recap the highlights of my week!

1. Being lesson planning free Tuesday & Wednesday! 2 of my lessons were canceled this week (not an uncommon occurrence) so I had a mini weekend in the middle of the week. Who doesn't love that?

2. Learning that Rascal Flatts has released their new CD! I already have 3 of the songs, and the song "A Little Home" brings me to tears right now!

3. Splitting Ben & Jerry's cookie dough ice cream w/my friend Emily. It's 6 euros over here! Mad expensive! So we decided to split it; this way we were each only spending 3 euros.

4. This is a highlight and a low point of the week: Booked a ticket to return to the US. 26 days left here. Is this chapter in my life really almost finished?!?!?!

5. My Seconde class (high school sophomores) feeling the need to give me going away presents. This is a picture of me w/most of them.

Les vacances

Welp, it's that time again folks! I am gearing up for another 2 weeks of travel for my final vacation here in France.  When all is said and done, I will be doing a good bit of traveling, both to new places and semi-familiar places.  Probably the most exciting part about my vacation is that I am going to have some VISITORS!!!!!

This is my beautiful friend Stephanie and I at her primary school in Spain (we were celebrating Halloween, can you tell?).  She will be in Paris with me for the beginning part of next week! I am so excited to see her!

My second round of visitors will be some family! It will be great to see some people that I am related to, especially since most of the assistants either a) went home for the break or b) had their parents/family come to visit them.  I cannot express how grateful I am that the Boston DeMayo's have agreed to meet me for a short visit in Paris!

In between my visitors (and after they leave) I will be heading to the following places:

Marseille

Aix-en-Provence

Lyon

My time is quickly coming to an end here in Europe, so be on the lookout for only a few more entries!

High Five for Friday

There is a blog I follow that I found through Pinterest, and this particular blogger does a "High Five for Friday"  where she posts her highlights of the week. I should've gotten on this band wagon long ago, so that I later on I can look back at the posts and remember the highlights of my weeks here, but oh well. At least I'll have them for my next 4 weeks. So here goes:

1. Spring has FINALLY arrived in Montlucon! The weather has been B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L this week!

2. My very dear friend Stephanie (she is living in Spain at the moment) booked a ticket to come to Paris during the first part of my April holidays!! (I love her, and cannot wait to see her!)

3. The lady at Sephora telling me that I speak good French (that's enough to make my WEEK right there!!!)

4. The awesome dress I bought to wear to my sister's graduation & my best friend's rehearsal dinner. (It was 15 euro, marked down from 37 euro!)

5. My student telling me today that he and his classmates didn't deserve to have me as a teacher (I spend a lot of time trying to get them to listen and not talk while I am, and I frequently have to be very stern with them)

What were some of your highlights of the week???

Château de Versailles

The palace of Versailles.....A reminder of how powerful how France once was, but also a painful reminder of how quickly power in the hands of the wrong person leads to chaos and revolution. The palace was built by Louis XIV, also known as the Sun King ("Roi-Soleil").  Louis thought that he was on equal par with God himself, so he built his home should reflect that status.  He therefore left the palace in Paris, and set out creating his grand château in the city of Versailles, about 10 miles west of Paris.  Anyone who has ever heard of Versailles knows that the palace is just massive; at one point, 6,000 people were living there. Here is an aerial view of the palace (bear in mind this does not include the Grand Trianon, Petit Trianon or Marie Antoinette's Hameau, which are all located on the grounds as well)

You really have to go to Versailles in order to appreciate it's size and magnitude, but I'll do my best with the following pictures. This first picture is of the Royal Chapel.

 Hercules Drawing Room

Checking out the gardens through a window

 About to enter the Hall of Mirrors

 Hall of Mirrors-serious history has been made here, like the end of WWI w/the Treaty of Versailles

Ceiling in the Hall of Mirrors

 Walking through the Hall of Mirrors

 King's public bedroom

Balcony off of bedroom. Louis the XVI & Marie Antoinette stood here as the French people gathered outside in the courtyard

 Queen' public bedroom. The decor in the palace was changed to reflect the current season. And they wonder why the French people revolted.

 Outside about to explore the gardens

 But first we ate our picnic lunch!

Painting of Versailles grounds

Marie Antoinette's Hameau, where she could live like a "peasant"

Except she didn't do any of the work that one would do as a peasant

 She just oversaw all the other people doing the work. 

 We had another picnic for dinner. Best way to eat for a weekend of traveling. 

 The King's public bedroom is just on the other side. Faces the rising sun. 

 We got to go into the Opera House!

The Opera House was made entirely out of wood because the King wanted it built quickly. And wood was the only available material that was readily available in abundance. 

My pictures do not do any justice to the palace, but I hope they have interested you enough to one day go check out the palace for yourself!

I received my ashes at a UNESCO World Heritage Site....how 'bout them apples???

I have one more blog update from my February holidays before I can blog about my recent travels.  After spending a few days in Dunkerque Emily and I headed off to the famous Mont St. Michel. Mont St. Michel is a rocky tidal island that has been around since probably the 6th century.  This island has held many fortifications and is also home to the Saint Michel monastery, plus 41 other inhabitants.  Today it attracts around 3 million visitors a year, and this year Emily and I contributed to that number. 

It's important to understand that this place is a rocky tidal island because that is what is so fascinating about it.  There is a strip of 2 lane road that connects the island to the country, and when it is high tide everything that surrounds the island except for the road is swallowed up by water.  This is how it looks at low tide:

And this is what happens at high tide: 

Translation in case you can't read the English: "The sea will  take up this parking area.  Please leave  before 6:00"

This place is fascinating because of what happens at high tide.  It's just incredible to be standing in a spot that you know will be covered in water in just a few hours time. Anyway, once you make it out to the island you have the ability to go in and walk around.  Most people go to Mont St. Michel because of it's unique status as a rocky tidal island and UNESCO World Heritage site.  Inside it's mostly just a bunch of tourist shops and restaurants that have incredible views. However, there is an abbey and museum that you can visit.  We had just made it into the abbey and had taken our pictures when we noticed that the priests and nuns seemed to be getting ready for something. They were posting no picture taking signs and setting out piles of paper.  Emily had just come up to me to say we got here just in time, as they had literally posted the no picture taking signs after we snapped our last shot, when something clicked in my brain.  It was Ash Wednesday and they were getting ready for Mass!! After my suspicions were confirmed by speaking with a nun, I decided to stay and receive my Ashes for the start of Lent. I obviously didn't whip out my camera in the middle of Mass, but I did snap a shot of inside the abbey before church started:

Definitely not the prettiest abbey/church I've been to, and certainly not the warmest either, but still a pretty cool experience to receive my ashes in such a historic & sacred place.