Day Fourteen

I went to Notre Dame this morning. It was flooded with school children. I got some really awesome pictures of it though. The inside is so amazing and I really loved all the stained glass that it had.

Our professor took us on an architecture tour through the Louvre plaza and then to the Arc De Triomphe. I went to the top of the Arc and got a great view of the city.

After the Arc we got on the metro and rode to the new portion of Paris. The buildings are all new and really nice, but I didn't like it as much as the rest of Paris. I enjoy the smaller streets and lack of skyscrapers better. Paris just seems more like a city to have older styled buildings.

We needed to take another trip to the Eiffel Tower of course. We didn't even go to the top yesterday. I really wanted to go to the top, but I was quite scared to be going so high up on a structure that was meant to be temporary. On the elevator I the top I didn't even dare look out the window. Once I got to the very top though, I wasn't as scared as I thought I would be. The very top of the Eiffel Tower has two floors, one enclose and the other open. I went to the open one for a bit to take some pictures, but I didn't stay there long.

When we got back to solid ground, we went to have some dinner at a little cafe and then headed back to our hotel.

Currently I am sitting at the only source of free wifi we have found in Paris, McDonald's. At least they have tasty McFlurrys!

Notre Dame

The inside of Notre Dame. I love the stained glass

We crossed a bridge covered in locks with couples' names on them. Apparently they throw the keys in the river

The Arc De Triomphe

The Eiffel Tower

This structure is on the end of a large axis that runs through Paris. The other end of the axis is the Louvre

Day Thirteen

Had to post this late again. Wifi is hard to come by.

I got up early this morning to make sure I had everything packed for my weekend trip to Paris. The train ride took around two hours and in that time I finished the first Hunger Games book. I only bought the first one before coming on this trip and I am now regretting not getting the the other two. I planned on waiting until after I saw each movie to read its book, but now that I have finished the first book I really just want to read them all right now.

When we got to Paris our teacher was waiting for us at the station to guide us to our hotel. Good thing he was with us because apparently the people at the hotel desk only speak French and Spanish. From my hotel room you can see the top of the Eiffel Tower and there's even a balcony in the bathroom.

After we dropped off our luggage we walked to the Louvre. I know it's supposed to be an art museum, but I feel like I was more interested in the building itself more than the art. The ceilings had such intricate detail and some had some really amazing paintings on them. I did get to see the Mona Lisa though.

After the Louvre we walked to the Eiffel Tower and stopped for dinner on the way. By the time we got to the Eiffel Tower it was dark out so it was all lit up. We decided not to go up it tonight since it was pretty cold just standing on the ground. I got some really nice night time pictures of it though.

The metro seems to be pretty easy to navigate here and our teacher used some of the trip budget to buy us all passes to help us save money which was really nice.

My feet already are sore after not even a full day of walking and we were told tomorrow will be a bit of a long walking tour. I will be staying in Antwerp all of next week until possibly going to Germany on Saturday so I can rest my feet while I'm back at home. For now there is just so much to see in the four days I will be here.

Just before bed I looked out the window at the Eiffel Tower and saw that there were thousands of lights twinkling on it. It was awesome. I hope that I can see it up close some night while I am here.

Me in Paris! You can sort of see the Eiffel Tower to the right of my head, but it's really teeny.

The plaza at the Louvre with the glass pyramid entry

The Mona Lisa!

One of the amazing ceilings in the Louvre

The Eiffel Tower at night

Day Twelve

This morning I woke up to some nice sunshine. Leave it to Antwerp to be hailing ten minutes later.... We walked to another architecture firm visit today, in the rain and light hail of course. I feel like I will be spending a majority of my time in Antwerp underneath an umbrella. The tour was quite short because it was a very small firm. They had a lot of neat paper models sitting around that the guy showed us.

The rest of the day I did a little shopping and then relaxed because I will be doing a lot more walking again this weekend. I am leaving for Paris in the morning with my classmates. We have already booked our place to stay so hopefully this trip will be a lot cheaper than London.

The boys made dinner for everyone tonight and it was actually quite delicious. I'm not extremely sure what was all in it but it was some sort of lemony spaghetti. We also had some amazing chocolate covered ice cream bars for dessert.

I have yet to pack for my trip tomorrow, but I don't think it should be too bad since it's only four nights. I may just pack everything in the morning quickly unless I get ambitious and can pry myself away from my crocheting before bed.

Speaking of crocheting.... I finished my slipper boots!

Day Eleven

It was a pretty rough day. After not sleeping very well on the horribly uncomfortable mattress at our hotel, I woke up feeling quite nauseous. It may have been nervousness for having to ride through the Channel Tunnel again or it may have been from the possibly under cooked bacon I had on my cheese fries last night for Super Bowl Sunday at the pub. Either way I felt sick to my stomach. Luckily one of my classmates brought along motion sickness medicine because I had left mine in Antwerp. I think that from now on I will remember my own though because the stuff I took was not the non-drowsy kind and it put me into a sort of daze for the rest of the day and made me very tired.

We got back to our apartment building to find that the leasing company had changed the entry code while we were gone so we were locked out for a little bit. My apartment finally got cleaned, but the person did a very poor job at it. We are currently still stuck with only one working outlet and that is the one in the bathroom. Hopefully that gets fixed before we get back from Paris this weekend.

After doing some homework I did some work on my crochet slippers I have been making. They finally have soles, but I am not quite done yet so I won't be posting any pictures of them today. I'm glad I found a yarn shop in Antwerp because I want to make another pair when I am done with these and try out some new color combinations.

Day Ten

This morning we walked to Regent's Park and walked around there for a bit. After we did that we walked over to King's Cross Station and went to Platform 9 3/4!!! There was a little Harry Potter shop there so I bought a t-shirt and then I it my picture taken with a luggage trolley going through the wall. I am very excited to have gotten to visit the station. I really want to go watch all of the movies now and see what places I have seen that are in them.

We spent a lot of our day walking around. My legs are starting to get quite sore from walking around so much. Maybe I will be really fit when I get back to the states in a couple months.

We did a bit of souvenir shopping and found a good place for some dinner. The boys are hoping to find a place to watch the Super Bowl tonight, but I'm unsure if here is anywhere in London that will be showing it.

Tomorrow morning we have to get on a train to go back to Antwerp. I have really enjoyed my time here in London and I am very glad that I got the chance to come here.

King's Cross Station

Inside the new King's Cross Station addition

I'm off to Hogwarts!

Day Nine

*I wrote this post as a note on my phone yesterday because I didn't have any wifi. So that is why I am posting it a day late*

It was pretty sunny out this morning so I had high hopes for the weather to be nice all day. That was a mistake. Once we took the subway, or the "tube" as its called here in London, it started to get cloudy and windy.

The first thing we did was hunt down out new place to stay. It turned out to be a house that has been converted to a hotel. The owner is a really nice Italian guy who I had a conversation about head lice.... odd.

After we settled in we went to check out London's new skyscraper that just opened called The Shard. I had seen pictures of it before we left the states, but those were nothing compared to what it looked like in person. At first it looked like it was going to fall onto us because of an optical illusion created by the clouds.

On our way over to Shakespeare's Globe Theater we walked through a market that was really awesome. I think we may be going bak tomorrow in hopes that it won't be as packed. We didn't go inside the theater, but it was nice to at least get to see the outside of it.

The Millennium Bridge was high in my list for this trip because it's in the Harry Potter movies. I got to take some pictures of it and we walked across it since we needed to cross the river there anyway. I wonder if The Leaky Cauldron really exists in London as well...

After we crossed the Thames we walked to St. Paul's Cathedral. We walked inside and got to see some of it, but you had to pay to see the entire inside. We ended up staying for a church service because we had gotten there right before it started and we thought it would be really awesome to attend one there.

After the service we got some dinner at a burger place with bad service and then we headed back to our hotel for the night.

The Shard

Tower Bridge

The Market

Millennium Bridge

St. Paul's Cathedral

Day Eight

There was so much walking today! We saw Big Ben, The London Eye, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, and so many other places! We haven't even seen it all yet. I am so glad we are here for a couple more days.

We secured a place to stay for the last two days we are here, but we have learned our lesson about not booking places to stay before we get here. There were not many options, but we found a decent place. This trip is turning out to be a bit speedy, but we expected that because London is a bit more of an expensive place. It was a city that I really wanted to see though so I am glad I got to come here.

British Parliament and Big Ben

The London Eye

Buckingham Palace