A quick update

So I have been traveling for the past six days from London to Paris now to Barcelona! I have learned the ins and outs of the metro, how to ask for directions when you are lost (which happens a lot, suprising right?), where to get cheap wine, how make a meal out of anything- for example one night in Paris we had bread with butter, some hummus like spread, a head of lettace, and some carrots.

I have had a lot of amazing experiences and I have learned so much- in London I was able to go on a tour walking to the Buckingham palace, St. James park, and Westminister Abbey. Our tour guide was a whitty old man who would shout out questions at us during the tour, expecting us to know the answer such as- "What was the Queen Elizabeth of Scotland's first language?!" (It was French by the way) The tour proved to be highly informative and thoughouly enjoyable- something I will never forget!

In London we saw everything that we could see from the Tower of London, to the Chuch of Saint Peter, Tate Modern museum, Platform 9 3/4, National Portrait Gallery, the night life of Picadilly Circus... and so much more that I will have to list it all later! The one site that sticks out the most for me would have to be going to O'neil's pub in the China town of London and listening to a live band with people of all different cultures and languages coming together to enjoy the good sounds!

In Paris we were able to see all of the museums that we could within two days such as the Louve- Orsay- National Museum of Armories, Notre Dame Archeological Crypt, Musem of the Arc de Triumph along with the main sites of Paris such as the Eiffel Tower, Sacre Craer, Notre Dame, Luxemburg gardens, walk down the Champs Elisee, the Opera of Paris, Hotel de Invalides, the Tomb of Napolean, the Pantheon, and so much more! We also had the opportunity to sit in a traditional street side restaurant, order some fish eggs and just people watch.

One of our nights in Paris we purchased a bottle of wine and some cigarrette looking cookies and just sat in from of the Eiffel Tower and watched it shimmer into the night- (until we were kicked off the grass!). Funny thing is, we found out later that night, is that at that same time there were other CSB/SJU students at the Eiffel Tower as well!
In the wee hours of the morning of our last day in Paris we had to first catch the metro to then catch our bus to get to the airport for our flight at 8:15am. Not only was it raining for our walk to the metro but we also went to the station to catch the RER (which is a special train not at all metro stations) about 10 blocks away instead of the one right down our street when in hindsight we could have just went to our metro.

Then we weren't sure what train we should catch  (since none of us could read french) and since it was at the opening of the metro there was no one at the info desk so Caitlin pushed what she thought was the intercom for help- except it was the ALARM!

So at 5:20am in the morning we were the only three people down in the metro station, flustered from not sure as to where to go with an alarm going off through out the station! We finally purchased our tickets hoping they were the right ones and went down to meet the train.

Now to add to our stress the train didn't come till 6:05am and we needed to be at the airport by 6:15am. We went back in forth as to should we get a taxi- should we stay and hope we get there?

All in all we made it to the airport by 6:50am and made it to our flight with much time to spare! It was a memorable experience that I hope I will never have to go through again!

Lesson learned:
Always expect something to go wrong (you just have to) but have a second option in place.

Till then,  Au revoir!