FRANKRIKE (France)!

Last week, I went to France with my French class at school. There were 8 students and 2 teachers on the trip. We left Friday morning and drove the 1.5 hrs to the tiny airport where we took our RYAN AIR flight ... for anyone who's not aware, RYAN AIR is probably the cheapest way to travel and well - you can tell!!! We couldn't even take water on the planes because of their rules, so instead we had to buy it onboard. After this trip, I have learned to pack like a European - my suitcase only weighed 9 kg!

Once arriving in France, and successfully finding our way to the hotel (after only a few wrong turns), we went up to our rooms. You know you're in France when there's smoking everywhere, including the hotel rooms!! The hotel was actually quite alright and the view from our bedroom window was wonderful! After settling in, we went out for our first dinner at about 7 p.m. which is unheard of in France as everyone goes out to eat at 9 at the earliest. We were lucky that our hotel was right in the Latin Quarter which is where the young people usually are.

This is how people park in France - the same cars were there everyday, so we assumed they couldn't move their cars! Little shops and cafe's were open until at least midnight so we got to stroll around after dinner most days or go and sit in a lounge and people watch. France is definitely different from Sweden! In Sweden, almost all the stores close at about 5 p.m.

Starting the first night, all our discussions were a mix of English, Swedish, and French which got quite confusing at times! I can now understand quite a lot of Swedish, even if I can't speak very much.

From the first morning onwards, we woke up to breakfast in bed, with fresh croissants and baguettes which we ate while watching the countdown of French music on t.v. (my personal favourite song everyday being the one with french rap performed by gangsta's in ski goggles!! lol). It was the most enetertaining anyways : )

The first morning, we took the metro to the Eiffel Tower. The view from the top was amazing, even despite the almost 2 hr wait!
Later we visited Les Champs Elysees (the huge shoppiong boulevard).
It was really nice because when we arrived it was just getting dark and the entire 2 km stretch was lit up with Christmas lights.

During the week, we visited:


Notre Dame Cathedrale,
Le Moulin Rouge,
Le Place de Tertre, Sacre Coeur,
L'Arc de Triomphe,
Les Halles (a huge shopping centre where we spent the whole day as our entire group was girls who love to shop)! - it was at Les Halles that I had my 1st Starbucks in 4 months mmmm : ) and my 1st European haircut - not in the picture, I'll have to take another one and put it up later (I now have bangs)!,
Le Louvre, and Le Centre Pompidou.

On the last night, 4 of the students and one teacher went to see "Le Roi Soleil", a very popular, french musical that is new this year. The show has become so famous in France that the music is played on the radio and the artists/actors are celebrities. It was absolutely AMAZING! There was acrobatics, dancing of all types, singing, and acting. I would highly recommend it to anyone visiting Paris in the next few months. I have to say that it was my favourite part of the week!

Wednesday evening we arrived back in Sweden. As we walked from the baggage claim through to the exit, we started to hear singing. When we got out of the hallway there was a group of girls singing, all dressed up for St. Lucia day which is on December 13th. They were serving pepparkakor (really thin ginger snaps), and Glogg (a Christmas drink in Sweden). It was a really nice thing to come back to!