JMU Reunion a Paris

Allow me to catch you up...
All 10 of the JMU Florentines accepted the invitation to a study-abroad pow wow with all of the other JMU abroad programs in Paris. We were ecstatic to discover there were actually BOYS!

Since we had all made different hotel plans, once we deplaned and piled off our bus in the heart of Paris, we were exhausted and decided to part ways and get some much-needed sleep considering it was midnight. First though, since Alexa speaks French fluently, she put our girls on the right subway to their hotel before we took off. However, since we went down into the subway, we came up the wrong way and ended up being in a dark odd park where two drunk guys immediately started speaking to us and invited us out. CRAZY PARIS.

After taking the long way to our hotel through L'Arc de Triumph, we finally found our sweet little paradise tucked among the embellished apartments of Paris. My heart swells as I think of Alexa and I trekking all over Paris. The next day Alexa and I slept in but found this delicious little square filled with pasticeries, boulengeries, and cafes for breakfast. Then we practically ran down the Champs d'Elysees to find the JMU tour group at the Muse D'Orsey. Of course we did not realize how BIG Paris was. On the map it looked like such a small distance...but we were late and had to pay the full ticket to get into a museum where we may or may not find the rest of JMU. FINALLY we found Angel and Jenny in the modern art section and also ran into our first JMU compatriots! Finally we found everyone else and were off to Notre Dame which was beautiful and flying high with those flying butresses. The outside was more facinating than the inside. We sat outside to look at it with some vin chaud (hot wine). Then we went to the most wonderful place in the world...the Louvre. It is gorgeous on the outside with its many many courtyards and up-lit windows and of course the pyramids in the middle were aglow. And once AGAIN we lost part of our group. We assumed they had gone inside, so we went there and were about to start chanting the JMU fight song to see who would respond, but simply called the group leader instead. Once in the museum we were so tired, but managed to see the Mona Lisa, Michelangelo's A Dying Slave, the Venus di Milo, and so much more. I wish I could have spent days and days there....

But once we had dinner with the boys of London, we went to bed because the next day KELSEY was coming! (Not before having some real Parisian escargots!) A Domani!