The French Life

Our Hostel

The view from our hostel

Notre Dame!

yummy French meal.

bahahaha being silly!

Obama's Motorcade!!

Notre Dame

Biking in the Louvre!

Cool French bikers that did cool tricks!

Inside the Louvre

Eiffel Tower at Night:)

It all started at 4 in the morning. We loaded the Coach (the bus) at the crack of dawn...maybe even before that. My stiff, non-adjusting seat on the coach soon became my point of refuge for the following 8 hours! I thought we would never reach our destination...until FINALLY we reached the English Channel. We took the Chunnel through the English Channel and that was pretty cool. The Chunnel is a railroad tunnel under the English Channel between Great Britain and France. After arriving in France we drove to our hostel! It was in a location that was pretty much in the middle of everything; i loved it! Later that night after checking out Notre Dame, eating dinner and roaming in downtown Paris...we headed straight to the Eiffel Tower for our bike tour. This bike tour was AMAZING!!! Our guide was from Texas and that made things even more interesting. We rode our bikes all through Paris...little did we know what was about to happen next.

OBAMA was in Paris during the same time we were! The crazy thing was that while we were riding our bikes on the streets, HUGE crowds of people began to line the streets and so many police started to direct traffic. They ordered us off of the streets but somehow our bike guide talked the police into letting us zoom through the streets. We had every bit of the streets to ourselves and it was like a high speed chase because we had to pedal like our lives depended on it. We were forced to rush in order to get off the streets before Obama came. It was awesome!! Our adrenaline was pumping and people lined on the streets were even cheering for us!! In the end we got to see Obama's motorcade. We all screamed for him...even the people in our group that couldn't stand Obama. I think it was because we were Americans in France and taking politics out of the picture...we were all so proud of that. The French embraced our President like he was a god or something. I had never been so proud :)

The next day my friend Rachel and I went to the market. It was so neat!!! All the stores brought their goods to the streets. Fruit, jewelry, clothing and just everything you could imagine. There was a band performing and the French people clapped along and let their children dance in the streets. I felt like I could live there and go to the market every week. It was wonderful! I bought a couple of things for my family and friends...I even bought one shirt for myself :) It was such a great experience.

The next day we went to Bayeux, France. It was a small, wealthy town next to Normany. We stayed in a hotel there and as a group took a tour of the DDay Memorial and Normandy Beaches. It was AMAZING. Although I did not cry...the experience was very emotional. The people of Normandy are incredibly appreciative of the American soldiers. They wave American flags throughout the town.

I'll post pictures of Bayeux later.

Now I am back in Oxford...and I must say...it honestly feels like home.