Never would I have thought that Senior year Spring Break would consist of 2 completely different places in 2 completely different countries. It was a whirlwind of a break, but totally worth it.
My brother got married in Breckenridge, Colorado on February 27. Because my dad booked my ticket from Ireland to Denver before we knew my class schedule, he made sure it was short enough so I wouldn’t miss too many of my classes. As it turns out, Micah and Betsy chose a date that was the beginning of my Spring Break. With the rest of the week still ahead of me, why not go to Paris? J Here are the highlights of my adventures:
Why yes, flying over Newfoundland was a highlight…I thought it looked cool J
A benefit to never adjusting to the 7 hour time change in Colorado was having a similar sleep schedule to my adorable 8 month old niece, which meant early morning one-on-one time and lots of smiles from the little cutie J
I also got lots of playtime in with my other niece, Adalia…such a little sweetheart.
How to convince a 3 year old to take a bath: tell her it’s a hot tub and we’re all going swimming. Indira, on the other hand, needed absolutely no convincing and thoroughly enjoyed the water J
Enjoying some of God’s most beautiful Creation…and the Colorado mountains ;)
And, obviously a highlight of my trip to Colorado was the wedding itself! My favorite weddings are those that are personalized, and this was one of those! Not to mention the colors were beautiful and a great contrast to the bright white snow outside. If interested, you can check out some of the professional shots here (you may have to scroll down a bit): http://www.jaredwilsonphotography.com/index.cfm?catID=4
I love this picture of Micah and my parents
Adi was such a cute flower girl J
Audra and I got to add our own personal touch to the wedding…she did the bouquets (beautiful aren’t they?) and I did some of the bridesmaids’ hair
Dancing their way out of the chapel to "Say Hey I Love You"
The Family J It just keeps growing and growing…
Dancing the night away…Sadly, I go crazy at wedding receptions to get all the dancing out of me that I’m not allowed to do at Cedarville :P
I love my brother!
The only picture we got of the siblings L
Thankfully the place my parents rented had a hot tub…We spent all of Sunday relaxing and recuperating J
In case you couldn’t tell, I love my nieces and think they’re the most adorable kids in the world J
Like I said, my trip was short…I flew out of Dublin Thursday morning, got in to Denver Thursday evening, spent 3 days in Breckenridge and then flew back out Monday morning, getting back to Dublin Tuesday morning with the time change. I had just enough time to take a 4-hour nap, unpack and repack for Paris, finally fall asleep at 3 AM and then wake up at 3:30 AM to catch my 6:30 AM Wednesday morning flight. I’m pretty sure I’m still catching up on sleep.
Welcome to Hotel Sully…our 1 star stay J
Notre Dame
It was refreshing to see flowers in bloom!!!
Shakespeare and Company…what a crazy bookstore
Belle from Beauty and the Beast anyone?
Renee, you would have LOVED it there…I thought of you the whole time J
Crepes and a beret…so French J
The Seine River is really dirty…and smells
The Eiffel Tower!!! My favorite J
Taking the long journey up to the 2nd floor of the Eiffel
We made it!
So…I knew my history was bad, but I never knew that the Statue of Liberty was a gift from the French and they have one too!
Since we went up in the early evening, Allie and I stayed up there to watch the sunset and then see the Eiffel Tower light up and sparkle! J
We started off on Thursday with the Louvre...
Even though there was some incredible artwork, I was most impressed by the painted ceilings and the ornateness (is that a word?) of the building itself!
There she is…Miss Mona Lisa herself
While Erin and Allie paid for an audio guided tour, Katie and I opted for just browsing…which meant we finished much earlier and got to go outside to enjoy the sunshine J When we all met up again, Erin asked us what our favorite part of the Louvre was. Katie and my response? “Outside.”
Before walking down the Champs Elysee
The many views of the Arc de Triomph:
Front: Daytime
Underneath
Inside: climbing the 250+ stairs for the first time that day
On top: Daytime
Front: Nighttime
Inside: conquering the steps for the second time that day
On top: Nighttime
In between those numerous views of the Arc, we were also able to catch a daytime and nighttime view of Sucre Coeur
Friday we started off with some breakfast that consisted of chocolate eclairs and croissants...yummm
How could we not when every bakery window we passed by looked like this:
After our enjoyable breakfast, we made the trek out to the Palace of Versailles
In front of the Palace
Inside...so beautiful
In the famous Hall of Mirrors
Like in the Louvre, I loved the painted ceilings...
The Palace Gardens were beautiful, but I was bummed because we were a month early...everything doesn't bloom until April :/
We thought these geometric trees were sweet...
At the Grand Trianon...Louis XIV's place of escape. I loved this part of it, and this picture we got!
Then back to Paris and on to Sainte Chapelle...so amazing. Each stained glass section contains a story from the Bible
Waiting to fly out Friday night...we flew RyanAir which is cheap, and you get what you pay for. This is at our "gate": where we sat on the floor with hundreds of other people around us each going different places. Basically a plane would land and then they would tell us if it was our's or not.
And so concludes my Spring Break...as I said, it was a whirlwind of a trip, but totally worth it and oh-so memorable :)
No comments:
Post a Comment