Winter Vacation, Pt. 4

The last two days of vacation were spent in Paris, the first time I have spent the night there since I’ve been in France!  Since we had seen most of the important sites already (Dad visited me in Paris when I studied abroad), we could really focus on the “important” things: visiting a few museums and visiting pastry shops.

There are many perks of being under 25 in France, up to 60% off train tickets, lower fees at banks, free library cards, and FREE access to most museums and monuments in France!  We visited Centre Pompidou (not always my favorite, but there is a great view at the top of the museum), the Louvre (which is conveniently open late on Wednesdays), Musée d’Orsay, and the Orangerie, which houses Monet’s water lilies.  Normally it would have cost about €40, but with my long stay visa, and proof that I’m under 25, I didn’t pay anything for these museum visits!  The only problem is that to get in free, you have to wait in line, and my dad, who had the museum pass, got to skip every line.

We spent a lot of time walking around the city, talking about what were must-sees for when my mom and cousin come in a few weeks, and sampled delicious food!  We had the best éclaires in Paris, in miniature form, macarons from LaDurée, and Angelina’s famous hot chocolate.  It was nice to be in Paris again, especially because we stayed around the corner from where I lived in 2009!  It was hard to say goodbye, but it was an amazing trip and it reminded me that I need to take advantage of my next two months in France. 

 This week was back to work as normal, and today I found out that one of the elementary teacher’s is out for the next few weeks, so I ended up teaching the entire class alone today after the substitute had to go to an emergency meeting.  This month will be fun because I’m helping to prepare the oldest students at the elementary school for an exam that all students their age take in order to enter middle school.  I will also help administer the exam at the schools I work at. 

Finally, it is starting to really look like spring here!  Trees are flowering, and there are daffodils everywhere.  It is also warmer, and there have been a few really beautiful days.  It’s been foggy most mornings, but most of the time it burns off.  Also the days are much longer, when we started work again in January it was still dark at 9AM, now it is light before 8!  That’s all for now, I’ll try to be better about updating in the coming weeks!