After receiving some angry emails from the Parents, I suppoooose it's time I sacrifice some study time to update this blog

Mom and Dad,

I apologize I take my studies too seriously to sacrifice valuable study time to update this blog :-)...or else travel/play time! hehe. Here is a brief summary of my travels the past month and some pics, although there will be thousands more to see when I get back home! To everyone else, sorry its been so long!!!

Love,

K

Vienna
I got to go to Vienna about a month ago with a few girl friends from Duke. It was an amazing trip, in particular because I got to see Claudia, the daughter of a friend of my father's from boy scouts who I hadn't seen in about 7 years! She was an amazing hostess and showed us all the sights of Vienna! Vienna is a very intersting place. It is super clean and almost empty feeling, which is suprpising since it is the capital of Austria! It was so different from any other city I had ever been to, but it really reminded me of what I would think of a typical Germanic like town. Unfortunately I was sick for a big part of the weekend :-( That nevertheless did not stop us and I got to see lots of the city! Here are some pictures and description:
To the left is Jess, Eva, me, and Claudia in front of the Museum of Natural History in Vienna
Below is a photo of Claudia, Jess, and I in front of the building where Hitler made his speech that Austria was now part of Germany.


We all know Vienna is known for their Opera....just who knew for their Opera toilets?!?!







Barcelona
Barcelona is one of my top 2 favorite cities so far! It is absolutely beautiful and sooo relaxing. Coming back to Paris felt like coming back to work after a nice relaxing (and warm!) vacation. It was nice to go with a big group of EDUCO (my program) students and we got to have an entire hostel room to ourselves. Needless to say, it was a bit of a crazy weekend! I got to see lots of Gaudi though, who I am officially in love with!!! Also, I go the INCREDIBLE experience of going to a FC Barcelona soccer game! I LOVE Euro football now! It was odd that everything was in Catalan rather than Spanish, but the city is simply incredible! Our hostel was also really nice which was a nice surprise!
To the right is me and my friends Alina and Jess at the big mercado off of Las Ramblas
To the left is Jake, Jess, and I in the upstairs attic of one of the Gaudi houses. This house was sooo pretty and quite trippy as well!


Above are all the girls in front of Gaudi's masterpiece, La Sagrada Familia, which is still not finished!!!

Amsterdam

I went to Amsterdam with my friend Brianna 2 weeks ago. What a strange city it is! I thought it was absolutely beautiful, but it is so strange how liberal it is at the same time. It is so strange to see charming canals and people on bicycles, and then suddenly stumble upon the Red Light district! We had a lot of fun with our weekend, and got to see the Van Gogh museum which is absolutely incredible!!! We walked around the city quite a bit, and also saw Vondelpark, the massive and beautiful park in the middle of the city. Additionally, I got the opportunity to see the house in which Anne Frank hid during WWII. That was very moving and I am really glad that I had the opportunity to see it. I loved the city itself, but think I probably would have liked it even more without all of its liberal ways....who knew I might actually consider myself conservative in some capacities!

Rome and Florence

Undeniably my favorite trip so far, I am in LOVE with Italy. I somehow failed to realize that Rome would have tons of ruins and old buildings, as I had seen last year in Athens....somehow the terms "the Greeks and the Romans" must have slipped my mind! Our first day in Rome we literally saw EVERYTHING. We visited the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps, the Colloseum, numerous Piazzas, and some other old famous buildings whose names I do not recall (woops!). We also saw a few churches, the famous shopping street with all of the designers, and did a ton of walking (and eating of pizza, pasta, and cappucinos of course!) Our second day in Rome it unfortunately rained a bunch. But that did not stop us! We were able to visit the Vatican and see the Sistine Chapel, eat gelato, and go see the Trevi Fountain! The city was beautiful and my good friend Eva who lives in Rome was an incredible tour guide!! It was sooo nice to see the city with someone who knows the city so well.

Florence was also fantastic. It was much smaller and more low key than Rome, but I got to see a number of good friends, do some shopping, and see some very famous Renaissance art. We saw the David first, which is STUNNING. I never thought that it would be so magnificent or large and always wondered why it was considered such a masterpiece. It definitely was however! We also went to the Uffizi and saw a number of famous works by artists such as Boticelli and Michaelango. Shout out to Rick Steves who gives a great short guided tour through the museum in his book! It was really helpful in explaining all of the works. We also got to see the Ponte Veccio (which is famous for all of its gold shops), the main market in town where I purchased some delicious dried fruit and a leather jacket!, and the Piazza Michaengelo where we got a gorgeous view of the entire city. O, and definitely can't forget the Duomo with its perilously small, dark, and winding stairs to end up on top of the Church and get a 360 degree view of the city! Incredible!!

O...and we can't forget our very speedy visit to Pisa, where we saw the Tower....what else is there to see there?!?!?!









And last, but certainly not least....PARIS!
Yes, I do still spend lots of time here, despite what it may look like!! This city is absolutely INCREDIBLE. I am in love with it here. Unfortunately, the past 3-4 wks have been spent traveling and doing lots of schoolwork! But midterms are FINALLY over!! So here are just a few pictures from my time in the city!
Caryn, Brianna, and Rich on election night! YES WE CAN!!!! <3>
Typical French diet! A bunch of my friends for Jess' bday!

I am very bad at updating this blog....

Hello all! There is probably not anyone even checking this blog anymore, since it's been so long since I've written, but I figured I would provide an update anyways. Paris has been INCREDIBLE lately! I went yesterday to Dijon, which was an interesting town. Not that much to do there, but we did see a church that had parts of it built in the 6th century!! Also, we saw the old palace of the Duke of Burgundy who used to rule a really large area and was the king of France's brother (a bit confusing to explain). We also had a very yummy lunch, which obviously involved some dijonnaise mustard!

A few weekends ago I went to Normandy which was incredible! Unfortunately my camera battery died part way through the trip but here are a few pictures that I do have. The one on the above left is of a bunch of the girls in my program in the crypt of the church in Bayeux (the boy who got in was not supposed to be there). We first went to this town called Bayeux that has the very old tapestry depicting William the Conqueror's conquering of England. Normandy is known for its apples so we had lots of food and drink involving apples, such as chicken with this liqueur based sauce and apples and apple cider. We afterward went to Omaha beach which was very beautiful and moving, and then went to the beach where the U.S.S. Texas bombed lots of craters into the Nazi encampments. The following day we journeyed down to Mont St Michael which was very beautiful. It was the feast day of St Michael so it was quite crowded with religious people.

I've been very busy with schoolwork and exploring Paris. I have now been to 2 theater performances for my French theatre class. We saw an awful play by Beaumarchais called Le mariage de Figaro that lasted 3 and a half hours!!! This week's play was much better. We went to see Fin de Partie (the Endgame) by Beckett, which although I prefered reading to seeing, was nevertheless an entertaining performance. The weather is once again beautiful in Paris (it is quite fickle between freeeezing and nice) so we have been trying to spend as much time outside as possible. We walked around les Invalides and the Ecole Militaire the other day and today I think we will be going to the wine festival at Montmarte. Also, last weekend when it was very cold and rainy, we went to see the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, the biggest horse race in France, sponsored by the government of Qatar! IT was suuuch a fun trip and lots of memories from there! There's sooo much to do in Paris it is almost overwhelming! I'll be leaving for Vienna on Friday with 2 girls from my program in Paris to go meet my friend and roommate Eva in Vienna. I am very excited and am sure will have lots of stories from there!

Some more news from Paris!

Hi all! Sorry it has been a while. I in fact forgot how to write on the blog and it took me a while to remember. Oops! I must be brief as I am leaving for Normandy at 7 am, but I will write a longer post after the weekend. Josh visited me last weekend, which was soooo much fun! He showed me all of the good spots he knew in Paris, including a few bars and cheap places to eat. He met all of my friends and we spent a great weekend here. It was gorgeous weather so we got to sit outside in the Tuleries gardens a lot and walk around. He even took me out to a wonderfully yummy dinner!

I unfortunately got sick though this week with an awful cold. Being sick made shopping for classes a bit difficult, but luckily, I have finally figured out my course schedule! I will be taking a course on the History of Contemporary Africa, rather than the horrible sounding law one. I already have quite a bit of work to do and need to figure out what to do about that over the weekend. Anyhow, I must go pack for tomorrow and head to sleep! Love from Paris!

Update 1 from Paris!

Hello all! Sorry I have been so bad about updating this blog that I advertised over a week ago! A few updates from Paris so far:

We have now finished our very intense week of French language during orientation, which was pretty miserable. We had to be at school 10-5:30 everyday, which sort of made it difficult to see the city. We have this week mostly off however to try and figure out what classes to take (which is also proving to be quite difficult since the only class that will work for my major and that I will not die trying to take, is during my 1 mandatory class. They are now having me take a year 3 political science/law class which is likely to kill me. I need to find a good compromise now....) and to visit museums and different quartiers.

My host family is wonderful! They have 4 kids who are 21, 19, 18, and 7. The 3 youngest live at home and they are very helpful at telling me good places to go in the city and about nightlife and the social scene of teenagers and young 20s here. The 7 yr old is obviously not helpful with this, but she is very cute (though also a handful!). I am living in the 7th very close to the Seine which is a fantastically central location and which is also very beautiful and nice.

The other exciting bit of news was that the Pope was here last weekend. It was pretty cool to see him, although I did not see any of the masses he gave, just him driving by in the "Papamobile" as it is known in French. Below is a photo of some of us waiting to see the Pope outside of Notre Dame....a pretty cool backdrop for the Pope! (St Francis would be so proud!)

All in all though things are great. I am loving the other students on my program and we have a group of about 15 of us that are very good friends. Having such a big group does make it a bit difficult to arrange outings and traveling and such however.



Miss you all lots!

Love,

Kaitlin

Bienvenue a Paris!

Hello all! I have decided to keep this blog so that you can all see some of my photos prior to my returning to the states and can also hear about some of my adventures abroad! I miss you all back in the States and hope that all is well!