voyager c'est vivre: Paris, NYE & Nîmes with Lauren

Ahh Paris, well you’ve heard about it & how much I adore the city at the beginning of this trip so I’ll skip that bit. I arrived in Paris late afternoon on Tuesday & met Lauren on the Champs Elysees for a pizza & coffee. Her visit was definitely the best Christmas present I could have received! It’s been so nice to see a friend from home, introduce her to my friends here & show her around my daily life. The first night we ate, chatted & then got let into the apartment. We stayed in a gorgeous apartment near the Eiffel Tower, could even see it out my window! Since Lauren was exhausted, we stayed in & went to bed early. Next day – slept in, then started walking around! We did the neighborhood around the Eiffel Tower & Rue Cler, went to a café & did the classic coffee for about 2 hours French-thing. Lauren had this fabulous salad, I think it was salade de chèvre grillé. Yummm, toasted goats cheese on top of the salad. Pretty chill day, just enjoying walking around Paris. Next day – Louvre! I went to the Louvre about 7 years ago, on my first trip to Europe with family. It was a quick visit, so I was excited to go back & take our time touring as much as the museum as we could. We were in by 10 & spent the next glorious 5 hours in the museum, hitting each wing but not every floor. We then met Swags (my friend Sarah from Denison) & her friend A at the train station. Hooray for Denison/Kappa reunions! We all went back to the apartment to cook, and then went to a bar in St. Germain area to see a bit of Paris par nuit.

Day 3 – Went to a market in the morning in Le Marais...or around there. Café, bien sur, and wandering streets before walking all the way to L'Opèra (the opera building) and then taking the train to the Pere Lachaise cemetery (home to important people such as Edith Piaf, Gertrude Stein, Chopin..)We had a picnic lunch there & continued our wandering. Later on S & L got to meet some of my assistant friends at a bar on Rue Princesse.

Day 4 - NEW YEARS EVE DAY! L & S & her friend headed to musee d'orsay while i slept in & met my friend Anna to tag along for shopping with her. We all met back up at the apartment at 6, got ready, and all headed to my friend Elisabeth's apartment, also on the Left Bank. Almost all of my Nîmes friends were in Paris for NYE as well and it was great for both S & L to meet them :) We all took the metro over to Montmartre to watch the fireworks & greet the new year (aka no fireworks, but champagne, singing, count downs & welcoming in 2012 with friends – perfection. It was a really great night, and definitely the best NYE I’ve had, which hopefully means 2012 will be an amazing & epic year!

Lauren & I returned to Nîmes that afternoon, and throughout the week I taught, we made a trip to Uzes and Avignon, explored Nîmes, and relaxed much more than we had in Paris. Here are some pics!