An Unorthodox Easter
Bonjour from France!!
I started off Easter weekend feeling incredibly homesick. I LOVE the holidays because I love spending time with all of my family. Not being able to see them for Easter was really bringing my mood down, and putting me in a funk. I have the world’s most amazing family so it made leaving for 3 months and missing holidays and birthdays enough tougher. (Happy Birthday Mom!!)
Kelsey, Annie, Cara, and I took a train to Prague and stayed the night in a hostel with and American, a New Zealander, a British, and a Russian, which at first was quite the adjustment but we all had a great time talking to each of them and learning from them. Bright and early the next day at 5:00 am we hopped on our flight and made our way to the beautiful city that is Paris. Once we arrived we made our way to Pavillon Monceau Hotel, which at the time we had no idea how much this place would come to mean to us in our short day and a half stay. For $90 TOTAL, we had 2 rooms, FREE BREAKFAST (which is incredibly hard to find in Europe), a place to keep our bags after we checked out, and SO MUCH help from the front desk staff with figuring out the bus, metro system, restaurant suggestions, and so much more! Almost every other place in Paris would be around $150 a night and probably have none of the other amenities we received… we were so lucky!!
Deciding what our first activity in Paris would be was easy….SHOPPING!!! We soon realized that “shopping in Paris” really meant “looking at incredibly expensive things that I will never be able to afford in Paris”. It was still a very fun afternoon walking around Paris and going into stores that were way out of our budget! Cara and I decided to have some fun with it and when we would go into designer stores we tried to act like we belonged and like this was the norm for us. When they would ask us questions about what styles we liked we tried to play it off like it wasn’t completely unrealistic for us to own these clothes/purses/shoes/etc. It was pretty fun!! While shopping I got to meet up with one of my best friends from high school, Brooke! We didn’t get to see each other long but it was so cool to get to meet up in Paris!! At the end of the main shopping street is where the Arc De Triomphe can be found. It was much bigger than I had imagined!! This was built in remembrance of all those who fought in the French Revolution.
Later that night we made our way over to the Eiffel tower and HOLY COW. I have always thought the Eiffel tower looked so beautiful and unique, but seeing it lit up at night, in person, is absolutely surreal. Words cannot even describe the beauty. I could’ve stayed there and stared at it all night. Buuutt it was 11:00 and very cold so we went back to the hotel and called it a day! The next day we did another free walking tour (if you travel throughout Europe you will realize there is nothing better than a FREE walking tour)!!! Our tour guide Audrey is an actress who also leads walking tours to make extra money. She was so sweet and very knowledgeable about France as a whole, we all learned a lot from her! Later that day we went to The Louvre! European students get in for FREE so of course we took advantage of this. I am not going to lie….it was not what we expected…We found the Mona Lisa which was cool to see because it is so famous, however, it is about the size of a normal piece of paper, and it has an entire wall to itself (she must’ve been a diva). We walked around a little longer but we weren’t super impressed with what we saw. I know that sounds horrible but because everything was in French we didn’t really know the meaning behind any of the paintings so I made it hard to really get into it.
After our AMAZING time in Paris we took an overnight bus to a small town in eastern France called Colmar. 7 sleepless hours later we arrived and made our way to our Airbnb. We were all exhausted from our sleepless and long night so we decided to take a short nap…3 hours later we got up and got ready to begin our day, at 1:00 pm. The reason we decided to go to this town was because it is in the top 3 for places to go for Easter in Europe. It sure did not disappoint!! This quaint little town had Easter markets everywhere with great food, jewelry, various other trinkets, and families everywhere!! It was so nice to be somewhere more low key and homey for Easter. The town itself is full of colorful buildings and looks straight out of a fairytale. Easter evening we went to a cathedral in town for Easter service. Of course it was in French so we couldn’t understand anything they were saying, but it was very powerful to just feel the energy of everyone in the church. We might not speak the same language but we were all there to worship God together and it was a very great experience. Our last day in Colmar we went on a morning boat ride in “little venice” which was so so beautiful! It was a very peaceful ride and a beautiful day outside! We then walked around the Easter markets again and tried to soak up every second of the cute little town before we left!
On our way home our bus was an hour late, sooo we missed our train ride back to Olomouc. Which was a bummer but if there is anything I have learned from this trip it’s that everything always finds a way to work out! Sure enough we managed to find 4 more tickets on the next train, and we still made it back in time for class! One big lesson I have learned from this trip is to not stress about the little things. After learning so much about various countries histories and the Holocaust, it makes it really hard to feel anything but blessed with the lives that we live. Missing a train, getting on the metro the wrong way, getting lost in a new city… none of that is really worth stressing over because in the end, one way or another, we always figure it out and everything is just fine! I think I am a pretty positive person, but I definitely stress myself out a lot, but I think when I go back to Nebraska, one thing I will bring with me, is a more Type B personality, and a better understanding of the bigger picture to life and how the little things are just not worth the stress because I have AN AMAZING LIFE!!!!!!!
As much as I would’ve loved to be home for Easter and my mom’s birthday, I know that I am getting so much out of this trip, which will help me throughout the rest of my life. I am so thankful to have 2 insanely supportive and loving parents, and the world’s best brother and sister, who always support my crazy dreams! I am also extremely thankful for my boyfriend/friends/bosses back home who have all supported me through this as well. Whenever I do get a little homesick one of them picks me back up and reminds me how lucky I am to be here and how this is a once in a lifetime opportunity!!! So to all my family and friends reading this, THANK YOU for pushing me, motivating me, loving me, and always being there for me! I am the luckiest girl in the whole world!
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