Sights Seen:

• Sacre Coeur
• Montmartre
• Opera
• Hotel de Ville
• Notre Dame
• Love Lock Bridge
• The Louvre
• Arc de Triumph

Foods Consumed:

• Tuck Shop: Delicious soup, sandwiches and coffee
• Angelina's: World's best hot chocolate, hands down
• Refuge des Fondues: Swiss cheese fondue, wine out of baby bottles, amazing ambiance
• Ari's Bagels: Cheese bagel with cream cheese and veggies. Unreal recovery food.
• Loustic: Cappuccino's and a beautiful man I shared some intense eye contact with.
• Random cafe: Croque Madames - look it up
• Pierre Herme: The most incredible Madagascar Vanilla, Lavender and Salted Caramel macarons I've ever tasted
• Farmer's Market: Savory crepe wrap, including (but not limited to): spinach, basil, olive oil, prosciutto, fromage blanc. Still salivating.

Memories Made:

The fun times began to roll even before reuniting with two of my best friends in the City of Love. On my 7-hour bus ride from Amsterdam to Paris, I happened to find myself sitting in front of a fellow passenger rocking a bright red USC backpack. It turned out he was from Brussels, but had just finished four months at USC as a Marshall exchange student! It's so cool, the people you meet when you travel solo. 

We talked for the rest of the bus ride and when we finally arrived in Paris, him and his girlfriend (also a former USC exchange student!) helped me navigate the metro, even sitting with me until we arrived at my stop. Super #blessed to have met you, Ben and Angelique. Fight on, dudes!

After greeting me with red wine and a liter of Smirnoff Ice (I can't even chug a normal sized one, so that was a lol), the roomies and I got ready for a night out. We met up with a bunch of other USC and CIEE kids to pregame, then headed to a place called The Social Club. Playing that night was the group Klingande, and we had the most amazing time. We pushed our way to the front and danced to their set for hours. If you're unfamiliar with them, do yourself a favor and acquaint yourself now.

The next day was filled with good food and awesome sightseeing. However, thanks to some low-key sexual harassment from the locals, separation of the group, and a failed attempt to get into Le Titty Twister (<-- a real, and apparently, sick club), I went to sleep missing the safe, comfortable streets of Amsterdam.

Saturday was a new and killer day. Obvi more good food and sightseeing. Notable events include posing as the modern-day hunchbacks of Notre Dame and pretending to be high-class beggars on the Love Lock Bridge. Possible "you had to be there" moments, but by the end of the day, I think our stomachs hurt from laughing as much as our feet from walking. We all agree that we're best friends because we make each other feel hilarious. Touche.

From there, we sought out my first incredibly delicious Croque Madame. Sadly, all of the cheese, butter and cream of the Parisian cuisine I had consumed voraciously since arrival caught up with me post-croque. I developed a horrible stomach ache for the last half of the day, cutting our tour of the city just short of the Eiffel Tower. There's nothing worse than complete debilitation by your own stomach. Bad tummy.

A true social chair at heart, I slept off some of the pain and drank off the rest in order to go out for the night. Big USC pregame, a new club, you know the drill. After 4am pizza, I finally made it to sleep at my now semi-normal bedtime of 5am.

Okay, le final!

Sunday morning is a slow one, duh. No one wakes up before 11am. I have plans to leave for my bus at 1:30pm, along with a burning desire to eat an authentic crepe before I go. At 1pm, Linda, Jax and I finally set out to find said crepe. Linda leads us halfway across town to this cool farmers market, where we end up waiting over 45 minutes for these uber gourmet crepe-wrap-sandwich things. I'm freaking out, because it's well past 1:30 and we are still in line, so Linda offers to run back to her place, grab my things and meet us at the metro. It was a great idea, until both Jax and I realized we left our iPhones at Lindas.

SO, along with having to self-navigate to the metro at Republique, we had to use my little Dutch phone to text Layla to text Anna to text Linda to communicate our lack of communicative ability. LOL STRESSFUL. Finally, at 2:20pm, Linda finds me at Republique, runs my backpack to me, and I take off sprinting down the metro steps. I wont bore you with the anxiety-ridden details, but I ultimately got on my bus with three minutes to spare.

This was a major victory of the weekend, although I do find myself embarrassed by the lengths to which I will go for some good-ass food.

Okay, I'm not that embarrassed.

P.S. Shout out to Linda and Jax, who both missed their train/flight later that day, due to reasons completely unrelated to mine and largely with poor planning. This happens on the heels of them assuring me that they "always show up to things late and have never missed a form of transportation!" Lol, the irony. You girls keep me young.

P.P.S. I really miss you guys already. Au revoir!