“A day spent with you is my favorite day…”
“So, today is my new favorite day!”-Winnie the Pooh
HEY PEOPLE OF THE INTERNET!! Remember me? Yeah, I know. I’ve been slackin’. It’s been crazy these past few weeks, but I’ll catch up. I’m about to wow you with my MID-SEMESTER BREAK ADVENTURES.
Okay, so first of all, I was blessed with the arrival of three of the most wonderful women on the planet- My BEAUTIFUL mother and her two FAB friends Ann and Carole. (I liked to refer to them all as my MOMS) I had been counting down the days until they finally arrived. When the day finally arrived, I bolted from class, hopped on the 28 bus, and scurried into their Holiday Inn as quickly as I could! Seeing them here, seeing my MOM in LONDON, was just so surreal! This place, which had been so disconnected from home, was being combined and finally everything seemed perfect! I knew what I’d been missing this whole time, why London was amazing, but not perfect: I needed my family and friends here! So, if you haven’t picked up on what I’m suggesting it’s this: GET YO BUTTS OVER HERE PEOPLE, I MISS YOU ALL AND I NEED TO SHARE THIS WITH YOU. xoxo, Gossip Taylor.
I felt so proud of this temporary home as I led the ladies throughout London. We took a bus tour (VERY COLD), but it was amazing to see the city all at once-how all these historical and iconic landmarks are blocks from one another! We went through Kensington Gardens, Kensington Palace, the Borough Market, the Tower Bridge (and London Bridge), the Tower of London, Trafalgar Square, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Harrod’s, we saw the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace…GOSH. We knocked it all out in three days! We were EXHAUSTED. The legendary free breakfast at the Holiday Inn was a godsend, though. (THOSE CHEESE PACKS, AMIRIGHTLADIES?!) And sneaking around the hotel was fun since we would have to pay extra for me to stay. Gosh, I wish I could go into more detail of what we did….let’s add a few bits:
We slummed it “off the beaten path” (ANN) and ate with the locals at pubs all over London! We became a part of the secret of the London whodunnit “The Mousetrap.” We stopped at almost every Starbucks in London(Free wifi!). We went to Hillsong’s London church which was BEAUTIFUL. We walked like 8 miles each day. We saw Billy Elliot! We got killer souvenirs for the fam back home. We got nasty paella from the market…We took FUN pictures with silly poses and gestures! We only got lost a few times…GOSH it was amazing. I hope you ladies had as beautiful a time as I did.
BUT THAT’S NOT ALL. We went to PARIS for half of the week, too! Let me detail our arrival for comic relief. We took the high speed train to Paris. We bought a Paris Pass on the train to get us into museums and on the bus tour. We got off the train. We had to walk with our luggage to pick up our Paris Pass at the check-in point. The check-in point was like 10 blocks away. We DRAGGED our luggage to the check-in point. We got our Paris Pass. We dragged our luggage 5 more blocks to the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus tour. We took the tour around with our luggage. Once we saw everything-PARIS IS BEAUTIFUL- it started to drizzle, so we decided to get a cab to our hotel. We hopped off the bus in front of Notre Dame. It started to POUR SLEET AND RAIN AND SNOW. This was a STORM. We had our luggage. And, thank goodness, some rain ponchos. We ran in the billowing sleet across the steps of Notre Dame dragging our luggage through the cobblestone and puddles toward the nearest cluster of cabs. I remember squinting up through the rain at the breathtaking facade of the Cathedral thinking-“I am NEVER going to forget this moment.” That madness is the kind of madness that only happens this this crazy bunch of ladies! It was hilarious! And when we finally got a cab and got into the hotel, the rain and snow had stopped!
Anyway, Paris was so elegant. We popped into the nearest restaurant that evening and had a great time chatting with the manager, Mina. He was very proud of his English translation of the menu that he had recently completed! The dinner was like nothing I’d ever eaten. Like Lumiere says in Beauty and the Beast, “After all, miss, this is France and a dinner here is never second best!” We got churros (of all things) from a market down the street for dessert and then prepared ourselves for the next day, which was MY favorite day of the whole break!!
DISNEYLAND PARIS.
I’m not gonna go into it because I’ll discuss it for years, so if you want to know about it specifically, call me. Let’s just say: it was MAGICAL. My heart is pounding just thinking about it, I have to wrap this up!
The last day was spent in Versailles, France! The Palace of Versailles was built on the outskirts of Paris by King Louis XIV as a way to keep his visitors in a sort of ‘guilded cage’ while discussing affairs of state or even just while popping in for leisure. The whole palace is built in a sort of radiating design from the center room-the King’s chambers. See, Louis was pretty full of himself and called himself the Sun King. He basically believed that Apollo was the most powerful and important Greek god because he controlled the sun and everything relies on the sun and rotates around the sun and needs the sun to exist. Yeah. He thought he was that important. So, the whole palace and the gardens around it are representative of that idea-SUNS EVERYWHERE. The place was UNREAL. It was so ornate and guilded and decorated to the very last detail, I couldn’t believe someone lived there! I took a class that focused a lot on the details of Versailles at Loyola (HONR102 heeyyy), so it was crazy to see all the information I’d studied at school IN PERSON.
I was so heartbroken to see my ladies go on Saturday morning, but it was the very best week of my life! I regret not a minute of it! (except maybe the part where I was travel guide…XD) My Mom, Ann, Carole, you were all the perfect adventure companions. I don’t know how I could ever thank you all enough for such a fantastic experience!! Like Carole said on our last night- “Same time, same place, ten years?” I don’t know how I got so lucky to have such a wonderful Mom that she’d let me do all this, but I’ll spend the rest of forever trying to deserve her! I love you three! I miss you like crazy, but I’ll be home soon!
(CHEMIN VERT)
xoxo
Taylor