St. Anne’s France & Spain 2017
June 12-13, 2017
Our travel group from St. Anne’s took 3 hour connecting flight from Denver to New York. We then took another flight (about 7 hours) from New York to Paris. When we arrived in Paris, we dropped off our luggage at the hostel in the Paris “swamp”*, and went to a falafel place and had falafels. Then we took the subway train to the Eiffel Tower. We climbed to the 2nd and 3rd highest platform in the tower. The view is an unforgettable and amazing sight! We took the subway back the area of our hostel and got some dinner at a cafeteria and then went back to our rooms! Overall, it was a fun, and exciting, yet tiring day!
June 14, 2017
Today was a very yummy day. First we went on a 2 hour tour of part of France’s history in Paris with a guide. Then we ate lunch at a French bistro outside and ate pasta. Then we had free time and bought some cool souvenirs then we went to the Arc de Triomphe and walked down the Champs-Elysèes. Then we took the metro to a cool park with poker-chip looking pillars. After that we went out to dinner were we tried escargot for the first time: it tasted like garlic bread and snail it was really good and we almost all tried it. We also tried foie gras but we did not like it as much. Then we went on a surprise boat ride to end the day.
This morning we said Au revoir to Paris. We reached Carcassonne in no time thanks to the fast, high-speed TGV train. We celebrated our arrival in the medieval city by trying some macarons (which are so delicious!) and climbing up the fortified walls. The city of Carcassonne is famous for its fortress, the Cite de Carcassonne, which was restored and is now a UNESCO world heritage site. It is crazy to believe that people lived here at one point in time! This afternoon,we met with our homestay families…we are excited o get to know our families and for what is to come!
June 18, 2017
Today was very fun and active. In the morning, we woke up and had breakfast with our host families. Our host family mad us a very good breakfast of egg, toasted baguettes and chocolate croissants. After breakfast we packed out backpacks for a day at the beach and to do a rope course. We arrived at the rope course. Unfortunately it was closed until after lunch. We decided to go to the lake with our families and hang out at the lake. We went swimming and played around the beach the entire morning. For lunch we all sat under a tree and we had a picnic with our host families. Our family made us sandwiches with baguettes, chicken, ham, cheese, and melon. After we ate lunch we went back to the ropes course. This time it was open and we all did the course with our families. Some of the courses were harder than others and some people did not go on all of them. My host family and I went on all of the courses. There was a rope that went across the lake and on the way back you got so close to the water that you could almost touch it! The water was so clear and blue. It was really pretty! After we finished the ropes course our host family and I went home. We all showered and changed so we could go into the city. The city is a really cool medieval castle. The castle is made out of stone and it is very old. Inside the castle there are 42 towers! My host mom told me that when she was little about 700 people lived in the city, now only 40 people do. We went to the city and walked around and saw the church. Then we sat down at a little cafe and had drinks. Some of our host mom’s friends came and met us at the cafe. Two of our homestay’s friends were dressed like mideavel people because they did presentations inside the castle. Our host mom works in a shop inside the castle. Then we returned home with our families and went to sleep.
-Micaela
June 19, 2017
Today we said goodbye to our homestay families in Carcassonne and rode on the bus for 3 hours to Barcelona. Then we had lunch at a pretty park (Parque Guell) and then we went to the hotel and checked in. We all wanted to go to the beach so, Sophie made it possible! When we got to the beach we had ice cream and went swimming in the Mediterranean sea. It felt so nice to take a dip, especially after travelling all morning. After we went swimming, we walked to dinner through an arc de triomph and a garden. We tried pan con tomato and calamari tapas.
-Meg and Jeffrey
June 20, 2017
Today we went to the Sagrada Familia that has been under construction ever since the 1930s. We had crepe for lunch. We walked to an old university and sat in a courtyard. Then we went to a market with lots of food and other things. For dinner we went to a restaurant with lots of kinds of food we got many good dishes like paella and crema catalan. We can’t wait to see you tomorrow.
-Jackie
