We arrived in Paris early in the morning, and everyone was crazy jetlagged. Ms. Maione was not letting anyone sleep and we could not check into our rooms until that night, so we just dropped our suitcases in a room and went exploring. Our tour guide, Francis, met us at the airport and shared some French history with us as we rode on the tour bus.

That day it was lightly raining with a lot of wind. However, on the first full day, another tour guide showed us Paris in a tour bus. We left the bus to see the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe and took many photos. Afterwards, we had lunch at a restaurant called Le Paradis du Fruit. To sum up the lunch – it was very French and all of us needed help from our original tour guide, Francis, and Ms. Maione to understand the menu.  Ultimately, everyone ordered the closest dishes the restaurant had to American food, which resulted in chicken sandwiches and fries with salad.  We visited a beautiful church after lunch, travelling by metro. We had dinner at 6:30 at another restaurant, which was also very French.
After dinner, we took the metro back to the hotel. Our hotel in Paris was beautiful; it was like all the buildings in Paris – beautiful and traditionally crafted with a balcony at each window.

The second and final days in Paris again brought rain. We woke up early as usual. We had a tour (in English) at the Louvre where we saw the famous Mona Lisa, which had a large crowd hovering around it as did the Venus de Milo sculpture.

Later, we visited the beautiful cathedral of Notre Dame, which also had a huge line. However, during our visit, there was a service going on inside the cathedral, which is not something everyone gets to see. Afterwards, we were all very tired but we took the metro to another church atop a hill that we had to climb stairs to get access. Right after this visit, we did a lot of souvenir shopping and had lunch with our friends at a place of our own choosing.

After lunch, we went to the mall and we had an hour and a half to shop! Afterwards, we took the metro again to a boat tour of the 22 bridges surrounding all the famous monuments of Paris. We had the opportunity to see the Eiffel Tower lit up at night, which was almost surreal because we were so close to it. Although we were all tired, we decided to visit the Louvre again around 10 pm. This visit only took us to the outside area near the museum, though, as the indoor part of the museum had closed. We were some of just a few people there.  The fountains had stopped working, so it was a huge open space. We took photos and then headed back to the hotel, but made a pit stop for some late night crepe snacks – which was amazing. By the time we got the hotel, it was midnight, but no one wanted to sleep just yet.  Of course, this late night meant that the bus the next day was complete silence as we travelled to the train station. When we got on the train, we said goodbye to our awesome tour guide and then all slept the entire three-hour ride. When we arrived in Besançon, all we could see was greenery and greenery. The Frenchies, their teachers and their parents were waiting there to welcome us.  One group even had t-shirts that spelled out “welcome.” After we took a group photo, all the Americans got bus passes for the week and we all separated and joined our host families to spend Easter weekend.