April Vacation!!

Hi! So sorry I havn't posted in while!! I've just been super busy! The past two weeks were April vacation here in France! The first week, my family and I went to the Pays Basque, which is a region in the south west of France along the Atlantic coast that then goes down into northern Spain. Everything there was absolutly geogreous, except for the weather. We were supposed to go scuba diving but since the "mer" was "trop agitée" we didn't get to :( It rained almost everyday we were there, which kind of sucked. None the less, we still got to do quite a bit of sightseeing; we visited Biarritz and the Musée de la Mer or Ocean Museum, St Jean de Luz, Espelette, the Chocolate Museum in Biarritz which had probably the best gift shop eva, and two cheese places one of which had won the "Best Cheese in the World 2011" award (impressive), St. Sebastien in Spain and we also got went on a hike the only nice day! While I was there, I saw a lot of old Basque guys wearing berets, which was nice. I took lots of pictures of all the things we saw and did, here are a few:

My room!

The beautiful country side right near the gîte

A traditional Basque house

Me in Biarritz, it was quite windy out

Biarritz, la ville! (the city)

Piment d'Espelette ice cream!! not spicy enough in my opinion...

A famous hotel in Espelette with the Piment drying on the walls, also an expcetional exhibit of Basque architecture

A road in the village of Espelette

The trail we hiked on

Too bad the whole week wasn't as nice as that one day!!

Malia à la frontière!

A street in St. Sébastien, Spain

 When parties held in this square the balconies are rented out

The reason we didn't go scuba diving

The next week, we went up to Paris for 5ish days. I absolutly love Paris!! Even when the weather is bad! Unfortunetly my camera was low on battery so I tried to economize my photos. We visited the Musée d'Orsay, the Galleries de Louvre (an underground shopping center) Versailles and Euro Disney! We also walked around Notre Dame and the Latin Quarter of Paris where we found a really, really cool old English book store where I got The Catcher in the Rye, and then we got to feed birds right out of our hands in front of the cathedral!! Also, while I was in Paris, I got stuck in the Metro doors which is probably one of the scarist things that's ever happened to me. I was busy giving some lady directions in English and the train was there. I wasn't looking at what was going on or something and then the doors closed right on me! I had, like, half of my arms in the subway car and also part of my bag. It was as if the world stop turning for a few seconds and all I could think about was how my bag was going to rip right off the strap. Somehow, my host brother managed to pull open the doors to let me in. It was sooo scary!! My arms hurt for about four days after and people kept brushing into them when we were at Versailles which was really annoying. There are always a ton of people there and tour groups always get in your way. My host mom explained to me how at other museums, like the Louvre, they are putting in place a bunch of rules to make tour groups less annoying for people not in them. Good riddence, I say! Other than that, the whole vacation passed "sans problem!" Actually just kidding, we had quite the scare when we left the Versailles tickets in the apratement but we were able to print them out again at some internet café and then half way throught the trip my metro ticket decided to stop working, cool! but we were able to get that fixed too :) and then also the weather wasn't so hot again and it rained on and off when we were at Versailles. But those things are just a part of the experience! I got the chance to eat some traditional French things like Confit de Canard which was very good, pain au chocolat and pain au raisin which were both delicious, of course!! Since I'm talking about food, I might as well add that I've learned to make real Frenh bread, crêpes and cannelés a Bordeaux specialty! I ate at my first real restaurant  while in Paris and ordered with out a problem!! Here are some pictures I took in the city:

Musée d'Orsay

A big, glass clock at the museum that you could see the city through, amazing!

l’église Sacre Cœur and the Opéra with the green roof as seen from Musée d'Orsay

The front of the Château, it was really quite something

Marie Antoinette's bedroom with the door she escaped through the night of the Revolution, it leads to the King's bedchamber

View of the gardens, they are free except when the fountains are on

Since it's a traditional French garden, everything is symmetrical, on the other side, it was exactly the same

Marie Antoinette had a little farm thing built for when she got sick of the French court

Apparently she asked for the staircase to be made of rotten wood

Euro Disney!!!!! even though I'm not a big fan of amusement parks it was nice to hang out with my host family there :)

Also, before vacation I had the chance to do some sight-seeing and to take a few pictures of some places around where I live. I went to Arcachon and the Dune de Pilat, which is the largest sand dune in Europe. I went there like a month ago and still find sand in my shoes and bag. Also I got a few pictures of Bordeaux, the big city only 30minutes away from chez moi where all the shops are at.

Flash mob!!!

Place des Girondins

Bordeaux along the quais

The coolest of the old doors from when the city was walled, its name escapes me at the moment...

The Dune went right into the pine forest, just like that, it was pretty awesome!

Dune de Pilat again

A cool fishing village, very pretty

Arcachon!