It has been almost two weeks now that I've been back home from my trip to Europe - the same amount of time that I spent backpacking through France and Italy - and these two weeks since my return have just flown by in comparison to the time I spent over there. Between catching up on sleep and keeping up with events at work, it's no wonder that I haven't found (or made?) the time to post photos from my adventure. I always take an ungodly amount of pictures, so I hope that by releasing them in a few small batches, I'll be able to conquer the Everest that is filling up my external hard drive right now (we're talking over 1000 images here people, so be thankful that I'll only be burdening you with a very small percentage of that total). Oh, also, you should be able to enlarge any of the images by clicking on them, but it may open up a new page.
BIENVENUE EN FRANCE!
It was a red-eye to Paris, and I landed in the early afternoon local time (8:00 am, New York time). As I made my way to the hotel that I had booked the night before (godbless those iPhone apps), I came across the Luxembourg Gardens and decided that it was as good a place as any to start exploring this new city. So before I even had a chance to sit either my stuff or my self down, I took a stroll through the gardens and tried to take in the fact that I was in PARIS!
After dropping my stuff off at the hotel, valiantly fighting the urge to nap, and calling my mom... I researched a river boat cruise along the Seine for later that night. I had a few hours to kill until then, so I wandered off in the general direction of where the tour-boat would depart.
The cruise was full of tourists, as one might suspect, but luckily for me there were other groups of students on board who spoke English. More importantly, I had chosen the perfect cruise time to watch as the Eiffel Tower was lit up for the evening.
And it just wouldn't have been the proper end to my first night in Paris if I didn't take photos of the Eiffel Tower like someone was going to pack it up and move it out the next day. (SPOILER: no one packed it up and moved it out the next day. It was still there. But if I hadn't taken all those photos, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what would have happened, and then I'd have approximately zero of the following pictures to share).
PS: I swear I didn't Photoshop any of the pictures you're about to see; rain clouds were rolling in and they reflected the lights from the city, giving them a gold color behind the Tower. Oh, and every hour on the hour for about ten minutes, the lights twinkle.
