Giverny

We took the bus.

A private one. Sort of like a megabus (I saw one over there btdubbs. Weird). 

If you asked me how long it was from Paris to our destination, I couldn't tell you. I hardly keep track of the time it takes me to get somewhere. On the metro, the bus, l'avion, the train. 

I don't know. It's something I never do—make a mental record of how long it takes to get from point A to point B. I wonder what that says about me.

Our destination?

Giverny, where the famous French impressionist Claude Monet used to chill. 

We, however, did not chill that day. No chilling. Pas de tout.

It was hot. *cue Nelly song*

Mais, tu sais j'aimais la chaleur (it's strange I know).

Donc...

We visited Monet's house and his gardens and man oh man.

I have never seen such beautiful flowers in my life.

Tellement beau.

C'était ridicule.

I could not believe how beautiful the gardens were. Just amazing.

Our trip to Giverny lasted the whole day—it was planned by API. 

Some of us didn't take our lunch, but lucky for us JD had a whole picnic in his backpack:

Madeleines, Pain, Camembert.

Camembert.

OK real talk.

Camembert is that real popular cheese from the Normandy region. Anyways, I knew the French were supposed to have the cheese game 'pon lock, so I was more than willing to try any and all French cheese.

And I liked Camembert all right.

The thing is, JD didn't have a knife to cut the cheese with, so he used his credit card. 

But you know, I'm not complaining. I didn't bring any food. 

So I'm eating the pain with camembert and we were all basically done with the cheese when suddenly I behold JD licking the cheese from the credit card.

And I don't mean like the little kittens on the "Aristocats" lapping up milk. There was a whole lotta mouth on card action.

Ever since then, I could not eat Camembert the same way. 

So the group was split up at this point and those of us eating from JD's little picnic were all sitting on the same bench, when suddenly a worker said in French and then in English that we couldn't eat there.

We continued our journey to some church in Giverny, but stopped for some glace on the way. :)

Anyways, we finally got there, but soon we had to head back to meet with our professor.

We were up on some hill.

Now you see, the sensible thing to do at this point would be to walk back around and find a way to calmly return to the ground.

But we weren't all that sensible.

Some of us did that, but others (myself included) decided to sorta slide down.

Anndddd that went well.

Sorta.

Not exactly.

You see, we got a lot more stuff on our pants than expected. I kept trying to brush it off while walking, and suddenly Kelly lifted up her shirt to find red blotches on her lower back. 

Ooo. 

Next it was Jasmin. She started to find these super tiny insects crawling on her.

Ahh.

Luckily, the only thing I suffered from was paranoia.

I was just waiting to find some microscopic insect on me. 

Man, I sound "vraiment propre" in this post. 

Anyways, those were the highlights in my mind, but if you take anything out of this post just know Giverny is beau (c'est à la campagne). Monet's house is pretty legit, les fleurs will blow your mind and uh, I think we saw a pretty legit corn field in the distance before we left.

Eventually we hopped back on the bus, and I can say it was a good little trip.

Anddd that was Saturday.

I really was going to combine this with my next post, but I thought Sunday deserved it's own post.

Sunday was Bastille Day.

P.S.

I should probably add that Kelly was OK. With the red blotches and everything.