{"id":341,"date":"2017-07-04T08:06:46","date_gmt":"2017-07-04T08:06:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/adventuresacrossthepond\/?p=341"},"modified":"2017-07-11T02:46:51","modified_gmt":"2017-07-11T02:46:51","slug":"well-always-paris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/adventuresacrossthepond\/2017\/07\/04\/well-always-paris\/","title":{"rendered":"We’ll Always Have Paris"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like the iconic scene from Casablanca<\/em>, we all parted ways on Sunday night, with<\/p>\n

\"\"
The cute caf\u00e9 where we concluded our study abroad program.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

some of us getting ready to board planes to cross oceans, and others staying behind to spend more time in Europe. We had\u00a0a final group dinner at an adorable\u00a0caf\u00e9 with a beautifully chaotic vibe – it\u00a0looked like a sort of fusion between a castle in medieval Europe and\u00a0a Greek monument, with modern art hanging from the stone walls, and 80’s electronica pumping from Bose speakers – and as we lingered\u00a0afterward to take some group photos,\u00a0there was a weird sense of finality about the whole affair.<\/p>\n

\"\"
“The Last Selfie” by Sonia. I wasn’t aware that it was happening, but I thought I’d include it all the same!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It wasn’t final in a negative sense, it just seemed like we were about to leave a space that existed just for us; I doubt that any of us will be able to go back without replaying the memories we made on this adventure together. In my mind, Lyon will always mean playing petanque in the riverside park and dancing to live music echoing through the cobblestone streets of Old Town, becoming closer with my fellow travelers on every excursion. Paris will forever be associated with getting pleasantly lost in the Egyptian section of the Louvre, sprinting through the metro for a pseudo-Amazing Race\u00a0scavenger hunt and being cheered on by random passers by, and\u00a0spending\u00a030 minutes admiring the\u00a0depth, color, and texture of Monet’s water lilies.\u00a0There are far too many moments, sights, smells, and feelings to describe fully here, and I kind of like that. I like that some of these adventures are entirely ours and can’t be described to others, because that means that someone had to have been there to appreciate those moments, and that’s a reminder that we were there.<\/p>\n

I’m currently sitting with four friends in an adorable Airbnb in Brussels, Belgium, getting ready to spend another week in Europe, with our time split between Brussels and Amsterdam. Last night, after we got settled here, we went<\/p>\n

\"\"
Behind Michael is Manneken Pis – there was a surprisingly large crowd around him!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

out exploring the adorable cobblestone streets and\u00a0saw the Manneken Pis (a very famous fountain statue of a young boy peeing), and spent some time in the city’s main square, Grand Place. Over the next several days, we’ll be visiting a natural history museum (because why not check out some Belgian\u00a0dinosaurs?), a local fine arts museum, the Van Gogh Museum (which I am extremely excited to see), the Rijksmuseum, and the Ann Frank House (hopefully; online tickets are no longer available, but we can try for physical tickets the day of). We also plan on biking around Amsterdam’s canals, finding some Belgian chocolate, and either strolling through or picnicking in some botanical gardens that are just down the street from our Brussels flat!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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The square was full of young adults drinking, listening to music, and just having fun. Everything was bathed in the early evening light, and it was gorgeous!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As these are personal travels, and not for school, this will be my last entry for my adventures in France. I’m so grateful to the Honors College at Oregon State University for providing this outstanding opportunity to go abroad, and am very thankful to have had a pair of excellent professors teaching all of us about innumerable facets of French culture! I’d also like to thank my fellow students\/friends on this study abroad: you all made these experiences possible, with your\u00a0unparalleled senses of humor, willingness to explore, and\u00a0for being genuinely great people to be around.\u00a0\u00a0And thank you, dear readers, for joining me on this journey and reading my updates – I thoroughly enjoyed writing them, and I have loved answering your questions and\u00a0hearing your feedback!<\/p>\n

Au revoir, and thank you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like the iconic scene from Casablanca, we all parted ways on Sunday night, with some of us getting ready to board planes to cross oceans, and others staying behind to spend more time in Europe. We had\u00a0a final group dinner at an adorable\u00a0caf\u00e9 with a beautifully chaotic vibe – it\u00a0looked like a sort of fusion … Continue reading We’ll Always Have Paris<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7979,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7R7eI-5v","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/adventuresacrossthepond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/adventuresacrossthepond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/adventuresacrossthepond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/adventuresacrossthepond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7979"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/adventuresacrossthepond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/adventuresacrossthepond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":364,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/adventuresacrossthepond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions\/364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/adventuresacrossthepond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/adventuresacrossthepond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/adventuresacrossthepond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}