Back to Colorado!

I have been back in Colorado now for about 2 weeks. I was actually starting to miss the hot sun and dry weather here in Colorado! I think that 4 weeks in Paris was the perfect amount of time to spend studying abroad. I have so many great stories and memories of this trip that I will remember forever.

The teaching style in Europe is a little different in comparison to US schools. The European style focuses more on group projects and personal learning experiences. In US, we are used to lectures and tests to show our knowledge. Our teachers in Paris tried lecturing with their powerpoints, but since they aren't used to teaching that way the lectures tended to drag on. Monday- Thursday we had class frow 10-5 with a 1 hour lunch break. It was difficult for all of us to sit in a hot classroom and listen for such a long time. I would have liked to do more projects rather than lectures. Our French teacher taught us a few French survival classes and also took us on field trips. I wish we could have gone on more field trips as our contact hours and did case studies outside of class and then discuss them in class.

Even after being home for 2 weeks, I still enjoy telling people stories about Europe. The European lifestyle is very different from the US lifestyle. I don't think either one is better than the other because they fit with each culture. For example, Europeans eat dinner from 7:30-10 pm. Restaurants aren't even open for dinner until 7pm! It took me a couple weeks before I finally got used to eating dinner later. Yesterday, my parents and I went to dinner around 5:30 and I thought it was way too early to go out to dinner! In the US, we eat dinner before 7pm. Now I am getting adjusted to the American dinner time again!

I would definately reccommend this trip to anyone thinking about studying abroad. I think it is important for business majors to understand first hand what it is like living in a different country and adjusting to another culture. I have learned so much and am so thankful I got this opportunity.

T-minus 2 days

Today is our last day of class, we have class from 10-5 and our final presentations are tomorrow morning from 9-1. In class, we have time to work on our project and get everything ready for the presentation. Chelsea and I worked on our paper and presentation all day.

Now it is time for our presentation! I think Chelsea and I did really well on our project. It is about Victoria's Secret, which we both worked at a while back! Although we worked in different stores we were able to share some experiences with the company and personalize our project. We get out of class today at 1 pm. At 2 we are meeting at the school again for fill out evaluations and then at 2:30 we are all meeting for 'one last drink' together. This trip flew by! It feels like I just got here! Though the trip went by fast, I have lots of great memories and I really enjoyed living over here for 4 weeks. I am also ready to go back to Colorado and get back to work and my regular schedule of television shows and workout routine! I am so excited to see the Colorado sun!! A few things I will miss are the great wine prices and the crepes! The crepes are so good here! We are going to go back to Notre Dame tonight for one last crepe and maybe a dessert crepe as well! The shopping here is amazing as well. The mall we live right next to is huge! There are about 4 floors and every store you can think of is there(if your thinking French brands)!

Less than 24 hours until I'm on my flight home!!

Eiffel Tower

The UNC group planned to go to the Eiffel Tower together on Monday afternoon. Unfortunately, everyone made their reservations online for the day before! Chelsea and I had reservations for half an hour later, but one of the employees let Chelsea buy a new ticket and we were able go up on our scheduled time. The rest of the group rescheduled for another day. It was so fun to go all the way to the top! The elevator was a little scary, but it was worht it because we could see the whole city!

Chelsea and I took some really good pictures and we are going to try to go back if the weather gets nicer before we leave! There is so much to see here and not enought time to do it in 1 month! We are frantically trying to plan out this last week to get the most out of our trip!

Meeting people from all around the world!

Chelsea and I met a foreign exchange student from London at the laundry mat last week and we met up with him and his friends last night for dinner. He took us to Bastille. It is right off of metro line 1. Bastille is known for its night life and it attracts a younger crowd. We went to a classic French restaurant to try out some French cuisine. The server recommended the duck or chicken plate. I ordered the duck and Chelsea ordered the chicken. Both were really good, I was impressed because I haven't had much luck ordering meals here! There were 6 of us total, 2 Americans, 1 English, 1 Canadian, and 2 Spanish. The 4 guys have been stuying in Paris at a university in La Defense for 2 semesters and just finished finals. Surprisingly, none of us knew much French! The guys said their classes were also taught in English so they didn't need to know French for class. It was fun to go out with people who were studying abroad like us.

After dinner, we walked around the city of Bastille. There was a protest going on at a building near the metro, the protesters were even camping out through the night! There were police parked around the street to make sure nothing got out of hand. However, when we went to the metro to go home, it was closed and security was in the metro. I think they were more concerned about the protest getting out of control, but we ended up having to take a taxi back to our hotel.

T-minus 5 days

It's already my last week in Paris! four weeks went by so fast! We have our final presentations this week, one for marketing and one for management. For marketing, we are in groups of 4 and each group is assigned a case study with questions to answer and put into a powerpoint. My group has a case study about Chrysler and its internationaliztion/globalization strategies. The management project is groups of 2. Each group chose a US company to export to a country in the European Union. We chose Victoria's Secret because they aren't international yet. We present this project on our last day of class, which is on Friday.
Studying in Paris for a month has been a great experience. The school took us on field trips about once a week. I enjoyed this because the places we went to would be hard to find without a French tourguide. Next year, our teacher was talking about getting tickets to a tennis game for the students. Tennis is really popular here and it would have been fun to see. I would have liked to go on more field trips because after class gets out I am usually ready to go back and eat dinner. It took a little while to get used to waking up earlier to catch the metro for school every morning, but after we found a Starbucks nearby the mornings instantly got better! Our teachers are pretty relaxed about the time class starts and normally waited until 10. This is nice because the metro is pretty crowded earlier in the morning when everyone is rushing to get to work!

Apart-Hotel

Apart-Hotel...what does that mean? I'll tell you, it's extended living, not quite an apartment and not exactly a hotel. I guess thats where the name was originated. The way things work here are a bit different. I think an Apart-Hotel can make up their own rules! I really don't mind that the maids don't come very often because I am pretty good about cleaning up after myself. But, something happened the other day and now I wish the maids were here!! We ran out of toilet paper! Oh, and Chelsea and I clogged the sink trying to make cous-cous! (Note this, it is very hard to cook trying to translate French directions to English!) Don't try to do laundry on the weekend because you need special coins for the washer/dryer and the manager with the key isn't on duty to open the machine for more coins. I didn't understand this yesterday and the language barrier is tough. Today, the guy at the front desk explained it to me. Most of the time, the guys working the front desk will tell you to "come back tomorrow." They can be very entertaining!

That's all until "tomorrow!"

Restaurant-Chartier

My mom recommended this restaurant called "Chartier." While the rest of our group was at Disneyland, Chelsea and I decided to go on our own adventure. Chartier is located off Grande Boulevard and it was pretty easy to find. We took metro line 1 to metro 8 and got off on Grande Boulevard, then we walked a few blocks and it was to the right down a small road. We got there at around 6:30 pm, which is really early for dinner here. Normally restaurants don't even open until 7 pm. Luckily, Chartier was open and the host greeted us and led us down a path to get inside, then another host greeted us at the door and directed us to an area to sit. We sat near the back and not many people were there yet.
I was impressed with the size of the restaurant because from the outside it seems like it would be quite small. Chelsea and I were getting pretty comfortable at our table for 4. After about 20 minutes, more and more people began coming in to eat. A few minutes later, our server sat 2 guys down at our table! Chelsea and I were caught off guard and had no idea what was going on! No thing was certain, we had ordered wine just in time for this awkward situation! The 2 men turned out to be really nice. One was 20 and the other 22. They spoke english really well and we were able to have a good conversation with them. One of the guys is actually training for the French Military. The guys invited us to a coffee place after dinner. We got on the metro and went to Saint Michael, which is near Notre Dame. We had coffee right next to one of the prestigious universities for literature. The French architecture is beautiful, I will definately miss it when I go back to Greeley!