My France Journal

While in France Summer 2017 I kept a journal where I tried to document every single thing that happened so that I wouldn't forget anything I experienced. A lot of people have asked me about the trip, but there's so many things that happened and I can't tell it as well as I remember it. So for anyone interested this is my journal of my one week in Paris and five weeks in Grenoble doing study abroad to learn French. It also includes weekend trips taken to Annecy, Geneva, and Lyon. Also, don't expect any fancy writing here, these are literally just a recounting of each day or few days as best as I could remember them, but I'll include pictures too. Enjoy!

First Impressions:

It turns out I don’t love big cities. I should have known this, since I’ve always wanted to live in the middle of nowhere, but I thought a vacation in Paris would be an exception. With all the monuments to see, I would rather grab a cheap bite to eat at a Carrefour and find a large park to eat in and have a private picnic. Many parks have lawns strewn with cigarette butts. People here don’t seem to mind the dirtiness, so I try not to let it bother me as well.

I’m also much more content to walk the small side streets among the shops and restaurants than I am to walk some grand boulevard to where the monuments are. I wouldn’t mind taking a boat trip on the Seine, but more or less it just seems like something relaxing to do to pass the time. It is so hot here. I never expected the weather to be in the 90’s.

There are also guards standing at every entrance to popular places, like the Louvre and Les Invalides, and Gare du Nord. Mike thought that police in France didn’t carry weapons. At first I thought they were police but I later found out they are military. They carry what looks like assault rifles. They are some kind of automatic and they carry them across their chest like a badge of importance, and with weapons like that, who can doubt their importance?