Fall Break part 1

This weekend kicked off Fall break, a 10-day free travel weekend. But before that we had a typical week in Rome. Monday was an average day of classes. After lunch I worked on prepping for my history midterm and finalized the last of the fall break plans. On Thursday we had our history midterm instead of class on site. After the test I worked on some homework and studied for the upcoming Italian midterm. That night UMary took over Abbey Theater for taco Tuesday. Most of the students went and the chaplaincy program joined us.

On Wednesday we had Art History at Santa Maria in Trastevere. The whole class was actually early to the site, there’s a first time for everything. We learned about the church and its art. We then had a short break and met up at another church to continue class. We went to another church and then headed back to campus for pizza. I studied Italian with a few others after lunch and got ready for Convivium, the family edition. Many of the students’ families were visiting this past week and Convivium was packed. On Thursday we had our typical classes with an Italian midterm instead of normal class. That night our RA and his wife made chili for the students, and I packed for fall break.

Woke up early on Friday to head to the airport. Got through security and boarded our flight to Paris. Landed in Paris around noon and got an Uber to our Air bnb. Dropped off our bags and walked to a nearby grocery store to get food for the weekend. We ate a late lunch back at the bnb and headed into the city on the metro. We did a quick self-guided walking tour of Paris. Stopped at the Louvre, walked to the arch of Napoleon, and then headed to the Eiffel Tower. We caught the tower right at sunset and got to see the first light show of the night. We then paid for an elevator to take us to the top of the tower, and it took forever. We were on the tower for over two hours most of the time waiting in line for the elevators. We did get to see an amazing view from the though. Afterwards we grabbed a quick late dinner from McDonalds as everything else was closing soon. We headed back to the Air bnb for the night.

The next morning was another early one as we headed to the metro to get to Disneyland Paris. We got to Disneyland around 9:30 and hit the ground running. We knocked out three rides: Phantom Manor, Indiana Jones, and Pirates of the Caribbean, in under an hour. We then did some more rides before eating our lunch in front of the castle. We walked around and did some shopping and then headed on one final ride in the main park, Big Thunder Mountain, before heading to the other park. We got into Disney Studios and knocked off some of the big rides right away. We waited inline for a ride only for it to break down right before they loaded us, we did get to go on it later in the night. We headed to Avengers Campus and went on all of the rides there. We got dinner and closed the park out with one final ride, Crush’s Coaster. We then made the long journey back to the bnb on the metro.

On Sunday, we took it easy and made breakfast in the bnb in the morning. We then headed to a local church for mass. After that we headed into town and stopped along the way for crepes. We went to see Notre Dame only to see it covered in scaffolding and closed to the public. We then tried to find a restaurant for supper. We found one right by the train station that we were leaving out of and had a lovely dinner but a terrible time getting there. After dinner we headed to the train station to go to Luxemburg. The train stopped in Metz France because of problem in the Luxemburg train station and caught a bus the rest of the way. We got into Luxemburg around 11 pm and walked to our hostel. Went to bed to get ready for the next day.

Ciao, Ann