Introduction

Living and learning in San Sebastián, Spain has been everything I imagined and more. From the gorgeous coastline to the delicious pinchos I don’t think I will ever want to leave.  However, during our four day free weekend, I decided to travel into France with three other friends from UML. Me, Kate, Adam, and Ryan left Wednesday afternoon immediately after class to catch a bus to Bordeaux. As we learned, you should definitely double check the location of the bus stop – we ended up 10 minutes away from the right location 5 minutes before the bus was scheduled to leave. We hurried to the correct bus station as our bus was driving away, and thankfully made it onto the bus.

Thursday

I spent my first day of the free weekend in Bordeaux. We had arrived to our airbnb the previous night, so we woke up near the city’s center ready to start the day. We began our day at a cafe where we ordered crepes and croissants, and left from there to explore the city.

After a few hours of wandering and shopping, we stopped at a grocery store to buy ingredients to make our own dinner. We ended making spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread made from focaccia. Afterwards, we took another walk around the city and the headed back to get rest before the long day ahead of us on Friday.

Friday

Friday felt like the longest day yet on this trip. We got onto the bus for Paris at 2:10am and didn’t arrive until 9:00am. Thankfully I was able to sleep through the bus ride so I was well rested for the day ahead. When we arrived at the bus station, we found our way to the metro and took the train to Trocadero Station, which has amazing views of the Eiffel Tower. From there we made our way toward the base of the tower to see how long the line would be to go up to the top floor. Thankfully the line was not long, so we walked up to the second floor and then took the elevator to the top. On the top floor we briefly met up with Micheal, another UML student.

After soaking in the gorgeous views from the tower, we made our way toward Nötre Dame. Outside of Nötre Dame there was a large line to get in, but thankfully it moved quickly. The architecture was absolutely stunning, and the attention to details inside and out was incredible. One of my favorite parts was the stained glass windows on the inside. Before our next stop we took a break for lunch at a nice restaurant nearby. Once we finished there we made our way to check out the Louvre from the outside because we did not purchase tickets ahead of time. While I know I would have enjoyed going in, even just seeing the building from the outside was worth the walk.

For dinner, we headed back toward the Eiffel Tower and grabbed sandwiches from a nearby shop and macaroons from a bakery. We then had a quick picnic with beautiful views of the city before we went to catch our bus back to Bordeaux.

Saturday

We took Saturday at a much slower pace than Friday, and took our time exploring more of Bordeaux. For breakfast we ate at Café Eriu, where I had some of the best pancakes of my life. Both Ryan and I had them, and we both agree that they were absolutely phenomenal. After our breakfast, we spend the remainder of the day popping in and out of local shops before we caught our bus back to San Sebastián.

Sunday

On Sunday morning after I got breakfast at the hotel I went into the garage to get my bike where I was greeted with a flat tire. I had planned on shopping in the city before heading to the beach, but those plans changed when I realized I would have to walk 40 minutes towards where I would shop. Instead, I went to the beach where I later met up with other students from UML. The weather was perfect, and the water was warm but still refreshing. I went in the water with Piper and Adam and we swam far out toward a dock only to turn around when we were told of a Portuguese Man of War jellyfish nearby. On the swim back to shore, we swam through a lot of baby Man of War jellyfish. Soon after we got out of the water, we saw many more on the shore line that were being collected by kids. Later, we ended up getting dinner at a burger place and then heading back to change and return to the beach to watch the sunset.