bonjour

PARIS

since i had already been to paris once before, the best part this time was visiting my british bestie, holly.

she is doing a year abroad in paris right now, dreamy right? so she let us stay in her cute little flat with her & even take over her bed. 

she was a lovely tourguide & her french helped us out quite a bit.

holly lives close by the montmartre so that was our first stop. & we watched the eiffle tower sparkle with thousands of lights from up there on the hill.

we did a good job of eating like parisians. with coffee&pastries at a nice cafe for breakfast. baguettes&savory crepes for lunch. dinner reservations at a nice restaurant called Le Progres. and we even had the best gelato of the whole trip which was shaped like a flower [and we definitely know our gelato].

we relaxed at a few different parks throughout our explorations of paris & on the grass by the eiffel tower.

we climbed the stairs to see the view from the top of the arch de triompe.

& we compared british/american english like how they call a fanny back a bum bag :)

who would have known i'd be seeing holly for the third summer in a row after we said goodbye the first summer we met in girona, spain? life is fun like that.

madrid

we were already in love with the spanish culture. so starting off the trip in the capitol of spain was the perfect beginning.

we got to meet carolyn's friend, adrian {a.k.a. adrianito} and his parents who were so kind as to let us stay with them.

we had a lovely dinner with them on their back patio. it was a classic spanish meal: salad with vinegar&olive oil, croquettas, spanish ham, baguettes, & different cheeses. his dad loved asking us about the U.S. economy & politics. not exactly the easiest conversation in spanish but it was fun to test our knowledge.

our tourguide adrianito showed us around the vibrant city of madrid & took us to yummy restaurants.

savannah's friend, megan, had just arrived in madrid to be an Au Pair as well.

[small world]

 so we got to meet up with her & her british friend, luke.

going out at night is what spain is all about. we had fun dancing it up at a discoteca.

it was weird to leave the spanish language after being immersed in it for over three months. but our little time in madrid was a fun way to say goodbye.