**WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG POST TO GIVE YOU AN IMPORTANT LESSON IN THE GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE**
I told many people that I was in Finland/going to Estonia and many of them responded with "where's that again?" so here's a map of Europe. Finland is circled, Estonia is directly south. I hope you all know where Paris is. If not, that's on the map too!
OKAY anyways, first up is Paris! Honestly I wasn't expecting to love it as much as I did. A lot of people told me they had such high expectations for the city that they ended up kind of hating it. I guess having low expectations as well as a sunny day to explore really worked in my advantage. After taking various French classes for eight years now, I've read a lot about the Paris monuments and whatnot. Actually seeing some of them in person actually took my breath away. I didn't stay long, only like 12 hours, but man I cannot wait to go back.
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| my heart wut |
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| feelin triumphant haha |
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| someone give my friend Amy a dollar |
Then I went to Finland! I think I caught the country at kind of an awkward time: it's not summer, it's not winter, so there wasn't much to do (no snow :( boo) but I enjoyed myself none the less. It was absolutely a blast to stay with my aunt: she's lived in Finland for 25ish years, so growing up, I saw her sporadically at best. Plus, my cousin (her son) just got married so I had many family stories to catch up on and pictures to see of her granddaughter. I spent the days wandering Helsinki, which is right along the sea and quite beautiful. It stole my heart for two reasons: one, it's easy to walk around and see everything and two: it has a lot of thrift stores!!! You never know how much you love thrift stores until you live in a city so bourgeois there's literally only one. I managed to find a fantastic nordic sweater, which I refuse to take off. Nothing beats wool sweaters in fall, even in France where I got weird looks on the train yesterday (haters gon hate I guess). Oh and Finns are known for having strong, strong, STRONG coffee so that didn't hurt their case either.
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| what a view |
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| that coffee almost gave me a heart attack |
Saturday was a high holy day in Finland (All Saints' Day I think?) so the whole country was going to be shut down. Naturally, my aunt and I decided to jump ship (literally) and go to Estonia for the day! It's a two and a half hour boat ride from Helsinki to Tallinn, so away we went! Tallinn was one of the coolest places I've been to date: most of the landmark buildings were built in the 12/13th centuries, and parts of the original town wall are still in tact and snake through the city. The tallest building there was probably the tallest building in the world for a while! Like in the 1400s, but it's still tall now! In "tourist season" aka not when I was there, you can go up in the steeple and there's an awesome view of the city! I guess I may have to go back to Tallinn and Helsinki then...
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| "probably" the tallest building, at one point |
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| sew many ancient churches |
I'm back in France now, ready to tackle the rest of the semester! Weird that it's already November ah I have no idea how I feel about that. Can't time just slow the eff down so I can stay here forever? I was so happy to get back to Aix after my marathon day of traveling--I guess it really does feel like home here. It's not the same, but that's why I love it! I did miss a monumental event in Wisconsin though this weekend--necessary shoutout to my brother Andrew and the West cross country boys for getting second in state and to my basically brother Olin for winning the whole thing!!! Proud is an understatment :)
Okay that's all for now, I guess you'll hear from me next when I travel again--so the end of the month! I'm going to Nice and Monaco (for real this time) and London because why not?
xoxo,
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| did you know it gets cold on boats in November? |
Sarah
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