Whew! Where did Winter Term go? That’s what I always seem to say to myself as mid-March comes around. I always feel like the Winter Term just flies by. That may explain why no blogging since my adventure in France; it may also explain my excitement that Spring Break is literally hours away. (Not for me, I’m working, but I like the idea of Spring Break nonetheless. Big fan, really.)

Before I jump into the end of my great French adventure, a few plugs.

-The next Transfer Visit Day is coming up on Saturday, April 25. If you really want to see what transferring to North Central is all about, it’s a great day to meet with faculty, get a tour of campus, and hear from the stupendous (and we are stupendous) Transfer Admission staff. Register here. If you can’t make it, you can always set up an individual visit. Contact info is here.

-The Transfer Admission Staff has a Twitter page. Click here to follow us Cardinals as we Tweet.

-The North Central Athletics page is new and looking good. You’ve gotta check it out.

Now then, what were we talking about? Oh, right, FRANCE. Honestly, even though it’s been almost 3 months since the trip wrapped up, I’m still tryin to find ways to describe it. I’ve been very lucky, as this was my third trip abroad: I was a direct exchange student for the 2004 Fall Term at Canterbury Christ Church University (where a group of students from North Central will be attending this year), was part of the 2005 “Crossing Boarders, Connecting Cultures” Conference that took me to Beijing, China and Kyoto, Japan for two weeks (really, just stunning), and now a December Term trip to France.

Over the past few months, I’ve tried to figure out how to describe the experience (a common problem for those who study abroad, I’ve found). I could talk about all the amazing sites I saw (the Pont du Gard, the Amphitheatre in Orange, Avignon, Arles, and of course Paris). Also, for those of you who own the bestseller 1,000 Places to See Before You Die, by my calculations we knocked five locations from the book off our bucket lists.

I could give you insightful critiques of everything I ate and drank (well, “delicious” doesn’t really begin to describe my gastronomical experience, neither in fact does “scrumdiddlyumptious,” but it’s closer). I could tell you about the people (the gentle chiding for not knowing French, the look of surprise and smiles on people’s faces when I tell them where I’m from). I could tell you some of the crazy stories, and some of the funny ones. Traveling always causes both of those types of stories, and I promise you that this trip was no exception.

Or I could just give you a list of Do’s (DO go on a dinner boat tour of the Seine, as Paris at night is just mesmerizing) and Don’ts (DON’T try to find tasty American food.: the French do French food better, and you live in America and can literally get a hamburger whenever).

So maybe I’ll just do this. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. According to my camera, I took 2,086 pictures. I know. That’s a lot. Stop laughing. But instead of speaking for them, I’ll let some of the pictures speak for themselves.

Okay, right now I can’t get the blog to post it, so you’ll just have to click here.

There. Better than my stories, better than my Do’s and Don’ts. Bottom line: This trip was amazing, and by far the best way I’ve ever spent a D-Term at North Central.

That’s it for now.

-Megan

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 at 11:42 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response.