Hi again! :)

Paris was an experience. I am very thankful that we had the opportunity to visit the city and see some of the most famous sites in the world, but overall I was slightly disappointed with Paris. I felt that our trip was very rushed and that some of the required things for us to attend as a group were not beneficial. In addition to this, we found that the French people really do have a lack of respect for Americans. There were several occasions on the trip when people had things stolen from them, service refused to them, or were cheated of money to some degree. Luckily, I did not have anything stolen from me and I only had one uncomfortable encounter with Gypsy boys attempting to take something of mine the night we visited the Eiffel Tower. One of my very good friends, Brittany, had her Burberry sunglasses stolen from her right off her head while she was wearing them! The gypsies are much more aggressive here.

Aside from this, I also experienced a reaction to some medication I was taking for a cold which caused me to become even more ill and uncomfortable. So I guess you could say, the Paris trip wasn't exactly set up to be completely successful. We still made the best of it though and had some great experiences.

Starting on the first day, we had breakfast at a nice little traditional French brasserie. We had the traditional breakfast, which consisted of Croissants, French Baguettes and sweet bread. It was very good, but different. After breakfast we took a bus tour to become more acquainted with the city. It was very nice, although out tour guide had a very thick French accent, which made it difficult to understand her. Following this, we took a tour of a very unique store that is only located in Paris. The store is called Colette and sells an select amount merchandise that ranges from runway couture to music CD's and MP3 players. The store focuses on Pop Culture and modern art. I've never experienced anything like it. After the bus tour we attended a presentation at Trend Union which is a Trend Forecasting Studio established by Li Edelkoort. Li Edelkoort is one of the most well respected trend forecasters in the industry. We attended a presentation regarding the upcoming trends for the next two years and had the opportunity to meet Li herself. (For all you wanting to get ahead of the trends--- "Grey is the new Black" and "Yellow is the new Pink" I personally believe that pink could never be replaced by anything! --- After the visit at Trend Union we visited the Paris-American Academy which is a university that conducts classes for students studying abroad between Paris and America. Kent State has a relationship with this university and some KSU students study there. Our purpose for being there was to attend a fashion show put on by Mexican Students. The whole thing was a bit ridiculous and kind of a joke. Their designs were not very developed and at the end of the fashion show it turned into their college graduation which we were not aware we had to stay for. After this event we were off on our own for the rest of the night. A group of us had dinner and went back to our hotel (which was actually a hostel) and made it an early night.

The following day we attended the Premiere Vision Fabric show. This fabric show is the largest international fabric show in the world. Think of a fabric show held at a place that was about 4 times the size of the I-X center. We were there for three and a half hours and still didn't see all the areas. It is a fabric show that many people in the industry attend to order fabric for the design company that they work for. People like buyers from BCBG or Abercrombie and Fitch attend these shows to purchase fabric for their in house designers to create the new clothing for the coming season. The day that we were there was "student day" so there were mostly people are age there. Following premiere Vision we attended a fashion show at Galleries of Lafayette which is a large department store in Paris. The fashion show is a way that the store displays their popular fashions within their store. The fashion show occurs everyday for consumers of the store attend. It is an interesting visual merchandising technique. By this time in the day it was still relatively early and we had the rest of the day to explore on our own. By this time my allergy was at it's worse and I was not a very happy traveler. I "sucked it up" for long enough to visit Notre Dame Cathedral and meet one of Jill's friends from Paris that she attended school with while in Hong Kong. I made my way back to the Hotel afterward to have some time to get read for Moulin Rouge a little later in the night.

By the time Moulin Rouge came along I was feeling a little better, but not much. Only about 10 girls from our group attended the show due to the expense of the tickets. The show was absolutely amazing and unlike anything I expected. It was a spectacle. The show was comprised of everything from topless dancing, hand-puppet shows, ventriloquists (with a dog that looked exactly like DIVA!), miniature ponies, acrobatics, and men dancing around in pink leotards. Sounds crazy, and it was, but it was totally worth every penny! After the show we had a ride scheduled back to our hotel. I went to bed for the night while some of my girlfriends continued to experience the nightlife.

The following day was our free day, and I was feeling ten time better than the night before! We started out at the Louvre, the moved on to the shopping district, and finally the Eiffel Tower. We tried to fit in as much as we could and we were pretty successful at doing so. Be thankful Mom and Dad that I didn't come across the Christian Louboutin store, because had I found one, there may have been so poor financial decisions made on my part. :)

That night all of my girlfriends and I ate dinner at a traditional French restaurant. It was a really great night and we spent a lot of time visiting and getting to know each other even more. I ordered the French Onion Soup and the Crème Brule! IT WAS AWESOME! After dinner we went to the Eiffel Tower to take pictures of it at night. We got there at the perfect time, right before the lights came on for it to sparkle. After staying there for a short time we headed back to our hostel to be ready for the morning to leave for Versailles.

The next day we spent in Versailles at the Castle and seeing the residence of Marie Antoinette. It was nice and the countryside was beautiful but at this point every one was worn out and wanting to get back to Florence where we had our own apartments and the citizens of the town were nice to us. Our flight back to the Italy was uneventful and as I am unpacking my clothes from this trip I am beginning to pack for Oktoberfest. We leave for Munich Thursday night. We are very excited!!

I hope all is well back at home and no one lost too much money in the stock market! :) Ha ha. It is interesting to hear people talk about it over here. I will hopefully be checking in with everyone one more time before departing for Oktoberfest. Love you and miss you all! <3

Ciao for Now,

Carrie