Dear Violet...

HI NEW BABY COUSIN!

Welcome to the world! I am so sorry I couldn't be there.... and im sorry that its going to be a few months until i meet you. Its that im studying abroad in Spain this semester, and i get back on June 8th, which seems to be so far away. You are such a cutie-pa-tootie! You were probably not aware of the pictures taken of you while you were sleeping, but you had quite a few visitors! Leslie, who you met, sent me pics. Your cheeks are so chubby, and youre so cute!! You didnt beat me though, i was 10 pounds 10 ounces. I hope your letting Mom and Dad sleep a little... im sure you are well behaved. You see, your lucky to have such awesome parents, your going to have the BEST time. When i get back i promise to hang out with you a lot. You live close to me, and we can play dress up if you want.

WELLL you wont believe where I was when you were born! see, I dont know what you have seen of the world yet, probably the hospital and your cute house, (i heard its snowing there. its not always that cold, dont worry). The world probably seems so big. Well, the more i travel around the more i see how small the world is. I was in PARIS!

one day you will watch Madeline and see what its like. I went with my friend Jeannie, my translator, navigator, and historian. We left on a thursday night straight from class with our backpacks all ready for the flight at 9PM and we got into the city by midnight. Jeannie is very afraid of flying, but the flight was smooth and relatively fast so she handeled it like a pro. We got a bus nearer to our hostel and found our way on a road called Gobleins (these are going to be my attempts at french words. see, they speak french in France. figures that in different parts of the world people speak different languages. it does create a problem sometimes with communication. you and i speak english, and french is a little different so im not that good at it). Well we checked into our hostel, a shared room with a bathroom. we were exhausted and fell right to sleep, ready for a full friday.

We woke up early, got breakfast downstairs (baguette, croissant, cereal, coffee), and we headed off! we walked a LOT of paris. Jeannie had sit down earlier that week and drew out an agenda of "things to do" and ordered them and estimated times and such, so we were able to see Notre Dame, a very famous cathedral, the Louvre (Mona Lisa, Venus etc- it was fantastic), some famous Egyptian obelisk, the Arc de Triumph made up by Napolean, the entire famous street "avenue de champs elysees", across the oldest bridge, nappleans grave, and of course my favorite time of the day, FOOD. Violet, im sure you love food too. well, we had paninis and i got a crepe with nutella, which was heaven on earth, but expensive. here are some pictures:

this is Notre Dame Cathedral- so pretty!

this is me in front of the Arc de Triumph. it looks small in this picture but it really is a whole lot bigger

this is a really funny sculpture that is in the louvre. i could have posted my pic of the mona lisa but everyone knows what that looks like already. this guy on the other hand...
it took us a little while to realize that the entrance to the louvre was IN the pyramid!

a really old, really pretty bridge we got to go over

we walked back to our hostel and i went to take a shower and it was clogged :( it was gross, but it was really funny. i guess you get what you pay for, haha. the guy at the desk downstairs gave us a plunger to try to fix it, and i laughed, attempted to fix it, then gave it up 2 minutes later. Jeannie and i went downstairs and they gave us a key to another room that we were able to use for showering. it happens to be that it was the most beautiful room with a balcony and awesomeeee shower. So, jeannie and i no longer stunk and we were happy, except our feet hurt and we were sore from a long day of walking. your going to learn how to walk later, your still very little so your lucky that people just get to hold you all day. My sister, Laura, sat on my moms lap until she was 10 years old... she was a little crazy. She still is a little crazy haha.

We woke up the next day, got the same breakfast, and got our train tickets to versailles. (thats probably misspelled). its a very pretty palace that marie antoinette lived in once upon a time. not many people liked her because she wasted a lot of money that the French government needed, but she left behind a really cool estate. we were there 11-6 touring the main palace, her private quarters, the gardens etc. It was awesome! we also got these fun audio tour guides that were fun to use. After a long day there, we took the train almost all the way back but stopped at the EIFFEL TOWER!!! we got off the metro and the sun was starting to go down. we didnt hop in line quite yet because we were hungry again and we found a cafe nearby to have dinner. after that, we got in line for tickets because we really wanted to go to the top- jeannie says its in the book "100 things to see/do before you die", so i figured it was worth it and i knew i would regret it if i didnt know. i got jeannie to finally go to the top with me (scared of heights) and it was amazing!!! did you know that the eiffel tower glitters/blinks/sparkles for a minute or so on the hour??? it was so pretty! well, after that adventure, we went back to home base again and slept and woke up AGAIN for our last day in paris.

the PLUNGER

probably the most famous room in versaillais- hall of mirrors

hanging out in marie anoinettes backyard
i took this piture while it was blinking!!

my camera died at this point, which was kind of sad, i had fogotten my charger, so i made sure that jeannie took a lot of pictures on her camera. we saw some really famous building whose name escapes me (sac decour? french- ahhhh) and i found a pin to add to my collection! then we went and took pictures outside the moulin rouge, which did not remind me of the movie at all. who knew that it meant "red windmill?" crazy french. i dont know how jeannie convinced me to go to some crazy catacombs after that. its a 1.7 kilometer walk under the city of paris that houses a ton of perfectly stacked bones and skulls. it was spooky, but i didnt get nightmares luckily. it was definately an experience. after that, we went to the luxumbourg gardens where we parked it for a few, sitting in some chairs near a big circular pool with a big fountain in the middle. there were a lot of kids who rented little boats to put in the pool- they take sticks that come with the rented boats and push them off into the water, it looked like so much fun! after resting for a little bit we walked back to the hostel to pick up our things and made our way back to the airport. we made sure to get another crepe before leaving, and i think that they put almost a half a cup of nutella in ours, it was overwhelming but wonderful.

the flight back was a little delayed but i got back home in my bed at around 1 ready for class the next day.

funny to think im taking "weekend trips" to places like paris. i have tickets also to lisbon portugal, dusseldorf germany, and london england too!! its such a thrill. 3 months till i get to meet you! tell your mom and dad i say hi!!! keep sending me pics too. love you so much!!!

your (favorite) cousin,

jill