Happy Birthday to Me!

My birthday fell on a Friday this year, and I was torn. I really wanted to hang out with the other people in my program, but I also really wanted to go to Paris for my birthday. A month and a half ago, before the tickets got too expensive, my friend Alyssa and I decided on Paris, and bought our Eurostar tickets. Then, this week, my friend Jennifer decided to organize a dinner on Thursday night to celebrate my birthday! I got to celebrate my birthday twice, once in Oxford and once in Paris! 

Thursday night was really fun! Nearly everyone in the program came to Fire and Stone for pizza and Alex, our program coordinator, baked cupcakes! It was awesome! While everyone on our program gets along really well, we don't often do things in a group of twenty, so I was really honored that everyone came out for my birthday! While living in a large group can sometimes be annoying, I genuinely like the people in my program, and last night reminded me how awesome they all are! 

After Fire and Stone, we were walking to College Bar when I passed Little Clarendon Street and decided to stop for ice cream! Birthdays are really the perfect excuse for eating tons of desserts. 

Friday after class my friend Alyssa and I took the train to London and then the Eurostar to Paris. We checked into our hotel, and walked to the Louvre. We got dinner on the way, and ate in the courtyard of the Louvre.There is something absolutely magical about having a picnic dinner in the courtyard of the Louvre on your twenty-third birthday! We spent about an hour in the Louvre before it closed. Normally I wouldn't want to do the Louvre for only an hour, but it's free for people under the age of 25 between the hours of 6 and 9:45 on Friday nights. It's great to be young! 

After the Louvre, we walked back to our hotel in the Latin Quarter, and I got a nutella-banana crepe and ate it on the banks of the Seine, within view of the Eiffel Tower and the Notre-Dame! 

I've had such a wonderful birthday that it's hard to write this blog post. I want to end every sentence with an exclamation point! 

J'ai vingt-trois ans et je suis à Paris! La vie est bonne! (I'm twenty three years old and I'm in Paris! Life is good!)