Is Monet's House for Rent?

This post might be rather long. I've inserted a table of contents. Feel free to jump around as you please. I suggest you start at the beginning and read till the end. But that's just me.

1. Giverny-Monet's House and Gardens
2. Rosh Hashanah
3. Finding an Apartment

Saturday, Amanda, Lia, and I went to Giverny. We took a train to Vernon and rented bikes. 12 euros for the whole day! There's a shuttle you can take to Monet's garden and house, but we thought having bikes for a day would be great, and it was! On the bike ride there, I had the most amazing moment. I finally realized so much what this trip is about. Not to get all sappy, but this is my chance to explore. I have this amazing opportunity to see a part of the world I've never seen before, experience new cultures and new things, and actually live life to the fullest (lame I know, but true). I always make the joke, "Oh, you went to a party this weekend? That's cool, I went to the Eiffel Tower for a picnic." And silly stuff like that. It finally hit me during this bike ride how amazing this all is. It shook the homesickness right out of me. I do feel it still sometimes, but as is with anything when times get stressful or during the holidays. But there's no time for that business, it's time to get started for real.

Monet's garden was stunning. I couldn't believe it. His house was so beautiful and big, covered in flowers and vines. 

The whole garden is well tended and bursting with color. I took a million pictures of flowers. Not exactly sure what I'm going to do with all those photos of flowers, but y'all know how I love my florals.

Now, I'm sure you can only imagine how gorgeous the water garden is, so whatever you just imagined, multiply it by a million and you might be half way there. We were so lucky with the weather. It was a wonderfully beautiful day. This is one of those places that doesn't seem real. One of those places you hear about and never think you will see, and then you do. This picture gets to be medium sized instead of small sized because it's just so beautiful. I won't bore you with any more details about Giverny. Just know, it was incredible.

2. Rosh Hashanah wound up being a lot better than I expected. Rebecca's family friends invited us over for dinner, and, surprise!!! They took us to services! It was so great and the whole night was more than I could have hoped for. Services was fairly liberal so not too long, it was great. After that, we went back to the family's house for dinner, which I loved. Even though I may be Jewish, I learn new customs from other Jewish people all the time. We passed around a type of food, said a prayer, then repeated the process over and over again. It was so interesting. Each prayer and food represented something different. Something new and different to add to my Judaism. I really liked it and might want to look it up and maybe do it with my family some day. Shanah Tova!

3. I'VE FOUND AN APARTMENT. This whole process has been absolutely horrible and stressing me out to the max, but my fellow Hoosier, Maggie, and I couldn't be happier. The apartment belongs to a friend of a friend of a friend (that's right) who owns the apartment but lives south of Paris. She needs to keep the apartment for her daughter in a year so she rents in out so she doesn't lose it. We are each paying only 350 euros a month, we each have our own bedroom, there's a full living room with a couch bed and a full kitchen. After all this searching and hell I've gone through, it's incredible we found such a great place. Don't worry, it's completely legit and I'm not getting ripped off or my money stolen or anything. But, I'm extremely happy that is over and done with! 

This is our building in the 12th! You can all
thank Google Maps for this one. Such an adorable building
with a big gate at the entrance. We love it!

This didn't turn out quite as long as I thought, as I am tired and a bit lazy. Thanks for reading and hopefully the stress of school doesn't interfere with my blogging too much as the year goes on. Love you all!