A Weekend Abroad | 24 Hours in Paris, Day Trip to Venice, Got Catcalled at McDonald’s??

Good morning everybody. You are currently listening to a Tall Girls podcast hosted by a tall girl named India. I hope everyone who's listening today is having a great day, week, month, year, or whatever it may be. Before I get to this episode, I do want to remind you to check out my socials out a Tall Girls podcast on Instagram, TikTok, and pinches, so that you can stay updated on all of the latest podcast episodes and catch a glimpse of my everyday life. Also, feel free to leave a review and let me know how tall you are. I'm genuinely curious. Everything will be linked in the description, so as you get tell by the title, I've been places. We did a little rapper. Okay, it really wasn't a wrap round because we didn't go in a circle, but there was a lot going on. So for a context, I am studying abroad in Italy for a few weeks. My classes are four days a week Monday through Thursday, and I usually try to take the weekend to do something. Actually fine if you feel me. I try not to be locked up in my room or in the library at the school doing homework and doing projects and studying and doing work and all that stuff, so I try to do something that's like relaxing, doesn't really involve, you know, being serious. Well, before I even talk about this past weekend, I'm gonna just share that I literally finish my mid terms not too long ago, So you mean to tell me I'm a little more than halfway through this program. What this is going by so fast? And I think part of the reason is because I'm trying to do everything. I'm trying to go here, trying to go there, trying to go everywhere. As I said this in my last episode, as the video one said, I think it was Lady Gaga, I was like, no sleep butts club another club. That's yeah, we're trying our best to do that because there's only so much that we can see. And that makes me realize, like three not even three days, beau trying to have Sunday where I'm just chilling because it would be so tired from the entire week. But I literally only have two days a week to actually go and see stuff. Because the funny thing is my parents were thinking, yeah, like she's gonna be everywhere all the time. No, that's not the case, because I literally have classes four days a week, albeit it's in the morning for two and a half hours nine to eleven thirty, I still have to take time after class to like do work, do a homework and stuff like that. By the time everything is done, it's time to eat dinner. So I can't really have much of an experience in four days out of the week. That's that's a big chunk. That's a huge chunk. That's more than half of the week. But only two days, two out of seven days, is where I actually get to do something. So I just tried to pack as much as possible in those two days. But anyways, we're more than halfway through this program. It's making me realize day I literally probably only have just two to three more days to actually do something with myself. It's going by sofa as I'm not gonna shed a tear anyways. But hey, I got a ninety eight on my first paper, so I'm hoping for the same grade on my midterm exam. But I decided to celebrate by taking a trip to Paris. Yes, I decided to celebrate my a on my first paper by going to Paris. Okay, let me stop, because it was Paris is part of the play before I even got here. Once I found out that I even got accepted it to any type of study abroad programs, like yes, I'm going to France, going to France. So anyways, but me and another person that I met in my program, not another stranger, decided to go together. Bought tickets three days before we left. But the price wasn't that bad considering how close it was to the departure. It was somehow less than two hundred dollars. We love a good deal, and we were off on Thursday night. That was. That was the day after my Meturn exam. I was gonna say that was the day of my No, that was the day after my Madturm exam. Needed a breather after the Midturn exam. But we were ready to go Thursday night, and it honestly felt like we were backpacking across Europe. Considering how much stuff we shoved into our back backs. I looked like I shoved my whole entire life into there, and we were just staying there for one day. I was like, oh my gosh, I don't know what I'm gonna need a pack, three pairs at this, two pairs at that for these for that I was just like, oh my gosh, I it looked like first day of school, eighth grader at private school. That backpack huge. But honestly, there may have been a little unnecessary because whatever, you know what it was for the plot. I'm not even gonna it was for the plot. He had to put that much stuff in my back Honestly, it was me. It was just me another person. She looked fine, She looked completely fine. I, on the other hand, look like I had so much stuff shoved into my backpack. But like I said, it's for the plot. Anyways, took a tram to the airport. The tram is about ten minutes from here, so carrying that big thing on my back wasn't that bad. Only ten minutes. That was my workout for the day. Got to the airport, did the usual, checked in, went through TSA, boarded the plane, YadA YadA, yapa. Funny thing go. Our plane was kind of delayed after everyone got on it. We were supposed to take off by seven to fifty pm, but there was an announcement and it was like you know, the d D and then the pilot was like, sorry for the delay in our flight. One of our generators is down. And we're currently waiting for maintenance to come check out the issue. I'm sorry you should have seen my face at that point. I was like, what are we gonna make it to France? I I wasn't even a little nervous. I was very much scared. I felt my stomach was not doing what. I was like, whoa, oh my gosh, the flight is only an hour if I can make it on a seven hour flight to Paris from New York, Like, it's just an hour, please just get me there. But I was kind of scared. Not gonna lie. But the plane took after a while. Took off after a while, nonetheless, because they still had two other generators that were working. So I guess that's af flict. Anyways, Like I said, we were eventually in the air. I'm just glad I gotta stair safely. Okay, Like I said, it was only that's an hour forty five about But I'm just glad that nothing blew up or anything. I'm not gonna talk anymore about that because I don't want to speak that into existence at all, for myself or anybody else. But we were off eventually landed. Another funny thing, I yet again sat next to someone else who was man spreading for the entire flights? Is this a common thing on airplanes now? Is man spreading a thing on airplanes? This is ridiculous. And you know, there was a comment on one of my shorts on YouTube, like one of my YouTube shorts that was like, yeah, speak up about it. You're just continuing the problem, or something like that. It was essentially saying that you need to say something about it because you're just as bad for not saying anything, because then that person is going to continue doing it, not just on that flight that you're on, but to other people. And I thought to myself, I thought about that comment. I thought to myself, like, maybe this time around, I should just do something. So I politely asked the man to you don't respect my space. But he looked at me like he didn't know, or maybe he just pretended like he didn't know or didn't understand what I was saying. So I tried to communicate through hand gestures. You know, when there's like a language barrier between you and the other person, so you decide to use some type of sign language that is such a disrespectless sign language. And I'm so sorry, but you try to use some to have a hand gestures to just communicate your point. Yeah, that wasn't working either, so there was still nothing he's and then he could new Man spreading. So I I was just I felt like being problematic. It was eight o'clock and night, eight thirty at night. I was scared because one of the generators just wasn't working. So I was like, screw, I'm gonna be problematic. So I would continuously cross and uncrossed my legs, my long legs, yes, And every time I uncrossed to recrossed, I would kick him, just a nice little kick, you know, not too bad of a kick, because I did not want to get kicked off this plane. But you know, little leg grades, it's very uncomfortable. And I did this about six times, and I think after a while he caught on, got he got the hit, and he stopped. So yeah, shout out to the person who told me to do something about it, because I would not have been able to do it without you. But the flight, like I said, was about an hour forty five, so it wasn't too you're too bad. I took a nice little nap on there that was fun, and we landed in Parrot, not Paris. I need to stop saying that we landed in France. No, because everything's like, oh, go into Paris. We didn't land in Paris. We landed just an hour outside of Paris. Technically accounts for something. Right. If we landed just an hour outside of Paris, we're technically in Paris. Right. I hope you said yes to that, because that yeah, you know what, you don't even need to say yes, I believe it. If I believe it, then it's true. But we landed in Orley Orley Airport. I was so hype just to be there. You don't understand. It was pretty late at that point, and we had to catch a shuttle to the tram that went to our hotel. It was like sot tram hotel boom. And because our flight was kind of delayed, it was kind of late, and the shuttles weren't running as frequently as they would have if it were earlier in the day, So if you missed one, you would have to wait forty five minutes for the next one. So best believe when I said we were sprinting, we were sprinting. I'm telling you. Long legs come in handy when you need to get to the other side of the airport in seven minutes to catch the last shuttle of the day. But we made the shuttle to the tram, like I said, super grateful for my long legs getting me there. And yeah, like I said, we didn't land in Paris. We landed in early. Should I have lied and said we landed in Paris now because it was not boogie at all? Okay, it looked like we were in the boom dogs. It looked like we were in the literal boom dogs. I'm talking nothing but trees, open fields, greenery, bushes, grass. It wasn't It took a minute before we actually saw some type of buildings. There were no street lights. It looked a little, not even a little a lot sketch. It looked high key sketch. I just remember that night, every three seconds asking up the street lights were the street lights because they physically had the street lights, they had the poles with the literal lights on them, they just weren't on. And funny thing I spoke to my mom about this yesterday last night when I was telling her about France, and she was like, yeah, you know, we're in hard times. Conserving money, and like, yeah, we are indeed in hard time, So when't you want people to be safe, and you know, somebody gets robbed or something in the middle of the street, at least you got street lights on so you can see what the vibe is. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, but I was not gonna lie. I was a little freaked out by that because it was almost midnight, but nonetheless, so it took us to the tram. Tram took us to the hotel. We got there safely, and I was I was happy that we got that one piece. And we wanted to see the Eiffel Tower lit up at night. I was so help bet on seeing it a little at night. I I wanted to see it twice. I wanted to see at night lit up, and then I wanted to see it during the day. But I was so excited. I was like, Yo, we gotta see it at night. Yeaha yaha yah. But once we found out that it would take a little over an hour by public transportation to get there, like literally from the Boomdogs to the Eiffel Tower, I was like, m it was it was almost one am. We don't know how the Metro system works. We had a hard time to figure out how to buy tickets for the tram and it was it was just one tram. We had to transfer eighteen different times according to Google Maps, just to get from the hotel to the Eiffel Tower. And we just had to We just had to say the like we couldn't. We couldn't do that. We were good, but you know what, it's an excuse to go back to Paris another time around, not during this trip, because I want to see it other things on the seasons much as possible. So next time around, definitely see the Eiffel Tower. Little at night. We'll figure it out. It will be planned out better. So we just called in the night. We had to sleep well good the next day, checked out of our hotel and yeah, like I said, we did spend twenty four hours in Paris. Checked out of our hotel. Put it on well, I put on my big book bag. She had a couple of her bags. We did a wrap around. I don't want to say a wrap around, but we did. We did a night, a little tour of Paris, okay, with all of our crap on our packs. So we took the metro out there and oh my gosh, the Eiffel Tower, because the Eiffel Tower was our first stop. She was stunning. She was stunning. I'm not gonna lie to you. I almost did shed a tear. My eyes started to actually tear up, and I think at that point that's when I actually started to process that I was physically standing in Paris. I was looking directly at the Eiffel Tower. I had to turn away. I had to turn away and catch myself for a second because I did not think that I would actually be standing there at that point. But anyways, we spent mad hours there, mad hours. We went inside the little garden area of the Eiffel Tower like it was nice to see it. So I stood right under the Eiffel Tower. What the heck? I stood right under the Eiffel Tower. I can't believe I'm saying that out loud right now. And there was like a little it was like a little bridge in front of the tower, a little garden areas. Don't get me wrong, I was I vibed being super close to the Eiffel Tower. I can't believe I'm saying that, Like I said before, but it was super close. So the pictures weren't as great as I wanted them to be by the Eiffel Tower. So after that we had left and we went to the standard spots, like the Louilla. I don't know if I'm pronouncing it properly, but the little flower shop that's by there. You could see the Eiffel Tower perfectly, the Trocadero, the Ponts Dealina. We spent good three and a half hours there. The flicks were immaculate. Dude, you can see them of my socials up said a Tall Girls podcast. But you know, we did realize that we took up a lot of time around the Eiffel Tower and we had to go check out six other places. So we tried our best to do that, only got to three. But it's okay. I'm three is better than two, and three is better than not. At least we got to see something. We saw them, you say, doors, the Louver and the Notre Dame. But before we went to the Notre Dame, we actually stopped at this place called Marcy Jerome. Oh my god. We got macaroons, and not just the tiny little standard macro, a big giant mega macaroon. It was so good. Honestly, I had low expectations because the literal one time that I had macarons in New York City it was not the vibe is not the greatest. But I got a strawberry flavored huge macaroon, and oh my gosh, it was one of the best macaroons I've ever had. Even though it was the second macaroon I've ever had in my entire life, it was better than the first time. So scroll yes, it's the best macaroon I had in my entire existence, So yeah, had Well. I didn't eat it there, but took my macaroon to the Notre Dame, of course, to take pictures of the macaron of the Notre Dame. But I definitely wanted to spend more time at these places. But the other person at least helped me accountable because we did have to get to the airport to check in and go through TSA yet again. So I left a little bit unfulfilled, but I'm just so glad that I got to see the Eiffel Tower and three other main spots. Had a good macaroon. I could say I had a Parisian dessert if you will, or macaroons Parisian or Macaroon's French. This is so embarrassing. I don't even know the answer to that. But I gotta desert in Paris, That's all that matters. Went back to the airport for our nine to fifty flight. No generators were down this time, so that was great. Landed back in Florence, we were super hungry, so we headed over to McDonald's because that was the only place that was open at that time of night. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but things, and not even justin Florence, in Italy, in Europe in general, close early, like once it starts hitting six o'clock, things start closing, which if you live in New York City that's pretty much unheard of because things are open to eleven PM at nights, and a lot of things are open twenty four hours, which in Middaly is a little bit unhealthy. But then again, there are people there that work twenty four hours or work overnight, so they need to step it's open for them, yaha, get to yaha. But so I don't think I'm ever going to get used to the fact that things closed us early except McDonald McDonald's was twenty four hours so and it was almost one am, so head over to McDonald's. Had one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life. Let's just say there's nothing like being cat called after leaving McDonald's at one am in a foreign country. So glad I went with somebody else because I don't know, well, I don't think they would have done anything. Oh would they have? You never know. That's why it's best when you're traveling alone. Yes, I'm I'm a big, big fan of solo traveling. It's just one am at night coming from the airport going to McDonald's. I don't know that. Anyways, we made it back to our student hotel. I took a five hour nap essentially because I had to go to Venice later that day. Yes, took a ten twenty am train over to Venice before it apparently sinks. I didn't know that was happening, but apparently Venice is sinky, and you never know the next time you are going to be in this area. So we just went to Venice with a different person. Of course, the other person I went to Paris with had to go to Chinque Terre at five am, no. Hat six. She had to be a good bus at six am, so she had to be a five to five thirty am to get there. I don't know how she did it, but hey, kudos to her. But Venice breath taking, She's pretty small. I'm not gonna lie. We covered a lot of ground in a short amount of time, but we saw a couple of things. We saw Saint Mark's Basilica Piazza. Sam Marco walked over mad pontas, which means bridges in Italian. I'm assuming, but we call it ponte ponte. Sounds a little bit spicier than the Saint Bridge. Yeah, we walked over a bridge or we walked over a ponte. You let me know which one sounds better. But there was there's honestly no need for me to do a StairMaster out here. I was a little bit concerned because the gym here is at the Ston Hotel is pretty small. They had ellipticals and treadmills and spin bicers up, but they didn't have a StairMaster. It's like, oh my gosh, I need a StairMaster. But hey, I didn't need a StairMaster. All I had to do was go to Venice. That was another StairMaster for the month. I was going up and down a bunch of stairs, because you know how bridges are usually like an incline up and climb down, kind of like a slant. No stairs, No, these were stairs going up and down these bridges. So about to be in the best shape of my life at this point. But we saw the prettiest views. And no, we did not get on a gondola, but we did take a boat over to Murano. I think that's how you call it, which is another I think it's an island, not too sure bad at geography, but it's a place that's known for its glassmaking. Oh my gosh, but this boat, I think I would have rather well, I would not have rather taken a gondola over to Rando, because that would have been like a long journey. But gondola ride probably would have been a little bit. I don't want to stay safer, but my nerves wouldn't have been as crazy as it was. Because you know how plane sound when they speed up before they take off into the air. That's exactly how the tiny boat sounded. And I was sure that the boat was gonna start flying out of the water. But it got us to and from Roano in one piece, the glass stuff because they had a lot of They had figurines, they had earrings, necklaces, cups, all that stuff. I didn't get anything because I honestly think that there's a tourist trap. Why was Why was a little tiny And when I say tiny, I mean tiny like a quarter of my pinky tiny, that's how small it was. Why was a tiny glass Dalmatian which is super cute? Thirty euros? Exactly? It didn't. It didn't need to be the case. But you know what, get your money, I get your coin up. Everybody else buying it, I wasn't. I'm gonna buy it because you know, haha. College didn't budget vibes. But it was so pretty. They were so nice, and you never know, maybe one day when I go back, I'll get one. We'll see. But tiny boat got us to and from Morano and one piece. Super grateful for that. Then we caught our train back to Florence from Dennis and yeah, this is a pretty eventful weekend. It wasn't even a weekend weekend. It was a Thursday to Saturday type of situation. But screw it. It was three days, so I'll call it a weekend. Plus it was a holiday. I don't know. I don't remember what holiday it is was since it's in the past now, but screw it. Holiday weekend. It was a vibe and I I did have a good time. I really did. My tan lines, on the other hand, are horrendous, but I'm planning to take a trip to a beach to fix that problem, so we'll see how that goes. Anyways, like I said, it's a great pictures. You can see all my pictures on my socials, at a Talkers podcast, on Instagram, tiktalk, and Pinterest. I promise you you will not be disappointed. I am so in love with these pictures. It's crazy. But thank you so so much for listening to me to talk about my journey. Not just this journey with Paris and like Venice and stuff like that, but just in general. If you listen to all three so far of my episodes and me and Italy like, you're awesome. Awesome, seriously, but even if you didn't, thank you so so much for listening to the end of this episode. I really appreciate it, and I appreciate you. Hit me up let me know if you have some summer plans going on, let me know if you're traveling to I would like I'm all for it, you know what I mean? And any last words? Is it crazy to say that I'm speechless? You know I'm gonna say this if you're thinking about if you want to go somewhere, if you want to travel somewhere, and like me, at some point, I was definitely worried about the finances, you know what I mean, because these things, these costs do add up at some point. I like to think of it the way that TikTok likes to think of it. You know, you can make the money back, but you can may never get the chance to get this experience. So yeah, do it for the plot, do it for the vibes. Within reason, of course, don't go and sell your house to take a trip, because you eventually do need to come back to reality. But if you're able to, just try it out and see how it goes. Anyways, I will catch you in the next one. Good night and goodbye.