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Fin

It is so crazy to me that it is already time for me to return home to the US. In a lot of ways, I feel like I am such a pro at a lot of things around Paris, but also in so many other ways, I feel as though I have barely scratched the surface. Just this afternoon I went up to the top of Montparnasse Tower to get some good panoramic shots of the city before leaving, and it was very validating being able to find so many of the landmarks of Paris and understanding so much of the history that I wouldn’t have been able to recognize or appreciate at the beginning of this trip.

I had been trying to use this last week to hit a bunch of the last things I hadn’t completely finished exploring yet, and I think I found a good bit of gems. First of all, I finally got into the Opera Garnier, which was long overdue. I knew the outside of that was pretty great, but the inside of it was incredible! The people I was with said it was better than the palace at Versailles, which is a pretty heretical idea, but I could see there being an argument. It was also a pretty good week for Baroque churches, as I got to visit Val-de-Grâce, Saint-Roch, and l’Église du Dôme. There were also some firsts for me this week that really ought to have happened in the first week of the program, including my first time visiting the Louvre and my first restaurant crêpe. A personal highlight of my week was when I got to peruse one of my own interests a bit by visiting the old house of a famous Parisian photographer, Robert Doisneau. His house has been turned into a museum for photography, and while it was a bit out of the way, it was well worth the inspiration I gained from the pilgrimage. And to top off the week, I had my last trip outside of Paris to visit Dijon, which was also incredible, if a bit long and cold. All in all, I could not have asked for a better final week in Paris.

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