Veules-les-Roses

As I mentioned in my previous post, Veules-les-Roses was the last place I visited in Normandy. I went there with the host family I was staying with. Like Étretat, I hadn't heard of it before, but it's a village that's very popular with tourists, because it's so pretty.

When we got there, we went for a walk along the beach.

After lunch (and being ambushed by wasps 😨) we walked around the centre of the village, which was really nice. The smallest river in France, Veules, flows through the village, and that is where the first part of the name comes from. The second part comes from the fact that there are lots of roses (and other flowers) around the village.

As demonstrated by the photos, it's a very picturesque village. It reminds me a lot of the villages in the Cotswolds, near where I come from.

So the following week was my last week at the language school before returning to England. However, my travels weren't yet finished...

The First Week and a Half in France

For the last six weeks of my Year Abroad, I was supposed to be working at a animal park in Brittany. However, once I got there I realised that the job wasn't what I was expecting. So I moved on to Paris to look for work and accommodation there, but wasn't successful. But I did get the opportunity to see lots of sights around the city, which was great! I'd only been once before for a couple of days for my 18th birthday, and I'd wanted to go back ever since. I had hoped to spend a bigger part of my Year Abroad there, but it wasn't to be.

Here are some of the things I saw:

Jardin du Luxembourg

Notre-Dame de Paris

Moulin Rouge

Le Café des 2 Moulins (This is the café featured in one of my favourite films of all time, Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain.)

Mur des je t'aime

Sacré-Cœur

The Eiffel Tower, of course!

Arc de Triomphe

The Chilean Embassy (I came across it while exploring the city and just had to take a photo!)

Versailles

Place de la Concorde

Tuileries

Bois de Boulogne

It was really fun spending a week exploring Paris and the surrounding area. Aside from the attractions in my pictures, I also visited other interesting places, like the Musée d'Orsay, Roland Garros and Le Parc des Princes.

It hasn't been easy adjusting to life back in Europe after being in South America for so long. I was really happy with my life in Chile, and didn't particularly want to leave. But I had to complete the Year Abroad (not to mention the final year of university)! So I tried to make the best of my time in France, and overall, it went pretty well. I had the chance to visit plenty more places, and I'll be writing about them very soon...

The Maule Region

In May, I went on a trip with some of the other UDD international students and Global Ambassadors to the Maule Region, about 6 hours south of Santiago. The nature there was incredible and I feel like it was worth spending the night on a bus to get to see it!

The first thing we did when we arrived was a trek at 7:30am. Even though it was very cold, I think this was my favourite part of the trip, as the scenery was beautiful and we saw dogs and ponies. :)

At the end of the trek we arrived at some thermal springs. The water was so so hot, which was really nice at first, but made me start sweating after a little while!

After trekking back to the bus, we went off to Laguna del Maule, on the border between Chile and Argentina. The lagoon is beautiful, but underneath lies the second most dangerous volcano in the world. If it exploded, it would destroy the whole of South and North America.

The next place we went to was Mirador Monjes Blancos (white monks lookout). I think it is called that because there are white rocks there that kind of look like people? Anyway, the views are really impressive.

Then we went to the Cascada Invertida (inverted waterfall). The guide told us that if we got too close to the edge and made one wrong move, it would be "instant death"... Safe to say that I stayed well back!

The last place we went to was some more hot springs. However these ones were not actually hot, which was disappointing!

It was a great trip, and we packed a lot into those 24 hours. All the things we saw were an example of how much amazing nature there is to see here in Chile.