I knew the end of my Junior year was near after I booked my flight to Paris. I was just waiting when my Junior year would end, because I was overwhelmed with my SOLs in all subjects, my SAT, and the overload of mind-numbing content covered in my core classes. After counting down all the stressful days until June 13, the last day of school, that day finally came and I was in a jovial mood. I now had the perfect opportunity to spend some peaceful time touring a historical city thousands of miles away from anything school related.

I had early dismissal on the last day of school because there really was no point spending an hour and a half doing nothing in study hall, and checked in my luggage at 4:00. Right before takeoff at 7PM, I viewed my grades and noticed a bunch of missing assignments. I was indifferent to what I just saw because I already knew that no teacher would be able to jump 36,000 feet into the sky to come snap at me about why I didn’t turn an assignment in and had my brain’s attention centered towards my actual trip. After landing and exploring my Airbnb apartment, I spent the evening taking a scenic cruise on the Seine river and saw the prominent Eiffel Tower glowing in yellow lights, making me even more excited for a more thorough view of it the day after.

On June 15th, I had some croissants for breakfast and each piece of the real deal melted in my mouth. I then went to the top of the Eiffel Tower to get a glimpse of the city on a nice sunny day, which was somewhat a rarity because Paris is generally overcast year round. Then in the mid-afternoon, I went to the Louvre museum and met the real Mona Lisa. There was hardly any space due to a crowd to take a picture of it, but I somehow managed to. I then decided to have some crepes and macarons which were mouthwatering. The next day, I went to the Palace of Versailles, where King Louis lived and watched fireworks. The palace itself was massive and I was clueless as to how people were able to maintain it. After learning about it from History, I simply thought it would be a worthwhile experience and a memorable way to conclude my trip.

I overall savored my French moment visiting a wonder of the world and other popular points of interests. It was such a pleasure to not have to worry about taking SOLs and SATs again and spending time in a historically significant city. After days of impatiently waiting for my toughest year to come to an end, my dream had ultimately come true.