Monet's Gardens at Giverny

Despite having bought tickets to Monet’s house and gardens weeks ago, we’ve been holding out for good weather. Our patience finally paid off, and on Saturday we set out for Giverny, a small rustic kind of town (about 45 minutes away from Paris by train) that vaguely reminded me of Avebury, England (near Stone Henge).

Yes, those water lilies.

Monet’s estate was quite crowded, but luckily we got to skip the queue because we bought and printed our tickets ahead of time. Despite all the visitors, the grounds were still very serene and peaceful - enough so to make me, a lifelong city girl, begin to entertain the idea of someday owning a country home. After wandering the gardens (I’m afraid my photos really don’t do them justice), Monet’s house and the gift shop, we stopped at a quaint café for lunch before heading back to the train station.

This whole experience of living abroad is really the first time I haven’t felt like I’m rushing toward an imminent finish line (in high school everything was motivated toward getting into a good college, and then in college it was graduating with a degree), so being in the country away from the hustle and bustle of Paris was a nice reminder that sometimes you just need to relax and enjoy the simpler things in life, like flowers. Seemed to work pretty well for Monet, right?