Los Feliz 5th grader, Theo who participated in the 10 day trip to France tells about the amazing experience.... At the end of the article a little slideshow of their big adventure...

On est arrivée!

This was the title of the first March post on our 5^th grade blog from Paris, France.

We, that is, 37 5^th graders from the Los Feliz and West Valley campuses of LILA (Lycée International de Los Angeles) and our 6 teachers, went to France for ten days.  We stayed in Saint-Chéron, just outside Paris, where we also attended school.  We were excited to meet our classmates there.  We had been corresponding with them from Los Angeles.

Every day was a new adventure which we posted on our blog so that our families and friends could follow along.  After school in the morning, we took the RER (Réseau Express Régional) train to Paris. We climbed the stairs to Sacré Cœur at Montmartre, we sang “aux Champs Elysées” as we walked on that boulevard to the Arc de Triomphe, we had a snack in the Jardin de Tuileries and at the Pyramid of the Louvre, and we visited the Musée d’Orsay as well as a really cool exhibition in a science museum (Cité des Science). One day, we visited the Château de Versailles.  We had been studying it in French history so it was pretty awesome to see it in person.  We also went to the Panthéon where all these famous people who we have learned about are buried: Voltaire, Victor Hugo, Louis Braille, and many more. We were disappointed when Mme. Nekkache, our teacher, explained that Napoléon’s body was not there anymore.  Of course, we went up the Eiffel Tower!  We learned that M. Gustave Eiffel, who built la Tour Eiffel, also designed the framework for the Statue of Liberty.

On our last full day in Paris, the group visited Notre Dame cathedral.  After that, we said goodbye to Paris by taking a Bateau Mouche along the Seine River.

When we came back to Los Angeles, we heard some great news – LILA’s high school boys basketball team had played the Lycée Français at the Staples Center before a Clippers game, and had won their game by 10 points! It was a great welcome back from the coolest field trip ever!