La Vie Est (Sara) Belle

 Hi everyone!  I just got back from a week long trip to the Hungarian capital of Budapest. This was my first completely solo trip experience and my first ever trip to Budapest. This destination has been on my radar for a long time and I'm really glad I had the opportunity to go. (Thank you Irish government for putting Hungary on the "Green List") In this post, I'm going to share 5 reasons why you need to make Budapest your next destination once the world opens back up for tourism and you have time to hop on a plane to Eastern Europe. If you aren't planning a trip anytime soon, I hope this post will help satisfy some of your wanderlust from home :) Reason Number 1: The architecture is absolutely stunning!!! I have two words for you: Hungarian Parliament. This building alone had me sold. This neo-gothic masterpiece is right on the Pest side of the Danube river and was only a half mile from my Air BnB.  This building really did take my breath away.  Aside from the ab...

My name is Sara. I'm 26 and originally from Houston, Texas. I have a bachelor's degree in Anthropology from Texas A&M and an MBA in Art and Luxury Management from IESA Paris. I've spent the past two years of my life studying and living in Paris, France. I love art, traveling, yoga, fortress walls, and truffle pasta. Expat life, so far, has been my best life. This blog was originally created to chronicle my time at school in Paris, but as you can see, I got a life and stopped posting weekly updates (who has time for that when you live in Paris?!). Now that I'm done with business school, I've decided to give this travel blog thing a go. I hope you learn something from my posts- whether it be where to get the best gelato in Paris or how to overcome the anxiety of making new friends in a foreign country or what to skip if you only have a weekend to spend in London. I get asked all the time about travel related things, so I've decided to dust off the cob web...

This was a fun week! I did a lot of new things and ate some delicious food! This week was really slow in the class department,  we only had school Tuesday through Thursday! The week started with a visit to the Louvre and Musee des Arts Decoratifs with our Decorative Arts professor. We looked at a different types of furnishings, as well as decorative objects. Very interesting. The professor has been a curator for over 40 years, so he is so knowledgeable about everything and very interesting to listen to. On Thursday, after school, we all went to support our class mate by visiting her exhibit and capstone project! The concept was super cool and interactive. They set a up a gallery that was completely dark of photographs taken by a local artist. The photos were developed in a way that when you shined a black light on them, they glowed and lit up the gallery. It was a really cool and interactive concept. Congrats to them for an awesome job! On Friday, I went to Notre Dame. I have...

This past week was another good one! I'm very pleased with how smoothly everything has been going. My week at school was really good, I went on several museum trips (one ended with me fainting in the Louvre, but every day can't be perfect. Also, I'm fine) This past week was Paris Fashion week, which basically means that the city is busier than normal and all the fun places are blocked off for runway tents and VIP only areas. On Thursday, one of my friends from school invited me to a little event in the Marais for her boyfriend's shop. It was really fun, complete with adorable puppies, French wine, of course, a lot of good conversation with lovely new people. I had a great time! On Friday, a friend and I had intended to meet at the Decorative Arts museum, which is on the back side of the Louvre, but we couldn't get in because of the obnoxiously long 3 HOUR QUEUE. The museum is also exhibiting a collection of Dior cloths, so EVERYONE and their grandma was in line....

Hey everyone! If you're reading this, you weren't bored to tears by my last post and decided to give this blog another try. Thanks for stopping by! This week was a very busy one. The first full week of classes went really well, but boy, were the days long! We had classes every day from 9:30 to 6, with one day going until 8. I think I've gone to at least one session of everything for the semester (our schedule isn't the same every week, we go to similar style courses in blocks), and I think Art History is going to be my favorite, with Cultural Economics as a close second. This week, we went on another Louvre visit to look at Renaissance Masters' works for Art History, which was a lot of fun! We also had our first retail visit. On Friday, we went to Bucherer,  a watch retailer near Opéra that's been open since 1888, to learn about their business model and retail strategies. This was for the Luxury portion of my degree, for anyone who is confused about me visit...