THANKS ICELAND!!!!!!!

Well it's been a very long, stressful week so get ready for a lot of ranting. Just warning you now, I'm not in a very good mood.

On Sunday Renee left for vacation. Around 1:15am the buzzer rings in the apartment. I told you all how Renee left the door open so Mathilde could get in. I don't think she thought about the fact that she doesn't have the little key thing you need to get in downstairs. So Mathilde rings the apartment. I answered and told her the door to the apartment was open and then went back to bed. When I woke up Monday morning, Mathilde had already left for work and Jean-Francois was sleeping in the living room. I have no idea what time he got there. Class was boring so I won't talk about it. Me, Mathilde and Jean-Francois had dinner together that night. I was worried it was going to be super awkward but it wasn't too bad. A commercial for Nurse Jackie came on and Jean-Francois asked if I watched it and I said no, but I watch Dexter, which is on the same channel. Turns out he really likes Dexter too.

Tuesday I didn't have class so I went to H&M and bought a new jacket. It's too hot for my NorthFace and I've had my eye on this jacket for weeks so I finally caved and bought it. It's super cute. The rest of the day I worked on my 2 papers for Costello's class and studied for my theatre test which was on Wednesday. We all had dinner again Tuesday. I didn't talk much. Jean-Francois and Mathilde went on about something but I couldn't follow along.

Wednesday the test in theatre was really easy. There were a few questions that asked for specific dates and I had no idea what the answer was so I just guessed. In translation class I did horrible on the packet we were supposed to do. It was really hard and all about pronouns. I'm not even good with pronouns in English, let alone French. I volunteered to give my translation of parts of this text we had to do and the professor pretty much ripped apart what I said. It was kind of depressing. That night we had a huge group study session on Skype for our lit test Thursday. There were seriously like 10 of us it was nuts. But it went pretty well. I didn't go to bed Thursday until super late because obvs I had to watch GLEE!!!! And I loved it.

Costello's class wasn't that bad on Thursday. I got a check plus (whatever that means) on my extra credit paper, and a 5/6 on the quiz on L'Assommoir which is pretty good considering I didn't read the end of the book until a few days ago. Only me and 1 other girl did this one topic (there were 2 options) for the paper. It kind of makes me nervous because we pretty much talked about the same stuff. So I don't know how that is going to go. Costello let us out late because someone started packing up before class was over so we had to rush over to lit.

Every thing started going downhill in lit. I got into the class and left right away to go to the bathroom. When I got back in someone asked me if I was going to London and I said yeah and they were like oh well there was this volcano that erupted in Iceland and a lot of flights have been cancelled. I just looked at them like they were crazy. I really thought they were joking with me. Like maybe they found out I'll pretty much believe anything you tell me...but it turns out they weren't joking. Lex texted me and told me she was looking into it at work because I was in class. My mood pretty much sunk lower and lower as class went on. The test, which wasn't that hard, took me forever to finish. I asked the professor if it was alright if I left when I turned it in because I needed to find out what was going on with my flight and she said it was fine. When I got back to the apartment I asked Jean-Francois if he has heard anything and he said he had no idea because who knows what he does all day at the apartment. So he looked into it and told me what happened. I went onto the AirFrance website and it still said that my flight was scheduled to take off on time Friday at 4:10. I was still worried so I called AirFrance and the woman told me to check back in the morning but as of right now it was still scheduled. I checked the London-Heathrow airport and all of their planes were grounded because when the volcano erupted, all the ash made its way over to london and was now pretty much sitting over the UK and Heathrow was shut down and no flights were coming in or going out.

At that point I was pretty nervous but I still went out and got all the stuff I needed for London, including my ticket to the airport. When I came back I checked my ticket again and it was still the same. I started packing and all that stuff and picked out my classes and sent all the info to Lizzie so she could register for me just incase my plane did take off. At that point I really didn't care if my flight was delayed, I just wanted to go. I tried watching Lost but I feel asleep towards the end so I have to re-watch it. That night the announcement was made that Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports had been closed until at least 2pm Paris time tomorrow. Not good news for me...

This morning I got up early, showered, grabbed some breakfast, and then turned on my computer. I checked my email right away but didn't get anything from AirFrance saying that my flight was cancelled. I checked the website and it said that the airport was still closed and wouldn't re-open until 2pm...same news as yesterday. I trid calling the number on my ticket to get more information because I really wasn't sure what to do. I guess the number that is on there is to the people in the US who work for AirFrance and since it was only 3am back home they obvs weren't there. I tried calling them in France and got hung up on 3 times because too many people were calling. I finally got through, and after 20 minutes on hold, got to talk to someone. We had our entire conversation in French, which made me feel good, but the news she gave me was horrible. She said that my flight was cancelled and the very earliest I could leave would be Monday morning because of all the re-scheduling they have to do and they aren't sure what this cloud of ash is going to do yet. In case you were wondering, the ash is really bad for the jet engines and can cause them to fail in the air....Anyways, she told me that she couldn't refund my ticket because I bought it through the US site and I'd have to call them to do that later.

I was pretty bummed out at that point. I checked the Eurostar website and a one way ticket to London tonight was $353 USD....they were the same price for tomrrow too. I also checked bus scheudles and they are completely booked until Wednesday. So I'm basically stuck in Paris and I won't be going to London. Mother Nature seriously hates me. The last time I went to London I got stuck at the airport for over 7 hours because of the snow. If it's not snow it's ash....go figure. I also find it kind of funny that a volcano is ruining my plans. Like how crazy is that? I wasn't the only one who's plans are not messed up. A lot of people were trying to get to Dublin this weekend, like Katie, and some girls in IPP and those flights were also cancelled. I left for class feeling pretty sad.

Class was good, there weren't many people there. Our professor is also having trouble getting out of Paris. He's supposed to fly to Madrid and then to some tiny tropical island but he doesn't know if he will be able to go. After class I checked the AirFrance website again on my phone and the airport is still closed. They aren't even opening until 8pm tonight. It's not even a guarentee that flights will go out after that. Europe is pretty much one big mess right now all because of this stupid volcano. After class I went to this cafe, bought a sandwich, pastry and drink and then went into the Luxembourg gardens and ate lunch in front of the prettiest tulips I have ever seen. Then, when I finished I took a nice long walk home and listened to my music really loud because I'm just so annoyed. What makes me angry is you can't even see this "ash cloud" it's a sunny, clear day. I don't know....maybe it hasn't gotten here yet. This is all a mess. I keep imaginging this cartoon valcano sptting out lava and ash and shaking its fists (because in my mind it has hands) and shouting "BWHAHAHAHAH YOU AREN'T GOING ANYWHERE!!!!!"

So here I am. I really hope that this ash cloud thing doesn't cause problems with Greece. I just bought my ferry ticket today and everything else is booked for the week. I really have no idea what this cloud is going to do. I guess it all depends on the weather. I'll keep you updated since I have nothing else to do besides hang out in Paris...which it's that bad. It could be worse.

Bisous!

oh ps, I'm blaming everything bad that happens from now on on Iceland and their stupid volcano. If I stub my toes it's toally Icelands fault!