Massive Update!

Okay, seriously it's been soooo long. This is going to take so long to write. Grrrr....alright here I go. I'm going to have to use dates btw so it'll be easier.

Monday 17th:

Okay so Renee left for vacation for I had free range of the house which was AWESOME!!!! I really like Renee but sometimes I just like to be alone so I can do whatever I want. For example, I can't have dance parties to Lady Gaga at 11:30 at night while Renee's here because she's usually been asleep for 3 hours already. Monday after class Chaniece, Katie and Jacqueline came over and we made home made mac n cheese and brownies from the box that my parents sent me. We put 3 different types of cheese in the mac n cheese and man, it was delish. It was so easy to make too. We sort of followed Ina Garten's recipe and you really can't go wrong with Ina because she's so cool. It turned out really, really well. I think we were all quite surprised. That night, Jacqueline and I decided to meet John to go to this concert. I brought along brownies because I'm nice like that. HA! It took me and Jacqueline FOREVER to get to the metro he was meeting us at because it was all the way in the 20th. That neighborhood isn't really the best place to be late at night btws. So me and Jacqueline got off the metro at 9 (we were 15 min late....oops!) and I called John so he could come and meet us because some guys had already honked at us from their car. John came a few minutes later and fell in love with my brownies because they were awesome and because I made them, duh! Anyways, he said that he couldn't find the bar that we were supposed to go to and was like yeah, it doesn't exist in this part of town. I was like you've got to be kidding me?!?! We came pretty far and you're telling us it doesn't exist? How is that possible? So John call's Chaniece who was at home and had her look up the bar on Google. She said that it was all the way in the 16th. The 16th is on the opposite side of the city. So we got on the metro and rode it an hour to the 16th. Once we got off we started looking for the bar. After walking up and down the road that it was supposed to be on we couldn't find it. This guy asked us if we were lost so John asked him if he knew where this bar was. Of course the guy has no idea so he looks it up on his BlackBerry. He said that it wasn't in this part of town. We asked him if there was a bar around there that had live music and no lie, the guy goes, "no, there are only shitty bars here. This is a shitty area" I was just like omg....John takes us to the best places!! We got back on the metro and after wandering around somewhere Jacqueline thought was a good area we ended up near the foyer where we have IPP classes at this piano bar. The bar was really sweet. There was a guy playing the piano (obviously!) and this woman was singing. I guess you could request songs if you wanted to too. We get into the bar and the waitress seats us next to this couple that was hard core macking on each other. And when I say hard core I mean like hard hard core. I was worried they were going to make a baby on the bench. HAHAH. John was the unlucky one who got to sit next to them. I was sitting on the other side of the table across from John and Jacqueline was next to me. I had such a hard time concentrating on the conversation because my eyes were glued to this couple mauling each other. Me and John ordered beers and Jacqueline some how ordered vodka, I think she wanted a Smirnoff Ice, but she didn't say the ice part so they just gave her vodka in a glass. The couple finally stopped macking on each other so I could finally concentrate on the conversation. The music was really good. Alla came and hung out for a bit. We left the bar around 12:45am. I was like what in the world am I doing out this late on a Monday night? I was worried that I was going to miss the last metro so we all rushed to the stop. The bad thing about being out that late is you have to deal with the crazies in the metro, we just try to stay away from them, but the trains don't come very often. Me and Jacqueline had to wait 15 minutes for 1 train. Luckily when I got to Montparnasse I ran to the 13 so I wouldn't have to wait 20 minutes for the next train. I only ended up waiting 5 which is a lot better than 28 because that's when the next train was coming. Over all it was a really good night and I had a lot of fun.

Tuesday 18th:

I never have class on Tuesday, as you already know, and since I was out super late the night before I took advantage of that and slept in. It was nice. I tried to write my 5 page paper for Costello's class that was due on Thursday but I only managed to get 2 paragraphs done and 1 paragraph writen in English, which obviously doesn't help me. When Chaniece got out of class she, John, Jacqueline and Pilar came over. John left after like 10 minutes but the girls stayed and we had dinner and then tried working on our papers because we are all in the same class. I managed to get 1 more paragraph done before everyone left. I was up until 1am writing my paper. Needless to say I was pretty crabby on Wednesday.

Wednesday 19th:

I don't remember what happened. I had theatre and translation. Our final exam for translation is next week (joy) and Benoit extended the due date for our final paper until next week instead of this Friday. When I got home I had to load LOST and Glee because I had to watch them because they were new episodes the night before back home. But, I wouldn't allow myself to watch them right away because I had to write my paper. I started writing around 6, took a dinner break around 7:30, during which I watched Glee. I finally finished my paper at 12am and had it edited and printed by 1. I got ready for bed and then obviously had to watch LOST.

Thursday 20th:

I had Costello's class and lit. I was super tired because I didn't get much sleep the night before from staying up late to finish my paper. We got out grades back from our first papers. I got a B+ not too shaby. He didn't write a lot of comments on the paper, which annoys me because it really doens't tell me why I got the B+ We also got our final paper assignment. I feel like all I do for this class is write. We handed in our papers and Costello asked if we read for this week and of course no one did because we were all finishing our papers. He goes, well that figures. It was a little rude but come on, what did he expect. I'm sure when he was in college and he had a big paper due the next day, he didn't do the assigned readings for the class. Give me a break. Lit was good. Chaniece and I passed notes back in forth about random things like Lady Gaga lyrics and what the teacher was wearing. Near the end of the class John passes us a note saying there is a concert tonight and he asked if we wanted to come. I said I would and Chaniece said she's go too if she finished eating with her host family in time. He promised that he knew where this place was this time and we wouldn't have a repeat of Monday night. We left class and went home. I was working on some homework when John im'd me on Skype. He was annoyed because he was caughing so bad or something like that. He ran to the pharmacy to get some meds and then came back and said he wasn't going to make it to the concert and was going to stay in tonight. I was pretty bummed. :( oh well, I mean he can't help it if he's sick. I told him Chaniece and I planned to have a movie night and he could come over if he wanted to but he passed. Chaniece didn't end up coming over because her dinner with the host family went super late. So, I watched The Sandlot, finished my bottle of wine and ate a bag of popcorn by myself.

Friday 21st:

I went to theatre and I don't really remember what happened. John had his presentation and I don't remember what we talked about in class...it really wasn't that important. After class I rushed home to finish packing for London and to clean up the apartment because Renee was coming home on Saturday and I didn't want it to be super messy when she came back. I left for the airport around 4:45ish and took the RER B all the way there. It was super hot in Paris that day so of course it was deathly hot on the train. Not to mention there were like a million people on it. The woman sitting across from me, also going to the airport, would seriously jump out of her skin every time a train would pass by on the other side of the tracks because we were sitting by the window and a giant gust of air would rush into her face. It was pretty funny. The night before I bought the Lady Gaga cd FINALLY!!! so I jammed out to that all the way there. I got to the airport, got checked in and made my way to passport inspection and security. There was this British couple behind me and somehow they got seperated from the rest of their group so I stopped and turned around so they could pass by me. I don't know how or what I did to this man but I looked at him and he goes, "Why are you looking at me like that?" and I was like huh? and he goes "I can't be a terrorist!" I was like WTF dude? I didn't even look at the guy. Why in the world would I think he's a terrorist. God, what a crabby British man. I made my way to the gate and sat down to read and eat my over priced sandwich and coke. The plane was supposed to board at 7 I think, but of course, because I was on the plane it was delayed. I guess it was coming in from Zurich and the Swiss don't know how to fly planes so it was late. Then, it was delayed again so I think we were about 45 minutes late boarding. I finally got on the plane, sat down and of course the plane taxied for another 30 minutes waiting to take off. The pilot came on the intercom and was joking around like well, some day we'll make it to London. I was like yea, some day buddy, this is my 3rd try attempting to get there!!! We finally took off a few minutes later. I don't know why, but we had to be in the air longer than we were supposed to. Maybe the airport was backed up or something so we had to circle around it twice. We finally landed and it took another 20 min to get to the docky thingy, I don't know what it's called. I turned on my phone right away (even though they said you couldn't....I was annoyed) and texted Lex, letting her know I just landed and I was getting off the plane soon. I made it through customs without a problem. The guy who checked my passport was really nice. I walked towards the exit and finally saw Lex and Marissa waiting for me. They were dressed like it was a million degrees outside (shorts and tanks) although it was pretty hot outside considering it was almost 9. It's a long drive back from Heathrow to Lex's house. However, we weren't staying there, we were staying where Marissa lives I guess because it's closer and she has the internet and a projector so they stream movies and watch them on the wall. It's pretty sweet. I want one. We started watching 500 days of Summer, but Marissa was tired so she went to bed and Lex followed like an hour later. I finished watching it by myself. I forgot my glasses and contact case in Paris, but some how managed to remember contact solution...so I made a make shift case out of 2 shot glasses. I'm smart, I know.

Saturday 22nd:

Saturday was the best day of my trip because we went into London (finally!) After a quick stop in town to get Marissa some new shoes and me some British pounds because I only had Euros on me, we headed for the Tube stop that is closest (45min away) to the town. We got to the stop, which is at the end of the central line of the Tube (which is the Underground, or the metro) and of course, I have to pee. We got out and I asked this old guy who was working there if there was a bathroom and he said yes so he let me through so I could use it even though we didn't buy our tickets yet. He was nice. We bought our day passes and we on our way. It was like 13 stops to London, well to the place we wanted to transfer to. The first stop on our list was of course Platform 9 3/4 which is at King's Cross station. A few things about the tube. It's similiar to the metro in Paris, although I prefer the metro to the tube. I do like how they say "Mind the gap between the train and the platform" they say it at every stop and they don't do that in Paris. It is set up a weird way though. You have to know what direction you are going but unlike in Paris where it give the names of the last stop as the direction, in London you need to know the actually direction like north, south, east or west. That was confusing but the good thing is there were signs before you made your turn to go that direction that said what stops would be in that direction. Anyways, we get to King's Cross and I'm seriously geeking out. I didn't exactly know where the cart and the wall was (there's half of a cart pushed through a wall and the wall says platform 9 3/4) but I knew it was in the station somewhere. However, it's going through a major renovation so I think they moved it somewhere else. Lex asked for directions a few times but we finally found it. When we rounded the corner and I saw if I couldn't stop smiling. I felt like such a nerd. OMG it was sooooo cool! Seriously, my favorite part about my trip to London. I took a million pics (obvs!) and then we left, after a cig break for Lex and Marissa. This is a picture of me trying to jump through the wall. I almost made it.

We planned on going to Buckingham Palace next. We got off a few stops before the stop for the palace so we could walk through St. James Park which was really nice. It's a very pretty park. I wish we would have gotten down there a little earlier and we could've had a picnic because there were tons of people just hanging out and enjoying the sun. It was a long walk to Buckingham Palace but it was so worth it. The palace really wasn't what I was expecting. Lex said there are usually guards outside of the gates but there weren't today, they were behind the gates. I really wanted to see the changing of the guard ceremony but it's at 11am every day, and we obviously missed that. Buckingham Palace is where everyone put flowers when Princess Diana died. I remember seeing that on tv. Anyways, we hung out there for a little while and watched this gauard walk around in his funny hat. He marched like a frog....if frogs could march. Next we walked towards Westminster Abby which is were Parliament Square is located. It was another long walk but it was so nice out I'd rather be outside than down in the hot tube. I saw a phone booth and obviously needed to take a picture inside of it. I could only stand in there for a few seconds because it spelled like pee. We made it to Parliament and it was really cool looking. I saw Big Ben and the London Eye from a distance. We couldn't walk down the street that Parliament is on because there were gates all around it for some reason. In this park across the street there was an anti-war protest going on. That was pretty cool. After looking around Westminster Abbey for a bit we jumped back on the tube and went back to Piccadilly Circus which is kind of like Times Square in New York. It was pretty sweet. We found this place to eat at because we all were starving and I had pizza. It wasn't very good. We all were pretty tired. I wanted to see a few more things in London, like the bridge and Abbey Road, but Lex and Marissa were tired and I was kind of dependent on them to get me home and everything because I was staying with them. After dinner we left and jumped back on the tube for the long ride back to where we parked the car.

On the way home we ran into some major traffic. There was an accident that ended up being pretty bad. This car that was towing a giant trailer flipped and everything was all over the road. We were stuck in that for at least and hour and a half. Lex even shut her car off and got out to stretch because we had been sitting for so long. She went into her trunk (which Marissa calls the boot...she's British) and grabbed a book. She was going to start reading it but we started moving so she handed it to me (it was The Lovely Bones) and told me to start reading it outload. I read the rest of the way home. We got home pretty late and we all changed into our pjs. I figured we'd play beerpong because that's what we usually do but we were all pretty beat. We watched Jurassic Park and then went to bed.

Sunday 23rd:

We really didn't do anything, just hung out and watched movies all day. I don't have much to say about that. Monday was mostly the same thing except Lex wasn't there because she had to work so it was just me and Marissa. Around 5 we left for the airport. We didn't hit any traffic on the way down there, unlike last time, and I read The Lovely Bones outload again most of the way down. I made it back to Paris without a problem, except for a run in with a bench that I didn't see so now I have a giant bruise on my leg. It's pretty gross. I bought this coffee cup that says "Mind the Gap" and has the Underground sign on it. It's pretty cute and I really like that saying. I made it back to Paris around 10:30 and didn't make it back to the apartment until 12. I tried loading LOST because the series finale was on the night before but it was being a jerk and wouldn't load so I just went to bed.

Tuesday 25th:

I didn't have school and really got nothing done all day because I had to watch LOST which was over 2 hours long and Grey's because I missed that too. I spent the majority of the day watching tv. I also did laundry. I attempted getting my translation homework done but that didn't happen.

Wednesday 26th:

I had theatre and we talked about the play we were going to see that night. In translation we went over out worksheets and preped for out test which was in a week. That night we went and saw Roberto Zucco for theatre class. It was interesting to say the least. It took me FOREVER to get there because I had to take the 1 all the way to the end of the line. But, of course, there was a lot of traffic and we ended up stopping at 2 stops for 10 minutes each. Good thing I left early. I got there 10 min. late and couldn't find my class so I called Colie. I found them, crossed 4 lanes of traffic and made it onto the bus just in time. Everyone was there minus 2 people. This bus takes us about 10 minutes into Bois de Vincennes, which is a forest outside of Paris. This theatre was like in the middle of the woods which was a little odd. The play was good, it was kind of bizarre and the main character Roberto, pranced around naked. I mean like butt naked. You saw EVERYTHING. Also, there was this woman who went crazy who gave this huge monologe topless. It was a very French play with lots of naked people. The play ended at 10:45ish. We all got back on the bus and then headed towards the metro. The 1 is going through construction at night, I think to make it all automatic, so I had to get off at nation and take the 6 all the way to Montparnasse. It was a long night on the metro. I didn't get back until 12am.

Thursday 27th:

For Costello's class we met in Montmartre to take a walking tour of that part of town which was talked a lot about in l'Assommoir. It was really cool. Some parts of the town were pretty shady and there were these black men trying to sell us cigarettes which was weird. It's a really big area where all the immigrants live. Besides being a little shady it was very interesting. We saw the 2 windmills that are left in Paris. I saw them when I was in high school but I couldn't find them the last time I came to Montmartre this year. We got out of class early. Costello gave us our tickets to Les Mis which is this week and I can't wait!!! We got on the metro, which was interesting because it was also shady. These men were trying to sell us metro tickets infront of the place where you scan your card. It was kind of scary but we all were together so it's not like I was alone. Oh and it rained the entire time we were there so that was kind of crappy. We got to school early so bought pasta for lunch at this little pasta place and then ate it at school in the hall way of the building that our class is in. Class was good. Jacqueline, John and I played tic tack toe. I lost. After class, the 3 of us and Alla went to FNAC to buy tickets to this concert. It started pouring, go figure, so me and John shared my umbrella. He isn't a very good umbrella holder. The entire left side of my body was soaked. Oh well.... :) I bought a ticket to this concert. I really don't know who Bad Religion is but I guess they are really good. I think I may have heard one of their songs before. It's their 30th anniversaire tour so that's pretty cool I guess. It's on the 16th of June. After the FNAC I walked home and it started to rain again. Renee and I had dinner together that night for the first time in like 2 and a half weeks. We had fish. It wasn't very good and I was still hungry afterwards.

Friday 28th:

I had theatre, that was good. We talked about Roberto Zucco for a while. Our paper is due the Friday. After class I met up with Katie at her dorm and we worked on our Ho Chi Minh presentation for Monday's history class. By working on it I mean we sat around and talked for 3 hours and didn't get much work done. HAHAH!!! it's cool though, I didn't mind. I went with her to the post office so she could send a box home but they wouldn't take the card she was trying to use. After that I went back to the apartment and started working on my half of the presentation. We decided we are going to make it a game. There are 5 categories and each has 4 questions each. It should be fun....I hope. All the other presentations have been so boring so far, so maybe ours will be more interesting because it's a game. Renee went to see a play that night but she made me a salad for dinner before she left.

Saturday 29th:

My plan for the day was to go to the Longchamp store to buy my bag and then head to FNAC to get homework done. I did just that. My bag is ADORABLE!!!! It's pink and I love it. Colie came with me to buy it and then hung out for a bit at FNAC but then left. I got some work done but when they started setting up for this guest speaker I left because there were a million people in the cafe and it was distracting and annoying. I got back to the apartmet and Renee was still over at her friends house doing whatever. I sat down to work on my Costello paper. I have to analyze this poem. I read it, listened to it online because it's a slam poem and then started looking up all the words I didn't know. There were a bunch because he uses a TON of slang. I made an outline of my paper and got the first paragraph written. That night at dinner I asked Renee for help on some of the words I didn't know. Oh, I totally forgot...Renee took Norton to the vet because he's been biting himself and it made the spot all red and raw so the vet put one of those giant collars on him. It's yellow so he kind of looks like a sunflower. I call him "mon petit fleur" which is my little flower...he keeps running into the walls. It's pretty funny. I got some more work done after dinner but called it quits around 11 and just chilled out.

Today, finally, the 30th is Mother's day in France. It is also Kelsey Wipper's 21st birthday!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY KELS!!!! I bought some flowers for Renee when I woke up. They are purple. I have no idea what they are called. When I got back from buying them I put them in some water, started my laundry and ate breakfast. I off to a slow start that day and didn't start doing my homework until around 2. I wrote some more of my paper, watched the highlights from the Hawks game (GO HAWKS!!) and studied for my history test which is tomorrow. Renee came home and she was carrying this giant plant. It was bigger than her. She loved the flowers I bought for her. After a Skype date with Chris, who I haven't seen in forever! I got back to studying. I noticed that after WWII France pretty much jumped into war with Indochina (Vietnam....not the Vietname war, that was after. This was in 1945) and then the war with Algeria right after that in 1954. They fought for a really long time. They lost both of those wars btw.

I am finally caught up now. I'm sorry it's been so long since I updated. I'll try to update this week but I have 2 finals, 2 presentations, and 2 papers due, plus I'm going to see Les Mis so it's a pretty busy week. Plus, this weekend I'm going camping with some kids from IPP. So if I don't update this week it will probably be on Sunday whenever I get back. Have a good week and happy Memorial Day...I have school tomorrow :(

Bisous

ps, there was no way I was going to re-read all of this for errors, it took me 2 days to type.

Benoit's bringing Sexy Back!!

This post, once again is long over due. Sorry, yet again. I'll just start with Monday. I didn't have class last week because the professor was absent. I showed up for history on Monday afternoon and yet again the professor wasn't there. The secretary came up to us and said that they were trying to find a sub. I wonder what's wrong with our professor? We didn't start class until 2:15. The professor, whose name I don't even know, kind of jumped around on subjects. I swear we skipped 10 years in France's history. If the professor isn't there why should we have to sit there for 3 hours confused because we have no idea what she is talking about. We went from the period right after the war to stuff about Ho Chi Minh...it was bizarre. Class was really boring. Katie and I decided to go to this boulangerie after class that has been called the "best" boulangerie in all of Paris. It was by Gare de l'est (a big train station) so it took us a while to get there from school. We got off the metro and walked to the boulangerie to find that it was closed. Seriously, if you're the best boulangerie in all of Paris, why would you be closed on a Monday? It wasn't even a holiday!! We were pretty upset. We walked around for a little bit looking for somewhere to get a snack and ended up at this cafe next to the train station. I got a hot chocolate and it wasn't very hot. We love people watching. It was a lot of fun. We left and then Katie wanted to go to the monoprix so she could buy some stuff for her dinner. While we were in the store I got a text from Renee saying that she had a meeting to go to after work and she wouldn't be back to late so either I could wait for her to get home so we could eat together or I could eat by myself. I decided to eat by myself because I was really hungry.

The next morning, Chaniece and I met Jacqueline and Colie at Musee d'Orsay so we could see the Crime et Chatiment (crime and punishment) exhibit for Costello's class. Of course, there was a super long line. Jacqueline and Colie were already in line so me and Chaniece cut a bunch of people....sorry!! It was so cold and windy and rainy. So much for Paris in the spring time :( Anyways, there was a really long line because Musee d'Orsay is one of the really big museums that is open on Tuesday so everyone goes there because they can't go to the Louvre. Chaniece and I listened to her iPod to keep ourselves entertained and warm because we were obvs dancing....although I think that was more me than Chanience. There were 2 women in front of us from Canada who were really nice and we talked to them for a little while. We finally got in after waiting in line for like 45 minutes. The exhibit was AMAZING. I really, really liked it. There was a guillotine from the 1800's that was super cool. A lot of the paintings were pretty gross looking. There was this one part that had a bunch of black and white photographs that were from some of the first crime scenes in Paris. Well, they weren't the first crime scenes, but they were the first that were photographed. Those were super cool. There was this one painting called Faim, Folie, Crime by Antoine Wiertz that was so crazy! Seriously Google it. It's this woman who just got done breast feeding her baby, but she's crazy so she killed it, chopped off it's leg and is now going to eat the leg. Gross right? It's pretty cool looking. There was also this other painting by David Lynch called "Do you really want to know what I think?" that used a bunch of real materials like jeans and cigarettes in the painting. It was more like a sculpture than a painting. Google that one too. I think I'll go back and look at the exhibit again because it was just that fascinating. Renee and I didn't eat dinner together that night. She took her car to the garage to get it looked at for her vacation.

Wednesday wasn't that great. Theatre was okay but translation was horrible. I felt like such a failure. We got our tests back. I got a 10/20. It's not failing but that's the worst I've done this year. To make matters worse, when we were going over the answers to this packet we had to do about the passe simple (it's a form of the past tense that is usually used in literature) the teacher and the class laughed at me when I was giving my answers because they were wrong. It just wasn't a great day. Katie did 1 point better than me. We decided that because of our crappy grades we needed to go and relax so as soon as class ended we left and jumped on the 14 (my fav line!!!) and headed to The Frog and the British Library, a British pub. I got a pint (which I learned are bigger in Europe than they are in the states) of Ginger Twist, which they brew on site. They make a few beers but this one sounded the best. It was pretty darn good. I also ordered some quesadillas because I needed something to eat if I was going to be drinking. I was expecting it to be a pretty big quesadilla but it wasn't it was like 1 quesadilla cut up into 6 little pieces. So disappointing :( We got there at 5:33....happy hour started at 5:30. That's how we roll. Katie bought my beer because she owed me for the deposit for the hostel that I lost. We left around 8:30ish. Renee wasn't home but there was a roasted chicken in a bag in the fridge but I wasn't sure if I could eat it. So, I didn't. I was up pretty late talking on Skype but it was good. Renee didn't come home until almost 1. Another day we didn't eat dinner together.

Thursday I didn't have school because it was a religious holiday....ascention I think. After a lazy morning I went to FNAC with Colie to try to get some work done. I didn't get much done because I get distracted there so easily. I went back the the apartment and got creeped on by this guy who told me I had a nice ass and then proceeded to follow me for 10 minutes. I was annoyed but he finally realized that I wasn't going to talk to him so he left me alone and walked away. Renee came home around her normal time but then she left after she took Norton for a walk because she was meeting back up with her friends. So, yet again another night where we don't eat together. We haven't eaten together since Sunday when I got back from the Loire Valley :(

Friday was interesting. I went to theatre and before class started someone's cell started ringing and the ring tone was "Sexy Back" by Justin Timberlake. I was dancing in my seat and wondering who's phone it was. Turns out it was Benoit's (our professor's). The only reason I know this is because he ran out of the room to answer his phone. Man, I think I fell in love with him a little more after that. HAHA!!! Class was a lot of fun...it's my favorite class. I walked home with Colie (to my apt) after class because she had nothing to do. When I got back Renee wasn't there but Norton was and he got a haircut!!!! He looks so adorable. It's so short! He looks so different. That night I was supposed to go to this concert with John but that didn't work out because I'm dumb...I really don't want to go into it. Anyways, I ended up going to a movie with Katie and her friend Priscilla. We saw 8th Wonderland (an independent film) at this little movie theatre near the Bastille. I really did not like the movie at all. I thought it was horrible. It was just so bizarre I really didn't know what to think of it. After the movie we went to this bar that Katie called the Porn Bar...which sounded awesome obvs! When we walked it I couldn't for the life of me figure out why she called it the Porn Bar because there were pictures of Jesus and the Virgin Mary on all the walls staring at me. It was crazy. We sat at the bar because it was pretty crowded and ordered our pints. I toasted to Jesus because he was staring at me watching me drink my beer. We left when we finished and I found out that she calls it the Porn Bar because I guess in the bathroom there's bunch of porn on the walls, which is pretty funny. Jesus is on the walls outside but in the bathroom there's porn. HA!! On the train home I met Egyptian Jimmy. That wasn't his full name, don't worry. His name was Jimmy but he's from Egypt so he just calls himself that. He didn't believe me when I told him that I knew where Egypt was. He also asked to see my left hand to see if I was married, then asked for my number so I could give it to my friends and so we could meet up later. Thanks, but no thanks Egyptian Jimmy. He was pretty funny.

Renee left for vacation Saturday morning. I didn't see her at all but she left me a note. That night I met up with John, Colie, Katie, Krista, and Diane at the student cafeteria to grab dinner before we headed out to museum night. Night at the museum is this huge thing that was going on throughout all of Europe. Basically, a bunch of museums are open up super late and it's free for everyone to get in. As we were eating dinner we decided that we were going to try to hit up the Natural History Museum, the Louvre, and the Pompidou. We got to the natural history museum and after a bird poop attack by this crazy bird (none of it got on me, but Diane was hit) and this weird dance troop of 3 people who had soccer balls on their butts, we made it into the museum and it was AMAZING!!!!!! I loved it so much. OMG so sweet. John said that it's the biggest taxidermy collection in the world or something and he wasn't lying. It was insane. There were giraffes and elephants and so many animals. I felt like I was in the Lion King. There were also dinosaurs (bones not taxidermy haha) which was really, really cool. I felt like I was 5 years old and it was such a blast. We left the museum and headed for the Marais (the 4th) to search for a crepe because me and John really wanted one. We finally found a place and it def. hit the spot. Soooo good. We all got back on the metro (minus Katie, who left before crepes because she wasn't feeling well) and got off at Chatelet. We got out of the right exit, which never happens but we got lost trying to find the Pompidou. We walked in the wrong direction. I had a lot of fun though walking around that area. We were trying to make it to the museum by 12 because that's the last time they were letting people into the museum. We sadly didn't make it :( so John, myself and Diane headed home. I got back around 12:30ish and was pretty tired. I started watching Jurassic Park because I was really in the mood to watch it but then I ended up falling asleep around 2.

Today I did all of my homework except my Costello paper and did my laundry. I have a lot to do this week, mostly Costello's paper. I'm dreading it, not gonna lie. That's all for now....I need to go to bed at a decent hour tonight.

Bisous!!

PS....Congrats to my best friend in the world Tracey on your graduation from UW-Madison!!!! I love you so much!!!!

PPS...this was not checked for errors, sorry again

IPP hits up the Loire Valley

I know that this post is a little bit over due. Sorry, I've been lazy. I'll try not to make this post too long, but I'm not making any promises....

I woke up at like 5:50am Saturday morning so I would have enough time to eat and shower before heading to our meet up point for the bus. I guess I got up a little bit too early because I just sat around for a while waiting to leave. I told Chaniece that I would meet her at the metro at 7:20 because we had to be at the bus by 8 and I wanted to be early because the last time we went on a group outing I was late and felt bad. I texted Chaniece before I left telling her I was leaving because it takes her a little while longer to walk to the metro than it does for me. I got to the metro at 7:20 and she wasn't there. I decided to call her to see where she was and she's like I'll be right there, I'm making a sandwhich. I was like HURRY UP!!! exact words. I saw Chaniece coming down the street and I just gave her the death glare. We ended up being early for the bus, so I guess I was panicking for nothing. When we got on the bus we sat in the middle because we figured that the group of girls that were already sitting in the back were going to talk a lot and we both were pretty tired. It was around 8 when Sean and Costello started counting people. Costello decided to call out our names because I guess he thought it would be easier. He calls off some names and he gets to this guy named Adam, who wasn't there. I don't know who it was but they were like, Adam isn't here and Costello goes, well that's not surprising but in his funny Costello tone of voice. I started laughing so hard. I think people thought I was crazy because not very many people heard him say it. Adam ended up showing up. Ha. Everyone came on the trip except Jordan and Brian. Not sure why they didn't come, but their loss. We got on the road and Costello said that we would be at our first chateau. I tried taking a little nap on the bus but the bus driver was being a Chatty Cathy and the girls in the back weren't being super loud, but I could still hear them over my iPod. I think I fell asleep for like a half hour tops.

We arrived at Chambord and started walking towards the entrance. Chambord is amazing. I first visited it when I was a junior in high school when the French class came to Paris on spring break. We walked into the chateau and had to wait for Costello to get us all tickets. Once we got our tickets we all took a bathroom break before entering the actual chateau. We gathered around this fire place so Costello could give us a history of the chateau. As we're walking there, me and few other people are joking around with Sean and we didn't realize that Costello had started talking. He called Sean's name and when Sean didn't answer he called it again, and again. We were all laughing. Sean was like oops...guess I'm in trouble. He's so awesome. Anyways Costello tells us some stuff about the chateau. I don't really remember what he said. It was loud in there and he was using his quiet voice so I couldn't hear anything and then I just spaced out truthfully. I do know that Francois I built it and lived there for a long time and his symbol is a salamander so there's a bunch like little salamanders on the ceilings, walls, stair cases...stuff like that. I don't know why he's a salamander. What a dumb animal to be. If you're going to pick an animal to represent you, at least pick something fierce like a cheetah or something cool like a gazelle....not a salamander. The chateau is also famous for its double helix staircase. It's basically 2 staircases that wrap around each other, hence the double helix name....it's pretty sweet looking. Costello let us explore the chateau alone. I was with a few people wandering around but we got seperated. I made my way up to the top of the chateau where it opens up to this huge balcony thing. I found a bunch of IPP girls and Sean, so of course we had to have a photo shoot!! After goofing around for a while I headed back downstairs to look at a few more rooms before heading back to the bus. There really isn't much in the rooms of the chateau which sucks. I'm not sure why they don't have beds and chairs and stuff like that like they do at other chateaux. I walked outside and ended up meeting up with a few people. We walked to the little market that they had set up. I was with Sean, Kirsten and John at the market and we all bought something. Kirsten had me get something for her because she already bought something from the same women and didn't want her to think she was a total pig buying 2 pastries in the span of 2 hours. HA. So I bought hers. I got a chocolate beignet and it was DELISH!!! I also had to pose for a picture in front of the chateau to replicate the same picture I took junior year. Except in this photo it wasn't raining, and I don't have my pink umbrella. We all got back on the bus and then hit the road to our next chateau.

We arrived at Amboise about an hour ish later. We had free time for lunch so everyone split up and tried to find a place to eat. A lot of places were closed because it was a holiday (the end of WWII). Me, Kirsten, Martha, and John all decided to eat at this little place that sold a bunch of different things. I got a sandwhich. It wasn't that great. After we were finished eating we went to this little grocery store that we saw as we were coming into town. I really wanted some candy, but they didn't have the kind that I usually get (the look like tongues and they are sour and taste like strawberries) so John and I decided to split this bag of sour candy called Frites. They are pretty good, not as good as the tongues but it did it's job. We made our way up to the chateau and had to wait again for everyone else to join up with us and then had to wait some more while Costello got our tickets. We walked in the court yard of Amboise and met up with our adorable tour guide. She was so sweet. What a cute French girl. I think Sean was a little smitten with her :) We weren't allowed to take pictures while she was giving the tour. I learned that Leonardo Da Vinci either used to hang out at the chateau or he lived there, or near there or something because he's burried there. So I got to see his grave. That's was pretty cool. It's in this really pretty church. Amboise looks a lot different than it used to when it was first built. It was really damaged through out the years because of war. It really suffered a lot of damage during WWII because that part of France was occupied by the Germans. Henry II and his wife Cathrine de Medici lived there for a long time and raised there kids there. This chateau had a lot more stuff in the rooms. There were a lot of paintings and beds, etc. The only problem about the tour was a bunch of people kept trying to creep on our tour and the guide kept telling them that it was a private tour for students and asked them to move along. They didn't listen. After the tour ended we went to the top of the chateau and went outside to look at the amazing view. Amboise is on a hill that over looks the entire town as well as the Loire river. It's pretty sweet. After we hung out there for a while me and Chaniece and Alex hunted down the bathroom, checked out the gift shop which was over priced and then went back to the bus. We hit the road and headed to Tours where we would be spending the night.

Before we got to the hotel, Costello told us another one of his horror stories and told us not to drink too much tonight so we don't get raped or murdered. He's just looking out for us. I like the way he tells his stories. He adds dramatic pauses and everything. We got to the hotel and me, Jacqueline and Chaniece decided to be roomies. The room was pretty small, the bathroom was smaller than small, but we had a flat screen tv. After lounging around for a little while, we decided to join a party that was going on next door. There were like 20 of us in this little hotel room playing a game called Celebrity. It's really fun. You think of a celeb, or a character, or basically any one for your neighbor to be and then you usually write it on an index card and then put it on the person's forehead so they can't see what they are. We didn't have index cards so we used post-its and they put it on our shoulders. It was a lot of fun. Chaniece picked mine, I was Minnie Mouse. It took me forever to guess. Erin was sitting next to me and I picked her to be Nick Jonas. It was such a fun game. At 7 we all got ready for dinner. I put on my black jeans, heels, and a cut top and if I do say so myself I looked pretty smokin! ha. Everyone met downstaris in the lobby and then we all walked to the restaurant together. I don't know what the restaurant was called but the food wasn't that good. We got the tiniest salad, and like 3 little pieces of chicken with some sort of sauce with potatoes, which mine were cold. We also got dessert, which wasn't half bad. We were all hanging out talking and I was like I'm going to need a snack later, that wasn't enough food! We left the restaurant around 9:30 ish and we all headed to this part of town that had a bunch of bars. We found this one bar after walking for like 25 minutes and decided to sit outside because there were too many of us to sit together inside. I wanted to sit at this one table, but there weren't any chairs left. Luckily, Alla came to my rescue and grabbed me a chair and placed it between John and Katie, before she sat the chair down she goes, "just creating opportunities!" Hahaha....oh Alla!!! Thanks girl! We all had such a good time. We all got our drinks, I got a beer and it was pretty good. It started with a G. I should probably remember these things, but it was a long night. We played a drinking game that I don't remember the name of. I guess it really isn't a drinking game, we just made it one because we're college kids and that's what we do. You had to name a movie or an actor and the person sitting next to you had to name an actor from that movie and a movie that the actor was in. For example, someone said Meg Ryan, the person sitting next to them would say You've got Mail, the next person would say Tom Hanks, the next person says Saving Private Ryan, the next person says Matt Damon, and so on and so forth. It's a really fun game. If you don't know a movie or the actor you can challenge the person and they have to name another movie that the actor was in or another actor in that movie. It's a really fun game. I was doing pretty well. Then we decided to play "How many Harry Potter characters can you name" game. I didn't do too well...shocking I know. I knew the easy ones but some people were so good and had names that I didn't even know. After that we played another game. I got up to use the bathroom after our photo shoot ended, because everyone loves to take pics when they are drunk....and when I came back from the bathroom everyone had moved inside. I got another drink (a beer cocktail...I don't know what it was called or what was in it but it was DELISH). When I finished my drink with the help of Jacqueline, she, Diane and I left. We got back to the hotel around 12:40ish. I knocked on our door because Chaniece was in there but she didn't answer so I had to call her phone. I think she was sleeping....oops! I didn't get much sleep that night, but I don't think anyone really did. Except for Sean and Costello. I think Sean would've come out with us, but he really isn't allowed to drink with us. Plus, Costello was there so he obvs couldn't go out with us. We had breakfast at the hotel the next morning. I was really tired.

After breakfast we hit the road for our next chateau: Chenonceau. Chenonceau was built over the water and is really pretty. We walked through this cool forest to get to the chateau. Once we got to it we were greeted with this amazing view. Sadly, they were working on the front facade of the chateau so it was covered up by a lame cloth. I really like Chenonceau. Costello talked about the chateau for a while before we went inside. I really don't remember what he said about it. Sorry. If you really want to know its history you can Wikipedia it. We took a group picture before everyone went their seperate ways to explore the chateau. Me, Chaniece, Jacqueline, John, Alla and Krista all took pictures outside the chateau. Jacqueline took this picture of us and it seriously could be a post card for the chateau, that or a Christmas card. It's so adorable!! I had trouble getting up this wall to take a picture so Jacqueline had to give me a boost. It was pretty funny. We entered the chateau and looked around. My favoirte part of the chateau is the kitchen which is in like the basement right above the river. It has these arched windows that look out over the river which are really cool. Everyone and their mom was in the kitchen I swear. It was nuts. After the kitchen we went to the long gallery that used to be a hospital during WWII I believe. After looking around some more rooms, we got lunch in the cafeteria. I got a cheese burger and fries. It was pretty good. We saw Costello eating by himself, so me, Alla, John, Jacqueline and Krista decided to join him so he didn't have to eat alone. We learned about his daughter and how she went to Smith College (which is a really good school) and is now going to grad school at Duke. She's pretty smart. Everyone talked about what they are doing after graduation and stuff like that. It was a good time. After lunch we hit up the expensive gift shop and didn't buy anything. Everyone got back on the bus and we started heading for our last chateau.

Our final stop was at Blois. We got off the bus and then walked up to the chateau. Costello told us that it was a guided tour, which can be fun because you usually learn a lot. He didn't tell us that he would be doing the tour. That's not quite as fun. Costello is a nice guy and all but I really didn't want to hear him talk about this chateau. I was really dragging at this point (I think everyone else was too) so a tour from Costello was the last thing we wanted. Blois is pretty cool. You can really see the 3 different phases of construction of the chateau because each is basically a different century and they used different materials in each century. It's very cool looking. We walked through the chateau, stopping every few minutes so Costello could tell us some fact. The coolest part about the history that I remember is that Henry III had his arch-enemy Henry I Duke of Guise killed in the chateau. They wouldn't let you into the room that he was murdered in. Lame...As we were leaving these people started dancing. Seriously they just broke out into some weird dance. They weren't just regular people though, they were actors recreating some dance of the period. It was weird. Costello didn't want us to stay and watch it so he made us cut across the dance floor. The guard that was ther saw a few people doing it following Costello he had already left and she got kind of pissed. Sean explained why we needed to leave and she's just like fine, whatever, leave. It was kind of funny. Once we made it out of there we entered into this giant hall. I guess some movie was filmed there. It was pretty cool. There was a giant thrown that a few people sat on and took pictures. Me, Colie and Chaniece went outside to look around after hitting up the bathroom. We wanted to get a snack before heading back to the bus but we couldn't find anything.

The ride back to Paris was a lot of fun. After a short nap, Chaniece, Colie and I joined the back of the bus in a game of mafia. The game is a lot of fun. There are 3 mafia members, 1 detective, and 1 doctor. These 5 people are determined by passing out cards. If you get a card that has been dubed mafia, then that's what you are. For example, the doctor is an Ace, so if you get that, you're the doctor. Anyways, for everyone else that is playing, if you don't get a mafia, detective or doctor card, you are a towns person. There is a narrator, which was John, and he tells everyone to close there eyes and make up this story about the mafia killing people. The 3 mafia members open their eyes (while everyone else has their eyes closed except for the narrator) and the mafia picks someone to die. They then close their eyes and the doctor (who was me) opens their eyes and picks someone to save, usually someone they thought the mafia killed. I closed my eyes and then the dective opens their eyes and picks someone who they believe is in the mafia. This is all done silently. Everyone else opens their eyes and John said who died and how they died. He came up with some pretty creative ways for people to die. Our story was in Paris so some people were beheaded of course! Everyone debates who's a mafia member. We then decide to kill that person but we never know for sure if they are a part of the mafia. You basically repeat the process until there are only 1 or 2 peole left. If the mafia is left standing then they win, if it's a towns person, they win. I sadly didn't manage to correctly guess and save anyone. I was killed because they thought I was a part of the mafia. John said that I fell into the Seine and drowned. Tragic. We started a new game with Erin as the narrator. Except this time we weren't in Paris we were in Hogwarts (we're a bunch of dorks!) The mafia were Death Eaters, the doctor was Dumbledore, and of course the detective was Harry Potter. I was a towns person. We didn't get to finish our game on the bus because we arrived back in Paris early so everyone who was playing, and Sean, went to the Luxembourg garden to finish our game. We all found chairs and put them in a circle and finished our game. I almost won but I was eventually killed because they thought I was a mafia member. They all suspected me 3 times in a row and wanted to kill me but I convinced them that I wasn't guilty and got them to kill someone else. I'm good like that. Ha!! We left and I got home around 8:30. Renee and I had dinner that night and I went to bed pretty early because I was tired.

Overall it was a really fun weekend! Sorry this post is so long. I'll probably post again tomorrow about what's been going on this week and about why I'm not in London right now.

Bisous!

ps: this was not proof read. Sorry in advance if there are errors. I'm tired

Keeping Promises!

Look at me updating on the day I said I would update. YAY!! I was really worried that this week would just drag on because it's the week right after vacation and that usually happens. However, it feels like the week went by really fast. I have no idea why, but I'll take it.

Let's see....Monday, class was cancelled, but you already knew that. On Tuesday I didn't have class like usual. My plan for the day was to go to a cafe or the FNAC to study for my translation test and do homework because of the noise from the construction. I woke up at 8:15 because that's the time they decided to start working on the electricity. I got up, ate, and took a shower. Around 11 the workers stopped...I'm assuming it was their lunch break. My phone started ringing and I wasn't sure who would be calling because a lot of people have class on Tuesdays. It was Luke Ptak! He's was in Paris for the day because he was flying out tomorrow morning to go back home. I can't believe his semester is already over! I swear he just got here. We decided to meet up for lunch at the student cafeteria. However, I wasn't very precise when I told him where to meet me. He was at my metro stop while I was waiting for him at the cafeteria. He sent me a text saying he was there and I was like ummm, no you're not I don't see you. So Luke jumped on the RER to get to where I was. Then, he called me to tell me that he was there but he made a wrong turn and I had to track him down. We finally found each other...it was a little nuts. We ate at the little cafeteria that's downstairs from the main one because we wouldn't be rushed to eat. At the big one on the top floor when it's 2pm they kick you out so they can clean and get ready for dinner. It's really annoying. I like to sit and talk after I'm done eating. I don't like to be rushed out. But whatevs. We talked for a while and he was pretty sad to be leaving because he felt like he just got here. We parted ways and I went back to the apartment to start studying. Me, Jean-Francois and Renee ate dinner together that night. I like when Jean-Francois comes because he always cooks and he's a really good cook. Although I really didn't enjoy dinner that night. He made shrimp, which were over cooked in this sauce which was really good. It would've been really good with rice because it was kind of like a curry but he made spinach instead. Barf. I really don't like spinach. Renee saw it and was like oh, Amy doesn't like spinach. Jean-Francois was like oh I didn't know that and he offered to make something else but I told him it was okay because I didn't want to be rude. I ate the spinach and it was gross.

On Wednesday I had theatre which was pretty boring. I have no idea why either. The professor just kept talking and we didn't even talk about what we were supposed to have read for the day. He's been doing that a lot lately. The translation test was so hard. I wanted to cry. We had to translate 5 phrases, which weren't that bad if you went over the grammer packets she gave us, which I did. However, there were 2 paragraphs from this huge article that we had to translate. Translating isn't that bad when you have an English/French dictionary because the article is in English and if you don't know a word you can always look it up. Well, we weren't allowed to use an English/French dictionary on the exam. We were only allowed a French dictionary. If you think about it there's really no way the French dictionary is going to be a big help to me. What if I don't know the French translation for the English word? I'm pretty much screwed unless the French word happens to be close to the English word spelling wise, because some of them are really similar. When I read the first line of the article I was like oh great...this is going to take me a year in a half to do. There were some words that I didn't know the word for in French which was really annoying. I tried to think of words that were like the other word that I actually knew in French. I did know that there was a possibility that the meaning of the sentance would change because I used a different word but it was better than putting nothing down on the paper. One of the words I didn't know was jungle for example, and I used forrest instead. I was talking about it with Jean-Francois at dinner and he's like well they are kind of similar. I know they are similar but I didn't know the word for jungle so that's the word I used. Turns out the word for jungle is actually jungle....spelt the same way and everything. Jean-Francois thought that was pretty funny...I did not. I hope the professor isn't a tough grader because it was really hard.

Thursday for Costello's class we were meeting at La Defense. Chaniece met at our metro early so we could get there a little bit early because we weren't exactly sure where we were going. We got on the metro at 10:15 and the train just sat there a little while. Then, the conductor came on and said that there was an accident greve (basically meaning someone jumped in front of the train) on the line that we were on and the traffic was going to be disrupted. We sat on the train for 25 minutes before it moved to the next station, where we sat for another 10 minutes. I knew we were going to be pretty late so I called Lizzie to have her tell Costello when she got there. The train finally got to Montparnasse and me and Chaniece decided to get off to get onto another line that would take us to the 1 which we needed to take pretty much to the end of the line. We were about 10-15 minutes late when we got there. Costello wasn't mad because we told him it wasn't our fault at all and he understood which was nice. He talked about the area and stuff and it was cool but it was cold and really windy. We were there until 12:45 ish and then we all got back onto the 1 and took it to Chatelet to talk some about that area. We walked to this area by Les Halles and we walked past this group of black men drinking. They started harrassing us as all the girls walked by...not cool. Costello talked for a bit on this giant staircase that we stood on. He let us go early and apologized for the rude men, but it wasn't his fault.

When I got to school I went to the classroom which was locked so I sat in the hallway and ate my lunch. John showed up :) and we talked for a while when Diane showed up. Chaniece walked in next and was being a fool and then Jacqueline was even worse. HAHAH. But, they did give me some balsamic vinegar and salt chips which are AMAZING. Madame came and opened the door for us. I was walking to where I usually sit when Chaniece and Jacqueline are like no, Amy come sit over here....where she, Chaniece, and John were sitting. I sat in between John and Diane. Class was just a mess, I really don't want to say anything more about it except that it was probably the best class I've been too, but that might have just been because I changed seats... Oh, I got at 16.25 / 20 on my exam! YAY!!!!

That night I went to the Opera to see the ballet called Hommage a Jerome Robbins at l'Opera Garnier which is the really fancy opera house. OH MY GOD it was AMAZING!!!!! It was so much better than the Nutcracker. I LOVED IT!!! The dancers were from le ballet de l'opera national de Paris (the Ballet troop of Paris). There were 4 dances all danced with the National Orchestra of Paris. Words cannot describe how amazing it was. Not only were the dances amazing, the building itself is so beautiful. Please Google it because c'est tres magnifique!! Our seats were really good on the 2nd floor (3rd if you want to be American about it) in this thing called a loge. It was basically a private box that had to opened up by the usher. It was so cool. I felt like Abraham Lincoln when he went to that play the night John Wilkes Booth shot him because he was in a private room too. I know that's pretty morbid, but it's the first thing I thought of. I'm so weird. Anyways, it was awesome. Here's a picture of me that Lizzie took (THANKS LIZZIE!!) at the Opera. We were on the 3rd floor. Check out my shoes!!!! Oh and I don't know why I'm slouching...my bad.

Today I had theatre and I had to sit in the back by myself and no one sat next to me. Although, when Krista was giving her presentation, Benoit was sitting across from me and I got to see the grades everyone has gotten on their presentaitons. I'm happy to say that I have the best grade...14/15 WHAT UP! Nice right? Everyone who has done a presentation has told me that they basically copied the exact format I used for my speech. I'm just like well, I'm glad I can help you out...it's cool though. I really don't care. Class was good except for the part when with 30 minutes to go I had to pee so bad. I didn't want to get up and go because I was all the way in the back of the room and I would feel awkward getting up. So I held it and then booked it out of there when class ended. Chaniece was meeting up with me and Colie to go to lunch down the street so while we waited for her, me, Colie, Erin and Beth were all talking to Sean (the resident advisor) we were joking around with him about his desk because it's so small and I said that it was like a little Tykes desk because he's really short, shorter than me...hahaha it was really funny. Then Sean goes, okay Amy Fountain....and I was like haha don't mock my last name, it's a cool last name, I know. Ha. Good times. Chaniece showed up and Beth joined us for lunch at the cafe down the street. We were there for an hour and a half eating and talking. Afterwards, me Chaniece and Colie went to the bookstore because Chaniece needed to buy a book for class. After a stop at Starbucks that took longer than it should have we went home.

It's been a really good week so I'm hoping that this weekend in the Loire Valley goes well. Costello sent us an email about all the stuff we'll be doing and it seems pretty cool. We're having a group dinner tomorrow night where we won't be served wine. LAME. Costello said that when the state of Illinois audited the University's study abroad expenses, they said that we couldn't write off wine for dinner. Sean said that he'd rather have us drink the wine at dinner because they can control how much we have but oh well, the state ruined that. It's supposed to rain this weekend but maybe it'll miss us (crosses fingers!) I probably won't update on Sunday when I get back because I'm not exactly sure when we'll get back to Paris. It all depends on traffic. So maybe Monday or Tuesday I'll update. Have a good weekend and GO HAWKS!!!

Bisous

Nice is quite nice

I got back from Nice yesterday so this post is going to be pretty long....just warning you now.

I got up at 5:00am Thursday morning in order to make it to the train station on time. I'm not a big fan of getting up super early, but who is? Anyways so I got on the metro to head to the train station around 5:45 and the first thing I see is this giant picture of this half naked man in body paint. It was an adverstisment for the world cup and it said "how deep is your (love)" but instead of love there was a soccer ball. I just looked at it and was like, yeah, it's not that deep. Sorry football fans. Anyways, so I got to the train station around 6:35 ish. I planned on getting there pretty early because I had never been there before and it my first time taking a train by myself so I wasn't quite sure what I was supposed to do. The day before I printed out my tickets but when I got to the train station I saw all these people with actually tickets and not a print out like I had. So I tried printing my tickets out of this machine but it said that it couldn't find my reservations. I found the information desk that had the same name as on my ticket so I figured I'd just ask them what I should do. The woman told me that I didn't need to print out a new ticket that they would just scan mine. So awesome, I had nothing to do but wait for them to announce what platform my train would be leaving from. She said they usually don't announce them until 20 minutes before the train is supposed to leave, so I had a while to wait. This picture is the ad that was in the metro. As you can see it was quite a sight at 6am.

I saw a sign for the bathroom and figured I'd better go now because I wasn't sure what the bathrooms would be like on the train. I had to pay 50 cents to use the bathroom, which I think is incredibly stupid. So I got out my 50 cents and I saw this slot so I put the coin in and it just spit it back out at me and then fell on the floor. There was a woman sitting behind this little plastic thing just staring at me so I figured I must have to give her my money. I was right. I felt like such an idiot because she saw my put my coin in there. She could've said something. There wasn't even a sign saying what to do. So she gave me this little coin to put in the machine and then the doors opened up. After figuring that all out I went back to the departure board and it said that my train would be leaving from the yellow salle (room). At Gare de Lyon trains leave from either the blue or the yellow salles depending on where they are going. I think the blue salle is for trains going north and the yellow is for the south...but that's just a guess. So I went up there and stared at an even bigger board. It was around 7:10 and they still hadn't announced what platform the train would be on. I was worried, I don't know why, but that's what I do about everything so I asked this women at the desk and she said they were going to announce it soon. 2nd time I felt like an idiot in like 20 minutes.....great. They finally announced the platform and everyone started rushing towards it. They scanned my ticket and I walked towards the end of the train and got on.

My seat was on the top part of the train in this 4 seater thing that had a table that could come out from the side. I put my backpack in one of the luggage racks and then sat down. Of course I wasn't the only one in those seat by me. The guy who sat next to me was a bit of an arm rest hog. That was kind of annoying. We left right on time which was nice. I really wasn't that tired for some reason so I started reading Atonement which I've been trying to finish since forever. I only had like 100 or so pages left. After an hour or so I got tired so I tried to take a nap but the seat wasn't very comfortable and I really had no where to lay my head except on the head rest obvs but who sleeps with their head straight back like that. I think I only ended up getting about a 30 minute nap in and then went back to reading. Arm rest hog decided during his nap that the sun was too bright so he closed the shade on the window while I was looking out of it. I just looked at him, like dude what are you doing? Don't you want to look at the scenery? and he asked if it was alright if he closed it and what was I supposed to say? No, you can't close it? So I said it was fine and just settled for looking out the window across from ours. I brought some snackys with me but I was kind of hungry and debating buying something from this little trolly that went by, but then I saw their prices and decided I could wait to eat until I got to Nice.

The train made a few stops before we got to Nice and the woman who was sitting across from me got off so I finally got to stretch my legs out because they were really starting to cramp up. We got into Nice around 1:30. I got off and went outside the station so I could try to figure out how to get to the hostel where we were all staying. Everyone else (Chaniece, Jacqueline, Krista, Diane and Colie) were due to arrive until 3:30 ish so I had some time to kill. I looked up directions on Google before I left, but I didn't have a map so I just started walking in the direction I thought might be right. I walked a little bit down this road and then I saw this giant sex shop and I was like this can't be right so I started walking the other direction. I got to this tran and knew that I wasn't going the right way so I walked back to the train station and came across a tourist office and went inside. They had free maps so awesome! After consulting my map, and my directions I realized that I was going the right direction the first time, I was just throw off my the giant sex shop. Anyways, so I start walking. Google said it was a 38 minute walk, but they lied. It took me like 45 minutes. Not to mention it was like a million degrees out. I finally found the road that the hostel was on but I couldn't go there because I technically wasn't staying there because when they reserved it they put 5 people and not 6....so I had to wait until they all got there. I walked down to the beach and the view was just amazing. I saw the Mediterranean Sea coming in on the train but the view from the beach was pretty sweet, not gonna lie.

I saw this bench on the boardwalk so I sat down. There were these guys setting up some metal tent thing on the beach that were creepin on me. That was exciting. I think they thought I was watching them but seriously...the view of the sea was better looking than they were. It was pretty hot where I was sitting because the sun was beating down on me. I let Chaniece know I was there and she said they would be there in about an hour. I thought about getting something to eat but there really wasn't where to go around me and truthfully, I was tired and didn't feel like getting up. She called me back an hour or so later and said that they were at the hostel and told me to come and find them. I finally found them and the hostel wasn't even a hostel at all. It was an apartment that this woman owns and she just rents it out to people. We were waiting for the lady to show up with the key and they all had food left over so I ate some of that because at that point I was starving.

We got into the apartment around 4:30 and it was so AMAZING. It was on the 11th floor (the highest) and looked out over the sea and the entire stip of beach. God, it was so sweet. There were 3 beds, plus a cot. So everyone got to sleep on a bed. I shared a room with Chaniece. There was a huge bathroom with a bedet, because everyone needs a bedet in their bathroom! The kitchen was a little sketch but whatever, it did its job. The balcony was by far my favorite part of the apartment. It was pretty big and there were these really comfy chairs out there too. I was pretty worried that the woman who was renting the apartment to us was going to be pissed because they said there would only be 5 people there but really, the apartment would have fit 7 comfortably. She didn't say anything about me being there which was awesome because I really didn't want to have to find a hotel room. After the woman left we all screamed like 5 year olds we were so excited. We decided to hit up the beach so everyone put their suits on and we left. It was like a 3 minute walk to the beach, no lie. However, it wasn't a sand beach, it was all rock. That sucked but oh well. I went in the water but it was really cold so I went as far as my knees and ran back to my towel. Colie and Diane literally swam. I don't know how they did it because it was so cold. They said they got used to it, but I don't believe them. The picture here is of the view from the apartment. Pretty sweet right?

We left the beach around 7 and headed to the grocery store that was right around the corner from the apartment to get stuff to make dinner. Colie and Diane made dinner while the rest of us had a dance party to Jacqueline's music. They made pasta with chicken, salad and of course there was wine and Orangina. Dinner was so good and I think I picked out some pretty good wine if I don't say so myself. We also had ice cream for dessert. We went to bed pretty late that night. Here's a picture of all of us (minus me of course) from the first night's dinner. LtoR: Diane, Colie, Krista, Chaniece, and Jacqueline.

The next day (Friday) I woke up at like 8:30 because the train runs right past the apartment and was really loud and the bed wasn't very soft. Chaniece was up because she's weird and can't sleep. I think we were pretty loud because everyone else started waking up like an hour later. We had a lazy morning and got out of the apartment around 11:15 and took the bus to the train station. I bought us all train tickets to Cannes and we got on the next train and got there like a half hour later.

I really LOVED Cannes. I think I liked it better than Nice. Sorry, Nice. Once we left the train station we were all were pretty hungry so we went looking for some place to eat. No one could really decide on anything so we ended up at the Monoprix and bought stuff for a picnic. Everyone knows Cannes is known for the Cannes Film Festival, we came across this big building that had a red carpet on the stairs leading up to the entrance of the building. I was like OMG....this is the red carpet for the Cannes film festival!!!! It was so cool. We walked passed it and then came across these things that you could put your face in and take pictures with. I saw Han Solo and Chewbacca so I OBVIOUSLY had to have my picture take with it. That's above! :) Han Solo is so cool. Once we got some pictures with Han (that was mostly me) we walked to the beach. Cannes actually has a sand beach which was really nice. However, there were 3 topless old women in our vacinity so that wasn't the greatest thing to look at when you're eating your lunch. Also, it was kind of cold that day and windy so I didn't want to change into my suit at all. Jacqueline, Diane, and Colie were brave enough to go into the water. The sun finally came out so I decided that I was going to put my bathing suit top on while still wearing my clothes. I've got skill, no lie....I managed to get my top on by myself without flashing anyone. I guess it wouldn't have been that bad if I did flash someone because the old lady next to us was already topless. Once I got my top on the sun went away and I was cold, so I changed back. We were on the beach for a while. Around 4 we decided to leave the beach and look at some of the fancy stores along the boardwalk. I saw a Longchamp store that sells this purse that I really want. I was like this close to buying it but they didn't have the color I wanted in the right size so I decided to wait. But now I really, really want one so I think I'll buy it from the store here in Paris. It will be a nice souvenir for myself. We walked back to where the theatre is for the Cannes Film Festival and I just had to take a picture on the stairs like all the celebrities! It was so cool, not gonna lie. They were actually setting up all the stuff for the festival because it's in a few weeks. After taking pictures on the stairs and looking at all the handprints on the ground from celebrities we tried looking for somewhere to eat for dinner. Of course no one could agree on a place, and we ended up going back to Nice and bought more stuff from the grocery store and ate at the apartment. I was fine with that but at that point I really wanted sea food so I was kind of bummed that we didn't eat in Cannes. The last picture is of me on the red carpet. My shirt matches, which is lame but whatevs, it was the red carpet and it was awesome.

Saturday was my last day in Nice so I thought it would be a good idea to walk along the boardwalk to the old part of Nice and hang out there. I had my map and I figured it would take us like 20 minutes to walk down there. I was wrong. It was like an hour long walk just to the old part of town. My feet were so sore because I decided to wear my new sandals and they are pretty flat. We also ran into a scary fist fight between 2 guys while we were walking. That was fun....The view from the boardwalk was amazing of course! I really enjoyed old Nice. There were all these tiny roads and cute shops. There was even an open air market going on when we arrived which was really cool. I saw a lot of restarurants that I thought might be good for lunch because I figured that going out for lunch would be much cheaper than going out for dinner. However, everyone wanted to go out for dinner, so I missed out of sea food again. :( I bought something for home...I won't say what it is, but I think it's pretty cool. We walked around forever looking for this H&M that Jacqueline wanted to go to but once we found it we discovered that it was closed because it was May 1st and I guess that's some big holiday here or something. At that point I really had to pee and my feet were hurting so bad. Me, Diane and Jacqueline got the key from Colie and left to go back to the apartment because we all needed to pee. It took us an hour to walk back because I walking so slow because my feet really hurt. We finally made it back to the apartment and I couldn't of been happier. This picture is of the old part of Nice. The streets were so small!!

Everyone else got back an hour later. The plan was to hang out at the apartment for a little while and then go back out for dinner, but that never happened. Everyone was pretty tired so we just decided to get pizza from this shop down the street. It was pretty good but it wasn't sea food. I guess I did save money by not going out to eat but still....I really wanted some muscles! I went to bed around 11:30 that night because I had to be up at 4:30am to get to the train station on time to head back to Paris.

It was quite an adventure getting back to the train station. The bus didn't start running until 6:05 and I was afraid I would've missed my train which left at 6:35 if I took the bus. The sun wasn't even up when I left. I also had a hard time getting out of the gate of the apartment complex because it was locked. Luckily this guy was leaving in his car to go to work so I just left when he opened the gate. I ran into 2 drunk guys in their 20s who didn't have nice things to say but I just ignored them and kept walking. I also stepped in dog poop too. Great. I got to the station around 6:05....I left at 5:15. Needless to say, it was a long walk in the dark. The train left right on time and I had my own seat until the last stop it made in Avignon when this woman got on and sat next to me. It wasn't that bad because it was only like 2 and a half hours from Avignon to Paris. I read a lot.....117 pages of Eclipse, which I started reading again because the movie comes out 10 days after I get home....duh! We got to Paris around 12:10....a few minutes early. I was pretty tired and wasn't looking forward to the 30 minute metro ride back to the apartment. I walked home in the rain from the metro once I got to my stop. I wasn't very happy.

Norton flipped out when I opened the door. It was cute. When I got into my room I noticed that Renee mopped the floor and she bought me a plant. It's cute. The flowers are white and look like little bells. She clearly missed me. I tooks a shower right away because I felt disgusting and then did laundry and ate a quick lunch. I tried not to take a nap because I knew if I did I wouldn't sleep at night. I ate dinner and Renee came home around 8:30. She asked how my trip went and I told her it was good, but not very sunny so I wasn't as tan as I wanted to be. She laughed. She then said that Jean-Francois was coming tonight (again) for a week. Seriously, I see Jean-Francois more than I see Renee! He got here around 9 and said hi. I went to bed at 10:30 because I was so tired and fell asleep right away and didn't wake up until 8:45 when the construction noise started. They are working on the electricity throughout the apartment complex and it's very loud and annoying.

I ate a very fast lunch with Renee and Jean-Francois and then rushed to school to find out that my class was cancelled. It would've been nice to know that it was cancelled before I left, but they don't do things that way, you have to wait until the secretary (yes, we have a secretary) to put a note on the door at 2:05pm (class starts at 2) saying that class in cancelled. So, I left and went to Starbucks and then to the store to pick up some bread and then headed back to the noisey apartment. Renee and Jean-Francois were like what are you doing here? and I told them that class was cancelled. I also don't have class tomorrow so awesome.

Jean-Francois took another bath today....thought I'd mention that because it's weird. Now he's making dinner and it smells so good. This week is going to be super crazy. I have a test Wednesday, going to the ballet at the Opera on Thursday, and then Saturday and Sunday I'll be in the Loire Valley looking at my future homes.....Chateaux. hahah. I'll try to update, probably on Friday so keep an eye out for that.

Sorry this post was so long....I had a lot to explain

Bisous!

also, I didn't proof read this because it's too effing long to read again. Sorry if stuff is spelt wrong