Over the River and Through the Woods

I have done a miracle: I spent a week in Italy without anything getting stolen. Woohoo! Anyway, so I’m back in Bordeaux, and while it’s nice to have some sense of familiarity I really do miss home a lot. So… here we go. (Insanely long blog post ahead; if you want a quick summary, go to the end.)

First stop: Rome! We leave Friday, the 23rd. Traveling is me, my roommate Danita, and my travel buddy Becky, who is the type of person where I wonder where she’s been all my life. We meet at noon, we take the bus, it’s all good. We get to the airport with about two hours to kill, which is just the way I like it. We relax, we read a magazine on Paris, I take pictures of planes, it was all good. The flight over was fine; we were in this petite, petite plane only three seats across, it was pretty cool. We had to check our backpacks as we walked up to the plane due to it being too crowded inside… Flight itself was uninteresting, a bit less than two hours. We landed, and they had just thrown our bags onto the wet ground. Lovely. We take this bus-thing to the main airport, with me and Danita staggering and tumbling with nothing to hold onto, since we were too short to reach the handles on top. It was pretty funny. Then we go through and we meet Giulio, Becky’s family friend who’ll be housing us for a few nights. He’s incredibly nice, very hospitable, an incredible experience staying with him and his family. Let me say this right now, though: Italian driving is insane. Absolutely bloody insane. Lanes are merely guidelines that no one follows, everyone just kind of wanders around cutting each other off every minute, weaving through traffic (doesn’t matter which way they’re going, they use all of the lanes, even the oncoming traffic lane!), and coming within inches of each other constantly. Heart attack. So we arrive fairly late in Rome, drop off Danita at her hostel, and have dinner chez Giulio. It was this French gateau, with mashed potatoes and pruischetta (how do you spell that?) and cheese and breadcrumbs and GOD. His wife, Vittoria, was an amazing cook. We decide to just stay in, since we were pretty tired.

The next day, Day One, we did EVERYTHING in Rome… We started from the Piazza del Popolo and zigzagged down, hitting up the Spanish Steps (I loved the view from the top, loved that in general), the Fountain of Trevi (not actually one of my favourite things, I wasn’t that impressed), and then we got gelato at a place frequently called Rome’s best Giolitti. And I’ll believe it; I got watermelon, chocolate, and hazelnut, and it was AMAZING. Absolutely fantastic. While eating this gelato, we got… really lost. Wandering around, we were just pulling out the map when one of us said, “hey… is that the Pantheon?” as we emerged from an alleyway. And sure enough, it was! So that’s our fun story of Rome; we just kind of stumbled onto that building. It was pretty cool, we couldn’t go inside because there was prayer but it was still cool to look at. Continuing, we went to the Piazza Navona, which I really, really liked, lots of life. Then we meandered, saw some ruins, saw some buildings, and ended up at the Giant White Thing (AKA the Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II). This was one of my favourite parts of Rome; it’s freaking HUGE, it’s fun to climb, when you get to the top there’s this fantastic panoramic view of Rome, with Ancient on one side and New on the other. Positively incredible. We wandered around here and ended up at the Campidoglia, I think it was called, and we relaxed there for a good time. Then we meandered around until we hit the Teatro Marcello, some very cool ruins. We walked around there, got nice and lost, and after a couple tiring hours, made it back to ancient Rome. Can I just say that the Coliseum is as cool as everyone says it is? We paid the twelve euros each to get in (actually, I did – since Becky paid for the plane tickets, I was on the job paying for all the food, museums, etc to pay her back), we stood in line, and my god was it cool. We spent a good couple hours inside there, but first we ate pizza right next to there, with a gorgeous view of it. By this time it was around five or six, so the sun was setting and I was getting chilly. But I persevered! We wandered Rome at night, hitting up again the Pantheon (went inside this time, very cool) and the Fountain of Trevi. Still not that impressed. Then we took the metro back and crashed.

Rome’s metro system is very cool. I freaking love public transit; why can’t the United States (or hell, mostly just LA) get a clue? This one even has TVs with commercials and little stories with this thief guy. It was pretty cool.

Anyway. So day two, Rome again. We get up nice and early and go to Vatican City. We decided to do St Peter’s Basilica first, with only a couple minutes in line. That was very cool, though the Pieta was closed. We then got into the mighty line for the Vatican Museum… An interesting thing to do indeed. We were waiting, and we heard the British family behind us talking, since the father had gone and was talking about how humongous the line was. Now, this fact that I’m about to tell you is very important: Becky and I had spent the vacation speaking mostly French, including while in line. So we start chatting with them in French accents, and then our favourite game was started. It wasn’t to be mean, or to hurt anyone; we were just bored. But oh, did we have a good time with it! So an hour and a half later, we made it into the museum, which was overall very cool. Favourite part might be the Library, with the guys going “No Photo. No Video. No Noise.” Got some pictures anyway. We left there about twelve-thirty, missing the popes’ blessing (but he reminds us too strongly of the Emperor, so the blessing might have become a blessé if you know what I mean…) Anyway. We then went to Forum and we were there until sunset; the ticket cost was covered in the Coliseum ticket, so we figured we’d use it wisely. We then went back to Giulio’s and packed for our night train that night – we hadn’t been able to buy our tickets online (stupid Italian internet site) but Giulio had very kindly taken us to a travel agency, and I bought them there.

Anyway, we got to the train station a couple hours early, talked (in French accents) to this Brazilian girl who was waiting with us. Standing on the platform, there was another train there, and these American high school students weren’t sure if it was theirs or not, so half of them were waiting on the platform and half of them were on the train asking. (You know where this is going.) After a minute and several loud whistles blowing, the train left, with the students yelling and then freaking out and calling each other. I giggled. Our train was at 22h30, or 10.30 if you prefer, and we’d get into Venice about 5h30. Not a happy trip. So we’re in these six-person compartments, with our backpacks in our laps before we stuck them under our seats due to it being crowded. Just sitting, your knees were bumping into the person’s across from you (except me, I freaking LOVE being short). So in this compartment are me and Becky, along with this sleeping woman on one side. On the other side, this guy who was between Middle Eastern and black, a guy who I think was Indian, and then a hobo-looking Italian guy who just slept. The light was off most of the night, so most of the train ride involved me and the Indian guy staring at each other trying not to fall asleep, while the other four snoozed. Around midnight or one I finally dozed off a bit, clutching my bag protectively. Nothing bad happened, thank god… But about two I woke up, and decided to start texting people about the Angels game going on. Sad that we lost. =( We arrived in Venice when it was still dark, so we decided to sit in the train station until the sun rose. At this point I kind of bent over and just fell asleep on my backpack, I was pretty exhausted. Slept for about half an hour while Becky kept watch, since she had slept on the train. Then we finally got up, tried to figure out how the vaporetti work, failed, got on one without tickets, got to our hotel. We couldn’t check in until noon, but we dropped off our backpacks and went to “explore the town” anyway.

So the vaporetti are essentially the buses of Venice; since cars aren’t allowed on the main island, they have boats instead. It’s 6.50 euros per person per one-way trip, so we decided to buy one and just not validate, and play the stupid tourist card if anyone asked. We never got checked, so no worries. Lets see… so we went to the main island, to St Marco’s piazza. No one was really there, not even the pigeons yet, so we just sat, I sketched (to look legit), and then around ten we started wandering, since we were exhausted and falling asleep. We came upon a Hard Rock Café, which sounded REALLY good to us, but it supposedly didn’t open until eleven. Okay, we sat, watched gondolas go by, came back at eleven. They still weren’t open, and weren’t until 11h45 or so. Whatever. We ate, and it was godly – the first real American food in two months? Heck yes. Anyway, we ate, it was amazing. Then we went back to our hotel and slept. It felt incredible. I woke up at five, took a shower, got all refreshed, we left at about 6.30. Wandered Venice at night, which was still even more beautiful. We ate dinner after a few hours at this really nice place, we each got a glass of wine, an entrée, and we shared a dessert, along with a bottle of water. The price? A whopping 50 euros together. Damn you, Venice, damn you. Totally worth it, but goddamn. Then we headed back to our hotel and slept.

So Day Four. Venice proper, I liked calling it. We got up and we had the free breakfast at the hotel, which was heavenly… bread and nutella and CREAM CHEESE and lots of other delicious things. We stole some bread for later food and then headed out. Becky met up with her old Italian friend, and they were speaking Italian and having a good time and I quickly became a third wheel, so I said I’d meet up with them in a couple of hours and headed off by myself. Had a good time meandering, shopping, writing postcards. Then I met up with them and her friend headed off, and the two of us went to Murano, the glass-making island. It was very cool, wandering the shops, seeing all the glass, admiring the gondolas. This is where over a hundred euros of my hard-earned money went… Worth it? Of course. I’m just not allowed to eat for the next year or so. And it was legitly about 80% stuff for other people, so I’m really pleased with it. Hopefully all that glass will make it home… We were there for several hours, for a little we watched glass being made, it was all good. We headed back to the main island when we got hungry, we ate at the train station. Bored and with about three hours to kill, we wandered around and ended up sitting in a park watching children play. Creepy? Perhaps. I just thought it was interesting that you can still understand what’s going on with the kids, even in another language. It was adorable and fun, leave me alone. Anyway, we left after a bit, got on our train. Much less shady this time, much more like an airplane. We sat with this couple from Buffalo, NY, who were visiting their daughter studying abroad in Venice, and then were going to Rome. We had a good time chatting with them, then got off in Florence after a couple of hours. Got to our hostel, and the guy there talked our ears off (mostly in Italian) before explaining to us that our room was actually a couple of blocks away in another building. Lovely. So we exhaustedly dragged ourselves over there, got to our room, which was REALLY nice.

Part 3, Florence. Our big problem… our two roommates, a mom and son from Mexico, snored like bears. They were very nice and whatnot, but goddamn. So anyway, didn’t sleep much the first night, but after they got up at six and left, we slept until ten… we missed breakfast, but that sleep felt good. Then we got up, ate lunch (fruits and breads obtained in previous places, awesome) in a piazza, went to the Academia gallery. Loved it, saw the David, checked him out for a while, loved the sculptures there. Spent about two hours in it. Then we wandered, saw the Duomo, had some weird French woman take pictures of us eating gelato (tiramisu flavor for me), talked about M-Preg in the cathedral (probably the reason the pope didn’t bless us), went down to the river. We ended the day by climbing up to Michelangelo’s piazza and watching the sunset there, with a beautiful view of the city. Good times. The night, however, we found an American bar and were there from five-thirty to nine-thirty. We had dinner, it was empty and kind of awkward. But it got fun we started the drinks… We mostly shared eight, so that’s four a piece. It was a good night. We made the several kilometer walk back quite easily, and collapsed in bed.

Day Six, I woke up at three-thirty due to snoring, felt rather sick because it sounded like the guy was hacking up a lung. We got up around nine, packed, checked out at ten. Went down to the Uffizi gallery, got COMPLETELY lost, as in “hey, that’s the train station, that’s the opposite direction we wanted to be going!” lost. Why is it that drunk, we can find our way around fine, but sober, we get turned around? Anywho. We eventually made our way there, stood in line for an hour and a half or so. I was kind of grumpy about this, I wasn’t feeling too hot in the first place and there were a lot of things I wanted to see. We go into the museum, and after climbing the three flights of stairs (we felt like we were going to puke – what do you think the fine would be for upchucking on the lady taking tickets, or the Birth of Venus painting?) we split up. I did the museum in about an hour… I thought it was actually HIGHLY overrated. Met up again with Becky, and we had to pick up our luggage at two, so we made our way back there, then to the train station. In waiting four hours in a café, Becky and I had many deep, intellectual conversations, rather like the night before… Then on our train back to Rome, I got to sit in the corridor. It was fun. Getting back to Rome and seeing Giulio and family again was pretty damn fantastic, I must say.

Day Seven, day of sadness. =( I was on my own here, since Becky wanted to go to a gallery I wasn’t that interested in. Woke up at seven, got a text from Danita (who was also back in Rome), so we met up and went shopping together. We wandered, we got gelato, we went in the Pantheon. We had a really good time checking up, and then I went back for lunch at 2.30. Our flight was at 5.50, but we figured that, you know, it’s kind of annoying always waiting three hours for flights and trains, we might as well try the whole “get there an hour before your flight” thing. Biggest. Mistake. Ever. We did just that; we left at 3.30, got to the train station at 4.00, took the train to the airport and got there about 4.50. It took us a while to find the place to get our tickets, even though we had already checked in online, and then security wouldn’t let me through with this letter opener I had bought in Murano for my dad. I tried to run back to check my bag (without shoes on, I didn’t have time to put them back in after security) but the very cranky, snotty girl at the desk said I couldn’t, so I had to leave the letter opener. RIP, you were beautiful. Ran back to security, dashed through, Becky and I ran to our gate, ran down to the ground, ran to the bus to take us back to the plane, ran onto the plane. I then put my shoes back on, as we nervously laughed that thank god we didn’t miss it.

Being back in Bordeaux is nice, but it’s made me realize how much I really miss the familiarity of home. I’m at the stage where I really just can’t wait to be back there, not that I’m not having a good time or loving it here or anything. It’s just kind of feels like a long vacation that I want to have finished up now… but we’re at the half-way point now, and I have so much thrown at me in the next month and a half that I don’t think I’ll have much time to worry about it. So now I’m just relaxing; it’s Halloween and there are several things I can do, I’m not sure which I’ll do. My housemates are having a party, not sure how long I’ll be there; Sherlock’s having a party there, might drop in there. Not really sure. Enjoying just relaxing and not doing anything for the moment except writing this and listening to music. I really should go and buy some groceries, since I have no food except some cans of vegetables, but I am le lazy. No update on the medical appointment for my visa; I give them another week before I drop in. I apologize for the insanely long blog entry… I promise you don’t have to read it all. Here’s a summary:

Rome was really really cool. Ruins, giant white monument thing.
Overnight trains are shady.
Venice was exhausting, but beautiful and relaxing.
Florence was alright, not my favourite.
Almost missed my flight back home.

I now speak a little bit of Italian, it’s cool. Ciao.

My Dad is at ALCS and I'm not. ANGST.

The French government is a pain in the ass, but I can forgive them when they occasionally redeem themselves.

So for the visa process, part of finishing it is going to this medical appointment, which included various things and moneys. This visit needed to be done before we had been in the country for three months, AKA by mid-November. Our directors had told us that we would get the date in the mail late October, and it would probably be in late November or early December. Then I got mine before everyone else, and it was scheduled for the 29th, when I was due to return from Rome on the 30th. Naturally I was very upset, but I had gone through a lot of thinking and figured that okay, I'll go talk to the OFII (Office Français de l’Immigration and de l’Intergration), but I wasn't expecting anything because the directors had continually told us that it was completely unchangeable; rather like they how told us that it would be in November. I figured that it was worth a try, at least, but I would end up calling Air France and try switching my flight to the 28th out of Florence, or just buy a new ticket and eat the $200 on the other one from Rome on the 30th. I was being a good, mature person, accepting that life sometimes throws shit at you and there's nothing you can do about it.

This mindset clearly paid off. I went to the OFII the first chance I got, today before my class. I waited for a bit, then talked to a very nice woman there, and I luckily didn’t even have to explain what was going on (later findings showed that I had gotten a response via e-mail from the office right before I got there, so common sense leads that she had probably read my e-mail) before she agreed to reschedule my appointment. I didn’t believe it at first, but she went, made a photocopy of my paper, and wrote “Excused, reschedule” on it! So as far as I know, I’m in the clear, and from what I understand I’m just waiting for a new appointment. I am A-OKAY with this. French people are just that, so it shouldn’t interfere with any other travel plans because they don’t work on the weekends, nor do they generally work very much on Fridays. So I am happy as a dog, my Italy plans are all go, and it’s good.

Italy’s looking to be super exciting, we’re hitting up Rome for two days, Venice for two days, Florence for two days, then back to Rome for another day and then flying back out of there. I’m totally happy to be going with Becky, she’s one of the few (AKA like, two) people that I’ve clicked with here. Studying up on my Italian, that’s my next language of choice! Plus, I love getting away from Bordeaux, then getting back and getting to know the city all over again. After that we have a free weekend (Halloween! Is it already the end of October?), then Geneva, then Paris, then Edinburgh, then free weekend, then Lyon, then two free weekends, me leaving on the Sunday of the second weekend. Looking forward to coming back to reality, though I know I’ve got a ways to go. It’s still cold, and I’m still having a good time. I love French food. So, so much. I will miss being able to just grab a baguette or go to a patisserie. Or buy two-Euro wine and have it still be amazing.

And the Angels better open up a bottle of home-made whoopass on the Yanks, or else I will be very sad. Very sad indeed. Especially because I’m staying up late for tonight’s game, and I have class at 8h30. And I’m going to miss game 6 and 7, then games 1 and 2 for the World Series. Very, very, very sad about that. I’ll recruit someone to send me texts with scores…

Reading Romeo and Juliet in French. It’s awesome, and possibly even more vulgar. Probably last blog entry before I return from Italy.

Culture Battles

I have won a battle of bitchiness with a French woman. I feel rather accomplished.

So today I went grocery shopping. This wasn’t that unordinary; I go once, maybe twice a week. Usually spend about ten euros. I wander around the store, usually find some good things to eat. Today, I was in the cheese aisle, I believe it was, when I saw this little girl running around while her mother shopped. Now, people can criticize American parenting all they want; French parenting ain’t any better. So I’m watching this girl, maybe five or six, run around, grabbing things, being crazy. I roll my eyes and ignore her. The little girl then decided that it would be a good idea to run into me, full-speed, knocking me over.

I get up, grumbling to myself, only to see a very angry French Mother. She starts yelling at me, and continues for about five minutes, about how I should watch out for her daughter, and I was irresponsible for running into her, and how rude Americans are. I tried to escape several times, but she yelled at me more when I tried to do so. Eventually she walks off in a huff, and I sigh and continue on with my shopping. I finish my trip by using the easy self-check out things; they’re basically the exact same things as in the States, so I like them a great deal. As I’m ringing up my items, who should come in line behind me but Madame French Bitch. Once she realizes it’s me, she rolls her eyes, insisting that I hurry up. Her little girl is squirming, not liking the idea of standing in line. So I just smile sweetly and continue scanning my items. My total was around twelve euros, and I had a ten in my pocket. Instead, I pulled out my coin purse, and slowly, painstakingly took the effort to search through it, finding every single last coin to make that purchase. A couple of times I even “accidentally” pulled out some pounds and said “oops! My bad, that’s not a Euro!” She continued to glare at me and say “dépêche-toi, dépêche-toi, utilise les notes!” But I’d merely shrug and smile, saying, “pardon, Madame, je suis étudiante, je n’ai pas de notes, je suis pauvre.” I had a great amount of fun. Like really, taking five minutes to put in my money shouldn’t be so enjoyable. But finally, I had to pack away my purchases and move along. I made sure to smile cheerily at la Madame and wish her a “bonne soirée” before I left, though.

In other news. It has gotten very, very cold in Bordeaux suddenly. Naturally, cold is a relative term, so let me define. Right now, I looked up on the weather site, and it says that it’s “50F/10C degrees, feels like 44/7.” It was 75/24, at least, on Monday. Now, anyone who knows me understands that I love the cold. I thrive in it, I’m excited to live in a place with actual weather changes. So while it’s a little sudden (I walked outside this morning to 38/3 degree freezing cold, expecting it to be about twice that temperature) I am loving it. What I am not loving is hearing everyone else COMPLAIN about it. Yes, it’s cold. Yes, I know it’s cold, you’ve said it ten times in the past five minutes. No, we don’t seem to have a heater. No, I don’t particularly care, it’s called a blanket. I don’t want to hear everyone moan and whine about how this is ridiculous, why is it so cold, yadda yadda yadda. Shut up. Really. It’s Europe. It’s not California, it’s Europe. If you wanted to wear flip flops all year, you should have stayed in California. Rant over.

New rant commencing. Methodology. I want to like the professor, I really do. But it’s really quite frustrating to have her always talk about how the French are so accepting of other people’s ideas, and then give us a quote and tell us that the only correct interpretation of the quote is hers, and if you came up with something else it doesn’t matter how good your writing or whatever you did is, it’s wrong if it doesn’t agree with her mindset. It’s very frustrating, because I’d like to think I’m smarter than that. I can’t have someone tell me that this is how I need to think and write, because I have my own thoughts, my own feelings, my opinions, and my own damn interpretations. And I don’t really appreciate walking up to the prof to show her my work for her to glance at it and cross it out, saying, “no, I don’t like this, it’s wrong.” And people say the French are open to new ideas.

I apologize for this rather rant-filled, angsty blog. Next time will be more cheery.

London - like an older New England

I’ve spent a couple of minutes thinking of some clever or witty way to begin this blog, but no inspiration has come to me. So I’ll just jump right into it.

London was really awesome. I don’t think I loved it as much as I loved Paris, but I would prefer to live there over Paris – weird? Perhaps. I did enjoy it a great deal, though, it was much more friendly and familiar to me than anything I’ve had in the past couple of months, for two main reasons that I noticed. The first is pretty plain: everything was in English. This made me very, very happy, and confused me for a little bit at first. The second I realized on the bus back to the airport; London’s architecture and overall setup as very similar to (big shock here) New England back in the States. Minus the whole “New” part… I realized that it reminded me a lot of anything similar to home that I’ve seen, not to mention that I was hanging out with one of my best friends from back home, so I was in an incredibly familiar atmosphere. The only regret I have is not having enough time there… I got into my hostel about nine PM on Friday and left around 8h30 AM Sunday morning. Nowhere near as much time as I’d love to have in that city, but I feel like it’s one of the European cities I can return to several times in my life… hopefully. It’s made me realize that I really want to go backpacking in Europe after I finish college. Starting to save up as soon as I get back in the States!

So, London itself. I had quite a good time… I landed in Luton airport, about thirty miles outside of the city, and it was – surprise – raining. I was quite happy to be back on the ground, though; unsurprisingly after my whole January death threat, I still rather hate commercial flying (though I love going up with my dad!). Anyway. Killed some time at the airport before taking the two-hour bus ride into town, snoozed. (I had been up until seven or so the night before, listening to the Angels CRUSH the Red Sox! Still so joyous about that. This did mean, however, that I was exhausted.) I killed time by watching some TV in the court room of my hostel, the Clink, then went down and had a drink or two in the bar while waiting for my friends to come into King’s Cross. Met some interesting people, mostly Australians. Went to bed after Cally and gang got there, around three. This hostel was again quite different from the Aloha back in Paris; twelve beds instead of six. Kind of interesting.

Saturday we got up early, had breakfast, went on a free tour around London where we saw all the main sights, including the Changing of the Guards. (See Facebook album http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=113885&id=605917964&ref=nf for more on that.) Our tour guide, Pip, was very cute, very adorable. We went out to lunch as a giant group with him, and I had, shock and amazement, fish and chips! I figured it was part of the local cuisine, and I had to. It was pretty good, fishiness aside. After we wandered around to some of the sites before going back to the Clink. The rest of the night was spent napping, Henri, Cally, and I went to dinner over by the London Bridge (Mediterranean food, it was amazing), and then we just generally lounged around. Then Sunday I got up nice and early, hugged a sleepy Cally goodbye, then headed back to the bus and back to Luton.

So I definitely need to get back to London, that’s my first thought. I feel like there’s so much more that I need to see, though I think I got the basics done. Lets see… I rode the Underground plenty, I lost one day ticket and had to buy another (a single trip is four pounds and a day trip is 5.60 (Cally, you still owe me back for yours!) so you should really just buy a day…), though when I discovered I had lost mine I did end up having to dash through the exitway after an old lady in order to get out of the Tube. Other interesting stories… Oh, being in London the day that Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize was definitely interesting. While he’s generally liked overseas, I think just about everyone’s response is “wait- what? He hasn’t even done anything yet!” Talked with several people on that, getting generally the same opinion from everyone. So to finish that off, I know that I have at least one night in London left, the night before I go back to the States. Many thoughts on that… I could spend my last night in Europe drinking, or just wandering the city looking at the Christmas decorations, I could go to a play… The possibilities are limitless. I think I’ll be staying in a hotel rather than a hostel, though, since I’ll have two giant suitcases full of stuff, and I’ll pay for the extra security.

So, other life other than London… how about other travels? Yesterday, made two big travel plans: bought my plane tickets to Italy for a week with Becky, and plane tickets to Geneva for a weekend with Danita. Both look to be fun… Italy will be from October 23rd – 30th, we’re flying in and out of Rome, but hoping to go via train to Venice and Florence. Yet the stupid Italian train website doesn’t accept American credit cards, so we’ll just buy tickets when we get there. It’ll be an adventure, really. As well as that, I’m looking at another Paris weekend and a weekend in Edinburgh, both in November. Add Lyon into the picture, and I have a whole of three spare weekends before I leave. Not complaining at all, though, really. While I love Bordeaux, I see enough of it during the week, and I don’t necessarily need to be here all the time. On a good note, though, it’s cooled down so it’s in the sixties. Not quite the cold I was looking for, but I suppose we’ll get there eventually. (And if not, hell, I’m going to Edinburgh and Geneva!)

Other news… classes are fine. Uninteresting, surprisingly enough. Still on a baseball high after the Angels utterly crushed the Red Sox – I couldn’t help but whoop when they walked Torii, and then first pitch Vladdy hit gave us the win. Classic. Trying out our washing machine for the first time since we got here… The door doesn’t work so you have to use a knife to open it, which made me a little hesitant (I don’t exactly want my clothes to be stuck in a laundry machine to get mouldy) but the others have been using it without any problems, so I figure why not. Maybe my clothes will actually be clean now… What else. Honestly, there isn’t much going on right now. Travels, trying not to spend money while in Bordeaux. Classes. Trying to make my bright blue coat a signature trait of me and coldness. (And damn was it cold in London! Even though it was bright and sunny during Saturday.)

I think that’s all I have to say for now. Peace out.

The Unusual Becoming the Normal

Wine makes things better. I just had to get that out of the way right now.

So the last week and a half have been… interesting, if boring. Contradiction, eh? Long story short, I got mildly sick with a cold, and I was having serious motivation problems with classes. It’s a bit difficult to follow, especially when you’re sitting in uncomfortable chairs from eight in the morning until noon, so I was getting the whole “I’m going to fail anyway, so what’s the point?” feeling after missing a couple of classes due to a fever and cough. However, now that I’ve gotten myself back in, talked to family, made friends in classes, I think I’m feeling better. We’ll have to see. Hopefully I’ll be able to make my way through these classes and not fail… I don’t think my GPA could stand that.

Other than that, life has been fairly boring. As said, I spent most of last week sleeping and resting, trying to get rid of a cold. Friday I saw “La Proposition” AKA “The Proposal”, which was fun. Saturday I spent most of the day just meandering about the city, staying in places and just writing in my little notebook. It was exciting, people thought I looked artistic and took pictures! Saturday night I decided that it would be a brilliant idea to go and get drunk, so I met up with a couple friends and had, I believe, about two (maybe three) tequila sunrises, a Baileys Coco, a shot of tequila, and a shot of Jager. Yet I still managed to walk home just fine… It was a good night. We walked through Quinconces singing songs from Avenue Q. Becky decided that she wanted to go to Italy with me, so I have a friend going with me – and she speaks Italian! It will be good. Plans for that are in motion, along with plans for Lyon. Plans for going to London this weekend, very excited about that. My poor, poor bank account. Anyway, Sunday was also spent exploring Bordeaux with Becky. Good times were had.

Let’s see, life stories… I’ve decided that French hate music. Sure, everyone goes around with their iPod earphones in their ears… But if you so much as bob your head to the music, people glare at you. Me being me, I always walk around mouthing the lyrics, and people just give me the weirdest looks, like “freaking Americans, what the hell.” It’s kind of funny. Also, yesterday we went to our landlady to give her rent, and in the typical French fashion we sat around chatting for an hour. She ended up giving us a bottle of wine, which was pretty badass. I do like my landlady. Hmmm… Other than that, I can’t say that anything really interesting has happened. Looking forward to London this weekend, hoping it won’t be too much of an adventure. My Tuesdays suck, what with nine hours of class. Hence the wine. Definitely looking forward to the playoffs coming up back home… we will CRUSH Boston!