Having Daisy here in Lyon was amazing. Having Sam here in Lyon was amazing. That’s really all I need to say about that.
So, after Sam left for Cologne last Thursday morning, Daisy and I embarked on our trip to Madrid. And speaking of amazing, that’s what it was…
Thursday: walked around town a bit after dropping our things off at our hostel. Sadly, my friend Courtney wasn’t still in Madrid (she studied abroad there first semester), but she did give me a huge list of things to do, places to eat, places to go, etc. One of the restaurants she recommended was this Bocadillos (small sandwiches) place called Cerveceria 100 Mondatidos; Daisy and I decided to check it out. It ended up being our favorite place to eat and we went there every single day we were in Madrid. They have 100 bocadillos to choose from, each for only 1.20 euros, and all the ones I tried were delicious.
After we ate, we tried to find our friend Ari who had told us he was going to be in Madrid. After many failed attempts at calling him, we actually went to the hotel he told us he was at, got ignored by the deskmen, tried to find his room ourselves, couldn’t, after about 25 minutes finally got to ask the man at the desk to help us find him upon which he told us that Ari had LEFT that morning. Awesome, big Ar, if you’re reading this.
To be fair, we were later informed that Ari was staying elsewhere and that he was going to some club called Joy that night, but by that time we were pretty exhausted so we just passed out.
Friday: Got some churros and chocolate. Then we went to the Prado, one of Madrid’s famous art museums. There was a wide variety of art there, mainly 12th-19th century Spanish painting. Velazquez’s Las Meninas, probably the only thing I really remember studying in Art History in high school, was there. The most impressive piece I saw, though, was Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights. I don’t want to sound pretentious, but seeing this painting was borderline life changing. It was truly amazing.
After hitting the Prado we went to Parque Buen Retiro, as it was right next door. Courtney highly recommended spending time in this park, and I remembered reading one of her blog posts about it, and seeing her pictures of it. She’s right: it is an absolutely incredible park. I didn’t think any park could come close to comparing (in terms of how much I love it) to Parque Guell in Barcelona, but I was wrong. This park is completely different from Guell, but I loved it so much. It’s enormous, and it is beautiful. Daisy and I lounged around, reading, listening to music, and playing silly middle school games like Soulmate and Lemon.
I should also mention that the weather was fantastic. It was between 75 and 85 degrees the entire time we were there.
Eventually we headed back to our hostel for a bit before going to Las Cuevas de Sesamo, another one of Court’s recommendations: it’s a really cool basement bar famous for its sangria. It was an incredibly popular place; Daisy and I had to wait about 25 minutes to get seated, but the wait was well worth it. It was packed, with hoards of 20somethings at every table, each table donned with a giant pitcher of chilled sangria. There were also lots of philosophical and/or inspirational quotes all over the walls. Of course they were all in Spanish, so I didn’t know what any of them meant, but Dais was able to translate a few, and they were aesthetically pleasing in any case. Additionally, there was live piano playing. It was a strange mix, a tuxedo’d man playing classical tunes on the piano while young Spaniards yell and laugh loudly and drunkenly. But everyone was happy and having a great time, it was a lot of fun. Also, Daisy and I met two other Americans here-Evan, a junior at Tufts studying abroad in London, and his sister Becky, a senior in high school, visiting him during her Spring Break. They were great, and from Oregon! Thus, Evan and I actually knew a lot of the same people.
We left the sangria bar together and went to a couple more bars before going to a club called however you say “8:30” in Spanish. This club was awesome. They played great music, and we danced all night long.
Saturday: We’d decided to meet Evan and Becky at La Mallorquina (according to Courtney, the best bakery in the entire world, or at least in Spain) in the late morning. Courtney insisted that we get a “napolitana de chocolate,” which we did, and it was pretty amazing. It was similar to a pain au chocolat, but different… I can’t really explain how. But it was damn good. The bakery was really cool in general as well; you stand at a little pastry bar and eat your pastry and drink your coffee. Alright well, it doesn’t sound that exciting, but it’s fun.
After that we ate lunch at another Courtney recommended locale: la Finca de Susana. Apparently this place is entirely run by student chefs, which means that despite the extremely classy interior décor, the food is not very expensive. Unfortunately on Saturdays they don’t serve the “menu of the day,” which is what Courtney recommended we do (starter, main course, desert and wine all for only 8 euros!) but the food was still quite good.
After lunch, we all went to the Reina Sofia, another world famous art museum in Madrid. Personally, I quite preferred this museum to the Prado. There was a ton of Surrealism, which I love: incredible Dali and Picasso collections. The most famous piece in the museum (and I have to say, seeing it really was completely mind blowing) is Picasso’s Guernica. Quite an experience.
When we were done at the Reina Sofia we went back to Retiro (the Prado, the park, and the Reina Sofia are all in the same place) and explored new parts of the park that we hadn’t already visited. Evan and Becky had also already been here, so we tried to find places none of us had been to (it wasn’t difficult. I’m telling you, this park is gigantic). Once again, we ended up lounging around, this time with ham croissant sandwiches in tow.
After a while, we all went back to our respective hotels/hostels to rest, and met back up at the bocadillos place for dinner later on. We were planning on going to a hookah bar, but I had to wake up at 5:00 AM (really 4:00 AM-daylight savings finally decided to happen in Europe, on the day I had to catch an early flight. Cool.) so Daisy and I said goodbye to Evan and Becky and went back to the hostel after dinner.
All in all, a really wonderful trip. It was great to be able to travel somewhere with Daisy, too. I wish we both had more time and money to go somewhere else together. Regardless, I couldn’t have asked for more out of my time in Madrid, and I wish I could go back before leaving Europe this summer. And Courtney, while you weren’t actually there with us, you were an absolutely marvelous tour guide.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Just Call Me Peekaboo Street
Keeping a blog up to date is not easy, friends and family. It is not easy.
So, pretty much a month ago, I went back to Switzerland and Barcelona during February break. Both were wonderful. Sarah came with me to Switzerland, and we had a really fun, relatively relaxing time. I stayed with my best friend from school there, Laura, and her family. Laura lives in Monpreveyres, which is the tiny town I lived in when I lived in Switzerland. On our first day there we went for a walk around the town and I was sent on a trip down memory lane. We walked on my old street, by my old house, by the steps I would wait for the bus on… It was nice, and it was comforting to see that not much had changed at all. In general, the time in Switzerland was spent seeing friends, watching movies, eating chocolate, and re-exploring things from the past. I was sad to leave.
The weather in Barcelona wasn’t great, but the city still was. It was much different from the first time I went. It’s hard to beat being in a new, exciting, beautiful city with your best friends for you birthday, but this trip was still a lot of fun. Like the first time I went, we (me, Sarah, Morgan, Rachel, and Rachel’s friend Bethany who was visiting from the States) stayed at Gothic Point Youth Hostel (highly recommended to anyone visiting Barcelona), and walked around both Parc Guell and the beach. Unlike the first time, we went to the Picasso Museum (this was interesting: most of the art was from Picasso’s early years. I didn’t realize he made so many different kinds of art, I was basically on familiar with his abstract stuff, which he apparently really only did toward the end of his career/life), and made a lot of friends at our hostel, with whom we went out with one night (this was a lot of fun, though my head didn’t thank me the next day).
After I got back from Barcelona, the following weekend Ruby, Julia and I went on a ski/snowboarding trip to Annecy! We stayed at Julia’s grandparents apartment (the same one we stayed at when I went to Annecy with my host family in October-the grandparents weren’t there this time), and in addition to us, Julia’s cousin Anne-Sophie, her boyfriend Flo, and Julia’s boyfriend Jean-Marin were there. Despite Ruby and I feeling like we were children on a family vacation with our parents, and aunt and uncle, I had such a good time. And I snowboarded for the second time in my life. I was completely terrible, fell on my ass and knees too many times to count, and can’t remember the last time I’ve been more sore, but I loved it. It made me want to try it again when I’m back in America! We actually skied/snowboarded in Clusaz, a small ski town about 25 minutes drive North of Annecy. When we weren’t skiing, we were either eating fondue, raclette, or crepes, drinking hot chocolate in a log cabin-esque pub, lounging around the apartment doing crosswords, or going out for drinks in downtown Annecy. It was really cool for Ruby, Julia and me to be able to do something fun together.
Since then… Sigh, I don’t know! I know I should be keeping up with this blog more, but I’m having a good time just living, instead of writing about it. Also, things have been busier. The weather’s been loads nicer, so I’m spending more time outside than in, with my computer. I’ve realized that in my almost 7 (wow!) months here, I go to the same cafés, bars and clubs all the time, so I’ve decided to try to go to three new places each week. There are so many cool places here that I’ve just never been to that I want to check out. So far, I haven’t exactly been reaching my goal, but: Scottish Sarah, Paul, Ruby and I went to a place called Café Librarie a couple weekends ago for milkshakes. The café was really cool: books and magazines everywhere for you to read and art on the walls made out of things having to do with books. And the milkshakes were delicious.
In other news, Sophie came to visit! It was incredible to see her. Unfortunately she could only stay two nights, but I had such a good time with her. It made me realize how long it’s been since I’ve seen so many people. Annnnd, Daisy is coming on Tuesday! Aaaaah! I couldn’t be more excited to see her, clearly. Annnnnnnd, Sam is coming 4 days after that. And then Daisy and I are going to Madrid together. So, a very busy, but very exciting and beautiful couple weeks lay ahead of me. I’m going to go ahead and say that I will not be posting anything between now and my return from Madrid, but I will let you know about it all… eventually.
Love to you all.
So, pretty much a month ago, I went back to Switzerland and Barcelona during February break. Both were wonderful. Sarah came with me to Switzerland, and we had a really fun, relatively relaxing time. I stayed with my best friend from school there, Laura, and her family. Laura lives in Monpreveyres, which is the tiny town I lived in when I lived in Switzerland. On our first day there we went for a walk around the town and I was sent on a trip down memory lane. We walked on my old street, by my old house, by the steps I would wait for the bus on… It was nice, and it was comforting to see that not much had changed at all. In general, the time in Switzerland was spent seeing friends, watching movies, eating chocolate, and re-exploring things from the past. I was sad to leave.
The weather in Barcelona wasn’t great, but the city still was. It was much different from the first time I went. It’s hard to beat being in a new, exciting, beautiful city with your best friends for you birthday, but this trip was still a lot of fun. Like the first time I went, we (me, Sarah, Morgan, Rachel, and Rachel’s friend Bethany who was visiting from the States) stayed at Gothic Point Youth Hostel (highly recommended to anyone visiting Barcelona), and walked around both Parc Guell and the beach. Unlike the first time, we went to the Picasso Museum (this was interesting: most of the art was from Picasso’s early years. I didn’t realize he made so many different kinds of art, I was basically on familiar with his abstract stuff, which he apparently really only did toward the end of his career/life), and made a lot of friends at our hostel, with whom we went out with one night (this was a lot of fun, though my head didn’t thank me the next day).
After I got back from Barcelona, the following weekend Ruby, Julia and I went on a ski/snowboarding trip to Annecy! We stayed at Julia’s grandparents apartment (the same one we stayed at when I went to Annecy with my host family in October-the grandparents weren’t there this time), and in addition to us, Julia’s cousin Anne-Sophie, her boyfriend Flo, and Julia’s boyfriend Jean-Marin were there. Despite Ruby and I feeling like we were children on a family vacation with our parents, and aunt and uncle, I had such a good time. And I snowboarded for the second time in my life. I was completely terrible, fell on my ass and knees too many times to count, and can’t remember the last time I’ve been more sore, but I loved it. It made me want to try it again when I’m back in America! We actually skied/snowboarded in Clusaz, a small ski town about 25 minutes drive North of Annecy. When we weren’t skiing, we were either eating fondue, raclette, or crepes, drinking hot chocolate in a log cabin-esque pub, lounging around the apartment doing crosswords, or going out for drinks in downtown Annecy. It was really cool for Ruby, Julia and me to be able to do something fun together.
Since then… Sigh, I don’t know! I know I should be keeping up with this blog more, but I’m having a good time just living, instead of writing about it. Also, things have been busier. The weather’s been loads nicer, so I’m spending more time outside than in, with my computer. I’ve realized that in my almost 7 (wow!) months here, I go to the same cafés, bars and clubs all the time, so I’ve decided to try to go to three new places each week. There are so many cool places here that I’ve just never been to that I want to check out. So far, I haven’t exactly been reaching my goal, but: Scottish Sarah, Paul, Ruby and I went to a place called Café Librarie a couple weekends ago for milkshakes. The café was really cool: books and magazines everywhere for you to read and art on the walls made out of things having to do with books. And the milkshakes were delicious.
In other news, Sophie came to visit! It was incredible to see her. Unfortunately she could only stay two nights, but I had such a good time with her. It made me realize how long it’s been since I’ve seen so many people. Annnnd, Daisy is coming on Tuesday! Aaaaah! I couldn’t be more excited to see her, clearly. Annnnnnnd, Sam is coming 4 days after that. And then Daisy and I are going to Madrid together. So, a very busy, but very exciting and beautiful couple weeks lay ahead of me. I’m going to go ahead and say that I will not be posting anything between now and my return from Madrid, but I will let you know about it all… eventually.
Love to you all.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Hookers and Nazis
Once again, I have waited so long to write in this thing that I honestly don't really feel like writing about everything I should. However, there are some people (pretty sure only my mother) that want to read about some thangs, so I'll try to oblige.
My trip to Amsterdam and Berlin was legitimately incredible. I really loved both cities, a lot. I especially fell in love with Berlin. Here's a quick recap:
Amsterdam: A much more beautiful place than I thought it would be. The city is shaped in something of a circle, with about six canals surrounding the center. It’s also pretty small, we were able to walk everywhere we went. We stayed in the heart of the Red Light District; what a crazy, crazy place. There really are prostitutes all over the place. Apparently our hostel was actually in the seediest part of the District. Right outside the window of our room was a lovely view of the grossest hookers in the city, kicking it their red-lit boxes. Clearly most of you know what the main activity of this trip was, and that aspect of the visit was certainly a lot of fun. But we also did some other stuff. We took the tour of Anne Frank’s house, which was interesting and sad. Also, there were more bikes in this city than any other city I’ve ever been to. Seriously. SO MANY BIKES. All in all, it was so much fun, and I hope to go back there before I leave Europe.
Berlin: Amazing. I loved it. Getting there was quite the adventure, though… We were supposed to take a train from Amsterdam to Brussels, and then fly from Brussels to Berlin. Our train to Brussels was meant to continue on to Paris. So, as we were approaching Brussels, we had our stuff all ready by the door to go. We stopped, we waited for the doors to open, and… they didn’t. And our train started up again, and went on to Paris! Luckily we weren’t the only ones in our position, and we had some pissed off Belgians trying to figure out what we were supposed to do thereafter. They were amazing, and we all became fast friends. So in the end they told us we’d have to go to Paris, then they’d put us on a train back to Brussels, then they’d put us on an eight-hour sleeping train to Berlin (since we clearly missed our flight). It was a huge hassle, but it ended up maybe being a blessing in disguise, since we actually only had about 30 minutes to make it to the airport to catch our flight in the first place. Plus, the sleeping train was pretty fun.
Anyway, we got to Berlin at 8:00AM, super exhausted. We had to wait until the afternoon to check into our hostel, so we decided to go on a free walking tour of the city. This was awesome. We saw all the major monuments and buildings, and learned a lot about the city, which made me appreciate it even more. After the tour, we checked into our (really cool) hostel, took naps, and then went on a pub crawl that night. The pub crawl took us to 4 different bars, where we were offered various drink specials. We also got free vodka/orange juice shots all night. We ended up at a club, and danced danced danced. In general, I found Berlin incredibly interesting and fascinating, and I’m definitely going back there before I leave Europe. While I was there I found myself thinking that I wouldn’t even mind living there someday.
Last Friday: Kitsuné Maison Tour. Kitsuné is one of my favorite electro labels, and they put on a show on a boat called Le Platform. I got to see datA, Gildas Laoec, and Johnny Love from Guns N’ Bombs (among others) do live sets, we danced for about six straight hours, and went home around 5:30 in the morning. Great night.
In other news, second semester classes have started and I’m so much happier with what I’m taking this term. I have a French Lit of the Middle Ages class, which will be hard, but I need it for my French major, and it seems like it might be kind of cool because we’re talking about fairy tales and wizards; an American poetry class, taught in English, with an awesome teacher. We’ve started with Poe, and we’re doing Dickinson next; an American Literature class taught in English with an asshole teacher, and it’s significantly more boring because we’re only covering Melville’s short stories, but whatever; a gender studies class, taught in English and French, with an adorable and hilarious teacher, and this class is so much fun; and another Translation class. I know it might seem like a cop out that I’m taking so many classes in English, but I really hated school so much last term, these classes are more interesting and enjoyable to me, I feel like I can participate and understand what’s going on, and I was never really learning/improving my French in school anyway. So, I’m happy.
Last night, Institut Lumière was showing The Big Lebowski in English, and tickets were two for the price of one since it was Valentine’s Day. Ruby, Morgan, Sarah, Rachel and I filled a bunch of water bottles full of White Russians and drank during the movie. Afterwards we went to various bars with the Brits. It was a fun night.
Other than that… I’m going back to both Switzerland and Barcelona this upcoming week (it’s our February vacation!), so I’m excited for that. Maybe I’ll try and write a blog post about all of that sooner after I return from those adventures, than this one.
Of course I miss you all. But I’m actually really loving Lyon… I know time is going to go by so fast from here on out, and it’s starting to make me sad. But life is beautiful right now. : )
My trip to Amsterdam and Berlin was legitimately incredible. I really loved both cities, a lot. I especially fell in love with Berlin. Here's a quick recap:
Amsterdam: A much more beautiful place than I thought it would be. The city is shaped in something of a circle, with about six canals surrounding the center. It’s also pretty small, we were able to walk everywhere we went. We stayed in the heart of the Red Light District; what a crazy, crazy place. There really are prostitutes all over the place. Apparently our hostel was actually in the seediest part of the District. Right outside the window of our room was a lovely view of the grossest hookers in the city, kicking it their red-lit boxes. Clearly most of you know what the main activity of this trip was, and that aspect of the visit was certainly a lot of fun. But we also did some other stuff. We took the tour of Anne Frank’s house, which was interesting and sad. Also, there were more bikes in this city than any other city I’ve ever been to. Seriously. SO MANY BIKES. All in all, it was so much fun, and I hope to go back there before I leave Europe.
Berlin: Amazing. I loved it. Getting there was quite the adventure, though… We were supposed to take a train from Amsterdam to Brussels, and then fly from Brussels to Berlin. Our train to Brussels was meant to continue on to Paris. So, as we were approaching Brussels, we had our stuff all ready by the door to go. We stopped, we waited for the doors to open, and… they didn’t. And our train started up again, and went on to Paris! Luckily we weren’t the only ones in our position, and we had some pissed off Belgians trying to figure out what we were supposed to do thereafter. They were amazing, and we all became fast friends. So in the end they told us we’d have to go to Paris, then they’d put us on a train back to Brussels, then they’d put us on an eight-hour sleeping train to Berlin (since we clearly missed our flight). It was a huge hassle, but it ended up maybe being a blessing in disguise, since we actually only had about 30 minutes to make it to the airport to catch our flight in the first place. Plus, the sleeping train was pretty fun.
Anyway, we got to Berlin at 8:00AM, super exhausted. We had to wait until the afternoon to check into our hostel, so we decided to go on a free walking tour of the city. This was awesome. We saw all the major monuments and buildings, and learned a lot about the city, which made me appreciate it even more. After the tour, we checked into our (really cool) hostel, took naps, and then went on a pub crawl that night. The pub crawl took us to 4 different bars, where we were offered various drink specials. We also got free vodka/orange juice shots all night. We ended up at a club, and danced danced danced. In general, I found Berlin incredibly interesting and fascinating, and I’m definitely going back there before I leave Europe. While I was there I found myself thinking that I wouldn’t even mind living there someday.
Last Friday: Kitsuné Maison Tour. Kitsuné is one of my favorite electro labels, and they put on a show on a boat called Le Platform. I got to see datA, Gildas Laoec, and Johnny Love from Guns N’ Bombs (among others) do live sets, we danced for about six straight hours, and went home around 5:30 in the morning. Great night.
In other news, second semester classes have started and I’m so much happier with what I’m taking this term. I have a French Lit of the Middle Ages class, which will be hard, but I need it for my French major, and it seems like it might be kind of cool because we’re talking about fairy tales and wizards; an American poetry class, taught in English, with an awesome teacher. We’ve started with Poe, and we’re doing Dickinson next; an American Literature class taught in English with an asshole teacher, and it’s significantly more boring because we’re only covering Melville’s short stories, but whatever; a gender studies class, taught in English and French, with an adorable and hilarious teacher, and this class is so much fun; and another Translation class. I know it might seem like a cop out that I’m taking so many classes in English, but I really hated school so much last term, these classes are more interesting and enjoyable to me, I feel like I can participate and understand what’s going on, and I was never really learning/improving my French in school anyway. So, I’m happy.
Last night, Institut Lumière was showing The Big Lebowski in English, and tickets were two for the price of one since it was Valentine’s Day. Ruby, Morgan, Sarah, Rachel and I filled a bunch of water bottles full of White Russians and drank during the movie. Afterwards we went to various bars with the Brits. It was a fun night.
Other than that… I’m going back to both Switzerland and Barcelona this upcoming week (it’s our February vacation!), so I’m excited for that. Maybe I’ll try and write a blog post about all of that sooner after I return from those adventures, than this one.
Of course I miss you all. But I’m actually really loving Lyon… I know time is going to go by so fast from here on out, and it’s starting to make me sad. But life is beautiful right now. : )
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Oh Yeah, I Also Ate Plenty of Chocolate
It’s been a very long time since I’ve written something on here. Not much has happened since the end of vacation, so I suppose I’ll just write about that:
Switzerland was wonderful. It was great to be back there and see everyone that I hadn’t seen in far too long. On the one hand there was so much to do because I was only there for 3 days, not even, but on the other hand it was kind of relaxing because I knew I wouldn’t be able to fit in everything I wanted to do into 3 days, so I didn’t really try. So it was pretty low key. When we first got there we mainly just relaxed at the Candaux house. Games were played (clearly) and lots of good food was eaten. The next day we went to Gruyère. Some of you may have heard of Gruyere cheese. It’s delicious. It comes from this tiny town in Switzerland, which is quite close to where we lived. Gruyere has a bunch of little “chalet” style restaurants and they all serve: soupe de chalet (the best soup in the world-it has lots in it: cheese, cream, macaroni pasta, onions, spinach, more cheese, croutons-it’s incredible), fondue, and fruit with double crème (this is essentially really thick whipping cream that’s not sugary). I really love all of this food. It was difficult to decide between the soup and fondue, but ultimately I decided on the soup (we decided to make fondue at the house the next night, and the soup was all you can eat). I obvisouly also got raspberries and double crème for desert. Best meal ever.
Here's soupe de chalet (the picture does not do it justice), and me eating raspberries and double crème:
That night I met up with Laura, my best friend in Switzerland. It was great to see her family-especially her younger brother, who Laura and I always hung out with and who always had a crush on me. The three of us reminisced and laughed a lot. Then we, along with some other friends, went to a bar in Lausanne (all my friends can now drive, so the opportunities are now endless). It was basically me, Laura, another girl who’s name I simply do not remember, and a whole lot of silly Swiss boys, and it was a lot of fun.
Here's a picture of Laura, me, and Jonathan (Laura's brother):
On Sunday we ate lunch at another family friend house where I thoroughly enjoyed kicking it with the three boys, ages 13, 11, and 4. I watched them play Lord of the Rings computer games and then we started watching Shrek 3 in French (I was dragged away about 15 minutes into the movie, and I was pissed). That night we had one of my dad’s ex-students/my friends over for dinner, which was fondue. And of course we played more board games afterward.
It was a very short visit as I left early the next morning for Paris, but all in all, a really great one. I’m definitely going back; I realized how much that place meant to me and how much I missed it. Plus it only costs about 25 euros for me to go there, round trip!
So Paris was a blur because I was there for barely 24 hours, but the trip was well worth it. I got to see all my friends who are studying abroad throughout Europe, and for the New Year at that. In terms of what I did… well, it’s pretty ridiculous, but to be honest I spent more time at Pigalle (the essential Red Light district of Paris) than anywhere else. During the day on New Years Eve, Karyn and Andrew and I just sort of aimlessly walked around the city and ended up spending a lot of time on Sex Shop Boulevard because we thought it was so hilarious and ridiculous. (We also went to Notre Dome and walked along the Seine, okay?) But while we were there we came across the “Museum of Erotic Art” and the three of us plus Miles, Jake and Alex, ended up legitimately going to this museum on New Years day. Yes, I know: we chose sex art over the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay. But most of us had already been to both of those at one point and none of us had been to Paris’ very own sex museum, so, you know. Some of the stuff was interesting but I think we all felt kinda gross afterward. After that we walked around in the cemetery in Monmartre, which was creepy and pretty. For New Years itself we all went to the Eiffel Tower, drank and were merry, and watched the fireworks. Pretty epic.
However, being in Paris made me realize how happy I am in Lyon. I really hate Parisians, I really do. Paris is a beautiful city and I’d like to spend more time there for sure, but fuck Parisians. Before Karyn, Andrew and I ended up walking amongst the sex shops I asked this chick at McDonalds how to get to the Monmartre cemetery and she made a huge fucking deal about how I slightly mispronounced the French word for cemetery. At first she acted like she didn’t understand me, which I think was impossible, then she said it herself, very slowly and enunciated as if she was talking to a 3-year-old, and then she had the gall to tell me to repeat the word after her, correctly. Then she said that in order to get to the cemetery we had to take a bus, and explained what we should do. Something didn’t seem quite right with this as the cemetery was supposedly very close to where we were. I finally found a map: the cemetery was two blocks away. And I’m the idiot who can’t pronounce cemetery…
On the 1st (of tha month… wake up, wake up, wake up…) I met my parents back in Lyon. I did various relatively touristy things with them, and I think they really liked the city. One night we had dinner with my host family and everyone got along really well. I was happy that my real family and host family got to meet each other. On the 3rd, Karyn, Miles, Alex and Braden arrived! They overlapped with my parents, who left early on the morning of the fifth. We didn’t do many touristy things while they were here, which was nice, actually. It was good to be able to just kick it with good friends; it’s something I really miss about college at home. Come to think of it, it did really remind me of hanging out with friends at U of O; we even played a drinking game to Harry Potter 5 (take a drink every time someone says ‘Harry,’ take two for every House name mentioned, and chug whenever the dementors are sucking life) one night, and Apples to Apples another.
Since they all left things have been relatively uneventful. I had exams all last week, and my last one is tomorrow. I’ve been doing a lot of teaching, watching some Battlestar, reading some books my parents left me. Here are two exciting things of note, however:
1. We will finally, finally, fucking finally have internet at our apartment by the end of the week: after trying everything we could for two months, we finally had a man from the internet company come to our house to figure out what was wrong. He did some things and made some calls, and the result: we will have the Internet in a maximum of 96 hours from yesterday. So, basically Thursday/Friday. It could even happen before then! I suppose something else could go wrong, I’m even sort of expecting it to given our luck with this, but if a guy came to our house and checked it out, this is as legit as it can get, right? Sigh, I hope so. Anyway, if (knock wood) all goes well, I will soon be on Skype regularly, so if you don’t already have it, download that shit! We can talk fo freeee.
2. Sarah, Rachel and I are leaving for an epic journey to Amsterdam and Berlin next Thursday! We’ve bought all the tickets and booked all the hostels. I’ve never been to either city and I’m incredibly excited.
Switzerland was wonderful. It was great to be back there and see everyone that I hadn’t seen in far too long. On the one hand there was so much to do because I was only there for 3 days, not even, but on the other hand it was kind of relaxing because I knew I wouldn’t be able to fit in everything I wanted to do into 3 days, so I didn’t really try. So it was pretty low key. When we first got there we mainly just relaxed at the Candaux house. Games were played (clearly) and lots of good food was eaten. The next day we went to Gruyère. Some of you may have heard of Gruyere cheese. It’s delicious. It comes from this tiny town in Switzerland, which is quite close to where we lived. Gruyere has a bunch of little “chalet” style restaurants and they all serve: soupe de chalet (the best soup in the world-it has lots in it: cheese, cream, macaroni pasta, onions, spinach, more cheese, croutons-it’s incredible), fondue, and fruit with double crème (this is essentially really thick whipping cream that’s not sugary). I really love all of this food. It was difficult to decide between the soup and fondue, but ultimately I decided on the soup (we decided to make fondue at the house the next night, and the soup was all you can eat). I obvisouly also got raspberries and double crème for desert. Best meal ever.
Here's soupe de chalet (the picture does not do it justice), and me eating raspberries and double crème:
That night I met up with Laura, my best friend in Switzerland. It was great to see her family-especially her younger brother, who Laura and I always hung out with and who always had a crush on me. The three of us reminisced and laughed a lot. Then we, along with some other friends, went to a bar in Lausanne (all my friends can now drive, so the opportunities are now endless). It was basically me, Laura, another girl who’s name I simply do not remember, and a whole lot of silly Swiss boys, and it was a lot of fun.
Here's a picture of Laura, me, and Jonathan (Laura's brother):
On Sunday we ate lunch at another family friend house where I thoroughly enjoyed kicking it with the three boys, ages 13, 11, and 4. I watched them play Lord of the Rings computer games and then we started watching Shrek 3 in French (I was dragged away about 15 minutes into the movie, and I was pissed). That night we had one of my dad’s ex-students/my friends over for dinner, which was fondue. And of course we played more board games afterward.
It was a very short visit as I left early the next morning for Paris, but all in all, a really great one. I’m definitely going back; I realized how much that place meant to me and how much I missed it. Plus it only costs about 25 euros for me to go there, round trip!
So Paris was a blur because I was there for barely 24 hours, but the trip was well worth it. I got to see all my friends who are studying abroad throughout Europe, and for the New Year at that. In terms of what I did… well, it’s pretty ridiculous, but to be honest I spent more time at Pigalle (the essential Red Light district of Paris) than anywhere else. During the day on New Years Eve, Karyn and Andrew and I just sort of aimlessly walked around the city and ended up spending a lot of time on Sex Shop Boulevard because we thought it was so hilarious and ridiculous. (We also went to Notre Dome and walked along the Seine, okay?) But while we were there we came across the “Museum of Erotic Art” and the three of us plus Miles, Jake and Alex, ended up legitimately going to this museum on New Years day. Yes, I know: we chose sex art over the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay. But most of us had already been to both of those at one point and none of us had been to Paris’ very own sex museum, so, you know. Some of the stuff was interesting but I think we all felt kinda gross afterward. After that we walked around in the cemetery in Monmartre, which was creepy and pretty. For New Years itself we all went to the Eiffel Tower, drank and were merry, and watched the fireworks. Pretty epic.
However, being in Paris made me realize how happy I am in Lyon. I really hate Parisians, I really do. Paris is a beautiful city and I’d like to spend more time there for sure, but fuck Parisians. Before Karyn, Andrew and I ended up walking amongst the sex shops I asked this chick at McDonalds how to get to the Monmartre cemetery and she made a huge fucking deal about how I slightly mispronounced the French word for cemetery. At first she acted like she didn’t understand me, which I think was impossible, then she said it herself, very slowly and enunciated as if she was talking to a 3-year-old, and then she had the gall to tell me to repeat the word after her, correctly. Then she said that in order to get to the cemetery we had to take a bus, and explained what we should do. Something didn’t seem quite right with this as the cemetery was supposedly very close to where we were. I finally found a map: the cemetery was two blocks away. And I’m the idiot who can’t pronounce cemetery…
On the 1st (of tha month… wake up, wake up, wake up…) I met my parents back in Lyon. I did various relatively touristy things with them, and I think they really liked the city. One night we had dinner with my host family and everyone got along really well. I was happy that my real family and host family got to meet each other. On the 3rd, Karyn, Miles, Alex and Braden arrived! They overlapped with my parents, who left early on the morning of the fifth. We didn’t do many touristy things while they were here, which was nice, actually. It was good to be able to just kick it with good friends; it’s something I really miss about college at home. Come to think of it, it did really remind me of hanging out with friends at U of O; we even played a drinking game to Harry Potter 5 (take a drink every time someone says ‘Harry,’ take two for every House name mentioned, and chug whenever the dementors are sucking life) one night, and Apples to Apples another.
Since they all left things have been relatively uneventful. I had exams all last week, and my last one is tomorrow. I’ve been doing a lot of teaching, watching some Battlestar, reading some books my parents left me. Here are two exciting things of note, however:
1. We will finally, finally, fucking finally have internet at our apartment by the end of the week: after trying everything we could for two months, we finally had a man from the internet company come to our house to figure out what was wrong. He did some things and made some calls, and the result: we will have the Internet in a maximum of 96 hours from yesterday. So, basically Thursday/Friday. It could even happen before then! I suppose something else could go wrong, I’m even sort of expecting it to given our luck with this, but if a guy came to our house and checked it out, this is as legit as it can get, right? Sigh, I hope so. Anyway, if (knock wood) all goes well, I will soon be on Skype regularly, so if you don’t already have it, download that shit! We can talk fo freeee.
2. Sarah, Rachel and I are leaving for an epic journey to Amsterdam and Berlin next Thursday! We’ve bought all the tickets and booked all the hostels. I’ve never been to either city and I’m incredibly excited.
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