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.