Traveling Shamveling

In spite of Barnard housing trying to ruin my experience, there is so much that I look forward to all of the time. For example, we've been counting the "best days of our lives" since we've been here, and we're already up to 8.

Similarly, we are en route to exploring Europe! For our spring break which is for 15 days starting at the beginning of April, we're going to Brussels, Prague, and Amsterdam! And in a few weeks, I'm probably going to Copenhagen to see my lovely Allie. And then in May we're probably going to Paris and Cannes! I know "probably" isn't a yes, but "probably" translates to "should we put this on my credit card, too?" So "probably" means yes.

Current forecast: 55-60's, sunny, everyone eating lunch outside all the time. How's the weather on the Northeast, doing?

Et voilaaaaa

We are back from Spain, everyone, and what a grand old time we had. Barcelona and Madrid were fantastique, but Madrid a little more so. First of all, I love the people in my program. Second of all, I decided to make a list of the top 10 things I liked about each part of Spain, in no particular order. I'll try to post pictures dans le near avenir, but "I can't make any promises, I can't make any promises" (shout out to my family entourage time).

Barcelona:

1. Renting bikes and biking all over Barcelona from Park Guell to biking in the rain towards the Arc de Triomph

2. Park Guell/Sagrada Familia (spelling?)/ all of the gaudi architecture

3. Picasso Museum. Enough said.

4. The cocopuffs at our hostel for breakfast. And to pull a Miley Cyrus here by putting a related idea under one number (i.e. "7 things"), when the random 8th person who was placed in our room, whom we named "Caveman," gave us his bottle of scotch

5. The grand market with exquisite juices, fruits, veggies, SAUCISSON, you name it

6. The day we spent frolicking around the marina

7. Getting lost and getting found (nonetheless by a welcoming Starbucks sign)

8. Having our hostel next to hooker alley and seeing what prostitution really looks like

9. Our final incredible supper with tapas and mojitos (not like Real Housewives of New Jersey)

10. Las Ramblas/ the animals sold on Las Ramblas

Madrid:

1. The Way Hostel. Way Awesome. And particularly cooking dinner there. Especially the dinner in which we wore our fancay dresses and our slipper socks.

2. The commencement of the Spanish Olympics (laaaadies!)

3. Meeting people in our hostel from Mexico, Croatia, Argentina, and whatnot. Whether or not these people were some of the shadiest characters (Miguel) or some of the most incredible characters (an over 6 foot Croatian man who drunkenly referred to me as his "little mouse" without ANY pretext for about 36 hours)

4. Going to the Prado and the Thyssen museum in one day. And specifically, the coat check man at the Thyssen who asked in all seriousness, if little boys and little girls watch the Disney Channel. Because he loves it. This was creepy.

5. Bar crawling and Club Joy

6. The collectively hilariously miserable morning we all woke up at 5:30 am to catch the flight to Barcelona

7. Sol. A wonderful town.

8. EFing like it's nobody's business

9. The palace!

10. When Lisa lost her coat. I'm sorry, had to put this on there.

Other gems from the bus:

1. Celebration cookies!!!

2. Eating many many baguettes

3. Playing MASH

4. Listening to hours upon hours of pop music with the "mom of the week"

5. The moment everyone turned their phones back on when the bus rolled into France

The trip was so so amazing, and we got to celebrate our one month anniversary with Aix, and what an anniversary it was.

And sometimes we travel

After "fairing the bise" to Aix on a "fievre-esque" Friday night (does anyone get this except three or four people), we "classically" say goodbye as we venture off into Spain. We have no idea what we're doing yet so we're depending on our 8 hour bus ride to make the official plans and spill all of our secrets. That is so what bus rides are for. Middle school field trip to the planetarium anyone? Is that spelling correct?

Apparently Caroline overheard our directrice saying how "8 girls going to Spain is so touristy and not French," but sometimes she forgets that we are American, and not French. And to be fair, I don't think we'd want it any other way. I think one of the funniest things of the night was walking home and then running into Lisa again because she only knows how to get home from one direction. Classic. Lisa. Also Ben wanted to know that if in R.Kelly's "Ignition," it's really a pick-up line to American girls to say "The way you do the things you do, remind me of my lexus coup."

One last dark chocolate crepe before the bus ride.

G-d I love studying abroad. PS, Katy Perry's "Hot and Cold" is another universal language.

Tablette du Chocolat

So I've essentially given up on this 21 days things. Our transition from french to franglais to anglais to english has been incredibly fun! Firstly, "tablette du chocolat" means "tablet of chocolate" which is the idiomatic french expression for "having a 6 pack." Now why do we know this? Our Oral and Written Expression Professor, Jean-Michel, taught us that! These are things I'm learning here and so much more. The context was an explanation by Sam of "The Situation" or "Le Situation" on the Jersey Shore. The more I've been here, I am starting to concoct a list of UNIVERSAL languages: food, love, and the Jersey Shore.

EVERYTHING else is wonderful as well. Certain content has recently been deleted as a result of new facebook friends.

Other things: We are going to Spain in a week!! Next Saturday, we are leaving for Barcelona and Madrid, or a week of Spain life and the much looked forward to nap in the middle of the day. On Friday night, we were thinking of going to a techno festival in Marseille called the Nuit Rouge... but after last night I'm not sure...

We went to techno club in the middle of the nowhere in the South of France called "Spartacus," in which there was apparently "a really good dj" according to the partenaire de langue de Caroline. The place was really really fun, and the dj, with a lot of personality and no hair, essentially played one long techno song for three hours. Don't get me wrong, the place was awesome and I had never been to something like that before, but when it's 3:30 and you're the only 15 people there (that was the size of our group french and english alike) not on e, it's time to hit the trail.

But our entire saturday was a dream. We woke up at 9 to go into the countryside of Provence with our Painting Professor. Yes, I take Painting and Drawing here and it's great. We saw 5 different areas over a course 7-8 hours and it was the most beautiful "paysage" I had ever seen. I'll post pictures later because everyone took 5604564 plus. About 6 of us were lost from the group the entire day, but we weren't REALLY lost, we just didn't stay with the group, but we felt like we were in a scene from Beauty and the Beast (you were right, Nina). Since we didn't know any of the words to the songs except the one that starts "Bonjour bonjour bonjour," we decided to live out this dream by eating more baguettes and drinking wine at lunch time.

After a petite ballade around le centre ville when we returned, we went to Susanna's host family for FONDUE. Susanna lives in the paysage of Aix, and her house is a dream, as well; her host parents are also lovely, and they have entertaning friends. In the middle of dinner I actually thought to myself: "I am actually studying abroad, having the time of my life, and really happy." After champagne and fondue and talking with Susanna's host dad about Dexter and how the characters who play Deb and Dexter are married in real life, we were off to Spartacus.

And now I'm afraid to get out of bed because Genevieve woke up when I got home last night... in her silk pajama set I was welcomed with a "Jeeel? C'est toi???" C'est moi, Genevieve. C'est moi.