I'm Done!

This morning I took my oral exam and on Saturday I took my written exam. I studied beaucoup for the exam so I'd like to think that I passed my class. I will find out my results on June 6th. As for the rest of the week, I'm going to continue showing my sister Paris. We even have a new roommate, Patricia, she is a friend of ours that is going to travel with Christy during the next two weeks. I believe they are going to: Geneva, the Swiss Alps, and are going to see more of Paris. Right now, its raining and it has been raining which has made sightseeing that much more difficult and has reeked havoc on my new bangs. See you soon!

Barcelona

Christy and I arrived in Barcelona pretty late at night and so we took a taxi to our party hostel. It was located right off La Rambla (the main strip of Barcelona) in Plaza Real. Our accommodations were an 8-dorm suite where we meet some pretty cool people. There was a couple from Canada, but working in the UK, a couple from Brazil, and a couple that were also studying in Paris. The Paris couple were soon switched out for actual Parisian girls who were extremely nice to us. Christy, Genoveva, and I hit the city early in the morning each day and stayed out until the wee hours of the night. We started most days with a generous breakfast provided by the hostel: cereal, bread, ham, cheese, muffin, and coffee. Yummer for the first day... boring on the 3rd consecutive day. In Barcelona, we wandered around taking in the beautiful architecture and hitting up a couple of cute boutiques. On our second day, we went on a Gaudi walking tour that took us to some of his most famous works including: Casa Batlló, Casa Milà, and La Sagrada Família. La Sagrada Família is a cathedral that has taken a hundred years to complete, but is nowhere near being completed. When we toured the cathedral, only the exterior looked remotely finished. I believe it's supposed to resemble sand falling down into the main spires of the church. The next day, Genoveva managed to use her cute smile to get us into the Picasso museum for free without waiting in the long line. The museum was interesting, but it was mostly filled with lesser known works that Picasso completed as a young student and many were preparatory sketches. The Picasso piece I would love to see up-close and personal is Guernica which is in Madrid. Oh well, next time. During my time in Barcelona, I never did actually enjoy a siesta instead I was more inconvenienced by it since we usually wanted to eat at that time, but everything was closed. I did enjoy the food more than I thought I would since I've always been told that Spanish food is pretty gross. I almost forgot to mention that Genoveva was to leave us a day before, but fortunately for me, she missed her plane and had to come back. On the day which was to be her last day, we went up to Park Güell which is a park that was conceived by Gaudi. It was to be a new place for people to live, but it turned out to be a commercial failure. Nevertheless, Gaudi himself lived there. On our extra day with Genoveva, we went to the beach where we all got tanned... some of us more than others. That day, we all made our flights Geno to Granada and us to Rome. Stay tuned!

I Have Returned!

Hi everyone! I'm back from my little vacay. I'm well rested and hating Paris right now. Spain and Italy was so much fun and I got to see so much. It was fun to see Genoveva again in Barcelona (her spanish is so impressive.) I only wish my French was at her level of Spanish. Any who, I just wanted to write out a quick blog to let everyone know that I got back and to share that I'm going to write out a blog each day this week to break up the vacation into the different cities.

I hate Paris right now, because it is so gorgeous but I now really need to study for my final exam.
Btw, I cut my hair. :)

Senioritious or Spring Break Blues

I don't know what it is, but this week has not been a good week. I've been in a bad mood, stressed out, and pooped out. I missed both of my classes on Monday, because I couldn't get up on time. Yesterday, I missed my phonetics class, because again I was unmotivated to actually walk ten minutes to class. I'm getting a little complacent with life right now and I think it might be because I only have a month and a half left in Paris. I'm sad about leaving Paris, but also I'm freaked out by the huge final I will have to take. I haven't exactly been acing my tests and the final is going to be on everything I should have learned. If I pass this class, it will be a gosh darn miracle. In other wonderful news, Christy and I are going to see Blonde Redhead tonight at the Bataclan (click on la salle.) I think the venue is really small and intimate which will be a perfect place to see the trio. Then on Friday, we are going to have some people over and I'm going to cook some Mexican food. Hopefully everything will go well. On Saturday, we leave for Barcelona!!! Our flight is at night, but the airport is really far away so we'll be using the extra time to get to the airport. The following is my itinerary:
April 19th-23rd (Barcelona avec Genoveva)
April 23rd-28th (Rome)
April 28th (Pisa to Florence)
April 29th-May 2nd (Florence to Venice)
May 2nd return to Paris (where I believe my Mom will be waiting for me.)

Aix-en-Provence et Cassis

This weekend was our last excursion in Aix-en-Provence and Cassis. This last excursion was absolutely amazing!!! Aix-en-Provence is a small town in the South of France and was also the hometown of painter Paul Cezanne. We took a walking tour of the city and our guide said that although Cezanne never painted Provence directly, he did paint in city's color palette. For lunch, Christy and I had some delicious pizza with some chili oil... mmm so good! The only problem with this day was that the night before I didn't get to sleep until 3 am and we had to leave by 5:30 am. The next day we traveled to Cassis, France by bus, but the bus was too large to get close to the coast so we had to take one of those little trains (you know those trains that are at the zoo.) Nothing could have prepared me for how gorgeous this coast was. OMG. Beautiful. When we arrived, we took a boat ride out on the Mediterranean and viewed creeks along the coast. I felt so special and so decadent. The only bad thing about the boat ride, besides getting blasted by waves, was that I sat on a bench that still had wet white paint. GRRRR. Luckily, the paint was on the part of my tights that was covered by my dress. After the boat ride, we were free to have lunch and walk around. Christy and I ended up eating at a lovely restaurant with two girls from the program. I had a delicious tomato salad, chicken with potatoes, and two sorbet scoops. So good. We ended-up staying there for 2 and half hours and I believe thats where my face got sunburned. After lunch, Christy and I walked around for about 5 minutes when we decided to get a coffee. All our free time in Cassis was spent eating or drinking and just being lazy. At around 3:30 we meet again to take the little train back up to the bus and from there we went towards the train station. We ended up arriving to the train station too early so the bus driver, who was so nice, decided to drive us around the city of Cassis. Our train left at around 7, we got back to Paris at 9:30, and we were back at the apartment by 10:30. I was so tired and so happy. Don't forget to check out my pictures. Until next time...

London Baby!

I love London!!! I had a wonderful time in London over this past weekend. So much, that I slept in yesterday and missed my first class. Rhoopsy! It was just so nice to be in a country where everyone speaks English. I knew I was stressed about not knowing French, but I didn't really appreciate it until I was removed from there. We arrived fairly early in London on Friday and checked into our hotel which had a view of Hyde Park. After we dropped off our stuff we walked the entire city, eventually passing: Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Parliament, the London Eye, Westminster Abby. We started out with a nice stroll through the gorgeous Hyde Park which lead us to the major monuments of London and the weather was amazing. During the weekend, there was a small drizzle that came and went, but it never ruined our plans. When we came across Buckingham Palace, we were fortunate enough to see the changing of the guards (which only happens once a day.) After viewing the major scenes of London, we found a very cute pub that had 15 different types of sausages. I had bangers and mash and Christy had fish and chips. After our lovely meal, we decided to take on the London Eye (the huge ferris wheel off the Thames River.) The view was spectacular, but the experience was very nerve wrecking as the height was quite daunting. I got over my fear quickly when I realized that the children that were also there were just fine. Later on that night, we took the tube to Piccadilly Circus and tried to find a bar. We finally ended up at Fudge where every person got a free shot. I ordered a gin and tonic and the shot and the bartender came back with two glasses of tonic water and one shot??? How is it that I can order this drink in Paris, in a different language, and get the right drink? But in London, in English, I got tonic water! On Saturday, Christy and I went to Topshop. It was supposed to be the start of our shopping day in London, but it quickly turned into the entire day. We stayed there for 4 hours simply because they're so many clothes. Every room we went into lead into another room full of latest fashions. I really wish the concept of Topshop is brought over to the US which besides clothing had a: nail salon, hair drying salon, a cafe, personal style consultant, and a sweets area. Later that night, we went to a very cool bar that played a mixture of great music where Christy and I had a great time drinking and dancing. Sunday morning, we had to wake-up pretty early for check out and went to the Tate Modern Museum. We were able to see an incredible show which housed works from: Duchamp, Man Ray, and Picabia. Finally, at 5 or so we headed to the airport and we got back to Paris by 9pm. All and all my trip to London was amazing and I would really really like to go back.

Care Package!

Yesterday I finally received my first care package. It was so fun to finally receive some sort of mail and now I have a ton of food which will help with money. Pasta, rice, sauce and all of that stuff is theoretically cheap, but since I use my credit card on such transactions it really isn't cheap. A package of pasta is €1.80 = $3.50 and it only lasts two dinners. Christy and I spend €30 each on groceries every week or so, but this is cheaper than eating out for each meal. Any who, I just want to thank Liz and Becky for gathering up the supplies and getting the funds together to ship it. Thank you so much! There will be tons of pictures to come as we enjoy each meal.