What 5 days?

So It appears that Ive been quite bad at keeping this thing updated, for that I blame my lack of interenet and computer usage; which hey, might even be a good thing.

To summarize Spring break as succinctly as humanly possible

Monday April 6-left on a night train to Geneva, got in Tuesday morning; Spent Tuesday in Laussane with Lanshiow, pedal boating and feeding the ducks and playing on playgrounds like the big kids that we are.
Wednesday I toured Geneva, saw the sights and ate my weight in chocolate, obvioulsy quite necessary. Thursday we left early for Aix en Provence, but I made sure to buy 7 bars of chocolate before leaving- however I left them all to family and friends along the way haha.
We spent a few days in Aix, apparently, its a cute city, quite small and obsessed with cezanne. While there we made sure to enjoy a lot of ice cream and all other things happy and delicious. The second day there we met up with Michelle and then spent the day hanging out in a beautiful park. Chill but enjoyable.
Saturday we left for Marseille, it was quite yucky weatherwise but it is quite a beautiful city with the ports and all that jazz, we ate indian food along the dock and then meandered around the city trying to avoid the rain.
Just our luck, the south which is reputed for good weather and we were stuck with rain throughout post of it.
We then headed to Arles, but of course got lost for over an hour trying to find the place where we were staying and it was raining and our shoes were totally drenched and we were generally unhappy; mais c'est la vie. We finally got in; washed up and went to the feria. The next day; Easter, held DISGUSTING weather for which neither of us was suitably dressed, we went to easter mass and had paella under a tent, because the feria was bull fight themed and all and thus paella, which obvi doesnt compare to spanish one; but hey.
Monday morning we headed out early, I spent half an hour in Nimes and then had a train ride to Port Bou, just on the Spain/France Border where i literally was on the beach for about 15 mins and then had a long long commuter rail to BArecelona, at least the view was nice.
I arrived in Barcelona and was picked up by bon amie ezequiel; who I met in Spain four years ago and voila here we are again. Anyways we hung out for a bit and then I went to my uncles house for dindins.
Next day was gorgeous and we walked around all of central Barcelona, las ramblas etc, the market was amazing as were the fruit juices YUM! We had tapas for lunch; walked around some more and then searched around for a very long time to find movies in their original form, aka not dubbed, we finally found the duchess, watched it and we hung out and finally said our goodbyes.
I then headed to my uncles again and stayed there until the next morning when my uncle took me to the airport. I did however forget just how much my spanish relatives enjoy forcefeeding. Jeebus; just between dinner at my uncles and breakfast the next day I really mustve gained a good chunk, plus there is always the 'bring a sandwhich for the road' mentaility haha.
Headed to Galicia to see the fam, it was certainly a rush rush fest. I saw a few good friends from camp in Vigo in a very short amount of time but it was nice because it had been over a year for two of them and 3 years since id seen the other. From there family friends took me to my grandmas village, where I spent the next 24 hours freaking out everyone in town because no one had any idea I was coming, and just generally hanging out with the grandma.
Thursday night my moms friend came to visit and took me back to Orense where I saw another friend and the next morning I was on a bus to Coruna to see some more friends. The weather was certainly not agreeable; I was wet and cold most of the time, but I was with friends in places Id been before so it was no biggie.
Met up with my friends and went to a delicious Italian place where we stuffed our faces!
The next day the weather actually held up and we cisited some castle and random stuff just hanging out in the playground like small children that we are and eating ice cream and more italian because thats what I do- eat spanish food in france and italian food in Spain- go me.
Anyways after 2 wonderful days hanging out with friends in Coruna I headed back to Nantes. Which meant leaving on a Train at 8am to take a bus to the airport to take a plane to madrid and a plane to marseille and a plane to nantes a tram and a bus home. Only took a good 13 hours with far too many delays but eventually I made it home!

So I tried my best to keep that short but considering it was 14 days and a lot of movement...

anyways now I cant believe I have just 4 days left in Nantes and 6 left in France!!
I have one more exam and then I leave Saturday to see Paris because Im pretty sure that if I return to the US without seeing Paris... well yeh.

For now Im eating my weight in all of the pastries and chocolates that I tried my very best to hold back on throughout my 4 months here, I figure its now or never, and I didnt buy a bus pass in April or May so I literally have been walking everywhere. On average at least an hour a day; sometimes up to 3 hours- so at least I still sort of fit into my clothes.

Otherwise Nantes has been experiencing some crazy thunderstormy weather which certainly caught me by surprsie as I walked home the other day getting home completely drenched only to find out that my host fams drier was broken. Haha.

Well stop rambling now and will hopefully find you some pictures.

See you all soon! And if you want something from france its now or Never!!!!!!

Im a very bad updater

but i like to think its because im living life and not just recounting it

not much time just a sign off for at least 2 weeks

Im heading to Geneva tonight, then Arles/Aix then Barcelona, and Spain to see some fam and friends.

hope you all are doing well =)

Berlin, Pseudo Spring, Sweets and Soccer

Pictures to come they dont feel like working now


I do a very bad job at updating as it has been nearly 3 weeks since I last updated-I like to blame the lack of internet that I get but, I suppose there are ways around that.

To spare you all a bunch of unnecessary details about my life I'll try to be as concise as possible- but if you know me you know that brevity is all but my forté.

I can't believe that the semester is more than halfway over, and as far as classes go its even more because come the beginning of april i have a 2 week break so I have final papers due the week after next-how crazy is that?

So the first weekend of March I met up with Kyla and Allison (and coincidentally Julie!) in Berlin. I left her early Friday morning around 8am and got to berlin around 5pm, granted I had to take a 3 hour train to paris and then wait 3 hours in CDG airport which explains the crazy amount of time. At any rate I made it to the hostel and checked in and did a little exploration of the surrounding area while i killed time waiting for the girls AND when I got back the receptionist offered me free dinner, which was pretty exciting-I got a good impression of Berlin-haha.
Kyla and Al arrived :) and we planned out our day, thinking that we might go out to a pub or something but it was clear that we were all super tired.
The next day we did some exploring, saw the reichstag, parliment random street performers and some other touristy things that Im too ignorant to remember and too lazy to look up. We found Julie and her friends and went to a museum, Kyla and I unsuccessfully looked for food (because we are the worst decision makers in the world). Also my diet for the day consisted of chocolate, and pain au chocolates, which would come back to haunt me later.
From there we returned to the hostel given that the weather was a bit crappy and went to find some dinner. The little area we were in was super cute and we found an indian restaurant where I had some yummy chicken but alas the greasy bread plus all the other chocolate and buttery products began to catch up with me, but all was well.
From there we headed to a pub hung out for a bit and went back to the hostel.
The next morning we saw the Berlin wall, the view from the reichstag(unfortunately rainy and foggy) and I headed back, having consumed my currywurst (delicious) and very afraid of missing my flight. I made it, security and printing my ticket took all of 5 minutes total.
After arriving in Paris and waiting 5 hours at the train station I finally made it home around 1am with no desire to do any work. All in all, a pretty good trip, and I was quite happy to see some friendly faces.


Lately the weather has been agreeable more often than not, rendering a feeling of pseudo spring which is great except my already low desire to do work continues to diminish. Yesterday I had two midterms-which couldve been worse but I realized that I have effectively forgotten how to study.

Friday I went to the apartment of a former IES student who is now a teaching assistant, with some other friends and we had a delicious apple pie and a uber delicious chocolate brownie-esque thing with raspberries as well as strawberries, kiwis and chocolate. We sat there talking for quite a bit just sitting and eating, the only thing that mightve made it better was if we had been outside, but yet quite enjoyable. From there we went to the supermarket to buy groceries for dinner which we would be enjoying at Michelles with her host mom- it was delicious and her host mom is super nice! We watched comme t'y est belle-this film that michelle and I had watched already at the French Film Festival with Scuzzo! It was good the second time as well.
Saturday was unfortunately not as nice as I had first thought but I went to a soccer game with some friends Nantes vs La Lorraine, it was a tie, but apparently we were the underdog and its the highest league we can be in, so not so bad. I*d never been to a match before so it was cool, they had balloons for us to wave to show spirit and whatnot-Elen Im sure you wouldve loved it. I also had part of my first kebab-this sandwhich type thing with some questionnable type of meat on the inside, it was actually left over from a friend, and since throwing out food is a no-no I ate it.

This Sunday most of my host family was gone doing their own thing so I went to church in the morning with my host dad and found an adorable 5 year old who talked to me after church. After about 5 minutes of talking to me she was like, hmm you talk a little funny, and I was like yeh, French isnt my first language, and she reponded-oh well thats odd because your dad (host dad) talks very well- I tried to explain the concept to her and for the most part I think she got it and then decided we should go hide from our 'parents' in the confessionary-it was adorable, she also explained to me how she wanted to give the begger some money but was afraid her mom would be mad. From there she decided to quiz me on the name of everything in sight-pretty great.
I had lunch just with my host dad which was nice because it was a lot calmer and I felt like I could talk for once instead of sitting their mute and awkward. As for the rest of the day I spent three hours studying in a park and noticing far more PDA than I would've liked but so goes the french.

In other news Im such a chocoholic all I do is eat chocolate and chocolate cookies and its probably really bad, and ironic because I usually give up chocolate for lent-buts its france haha.




Until next time Im now going to enjoy the 65 degree weather while I can. I walked to the center this morning it was a good 40 mins but enjoyable with the sunshine.

Vay K in the UK

I've been really bad at keeping the world updated, up until break I had been pretty diligent about my own journal and even that has gone down the drain. Oops- the strike is affecting my will power.

So for your sake I'm going to try to recap my travels in the UK as succinctly as possible, be aware that that wont be very fast, as hard as I may try.

Saturday I left my house that was already semi abandoned by my host family who were on their way to Paris, Skiing[Alps?] and Canada (little brother, other host sisters and brother and parents respectively).

I met up with the other girls I would be traveling with to take the tram and bus to the airport. The airport was nothing special, simple enough, because I have shnazzy EU citizenship my travels through airports were considerably faster than the other girls who were being interrogated at every check point along our travels, but ca va.

We made it to London on Saturday evening and after a crammed bus ride, my first encounter with the London Tube, and the sad realization that London is expensive (4pounds for a less than 10 minute metro ride, what?) we made it to our hostel, checked in and made out way up the 5 flights to our room. I was so tired and kind of ill feeling that I just passed out, while the other girls found the only place that was open at 9pm-chinese food.

Sunday morning we wandered around London a bit, saw Parliment, the London Eye, big ben, westminister abby, the works, obviously taking a million photos at each. Then Michelle had plans and the other girls wanted to buy tickets for the bus tour, which didn't really interest me- so we divided, I went to the National Gallery and we were supposed to meet up at the Tate modern at 3pm. Well let's just say that never did happen, I didn't get there til around 4 because it was apparently a lot further than I had thought and I walked around without a map tryiing to find it. Luckily I found a map on the floor and made it, only to sit at the museum for over 2 hours hoping to see the girls, and EPIC FAIL.

I started to freak out a little because my phone wasn't working, I didn't know how to get back to the hostel, I didn't even know the name of the hostel. Eventually, after asking around, walking in the wrong direction for a long time and remembering the name and tube stop of my hostel, I made it home. I was amused, upset, frustrated, and a little scared all at once. Luckily, the walk along the Thames was quite beautiful at night- London was redeemed.

Monday morning we checked out the harry potter 9 3/4 platform, an actual pseudo platform which was pretty lame, headed to the beautiful British Library- checked out a bunch of original texts and then split ways again. Michelle and I headed to Hyde park where we strolled around taking pictures eating chocolate, and generally chilling for about 2 hours. By which time we decided we were kind of hungry, but tried to find the most economic way to eat, which ended up being walking into a Mark and Spencers ((which became a good friend of mine in the UK) and buying soup which we ate after arriving at our hostel. After our linner we went to a free jazz concert in the national theatre and met a friend of michelle's.

Tuesday Madelyn and I headed to the oh so touristy Madame Toussads- the wax museum where we photographed with obama, elvis, einstein, robin williams, brad pit, etc etc, Sad news- they had a whole little area with Troy from High School Musical and (barfs) I especially enjoyed the end where they had a little 'spirit of london' ride which took you through the history of london-was cute. From there we walked to the London Eye- quite a walk let me just tell you- my faux ugg boots were already starting to take a toll on my feet.

We finally made it to the London Eye where we were meeting another friend of ours, a more difficult feat than we had initially thought. you see, our friend always sticks out in France because she has a bright pink coat, and in France everyone wears black and grey all of the time, but London is not the same, and it's full of tourists...soooo, yeh. We found her, rode the eye, took some lovely pictures, strolled around and made our way to the Imperial War Museum- I was super tired and my feet hurt a great deal from wearing the same dumb shoes, so I wasn't that into it, but none the less, it was pretty cool, from there we wandered off to a shnazzy restaurant where we had shnazzy food- my big London meal, which I was able to afford by eating soup for 3 days - haha. And then we went to a dessert place where I had this huge brownie nuttie creamy trifley thing called 'the Godfather' twas epic. From there madelyn and I hurried to this place along the Thames where all of us went to just chill and you could grab a blanket and order drinks- very chill, plus we were laughing the whole time.

Wednesday was our last day in London- we did some last minute visits like Buckingham palace, a quick visit to Picadilly and Trafalgar Square and soon thereafter we were on our way to the airport. Of course, the train that should take 15 mins to the airport took about an hour because for the second time while we were in London someone tried to jump in front of a train and take their life-oh man. We made it and after some airport difficulties, (in London they are fine with HUGE but slim backpacks, but not small but round ones...uncool) we made our way to Ireland!

I was for sure glad to be back on the euro once again, because the pound was starting to kill me, granted, I know that the euro to pound correlation is not a huge difference, but my fear of the pound seemed to work as I spent not nearly as much money in London.

After a bus ride and quite a while searching for our hostel, we made it to our very nice hostel. Once again by the time we were checked in and settled we decided to get some food and our only lucky rested in chinese food-so very dependable, pervasive and delicious.

Thursday after an enormous free (including in the hostel) irish breakfast consisting of an egg, baked beans, sausage, bacon, hash brown toast cereal and tea, we wandered about and saw the major buildings one sees in Dublin-Trinity College, the bank, and the National Library, a Yates exhibit etc We ended up in this pretty park (as per usual) and split up. Michelle and I simply wandered around with no set plans and stumbled upon these hole in the wall stores that were selling things for dirt cheap- I found this squeezqble knock-off nutella for 50 cents and thought it was hilarious so I bought it- it didn't end up tasting too bad either. I discovered that I might have a small obsession with supermarkets, how they are different in different countries etc. PLus I found out that this store that I thought was not a pervasive chain-our village's store in Spain- is totally widespread across Ireland and England--crazy. Plus I kind of freaked out when I saw a Dime [Daim] bar because it was a chocolate bar out scotish neighbors used to bring us back when we were little and I hadn't seen since. Anyhow after wandering and meeting back up we headed to the hostel to meet up with so;e girls fro;e the program who were quite coincidentally in our hostel. Instead we ended up splitting up because we had to decide our plans for the next day when we went up North to Belfast.

Which brings me to friday- we woke up pretty early because not only were we catching a train to Belfast, we also needed to check out because the hostel was a little confused(only to be put in another room). Swallowed our breakfasts and caught a train to Belfast-where a friend of our friend lived and had kindly offered to show us around. We arrived, ate Subway-go figure, but my fear returned as Northern Ireland is on the pound-haha. He drove us way up to the coast and saw the country side which was really pretty (pictures somewhere around here). We had ice cream along and then were in a rush so ate some pizza hut- haha who knew. After a long bus and car ride we were back, exhausted in Dubln.

Saturday morning we all split up doing our last minute things, which for me somehow involved buying a lot of chocolate for random people, and bagels and muffins for myself- because they don't have bagels in France :( and Imiss them- as for the muffins they were on sale and I wanted something to eat since we were leaving at 5am for the airport. The rest of the day was spent wandering about- more confusion about the hostel room, they apparently forgot to tell us that we had to move again--oops. ALSO- I was caugh in the middle of a strike in Dublin! But rest assured they are super classy about it, there was a bagpipe band and the strikers (mostly cops, firefighters etc) were in uniform marching in step like it was a parade! Apparently- as everywhere, the economic crisis hits hard, and for these guys it meant pension reductions- no fun.

Upon returning to the hostel we tried to figure out somewhere really pub like and irish to go for dinner- we went to a pub, had some typical (kind of bland) irish food, got some super over priced gelatto (hazelnut, mhmm) and after walking about the temple bar area- headed back.

We left the hostel around 5am and headed to the airport all was well, got to Paris and took an hour bus into the center, but we were stuck at the train station because a) we didnt want to take or abandon our stuff b) we were super tired c) it was Sunday and French cities essentially shut down. So although we were in Paris for 5 hours, we didn't leave the train station- sad news

For some odd reason I ended up speaking more Spanish in Ireland than I had in a while, the receptionist as well as various peolpe in the hostel spoke spanish, most of the people being from spain some from elsewhere. As for London it felt like no matter how hard we tried we kept hearing french! We think our teacher sent out random people to just talk it all the time near us, haha.

All in all, good trip, I was so tired by the end, next time not wearing those shoes for sure, I had blisters and i mean we walked a lot, but not that much! It was a bit weird to be in Europe hearing English all the time- but oh my goodness, please someone import the irish accent because it is the hottest thing ever- maybe not but I do find it great, more original than the British accent, so yeh.

As for this last week that I've been home I think I'll spare you all until next time. not too much has gone on- striking at the university continues, midterms kill me, and the weather is quite surprisingly beautiful, its been in the upper 50s and sunny-but apparently wont last.

If anyone read, major props. Comments quite appreciated

I know it's cliche, but time is flying!

Well so to update on the last week I'm going to have to be as brief as I can, which isn't very but I'm leaving for London in a few hours and need to catch abus to the airport.

But anyways things are going really well around here, classes at the University are still as per usual, not ocurring.

Last weekend te fam was gone because the kids have 2 weeks of vacay and I had a little dinner and greys watching at my house- note the picture I look like a ghost- But anyways it was really fun!

Monday because a common university class among my friends was cancelled we went over to a friends house and watched New York minute dubbed with French subtitiles, a bad movie but the company and the stormy weather were perfect.
That night my family was still gone with the exception of my host sister and her friends with whom I watched blood diamond, - it was funny though because her friend wasn't sure if it was an american or a french film- and I was like, well Leo Dicaprio- same with Ice Age, she thought it was french-haha.

Tuesday I went to my class to which I would've been late if it had actually happened but we can always count on the strike to cancel classes, I'm kind of tired of going to the university and finding my class canceled and lugging back my laptop-but oh well.
It was interesting to see how the students rally behind the cause and their uni looks like shit because there is spray paint everywhere--oh to pay 49k a year for school- it has its perks! (note that the pic is of the floor as a result of spray paint that bled through)

Thursday night I went to kareoke night with some kids in the program- the girls all sang, but of course ' girls just wanna have fun' it was, indeed fun.

The weather has also been getting nicer which is quite pleasant because the constant rain was starting to get depressing.
Yesterday I went bowling with some girls as a pre valentines day pre vacation hurrah, and i bowled a shitty game, obviously, BUT i got a strike on the last frame and got to go again! First time ever-it was pretty awesome. Plus bowling is only 2.50 for students so it was generally a good time. PLUS THE LANES WERE AMF and it was great! But only the other east coaster understood. And there were these adorable french girls who kept trying to formulate sentences in english to ask us, at the end, one who was about 7, blew me a kiss and said 'bye' it was adorable.

Yesterday I also walked home for the first time, because I missed the bus and kept telling myself Id just wait at the next bus stop, but it was nice, and then I missed the bus because I was on the wrong side of the street- not too sketchy to walk home at 8pm tho haha.
And I watched Les Choristes a very french film with the fam last night which was entertaining.

Today my host fam left, the parents for Canada the girls to go skiing in the aples? with their pbrother who will meet them there, the little one is in paris with the grandrents i think.

It's always nice to have the house to myself because well there are many reasons- but anyways I'm all packed my backpack is bigger than me, but I'm excited!

London and Dublin until the 22nd! And for the first time I want to take the weather with me.

Greve and Weekend

(we wont pay for their economic crisis)




So you know how last week i said there was a forecasted strike for last thursday? Well in fact it happened, videos to be posted somewhere at some point in time. And today i went to the uni and ;y psych class was cancelled once again last week the prof was sick, today she was there but not teaching because she was striking-- sweet life for the french.

But anyways my seminar at the uni was cancelled and so I stayed around here for the celebration of the January birthday with some more of the galette, the cake that is popular throughout the entire month of january even though its supposed to be for epiphany, but hey,

anyways friday i went with the fam to a horse show which was mildly amusing for sure. Saturday i went into the ville to just hang out and run some errands like buy books and whatnot. After 2 months of searching for boots i finally found some! And they were only 15 euros! Quite exciting! Then Michelle called with plans to make dinner and we did, we made spinach artichoke dip and mich made lentel curry, and casabaums made apple sauce and it was all delicious and yay. Im sorry this is vraiment rambly im trying to watch a movie for class and uploqd pics to facebook at the same time.
Anyhow after that Laura and I went to the Folle Journee, a classical music concert which in our case was a clavecin concert-harpsichord apparently.

Sunday my host fam had a shit ton of people over because of some prayer singing catholic get together thing- very eloquent as i am. There were a bunch of kids over and after eating so so so much my host sisterm her friend elisabeth and I made crepes with the little kids- for the little kids mostly since even my ability to cook out does a 6 year olds.

Well I have class in about 15 mins but i hope all is well state side- we had a tiny bit of snow fall last night! Reminded me of home-thats what my host mom said-so i wouldnt be homesick haha

St. Malo et Mt. St. Michel

So Im still confused about my classes and the works but!

Saturday we went to Mt St Michel, a castle along the English Channel, it's pretty cool, and old castle which was lots of fun. You might think that all I do around here is see castles, but I assure you that is not true! The down side was that Saturday morning I had to wake up around 7am to be able to catch the bus for the center since Saturday they dont run very often. I ended up catching a different bus and was lost in the city at 730 in the morning when it is still pitch black. Eventually I arrived a bit late and wet to the bus.

Anyways Mt St Michel was windy and stormy and it seemed to fit its general vibe. We ate lunch there, some of us thought to bring lunch because all they do is take advantage of tourists and charge you like 6euros for a small sandwhich, but alas.

We then proceeded to the lovely village of St Malo; where I was super hyper because IT WAS SUNNY and I havent seen the sun for extended periods of time in quite some time. Plus it was a cute little town right on the shore where we spent a good amount of time taking jumping pics on the beach and alyssa and I in our bright green and bright pink sticking out a mile away.
Generally a good day

Sunday on the other hand--I dont quite enjoy how everything shuts down on Sunday and the bus only comes once an hour so I missed the one right after mass and had to walk 30 mins in the rain to the next stop only to miss that bus and continue walking, shoes and socks wet; I was not a happy camper: Mais cest la vie:


Now Im at the university --word on the street-major greve (strike) thurs-but I suppose it wouldnt be a french experience without one- that just leaves us all a little stranded without our faithful buses and trams, perhaps no university classes, no mail-they take their strikes quite seriously!

Well I should be heading to class now but Ill keep you all updated on the strike and life:

bisous