Onwards and Upwards

Well, this is it. The fastest 5 months of my life have flown by in less than a minute and now I am sitting amongst my suitcases and clothes dreading what is to come in 3 hours and 30 minutes. These last few days in Nantes have been wonderful and horrible all at once. I got to move back in with Peter and his roomate, Raphael, for 3 days. It was absolutely great to be back with them. I've been living with two Irish guys, Sean and Alex, for the past 6 nights and I wish I could shrink them and take them both everywhere with me. Everything went smoothly moving out of our apartment..except for the electricity bill which they still won't give us, our insurance they won't let us cancel without a mailed letter requesting such action, and the agency forgetting to give us the paper we needed for the insurance cancelation. Oh France, how I will miss you. But really, these past two weeks have been way too much emotion for me. There have been people leaving everyday, so there have been an abundance of goodbye picnics and drinks every night and going out to eat, etc. We had homemade fajitas last night and a huge breakfast this morning. One exciting adventure was on Saturday I went to Paris with the Gaelic football team and we played in an all day tournament for all the best teams in France. Long story short, I can officially say I have played for the 3rd best Gaelic football team in France. :) But honestly, I can't put into words what this semester has done for me. I have changed in ways that I never foresaw and have made some of the most interesting, funny, sweet, smart, dynamic friends a person could hope for. God has blessed me with so many opportunities and experiences and  I will miss this place with all my heart.

Watch Out For The Water Behind You!! ...we're in the ocean.

I have exactly 18 days left, including today. Leah leaves a
week from today. It’s all starting to sink in that my time abroad is almost
over. I can’t believe it. I told someone the whole Anne saga the other day and
it literally feels like a lifetime ago that I lived there, yet it was just
yesterday that she picked us up from the train station. Sigh. I’m not ready to leave.
BUT, there have been some exciting/terrifying/awesome things that have happened
in the past couple days that I want to recount. Friday was our Scottish friend,
Mairead’s birthday. We all hung out in the residence for a while and then had
agreed to go to a bar of her choice. It was so much fun and we danced the night
away. However, the real story was on the way back. A group of us, me, Leah,
Melissa, Guillermo, Giovanni, Elias, Peter all left to walk back home. Elias
had had a little too much to drink, so it was difficult to move quickly. Leah
got cold and decided to run home and the rest of us stayed to help get him home
safely. We were about halfway home when all of a sudden we heard one of our
friends, Agnes, screaming for Peter and Guillermo. It wasn’t a ‘hey, wait up’
scream either. We all turned around to see her and our other friend, Michael
with two big French guys. One of them was grabbing Michael’s shirt with his
forearm pressed up against his throat and the other one was up in his face
saying things we couldn’t hear. Peter and Guillermo took off running to go
help. The full story is that Agnes wanted to leave the bar about 20 minutes
after we had left, so Michael told her he would walk her home. On their way
back they heard two guys walking behind them. Agnes told Michael that she didn’t
feel comfortable because she thought they were following them. Michael wasn’t
worried though, so they blew it off. But they kept following them and getting
closer and closer. At this point Michael was a little worried and told Agnes that
if they grabbed her, he would try and fight them off, but if they grabbed him,
that she was to start screaming because they saw us up ahead. About a minute
later one of the guys came up behind Michael and put his arm around his throat
and asking him if he was scared over and over, hence Agnes screaming for us.
After they came over to help though, the guys backed up because Peter is around
6’4” and they didn’t know that their friends were close. Michael said later
they were just looking for a fight. I’m jumping around a lot, but after they
backed off, the boys got all of us girls moving quickly and Peter had to go and
get Elias who had wandered off. As soon as he was out of sight the French guys
picked up these huge rocks and started walking towards us shouting all this
stuff. Right at that moment though, Peter and Elias (who is just as tall as
Peter) intercepted the path in between them and our group and they stopped and
left after that. The only reason I’m telling this story (as I normally would
have left it out for the protection of my mother’s nerves) is because I would
like to point out that everything happens for a reason. If Elias hadn’t had
stopped to get food, stopped to eat it, wandered off, etc, we would have been nowhere
near to help Michael and Agnes. Michael said he was sure he would have ended up
in the hospital, and if he had been hurt, what would have happened to cute,
little, English, blonde Agnes. Praise to God for taking care of our friends and
planning everything out. Yes, at the time it was annoying that Elias was taking
ages to walk anywhere, but thank God he did. WHEW. So on to happier stories. Yesterday was one of the
best days ever! Got to sleep in got ready and met a bunch of our Irish friends and
some of their Gaelic football team to go to the BEACH! Last Thursday Leah and I
got invited to go to their Gaelic football practice. We were all in as it’s a
sport we had never played. Long story short, it was amazing. I got tacked by my
German friend who also came to play that night. My right leg has huge scrapes
from my knee to my ankle, but I still absolutely love it! Leah and I even
looked up the Indianapolis Gaelic football league afterwards. J We rode with Clodagh,
Jerome, and his girlfriend Felicity. It took around an hour to get there as it’s
right next to La Boule. I taught an Irish guy and some French men how to throw
an American football, which was really amusing. Meanwhile the guys all set up
the Gaelic football goals. Then we played BEACH GAELIC! Not sure if that’s ever
been done before, but it was a blast. We played some volleyball and then went
for a swim in the ocean. The Irish are so funny, they must have reapplied sunscreen
over ten times in the four hours we were there. They all said they are white,
get burnt to a crisp, and then return to white. Hah. We came back around 6,
showered and got ready really quickly, and headed over to one of our Mexican
friend’s apartment for Mexican Night! Ana and Andrea are the two Mexican girls
here and they made a dinner of Chilaquiles. Andrea made a homemade spicy salsa
to go with it and I almost cried with joy. I have been not only craving Mexican
for months, but anything with a little flavor/spice. It was delicious. For
dessert we had Dulce de Leche. Heaven. I got to talk for a while to a girl from
Uruguay. One of the things I love most about being in France is meeting people
from all over the world. It’s so interesting to hear about her life because it’s
so different from mine. All in all, yesterday was kinda perfect. J

Today’s a lazy day. I eventually have to study for my exam
which is..tomorrow. Eh. After this exam and a paper that’s due Thursday, school
is officially over at Audencia. I’m really happy summer’s almost here, but that
also means I won’t be here anymore. ;alkdgf;adjf.

croque Monsieur

I am starting to realize that my vacation is almost over and I don't like it one bit. Yesterday was insane. Well let me start before that. Our first day in Paris we had loose plans to go tour the Opera Garnier and go to Musée d'Orsay. So after sleeping in a little, we went to the opera; the inside is just breathtaking. One of the hallways rivaled if not surpassed the hall of mirrors that we had seen the previous day. While we were inside tooling around, we saw a poster for the ballet of Romeo and Juliet at the Opéra National de Paris-Bastille for that same day in about two hours. I glanced at Leah and told her that we could probably still make it if we wanted too. So after hurriedly finishing our self-guided tour, we ran to the metro station and arrived at the other opera ten to fifteen minutes later. Upon arriving, the woman informed us that the ballet was sold out and the line for potential extra tickets was log so basically we didn't have a chance. Thus being the stubborn women that we are, we thanked her and got in line. :) After waiting for around a half hour and getting up to second in line, the man told us that there were absolutely no more tickets. However no one else was moving, so we held our spot. The people right in front of us got some tickets for 89€ and bei at te front of the line, we figured to just wait until the play started, which at that point was in ten minutes. Finally the man came up and said the had 15€ student tickets. AHH! so we paid and literally had to run from the ticket office into the main building and 30 seconds after we sat down the lights turne off. Win. Our seats were ground floor in the dead center, last row. Basically amazing. The ballet is beyond description. I won't even try. Afterwards we had to pick up Kelli, Leahs friend from back home who came to visit for a week. After runnig through the metros and train stations ( naturally we were late) we got her and went to a cutie pizza place for a late dinner. We arrive at Amaury and Nathalies place around 11, chatted for a bit, an went to bed. Yesterday was basically a full day of sightseeing. We went to Notre Dame, Louvre, Champs-Élysées, Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower (where there were, no joke, no less than 11 wedding couples), Napoleons Tomb, out to the best creperie in Paris for dinner, then back to the Eiffel to see it at night. IT SPARKLES!!!!! Oh word it was amazing. It happens on the hour so we saw it once and then stayed an extra hour until it sparkled again. I'm not sure how I missed it the last 2 times I've been here, butit was incredibleeee. Afterwards we took a quick trip to the Moulin Rouge and back to our couchsurfers. Today Leah and Kelli left for London, so I hung out at Amuaryand Nathalies place until I met Malika to exchange money andeat a delicious dinner at her house. LONDON TOMORROW!

Metro Angel

I think I understand why French people don't like to shave..it's hard enough to turn around in the shower much less find a way to reach your leg. I definitely think we should cut these people slack, as I think I might give up shaving too after that incident. Sooo, I'm in Paris now. Long story short, Leah and I were planning on staying with our friend from school our second night in Paris (our first was spent on the floor of the airport) but then she told us she had somewhere to go. I then texted my couchsurf host because he works at a hostel and got the name and address of that. When we got to the hostel however, the man told us it would cost us 38€ a piece. Yeaa. I don't think so. That left us with no place to stay and honestly we almost went back to the airport. But we called our friend Malika who called her roommate and our friend, Diane, and she told us we could stay at her house. Angel. Because at this point it was dark outside and we weren't sure where we were. But God is good and we made it to her house safely about a half hour later. Her parents are out of town and she went back to her friend's apartment after she let us in and showed us around; so basically we had this beautiful Parisian apartment to ourselves. yesss. Due to getting about 3 hours of sleep the night before and walking around Versailles all day (beautiful beautiful beautiful) we didn't make it much longer after we arrived. Short recap, we were in Mallorca for 3 nights, 4 days and it was so incredibly breathtakingly beautiful there. Our courchsurfer host, Simone, was a gem and we got to see a defense castle overlooking the city, a cathedral that I think rivals Notre Dame, and palm trees and ocean everywhere (it is an island :). We also got to lay out on the beach two days in a row. The first day we went to this little beach somewhere other than Palma (the main city and where we were staying). Basically the beach was tiny but amazing and we had it all to ourselves. Private beach in Spain? Why yes, thank you. We ever got to lay out on chairs for free, though the price of our ice cream made up for that. Anyway, Jessica's morning computer time has run out. Paris awaits.

Mallorca

This is the most beautiful city in the world. Yes, I keep saying that about every city I go to, but seriously. This place is drop dead gorgeous. Even in the cloudy, pouring rain it is majestic. Last night after a half hour nap, we left Diana's at 3:30 am to catch the night bus that would take us to the airport. We arrived, checked in, and set up camp outside our gate to wait for our 6:25 flight. We arrived in Mallorca at 7:30, but didn't have to meet our couch surfer host until 9:30, so we took an hour nap on some metal chairs in the airport. My back felt great after that. The bus system here screwed us over because none of the bus stops have the name on them and the sign inside the bus was broken, so we ended up missing our stop and our 15 minute ride ended up taking over an hour. We had to ask people for directions to our host's (Simone) apartment and then slept from 11 to 4:30. Simone is a young twenties student on internship here from Germany, and she's so sweet. She went with us sightseeing and then sat with us during dinner. We were sooooo hungry due to the fact we had had one muffin at 9 that morning. So at 7 at night we got our second meal of Penchos and Pa Amb Oli. yum yum. Now it's shower and movie night because it is pouring down rain outside. PS - Mallorca and Barcelona are the cleanest cities I have even seen in my life. I literally have a picture of a woman mopping the sidewalks in Barcelona. They are immaculate. Take note America.

Saint Jordi (you ole hoot owl)

I got robbed today. Right in the metro station as I was leaving. Ok it was more of a pick-pocketing incident, but getting robbed sounds more intense with the same technical meaning. Full story : I have been so aware and slightly paranoid about getting pick-pocketed while in Barcelona. I thought I would be ok because I have a purse that has a flap cover that buckles at the bottom and I was wearing my jacket over it so no one could cut the strap and I always kept it in front of me where I could see it. But these people are good. So we were leaving the station and suddenly there was a guy directly behind me. I heard someone saying to watch out but it wasn't really registering in my brain until I felt a slight tug on my purse. Something in me freaked out and I spun around and my fist potentially hit him in the stomach and knocked my wallet out of his hand and onto the floor. I started shouting and he put his hands up and said sorry over and over like it was an accident his hand ended up in my bag. After that I basically carried my purse in my arms the rest of the day and was suspicious of anyone within 3 feet of me. But it was a really good day. We slept in and had breakfast and lunch with Diana. Then we went to the town hall where it's the only day in the whole year that it is open to the public. It was the most beautiful building ever and it was decorated with roses in honor of Saint Jordi day, which is like Valentine's Day in the US. There were rose stands and book stands everywhereeee because the guys get the girls roses and the girls get their guys books. Cute tradition. We went in a couple shops and then got an early dinner at a really yummy sandwich shop. We had to go buy an adaptor then because I forgot to bring mine then we headed back to the fountains to watch the show again. OK SO. Last night we went to this fountain show. Basically the most incredible thing ever. I think I took 7.23 million pictures. The street leading up to the fountain was lined with smaller fountains and then the mother of all fountains is in front of the most grand building I think I've ever seen. The show was set to music and it was all lit up and I'm pretty sure I just stood there in awe the entire time. So we went back to that again tonight just because it was that good and came back to Diana's to pack. Well, earlier she went on a date and then offered to make dinner for the guy. But being the amazing person she is, she cooked for Leah and I as well, so we just got done eating the meal that started at about 10 pm..yes it is confirmed that that is not an uncommon time to eat dinner, at least in Barcelona. Yummy but now I'm stuffed to the max. Not going to sleep tonight either due to the fact we have to leave the apartment at 3 to catch a bus to the airport where our plane leaves at 4:30 to Mallorca. Yay!

Wine Stains

First day in Spain = success. Woke up and got breakfast with Diana at a little bakery around 10. I got this mini baguette with this potato baked square things on it. Super yummy. Also. I GOT COFFEE!! ah life. It was amazing and Diana paid for us before we could stop her. Leah and I then hopped on the metro to go see the Sagrada Familia. One of the most amazing things I have ever seen. It was designed by Antonio Gaudi, who also has other breathtaking structures around the city. Afterwards we walked the streets of Barcelona (yes, it is as magical as it sounds) and made our way to Passeig de Gracia, which is a huge and beautiful street filled with retail and restaurants and various designs by Gaudi. We shopped for a little bit (we are women) and I bought a new shirt! funfunfun. We then walked to the Barcelona Catedral de la Santa Creu. We didn't go inside either church because we were broke from shopping and the line was enormous. But, we definitely appreciated from the outside. There were some street performers ourside the church, so we got to watch them dance/flip/climb on each other for a while. We then walked towards the beach and found the Christopher Columbus statue. From there we tried to find this park Diana told us about, but ended up in a construction zone..soo, we tried finding the Picasso museum, but it took us about an hour to do that and by that time we told Diana we would go back to her apartment to help her grocery shop. Ps - her apartment is gorgeous. It is above a Volkswagen shop and it is new and clean and well decorated and we have our own room with a comfy bed. Love. We went grocery shopping with her and almost cried because everything is so cheap here compared to France. She bought seven apples for the price that we buy one back in France. I am debating buying in bulk here and shipping it to myself. Definitely tempting. We hwlped her make a dinner of two salads and fruit. One salad had lettuce, carrots, olives, and brown tomatoes? I don't know but they were delicious and a bit sweeter than regular tomatoes. The other salad had rice, apple, this crab stuff, and one other ingredient I can't remember. But they were both wonderful. Then came heaven. I got to eat a plum. jakhgf;adf; fruit! and strawberries with a glass of red wine. She also had her German friend come over and basically I love her. So we had a great girls night in and now I am excited to sleep in tomorrow.