Disney Channel

I just wanted to start off this blog by talking about something I should mention everytime I write, but I just want to share how good God has been to me. He is really teaching me a lot dealing with this family and I will continue to pray for guidance and patience. But He has never left my side and I can feel His influence in my life. He is also teaching me to appreciate more fully everything I have in my family and He has blessed me bountifully. I pray that I can keep an attitude of humility and hope that you all can see His hand in your life as much as I can. :)

It was an uneventful weekend for the most part. My foot has still been hurting me so I stayed in a lot. Saturday was our first day alone with Cammie. Our first encounter was when Leah and I went to get some lunch and I pulled out a frozen pizza (the only food Anne ever specifically mentioned we could eat) and started reading the directions. Cammie, hearing us in the kitchen, naturally came to see what we were up to. Leah was getting out plates and cups, but she stormed right up to me and demanded to know what I was doing. "Why do you not ask Jessica?? You not ask if you can eat." "Anne told us we could eat the pizza Cammie." After muttering various things in French, she took the pizza out of my hands, set it on the table, turned on the oven, and left. Lovely girl. We went to Aundencia to print off Leah's train information so she could print them out at the station. I was going to go to the center with her, but had to go home because I couldn't walk too well. At about 5:30 I went to my second professional ice hockey match since I've been here. I've discovered I really like going to ice hockey games. It gets a little cold after a while but I'm so impressed with their skating skills and like it when they all crash into the wall. :) I went with my friends Peter and JC and we sat about the 4th row up. I think ice hockey is about the only sport that sitting closer isn't better. Went back to have a late dinner with Leah. Thank goodness Cammie left us alone. I made scrambled eggs and Leah toasted some bread, got out the ham, and we split a grapefruit. Not all bad. We worked on a homework project afterwards but weren't very productive. Perhaps it was because Cammie had decided to throw a party that night in her mom's absence. She had about 5 girls over and 3 guys and they were all smoking and the music was loud to say the least. I didn't really mind, but the smoke got so thick in my room (two floors up) that I had to open my window to ventilate and it got pretty cold. Ha. When Leah left my room to go down to hers, she said she walked past the living room and she sent me a message saying, "Dear Cripple,
I wish you could have walked downstairs and witnessed what I
just saw...Camille and her friends...hammered...singing the bear necessities in
french in a corner of the living room...with their drinks in the air.
They are currently trying to sing an english song....of which they know maybe a total
of 2 words...it's yogurt ...to the EXTREME
(yogurt is what the French call making up words when you don't know the correct words to a song. most of them yogurt to almost all American songs..which is mostly what they listen to. it's actually pretty funny)
So I'm actually pretty bummed I missed that. The next morning I got to meet some of her friends. That was a pleasure. I hung out in Leah's room until lunch, which we had the joy of sharing with a slightly hungover Cammie. When Leah left for Italy, I also left to go to Audencia..mostly to avoid being in the house alone with my best friend, but also because our jank internet wasn't working well. I got a little homework done but ended up spending most of my time skyping my parents. It was great to talk to them and my dad skyped me most of the night setting up new browsers on my computer. Yay for skype screen sharing. I've also taken to occasionally watching old Disney Channel movies on YouTube. I've covered Motorcrossed and Cheetah Girls. Qualityy. Then today Anne finally came home..I'm actually glad because she brought cereal to eat for breakfast. I told her that I hurt my foot and asked her if she had crutches. She said yes but she told me that I should go to the doctor. This would sound sweet, but she only thinks I should go to the doctors so I can get my own pair of crutches. Me borrow something of Anne's? Over her dead body. So now I'm going to a French doctor this afternoon so he can tell me that I twisted or strained my foot. Which I already know. BUT. Positive attitude. I need crutches just so I can stay off my foot for a while and definitely because I'm going to Berlin TOMORROW!!

Over-Ambitious

So! Now that I have that stinkin Paris blog out of the way, I can give a quick recap on this week! Monday I had class all day then French class at night. Tuesday was much better. After class all day Leah and I went over to Julia's house for dinner. I'm so excited for her to come to Butler next semester so I can return the favor! After a tour of the cutest apartment I have seen since coming to France, Julia, her roommate Claire, Leah and I had appetizers of raw carrots, cherry tomatoes, olives, bread and cheese. It was perfect. Then about an hour later, two of our friends that we met on the volleyball team came and dinner began (it was about 9:30 at this point..I don’t know how all the French are so skinny since they eat so late). We began with a fresh salad mixed in Balsamic vinaigrette, with homemade tapenades and some other pastry with melted cheese inside on top. Must admit, I’ve never had pastries on top of salad, but it was delicious. For the main course, Julia made salmon, some rice mixture that I can’t remember the name of, and green beans. I thought I was in heaven. I also thought I couldn’t possibly eat another thing…until the homemade tiramisu was brought out. I suddenly found plenty of room to eat a generous helping of that. But I love the fact that we left at 11:45 and not by choice, only because we had to catch the tram. Our dinner took over 3 hours and I wish that happened more back home. Wednesday I was supposed to go to volleyball, but I hurt my foot over the weekend and it’s not going away, so I had to skip unfortunately. Thursday I went to the game but didn’t play. Afterwards I spent so much time trying to figure out train tickets and lodging for Missy and I when SHE COMES TO VISIT!!!!! Ahhhh. Can NOT wait for that. Today we had school the first half of the day, but the room was so hot, the guy was so boring, over half our class wasn’t there because vacation starts, and he didn’t take attendance. All of these factors combined caused Leah and I to become rebellious and we skipped the next 3 hours of class to go to the bank and return some things I bought in Paris (I came to the realization that I can’t afford clothing here). That’s ok though because I want to use my money to travel! And travel I will. Leah and I bought our flights to Spain for our Spring Break. After Spain we go to London, and after I figure out my money situation, I may try to join people in Italy, which is actually where I would like to go the most. We shall see. I may go to the movies tonight just to get out of the house. I’ve stayed in the past couple of nights, mostly because of my foot, but I’m sick of not doing anything. Oh, and Anne is going away for the weekend. She informed me that there is frozen pizza that I am welcome to help myself to for dinner Saturday and Sunday. Not looking forward to that bit, but since she’s gone, can’t be that bad. J

Ok one last thought. Just went down for a dinner or not-fully heated frozen fish.. what? Can you say fish breast? Fish filets? I don’t know but they were gross. Anne sat across the table and ate steak. Ahhhhhhhh. Well I’m glad at least someone is enjoying my money. Not.

Anastasia

This past weekend was one of the best in my whole life. I love Paris. Not quite sure how else to put it. I apologize in advance for two things. First, that this will probably be incredibly long, don't feel the need to read it all. Second, I will in no way convey Paris in the way I want, nor will my descriptions do it justice. So to begin with, Thursday night. I spent the night in Heidi and Henriette's room. We woke up at about 6:20 (ugh.)on Friday and got ready and packed all of our things up. In the midst of the rush and packing, Henriette hard boiled some eggs, and we sat down to a breakfast of eggs, bread, cheese, and cereal. So European. We then however realized that we had 20 minutes until our train left and we had a ten minute tram ride to the station, let alone getting to the stop and waiting for the tram. So panic mode set in a bit, but we made it to the station and literally had to run to catch our train. About 3 minutes after we got on the train, the doors closed and we were on our way. What can I say, we like to live on the edge. We talked, played cards, and slept during our 2ish hour train ride. When we arrived in Paris, we had to buy metro tickets (which was a sham) and went to find our hostel/hotel. Still not sure which one it is. It was, however, located across the street from the grocery store and a Starbucks. Perfect! The hotel was pretty jank. There were four beds in our room, and the bedspreads were super ratty and uncomfortable, but the bathrooms were completely tiled and clean. Didn’t match the room at all, but I’m actually very grateful for that. We dropped off all our stuff and got some lunch at this adorable little French diner called Subway. Afterwards, we bought our tickets for the ballet on Saturday and headed down to a place where Heidi knew of a bunch of shops that surrounded a big shopping center. I bought a cheap but cute pair of boots and a cookbook. Both of those items cost me 13 euro. Thennn came the shopping center. Oops. Not going to specify how much I spent but let’s just say I lived extremely frugally the next two days (minus my coffee!). After a full day of shopping we returned to our hotel to drop off our things. Heidi, Anne, and Elias went out to eat at a restaurant and Mariread and I ran across the street to buy our dinner at the grocery store. I bought a box of cereal, which was smart as it lasted me all weekend and through many a meal, and a little sandwich. We had good girl talk etc in our room as we ate our high class meal and then got ready to go out when the others got back. Funny story though. We heard knocking and thought someone was at our door, so we went out to look and saw a guy just standing out in the hallway. Then a few minutes later we heard knocking again so we opened our door and saw the guy standing outside Elias and Heidi’s room. So we told him that they were out and would be back soon. So we were a little freaked out because we didn’t know what he was doing but just ignored it. Then about 5 minutes later we heard banging on the door next to us and then heard it open. Mariread grabbed a wine bottle and I flung open the door and him and another guy were standing there with the door open. This is how the conversation went between me and the guy (with Mariread looking very intimidating with her wine bottle and dress on behind me). “WHAT are you doing!? This is NOT ok.” “Um? This is my room. Ask the lady downstairs.” “Yea ok. No it’s not. You need to leave right now.” “No really, this is my room I promise.” At which point I walked past him into his room to check and see if Elias and Heidi’s things were in there. Well, turns out they were staying in the room on the OTHER side of us. Sooo, I yelled at a guy for going into his own room. All I can say is just try stealing my friend’s possessions. Just try. When they all finally came back we walked around to find a bar, but we only stayed for about an hour because it closed. On Saturday we all woke up around 10:30 and discovered we were supposed to leave by 11. So at 11:30 the cleaning ladies were not happy but I was because I went to Starbucks. We had a lovely coffee (and I ate my cereal) and planned our day. Our first stop was to take all of our things to our other hotel. Needless to say, we got off on the wrong stop, and after being lost for an hour in the cold rain, we finally found our hotel. This one was significantly nicer than the previous and only 4 euro more expensive. Riddle me that. After stashing all of our bags in a storage room, we set off to the Arc de Triomphe. BEAUTIFUL. There is such rich history found all over Paris. After the arc we walked down the famous Avenue des Champs-Elysees. There was literally a line (which everyone in Europe calls a queue) that probably had around 50 people waiting in it to get into the Louis Vuitton store. We ate an early dinner at a takeout Chinese place (delicious but wayy overpriced) and got ready to go to the ballet at the Opera! We saw the ballet, Caligula, and I cannot describe to you how breathtaking everything was. To begin with, the building itself had me almost beside myself. One of my first thoughts upon entering was, “this is where a scene in the movie Anastasia took place.” Juvenile, yes, but just thinking about how much history it held and people such as royalty attended the same place I was, I don’t know it was just awesome. Then to top it off, I saw some of the most talented dancers in the world perform a ballet that I probably should have researched before attending. Regardless of not following most of what happened, the fluidity of their movements and the gracefulness I witnessed is just impossible to explain. (I keep saying that but I honestly can’t put it down in finite form) Oh! It was also pretty amazing that we could see muscle definition in the lead dancer’s legs from 4 stories up..Heidi and I thought that was rather impressive) Basically what I’m trying to say is go to the stinkin ballet if you’re ever in Paris. We met up with Henrietta, her boyfriend, and some of his friends at a bar a couple streets away and then went to a two floor Irish pub. Quite impressive but too warm inside for my taste. Sunday our first stop was the Eiffel Tower. It was everything I thought it would be, but I should have expected some things that I didn’t. First, there were street sellers everywhere! Then a man in a gorilla costume jumped in one of our pictures (pretty funny actually) and tourists everywhere. Granted, I expected the last one, but I thought there would be a certain ambiance around it for some reason. However, it was wonderful being at such a world icon and I would go back without hesitation. After spending some time at the Eiffel Tower, the goal was to walk to the Louvre. Wellll, we walked for about an hour out of our way because we had absolutely no idea what we were doing, but it was good because I got to see the American Embassy. Again, the Louvre was awesommeee! Mona Lisa was eh, cool to see but still not quite sure what the fuss is about. If anyone would like to inform me as to why that’s so famous, all I’ve gotten is we can’t tell if she’s happy or sad or if it’s Leo himself. Fun fun. But I love love loved the painting of Napoleon’s Coronation by Jacques-Louis David. That is a painting worth preserving. And the history behind the painting is really interesting (thanks Mrs. Perry). You should definitely research it. We walked around about an hour more, although we determined you could spend a week there and still not see everything, and then left to meet Anne and Heidi. Not too much happened after that, we ate dinner at McDonalds (ew), got our things from the hotel, and yet again had to run to catch our train. About 2 minutes to spare after getting through the door. Excellent timing if I do say so myself. And that my friends, concludes my trip to Paris. Sorry it took a full week to update!

Lace, Peanut Butter, and Paris

Today's weather was absolutly gorgeous. It was high 50's and sunny all day. Automatically makes everything better. Wednesday was class all day again, but for lunch I got to go with Malika (french friend) and other people from class to a cutie sandwhich shop. I got a wrap and it was amazing and a brownie. yum! I mostly just sat and listened to them all talk, but Malika always translated and then talked to my in French extremely slow and I understood most of what she said. Makes me kinda excited though my French is no better than pathetic currently. After school Malika, her roommate Diana, and I went to the grocery store to pick up break, cheese, and wine for a bread, cheese, and wine party. go figure. We went to this girl's apartment and the assortment of cheese was incredible and we put this spread on top and basically it was the cutest girls night in the history of ever. Afterwards we all walked over to her neighbors apartment and crashed a birthday party for a girl most of us had never met. Typical. It was kinda what I imagined Europe house parties to be like. There were people with blue lipstick and white eyelashes and crazy outfits. Everyone was really friendly though and they had awesome birthday cake so I was happy :) I got to meet a bunch of new people from Audencia, so hopefully I will start knowing more people than just the other foreign students (not that I don't LOVE my other foreign students). We went to a bar afterwards where I saw some girls from the volleyball team and talked with them for a while. I slept over at Malika's and in the morning we had a breakfast of you guessed it, break and cheese. I also had an orange and yogurt. I felt very European. I then helped Diana make mashed potatoes. HOW I HAVE MISSED THEM!!!!! (for those of you who are not aware, mashed potatoes are one of my absolute favorite foods aside from sushi and chocolate) We then attended a hip hop class and then went to a cardio class. Had another awful Anne dinner and then packed for Paris. My wonderful parents sent me a great carepackage that got here yesterday..I was so excited. I think Anne expected me to open it in front of her..ahahahah. After packing I came over to the residence and showered and straightened my hair. I was planning on just waiting outstide the residence until someone came in and I could sneak in behind them, but I randomly bumped into Heidi at my tram stop (which is forever away from her stop) and she gave me her keys! Really random but made my trip a lot easier. Getting up at around 6 tomorrow morning to make our 7:30 train. Starbucks here I come!!!!!! What a sweet reunion that will be. Pray for a safe travel and stay :)

Ergo

French cooking galore! First on Saturday when our volleyball team made delicious treats for our get-together, last night and now again next week! Yesterday I had class all day and it was pretty disappointing as the class appeared to have potential when it first started out, but then the professor turned out to be a complete failure. He showed up to class (this was the second time we had him) an hour late and then tried keeping us after class. He also couldn't get his technology to work so Leah and I played Family Feud for about 45 minutes as he had someone else try and fix his computer. But the class was on internet marketing and when he was actually teaching I found most of what he had to say interesting. I mostly like how companies study consumers to find out behavioral patterns and trends on the internet. Some advertising companies watch what you type on the internet and based on key words they know which ads to send your way..no wonder I get so many ads about shoe sales! After class for 6 hours (well, about 4 really) I had my French class. I love learning the language and then hearing it around me, but I'm still at the stage where I'll hear a word, think "Hey! I just learned that word!" and then still not know what they're talking about because I only know I learned the word, not actually remember what it means. Alas, I will press on. Leah met me at the tram stop and we went to the grocery store to buy bagettes and cheese to take to our wonderful French friend's apartment. Malika and her roommate offered to cook dinner for us and another foreign girl from Columbia. It was to die for!! We had bread, cheese, and mini sausages for an appetizer, some wonderful baked tomato stuffed with meat mixture and rice for the main course, and apple crumble for dessert. Yumm. Today was class about international retail and marketing, the teacher is from England ergo his accent is heaven, and I really enjoyed learning about the different consumer trends in different counties and cultures. I think the part I enjoy the most is the amount of homework I don't have to do. I have a paper due tomorrow and it's the second one I've had to write in 5 weeks of school. I might drop out of Butler and move to France until I graduate. Except that wouldn't work because the non-exchange students actually do a lot more work than me. But I'm not complaining. Tonight I walked about 45 min to the center to buy some conditioner as my hair now loosely resembles straw and feels like it too, and to buy a new nose ring as mine fell out yesterday. That was a rather interesting experience as the man at the tatoo and piercing place didn't speak English and my French is, well, nonexistent. So it involved lots of hand motions and defeated smiles. The most I understood was when he said "I no pay attention in English class" and I responded with, "moi aussi." :) Other than that I should definitely be writing my paper and not this. Oh! But I met a girl at our volleyball match last Saturday. Her name is Julia and she is studying abroad at Butler next semester! She's incredibly sweet and offered to cook traditional French food for Leah and me next week sometime. Yay! So if anyone has any cheap, easy, traditional American food that we can start cooking in return for everyone's awesomeness, let me know! (and no, I do not want to cook hot dogs, mac and cheese, or peanut butter and jelly...mostly because they don't sell peanut butter here :( I need ideas!) Other than that Leah is leaving me tomorrow. It's her friend's 21st birthday tomorrow and she's studying abroad in Montpellier so Leah's going to surprise her. Alas I will have to eat dinner by myself with the fambam for two nights in a row...can't waiiit. But then I will go to PARIS and it will be fabulous. Now to write the unavoidable paper due tomorrow. I have an hour and ten minutes. Go.

Crepes!

Friday, Friday..what did I do two days ago? I know I didn't have class because it was a four day weekend (what a shame) but I can't remember so I'll start with yesterday. We had a volleyball tournament that lasted about 5 hours yesterday. We played teams from Bordeaux and Paris. We won all our games against the Bordeaux team, which is exciting because they're the best team we've played thus far and they were also undefeated..well not anymore..but it was a lot of fun. Then we sat out and watched while Bordeaux and Paris played eachother. Paris lost to Bordeaux and then we lost to Paris in our first game against them. Thankfully though we were able to pull it together and win the next two games to win the match and the tournament. Yay! It was probably thanks to our wonderful friends. Tons of our erasmus friends came to support us! :) After the games were over we rushed back to the house to shower and change because the volleyball team wanted to all get together and have a potluck of sorts that evening. We went to the grocery store and bought two baguettes, brie cheese, cider, and ingredients for crepes. We met up with our friend Claire, that we met on the volleyball team and dropped off our overnight bags as her roommate was out of town this weekend. Her flat is the cutest thing under the sun and directly behind the church that I've been going to the past couple of Sundays (minus last week). She had baked little pastry balls with cheese and ham and basil in them. Heaven. We walked over to Nicholas's apartment (on the guy's volleyball team) and met up with most of our team and some of their friends they brought along. It was so much fun. I think I learned more French last night than I have the entire time I've been here. We all just went back and forth asking how to say things and explain phrases and telling random stories and questioning lifestyles and it was just great. I'm so glad I'm making French friends haha Most people left at that point and it was down to Leah, Claire, Margo, Julia (who is actually studying abroad at Butler next semester! yay!!) and Nicholas. It was about 1:30 in the morning and they decided we should go out. Leah and I must be grandma's because we thought it was bedtime. But they assured us that this was the French way and we must experience their culture and go out..oh the things we say to sway people. So we went to a 'club'/bar called TexMex. Sketchyy and Leah and I volunteered to sit with the bags and coats for a while so everyone else could go dance. We were being lame..or self-sacrificing. I prefer the latter. Plus there were so many creepy men. ew. But it was actually a lot of fun. We got back to Claire's around 3:45 and if I hadn't had coffee before we went out, I would have fallen asleep in the club. Geez I need to step up my game. We went this morning to the church that we originally went to. It was great again and I'm starting to recognize every 30th word or so. Progress! Claire, Leah and I then went back to Claire's apartment where we learned how to make crepes from scratch. Before I brag, it was actually incredibly easy. But I'd never done it before so it was really exciting and extremely delicious. After eating my body weight in crepes, Leah and I walked to the tram stop and now have the afternoon to do homework, skype, and be lazy. Last thought. Leah and I, while waiting for trams, have now made up our own version of Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream to, Mr. Tram-man, bring us a tramm! More lyrics to follow.

Special K

Today was a day full of exercise, which is definitely for the best as most of my recent activity has just been walking around. I woke up and had a lovely bowl of sugary cheap chocolate cereal. Then I realized that the 19 year old daughter hides the good Special K berries cereal as she walked into the kitchen, got out her bowl and spoon, walked out opened a door somewhere, and walked back in with her box. I'm not bitter. I then went on a run to a park that's close to the house. It was absolutly beautiful weather and the park was small but had huge trees and a soccer field on the far side. I'm so excited for spring when everything blooms. After my run we went to the school cafeteria, as it's the cheapest lunch we can find. Afterwards we walked to Audencia and watched the boys volleyball game. They easily won and then Leah, Elias, and I played around with a volleyball for a while. Then I walked home and got ready to meet my wonderful new French friend, Malika, and her roommates for an exercise class in the center. It was at this building that also taught Arabic dancing and it was really neat to see all of the costumes that the women were wearing. We actually had a decent dinner of grilled cheese with ham and mustard, with our yogurt dessert. I decided to be brave and try the prune yogurt. Actually not bad at all. I would eat it again, though definitely not going to be a daily occurance. Leah and I then took a trip to the grocery store and I picked up some good cereal for the mornings when I'm not feeling chocolately. Excited!

Quit Complaining, You're in France

Today was bipolar of sorts. It started out wonderfully, got really horrible and then decent again. I got to sleep in AND still got a bowl of cereal (practically a miracle) this morning, rice crispies nonetheless. Good Day =1, Bad day = 0. Then Leah and I took the tram to the residence where we hung out with our Swedish girls and did homework for a while. (We had to discuss and draw what animal we are now, what animal we are in the workplace, and what animal we want to be in 5 years. I said I am currently an otter, and I said I'm a gorilla in the workplace, although they are described as spending the majority of their day eating, which is true, or at least I wish it was, but I don't know what that says about my work ethic.. and I said I wanted to be a reindeer in 5 years. They are described as energetic and spirited, seemingly shy yet curious about their environment, they'd rather stroll than wander, and they are hard to catch but gentle when domesticated. Not sure about the last part but all I know is I want a pet reindeer now.) So after my strenuous homework, Henerietta made us spaghetti with meatballs (keep in mind she's from Sweden), cherry tomato & cucumber salad, and cheese for dessert. YUMMM. And they eat their spaghetti with ketchup and then they had this sort of jam/jelly stuff that they put on their meatballs. It was delicious. I never thought jam substance would be to die for on meatballs, but it was amazinggg. And I had vegetables. That alone almost trumps the bad part of my day coming up. Good day = 2, Bad day = 0. We all then took the tram to school, and a small yet significant thing happened on the tram. All my friends got seats on the tram and they offered to let me sit on their laps, but it wasn't a big deal so I just stood next to them. Well a guy sitting across from them stood up and offered me his seat. Not earth-shattering, but I have yet to see anyone do that on the tram except once a girl got up to give an old lady her seat. I don't know, I love random acts of kindness. So this seems like an awesome day right? Well it was. Then came the class from down under. It was a class in a computer lab and the computers are older than dirt and work slower than shifting molasses. The professor not only mumbled the entire class, but talked softly on top of that. Anddd, his accent made it nearly impossible to understand him. Now I commend him for learning a second language, it's something I don't know and I admire people who can speak more than one, but! speak up man! So we were 'learning' some mathematical shenanigans on the computer and were supposed to work on an assignment but literally the entire class had no idea what was going on. So during our break, Leah and I went up to talk to him. Well, come to find out that he was trying out a new learning style. Let me explain. Two days ago we received an email from him with 6 documents and 2 powerpoints. The 6 documents ranged from 20-70 pages long and one of the powerpoints had over 120 slides, all of information I have never seen in my life. Well, apparently this new learning style is that we read all the material he sends us and we come to class with "any questions we might have". Um yes, everything. So needless to say, I have never been more frustrated sitting through a class. I still couldn't tell you anything about what I supposedly learned today. I digress. But ughh. He just frustrated me. So, Good day = 2, Bad day = 1. So this evening I spent my time writing a paragraph in French about cheese. Don't ask me why, but I have to memorize it and recite it in front of all my fellow beginner French students (aka all my wonderful Chinese friends). So despite Camille (19 yr old daughter who literally despises me, no, I'm not exaggerating) yelling at me at dinner tonight, it was actually a lovely evening. So all in all, it was a good day. I'm just whining, so I apologize. I will try to keep that behavior minimalistic. In the meantime, I will dream of the care package my incredible parents sent me today!! Yay!

SportsSportsSports

Micah 6:8 - "On te l'a enseigne, o homme, ce qui est bien et ce que l'Eternal attend de toi: c'est que tu te conduises avec droiture, que tu prennes plaisir a temoigner de la bonte et qu'avec vigilance tu vives pour ton Dieu."

Tonight is the Super Bowl! After being told numerous times that the game wouldn't be broadcasted on TV here, two people confirmed that it will be played on channel W9..whatever that means. Don't care though because I'm going to find it. For my Super Bowl feast, I bought a bag of chips and then went across the street to a candy shop and bought some jelly beans and other such trinkets of deliciousness. It's not taco dip and veggie trays (unfortunately) but it will do! Yesterday was very eventful. Leah and I met up with some friends at Audencuia to watch the men's volleyball team. They were amazing and so much fun to watch. Afterwards we met up with our Irish friends at the ice skating rink to watch a professional hockey game! It was so cool, and very cheap to get into. Favorite! Leah and I split a hotdog as a snack, and insead of a bun, they put the hotdogs inside a baguette. hahah so cute! It was actually delicious and a nice change of pace. After the hockey match we grabbed dinner at Subway (first fresh? vegetables I've had in a month!) and went over to the residence to hang out for an hour or so. Today I saw a man farmers blow while riding his bike. amusing. Then he almost rode straight into a pole. even more amusing. But far more important than that - Leah, Kevin, and I tried out a new church today that's a little bit closer to our house. They had nuns! First time I've ever been to a church with nuns, but the incense started to clog my head a little by the end of the service. I think I like the first church better, but we're going to try a couple more before we settle down into one for the rest of the time we're here. Had Subway again for lunch (no judging. it's cheap). I did an hour and a half of yoga from a tape Leah has and let me tell you what. that mess is hard. Had an interesting dinner of chicken and twice heated canned vegetables and now I am looking forward to my midnight feast and a good football game. Go Packers!

Slackin

Well I officially fail at writing this week. It's not that I've been especially busy or have a good excuse, although I could make one up if you'd like..But that would require effort and I feel I will just continue my trend of being lazy this week. Maybe next time. I had class all day Monday and Tuesday. Monday was my last negotiating class, and it has been my favorite class by far. We had to do role play negotiations and the first one I got worked over. The guy I was negotiating with was horrible and I only got the minimum of what I wanted. Then on the next negotiation, since I was ticked, I went to town on these two Chinese girls. I got most of the things I wanted, although no worries, I did focus on win-win. However, afterwards I felt bad so I gave both of them hugs and apologized for if I had been too mean/not very cooperative. haha I had fun. Tuesday was my brand class with my teacher from London. Love love love their accents. Brilliant. The last half of the class though I wasn't paying attention because I met this French girl sitting next to me and she told me all about Paris and all the good local places to go..which is awesome because I'm going there in 2 weeks!!!! ahhhhahah. yesssss. I am currently browsing this couch surfing website, but if anyone knows anyone in Paris who would want to host me and my 3 friends there for a weekend, let me know! Tuesday night we went to La Maison, which is The House in French, and it's this really cute bar that has lots of different rooms and they're all decorated as different rooms of a house..in 70's decor. Super cute. I tried this cherry beer, forget what it's called, but I actually liked it. Then since I'm poor I drank free water the rest of the night :) Let's see. I'm getting old, my memory is slipping.  So Wednesday Leah and I spent the day trying to finalize everything for our bank account. Finallyy we got everything worked out..2 weeks after we started this process. Everything here moves slower than glacier pace I'm convinced. We went to a club called TexMex that night and basically just danced for a couple hours. There was this old couple dancing in the corner that was..what's the word? Disturbing. But for some hilarious reason we couldn't stop watching them. At one point he picked her up, upside down, and was twirling her. Hard to describe, but I really can't tell if I'm impressed or scarred. Yesterday, Thursday, we had a volleyball match at a different business school, which we won! We have a match next Saturday, which I'm told if we win, there is a tournament in Nice (south of France) that we get to play in. Not sure on details but pretty sure I'm bringing my A-game Saturday. Yuup. Then we bought a discount train card at the train station and our tickets to Paris. :) Last but not least we all went ice skating at the rink 5 minutes from our house. The Canadians, the Irish, the Americans, and the Germans showed everyone who was boss at skating..by letting them school us all. No worries, it was still a blast and I am sore today. good times. Class later today and who knows what tonight!