no paolo nutini sightings, but...

I went to Scotland where he (my favorite singer ever) lives! And London and Barcelona! I just finished three weeks of vacation between my two semesters, and I traveled a lot!...for me. I learned a lot about hostels, flights, and packing light from my traveling companions, Chelsea and Katie. And I got to see my best friend Liz from home who I only seem to hang out with in foreign countries!

First, I went to Barcelona for four days. We arrived at night and went straight to a flamenco show with a dinner of paëlla and sangria. We figured out Barcelona's metro system, which is a lot like the one in Paris...and also could be where I lost my cell phone. The next day, we went to Park Güell, which is a huge park designed by Antoni Gaudi who created many of the most famous sights in Barcelona. It has palm trees, caves, and sculptures all around it. We walked around, had a picnic, and observed the many pigeons (just like Paris!). Then we went to the beach! It was a beautiful, sunny day and much warmer than Paris, and it really felt like vacation. I found Liz on the beach after many text messages and confused phone calls, but after a few weeks in Barcelona, Liz learned how to find the beach! It was so great to see her, and she spoke Spanish for us and invited us to an American bar to watch the Super Bowl that night. I did not expect to watch the Super Bowl in Spain and I wouldn't have been sad to miss it (except the commercials!), but it was very different to watch it in Spanish and great to meet some more people studying in Barcelona for the semester! Then we had another day at the beach, dinner with Liz, and visits to the Temple de la Sagrada Familia and Las Ramblas, the main walking street with lots of shops and things to see. Then it was already time to go back to cold, cloudy, beautiful Paris.

After a few days and after unpacking and repacking my little, kind of Ryanair- and Easyjet-approved carry-on, I went to London! Chelsea and I arrived on Valentine's Day, which is also Chelsea's birthday! We found Katie who is studying there and went out for cider. I think it ruined me for beer forever. It's that good. Then we visited the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, London Bridge, Big Ben, Parliament, the London Eye, and Piccadilly Circus. We went on a day trip to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and Bath where the Roman baths are. Stonehenge was my favorite part even though we weren't allowed to get very close to it. I think I need to go back for the summer solstice, which is the one day of the year when you can go inside the stone circle. Still, it's the closest thing to the seven wonders of the world that I've visited (it almost made the list!), and it was really cool! Then it was back to London for cooking in Katie's apartment, Covent Garden, and Camden Town. Then we flew from London to Edinburgh/Edimbourg, which I still don't know how to pronounce in French or English. We visited Edinburgh Castle and climbed the mountain/volcano called King's Seat or Arthur's Seat. From the top, we had great views of Edinburgh and the mountains in the distance and a chance to sing, "The hiiillls are aliiive with the sound of muuusic!" The next day, we took a train to Glasgow. In just a few hours, we saw St. George's Square, St. Mungo's Church and the cemetery, Buchanan Street, and a lot of the city, which was a lot like Edinburgh but had its own river running through it like Paris and London!

After taking the train back to Edinburgh and waking up reeeally early the next morning, Chelsea and I flew back to Paris. After a week of speaking English, hearing British and Scottish people all around me, and being called "lovie" all the time which is adorable, I had completely forgotten how to speak French! It was the strangest feeling to hear myself say "Merci" to people at the airport instead of "Thank you" and "Pardon" instead of "Excuse me." And I almost cried when the voice over the metro speakers spoke French and didn't politely tell me to "Mind the gap between the platform and the train." But I got over it, and after about one day of being in Paris and going to a three-hour-long class in French, I think it all came back to me! 

Keeping with the title of this blog, I had another not-so-intelligent-while-involving-my-host-family moment after my three weeks of vacation, which overlapped with Victor and Laurene's vacation from school and Madame's vacation from work. While I was in the UK, they went to Barcelona for a cousin's wedding. I had a few lovely days at home alone before they got back late at night. The next morning, I went upstairs to say hello and happy birthday to Madame because it was her birthday. She gave me a strange look and told me that her birthday is March 26th, not February 26th! Paris, je t'aime.

half way there

I'm half way through my year in France. I can't believe it. I still can't believe I live here. I haven't been doing many things that I can't wait to blog about because I LIVE HERE! I walk around sometimes with a destination in mind and sometimes not, get lost, get distracted, find cool places, forget what time it is and walk around for usually about five hours at a time, realize i'm exhausted, find the metro, and go home. Recently, I was out as it was getting dark and saw a searchlight that I thought might be the Eiffel Tower. I followed it for a while, and sure enough, it was the Eiffel Tower! That made it the third night in a row that I ended up at the Trocadéro, the big flat thing in front of the Eiffel Tower where people always take pictures of each other leaning on it or holding it in the palm of their hand. It never gets old. I didn't know i could walk from my house to the Eiffel Tower, but now it's been done and it can be done again!...just maybe not in the daytime when i actually have to look at maps instead of sparkly lights to find it. I don't like maps. I like winging it.

Another day, I was trying to find the coiffure by my house where my friend had gotten a haircut. I still cannot believe how many coiffures (hair salons/places) there are in Paris and I don't understand how people pick which one to go to! On the way there, I took a wrong turn, didn't care, saw Tour Montparnasse (the tallest building in Paris after the Eiffel Tower and right by my school), and decided to walk to my school. I still haven't ever walked there when I actually need to go to class or figured out how long that would take if I stayed on track, but I'm working on it...maybe when it's warmer. I cannot wait for Paris in the spring! I mean, it snowed in Paris this year! Actually enough snow to count! It wouldn't have felt right without it, but now that it happened, it can be spring now please!

So now I'm perfectly happy to say I live here and I'm not a tourist...but i can still be persuaded to do touristy things when people who don't get to live here all year come here and want to do that! For example, my friend Chelsea came back after Christmas break and brought her friend Gary who stayed for two and a half weeks. We did touristy things like going to Parc des Buttes Chaumont, Montmartre, the Louvre, the ferris wheel at the end of the Champs--Elysées, the catacombs, and an absinthe bar. To summarize absinthe, it smells good like licorice but tastes disgusting!

In the last few weeks, I've tried many French foods that I would never try if I wasn't here. I had foie gras for the second time (still not that great), escargot (slimy and garlicky), fondue (If I ever learn to like rare meat, it will be this year!), and eating kiwi out of the skin with a spoon (maybe not particularly French, but new and different!). I also had rabbit (lapin) with my French family on February 3rd since it's the Chinese New Year and 2011 is the Year of the Rabbit (tastes like chicken--really!). On February 2nd, we made crepes for La Chandeleur, which is kind of like Groundhog Day. The tradition goes that you hold a coin in one hand and try to flip a crepe in a pan with the other hand. If it lands perfectly, you will have a lucky year. If not, better luck next time. Also, after some research, I learned this rhyme: "Quand la Chandeleur est claire, l'hiver est par derriere. Chandeleur couverte, quarante jours de perte!" (If February 2nd is clear, no more winter to fear. If the Chandeleur is overcast, forty days winter to last). I'm pretty sure it was cloudy.

Last but not least, Mom came to visit! We spent a lovely week in a lovely apartment right by school! I picked her up from the airport and taught her how to use the metro. She brought American things that I'd been missing and taught me how to sit outside cafes and drink coffee (er, still chocolat chaud for me!) and not be a poor college student, at least for a week. We went to the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, and the Luxembourg Gardens. At my still-favorite museum. Musee d'Orsay, she found her favorite painting, a Van Gogh, even though she doesn't even like Van Gogh! See Paris is so educational!   Then real mom met French mom. We had galette des rois (cake that has a roi/king/angel/blue teddy bear in our case hidden in it and whoever finds it gets to wear the crown) at my French house. I translated, but my mom's high school french is better than I thought and my French mom's English is way better than I thought(!). But I actually kind of appreciate that she doesn't speak English with me so I can get better at French. Then Mom left very early in the morning, I said goodbye to her and the apartment, and I went to class to finish the semester. Now I have three weeks off between semesters, and I'm going to Spain, London, and Scotland...so international! Like the other day when I scratched off an iTunes gift card sent from Minnesota with a 10 dirham coin from Morocco in Paris, France!...woah.

bonne année!

Translation: Happy New Year! That is what people say in France until the end of January I'm told...and the reason why it's ok that this blog didn't come until January! I came back to my host family's house today after two weeks of break, and that's the first thing all of them said to me. It's also what everyone in every shop, boulangerie, and ticket window says whenever I talk to them. I like how New Year's is continuing past midnight on New Year's Eve here. However, I don't think deux-mille-onze (2011) is as fun to say as deux-mille-dix (2010)!

There has been some serious Emilie-Paris bonding time in the last two weeks. I went to the Louvre twice, back to Musee d'Orsay, to Sacre Coeur and Montmartre, to La Defense, to Christmas markets, and to all of my favorite parks. Everything was decorated for Christmas, but it didn't really feel like Christmas. No one in Paris says "Joyeux Noel" as much as they say "Bonne Année!" I wasn't planning to go to mass until Christmas Day, but at about 10:00 on Christmas Eve night, I decided that mass was the only thing that would make it feel more Christmas-y. So I was lucky to find a little church really close to my friend Chelsea's apartment where I was staying that had a mass at 10:30. It was called Saint Georges, and it was a really short walk from the apartment in the 19th arrondissement. I walked there and sat down in time to get a good look around the church and hear some hymns. It was interesting to see the decor and notice the differences between this church and American masses. For example, there are no pews. There are rows of chairs stuck together with boards, and there aren't any kneelers. The mass is pretty much the same (but in French of course!), but there are many more hymns. Maybe that was just because it was Christmas, but it was also the reason why it was almost two and a half hours long! Everything was very serious, especially for Christmas, but I should have expected that since it's Paris! There was everything that made church feel like church at home to me--shaking hands and a crying baby specifically. The thing that surprised me the most was that there were a lot of single people there and almost no families. While it was strange, it made me feel kind of at home for my first Christmas away from my family.

On Christmas Day (a rare sunny winter day in Paris!), I went to walk around the Seine and ended up visiting Notre Dame. There was a huge Christmas tree outside, and it was all very photogenic. I walked around the inside many times on a "tour" which was free and self-guided. I wanted to go up to the top, but of course it was closed because of the huge amount of snow (an inch maybe) that was still on the ground. Oh those French! So I stood in the back and listened to an organ concert. I had a nice Christmas different than any Christmas I've had before!

On New Year's Eve, Chelsea and her friend Gary flew in from Chicago. We went to the Champs-Elysees before midnight to ring in the new year. It was completely filled with people and cars from one end to the other. We walked from the Place de la Concorde end almost to the Arc de Triomphe end and stood in the middle after the police closed it off to cars and waited for midnight. There was a lot of excitement but no countdown to midnight, no real fireworks, and almost no sparklers. We got out of there just as the cops finished lining up along all of the side streets preparing for whatever might happen after midnight. We made our way to the first metro stop we could find and got into the most packed metro car I've ever been in and hopefully ever will be in. It was free from 5:00 on New Year's Eve until noon on New Year's Day, and I guess everyone in Paris knew that! Finally, we celebrated the new year with our friend Mickaël who had just finished his shift at Disneyland Paris. I don't really know what the new year will bring, but I'm pretty sure it includes free tickets to Disneyland!

aquariums and musicals and plays oh my!

In the month of December, I have gone to an aquarium, a musical, and a play. The aquarium was actually an aquarium, a movie theater, an art gallery, and a TV station (well a green screen!) all in one. The musical was Mozart l'Opéra Rock and reminded me a lot of Mamma Mia. The play was at school, put on by French students, and very entertaining. While I am still very entertained by Paris in general (the people, the métro, the Frenchness, realizing that I think in French a lot now), I'm realizing what else I could be missing here in the way of entertainment--especially now that it's cold out and I don't feel the need to walk around outside all day every day anymore! 


The Aquarium de Paris is "bien plus qu'un aquarium" (much more than an aquarium!) and includes Cinéaqua, which is a movie theater. My friend Katie and I spent five hours maybe more inside the aquarium/movie theater on a cold December day. We saw Nemo-like fish and seahorses, petted koi, looked at many artists' interpretations of Disney princesses, watched the movie Christmas with the Kranks dubbed in French, and took pictures in the green screen room. The green screen was probably our favorite part because we got to run from a dinosaur, have a dance party, and do the weather! It reminded me of third grade (I think) when I visited Kare11 with the Girl Scouts of Troop 397 and we met Belinda Jensen and saw that the weather map was not actually on the screen behind her...blew my mind then and it still does! 


I didn't know what I was getting myself into with the musical Mozart L'Opera Rock, but I went one night with ISA. It turned out to be the story of Mozart's life set against a modern, colorful background with very sparkly costumes. It was described to me as kind of like Mamma Mia and it lived up to that description except not too much because I actually liked it! Now that I think of it, it was kind of Cirque du Soleil-esque. There was very little dialogue in between the loud, excited, almost yelled songs. The songs were kind of hard to follow sometimes, but the story was about Mozart's life and loves and music. It was so fast-paced and exciting, what's not to like? No one in the group liked it except me. 


Finally, I saw a play at the Catho done by French students and a Venezuelan student who's in one of my classes! It included many short scenes of Shakespeare, Molière, and other great playwrights. It even had "La Cigale et La Fourmi," a story by Jean de la Fontaine based on Aesop's fable, which we happened to be talking about in one of my classes. I am definitely une cigale because I don't plan my life ahead of time! I gotta work on that! My favorite part was probably when all of the characters in one of the stories started singing Hakuna Matata! I'm not really sure how it related to anything, but it's a good song to live by!


It has also been kind of a sad time because everyone is leaving Paris, not to mention everyone is going back to DU from all over the world. ISA had a farewell tea party where there was no tea just champagne! It was fun to see people who I hadn't seen in a while and to say goodbye to my friends who I might not have seen otherwise. I hadn't seen some people since Morocco. I even got a kind of normal, kind of good picture of my friend Casey and me. We were roommates in Morocco, and she thinks I'm really weird, and we live like a block away from each other in Paris (well except that Paris doesn't have blocks but you know) and I tried to visit her once but her house doesn't have a doorbell so long story short, I hadn't seen her in a long time! Hahaha I miss Morocco and Morocco people! Now almost everyone is back in the States safe and sound except me and I'm on break in Paris for two weeks! Ok so another blog including Christmas-y stuff and break stuff is coming before the month--and year!--is over! 

lots of random stories to tell now that i only blog twice a month

After raining for a straight week after I got back from Morocco, Paris made up for it with some sunny days, some rainbows, and even snow! Since I've been back in Paris, I've been constantly reminded of why I love it here...mostly whenever I do something they do in my favorite movie ever, Paris, Je T'aime. On a sunny day, I visited Père Lachaise Cemetery, which they visit in the movie and where many famous people are buried, including Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison. There are also many Emilie's (spelled right, the French way!) and even a Weiller (with two l's, but it was the closest I found!) buried there. It is a beautiful cemetery, and I was more reminded more of life than I was of death. It made for a lovely day of walking down the cobblestone paths in the cemetery with some of my friends. The only problem is that I've had a sore throat and a cold ever since I kissed Oscar Wilde's grave. Hmm, probably not a good idea, but totally worth it! I also realized that I like the daily life in Paris as much as or more than I like the tourist attractions, and the things that make it the City of Lights and the City of Love. Like, please, Americans on the metro, please don't think you can pull off PDA like Parisians. You can't! Hahaha.

Speaking of Parisians, I went to see some very Parisian entertainment in the last few weeks, including a show called How to Become Parisian in One Hour, which was stand-up comedy by a guy named Olivier, which happens to be one of my favorite French names. I think everyone in the packed, 200-seat theater laughed for the entire hour! I can't give away the jokes, but let's just say I'll never think of my Navigo pass the same way again! I also went to the famous Parisian cabaret, Lapin Agile. It was not what I expected, but it was more than three hours of accordion-playing, piano-playing, guitar-playing, comedy, and singing along. I even understood some of the jokes, which included les jeux de mot (puns) en francais! We sang along to songs like "Sur le Pont d'Avignon" and "Alouette." I also made it to one of my favorite places in Paris for the first time on this trip--Centre Pompidou! The modern art, the building itself, and the view of Paris from the top floor still amaze me.

Even fire drills are better in France. I say this because they are very different than American fire drills and very entertaining to watch. The fire alarm went off about fifteen minutes before the end of one of my classes. Instead of getting up and out of the building as quickly as possible, as I have been taught to do ever since I was in kindergarten, we sat there for a while to make sure what we were hearing in our basement classroom was actually the fire alarm, were assigned our homework for the next class, packed up all of our things, and put on our coats and scarves before we walked at a normal or even slow pace up the stairs and out the door. Outside, French students on the sidewalk and in the street were talking, smoking, and having a good old time, all in very close proximity to the building, which could have been on fire for all we knew. It was just a drill, but there were real firemen there, and even they laughed as they announced on a loud speaker how long it took everyone to get out of the building. I left after a few minutes of standing outside and talking, but I wonder how long it went on like this and what would happen if there was a real fire. I'm guessing teachers wouldn't stay in the building, stick their heads out the third floor windows, and talk to the people standing in the street, but who knows?

It's starting to feel like the holiday season in Paris. It snowed on Thanksgiving and the day after Thanksgiving (no signs of Black Friday shopping here!), and I've seen my first Christmas lights strung across the streets and Christmas trees for sale. In a country that has no reason to celebrate Thanksgiving, it was hard to resist skipping right to Christmas. But luckily, I was very patriotic and had not one but two Thanksgivings! I went out to dinner with ISA at a French restaurant that tried its best at cooking an American Thanksgiving dinner for all of us American students. They had turkey, which is very hard to find in France, and all the essentials like cranberries and green beans. The mashed potatoes were actually mashed sweet potatoes or yams (I still don't know the difference), and the lack of stuffing was very distressing for some people, but the worst part was probably that what we originally thought was stuffing--the mixture of gravy and turkey parts or giblets or something--is still unidentified. But still, it was a great substitute when we couldn't have Thanksgiving at home, complete with the closest thing I have to a family here. My second Thanksgiving was the next night when I attempted to cook, if you can call it that, Thanksgiving dinner at my friend Chelsea's apartment. We had a rotisserie chicken instead of turkey, boxed mashed potatoes (for the first time in my life so a learning experience and pretty good after all!), cranberries and gravy from the Thanksgiving store that was sold out of everything else on the day after Thanksgiving (makes sense!), green beans, risotto, apple pie, chocolate cake, and wine. Again, stuffing was nowhere to be found, but we decided that with a crusty baguette and the right spices, it could be possible in the future. So even if we didn't really "cook," we did the best we could with Chelsea's tiny, ovenless kitchen and a country full of people who cannot appreciate the concept of Thanksgiving ingredients. With another American, Vanessa, and Chelsea's French friends, Mickael and Elsa, we had a very multicultural Thanksgiving. We even went around the table (well, couch) and said what we are thankful for, probably my favorite part of Thanksgiving.

I'm thankful for my host family. The Faures have been nothing but nice to me, if not in the sense of Minnesota nice. After not really doing anything for my birthday (I thought), they had a surprise for me one night about three weeks later after dinner. They turned out the lights, told me there was something more for dessert than just the usual yogurt/pudding/cheese, and came in with a cake with a singing candle and presents. They gave me two books from Fnac, one about famous people in French history and one about famous places in France--a very thoughtful gift for someone of my French reading level! And Arnaud was home for the weekend, so it was a family affair! Another weekend, I went with Madame, Laurene, and Victor to the movies to see Les Hommes et Les Dieux, a very serious movie that I could not have handled when I was nine like Laurene is now. It was in French (of course!) but not too hard to understand because there was just as much pausing and contemplative staring as there was dialogue. I recommend it, but it was very somber and disturbing. Good thing we went to MacDo (McDonald's for you non-Francophones), got takeout, and played with Laurene's Happy Meal toy after the movie!

I've also started to watch TV with the family sometimes. My new favorite show is probably the reality show where French kids compete to be the next Michael Jackson. If trying to find the next Michael Jackson on a reality show isn't funny enough, imagine French seven-year-olds singing his songs (not even in their first language!), moonwalking, dressing like him, and singing like him. It's adorable. I'm not even a big Michael Jackson fan, but I love this show. I've also heard Michael Jackson songs blasting from upstairs sometimes when I don't know who's up there. I'm starting to worry about how much this family actually loves Michael Jackson...

In other news, I successfully made my first phone call in French and typed so much on French keyboards that now I get confused when I try to type on American keyboards. That's progress, right? I also looked up so many words in my four-year-old French dictionary that I got for the first time I came to France that the spine is starting to rip. I almost cried. When I'm not studying hard (as hard as necessary for fake abroad school!), I'm finding all of the Christmas music on my computer and starting to listen to it. Easier said than done when I can't just go up to the attic at home and find the box of Christmas CDs. Is it weird that it wouldn't feel like Christmas to me without Trailer Trash?

"i'm in morocco! i'm in morocco! i'm in morocco!"

This was my favorite line last week when I was, in fact, in Morocco. It was the reason why I could not sleep at night even though I was sooo tired. It was the reason I got one of my many new nicknames from the trip, Dory. Like the fish in Finding Nemo with short term memory loss who is always way too excited about everything? Ya that was me. It probably didn't help that I wore a blue sweatshirt for almost the whole trip so I even looked like Dory.


I was in Morocco all of last week for fall break. I was picked up by a shuttle at approximately 4:30 in the morning on Halloween and on a plane to Casablanca at 7:25. I sat across the aisle from Gabriel, the French/Greek guy who leads the trip and was born in Morocco and named Casablanca's Most Beautiful Baby in 1956, the year of Morocco's independence. He also wore a sleeping mask on the flight, and don't worry I got pictures. He was a great tour guide/Arabic teacher/Franglais speaker! The only problem is it's impossible to tell when he's joking, but that just makes it more entertaining.


We landed in Casablanca at about 8:30 in the morning with the time difference, and it was cloudy and raining. It's not supposed to rain in Africa! But the later part of the trip in the Sahara Desert during which I saw three tiny white clouds in three whole days made up for it! We got on a bus and drove around a lot of Casablanca, including la mosquée Hassan II, a big, beautiful mosque on the coast right next to a rocky beach. We had to take our shoes off in certain parts of the mosque, we saw where the men and the women pray separately, and we went on a guided tour that was scheduled in between the five times a day when thousands of Muslims come to pray. We saw the public baths in the basement of the mosque that have never been used but are meant to symbolize the ritual washing before prayer in the religion of Islam and the social aspect of the mosque. Then we got on the bus and drove three or four hours to Fès, where we stayed in a four star hotel.


The next day, we visited the medina in Fès. The word medina means "city" or "town," and medinas like the one in Fès actually were the whole city hundreds of years ago. Today, the medina is a never-ending maze of dirt roads that go uphill and downhill and open up into everything from dirt-floored stands to modern-looking stores full of hand-woven Moroccan rugs and Moroccan spices. We visited a rug shop, a spice shop, a clothing store, a tannery, and a textile shop, all with owners who seemed to be personal friends of Gabriel, or at least very friendly. We were offered amazing mint tea with real mint leaves at almost all of our stops. Sometimes it was easy to forget that we were in an ancient medina with dirt paths and donkeys and cats wandering around outside. Everyone was very persistent about selling their products, but I got out of there after spending only a few dirhams on green lipstick (no really!) in a green tube that turns incredibly pink when you put it on your skin or lips. You have to see this to believe it. Barbie pink is the best way I can describe it. Somewhere between all of the shopping and tea-drinking, we had lunch in a restaurant hidden in the medina. We sat at two big tables surrounded by benches covered in pillows and cushions. We were lucky to have a guy name Brent on the trip who is studying at another school in Paris, and his brother Brian who is currently in the Peace Corps in Morocco joined us for the day. He showed us how Moroccans eat out of one big plate in the middle of the table usually with only their hands. He demonstrated how to eat couscous by rolling it into a ball and eating it gracefully out of your hand. It looks like it takes a lot of practice, and most of us chose to use utensils. After the medina, we visited a place where they make pottery. We saw every step of the process, including forming the pots on a pottery wheel, painting them, and firing them in kilns. Then we had a chance to buy some of the gorgeous finished pottery and tiles, but I restrained myself. That night, we went to a traditional folk show, complete with belly dancers, drummers, wine, and audience participation. 


On our third day in Morocco, we went to the desert, which is what I was the most excited for! After a looong bus ride, we got in jeep 4 x 4's with guys who can only be described as VERY experienced desert drivers and left civilization. It was kind of sad to leave Fès because the king was coming! Everyone in Morocco loves the king, and he makes time to visit many of the cities and towns regularly. When he comes to town, everything is cleaned up and all of the people wait outside for him to make a short speech. During our bus ride, there were guards standing every 200 meters for 65 kilometers on the road we were taking out of Fès, according to Gabriel. They were everywhere! Then we stopped somewhere on the side of the road, got into four jeeps, and were driven into the middle of the desert as the sun went down. By the time we stopped, the sky was completely dark and the stars were starting to come out. I still don't understand how the drivers knew where they were going with no signs, no roads, and even no marked paths. Turn right at the third tumbleweed? Turn left after the first dramatic dip in the ground? And they took four completely different paths, I think to avoid the blinding dust their tires kicked up. I was très impressed!...almost as impressed as I was by the place where we had just arrived. It was completely in the middle of nowhere. Besides a few tents, there were only sand dunes as far as you could see. Well, it was dark. Maybe you couldn't see yet. But there were soooooo many stars. There were probably as many shooting stars as I have ever seen in my life. It seemed that every time I looked up, or even just straight in front of me while standing on top of a dune, I saw one. I made plenty of wishes. We went to sleep in the tents. And by tents, I mean the nicest tents I've ever seen with carpets and mattresses and light bulbs! So maybe it wasn't exactly camping, but it was a really nice place to sleep when you have to get up at 4 the next morning!


That's right, we got up at around 4 to walk to the best sunrise-watching dune we could find with the help of our guides who seem to know each dune by heart. The moon was up after being nowhere to be found when we went to bed, and we watched it disappear as the sky turned from black to orange to yellow to blue. It was cold, and we were tired, but it was sooo worth it! Then we spent the day riding camels, climbing dunes, and visiting a little village full of really cute Moroccan kids! I rode two different camels and was on and off camels three times. I think that's enough for a few years, but it was so much fun! The camels had names like Michael Jackson, Bob Marley, Ba-hello (that's the phonetic spelling of course), and Jubbaly Hubbaly (no idea how to spell or pronounce that one anymore!). We spent the rest of the day walking around the dunes, climbing them, running down them, and snowboarding down them (well, some of us did). With my complete lack of snowboarding skill in the past, I just watched and attempted to photograph the boys in action. I also walked around barefoot A LOT. Gabriel told us not to because of the scorpions, but then the Moroccan guys told that all of the scorpions live on the other side of the mountains in Algeria, so I felt a lot better. We could see ALGERIA! At this point, I still could not even believe I was in Africa, let alone so close to another African country! After another night in the desert of almost no sleep because I was so excited, I saw most of the sunrise again (not the 4am part, but closer to the 7am part), and it was almost time to get back in the jeeps to go back to the bus and back to real towns and real cities. The drive in the 4x4's looked completely different in the daylight, but it was still cloudless. I miss the desert. 


The rest of the trip was mostly driving on the bus and taking in the changing landscapes. Some of it reminded me of driving through Iowa and Nebraska, only more interesting because it's AFRICA!...and there are sheep everywhere instead of cows. Other parts of it reminded me of driving through the narrow, winding roads in the mountains of Colorado. There were even mountains with snow on them in the distance! We made one very important stop between the desert, the hotel in Meknès for the last night, and the airport in Casablanca. We stopped to feed the monkeys! I only saw two or three monkeys compared to the hundreds that supposedly come out sometimes, but one took a banana right out of my hand! While I was wondering if I should peel it and how much monkeys really even like bananas, he had it out of my hand, out of the peel, and gone in about five seconds. It was so cool! I just wish I had time to take a picture. 


I miss Morocco! Especially since it has been raining and gray in Paris ever since I got back. But it's still Paris! And now it's Paris with some new goals--journal more (like I kind of started to in Africa), take more pictures, actually learn about photography, go back to Africa, and go to all of the continents (3 down, 4 to go!). I'm so happy to be back in Paris, but Morocco was probably the best week ever. I still can't believe it. I was in Morocco! I was in Morocco! I was in Morocco!

old lady status

This is my first blog post as a 21-year-old. Exciting, huh? Not really when you're in a country where you can drink practically since you are born. Anyway, it was a happy birthday thanks to all the love from home and all my new friends here! I like making new year's resolutions on my birthday instead of on the actual new year. This year's? Write something in this blog once a week...except maybe next week when I'm in Morocco and internetless. And hopefully make each post shorter and less rambly. We'll see how this goes.


In the last three weeks, I have experienced French strikes, travelled to Normandy and Mont St Michel, had arguably the best hot chocolate in the world, and gone to a French futbol game to cheer on les Bleus. The night of the soccer game, I was out with my friend Ryanne and some other girls from DU who were visiting from London. It was great to see them and to meet some of them, but by the time Ryanne and I found the metro and I got to the Stade de France, it was halftime. You wouldn't have known it from the roar of the crowd I could hear from the metro station, which was several blocks away. I didn't even have to wonder which way to go to find this place outside of Paris which I had never been to in my life. I just followed the sound of 80,000 cheering fans. Keep in mind, this was only halftime. The second half of the game was very exciting, with France scoring once in the last five minutes and again in the last minute of the game to beat Romania 2-0 and move on in the 2012 Euro Cup qualifiers. A text from my friend Lauren on my way to the stadium summed it up pretty well with something like, "If anyone gives you any trouble,  'allez les bleus!' seems to be a pretty solid line."


The next weekend, I went on an excursion with ISA to Normandy and Mont St Michel. We visited the Memorial de Caen, the American Cemetery, Omaha Beach, and Pointe de Hoc. I never thought I would be so interested in history in my life. I think I learned more about World War II in those few hours than I ever did in any of my history classes. It was so amazing to walk along Omaha Beach and see how serene and beautiful it is today knowing what happened there so many years ago. It looks like any other beach I've ever been to, and it's hard to believe it all connects to the same ocean. I said hi to you all in America on the other side. The next day, we went to Mont St Michel, the famous abbey surrounded by its own kind of ocean--quicksand! It was a lot of stairs but worth it since it's the most visited monument in France after the Eiffel Tower.


The best hot chocolate in the world is at a chocolaterie/boulangerie/salon de thé across the street from the Tuileries called Angelina. It comes from North Africa, and it is the chocolatiest, meltiest hot chocolate you will ever have in your life. Angelina is a beautiful tea room close to the Louvre that feels oh so Parisian. The walls are covered in murals, the ceiling is rimmed with gold, and the tables are the little round kind you see outside cafes all over Paris. I went to Angelina with two friends from one of my classes, British Matt and another Emily from Chicago. We discussed books, movies, and photography (en francais!), all while looking out for celebrities and models, the kinds of people rumored to frequent this place. It was all very classy.


I guess the memory of Angelina has to make up for missing the other very sophisticated and tasteful event I was looking forward to. As I started writing this last night, I was supposed to be all dressed up at the Opera Garnier watching the ballet Paquita. But, in France, ballerinas go on strike too!