A bit of travelling...

Since I can’t REMEMBER the last time I wrote (I mean, actually wrote something) in this thing here- it must mean it’s time to update…And since the internet in our apartment is not working and I can’t check what I wrote about I’ll start with Roma…

Roma.

So last Thursday Caitlin and I ventured out to the sketchy Beauvais aeroport and took a nice little airplane ride with Rynair to the city of Roma, Italie. Getting to the hostel was a piece of work considering we took the metro from Paris, a bus to the airport, and airplane to Rome, and finally a taxi about three blocks (and 20euro) to the hostel (which was very nice and a pleasant experience). We pretty much passed out and awoke the next morning to find ourselves in a new country (for Caitlin, not for me…) Anywho- we basically wandered around the city for the morning and ran into this thing called the Colosseum. I appropriately pulled out my Ipod and played the Gladiator soundtrack as a tribute to Abby Frederick and Abby Berg (ahhh – those good ole marching band days….) We wandered a bit more and kept running into these really old things that we had no clue what they were and finally met up with a English tour guide for the best walking tour we’ve ever taken. In four hours we saw the entire city including the circus maximus, the roman forum, the pantheon (only one of the seven wonders of the world), the Colosseum, the balcony from which Mussolini used to address the wider world, and then ate the best gelato in all of Italy (to which we appropriately returned every day and made friends with the owner!) After a quick rest and pasta dinner in the hostel we walked around some more and found Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps after which we called it a night and planned on waking early to tackle the Vatican. Saturday we rode the bus to Vatican City (only the smallest country in the world) and got off in this big open area and were like, “Um, okay? Where are we?” Turns out – you know – we were only in St. Peter’s Square. And there was NO one there (when we came back two hours later – I swear there were over 2000 people there…) We DID, however, run into the coolest man ever who was trekking from the Vatican to Jerusalem – on foot. Then we waited in line to enter the Sistine Chapel for about two hours – but no matter how long it took – it was worth it. Brought tears to my eyes. Afterwards we checked out a roman market – some of the back streets of the city and then sunbathed in front of the impressive, yet ugliest monument in the city of Rome. A quick nap and broken boots later Caitlin convinced me to take part in a Spanish steps “pubcrawl” (she wanted the tshirt, no lie). Let me just tell you only crazy people do pubcrawls. I will never do a pubcrawl again and I didn’t even drink. Sunday I went for a run around the Colosseum and then Caitlin and I took the best nap ever in a little piazza. Then we took the metro, a bus, an airplane, a bus, and the metro BACK to paris. What a weekend.

As I don’t go to my Monday class – I slept in, did laundry, and took the bus to class. The weather in Paris was absolutely beautiful and the week went somewhere into the past with a trip up the Tour Eiffel with LA, church with Claire and Annie for Maundy Thursday, eating breakfast with Mme Chochon and her energetic grandchildren (and by breakfast I do not mean bread as it is Passover- I mean matzo, which BTW I would not recommend), and the arrival of the family.

The family arrived safely after a little layover in Frankfurt, Germany. We had a wonderful week together – although I’m pretty sure Kyle will never be returning to Paris, although rumor has it he enjoyed Germany a bit….We did EVERYTHING in about six days – Louvre, D’orsay, Centre George Pompideu, L’orangerie, a soccer game, the Notre Dame, St.Chappelle, Versailles, DISNEYLAND (which I had been waiting to go to for FOUR MONTHS!), the pont-neuf, champs, concorde, tullieries, Luxembourg gardens, Pantheon, Sorbonne, Sacre-Coeur, Arc, and the Eiffel Tower everyday. Had a slight disaster when we discovered that Mom had forgotten my eurail pass that I had forgoteen to remind her about – but Aunt Cathy fed-exed it over here right away and it all turned out fine….The appt we stayed in was GORGEOUS – I wish I could move there considering Annie and I continue to have difficulties with our housing. Are we really that hard to live with? Our host attempted to rent our room out to this couple for the week after our springbreak and Annie and I were going to have to sleep on the floor of her daughter’s room. This led to a huge confrontation between Annie and Mme in which she told Annie never to speak to her again. The next night however I receive a text saying that they chatted about art and were friends again. Oh boy. Pretty sure she’s bi-polar. Anwyho- All in all I had a wonderful week and I certainly hope that they did too – I can’t believe I hadn’t seen them in four months – what a time this study abroad has been – and it’s crazy to think that I only have one month left!

Okay – I’ll get to Switzerland aka the love of my life this week – no worries!

BISOUS!