Stumblin' Through Dublin

So this past weekend, after what felt like the best week ever with good grades, gorgeous warm weather and shopping, was spent in Dublin! Yep. You heard right. I spend St. Patrick's Day and weekend with the Irish. Jealous?

My weekend was spent pub hoping, swimming in a sea of green, going to the Guinness Storehouse, eating lunch in the park, spending all of Monday climbing rocks and the coast and yup hills in Dun Laoghaire and having so much fun!!!

My long weekend was seriously made better by spending it with Emily, Beth, Lukas and Sasha. Couldn't have asked for better people to be a little Irish with. Haha.

I decided instead of boring you with unnecessary details about what I did where, I would just give you all a bunch of pictures of my time in Ireland. A picture speaks a thousand words right??

WARNING: Many pints of Guinness was consumed on this trip.

Annnnnnnd there you have it. What have I learned from this trip? Guinness and Baileys is good. I am no longer a fan of green. And I want to go back!

À bientôt!

Best Day Ever!

Like seriously :D

The good news started off really early when Theo surprise texted me around midnight saying that he gets to keep his phone and iPod!! He’s platoon sergeant said they only will lose stuff if they fail tests. So that means I can still text him and when he gets internet during the week…..I WILL BE ABLE TO SEE HIS FACE!!!! Yeeeeeeee!

As for the rest of my day, it started off with me getting a 20/20 on my langue test. Some background. With the French grading scale, students barely ever get above a 16. A score of a 17 is that of a teacher, an 18 is the equivalent of Jesus, a 19 is the Virgin Mary and a score of 20 is God. Soooo….looks like I am God for the day. Seriously, it was so great knowing that I did so well on my test!

Then, the girls and I went shopping at this store called “Version Féminin.” It’s this cute little store that has dresses, shoes, bags, scarves, etc. for really decent prices! I ended up buying two dresses there for 28 euros. One is black and blue with lace. The other is this black and purple dress that I bought with the intention of wearing to Theo’s cousin’s wedding. Soooo worth the money. (Sidenote: I went back and bought what is considered typical European style shoes for 17 euros after class. I couldn’t resist. Haha.)

Oh! And did I mention it is absolutely gorgeous outside!!!

So I hope that this is going to be a sign of a good week. Especially after lasts week busy, topsy turvy sort of week with tests, bikes, Normandy visit and worrisome news. So lets keep this wonderful feeling going :)

Saint Malo et Mont Saint Michel

I am FINALLY going to put up the pictures form the 2nd excursion with CIDEF two weekends ago. Things just got really hectic with class, life and then going to Nantes this past weekend that I guess I just kind of forgot. Whoops! Soooooooo, let me finally fill you all in on what went down.

Set the Scene:

Day: February 25th

Time: 7:30am to about 8pm

Weather: Rain, foggy and cloudy....again.

Estimated Hours of Sleep on the bus: 3ish?

First Stop:

Saint Malo

The entrance to the city!

Me on the ramparts that go around the perimeter.

BEACH!

Street of the dancing cat?!?

My first galette! Soooo yummy :)

Cathedral- One in every city.

The streets.

Best thing about St Malo? Finding this Chocolate shop. SO GOOD!

MACAROONS!!!!

Me, Emily, Lukas and Samantha

Second Stop:

Mont St Michel

The very top!

Village life.

Starting the trek up to the very top.

My current Facebook profile pic :)

So old. So much moss.

Inside.

Fooling around :P

St. Michel and the little demon that he is squishing.

Gardens and fog galore!

And then starts the long trek doooooowwwwnnnn.

Definitely a fun long day spent. I would love to just go back when it is not so foggy and you can see the ocean from the ramparts or the very top of Mont St Michel. Note to self: Must go back!

Recap, Fun-cap!

So...I am bored and procrastinating from trying to study for my compétences écrites test in a few hours. What have a decided to do? I decided to fill you all in on the randomness that has been my life for the last few weeks.

So hold on tight!

February 20th-26th:

Monday the 20th- BLT's are possible to make in France people!!! Well, I mean there isn't true bacon like there is back in the states. But we did find what I would consider to be Canadian bacon-esque. So we (Emily, Lukas, Samantha and I) made the French version of BLT's with avocado and, of course, brie cheese.

Tuesday the 21st- Had my first lunch with the director of our program M. Melin with the ladies of ISU and Niagara University. A legit five course meal in the teacher's cafeteria that we don't have to pay for? I'll take that. I also finally put up my usually photo display of everyone back at home. Now I have those who I care about loving faces starring down at me. Oh, and I must not forget that it was MARDI GRAS!!!! Mardi Gras isn't really celebrated that much here in France, but that didn't stop us. We (Lukas, Chris, Agata, Samantha and I) went to Emily's house to make crêpes filled with all sorts of yummy delicious things. We were determined to make the most out of this holiday!

Wednesday the 22nd- My translation class was cancelled in the morning. Too bad we all have to find this out at the university since it seems France doesn't like to email its students when classes are cancelled. So what do we do? Turn around go home and catch up on sleep! I also had my first etude sociocuturelle class and lets just say...yeah...

Thursday the 23rd- Definitely a pretty chill day. Nothing really out of the ordinary other than having my typical Skype lunch/dinner date with Theo.

Friday the 24th- I loved waking up and getting to see the faces of some of my favorite sisters and some of my favorite FarmHouse boys. Great way to start the day! And then to end the day watching part of the César Awards which can be best described as France's version of the Oscars. I guess it was a good substitute for not being able to watch the actually Oscars for the first time in forever on Sunday.

Saturday the 25th- Excursion #2 with CIDEF :) We spent the day checking out all that St Malo and Mont St. Michel had to offer. And might I add this this is the second excursion with blah weather out. I really hope that the next one to Normandy has nice weather out or I really may cry. I'll make a post possibly later on with pictures from the two. I just have so many ranging from walking on the ramparts of St. Malo to the heaven of a chocolate shop to the street call "The Dancing Cat" to climbing all the way to the top of Mont St. Michel to so many random pictures of love.

Sunday the 26th- This day was spent sleeping my life away plus Skype dates with the family, the best friend, Miss Brittany Herzovi and of course Beka. A good way to be filled in on all the gossip back home :)

February 27th- March 2nd:

Monday the 27th- I don't like Mondays. I have all but one class on Monday and I barely get any time to eat anything for lunch. It's just busy, busy, busy.

Tuesday the 28th- Weekly lunch with M. Melin. And doing all of my homework so that I can spend all of tomorrow late afternoon and night having my last Skype/FaceTime session with Theodore.

Wednesday the 29th- LEAP DAY! This felt like the longest yet shortest day ever. I think this is because I knew at the end of the day I would be seeing/hearing Theo for one of the last times. It was a sad yet happy moment to spend so long of a time just starring at a computer...as oddly as that sounds.

Thursday the 1st- Theo leaves :( See previous post for yesterday's recap.

Today the 2nd- I was woken up by Theo calling me on FaceTime to tell me that he landed safe and sound after his flight being an hour late. It was the fastest chat ever and I was slightly asleep still butt it was so great to know that he got to Texas safe (love you babe!). And now I am just waiting to take my test. Then, a big study session with a group that seems to be growing in size followed by a trip to the supermarché because I need groceries followed by pizza for dinner! And then sleep early because Nantes is tomorrow. Yeeeeeee!

So yeah...a good 30 minutes just wasted on writing this. Haha. I'll work with that.

Hope you all have a good weekend!

Bisou, bisou!

McDonalds Can Cure Hearts

Well, at least that is what I want to believe. Samantha had a good idea mending broken hearts with good ol' American-esque grease.

Today has been a tough day. Not because of class or anything like that. And not anything that has to do with France actually. Today was tough because I had to say goodbye to Theo since he left for Texas and AIT today.

Now I am not gonna get all sappy on you or anything. Or at least I will try not to do so. That isn't the point of this blog. The point is to let people have a sneak peek at my life abroad...good AND bad. So today is a bad day, okay?

I knew today wasn't going to be easy. I knew today was going to be tough. I knew this day would be coming. It just sucks going from being able to talk to him about every day to not knowing if and when I will be able to see his face or hear his voice. That's the problem of not knowing how many freedoms and liberties he will have down at AIT. I know he will have them, but when is totally up in the air.

For now I just have to wait. I can't wait to get my first letter so that I will finally have somewhere to send letters to. And I can't wait to hear all about his adventures in Texas and all the work he will be accomplishing. No more sitting around for him being bored.

And I wait for June 29th. The day he will come home to me. The day I get to be back in his arms after five entire months of not getting the chance to. The day I get to say "Welcome Home" and hold him tight. I can't help but smile knowing that that day will come sooner then ever.

I love you Theodore. I don't know if you will ever read this but I am proud of you and I can't wait to end this long time a part from each other.

PS. Sorry for the unintentional sappiness. But one post out of many can't hurt right?