Spring Ahead!

This weekend was officially the time change to "heure d'été" or "summer time" in France. Yays. Actually, not yays because I have an 8am on Monday, make that body-time a 5:30am wake-up alarm and a 7am class. Boo. Also boo to my unproductiveness over the weekend as far as my devoir à la maison is concerned. I'll just have to really buckle down tomorrow and research, type, and work. I also saw "Astérix et les jeux olympiques" this weekend with my host mom - it was a little hard to follow sometimes with all the puns, but I did get some of them and it was very entertaining with lots of cameos by famous French singers, atheletes, and other celebrities.

Yays for Julie and me finally finalizing our Germany plans for the first week of Spring break! We're going to Strasbourg (which I realize is not actually Germany) for 4 days and I'm going to see Mary there! Many, many, many yays!!! Then we're going to Rothenburg ob der Tauber (which is actually Germany) for 5 days (one day will be spent in Ansbach visiting where Julie's family is from) and then we split up and Julie heads to Zurich to visit her sister and I'm off to Strasbourg and then Paris to meet up with my mom! More yays! Yays for us figuring out how to work the Deutsche Bahn website and more yays for us booking our hostels for all except one night, which is currently in negotiations with the hostel reception.

In all, there is very much to be thankful for, not including my non-motivationalness. Which reminds me, I should maybe get to work. Perhaps. Possibly.

Ele-fun!

Today after my second grammar midterm (How can you have two midterms? Does that mean there are two middles of the term?), I hung around IES basically procrastinating and doing some intense Spring break planning with Julie. We booked everything except our hostel for Rothenburg ob der Tauber and our return trains. I am sooo excited about this trip to Strasbourg and Germany and especially because we're taking trains! It is my absolute favorite form of transportation and there's no stress like there is with airports and flights. You also get to see the countryside and towns as you go, it's very relaxing and just nice all-around. Hopefully by the end of this weekend we'll have the loose ends tied up and everything will be taken care of.

In the meantime, Julie and I were busy planning, eating lunch, and then we went over to Les Machines de l'Ile with about 20 other IESers and rode the elephant. It was so cool, literally. It was soo windy today! But the elephant was ele-fun and we all had a great time even if it did take 45 minutes to go what would take me 10 mins to walk. I'll try and upload some pictures or a video soon!

Hamburgers, how I missed thee

Today was a little less long than yesterday (no hanging around at IES until 10:30pm anyways) and I didn't really get any work done (I am going to bemoan that this weekend when I have to write 3 papers), but it was fun and worth it!

This morning class; this afternoon, class. Then after grammar, I went with Julie to Monoprix and bought lots of yummy food and a bottle of Bordeaux, went back to her house and started cooking. There were 5 of us there and it was so fun just to get together, cook, and speak English! We made real, American-style burgers and it was delish! We also had salad, cheese, baguettes, tater tots, and an apple tarte I helped make. Just thinking about all the good food has my stomach grumbling. Mmmm.

And since I don't have class until 2pm tomorrow, I'm sleeping over and sleeping in. Woot.

Les Visiteurs

Today was the first day of classes this week! How nice to have only 4 days of classes. On the other hand, a three-day weekend before meant my govt. professor went a little loopy apparently, because he showed up randomly today and we had class. He didn't tell anyone what was going on, so I was just sitting upstairs, getting ready to go grocery shopping when Molly ran in and told me we were having class right then. Goodness.

Then tonight there was a shorter than usual conversation club and we had snacks afterwards (my Babybell cheese had a purple bracelet in it). And then we watched Les Visiteurs with about 20 people who decided to stay. It's kind of a cross between Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Back to the Future - yes, it is as strange as it sounds. It was quite funny though and I enjoyed it.

3-day Weekends Should Have a Theme Song

Well, since I haven't written since my uber-exciting Thursday, I shall cover both Friday and today in this special-edition 2-for-1 blog post.

Friday was just as exciting as Thursday. Except.... I finally, finally, finally saw Enchanted!!! Woo! My host mom and I watched it together last night and it was sooo cute! I am now on an extreme Disney kick and listened to lots of Disney music last night before falling asleep.

Today, I slept in a little (first Saturday in about 2 weeks I've been able to do that) and then went and met Laurel at Commerce for a little store browsing. We ended up walking over to Bouffay and the pet store again. (The crazy chipmunk was still there and this time I had my camera so I was able to take a movie.) Then we went to the cute discount shoe-store and I bought a replacement pair of black flats for the pair that is pretty much worn out from all the walking I do in them here. We walked up rue de Calvaire and all the fancy shops there and then shopped for a bit at Monoprix getting dinner food. We caught the 51 back to the apartment, met up with Julie, and just hung out for a while talking, listening to music, and watching some sbmail - Strongbad makes me laugh. Then we watched the Matrix (so much for my Disney kick) and had some lovely sandwiches that my host mom had made (so much for the dinner food we bought too - I'll just use it for lunch next week). We also had a super-yummy dessert, a kind of no-bake rose-rum cake covered in melted dark chocolate. Mmmm. It was a good way to end the day.