Midterm is over, let the weekend commence.

We had our midterm this morning. 10 pages of French grammar?!? Oh mon dieu. My brain was fried. But I treated myself to buy 5e sandals afterwards. They're actually pretty cute. Also went to the Eiffel Tower- again. Have yet to clumb up it, but it was my 4th time there since I've been in Paris. I just like going and sitting in the park at night with all of the lights lit up. In all fairness I've seen it from a different angle every time I'm there. Tonight we sat by École Militaire- Me, Shannon, Katherine, Alison and her brother who's visiting Paris.

I have officially stuffed my face with a whole jar of Nutella since being in France. And found the most delicious bakery ever!!! Baguettes are only 1e. So I buy one daily. And eat it with my Boursin cheese or Nutella. Today I also got a Tartelette aux Fraises, which was so so so so good!!!!

Catacombs are in the plans for tomorrow along with Invalides perhaps and visiting some graves. We'll see. Play it by ear. Now that we actually have free time with no homework hanging over our heads, I don't know what to do. I feel like I could find some trouble to get into on a Friday, especially in Paris.

Comment on dire 'procrastination' en français?

Procrastination at it's finest begins now. I have my midterm tomorrow, so what have I done today? Walked around the city for 2 hours. I did go to Jardin Luxembourg to study for like 30-45 minutes with Shannon and looked at all of the cute French boys, but some studying did get accomplished.

I also made my first 100% on a quiz in class! After going out to the Auld Scottish pub by our place the night before and playing a drinking game to our vocabulary. But hey- it worked. I spelt everything correctly.

This weekend we also get a free weekend of homework AND it's a 4 day weekend, so the possibilities of things to do are endless. On the list? Eiffel Tower, Euro Disney, Catacombes, Thrift Stores, Chambord, day trip to London, who knows. I'll let you all know when I'm in Africa come Saturday morning basically. They speak French in some places there! :)

On an even better note though, the heat wave for Paris passed, and I can comfortably sit in my own room again. From what I hear though, this is just un petit pause, because there is more chaleur to come.

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Also I meant to comment about this in the beginning of the summer but forgot. Research the engagement ring situation in countries you go to visit, because apparently France doesn't work like the USA. Wearing a ring on your right ring finger means your engaged (which is where I wear one and did wear one for the first week or so in Paris). Wearing a ring on your left ring finger means your married. So at least that rule still stands. But just for future reference- FYI.

Il Fait Chaud. Juste un petit peu...

Bienvenue en France. Le pays où il n'y a pas de climatisation quand il est 34 C (90+ F) dehors. Je ne peut pas penser en français! C'est incroyable. Hier, Shannon et moi, cherchons à un lieu où nous pouvons faire notre devoirs avec le climatisation. Nous avons trouvé Starbucks. Au sous-sol nous avons lu notre devoirs. Pas très français, mais il faisait froid, et je suis heureuse.

Je suis du pôle Nord, pas de la Sahara!!!

Longchamp

Not only do I know the address of the closest Longchamp store by heart (404 Saint Honoré, Paris, France), but they're also having a sale. So naturally, I paid a visit. Then I walked in to the large department stores comme Galeries Lafayette and Printemps. There were just way too many people to really go through anything. But it was nice to just walk around on my own.

Both of my roommates are in Barcelona, so I have the room all to myself this weekend. Time to focus on some school - as soon as I go get my hair done in Paris. I found a place called 'Jean Louis David' that is like a 10 minute walk away. I'm going to go check it out.

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104 euro later. I have pretty hair again. Also learned how to say "roots" and "blow dry straight". I think I'm ready to live in Paris.

Also learned that going out to do homework along the Seine River is probably the least productive thing ever. Me and Katherine went to go buy a baguette and wine and just chilled along the river people watching. I did one problem out of my grammar book- out of the 30 pages that were assigned.

We're going to eat some famous ice cream tonight on Ile Saint Louis, which apparently is delicious!

Also went to a book store. Bought Pippi Longstocking, Eat Pray Love, and some Finnish book in French. Also found a Finnish store so I got to speak Finnish today. :)

Happy Juhannusta all you Scandinavians!

Le Weekend Commence Maintenant

The weekend is FINALLY here, and to accompany it, there is SO much homework. So being a Tech kid, I'm going to miss out on a weekend

in Barcelona and stay and do some studying in Paris. Not a bad alternative, but still. No Barca for me. It should be a good weekend though, because Anton and I are GOING to find something to do for midsommar - juhannus. This week was fête de la musique. Which was AWESOME! We went to the Saint Michel fountain and danced in it. Apparently that's illegal, but everyone was doing it, so we joined in. The French National Guard showed up 15 minutes after we left. Yea, no big deal, we would've waged war against the French National Guard. Imagine that phone call to our professor the next morning on why we wouldn't be attending Versailles with the class... "euhhh, professor... nous sommes en prison."

Apparently this weekend is un festival de ciné or qqc comme ça. je ne sais pas.

Oh, and it's going to be ridiculous to go back to the States and throw in French words mid convo. Because all we speak here is franglish.

Juste un autre lundi

Alors... aujourd'hui on avait la classe, mais il était à Ecole IFOPI donc on avait l'internet aussi. Je n'ecoutais pas beaucoup de notre professeur. J'ai beacoup de devoirs ce soir qui je devrai finir pour demain. Mon ami Michel m'aide et c'est fini tout de suite! Et je mangerai de gateau chocolat aussi! :)

Demain il y a une festival de musique. On parlait de cette festival à la classe. Beaucoup de gens de ma classe irai, et Michel irai aussi!!! La weekend prochain je pense que je travaillerai à Barca, mais je ne suis pas sûr.

Doing laundry for the first time in Paris. Learned that soupline is NOT laundry detergent but actually fabric softener. See if I forget that word ever in my life.

But I seriously have so much homework. I stayed up until 5 AM last night 'working on homework'- a.k.a. procrastinating and planning out my life. Like looking for an internship in Paris.

En Français

Je suis dans le train TGV maintenant et je devrai aller au MIJE toute seule après minuit à Paris. J’irai changer la langue de mon blog en français et mis la traduction anglaise en bas. Le weekend à Côte d’Azur était incroyable. Il y avait beaucoup de gens riches. Sérieusement. J’ai vu comme 500 Ferrari à samedi à Monaco. Il y avait beaucoup de yachts aussi. Et j’ai monté à une. Je pense qu’il s’appelait ‘Medusa’. Je suis un peu jalouse de Markus parce qu’il avait habité à Antibes presqu’un an. Hier soir je suis allée à une club qui s’appelait ‘La Siesta’. Il était près de la plage, 3 km de Markus. Après on buvait beaucoup de l’alcool, on a marché chez Markus- avec mes chaussures qui avaient (heels) 10 cm !!! Ah, mon Dieu. Mes pieds me n’aiment pas maintenant. Ce matin, (13h00) on est allé à la plage et j’ai mangé une crêpe ! Et j’ai bronzé un petit peu. Les garçons anglais ne bronzaient pas. Ils a eu rougir. ☺ J’ai nagé à la mer aussi ! L’eau était très froide. Ahh, je suis très fatiguée maintenant. Je voudrais être à Paris !!! MAINTENANT !! Je ne parlais pas beaucoup de français à Antibes, parce que toutes les personnes étaient anglaises et ne parle pas français. Je ne comprend comment ils habitent à Côte d’Azur et ne sauvent rien français. Il y a beaucoup de touristes à Côte d’Azur, donc peut-être ce n ‘est pas difficile. Ce fois je ne mis pas la traduction en bas parce que j’ai écrive toutes ça en anglais hier et ce matin dans les postes dernier.

French Riviera Part II

Clubbing in the French Riviera is crazy. Especially when Markus makes you walk home in 5 inch heels for 3 miles- at 5 AM!!!!! I met lots of cute French boys and spoke French with them because after a drink, I'm fluent. And to think I'm getting 9 credit hours for this summer. Love it.

I'm learning though!

French Riviera Part I

So I made it to Antibes in one piece. It was a 6 hour train ride, but surprisingly it went by pretty fast. I went through the city I used to live in- St. Raphael. Last night went out with Markus and his roommate and met up with some other guy to go to the bars in the area. Everything was ridiculously expensive, I had a margarita for 9e. Then Markus and I decided to follow these two guys into the gated yacht area. And we got a tour of a YACHT. OH MON DIEU!!!!!! I need to graduate ASAP and start making some money. The guy we followed works on this guy's boat. So we got a tour of the engine and everything. It was pretty legit. (Picture's will follow later.) Today I'm going to Monaco- for happy hour!!!!!!!

I don't know when I'm actually going to get my homework done. Because it sure is NOT happening here. I guess it's a good thing I have 6 hours on a train Sunday night to do it.

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Monaco in a nutshell:

If a girl is with a guy and the guy has to go to the bathroom, a girl can ask for the check but they won't bring it until the guy comes back. They give the check to the guy.

Ferraris are like Honda Civics.

Beaucoup de yachts.

Beaucoup de rich people.

Louvre

Today's class. Go to the Louvre, wander around, pick your favorite piece of art and write about it in French. That's all! Can I do French LBAT forever? Also hit up the thrift stores around where I live. Found a cute scarf for 1€ and a shirt for 7€. Can't say I'm not being cheap.

I have to be cheap after the train ticket that I bought for the French Riviera- 230€!!!!! It'll be well worth it though. Staying in Antibes with my friend Markus. Going to bars Friday night. Happy Hour in Monaco with a slight hangover Saturday afternoon and Saturday night clubbing in Nice. And then laying on the beach Sunday afternoon before I head back to Paris for school. Can I please live here forever?

Quand on est à Paris- on boit du vin.

So I’m finally in France. I haven’t updated until now because I have been having so much fun. My roommates are awesome, my group is awesome and Paris- well its just amazing. I’ve seen the Eiffel Tower light up, made French friends, seen the Notre Dame, and eaten lots of French food. Every day, une baguette pour moi pour dejeuner. Avec le fromage s’il vous plait. And I made French friends! So proud of myself. ☺ I speak French to them and they speak English to me. Ça marche. I also get help with my French homework and get to know the good places to go shopping. This is possibly the best summer that I will ever have. In every way possible. Lots of learning and lots of fun. So I can justify all of the fun with all of the learning occuring at the same time.

Tonight, Anton, Christian, Shannon et moi went on a pub crawl by our place. By the last bar we had drank enough to convince ourselves to only speak French at the table- that we did. But apparently still having American backgrounds we were so obnoxious at 12:30 AM on a Wednesday in a neighborhood area, that we got shushed!!! Quoi de %&#*?!

Tomorrow we are visiting the Louvre and having to do a project on it. I’m also learning how to forget to write in English. I caught myself typing a text message and instead of typing ‘class’ I typed ‘classe’ and didn’t think anything of it. That’s a good sign right?

Also I would just like to move to Paris, right now. Merci beaucoup.

À Paris

Ok, je suis a Paris maintenant. Aujourd'hui je reste pres de Seine et bois de vin. Le vin n'est pas tres bon, mais c'est pas grave. Je fait de connaissance de deux garcons francais aussi avec Brittany.

Okay, that's my attempt on French. I'm having an awesome time, and seriously attempting my French, which I'm actually proud of!! (Since I'm so shy with languages anyways...)

But I have to go meet my group tomorrow at CDG at 8 AM. It's 1:30 AM now. Ohhhhh boy.

Off to Paris

The past couple of days have flown by in Finland. I’ve had great ideas such as biking to the Baltic Sea (a total of 60 km), done yard work with madre and hung out even more with the grandparents as well as seen extended relatives such as my great aunt and uncle, and their great grandchild. Apparently in Finland, we all actually know each other. Sofia (the great grand child) is HYSTERICAL. She’s 3 years old and loves Rockey. And Rockey loved her as well. But talk about confusing when Sofia’s mom’s name is Jonna, and I’m used to being the only Jonna around. Today’s the big day though, I’m FINALLY going to Paris. I even get to meet up with my dad at the airport since the plane I’m flying in on will be the plane he will fly to Helsinki with. My family likes to travel- a lot. And that’s an understatement.

I’m supposed to meet Brittany at the University of Paris today around 5-6 PM. Neither of us can get a hold of the other since I won’t have internet access from here on out, and she doesn’t have a cell phone. So wish me luck. But tonight I will be going to Duplex, a club by L’Arc de Triomphe. And have to meet my professor at 8 AM on Sunday morning!! An hour away of where I’m spending the night tonight! With all of my suitcases! I wonder how I get myself into these sticky situations with random early wake ups, but then I think about how hard me and my friend Kylene trained for it all last summer with having to wake up and drive Atlanta to Athens or Athens to Atlanta. This should be a breeze in France.

Hump Day

Made it all the way to the library today. The internet is much faster here, but I can't get on facebook because it's blocked. So dumb.

Notes to self:
1. The Finnish internet is extremely slow.
2. There is STILL no air conditioning in this country and today is 29C.
3. Finland is ridiculously expensive. I just paid 2€ for 4 pages of paper to be printed off. That's like 2.75 USD.

Anyways, I just booked my hotel for Saturday night as I will be staying on my own the first night in Paris. And then I booked my flight to Barcelona on June 23!!!!!!!!!!

Tomorrow I'll be hitting up the beach on the Baltic Sea with my mom. Not quite like Florida.

Is sleep too much to ask for? Or at least darkness??

3:45 A.M. and I’m wide-awake. I don’t know how I was ever able to live in this country and actually function with this little sleep. It’s bright outside again. Note to self- buy an eye mask to sleep in.  You’d think with where I live this would have been done sooner in Atlanta, but it’s so easy to pull black covers over my head and sleep with city lights, because at least the sky is semi dark. But no, in Finland the sky is always blue and the trees in my back yard aren’t quite close enough to the house to give me shade. Even the blinds are white, so at night they’re just blocking direct sunlight but you can see it through the cracks. The curtains are white too. Everything in Finland is white, white, WHITE. It’s the Scandinavian way. Everything is white, blue or birch colored. Look at our flag for crying out loud. Blue cross (to represent the blue sky) on a WHITE background. Oh, and we’re surrounded by birch trees. Quite the nature type we are. 

Made It Across the Pond

It's 2 AM on Sunday/Monday morning. It's obvious to say, but I made it to Europe in one piece last Thursday. Been visiting with lots of family, gone to graduation parties, and eaten all of my favorite Finnish food. I'm anxiously waiting for next Saturday, the day I leave for Paris and study there for 6 weeks!!! I realized today that I probably haven't looked at anything French for a couple of months, so I went and bought this month's Cosmopolitan at the bookstore. But until Saturday I will be in Finland, venturing around.

My brother headed back to the states today, so now it's just me, mom and Rockey. My mom and I went to Aino- a Finnish restaurant on Esplanaadi in Helsinki. Had some creamy salmon soup and rye bread- with a glass of white wine of course. Saturday, we spent our day graduation party hopping. My cousin and my godparents son both graduated, so to say they were going all out partying is an understatement. Especially with the godparents. :)

Tomorrow I'll be heading to Tapiola to see my friend, Silja, from 8th grade along with my friend Markus from- get this- CHURCH CAMP. Yes, once upon a time, I did attend one of those. ONCE.

Have yet to go to our sauna, so I'm planning on that to happen tomorrow night after a loooong bike ride around the country side, as I'll be heading back up to the east coast after lunch + shopping with Silja.

I'm sitting on my balcony in Kauniainen, and I swear, I think it's starting to get brighter!!! The sun's coming back!!!!!! It's just been dusk-esque until now, but seriously. Bleh. I'm never going to be able to sleep here.