Blogs from Franche-Comté, France, Europe - page 9

So I'm getting back into the swing of things in Besancon. I went grocery shopping, did my homework, went for a half-hearted run. Things are looking up now that the sun is out and it's 65 degrees. Good weather can do wonders for a person's outlook. The weather is great, but the best news of all is that I have internet in the dorms now!!! I got back and my friend Heather informed me that we've had internet capabilities the ENTIRE time; we were just too stupid to plug in an ethernet cord and try it out. But the internet is a double-edged sword: while it does help me accomplish many things, it also distracts me from accomplishing many things; unfortunately, the latter happens more often than the former. Today has been a productive day so ... read more

Europe is expensive. The euro is expensive. I hate the euro. The stupid thing jacks $.30 everytime I spend a dollar, and that $.30 really adds up. After viewing my wells fargo account, I am now depressed, and my big travels are still to come. I still have to buy my tickets for my April and May vacations. Ugh. I hate money. Or rather, I hate spending money that I don't have. But I suppose it's my own fault. I could've saved up more, but I didn't. All I can do is watch my account dwindle to zero and then come home broke. I expected this to happen, but it's a lot harder when it's actually happening right now. At least I'm not alone, though - everyone here is going to be broke by the time ... read more

I leave for Berlin exactly two weeks from today. I’m basically just counting down the days until my March break. Is that such a bad thing? I enjoy learning, I really do. It’s just that my work ethic has plummeted since I’ve been here. No job. No real obligations. Not a whole lot of homework. Not a whole lot of class. I need to find something to keep me on my toes. I don’t want to get back to Lincoln and learn that I’ve forgotten how to write, work and live like a busy American. I look back to my last semester and wonder how I managed to breath. The funny part is that when I actually think about it, I really wasn’t that busy. But compared to here - man, was I ambitious. Although I’ve ... read more

No school tomorrow. Lovely, isn't it? Everything is better when you don't have school the next day. And I abslolutely love my class schedule - One class from 430-6 pm on Monday (which is really like not having class on monday because everyone knows that the time span from 4pm to 6 pm is worthless anyway.) Then Im at school from 830-3 on tues weds and thrs. This means that I basically have a 4 day weekend every week. Glorious! Things have started moving along here. I'm now in my dorm room, which is tiny and extremely blue (I feel like I'm in a cruise ship room) but overall pretty decent. It's just so so nice to be on my own, even if I do live off of bread, cheese, nutella and cookies. Being in the ... read more

Back from Stuttgart already. The time passed way too quickly this weekend, but I suppose that's to be expected when you're really enjoying yourself. Needless to say, everything was great. I got in 20 minutes before Nicholas and it was extremely easy to find him at the train station. After we met up we were off to find our hotel, which proved to be a bit farther away than we had origionally thought. Luckily Nicholas is now a pro with the german rail-lines. Unfortunately, neither of us is a pro at directions on foot. We got off of the S-Bahn only to be lost again. But wait! There was a beacon of hope and warmth in the middle of the cold Stuttgart night. Nicholas and I had happened upon the German mix of the Platdeutch and ... read more