Blogs from Centre, France, Europe - page 24

Sometimes it’s hard to describe exactly how far away my house is from the university, so today I have a small illustration: When I left the university today, it was sunny—cold, yes (it’s been around freezing all day) but the sun made it alright. However, about halfway home from the university it started snowing. HARD. Before I knew it, gusts of snow were blowing in my face with huge flakes fluttering everywhere. Then, about a block before I reached my house, all the snow STOPPED. The weather dramatically changed TWICE. In other news, the past two days have been pretty good—I’ve been enjoying lounging around in my house with no one else here, spreading out all my stuff over the entirety of the kitchen table and chowing down on all the homemade bread that was left ... read more

Today was a pretty rainy day, which was disappointing because we went to Chenonceau which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful castles in France because it’s built on a river. It was beautiful, but the water was kind of gross and murky from the rain, which made the castle not look quite as cool. Also the huge front section of the castle is currently being restored and has scaffolding with this huge curtain over it with a picture of what the castle should look like—kind of hilarious, but also kind of disappointing. That being said, I still loved Chenonceau. I want to go back some time, when there are more flowers in the garden and when it’s a beautiful day. The inside of the castle was cool—we didn’t have a personal tour, but ... read more

This weekend was so fun. I already wrote about the Saturday excursion to Amboise, but I haven’t written yet about how Friday night late Marie and Clare (22 and 10 year old sisters) came home for the weekend. Friday afternoon the family had told that Marie and Claire would get home around 10:45 Friday night and that they were both (but especially Claire) looking forward to meeting me! I was in my room that night and I thought that I heard them come in, but I didn’t want to go downstairs to butt in on family time, I was going to wait and see if they told me to come downstairs, but around 11:10, I decided that I should probably stop looking up travel plans for April break and go downstairs to introduce myself. I go ... read more

Last night we went to our first discoteque called xcalibar. We walk by it almost everyday because it’s in Place Plume, and it looked pretty sweet, so we decided to check it out because we don’t have class Fridays. (eeeee!) Sadly, it was not as sweet as it looked. Annie, Denise, Sarah, and I went around 12:30 (you’re really not supposed to anywhere early in France) we paid our 8 euros to get in, only to go down the stairs and find approximately five people there. But, we decided to stick it out for a while. Eventually more people came and we had fun with each other, although we probably will not be going back. After endlessly requesting Lady Gaga to the DJ (and having him play Bad Romance for us, but then played Beyoncé’s VideoPhone, ... read more

Today, Beatrice is teaching me how to solve a rubix cube. I’ve been working on it for about two hours now, and have not succeeded without her help (I did it with her about an hour and a half ago and she wrote down the formulas so that I could solve it myself. I’ve come close, only to mess up the last step and then start over again…but I am determined. My host dad told me that I have “courage” which can be translated to kind of mean persistence.) I am DETERMINED to learn how to do this. But I’m taking a break right now. But mark my words, the next time you see me, I will have successfully solved a rubix cube. I’m done with the Institut now! I celebrated by sleeping until 12:30 yesterday—it ... read more