my return to lille

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ok, i know im terrible at updating my blog. but i was on vacation in italy, and then my computer's hard drive crashed and so it had to be sent away and then i decided to shorten my stay to only a semester so i was incredibly busy dealing with all of that paperwork and whatnot, my apologies.
my vacation was great. my mom arrived in lille saturday night and we went and had a nice meal out together before returning to my tiny room where we both slept! it was surprisingly comfortable, i slept on the floor and my mom got the bed and it worked out fine. on sunday we got up and went to wazemmes, the open air market. we bought hats and gloves and also some veggies for dinner that night. we went early enough so it was ridiculously packed the entire time, which was nice. and then sunday afternoon we wandered around vieux lille and had coffee and pastries in a cute little tea room, it was a very relaxed visit in lille. then monday morning we got up and headed to brussels on a train where we had just an evening to explore the sights. we spent most of the time in the gorgeous grande place. brussels is really a spectacular city, and such delicious waffles!! we retired early and watched an american movie on the tiny tv in our hotel room, it was great. the next morning we woke up really early and headed to the airport to catch our flight to florence!!! italy was fantastic. my mom and i had such a wonderful time! florence was perfect. we stayed in the cutest B&B right in the center of town, just a 5 minute walk from Jess Bartlett's apt and our favorite gelato shop. we didn't try to get to all of the museums and churches, because that would have been ridiculous. we spent a lot of time just walking around, stopping for pizza and gelato. we did a little bit of shopping at the famous lorenzo market, walked over the ponte vecchio, and saw michelangelo's david. we spent half a day in this cute little town on the top of a market, and another full day on a tour of the chianti country side. the weather wasn't magnificent, nor was it awful and it was just a very relaxing visit....it was so great to see Jess! we were in florence from tuesday afternoon until friday afternoon and then we took a train to milan to visit a family friend, marisa. so of course she was waiting at the train station for us and we went immediately to see da vinci's last supper which was breathtaking. i had no idea how big it was, and we got these cool ear pieces that told us the history of the entire thing and it was very interesting. after that we walked around the town a bit, visited the huge gothic cathedral and continued walking, did a bit of shopping, then got lost trying to find the car, then got lost trying to find the right road home and spent a seriously long time in the car with the air conditioning blasting (on an already chilly night) because the defroster was not working properly. finally we end up at their house at 10pm....eat some pizza and go to bed. the next morning we took a walk around their house, it was really pretty, and then had a nice looong delicious italian lunch. after that we head out to see lake como and the italian alps. that was really fun. the mountains were amazing and the town we stopped in to have hot chocolate was really cute and the hot chocolate was delicious. then we took a ferry across the lake to the other side so we could drive home and look at all the huge villas....and we got lost. and drove around for a while (with the AC blasting) until we found the right road. then we got home, had a quick dinner, went to bed and woke up seriously early the next morning to catch our flight. fortunately we didn't get lost on the way to the airport, but the AC was still blasting. milan def. wasn't my fav. and i'll never forget how incredibly cold i felt the entire time i was there, but it was still an experience! so then my mom and i flew back to brussels, where we had some lunch in the train station until i had to catch my train back to lille. it was very hard to say goodbye to her, but overall a fantastic vacation. so i got back to lille and thought about the idea of shortening my stay for a few days and then decided it was the right thing to do and started sending countless e-mails to people about the shortening process, about registration at uvm, a place to live in january, classes i need to take, etc. etc. etc. but i finally think i know everything i need to do, and i'm mostly done too (except for finding a place to live...haha)! it's not that i hate it here, that's not true....i definitely don't love it, but i don't mind it that much. i just really am not enjoying my classes and the way classes are taught. i don't like how the teachers just talk at you, and write nothing on the board EVER. and how the students just go to class and write down every word the professor says and then leave. and there's never any homework, just a huge final exam at the end of the semester. and that's just not the way i learn. i actually miss homework....haha. so i decided one semester was good enough for my french and i decided to shorten it. so i've got 6 weeks left in lille....and next week i go to paris to meet up with Jess and the weekend after that Jamie is here and we go to Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels (woo!) and then she leaves and I have 3 weeks left of crazy paper-writing, a few exams, lots of cleaning and packing, a bit of moving, and a lot of traveling....and i'm home!! pretty crazy. i'll write again when something exciting happens. i hope this long entry makes up for not writing for 3 weeks. à bientôt.
p.s. i would add pictures, but apparently they're too small to upload......lame.

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