Dopo mezzanotte

I feel like lately (on the rare occasions) that I actually do update this blog, it always starts with me apologizing for not having written in a while. Well this time I am going to skip that and say how NOT sorry I am for enjoying my life instead of spending all of my free time writing about it. All I have to say is I am officially on the last leg of my European adventure, only 8 more days until I am HOME! I am enjoying Italia, but I also can't wait to get home. Most of this has to do with the fact that I can't wait until I have my own bed again! It's hard to have some sort of sense of "privacy" when you're sleeping in a room with 9 other people and sharing a shower with even more.

Well I guess I should back up a bit and start with what's all been going on since I last updated. So after I left Aix, I took a train to Paris where I met Selby the next day. I always love meeting people at airports, especially the part where I get to see people I haven't seen in almost a year. Selby & I had quite the grand adventure which included a run in with the French police (ok, it was the metro police, aka "contrôleurs", but still) and culminated in me getting pickpocketed in Barcelona, Spain, a place I now officially dislike. So Selby & I hung out in Paris for a few days, seeing the basic sights (Eiffel Tour, Arc de Triomphe, etc, etc) and then we went to Barcelona for the weekend which, like I said, wasn't so hot on account of the fact that I got pickpocketed not 20 minutes after we had arrived, and right after I had warned Selby how Barcelona was famous for pickpockets (I had hidden everything but my blackberry which I had left in my shorts pocket, oops, so much for having a fancy phone when I get back to the States. Other than that though, we did have a good time, and one night we went out with our hostel where we met what seemed like half the Canadian population (there was at least 20 of them in our group of 30) and learned that Canadians like to high five while Australians do this weird thing where the do planks in public places and then take pictures, the weirder (or more dangerous) the place, the better I guess? All the while, I could not think about how much I wanted to go back to France, even though we were only gone during 3 days total, I missed it so much. I think it was at that moment that I truly realized how much I consider France to be one of my homes and I FINALLY began to feel like I fit in.

After Selby's visit (literally, the day after) my mom and her two friends, the two Cyndis, came to visit. From the Paris aéroport we took the high speed train right down to Aix, where we spent 4 BEAUTIFUL days in the south of France. I think this had to be one of the best parts of my trip so far and for so many reasons. One, because I got to show my mother around the city/region/country that I had been living in for a year, and two, this also gave me the chance to visit some places in the south that I hadn't yet seen. Plus, my mother finally got to meet my French family, with whom we stayed during that part of the trip. I was super nervous about this for many reasons, language barriers, cultural differences, differences in eating habits, etc, etc, but my mom got along with my French family GREAT. It was kind of like uniting two completely different parts of my family. I will forever be grateful for what my French family has done for me. They have shown me kindness & hospitality. I have so many fond memories with them! From our weekly dinners, to letting me sleep over when I'm not feeling good or feeling a little bit homesick, celebrating my birthday with my favorite dish made by my French mommy, when I stayed over during spring break "to study" and ended up just hanging out with my French sisters, going to the gym for an "abdos-fessiers" (butts & abs) with my sisters, from which we all came home & declared that they had "killed Doog" because I could not walk well for like 3 days after that. Yes, yes, I could go on & on. I love these guys so much & I hope they know how much I appreciate all they have done for me. They have truly been a part of making this one of the best years of my life and I only hope one day I can reciprocate.

My mom has most of the pictures with my French family, however, here is one of me, my French sis Audrey, and my mommy. 

All in all my mom's visit was amazing. I love the south & I hope one day we'll all get to go back. For now though, it's à la prochaine (certainly not adieu). I will be updating on my Italian adventures soon. Right now we are in Firenze (Florence) & loving every minute of it (except for Becky's illness) :(

Well I'll be seeing you all soon Stateside.

Ciao!

-Doogie

We'll always have Aix...

So here I am sitting on the train to Paris realizing how surreal this whole thing is. Study abroad is OVER. DONE. FINI. I never knew time could fly by so fast, yet here I am, completely moved out of my apartment, everything packed in two huge, overweight suitcases. How did this happen so quickly? I don’t get it. It seems like just yesterday I was writing to all of you about how I was going on this very journey on the train from Paris to Aix, bawling like a baby, scared shitless, and not knowing what to expect.

            So what did I expect? I’m not too sure exactly but I know that I have never cried, gotten angry, sad, hurt, laughed so hard, and been so happy in my entire life. This has been a trip of a lifetime. I’ve met some amazing people and had some amazing (and not-so-amazing) experiences with all of them. One thing I sure did learn was how strong I am. Above all else, I came here for myself, chasing a life dream which I have now fulfilled.

I cried so hard these last few days. It honestly didn’t hit me that I was leaving until this weekend when other people started to head out one-by-one. Friday night was our study abroad programme’s end-of-year dinner. Besides the delicious food, the most enjoyable part of the night was when we watched a slideshow of photos that everyone had submitted and then shared stories about our experiences in France and Europe. I actually managed to share two stories that stuck with me throughout the year. The first one being one of my first experiences with my 85 year-old roommate/landlady. One day she was awaiting a friend to arrive at the apartment for lunch, and though they were supposed to call first, they didn’t, so she decided to head to the bathroom and take a shower before her guest arrived. It must have been fate that lead me to go finish my studying in my room because not too minutes later, the phone rings and I hear my frantic 85 year old landlady fly out of the bathroom yelling “JE SUIS NUE!! AU SECOURS!! JE SUIS NUE!!” (“IM NAKED, WATCH OUT, IM NAKED!!”). And that was one of my first experiences with my landlady.

My second story was about one of my experiences at the grocery store (of which I have many). My friend Emma C suggested that I write a book of all of my grocery store stories and call it the “Monoprix Monologues” (Monoprix being the name of the grocery store that we frequented). Anywho, those stories are numerous  and some day I hope to share them with you when I write my book (don’t worry Emma, there will be a dedication in your name for giving me the idea and the wonderful title!).  Regardless, everyone (including myself) enjoyed a good laugh over other people’s misfortunes and mishaps in French language and culture even though at the time they seemed so serious.

On Saturday I had the chance to meet up with Ashley and her mom Marie, who just arrived in France to start a six week trip with her daughter. We showed her around Aix a bit and I shared with them two of my favorite places in the city. We then enjoyed a delicious dinner at our favorite restaurant that Ashley, Emma V, & I discovered at the beginning of the year, Les Agapes. I had such a good time with good friends but it wasn’t until this moment when I realized that Ashley, Emma, and I, the three original friends, the French house dorks who decided to all study together in Aix this year, would no longer from this day forward be together all at once. My chère Emma boo is officially done with her undergrad and will be back in France in the fall to teach English. Ashley has received an amazing opportunity with Madison’s prestigious semester internship in Washington DC program for international relations and political science majors. After dinner we dropped Ashley’s mom off at her hotel and then had one last walk down the Cours Mirabeau before we all went our separate ways. These two girls will always have a special place in my heart and even though we may be physically far away from each other, I know I can always count on them to be there for me. These two have helped me through so much in my life and I will never, EVER, forget it! I am so excited to see where they end up because I know they will be great!

After dealing with some of the hardest goodbyes on Saturday, today, Sunday, was definitely harder than I thought it would be. First of all, it was just a weird day. I woke up, dropped off some more clothes at the Red Cross, and then headed back home to finish some packing stuff before I met my friends for lunch. It had recently crossed my mind within the last couple of days how we hadn’t heard or been threatened by our crazy neighbor in the apartment below ours. For those of you who don’t know, this neighbor has threatened us constantly this entire year with police threats, and just plain old “you better watch yourself because I can make your life miserable” type threats. So I enter into my apartment building and I see our neighbor waiting for one of the two elevators. I didn’t recognize him at first but as French custom, I said my standard “bonjour” to him as I came and waited the elevator with him. We both got on and it wasn’t until he pushed the 10/11 floor button when I realized who he was. I politely managed to ignore him by reading through my mail and then we both got off on 10/11. I had my headphones in but as soon as I shut the door to my apartment I hear pounding on the door and frantic door buzzer going off. I expected that madame was having company over so I went into the kitchen and told her someone was at the door. It then occurred to me, that a-hole followed me right upstairs.

From my room I suddenly hear this man yelling at my landlady, catching the words “high heels” and “6am” and “constant noises coming from our apartment in the middle of the night”. I don’t know if I have explained the previous situations to this story, but alas, this man is ACTUALLY crazy and quite scary (also apparently an alcoholic). One year, one of madame’s foreign students came home around 11pm and when the sound of her coming out of the elevator was apparently too loud because he came out of his apartment screaming at her and then punched her. The police got involved and apparently it was a big deal.

So anyways, back to my story… So he is standing in the doorway yelling and threatening my landlady so I come out there to her defense. I am standing there, shaking, and trying to think of everything I wanted to say in French but I was so mad, it didn’t matter cause somehow it all magically came out. I yelled right back and told him he had absolutely NO RIGHT to come here and speak to my landlady nor I that way, and then I told him how tired I was of him treating me like an idiot just because I am a foreign student. He didn’t like that so he threw back some more insults (keep in mind, this is a grown adult of probably 50 or 60 some years) and then brought up how my roommate and I apparently “had parties” while she wasn’t there (these parties consisted of having two people over for dinner one night during the beginning of the year when my landlady was gone and that was the first time we encountered him when he came upstairs and threatened us. My landlady, of course, didn’t believe it and defended us all the way, even defending the time I was playing my clarinet at 7pm (which he tried to say I was playing my guitar at 11pm) and madame cutely rushed to my defense by saying that first of all, it’s not the guitar, it’s a TRUMPET, no, SAXOPHONE, and that I played it damn well! So then during his constant ranting I had finally had enough, this was my last day in Aix, dammit, and I’ve had it! So I shouted at him in English to “FUCK OFF YOU PIECE OF SHIT, YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?!?” To which he gave me a very angry face, I’m assuming because FUCK is pretty universal, and then I said “SO FUCK OFF, GOODBYE!” and then made a hand closing gesture when you tell someone to shut up, which I later found out is actually an extremely offensive gesture in France (made me all the more proud of myself!) and then finally we managed to shut the door, but not before he managed to throw one last threat to my landlady. The whole thing was just incredulous and unjustified. I mean, who does this asshole think he is? But whatever, I got in my last word with him, I only hope he leaves my landlady alone. As much as I may have complained about some of the things she did, she was like a grandmother to me and I will miss her terribly!

So anyways, that ended my last day in Aix. My friends came over and helped me take my stuff to the bus station and they saw me off. I cried a bit on the bus, but then I realized how excited I am to see Selby tomorrow and continue this last leg of my European adventure! Soon enough (in a month and a half-ish) I will be home in Racine and wanting to be back here, but I am also excited to get back to my “normal” life back in the States. It’s been a great year. Like my friend said the other day, we’ll always have Aix…

Peace,

Doogie <3 

Réflexions sur la vie d'un américain en France

Well my fellow readers, I have crossed the finish line! I am officially DONE with school here in France. Byebye FAC! I won't miss you at all! I must say, the ending after my last exam yesterday was bittersweet... I was so ecstatic that I went to the grocery store and got a celebratory box of good old American pepperidge farm, double chocolate chunk cookies, along with a bottle of tequila for tequila Friday. However, as soon as I got home I got a message from my friend who found out the grades for our history class that we all despised. All of us, of course, failed... Ok, so we didn't fail, but two of us got D's (5/20 on the French system) and the other two got 6/20. Just like that, my celebratory box of American cookies & bottle of tequila turned into a food/alcohol binge moment of "F*** France". I must say though, after that, it made me all the more happier to be done here at the Fac.

School here was one of the only things I disliked about this country. The 3-4 hour long classes once a week, professors who are unavailable and get pissed at you when you email them (if you're even lucky enough that the professors gave it to you in the first place), and professors who don't give a crap whether or not you succeed! I cannot wait to get back to the States and resume my American education. If there's one thing I've learned from this, it's how much I appreciate what I have back home.

My whole entire life (ok, since I was 10!) I have lived & breathed French. I've wanted nothing more than to move to France, become fluent in the language, marry a French person, and "become" French! Since being here, I've learned that I'm proud to be an American. Ok, not proud to be an American in the sense that I feel the need to wave my American flag around everywhere and sing that god awful, cheesy "And I'm proooud to be an American, where at least I know I'm freeee!" song, but I learned that there are different ways to be proud of your country. For example, in France, you'll almost never see a French flag flying around except at government buildings. The other day (and I still haven't figured out the reason why) the French flags were hanging up and flying all around the city. My reaction was: WTF? And then my friend texted me and asked me: "Is it a French holiday today?", and my response was: "No, but I'm guessing you're referring to the flags all over the place, right?". Instead, the French are patriotic in the sense that they take pride in things like their cuisine. They are proud of their 350 or so different kinds of cheese, their wine, and, of course, their bread! I don't know what I am going to do without my baguette next year. It is going to be painful...

But, alas, all good things must come to an end, right? I have only 8 more days left in Aix. Looking at the bordel that is my chambre, I don't know how I am going to pack this all up into just 2 suitcases! How did I obtain so much stuff since being here!?!? Good thing there is a Red Cross donation center here, I can get rid of some of these clothes that are now two, even THREE sizes to big for me! Yes, another great thing about French cuisine! So much better for you than American cuisine. It's almost paradoxical when you think about how much bread, cheese, wine, and butter these people consume. But regardless how much of these things I have consumed here, I have still managed to lose almost 40 pounds! I just have to make sure I can keep that off when I get back...

In the meantime, I plan on enjoying these things as much as possible while soaking up the beautiful, provençal sunlight. I am going to miss this place. But at least I know that anytime I am having a bad day, I have these wonderful memories and this wondeful place to go escape to in my head.

The Aix chapter may be coming to an end, but another chapter is just beginning. France has shaped me into a whole new person (mentally AND physically!) and I can't wait to come back to the States and share it with everyone else!

Peace,
"Doog"

Aixtraordinary

Hey there readers (if any of you are left!). I'm sorry I haven't posted in forever, I've just been so caught up in things going on here that it slips my mind. So much has happened since my last post. Since then I have traveled to the exotic country of Morocco, where I accomplished one of my life dreams of finally making it to the continent of Africa! (But no worries, I will be back to Africa soon enough, I know it!). Going to Morocco was one of those experiences I will never forget. I don't know what I expected, I guess I thought that since it used to be a former department of France that it wouldn't be that much different but honestly, I've never experienced anything so different in my life. In France, I experienced a culture shock that was ongoing and subtle but Morocco was like in your face, boom boom boom! My friend Emma & I had so many moments where we would step outside, walk around for an hour, and then would have to head back to the hotel just so we could "regroup". In the end though I think it was a good experience for me to have because it took me outside of the western culture and showed me something completely different from what I know.

I can't believe my time in Aix is almost up already. Next week I have 3 final exams and then I am DONE! Within that time I have to completely pack up and move out of my apartment, cancel things like my phone plan, insurance, bank account, etc, etc. And, of course, nothing in France is that simple so every process is twice as long and twice as complicated just because I am not familiar with the process. In the end though, I know it will work out!

I wouldn't say I'm homesick at this point but I am just getting really excited to go home and get back into the daily swing of things even though at this point I know that my reverse culture shock is going to be probably one of the hardest parts of this whole experience. So many things I know have changed about me, I can't even necessarily pinpoint them, but I know they will all stand out when I get back to the States. I am excited to see all of my friends and family though, that part I know will be good.

So with that said, I think it merits the time (does that make sense or is my English just that off?) to talk about my upcoming plans for my last two months in Europe. So as I said before, next week I have 3 finals and then I am finished with school in France (for better or worse, personally I think for the better). I have exactly one week to pack up all of my stuff, say goodbye to some of the good friends I've made here, and then head off on my summer travelling adventures. So I leave Aix on the 16th to head to Paris where I will meet up with Selby! We will spend 3 or 4 days in Paris before heading to Barcelona for the weekend! My mother arrives the day after Selby leaves and we will head immediately to Aix where we'll stay with my French family for 4 days and explore the south of France. Then we will head back up to Paris for 5 days & hang out with my chérichou, Ingrid! After my mom heads out I had almost two weeks where I wasn't sure what to do with myself. So what did I do? Of course, I went on to ryanair.com, found the cheapest flights out of Paris, and will be making my way up to Edinburgh, Scotland for a few days where I'll get to see Tim, one of my best friends from elementary school! After that I will finally get to make it to the home country! NORWAY HERE I COME! I'm hoping to get the chance to make it up to the small village that my family comes from and meet my cousins that my uncle found but alas, we'll see how things play out. After my Scandinavian adventure, I will finally be reunited with my chère Becky for an amazing French and Italian adventure before we fly home together.

I have so many mixed emotions going through me right now. Stress with all the things I have to do/plans to make for trips, exams, etc, and then excitement for all my trips, seeing people I haven't seen in almost a year (especially my mommy!!!), and most of all, to finally be HOME! This trip has been the single most amazing/incredible/special trip of my life and I wouldn't take back a moment of it. I learned a lot about self-reliance, living independently, & travelling. These moments I've passed here will remain with me for the rest of my life.

Bon, je vous laisse (I leave you).

Love & gros bisous depuis la France.

-Doogie

Who knew flipping a coin could change your life?

Hey everyone! Sorry I haven't written in a long time. My life in France has been going through some rough  up & down periods, as to be expected I suppose. Honestly, I was quite depressed for a while. I felt like I found myself in some sort of hole that I couldn't dig myself out of. I made a mess of my life and I wanted to change that. So what did I do? I decided to embark on a voyage all by my lonesome, something I wanted to call my "adventures in solitude". Two weeks before our winter break I bought my tickets out of Aix with my destinations being Madrid, Spain, Porto, Portugal, and then finally ending up in Barcelona, Spain before taking the train back to Aix. Some people told me I was crazy, others told me it would be good for me. I honestly didn't know what to think of the whole thing and after I bought my tickets all I could think was "what the hell am I doing??". But I had no choice, the tickets were bought so I left Wednesday the 23rd on a 16 hour long bus ride from Aix to Madrid with just my backpack, "Let's Go: Europe" student travel book, and a personal journal that Ashley told me to buy and write in during my trip. 

I won't talk much about the bus ride other than the fact that it was the longest and WORST bus ride Ive ever taken, between the crying baby in front of me and the snoring/smelly man behind me. But whatever, I arrived in Madrid on Thursday early afternoon completely in tact (except for my tremendous back pain) and ready to explore! It's quite exciting to arrive in a foreign country where you scarcely speak the language with an address to get your hostel and armed with only your mind and some sort of self-reliance that you are counting on to get you where you're going.

Needless to say, I made it just fine to my hostel and Madrid was AMAZING. There is so much to say about it, I wouldn't even know where to start! First of all, I have never seen so many gays in my LIFE! I found Spain to be quite open with gay people. I saw many gay couples walking around holding hands, kissing, and it was honestly no big deal to anyone. In fact, Im sure I was more shocked by it than they were! I loved it!

Madrid was definitely one of the better cities Ive been too though. Amazing food, drinks, things to see, the night life... I definitely want to go back! I always would like to put a little thanks to my friend Tess who I hadn't seen in two years (friends from Tulane) but yet she still hung out with me and showed me around! I had so much fun! I would love to explain more of the stories but I feel like nothing can describe it as well as pictures can.

I did some exploring on my own for the first two days. This is me in front of El Palacio Real (The Royal Palace) in Madrid

3€ for a jar of sangria and a plate of tapas. I love Spain!

Tess & I took a day trip to Segovia, a small town about an hour from Madrid famous for its roman acueduct, cathedral, and CASTLE! Check out this beautiful view though!

After spending a wonderful 4 days with Tess & her friends in Madrid, I headed to Porto, Portugal, where I was very nervous to go by myself. Part of me was of afraid of being alone with myself because that meant dealing with all of my issues, but instead of crying about it, I journaled throughout my entire trip, which I must say is a wonderful form of self-therapy. As soon as I arrived (and ended up at the BEST HOSTEL EVER) I went down to the river and watched the sunset. 

Sunset on the Douro River

As soon as I headed back to my hostel, uncertain about what to do for the night, I immediately made friends with the other people in my room, one Australian guy and two German girls. After chatting for a while we all ended up getting invited to go upstairs to the lounge and drink wine with the rest of the guests, as well as the people who owned the hostel. I ended up meeting tons of other awesome people from all over and by the end of the night, I ended up at a Brazilian birthday party. I live for random moments like these. So much fun! The next day my new friends from my room and I decided to go out on a river boat tour and then spent the afternoon doing wine cellar tours and tasting delicious port wine (which I must say, I am now an expert at, especially after 4 tastings/tours in one day!) :o

Daniel, Miriam, Estrella, and me on the river boat tour. 

On one of our wine tasting tours we met Michelle (to my left) another American who is living in France. 

The Dom Luìs Bridge at night.

Later that evening, a bunch of us from the hostel ended up at a little jazz bar in Porto and I found myself sad because I had to take a flight at 6am to head to Barcelona, but I didn't want to leave Portugal. This was where the spontaneous turning point of my trip happened. While expressing my reluctance to leave (and leave for the airport in the next two hours) my friend Daniel, THE Australian, told me "then don't go, go to Lisbon with everyone else". I was like, whaat, I can't do that! But why not? Then Giorgia, my new English friend, flipped a coin and told me that "the world is your oyster". Ok, maybe it's a cheesy expression, but definitely true! So in the end, spontaneity won and I skipped my 6€ Ryanair flight to Barcelona and hopped on a train with my new Canadian friend Miro and headed to Lisboa! There we met up with several of the other people from our hostel in Porto and had lots of fun!

Me & my Brazilian friend Stéfano enjoying some of his "family's" wine. :)

We took a day trip to Belém, a little area outside of Lisbon. My friends William (from Colombia), Stéfano (the Brazilian), and Miro (the Canadian). 

After exploring we went on a bar crawl with our hostel. This is me & Val, another Brazilian that I met! (the Brazilians are everywhere!!) :-)

Maggie, William, and me hanging out at our hostel tapas night.

Sunset over Lisbon.

Overall my trip was a huge success and I accomplished what Id been looking to do. I learned a lot about self-reliance, going places on my own, and learning how to meet people. Most importantly though, I finally pulled myself out of this funk Id been in for the last few weeks. Even missing my bus to go back to France and having to find a last minute flight at the airport didn't phase me. It was quite the adventure. This trip put some life back into me and I am learning to appreciate things again. Like the fact that Im sitting at my kitchen table here in Aix and looking out at the city with the mountain in the background. It's just gorgeous. Life is good.

Sorry for the long blog! 

peace,

"Doog"

Brussels, back in Aix, exams: je suis dans la merde!

Hey there readers (if any of you still exist!). It's that time of year where everything slows down (including my blog updates). I wanted, however, to update everyone on the rest of my winter break activities as well as what's going on back in Aix which, needless to say, isn't a whole hell of a lot.


So Ingrid and I left for Brussels, Belgium on the 27th where we were to spend 5 days before heading back to Paris on January 1st. Unfortunately, after all of our hard partying over Christmas (the French would say "nous avons trop fait la fête") Ingrid and I both arrived in Brussels both exhausted from little sleep over the last 3 days and sick as a dog (who came up with that expression?). After some slight confusion and about 30 minutes after leaving the train station, we finally found our first hotel. The only thing we could think of was how bad we wanted to sleep. We get to our room, aka the freezer, and set our stuff down. We find that the window had been left open and the heating all turned off so we closed the window, turned the radiators all the way up, and then decided to head out for a quick bite while the room warmed up. Our "quick bite" turned into an hour long adventure to find an ATM which, apparently, is a rarity in Belgium. We had trouble finding them during our entire trip, except for in the metros which, you know, is such a safe place to put those. After asking about 5 people we FINALLY got some cash and a warm kebab. We were so cold, exhausted, and sick that we had trouble leaving the restaurant because we didn't want to walk out into the cold. We made our way over to a pharmacy and bought 6 different medicines.

The table in our hotel room taken over by our medicines.

After spending the entire rest of the first day sleeping and resting up, we headed out the next day to do a little sightseeing. Our first stop was Cantillon, one of Belgium's famous breweries and producers of delicious (but sour!) beers such as Gueze. Ingrid was probably one of the only French people in the whole building as we found ourself surrounded by Americans. After doing a little tour of the place, we got to try some of the beers (the best part!).

Me posing in front of a bunch of the bottles.

Ingrid and I trying out the Gueze, a delicious sour/citrusy Belgian beer.

After that we headed out to find our way to the big Palais de Justice, which boasted some amazing views of Brussels from it's labyrinth interiors. Our "quick way" of getting there and avoiding the cold by taking the tram backfired as it turned out we had to take like 6 different trams to get to our destination. But we finally got there and checked out the Palais de Justice. It probably would have been much more impressive if it didn't have construction scaffolding surrounding it but hey, it was still pretty cool considering we got to stay inside away from the cold. Unfortunately, we didn't find any impressive views and after doing exploring that ended up with us taking an elevator to a floor forbidden to the public, we decided to call it quits and head back outside.

Palais de Justice

The rest of our trip here involved us doing several little things each day since we were easily fatigued and coughing up a storm. I told Ingrid that our room had been designated the "chambre des invalides" ("room for sick/handicapped people"). After the 2nd day we had to move to a hostel which meant bye-bye TV/cable/internet and hello uncomfortable beds and cold showers. The room was super clean though and MUCH warmer than our room at the first hotel. The next day we preceeded to do a little bit more exploring. We checked out the Palais Royal (Royal Palace), the Museum of Musical Instruments, and we had our first taste of Belgian Waffles as well as seeing the famous light show in the Grand Place.

Le Palais Royal

First Belgian Waffle! (got it plain and simple with just powdered sugar on top!)

In Grand Place at night.

The next day I did some exploring on my own while Ingrid attempted to go to the library to get some studying done. I indulged in another waffle, some Belgian fries (eaten with mayo, just like a true Belgian!), and checked out the famous Manneken Pis, a tiny fountain of a boy peeing. Belgian's like to pee in public, even more so than the French seem to. In fact, on the side of one of the cathedrals they even put a little urinal out! (fun fact I learned from my youth map/travel guide I got at the hostel!).

Manneken Pis (yes it really is that small!)

Overall it was a good, easygoing trip. We were hoping to get out and party a little bit more (would have loved to try more of the Belgian beer!) but unfortunately our illnesses prevented us from any hardcore partying/going out. We did manage to have a good New Year's Eve though (other than suffering from numerous harrassments by drunk men). We passed the "décompte" (countdown) in the Grand Place, which was filled with thousands of people. After that we found a cozy spot in the back of a nice bar/restaurant where we had two cherry lambic beers before turning in early so we could check out by 10am and catch our 12 o'clock train.

Our last drink in Belgium.

Now I am back in Aix and in my final exam period. Everything has pretty fallen back into normal. Madame is still combatting the little cockroaches she insists come in from the balcony (how a cockroach gets into our apartment from the 12th story balcony baffles me, but you know, can't question an 85 year old French woman!). I passed my first exam on Thursday (oops, by passed I mean passed as in the French way as in "had", don't know my grade yet!). I think it went alright though. I have another history exam Monday (woops, should get working on that!) and then my last exam is on Thursday. Immediately after my last exam I am running (literally) to catch a bus to the Marseille airport, where I will catch my low-cost flight to spend the weekend in LONDON, where I will be reunited with my good friend Sarah V, who I first met junior year of high school on our trip to Quebec. Should be an awesome weekend, although I know it will go all too quickly!

Anyways, Im off to bed so I can get up "early" and "study". HAH.  Yeah right. 

Paix beeshes,

Doog