SB11!

Leaving in < 2 hours for Spring Break in Spain and Portugal! I just finished my last midterm, so I can officially think about it now.

Here is our schedule:

Madrid, Spain FRI-SAT

Lisbon, Portugal SUN-TUES

Valencia, Spain WED-THURS

Barcelona, Spain THURS(night)-SUN

There's a group of 9 of us going, so it should be fun. And I'm going to see Katy Perry in Lisbon on Sunday :)

I need to go pack! I won't have internet while I'm gone, so be patient. And be jealous. (It still doesn't really feel like Spring Break right now, considering it's mid-February...)

Bronchite!

This morning I got up at 8am and left to go find the doctor. I had directions, but it was still hard to find, maybe because it was one room on the bottom floor of an apartment complex. I was told the office opened at 9am, but the waiting room opened at 8:30am, and if I got there around then I wouldn't have to wait long. I walked in at 8:40 and there were already about 7 or 8 people in there. I didn't get to go in until past 11, and they were taking a lunch break 12-2 (one thing I definitely don't like about France), so I was worried I wasn't going to make it.

But I get in and find out I have bronchitis! Except the doctor didn't know how to say it in English so it took me a minute to figure out what he was saying. I'm just glad it's not a repeat of last year when I was in the hospital for two weeks with pneumonia. Well I guess the guy liked me, or liked getting a chance to practice his English, because he let me go free of charge. I stopped by the Pharmacie with my prescriptions, expecting it to be really expensive, but for my antibiotic, pain/fever reliever, and cough syrup, it only cost 12 euros!

So hopefully I'll be at least a little better before I leave Thursday for my 10-day escapade through Spain and Portugal.

What I've learned today: Doctors in France are very different from doctors in the United States. And if I have to go back, I will be there before 8:30, with a book or something to do for 3 hours.

Weekend #5...

So this weekend I...spent cooped up in my room, coughing my lungs out! I pretty much slept all day Friday and Saturday, and I'm attempting to get stuff done today. I went through several packs of Ramen (so glad I brought some with me) and all of my orange juice.

Two tests this week, then Spain and Portugal for 10 days. So I really need to get well quickly.

Also going to attempt hand-washing my clothes in my sink later this afternoon. Wish me luck. Laundry is just too expensive here.

Oh we did go to a Latino Bar/Club on Thursday night, which was pretty neat. Until someone got kicked out and we all had to leave. But it was a fun night. They had reallyy good chips! And cheap(ish) margaritas.

Pretty much the only other thing I've done this weekend is spend way too much time trying to find downloads of Friday Night Lights. I hate not being able to stream anything here! 17 minutes left until I can watch 05x04 :)

oh

oh and DIET COKE
I don't know if I've ever missed anything as I miss my diet coke
this Cola Light stuff just doesn't compare


Clubbing at Tiffany's tomorrow night and actually staying here this weekend to prepare for next weekend: the start of SB11!

Things I will not take for granted when I get back to the US

• Free plastic bags at the grocery store
• Free refills
• Chick-fil-a

So this weekend is a semi chill one, just going to Versailles on Saturday and catching up on sleep/hw/laundry the rest of the weekend. Then next weekend is Spring Break! I wish it were a little later when it's warmer, but it's still gonna be awesome.

SB schedule:

• Madrid, Spain
• Lisbon, Portugal [Katy Perry concert :)]
• (some other city in Spain TBD)
• Barcelona, Spain

Weekend #4: Paris

I just got back from Paris a few hours ago. It was not exactly what I expected, but it was a very cool city. There is SO much to do in Paris, so I'm definitely going to have to go back another weekend to hit up Versailles and some of the museums we missed.

So we got to Paris Thursday late afternoon, found our hotel pretty easily, dropped off our stuff, and walked around the city the rest of the night. We saw Sacre Coeur, which had an amazing view, and inside was incredible. There was a service going on, so we got to see some of that and hear them all singing/humming, and it was really cool. Friday we went on a tour (by the same group that did the Berlin tour - they have free walking tours in a bunch of different cities) which was good. On the tour we saw Pont Neuf, the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower (from a distance), Arc de Triomphe, and a bunch of other stuff. Later, we went back to the Arc and went shopping (but I didn't buy anything).

Friday night we went on a pub crawl (run by the same group of people that did the walking tour). We went to four different bars, but the last one was more of a club. It was a lot of fun, and we met some cool people. I mostly talked to some Brazilians/Venezuelans and an Australian guy.

Saturday we went to the Louvre. This was probably the weirdest painting I saw:

So the Louvre was neat. By the time we got out, we were pretty exhausted from all the walking we had been doing all weekend. We still had to see the Eiffel Tower, so we metro-ed over there, had dinner at a cool little place where we all ate steak and ice cream, and headed to the tower. I never actually saw it up close during the day time, but I heard it wasn't as cool as at night. And it was very cool at night.

Half of us went all the way to the top and the other half only went partway. I went up to the top, and it was incredible. Actually, as soon as we got to the top, we saw a guy propose to his girlfriend! (She said yes.) The view was amazing -

They have free ice skating on the first floor of the tower, but we didn't get there until they were closing, so we missed out. I bought some mini Eiffel Towers though!

Sunday we got up early to go see Notre Dame before our train left at 10:39am. And we stumbled across some kind of bird market. It was weird, there were just a bunch of people selling cages/bird feed/birds. And one booth was selling fish, rabbits, and hamsters.

On the train we all passed out, and I took a four hour nap when I got back, and I'm still exhausted. It was a fun weekend! J'aime Paris.

Weekend #3: Berlin

So last weekend I went to Berlin. It was amazing! But when we first got off at the station for our hostel it was pretty sketchy. This was my first real glimpse of Berlin:

That's East Berlin for you. It was pretty cool though. We actually stumbled across East Side Gallery by accident the first night we were there, and we weren't actually sure if it was the Berlin Wall or not. It turned out to be right next to our hostel.

We went on a free walking tour while we were there, and it took us through most of the major monuments. But the tour, led by a pretty cool Australian dude, was definitely worth it. We got to hear some cool stories, like how someone escaped past the wall by getting a really really low car and just driving straight under the gate. We also visited the Holocaust Memorial and Museum, Brandenburg Gate, and a bunch of other cool places. And we tried to go to a club, but it wasn't exactly what we were expecting. Apparently in Berlin the clubs don't really start going until about 3am. But we had a street vendor by our hostel with 80 euro cent beers, so we still had a good time.

Berlin was probably one of my favorite trips so far. I should have written this blog post a week ago when I could have given more details, but it's just constantly busy here!