Two Days in the Life of...

I need two days in the life of Emily to show you my life from Monday to Friday. They're all very interesting days, so I'm sure you'll enjoy them (only a tiny little bit of sarcasm).

Day One (Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays)
These days depend on what I'm doing in the mornings. For instance tomorrow morning I have a trip to the Louvre, a meeting, and an absentee ballot to send before class.

Wake up at 930. Putter around the apartment and get breakfast. The hot water in my apartment didn't work from the day I got here until Thursday, but I assume I'll be taking a shower this time now.

Either eat lunch in my room while doing homework, reading, or playing on the computer.

At 2 I pack all my bags and get ready for class. I leave around 230 for class at the Sorbonne. I have a four block walk to the metro and I have to change lines once so my whole trip takes me 35 minutes.

At 3:30 I have phonetiques. This class ends this week (it was only for one month) and I've got a test sometime soon. The teacher is really nice and we shift from a classroom to a audio room to half way through. In the second half of the class we tape ourselves talking and listen to our mistakes.

From 4:30 to 5 we have a break. During this time I've discovered a great little chocolate store. It has really bad sandwiches but amazing rice cake. It's two euro for a big gooey slice of amazingness. I've also grabbed coffee with Bridget and often do some homework.

From 5 to 650 I have my French grammar class. My teacher is pretty attactive and all the boys drool over her. However, I got frustrated with her today because yesterday we have aquiz where we wrote 200 words imaging who this girl was and her likes, etc. I had 10 mistakes (out of 203 words) and got a 5 out of 10. The girl behind me had 27 mistakes and got a 7 out of 10. Ugh!

From 650 to 730 I run home to grab dinner with my family (we eat together Monday-Thursday). We always have four course meals and I love it. The French ALWAYS have dinner at home with their family and I think Americans should pick up on it. These dinners are relaxing and a great way of winding down and sharing your day with each other. I've finally started speaking some French with my family and they're very helpful.

After dinner I'm told to go to my room... This is aparently common because every other student says the same thing. So from 830 to bedtime I'm hauled up in my room. Once again, this is a great time for homework, chatting, and reading.

I usually hit the sack 11-12.

Day two (Tuesdays and Thursdays)

720 wake up. Then I grab breakfast and get ready.

I run out the door at 805 sharp. Today was an utter mess! My train stopped between stations and went completely dark for two minutes. Then I get off on the wrong stop and get on the wrong train (thinking I'm going to the Sorbonne instead of the Accent Center). I eventually figure everything out but I was 20 minutes late to class (first time being late). I usually get there 5 minutes early.

From 9-11 I have Islam in France. This class is really interesting and we've discussed immigration in France and what it means to be French, etc. Fascinating. I learned a new fact today too! Did you know that in Britain, Italians were put in internment camps during WW1? Weird.

From 11 to 130 I have a break. I usually grab lunch (most often a chicken baguette, a soda, and a chocolate cookie for 6.55 euro). Then I usually do some homework and chat with people.

From 130 to 3 I have Paris Culture and Civilization. It's an interesting class and I like the professor, but some of the stuff he says just throws me. He's a literature major from Cornell but he says it's okay to cite Wikipedia on our paper and he didn't read one book before assigning it.

From 3 to 330 I rush to Phonetiques.

The rest is described in the first day.

There are plenty of variances. Usually there's one day where some friends and I go to a bar and have a drink or two. We also usually have lunch on one of the days we don't have class until 330. Weekends vary a bunch!

The Attractive French TeacherWhat's wrong with this picure? Look closely. It's an advertisement all over the metro.
Bridget. We're becoming close friends. Notice the legs.

Only in Paris...

While in Paris I've noticed several things that wouldn't (or just doesn't) happen in the US. Here are a few of them:

Four of the girls in my group from left to right: Tracy, Kirsten, Amanda, and Michelle.

Amanda enjoys some wine as we sit along the banks on the Seine River.
You can buy cups of wine to go.
This car was touching one and had literally two inchs of space on the other side.
I don't even know what car this is, but it's adorable.
Aparently Rome doesn't have that many 2 euro coins... Amanda had several.

I hope you enjoyed the few pictures I shared with you. I plan on adding several more as the semester continues. Maybe one of my room too when I get around to it! I was able to go to Rouen and Giverny yesterday and had a great time, although an early morning of 630. Rouen was where Joan of Arc had her trial and was burned alive. Giverny is where Monet's house and gardens are. Rouen had some great chocolate stores and cheap sandwiches while Giverny was amazingly gorgeous.

I have a few trips planned and a couple I really want to go on. I'm going to Rome in October and Vienna (to see Bethany and Stephen) in November over my one and only break (of two days). I also really want to go to Istanbul, Turkey and Budapest, Hungary. I've got the flights picked out and everything, I just need some consent and some money : ). Amanda, her roommate Lilly, Bridget, and Ally are interested in going with me, so I wouldn't be travelling alone. I would love to see places outside of Western Europe (and Prague barely counts)!

Bonjour!

I've been in France for the past week and a half and I've been having an amazing time. My host family is adorable and extremely nice. I'm in a group of seven people from my school. We're small but we all get along, so that's great. I've had excellent four course dinners with my family four nights a week and I'm totally looking forward to the rest of them. I've been trying new things and am enjoying 98% of them aside from Apricot Chilled Pudding (or something, I hate apricots), tomatos, and a very undercooked pizza. However, I've tried eating half an alvacado and vinegar and really like it, never would have seen that coming.

Any suggestions as to what I should do in Paris that I wouldn't do otherwise in the States? Food suggestions? I love escargo, so I'm already on that one.

The only bad thing about this is that I have class Monday through Friday and one 5-7 pm. This really limits travel which is definitely a part of studying abroad. However, I'm still travelling! I'm going to Rome this weekend and I can't wait!

Digging for my life

Ho there! It's been a while since I've posted, but that's due to a lack of Internet. The dig was amazing. The site: Dilston Castle, part of it from 1417 still standing, the rest from the 1600s was destroyed because the Earl James Radcliffe supported the Jacobite Rising (to reinstate the Stuarts as kings), he was one of only two leaders beheaded, we're digging the kitchens, servants areas, etc. The people (aside from two) were great, the site was amazing, and I spent less money than I thought. We bought our food at a grocery store and made our meals, aside from a few nights out at the pub. Of course my meals mainly consisted of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, soup, and granola bars. The food at the pub though was really good. I had their Alston Pie (included ham and a bunch of good stuff) and their Chicken and Ham Pie with an amazing fluffy, toasty roll. One day I went into Hexham and went around the marketplace and a little greek restaurant for lunch. The people: Sophie 1, Sophie 2, Sarah, Beth, Jo, Donna, Holly, Grace, Frank, Kevin, Tom, Rob, Brian, Michael, and Max.

In the last week things became pretty exciting because on Wednesday Frank fell into a hole. This hole turned out to be the Castle's bathroom. On Thursday Max, Rob, and I dug out a bunch of treasure. On Friday Sarah, Sophie, Rob, and I continued digged and found even more gorgeous objects. These included: almost four full plates (one this amazing piece was blue and white with a nude Chinese woman, showing that they were really wealthy if they could afford Chinese pottery, two with very interesting and different brown and yellow designs, and another blue and white plate), several glass bottoms of bottles (some worth around 1,000 pounds), several pieces of bowls and chamber pots (one with a complete handle), several pieces of a glass perfume bottle, a really amazing top of a wine bottle, a couple vases (one with a complete handle), a brass button, a metal ring of some sort 5 x 5 inchs, several shards of window glass, metal nails, bones, etc. It was amazing.

I'm now in France, one hour away from talking to someone about my host family and three hours away from meeting my host family. I'm kind of terrified. I have yet to meet anyone from my program, but I will soon. I'm going to grab some food though before I talk to anyone so that my stomach will stop grumbling! I'll update you more later!

Sick, Scared, and Excited

Prague, Berlin, and Amsterdam went well. I'm sorry for not updating you until now. I got sick in Berlin and I'm still hacking up a lung. I bought cough syrup today though (however gross the stuff is), so I'm looking on the bright side. I'm sad to see everyone go, especially because I won't be seeing most of them for the whole semester. The trip was great and I'm extremely glad I went.

Now I'm excited and nervous about the archaeology dig. My fears are that I'll be lonely, it'll be miserable weather, I won't have the proper clothing or equipment, and I won't have access to the internet or a payphone. Hopefully these will prove to be nothing. I'm excited about the trip though and looking forward to everything. My boarding time is in 15 minutes, so I'll keep this short and sweet.

With the first leg of my journey over there is still so much left. I only just finished the first three weeks of my time abroad out of four months! It's rather daunting to think about in many ways. I can only pray for the best though and be optimistic. I'll be visiting Ally, Bethany, and Stephen sometime over the semester to view their study abroad worlds and share my own. Hopefully I will have some interesting things to share of my own as well.

I really have to go to the bathroom, but I have five minutes left on the internet! I've been holding it for twenty minutes though and I don't think I can last any longer. Until next time my fair companions!

'Snap, Crackle, Pop your face.' Ally

Venice... smelly canals and a precious cottage

Although Venice had smelly canals, it really was a beautiful and quiet city (from the lack of cars). Our group relaxexd the first day and didn't hit up any tourist places, but the second day we ran around like crazy and Ally got blisters on the bottom of her foot. Our cottage was very cute with three bedrooms and it was very cosy and out in the middle of nowhere (next to a corn field, almost remindes me of home!).

Rome was also a great city, if hard to appreciate at first. We stayed right next to the busy train station in an area where tourists are told not to go out at night, so that was a little unsettling. However, when we explored the neighborhoods away from our area Rome was gorgeous and full of adorable nooks and crannies. I can't wait to visit Ally when she lives there because now that I've got all the tourist stuff out of me we can go to the less well known areas and also relax and eat in the romantic restaurants in the side streets of Rome. I always pictued Rome as a romantic city, but you have to get away from the train station to see it!

Due to some errors in reserving hostels our group forgot to reserve the nights of the 6th and the 9th. Therefore we're staying an extra day in Berlin and staying tonight in Milan. We're not going to leave our little neighborhood though because we're all pretty tired and we're just going to relax and go on the internet! Yes, we did go to McDonalds for dinner tonight, but it's the first time we ate American food and I only had four euros to spend (which I hit exactly with a kids meal). I'm trying to spend only 20 euros a day, but food is a killer! I'm doing well though and I'm keeping close track of all my finances, my parents, grandparents, and Justin should be proud of me! By the way Justin, how's your ankle? (for those of you who don't know, he fell off his motorcycle in the rain and broke it, didn't hurt the bike though).

I'm pretty excited to go to Prague because I've never been to Eastern Europe and I really hope I have a good time. The language is going to be pretty tricky though, wish us luck!

I'm writing in a journal and writing down funny quotes and little stories about our trip which I think is good. I'll tell you one every post to keep things interesting. A couple days ago we had to RUN to the train or else wait an hour for another one and Bethany, Stephen, Ally, and I held open the train doors for literally five minutes for the others to run on. It was pretty close and I'm sure the conductor was extremely mad... he was waving at us and yelling in Italian...

Hiccups, stairs, and siestas

I have had hiccups for the last five minutes and will probably continue to have hiccups for the rest of this post. If you did not know I usually only have a hiccup or two a day, but when I get them they last forever! Erin has had hiccups several times today because we woke up at 3 am and got on a plane to Rome at 625. It was freakishly early, but that's the earliest travel we have for the rest of the trip, so that's something to look forward to! I am pretty sleepy though.

Speaking of sleepy, I just recently learned the word siesta (Spanish for nap in case you didn't know either). Since learning that word I've taken siestas on the Louvre grass, the Eiffel tower lawn, and plan to in Rome as soon as I get off the internet. Funny though that I never took one in Madrid. Do siestas prevent you from sleeping well at night? I don't think I've ever really had a problem with them... It's nice to relax after running around all over the place. My feet were literally killing me in Paris, but they've gotten a lot better since then. We didn't walk much in Madrid though compared to Paris and probably Rome.

Stairs. They are the essence of Paris. We walked up hundreds and very likely thousands of stairs every day! Trust me, it begins to hurt after a while. It's weird to walk so much here when in the US I do very little walking. At school I walk to class and such, but here we're walking several miles every day. It's intense. I really hope I'm more in shape by the end of it though!

Two thoughts for today: Europeans are crazy drivers. There is also more graffiti in Rome than I've seen in any other city.

1st class train rides are not worth the cost...

Hello ladies and gents,

Our lovely group has reached Madrid, but it took four seperate trains (not including the metro), a broken down train, 1st class tickets on one train (there were no other tickets), and 20 hours. All of the travel made us take an overnight train and we missed a day in Madrid. The hostel charged us money because they said we didn´t cancel 24 hours in advance when Bethany called and emailed them three days in advance. We´re trying to get our money back and if we do we at least saved money on the overnight train. The 1st class ticket was €25 though which offsets the savings... And the meal they gave us wasn´t that great. Enough of that nonsense though, sorry for boring you with details.

Last night we went out to a dance clud in Madrid and we all had an excellent time. I tried a drink called the Spanish Flag and it was actually pretty good (probably because it had a lot of grenadine). Stephen has a cold though, so we´re hanging out around the hostel for a little bit so he can get more sleep. I´m glad my medkit came in use though! I brought musinex and he told me I was his saviour. It´s good to know that I did a pretty good job packing. I had to pack more than everyone else though because I´m going directly to my archaeology dig. I´ve got a sleeping bag, two sports bras, two shorts, and four shirts specifically for the dig. My bag is a little heavier than everyone else´s bags but I´m strong enough to handle it!

Before I left for the trip everyone was joking with me about alcohol because I´m allowed to drink in Europe, but not the US. Since I´ve been in Europe I had a great night with my friends our 2nd night in Paris because we went out to a nice dinner and then went to this awesome little bar where the owner didn´t speak English. We all had a glass of wine and just chatted for a while and it was great. Jan tried her first sip of wine and refused to have more! It´s frustrating that the drinking age is 21 in the US instead of 18 because it prevents us from going out and having those types of nights or even going out with parents in restaurants. I like the idea of having a lower drinking age as long as the parents are present. Thoughts?

Today we´re going to see some Spanish churches and squares and check out some authentic Spanish food. We tried some last night and I was a little scared, but it was delicious! I hope I enjoy to food the whole trip as much as I did last night. We´re also going to a flea market or something to check out some shopping options. I didn´t buy anything from Paris, but I´ve got to start loading up on these places! My pack is going to be pretty heavy by the end of it...

Until Rome!

Oh Paris, how will I survive you?

After four flights around the US and Europe the airline loses Ally and my bags. It was slightly frustrating to wear the same clothing four days in a row, but Allys bag and my study abroad bag showed up this morning. The trip was a little hectic and we almost missed our flight to Amsterdam, but the planes were nice and Ally and I sat next to each other for three out of four of the flights, which was nice. Since then we have been running around Paris catching the main sights and seeking out good/cheap food. I have enjoyed everything so far, but it is really weird thinking that I will be here for afew months and hopefully will learn the language. I better because I have a French class at AU in the Spring that I have to pass...

Also, the train from Paris to Madrid that we wanted was sold out, so we have an overnight train. It will actually save us the cost of one hotel night, so we end up saving money, yay!

I am having a great time and I cant wait for the next leg of our journey.

Maybe the Mike Mayer show should have an episode of lost AU abroad students in foreign coutries, eh?

Before the Rush

Hello everyone,

One trend that seems to be running around the world is travel blogs. So I gave into peer pressure and have created my own (in case you couldn't tell). This is just as much for me as it is for anyone else. This will be my online journal of my travels and I'll be recording interesting places and experiences along the way that I can somewhat relive later. I hope you enjoy reading my posts and let me know if you have any suggestions, comments, questions, or stories of your own!

My travels begin on Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 and end December 6th, 2008. I'll be starting off in Paris, then jumping to Madrid, then flying to Rome, then skipping to Venice, making a short stop in Milan (short being the key word, only a few hours), running to Prague, busing to Berlin, swimming to Amsterdam, and then digging to England. For the first 25 days I'll be traveling with Ally, Erin, Bethany, Jan, Andrew, and Stephen. We'll be going from Paris to Amsterdam. From there I'm staying in Newcastle for a few days alone and then hitching a ride to Nenthead, England to participate in an archaeology dig for two weeks. I'll be digging along Hadrian's Wall, a castle, and some stables. Starting September 1st I will be studying at La Sorbonne in Paris, but that won't prevent me from traveling around Europe during my semester. I've already got a ticket to Rome September 11-14 to visit Ally (where she's studying abroad). Erin is studying abroad in Kenya and Stephen and Bethany will both be in Austria.

I've got at least two copies of every document I would ever need (including 8 copies of my passport), a rail pass, super glue, and all sorts of random and essential things I'll need. Ally is flying in today and I'm so excited to see her. My friends and I will be getting together tonight, tomorrow night, and Monday for various activities and we'll even have a packing/last minute meeting on Monday.

I won't have my computer during my trip, but I'll try and buy some Internet time every now and then to update everyone. Have an excellent life until I speak with you next!

One of the only bad things about studying abroad is not being able to watch the Mike Mayer show...