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| angel_bob (profile) wrote, on 1-1-2008 at 2:12am | |
| Music: Mushaboom by Feist Subject: A year in review: month by month |
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January January 1 - 23: freaked out. Begged everyone I knew to not make me leave. Foolishly, they did not obey me. January 24: D-day. I left the United States for the first time in my life at 12:45 pm. (Sorry, Canada, you don't count. But we can still be friends.) I cried in the little waiting area and didn't want to let go of Nick, Katti and my mom. My dad was out of town. I then got in the security line and laughed my worries away with Alis. Then off we went. January 25: Arrived in London then flew again to France. After forever on the plane and two hours in the van with all of our huge American luggage, I got to Perpignan and met my host father. I then spent the longest two or three hours of my life at Emily's host family's house. This was, I later found out, because my host parents were both working and my host mom got out a lot later than usual. I had no clue what was going on. This continued for a few days until one day a light went on and I understood everything. It didn't take long. January 27: I almost broke down crying in a restaurant with Pichot and the girls because he was planning on taking everyone to Spain the next day and my host family had a day long party planned for me. They even made both boys come home for the weekend. Emily's host father told them we were going to Spain and they said we'd just have cake. January 28: I spent my 20th birthday on the beach in southern France, on the road between France and Spain, and eating delicious food in a family-owned restaurant in a town called Llançà, Spain. It was très Catalan. And very awesome. January somethings: Emily's host father took us around Perpignan and the surrounding cities. He took us to get a bus pass (unlimited rides for 30 days = awesome when you live in the suburbs) and a cell phone since I made mine lock me out. January 30: We took the tests to place us into levels for our classes. Well, I should say test since Emily and I missed our first one. We caught the bus on the wrong side of the street and made it to the university in time for the oral exam. They said they'd just put us into the same niveau (level) as everyone else anyway. I understood everything by then. January 31: We took a train to Barcelona. I almost missed the train because I took the wrong bus. Again. This time, I accidentally got on a high school bus and was taken to a part of town I didn't recognize. I then hopped on another bus and asked the bus driver if he went to the war instead of the train station. He figured out what I was saying and the answer was yes. I took the bus over a bridge, around a corner and got to the train station ahead of time. Alis took a taxi and arrived after me. Once in Barcelona, we found our awesome hostel, walked around, went to a museum, ate food and got one of our purses stolen. This, we would soon find out, was commonplace for the girl. Everyone went bar hopping and I stayed in the hostel and cried. This would lay the groundwork for our group relationship. February February 1: We got back to France safely. Sadly. February 2: We found out which niveu-s we tested into. All but two of us tested into level three while the other two got into level two. February 3: I realised I was trapped in a country with no squirrels. I wanted out. February 5: My first day of a semester in France. I realised that this semester was going to be awesomely easy. February 9: I went to my first two bars/clubs. One was called Purple and was purple. Laura and I apparently pronounced it incorrectly. We then threw a fit. Laura spent the night and this would soon become an almost constant in my France life. The eldest host brother took us but we would soon find him lame. February 10: Younger host brother gave Laura and I a muffin. This muffin would soon become a joke. He had just come back from Ireland and we made the muffin into the reason for his trip. That night, I went to a mod concert with 26 year old and Sophie, indoctrinated French on-and-off girlfriend. February 11: I ate couscous for the first time in my life. And I never was the same again. February 11-14: France began to try to kill me. I almost fell out of 24 year old's window, I fell on the bus and the French people did what they do best: STARED AT ME IN SILENCE, I learned to run out in the middle of the street in front of cars to cross the street. This habit was hard to break once I got home. Week of February 19: Flew from Perpignan to Stansted, the airport from hell. We spent the night on the cold airport floor and found one of our fellow girls the next day. She was going to Ireland and missed her flight so she had also spent the night in the airport. This girl? Kasey Baker. We then flew from Stansted to Eindhoven (what we thought was the name of the airport in Amsterdam). We then found out that Eindhoven was in the southern part of the Netherlands and Amsterdam was in the north. Luckily, it was a convenient two hour bus ride to Amsterdam. It was hilarious. Amsterdam was awesome. We stayed in a hostel that had to have been five stories tall and one and a half rooms wide. Interesting story: the first night we were there, the smoke alarm went off. Someone came running up the stairs, knocked on the door of a room near ours and told them to open a window. He then suggested we go back in our room. I learned what pot smells like. Accidentally went to a “coffee shop” and learned how to tell it from a coffee shop. We went to McDonald's more than I do here. We visited Anne Frank's house and the Van Gogh museum. We accidentally bought tickets for the wrong boat cruise but it didn't matter, we had fun and went everywhere we wanted to anyway. We also visited this cool house with a church in it. Dutch people are the nicest people in the world LONDON: We went everywhere and did everything. Interesting anecdotes: I asked two guys on the above ground train back to our hostel if they were going to share their McD's with the rest of the class. Our hostel had a bar on the ground floor that closed at midnight. The gas station stopped selling alcohol at 11. When our above ground train stopped working, they crammed us all on a bus. Double-decker busses are fun to ride. We began our tradition of riding the bus/underground/metro wherever and just exploring. I saw the best musical ever: Blood Brothers. Bekka, Laura and I laughed, people cried. I went to Sloane Square just to take a picture. We accidentally walked into a protest. February – June: We rode the bus everywhere on weekends, trying to find peanut butter, Oreo's and something to do in that town. We tried to ride every bus in Perpignan. We went to the beach, rode busses to the end of the route and got back on, and ate pudding on top of a stump in the bad part of town. March Who knows what happened. We rode the bus a lot. I missed a full week of classes to go to Italy with Laura and her parents. April I went to Italy (Rome, Florence, Venice) with Laura and her parents. Short stories: Rome = smelly, I told a story about hippos that Laura's parents still joke about. Florence = awesome, I thought I was going to die climbing the Duomo. Venice = also awesome, town without cars = great. Laura and I left the Venice mestre train station to meet with Bekka in Milan. On the train there, we decided to go to Budapest. We took a train back to stupid mestre station then got on a scary Cold War sleeper train to Budapest. Budapest = surprisingly more awesome than I thought. After freaking out about not speaking Hungarian, I fell in love with the city. We stayed in a hotel (not hostel) across the street from Hero's Square. Oh, and did I mention we arrived on Easter? Budapest was freaking awesome. We ate Chinese food in a restaurant that played Hungarian showtunes. We walked across town at night. We climbed a hill that a bishop was thrown off of. We saw a beautiful synagogue and the Danube. We also went to the Terror Museum and learned that Hungary's last prisoner of war was released in 2000. Prague = not as awesome as Budapest but still awesome. Since it was Easter week, there was a festival going on. It was fun. We went to what Nick calls the Mission Impossible bridge. We ate delicious bread. We saw Mark Ruffalo. We went to a synagogue that featured drawings by children in concentration camps. Brussels = little France. We had the best French fries ever and I learned that the best topping for French fries is mayonaise. Not as awesome as the other towns but a nice way to get used to going back to France. We got stuck there for an extra day. We went to a museum that had some of Rene Magritte's paintings. They were working on a wing that would house all of the works they had. Oh, I saw one of my favorites of his in Venice at the Peggy Guggenheim: Empire of Light. April 25: We found out that we got to take level 2's exam along with level 3's since two of us were in level 2. This meant I didn't have to study. May May 6: My dad went into the hospital. May 9: My dad called to tell me he went into the hospital that Sunday. I still don't know why he did. End of May: I went to Paris with Bekka and Laura. It rained the entire time we were there and it was really cold. All we packed were tank tops. I wore all of the clothes I brought to McDonald's and scared a little French kid. I didn't like Paris when I was there but I think I might like it if I go back. June June 2: All of us women took a train from Perpignan to Toulouse to sleep in the airport. Our plane didn't leave until 6 in the morning the next day. I did not sleep at all. I instead called as many people as I could to spend the rest of my phone card. June 3: We flew from Toulouse to Gatwick then from Gatwick to Dallas/Fort Worth. I changed into a sexy white dress that I bought in Florence to show off my tan. I was actually surprised when no men in Texas whistled at me. Bad sign, France, that's a bad sign. Our time in Texas flew by and then I was home. My family greeted me with a banner, a globe and leis. June 12: Nick and I celebrated our three year anniversary. The rest of June: flew by. I was home. I didn't care. I was happy. My best friend left for a year. July July 21: I moved in with Nick. July 27: I begged my boss for hours and finally received them. August My love for busses extended to the Grap busses. And I still love them. When it's not cold out. August 20: I began my first class in English in eight months. It was a welcome relief. August 23: I took my first ride from a stranger. August 24: I saw a beaver. And my world was never the same again. August 27: I realised that my theology class was either going to kill me or make me kill my professor, and I didn't want to die. September September 8: My cat, my McHenry, was put to sleep at noon. My mom, for the first time ever, went in with him and held his little kitty paw. September 16: A visit that I claimed was just to “look at” cats turned into getting a cat. Nick and I became proud owners of the needy monster that is Baron von Richthofen. September 17: The Baron fell in the toilet. September 18: A cold began to turn into an event. This event would last for almost three weeks. October I got drunk for the first time in my life. It was a lot of fun and all Oliver's fault. It has not happened since. October 4: I pledged my loyalty to NaNoWriMo. I never wrote a word. October 7: One of the cats my parents got to replace McHenry, Hero, died of the kitty cold. My sister was at her friend's house for homecoming and did not find out until the next day. I took a few pictures of her and put them on Flickr. She was very small. October 14: Nick turned 21. We spent the day chopping wood at his parent's house. It was fun. October 15: I beat Portal, the best game ever. October something: I realised I was suffering from reverse culture shock and probably the same type of depression my mom falls victim to. November November 1: November began awesomely with me getting pulled over because Nick's tags were expired and then I didn't have my license. I thought it was because I switched purses that day but I had been driving without a license since Nick's birthday. As I woman, I cried and did not receive a ticket. Ha ha, stupid men. November 18: The other cat we were going to get died of the kitty cold. I discovered how badly my reverse culture shock actually affected me. November 22: Nick and I went to my parent's for Thanksgiving in our first attempt to actually take the entire day at one family's house instead of splitting it. It worked very well. November 24: Nick and I had people over to play Rock Band. It was fun. December December 1: One of my photos was published in an online guide to Amsterdam. December 10: We went to look at a bunch of cats and decided to get one of them, Nick, even though Nick didn't want it because it had the same name as him. I wanted Jingles but Jingles had zero personality. I thought Nick best fit The Baron. December 13: I discovered that Nick and I have children: our cats. Lil Cat came home. December 24: Nick and I spent Christmas Eve at my parent's house and Christmas Day at his. I got a beautiful desk for Christmas which is hiding away in the second bedroom so the cats don't scratch it. I also got a pair of my favorite brand of shoes: Rocket Dog. And that was my year. Proof that the world falls apart when I leave the country: Britney shaved her head while we were in Amsterdam. There was a school shooting while we were in France. Kurt Vonnegut died. Anna Nicole Smith died. Britney hit a car with an umbrella while we were in London. My dad went into the hospital. My cat began to fall over regularly. |
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threshershark | 01-01-08 6:16pm I learned about french frieds and maynaisse in Mexico too. It is the best combo ever.
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angel_bob | Re:, 01-02-08 4:45pm Got your call, sorry, I was asleep, I went home sick from work.
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