One week-ish down.

Well, I've almost been in Paris for a week. Technically, I've been in Paris for a work week since they consider their weeks Mon-Sun... which is odd... because if you buy a week long metro pass like i did on Tuesday, its only good through Sunday. Silly Frenchies.

Anyways. I'm really hating the time difference. 9 hours is so huge, its frustrating when I want to talk someone from home but I cant cause they would be asleep or at work/school. Its like if I want to talk to anyone I have to plan it at certain times here, but I don't want to spend my time here trying to plan out things based on when I'd be able to talk to my family or the important people from back home. I'm sure this feeling will pass once I get more use to being here, but for now its quite difficult. 

So far I am definitely loving a lot of the people on the trip. I've adopted one girl as my petite sœur (little sister) for the trip, she's so adorable. The girls across and to the right of me are awesome, I've spent most of my time with them so far. We are more on the same page of yes we want to go out and have fun and party, but we're not trying to end up being the real life version of Taken. Especially for the first weekend.

So this week. I feel like we did a lot and yet I also feel like we did almost nothing. We had orientation everyday during the week which kinda sucked but also got us very familiar with the area in which our school is located, at least the English school. The French school we only had one orientation for and didn't even get taken into the campus, so that "tour" seemed quite pointless, but I'll figure it out. The study abroad company also provided a bus tour for us, which was kinda cool for the people who haven't been here before. But since I came in the summer of 2007 and had taken a bus tour then, I mostly wanted to sleep on the bus.

Its really cool to be walking down the road. Everything seems normal and like a normal life, and then you turn a corner and there is the Louvre, or the Notre-Dame cathedral, or the Eiffel Tower. Don't get me wrong, the architecture of even the normal buildings are not like the ones I'm use to in Seattle, but its easy to get use to those nice apartment buildings until you come to an area with a huge monument or ridiculously impressive church. That's when it hits me again: I'm living in Paris. For example, ma petite sœur and one of the guys on our trip and I went shopping. We were walking along and all of the sudden we were at the Louvre. So at that point we decided to just keep going down and walking to the Champs-Élysées. Once we got down there, we were close enough to the Arc de Triomphe so we just decided to walk there. We left at 11 am to go shopping and ended up walking all the way to the Arc de Tromphe by 5pm. My feet were definitely killing me by the time we made it back to our dorm!

Speaking of the dorm, my dorm is at Cité University or Cité U. There are tons of dorms here, all sectioned off by country. So you have our dorm, les Etats-Unis, but then next door is the Belgian house. Down the road a little bit is the Canadian dorm, and the Argentinian dorm. They've got a bunch of them, I'm not sure how many different buildings in total, for different countries. The cool thing about our dorm that Idk if they do with the others, is we actually have some diversity. all of us CEA girls live on the third floor, but a few of us went upstairs and met the people from floor 4 earlier in the week. There were lots of americans (And another guy from Seattle!!!), but there was also a girl from Greece, a girl originally from Paris, a girl from Belgium, and a guy from Switzerland. They all lived in the US dorm! I may be missing some people and where they are from, but those are the ones I met and talked to for a little bit. It was really cool to meet people from other countries, and I found it quite amusing that they were in the US dorm. I guess it made it a little more like America, since we are supposed to be known for having people from everywhere come to American to start a new life and everything.

Well, considering I slept in until noon I should probably go actually do something with my day. Sundays here in Paris (and i think Europe in general) are dead days. I may have to google and at least try to find some place to get some food or something, but it could be a very lazy boring day. That could also be exactly what I need today.

Au revoir! <3

Come away with me

Almost done with the first plane ride. I'm kinda sleepy but mostly I'm just sick of sitting in this tiny chair.

I can't lie, it's pretty ridiculous that the only food they have available is stuff you have to buy. I mean seriously? It's a 7 hour flight.

This won't be too exciting of a post, this first one that I'm writing of my adventures. I'm too tired and hungry to be amusing.

Although I do like the little video screens like they have on virgin air. Not quite as nice but I'll take it. I got to watch lord of the rings the fellowship of the ring, big bang theory, listened to some music, and now as I'm waiting to land I'm watching avatar. If only I could find a comfy position to sleep in.

I'm missing everyone a lot too. Leave it to me to cave in to my crush right before I leave too, so that doesn't help. Hopefully I'll be able to Skype with my family tonight when I'm there. Which is odd to say since it's 6am here in Iceland but 9pm back home (an according to my phone as well).

Just a hop, skip, and a jump...

Well. It's getting close. 3 days and 19 hours until I am on my long long flight to Iceland then on to Paris. Beautiful Paris! La tour Eiffel, my favorite! And yet I can't seem to make myself pack. It's quite frustrating. But of course here in the lovely PNW, we have snowmaggedon taking over the roads and making me crazy. I swear I'll lose it if this stretches on into the weekend and messes with my flight! I've has enough stress with switching programs last minute that I am just ready to leave and be there and start the new chapter in my life. I can't wait! Hopefully I'll finish reading the girl who played with fire before that though!

One of those introspective nights

So tonight, I finally got word that I can make an appointment for my visa interview for Paris! I am excited because this makes it feel real. Like it will actually happen. I didn't realize how much I had been holding my feelings back about going because of things that could come along and prevent me from going. First, a cancer scare. Next, confusion regarding the visa application which made me worried I wouldn't apply in time. Other things that had me worried about going. But now I am feeling pretty confident about it. I've never had any issues with interviews, and the one job i didn't get when I interviewed was only because I was leaving for school too soon and they wanted someone more long term.

I am feeling extremely excited and grateful tonight. I have a family who fully supports me and my ridiculous ideas which don't always come to fruition. My dad especially has been extremely supportive in my plans to move to Paris for a semester. He's been helping me out a lot, financially and pretty much in every way, including reality checks that I can't travel to every single western European country while I am there. My sister has been extremely emotionally supportive through everything. I can't be more grateful for them.

I can't wait to be in Paris. Its been my dream to live in another country since I was in high school. Its been a desire since I came back from Europe the first time. I always thought it would be London, but Paris is so fitting for the person I am now. It'll be a challenge which I need. I am just so excited. I don't even have room to be nervous with how excited I am. I'm sure that'll change as January 11 rolls around, but until then I'll settle for being lost in my day dreams of living in Paris!

The ants go marching one by one...

This week has been a hard week. It's been busy with school stuff, exhausting really. Then one bit if bad news that's left me in a funk I've had a hard time shaking off. I actually sat around the apartment all day Friday my mood was so bad. Then today I decide I'll get out of the apartment. Get some photos printed, see The Ides of March. Of course while I'm pulling out of the driveway, I end up dumping my bike. Now it needs a new side faring and right turn light, in addition to a new front faring and right mirror. I was so upset. It's still rideable, but it was like the cherry on top of an overall bad week. I got back on her and rode, because you gotta just get back on, but now hours later I can feel how sore I am from finagling my way off the bike then picking it back up.

It feelt like these days went by in a haze of stress this week, marching past as my mood gradually got worse. I definitely wish I was home.

Well. I'm exhausted so I suppose it's time to sleep. Here's hoping tomorrow is a better day with the strength for a more positive outlook.

--
Brittney

Sent from my iPhone

Just keep swimming

Today is one of those days where I feel like I've got so many things going on and I just don't have the capacity to deal with them. It's pretty rough. Talking to family and friends has helped but I can still feel it affecting me.

So I'll take a break, watch some Bones (for the 20th time), and keep singing to myself "just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming swimming swimming..." oh Dory. Maybe I should watch that instead.

--
Brittney

Sent from my iPhone

A Blustery day in Pullman

So knowing that I will be going to Paris in approximately 111 days, and I am oh so excited about it, I've decided I should probably start doing actual titles instead of numbered titles. Also, I've decided I should start blogging more to get use to it so when I am exploring Europe I can keep this baby updated! That way my wonderful and amazing family can stay in the know about my adventures and not get all kinds of worried if they haven't heard from me in a few days.

So today, after the 93º weather yesterday, it is bluster and cool. I can't lie, I love the cool weather but I am not a fan of high wind speeds. It just makes riding my motorcycle all the more difficult. Today is one of my studying days. Since I only have class T/W/Th, i typically spend either Friday and Monday studying, or Sunday and Monday studying. I can't lie, I'm having a really hard time getting motivated.

A few days ago I went and saw Warrior. It was SUCH a good movie! I still can't get over how good of a movie it was. I had barely even seen previews for it, nor did I think it was all that interesting when I did watch a preview for it, but I was told by a good friend that it was a very good film so I decided to check it out. I am so glad I did, especially since it is no longer in the theater over here! Oh Pullman. Anyways, I highly suggest everyone go see it, but don't miss the first couple of minutes because I did and I was somewhat confused. At least, I think I missed the first couple minutes. If not, then the beginning is a little confusing. Whatever. Overall, it was an amazing movie and people need to see it! OK! So I am going to go back to watching Bones and trying to study genetics.

<3