HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

So I am deviating a little from my song because I think Mom's birthday deserves it. :) I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving because I did too for the most part. We basically celebrated Thanksgiving on Wednesday because that was the only day that we could make a reservation for 13 people at a restaurant that had Thanksgiving food. We at Joe Allen's Restaurant. It was great!!! We had a choice of what appetizer, what entree, what desert, and it came with wine. However, it is now the most expensive meal I have ever paid for, but it was worth it! For my appetizer I decided I should try foie gras. I've never had it and because I knew that a delicious entree was coming after it, I thought, 'Why not?' It was pretty good, until my wonderful professor Jerry told me the abuse the animals go through to make it.  I gave the rest to my other professor Nan in exchange for one of her crab cakes which were also quite delicious. For my entree, I (of course) picked the turkey. It came with dark and light meat, a pile of green beans, what I am pretty sure was 2 sweet potatoes cut up, and an ice cream scoop of stuffing. Soooooo good.  I had pumpkin pie for desert and tried some of my friends brownie with ice cream- in the middle of the brownie I swear it morphed into fudge.

Yesterday, on the real Thanksgiving, it was a beautiful day so my friends and I did some homework in the park on our roof (you read that right, there is a park on our roof). Then we did some extra credit for a class and went to Jim Morrison's grave. I guess it is a tradition that you have a beer at his grave. That cemetery was very creepy and not nearly as peaceful as the American Cemetery. I did find a Burkhardt though! After being lost for about a half an hour we finally found Jim's grave. The guy standing next to us was drinking whiskey but we were still weary about whether drinking was disrespectful. So between the three of us, we just had one beer. From there we went to the Musee d'Orsay because it was free. I had already gone with Morgan, but our Art History Teacher was going to be there for questions so I went back. I didn't stay too long because I started not to feel too well (excitement from the Holidays I guess) and I wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving to my family.

I hope you are having a great birthday Mom!

Our Alma Mater

I know it has been a LOOONNNNGGG time since I've written and for that, I am truly sorry.  Good news is that I found a few more verses to the song so I can keep writing (hopefully more frequently). I have now traveled to 2 places since I last wrote.  First off, MORGAN CAME! That was extremely exciting to me. We went to Prague and had a real adventure. Morgan had planned out all the logistics: she knew how to get to the place we stayed and what we should do. I will be uploading the photos shortly and will have to add commentary because you might think I'm a horrible photographer.  Also, Morgan's pictures are far more fun to look at because you have the privilege of feasting your eyes on the two of us more often.  That trip was exactly what I needed after the stress of the break. I LOVED it, especially because there were a multitude of beagles!!  Morgan and I also got to see the ballet at the old opera house with my class. It was gorgeous! She had the pleasure of meeting Brittany (my art history teacher) when no one else has.  Here are all the other things we did: went to Place de Concorde, the Louvre gardens, Notre Dame, Bastille, Musee d'Orsay, the Eiffel tower, Sacre Couer, Montmartre cemetery, Moulin Rouge, and my favorite restaurant, Chartier. That does not include the things Morgan did while I was in class!

This weekend my class went to Normandy and Britany.  In preparation for seeing Omaha Beach in Normandy, I had to present information about WWII and the Landing.  I asked Grandma what she remembers from WWII and presented it to the class. My teacher LOVED it. I got an A- thanks Grandma! Actually going to Omaha Beach was surreal. It's so peaceful now that it's hard to imagine.  France gave the U.S. the beach out of thanks so that we could have a cemetery and memorial. All the crosses are facing west, towards home.

No wonder I am exhausted. What two weeks I've had!

Hail to thee

I'm finally starting to feel better in Paris. I slept all day yesterday and went to class today although I am still some what in a fog.  Today, we went on our first site visit in Paris for Art History.  Now as Paris is a much bigger city that Florence, we received metro cards as part of program so we can go to our site visits more easily.  Paris's metro is no exception to the metro rule: strange people ride it.  Today we went to Saint Denis Basilique, the first gothic church in all of Europe and thus the world. It also home to King Louis XIV, AKA the Sun King, and Marie Antoinette and her idiot husband Louis XVI.  I saw all of their tombs plus King Charlemagne which I didn't know was there. But I digress, the point of this blog entry is to talk about what I saw on the subway.  Or I should say, what I shielded my eyes from. On the way back to our dorms, a group of us got on a subway car where we had to stand. One stop into our journey, my friend Clint mutters under his breath, "oh my God. There's a rat in that guy's hood." Yup, the guy I was standing right next to, had a pet rat in the hood of his sweat shirt. None of us knew what to do. My two guy friends start laughing under their breath while I try to scramble as far away as possible (a mere 2 feet). Then my other friend goes on to say, "That's just not sanitary. I mean this train lurks. What if it just falls out?" I do not want to know! I just want to make sure it doesn't fall out on me!! After another stop, I managed to get further away so that I could relax and laugh about it too.  I found especially obnoxious when his girlfriend started to pet the rat when it was still in his hood. Oh dear. Paris a beacoup de surprise! 

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