KU!

One of my very good friends is on the same study abroad program this semester as I was. She set up a blog too. I tried to read it today but it made me so jealous that I just couldn't. Another girl in my house was accepted to the program (which had so many applicants for this semester that they had to cut people) but she DECLINED. When she told me that, I wanted to yell at her, "You're an idiot!" but that would have only made her feel bad. And that's why I want to tell you Kelly, it's scary as Hell getting ready to go, but you're already braver than her, and I PROMISE that it will be far more fun and far more life-changing than being on Mass Street after the National Championship.

As for myself, I realized on Thursday when I was going to my first class that I was so sad about not being in Europe anymore that I forgot how much I LOVE Lawrence! It is going to be a great semester!

One last thing. I'm having a bowl of cereal and chatting with one of my friends on Friday morning and she asked me if I had gone anywhere over break. "Yes, I went to..." I stopped. Had I gone anywhere? I'm so used to traveling that I didn't realize I hadn't really left Kansas City over break. I had gone to Lawrence. Morgan came from Denver. But I had done so many things! I went shopping, to museums, to restaurants, but I really never left the metro area. "Ha ha! I guess I didn't. It may have been more relaxing if I did!"

Jayhawk

Well, I have been home for a week now and conquered my jet lag and reverse culture shock of coming home. Now the annoying part for all those around me has set in: the stories. When I first came home people kept asking me "what was your favorite part about Italy or France? What was your favorite place? What did you do?" I didn't really know how to answer them. I still don't. But now stories from different places come out in conversations. Unfortunately, most people won't hear these but those of you reading this blog will hear them thousands of times and become horribly annoyed with them! Lucky you!

So whenever one of these stories pops into my mind, I'll post them so you can read them. This way I'll know which stories I've told!

Here's my story for today:

Mom and I went to Price Chopper and bought Cherry Coke Zero (my favorite). I decided I wanted one when we were home, but Mom said that it wasn't a good idea because it wouldn't be cold. That reminded me of my plane ride home.
We finally took off from Paris heading to Chicago, and my heart started aching. I had been so excited about going home earlier, but now I was sad that I was leaving Paris. Then the flight attendant came by with drinks. "Would you like something to drink?" She asked with what looked like a genuine smile. That was one thing that pretty much NO ONE in Europe did: smile. I have truly missed people being truly kind to each other and that saying "the customer is always right." While it is annoying to always be nice to people when you are working, it is soooooooo nice that we do. I've really missed it.
Then, the MOST exciting thing happened. The flight attendant gave me a REAL Diet Coke NOT a Coca-Cola Light (while they are good, the Lights just are not Diet Coke). That was when I decided I was okay with going home.

Rock Chalk

The major reason that I do not want to go home: I'm afraid that I'll wake up and it will all be a dream. Someone will just say, "You hit  your head on the steering wheel when that idiot rear-ended you and you had a concussion." I'll be in Kansas and they'll tell me it was all a dream.  At least my reality will be in color.

There is a GREAT youtube video that makes all my friends and I here laugh until we cry.  It's called David after the dentist.  This poor 9-year-old boy had to get his teeth pullled and put on pain medicine.  He's a little loopy.  Our favorite line by far is when he says, "Is this real life?" We've had several moments while we were here when we've busted out that quote.  That's what I feel like these last three months have been: me questioning reality.

I'm know that I have learned so much since I was over here and I'm sure some of it won't even hit me until later. But don't care. I'm just glad I was brave enough to come.

I can't wait to see you all and hope that I don't sit next to another crazy person on this flight!!

If I am Dorothy, can I just tap my heels three times and be home?

Hail to Old KU

A few random stories for you:

Le Musee de l'Orangerie is a museum right near the Louvre that houses the massive Water Lilies by Monet (2 rooms where the walls are covered by them!). We had a site visit there with my art history class. While my teacher went into the Museum to buy our tickets, everyone else was forced to wait outside.  We were all just standing by the door, when the security guard told us that we needed to go further away from the door. We ended up being forced about 20 yards away by a wall.  My Western Civilization professor, Nan, has "never been so offended." Because there was a good view of Place de Concorde from where we were standing, I whipped out my camera and snapped a quick picture.  Our teacher came out and said she had the tickets so we could go inside. On the way in, the security guard (the same one that forced to stand by a wall which I haven't been told to do since 1st grade) asked if he could see my camera. 'Darn it,' I thought 'is he actually going to take my camera away? I won't take any pictures in the museum!! I know how to turn the flash off too!' I reluctantly handed him my baby (AKA my camera).

"May I give you some advice?" He said, "hold your camera like this when you take vertical shots. It makes it easier to adjust the camera." Then he handed my camera back to me. "Merci," I replied completely taken aback. I went through security and found out that you can even use your flash! Jerry (my professor) told me he was standing behind me and that he had never seen anything more odd in all of his travels. A security guard giving photography advice.

I was reluctant to listen to the advice at first because he took my camera! No one does that, but in all honesty, the security guard was completely right. If I remember nothing else that I've learned while over here, I can say that I received a free photography lesson!

P.S. Nan and Jerry invited me and three other students to dinner last night.  Nan is a retired professor of education philosophy: Jerry is an attorney. If our massive family dinners and just our every night dinners has taught me, it is how to properly have a conversation/argument with an attorney. For that I would like to thank everyone in my family! You're the best!

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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