Playing Catch-Up

Okay, people out there. I have made a resolution to try to document my silly adventures a little more regularly. If not to entertain you, then really just so that I can remember all the craziness that is going on over here. So, let us play a quick little game of catching up:

Last Weekend:

My dear friend C and her mom L made a spring break appearance in Paris! (Their spring break, not mine). It was great to have visitors, especially when it is one of my best friends! It was a lot of fun playing tourist with them, although it was kind of a bummer to have to juggle school and homework with fun and touring.

I also had a two day excursion to Bourgogne (Burgundy) for my Medieval Art class. Given that my teacher is crazy/amazing/grandma-esque, it was a wonderful trip. We did lots of learning about romanesque churches and lots of sampling/over-eating of the regional food. :) hehe

Last Week:

Highlight of C and L's visit include fun touristy attractions of Paris, drinking with C's mom for the first time, and enjoying a lovely spectacle at the Moulin Rouge. Now, in terms of the MR show, it was a lot of what you would expect, mixed in with some very unexpected things. Things you would expect: lots of lady breasts, a dance move involving pants flying off. Things you wouldn't expect: a lady doing an underwater dance with two giant boa constrictors, a ventriloquist/comedian, a man with the ability to juggle 8 juggling sticks at once, a couple of acrobats with the ability to balance on one another's heads. I kid you not people. At one point in time, the man was standing up straight, and the lady was doing a headstand ON TOP OF HIS HEAD! Take a minute to try to picture that....incredible!

Okay, so there is a quick synopsis of my past week.

Hopefully I can stick with my resolution and fill this blog with fun and exciting blogtastic stories!

And with that, I leave you with this picture of dinosaurs. Why? Because.

France is a Funny Place

After living here for about two and a half months, I've really come to realize how many things about France are just...funny. Not necessarily haha-funny, just a little...funny. Anyway, just thought I would share some of my random musings about this funny country.

For example:

1. When doing laundry at home, expect to have a washing machine at your disposal and nothing more. Dryers do not exist. Neither does water softener. Leaving your clothes with this almost starchy feel to them - that is, after they have spent the good part of two days air drying.

2. When you are ready to go home after a night of fun and it is 1:30am, don't expect to find the metro open. DO expect to find at least one or two crêpe stands open every few blocks.

3. When sitting in your home, expect to have spotty cell phone service. When sitting underground, on the metro, expect to have flawless cell phone service.

4. Never have I seen more cowboy boots than in France - no joke.

5. It is possible to walk down one street and see eight shoe stores for every non-shoe store. Many of these shoe store are simply called "Shoestore." - the French are creative.

6. The pastry/coffee shop, Paul, may know what it's doing in terms of delicious treats, but they still have a lot to learn about the "to go" concept. A Café Mocha is typically served with chantilly cream (fancy shmancy whipped cream). However, when you get it "to go," you will receive a to go cup, filled with café mocha, and topped off with a small mountain of chantilly cream about 4 to 5 inches tall - very practical for an on-the-go customer.

7. Many times, while on the metro, you will encounter performers. Some of these performers choose to do a kareoke-style performance. There is one man in particular, who works the 1 and 2 metro lines, who sings songs in Spanish, particularly "Besame Mucho." This man, however, has not bothered to learn the actual words to the song. Though I have seen him perform repeatedly, he never gets the words right, and usually ends up repeating the same three sentences throughout the entirety of the song - but hey, we're in France, no one will notice.

8. Back when ice skating rinks were still up and running, it would not be surprising to find a large group of young children (ages 3 - 13) skating along to Lily Allen's hit, "F*** U." Always a great, kid-friendly song.

And now for the funny France encounter that inspired this post:

9. Sometimes, when you are walking down the street, you'll see a lady walking her dog. Except she is the only one actually walking:

Oh France. You are too funny.

Africa or Bust!

I blessed the rains down in Africa this past weekend!

- Had to include the Toto reference since I had the song "Africa" stuck in my head the entire weekend...

Anyway, my most recent adventure involved an intercontinental excursion to Morocco! Now, as spectacular as this exotic little trip sounds, it started out with a few bumps in the road:

Bump One: My flight landed about 45 minutes late, so M and I missed the last train from the airport to the Casablanca train station - ended up having to drop 300 durham (about $38) for a taxi.

Bump Two: Arrived at the train station at about 1am, next train to Marrakech scheduled to leave at 4:50am - night number one in Morocco spent on the freezing stone floor of the train station. Aces.

Bump Three: 4:50am train to Marrakech delayed 30 minutes, which actually turned into about an hour and a half delay.

Bump Four: No room in the sleeper cars - not really an issue for me since I can pass out on literally any type of transportation vehicle, but poor M hardly got any sleep :(

Finally, after stealthily making our way (and suffering through) bumps one through four, we found ourselves in beautiful Marrakech! Our hostel, nestled inside the Medina, turned out to be pretty awesome - delicious breakfast, free tea 24/7, super brightly colored bedding, hookah lounge, fun courtyard feel - loved it!

Our Lovely Hostel!

After a quick lunch, we tackled the Grand Square and the Medina. This essentially meant a combination of the wonderful sights/smells of the market and the dodging of tourist traps, monkey men, snake charmers (literally running after you with snakes in their hands), among any and all other creative methods of getting your money. We managed to be craftily smart tourists and avoid most of their ploys. I say most of their ploys because by the end of the day, all three of the men in our group had acquired genuine(ly fake) Rolex and Tag Heuer watches from the afore-mentioned tourist traps. Way to go guys...

The Square and the Medina - notice all the satellite dishes...

Next, we tackled the camels. Just outside the center city, there are massive gardens. Right next to said gardens are a few (slightly shady) Moroccan men with some camels. Being the craftily smart tourists that we are, we bargained our way to a nice, somewhat reasonably priced stroll through the gardens. Now, despite what you may think, camels are nothing like your typical riding animal - horses, donkeys, etc. You have to mount them while sitting, situate yourself on a makeshift saddle, and hope you don't slide off while the camel proceeds to shimmy its way into a standing position. Yea, accident waiting to happen. But once we were up and somewhat securely settled on our camels, the ride was beautiful :).

Lacking a solid plan of action, we spent the rest of the trip just soaking up the experience of being in the city. Saw a palace here and there, did some more bartering with the locals for cheap souvenirs - the usual Moroccan stuff.

The Mosque

We are in a gorgeous palace. We come across a mirror. First thing that comes to mind: take a ton of MySpace-style pictures... we are so cool.

Our trip ended in Casablanca, just a three and a half hour train ride away from Marrakech. We were so happy to find some of the comforts of home in the train station in the form of a McDonald's and a KFC. But don't be fooled, even these chain restaurants have their own little flair when found outside of the US.

McArabia - enough said

View of Casablanca from our hotel's terrace

The trip was such an amazing experience. Such an incredible culture, so different from our own! Plus, it was almost too much to think that we were in Africa! Holy Moly!

England

A spontaneous urge to ride the Chunnel led J and I to London this past weekend.

We started off the trip just right, even before leaving Paris. I had the girls over Thursday night for a mini movie night and we ended up watching Moulin Rouge while filling ourselves with Champagne, a gigantic bag of Madeleines, and Cheese Doodles (courtesy of J's mom). As you might imagine, all of these elements, though wonderful on their own, create what can only be described as an epic tummy-quake when combined. Now, for some reason, when J and I woke up the next morning and were about to head out for the train station, we were craving madeleines. So we grabbed the rest of the giant bag (which was finished within the hour) and off we were to Gare du Nord.

One of the conditions attached to this spontaneous trip was the idea that we were going to take full advantage of our two hour train rides and get work done. Needless to say we passed out for the entire trip and did no such work. Homework fail.

We arrived in London with the whole day ahead of us. Yay super early trains! After checking into our incredibly awesome hostel (Palmer's Lodge - highly recommend it if you ever find yourself in London), we were off to center city and hopped onto a double decker bus tour to reacquaint ourselves with the city. This lead us to Westminster Abbey and Parliament, and a tour of the Abbey capped off our morning of typical sight-seeing.

J and I enjoying the sun :)

Parliament (and a head..)

This, ladies and gentlemen, is where the real fun began. Now, J and I have come to realize that we are actually ten years old at heart, and thus conducted extensive research on how best to see all of the real sights of London - the HARRY POTTER SIGHTS of course!

Off we were from one random location to another, lovingly guided by an online walking tour via my blackberry. We must have looked like idiots, but it was all worth it. Jealous yet? We got a glimpse of Diagon Alley, The Leaky Cauldron, Gringotts, and much much more. Oh, and of course we couldn't help ourselves - we just happened to walk into King's Cross Station and just happened to search the station and just happened to find Platform 9 3/4... (which is actually between platforms 8 and 9. Hmm...) Anyway, we also just happened to snap some souvenir pics of us on our way to Hogwarts:

Diagon Alley - Leaky Cauldron Side

Later that evening, I got a chance to catch up with DH, a long lost friend from Edgewood who waltzed off to England for college (or "uni" as they all call it). It was great to see him (and his new gf!).

Saturday brought a little more regression as we spend the morning, wide-eyed, in the epic Natural History Museum. There were dinosaurs. Robot dinosaurs. Enough said.

After having our fill of childhood nostalgia, we changed pace a little and found ourselves in Vinopolis, a wine tasting museum discovered by my family the last time I was in London...I think I was about twelve at the time. It was nice to actually be offered wine this time around, although I did miss the excitement of stealthily sneaking tastes here and there, as any mischievous twelve-year-old would do.

The highlight of the trip came Saturday night with a trip to the O2 arena to see.....Dave Matthews Band! Again, this spontaneous trip just happened to be planned on the same weekend DMB was playing London. (This one was actually a HUGE coincidence). Dave Concert = perfect end to a weekend excursion.

Epic Fish and Chips meal purchased at a "Dodgy Chippy"

Seeing Green

No, not envy, Ireland!

This past weekend was spend frolicking in the land of luck in celebration of M's 20th birthday!

The trip could have started off a little smoother, as both M and I had to deal with massive delays. But, after long, sleepless hours spent at the airport, we were in Dublin - dead tired. We tried to make the day last as long as possible, distracting ourselves with dinner and a walk around the city, but were were just too pooped to do anything too exciting. That is, until we came across a "Ghost Bus Tour." (Which if you say over and over, just starts to sound like "Ghostbuster"). This nighttime adventure carted us around Dublin while giving us a taste of the darker side of the city's history. It ended up being pretty fun, despite the twenty something wasted Irish women who were on the tour as a "team building" exercise. This definitely made for an interesting evening..

Friday was an early morning as we hopped on a bus and headed toward the west coast to Galway. We really lucked out with weather and got to spend a beautiful, sunny day on the coast. This city is a real taste of Ireland - your token cathedrals and tourists sights, of course, but mostly just beautiful views of the water and the hills and a coast lined with little houses and intertwining streets. We almost capped off the day with a visit to the aquarium but realized that, as much as we are kids at heart, when the ticket prices are listed in "family bundles," we were too old for this type of fishy fun.

Coast of Galway

Saturday was all about Dublin. A hop on-hop off bus helped us get around the entire city and take in sights such as Christ Church Cathedra, St. Patrick's, Trinity College, among others.

Dublin Castle - Near Temple Bar

Perhaps the greatest of all these sights, however, was the Guinness Storehouse. A seven-floor adventure that takes you through the ingredients, production process, history and advertising of Guinness. M and I even learned the art of pouring the "perfect pint" of Guinness and got to enjoy our beautiful work while looking out over the city.

Sunday, celebration of M's birth, was basically spent running around the city in hot pursuit of an Ireland rugby jersey for M. We frantically attempted to find every sporting goods store in the Stephen's Green vicinity. Totally ridiculous, but a very "N and M" way to end the trip. We finally found the prized jersey...at the sports store in the airport...

Goodbye is never easy, but only two more weeks until M and I meet again in Morocco!