Vacation Already

I've really been slowing down on blogging, mostly because not as much has been happening recently. This past week I've had classes and stuff, of course. Except for Science; that was canceled this week since the professor was gone, and we're just going to have to add time on to subsequent classes to make up for it. I need to start writing a journal for school outlining what I do in each class; Rawson wants it so that if we end up with a bad grade or something doesn't transfer, she can give us the benefit of the doubt and add on points from the journal.

Sunday we four girls kind of hung out. The Musée des Beaux Arts (which is a museum that's literally a five minute walk from our house) has free admission on the first Sunday of every month, so we went over there after brunch. The first thing that really strikes you is the giant tree in the courtyard; at some point I need to put the pictures I took of it on facebook. The actual museum itself was a little boring; lots of random paintings. There were some kind of interesting sculptures of fish and animals and things that were pretty cool. One of these days I need to go back and walk through the grounds, though; there are these gardens that people wander through and walk their dogs and stuff, and it looked really pretty through the windows. On the other side of the courtyard from the entrance is a random little exhibit with what might very well be a fake elephant. It's supposed to be Fritz; a Barnum & Bailey circus elephant that went crazy in 1904 and had to be put down. The circus donated the body to the city, and the skeleton was in some museum until it was lost in a fire. It was kind of cool, but random. Most everything is closed on Sundays, usually, but we wandered past the little park in front of the museum and saw that there was a little antiques market in the street. We also found a patisserie that was open. It's a really cool place; they make gigantic pastries but charge about the same as any other patisserie in town. We bought a little chocolate & cherry tart thing for a treat and shared it between the four of us back at the house. Then we decided to watch The Notebook, which I had never seen before. It was an interesting experience; any girl who's seen it knows that it is impossible not to cry at multiple points throughout that movie. Unfortunately the bell for dinner rang just as the movie was finishing, so we all had to go down with tear stained faces; of course that would be a night that Daniel would come to dinner! They all thought we were crazy emotional females, but whatever; dinner was paella again and that made me happy.

The rest of the week was less interesting, so I'll just give quick rundown of the highlights:
Monday was relaxing; in Greek I decided that my professor is cute (lol!), but only when he's talking about Greek. Linguistic passion? Definitely a turn-on. After class, I was talking to Giovanni on the way back towards home, and we made a date to go get a drink after class when we come back from vacation. That should be fun; he really seems to like talking to people from all over the world.
On Tuesday Valeria was sick, so she stayed home most of the day. I kind of missed my day of solitary relaxation, but that's okay; I have vacation coming up!
Wednesday was nice, since I didn't have Science. My translation class continues to be slow, and actualités continues to require no actual work, so that's good.
Grant decided to come with me to the Italian class on Thursday, which was fun. It was really cold and snowy, though; the temperature has plunged again this whole week, and I really want it to be spring finally. We ended up walking through some little shopping centers to warm up on our way back home from class. Thursday was also when Valeria left for Paris to meet up with her family, who had flown to Europe to visit during our vacation.
Friday I had class early, as usual. There were just six of us; I'm guessing most of the others had already left to start their vacation. She had us listen to some weird songs in French, but the class went fine.
Yesterday I did very little; Xavier and Jaqueline woke me up early wondering where Mamie and Sierra were, since they'd stayed out all night with the French boys. So I spent my day enjoying vacation, relaxed, and worked a bit on planning my trip to London. Yesterday evening was also when Alexandra came to the house. She's also a Cobber, but she's been studying abroad in Germany and is only here for a couple months during her school's vacation.

Today one of Geneviève's friends (I think her name was Michelle) came to brunch to meet us all. She was really sweet, and really talkative. Xavier kept going on about how much she talked, but I think that's just because she's the only person I've met so far who can talk more than him. She asked us all what we were studying, and told us about her life and her family. Apparently she was 18 and had three kids when her husband died, and in France at the time the age of majority was 21. So she was telling us about the house she had her son build, which has a bedroom for every one of her kids in case they ever need to come home. She kind of reminded me of my own grandmother, and I really liked her. After brunch, Grant and I took Alex on a tour of the city, to start her getting oriented. I finally took a bunch of pictures, since I haven't really gone around and done that much yet. We went inside the walls of the Musée des Beaux Arts, although not in the actual museum, and also looked at the cathedral. One whole section is closed off for construction and upkeep work, but it was still beautiful. I'm nothing near a Catholic, but I absolutely love cathedrals. Tonight, Daniel visited again and we had puréed vegetable soup and quiche for dinner, with tiramisu that Daniel had made for dessert. He's really good with desserts; it had too much cream and kind of fell apart, but it tasted really good. After dinner, I stayed downstairs for a little bit and watched some of Ice Age 2 in French with Mathias.

Tomorrow, I need to pack and make sure I'm ready for London, since Tuesday is when I leave! I'm really excited!