My last hours in Paris

Hi everyone,
I'm about to get on a plane back to New York. That means I will actually have some free time to wrap up the blog and post more picture. Stay tuned and see you soon!
Love,
Violet

Snowing!

It was snowy and beautiful yesterday. I would have gone and played and frolicked in it except that I had class from 9:15-11:30, a french final from 12:30 to 2, French class from 2:15 to 3:15 and then class from 3:30 to 5:45. So much for study abroad being a slacker thing. Also thanks so much Uchicago for also stealing my last few days in Paris, as well as my first several (read: all of them). Anyhow, by the time I got out of class the slush was a foot deep. I had to wade through it to get to public transport which was a mess by that time. It took me twice as long to get back as usual but I rewarded myself with a chicken sandwich, french fries with mayo and many episodes of community, so I recovered. This morning all the slush had turned to ice and the sun was shining. Even though I was walking to my final, I couldn't help be happy. Watching posturing Parisians slip and fall on ice is ridiculously therapeutic. Am I a bad person? Maybe. Was it worth it? YES.

Love,
Violet

PS: http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/7569608-paris-a-prisoner-of-snow

My First Two Stops

So, I've been correcting my midterm for French for the last hour, which was on what I did over my vacation. I thought I was finished with that in grade school, but I guess not. I'm super tempted to just copy and paste and let you all figure it out, but because I have been so lazy posting anyhow, I will write something original, sigh. So the first three photos are from Germany. I went to Dusseldorf and the area around in which is the Rhineland. My hosts kept comparing things to Pittsburg because it used to be an mining town. In fact the museum that all of the photos were taken in, used to be a coal mine. The last picture is of the escalator which is intentionally made to resemble magma. In the gift shop there was a paper doll book for an American family in the 90s. I was super amused. I guess we are foreign and exotic. My host was raving about America at some point and her justification for loving it was the introduction of the ankle sock to Germany, goodbye German tourist stereotypes. Germany was nice despite the weather, but at some point I realized that I had effectively come to the US for a weekend and only saw Pittsburg. The last two pictures are from Venice. I spent exactly one full day there, and that was perfect. Especially because it was so cold. There was this thick fog that as really low in the city which made wandering around in the narrow streets creepy and exciting. I'm very glad that I managed to make it there before it sinks. It's certainly like no where else I have ever seen. More countries later.
Love,
Violet

Fam!

So I know I've been gone for a while, but I have a perfectly good excuse. My family came to visit me. Even though it was freezing, it gave me an excuse to see things, eat good food and perhaps more importantly, make an effort to slack off this quarter. I leave in only a little over a week, so it's about time that I stop worrying about classes and start crossing things off my list. The first picture was taken in Montmartre. There is a beautiful view of the city from the top of the hill and a lot of cute little restaurants in the neighborhood. We had our typical meal (started with a sweet vermouth for me, a delicious tradition that I picked up in Barcelona, thanks Debby). Meanwhile the couple next to us was demolishing a huge block of cheese that was being slowly melted in what looked like a medieval torture device (death by cheese, mmmm). The second picture was taken at the big flea market just outside the city (literally, I was using my city by arrondisment map, and its just one street off the page). Despite the cold, it was still a sight to see. It was like a slum, housing wildly ecclectic collectors. The highlight of the trip was visiting a restaurant in the flea market that featured 24/7, very loud music. This is normally the kind of thing that neither my mother nor I can stand (she's worst than I am though, at least I don't walk around plugging my ears in noisy places). However, it was warm and there, so we went inside. My mom managed to not go crazy, but the same could not be said for the waitresses there, especially ours. She went around giving every little thing to each table before taking our order. We thought she was angry at us (we were laughing at her quite a bit), but when she came over she was like a sweet grandma who was clearly so frazzled she had tumbled off her rocker. The last picture was taken at an old traditional restaurant that our friend Yves took us to. They had Indian style toilets and excellent food. There isn't much of a story about it, I just think I look like a ninja in the picture, so I included it.
I promise I will write about my tour of Europe next time. Sorry for the long pause.
Love,
Violet

P.S. Doug is also here. It's awesome.

Happy Thanksgiving.

What does Thanksgiving entail at the U of C Paris campus? "Gallons of wine", quoted from the coordinator and sandwiches. After this? Oh, 3 hours of classes. What does my French teacher have to say about this after I present? "There should be alcohol after classes not before". Then she called me Vanta and I suggested that maybe she had too much wine as well. Her response? "Fair enough".

Pictures later unless my thanksgiving dinner with my father makes me too sleepy.

Love,

Violet

I'm back

So, I am going to do a post about each country that I went to but before that I wanted to give you a sneak peak of my locations (and the weather I encountered) I didn't put the pictures in chronological order so that you can guess which country/city each picture is from. It's really not too hard. Anyhow, I'm back and the work has already been piled on me. My new prof is actually French and she is all about teaching us "complex thought". She is very strange and I'm not sure I can handle how she is "learning from our ignorances". Hopefully at some point she will actually give us some answers and stop rescheduling classes in order to have dinner at castles in Geneva. You know, a castle, whatevs. She's right out of a movie. More tomorrow.
Best,
Violet

Spring Break!

I'm off to the airport for my vacation. My first stop is Dusseldorf, Germany, then Venice, Budapest and last but not least, Barcelona to visit Debby. I'm excited and I feel like I deserve it after my grueling final and submitting my CLS in one day. I'll post pictures when I'm back!
Love,
Violet