Seafood is Nasty

03 September 2006

Hello everyone!

So I've been doing a ton of walking lately...everyone else seems to have blisters all over their feet, but my feet are tough, so HA! No blisters. They kind of ache though...in Paris you have to walk everywhere. Cheryl, when you come to visit, bring some good walking shoes or boots. Since I bought wireless (on my own credit card, I'll have you know!), other people have been using it. Some of them gave me a pittance, and that was nice. Last night we sat at dinner for like 2 hours, which turned out to be basically a pregaming session...then we hung out outside for awhile. Everyone but a few of us (poor jetlagged folk) went out the night before, so they didn't feel like going out again. (Some people took a walk after we'd hung out for a while, at about midnight, and apparently ended up sleeping in tents that Paris has set up for homeless people....hmmm.)

Today we went to a seafood restaurant for lunch. For an appetizer, Kristin got a seafood platter...it was really gross. She opened her clam, and then it started moving on its own! :O !!!!! Nasty. Lorena got a video of it on her camera. (Kristin didn't try to eat any more of that platter...for some reason, she lost her appetite.) I didn't really like any of my food. Rob got steak and potatoes and I was super jealous. No more seafood for me. Then we went over to Reid Hall and filled out a bunch of forms. Our group has a lot of fun together, we act like we're punchy all the time, it's great. Mme Beaufort told us that some of the groups haven't gotten along, and was glad that ours did. Tomorrow morning I have to get up early to go to Angers, and you know how much I like getting up early. I guess we're taking an intensive French course there (that we get 3 credits for, like a normal class, but 500-level!) and it's going to be like high school. (I'm looking forward to that...I've been watching too many high school animes....)

Anyway, that's all for now, I'll talk to y'all later!

<3 Laura

Bonjour, tout le monde!!!! (Good morning, everyone!!!!)

02 September 2006

All right! Finally, I'm on the Internet. My credit card wasn't working so I had to call to set it up, it was annoying. It cost me 60 euros to connect for 7 days...oh well, better than paying 10 euros for two hours 8 times! Hopefully I can find some cheaper access somewhere else in the future. I can finally get back to you all. It's about 7:45 am here (I must still be jetlagged, to be up this early!)

The trip here was okay, I sat next to a very entertaining Englishman on the plane, who sat next to an American girl my age named Ally. We had some fun times on the plane, and at the end the Englishman and I got to be the very first picture taken for her "Europe scrapbook." Then once I got to Manchester we made some more "travel buddies," including a girl named Christina who was on my flight to Paris. (She was meeting a friend here, and I was hoping they would offer me a ride to my destination, but hélas, they didn't. So I had a very difficult time looking for access to the internet, since the letter they gave me about arrival didn't have the address of the place I'm staying, and I needed it for the taxi! (Everyone else had this same problem, and luckily, my efforts saved me about 10 euros, it seems.) Although it was a bitch of a time trying to get the machine to work, it didn't accept my credit card so I had to get money from the atm, and then when I tried to pay with a 20 at the bookstand for a bottle of water they wouldn't take it! Bastards. I got them though, I had been so thirsty that I started drinking my bottle of water before I bought it. So when they took it away, they couldn't sell it again. Muahahahaha!)

So finally I got to the place I'm staying, which is a sort of "welcome center" for study abroad students from all around the world. I'm sharing a room with 2 other people, (who I knew previously from Tulane.) I got there, and since I was extremely tired (having slept 3 of the past 40 hours only,) I complained about everything until I finally went to sleep. (Why is it so hot in here? How do these damn lights turn off? These pillows are weird! Why don't the showers have doors? This damn toilet is obnoxious! Those bastards at O'Hare took my sharpies and sharpie highlighters! Stupid security!) etc. My roommate Kristin was amused (she's been here for 2 days and is over her jetlaggedness.)

Then when I woke up again my friend Allyson and a kid named Russell were in the room
and we conversed, before they went to dinner and I took a shower, then met them at dinner. Then we had a pointless meeting about nothing (I don't even remember what was talked about, nothing I didn't know) and I went back to my room to sleep some more (though I was interrupted by Allyson who wanted to hang out some more.) Finally at about 9 (this time, I'll always be referring to this time now when I talk about time, which is 7 hours ahead of central time. So it being 7:57 here right now means it's about 12:57 Central time.) I slept 9 hours about and woke up at 6, and now here I am emailing you all about nonsense. Sorry for the mass email, but I was informed by several people to keep in touch, OR ELSE....heh. Well, I'm off to my forum now--I finished a couple of magazine articles on the plane and I have to post them. Hope you all are having fun in non-France! muahahaha.

Love, Laura

Introduction

I am creating a blog which is made up of massmails I wrote to various folks while in France. I'll be posting the "unedited" versions I wrote, which ended up not having anything too nasty in them. Just a few swears here and there--since I didn't end up finding a Frenchie boyfriend like Carrie and Allyson, nothing extremely risque was said. Besides, I want to post the mails in their unadulterated glory.

I'll be posting them in order of date, so they'll be as they are traditionally are ordered on a blog: newest first, oldest last.

Enjoy!