Paris!

Ok, so I've actually been in Paris for a couple of days now, but I've been too busy to update.

Brussels was a lot of fun! We walked all over the city, ate waffles and chocolate, and met a bunch of really cool people in our hostel.

My host family here is really cool. There's a host mother, father, sister, and brother, as well as two other American students. They are from Seattle and are pretty chill. They're not very confident in their French, so we usually speak to each other in English until our host mom yells at us. She's been great about the whole vegetarian thing, too. She makes me fish or something else that I can eat every night for myself, and then makes meat for everyone else. She loves meat, but respects the fact that I don't.

I'm living in the 13th arrondisement (sp?) of Paris, which is also called the asian section. There's lots of asian restaurants/grocery stores. It's a really fun place to live! However, my classroom is far away as hell! I spend about 45 minutes on the metro between my host's apartment and my classroom. There's another earlhamite who lives next door to me, and another one who lives nearby. Other than that, I'm pretty far from everyone else.

Not much else to discuss.
~Sarah, who is in Paris

Wondering Where I've Disappeared To?

Ok, so there's two versions to the story of what happened to me while I was gone.

Short version: I was painting tiles in the pyrenees, then started my independent travel. I am currently in Dublin.

Long version: My really cool host family in the pyrenees lived in the middle of nowhere and had no internet connection, so I couldn't update while I was there.

I lived with a family in a village called Brassempouy. They had two small children, and they were really nice. I spent my days painting tiles with my host mom. I made two tiles that have a rose painted on them. The rose was sketched from a picture I took at the rose garden in Richmond. It took a lot of time and effort, but I'm happy with my work.

As much as I enjoyed this, I didn't have much interaction with other Earlham folks. I spent one day with Ben and his host Dad, which was interesting. I ran into Ben, Litos, and Sam at a crafts fair another day. It was really nice, because I got a chance to catch up with them and have a good conversation with Litos. Mandi and Dan hosted a dinner party for the students, which involved pasta, lots of desserts, hot tubs, and me spending the night there because my host mom got lost on her way home. I ended up making a couple of drawings while I was there and got to try out their host brother's scooter.

We had a dinner for the entire group and their host families on our last night in the Pyrenees. We got to show off what we made to the rest of the group. A few people asked me about my tiles, and it was interesting trying to explain it all in French, especially because I didn't really know what I was doing half of the time. Overall, everyone made really cool stuff. Don't ask me how some of them are getting the things home, though.

After that marked the start of independent travel, aka, what I was losing sleep over the entire time I was in the pyrenees. It didn't help that we had three large suitcases, one small suitcase, two backpacks, and a carry-on. The train to Bordeaux wasn't too bad, and we found our way to the hostel without too many problems, even though the directions were sketchy as hell. We spent two nights there with a friend who graduated last year.

Next was Paris. This was stressing me out. We had a three hour train ride. The only issue with this train ride was when we were getting off the train, and I made the mistake of taking Mandi's bag down first, which is broken and cannot stand on its own. However, a really nice man held her bag for me while another man helped me bring my bag down from the train. People have been suprisingly helpful about these things! We find the metro and enjoy a puppet show while en route to the apartment where we were dropping off the bags. Take care of the bags, get on the metro again, and start heading over to the bus depot where there is a bus that will take us to the airport. Find it suprisingly easy, get to the airport, and RUN INTO JUSTIN!!!! WTF! I actually walked by him at first, until Jeana looked at me like I was a moron and I looked up and realized who it was.

Find out that we don't actually need to take a taxi to the hotel, take a cheap bus there, and crash. An hour later, Jeana wakes me up to tell me that we actually get to help choose people for the next program. I threaten to punch her in the babymaker, and go back to sleep.

Next morning: flight to Dublin. Arrive in Dublin, and freak out over directions to the hostel. Make it to the hostel, buy food, and pass out.

Since then, we've been to a museum and a library and a park. We've been walking everywhere, so my feet are tired as fuck. It's cheaper than the bus, though.

That's all, folks.
-Sarah, who is in Dublin