Paris and Madrid

The first break we took at the beginning of October. Dani, Julia, and I headed for the first part of the week to Paris, where we met up with some of the other girls in our program. In 4 nights we stayed at 3 different hostels, all of which were less than ideal. Poor Dani, the first day she had her wallet stolen within the first hour we were in the city. The guy who did it was so sneaky that I watched the whole thing happen and didn't put it together until hours later when Dani discovered it was missing. Luckily, she still had her passport and her parents were able to wire her money.

We covered all of Paris. I saw the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, the Arche de Triompe, Versailles, and even crashed the Dior show in the Touileries! I got a chance to see Maddy, Liz, and Kemerson, which was really great, but my all-time favorite part of the trip was going to Laduree, a gorgeous, old-fashioned tea house on the Champs-Elysees, known for their meringues. Maddy and I tried lavender and rose flavored meringues and I had the thickest hot chocolate ever. We probably spent 3 hours there and finally got all caught up from the summer and first few months abroad.

This is Julia, me, and Dani at the musical fountains at Versailles:

That night we went to a fondue restaurant near the Moulin Rouge that seated about 20 people and it was packed! There were about 12 in our group of girls and the other half of the people there were.... my firstyear floormates from Trinity. What are the odds? We all enjoyed the fondue (which in hindsight was actually pretty gross) and wine from baby bottles. From there we got some dessert crepes and Maddy and I got neighed at by a man carrying groceries.... interesting. Definately not the best neighborhood, but still a fun evening.

Here's Maddy and me at the Arch de Triomphe:

Before I left I got to have lunch with Liz and Kate and even had dinner with Maddy's host parents (they're great!). In general, the things I have to say about Paris are:

1.) It smells. In a bad way. Everywhere.

2.) Harry and Lloyd were right, the French ( or maybe just Parisans) aren't very nice

3.) I felt sort of unsafe the entire time I was there, but I also had my friend's wallet stolen and saw a man try to rob an elderly woman.

4.) It's sunny. I forgot what that was like.

5.) It's warm. Stockholm ar mycket, mycket kvall!

It made me and the other girls from my program appreciate just how safe, clean, and friendly Stockholm is. But don't get the wrong idea! I had a great time in Paris :)

Then I was off the Madrid to see my beloved Perry Trethaway...

Moose!

Wow. So my landlord, Bjorn, and his two sons Emile and Rickard are just about the friendliest people you will ever meet. Bjorn is my landlord while Emile and Rickard are the landlords of other floors in my building. All three of them enjoy talking small talk to my roommate, Dani, and me whenever we see them. The only problem is... we can BARELY understand each other. I have this thing where I only let myself say "what" twice and then I giggle and say "Ja!"... hope that's been working.

So about a month ago Rickard and I were having a weird moment in the hallway where we were both awkwardly smiling and frantically thinking of small talk that could get us out of this awkward silence when he informed me that he shot a moose, "two hours north of here" where, I assume, Santa lives. He offers to let me try some moose meat in the future and I tell him that would be very nice.

Today, Bjorn knocks on my door at about lunch time and tells me he's got some moose for me. WHAT?! He brings me upstairs to a massive fridge with hundreds of labeled bags of meat. It looked like something straight out of CSI, but Bjorn is a big teddy bear and I trust he wasn't going to give me human meat. So Bjorn hooks me up with some ground moose meat, ligonberries he handpicked "two hours north of here", and some moose meat he already cooked the night before. So here I am eating moose meat and ligonberries in my apartment...

WELCOME TO SWEDEN.