Lessons in French / Mes Rêves #8

Vous avez un stylo? Do you have a pen?
Oui! Yes!
Merci. Thank you.
De rien. No problem.
*runs away with pen*
Donc, j'ai eu un stylo. Well, I had a pen.

#truestory

But she came back! The girl who stole my pen brought it back! And she made me sign some stupid paper. The paper people have you sign to steal your money. But whatever, I had my pen back. Except then I didn't. Somehow she got it back. I felt sorry for her -- or my judgment was seriously clouded -- so I gave her two euros. She looked at me and said there was a $10 minimum donation. That's fine, I'll take my two euros and my pen back! Except then she was leaving with my money AND my pen. How is this happening? So I asked for my pen back and she told me no. Umm, excuse me? So I switched her. I gave her a different pen in exchange for my pen. She told me no again, but I was firm. I wanted my pen back. She finally said yes, looked in my grocery bag to see if I had any food, and ran off.

So what's the big deal about this pen? The pen itself is actually kind of embarrassing because it has I Heart Paris all over it and the Eiffel Tower, but it writes so well. And it fits in my hand perfectly. It's also my only souvenir from Étretat, potentially my favorite place in France. Well, at least top five.

Anyway, yes, I did get the pen back. And on top of the original overpriced 2€ I had to pay, it cost me another two euros and my second favorite pen.

But I got it back.

Speaking of Étretat, I went there yesterday. It's a small city on the northern coast of France best known for its cliffs. Well, that's what brought me there.

#8: Visit the cliffs of Normandy ✓

One of the things I learned at study abroad orientation is I needed to talk to my parents about "my wishes" if I died abroad. My mom about killed me when I brought it up, and probably isn't happy that I'm mentioning it again, but I continued talking about it anyway. I told them that if I died in France and they couldn't secure me a place in the Panthéon I wanted my ashes thrown off the white cliffs of Normandy. I had no idea if these were even real things or things I made up in my head, but those were my wishes.

Now that I've been to Étretat and hiked all over these white cliffs, I've changed my wishes. I no longer care about the Panthéon, I want to be thrown directly off the cliffs of Étretat, even if someone comes back to life and a spot in the Panthéon opens up. Here's why:

I mean, who wouldn't want to spend the afterlife here? Word of warning, though: make sure the wind is going away from you so that my ashes go out to sea and don't come flying back at your face.

Mes Rêves #16

#16: See the Musical Fountain Show at Versailles✓

Sunday afternoon I went out to Versailles for the musical fountain show. I got there an hour early, so I had a picnic by King Neptune's fountain and then spent some time just wandering around. At 3:15 as I was wandering, I heard some music start and could see the very top of a fountain show. I hurried over, but right as I arrived the show ended. I was so disappointed. I had missed the opening ceremonies!

Everyone else there had some sort of program with them, so I decided to follow the crowd to wherever the next fountain show would be. I ended up just stalking a family for 5 minutes before I decided they weren't going to lead me to the next show.

They didn't lead me to the next show because they couldn't lead me to the next show. The musical fountains are all on for two hours. Even the "opening ceremonies" show repeats. I found this out when I stumbled upon it a second time, right as it was ending. I decided that I would just sit there and wait however long it took for the show to come back on. It turns out that the 3 minute show is played about every five minutes. So even though I walked up at the very end, I only had to wait about two minutes for it to start again.

The only thing I did miss was King Neptune's Fountain. It's supposed to do something special from 5:20-5:30, but I was there from 5:10-6:00 and nothing special happened. I did get to see water coming out of it, though, so maybe that was all there ever was to see.

One final important note about Versailles: They're chocolat chaud is gross.

Goodbyes

I hate goodbyes. There is nothing good about them. It doesn't matter if I have known someone for 10 minutes or 10 years, I just never seem to know how to sum up everything into a single goodbye.

Last Friday as I was walking home in the pouring rain after my final day of classes I thought that I had finally come to terms with leaving Lyon. Sure, it was a little sad to be leaving, but mostly I was fine.

Then Saturday came with its gray clouds and rain and it hit me hard - I was going to miss everything. I walk outside my apartment and all I can think is "I'm never going to see that garbage can with the KEN graffiti again!" I've grown really attached to this garbage can ever since someone graffiti-ed it with half my name.

I didn't know what to do. Obviously I am going to have to leave Lyon, and even if I don't, all the people who have made it so amazing are leaving anyway and it will never be the same. So, like any logical person I decided to turn to movies for inspiration about what to do.

First is a quote from Peter Pan. Which isn't really a quote from Peter Pan, but it's a good one nonetheless:

I took these words to heart. I have yet to say a single goodbye to anyone. There have been a lot of Safe Travels and Take Cares, but so far no goodbyes.

Second, is a quote from Pride & Prejudice:

"Let us not say goodbye, but as the French would have it, 'au revoir'!"

I like this one a) because it uses a French word and b) because a literal translation of 'au revoir' means to the next sight or until I see you again. That is a million times better than goodbye.

Even though I've avoided the word goodbye, I can't avoid how sad I am that this experience is over. But Julie Andrews taught me that when I'm feeling sad I simply need to remember my favorite things and then I won't feel so bad.

Here are my favorite things from Lyon. These are things I'm going to miss the most when I get home, but that have also made this experience worth it.

• Walking around Vieux Lyon.
• Sitting outside St. Jean's Cathedral.
• Running to the Parc Tête d'Or.
• French lessons over dinner.
• The view of Notre Dame from my window.
• Roommate stories.
• Crazy teachers that divulge too much of their life experiences.
• The 15 minutes of socializing before FCC because the teacher is late - again.
• "Let's meet at Bellecour"'s.
• Playing with homemade cards on the train.
• Tuesday lunches at the cafeteria & the stories that come with them.
• Chance encounters on the metro.

So thank you to everyone I met in Lyon. You made being sad to leave worth it.

Mes Rêves #12, 15

#12: Visit the Geneva Temple✓
#15: Order something at a store correctly and understand everything they say✓

Today was my last full day in Lyon and I figured it was time to finally run around to 5 different boulangeries to try some bread. Even though it was raining and even though I wasn't hungry. Not my smartest idea. I got to three, almost threw up eating a brioche praline before going home to dry my soaking wet feet. On my way back out I made it to a fourth one, but couldn't find an open fifth one. Which means I'm going to have to re-eat 5 different types of bread in one day.

On the plus side I got to try my first French beignet. I've wanted to try a beignet ever since I saw The Princess and the Frog and saw Tiana's delicious looking beignets. My sister and I attempted to make them once, but I don't think the beignets we made were the "key to a man's heart" that Tiana made them out to be. The beignet I had today was so delicious. It was almost a donut but more bread, less glaze, and topped off with Nutella and powdered sugar -- very impressed.

However, today was not a total waste, because when I went to the first boulangerie I ordered, the lady told me how much I owed, I thanked her, and left. When I got outside I realized the whole thing had happened in French without me realizing it. Don't get me wrong, I put a lot of effort into making I said my French right, but I was able to understand her as well, which was awesome. After a semester in France I can finally do what I came here to do -- order at a French boulangerie without any weird stares. It was a great feeling.

Lastly, three and a half weeks ago I went to Geneva. I never got around to writing about it so quick summary - the UN building is awesome and brought back a lot of great memories about Model UN, fondue can not be bought for a reasonable price between 2:30 and 6:30, and Geneva is a weird mix of big city and nature.

Another fun fact about Geneva - the Mormon Temple is not in Geneva, it is in Bern which is a 45 minute, 90€ train ride away. That's right, 90€ one way. Which means that I did not make it to the temple. Lucky for me, Geneva has a whole Temple Place on the map, so I used that to fulfill my goal. It wasn't the same as seeing this temple:

...but the places I did get to see were pretty cool, too.

One final thought (and then I'm really done): if you're following me on Twitter/Instagram (...you're not following me? I can't imagine why not, but let me try and persuade you - #bananart #ananart #nooffensefellowmormons) you will know that my favorite catch phrase is true story. Tonight during Ironman 3 I learned how to say true story in French - histoire vrai. Oh, you haven't seen Ironman 3 yet? That's because it was released in France a week before it will come out in the States.

#HistoireVrai

A Less Sleep Deprived Day - Mes Rêves #5

#5: Make a wish on the star at Notre Dame in Paris. ✓

Remember that one time I went to Paris?

Just kidding, I've been to Paris more than once.

The trip I'm referring to is the day trip to Paris that turned into a day trip to Paris and a night at the Charles de Gaulle airport.

Despite the many things that went wrong on that trip, though, at least one thing went right because I got to make a wish on the star at Notre Dame. Granted I was surrounded by a bunch of annoying teenagers, but that's okay. And sure, my wish didn't turn out like I hoped it would, but it did come true.

I hate it when fate is tricky like that.

Unfortunately, my only photo evidence of accomplishing this is on my computer, surrounded by layers of bubble wrap and in my luggage on its way back to the USA. Or, it would be if DHL had picked up my luggage today. Instead it was just me and my luggage sitting outside reading a book while we waited for a truck that never came.

I do have proof of that though:

I can't decide which was more fun, sitting there reading for two hours or dragging my luggage back up the stairs after no one showed up. (The elevator is broken from floor 0 to 1.)

Most of all I'm looking forward to re-dragging my luggage down tomorrow and another two hours of quality time with these belongings before they really head back to the states.

Serves Me Right For Wishing on Stars and Packing My Sunglasses - Mes Rêves #18

#18: Visit the Count of Monte Cristo Chateau in If ✓

Before booking a trip to Marseille, you should first check the weather.

After checking the weather, you should plan your trip according to that forecast.

This is not what I did. I booked my trip and then checked the weather. And after seeing it was supposed to be cloudy and cold all day I planned a trip that was based entirely outside.

The only things that I knew I wanted to do in Marseille were see the Chateau d'If, visit the Ile du Frioul so I could walk on the beach, and maybe go for a short hike in the Calanques if I had extra time.

In the end I didn't get to do anything of these things.

I got into Marseille at 8 and since the first boat to the Chateau doesn't leave until 10:30 I decided to go exploring. The city was beautiful. There is something special about walking around a city that's still waking up. I got to see the main sites without a bunch of tourists holding up their iPads to get a picture. I also got to see people setting up a fish market at the Old Port. It was everything I hoped Marseille would be.

Well, almost everything. I had hoped to walk around Marseille in shorts and sunglasses getting a tan on the Mediterranean Coast, but it was actually freezing and cloudy. Luckily I had the sense to pack my fleece jacket at the last minute.

At 10:00 I found the Frioul - If Ferry and confidently asked for a ticket - in French. Then the cashier told me I could only go to Ile de Frioul. I froze and just stared at her. What did she mean I could only go to Frioul? The only reason I came to Marseille was to visit the Chateau!

I walked around looking for other ways to get to the Chateau, but there was no use. No boats were going to the Chateau today, all because of a little wind. And by a little wind I mean I-almost-fell-in-the-water-from-standing-to-close-to-the-edge kind of wind.

I was so shocked that I was being defeated in this goal that I got some bread to eat while I thought things over. I finally decided to go to Frioul and try and see the Chateau as we passed in the boat. That's almost the same thing as actually visiting it, right?

However, by the time I made this decision, the boat schedule had become even more limited. It was now only making two trips out to Frioul and I either had to stay there for 20 minutes or six hours. By this point it had started raining and since the only thing I wanted to do in Frioul was walk on the beach and read I figured it wasn't worth it.

But I was determined to see the Chateau. I had specifically read The Count of Monte Cristo before coming to Marseille to be sure I fully appreciated this trip.

So in the wind and rain and my very thin fleece jacket I started walking away from the port and up a hill I hoped would lead to a view of the Chateau.

As I came around a corner I finally saw it. It was beautiful sitting all alone in the middle of the stormy sea. And while I didn't actually visit it, seeing it was almost as cool. Who wants to tour a chateau and see the tunnel Edmond Dantès dug anyway?

I sat there on a bench just looking out at the sea for a while until the rain finally got to me and I had to make my way back to town.

All I wanted was to find somewhere inside and warm were I could pass the next 11 hours. The Chateau was no longer an option, I had missed the boat to Frioul, and I had no intentions of hiking around the Calanques in the wind and rain.

I managed to find a street lined with stores and pretended to shop for a while when really I was just using them for the heat and shelter from rain they offered.

Finally at 1:00 I gave up and decided to head back to the train station.

I got lunch at the grocery store across the street and sat on the floor of the train station so I could charge my phone while I watched The Princess and the Frog. Of course the only outlets also happened to be right next to the door. Every time someone opened the door I was reminded of how cold I was and how much colder it was outside.

I had completely written off Marseille at this point. In fact, as I was sitting there in the train station I decided that if I ever met someone from Marseille I would blatantly tell them their city sucks.

But then I had the chance to spend 5 hours at the train station. And let me tell you a few things about the Marseille train station:

a) It is an open train station. If it's cold outside, it's cold in the train station.

b) The climate-controlled waiting room is hidden, but it does exist. There are chairs and outlets here.

c) Apparently sleeping in the climate-controlled waiting room is frowned upon. The security guard will wake you up and look at you judging-ly for having the gall to sleep on the floor.

d) There are two sets of bathrooms; one costs money and one is free. The free bathrooms are always closed, though, because they have problems with vandalism, and they will direct you instead to the 50 cent bathrooms.

e) There is a piano in the train station that anyone can play. This is the best place to pass time as you will get to see a variety of very talented musicians perform.

I ended up buying an earlier ticket home and only spent five, instead of the originally planned ten, hours at the train station, but in that time I learned something about Marseille. I think the city purposely made sure I couldn't do the things I wanted to and offered me a different view of Marseille - the people side; people who are nice and let you practice French even as you butcher their beautiful language and people who genuinely love their city. I think that told me more about this city than anything I would have seen if today had been what I wanted it to be.

And who knows, maybe one day I'll go back to Marseille and actually visit the Chateau and hike the Calanques.

Then again, maybe not.

Mes Rêves #14

#14: Finish a book in French ✓ 

For this goal I chose to read Harry Potter because:

a) I have the whole series memorized so even if I didn't understand the French I would still know what was going on.

b) ...

Just kidding, that was my only reason for choosing Harry Potter.

I knew it was going to be difficult to read a whole book in French, but I didn't realize how hard it would really be until I actually started trying to read. It turns out that having a book memorized and speaking Spanish is not enough to make me a fluent French reader.

But I was determined. I sat in a café for an hour and a half the first day... and made it through the whole first chapter. On the one hand I felt so accomplished for finishing a chapter, but on the other hand I was annoyed at how slow I read. I could have told myself the story in English verbatim faster than I could read it in French.

A little less than a month in (and three or four chapters) I had to put Harry Potter on hold so that I could read The Count of Monte Cristo before I visited Marseille. It was so much fun to be reading in English again that I conveniently forgot about Harry Potter and found other English books to read.

In March I decided it was time to try Harry Potter again. That was the first time I realized how much French I had learned. I was still slow, but I was no longer illiterate-child-who-just-started-kindergarten slow. I could actually read a chapter without having to devote my entire day to it. I started taking Harry Potter with me everywhere and reading whenever I could. The more I read, the easier it was.

Then, three weeks ago I finally made it to the last chapter. But I really wanted a cool picture of me finishing the book, which meant I had to wait for the weather to warm up so that I could finish the book at the park.

Today the weather was beautiful and I finally finished Harry Potter. I read 312 pages in French.

In those 312 pages I learned a lot of interesting things about French Harry Potter:

1. The French version likes to change names unnecessarily. You may think that if Dudley, Dumbledore, McGonagall, Weasley, and Hermione Granger make the cut, everyone will make the cut. This is not the case. Draco Malfoy becomes Drago Malefoy and Snape becomes Severus Rogue (not to be confused with rouge, the color red). Were these name changes really necessary? Why did some people have to change their names and not others?
2. Hogwarts is not Hogwarts. Speaking of name changes, Hogwarts is Poudlard in the French version. Really? Who wants to go to a school called Poudlard?
3. A final rant on names. Gryffindor = Gryffondor. Easy enough. Slytherin = Serpentard. Not as obvious, but still pretty obvious. Hufflepuff = Poufsouffle. A little more challenging, but that word just seems to scream Hufflepuff (perhaps it's the excessive number of 'f's'). Ravenclaw = Serdaigle. What? Where in the world did that come from?
4. French wizards use magical baguettes. True story. A magic wand in French is baguette magique, which now makes me want to wave my bread around and cast spells at people.
5. Voldemort gets another name. In French there is a difference between you formal (vous) and you informal (tu) which means that you can't just have You-Know-Who, you have to have Tu-Sais-Qui and Vous-Savez-Quoi. This is in addition to all of his other names including Celui-Dont-On-Ne-Doit-Pas-Prononcer-Le-Nom (He Who Must Not Be Named). It really gives new meaning to the "fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself" idea.
6. À L'école Des Sorciers is the same thing as The Sorcerer's Stone. The French title of the first Harry Potter book literally translates to Harry Potter at the School of the Wizards. However, when you try and put this into Google translate to make sure you are right, it changes at the last second to "The Sorcerer's Stone" (it works backwards, too). Apparently Harry Potter et la Pierre philosophale just wasn't as cool.

The best thing about reading French Harry Potter, though, was how many new words and phrases it taught me. Like hélas (alas), balai (broom), Dubois (Wood), jumeaux (twins), Moldus (muggles)... Hopefully some of these show up on my French final tomorrow.

My iPhone: A Love Story

Disclaimer: The following is a true story and is not intended for audiences who
a) are opposed to capitalism
b) don't think the Apple company is the best thing since Disney or
c) believe that love is only for people.
Also, if you are opposed to stories that are unnecessarily long without ever reaching a moral, this story is not for you.

Three and a half years ago I got an iPhone.

I had been counting down the days to the release of the Motorola Droid with Verizon and had been subtly dropping hints to my parents that we should all get droids. The day the Droid was released I convinced my parents to check out the phone. It was the most disappointing build up to anything, ever, because in the end it was just another phone.

Just for fun we also decided to check out the iPhone.

It was love at first sight. I don't really remember how it happened because I was so enthralled by the iPhone, but all of a sudden my parents were talking about prices to the sales rep and then magically my own iPhone appeared in my hands. (It wasn't really magic, it was a large amount of money, but close enough.)

This iPhone and I have had a lot of great memories. It was there when my friends and I played Spawn Lite all through lunch my senior year.

It was there during finals week when someone stole it and left me this message:

Hello Kenna! Today is another wonderful day. I am your conscience. Good luck on your finals! Your word of the day is "eerie".

It was also there a year later when I was taking my first finals in college and I saw that message for the first time. Let me tell you, it was eerie.

And it's been with me at all the parties where I didn't know anyone and pretended to use it so I wouldn't look like a loser.

The point that I'm trying to make is that my iPhone isn't just another phone, it's my best friend.

About nine months ago I started to worry that I was becoming addicted to my iPhone. I deleted all of the games and started wearing a watch so that I wouldn't have to check my phone for the time. I think I really hurt it's feelings.

However, my phone managed to hold it together (literally) until I started talking about the iPhone 5. The iPhone 5 became my new conversation starter - "Hey, have you heard how freaking amazing the iPhone 5 is going to be?"

My phone couldn't take it anymore and it struck back. Through self-sabotage it managed to break off a small piece near the lock button. Then my phone literally started to come apart at the seams. Apparently that little piece - about the size of the lock button itself - had been holding the whole phone together.

However, my iPhone 5 ranting had done the trick and my mom got the new phone. Which meant that her old iPhone was fair game to be stolen.

I switched the sim cards and then just let my phone die. Seriously, after all the time we had spent together I just let it die.

Unfortunately, all iPhones are apparently on the same team and my mom's phone was not happy with how I had treated mine. Perhaps it was afraid I would do the same to it and leave it for dead on my desk. So in response it started employing guerrilla warfare tactics. Whenever I touched it, it would vibrate, leading me to believe someone had texted or called me. They hadn't. It was just my phone.

Eventually it got so bad that if it was in my backpack or pocket it would be constantly vibrating. The phone also learned how to turn sound on without me knowing so that it could start singing "Kiss Me Slowly" during math class.

After a week of this I couldn't take it anymore. I gave my mom's phone back to her and recharged mine. In one short week I had forgotten how much I loved my phone, but when it came back to life I realized how much I had missed my phone.

For a while, this was enough, and my phone and I got along again. But that small piece by the lock screen was a constant reminder of what my phone had done and I was bitter about it. For some reason I had to tell everyone about how my phone had decided to break itself for no reason. The phone was off contract, though, so I decided I would keep it for study abroad (so I could put a European sim card in it) and then get a new one as soon as I got home.

You can imagine how much this broke my phone, emotionally and physically.

Since it was falling apart at the seams I started having to push the phone together to be able to use the lock button - not a big deal unless I wanted to take a screen shot.

It was so traumatized and depressed at its failed attempt to get a reaction from me that it tried to commit suicide by figuratively jumping out of my pocket and falling in water a.k.a. I dropped my phone in the toilet.

I really thought this would be the end of my phone, but I managed to bring it back to life with a bag of rice and a bottle of hand sanitizer.

It is mostly the same phone, except it now has a small problem with its short term memory (it can connect to wifi networks it knew before its suicide attempt, but it is incapable of finding new networks).

Also, the lock button has completely stopped working. Just to give you an idea about the implications of this, no lock button means that to lock the screen I have to not touch it for a full minute. This is hard when I want to listen to music and hold my phone at the same time.

The battery has a life span of six hours when I don't use my phone at all. That life span is seriously decreased when I start using the phone.

The more my phone breaks the funnier I find the whole situation because so far I've managed to find a way around all the problems (super cheap data plan, assisted touch, constant charging, etc.) I've even started joking about what will be the next to go.

Today, though, my phone won.

Not only does it refuse to connect to wifi, it now refuses to connect to the 3G network. Goodbye email, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Viber (the app I use to text my family for free), weather, Safari aka everything I use my phone for.

In fact, the only thing my phone can do now is make/receive calls and send texts.

My best friend has become just another phone.

But in honor of all of the good times I've had with my best friend I'd like to dedicate a song it it. I'm going to miss you, iPhone.

 

UPDATE: As I was writing this post and remembering all the great times I had with my iPhone and how much I really love it, my phone connected to wifi. Seriously, I think my phone is like Santa's sleigh and only works when I believe in it.

I don't know how I'm going to tell it that the package that just arrived contains my mom's phone. It's going to break my poor phone's motherboard.

Finals Week(s)

After spending a semester at fake school, I have completely forgotten how to study. Granted, I was never very good at the studying thing to begin with, but it has become especially difficult after a semester of no homework.

On Wednesday afternoon I had to take my first final. I started studying for it at 8:00am Wednesday morning.

By 10:00 I was all studied out.

It's difficult to get motivated to study when you are allowed to use your notes on a final.

Even more difficult is when your teacher lets you use your notes, your computer, and the Internet. Seriously, who is going to study for that?

By the time I actually got to the final I looked at the first question like:

And that has been how I've approached finals so far.

Also, in case you are wondering it is impossible to find a picture like the one above anywhere on the Internet. Which means that instead of studying for my finals next week or writing my 10 page paper that's due on Thursday, I spent the last 30 minutes screen shotting this beauty into existence. Now if someone could please make it into a gif I would be eternally grateful.

Anyway, what I've learned from this experience is how much I appreciate finals week. During finals week I get stuff done that I've been putting off all semester. Seriously, I've been meaning to find/make the above picture for a long time and now I finally have.

I also cleaned my room. Twice.

And make my bed every morning. 

Plus I uploaded pictures from a month ago. 

And I still have time to hand wash dishes in the morning even though we have a dishwasher.

So I'd like to raise a glass to finals week: helping students get unimportant stuff done since 587.

Homeward Bound - Paris Part 4

Click on these to read Paris parts one, two, and three.

Of all the people to be stuck at an airport with, I'm glad I was with my friend Montserrat because she reacts well in a crisis. If she didn't live in Canada I might vote for her for president. She didn't sit on the ground and start crying or complaining about how unfair the situation was, she started helping me find a solution to the problem.

We were at an airport/train station so our first thought was to check for trains. There was one leaving in five minutes, but first class was the only option left. It was also going to cost 250€ and we weren't that desperate... yet.

Next, we checked online for another bus. They were reasonably priced and left at 8 the next morning, so we bought the tickets. Unfortunately, IDBus requires you to print your tickets before you can board, so we set off to find some way to print our tickets.

At an airport.

On Sunday.

In a country where everything closes at 8 on the weekend.

The Sheraton Hotel on the third floor of Terminal 3 was very helpful and offered to print our tickets for free, but their computer couldn't pull up the PDF. Information wasn't at all helpful because they had closed at 10:10. (Seriously, who closes at 10:10? That's just weird.) SNCF was even less helpful. The lady who could print wouldn't because it was for IDBus (a company within SNCF, by the way) and the guy who wanted to help couldn't because he didn't have Internet access. Finally we went downstairs and asked Hertz if they could print our tickets for us. Originally they said no, but after we desperately pleaded, they made it work. When the guy walked out with our printed tickets I was honestly speechless. I couldn't even express to him how grateful I was because I was in shock that we actually had tickets.

We were going to make it home.

Still, we had 8 hours to kill before we could get on our bus and go home. The airport terminals were freezing, so we sat in the lobby of the ibis hotel for a few hours. Around 1 in the morning we decided to try and find some dinner. The 24 hour bar was only for guests and also didn't have any food. The vending machine was beyond disappointing and extremely overpriced. We then had to walk back to the airport terminal in search of food. Nothing was open and we were forced to settle on the airport vending machine which had much more variety. The machine only accepted coins, so we pooled our money and came up with 4€70 for dinner. It was probably the most pathetic dinner ever imagined in France.

After eating we laid out on the floor and tried to sleep with all the people who were waiting for connecting flights.

It worked for a while. We had been on a bus the night before and had gotten a maximum of four hours of sleep. It was now 2 in the morning and we were tired. Unfortunately, we weren't so tired that we could ignore the freezing, hard, dirty tile floor. We began to long for the warmth of the ibis lobby and its comfortable chairs. At 4:45 we couldn't take it anymore and we went back to the hotel and tried to look like we weren't sleeping in their lobby because we were too cheap to pay for a hotel room.

It's now 6:45 and I've had a lot of time to think about the long tunnel we're in. Although we spent the night in Paris, we're not really in and able to enjoy Paris. We didn't even get to see the Eiffel Tower sparkle. But we are also not able to go back to Lyon. We're stuck here in this in-between place without a warm place to rest or good food to eat.

One Week Later.

I eventually made it back to Lyon. There were only three people on our bus and so we were able to lay out over four seats and actually sleep quite comfortably. At some point we stopped for food. I hadn't eaten anything besides a Special K bar in 20 hours so my sandwich was really something special. I also missed my least favorite class because the bus got in so late, so I guess all's well that ends well.

Finally back in Lyon

Well, except Notre Dame. Notre Dame is celebrating its something-hundred and something anniversary and had construction all over its beautiful square. But that is a story for another less-sleep deprived day.

The Long Tunnel - Paris Part 3

Read Paris Part 1 ici and Part 2 ici.

When people are going through customs they usually have to travel through a long tunnel. This area is international ground so for a short time these people are stuck in an in-between place; they obviously aren't still in the country they left, but neither have they arrived in the country they're going to. This in-between-ness is known as "the long tunnel."

This weekend I went through the long tunnel. Well, a long tunnel.

We were on our way to the Eiffel Tower. It was starting to get dark and we really hoped that we would get to see it sparkle. We got in line at about 6:45 and the closer we got to the front of the line, the closer it got to 7:00 (the Eiffel Tower sparkles every hour on the hour.) We bought our tickets at 6:59 then sat staring at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower for a minute. It didn't sparkle.

The tickets we bought let us climb up to the second floor of the tower. We didn't have time to wait in any of the elevator lines so we decided to take the stairs. Maybe it wasn't the best idea considering I am terrified of heights and we were so short on time, but we did it anyway.

We started out really strong. But the higher we went, the slower I got. I get afraid on the stairs going up to water slides, why in the world did I think climbing the Eiffel Tower was a good idea?

Looking back, I honestly have no idea how I made it up all the stairs. But in fact, we made it up so quickly that we had plenty of time for pictures. Even though we didn't make it to the very top the view was still amazing.

Eventually we had to leave. We thought we had plenty of time until we got stuck behind a couple holding hands. They were taking their time, as well as all of ours, strolling down the steps.

We managed to sneak past them at the first floor and started running down the Eiffel Tower stairs. It was almost exactly like the scene from Monte Carlo -- you know, the one where they're about to miss their bus so they have to run down the stairs of the Eiffel Tower and that one girl is afraid of heights?

Unfortunately the similarities ended there and there was no hot Australian to offer us a free trip to Monte Carlo because I happen to look like a British heiress...

From there we literally ran to the metro. The guys selling Eiffel Tower key chains didn't even try selling us anything, they just got out of our way.

We checked the map and ran to catch our metro. As we ran up the stairs we watched it pull out of the station. So we checked the map again and started to worry about time.

Once on the metro, though, there wasn't much we could do. So we sat and watched time tick by and counted down the stops.

We jumped off, pushed through the slow-moving crowd, bought our tickets, and ran to the RER line. Once again we watched the train pull away from the station just as we ran up.

Even at this point, I still believed we would make it to our bus. We joked on the ride over about what would happen if we missed the bus, we stressed about time, and we created ridiculous scenarios about how the bus could be late.

We looked like two drunk girls coming home from a night of partying - at 8:30 on a Sunday night. We were laughing, crying, and overall freaking out.

The RER train pulled into the station at 8:45. Our bus was also scheduled to leave at 8:45, but this is France and we were confident that it would be late. We only needed a minute or two. So we ran outside to the coach station and started frantically searching for our bus. We saw it pulling out onto the freeway so we ran up the hill to stop it, only to realize it wasn't actually our bus.

Despite our best efforts, we had missed our bus back to Lyon.

Shock started to set in as I realized we had no way of getting home nor did we have a place to stay. We were stuck in a long tunnel - no longer touring Paris, but not back in Lyon either and no way of getting there. Plus, we were literally in a long tunnel walking to Terminal 3.

The saga ends here.

Famous Paintings Are Always Smaller than You Think - Paris Part 2

Read Paris Part 1 here.

Our next stop was the Pompidou Center where they were hosting the Dalí exhibit. This exhibit is usually on display in Madrid, but it has been in Paris for the past couple of months. My friend is a huge Dalí fan and went to the museum in Madrid specifically to see these Dalí paintings. You can imagine her disappointment when she found out that the exhibit was actually in Paris.

Naturally, one of our stops in Paris had to be the Pompidou Center. The line was a bit long so we debated about it for a while, but when we found out that the exhibit was going back to Madrid the next day it was essential we saw it. Even if the line was outside. In the cold.

The line didn't move. People who had bought tickets online were given priority, and by priority I mean their line was the only one that moved. Every once in a while our line would move forward, but these changes were always few and far between. After about 30 minutes we debated whether or not we should just give up, but we were all ready halfway to the door and we decided to wait.

After waiting for an hour, we had finally made it to the front of the line. We went inside the museum and straight to the ticket counter. As EU students, the museum was free for us, but we still needed a ticket.

It turns out that even though the museum is free, the Dalí exhibit cost extra. However, we had all ready waited an hour and we weren't going to let 10€ stand between us and Dalí, so we paid it. We then asked where the exhibit was and were led to a new line - estimated waiting time: 45 minutes.

But was is 45 minutes when you've all ready waited an hour?

The 45 minute line led us up some stairs and into a new line - estimated waiting time: 30 minutes.

At this point it might have been smarter to just ditch the whole idea, but we had invested 10€ and two and a half hours of time, so we waited the extra 30 minutes.

We finally made it into the exhibit. I got to see the clock painting, which is all I remember from a semester of studying Spanish artists my senior year. It was surprisingly small for such a famous work of art.

After the exhibit, we also stepped foot in the actual museum, but when we saw it was all modern art (read: weird art) we stepped right back out.

By now it was about 3:30 and the bread from the morning had worn off. We managed to find the cutest, reasonably priced restaurant in all of Paris (probably). We got a delicious 3 course meal for 12€. However, one thing we couldn't get was the check. Even after asking for it, the waitress came back five minutes later to ask if we still wanted the check. Eventually we did pay and made it out of the restaurant.

Our next stop was at the most delicious gelato store in all of Paris - Amorino Gelati. It did not disappoint.

With two hours before we needed to start making our way back to the bus we decided to visit the Eiffel Tower. What could possibly go wrong?

Continue our adventure here.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - Paris Part 1

I originally wrote this post last Monday. At 4:00 in the morning. While trying not to fall asleep in a hotel lobby. Even though it's coming a week late I'm going to pretend the story is real time for dramatic effect. Enjoy.

It all started a few weeks ago when I found out you could get bus tickets to Paris for 5€. So for 10€ I could make a day trip up to Paris. The bus left at midnight to get in at 5, then came back that night at 9 to get in at 5 the next morning. (I don't know why it takes three extra hours on the way home, but for some reason it does.) It was perfect, though, because the bus schedule worked out to allow for a full day in Paris without making me pay for a hostel.

I woke up bright and early Saturday morning because I needed to do laundry before I left for Paris. Normally this wouldn't be a problem; laundry only takes a couple of hours and I wasn't leaving until midnight. Unfortunately, as you may remember, France doesn't believe in dryers. And like any intelligent person I not only washed every single article of clothing I own, but I threw my towels in, too. Two hours later -- after taking a shower -- I used wet towels to dry myself off before putting on wet clothes.

Later that night I met up with my friend for dinner before we left for Paris (by this time my clothes were mostly dry.) Dinner was great, until the waiter spilled orange drink on my friend's dress. Unfortunately, it was time to leave for the train station and she had no time to go home and get changed. Luckily it was only a few drops and it wasn't obvious, though I'm sure it was sticky.

At 11:30 we got on our bus to Paris. We spent the first two hours of the trip talking and laughing and being excited before we decided we should get some sleep. The bus we were on has outlets so you can charge your electronics, which is awesome. Especially considering my phone can't hold a charge for longer than three hours. Seriously. Unfortunately, I realized on the bus that I had forgotten my converter. Luckily my friend offered to share hers with me.

We arrived in Paris at 5:15 in the morning. It was dark and cold and we were pretty tired from our night of sleeping on a bus. Luckily, the train station we pulled into had a waiting area that we planned to sleep in for the next couple of hours before exploring Paris. We walked up, tried to open the doors, and realized they were locked. On Sundays the station doesn't open until 6:45 -- an hour and a half away.

We had nowhere to go and nothing to do. Like anyone else in our position, we bought tickets to the metro and got on the first train we saw. We rode it to the end of its line, hopped off, and got on a new line. At one point we discovered a line that traveled outside. It was pretty exciting to actually see Paris after having spent an hour underground looking at abandoned train cars and discussing plans in the event of a zombie attack.

As the sun started to come up, our train came outside again and we passed over the Seine with a perfectly unobstructed view of the Eiffel Tower. My jaw literally dropped and I gasped. It was stunning.

Eventually, though, we had to get off of the warm metro and actually see Paris. I had read that brunch was a popular activity for a Sunday in Paris, and I've always wanted to eat brunch so it seemed like the perfect opportunity. Sadly, brunch in Paris is coffee and a croissant and costs 10€. Instead we got chocolat chaud and bread from the bakery down the street and saved 7€.

We then went to the Pompidou Center where things became truly unfortunate.

Continue reading the epic adventure here.