A French Christmas

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

I certainly did...

I'd say the week kicked off on Monday when Maurice and Laurence made the decision that we could, after all, go to Maurice's house in Normandy for a couple days.  We'd had plans to go since the week before, but then the big snow happened, and on Sunday the weather forecasters were saying that they couldn't predict what would happen Tuesday and Wednesday, leaving Maurice and Laurence worried about either not reaching the house or  getting snowed in once there.  Just before they changed their minds a second time, we were sitting at the table for lunch as Laurence and Maurice pondered on what to do with our new-found time in Paris.  "It's funny," Maurice said, "people come from all around the world to see Paris but we Parisians sit here asking ourselves what there is to do in this city!"  Camille was even more quiet than usual and I got the feeling that he was disappointed that our little séjour had been cancelled.  I asked Laurence about it after lunch; she said he was just being an adolescent, but he did seem considerably less angsty once, due to updated forecasts, Maurice and Laurence said we'd be going the following day.  "Allez," Maurice said, "on bouge maintenant!"- and bouge they did!  Within a matter of minutes, L & M were on their respective phones, making calls to I'm-still-not-sure-who, writing grocery lists, doing laundry and packing bags.  Though I may not have shown it so explicitly, I was just as happy as Camille was that we'd be getting out of town for a couple days.

15-year-old Axèl, who by a complicated family tree would be considered Camille's step-nephew, decided to join us, which freed Laurence from the obligation of playing cards for several hours with Maurice, Camille and me over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday.  I learned a new card game, using a full deck plus tarot cards, which I WON, although I lost miserably to Camille and Axèl at RISK.  In my defense, the rules were, of course, different!  Not sure if that was due to the fact that our game was very vintage 1950s or because it's the French version.  But get this - Texas and Kansas were their own territory.  Yeeehaw!  :P

Other than lots of good eating, card-playing, reading, and sitting by the fire, I did venture out into the village once when Maurice eagerly offered to give me a tour.  Maurice is an ex-history teacher, so the tour was pretty informative (and animated).

We came back Thursday early-afternoon, leaving just enough time for a quick turn-around from our country casual to the city chic which was required at Hélène(Laurence's daughter)'s Reveillons (Christmas Eve) party.  It was good to see David, Hélène, Jean-Philippe, Philippine, and OF COURSE Athina again, and I got to meet J-P's mother, Marina, who I thought was Italian...when I asked her, she quickly corrected me: "Je suis française."  However, she later admitted that she was born in Italy but "left right away."  What can I say, some people refuse to be anything other than pure French!  To our (anglophones) credit, Marina told me that she thinks English is the "perfect" language, partially because we don't have all this business of formal and informal address, but also because it's..."melodious"?!  Quoi?!


We did our gift-exchange that night; I received a book of the chefs-d'oeuvre at the Quai Branly museum where Laurence works as well as some mittens with convenient thumb and finger openings to use at the apartment, where it gets pretty chilly even when the heat is on (which can be a rare occurrence...), and some Nuxe Huile Prodigeuse from Hélène.  As far as giving goes, I gave Athina a copy of the now-popular (thanks to the film, even if it's not for kids) Where the Wild Things Are (french translation:  Max et les Maximôntres), Laurence a new salad service set (our spoon has been broken for a couple months...) and a pretty candle-bowl I bought in Germany, various American products for Camille (beef jerky, his favorite, as well as bbq sauce and chocolate chip cookie mix), and for Maurice, Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States in french translation.  Believe it or not, I had to go to 3 bookstores to find it; the others had sold out!

The festivities continued Friday (Christmas Day) with some snacks and champagne at Laurence's mother's house in Saint-Mandé, a neighborhood on the south/east border of the 20 arrondissements.  I met even more of the family, and I even met Christy, the American girl who stayed with Laurence last year and who is visiting the city on her vacation.  We had a good time comparing our experiences when Athina wasn't monopolizing my time, demanding that I look at her new presents!

I met another of Laurence's nephews on Friday: Gauthier, who is studying medicine (focus in psychiatry) in Strasbourg (hence his absence at previous family events).  A native Parisian (who, unlike the rest of the family, decided to escape the city for a few years), his favorite thing to do when here is walk around, and we decided to meet up the following day for a visit to Père-Lachaise, the famous Paris cemetery where Jim Morrison, Rossini, Molière, and MANY others are buried.  The day was perfect for a walk in this crowded but picturesque city of the dead: miraculously sunny, clear and crisp, with autumn leaves still scattered everywhere.

  

Bells started ringing as the sun set, signaling the closure of the cemetery and leaving us with barely enough time to see one last tomb - that of Oscar Wilde.  I, unlike MANY others before me, resisted the urge to don red lipstick and kiss the stone, but I'm glad we managed to see it before rushing to one of the exits.

After that, our little promenade turned into a legitimate tour of the city as we made it to Sacre Coeur (where I sadly did not take any pictures) AND the Eiffel Tower:

You can go the pages 6-8 of this album to see more Père-Lachaise and Eiffel Tower pictures.  My only regret is that I didn't get a picture of the tower while we were up there and the lights were glittering (which happens on the hour).

From there we headed to La Grande Roue, the big ferriswheel on the Place de la Concorde/Jardin des Tuileries that was featured in this (fellow) Parisian's photo-blog.  It may have been somewhat outrageously expensive (10 euros for about 10 minutes), but at least the little compartments were enclosed and heated!

Today's been another restful day of vacation - slept in, went to the movies (to see Michael Moore's newest, "Capitalism: A Love Story," which I do recommend: Moore may be strange in his methods, but it always takes a few "radicals" to pull the rest of us along.  I don't buy into every single thing he says, but the movie was nonetheless informative and interesting, and possibly even slightly more centrist than his others), and now I'm writing this.  But next week needs to be exceedingly productive: I've got some late Christmas shopping to do (for friends who weren't here Christmas week), movies to catch up on, and above all, a paper to write for my Italian Lit. class.  Keep your fingers crossed for me, have a happy and SAFE New Year's Eve, and I'll let you know how everything went next Monday!

xoxo

Alina :)

PS.  Here's the album with Normandy and Reveillons pictures (see pages 5-9).

White (pre-)Christmas...

Merry Christmas, everyone!  Hard to believe it's this Friday...

Last week was a good one.  My lovely american friend Delpha, who is engaged to a French boy (named, quite appropriately, François) invited me to a wine tasting that François and his co-workers had organized.  They had all worked at Nautic, a big boating fair in Paris, for the 10 days preceding, so by the time Monday rolled around, they were ready to relax a bit.  Someone reserved a small bar in the 5th for us, and the fact that there was more consumption of wine happening than tasting of it only made the atmosphere better.  I'm starting to wonder if the entire idea of a "wine tasting" was merely a pretext!

I can't help but add that François and Delpha met at a "salon" event kind of like Nautic -- she was here with her company just for the week.  They met and exchanged information; I don't think think Delpha expected anything major out of the encounter, but François was evidently pretty smitten, and they'll be getting married in March!  Sounds like the plot from a movie...

Tuesday night I was invited to a play put on by my friend Roxane's business school: Du vent dans les branches de sassafras or The Wind in the Sassafras Trees.  From what I can gather, the original play was in French, written by a French guy who was born in Hong Kong...although I did find this less-than-enthusiastic review of a production in Boston...
Anyway, it's a western parody, so overall pretty appropriate for me to see.  Roxane is French but will be studying at UT next semester; fellow Longhorns, I'll probably be calling on you guys to show her around!  (In fact, thanks to my advice, she'll be living in Laurel Co-op, which shares the building with Halstead (where I lived last year) and Nueces.  I'm hoping co-op living is a rewarding experience for her; it definitely was for me!)

Wednesday was spent in yoga class, tutoring (2 families) and on skype.  Mom, Dad, and Nicole - it was very nice to see you! :)

I failed to heed my first 2 alarms Thursday morning, but the sight of SNOW outside jolted me awake once I finally made it to the window.  Paris actually doesn't get snow that often, so the excitement in the air was pretty tangible.  Walking to school, I passed lots of kids (and kids-at-heart) building snowmen and throwing snowballs.  I haven't lived with snow since I spent my freshman year of college in Pittsburgh; Thursday brought back a lot of not-so-distant memories.  I had figured that snow in Paris would get gross pretty quickly, but the  city stayed pretty neatly covered in our white blanket through Friday evening, and before I knew it the snow was gone on Sunday.

(Poor pigeons don't have any uggs to keep them warm!!)

All of France got snow this time, and the cities in the South, much like southern cities in the States, didn't know how to handle it; Marseilles was pretty much shut-down for a couple days!

Friday was spent with Texans, kind of.  First I saw my friend Colleen (who goes to UT) on skype, then I went to a birthday dinner for Xavier, a french guy who currently works in Houston but who returned to France with his wife for the holidays.   Thanks so much for including me, Xavier!

I saw La Route, otherwise known as The Road (American film based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy) on Saturday, after which I thought I might never be happy again (it's an apocalyptic story).  Well, that's a bit of an overstatement, but it definitely wasn't your typical "holiday movie"!  Later Zina and I checked out the Christmas Market on the Champs Elysées and the mini-carnival that was set up in the Grand Palais.  Neither was anything too special, but I did get some cool pictures from one of the rides:

(Carnival rides aren't Zina's favorite thing.)
Later we saw Le Vilain, a French comedy. Good practice for our French!  Zina now has the unlimited cinema pass as well, so I predict more outings in the near (and distant) future!

Laurence, Camille, Maurice, and I were supposed to go to Normandy (where Maurice has a country house) today, but they cancelled the trip because of the snow.  Due to updated weather forecasts (and some pouting on Camille's part), they just decided that we can go tomorrow.  Yeehaw!  I need to work on an Italian paper, which isn't exactly what I'd like to be doing during the "vacation", but it'll be nice to get away from the distractions of the city for a couple days.

Stay warm, y'all!

xoxo
Alina :)

Pirandello can wait.

You know you're in France when:

You walk down Rue Pascal to get to school.

The 4-year-old you babysit tells you there's no school tomorrow because of a teachers strike.
Your neighbor's dog is named "Gaspard."

No Earth-shattering updates this week (unlike in EVERY other post, duh), but it was a good one nonetheless.  I did well(-enough) on an Italian oral expression exam, mainly thanks to some last-minute practice with my friend Zina, who's from Rome.  Right now I'm procrastinating - I need to finish reading this Italian play that we'll be discussing in class tomorrow morning - so in 10 hours.  Seems like a lot of time to me.

Laurence had another party Friday night, this time with her softball team.  They're a diverse bunch - mostly French, but one woman from Colombia and other from Italy (!), and of all different ages...but all susceptible to the powers of alcohol.  Here are Laurence and me after  (a couple glasses of wine and) a game of White Elephant, the vicious game of gift-swapping:

(I ended up with the shoes and she ended up with what is not in fact a lampshade but a straw hat...)

Saturday night I went to a crémaillère - a house-warming - for a friend of a (French) friend.  It was a really relaxed and nice group of people and I had a great time.  One of the people I was talking to informed me that I should consider myself bilingual (trilingual?).  I wouldn't say that yet, but I am definitely continuing to make progress, though I rarely go a day without any English, because of the tutoring/babysitting and even things like email and facebook (and this blog).
No photos from the house-warming, but I'll give you these instead: some of my favorites from the past (almost) three and a half months (time flies!)...

It's starting to get cold here - light snow tomorrow maybe?
Stay warm everyone!
xoxo
Alina :)

Deutschland!

Germany!  I loved it!  

I went with my German friend Anja, who lived with me at Halstead Co-op in Austin last year (when she was doing an exchange) and who has now moved to Paris for a few months to do an internship.  I have almost no knowledge of German, except for when I sang lieder in high school/college (although I never liked to sing in German because of all the consonants), and I would have felt 100% lost without a German-speaker to help me with every interaction!  

Anja taught me a few phrases, so now I can say all the "Gutens" (guten morgen, guten tag, etc) and I can count to ten, which actually kind of came in handy because I bought A LOT of wonderful things at the (world famous) German Christmas Markets!  

I got out of class earlier than Anja got off work on Friday, so I took a train two  hours earlier and stopped in Strasbourg until Anja caught up.  Making a 1.5-hour solo tour of a city definitely requires a bit of planning, and I wanted to get a guidebook of Strasbourg to make the most of my short time there.  Unfortunately, traveling two weekends in a row definitely made life a little hectic last week (I basically don't know what happened/where it went) -- Thursday night rolled around and I still hadn't found time to pick one up at the library.  "No big deal," I thought, "I can go tomorrow morning."  WRONG!  So most City of Paris libraries don't open until TWO PM on Fridays!  (And they aren't open at all on Mondays.)  Rushing to the nearest one (which luckily had what I needed) after class made me a little nervous about catching my train, but that's studying abroad I guess -- BUSY. 

Luckily Strasbourg is pretty small, so I saw most of the historic center (conveniently contained on a small island in the middle of the river Ill), moving on foot the entire time and armed with my LonelyPlanet guide and my camera.  I love how train stations, unlike airports, are usually located near/in the city center!

A city which has been passed back and forth between France and Germany over the last few centuries (and now marks the border), Strasbourg is now in France, but the German influence is strong.  For this reason, it was the perfect introduction to Germany for me!

Anja's mom and sister picked us up from a train station about 45 minutes from their house in Shoental, a collection of seven small villages which translates to "beautiful valley."  Once we were in the car, driving through the dark and silent German countryside, Anja said "First time in Germany, Alina!"  

"Yep!" I replied.

Then her mom turned around from the driver's seat to say: "Autobahn!"

Between the drive to and from Heidelberg Saturday and then to Mannheim to catch the train the Sunday evening, much of my weekend was spent on the famous autobahn!  And it's true that many parts - including a lot of what we were driving through - have no limit!  Anja pointed out that Germany is the "land of fast cars" - Audi, Mercedes, Porsche...and on these parts of the highway you actually have a chance of using all that fabulous horsepower.    Honestly I don't know how fast we went - I couldn't see the speedometer when Anja's mom was driving...but I'm not sure I'd have wanted to!! :P

On Saturday we went to Heidelberg, a historic university town complete with a fifteenth century castle.  We were so busy exploring the city's main street that we didn't get to the castle until the sun was long gone (ahem, sunset STARTED around 3PM).  But I really enjoyed the night views from high up on the hill.  The rest of the evening was spent wandering the Christmas markets and hanging out with Marie-Louise, one of Anja's friends who studies in Heidelberg.  I was surprised to learn that the markets are all outside, considering Germany's climate during the winter, but that explains the popularity of the glühwein (hot wine with spices).  

On Sunday I had a big German lunch with Anja's family before going to the Christmas market in the main settlement of Shoental.  We saw a saxophone orchestra concert (!) and I bought even more German goodies, most of which will probably become gifts.  A couple of them are going to decorate my room, though, so look out for pictures in the next couple of weeks...

Please click here for my Strasbourg/Germany photo album.  

Have a great week everyone!

Alina :)

Madrileña!

Bonjour!


Today marks three months in Paris for me!  I can't believe it's already been that long, and I definitely feel sorry for all the exchange students who are already heading home in mid-December or in January.  Not sorry in a condescending, "I pity you" kind of way; I'm just genuinely sorry!  I'm not sure I'll even be ready to come home in July.  But ask me that question again in...July.


It's been a great week.  Before jetting off to Madrid last Thursday, I enjoyed a TASTY dinner with Vicki, Andy, and Vicki's visiting friend Irena on Tuesday night.  We went to Gladine's, a Basque Bistrot in the 13th that Kenzie's French students (she teaches informal English classes at an Engineering school) had recommended to her a few weeks back.  Mmmmm, delicious local secrets! We ate WAY more than our fill (at a reasonable price, although I think my idea of "reasonable" has changed quite a lot in the last three months) before heading off to meet Dominika, Kenzie, and Emily at Footsie's, otherwise known as the "stockmarket bar" near Opera.  The prices change according to demand, which is pretty awesome, although it was slow on a Tuesday night so we didn't get the full effect.  It was still really great to catch up with some of my "countrymen" who I hadn't seen in quite some time!


Wednesday passed quickly between yoga and 4 hours of teaching English and before I knew it I was on my way to Madrid.  I flew Easyjet and got there around noon Thursday.  My American friend Anthony, who I've known since we were six and both going to St. Rose, and who is doing an exchange in Madrid this year, met me at the airport.  Unfortunately it was a cloudy, chilly, and rainy day -- one of the first they've had -- but we still had a good time exploring some of the major sites (Plaza Mayor, Palacio Real...) after dropping off my stuff at his friend Giuseppe's place, where I spent the first night (thanks, Giuseppe!!).  I was immediately struck by the price differences -- things tended to be 1/2 or 2/3 of Paris prices -- and how sprawling the city is.  After some research (involving Wikipedia, obviously the most credible source I know) I can give you the following rough figures.  Everything in parentheses is the equivalent measurement in miles.
Paris
Land Area = 87 km-squared (34)
Population = 2.2 million 
hence Density = 25,360/km-squared (65,700)
So that's "Paris Paris".  The Urban Area (not to be confused with the Metro Area, click on the terms for wiki-definitions) is 2,723 km-squared (1,051); the Metro Area is 14,518 km-squared (5,605).
Madrid
Land Area = 600 km-squared (234)
Population = 3,2 million
hence Density = 5,300/km-squared (13,700)
The Metro Area is 10,500 km-squared (4,000) and the Metro Population is just over 7 million.


Well, if you got anything out of that, you see how much more compact Paris is.  I'm not sure how much I really saw of the "city center" in Madrid, but it seems like you get out of it pretty quickly, and you notice when that happens, whereas in Paris I feel like I'm "downtown" pretty much all the time.  It seems that most Madrileños live outside the city's bustling nucleus, and while I enjoyed the break from the hustle and bustle, I realized as I walked to my metro stop today how much I like seeing other people out and about.  Speaking of metros, while the Madrid metro system is awesome, the land area of the city limits its efficiency.  I'm getting pretty spoiled here in Paris, where the metro stops are sometimes only a minutes' walking distance away.  Which does NOT mean that Parisians don't walk (because they do), but rather that no matter where you are, there's a station close by.  
No wonder Parisians sing drinking songs about our metro! 


After sightseeing Thursday afternoon, we headed back over to Giuseppe's for...wait for it...Thanksgiving dinner!  Anthony's awesome friend Erin, who grew up in Luxembourg but whose father is American, had started preparing the stuffing the night before, but things really got going in the kitchen around 7PM Thursday night.  Erin and Giuseppe worked for hours in kitchen while I wandered between them and the other guests, which eventually included four Belgians, three Americans (Anthony and me included), three Frenchies, a girl from Poland, a Peruvian girl, a German guy, Erin, and Giuseppe.  So, you know how people usually start preparing Thanksgiving dinner in the morning?  There's a reason for that.  We ended up eating around midnight, which I guess is actually somewhat typical for Spain, but Erin, Giuseppe and I (when I was in the kitchen) underwent a LOT of harassment from some hungry students!  It was worth the wait in the end though, because the food was delicious.  Erin, Giuseppe and I sneakily prepared our plates first then let the others have a free-for-all with the rest of the food.  When I wandered back into the kitchen a few minutes later, the three chickens (because if you want a whole turkey, especially a big one, you either need to call the butcher in advance or literally import one from the States) looked like they had been pecked apart by vultures.


Everyone left around 2am but most of us saw each other 8 short hours later when we met to take the bus to Toledo.  Despite some tricky map-reading and a less-than-spectacular, we-cater-to-clueless-tourists lunch, we had a good time wandering the city and checking out a few of its churches, synagogues, and mosques.  Toledo is pretty much how I've always pictured Spain (unlike the newer, and often unattractive, buildings in Madrid).  The views, especially at sunset and from the towers of one of the churches, were spectacular:

The food on Saturday more-than made up for the interesting cuisine of Toledo.  We started off the day with a trip to the Reina Sofia, a huge contemporaryish art center in Madrid.  I had an amazing time there -- it might be my favorite museum so far (as in, in my life).  Of course, that kind of stuff can have a lot to do with your mood and what temporary exhibits are there; I particularly enjoyed the top floor, where I found León Ferrari y Mira Schendel: El alfabeto enfurecido (The Enraged Alphabet).  The whole exhibit was just really interesting, maybe because a lot of it was about language.  I also thought the layout and placement of the pieces was excellent: they used a lot of overhead spotlighting, an intentional choice I'm sure, which allowed most of the 3 dimensional pieces to cast some awesome shadows.  I actually hesitated before stepping into some of the shadows the pieces cast.  Maybe I've just got a thing for shadows; you can look at pages 7 and 8 of this album to judge for yourself.  

The physical structure of the Reina Sofia is an interesting mix of the original building and the very modern addition, as you can see from other pictures in that album.


After the museum we headed to Anthony's host's piso (apartment) for comida, which literally means "food" but in Spain can also mean the biggest meal of the day (usually a mid-afternoon lunch).  Anthony is living with Maete and Jacinto, "relatives" of his family (his sister's godmother's sister is Maete, I believe), and I adore them.  We started off with the best white wine I've ever had (which isn't saying much, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that something so sweet actually suited the tastebuds of people besides my friend Nicole and I).  The first plate was bread with a garlic-butter spread and Spanish ham, which is tougher and tastier than "normal" ham, and a salad.  Then Maete brought out a dish of rice and seafoody things which kind of resembled gumbo (can anyone help me out here with a name?).  That was amazing as well.  In honor of our Americanism, Maete baked an apple crumble with fresh cream/custard (I'm awful with food classifications), which was soooo delicious, there is no way I can adequately describe it.  YUM!  Afterwards Jacinto headed into the kitchen to whip up some Irish coffee.

At the table that day and throughout my visit to Spain, I was surprised at the lack of a language barrier.  At first I thought it was due to my Texan origins (being so close to Mexico and surrounded by many immigrants/descendants of immigrants) and my two years of high-school Spanish (IF you can actually call those "language classes." Sorry PVA), but as I found myself hearing Spanish and thinking in Italian, I figured out the real reason I was able to understand so much of what was going on around me.  The conversation at lunch that day was probably 80% Spanish, although Maete and Jacinto have been studying English all of their lives, so they were able to switch when I found myself at a loss.  Sometimes my brain only offered me Italian words, and I got really tripped up over verb conjugations (I honestly don't think I ever learned anything but the present and imperfect), but overall the experience left me energized to actually learn Spanish -- after I spend some time in Italy working on my Italian.  I have a feeling that if I learned it now, my Italian would all but disappear.  YAY languages!  I've decided my goal is to speak, relatively fluently, 5.  English, French, Italian, Spanish...any ideas for the 5th?  It has to be a "Slavic" language, I think.  I'm thinking Russian, although it would be cool to learn Czech (my paternal grandfather spoke it but didn't teach it to my dad).  By the way, did you know UT Austin is the only school in the United States where you can get an undergraduate degree in Czech?  I actually originally applied for that major, but reality eventually hit and I realized how ridiculous it would be to learn three languages at the same time.


ANYWAY
Maete and Jacinto generously offered to take me on a driving tour of Madrid after lunch, and after that I met up with some of Anthony's girl friends to do some shopping.  Madrid prices were a nice relief for my wallet, and I got some cute (and warm) stuff!
I met up with the group again around nine, when we went to another friend's house for an authentic Peruvian feast hosted by two Peruvian girls.  I'm not really sure what the occasion was, or if there was one, but I felt so lucky (and full) to be eating another amazing meal!  Later on Saturday we "went out".  Going out is interesting in Madrid, as it's totally normal to just buy drinks from (mainly Chinese) vendors on the street (which explains why I witnessed a man basically buying out a grocery store's supply of coke late Friday night) and stand around, being rowdy, blocking traffic, etc.  It's pretty different from Parisian-style sorties, but I had a good time with even more of Anthony's friends, including some Spaniards that we met, one of whom goes to university in France :)


By Sunday I was exhausted and already dreading the trek home and a test on Monday (which had been rescheduled from the Monday before).  Anthony and I had an interesting experience with public transit which involved taking a bus 45 minutes in the wrong direction, but we eventually made it to the Prado museum, Spain's most famous, a huge monument which houses a collection spanning several centuries.  It's about as overwhelming as the Met in New York, and by the time we got there it was almost time to head to the airport, but I'm glad I got to check out some Velazquez and a few El Greco works. 


My return to Paris was uneventful, and as for the test, we'll see!  The only downside to my Spain trip was that I missed the visit (to Paris) of my friend Jessica from CMU, who is studying right now in Copenhagen.  I almost missed my friend Shaina's visit (she's studying in London this semester and we went to PVA together), but we met up at "Amelie's cafe" in the 18th (from the movie Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, in case you've been living under a rock for the past 8 years) Monday evening.  Considering how touristy the spot must be for the better part of the year, I was surprised at how friendly the waiters were (they DIDN'T "English" me) and how tasty the food was (although if you slap enough butter and cheese on something, it's bound to be delicious).

I took last night and today to recover from the busy long weekend - which means checking my emails, uploading pictures, and writing this blog post - but tomorrow it's back-to-the-grind (if I'm even allowed to say such a thing about life in Paris); I've got some makeup work to do before hopping on a train to Germany with Anja on Friday afternoon!  Be sure to check out that album above (here it is again) to see all my pictures from Madrid and Toledo.  I'll leave you with a few of my favorites...