I think that...

Nobody reads this anymore....

It's my fault, I haven't been keeping it updated... It's really hard to find new things to say...

First.

I guess I like making lists lately. For example, France has had a lot of firsts for me.

First time leaving the country.
First time riding in an underground rail system.
First time on a public bus.
First time taking a taxi.
First time traveling by myself (and successfully!)
First time eating kangaroo.
First time eating duck.
First time eating kebabs.
First time eating curry.
And brussel sprouts, eggplant, salmon (none of which I liked).
First time living somewhere outside of my parents' home.
First time visiting London, Paris and soon Amsterdam.
First time I'd been on the east coast of the US.
First time going to Florida (when I go home).
First time seeing the Atlantic!
First time living somewhere where it can be 75 degrees in the middle of November. And for more than just one day.
First time going to a Chinatown! (yea that was in London but it counts as a France experience to me)

There are so many more, but I can't remember anymore.

I don't think I've ever been this excited to go home. I have five weeks left. I guess it makes sense. I love traveling and going on vacation but one of the things I like most about it is getting home when it's done. And I really like to go on vacation with my family. I know, it's true that there's a lot of things I prefer to do with my family. But going places and seeing cool things just isn't the same with someone you don't really know.

Class time. Bye!

Happy Blog Post Day!

I don't have a lot to say. You may or may not be used to that by now.

I haven't been doing much the past two days. I feel like it's been two or three weeks since I've had time to rest, so this weekend I decided I wasn't doing anything.

So basically all I did today was eat lunch with my host family, which was very interesting.  Some random thing with tuna and eggs in it (it was very strange) and for dessert, an apricot tart/pie thing. Hey guess what, I don't like apricots. But I ate it and tried to enjoy it.   The parts that weren't covered in apricot were very tasty (though odd).

I'm losing a lot of weight... Regardless of the fact that yesterday all I ate was Snickers, peanut M&Ms and Reese's peanut butter cups.  The lovely scale in my bathroom always has some really pretty numbers on it. I'm so excited about it.  I've lost 18 pounds in France!  Dear France: You may keep them. Love, Angie.

Can I make a list of foods I want to make/eat when I get home?  I don't know if I'll have time for everything...

It'd probably looks like this:
Daddy's stir-fry
That pork we make with the mushroom/onion soup mix gravy and rice
Mongolian BBQ
This recipe I found for ikea swedish meatballs
Cafe Rio

There is more for that list but I went to dinner and lost my train of thought.

I had duck for dinner.

The end!

Six more weeks...

I'm just tired of being here. I didn't want Mom to leave. Or better yet, I wanted to go with her.  I know, I shouldn't be saying that when I know I have another semester in Spain still to come, but I'm just so thankful that I get to go home first. And maybe now I'll be able to prepare myself better. Also, maybe I can start things off in Spain a little better than I did here, so I won't dislike being there so much. I'm not really sure, because I don't know what I would do differently, I just know that at the very least being in a new place with new people is going to be a little refreshing.

But even that, I'm not sure about. At this point, when I go to London or Paris or wherever I go, I can't wait to come "home" to Pau.  I hope I don't feel that way when I'm in Spain. Pau is my European home right now, but it won't be my home anymore next semester...

So overall, I'm very glad Mom and Dan came to see me. Yes, it made me miss home even more, but at least I'm a week closer to getting home than I was before they came.  I can make it six more weeks... I just need to stay focused on school and (hopefully) the time will pass pretty quickly.

So I guess now that I'm done "vacationing" I should get back to daily posting. Let's see, yesterday we took a trip to Lourdes and explored this castle on top of a hill in the middle of the city. It was a pretty neat place.  Monday we drove out to Bayonne and Biarritz and looked at the beach. It was raining and beautiful. I love the rain, and I love the beach, so in my opinion it was perfect.  We ate a lot of bread and cheese this week. That probably didn't help my little goal of losing weight but it's okay, I'm sure I'll be able to make up for it. I also took Mom and Dan to two kebab places--very glad we did that.  I have now discovered which kebab place is my favorite. I'm sure I said this before but, that's definitely something I will miss upon returning to the States. We went to the little Mexican place in town where I mentioned I wanted to go too. It's very French Mexican--meaning, very light. French people don't really eat heavy foods much, I think this little Mexican place has kind of bent to fit French tastes.  I was very happy with it.  And it turns out the price was not too outrageous (we went for lunch, it was 11 euros for an appetizer, a main dish, and a dessert) though probably still more than most people are willing to spend for lunch.

Tomorrow I might go for a little run, or take a long walk downtown with a camera... Relieve a little stress.  I'm here for six more weeks, I know I really need to make the best of it whether I like it or not.

Sunday?

I'm very tired. I'm very happy to be back in Pau. I'm very glad my mother is home. I don't believe it's Sunday already? Where did the weekend go?


I am also happy that Mom came to dinner at my host family's house.  I do feel bad for getting there so late but I don't know if we could really help that. It took us forever to get to Pau.  I feel like I'm barely going to have time to see Mom and Dan this week because I have class all the time. 


This is going to be a super-short post today...


The drive from Paris to Pau was horrible, but pretty.  And we didn't get too lost.  We managed to get here eventually.


I don't know, I guess I don't really have a lot to say. Like I said before, I'm glad to be home. I'm glad that my (very kind) host mother did all my laundry while I was in Paris. That was very nice of her. It was all dirty when I got home from London so I was kind of out of clean clothing to wear. 


And now it's late, so that is all that you'll hear from me tonight.  Eventually, when I get the chance, I will get up the pictures I took in London and whatever I take here with Mom.

More Paris!

I can't wait to leave for Paris tonight. One more class to get through.  I have to give a presentation too, I hope it goes well. I don't want to do it, but I guess at least then I'll be done with it and I won't have to worry about it for the rest of the semester. She assigned us days to give our presentations and it's perfectly fair because you know the people who have more time aren't going to actually take that time.  Some people are doing theirs as late as the last week of classes.  I'm just glad I'm not first, and I guess I'm kind of glad I'm not doing it the week that Mom is in Pau because then I'd have to spend time doing homework instead.


Mom already told me they were accosted by a crazy French man in Paris. When they went to get food. That sounds like a lot of fun.  My host mom and dad are very excited that she's coming. I asked them what time is best for dinner and they thought that was bizarre, since we're the ones who are going to be driving. They said we will have dinner whenever we are ready to have dinner.  They just want me to let them know when we're on our way so they know when to expect us.


I'm very hungry. And I'm sure that won't make my presentation any easier. I don't think I'll have any time to eat today so I'll just have to grin and bear it...  What sounds good is kebabs.  Actually they sound really good.  And fries. Yes.  Or perhaps, vending machine snacks!  Or food on the train. I think there's a food car on the train. I saw some people with food when we were coming from Paris to Pau and it looked freshly cooked. Maybe there's hope. It will probably be expensive... I saw croque monsieurs. I love those.


Well. Wish me luck on that presentation. It's going to be lots of fun.

I'm back!

I don't even know what to post about. Yea, I just spent the last week in London. There were some goods and some bads, in the end I'm just glad to be back in France.  Back where I have my own room and the internet doesn't suck. I meant to post yesterday but I didn't feel well at all, so here's to today.


Mom and Dan leave for France today. I'm so excited for them!  I still wish I could be in Paris when they get there but it's okay. I just can't wait til Friday. 


French people look at you weird when you stand at the bus stop and sing invisible songs... It's like French people don't sing. At all. Okay I'm not so sure about that, when I was in London at our youth hostel I was playing some music on my iPod and this French song came on, and there was a French girl not far from me and she started singing to it.  It was pretty amusing.


I don't know why I just legitimately have nothing to say. Everyone wants to know how London was and stuff like that but I really don't have anything to say about London... I'm going to have a real hard time with my host family then, because they always want to know how my trips went... I honestly have nothing to tell about London. Yea, not one of the most exciting trips I've been on.... For one thing, it was too long. And I told Jennifer before we left, 10 days is going to be way too long. She didn't believe me...  The last 3 days we were there, I was exhausted and ready to go home. And the only reason I wasn't done long before that was because we spent two days doing nothing while Jennifer was in the hospital.  I know you'd think if it's a cool place it'd be nice to spend more time there, but the best vacations I've ever had were only 3 or 4 days in one place.  I would have been fine leaving London after day five...  Oh well, no big deal. I'll get over it. I ate a lot of Chinese food while I was there and should be good for the rest of the semester here in Chinese-less Pau.  Now I'm just missing Mexican food. I read that there was a Taco Bell near London but we didn't go... I know, that's not real Mexican food anyways. But it would have done for a while.


I just want to say: I can't wait to get home from Spain in May. I can't wait to move to Boise and get a job and start doing my own thing.  I'm trying to be positive about how easy it will be to find a job after studying abroad for a year. I think it raises my chances a lot but who really knows? I know for sure that when I move to Boise I might start going to the gym at Boise State.  If I don't lose the weight I want to lose while I'm here, I'm going to lose it when I get home. Absolutely. May just seems like such a long time from now... But at the same time, I thought four months in France sounded like a long time but I've been here for at least two months now and there's only seven more weeks until we're heading home already.  I don't really know how I feel about that... On one hand, I can't wait to get home and eat normal food again and speak English and see my family and my cat and be in the same continent as everyone I know and also be in the same time zones, or at least one or two time zones away. On the other hand I know I really profit from being here and I don't want to ruin the rest of my time here by spending all of it looking forward to going home...  I definitely do look forward to switching to Spain though, because I'll have a different atmosphere and new people to meet and new opportunities to try to break out of my shell... 


Speaking of which, I've been talking to this Colombian girl lately. She speaks Spanish and kind of understands a little English but not really. We mainly talk in French. She wants me to talk to her in Spanish but I don't really want to. It's just weird. Besides, she talks too fast for me.  Today, during our two hour break, we were sitting on a bench in the main class building and she left for a few minutes to go to the bathroom.  This French girl came up to me and said that she noticed we were foreign students and asked if I want to do a language exchange. She is studying English at the university.  I gave her my email address and she said she'd email me.  That's pretty cool, I went to the USAC office at the beginning of the semester for a language partner, but I never ended up emailing her. (I feel bad about that but now I feel like it's too late... Maybe I'll still email her too.)  It would be really cool if that girl actually emails me.  I feel like finding a language partner like that is a lot more interesting than going to the office and asking for a name and email address.


Okay. I think I'm done posting for the night.  Thank you for reading, you are a lovely audience.