Rock on.

(New music! Haha, this blog's playlist is awesome, and continuously under construction.)

Well folks, I hope it's not too inhuman of me, but I'm going to tell you about my week.

On the grand scale of things, this last week has been pretty awesome. I'm really having the time of my life over here. Between decent classes, a great group of friends, and all the random (usually unexpected) adventures, it's true what everyone told me--I wouldn't trade this experience for anything. I can't wait to come home and start putting these changes into practice. And I do feel like this trip has changed me as a person. But that's another entry.

Right, the telling of the week.

I believe I last updated a week ago today. Tuesdays are my big days of magical accomplishment here, so that's the best day to sit down and write blog updates. Here's how I've been since then:

Wednesday we met seven French resistants. That was incredible, and it was really something else to hear accounts of the resistance from those who lived in it, who participated, who hid messages in the handlebars of their bicycles and sheltered wounded pilots. Some of them were arrested and deported, one was a liaison agent, and even though a few of them had thick provencale accents I loved listening to their accounts of what they had done for their country. I particularly liked hearing from Mireille (she was the liaison agent.) She told us about one of her most emotionally difficult moments during her time as a resistant. There was a woman who had turned in the names of 40 communists, and Mireille had to carry a message that said that this woman could no longer be trusted, and had to be killed. She said it was very difficult for her to deliver that message because she knew that the resistants would kill this woman to keep her from giving more information. I cannot even imagine what that must have felt like, to hold that message in your hand and be responsible for delivering it.

The Resistance museum is in a place called Fontaine de Vaucluse, which is gorgeous if not, as Danielle puts it, "tres touriste." Good thing about touristy places, though: always good ice cream. I got a scoop of chocolate and a scoop of caramel. I also like ice cream cones now. Before I used to just throw the cone away but after I ate the cone a few times I started to like it. Random only semi-interesting tangent, sorry.

Anyway, Fontaine de Vaucluse is...I guess I'd call it a natural spring? I think that's the best way to put it. I'll put some pictures up on the blog when I've posted this entry. Gorgeous, although the water is freezing. Just ask Amanda and James, who jumped in. That was one of the funniest moments of the trip thus far, and I am jealous of them for having done it. Now that it's all said and done I wish that I'd jumped in there with them, just to say I've done it, but oh well. I didn't have a change of clothes with me and wasn't interested in wearing freezing wet jeans to the museum.

Hmm...other highlights...I've got lit class in half an hour, here, so I've got to condense. I figure that I've got so little time left here (relatively speaking) that I'd better start hitting harder with the blog entries. Once I get back in the states I'm thinking that my readership is going to drop significantly. I'm not offended or anything, I just figure that my French adventures are more interesting than my random commentaries on life in Ohio.

(Barracuda just came on...hold on, I've gotta air-guitar for a minute. Picture me doing so, should you so desire!)

Thursday I think was one of the nights we went to Place Pie. There have been a lot of late nights out with friends this week, so they're starting to run together. Funny how at the beginning of this program I used to know exactly what I did, what I ate, who I saw on any given day of the week. Now a week goes by and it feels like an hour, and all the meals and faces and jokes all blur into one another. Anyway, we went to Place Pie and hung out for a while. My first (hopefully ONLY) major headache of this trip hit that night though, so I turned in earlier than everybody else. Big thankya to Ian yet again for walking me home.

(Can't...stop...air guitar-ing!)

Friday in Oral Production we learned weather words, a source of much sarcasm throughout the group as we had already learned pretty much all the vocab list...in MIDDLE SCHOOL. Cath and I cobbled together a weather report for our participation grade, and then reveled in our free Friday afternoon. Friday night Kristin went to Le Comptoir (snooty bar/resto) and I wasn't really interested, so I went to the island with a bunch of the others for the evening. I've already told the story of island night so many times that I'm just going to sum up, but long story short...

1) I've learned not to hang out at the island at night anymore
2) I know how a French person reacts if you flip them off and yell something vulgar (for the record, I DID NOT DO THIS)
3) Ian got head-butted in the face, and
3b) Ian gets sorta scary when he's really angry.

Got home late again, slept in semi-late Saturday morning, then spent Saturday walking around randomly shopping/eating ice cream/sitting in parks with Catron, Kristin, and Caitlin. Caramel ice cream from the magical corner. We also watched random creepy guys jump on and off the carousel, and found the park where Petrarch met Laure. It was a grand adventure. Saturday night was...Place Pie again, I think.

Sunday was rainy and rather lousy out, so I spent the day straightening up my room, reading, napping (may or may not have been multiple naps...) and then Kristin and I walked around the block after dinner to stall doing our history and resistance homework. Hung out in Cathy's room for the night, catching up since we hadn't really seen her since Friday.

Then last night was Lit, History, and then our second Resistance test. Two long essay questions, each of which we'd already discussed more or less completely in class. I feel like I did fine, but we'll see once I get the paper back, I guess.

Last night we hung out at Catron's apartment for the night until after 2:00 in the morning, and it was pretty awesome, listening to 90s music I had no idea I still knew ever word to, singing Chicago, and eating potato chips for the first time since leaving the states.

Sorry I'm getting really brief and un-detailed, I've got ten minutes to lit and like I said, little description is better than none. I can always go into more detail later but if I don't get the time, at least you know something.

Today it was pretty hard to drag myself into Writing Workshop, but I wrote my bio for our project (more on that later) and feel like I did decently at it. Now I've just got lit left today, then some kind of "neighbor party" in the city tonight, then we're going over to Catron's apartment again. Tomorrow there aren't any classes, but Thursday I should be back online and I might even have a halfway decent entry to put up. I miss having the time to sit back and write metaphorical ones. I could wax eloquent for so long about how this trip has already changed me, and how I feel about how much time I've got left here, and all sorts of pensive stuff that's a little more "a la Grace." So I guess the moral of the story is keep checking back here. I haven't forgotten the blog, I'm just trying to really live up my last few weeks. Partying like it's 99, as it were.

In the meantime, hang out here for as long as you want and listen to my awesome music. Air guitar optional, but encouraged. Rock on.

Love you all, miss you all daily,
-G