Paris From Above and Sick Days With Prune

Well, I am sad to report that I am writing this in a Starbucks because my favorite blogging cafe is closed, but I am happy to report that it is raining outside which although seems to make many people miserable, does not cease to make the earth and I feel very very refreshed! 

I do not actually have much to tell you about this week. I mean it was a fantastic week and all, but Prune has had on an off fevers since Tuesday and, since Fred and Cecile have to work during the day, that means I had to come home straight after school every day and sit at home while Prune slept and watched movies. It was relaxing hahah and probablly sounds like heaven to some reading this, but after two days I was ready to move on and leave the house and do things worth blogging about! You know? 

But who has time for such complaining? Maybe I was bored for a few days, but I was bored in FRANCE, which is much more exciting than being bored in Ukiah or Sebastopol. And I do have one or two cool things to blog about! 

Last Sunday, after blogging all morning, I met up with Jess and Olivia to climb the Eiffel Tower! None of us had ever been up there before, and it seemed like something we couldn’t leave Paris without doing. We decided to take the stairs because they are cheaper than the elevator, and I am glad we did because struggling up a million flights of stairs with two friends whom I love very dearly was a hilarious experience. When we got to the first level, we joked around and took pictures and even went ice skating in a ridiculously small arena that was probably meant only for children, but whatever. We made Jess, the Canadian pull us around most of the time, because it seemed like the right thing to do. The ice skating was not actually fun, but laughing about it sure was! Eventually we climbed up to the second layer, which had the exact same view except all the buildings were smaller, and then down again to take a stroll through the park. We had planned on going to a museum, but we took to long at the Tour and it was closed by the time we would have been able to get there. So instead we got a snack together, which was a wonderful idea because snacks in Paris are the absolute best! 

I just realized that I didn’t go straight home on Tuesday, because we didn’t find out Prune was sick until after school! On Tuesday after French class, Moein (Iranian friend) and I went to a really cool old French restaurant. Absolutely no part of the menu was in English (which is not normal for Paris) and the waiters moved around so fast and wrote down the orders on the table clothes! We talked a lot about his life in Iran and his dreams of moving to Canada. It was so interesting talking to someone who has had such a different experience throughout his whole life than I have. Being born in the US seriously makes everything for us so much easier and we hardly realize it. Talking to Moein made me think a lot about that on the metro ride home! I am happy to have an Iranian friend. It is weird how far away and foreign Iran seemed when we studied it in AP Comp Gov, but now it is the homeland of someone I actually care about! 

Hmm what else did I do this week…? Oh yes! I made cookies. I had my momma send me the recipe and they were delicious. She had me take a screenshot of the recipe while we facetimed hahah. Cecile ate all my cookies, so I made more, and then gave them to my friends. So that was fun! 

 

Goodness gracious, I seriously spent so much time with Prune this week. On Wednesday, since she was sick, she couldn’t go to her Wednesday activiites so she spent the morning stamping my face with her new stamps. And after spending all day with her most days, I had to babysit on Friday and Saturday night. That is not a normal amount of babysitting for an au pair, but Fred and Cecile had had plans last Saturday night which they had to cancel becuase Fred was sick, so I agreed to babysit twice this week. Prune and I watched movies and made pizzas. We watched the Aristocats together, which was awesome because it was actually so much better in French since it takes place in Paris. 

On Saturday afternoon, I had planned to meet up with Jess and Olivia and Maira, but it was too rainy for Olivia and Maira to leave their houses, so Jess and I met up and got a coffee just the two of us. We had planned to all go ice skating, but then it didn’t seem as fun to go without our other friends, and Jess was feeling sick anyways. So we decided not to go, which put me in quite a mood, because I hate it when plans change and I extra-hate it when people decide to tell you they aren’t coming AFTER the time you had planned to meet them. Hahaha I was actually so upset. And then I realized that being upset was a terrible waste of time, which made me upset with myself for getting upset in the first place. I just didn’t know what to do with my day after that! And I was in Paris and there is so much to do in Paris and I was on a metro train home to do nothing, just like I had done all week. And I know, I could have walked around, but I wanted to talk to people because I had been alone all week with Prune, but at the same time I was in a bad mood and I didn’t want to talk to anyone becuase I knew how ridiculous I was being. I decided to have a relaxing bath, and then watch a movie, but when I got home Cecile was like “oh! You don’t have plans anymore? Great! Want to help me with Prune’s birthday party preparations?” and I didn’t know how to say “No, do it yourself, I will be in my room alone watching movies” so I helped her and as I did, we gossiped about my friends, and gossiped about her friends, and then went back to my friends and talked about how great they actually are hahaha. I was annoyed they hadn’t showed up, but as we talked I found myself defending them, and then remembering how much I love them and everything hahah. I also realized that I hadn’t spent the afternoon doing nothing, but rather practicing my French and bonding with my host family! That is certainly not a waste of a day, in my opinion. 

And now I am over here in this Starbucks, listening to a cute little tourist couple speakign very American-accented, broken French to an old man. I think they are doing a language exchange, and it is seriously so adorable. I am going to spend the rest of this day planning other weekend trips and skyping my family and what-not. It wil be a good day! 

I CAN’T BELIEVE HOW SOON MY MOM AND SISTER ARE COMING TO SEE MEEEEE! 

I keep forgetting that they are coming and getting excited all over again! :D

I love them. 

Hahaha, also, I don’t think this is necessary to blog about, but last night I was talking to my buddy Todd on snapchat, and he asked me if I was human. I didn’t reallly understand his question, so I made further inquiries, and discovered that Todd has a theory that I am actually an alien who landed on Earth and was just like “WOW! What a strange but lovable place! There is so much to do here and I want to do EVERYTHING!” and so that is why I moved to Chile and then France and that will also explain all the other decisions I will make in my future. Hahah. 

I love Todd so much. He thinks absolutely nothing of himself and always says weird things like this about me that make me laugh and love him even more. He is kind of like a puppy honestly. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done; if you are a decent human being to this guy, he will do his best to make your day every now and then and for that I have a lot of respect for him. 

 

 

Okay, well, that is all for today! Good bye! :D

 

 

A Simple Week in Paris

This blog post probably won’t be as exciting as the last few have been because, IF you can believe it, I stayed in only one country for the ENTIRE weekend. What? Yes. I know. Crazy. 

Hahaha, I still had a pretty great week, though, and I would loooove to tell you about it, of course! 

To start things off, this week was cold. It has dropped down to -5 dregrees (C) and that sort of weather was niether expected nor welcomed by anyone in Paris. Well, actually, to be fair, everyone knew it was going to get cold but it’s always a bit surprising to go outside and take a few steps and then all of a sudden realize that it feels like the bones in your face have turned to frozen metal. I didn’t think it was too cold at the beginning of the week because I had just returned from Germany where there was snow everywhere so Paris just felt warm to me. I continued to get up in the mornings and run and everything, but as the week wore on, the cold began to make my head hurt and I began to feel so tired and cranky. I know, there are perfectly happy people in colder places, but there is something about being cold and cranky and then having to take care of a colder and crankier child that just isn’t fun! 

I always tell myself (probably because my mom always told me that she tells herself) that running will make me feel better. Even when I don’t reallyyyy want to go, I should go anyways because it is always worth it afterwards. That’s what I kept telling myself on Wednesday, when I was falling apart and so tired after spending the morning with Prune and was developing a migraine. I decided to take a nap, and decide whether or not to run when I woke up. The first two hours of my nap didn’t actually involve sleep though, because my head hurt so bad. I took some IBProfin and went back into my bed and then I was able to sleep for about an hour! When I woke up, I felt a lot better. I still felt sleepy, and my head still hurt, but I felt good because it was the evening and I was going to go back to sleep in just a couple hours and I had no other responsibilies to see to for the rest of the day. I decided to clean my room and wash my bedsheets and then read for a bit before dinner. That night, I slept from 23:00 until 9:30 the next morning, and OH MY GOODNESS I woke up on Thursday feeling so refreshed and not exhausted and ready to go out into the cold and have a good day. I had planned to run that morning, but deciding to sleep instead made my day soooo nice. I guess I realized that running is amazing and makes me feel good but so does sleeping hahah. And I should sleep more. Especially when it is really really cold outside. 

Unless I feel like running, of course. :)

This week I got lunch with friends twice! On Tuesday, I went to the Japanese restaurant where Fred and Cecile took me my first week in Paris with Bianca (German), Moein (Iranian) and Jess. It was fun introducing Jess to my friends from my new French class! We spoke in French the entire time so it was good practice AND lots of fun! The food was also sooo good and so inexpensive! 

I suppose I should tell you a bit about my new French class because I have only barely skimmed over the subject since I have blogged so much about my weekend trips! I think I have told you that I LOVE my new class and teacher, and that is still very true hahah. Every day I wake up and I get excited to go to class and learn things and see my friends and laugh because our teacher is such a goofball. In my class, there are a lot of Venezualians who are always getting me to speak in Spanish with them and that also makes me very happy! I get to practice some Spanish, which is so nice, but I also get to practice not mixing it up with French because it gets difficult switching back and forth from speaking with Bianca in French and the others in Spanish! They all laugh at me a lot, as I struggle through and speak three languages at once. It makes me laugh too hahah. The only thing that isn’t so happy is how little I can understand of Venezualian Spanish! They have such a thick accent and they speak so fast and it is like moving to Chile all over again hahaha I understood so little at first! Now I have warmed up a bit to their voices and words and can carry a conversation, which is good! They are all such nice people. :D

The other time this week I got lunch with a friend was on Friday, when I met up with Olivia to get sandwiches at the Austrailian cafe where we always used to go for coffee after class. We got some very inexpensive and very delicious sandwiches and talked and stuff for awhile. It was nice spending some time alone with Olivia. I am starting to realize that I like being one-on-one with people more than being in groups. I mean, sometimes it is more fun to be with a group of really fun people, but when you are alone with someone you can really talk to them and give them all your attention. Olivia is such a lovely, polite, and agreeable person, which is kind of strange because she is also such a weirdo. I don’t know how to describe Olivia very well because I don’t think the English language has enough adjectives to fully incapsulate how bizarre and proper this girl is at the same time. She’s a keeper hahaha. And she likes to teach me British things to say. I like that!

On Saturday, Olivia and Jess and I spent a lovely day together and went to Musee de L’Orangerie which is situated in the Luxemburg Gardens. On the metro ride to meet up with them, a group of four guys got onto the same metro train as me and began speaking in Spanish. I listened in, and realized that I completely understood them which was so exciting after always having to try so hard with my Spanish-speaking friends from school. I was starting to wonder why I understood them so well, when I heard one of them say “WEON!” which made me actually grin and gasp out loud which made them all look at me with confused expressions. I smiled and said in Spanish, “I’m sorry, are you Chilean?” and they were like “YEAH!” but then they started teasing me for listening in on their conversations. They were totally joking and we were all laughing, and they asked me where I learned to speak spanish so well and I told them and they thought it was all very cool. They told me I should go get a beer with them, but I told them I had plans and they said they were sad hahah. After a few minutes it was time for me to switch trains and they all said goodbye to me. I couldn’t stop smiling as I walked away. I realized my heart had been beating so fast because I had been nervous about talking to them and tryng to keep my Spanish as fast as theirs. Also, I was so happy to see Chileans! I love those people!

Anyways, when I met up with my friends, we walked around and looked at art and then went to a cafe to pass the time before going back to the same Japonese restaurant we had gone to on Tuesday because Jess really loved it hahah. I am telling you guys, it is really good! We ate our yummy food, shared some green tea ice cream (which they had never tried before!) and then headed down the street to watch a movie. We saw Joy, and it was interesting! We got out of the movies at about 21:30, but we didn’t feel like saying goodbye yet so we decided to go to a youth hostel bar called Belushis that is near where I go to school. Belushi’s was having a live music night, so the three of us sat down at a table and spent a couple more hours laughing and enjoying each other’s company. It was fun because they are both so sillyyyyy! 

They are SO weird.

The metro ride home was a bit of an unexpected adventure for me! My train pulled up and as I stepped in, I realized that everyone else on the train was covered in paint and drinking and singing and dancing. So I kind of crashed a metro car party. I stood awkwardly, smooshed up against the door, hoping that no paint or beer would get spilled on me. Everyone was being so loud and crazy and it began to make me laugh. When they saw me laughing, they raised their glasses to me and started to make me try to dance along with them! Thankfully, my stop came up and it was time for me to leave the train and go home to my quiet house and sleepy in my big comfy bed! 

Now, it is Sunday and I am at home and on the couch blogging. I wanted to go to a cafe and blog this morning, but I am going to the Eiffel Tower to go ice skating later and I don’t want to go into Paris twice or have to skate with my computer in a backpack!

I have had a really good week, and Prune did too! Apparently she was a bit naughty when I was in Germany, and lost her TV priveliges during the entire week, which made my job a little harder, but also gave us a lot of time for painting! We made a bunch of little animal sculptures and then Prune painted them and gave them to her teachers. 

I am only really telling you this because I have this adorable picture of her to post and it needed some foundation.

THE END! See you next week. :D

 

 

 

 

 

My German Adventure!

Alors. Germany, Germany, Germany. I always wanted to go to Germany, and this weekend, I finally got the chance! 

I don’t know why I have always been so obsessed with Germany. I think it started when I met a bunch of super great German exchange students in Chile, but for all I know my obsession could have began long before that. Who knows?! Hahaha. When I was in Chile, I made a bunch of awesome German friends, and one of those friends was Nigel, who went to the same school as me and who, over the year, became like a brother to me. I grew to love Nigel very much, and it was so sad to say goodbye to him when we left Chile. BUT. Here we are, two years later, and I have just returned to Paris from the most wonderful weekend in Berlin that I could have hoped for and I spent all of it with Nigel! 

My journey began on Saturday morning, when I got up somewhat early to take the train to the airport. Goodness, people, I am so good at getting to the airport now. I don’t even read the signs anymore hahah my body just knows where to walk at this point! 

My flight ended up being delayed about a half hour, but I have learned not to get upset about that. I know, I know, sometimes you just can’t help getting upset about stuff, but other times you just have to realize that being upset won’t make you get to Berlin any faster so you might as well take a turn about the gift shops or eat a sandwich until your plane actually arrives. 

On the plane, I sat next to a very talkative German man and over the two hour plane ride, we had some pretty interesting conversations. I have no idea what his name is or how old he is, but I do know that his New Years resolution is to meditate more, he is a computer genius with an degree in singing, he thinks I should do something proffesionally with languages, and that he was returning to Germany from “nerd” meeting in Salt Lake City. He did most of the talking and subject-choosing in our conversation, but as we got up to get off the plane, he told me, “Sally, you are an amazing person.” I thanked him and said goodbye, and walked away wondering if he was a little crazy, or a little lonely or if people didn’t listen to him enough and he was grateful to have a stranger to talk to. Or if I actually am amazing. Or maybe a combination of all those things all at once with a bow on top. Who knows?! Anyways, that is when I saw NIIIIIIIGEL! I ran through the gates and gave him a suuuuuuper big hug and, just like that, we were off on a bus to explore Berlin! 

After a half-hour bus ride of going back and forth about how we couldn’t believe we were together again and in Europe, and how so very happy we were about that, we arrived in the city and he began the mini-tour he had layed out for me. I had specifically requested for “interesting but free” things to be on our agenda, and Nigel really made that happen! We first visited a famous church (I don’t know how to pronounce or spell the name of it) that the US had bombed a while ago but still looked amazing and old and beautiful. People aren’t allowed to go inside of it because it is too dangerous, but it was still cool to look at.

Next we took a train to a different part of the city where I got to see the Brandenburg Gate complete with the lovely Quadriga chillin’ on top. I had done no research about what I wanted to see in Berlin and walking around with Nigel made me feel kind of guilty for forgetting just about everything I had learned in AP Euro only a few years before. But I asked him all my questions, most of which made him laugh, but like the wonderful, caring, person he is, he did his best to explain everything. 

Don’t remember what that was but it was important.

 

We then meandered on past the American Embassy and over to the Holocaust Memorial where we spent a lot of time walking around and marveling at the artwork. While we were there, we had an intersting discussion that really opened my eyes to a part of German culture that I don’t think a lot of people think about too often. Nigel mentioned that it is sad that just by being from Germany, wherever else he travels people bring up the Holocaust and make Hitler jokes and there is no easy way to respond to such behaviour. Kind of like how when I travel, a small part of me worries that when people find out I am from the US they will judge me for being from a country of loud and uneducated obese people (because we really have that stereotype in a lot of places, guys), Nigel has to remember/worry about the fact that the first thing that a lot of people think of when they hear the word “Germany” is Hitler and the Holocaust.  It made me feel like I understood him in a way because, although it is a pretty different subject/story, I have had a lot of people from different countries who I meet while traveling ask me if I hate black people. They bring it up because everything that happened with slavery in the US was tragic and terrible but the thing is that most of the time, I have heard it as a joke. They say it as something that implies  “ha-ha in your country you used to treat black people like animals and that was really stupid of you guys so I am going to make a light-hearted joke about it.” But it isn’t funny. Similarily, it is not funny when people make Nazi hand gestures to German people or refer to Germany as “the land of the Nazis.” It isn’t the same as bringing up some embarrassing story of your best friend when he/she had a rough night out. It isn’t funny. We weren’t there, but we feel guilty and disgusted that anything like that ever happened anywhere. I don’t know if I am getting my point across or exactly what my point is to begin with, but Nigel and I talked about this for awhile and it was an interesting thing to think about. 

We had awhile before catching a train into the Falkensee, Nigel’s little town outside Berlin, so we sat down and got some hot chocolate and enjoyed being inside and safe from the cold.

Little pieces of the Berlin Wall.

First every used traffic light? Cool! 

 

We got to Nigel’s house in the early evening, and his family gave me warm, welcome hugs. I had never met them before, but they were super nice and said Nigel had shown them pictures of me! They all spoke perfect English, too! Their house was beautiful, and I was stoked to see that there was even a little snow on the ground in their little town. I got situated in my room and then Nigel and I hung out in his room for awhile, listening to Reggaeton and reminiscing about our time spent in Chile together. He showed me all the things he had kept from his exchange, like his school uniform and the jacket he wore every single day that ended up making him pretty famous at our school hahah. He also showed me the letters I had given him during the year, which included a letter I wrote him when he was sad because I had to switch schools and he missed me, and a goodbye poem that I had written him at the end of the year. In the end of the poem, I promised him that I would see him in Germany someday, and it was soooo sweet to be able to hold that promise in my hands as it was actively being carried out! We gossiped about our Chilean friends, who all know each other, and about how the other exchange students were doing. After awhile, it was time to leave and walk to his friends house because he wanted me to see how Germans youths hang out.

We went outside to discover that snow was falling lightly. It sparkled so prettily under the lamplight and his town was so quiet you could hear the electricity buzzing in the street-lamps. We walked along to the pleasant sound of our feet crunching over the fresh snow, and i was so stoked about being in the snow that I wasn’t able to focus on how freezing it was outside hahah. 

Nigel’s friends were very nice! They all were able to speak English, but of course they spoke to each other in German most of the time. They really did make an effort to get to know me, though, and Nigel was always pressuring them to have side-conversations with me or pressuring me to say difficult words in German hahaha. I really liked getting to meet Nigel’s friends because they were very sweet and entertaining. A little after midnight, i told Nigel I was tired and he was really cool about leaving his friends so I could get some sleep! We walked home and the walk was even more beautiful on the way back! More snow had fallen and everything felt so peaceful and safe. We drew smiley faces on the snow-topped cars and slid in our boots over the slippery roads. When we got home, I was so content and sleepy and it felt so nice to lie down in my own big bed after an exciting day of travel. 

The next morning, I woke up in a snowy paradise and then the whole family had breakfast together after sleeping in. Apparently it is their tradition to do this every Sunday, and i found that very sweet. The food really reminded me of Chilean meals, because it was mostly delicious bread with various toppings. I was served coffee-pot coffee, which was AMAZING and tasted just like home! During the preparation of the breakfast, my job was to entertain their adorable dog, Sydney! What a cuuuutie.

After a long and lovely lovely meal, Nigel got ready and I packed up my backpack and we took off to see some more historically-relevant places in Berlin. We went to Checkpoint Charlie, where we were able to walk around and read about the restrictions of the Berlin Wall as well as see pictures that portrayed how different it looked to be standing where we were only 50 years ago. It was crazy to read the personal stories families had submitted to the display and try to comprehend that all of these extreme things that happened really didn’t happen that long ago at all. 

I stayed suuuper bundled up hahah.

That is my snow face.

Those who lived in Eastern Germany were only allowed to drive this type of car. Now people paint them and stuff because nobody drives them anymore!

 

 

When our hands got cold through our gloves, we made our way over and into the Mall of Berlin where we sat down to eat some lunch. I had told Nigel that I wanted to try “German Food” while in Germany, and Nigel, not knowing what to feed me, was thrilled to discover a food-court restaurant named “Harry’s German Food” and that is where we ate lunch hahahah. 

After lunch, it was time to go back to the airport and get on the plane that would take me back to Paris. The closer we got to the airport, the sadder Nigel looked. I tried to cheer him up in the airport, but he told me he was sad because now that I had already visited him, he didn’t know what to look forward to. I told him he should look forward to visiting me in Paris, because, well, he NEEDS to. I want to show him everything! I was sad to see that he was so bummed about me leaving, but it also made me feel loved and lucky to have a friend like him. Before going through security, I got two last big-bear-hugs from my not-so-little German brother and I felt so grateful that everything had worked so well for us. He stuck around as I went through security, watching me through the glass to make sure everything went well. When I got through security, I turned around to blow him one last “YOU’RE THE BEST GERMAN BROTHER IN THE UNIVERSE” kiss before leaving to find my gate.

I was surprised at how smoothly everything worked out for my flight back. I got home so early that I had time to write this blog before going to sleep! Craaaazy. My trip to Germany was so short but sooooo worth it, and now I can always go there again, and better yet, I am now positive that I really want to return there in the not-too-far-off-future! I highly recommend going on a trip to Berlin if you feel like having a fantastic weekend hahah. I only got to see parts of it, but that is so much better than nothing at all! Now I only have like 16 million other German friends to visit while I am here hahah. 

Okay, I am so tired now. 

Goodnight everyone! I hope you liked this blog. :D