I just wrote a really long blog post and then deleted the whole thing, guys. Hahaha I am going to rewrite it as best as I can, but the sad part is that I wrote a pretty great introduction and now I cannot remember it. Oh well, I am just going to jump right into the week!
The last time I blogged was Monday, so I will start with Tuesday! On Tuesday, I got lunch with my Italian friend, Alessandra! I hadn’t seen Alessandra in a really long time, so it was very nice to get to catch up with her again. We went to a delicious Japanese restaurant and spent a couple lovely hours tellng each other about how our lives have been since December. I don’t know if you remember her, but she was the closest friend I made in the week that I was in the A2 French class, and I love hanging out with her because we have to speak in French with each other! She is a very pretty and very sweet girl and someday I will visit her in Italy and someday she has to come visit me in California. God, I love Italy. And Italians. They really are the best, I think. Like Anna! Hahaha. :)
On Thursday the only very special thing that happened was that I got to wear the festive St. Patrick’s Day socks that my mom had sent me. It was kinda funny walking through the streets of Paris with silly green socks on, but I didn’t mind a bit. I felt happy for the day to be a silly American and especially happy to wear socks my momma had picked out just for me. I certainly didn’t fit in with the stylish Parisians, but do I ever? Hahahah. I got some compliments in the hallway at Campus Langues from students from the US and the UK! I don’t know. I am glad I wore those silly socks.
And when I picked up Prune from school, I was so pleased to see that she had remembered to wear green pants like I had told her to! I should have taken a picture with Prunette, but at least I have a picture of my socks!
On Friday, my dreams basically came true. Hahaha only kind of. You see, before my exchange, whether it was because of Juliana or what happened with Franco or just the excitement of going on an exchange, I got very attached to the group of outbounds and inbounds of district 5130. I passed some of the most amazing weekends of my life with those people, and on Friday I got to get lunch with one of them. Over the years, I have gotten to visit a couple of the exchange students from my distric from the year before my exchange, but this Friday was special because I got to see one of my favorites: MAX FROM CORSICA! He was in Paris for a couple days and asked if I would want to get lunch on Friday afterschool, and I was soooo happy to be able to do that. Talking to Max was nice because we got to catch up, but it was also really nice because it brought back many memories of Carlo making me as uncomfortable as he possibly could and Juliana laughing at everything always and Max always being around and making weird faces. These people meant so much to me when I was a little baby high schooler, and seeing Max was cool because three years had gone by and we had changed in our own ways but I could still see in him the Max I knew when I was an untravelled sophomore in high school who just wanted to go places. We got lunch at the little Australian cafe and did our talking and then it was time for me to go back to work and get Prune. Saying goodbye wasn’t difficult though, for he will come to California this summer!
When I got to the school to pick up Prune on Friday, Anastazja surprised me with French flan she had picked up on the way to school so we spent a lovely afternoon eating a yummy tread in the sun as we watched the children play. I told her about how I had plans that evening to go “celebrate St. Patrick’s Day” with Jess and Olivia, and then proceeded to beg and beg and beg her to come with us! I wanted my friends to meet each other so badly. After a lot of convincing, she agreed to come with me and I was sooooo happy!
That evening, Anastazja and I met on the metro to go meet up with Jess and Olivia. One of the really nice things about being friends with Anastazja is that she lives very close to me, so going out with her means I only have to take the metro alone for one station! We all met up Olivia’s house where we sat around and talked and laughed about things and what-not. Anastazja and Olivia and Jess seemed to get along very well, and Anastazja got to practice a lot of English! After hanging out at Olivia’s for awhile, we went to an Irish bar to get drinks. Anastazja and I didn’t stay for long at all because we were tired and had a big day planned for Saturday and we didn’t want to be too sleepy. We rode the metro home together and said goodbye at Gabriel Peri! I was so glad she came out to meet my friends. It meant a lot to me that she would get out of her comfort zone for me in that way. She is similar to me in that she rarely feels ready to go out, so I felt really lucky that she agreed to come with me! What a fantastic friend.
On Saturday morning, I met up with Anastazja in the metro and we headed off to the Louvre. We walked along in the Louvre for quite awhile and Anastazja showed me some of her favorite places. She really likes museums and I like going to museums with people who love museums so it worked out very well. Inside the Louvre, we found my name on a wall and I had to take a picture with it hahah. When we got hungry, we left to go grocery shopping so we could go back to her house and make some veggie lasagna. On the way to the normal supermarket, we stopped at her favorite Japanese market to pick up some stuff she needed at home. Anastazja really likes Japanese stuff, and it was cool seeing all the colorful snacks and having no clue what anything was hahah.
Once we made it back to Anastazja’s house, the long cooking process began. Her kitchen isn’t huge, so it took a lot of time to prepare the different sauces and things we needed for the lasagna, but we had fun the whole time. We talked and then took little breaks to sit down and do things on her computer and I got to try her favorite juice from her childhood! She showed me her house in Poland on google earth and then I showed her all the places I have lived in California! It was interesting to see where she comes from and I liked showing her my little cities in the States! Hours later, the lasagna was done and it was delicious because 1) we are bomb ass chefs and 2) we hadn’t eaten anything all day. Seriously, I couldn’t believe how delicious it was hahah. When we finished our lasagna, we made a cake hahah. It was a layer cake (kinda) because it had layers? I don’t know how that works actually. We made a dense dark chocolate cake and then a custard and chopped up strawberries and then put them in glasses in the most pretty way we could. It was fun to make, and they also tasted like heaven hahah. While we were finishing up the cakes, Anastazja’s boyfriend got home from work and I got to meet him! His name is Chris and Anastazja had talked about him a lot before so it was nice to finally get to meet him. He is also Polish! I sat with them and we talked for awhile and I asked them a lot of questions about Poland. Someday I will travel there and make Anastazja show me around, evening if she is living in France hahah. When it was time to go home, Chris even walked me to the metro because he said Anastazja would be devestated if something were to happen to me hahah. What a nice couple! Oh my goodness. How am I lucky enough to get to meet all these great people? Thank you, liiiife.
Now it is Sunday morning and I am blogging while making a cake for the family birthday party we are having for Prune later today. I made a typical French almond cake and it smells like it will taste pretty good! I am glad that I get to participate in all these family events. It isn’t always easy to find things to do on Sundays, so when I can spend them with the family that is almost always what I prefer to do. :)
Before saying goodbye, I would like to address a picture that I posted online this week so that I can explain it a little. Usually, I prefer to post only happy happy happy things online, but the other day, I ended up with this picture and I felt the urge to share it with my friends from all over the world. You see I was in my livingroom thinking about things on the couch, when I began to admire the big green book case and I decided I wanted to take a picture with it. I put my phone on self-timer, and went and sat in front of it. I didn’t mean to look sad, I just didn’t want my face in the picture, and anyways, I was only feeling a tiny bit sad that morning. But when I saw the picture, I saw how I have felt for so much of this year. Seeing the picture made me want to climb into it and hug myself haha.
Because this picture really captured my experience with homesickness! Homesickness for me, is feeling more empty than you should feel. When I am homesick, I don’t want to sleep and I don’t want to read or watch anything or talk to anyone I just want to sit in a ball and and not face reality. It makes me feel like I don’t have the energy to exist as much as I should be existing. I have said a million times that I am doing better here, and it is very true, but this year has been hard and this picture really captured that. And I am glad I have the picture, because I don’t want to forget that I felt this way.
I am going to live a happy life and I am going to do somewhat great things that help people and I am going to smile so much and laugh so often. But I am also going to have days where I sit in a ball on the floor, green book case or no green book case, and becaues of this year, I am going to be able to trust that completely happy days will come back. And when they come back, I am not going to ruin them by worrying they wont last.
And today, I am going to have fun at Prunettes birthday and I am going to ice skate.
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