Was it just a dream?

Le 5 Juin 2009:
I woke up in the middle of the night to a guys standing in an eerie bed lamp light in just a Speedo. He was whiter than me and freakishly skinny... Not the way I wanted to wake up.
Friday was our only full day in Barcelona so we started off by heading to the beach. Ryan, Rachel, and I wanted to do some surfing so we took one of the trains to a beach a little further away that was supposed to get waves. The train station we need was some distance from the hostel so we wandered the streets of Barcelona till we found it.

While we were wandering we happened upon the Barcelona Arc Triomf (they spell it funny). Why do they have one? I still do not know.


It turns out that all of the beaches have barriers that kill the waves, so even if there were any waves they wouldn’t reach us. Most of the beaches were empty. There were probably only 15 other people in sight from where we were on the beach. We found a swing set and a volleyball court, borrowed a ball from a lady at a nearby stand and played. The sand felt good on our feet at first, but it was actually unusually course so by the time we were going to play soccer my feet were raw. I’ve always known that my feet were sensitive but I didn’t realize that they were sensitive on the soles too! Ryan and Rachel played just fine while I was in pain. I should have just practiced my goalkeeping. We stayed on the beach till probably 2 or 3 o’clock at which point we took the train back. As we walked back to our hostel we found the chocolate museum, a couple of markets, the Picasso museum, and a shortcut to the hostel. We also passed about 30 people who were riding scooter bikes?!? I have definitely never seen those before.. We stopped by our hostel to clean up and then headed out to find the Hard Rock Café (not to eat there- Kristin has this thing where she visits every one!) and then we walked down La Ramba to the beach. Do you remember Bed knobs and Broomsticks with the Portabello Road scene? Colton always imitated the guys dancing? Well La Ramba was kind of like that, in a more modern sense- or like that one road in Santa Monica that the Jacksons, Katy, and I went down on Presidents day weekend 2008! There were pet shops, flower shops, guys doing tricks, dancing, and people dressed up in all sorts of costumes. There was one guy who was supposed to be headless? He had a dummy with no head on a chair, and then his head was on the table. The head would hiss and make cat calls, plus he had his donation bowl that would randomly start shaking and make loud noises. He REALLY scared me the first time I passed him. He kicked the bowl and made that noise and I screamed- and I’m not easily scared! I wanted a picture with him so I got out pocket change and went to give it to him after taking a picture. I went to put it in and he hit the bowl again.. at this point I was really freaked out and I just yelled (in English)”Do you want it or not?” and then I laughed at myself, put the money in and walked away.


We continued to walk through La Ramba, an open market, and we passed a lot of vendors till we got to the beach. We bought pizzas and drinks to share and sat on the beach talking. This one guy walked up to us and asked “English or French?” (we were speaking both) and we answered both, this is when I realized a tall guy creeping up behind us, where our purses were. I yelled to the girls to grab their stuff and the guys ran away realizing that their plan was killed. Pickpockets can’t get past me!

Le 6 juin 2009:
We tried to wake up early, but it ended up only being me. All of our hostel mates were out cold after being out really late and surprisingly- my friends were too. We ate breakfast and packed our bags.
From Left to Right: Ryan, Kristin, and Mandy (Mandy and Kristin went on the roller coaster with me a long time ago?)

We found the metro station we needed and went to Sangrada Familia- a beautiful modern church in Barcelona. We were debating going in or not because the sign said “9 euros” but we figured we came so far to Barcelona… as we passed the gates some people gave us these passes, that said the sixth of June open doors, that indicated that we had come to the church on the one day out of the year that it was free. What luck!
 We also visited the Picasso museum, talked with a sweet French vendor from Paris, and went to the beach for the last hour and a half of our stay in Barcelona. Rachel and I were having a competition with Jamie and Hannah to see who could get the coolest pictures on their weekend trips (the other girls went to London). We did a lot of crazy things, but I think I won:

We landed in Paris to a cold wet dreary day and kept thinking about the days we had spent on the beach. We were back in Paris and had been on the beach only 3 hours before… weird.
Le 7 Juin 2009:
My last Sunday at Versailles… This is not a happy thing. I love All of the people in this ward and once again, I made another little friend at church.
Little children are unbiased when it comes to language (even though I spoke French with them), they seemed to be loving as long as you smiled and treated them just right… a bridge of friendship I’m grateful that I have.
It was weird saying bye to my friend Erwan cause I literally will probably never see him again, or anyone else in that ward for that matter.
Sunday was not so restful. Our Navigo or Carte Orange cards ran out today so we had to take our large suitcases (that we weren’t taken to the south of France) to the professors which means I had to pack everything! We were late getting packed after dinner so instead of taking us to the metro, monsieur just kept driving… I was really confused when he turned on the highway and I kind of put up a fight when he said that he was taking us to the Professor’s apartment at Ecole Militaire. He had tricked us! But I was so grateful he did, because instead of taking two hours to get there and back, it took 45 minutes! Boy oh Boy did that save time.
Le 8 juin 2009:
Madame N.D.F. went all out for dinner tonight. We started with diced seasoned beets, which Jamie and I were absolutely terrified of, that actually weren’t half bad. I remember having beets at a Thanksgiving meal at my Grandmothers house and actually throwing up after eating them. I guess we all have to grow up sometime! We had mixed vegetables which were buttery and sweet with bread and three kinds of cheese of course. The main dish was some delectable duck which was more than half fat. Poor Jamie had to try and cover up choking; she hadn’t realized it was fat until it wouldn’t go down . Then for dessert we had a cake that comes from the South of France. It was fluffy on top and bottom with crunchy white sugar pieces on top and a yellow moose cream-like filling that was kind of citrus but sweet. At the end of the meal she brought Jamie and I little wrapped gifts- it’s of the sights of France from an airplane! I’m pretty excited about it, but I’m doubtful that it will work in American DVD players or even my laptop. At this point Jamie and I ran upstairs to get our cameras for family pictures and the quilt that we were going to give Madame. She was absolutely delighted and said that it would perfectly match her bed.
Le 9 juin 2009
My last breakfast in Croissy sur Seine, Madame bought me a pain au chocolat! We were running a little late so Madame heated it up for me and said “Depechez-vous” (even though Jamie wasn’t ready yet), but it was so hot I couldn’t eat it! Monsieur drove us to the RER stop where they both gave us slightly wet Bisoux. I was so sad to leave that it took me 10 minutes of debating whether or not I wanted to wipe off my cheeks to actually do it.
We spent 2 hours on a train to Lyon and then 20 minutes on a Harry Potter look-alike train to get to Vienne, home of the Gaulo Romane artifacts from the 1st century. All of Vienne is gorgeous! First thing when we arrived we put our baggage in our rooms and then found lunch, which we ate in this quaint little park. Then we went to the Gaullo Romane museum, ate popsicles in another park, the church of Saint Maurice, and laid on a dock by le Rhone for 2 hours.
(they all fell asleep)
It’s such a beautiful city, comparable to our programs favorite- Ghent.
We had dinner right by the church that we had previously visited and afterwards: Emily, Fred, Hannah, Jamie, the Rachel’s, and I walked across the river and watched the stars until about 11:30. It was such a beautiful night and we had so much fun just talking with each other.
I did some homework before going to bed and then crashed. I guess I didn’t realize how tired I was because I fell asleep almost immediately. So like my mom I’m a very light sleeper, but for once in my life I didn’t wake up when an alarm went off. The scary part is, this time it was a fire alarm. The fire alarm in our hotel was going off for probably 10 minutes when Jamie started shaking me to wake up, there were other girls in the hall asking her if I was okay because I wasn’t waking up. I guess I should catch up on those uh.. 40 hours of sleep I’m lacking from this trip.
Le 10 Juin 2009
The first and only day that I will ever sleep in while in Europe; we didn’t have to get on the bus till 11 AM! I still woke up pretty early though, got ready, ate breakfast, packed, did homework and visited with the other girls. I really valued that sleep although it was still less than 8 hours. Maybe one day… DC?
We all followed the professor down the street, but he was leading us to this smaller bus… no it couldn’t be… yep. The only small bus we’ve had for this whole study abroad and it’s the one that we will have for the full South of France trip. There are only two empty seats meaning that there are 29 plus the drivers, the seats are really close together, and there’s no bathroom on board! Today I was helping everyone put their bags under the bus (luggage space is tight as well- Paces are known for knowing how to pack cars ) and so I got on and got one of the worst seats- like when the professor leaned back his chair he was in my lap bad. As I’ve mentioned, I don’t really sleep on buses, which today I was extremely reconnaisant for. I stayed up doing my homework and got to see the amazing sights which 90% of my group missed. We arrived in le Puy en Velay mid afternoon, took pictures from up a mountain, settled into the hotel and separated every which way to find lunch and visit the sites. My group got croque monsieurs for lunch (another first) and then we went to Saint Michel Aiguilhe.
(Saint Michel Aiguilhe) We met up for dinner at 6:45 on the stairs of the Cathedral where we’re attending mass (la messe) tomorrow before we start our pilgrimage. We were discussing dinner afterwards and we think that Puy en Velay might just beat Ghent. The food has definitely won over all of our hearts.