Last weekend I went to Paris for the wonderful A's 20th birthday! She and her mom picked me up from the airport Thursday night, after which I stayed the night with her at her apartment in Paris. We got up early the next day so I could accompany her to her oral presentation, and then watch all the other groups. After a lovely picnic in a park nearby, we watched a film one of the other groups had made. Then we grabbed an RER train down to her town and stayed overnight with her parents. It was so great to see them after all this time! So little has changed there.

A had to work Saturday so I slept in and did homework. Then we went back to Paris to go to the ball, but unfortunately A forgot her key at home in her jacket pocket so she had to meet her father halfway between to get it. I stayed behind, since she had a metro pass and I would have had to pay to go back. We finally got into the apartment, got ready, and headed off to the ball!

It was in the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature near the National Archives, and it was so gorgeous! There was a garden courtyard outside and a cellar downstairs with a DJ and the first floor was beautiful rooms with high ceilings and old furniture and wonderful moldings.We stayed until 4 am (3 am with the daylight savings time change that night) before one of the guys walked us home. I saw Notre Dame and the Seine on the way back!

After sleeping in, A and I took the RER back to her town so we could celebrate her birthday! We had lunch with her family, her cousin, her boyfriend, and her grandparents. Then, of course, came presents and cake. Surprisingly, her parents gave me Easter chocolate and her grandmother gave me a scarf! They're so nice, considering it wasn't my birthday or anything. Then A, her boyfriend, and I played games until she had to leave. She went back to Paris because she had an exam the next morning, and I stayed the night with her parents again. A's mother drove me to the airport Monday morning at 6am so I could get my 8am flight back to Geneva. Upon arrival, I had class (of course) and continued my day as normal except for the fact that I was quite tired from the general lack of sleep during the course of the weekend.

I don't really have pictures to show you guys because they're all from the party and they're just of people dancing. Next time I go to Paris, though, I will do plenty of sightseeing and will have lots of pictures for you!

MARSEILLE:

I caught a 6:44AM train to Marseille from Geneva which arrived a half hour late. After getting lost finding the hostel (I had no map!) I dropped off my stuff and took a long walk around Marseille. I had lunch for only 4 euros at the Palais de Justice and then climbed a really high hill to Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde:

Afterwards I saw the Abbeye Saint-Victor, then the Parc and Chateau du Pharo, which is absolutely gorgeous! You can see the entire Vieux Port. Then I walked around the Port so I saw the Théâtre National "La Criéel", the Fort St. Nicolas, and the Fort St. Jean. From there I saw the Cathédrale Majeure, which is also amazing:

I also saw the Vieille Charité and got lost finding the Arc de Triomphe so I saw quite a bit more of Marseille than I was intending. After dinner I headed back to the hostel to meet my three male Ugandan roommates who were quite loud in the morning and one snored all night long.

On Saturday I escaped early from the hostel and took a ferry to the Château d'If to see the castle:

It was really amazing to see and totally worth the ferry ride and 15 euros. Afterwards I took a tram to the Palais des Longchamps only to discover that 2 of the 3 museums I wanted to see there are closed until 2013. I did get to see the Musée Gorbet, which is full of so much gorgeous furniture, paintings, woodwork, etc. I can't decide on just one picture to post on here, so you'll have to look at all of them on my Facebook.

There was a protest at the Palais des Longchamps so I wasn't able to take the tram back. I saw a really gorgeous church but I'm not sure of its name. Also on the way back I did some shopping and figured out my size in European numbers. I had dinner, then did a bit more shopping and finally returned to the hostel to do some homework. I discovered that I had some new roommates! Four girls from Strasbourg with whom I was able to speak French, and they were super nice. They invited me out on Sunday with them and we wandered for a bit because one was looking for a subject for her architecture project. We saw the Cathédrale Majeure again before I said goodbye to them and grabbed the metro to St. Charles train station. I caught the 1:44PM train back to Geneva and got here just in time for dinner.

And that was my weekend! It was very enjoyable and just the right amount of time. Marseille is nice for a weekend but I'm not sure I'd ever want to spend a considerable length of time there simply because it acks the charm I think a lot of other European cities have. Oh well, the historical stuff is still really pretty!

Hi everybody! I have a lot to catch you up on.

So I said in my last post that I have six classes and I'm dying from stress. This week got to be too much; I only left my room for 2 hours last weekend, Thursday night to Monday morning, because I was doing homework the entire time. That is not at all healthy, especially this early in the semester. So I went to our Director and asked to drop a class. What I'm hoping to do is make one of my other remaining classes a four-credit class instead of two-credit to make up for the class I'm planning to drop. We'll see how it goes, and I'll give you a final update.

At the moment I am in Marseille! I hopped on a train at 6:42AM and got here about 11. After getting lost I finally found the hostel, then after dropping off my stuff I took a tour around the city. I saw all the major churches and monuments, which was quite an achievement in only 7 hours. I also got lost yet again, and spent about an hour walking around aimlessly. Thank God for my map, but it doesn't have all the little streets on it.

I've had a pleasant time here so far, but I must admit I would never want to live here. It doesn't have the same historical charm that a lot of the other European cities do, and honestly, it's dirty. There is litter and trash everywhere, as well as cigarette butts and poop because no one cleans up after their dogs, apparently. A lot of things are falling in disrepair, too, which is really sad.

Additionally, some of the men here have been horrible. I get upset enough with being catcalled (honestly, what do they think I gain from knowing they think I'm attractive? Do they the opinion of a stranger matters to me, especially when it is expressed in such a crude manner?) but today I walked by this group of guys who were maybe a year or two younger than me, and one of them pushed his friend into me as I walked by. I know he did it on purpose because he looked at me, looked at his friend, and then pushed him, so at least I had a 2 second warning. But besides the fact that this is extremely rude in general, it also was a pretty hard push. This kid almost knocked me over. I turned around and was completely beyond trying to yell at him (the one who did the pushing) in French so I just said "REALLY?!" and he was like "Oh sorry, I didn't mean to" as he is LAUGHING. I really wish I had yelled at him but instead I just kept walking. Ahhhh!

Other than those experiences though, it hasn't been bad at all and I am enjoying the experience. For those of you worried about the fact that I'm traveling by myself, I'm limiting myself to a curfew of nightfall. Also, since I got up at 6AM, I am quite tired right now so I will be going to bed soon. Goodnight everybody!

So I've had a very stressful week. I have 6 classes, 3 of them seminars, and I have so much reading to do I could use it as a pillow. However, all that means nothing because I just got some amazing news:

I'M HOUSE COORDINATOR OF DAWES NEXT YEAR!

For those of you not from Smith, it means I will be the Residence Life member of Dawes House (the French house) next year, so I will be on House Council and I'll have the gigantic room on the first floor (among other responsibilities, of course). I'm very excited!

So I'm sitting in room XX of the United Nations right now, waiting for a break to be over. Let me tell you how I got here:

After leaving class early (yay for professors having other things to do) I hopped on a tram to Mole where I grabbed a croissant because there are no cafes around the UN and I was hungry. I get back on the tram, it goes one stop to Butini, and then says "Terminus." Umm.... what? You have another 3 to go! Then the conductor gets on and says, "Sorry, because of the protest going on around the UN, we're not running there anymore and the service will recommence later this evening."Great. Now I have to walk 3 tram stops, up a hill, to get to the UN. At least I was practical and wore flat boots today instead of heels.

I can understand why they stopped the tram service, though: the whole area in front of the UN is filled with people and flags and they are really loud, and there were even more people parading in. From what I could gather from the signs, they were upset about the human rights abuses in Sri Lanka and the fact that the UN hadn't done anything. Also, there was stuff about Kashmir and kidnappings of Tamil children in Sri Lanka. Obviously those are really big issues, and the UN shouldn't be ignoring them. But can you be surprised it does when countries like Syria stand up and say, "If you're committing your own human rights abuses *cough* Israel *cough* you shouldn't be worrying about what's going on in our country. That's our business- it's called state sovereignty," as they did earlier today.

I have to ask, though- whose idea was it to put a giant concrete square in front of the UN with no other purpose than the chair monument? It's the perfect place to protest. Clearly this wasn't thought out very well, since that giant concrete square also includes the tram stop. Which is, of course, the core of my problem- I fully support the protest, just not the fact that I had to walk three tram stops to get to the UN because of it. Rant over.

BARCELONA:

So we arrived in Barcelona mid-afternoon and set off to find our hostel. It was in a small placa off the street La Ramblas which is full of touristy places because its right off the Placa del Sol. Here's the Placa at night:

And here is the view from my hostel window:

After some shopping C, G, and I had pizza for dinner (I know, pizza in Spain, but we've been craving it and it's far too expensive in Geneva, like everything else!) and some sangria. Then we grabbed some churros (basically fried dough and chocolate) at a cute cafe on the Placa del Sol.

That night we slept in a dorm room with 10 beds, and so since there were four of us we met six strangers: 2 French guys, 2 Belgians (one boy one girl), a guy from Argentina and his friend. Anyway, the Belgians came back drunk at about 4 am and made a huge racket; then, the Belgian boy proceeds to wake us all up about an hour later with his snoring. He stopped on his own, so we all went back to sleep. Fast forward to two hours later, when he is snoring again. I didn't think it could get any louder, but it did. So, to solve the problem, G throws her almost full water bottle at his head from across the room and hits him. He wakes up (obviously in pain) and the problem is solved. When we checked out in the morning, I was the last one out of the room, and he was still in bed right next to the door. As I opened it, he looked up at me, so I couldn't resist slamming the door on my way out.

Sunday we spent sight-seeing because there is so much to see but we had so little time! G and I took one of those cheesy tour buses that was actually worth it because of the time constraints. We saw everything: the mountain, the National Art Museum of Cataluyna, the port, the beach, tons of statues and famous buildings, a bull-fighting stadium, lots of work by Gaudi, the Sagrada Familia, the list goes on.

After running back and grabbing our suitcases at the hostel we left for the airport, which turned into quite the affair. We thought we could take the metro and then a train into the airport, but we got lost and had to take the airport express instead, so we almost missed our flight! Thankfully some people let us cut in line at security so we got there alright.

I know there should be more to this post, but a lot of the places I saw I didn't get to see up close because I was on a bus tour and strained for time. I have lots and lots of pictures (over 400) on Facebook if you'd like  to look through them. Hopefully I'll get around to putting descriptions with all of them soon.

MADRID:

C, G, and I left Geneva airport at just before 6pm on Thursday night on our way to Madrid.  The mountains were absolutely gorgeous when we passed over them, and the sun was setting when we landed in Madrid. We took the airport shuttle into town, and though I had directions printed out, we got a little lost. Thankfully, the Spanish are very kind and we had no less than 3 guys walk up to us and offer help with directions because they spoke English and we looked lost. The last guy, R, G invited to go out with us later that night, and we told him to meet us at the bear:

Then we went on a very round-about trip to find our hostel, which included getting directions from many more people, and ultimately we realized we had been sent in the wrong direction originally and taken an hour detour when the hostel was only a 3 minute walk from where we started. *sigh*

We had a 4-bed female dorm to ourselves, and as there was three of us we had an extra roommate, this girl from Germany. We took full advantage of the free wifi and the shower, and then went out with R. He took us to El Tigre, a cute little bar where if you buy a drink, you get free food! So we had authentic Spanish food in an authentic Spanish atmosphere, and I learned that the measure of a good bar in Spain is how dirty it is.

After a peaceful night's sleep (well not really, people outside were very loud) we went down to the cafeteria for some free breakfast, and that's when the fun begins. We all brought our purses with us to breakfast so that they wouldn't get stolen in the room, and lo and behold, C's bag is stolen at breakfast. She had put it on the back of her chair and some guy walked in off the street and grabbed it. We could see him on the video cameras later coming out of the hallway from the cafeteria holding his coat in front of him, and presumably her bag underneath it.

As soon as we got up to leave she said, "Where's my bag? I brought my bag with me but I can't find it!" Immediately deducing what had happened I directed her to the front desk (the receptionists were very helpful!) and we started checking trash cans in the hopes the thief would take the money and leave everything else. Her purse had literally everything in it- all her money, her passport, her phone, her ipod, her camera, her residence card and all other forms of ID.

We called the Smith Center to get direction on what to do, called two different embassies (she has dual citizenship), called the airlines to ask about check-in ID requirements, her parents, the credit card company, the bank, the list goes on. Thankfully, since it was a Friday, the US embassy was open and we were able to get her a passport. If this had happened Saturday morning instead, she would have had to stay in Madrid through Monday when they reopened.

After a trip to the police station to report the theft, C left for the embassy and G, J (who had just arrived), and I saw the royal palace:

And a cathedral. We also grabbed some lunch at the Placa Mayor:

Where our waiter didn't speak English. I tried paella, though, and had some steak. After that we headed to the hostel to grab C, who was back from the embassy, and then G and I went to meet R again to do some shopping! I got a really gorgeous black dress that is perfect for work, and it was under 10E when it was originally 36E.

Then we got Chinese food for dinner (I know, right? I'm in Spain, so I eat Chinese food. Please don't be mad at me) which was really good! Afterwards we headed back to the hostel for a good night's sleep.

The next morning, after breakfast, G and I headed to a major park near the Prado which I unfortunately can't remember the name of. It was absolutely gorgeous! We saw the Crystal Palace and a giant monument to Alfonso someone:

It was so gorgeous! They also had boats you could rent to go out on the pond.

Finally, our time in Madrid was done, so we headed to the airport to catch our plane for Barcelona, which I will write about tomorrow!