It's not goodbye, it's see you later

Looking back , one of the first posts on here was 9 days before leaving France. I felt it only necessary to bring up the fact that now, it’s reversed. I will be home in 9 days. NINE…and I’m still not sure how I feel about it. at all.

Last week was our last full week of classes, we reviewed, had last minute tests, and said goodbye. The entire week was sort of bittersweet, but the end of it was the worst(or best).... international night. Basically anyone who wanted to could go and present something about their country…it was mainly songs, dances, and little skits. I didn’t partake in the presenting, but I did go to watch it all, and I’m glad I did. I got to see many different cultures do dances and sing, and that was incredible. M. Melin got up and gave one last speech to us all “chers etudiants” =( and talked about how he loves when students are sad when they leave cuz’ it proves they enjoyed their time with cidef….true. Two favs of the night where when a group of Americans got up to do the cupid shuffle, and ended up pulling our cidef professors up there to teach it to them. It was really entertaining to watch M.Melin, Floc, and a few other of my profs get down with their bad selves ;) To end the night, the assistants (and my translation prof) got up and did a really hilarious dance number…oh which I can’t even fully describe to you, but just know it was extremely funny and Adrien turned red when we mentioned ‘Super Cidef’ ;)

 Wednesday afternoon was Cassie's last time with us (she left early) and Sarah, Cassie and I spent it buying souvenirs around Angers and not wanting to part. When we were saying our goodbyes, M.Melin was not far away, and he literally stopped his car to watch us part...he really does get joy out of seeing us saddened to leave...=p

Traduction

The last classes were spent reviewing a little, but mostly enjoying eachothers company, and saying goodbye. We took pictures with professors, and as a class. Friday morning was my last langue class, and all we did was eat and talk. Everyone brought in food of their own culture, and I at least tried everything offered to me…(8 am Chinese food? Sure why not…Chinese candy…beef flavored..pourquoi pas?)but alas, only a few minutes after returning chez moi…the food made me sick…literally. I don’t think my digestive system is up to par for legit asian food. Oh well.

Exams are very much in order right now and I have officially taken 7, and still have 3 to go. (our langue exam is 6 separate tests, 2 listening comprehension, 2 written expression, one written comprehension, and one oral expression). My histoire exam was over everything from 1785 (le directoire) to 1946 (4eme republigue) and I will ask you to excuse my language, but I made that exam my bitch ;) the 5 langue tests stressed me out a bit and were harder than expected but I still feel I did well on them. The langue oral expression was this morning at 8h45 ! UGH…and we are supposed to present ourselves, and then are given an article to summarize, give our opinion on, and reply to any questions they throw our way…well my article was on Coeur de pirate…a quebec singer..and I have her cd…sooo I may have had an upper leg on others. We spent 90% of my exam discussing why I wanted to be an English as a second language teacher and both profs administering the test were really REALLY intrigued by it…strange.

2moro I have my literature exam, Thursday is a jour de conge en France, Friday is my phonetics exam, and Saturday morning I finish Cidef with my translation exam.

Langue 324

I haven’t packed, I haven’t said goodbye. I haven’t seen everything, done everything, experienced it all. But I will be back. In 9 days I return to the states. When I left everyone kept saying “it’s not goodbye, it’s see you later” and I can’t help but feel that way about France…I’m drawn to this country for unexplainable reasons, and I know in my heart that I will return one day, maybe for vacation, maybe to live, who knows where life will take me.

Sister pays me a visit

So Last weekend I had the opportunity of showing Kristina and Jon France…er…or part of it. It was a very long couple of days and I think this post will be a long one, just to get it all in there. So disclaimer ahead of time; if you don’t like my writing….first, why are you on here? Second, quit before you start.

Okay So Saturday my alarm went off at a very early 4:30 a.m. I got ready for the day, did some packing, and headed out to the train to catch my 8 a.m. train. Or so I thought. I got there and other than being a little tired, was filled with excitement, until I saw the board of departures saying “Paris Montparnasse-retard indetermine” le sigh. So I sat…and sat…and about 20 minutes went by and the screen changes to “Supprimer” le grande sigh. A very irritated crowd of travelers trying to head to Paris headed instead to the SNCF desk where the manager gave us all little vouchers of connecting trains we could take to get there. Ugh. I followed a French woman and got on a train to Tours. About 20 of us stood in the baggage cabin for the hour train ride to Tours, from there we went to St. Pierre des corps, which again was standing in the baggage area. Finally we got on the train that would take us to Montparnasse, and this time I got to sit first class, so that was nice…but not worth the other stress. A few minutes into the first voyage I heard a woman speak weird English with a French man…they were discussing Paris, and more importantly, the Pere Lachaise cemetery. I couldn’t help but speak to her at this point because a-I had been there, and b-she was speaking English..even if broken and strange. They both seemed shocked I wasn’t French which was quite funny for me, and both took my advice on buying the map of the cemetery before heading in and getting very lost. The woman was actually from Sweden, and didn’t speak a word of French, she was very nice and stayed close to me the rest of the way to paris, cuz’ ‘I looked like I knew what I was doing’ haha. Looking like it, and actually knowing are two different things sweetheart.

Okay, soooo after that whole mess was cleared up, I got to the station, and it was just about 11a.m. I texted Jon only to find out him and Krissy were still at CDG trying to figure out the RER system. Le sigh. Instead of venturing out and screwing up our meeting place plans, I grabbed a starbucks, and settled on a bench outside with my book. We have been having amazing weather lately and so it was nice to just relax with a book and some coffee while soaking up the sun.

They eventually found the right train, and met me at the station, where I greeted them with a very large “HIIIII” and some hugs. From here we went to our hotel and were too early to check in, so we wandered the Montparnasse area for a few hours, got some sandwhiches and eventually checked in. The day was spent on different metros, walking around the outsides of different buildings, and for me, repeating all of the things I had seen before in Paris. Oh well. 

We had dinner at a cute Italian restaurant very close to the Eiffel tower, and the waitstaff was NICE. How?! The food was great, and Jon and I split some tiramisu which was divine. =) When we were leaving our waiter told me “vous avez des beaux yeux” and I laughed, but said thank you. He then proceeded to tell me, that it wasn’t him who originally thought it but that his shy waiter friend thinks I have beautiful eyes and a nice mouth…okay gettin’ slightly creepy now Pierre. Check please.

We ended our night at the Eiffel Tower, watching it sparkle in all its grandeur, eating French candies, and me being slightly slaphappy. It had been a long day, cut a girl a break.

Sunday we woke up fairly early and got on our train to Angers. The weather started getting gloomy the closer we got and I was a little sad that our hot, blue skies would only be in Paris, but c’est la vie, n’est-ce pas? Okay. So once in Angers, we went to my house and did some introductions, of which Chantal doesn’t speak English and they don’t know French…so not much was said. I took them to Carrefour to get some random things for the day (groceries) and to a patisserie for a baguette. (open on Sunday! For once!)

When we returned, Nikki was over, and my group of three quickly became 5 when Liana decided to join us for the day as well. We had lunch at Mcdoner(of course) toured the Chateau, saw the Cathedral, the Jardin des plantes, the jardin du mail, and finally school. After this we went home to relax and talk on the balcony. We ended our evening in that same spot, but not before eating take out pasta for dinner; which I have so say Jon and Krissy were skeptical about at first, but Jon at least was impressed with how delicious it really is.

Monday morning I woke up feeling like hell to put it nicely, but I walked Jon and Kristina to the train station, and waited with them until their train arrived. I sent them off with some Pain au chocolat, some French cidre, and the promise of seeing them in just a few weeks. 

Highlights of the trip:

-navigating different train stations all by my lonesome. (ugh)

-I have NO sense of direction, cannot read maps to save my life, and Kristina and Jon still put me in charge of locating everything. It’s a good thing my French is up to par, and paris is filled with shops and hotels that I could ask directions from. Thank you kind French strangers. Ugh.

-the arc de triomphe does NOT get easier to climb the second time around.

-wearing dark jeans when it’s 80* + outside, in Paris, has to be one of my dumbest ideas yet.

-When slaphappy I talk like a Swedish yooper. <<according to Jon

-Jon thinks I know too much about French history, but they were both thankful that I could tell them interesting/random facts about different places that we visited.

-Finally got to see the outside of le Centre Pompidou…and it is just as weird as everyone told me.

-When you’ve been to a big city once, and seen things…coming back to those things feels weird, but a good weird. Difficult to explain.

-Kristina telling me I’m going to get stung cuz I’m too close to a bee was worth the great picture I got out of it.

-While I love Angers, I’m not sure my sister n Jon felt the same

-I am thoroughly glad to have places where people know me, friends that will miss me, and a city that is big enough to keep my restlessness at a minimum…too bad it is all ending soon, but as with all wonderful things, it must end for something else to start.

-Angers at 5 am on a Monday morning is calm, quiet, and slightly chilly. It’s also beautiful, and if you haven’t seen the sun rise while walking home, I suggest you do it.now.

do blondes really have more fun? we shall see

This week has been nuts so far with tests and homework. It’s like every professor had the same idea to give us a test this week. Yikes. I had two langue tests yesterday, a lit test today, and I have a phonetics test tomorrow. We had a traduction test on last Thursday as well. Jeez people. Next week is our last full week of classes, and I’m 90% sure all of my classes are “review” which is a bit odd if you ask me. In the states, we don’t have classtime to review; they sometimes give you a studyguide, and if there is a review time, it’s outside of class at a later time(evening) But in true French fashion, we are having a good 3 hours of in class review (or 6 for langue)…ugh. Finals are going to be awful.

Speaking of finals, ours run Saturday-Saturday, but none on Thursday(French holiday). Most of my exams are early morning, so I’ll have all day to study for the next one/sleep. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here ;)

new hair, same humor

Today I woke up way too early for a Wednesday (I don’t have class til 3:45) and got my hair done. I told the girl I wanted a trim and to be blonde, and she goes “ur already blonde, but sort of orange” (obv. In French) yeah..i know, I don’t like the orange tint or the dark blonde roots showin thru…thanks. Haha after he telling me that blonde is a lot of work to keep up with and going back and forth with colors, we decided on one, and she got started. The process for this is pretty much the same, but when she rinsed it out. Oh mon dieu. Weirdest/best experience ever. Haha Do you like having other people wash your hair? Welp. Go to France. They put you in a reclining chair that has massaging things in it, and then proceed to take a good 20 minutes to shampoo your hair about 3 times. While washing your hair they massage your entire scalp. Over.and.over. again. They also put some weird oil stuff on my hair and as I was sitting under the dryer with it I touched some of it, and my hand looked like it had been dipped in olive oil..ew. the girl quickly said “ne touché pas!” sooo I listened and let her work her magic. She only cut a tiny bit off my ends, about an inch in front (the front of my hair was angled so it was longer than the back…its all even now) and she thinned out my bang area to make it lay nicer. The only thing I found a bit odd is that they don’t blowdry or style or anything when you’re done. Which actually, is sort of better in some ways, cuz then I can style it myself without ending up looking like I walked out of 1985. Yup. Definitely an experience worth having.

The rest of my week will be spent doing homework, cleaning my room, and prepping things to be ready for paris-krissy n jon.

I can’t believe I only have 3 weeks left in this place. That seems beyond absurd to think that in a matter of weeks I will home. I must say that it’s going to be hard to adjust to saying Hello, thank you, yes, and goodbye, instead of bonjour, merci, oui, et au revoir. Along with many other phrases that roll off my tongue now. I never thought adjusting to English, and American culture would be hard, and sort of laughed during that part of the study abroad orientation…but now I’m not so sure. Comme toujours, it is all a learning experience.

A teeny-tiny countdown for y’all (starting 2moro):

-2 days: Paris with Krissy & Jon

-8 days: til classes are done

-21 days: Flight home

-26 days: 20^th birthday

-5-ish weeks: back in Mt.Pleasant to move in (not sure if I’m staying there all summer though..probs not)

Getting lost will help you find yourself

hey guys, I know I havent written much in here lately, but that's cuz I've been pretty busy living life outside of the house and trying to enjoy what little time I have left in France. I have just over 3 weeks until I am back in Michigan, and I'm torn on if that's good or not.
Timing is everything and I feel that just as I can finaly say I have a group of friends in Angers, I know my way around, I can eat, speak, and breathe the language..among other recent things...I am sad that my time here is coming to a close.
I will be meeting Kristina and Jon in Paris on Saturday morning, where I will take them around to all of the touristy things, and maybe get to see the catacombs..but it depends on timing, and lines. Sunday morning we all head back to Angers..where I will show them why it is I am in love with this place. They will be introduced to the sites, the places I frequent the most, and the people I spend my time with. Sadly, they only planned a short visit with me, so Monday (EARLY) morning they will be heading back to Paris, only to catch a train to London. I am really excited to see my sister, and have a little piece of home, and I'm thinking seeing her will be that little push I need to get excited to come home...maybe.

This was our view while enjoying some wine =)

I guess I can fill you in on tidbits of the week/weekend:
-classes are coming to a close, and we are amidst all of our last tests. This week is my last week of learning anything new, next week will be all review, and exams start next saturday! wow...
-my langue prof. told me during tutorat last week that I often seem bored and that shes been grading me tediously to push me to use the language in harder ways. that "you have it down better than the others, now I'd just like you to use it in more complicated ways" ..she also mentioned how maybe I should have moved up into the superior level ....thanks for telling me 3 weeks before the end...oh well.
-Friday I did a little shopping to get shoes to wear in Paris..my walking shoes were crap after spring break. I got some cute white shoes, that are very french and also very me. =) win-win situation. I also bought a blue maxi-dress....not something I needed but it was too cute to pass up.
-Saturday Liana and I wandered town in search of something to do, and ended up at the far bridge, where we found space invader art, and Liana took one of the tiles from it. shhh don't tell ;) We then got some snacks and headed out by the Chateau to chill/soak up the sun. Nikki was doing the same, so we spent the rest of the day with her, and finally decided that we wanted to have some...fun..that night since we hadn't taken part in those sort of activities in a while. I won't go into details here, but we did split a bottle of wine...or two. before heading to the bar. We met up with some friends there, and eventually ended up at une petite fete with 3 french boys...sooo 5 girls total, and 3 boys.(4-americans, 1-chinese,3-french) We learned an odd drinking game, and exchanged numbers before ending the night...at 4a.m.
Leave it to me to meet interesting people 3 weeks before departure date, but oh well, c'est la vie, n'est-ce pas?
-Sunday was spent lazing around and drinking water...hah.
Looking back on everything I've been through so far while studying abroad, I have to say I have changed a lot. I believe we never stop growing into the people we are, but that being here has made me find a part of myself I never thought I would discover. 

Spring Break; a Novella by Amy: Part 6- Brussels, Belgium (Last stop)

Last city to bore you all with and then spring break posts are DONE!  Haha let’s get started, shall we?

I really really wanted to go to Belgium while studying abroad, mainly because half of my heritage is from there. My dad is almost 100% Belgian, and so I felt a strong connection to at least see what it was like. 

We arrived in the Charleroi airport and immediately noticed that yes, things were in French, but they were also in Flemmish. If you have never seen Flemmish written out, at first it looks weird, but the more I looked at it, the more I realized it seemed similar to English, and some words were downright funny, Leah’s favorite was nonstop keuken.

Anyway…We eventually made it onto the bus/train combo that would get us to the city, and on the ride there I kept thinking; okay the weather isn’t great, but it looks like it has potential. Please please PLEASE don’t be another Cagliari experience. It wasn’t.

We had directions on how to get to our couchsurfers, but no actual map of the city, so we decided that from the station, it didn’t look far, and tried to walk there. Well, we ended up a little turned around, (lost) and were growing increasingly hungry. Coincidentally we ended up in front of a huge shopping mall, and decided to head inside to look for food. We found amazing Pita’s loaded with Veggies inside of them, and We returned to the same place in that mall on Saturday afternoon for one more falafel pita fix before heading out of Brussels. Yum.

After this, we hopped on a tram and found our couchsurfers place. She was very nice, but very spacey. She’s an artist of some sort, and her flat was very cute, but also was a dead give-away that her and her roommates were all artists. She was very helpful with telling us where to go and how to find things, and also giving us  a city map.

Our first night we spent completely wandering around, we would see something in the distance and go “ooohh that looks cool” so we’d walk to it. We ended up in the Grand Place, which is basically the big huge happenin’ center of Brussels. Oh and it’s gorgeous. We got waffles and did some more wandering around, went into too many chocolate shops, where all of the clerks gave us samples, and went into a few beer shops; one of which of course clumsy me broke a bottle all over the floor. The clerk said “it happens all the time, but smell that! Isn’t it weird yet good smelling!”…it was. Haha. He was super nice about it, and I ended up back in his shop on Saturday to purchase a blueberry beer. =) We ended our night by getting some frites (fries) and walking back to the couchsurfers. We passed a few sketchy places, but I never felt at all threatened in Brussels..which is sort of odd.

Day 2 was a bit more eventful…We headed back down to the grand place to get more pictures and a waffle for breakfast. (did I mention how much we ate in Belgium?!) We looked around a lot of chocolate shops trying to decide which ones to actually purchase from. I realized that I was supposed to hear from Arnaud ( a friend from high school, who is from Liege, Belgium) and when I checked my phone…yeah. I had missed a text..or two from him already. Oops. I called him and we quickly met up at the mannequin pis statue. I learned that French bis is 2 cheeks, and Belgian bis is 1. Haha odd. Whatever happened to good old fashioned hugging?!  I will list what we did after this just because the post if getting long, and my intentions are not to put you all to sleep. ;)  We spent the day with Arnaud, and a few of his friends would come and go as we went to different places. It was overall really nice to get to see him again, and he is supposed to come back to Michigan in August. I look forward to it. =)

Day 3: Our last day was spent buying chocolates , beer, and souvenirs for others and ourselves. We did a few more sightseeing-y things, but not much. We spent the better part of the day sitting in a park and just talking. We did manage to see a parade of sorts go by, and it was lead by a dude dressed in sparkly spandex, and doing sign language. We quickly realized it was some sort of sign language-y / deaf awareness thing….it was cool to see. Ah culture. ;)

Cantillon Brewery

So when we get to the train station to head to Paris we see that our train is being held until further notice, but minimum 45 minutes. Ugh, we had a connecting train to get to angers and if we left 45 minutes late…we’d be missing it. The conductor told us to get on the other train also heading to paris, and we did, when we got to paris, we had 20 minutes to get from paris-nord (station) to paris-montparnasse (station)…we ran through the metro, got on and sat impatiently on it for about 15 minutes. When we got to Montparnasse all three of us sprinted upstairs only to see we had missed our train by about 7 minutes. We were all frantic, and irritated, and after a few phone calls, and talking with a worker, we realized our only option was to find a place to stay and get the first train out in the morning. Sigh. We ended up getting a hotel room right next to the station but only had two twin beds…we shoved them together and spent one last close night together. Mon dieu.

Atomium

We made it back to Angers late morning on Sunday, and spent the day emailing parents, doing laundry, finishing up homework assignments, and wishing we could have a vacation from our vacation.

Memorable Things about Brussels:

-It’s beautiful; When we got there Leah even said “This is how I thought France was going to look”.

-Mannequin pis is a tiny statue of a boy peeing…idk why he’s so overly celebrated, but there are everything from songs, to remade chocolate statues of him. Oh and he has more outfits that I do; kept in the city museum, and brought out on their correlating holidays.

-You can eat cheaply in Brussels; not healthily, but cheap. Pitas, waffles, fries, beer and chocolate…what more could you want? ;)

-Arnaud doesn’t like being lost, he gets antsy and sort of paranoid, and has a phone glued to him trying to figure out where to go…but the three of us were beyond used to being lost and expecting the unexpected so we were just enjoying were we ended up. 

-We were "lost" trying to find the atomium..we weren't really, but Arnaud thought we were. We found it though, and it was quite impressive. but the eiffel tower still wins my favorite worlds fair piece of architecture. 

-When you have a local take you around (Arnaud’s friend) he will take you to everything and all while walking fast, it was nice, but very odd. I particularly like the roof of a parking structure..to better see the town.

-Touring the Cantillon brewery is a must see if you're ever in Brussels, for 5E you tour and sample. can't beat that =)

-When Arnaud and I were in hs together, I wasn’t at a high French level, and im 90% sure he thought that hadn’t changed. He spoke in English to us the whole time, but would speak French to his friends, or to people on the metro, and I couldn’t help but smile and laugh a few times cuz’ I understood every word they were saying, down to when his friend asked if we all spoke French and he said “euh..un peu” oh lord. I’d say it’s more than un peu, but that’s okay. It made for an interesting day.

-The 5th largest church is in Belgium, and we didn't go into it, but you betcha we took pictures of it from outside. You can see it in the distance almost everywhere in Brussels...crazy.

-My French cell phone can make calls to the u.s. and it doesn’t charge me all that much. I needed a venting moment during our Paris fiasco and called my mom for about 5 minutes. 5 minutes well worth it.

-In the states I would never wait til the day before a paper is due in one of my classes to start it, and in France…n’est pas grave. Finished that sucker and turned it in on time Monday morning; which is more than I can say for about 80% of the class.

And that, my lovelies, was my spring break in a nutshell. I will be home 4 weeks from tomorrow. Wow. Time flies when you’re having fun.

Spring Break; a Novella by Amy: Part 5- Roma, Italy

So our flight to Rome was pretty painless, other than the fact that we landed hugely ahead of schedule. We reserved for our hostel to pick us up from the airport at around midnight, and our flight landed at 10:30 p.m….wonderful. Oh well, the 5 of us literally sat in the pick-up area of the airport watching families be reunited for that time. (it made me thoroughly miss my own family, and made a tiny part of me want someone to come running at me for a hug when I get off the plane…but oh well) The driver showed up and literally had a sign with our name on it, didn’t say anything to us, and we all got into the shuttle bus.

Colesseum

Now going into Rome, we knew we weren’t going to have an awesome hostel experience, but what we got was a bit shocking even for our low expectations. It was a camping hostel, which again we knew…but what we didn’t know was that if you wanted a shower/bathroom that wasn’t shared with males you had to hike to the back of the campground. (we did) and that the “rooms” were separated by curtains. There was no heat in the rooms, and I’m pretty sure no insulation either. When we asked the desk for more blankets, the men running it simply grabbed blankets we had seen on beds earlier that were used n crumpled, they folded them n handed them to us…ew. So our guess was that the only thing getting cleaned in this place was the bathrooms. Oh well, we made the best of it and actually managed to have a lot of fun regardless of our sleeping situations. The plus sides of the hostel were: a free shuttle service to and from the metro line that takes you into the city, internet/computers(with 30 min. limit), restaurant/bar that doesn’t charge service taxing that we found in every other part of the city (booooo roma)

Going to rome was sort of another one of those bucketlist places everyone must visit. It’s incredibly old and the history behind everything is a little shocking. We had 3 days in the city and each one was slightly packed with different things. 

Nitty Gritty details:

Day 1: We got up bright and early and headed to the Colosseum. After walking all around it and taking many pictures, we moved on to Palentin hill and the Roman Forum. I spent the majority of the day in complete awe with how pretty and old everything was. One particularly weird moment was when Megan and I noticed one of the paintings had a description on it that said the romans had used plastic to make the masterpiece…how on earth did they have plastic back then? These people were so ridiculously ahead of their time. We ended our day by wandering a bit in hopes of sightseeing, but it started to downpour. We got lost and soaked before actually finding the metro, and heading back to the hostel for the night.

Day 2: This day was spent doing all things Vatican. Haha. But really. We spent the day in Vatican city, and saw many things I never thought I’d get to see, including: San Pietro (St. Peter’s Basilica), the Vatican Museum, and the Sistene Chapel. All of which were more amazing than words can do justice for, and even my pictures don’t begin to show how incredible it all is. After all things Vatican, we made our way to the Trevi Fountain were all of us made wishes and tossed in a few centimes, followed of course by more photos. ;) Next, and what ended day 2, was the Spanish steps. While they are very pretty, they were also the most touristy, and sort of awful in my opinion. There wasn’t really a moment of silence to be had during your time on the steps, but it was nevertheless very pretty.

St. Peter's Basilica

Day 3: Our last day in Rome was spent doing a little shopping, seeing the Pantheon, and finding a cute pizza place that didn’t charge tourist tax. The food was phenomenal, and the staff were actually nice to us! Roma win! It started to rain a bit, and Liana and I weren’t feeling like shopping or getting wet, so we went back to the hostel and chilled until the other girls made it back. Our last dinner in Rome was at the hostel restaurant, but it was fantastic. I had a pasta with lots of garlic and olive oil on it, and finally managed to get some Italian Tiramisu. =) yum.

This is when our group split; The next morning, Nikki and Megan headed back to Angers, while Liana, Leah and myself boarded our last plane; to Brussels. 

Mentionables:

Trevi Fountain

-Never assume people don’t speak your language. We had a few instances were…sadly…French people were being rude/gross behind us, and Leah did actually lose her temper once and yelled at them in French. They seemed more stunned that someone spoke their language, than that they were being yelled at. This is almost always the case, and is very ignorant; it is good to never assume that just because you’re in a country of which your language is not common people won’t know it…because well, they will, and you will come off as a huge douchebag.

-There is a Gelato place by the Vatican Museum that sells you a TON of gelato for 1.5 E, amazing, cheap, and delicious.

-Noone drinks tap water in Italy, even worse than in France…because they won’t even give it to you in restaurants.

-most restaurants in Italy charge you weird taxes for bread, and for many other rando things. Never assume that just because the menu looks cheap, that your bill will be; read the fine print on menus.

-While in line for touristy things, people will approach you asking if you’d like a private tour for a ridiculous cost…we got sick of them all approaching us about halfway through day 2, so when one more came up..we all pretended to not understand her no matter what language she switched to. Finally, she asked what language we spoke, to which Leah thought she could pull one over on the guide and said “Russian” …the guide was Russian…and started spewing it realllyyy fastly at us. Luckily when we all broke into laughter, she got the hint and walked away. Oh lord.

Pantheon

-Swiss guards may look funny, but I bet they have skills of bad-assery that we can’t even begin to fathom.

-you can buy pope kitch anywhere in rome.

-When it rains, many men will shove umbrellas in your face trying to get you to buy them, to the point where you would rather grab him and beat him with it, than to buy one from him.

-Stereotypes for me are abolished after studying abroad/travelling abroad. There are rude people from every country, but there are nice ones too..you just have to figure out who is who and go from there. 

 one more city to post about, can you handle the excitement? ;)