Last time I wrote I may have implied a nice quiet sangria night for Maggie's birthday. Oh, not quite. But I'll start with the day. Once Maggie got back from church we headed to Musee D'Orsay, stopping for my last crepe in Paris before. Luckily the line to the museum was almost nothing AND Maggie & I got in for free with our international students IDs, just paying 1.50 euros for the exhibit. I like the exhibit a lot but it was not set up very well. There were far too many people. I didn't learn that I had retained a lot more information from my stupid art class this semester than I thought. I knew a ton about many of the artists there. I don't know how much the other girls cared, but I felt smart, hahaha. We walked around a little bit of the rest of the museum before heading out for the Eiffel Tower and some lunch. There was a bakery right near the Eiffel Tower where we got AMAZING sandwiches. We took a few pics by the tower, but it of course started raining. Ellie tried to go to the top, but they closed it like FOUR people before her. Lame. While we were waiting for her, Maggie and I watched a dance group under the tower and then met up with Sasha and Eddy for a coffee. Before dinner we stopped by the apartment. Bad idea. Ugh. Dany waved papers in my face saying she wanted Ellie to pay for 4 nights of food even though she only ate their for 2 dinners. I told her no way would I ask Ellie to do that. She gave up quickly but went off saying how we didn't know anything about suffering in life and other shit like that. I let it mostly go in one ear and out the other. At the same time I found out from Linda that Billund airport may be on strike on Saturday, when Ellie and I were flying in, so we might have problems. It was a stressful 45 minutes.
But we went to dinner and all was good. Sushi was amazing. It was Maggie (the birthday girl!), Ellie, Sasha, Mannat, Anna, Adrian, and me. After we headed to Le Bar 10 where Will joined us at well. I am going to REALLY miss that place. Thursday nights have become a lot of fun. We each had like 6 glasses before moving on to L'Urgence Bar. Coolest/most bizarre bar ever. In the bathroom they had pictures of rectal exams. So funny. Oh and one random picture of a woman's chest of course. We ordered drinks, which are served in baby bottles I might add, and a couple people took shots out of test tubes. I had a regular shot, and it was gross. From there we headed to the Frog. Haha oh the frog is always entertaining. There was a group of guys claiming to be from US News and buying us drinks. Adrian and I split a beer that came from who knows where and there were a couple rounds of shots. Maggie had 3 shots thanks to those guys. They claimed they were looking for a "cover story" for the newspaper. Yeah okay. It was hilarious nonetheless. A little bit later we headed to the bus. I made a "drunk" call on the way. Though I was not drunk! I got us all to the bus and luckily the bus was pulling up just as we walked up. :) It was only 2:00 or so but considering we started at 7 with dinner, we were all ready for bed. After about an hour and a half or so of not the ideal ending to the night, we went to bed. By this time I was just so emotionally drained that I couldn't handle much of anything. It was a great night. But a rough ending made the tears come far too easily.
Friday morning I was up at 9 talking to the states. I waited till noon or so for the girls to both be functioning and then we waited for Ellie to get back from Versailles so we could all head to Angelina's for one last delicious hot chocolate. Before we left Dany had Sasha ask me when my "friend" would be paying for the food. 1. she suddenly forgot "Ellie" suddenly? 2. SERIOUSLY?! And then Ellie unfortunately met her at the door downstairs and Dany didn't even say "hi," but just got in her face asking when she would have the money, after we had JUST told her Ellie would give it to me to give it to her. She really was somethin' this week. It was amazing of course. As was the bowl of fries Ellie got, haha. Maggie had to go to school and Sasha had to go to work so Ellie and I hung out and waited for Eddy. After he got there Ellie grabbed a souvenir and then we headed to the Louvre. I got Eddy in for free with my student pass (yay yay) and then we walked around a bit. He was so nice to spend the afternoon with us. I wish I'd had more time to talk with him because helping him with English really helps my French. Once we parted ways with him, Ellie and I went by her hotel and my apartment before dinner. I ran upstairs to change out of my soaked shoes and Dany wasn't happy when I wouldn't stop everything to talk to her. I had stripped my bed but she still wasn't sure "if I was leaving that night." Dumb, dumb. And then she went off about how I had to make sure I left my keys, well duh. I escaped pretty quickly and we went to dinner at a bar/club/restaurant called Fox where Eddy had made us reservations.
It was amazing. I had a pasta with mushroom sauce. YUM. Maggie invited two of her friends from her program and one of their parents. The bill was like 130 euros total and the parents paid for it! Totally not expected at all, but so appreciated. I forgot what it was like to be around friendly, just plain nice, people. I felt bad that they were paying, but at the same time it was awesome because they didn't have to, they had just met us, but they were just doing it to be nice. I definitely missed that. After we were on the way back to the apartment to move my luggage to Ellie's hotel when I got a text from Dany saying she was waiting for me at the apartment because she wanted to say "bye, bye," haha Dany saying something implying kindness? I knew it couldn't be true. And of course when we walked in she was probably the rudest she had been to me. And the only reason she had waited was to make sure she got her keys. I didn't even say thank you. I really just wanted to say, "Peace the F*** out" and slam the door, but I held my tongue. No surprise that my last encounter with her would be negative. But anyway. From there we got my luggage into the hotel and went to the Eiffel Tower to meet up with Adrian & Will to say bye. Ellie got to see it light up, and tried to go to the top again...but they closed it AGAIN. It clearly wasn't meant to be. Saying bye to the guys was sad, but I mean I never felt like I was leaving Paris. And I mean there is always a chance of seeing some of these people again. After saying our goodbyes Ellie, Maggie, and I went by the frog and I said bye to Sasha. Luckily it was busy cause if it hadn't been, she would have been the one able to make me cry. Last but not least I said bye to Maggie. I'll definitely miss my roommates. I don't know what I would have done without them in Dany's house. We've definitely all kept each other, at least reasonably, sane. From there I went back up to the hotel room, took a shower, repacked my suitcases, talked to the states for a few, and passsssssed out.
Saturday morning we were supposed to get up at 6 for a shuttle to the airport at 7. We set THREE alarms to MAKE SURE we would in fact get up. K, so 1. NONE of our alarms went off so we woke up to the phone ringing 2. the shuttle was THIRTY MINUTES EARLY. Not cool. So we threw on clothes as fast as we could, luckily everything was together the night before, and ran out the door. Not the greatest start to the morning. Jenn = a little cranky. Haha (sorry YOU had to deal with me :p). The shuttle picked up three other people before taking us to the airport. In between two of the pick ups there was like a gang fight/beating going on! Ellie could see it more than me but apparently a group of guys were beating someone...so scary. I'm glad I couldn't see much of it. ANYWAYS. So the shuttle guy tried to charge us extra money, I talked to his supervisor person and said NO! Haha. It worked. Then he dropped Ellie off AT THE WRONG PART OF THE TERMINAL & me at the wrong end of mine. Way to go champ. But whatever. It was kind of cool in the airport because everyone I talked to talked to me in full out French first, before realizing I could only 90% understand them. But I did well. I apparently learned a lot more than I thought this semester. Checking in was weird because I used the self check in because no one was at the desk. And it printed the baggage sticker tag things there too...so I had to put them on myself. Haha such a failure. I should have taken a picture cause it was so bad. Security was luckily a breeze. Like legitimately I just walked right up, no one in front of me. Then it got interesting. My gate was supposed to be gate 50. Well I walk to the sign that says 50-52...and there is no 50. Awesome! So I ask a woman, in French, what to do, and she is a complete bitch to me. So I just grabbed some breakfast and sat down to watch as everyone walked over to where 50 was supposed to be, looked confused, and walked back to where I was all while crankily talking to the states. I needed some sort of vent from the rude French, it really is too bad that it isn't a stereotype for some. They ended up changing the gate and delaying my flight. Once on, I passed out legit within 5 minutes. I woke up once thinking we were in the air, nope we were still on the ground. So I don't really even know how delayed we ended up. After landing, I explored/got lost, till I found an ATM for Krones. I finally found a nice girl in a souvenir shop to point me the right way. The Copenhagen airport was amazing! Krones are really cool looking too! I'll have to bring one back for at least one person to see. I bought some Chinese/Vegetarian, delicious food to eat and looked around. It's really hard to get used to the Krone because like my lunch was 59 Krones, but that's only 10 dollars (expensive for lunch but not my point). It was like in Russia too...each individual rubble was worth like nothing so it was 2-300 rubbles for a meal (still only like 9 dollars). Hopefully in 6 weeks I'll be used to it...just in time to go home though. Haha I explored a bit more before heading to my gate.
The flight to Billund I attempted to sleep but the guy next to me was sitting like half ON me and was STARING at me the whole time. Ugh. And we didn't speak the same language or I would have at least attempted some conversation. The flight was only 40 minutes though. We landed and my luggage was some of like the first 10 to come out, never happens. And Ellie and Linda were waiting right there for me. It was raining, but I was SOOO happy to be here. Linda's condo is absolutely adorable and the room I have here is a mansion compared to what I had at Dany's. I love this place. I could literally feel the stress lift off me. We had wine and her homemade fish chowder for dinner followed by watching Mama Mia and eating chips with this really cool apple cider bubbly stuff. So good. I think I went to bed around 1... Ellie passed out around 12.
Today I woke up to someone calling (good way to start the day) :) and then Linda had set out breakfast for us. I don't remember the last good breakfast I've had. It was very much appreciated. We sat for like 2 hours talking, Ellie and I took showers, and we headed out for the afternoon. First, Linda showed us downtown Vejle (pronounced Viila). We saw the train station and walked around the city. I LOVE it. There is some really unique art and fountains all throughout. I can't wait to go back when the shops, like the free trade one, are open, so I can explore more. There is a small museum that gets a new exhibit on the 22nd, and is free, so hopefully Ellie and I can see that before she leaves. The water runs right through the city, and with the brick buildings and small streets, it is amazing. Falling in love I do believe. From there we went to Jelling (Yelling) and saw the church, cemetery, and museum there. It was cold and rainy but very pretty. Royalty used to be buried in ships apparently with their dogs, horses, etc and here there are two hills, I don't think people in them? but just like memorials to people. Also there is some of the first Viking writing there on two stones. It's on one of them that "Denmark" was first named on Danish land. The church there is protected by the United Nations, along with the museum. The museum had an exhibit about Greenland and climate change and then another part of the history of the area. A nice escape from the rain and pretty neat to learn about. We hit up a grocery store after, $.30 water, heck yes, and headed home. Linda made us homemade hot chocolate with bread/cheese. It was delicious and what we both needed to warm up while posting pics to facebook. For dinner we had pasta and salad. Making that salad was the first "cooking" I've been allowed to do in months. It really is the little things in life. Since dinner I've just been writing this and we had some amazing tea while watching tv. A nice relaxing night.
Tomorrow we're going to Copenhagen in the morning and staying there until Tuesday afternoon. I'm excited but really hoping I don't spend too much money. Being as careful as I can. Denmark so far has been amazing though. It's just so nice to relax. Ellie and I are hoping to go to a nearby city to see a museum there on Wednesday, LEGGO land (haha) on Thursday, and not specifically sure what else. Meeting up with my cousins Alex & Eric hopefully soon too. This was the perfect transition between Paris and home. I get to relax and just chill out before going full force back into my hectic life back home. It's so green and the air is just fresh & crisp here. I love it. Might have a problem getting me to come home. ;)
43 days until Maine. And until then I plan on enjoying every moment here.
I guess I can't say Au Revoir anymore...so umm...
I'll write soon :) <3
No comments:
Post a Comment