lundi, septembre 27

This past weekend I took a 10 hour bus ride to Munich to attend the ever famous party of oktoberfest. The frist thing that was crazy was seeing the Germans. They are drunk on thier way to oktoberfest. They are dressed up in thier historic german outfits and chant thier way to oktoberfest. While there, the germans drink out of thier minds, they sing and dance and pound thier liters of beers. Their beer tents are packed with people. We waited for over an hour to get into the tent of haufbrahaus, but we never made it in. We decided to just find a table outside to get served. The germans at the table next to us tried to get us to sniff this white powder. One kid who was with us actually did without really knowing what it was...it turns out that it is this stuff they take to let you drink longer, it makes you sober and keeps you awake, and it clears your sinus'. Later on an older german was walking around selling the stuff, I wanted to buy it, but I chickened out. In the end, I drank 4 liters, I guess that is equivalent to 12 beers. Usually I am pretty well of on 5-so you could imagine the state I was in. So I partied hard with the germans in Munich for Oktoberfest, I'm sure it will be a while before I can come back. I'm glad I suffered the 20 hours of bussin' it there and back. Oh and I also gained an umbrella that I apparently found on a table at a beer tent.
learn some german: danke (dun-kuh) thank you
bitte (beet-uh) please

vendredi, septembre 24

I have never ever done laundry in a public laundramat...heh, now try reading directions in another language. I had no clue how to even use these machines. My first mistake was that I did not have coins. So I had to go find a place to exchange my money, while carrying my laundry bag (note to self: use a rolling suitcase next time, people will not give your funny looks as you walk by them 3 times when they are eating thier dinner at the cafes). After I exchanged my money it was 830 pm and I had one hour to wash and dry. I had to dry because the next day I was leaving for oktoberfest, so hanging clothes would not be an option. There was a lady in the laundramat scampering around trying to keep her machines running by putting more money in the money machine. As I was stuffing my washer with clothes (which do not take too much, they fit probably equivalent to whatever you can pick up with two hands) and I shut the door, I realized I forgot my detergent. I made a motion with my hands going up and on my head while letting out a gasp at the same time. The other lady saw this and asked me if I forgot detergent, I said yes. SO she let me borrow somz of hers, she gave me so much that I insisted on paying her. she said that she understood, I had no money and in a foriegn country. She later told me she hosted a girl from los angelas before. She was very kind and still continued scampering around collecting clothes from the machines. She talked to me about Versailles and Paris and how she loved it, and how she loved Berlin too. SHe talked the most about Berlin. She said it was quiet and beautiful. she said the phrase, "you know" a lot. And then she left. it was about 910 when my clothes finished washing and i threw them in the dryer. for one euro you get 10 minutes of drying. The door to the laundramat closed at 930 exactly and the lights turned off, but one light stayed on, so I continued drying. The dryers here have extreme heat power because I dried my clothes for 20 minutes and they were pretty much dry. I remember those dryers back in MRH and they would still be damp with the full 45 minutes of drying. I do some laundry in my room, like socks, towels and underwear, it helps, it cuts down on the amount to wash in a laundramat. I created a clothesline, I string it from one end of my room to the other. Iùm not sure if I am allowed to do this, the school tells us not to wash clothes at home because of humidity problems, but I think if I am quiet and I keep my door shut (which i pretty much always do) I will be fine.

dimanche, septembre 19

This weekend I spent most of my time in Paris. Friday I walked around Montmayre-a part of paris known for its historical tales, mostly true, some others are questioned..such as the story of St. Denis, who walked for miles outside of Paris with his head cut off and being held in his hands. Friday afternoon I sketched by the great Notre-Dame. For not sketching in awhile, my sketches are not too terribly bad. I have talent, but I can improve. after the next 1000 sketches I should be able to sell my work on the sidewalks of Paris. Saturday I just got lost in Paris on the metro system. I was with a group and we were confused and turned around by the signs that were giving two different directions..in the end we made our way to sacre-cour-the white church that sits atop a hill over looking down into the valley of Paris. the view was well worth the delay. And today, I walked around the gardens of the chateau here in Versailles. They turned on the fountains and played classical music. It will probably be the last time that I will have a chance to see these fountains this year because soon it will be too cold, therefore I am glad that I found time to do it. School is starting to pick up, we started all classes except for studio...I am looking forward to studio-i have been inspired so much to just design. et c'est tout. a tout a l'huere. (and thats all, see you later)

learn some french: je voudrais blanc pain (i would like white bread)

samedi, septembre 18

1. Most French speak english yet if you come off as an ignorant american they refuse to speak it, or they are just embarresed of thier brittish accent.
2. From 1230 to 2pm the french stop whatever it is that they are doing and go home for lunch...the children go home from school and the shops are closed up,therefore do not try to get anything accoplished during this time.
3. likewise, It would be impossible for me to get anything to eat at 4pm. That is way to early to eat, the french eat dinner at 8pm the earliest.
4. water is not free! meaning there are not many fountains, if you find one, it does not really look like one. it looks more like a fountain with purified water. oh and ask for Ice.
5. Try to be conservative with water. Those toliets I saw in the economy homes in the states where you push one button for the number one and the other button for the number two..yeah that it an effcient way of using water; and the toliets are in all homes.
6. the term "je voudrais" gets you started with whatever it is you need in a polite way. (it means I would like)
7. The metro system is not at all like the system in Chicago. It does not work by colors even though all the lines are in colors..however on different maps all the lines are different colors. the lines here are named by letters, numbers and nick names.
8. the money there is not to be treated like monopoly money...and the coins are equivalent to our dollars as well.
9. all vehicles here are small, and they are all manual. they do this to cut down on the expense for gas, therefore no excursions!
10. I never would have thought that I would want to ride a bike so much...but here everyone rides motorbikes or mopegs. and they look like so much fun! they park them outside and they wear the helmets. it reminds me of snowmobiling up north-which excites me.

jeudi, septembre 16

Last night a few girls who are plart of the program here at Versailles, threw a wine and cheese party. The word was to BYOW (bring your own wine) so we could taste all sorts. I definetly found my preference of the white wines over the dark red however the mellow rosy wines are my favorite. And cheese-i am still working on that, goat cheese wreaks so bad that it is impossible to even taste it. Some people drank too much..I had my share, maybe too much for me because after a while I started talking with an accent and everyone was asking where I was from..I do this from time to time-I dont know why. I think it is because I am here and I just want to talk different-even if it is in english: American accents just do not sound interesting.

mardi, septembre 14

UIC REPRESENT

dimanche, septembre 12

13 euros for a flippen dance club! Last night the stakes were high, the cheapest beer was 6 euros, to buy a bottle of absolut was 130 euros...I believe our full group of 12 bought a 6 euro beer; on my second one I went for a better quality drink, a fostors for 7.5 euro. The dancing was fun-at first I was shocked, no one 'grinds'as we call it in the U.S. They dance together; but at least a foot apart. Im not saying it is PG, I just think they skip a step...Anyways; back on the dance floor, the americans were tearing it up. At one point I found a bottle on the dance floor, so I bent down to spin it. Our group formed a circle and started chanting "go! go! go!" It stopped in a direction opposite of I and some random french guy came out from behind the circle and started bustin his moves. After he stopped dancing, he bent down and spun it again. The game continued on like this for a short while...the circle grew with more and more interested french. I definetly do believe that we were admired by the french- this might be the only time when we are. Meanwhile, one of my friends from UIC decided not to bust his moves caught two attempts of pickpocketers on him...it was a wake up call to me that it could happen anywhere anytime- I was a good girl and I wore my money belt.

samedi, septembre 11

I traveled to Paris today, the purpose was to see the greatest structure of all-the eiffel tower. A group of students and I took the stairs up to the top-well to the highest point that we could climb anyway and then an elevator from there. Everyside at every level showed me something new-the view just kept getting better. From the top I could see the little people below us that were on the third level-where i once was earlier, and it was a long way down.
"if you wanted to kill yourself; you could jump here," me.
"whats that suppose to mean?" ben
"ha! nothing- i just said that you could do it," me.

From the top we saw storm clouds forming and moving in quick-we raced down the stairs to seek shelter (hmm a storm while on the eiffel tower?...nah). So we crossed the Sienne in our slef made rafts and ran to seek shelter-but then it drizzled-and as we were approaching the palais de chaillot, it began down pouring...with an insane amount of force. The palais did not have an entrance on the side we were on and of course to get to the otherside you would have to walk around the whole building, mind you we have never been here before. I was running to the side walls of the steps because they provided a shield from the rain, but not much. so i turned and ran down and I followed ben and brian (why?) and we dodged from nook to nook; the nooks were actually just indents to the platform above; created from columns and overhangs. These nooks were not keeping us dry, so we just ran and ran until I found a camera hut and i> ran under that, two from our group were hiding out there. When the rain stopped; the resultant were 10 tourist kids, soaking wet, hungry and making our way down an avenue the arc de triomphe. On the way we stopped in a sandwich shop. here is what happened translated in english:
" do you want sandwiches?"
"yes" we said drooling at the menu of quizno like sandwiches
"oh we dont have any"
go figure, these french can not even eat sandwiches because it just was not time to eat, they denied us service! so we ate at "quick"-a french version of mcdonalds; and it was about 2 doors down from mcdonalds as well. The place was so cheap material wise, and so expensive food wise (isnt that how it always works?) the cup was made of actual writing paper-okay, maybe it was doubled up but it did not look as if it could last for a refil.
"free refils for as long as the cup lasts" -blaine

jeudi, septembre 9

Versailles-located south west of paris is a town that saves royal history; thier town today does not appear to be too modern; the buildings stand as they origionally were 300 years ago; the palace is the heart of the markets is the blood, the people are the soul of the town- i feel pride from them when i am in thier city...they have certain ways of doing things; but that is how they do them. I believe this town is an architects dream of a working city. The public space is used and respected so well. The transportation systems operate quite effeicently, pedestrians are moving everywhere. The buildings are ,ostly mixed use of shops and cafes with apartment living above.My school is actually Louis stables across from the chateau. Not a day goes by without me wondering about this lifestyle, this place, what it was and what it is now.

mercredi, septembre 8

I left my mom at the gate where the passports are checked as i turned a tear ran down my cheak, I am going to miss her: you dont really realize the things you have and take for greanted until they are taken away: but it was my decision to do this and i will get through it: the 8 hour plane ride was too uncomfortable i drank 2 complimentary wine bottles: dont worry they were small and souvenior number one: when we landed in france it did not really look different: we came to a conclusion that the plane took us to mexico or went around ohare a billion times and landed on the other side of the airport: because of the part of the airport that had collapsed in the early summer, we could not pull into the actual port; we had to step down stairs and have a bus take us to the port: after an hour bus ride we arrived to versailles: the school is right across from the chateau, avenue de paris and avenue de saint cloud is beautiful, the streets are radially parallel to eachother and double lined with tress: the town is filled with cafes, markets and people: each student awaited for their host to pick them up; the 39 students sat inside the courtyard of the school on the stoned ground with our luggage everywhich way: we were being picked up one by one anticipating if that was our "owner"
"i feel like an orphan" monica; who goes with me to uic said
"i would not know ive never been an orphan before" said dan, a boy from urbana
"after the thrid time around, you just dont feel loved anymore" i joked
i moved in and ate dinner with my owners: they do not talk much english and i not much french so communicating is hard: we had the dictionaries out: it was hard to believe that about 'à hours ago i had coffee at caribou in st: charles IL driving the huge excursion; and now i hop on a plane and i can not do that anymore...they dont have excursions here; not even close (but the bikes oh the bikes) i crashed at 10 pm: and that was my 40 hour first day:

lundi, septembre 6

ah, how the title of this entry should say "my non existing photogenic genes," because they really do not exist. My creator seemed to have misplaced my photogenic genes for everyone else in my extended family takes far better pictures than I. It is almost as if I was raised with natural born models. Not models in the sense that they are picture perfect, everyone has thier "flaws," but models towards the meaning that they really have no problems with bad pictures. The last weekend of July I went to the county fair with my family. A few times we walked past this old time photo booth. I made a jokingly remark to my father about doing a family picture. He laughed. The second time we passed it, he seemed more interested, but my sister had not met up with us yet, therefore not a family picture with only 4. Then jaime did come, and we walked by it again. My father asked the guy for prices, after the guy quoted 50 dollars for all of us in one picture my dad said, "lets go." we all were shocked that my father would want to do such a thing. For those who know my immediate family members would agree with me that they are not the type to do these sorts of things. For those who dont- imagine my rather big, red-necked/hoosier wannabe construction working father with my quiet, expressionless mother, my short, thin light blonde, busy 11 year old brother and my blonde, perfect skinned, "jewish princess" 17 year old sister with me; the awkward proportioned, ratty haired 21 year old. The problem with me is not really with me, its just that in every picture of mine, I look drunk. I always half these half open eyes, or a stare ready to kill the viewer, my face glows bright red when the flash hits it and the cute tilt I sometimes do with my head turns out looking like someone took my head off of my neck and put it back on at an angle of 57 degrees to make me look like a freak. My best feature is my hair, but dont count on my hair to perform for pictures, no it will automatically frizz out when someone pulls out a camera, sometimes I have this frizzed out peice just extending from the side of my head, looking like it is ready to take off. And when I pull it back I come off looking like I am hispanic. Yes, I truly am the alien in the family. The only like feature that I share with my other family members are my eyes. We all have bulging out pure blue eyes. That might be it. I really do not look like my mother, maybe I have another mother? They always joked with me saying Im an alien, or I was switched at the hospital....hmmm....nah.

learn some french: comment allez vous? "how are you?"