Finally, another post.

So I have been horribly lazy about updating this blog. Having internet that hates me with a passion makes even sending the most simple of emails a troublesome task and therefore I have dreaded dealing with the whole posting blog thing. And now I am too lazy to talk about what happened since the last time I posted, so I will just move on to talk about what happened this weekend!

Thursday I only had class in the morning so Cassandra and I went to Galleries Lafayette (a fancy department store) because they were having a sale of which I could afford nothing. After exploring the store, we headed to a café near the Opera House (one of the best places in Paris) and sat down to have an espresso, share a plate of fries, and write some postcards. After returning to my room, I preceded to take a 3 hour nap until Allie rudely woke me up with the incredibly loud doorbell, it seems I had slept through our meeting time for the night and so she rallied me to get up and we headed out to a new Irish Pub on the street where my school is, a few blocks from my place. It's a gorgeous new place with pool tables and dark corners and lots of ex-pat Irish locals yelling at each other and downing Guiness' at an alarming rate. At the urging of Cassandra, I tried my first Guinness and liked it a lot. We had fun just telling stories and chatting at a comfy table in the front until we decided t move down the street to another pub that knows us well as Thursdays are Student nights and drinks are only 5 euros. We stayed there for the rest of night, mingling with the locals int he pub and having fun. Allie and I then ran to the crepe stand just as it was closign for a late-night Nutella crepe and walked home.

Friday morning we got up pretty early to met our history class at Place St. Michel to go to Versailles. My teacher is this adorable Hungarian woman who has the body of a ballet dancer and the smoking habit of an old french man. She spouts out historical facts like it is today's news and never looks at her notes in class, listening to her talk about what we are learning is like listening to a story and it is so peaceful listening to her. We took the RER (the train that goes to the suburbs) to Versailles and headed to the Palace. It is just as imposing, grand, and beautiful as I ever thought it would be. The gates are glittering gold and the palace is huge. With large hordes of tourists buzzing around us, we crossed through the main courtyard into the back of the palace grounds to explore the gardens. We wandered around the miles of fountains, statues, greens, gardens, etc for hours learning abotu the symbolism for everything and which king developed which aspect (all illustrating exactly waht we had covered in class). Last weekend had brought low, low temperatures to Paris and demanded the first use of my wool coat, but this day in Versailles was absolutely beautiful. Warm temperatures, blue skies... The blue made the golden statues sparkle and the blue sky contrasted beautifullly with the yellowing trees. I honestly have seen very few things so beautiful as Versailles on a day with good weather. After exploring the gardens, we went to Marie Antoinette's fake peasant village she had made so she could play with animals and explore mini houses to make her forget her trouble and have her personal fairy tale land. It was straight out of Beauty and the Beast... old medeival cottages, lakes with fish.Goats, bunnies, donkeys, geese running around the grounds. A grotto. rolling hills spotted with pagodas. It was amazing... So anyways, this ended up being one of my favorite days in Paris and quite a spectacular sight to see, even though it was utterly exhausting -- we walked for 7 hours.

Saturday Allie's friend Mariah was visiting so the three of us set out to show her hte city by taking a long walk along the Seine. we started at one end where we live and wanted to get to the other, where the eiffel tower is. It was another sunny and gorgeous day with a blue sky. It proved to be a nice and relaxing day, just walking along the water and stopping for a coffee at one point.I cannot get over how gorgeous it is here in the autumn! It is fantastic to have a real season and although i know I may stop being so happy about it when it gets to be November and the temperatures keep dropping and the rain never stops coming, I'm loving it right now. So anyways our walk concluded with yet another Nutella crepe and a mini picnic at the base of the eiffel tower. That night Allie made us a scallop pasta and we headed out to a Moroccan bar which was very eclectic and fun.

Today I slept in and then did reading with Megan in her room. It was so relaxing just to hang out and stay in, I feel like I hve been trying really hard to not waste time here and see everything I can, but that can be super exhausting. For dinner, we went to the apartment of Megan's uncle and had a nice dinner (God, how I appreciate those now).

Another week of school starts tomorrow. crazy how time flies!

HOPE YOU ARE ALL WELL.

Bisous.