Home sweet honey gelato

So, I wasn't actually going to update while I was on vacation, but I've been so busy during the day that I just want to come home and chill out for a few hours before bed and rest my feet, so I've got some time. Besides, I think I've got plenty of material for a post after just 3 days here in Italy.

First off, the train is amazing. I know it takes like 12 hours to get from Paris to Rome, but I love the train. The views were spectacular, especially through the Alps. You just don't get those views from a plane. /train rant

So when I arrived in Rome after a long day of traveling, I decided to go to the Hard Rock Café first thing so that I wouldn't forget (like I did in Edinburgh). This might not sound exciting, but when I went up to the counter to tell the guy (who worked there) what I wanted, I said "Bonjourno". Except I must have a French accent because the guy responded "Bonjour, d'où venez-vous?" (Hi, where are you from?). I explained (in French) that I was from the United States. He responded, "But you're French, right?" Highlight of my life. Mistaken for a French person. That is a pretty epic win in my book.

Sunday was Vatican day since it was 1) The Holy See (whatever that is) and 2) Free because it was the last Sunday of the month. I went to the Vatican Museums first, looking for the Sistine Chapel--ended up taking the proverbial "Scenic Route" in the museum and ended up seeing like EVERY other gallery they have. In a giant crowd. Eventually I made it to the Chapel and was just amazed. Pictures weren't allowed (you'll have to Google it if you want pictures that badly), but it was awe inspiring. I can't even believe the amount of work it must have taken. After that I headed (or tried to head) over to St. Peter's Square/Basilica. Essentially, I went the wrong direction and ended up walking around the entirety of the Vatican City (not that it's THAT big, but still). I finally found the square, took a few pictures, took ONE look at the line to get in the Basilica (that wrapped around the square at LEAST twice) and went, "Nope, not that interested in the Basilica". So I went to the Piazza della Republicca and got an iced tea and a caprese salad for lunch-ish. I people watched for a while, then headed home to rest. At dinner that night (3 euro pasta/wine provided by the hostel) I met a couple from Colorado staying in the room next to mine. We ended up deciding to go to Pompeii together on Monday.

Sculpture in the Vatican Museums courtyard

Mosaic on the floor

Giant foot = epic win

More beautiful flooring

The view of the crowds in the Vatican Museums

Finally found the exit.

Obelisk in St. Peter's Square

St. Peter's Basilica

Monday we got up bright and early to get a train down to Naples. The train ride was beautiful, and when we got to Naples, a nice older Italian man helped us get the train to Pompeii. The plan was to do Pompeii in the morning, and climb Mount Vesuvius in the afternoon. When we get to Pompeii, it was sunny and absolutely gorgeous. Melissa, Craig, and I explored for about four hours straight. I can't even really describe it in more detail than that. Pompeii is HUGE (much bigger than I was expecting), and it was just absolutely breathtaking. I can't help but think about how tragic the eruption was, yet what an awesome opportunity it's given us to learn, explore, and grow as humans and as a culture. Instead of trying to explain, have some pictures. :)

In the Necropolis

Some columns

Absolutely beautiful

The theatre!

Inside the amphitheatre/Colosseum-type thing

View up the street

Ancient hot tub?

Another street

Overlooking the ruins

More theatre

KITTY!

Some more ruins

:)

Overlooking some of the city

Gorgeous mural

Ancient basilica

I can't even get over how gorgeous this is.

Near the end of our exploration, it started to lightly rain. We figured it was no big deal, left Pompeii and decided to get food. We decided that the rain should be done by the time we were done eating so that we could continue on to Mount Vesuvius. Boy, were we ever wrong! Nope, when we started eating, it was a light drizzle; when we finished eating, it was a torrential downpour. We gave up on our Mount Vesuvius plan and returned to Rome in time to get the free pizza offered by the hostel on Monday and Thursday nights. While eating, I met a nice guy from Canada who is taking a year off to travel the world. We talked for quite some time before heading out to find gelato.

This morning, I was lazy. It was gorgeous out. All I wanted was to be outside. I ended up at the zoo. Yeah yeah yeah, I know, I'm 3 years old; I love zoos. Turns out, they had EXCELLENT monkeys. I got right up close to them (or rather, they came right up close to me), and I ended up just staring at a few of them. Literally, I had a staring contest with several monkeys. Then I spent about an hour watching a different species of monkey playing around in their huge enclosure. It was amazing. So interesting to watch their interactions. After that, I headed off to see the rest of the animals. Near the end, I stumbled upon some orangutans who I sat with for about 10 minutes, just staring at them and talking to them.

This is not even zoomed in at all; that's how close I was to this monkey.

MELON TIME

Oh peacock! These things were roaming everywhere.

Nap time for kitty!

Lynx waking up from nap time

D'aw, elephant fountain.

Wallaby (or something)

Capibara

D'aw, sleepy kitty has HUGE paws

Orangutan

Those EYES

Other orangutan

Oh hi there!

:) Staring contest with an orangutan

After the zoo, I got massively lost. Now, first off, I feel like getting lost is my traveling rite of passage. Every city I go to, I have to get lost. In any case, the zoo was in this big park with a couple villas. Well, I figured the park was big, but it ended up being about 30 times bigger than I had originally planned. In any case, I almost did a full circle over the course of 1-1.5 hours and ended up NEARLY right back where I started (at the zoo). I eventually figured it out and headed off to find a couple stores I was interested in shopping at. Along the way, I stumbled across the People's Square, the Spanish Square (and the Spanish Steps), the Parliament building, the Pantheon, Elefantino, Santa Maria sopra Minerva, and the Capitole.

Living statue in the Piazza del Popolo

More Piazza del Popolo

Spanish Steps

I think this is the Piazza di Spagna

More Piazza di Spagna

Parliament building

Building across from Parliament

The Panthéon

Obelisk in front of the Panthéon

Panthéon

Inside the Panthéon

Elefantino

Santa Maria Sopra Minerva

The Capitole

This lady took like 8 thousand pictures of me, convinced my camera wasn't working.

While at the Capitole, I saw a guy painting watercolor pictures, so I stopped and talked to him for a while. I ended up buying one of his paintings, and then he asked me if I wanted to stop by tomorrow and get coffee. Maybe this is an Italian custom?? After that, I stumbled across another street artist who was making these really unique paintings, and I just couldn't help myself, I got one of his paintings, too.

Finally, I wandered up to Trevi fountain to throw in my coin to ensure my return to Rome. I tried to get a lady to take my picture while throwing in the coin, and she kept thinking she didn't get it, so I ended up throwing in 3 coins. Hopefully this means I'll get to come back to Rome 3 times!

Trevi Fountain

GPOY

Oh, somewhere in between all that, I wanted gelato (go figure). I found this little place that had a WHOLE bunch of flavors. I ended up trying honey flavored gelato with a chocolate meringue (which ended up being like a vanilla gelato with chocolate chips). Honey gelato is probably the best thing I've ever tasted in my life, and someone in the States should get on mass marketing this so that it's available when I come home.

That's pretty much all for now! Maybe I'll try to update the blog on my train trip to Florence on Friday. We shall see!

On packing...

As I prepare for Italy, I've begun to pack up... well, everything. I'm not sure I can properly express how depressing this is. First off, I am going to be paying at least $300 in shipping/baggage costs to get all my stuff home. How is that even possible?? I'm not entirely sure. It cost me $60 to get it here. Granted, I'm stopping in New York before heading on home, so that doubles my baggage costs already. Which then, doubles again because well, hey, why not?! (Also, I like to shop, so that doesn't help.)

In any case, I'm actually really sad to be going home. Which sounds weird. I think everyone I've talked to here is super excited about going home. I just...never really want to leave here. I came here as a student, to fulfill a dream about 6 years in the making, just to see what it's like living halfway across the world. The first few weeks were fun and exciting. Around the one-month mark, I really just wanted to come home. I made a countdown on my calendar of how many more weeks I had to endure before going home to see my family and friends again. Now, in the final weeks, facing my imminent departure, packing up my life here, wondering how I'm ever going to say goodbye to this family, I realize that I found a home here.

Maybe it's a little early to start getting nostalgic and thinking about this too much, but I really can't picture living the rest of my life anywhere but here, in France. I've been bitten by the wanderlust bug (a really, REALLY big one), and I honestly can't picture staying in the States for more than a few more years to finish my studies.

In any case, I figured I'd let you all know what's going on since I'll be leaving for Italy on Saturday (bright and early...just the way I like to travel!). Not sure when I'll have time to blog again--maybe when I get back from Italy, maybe in the airport waiting for my plane to New York.

This Saturday marks the start of almost a full month of travels--Italy (!!!), New York (!!!! [yes, New York is a little more exciting than Italy--I'll get to see my best friend AND my aunt!]), and Georgia (!!!). Then I get to trudge home and start real life again.

I can't wait to share all of my adventures with you. My final study abroad adventures! Stay tuned for pictures of Rome, the Vatican City, Pompeii, Florence, Pisa, and Venice!!

France, you can be a strange, strange cookie...

This week I went to Mont Saint-Michel and Paris with Angela!

Monday's weather was beautiful, except we were mostly stuck on the train the entire day. However, when we got to our hotel in Mont Saint-Michel, we were in for a pleasant surprise: 1. Our hotel was MUCH closer to the Mont than I had expected (it was also easy to get from our hotel to the train station) and 2. In our hotel room, we had a tiny little balcony that had a view of Mont Saint-Michel itself! Pretty classy for relatively cheap! We decided to head onto the Mont itself to find dinner and ended up eating the most expensive meal I've probably ever eaten in my life (read: that I've paid for).

There's this restaurant that my host mom told me about called La Mère Poulard. It's supposed to be pretty famous or something. I had never heard of it, but we decided to give it a try. Well, I was planning on ordering the cheapest menu they had... except the cheapest menu they had was apparently not available that evening, so I ended up paying 30euro more than I expected. (Oops...but you only live once right?!)

The food was pretty delicious. I tried a plate of 3 different pâtés. I don't know what they were. I don't know what was in them. But they were really good (except for one which I just really did not care for at all). Then, for the main course, I tried the famous Poulard Omelet with potatoes and ham. It was the weirdest omelet I've ever seen in my life. It was really REALLY light and fluffy--almost the consistency of a super light souflée. It tasted pretty good, though, despite the strange, unexpected texture difference. I didn't care for the ham, though--it was spiced in a weird way. :( However, dessert made up for everything--the one lost pâté, the consistency of the omelet, and the price. I got a plate of chocolate deliciousness, essentially. There were three different little chocolate dishes to sample. All I can say for sure is that one was a giant truffle--and if there's truffles involved, I'm a happy Katie.

The inside of La Mère Poulard

My pâtés: the white one on the right was delicious (prune in the middle, not an organ like I originally thought)

Half crepe, half omelet: total deliciousness

That was the most disgusting ham I've ever tasted--the potatoes were good, though.

Left to right: Truffle, macaron, some sort of delicious chocolate concoction

Outside the restaurant, right at the entrance into the medieval city.

The next day, it was rainy. That kind of sucked, but we headed out to the Mont anyway (after buying a sweater to combat the icy wind) despite a strong urge to go back to bed and sleep for an hour or two more. Luckily, the rain didn't last too long, and by noon the sun had come out. We explored the city, and some museums, then headed back to catch our train.

No, we didn't go into the Abbey itself. I suppose maybe we should have, but I tend to like things better from the outside anyway, so it just would have been a waste of Angela's money. In any case, the museums were pretty interesting. And by interesting, I mean, I thought I was in a horror movie on 2 separate occasions.

First, the Archeoscope where we're sent to wait in a deserted hallway, then enter into a huge room that smells like chlorine, sit on the most uncomfortable benches ever while the door automatically shuts behind us, lights start flashing, and the bench starts shaking. As you can tell, no, we were not murdered. But you'll just have to go to Mont Saint-Michel and experience the Archeoscope for yourself. >:D

Occasion number 2: The wax museum that I was not expecting--and of course it was the wax museum of the prison and dungeons. Then there was the unexpected mirror where I scared myself half to death, creepy monks weaving, standing around, praying. Needless to say, wax museums are no bueno. Do not like.

It was a pretty enjoyable day, nonetheless. And, for your exclusive viewing pleasure, gratuitous pictures of YOURS TRULY in front of Mont Saint-Michel!

Monday night, Angela and I leaving Mont Saint-Michel

This is the tiniest alleyway I've ever walked down

The Abbey

Low tide

The Abbey, once more

Once more with feeling!

I don't know why I liked this door so much

It was so windy.

Still windy, but with a blue sky at least

Just before getting on the shuttle back to our hotel

 We had to spend the night in Paris since our train arrived so late, so this morning we went to Père Lachaise cemetery before heading our separate ways (Angela to Lyon, me home to Orléans). Père Lachaise is absolutely beautiful. It was HUGE, but I took a picture of the map with my phone, so we could get around without getting (too) lost. We never could find Sarah Bernhardt since we ran out of time, but we saw a bunch of other famous dead people!

Balzac

Delacroix

Me and my buddy Guillaume Apollinaire

Where's a madeleine when I need one?

Yes, Oscar Wilde, you get a kissy face.

The one and only Edith Piaf!

On Rue du Molière and La Fontaine

Molière tried to hide from us

But we found him and La Fontaine all the same.

The family Batcave! I found Batman!

That's all for now! I should be laying pretty low until I take off for Italy in a little more than a week. (I can't believe I leave for Italy in a little more than a week.) Not sure if I'll have time to update while I'm gone. I'll at least update before I leave, but after that, I might not see you guys until June! It'll be almost time to go home!!

Another openin', another show...

So since my parents left, I've been busy preparing for the production of my «atelier theatre». I spent all day Friday and yesterday at rehearsal with nine other students, two light technicians, one music director, one student director, and one director. Let me tell you, last week, I didn't think we could pull it off. Not everyone knew their lines, we had one girl almost drop out because she was so scared, and we had yet to perform the play in it's entirety. It was awful. I cried. Friday, things got better: people knew most of their lines, and the pieces started fitting together. But I still had doubts.

Yesterday, we were all feeling it. Everyone was nervous. We finally got to perform the play, in its entirety, in order, without stopping, with lights, music, etc yesterday afternoon at 4pm (with our performance less than 4 hours away). Wonder of all wonders, it wasn't too bad. We skipped some text, some movements were messed up, but all in all, it was pretty fricken good for our first time through.

Our wonderful director, Yaël gave us all pre-show gifts, and I started getting that feeling--that "this is really going to end and I thought I wanted it to, but really I don't" feeling. Everyone was getting nervous, we jumped around for a while in the dressing rooms, and then we did some warm ups on stage. I did the "Funky Chicken" (my pre-show good luck ritual that I've done pretty much since I started theatre 8 years ago) in French (yeah, that was an interesting translation exercise) with about half of the actors/musicians and then we hid backstage while the audience filtered in.

The show started, and it was magic. It's crazy how fast it goes. We worked on this all semester, and it all came down to 50 magical minutes on stage. The show came together more spectacularly than I ever could have imagined, and even though it wasn't perfect, it was perfect. Maybe it's just because it has been SO long since I've done theatre like this, but it felt so special. It was exhilarating. I was so proud of us--of myself for pulling off the French, and being the mean sorceress, and of everyone else who did so well with the French (we were all foreign students), and who all overcame their fears. For most of them, it was their first time on stage.

Shinno, me, Anita, Yaël, Carmen, Elena, Melissa; Kako, Daun, Ethan, Vladimir; Sonia, Yuka

I don't even think I can begin to describe how I feel about this experience. I've never had theatre like this. It was a combination of the lowest of lows and highest of highs, and it was just amazing.

For those of you who are curious, Maddie filmed most of my part in the play, so I've uploaded what she's sent me (so far) for your viewing pleasure. I'll update as I get more video, but for now here's part 1 and part 2 of "La Socière".

Tomorrow it's off to Mont St. Michel with Angela!! *excite*

The parents are coming! The parents are coming!

In the past week, 4 major things have happened.
1. The Jeanne d'Arc festival started
2. I met my parents in Paris
3. My parents came to Orléans and met the "other parents"
4. I went with my parents to Normandy

First, among all the rainy, crappy weather we had last week, we had one shining star of a day (literally--thank you big shining sun). Tuesday was absolutely BEAUTIFUL for the medieval festival at l'Ile Charlemagne to commemorate the start of the 600th anniversary of Jeanne d'Arc. The festival was pretty freaking awesome. There were booths with medieval craftsmen selling their wares, food, and spectacle (not to mention the abundance of warmth and sunshine). It was absolutely fantastic. I wish I could have stayed all day but I had too much preparation left before Paris.

Speaking of Paris, on Wednesday morning, I went and met my parents at Charles de Gaulle airport. To be honest, it was a bit surreal. I waited for about an hour (with a *ahem* VERY professional-looking sign that said "Moore") after their plane landed before they came out of the baggage claim area. After navigating our way to their hotel, we ate the (now slightly warm) picnic lunch I had packed for us in their hotel room before heading over to check into my hostel. It's actually really awesome traveling with my parents because I get to see things through their eyes. My mom gets excited about some of the smallest things (little garden windows, the way a wrought iron gate looks), but it's really refreshing to see these things through her eyes. So it took a while for us to get to my hostel--we got distracted by La Sorbonne and the Panthéon. But then we headed over to Notre Dame. That church never ceases to amaze me.

On Thursday morning, we went to La Sainte Chapelle which was absolutely gorgeous. It's a little bit of a hidden treasure, but definitely well worth it (and I get in for free--thank you French Longstay Visa!). Since it was so sunny, we decided to take a river cruise on the Seine as well before heading over to the Luxembourg gardens. Then I had to leave them in Paris and come back to Orléans.

Enter two full days of theatre with a supremely cute baby. My parents got in to Orléans on Saturday while I was at rehearsal and they came out to the university to see some of the play. Then we came back to my host family's house and my two sets of parents met each other. My host parents reserved this wonderful little French restaurant and we had a nice night out. Luckily my host parents speak English fairly well, so I only had to translate a little bit. I did turn to my parents quite a few times and start speaking in French before realizing that they had no idea what I was saying. All-in all, a spectacular evening. Sunday morning, we went to the cathedral in Orléans and the medieval market (temporary product of the Jeanne d'Arc festival) before catching our train to Caen.

It was late when we got to Caen, so we ordered some pizza. I am pleased to say that I called in the order, in French, which was pretty awesome (I don't even order pizza in English, normally, so in French was impressive). Monday morning we caught a train to Bayeux to get a tour of the D-Day beaches. I'll be honest: Omaha beach was... a beach. I really didn't see anything spectacular about it. I know it was the site of one of the bloodiest battles in yadda-yadda, but *shrug*. What was really impressive was the old German gun battery at Point du Hoc. The land used to be flat. Now it looks a bit like the surface of the moon with tons and tons of craters (products of American bombs). The American cemetery was also pretty interesting.

After the tour, we returned to Caen to find just about everything closed. Luckily, I found the website of a company who takes your order, then goes to whatever restaurant to pick your food up and delivers it. Once again, I ordered food over the phone (in French) as we chilled out in the (really spiffy) hotel room. This morning, we watched a V-Day ceremony from one of our two balconies (yeah, traveling with my parents has its perks), then we headed back to Paris for lunch and our goodbye.

Unfortunately, I let my mom take all the pictures, so I've pretty much got nothing in that respect until she gets home, uploads everything, and then emails me things. I'll have more pictures this weekend, though. I've got unofficial theatre tomorrow, a class trip to Paris on Thursday, rehearsal all day Friday, then a university end-of-the-year party Friday night, rehearsal all day Saturday, performance Saturday night, Jeanne d'Arc fireworks and concert after the performance, and then the closing ceremonies for the Jeanne d'Arc festival on Sunday. What a weekend!

I'm really sad to see my parents go (time just flies by), but I'm happy to be moving on to my next adventures. Besides, I'll be home to see them in less than two months now.

À la prochaine!

Versailles and the wall of love

When I left you guys last time, I was on a train from London back to Paris. I was going to go to Père Lachaise, but I was tired and ended up just having a long lunch while people-watching. After lunch, I was going to make my way down to the Latin Quarter to sip on some coffee to pass the time before I could go back to the hostel, get a shower, and take a nap before Angela and Maddie got into the city that night.

Well, the best laid plans were meant to be interrupted. Maddie ended up showing up without Angela. I get a frantic call from Angie since Maddie can't get a hold of me and needs to find me. So, eventually things work out and Maddie and I meet to drop her things off at the hostel before going on a wild goose chase to find some store one of her friends told her about. I did get to go back to the hostel to shower before we went to collect Angela from the train station, but all-in-all, it was not exactly the calm, relaxing day I had envisioned.

Friday was pretty awesome since we went to Versailles. I'll be honest though, you guys: to me, a castle is a castle, is a castle. From the inside, anyway. The outside was beautiful. But as soon as I walk into a castle, my mind pretty much goes "Oh look, a wall, some more walls, some carpet, an old bed, some posh furniture....painting, painting, painting...". Don't get me wrong, I'm always impressed by the amount of work that goes into building the castles, and the Hall of Mirrors was impressive. But... meh. I guess I just don't find the inside all that fascinating. It was kind of cool to see some of the famous paintings that I'd seen in art classes and French history classes, but other than that I was just like, "room, room, bigger room, OH MIRRORS, room, room, lots of people, room, room, room."

Paris of Versailles

Golden Gate, lol

Hall of Mirrors

The gardens, however, are a totally different story. I wish we had more time (and that my feet didn't hurt so much) to explore around the gardens. Luckily, we did get to Marie-Antoinette's hamlet and farm which was absolutely adorable. We only got to see the outside of the Grand Trianon, and I was a little disappointed that we didn't go in (though I'm never really impressed by the inside, I'm always curious).

Flowers in the garden

Statue with the palace in the background.

These gardens are seriously HUGE

Goats at Marie-Antoinette's farm

Big fat piggy!

The hamlet

Ajouter une légende

Broken down stairs

This will be beautiful when there's more flowers

Saturday we went to the wall of love, and then pretty much went home. All in all it was a good time in Paris, but I have to say--I prefer traveling alone. Having two trips back to back--one by myself, one with other people really opened up my eyes to how much more freedom I have by myself. Not to say that I don't enjoy Maddie and Angela's company, but sometimes I just need to be by myself.

Love. <3

Je t'aime

Sign language

Now I'm home for a few days while my host family is on vacation. My parents arrive Wednesday morning, so I'll be meeting them in Paris and staying there with them for a couple days. Then it's back to Orléans for theatre, and out to Normandy before my parents return to the States. Busy busy busy!