Les vacances!!

Wow...I haven't written in quite a while...this has been a crazy week as far as homework goes. Here are some highlights from LAST week:

Tues: I saw Up In The Air with Mandi and the canadians from my dorm. It made me feel so nostalgic! Some of the movie takes place in Wisconsin and it made me realize how much I miss Milwaukee. Overall, I really liked the movie, but kind of an interesting message. I actually kind of understand how he feels because I'm about to take off on a two week journey where all I have is my backpack and it IS kind of liberating...and terrifying...but more on that later.

Thurs: It was Alberto's (one of the Canadians) birthday! A bunch of us went out for Indian food, and then to O'Scotland for a bit. It was fun hanging out with everyone and then Indian food was delicious! It's comforting to know I can still get ethnic food in Lille. :-)

Weekend: This weekend was very lazy. I wanted to take it easy because I had a midterm this week and I had a lot of trip planning to do. I spent the majority of the weekend reading and lazing around. Saturday night was a little intense. Mandi, Sadie and I needed to book all of our hostels for Morocco, which took a lot more work than expected. When you need to coordinate good places to stay that are cheap, train schedules, check-out times, check-in times, and cities that you want to visit, it gets a little tough! It took about three hours, but we FINALLY figured it out. I've been really stressed out all week though because of these trips--definitely the most intense yet unplanned trip of my life. I got a break from all the stress on Sunday when we went to Wazemmes. I bought some food and another poulet rôti...mmmmm. :-)

This week was busy with homework and planning. My first mid-term (on La Princesse de Clèves) was...not bad. M. Godo definitely babied the international kids--the French kids had to do five short answers and three long answers in two hours, but the internationals only had to do two short and one long answer with the aid of a dictionary and our books. I felt like I didn't really write enough...but we'll see. I also had to do a short writing assignment for French this week, but that class is a bit of a joke, so I'm not concerned. Midterm stress is fast approaching after the break...but before then:

TODAY to Feb. 10 = Galway and Dublin, Ireland
Feb. 10 to Feb. 13 = Lisbon, Portugal
Feb. 13 to Feb. 14 = Madrid, Spain (less than 24 hours)
Feb. 14 to Feb. 19 = Tangier, Meknes, Casablanca, and Marrakech, Morocco
Feb. 19 to Feb. 20 = Paris, France
Feb. 20 = home to Lille!!

This trip is going to be a whirlwind! I am SO anxious and stress out right now it's not even funny. I'm leaving here in an hour and 45 minutes and my nerves are just going crazy! I'm super excited for this trip, but I feel extremely unprepared...I'll just figure it out when I get there! At least I have hotels and hostels all booked...phew. Unfortunately, this also means I'll be out of communication for the next couple of weeks. Expect a LOT of posts and a LOT of pictures when I get back though! I'll probably do a few posts divided by countries, but maybe a couple installments for Ireland and Morocco. We'll see. I'm also going to be really busy when I get back with midterms, so I'll try to be as timely as possible, but I can't make any promises! I'll be writing down things I want to blog about every night, so I won't forget anything important. :-) On that note, talk to you all in a couple of weeks and...

Bye! Tchau! Adiós! وداعاً، إلى اللقاء! (beats me how you say that...) Salut!