"I'm going to blog about this later"

Bonjour mes amis (and stalkers, too)! Last week was pretty uneventful until Thursday. School is getting more intense and it's annoying me that I have to worry about reading and projects when I'm in the most amazing city in all the world, but I'm keeping up because I'll off myself if I become a 6th year senior at Eastern Illinois University. I couldn't handle another year in methville.

Thursday the ISA group went to the Opera Garnier which is a huge opera house in the middle of Paris and it's gorgeous. We were supposed to see "La Dame aux Camélias" which I was really looking forward to, but unfortunately I didn't end up going. This opera house was so old and everything was so cramped together. In a room where there should be been 200 people there were 500. and My seat was right in the middle of it, and there were no fire exits and I couldn't breathe. Not to be acting as the fire marshall of Paris (a profession that clearly must not exist here), if there was a fire I would literally have been the first one dead and the last possible person out of there. There wasn't even a center isle! When my panic attack got full fledged I tried getting out and it took me like 20 minutes because I had to climb over everyone and their things (did I mention there was an inch of foot room before the next row of seats??). The people at the ISA office said we could switch seats whenever we wanted, and some of the kids got boxed seats (so unfair) so Taylor and I left to go seat in some open ones on a lower level. You would think this wouldnt be a problem since ISA bought all the seats anyway and no one was sitting there, but the hall nazis wouldn't let us go and by this time the show was starting and there was no way we would be able to get back to our seats. It was really depressing - here we were all dressed up with nowhere to go. Where would one go by the Opera in Paris? Allow me.

Two words: Hardrock Cafe. hahahahaha how American are we? But I don't even care because I had the best time ever. They were playing some serious oldies (Jesse's girl, old michael jackson from when he was still black, etc). One of the waiters ended up being from Brooklyn. He said he came here 5 years ago and decided to just never leave, which isn't hard for me to imagine (don't worry Mom & Dad, I'm still planning on coming home! hahaha). Stephen came to join us because even though he was in the box seats, he couldn't see anything unless it was on the left side of the stage because his seat was too close to the wall. So we hung out at the hardrock for a couple of hours just talking and singing along to the sweet music, then we decided to stop by the international club since it opened in a new place. (Side note: the international club is a party every thursday thats run by one of the kids at school, so all international students get in for free before 1am and theres good music and cheap drinks!). That was really fun, I never went to the old place but this new place was pretty cool.

Saturday I went to get falafels with taylor and stephen but of course it was closed. This is the 3rd time Ive attempted to get a falafel and something has gone awry. But instead of getting upset we just walked down the block to a restaurant called "Breakfast in America". The line was out the door but it was no surprise. They have American type (and sized!) breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We shared the most amazing chili cheese fries. I thought I died and went to Heaven. Now don't get me wrong, french food is good, but you never realize how much you'll miss the comfort of chili cheese fries until they're in your mouth.

Saturday night we hung out at Taylors, drank some wine, and booked our train tickets to London on Friday(nothing like waiting til the last minute). We were going to book more weekends but travel planning is surprisingly stressful, so we opted for wine and funny stories instead. I know I've said it before but I'm going to say it again - I'M SO EXCITED FOR SPRING BREAK. My itinerary is as follows:

London - March 12th - 15th
Dublin - March 15th - 18th
Edinburgh - March 18th - 19th
Glasgow - March 19th - 21st

And yes, you read that correctly. St Patricks Day in Dublin? Don't mind if I do. hahahha I'm going back to the homeland! Some girls went to Ireland last weekend and they said it's their favorite place so far so I know I have a lot to look forward to. And we're taking the Chunnel to London (the train that goes under water) so that should be quite the experience.

I'm also kind of excited to be in places that speak English for an entire 9 days, it'll be nice to give my brain a break haha. And all of the construction around my building has been AWFUL recently (I don't know where they think they're digging to, the core of the Earth??) so it'll be relaxing to get away from that too. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I've never met the neighbor that I share a wall with and I'm not quite sure what he does for a living. He's always there, because I can hear him coughing. I can hear his doors creaking all the time (which gets kind of freaky when I'm home alone and I think it's my doors) and he's always watching what I assume to be war movies because I can hear the bombs and guns. There's a possibility he's just a history buff, or maybe he's an animal trainer (as I hear cats, birds, and dogs at all hours of the day/night). Or maybe he does construction, because I hear him yelling and jackhammering things as well. OR, he could be famous, as he's always entertaining what sounds like 1000 people until the wee hours of the morning. Or, finally, he's a serial killer with weird habits such as an obsession with wars, inviting a ton of people over so he has his pick of who to kill, and hiding the bodies in his walls/floor (that would certainly explain the yelling and jackahmmering, right?) Before I leave I'd like to get to the bottom of it, so stay tuned. (As a side note, I will not be attending any parties that this man has in case my last conclusion is correct).

Everything is still going swimmingly with the host family. Yesterday Sophie was bitching about how some lady took the parking spot she was waiting for and her imitation was hilarious. I'm lucky I'm with such a normal family. Yesterday was also "Women's Day" which apparently is celebrated in France because Nelson cleaned, cooked, and did the dishes, and when I tried to bring my plate to the kitchen he told me "NON! C'est la journée de la femme!" and Sophie agreed. I could get used to this - perhaps the US should start celebrating?

Since I'll be a world traveler come friday, I probably won't update this again until the 22nd or so. However, if you want to keep up to date on my life you can facebook stalk me. Can't wait to share all my adventures with you! hahaha :) Bonne journée!