One Month Left....

I know I haven't been updating my blog, but I am going to try to do it for the one month that I have left. I just returned from spring break yesterday, and I have a lot left to do in the one month that I am here. I still have:
3 papers
3 presentations
1 book report
2 projects
4 exams.

I will be surprised if I survive all of it but this semester has been so much fun, and definitely worth it!

Over the past 2 weeks, I have travelled to Amsterdam, Southern France, Paris, Belgium, and Edinburgh. I happened to be in Amsterdam on Ben and Jerry's free cone day, and when I first saw the line at Ben & Jerry's I decided it wasn't worth waiting, but when I saw it was free cone day I knew I had to because I would be a terrible New Englander if I didn't have free Ben and Jerry's.

While I was in Amsterdam I went to the photography museum named "FOAM" and that was really interesting as they had an exhibit about the New York Times Magazine. The best part of it was that the entire exhibit was in English so I felt like I could really understand it. The following day I spent quite a bit of time just exploring Amsterdam, and I ended up walking around Amsterdam for most of 2.5 hours.

After Amsterdam I went to Southern France. Southern France was gorgeous! Spring had sprung! I got to the train station and I was basically sweating because it was 20 degrees Celsius outside, which was very different from the 8 degrees in Amsterdam. The first night I arrived in Southern France we had horse for dinner. I was a little worried about trying it, but I decided since everyone else was eating it I would try it too. This is when I decided that horse meat is delicious. The next day we slept in and we went to go see a Good Friday Procession in the town. That was very interesting, as I had never seen one before. Apparently the one that I saw in Perpignan is the most famous one in France. Sadly I didn't stay for all of it but we watched it for about 40 minutes or so. The following day we went to a place called Les Orgues. This place is a geological site, and the rocks are made out of fine sand and they become eroded by the rain. For dinner that night we ate fish with the heads still on them, I was kind of surprised by that and not totally sure how to go about eating them. One of my favorite things that I ate in Southern France was definitely the strawberries. We ate strawberries with chantilly (whipped cream) after every meal! They were SOOOOO delicious.

I left Perpignan on Easter Sunday and I went to Paris for a night. While I was in Paris I went to dinner and drinks with Cerise, one of my really good friends from The Grammar School. We had a hyggligt (there is no definition of this Danish word) time. I then left Paris the next morning and travelled to Bruges. I was a little disappointed not to spend time more time in Paris, but I really enjoyed all of the other places I travelled.

Bruges was a lot of fun. I went with 2 friends that I have met since I've been in Denmark. It was kind of rainy when we got to the train station and we didn't know where exactly our hostel was, and none of us had a map, so we ended up walking down the street about 10 minutes from the train station, and then realized we didn't know where we were and we had taken a wrong turn from the directions we had, so we turned around and went all the way back to the train station. We then tried again following the directions a bit more closely and walked for another 10 minutes. It turned out that we were literally right around the corner from our hostel the first time, but we didn't know that because we didn't have a map. Needless to say that by the time we got to the hostel we were very cold and very wet. When we checked in the people at the front desk told us that there would be a walking tour in about 10 minutes so we dropped our stuff and went outside and prepared to get more cold and wet. After the walking tour we were getting pretty hungry, but it was only about 4:00 in the afternoon so we didn't want to get dinner. We ended up walking around for a while, and then succumbing to hunger around 5:00. After dinner we were all so exhausted, and wet, and cold that we ended up going back to the hostel and doing nothing. We didn't want to go to bed too early so around 10pm I remembered I had Skip-Bo cards (for those of you who have never played its pretty much the best game in the world!), so we went to the lobby and played Skip-Bo for an hour, until they kicked us out. The hostel was undergoing major construction so the facilities weren't the nicest. It will be a nice place to go back once the construction is finished but right now there is currently one small toilet, and a separate room with a shower and a sink, for the whole floor to use.

Bruges Day 2 was jam packed with things going on. We started the day with a Belgian Waffle, au naturel. We then climbed the Belfry tower, which is the highest tower in Belgium it was 366 steps to the top. Let's just say it wasn't the easiest climb, but definitely rewarding in the end. After the tower we got Frites (French Fries) with curry tomato ketchup. We then went to a church to go see one of Michael Angelo's Famous statues, and then we went to the Hospital Museum. After the Hospital Museum it was time for lunch, and then we went to the Russian Orthodox church because that is where they have the blood of Jesus Christ, and we found the frog in one of the squares and had to kiss the frog. Sadly it didn't turn into a prince like it was supposed to. Oh well. We then decided to go back to the hotel because we were cold and wet, and it was Nap Time. Our Nap time managed to last about 2 hours or so. During this time I had to register for classes which was no fun because the server crashed and that took about 30 minutes to actually work, sadly it cut into my nap time so I only napped for about 1 hour. It was definitely a well deserved nap. After naps we had a light dinner, and then after dinner I realized that the mini carnival that was in town had Olliebollens (Dutch Donuts). They were delicious and I managed to get Powdered sugar ALL over me and my nice black jacket.

Day 3 in Belgium we weren't sure if we wanted to go to Brussels for the day or just stay in Bruges, because we were all leaving from Brussels anyways. We just decided we would stay in Bruges because we had heard about this amazing market where you could buy really cheap cooked meat, so we did that and bought an order of French fries and had that for lunch. Of course we started the day off with Waffles, mine was chocolate and banana. The market also had really cheap chocolate truffles that I had to buy as a snack for later. We ended up taking our lunch back to the hostel, eating lunch and playing more skip-bo because it was still cold and rainy outside, and not a nice day to be walking around too much. I then started my adventure to Edinburgh which included a Train--> a Taxi (It was supposed to be a bus, but I could take the taxi for the same price and get there faster) --> a plane, and eventually I was in Edinburgh. For once I was glad I was American because there were two lines at customs and one was UK/EU passports, and the other was all other passports so I was literally the only person in the all other passports line. Even though I was one of the last ones off the plane. I was pretty much the first one out. I then met Rachel at the airport and we ventured back to her apartment.

Thursday, we both slept in and then we decided we would go into the city and have a picnic lunch and do some shopping, and the picnic was probably the highlight of our day, we didn't do too much else. We did buy a steak pie from M & S and had our hearty Scottish dinner which included Steak Pie, mashed potatoes, and peas.

Friday, sadly Rachel had to work so I attempted to work on my paper for most of the day. I did get quite a bit of work accomplished but not quite as much as I should have. Oh well. We then met up with Sarah and Kathy Christie (Cassie's friend from St. Andrews and her mom) for dinner. We went to an Indian restaurant and had Tapas. When we told the waiter that we didn't want anything too spicy he said that they don't typically eat what was on the menu because it wasn't spicy enough for them, so nothing on the menu was going to be too spicy. After dinner Rachel and I went back to her flat and watched Cars!

Saturday we slept in again, and then we made Swedish Pancakes, essentially crepes, and we put some Nutella and strawberries in them. We then went to the Botanical Gardens. Sadly there weren't too many flowers in bloom, but I guess that is to be expected in April in Edinburgh. We then went to the center of Edinburgh and walked around for a while on Princes Street, and through the Princes Street Park and had dinner at Pizza Express! I LOVE Pizza Express. After Pizza Express we walked up the Royal Mile to the Castle. We later ended the night with Cars 2! We weren't sure what else to watch and decided since we watched Cars the night before we should watch Cars 2.

Sadly that was pretty much the end of my spring break. Now its back to reality. Today was the Queen's Birthday and I honestly contemplated skipping class to go to see the queen at the palace, but I realized that probably wasn't a good idea since it was my first day back from break, but how many other opportunities am I going to have?