blogging molly

i'm back! hm...that's kind of misleading. i'm not back from paris, but i'm back from non-blogging world...

i can't believe ANOTHER week has gone by! what is even happening?? i was so lucky to have one of my best friends, ashley barforoush/tin grin, visit me this past weekend! she's been in london all summer doing an internship and got to take the weekend off from her crazy british life to come see me! we saw the light show at the eiffel tower, visited the sacré-coeur, ate the finest french foods and went bungee jumping (kind of)! SCARIEST thing i've ever done in my life. i'm not sure you could pay me to do it again. check out this video to see what it was like. this obviously isn't ashley and me, but you can get a sense of what we did! (skip through the first minute)

class has actually been okay, and i really have no complaints. NO more phonetics, so i get to sleep in! i'm still going to new cafes everyday. i have found that life is so easy as a non-picky eater. the girls from the other apartment like to try new cafes too! tomorrow we're going to try one on the champs-elysées!

it is my last week in paris! i can hardly believe it. i have no idea what i should be doing these last few days. any ideas??? before my roommate, bridgette, left she would just get off on random metro stops and explore. i think i might steal that idea!

ashley and i at the eiffel tower!

random man: "do you want me to take your picture?"

us: "yeah, thanks!"

random man: "do you want the whole tower in the picture?"

us: "yes, just take it long ways!"

and....this is what we get. thanks?

my roomies and i at cafe oz. bridgey's last night. :(
le sacré-coeur! this is actually located at the top of a hill. we had to climb quite a few steps to reach the top, but so worth it for the beautiful view of the city!
my mommy and me!

i'll try to blog as much as i can this week! my friend, katie, takes awesome pictures, so i'm going to start hanging out with her a bunch and maybe she can show me her ways!**

-molly

time flies when you're havin' fun!

i can't believe my parents have come and gone already! i feel like they just got here, but i just received a text that they have landed back in the states! i'm so happy i got to celebrate my mom's birthday with her and my dad's too! i hope they had as much fun as i did. also, everyone should know that my dad is a natural when it comes to speaking french! he's practically fluent now! (ha) to my siblings (if you read this): you missed out on some epic family vacation jokes. i just can't wait for story time when i return to KC! brace yourselves.

they arrived saturday morning, and i took them to my favorite café. on sunday, we took a train up to giverney and saw monet's gardens! BEAUTIFUL. then i took them to the ferris wheel at the tuileries garden, an amazing view of paris! on monday they went to the louvre while i had class all day, and tuesday i skipped class for my mom's birthday! we went to the eiffel tower, the musée d'orsay (i just love impressionism...probably one of my favorite parts of the whole trip!) and THEN i had the best meal of my life for my mom's birthday dinner.

wednesday was bastille day aka france's independence. it rained for most of the morning while my parents were in versailles, but i finally got to sleep in! we watched fireworks at the eiffel tower at night. thursday we went up to the sacré-coeur, a beautiful church in paris and an amazing view as well. i took my parents to one of my favorite restaurants for dinner and had a drink appropriately titled, "summer in paris." a perfect ending to the perfect week!

one of my roomies, bridgette, left this morning because her school program ended before mine. SO SAD. and weird! but i'm lucky that both of my roommates are from new york...i will be visiting them in the upcoming year, for sure!

my mom and i are on her birthday!
just had to take a picture of this for obvious reasons...**
monet's gardens! the lily pads!
the ferris wheel, takes you above the rooftops of paris! so cool!
outside the restaurant of my mom's birthday dinner. sweet view, eh?

i have more pics from the week to come later. TWO WEEKS LEFT! can't believe it!

-molly

roses**

well, let me just first brag about my super sneaky and clever boyfriend. this morning i was alarmed to hear the obnoxious doorbell at 9:40 AM but quickly got over that when a woman delivered a dozen long-stem red roses in a vase! the apartment is so much prettier with them, and i know that i am truly blessed. and spoiled! :) thank you, benny!

in other news, dans le noir was not quite the experience i was expecting. well, let me rephrase that: it wasn't worth the 36 euro. i mean, i guess i can say that i'm glad i did it but overall, i wouldn't really recommend it. the food was terrible, to say the least. of course, i ate all of it because i was starving and as i've stressed before, i'll eat anything. however, i almost would have rather have had a sloppy joe or a big slab of pork. this review pretty much explains it all, and it's funny, so read it! afterwards, bridgette and molly paid a visit to our fav, the crêpe man down the street, while i enjoyed a ben and jerry's shake!

class isn't so bad, and i love watching all of the confused kiddies try to ask questions to madame stella. i know better by now. the bad news is, my phonetics class is at 8 AM for the next two weeks! AND, we have a make up day for bastille day. (bastille day is france's independence day, so no school. who in their right mind makes up a missed class due to a national holiday??? oh, the sorbonne.)

my parents are coming on saturday, and i am très excited! i can't wait to watch them try to speak french! :)

my beautiful roses!

oh look! i'm in spain, and i have no idea what's behind me.

tomorrow we're riding (i can't think of a better verb) a ferris wheel which takes you above the rooftops of paris! it's supposed to be an amazing view! PICTURES, promise.

-molly

le même prof

WELL, my wishes were not granted!

i have the same professor, and i have a feeling i'll pretty much be taking the same class. i guess that part is okay, because that way i can really understand everything rather than be mostly confused.

the good news is, all of the students in the class are a bunch of newbies so they look to yours truly for guidance and help. "how do we get here?" and "where is this building?" i love pretending like i know my way around paris. (because i still really don't. i swear, every street leads to the same movie theater, and i don't understand how!)

tomorrow we are going to a restaurant called "dans le noir." it is world famous! you eat in pitch black dark and the servers are blind. i'm serious! it's supposed to heighten your other senses.** also, the menu is either duck or surprise. i'm definitely getting the surprise...i just hope it's not sloppy joes or a BAGUETTE SANDWICH WITH HAM AND CHEESE. jeez. i am getting sick of those.

today i cleaned the entire apartment. i'm hoping it stays this way for the arrival of my parents on saturday but that is not likely. i'm pretty sure my program found the three messiest girls and put us all together. but i do love my roomies! :)

ciao!

-molly

blogging is not my thing

okay everyone, i'm really sorry for not blogging in decades. i found that whenever i have absolutely nothing to do, i do absolutely nothing. when i had classes i was cleaning the apartment (i know, weird, right?), doing dishes, going to the grocery store, taking pictures (kinda), showering, and at least kind of blogging! i regret to inform you that i haven't done any of those things in about a week. okay, kidding about the showering (sort of). but grocery store? nope. i stopped in yesterday to buy some alcohol and that's about it. i work much better under pressure and stress so hopefully once classes start next week i'll be blogging ALL THE TIME! also, i have 7 postcards written and will be sending them shortly!

i went to madrid at the perfect time! they were having their HUGE sales, and i found some very cute things. i just can't wait to show off all of my new clothes...i mean french speaking skills. willie was a wonderful host, and it was so nice seeing her. we had quite the catching up to do! the only downfall for the weekend was my flight situation! first, cancelled, as you know. then my rescheduled flight was delayed about 40 minutes THEN my flight coming back was delayed about 2 1/2 hours. by the time i landed in paris, the metros weren't running anymore so i had to take a 50 euro taxi home. my friend, kevin, from the program was really encouraging me to take easyjet because it's the "southwest airlines of europe." WELL, let me tell all of you, DO NOT take easyjet. they might as well be called annoying and unreliable jet. all i know is, i hate airports, and i am NOT looking forward to the flight home (first stop in canada THEN chicago then finally CR, dumb).

so fast-forward to yesterday. my roomies and i went to a waterpark! i have never seen so many speedos in my life. they wouldn't allow anything else for men! "fitted swimsuits only." well...i think some men could have chosen a different family activity...just saying.

last night we drank a little here and checked out the bars around our apartment with some of bridgette and kevin's friends from their school. some man gave me a rose and exclaimed that i was the most beautiful girl out of the bunch (i'm pretty sure this was before he saw my roommates so...i beat out about 2 girls). i am also happy to say that i did not spend a dime last night either!** i'm going to keep this jig up for as long as i can.

tonight we're going to a ballet at the opera! classes start monday. i hope hope hope i get a nicer teacher! sorry for the long post, i had a lot to say!

au revoir!

-molly

air strike? vraiment, la france?

WELL, looks like i spoke a little too soon. i did not make it to madrid, thanks to france for being angry about everything. not only was there a metro strike yesterday but apparently an air strike as well. is that even allowed??? i mean, really, they need to get over this whole world cup nonsense and MOVE ON.

however, i was lucky to meet a young man from mexico while waiting in the terminal. it was just a few minutes before our flight was boarding and he struck up a conversation. i'm still pretty stand-offish when i meet people in france just because i don't trust anyone. this is probably thanks to my mother for getting me hooked on murder mysteries. anyway, soon i realized he was perfectly safe, and we started talking. he told me about all of his unfortunate experiences in the airport and how he had been waiting all day for this flight. he flew from LA to philadelphia and his flight out of philadelphia was delayed 3 hours, causing him to miss his connecting flight in france to madrid. so, he got to france at 9 something in the morning and was waiting all day at the airport for this 5 35 pm flight to madrid. not only must he have been completely jet-lagged, but he said he knew absolutely no french. (you know, the rumors are mostly true. french people are not the nicest. actually, i've discovered that people who work in airports aren't that nice either. SO french + airport = disaster)

they called the first boarding group to the flight and he said, "well, at least we know nothing worse can happen."

that's when i knew.

he jinxed us.

flight delayed 2 hours.

flight cancelled.

so anyway, i'd normally be complaining a lot more right now BUT i know this young fellow had a much worse experience than me. i got the flight rebooked for tomorrow and will be coming back monday night! i miss the last day of class...looks like i won't be giving that oral presentation. OH DARN.**

both of my roommates are gone so it's a bit lonely but i gotta get up early tomorrow anyway. let's please hope that my next post will be post-madrid!

-molly

river cruise!

bonjour mes amis!

i don't have a lot of time because i'm about to head to the airport to go to MADRID for the weekend! i've never been to spain, and i'm sure my friend, willie, has a LOT planned for us! the metros are actually on strike today (typical france) BUT fortunately, my roommate, molly, is also headed to the airport, so we're sharing a cab service. it's also good that they're only going on strike for one day. PHEW.

this week was the famous fête de la musique! ALL over paris, a bunch of bands and musicians just set up shop and play their hearts out. the streets were packed! people were selling food and drinks on every corner. it was quite the celebration.

last night, we went on the bateaux-mouches, a river boat cruise. we sailed the seine river and saw all of the famous architecture and bridges in paris. it was very pretty.

on the boat! (that's the eiffel tower behind me. ha.)
this is the pont marie. if you raise your legs as you're passing under and make a wish, it's supposed to come true!**
getting some ice cream before the tour! nice, bridgette.
just a pic of the notre dame for you! beautiful!
some of bridgette's friends from school and i at the fête de la musique!

i'm off! i will take PLENTY of pics in madrid, promise!

salut,

-molly