Following the midterm evaluations (which came back quite well, by the way) Robynne and I took a vacation to Mainz, Germany to visit Valerie, with a stop in Dublin on the way home. We left on Saturday, so I spent the majority of my very romantic Valentine's Day sitting in the London Stansted Airport between flights. I lost a few pounds (harhar) and had a delicious smoothie. Yay England.

Germany was a new experience because it's the first time I've visited a country without knowing the language. If I thought I was motivated to learn Italian for our next trip before, I DEFINITELY am now. Not having the least idea what the person is saying to you is a very uncomfortable feeling. Most people in Germany speak English, but still. Oh, and I definitely spoke in French to the bus driver, even after he spoke to me in English. It was a very awkward moment. Robynne found it quite amusing. Anyway, Sunday we went to German church . . . again not understanding anything except the occasional "Jesus Christ." Then we took a walk along the Rhine. There were statues of the electors and they had interesting poses, so we took pictures with them.

^^ Our fabulous hostess!!!!

This is the cathdral in Mainz.

Robynne and I with a random well and the side of the cathedral.

The very elaborate front of one of the buildings. The town is really very pretty. However, Germany obviously got destroyed several times, so this front is a rather recent reproduction of the original building.

Monday we actually visiting the cathedrals. This is the Church of St. Stephan's which is known for it's beautiful windows by Marc Chagall. These are also rather new on account of the wars.

This is inside the big cathedral. It did not have very fancy windows because they didn't have enough money after the war, but it did have some beautiful paintings up on the walls.

Delicious German cuisine! Above are Berlinas they are a local pastry that are eaten at this time of the year. Below is my apple strudel. Absolutely heavenly! We ate amazing well in Germany. Valerie is a great cook. We also tried this German dairy product that is similar to cream cheese. I forget the name.

After we left Germany, it was cheaper to fly through Dublin than back through London, so we spent the afternoon in Ireland. The buses in Dublin . . . were interesting. There were LOTS of them. Which one would think would be a good thing until one is on a bus that's caught in traffic for long periods of time and realizes that all the other traffic is also buses exactly like yours. I almost broke some bones on one of them too . . . but that's another story. All things considered though, we managed to get all the places we needed to go. We were pretty tired from traveling and stuff and didn't really feel like dealing with city so we took a bus to Malahide castle just outside of Dublin. We spent some time walking around and enjoying Irish landscape. Oh, and while I was expecting Ireland to be cold because it's farther north, it was definitely the warmest and most beautiful weather I've experienced in Europe yet! It was GORGEOUS! This is me in front of the castle. I look pretty rough from getting up early and traveling but otherwise it's pretty.

Robynne and I enjoying some yummy chocolate and the scenery outside of the castle. Isn't it just too pretty?

The sole purpose of the next picture is to show that they drive on the wrong side of the street. Haha.

This is just a random Irish sign.

This is me and the Spire. The terribly exciting monument in Dublin. Haha. You can barely see it in this picture. Actual quote from the guy working at our hostel, "If you can't find something just ask. It's not a big city and we've got a river dividing us in half and a spike on one end." They all refered to it as "the spike." Oh, and just for the records, as disconcerting as it was to not know German in Germany, it's even more disconcerting to not know what people are saying when they're (supposedly) speaking in your native language! Haha, actually the Irish people weren't too difficult to understand.

And last but not least, this is probably my favorite picture of Robynne and I ever! It's pretty fabulous.

Finally, Wednesday we woke up at 4 in the morning and managed to use just about every form of transportation known to man to get back to Tours. Luckily we managed to avoid taxis, which is good because they're expensive. However we walked, took a bus, took a plane, took another bus, took the metro, took a train, walked a little more, and then GOT HOME! We were exhausted!

Somehow I never got around to this this week to tell you about last weekend. Thus, I figured I'd better tonight before I head off to more adventures tomorrow and have overwhelming amounts of things to write about.

Working backwards, Thursday were our midterm evaluations. I feel like mine went well. There was an oral comprehension part, a written comprehension part, a writing production part, and an oral production part. I was a little nervous, but not terribly because in all reality they aren't really like a test. You can't study for them. You can practice for them, but either you've been working to improve your french skills or you haven't. And I definitely feel like mine have improved. So basically all week, Robynne and I completely banned anything in English: conversation, music, movies, anything. Not that we normally do too much of it anyway, but there was none this week.

Last Friday was the Aziz' birthday (he's the other student who lives in the house with us) so Robynne and I wanted to make some chocolate chip cookies. Besides Xavier had hinted at it a couple times already. So, Sunday Robynne and I set out to make some cookies and it turned out to be quite an adventure. Baking soda was exceedingly hard to find because French people don't use it for baking, they use it when they get sick. Thus, it must be bought at the pharmacy, not the grocery store. We had to use a pie tin to bake them in because cookie sheets don't exist either. And the oven . . . oh goodness. Not to mention the whole grams instead of cups and teaspoons. Haha, it was an experience, but they turned out awesome! We even made some more today because hints were dropped all week. It went much more smoothly today though, so I think we've got it figured out.

Last Saturday we had signed up for an excursion with the Institute to Amboise and Chenonceau. However, not enough people signed up so it was cancelled. Neither place is far away at all, and both are easily accessible by train. So, we went to Amboise Satuday and visited the Chateau and also the Clos Luce which is the castle/house where Leonardo Da Vinci lived for his last couple years and also where he died. I went with Robynne and our friend Valeria (from Columbia) and we took lots of pictures. So, I'll put up some of those. It was FREEZING though!!! It even snowed a little . . . ick!

Me and Valeria by the castle.

Leonardo's grave in the chapel of the castle.

The castle is built uphill from the rest of the town, so you can overlook the rest of the town.

Some goofy looking trees

The castle's to the right and the little chapel on the left.

. . . the bed where Leonardo Da Vinci died. Kinda morbid.

They had a fire in the fireplace!!!

They'd made models of alot of DaVinci's inventions that he'd never actualised. This was the paddleboat. And the one below is the "tank"

First off, to answer your question Madame S., I personally was not affected by the strike. I did see plenty of it though. They had their "manifestations" in the street during the day, but since don't use public transportation or anything on a daily basis, it did not affect my day. I was hoping my teachers would participate though so I wouldn't have to go to class, but I didn't get so lucky. Haha. For anyone who doesn't know, Thursday was a nationwide strike in France. My professor said that it was because the price of everyday life is growing and the paychecks aren't (pretty typical) and basically what it boils down to is that they have the right. The French can go on strike whenever they want, with no risk to lose their jobs. An interesting fact that my teacher told me is that the people who have jobs which don't allow them to go on strike (such as doctors and firefighters who are completely necessary all the time) still "strike" but the style is modified. They still work, but all the money that they make on that day they give away to an organization or charity of some sort.

As far as my life goes, everything keeps getting better! We've been making more friends at school, and having more things to do and people to see. Bowling, ice skating, movies . . . . all the things like that. Also, we discovered some fabulous deals on Ryan Air and have some awesome trips planned to other European countries, that we got for ridiculously low prices. Haha, that was a very exciting night! Literally, 6 tickets total (Tours to London, London to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Dublin, Dublin to Paris, and roundtrip Paris to Milan) for under 175 dollars!!!! And yes, that's even dollars, not euros! Also, we've registered for a couple trips with the school, so I'll be going lots of places on the weekends and should have plenty to update you about.

Last weekend, we went to Paris! Our train left at 5:30 Saturday morning, and our return train came back into Tours at 12:52 Monday morning. Between that, we packed in as much as we could and a WHOLE lot of walking. Since Robynne had never been to Paris before (and it'd been a while for me) we did most of the general tourist things. First off Saturday morning we visited Notre Dame, complete with climbing up to the top of the tower. I thoroughly enjoyed it at the top, but the stairs nearly killed me. Then there was Robynne who's scared of heights so we helped each other to survive everything and overcome our fears. Haha.

After that we made quite a long trek to the catacombs. They were really fascinating (lots of bones!) but I have few good pictures because you couldn't use a flash and it was really dark.

You probably can't read the sign over the door because the picture is little but it translates to "Stop! This is the empire of the dead."

This was one of the better pictures I got of the bones. It gives you the gist of the catacombs. There were also signs of where the bones had come from and then lots of quotes or Bible verses about death. It's interesting because there are some famous people and some really wealthy people who ended up here, their bones mixed with all sorts of other people. Also, a lot of the quotes had to do with the inevitability of death and such. It was thought provoking.

Then we did the inevitable Eiffel Tower visit. Mounted it all the way to the top, and Robynne did great . . . she just kept her eyes shut the whole time on the elevator. Haha. By the time we got to the top it was dark already so we got to see Paris at night which was beautiful . . . but pictures didn't turn out. They can't adequately represent the sight anyway though. I got lots of aerial views of Paris from Notre Dame too though. Actually all of our timing worked out pretty amazingly, we really didn't have to wait very long for anything, and it seemed like whenever we'd finish there'd be a realllllllly long line. Lucky us! Anyway, here is Les Invalides and the Eiffel Tower.

The first Sunday of every month all the museums in Paris are free, so Sunday we profited from that and visited the Louvre and the Pompidou Center (Museum of Modern Art). Also in between the two we walked down the Champs-Elysees and saw the Place de la Concorde and the Arc de Triomphe. I think I'm going to wait to post pictures from Sunday though, because they are very time consuming to post and it's getting late.

All in all, we saw a lot in two days and were extremely tired and sore when we got back to Tours! It was an excellent weekend though, definitely.