Greece

Apologies readers.... I realize that every recent post has just been me attempting to procrastinate. WELL! You are in luck.... in the past week, after much pain and suffering, I managed to write two 8 (ish) page papers IN FRENCH, do a presentation on the conflict in Yougoslavie (I'm an expert now), take a test.... oh and go to Athens, Greece and visit three of my favorite people in the world for 5 days.... No. Big. Deal.

I realize nobody cares to hear about the massive amounts of homework that consumed my life for the past while (and really there was nothing going on in Paris during that time)... so let's jump straight to Athens!

Enter the players:

Maggie (dear friend and roomie 4eva)

Cary - Grecian goddess already

Alison - fellow International Relations major and so freakin' international

Pretty much three of my favorite people in the entire world. We all lived on the same floor freshman year and have been solid friends ever since. Alison and Maggie are studying in Greece right now, and Cary is studying in London..... so we both popped down for the weekend for an epic Trojan/Sixth Floor Pardee Reunion.

Greece is BEAUTIFUL:

SO much history and culture and some really incredible museums, not to mention the food (I ate so many gyros!)..... but honestly it was just so happy to spend quality time with some people that make me feel 100% comfortable. France has a knack for... not doing that...... but Greece was all about the 24/7 laughter, cuddling, and 70+ degree weather. I definitely needed such a vacation.

We also went to see Harry Potter 7!!!!!!! LONG AWAITED AND AWESOME. Maggie dressed up like Hagrid.... I mean Magrid.

This is sadly one of the only pictures we took of all 4 of us:

BUT!!!! Take two when 6th Floor Reunion goes to.... London! Yep. Just 8 days from now we will all be meeting up north. Expect future updates of our travels together including..... a Santa Pub Crawl! Can't wait to kick off the holiday season :) However strange it is to to not be with my family tomorrow for Zee Zanksgeeeving (that's how they refer to it in France) I'm looking forward to another Parisian weekend.

Comme d'habitude,

Clara

... excerpt from the fantastic paper I am "en train de" writing....

Il y a, vraiment, un mélange de toutes les émotions de l’experience humaine dans seulement un livre.

There is, really, a blend of all the emotions of the human experience in only one book.

Somehow I can manage to bullshit, even in a foreign language. Mission accomplished?

l'espirit d'escalier - The feeling you get after leaving a conversation, when you think of all the things you should have said. Translated it means 'the spirit of the staircase'.

In further attempts of procrastination...

Well, since I have a couple paper I should be writing I thought it might be appropriate to give a shoutout to my friends Elena and Jeremy and their new band. Though they hail from Western Washington, they are called Lune de Papier, so pretty French right? Look forward to a single hitting your ears sometime in the next month!

Back to paper writing (8 pages of analyzing French literature form the 1500's. sounds like a great time right?)

- Clara

I bought a lint roller today because all I ever do is wear black....

... and you'd be surprised how much Madame Ouchka sheds.

In other news my dear friend and most recent roommate the fabulous Maggie Carroll came to visit me here in Paris last week! It was my first visitor from "the outside world" and it was so exciting to be able to show her my life here and have her meet all of my friends (now everyone is friends with everyone and the world is beginning to feel a whole lot smaller). She is currently studying in Athens, Greece for the semester and I can't wait to go visit her there in two weeks (AH!) and have her do the same.

I had another bout with the menacing French Bureaucracy today. In order to finally complete my visa I had to pass a medical exam at the OFII office (OFII stands for something concerning immigration, but I honestly don't have the energy to look it up). It was actually kind of fun, however inefficient and tedious, because all of Sweet Briar (my 69 closest friends) was there in the same waiting room. We were of course shooshed a few times for being loud Americans, but what could they expect? It really did seem ridiculous to tell a bunch of college students to all show up at at the same time and then go through three different stations (a chest xray, an eye exam, and a personal visit/questionnaire thing).... but I think we all felt rather accomplished, however fatigued, at the end of it because... the entire thing was conducted in French! Yes ladies and gentlemen, I am so well-versed that I can understand and answer questions about my own physical well being.

AND.... I got this to take home as the hands-down best souvenir ever....

It's very much my most prized possession at the moment....

~ Clara

"Le soit ou ne le soit, mon coeur est immuable"

- Bradamante, Robert Garnier