Photo-a-Day: Oct 23

I really wish this screen shot had turned out better (I was rather distracted), and I hope Donnie will forgive me for bragging about him like this, but I truly have the best boyfriend in the world.  For my birthday, he played me a concert of amazing, romantic songs that have special meaning to us (the Beatles, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Alanis Morissette).  And he's learned to play them since I left for France.  I don't have words adequate to express how talented he is, and how lucky I am.

Photo-a-Day: Oct 22

This is one of the sweetest stories -- in class on Thursday morning (Oct 22, the day before my birthday), the teacher told everyone to sit down, but one girl kept standing.  The teacher said, Please sit down.  But she kept standing.  "Please, I 'ave somesing fohr Kinzie."  And she continued to tell me that the class pooled their money and put it together to buy me macaroons, and then they all sang (in English!).  It was so lovely -- they remembered from the week before, that it was my birthday the next day.  I am a lucky duck, and it was a wonderful beginning to a several day long birthday celebration.  I think teaching is for me.

Photo-a-Day: Oct 21

I treated myself to a dance concert at the opera house in Rouen.  It was a group called Europa Dance, a troupe comprised of 18-20 year olds, and they put on a show called Drôle de Danse.  It really reminded me of some of the November Dance concerts at U of I, in that the dancers were really creative with the props and their bodies and it was good.

Photo-a-Day: Oct 20

On this glorious, glorious day, Rebecca came to visit me!  She and I were in the same program at the U of I and she's doing an amazing, epic European tour right now.  We had a wonderful time catching up and walking around Rouen.  We even found Murphy's (which is apparently in Rouen and not on Green St.) and had to take a picture of it for our Urbana peeps.  Thanks again for visiting, Rebecca!  What a lovely visit it was.  Highlights include: cooking, polishing off a bottle of wine, doing candle, and drinking coffee in a café and watching the rain out the window.  How good.

Photo-a-Day: Oct 19

After a nutso day with the French administration (had to get naked-from-the-waist-up x-rays to make sure we didn't have TB -- and they have no pretense of modesty here), we invited several people over to have tea. Xiao Lu, front and center, had trouble with the caramel sauce she put on a biscuit.  And then, going around the table clockwise from Xiao Lu, we have Fabi (in the grey sweater), Celestina (another assistant in Rouen), and Elias (?) who hails from Chili.  It was a wonderful afternoon.

Photo-a-Day: Oct 18

What's that expression about airing out your dirty laundry?  Well, anyways, whatever it is -- that's what I'm doing.  Except it's not dirty; it's clean!  I have finally managed to figure out a) where the laundromat is; b) how to use the machines there; and c) how to get my laundry to and from the laundromat.  [Answers: a) about a five minute walk away; b) put your life savings into the machines -- seriously, it's 4 euros, or about 5 dollars per one TINY load, and then one euro for each 10 minutes of drying and press some fancy buttons and VOILA; c) HUGE suitcase on wheels.  Yep, I used my massive traveling suitcase full of clothes in both directions.  I felt a little silly but at least I didn't have to drag my entire load of wet clothes home over my shoulder...]

And then I hung up my clothes on our very fancy drying rack, and two days later they were dry.  Hooray!

Photo-a-Day: Oct 17

I went to the Fête du Ventres (Festival of the Stomachs, literally) with Myrna and Fabi.  There were samples of food everywhere, and you could buy ALL of the regional specialties at this festival.  I came away from the Fête with a bag of apples from a nearby farm, some little gifts for family and friends, and some caramels which, I admit I planned to give to peeps back home but... they're gone already.  Oops.

Anyways, the highlight of the day (for me) was this band that played for at least an hour, despite the fact that it was cold and rainy and I saw them all trying to warm their hands between songs.  They were all dressed in costumes like these and it was quite glorious.  I'm going to upload a video of them playing-- they were quite phenomenal.

Photo-a-Day: Oct 14

Xiao lu, my roommate from China, attacked me with a camera when we returned from ... something, and then buying bread.  This picture is in the courtyard/basketball court area of my school, and the leaves are pretty like this everywhere.  Kind of.

Photo-a-Day: Oct 13

On this particularly gorgeous day, I witnessed this incredible sunset from my bedroom window in the apartment.  And these Irises are just outside of my apartment.  Makes me think of Gramma ever time I see them.

Photo-a-Day: Oct 12

Look!  I have friends!  We spent an epic afternoon/evening attempting to open this bottle of crème caramel (I think) which was wax sealed.  I mean, we did other things too, but oy vey.

Photo-a-Day: Oct 11

Once again, on a Sunday afternoon, I treated myself to un café and sipped it while journaling and looking at the sunflower I bought myself at the market.

Photo-a-Day: Oct 10

I stepped out of my apartment and this is what I saw.  Incredible.

Photo-a-Day: Oct 9

Look how cute (some of) my family is.  Lizzie, the newest addition, likes to climb up on laps when I'm talking to my mom.  So, there she is, being adorable.  Also, look at what a stud my brother is! 

Photo-a-Day: Oct 8

Oops, this picture was actually October 8.  Anyways, these old men are always out playing Bocci ball.  Or Boule?  I don't really know the difference.  They're really cute.

Photo-a-Day: Oct 7

You might need to click on this one to see it in better detail, but one of the churches near me (or maybe this is the cathedral, I can never remember) had TONS (tonz) of birds flying around.  Donnie said, when I showed him the picture, that it looked like the church was breaking into pieces and flying away.  Pretty cool, huh?

Photo-a-Day: Oct 5

I went on a really hardcore Pilates kick.  Guess that kind of stopped.  But I'm going to hop back on over break, because I saw a dance show last night and the dancers had hot bods.  I want a hot bod too.  But anyways, here's my little set up, with my rug and a towel on it in lieu of my yoga mat which took up too much space to justify packing...

Photo-a-Day: Oct 4

The day after the concert, Lisa concocted a feast.  We ate a potato onion casserole type thing (but casserole isn't nearly a beautiful enough word to describe what Lisa made), and there was incredible salad and mushrooms (which I ate and they were GOOD!), and after the meal we had espressos from this amazing machine that Lisa has and I want one real bad so I can't wait til I get married some day so I can put it on my gift registry.  And it looks like this and it's amazing:

Photo-a-Day: Oct 3

I wish I had a better picture to have captured this lovely evening, but long story short, this is my mom's friend Lisa with whom I stayed for a night after seeing her concert at a church in a town outside of Rouen.  Lisa has an absolutely stunning voice and I felt so lucky and blessed to be a part of her family's life for those 24 hours.  I'm definitely going to go back soon (though, less soon than I had hoped because all of a sudden I'm busy.  wtf).

Photo-a-Day: Oct 2

One night, I went out with Fabi (my roommate from Costa Rica) and Lisa, another assistant who renewed to come back this year.  On our way home, we stopped by this church and I took a picture.  It reminded me of the castle in Beauty and the Beast.

Photo-a-Day: Oct 1

One day, I was in an internet café, talking to my dad.  We said goodbye and hung up, and I called Donnie.  But then, all of a sudden, on Skype, I got call waiting from my dad; I guessed he had forgotten something he wanted to tell me, etc.  So I paged over and said, "Hello?"  Nothing.  "Hello?"  Still nada.  Then the screen registered.  It was my dad's cat, Andi, sitting on the keyboard.  She and I chatted for a mo' and said our goodbyes, and I paged back over to Donnie.  But not before I got a picture of the sneaky cat.  :)