[apologies for blogspot messing up the paragraph spacing/layout of this post]
1. La semaine dernière:
*Rome! Wow! It was a really marvellous week that escapes description. The night before I left, I went on a boat on the Seine, an excursion organized through the school. It was marvellous fun, but coming home was fairly nightmarish. My night bus (trains don't run after a certain hour) was stopped by the police to control several rowdy individuals. I finally stumbled (purely exhaustion and the beginning of a PESKY cold) back to Conflans about 5h30 the day my train for Rome was to leave at 18h52.
*So, after sleeping a little and sniffling a lot I made it to the tiny couchette, a compartment where they put six people but should really probably only put one small child. A compartment where the seats folded into precarious bunks. A compartment where I spent 16+ hours sneezing and coughing into tissues and praying I was not getting a sinus infection. A compartment where one Italian woman, three French men, and one French woman gave me awful glances for 16+ hours, likely praying to not catch my horrid contagion.
*Thankfully after a day or two of gnocchi, fish, white wine, pizza, etc., etc., and 12/13 degree (celsius!) the sniffles diminished. Even so, what an interesting way to arrive in Rome, where my buddy Ethan was waiting for me, equally (un)fresh off his 10 hour train from Austria.
*So, over the course of the week we took in the Forum, the Colluseum, the Spanish Steps, the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, St. Peter's Basilica (including walking up all 500+ steps to the magnificent, awe-inspiring view of the Vatican and Rome) a myriad of other important and beautiful locations that utterly escape description. I think all the steps also provided a convenient excuse for abundent gelato. In fact I pretty much went nuts regarding gelato, savoring marrone (chestnut), nocciola (hazelnut), etc. Splendid!
*One day we also went to Napoli, a dirty, seedy, bizarre city that was worth it essentially only for the nice little old Italian grandma lady at the cafe where we enjoyed beverages and cannolis. The picture below where you can faintly see Mt. Vesuvius in the distance makes it look better than it was. Seriously.
*By the end of of our stay in Italy I was very excited that I would ask questions in Italian and actually get responses in Italian that I understood. Somehow my handy French-Italian phrasebook was actually functional. Between that and my very limited French and very limited Spanish it was really neat to see how much I understood. Returning to France was somewhat disorienting, especially no longer saying "grazie," but I seem to have readjusted.
2. Hier- Auvers sur Oise:
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auvers-sur-Oise Of course, by readjusted, I mean being overly ambitious and alighting from the night train back to Paris yesterday, showering, and then taking off only several short hours later with friends to go visit a multitude of interesting Van Gogh related locations, http://www.chateau-auvers.fr/accueil.html, including his tomb. Then, we also enjoyed a nice cafe with amaaaaaaaaazing hot chocolate.
*Some times I have to pinch myself. Even today, which has mainly been consumed by oodles of homework and chores like laundry. A little running too, which was refreshing. This week will be quite busy with classes starting up again, but nonetheless, this sometimes feels slightly surreal.
3. Le futur:
*Speaking of surreal-- I happen to have 3 days left on my France-Italy rail pass. It expires April 22. So, what should I do?! I would like to make reservations for travel fairly soon, given the fiasco Ethan and I had returning from Rome. The Italians kept telling us the computer was malfunctioning because of some issue in France and that the entire train was full. Well, when we finally made the train Friday evening, schleping bread, salami, cheese, nutella, bananas, and water (yay train picnic!) it was virtually empty.
*In fact, only two other people ever joined us in our compartment. This was nice because they spoke French and I was able to explain to them how the beds folded down, as I had travelled on the train previously. Thank you Doris for teaching me convenient French vocabulary about beds, etc. *giggles*
*Seriously, though, if anybody has ideas as to where might be nice to go for three days of train transportation, I'd be open to such suggestions! I'd love to go to the south of Italy where Salvatore Zumpano (my great-great-great grandfather is that?) lived, but I fear that might be overly ambitious. Even Pompeii might be a stretch.
*Milan, Turin, Firenze, those are options that might be somewhat more realistic. Then again, I've always dreamed of seeing Mont Blanc.... http://www.readprint.com/work-1366/Percy-Bysshe-Shelley. So...really, there are too many places and too little time!!
*Outside of those three days of train pass, I entirely intend to do a little travelling in France, too, at some point. Again, far too little time-- not to even mention money-- but I'm going to squeeze it in somewhere, somehow!! Having now become addicted to Eurail passes, I also am contemplating a little further travel for when classes are over, if I can fit it in before returning home to Portland for summer work. If I can, I would ideally get the 5 country 10 day pass and go from France to where my ancestors come from in Romania, Austria, and Hungary. It actually looks like there might be a train connection to where Fred Froimowitz lived in Romania!!
*So, in any case, any input y'all have, dear readers, would be tremendously appreciated. Particularly on the France/Italy travels. Now having left you with many pictures, many words, and even a homework assignment, I shall get back to my riveting reading for the evening-- a contract, a franchising agreement. YES! *smiles*
-A
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