And then we went to Monaco!

After our happy hour shindig at the Irish Pub, Heather and I completed our one and only night in Nice with a stroll through town back to our hostel. Before arriving at Hotel Pastoral we made one very important stop: Monoprix. And we went. to. town. I had decided that I was gonna let it alllll go (and by 'let it all go' I mean the work I've been doing at the gym for a few months... I might actually be a little stronger and fitter now than I was when I got here) and I bought the cookie aisle. I kid you not. We bought Petit Ecolier and madeleines and I don't think Heather or I are the same people because of the eating spree. It was splendid, delicious and TOTALLY worth it. Even the stomachache the next morning. And the stomachache with which I woke up only three hours after hitting the hay. Girl gotta let loose sometime!

We awoke Friday morning to grey skies but good times because we were making our day trip to Monaco!

Helpful things for the Cote d'Azur traveler: get the bus at the Gare Routiere in Nice to get to Monaco. The bus takes 45 minutes, runs every 15 minutes, and costs only one euro. How amazing is that!?!?!

So we arrived in the City of Glitz and, I have to admit, I was feeling very Ocean's Eleven. And twelve and thirteen. Ready to gamble.

But the Monte-Carlo has a HUGE entrance fee and wasn't open, anyway. So we hit up the casino next door to it. After getting looked up adn down by the doorman, and being asked to check our coats, we walked into the glittery casino of slots and wandered around.

Monaco? Not a lot to do except look at excess amounts of wealth and marvel at how people can spend spend spend. So our mini-tour of Monaco didn't take too long and after just a few hours we hopped on our one euro bus and went back to Nice. We spent our remaining time on the Cote d'Azur walking around Nice and taking in some last sights before our train pulled out of the station at 3:55.

I could go into how everything was great until the controle woman came and checked our tickets. This was when she made us pay 35 extra euros due to the fact that I had reduced-rate tickets for a train time I was not allowed to have them for. Buuuuuut that would just get me all riled up inside. Kind of how maybe it's almost like the girl who sold me the tickets wasn't doing her job and giving me the full information on carte blanche and all that. I could also go into how ridiculous it is that their controle machine did not accept 1) my credit card or 2) my debit card (that is French) and then the took all my cash. That was a bad. time. my friend. Go fig that'll happen the one and only time my sister (whom I'm trying to impress with my French language skills and my ability to get around in this country) is here. Arrrgh like whoa.

Then we got back to Avignon, met up with Nicole and we had our last night together in Avignon.
Saturday morning I took Heather to the airport. Not much in life has been harder than watching Heather go through security and walk to her gate.

In conclusion, Heather's visit was amazing and I couldn't have asked for a better time.
Heath, I miss you
lots of love,
emily

omgiwishicouldbethereforhuuuuugsrightnow

Attention:

I have the coolest and most successful sisters in the world.

I might be doing a lot of raising the roof here in France right now. Hollahhhhh, Heather! She's been accepted into the Social Work with Families certification program! Which means she's amazing (duh) and now totally going to reach her goal of being a AP29DF and a 1IJR0FNI in five years! I mean a LMFT and LMSW! A Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist AND she'll be a Licensed Masters Social Work(er).

And Lisa lives in Chicago and is in publishing and works in a giant building and is amazing and she is totally going on a round-the-world trip in a few years and she regularly blows my mind.

Yeah, this is an Ode to My Sisters.
Gotta love 'em.

just some thoughts

I have been listening to "The Mercy of the Fallen" by Dar Williams pretty much on repeat and it takes a ton of effort to get through that and "The Beauty of the Rain" without falling.

I've been on www.goodreads.com all morning obsessively going through every book I have ever read and every book I want to read. I'm desperately trying to be well-read and super cool like my sister, her friends, and everyone I know. Here's hoping!

I went on the Umich website to check out the book lists of old professors. And then it made me REALLY want to be back in college for a hot sec just so I can sit in history classes of Matthew Lassiter and soak up his genius and listen to Clay Howard as he GSI's a discussion of mine. Some fave classes of college?: History of American religion (it's why I became a history major), history of the vietnam war, history of europe in the era of total war, history of europe post-1945, history of the american family, history of the US post 1945, etc. etc.

Anyone want to go to Shaman Drum for me and get me allllll the books written by my old history professors? K, that'd be way cool.

Easter was yesterday and I'm just going to put it out there that, despite the delicious and very fun brunch I had with my friends, I missed going to church with my fam and having our enormous brunch post-service. I missed "Hail Thee Festival Day" and all the joy and the colors (um, even on Easter the French wear black and gray to church!) and everything. Oh well.

Am hoping to do a mini-trip to Aix-en-Provence soon. Will keep you posted...

THIS ONE TIME HEATHER CAME TO VISIT AND IT WAS LIKE WHOA!!!!!!

Hey everyone!

So Heather visited me a few weeks ago and, because I am the world's biggest punk, I haven't quite gotten 'round to writing about her AMAZING visit yet. So here I go. But I can't really go in chronological order because I don't have all the pictures of the whole week so we will start with the end of the week and work our way back, k? K.thx.bye.

So...
HEATHER CAME TO VISIT ME DURING HER SPRING BREAK. omg. She bounced from East Lansing, MI to Marseille, France, all by herself and holy crow that's scary and I'm way impressed that she did it. Raise your hand if crossing an ocean by yourself is kinda daunting. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Well, anyway, I'm impressed.

She got here, I cried at the airport, she cried at the airport, we both cried at the airport. We're Findleys. We cry. Oh, here's a picture that I have of Heather and Emily because they were like instant BFFs. Hello perezhilton.com instant connection plus talky mctalkertons plus they're awesome and bonded and all of that and it was honky and dory. honkey and dorey? ummmm...

But wait! That's the beginning of the week! I am now going to skip ahead to... Nice and Monaco!

SKIP
SKIP
SKIP

NICE AND MONACOOOOOOOOO
So Heath was all like "Let's go somewhere supafly while I'm in France!" to which I replied "true story, Avignon can get a little old after a few days, a voyage somewhere would be splendid" (yes, after living here for six months, I talk like that now? Um, whatevs).
So we decided on the Cote d'Azur. GOOOOOD CHOICE. On Thursday of Heather's holycrapican'tbelievemysisterissittinghereRIGHTNEXTTOME week vacation, we took the train (everyone all together: yay public transportation) to Nice and it was, for lack of better words, nice. It was better than nice. I discovered a new city with my twin and holy crap I just might cry as I reminisce.

There are things that make Heather and I really great twins. We both have really small and exceptionally cute ears. We have similar smiles. There are times when I know exactly what she's going to say and she doesn't have to finish her sentence and vice versa. There's our mutual love for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. There's our ability to eat a bag of Smartfood popcorn no problem. There's the way our voices meld when we sing "Galileo" and "Closer to Fine." There's our gestures and mannerisms which are exactly the same and it took five months apart from her to realize just how EXACTLY THE SAME we can be. And there's our... LOVE OF PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION. We love just chillin', watching things go by, taking pictures, sleeping on each other's shoulders, etc. etc. Hurrah France and the TGV, hurrah France and the TER, hurrah.

This makes me so happy. As do our tiny ears.

Annnnnyyyyyywayyyyyyyy
We got off the train in Nice around 3:00 on Thursday. The skies were kinda cloudy and we knew it was going to get dark soon but we carpe diemed it anyway. We signed in to our hostel (HOTEL PASTORAL: IT IS SO AWESOME AND IT'S REALLY CHEAP SO IF ANY OF YOU ARE GOING TO NICE ANY TIME SOON, LOOK THEM UP!) and immediately went to go find my twin some food.

A word on Heather's week and food: I made it my personal mission to feed Heather as many pastries as possible in our 6 and a half days together. I was pretty successful. But, as important as the pastries are, it is also incredibly important to eat a kebab while here because kebaberies are everywhere and kebabs are so good and omg I may be salivating as I write this.

So yeah, got Heather a kabab. What's in a kebab? Well, the meat (chicken and turkey) comes on a giant stick and rotates in front of a heater thingy and they shave off the meat onto a grill and then they shovel that into a giant wrap into which they have already put lettuce, tomato, onion, and white sauce that is heavy on the garlic. WHAT COULD NOT BE GOOD ABOUT THAT!? Kebabs, in general, prob change lives. The woman who served us the kebab told us that her husband is a Bostonian and she intends to move to Boston with him someday and OPEN A KEBABERIE. Amazing. One more reason to move there!

Um I just devoted a paragraph to a kebab. Is that cool? Check one: yes no.

Soooooo Heather got full up on kebab and then we walked around Nice. Nice is definitely a biiiig city and I was so excited to be in a city among so many people, just wandering around, checking things out with Heather. We did our touristy "let's take pictures here and here and here!" which is always fun because dang, we're cute, and we had fun and Nice is beautiful.

Then we went to the sea.
Pardon?
Yes, we went to the sea. And it as awesome.

We walked along the water and then sat on a bench, watching the sun go down. So wonderful. Can I just say that getting six and a half days with my other half was freaking sweet? And being able to travel with her and discover Nice and sit along the water and people watch and nature watch and eat and eat and just be around her it was... perfect.

Ok, moving on!

Post-sundown, Heather and I walked around Nice taking in the shops and restaurants and tourists and gelateria (ok, I TOTALLY regret not buying gelato in that one shop, Heather! We need to go back!) and we found ourselves eating a loaf of bread (umm... thatw as just me eating a loaf of bread) and enjoying Happy Hour at an Irish pub. Yum Guinness. Rugby was on the television, a French guy started singing folk songs in English... it was a good time.

So that's Nice, day 1. Stay tuned for Monaco and the rest of my amazing week with my sister.

Florence, Italy!! Friday, February 15th

I begin this post by saying that we arrived in Florence, Italy, on February 14th. That’s right. Valentine’s Day. Awesome. My crew were my valentines, that’s fo sho.

Because my amazing CouchSurfing hosts gave me a map, a list of their “bests of the best” and keys to their apartment, I was able to wander around Florence to seek-and-find that which the city had to offer. On my morning stroll I found myself at Cassiope’s favorite café, home of the giant cappuccino that costs only one euro. It was here that I learned that in Italy it costs more to sit at the table than it does to order at the bar. From then on, I did all of my ordering standing up, leaning on the counter. What an excellent and frothy and giant cappuccino!

After meeting up with Amy and Emily (and, coincidentally enough, seeing the two American women we had met at the gelato place in Pisa only the day before… when asked if they were looking for gelato yet (mind you, it was only 10:45 am) they said they were looking for the David. I chose to go for gelato before the statue, of course)) we started our wlaking tour of Florence. We found our way to Mercato Centrale, my “home” for the stay, where we thriftily spent 3.50 each on a splendid picnic. At the market we found ourselves buying from the fruit stand, the nut stand, and from a baker/butcher. Said baker/butcher started joking around with us, nicknamed the three of us, and I tried my Italian phrases. What do I know in Italian? Some compliments, “nice to meet you” and some swear words. Ok, I didn’t try out the latter on him but I worked in the rest into an awkwardly hilarious conversation that was part Italian, part French, part English and mostly giggles.

This is the part where I tell you what I ate!
Banana (woohoo potassium), cashews (woohoo, protein) and a sandwich consisting of the world’s greatest bread, red pepper, and an amazing pork whose name I forget.
YUM

We ate our picnic in the square and people-watched as swarms of pigeons attempted to take our sandwiches. Have any of you seen the picture of Heather and I covered at Trafalgar Square in London? The one where we’re covered in pigeons? Yeah, it was kind of like that. We did a fantastic job of avoiding Florence pigeon poo… go us!

Post-lunch we made our way through the beautiful city. Naturally, after the success of gelato in Pisa, we had to have our first taste of gelato in Florence. We made our away to the famous Gelateria de Neri, as suggested in my Let’s Go Europe! Tourbook. This LGE has it right: the gelato they suggested, the crema giotto, is as off the hook as they described. What’s grema giotto? Coconut, almond, hazelnut gelato. Complete heaven.

Stuffed, we walked across the Ponte Vecchio, the bridge that used to support the artists and geniuses of long ago. Now the Ponte is home to jewelers and tourist stands. Kind of reminded me of Koreantown in NYC.

On the other side of the river, we walked up Piazzola Michaelangelo. It is from the PIazzola that visitors get the most stunning view of Florence. It was so stunning, in fact, that Amy fell asleep as we basked in the glow of the sun. There is a fake David (a “Favid,” if you will) at Piazzola Michaelangelo and, having seen this, we decided that we did not need to go to the museum, The Academia, where the real David is held. Remember how it was Valentine's season when we were in Florence? The Italians were feeling it. I wasn't. (see picture to left)

After giggling at the Daivid and taking tons of pictures, we walked back to the city center. Amy, Emily, and I met up with Darija again and the four of us set out to find dinner, a la the suggestion of LGE. We spent a half hour searching for one specific restaurant but to no avail. Instead, we ended up at Il Borgo Antico, another LGE-recommended restaurant and sat down to giant meals of pizza and pasta.

Post dinner, we rolled our way to the JJ Cathedral, an American bar kiddie corner from the Duomo. It was our intention to “go out” on the town but, one 5 euro Bailey’s later, we decided to call it a night.

Florence, Italy!! (part one: haircut 'n stuff)

So post-Pisa we took the train into Florence. Darija, Sasha, Emily, Amy, and myself all landed in Florence and then I split off. Why? Because I was heading to meet my CouchSurfing hosts and they were headed off to their hostel.

As I met up with my host, Cassiope, I stepped off the platform and landed in a hole! Next to porta potties! The hole was filled with dirt and pee! Welcome to Firenze!

But other than that, my first night in Florence was awesome.
Cassiope and Holly-Marie were my two CouchSurfing hosts. What's CouchSurfing? Ok, it might sound sketchy but I don't think it is: It's an online community of travelers from all over the world who want to 1) have free places to stay on their travels and 2) have cultural exchanges. Ok, it's probably the other way around. But yeah, you go somewhere you send emails to people saying "Hey, I'm coming to Bulgaria, can you host me?" And then they'll write back with a yes or no. Even if they can't host you, some people will say "hey, let's meet up for coffee or a drink" which I think is great because you still get to meet amazing new people (who are, hopefully, interesting) and you get to see the city/town/village from a local's perspective.

Basically I got to stay at their place, in Florence, for free, for two nights. These are two 20 year old girls in the same program, from the US, living in Italy to learn Italian. They are two amazing girls who fed me and gave me a place to stay, gave me a "best of the best" list of Florence, a map, and a kickass vegan dinner. While I was there, they were also hosting another girl, Lucy, from a tiny town in southern California.

So Cassiope picked me up at the train station, after my graceful plummet into the hole of pee and mud, and took me to her house which was right above the Mercato Centrale, the giant market of Florence. Even at 6 o'clock at night it was hopping and everyone was selling leather leather leather everywhere. Leather wallets, belts, bags, jackets, everything. We climbed the eight hundred floors to their house, met Lucy, and started making dinner for Holly-Marie, who was coming back from work.

Once we got to the kitchen, we split up. Cassiope and Holly-Marie were on vegan-vegetable-pasta duty and Lucy was going to... cut my hair.

Yup, I had a girl whom I'd never met cut my hair with the kind of scissors you use for making snowflakes out of computer paper. It was AWESOME.

As was the vegan vegetable pasta.

Post-dinner, I met up with the girls who were stayin gin the hostel to do a little walk-around of Florence. Turns out it was FREEZING so we all bounce back and I returned to the CouchSurfing house and hung out with my hosts for the night. Good times. CouchSurfing was REALLY great for me. I'll trust Lucy with my hair anytime (although, I must admit, it did come out a lil' lopsided but whatevs) and if you want vegan recipes, just call up C or H-M. Frick yes.

Le Printemps

It is most DEFinitely spring-like out there. Oh maaaaaaaan.
Lapins. That's all I'm gonna say about that. Lapins.

This afternoon I had something to do! On a Wednesday! After a fantastic lunch of lentils on lettuce and vegetable soup (I'm a rabbit?) with Robyn, I went to a local bar called Le Hippone to meet up with the owner, Hocine. I gave an English lesson to Hocine! He's learning English so that he can communicate with his grandson (Hocine's son is married to an Irish woman, they live in Scotland, there's a lot of English spoken therrrrrre) and so today we started with "Hello, good bye, see you next Thursday at three o'clock" and Bar Conversation. You know, like "Good afternoon, what do you want?" ["May I have a coffee, please?"] "Yes, here you go." ["Thank you very much."] "You're welcome."

We are going to have some good times. Hecks yes.

Heather Spring Break 2008

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you The Twins.
lurve.

Heather

Heather was here for a week.
A week wasn't long enough.


Dear Heather,
Wanna come back?
love
emily



*nightnightloveyou

A Saturday night in Avignon

Hello again!
I just wanted to blog about my night last night.
A few of us met at Robyn's to drink some wine (thank you, Cote du Rhone) and chat before heading out to a gay bar "Le Repere (insert accent grave on the second e)." This would be my first gay bar experience in Avignon and I was PUMPED. The idea was that on Saturday nights this bar has drag of some sort so I was even MORE pumped because my eyes are starved for drag kings and queens.
After learning how to do the "bridge" with cards upside down (the cards were upside down, not me), we aller-ed there and found a rather empty bar and a poster saying "Loto." There was a beautiful drag queen all in black (duh, we're in France) walking around and there looked to be about 5 customers. We all sat down, Slawa ordered a kiwi beer (what!?) and we chatted for awhile.

Um, Loto is like the American Bingo.
So what did I do last night?

I played Bingo at a gay bar in Avignon with the city's gay men and drag queens. There were prizes offered! On a table before us, as incentive for buying our Loto cards and spending more time there, were stuff to win such as a giant thing of toilet paper, a fryer, a coffee maker (dammit I bought one this week!), a package of waffles (yum, gaufres!), a can of sardines, some laundry detergent, etc. The first person who won received the classiness that is a box of milk (yup, we box it here AND we don't sell it from the fridge!) and the can of sardines. Woohoo. Chris went home with the fryer so methinks we'll be having a fried goods night at some point.

That was my Saturday night in Avignon. Kiwi beer, toilet paper prizes, drag queens, and bingo. Bienvenue!

Pisa, Italy!

Buongiorno!

Ok, in case you haven't guessed, I have NO IDEA how to spell that. Apologies!

So here's a little round-up of the rest of the time in Spain...
post-Cordoba we took the bus (say YES to public transportation!) back to Sevilla and I, once again, met up with Sydney and Chelsea. We may have gone to Starbucks (yes, yes we did... there were just SO MANY) and then wayyyyy later that night I was whisked away to the most amazing vegetarian restaurant in the world.

And this is the part where I tell you what I ate!

starters: hummus on toast. It has been FIVE MONTHS since I had mashed up chick peas with tahini and garlic. It was SO GOOD.
plat principal: tofu skewers with balsamic dressing. And french fries. And mayo. Which Sydney HAD TO EAT. And a little bit of asparagus.
dessert: vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce. And a few bites of the richest chocolate cake I have ever had.
and of course, red wine.

I'd just like to give a huge shout out holler THANK YOU to Chelsea for that meal because I STILL remember it and it was fantastico and I think she's still recovering from her cream of cauliflower soup.
We finished off our night watching the L-Word. Viva YouTube.

The next morning WAY TOO EARLY Darija, Sasha and I all went to the airport and flew to Pisa. I freaking LOVE ryanair because it's all so easy.

Got off the plane in Pisa, took the bus into town (all together now: say YES to public transportation!) and fell into the arms of Amy and Emily! Our group of three now made five and we head off to our first Italian restaurant.

Don't forget, everyone, that I had bought my garden back in Sevilla so while everyone was eating raviolis in creamy garlic sauces (I may have had a bite or two) I was eating a red pepper sandwich. Yes, that is indeed a piece of red pepper in between two pieces of bread. And it was deLISH.

We then made our way to the Leaning Tower of Pisa!

Guess what... It is TOTALLY LEANING and no matter how many times you nod your head and say things like "duh" to that, it's still TOTALLY WEIRD to see it lean like that. I mean it just LEANS.

ISN'T THAT THE CRAZIEST.

So we proceeded to take a majillion touristy pictures. Pushing the tower. Leaning on the leaning tower. Cartwheels, etc. I'd like to put the following picture of my friend, Emily, up here on my blog for the whole world to see because I think it shows the strength of our relationship. Or something.

Following our Leaning Tower of Pisa adventures we went and found our first gelato experience. For the three minutes it took me to eat my first gelato, I was without words. I, Emily Findley, was speechless. And I didn't even get the tiramisu mousse! (which, by the way, I totally regreat because we could not find tiramisu mousse anywhere else in Italy (we found tiramisu but not the mousse combination)). IT WAS SO GOOD. I ate it so fast I didn't even have time to take a picture of my first cone (which was Fiesta! (a chocoalte-orange combination) and straccioldfdfaaadf (ummmmm the italian word for vanilla and chocolate chip)).

Post-gelato we got on the train (all together... say YES to public transportation) and headed to Florence. More on Florence later.

Leaning Tower: A+ because WHOA IT REALLY LEANS like that
Gelato: again, I have no words.

Ahhhhhh!

All riiiiiiiiiight so I'm a little overwhelemed right now, everybody.

1) Why can't I sleep past 7:15 am EVER? Seriously this is beginning to be a problem
2) Heather left yesterday after a week vacation here. It was the MOST AMAZING WEEK and she met all my friends, saw how I roll here in France, and we went to Nice and Monaco! I miss her so freaking much already!
3) I think I owe the US government 300 dollars so helloooooo money stress how are you today?
4) assorted other stresses that are always there

OY. I'm going to go try to blog about Italy/Heather.