Almost Au Revoir??!

Oh how time does fly!! i have less than 48 hours left in this wonderful city. And i'm in the middle of a room filled with clothes strewn all over the place...

i'm finally done with all of my school work as of last Tuesday -- it's such a relief to finally be done with everything and not be writing any more papers en francais and trying to decode 16th century French literature. it's still my natural reaction to be thinking about what work i have to do next or what i should be reading....and then i realize that i don't have anything else to do!

On Tuesday night, i left to go to Bordeaux with Jean-Nicolas for 5 days. We got to his friend Yann's around 10pm and ate some dinner and then headed to bed! On Wednesday, we slept late, and then we went to swim practice #1 at noon -- and then since it was beautiful outside, we ate lunch at a cafe outside which was delicious, and walked around the city for a bit!

Lunch!

After walking around, we went back to the pool for practice #2! And then had dinner and hung out -- which was kind of the theme for the weekend.....Thursday was a jour ferie again, and so we mostly hung out around the house. it was sunny, but kind of muggy. We went grocery shopping at Carrefour Planet which is kind of like Walmart.....pretty ridiculous.

Friday, the weather changed to the rainy and chilly side -- which contiuned throughout the weekend. We swam twice again and took it easy. Nothing too interesting!

Saturday, we got up and made pancakes (American style) -- and then headed off to Libourne (about 40 minutes away) for the 12th annual Meeting de Vins -- a swim meet where they give out wine for getting the top 3 places! Unfortunately, the weather wasn't great, so it probably wasn't as great as it i had imagined it, but oh well! We still had a good time.

i swam (and won) the 200 back on Saturday, and Jean-Nic won the 200 breastroke! We each got two bottles of wine -- a 1.5L and a .75L bottle. Luckily, the rain held out for us then, but we weren't so lucky on Sunday!

Sunday, we had to get there early...and it was FREEZiNG! Not only the air, but the water also.....and then of course, it was raining cats and dogs. Yippee. i swam the 100 back and the 100 free and both were pretty painful....hard to swim fast when it's so cold! After the morning session, we went to McDonald's (yes, McDonald's) for lunch because that was basically the only option in Libourne!

We went back to the pool for the afternoon session and i got second in the 100 back and then won the B Final of the 100 free! Not too shabby considering the conditions. But i got two more bottles of wine for the 2nd place finish which was exciting!

So all in all, a wonderful and low-key trip. We drove back with Yann's father last night and finally made it back to Paris around 2:30am.....and now i'm in the process of organizing all of my stuff and packing things up and saying good-byes! Which needless to say, i'm not very happy about at all....

Here are some pictures from Bordeaux:

Brisbane -- one of Yann's three adorable cats!!

The pool at Libourne 

Me and Jean-Nic

Our winnings from day 1!

Well that's about it -- a bientot! (Maybe?? Don't know!)



i don't know why the post below is in black! But highlighting it should help!

Part 3 -- and less than 2 weeks left?! OH, and done with classes for junior year.....

So on the request of my darling mommy -- i am finally finishing up blogging about the end of our vacation in Crete and then this past week! The realization that i now have less than 2 weeks left in Paris is pretty ridiculous -- and so that thought has been consuming me a bit. Along with that, i finally finished up all of my classes for my junior year yesterday! How crazy. And so i'm in the process of doing all of the final work for my classes -- i am down to one 12-15 page paper for my economics class, and one final exam on Monday, and then i'm all done! Again -- crazy.

So going back to our time in Crete -- i think i left off on our first day. So i'll start with day two -- Wednesday! if i remember correctly....i started the day off with a run out on the Venetian harbour -- it was pretty amazing! it's about 2.5km each way with a nice little (tiny) lighthouse at the end. After that, we ate breakfast downstairs in the hotel, and then took a quick taxi ride to the airport to pick up a rental car.

We headed off to Rethymnon -- or as we liked to call it, "rhythm city". it was highly recommended, and definitely more of a "picturesque" Greek town (whatever that means.....). We spent about an hour wandering around the town -- it was actually pretty quiet for the most part. The only slightly unpleasant part was being heckled by multiple guys from seafood restaurants that were right on the water -- they all told us that we'd have free drinks, free dessert, and then each one kept trying to out-deal the other....

Heading off in the car

The harbor in Rhythm City.

Rhythm City street -- complete with kitties!

After our brief stop there, we headed up into the mountains -- which was recommended to us by one of our good buddies from the restaurant across the street from our hotel. We finally found the little town of Argyoupoli. We pulled into the parking lot of this tiny church. Shortly after getting out of the car, we were approached by this little old man -- without many teeth, who told us to follow him. So -- of course, we did. isn't that what they teach you exactly NOT to do in every stranger danger talk we ever had in school?! He took us up to what looked like a little restaurant where his wife was eating lunch, and had us sit down. She gave us some water and little shots of the alcohol everyone kept bringing to us....and then he started to show us a map of the area and all the things that we had to do -- it was clear that he had given the same speech to about 239472 other tourist over who knows how many years. Then his wife showed us all of her sewing work -- and we dutifully purchased one of her lace table topper things.

After that, we took a little stroll around the town (which took about 5 minutes), and with our map in hand and a restaurant recommendation -- we headed off to lunch. We ate at a place called the Old Mill which was this enormous place down below a hill that had rivers running through it and was covered in all sorts of trees and vines - a pretty incredible atmosphere!

View of Argyoupoli

Heading down to lunch!

So after a delicious lunch, we went off to see the "tourist" sites recommended to us by our friend and his wife. The highlights included the Church of the 5 Holy Virgins which was this charming little church on the side of a hill being watched over by a herd of sheep! And then walking a little farther down the path, we found the infamous 2000 year old tree -- which was also, quite impressive!

The 2000 year old tree!

So! From there -- yes, we kept going. We took a little adventure in the car with the map from my dad's iPhone....which led us rather astray, to say the least. Meaning that we ended up at the side of a stream and were supposed go across it, but had no way to do so......

Dad checking for a way across.....unsuccessfully...

We finally found our way to Lake Kournas which was pretty spectacular! The water was a color that i've never really seen before -- kind of green and clear. We each had a chocolate milkshake at one of the restaurants perched on the side of the lake! Yummy.

Lake Kournas!

That about concludes Wednesday -- a pretty wonderful day! Thursday was the last day we spent together! (Enter crying noises). We saw Knossos Palace which was pretty touristy, but cool none the less! And then we continued to drive around, had some lunch around this really awful tourist town (unfortunate, but oh well). And then Dad drove me to my hotel that was a few kilometers down from Heraklion, and was actually great! i said goodbye to my daddy :(

The next two days i spent by myself -- there was a restaurant right on the beach where i sat and did some homework. Very peaceful, and the perfect way to end the spring break!



So the next two weeks might not be full of blogs -- as i try to "profite" of my last days in Paris, and finishing up my work. i had a swim meet this past weekend (which i got sick halfway through) -- a pool that i actually have started to like!

Piscine Georges Vallerey

A bientot! (Maybe.....)



Un dejeuner delicieux et plus des vacances!

So i can't really start this without mentioning the ridiculously delicious lunch that i had today with Jean-Nicolas. We met near Place d'italie and walked to Rue Cinq Diamants where we went to Chez Gladines. it was a cute little place that was pretty simple and specializes in Basque-style food (also known as the 64th arrondissement in the southwest of France). So we each ordered a salad, which is what they specialize in, which come in basically in these mixing bowls -- mine had lettuce, tomatoes, yummy cheese, an egg, some country ham, and a delicious dressing! So good. We also had some pate which was equally as delicious, and for dessert, i had pretty much my favorite non-chocolate dessert: riz au lait -- or as they had it, riz ole! Which was again, equally yummy!

Anyways, let's go back to spring vacation! i believe i ended up on Athens....i don't think i mentioned that we went to the big Olympic stadium that was first used in Athens in 1896 (i'm pretty sure....). it also had an amazing view of the Acropolis! From there, we walked back to the old town and had some dinner at a place that was gorgeous and outside and was crawling with cute kitty cats!

After our delicious dinner - we headed back to our hotel and got our bags, and then took the metro down to the port of Piraeus which is just about 20 minutes away from Athens. We got our tickets for the ferry and then boarded the boat! We found our cozy little room and settled in for the night! Around 6:30am, we were woken up and got dressed and then got off the boat and were in Crete! Crazy how that happened....

We walked along the coast to find our hotel which was about a 20 minute walk from the port of Heraklion. We actually went to sleep for about 2 hours, and finally woke up and headed downstairs for the buffet breakfast. After that, we went out to explore Heraklion -- which actually wasn't all that exciting...pretty touristy and not super clean. We got sort of tired easily (i guess this was kind of our halfway slump) - and ended up going to have some lunch back by our hotel and then went back to our room....and slept for another 3.5 hours.....oops. 


OK -- i'm putting off the rest of this wonderful trip until tomorrow because i promised myself that i would at least get a little bit of work done!

But here are some pictures:

Stadium in Athens

Leaving the port

View of the Med. Sea from our hotel room in Crete

Me and my daddy at dinner!

A bientot!