It was Legen-wait for it-DARY.

Last night I made French friends! 

We ran into some other people's language partners at Le Pet't Bistro Saturday night, and it might have been my favorite evening yet. 

Two of the guys we were hanging out with are obsessed with the TV show How I Met Your Mother (which, PS, me too...it is way underrated), and when they found out I go to college in Minnesota, they got SO EXCITED because one of the characters is from there. 

When I told them mon copain is Minnesotan, they had a slew of questions, including:

Is he really tall? (Yes)

Does he wear purple and yellow all zee time? (No)

Do lots of people in Minnesota wear purple? (Only because of the Vikings)

Does he like to feesh a lot? (Yes)

Does he feesh for zee walleyes?! (Yes, among other things.)

Does he play zee feeshing video games? (Not that I know of)

And then I got told I look like this girl, which is completely false but she's a knockout so I'll take it. 

I was walked most of the way home by an entourage of six French engineering students, who were not even slightly sketchy, and we talked about Alain Robert, the French Spiderman.

All in all, a successful evening. 

(AND I even got invited to a costume party, which I can't go to since I'll be in Paris. Bummer.)

Adventures

I'm back! I had such a fun vacation! I frolicked and picked oranges in Menton with Emily, a close friend from high school; went to Carnavale in Nice, admired yachts in Monaco, marveled at the David and haggled over the price of handbags in Florence, had delicious creamy cappuchino flavored gelato in Siena and pretended to hold up the tower in Pisa. It was wonderful. 

I made two friends at my hostel, which made the trip a lot less lonely. On our last night in Florence, after Kellie the Australian had left for Cinque Terre, my new friend Janine (24, Canada) and I went out to dinner (for the first time, since there was free pasta at the hostel). We had an honest-to-goodness four course meal! Here's how it went, because I am obsessed with food:

7:30ish: Arrive at Trattoria Anita. Spend 20 minutes pondering the menu. 

7:50ish: Order Bruschetta and the house red. Receive complimentary glasses of yummy Prosecco.

8:00ish: Chow down on bruschetta. Dip bread into oil and vinegar mixture, because we are not real Italians. We do not care, because it is delish.

8:05ish: Order first course. Ravioli Rosé for Janine and Tortellini with Truffle Cream Sauce and House-made Sausage for me. But we promise to share.

8:30ish: Receive pasta dishes. Every third word out of our mouths is "mmm." Neither of us will ever be satisfied with pasta in North America again. 

8:55ish: Waiter comes by to retrieve our empty plates. Notes what a good job we have done sopping up all the sauce. We order more bread, he protests: "But you will get fat!" We laugh, and get it anyway. 

9:00ish: Order main course. Both go for roast chicken, with a side of Asparagus with Parmesan. 

9:05ish: Waiter was right. We cannot finish this bread. Drink more wine instead. Talk about boys and how they make us crazy. 

9:25ish: Chicken arrives. We try really hard to finish, but need to save room for dessert. I have never had such delicious asparagus. 

9:40ish: Cannot eat any more chicken. Begin pondering dessert. Tiramisu for Janine and Crème Brûlée for me. 

9:45ish: Waiter brings us Limoncello on the house. They are trying to get us drunk.

9:55ish: Dessert arrives. Only swear words accurately capture how delicious it is.

10:25ish: We leave Trattoria Anita, stuffed and happy, and laugh as we walk back to the hostel. 

The best part? Only 55 euros for the two of us. Sweet.

A Friendly Visit

Emily is here! For those who don't know, we have been friends since we were fifteen, and she is the Diana Barry-style "kindred spirit" to my Anne Shirley, except she is considerably fiestier and I have never gotten her drunk on currant wine. She's been in Menton, near the Italian border, since mid-September and this weekend she came to visit!

It's been so fun having her here--Friday we had dinner with my host family, and somehow an hour turned into five. Catherine looooves her, and wants her to come when we go to St. Tropez in the spring. Hurrah!

On the other hand, we had dinner last night with some of my friends from the program, and it was a little rough. It's always a bit of a harrowing experience trying to mix friend groups, but last night was really...not fun. No one asked her any questions, and it drove me nuts. Also, since Emily is doing a direct enrollment program, she's used to being around people from around the world, and after five months she's very aware of cultural norms here in France...needless to say, all my friends came off as being painfully American.

I was warned before I came that there would be ups and downs, and I think I'm in the midst of a downturn. As much fun as I have with my friends here, it's really hard to really get to know anyone when you're always in a large group. There's no chance for one-on-one, and you end up having all these relationships which are lots of fun but don't necessarily dip below the surface. I miss being around people who really know me.