I hope we can still be friends!

hello.
thanks for coming back

since i am
HORRIBLE AT UPDATING AND IT HAS BEEN AN ETERNITY.
this is a desperate call for bullet points -
as follows

- still doing baseball! but I am in the midst of three weekends away so, since they practice on weekends, they will (also?) think that I've fallen off the planet. It's too bad too because it's just getting nice enough to play outside. today it only a balmy 40 degrees (feels like 33. you don't have to rub it in, weather.com) but in the past it has been almost 55 or 60 here in dijon. and oh did I mention SUNNY!? (the lack of updating is going to lead to gratuitous capslock to catch up on the absence of excitement) Without fail, the sun dictates my mood. And it's much much appreciated.

-Speaking of warm weather and amazing things, I went to the Nice in the south of France for the first time 3 weeks ago to meet my SIIIIISTER. it was a joyous reunion of course with much rowdy, boisterous redheadedness in the cutest gosh, darn little apartment ever that Annie and Andrea (a delightful, and regretably - sorry Andrea - second billed part of this post) had found. Andrea was an excellent melange of good times and hilarity and was also responsible for our foodie choices. She didn't let us down. We also found that it's the smallest world in the world and her boyfriend is a Brown Derby - wicked good a cappella from Brown - who came to be a part of Counterpoints fall concert two years ago.

So when we were done relaxing and drinking wine for five minutes, we decided we should leave the apartment and a demanding schedule of one euro bus trips to unreal places ensued. Honestly, I can't very much remember the names because I just got back from the trip this weekend with the CIEF to Provence. It was very close, and similar but there was an unfortunate lack of sibling.
But for amusing stories - our attempt to run one morning. It was basically a photo session so Annie could capture the image of running off the side of the world into the Mediterranean. Also - going up and town this epic stair case up a mountain for the AMAZING view. TWICE.
a lot of the hilarity came from Andrea's fairly perfected soccer mom walk. I respect that. She tried to teach Annie but, as a student, I really think she could have done better.

In addition, I also managed to get the world (read: my sister and almost Andrea who had good instincts to stay in bed) up at the pre-crack of dawn on the day that was NOT daylight saving spring back. aweeeeeeesome. this marks the second time change in France that I have messed up. Seeing as there is the real spring back approaching in a week or so, this will give me the ability to redeem myself to hereby declare my time change incompetence.

There was also that time that Annie did a little something like this. This is us in Monaco (in which we had fun times making a general mockery of their existence. There cannons are also broken and slightly outdated. should we tell them?) where my sister unknowingly stood befind the one sided sign that clearly stated "PELOUSE INTERDITE!" aka stay off the grass. I turned around, saw her and it was a "wait! man, you can't plan this...

But on the bright side, my time change management mishaps led to us getting an extra hour on the day. It was also amusing (to me?) because we totally went with the supposed time change for a few hours and slowly we started to see more and more official clocks that "hadn't changed yet" until finally I entered into some butcher shop and asked this incredulous old French man what time it was. Annie said I should have asked him the year too and played a general amnesia card.

Then they left. And it was sad.

- Two weeks of beautiful weather but really really over school. Staying motivated. She said optimistically.

- Then two weeks later, I completely forgot that we were going to the south again with the CIEF so got to stick my feet in the [mothereffing cold] Mediterranean again. there were also these winds called the Mistrales - that we were told literally render people insane - that were so strong it was out of control. We were at the top of this enormous ancient roman amphitheatre and I was literally holding on. To the left is one attempt to capture wind in a physical sense. That's hard to do. The weather was beautiful all three days, a redeeming result of the wind, but we had a marathon of four towns to see on Saturday so we spent most of the time laying in the sun to both relax and lay as close to the ground as possible to get out of the wind. All this was perfectly fine on all counts and so warm and gorgeous.

There are also many other things done that I could not very well describe so "voila" as millions of french once said.



the big coliseum below is just that. a big coliseum. the Romans built it and it's impressive and attractively lit at night times.
The enormous bridge is also the Romans' fault but also an aquaduct, the Pont-du-Gard. Enormous and impresive. Also wonderfully blue river flows underneath it which isn't seen in the picture. Being a tourist here was amazing because you can basically run anywhere through the woods until you come out in a wonderful clearing like this. That wouldn't fly in America. The chair and stainglass picture just makes more testement to my addiction to colored glass and the way it sure can spruce up a boring old church. Just kidding. Churches are not boring. In fact, sometimes I have church envy. As in people who go. Because it's pretty and a great way of life (in theory). The last picture is a cat who was so into us. We stopped to ooh and ahh and it wouldn't leave us alone. A-dorable.



















Well until next time. There will be pictures and tales from Ireland, where I am spending 5 days and 4 nights in Dublin (and wherever the cheapest train tickets will take us!) with Beth, Carin, and Kristin!!!!! Yeah Auburn homies!
Carin also just let us know that the final night of our hostel stay has been upgraded to the pent house. Awesomeeeee. I have no idea what a pent house in a hostel entails but if you tune in next week when I will not have disappeared again, you will surely find out!!
good times and sunshine.
thanks for reading.
byee