After an adventurous three weeks with my parentals at home, my lovely boyfriend was arriving in North Wales after about 5 months of not seeing each other.
For the first couple of days, I let Vince adjust to the change in time by playing lots of Rock Band. The first weekend he was here, several family members came over and we were able to impress everyone with our mutual Rock band skills (mine being the guitar, his the drums), we were an unstoppable force when combined with my mom's singing skills...
The first Sunday, Vince and I left on an adventure down to Washington to get my visa, which was surprisingly very easy and hassle free, especially since the French were involved. After about an hour filled with a trial sit down in the park (we ended up leaving because of mosquitos) we decided to head down to the beach.
We arrived in Cape May (thanks to the Cape May-Lewes Ferry) about midday so we had at least a good 3 hours on the beach, where I proceeded to get paler (sunscreen) and Vince proceeded to get burnt (lack of sunscreen). Once we had had enough (I was hungry) we (I) decided to leave and go meet up with my friend from high school, Lauren.
We spent the night with Lauren, her fiance Ryan and their baby Gabriel. The baby was adorable and an absolute pleasure to see (he also slept soundly during the night). It was so nice to see Lauren.
We then headed off to Avalon to meet up with my Aunt and Uncle and 3 cousins to spend the night at their place. It was nice to get some time with my cousins as I don't get to see them too often. I took them to a local arcade where I helped the two boys win some cap guns and the little girl a Webkinz.
We said goodbye to Avalon, and were off on the next stage of our adventure: Baltimore. We arrived mid afternoon, about an hour after my parents. That night Vince and my Dad were going to a baseball game and my mom, cousin and I were going to go to dinner and shopping. Leaving the boys in the capable hands of my Aunt and Uncle, Mom, Cousin and I journeyed over to the shops right on the main harbor, where Stephy was able to find a lovely trench coat, and I found some cute J Crew Ballet Rain Flats. Afterwards we ate a delicious seafood filled meal, dropped Stephy off and then crashed back at the hotel room.
The next morning in Baltimore, Vince and I managed to wake up relatively early to go to the Body Worlds Exhibit. SO COOL! If you get a chance you absolutely must do. It basically is a display of real human bodies which a German professor plastified. From the exhibit you get to see the importance of each muscle, nerve, organ, etc. in the body. It's really incredibly interesting.
Once we finished with Body Worlds, Mom and I went back to the hotel to take naps and the boys went to get hamburgers. Upon waking we headed over the Bicycle, a nice restaurant in the "Fancier" part of Baltimore, where we all had an extraordinary 3 course meal. Vince and I then took a half an hour walk home where he whispered romantic nothings into my ear (haha).
The next morning we had to leave Baltimore, but not without a little aquarium fun! We got to see cool sharks and stingrays and poison dart frogs. One of the coolest things was when they fed the stingrays!
After 5 days of living out of the car, Vince and I were glad to be at home for a couple of days. We hung out with my family, visited friends, and had an all around nice time. It was quite spectacular getting to spend 2 weeks with my boyfriend.
Monday, October 6, 2008
At home with the boy....
Posted by Little Miss Sass 0 comments
Friday, October 3, 2008
First Day Blues
School's finally started and after highly anticipated and anxiety ridden night of waiting for my first class, I woke up at about 6:45 to start my journey to my school. It's about a 40 minute commute door to door to the Lycee, but I have to switch at Chatelet onto a new metro, which during the morning rush is a bit jammed.
It's one of the first mornings I saw the Manet's before 4:30 pm, and it seems they, like me, aren't especially morning people, BUT Raphy was kind enough to buy me a lovely brioche suisse from the boulangerie which really made my morning.
After my lovely commute with all the stinky parisians on the metro, I arrived at the lycee to... an empty classroom. I thought maybe students like their adult counterparts are all on the fashionably late side. I waited til 8:45 (my class starts at 8:30) and still no students. Finally I went down and talked to my responsable who informed me that one teacher forgot to inform 3 of my 4 classes of the day that I was there, so basically instead of 4 classes I had ONE. And the one class I DID HAVE only had 3 students out of 12 show up.
The three girls I did have were quite nice and we had a nice class where I got to talk to them one on one a bit.
Luckily with the extra 3 hours I had at school I ended up getting all my administrative stuff done which includes my direct payment paperwork so that I will be paid end of October instead of November. I also have my own cubby hole, photocopier password and log-on ID, it's like I'm a real teacher...
I guess as they say in Paris... metro, boulot, dodo for this one right here...
Posted by Little Miss Sass 0 comments
Thursday, October 2, 2008
High Anxiety
Tomorrow, I teach. 12 teenagers at a time. 1 hour of conversation. Nothing but stressful, right?
Well I hope the teaching gene does in fact run in the family, as I will be a teacher for the next 7 months of my life and I hope it goes as well as I want it to.
So I guess what I am going to do for tonight is look past the anxiety of teaching tomorrow to the fun of going out to play tomorrow night with all my new and old friends.
WISH ME LUCK!
Posted by Little Miss Sass 0 comments
My New Love
I did something crazy today.
I bought a bike. She's a beaut. White with black and pink accents. She's a liberty Lady and she's all mine.
After checking my email, I received a message from my CS group saying they were desperate to sell their bike (live about 10 mins from me) for a lovely sum of 60 euros.
It's a lady's bike and it came with a cute black basket and a nice U shaped sturdy lock.
As soon as she handed over the keys (to the lock), the weather changed and it was a downpour. So my first ride with my first love was during a maelstrom... up a huge hill... but we made it together because of the power of love (thanks Celine Dion, I now understand exactly what you were singing about)
So if anyone has any awesome ideas for her name, I'm all ears... right now I am considering Penelope...
Posted by Little Miss Sass 1 comments
Vacationing at Home...
I spent most of my time at home doing one of the following things: *
- Catching up on American TV
- Watching Jeopardy with my Grandmother
- Making jewelry
- Reading a book
- Hanging out with Mark Register, Tim Frisch and Dan Faga
- Playing poker with those 3
- Eating food at my favorite North Wales/Philly restaurants
- Visiting New York for a weekend with my girlfriends
- Shopping with my mom... ALOT
- Cuddling with mom too
- Hanging with the Aunt Lou
- Entertaining all the visitors with stories of my European adventures
- Uploading the pictures for Paul Cross
- Going to the outlets or KOP with my mom...
I had an amazing vacation at home and enjoyed so much seeing all of the people who matter to me. But it was tough knowing I would again have to leave and go back to Paris. It's sort of like I have two separate lives, one with all these people I love that I can easily see when I am in America, and the other where I live a dream in the city of lights. It's a bit sad that I can't necessarily have the best of both worlds, all my family and friends in Paris with me, but I am very happy to have had a month spent with my loved ones.
Thanks everyone for making my vacation a dream!
Posted by Little Miss Sass 0 comments