Playing catch-up

I know I haven't posted since I got to Europe, but jet-lag made it unappealing to think about all of the exhausting things that I have done until after my five-hour nap this afternoon. So now, I will post about each event as it happened.

Friday morning was sad. I had many good byes to say, and didn't really want to say them. My mom was heading to Fargo for a relative's wedding, so she had to leave before I did. Then, Katelyn came over to say "adios". Luckily she brought me a present, which always cheers me up, and lovely homemade card that I will treasure.

(Katelyn is a bad influence.)

I left my house around one in order to make it to the MSP airport in time for my 3:35 pm flight to Chicago, where I would connect to Dublin. After an emotional goodbye with my dog, I was sad, but also very excited to leave.

Who would want to say goodbye to this face?

Byes to my dad and brother followed when I met Alex at the airport. There, we stood in the security line for a long time in front of a New Zealander who had a very decorative dread-locked beard. When we got to the gate, we found out that, of course, flights in and out of Chicago were being delayed because of rain. This meant that we got to sit on the plane for 45 minutes extra before taking off, but it also meant that we had to circle over Chicago before we were cleared for landing. We flew right over Northwestern's campus! It was pretty cool seeing it from the air.


After landing in Chicago, we had only a half hour to get to our other gate (which was luckily about 200 feet from the one we came in at) and eat some food. I had some delicious pizza that had sat under a heat lamp for probably about 3 hours. Next thing I knew, we were boarding.

Alex and I had been assigned seats directly in front of and behind one another. We were hoping that someone would switch with one of us so we could sit together. An Irishman with a very thick brogue said that he would do it, so we sat down and prepared for take-off.

Once we were in the air, we were served dinner, which was OK for plane food and shown the movie "17 again". I figured that I would rather peruse the SkyMall than listen to Zac Efron, but apparently the bald guy across the aisle from me found the movie very entertaining.

I will discuss all the things I found that I want in the SkyMall on another post.

Meanwhile, the Irishman who had been supposed to sit next to Alex managed to drink about 7 drinks in two hours before the flight attendant cut him off. He honestly did not understand why she was refusing to serve. Him explaining that he wasn't even at have his tolerance in a thick accent that the woman couldn't understand was very entertaining. I noticed the girl sitting next to him (the girl I should have been next to) did not look to happy with her seatmate.

The plane played a few episodes of The Office, which made me very happy, but by the time WALL-E came on I had fallen asleep. Why do they always play the good movie when I want to sleep?

Next thing I knew, a fight attendant was barking "breakfast!" down the aisle. Warm croissants. I was so happy. I managed to keep my bleary eyes open for the rest of the flight. I got really excited as I looked out the window and saw the beauty of Ireland. I think we passed over five golf courses.

The Emerald Isle from the sky.

Once we landed in Ireland, it seemed like everything had turned green. They really really like the color. For example, Aer Lingus (an airline) had green planes. We ran into a bachelorette party coming into customs wearing green sequined cowboy hats. Etc.

Customs went fine for me, but Alex got stuck with a silly "alien" charge. Hopefully he can avoid it. We found our luggage and met up with a girl who is going to school with Alex so that the three of us could share a cab. This was going to be no easy feat with all of our luggage.

One thing about Europe that EVERYONE should agree with is that they kick America's butt in the fact that they have free luggage carts. These were indispensable while I was lugging four months worth of stuff (eight months between Alex and me) through crowded airports.

I know. I look ridiculously tired. That's because I got twenty minutes of actual sleep on the plane.

We got to Alex's apartment and met the guys he will be living with, all of whom are very cool. I tagged along as the guys went to check out their new city--but I will talk about that later.

Leaving in less than two days

With about 1.5 days left until I jet off to Dublin, one would think that I would be ready to spend my last hours relaxing at home with my dog and a diet pepsi and my HDTV and my family. While I plan to spend tomorrow night doing so, I will have a little less time than I originally thought. I was completely packed this afternoon. My dad was planning on shipping one of my suitcases and we even went out to FedEx by the airport--there we realized that it probably would be a lot less hassle for me to just check a bag.

What this means is that I have to totally switch suitcases and re-pack everything. And also haul a huge suitcase around Europe with me for a few days.

In other news, I am heading off to the Minnesota State Fair tomorrow morning in order to get some final fried food in me without judging eyes looking on.

List of stuff I plan to do/eat at the fair:
-Dog barn
-Livestock barns
-Eco barn
-Pronto pup
-Cheese on a stick
-Fresh cut fries
-Midway
-DNR building
-Funnel cake OR elephant ear
-Honey sticks

I am hoping this will make my body hate deep fried food for the next few months so that I wont miss it. (Who am I kidding? We all know there will be no cream cheese wontons in France.)

So now I am going to move my two old suitcases off my bed and get to sleep. I will need an unfortunate amount of energy to get through the next couple of days.

Accordion de Paris

This spring when I was in St. Louis, I stopped by a record shop and found one of the best records ever. I bought it for the album cover, if nothing else. Today, I put it in the record player while I was cleaning my room. I love it.

I am pretty certain that people do not dress like that anywhere, let alone France. Too bad.

Only 10 Days!

Bonjour à tous et toutes. Summer is about to end, and I have decided to begin my account of my trip to Paris. I leave in 8 days for Dublin, and will be arriving in Paris in 10!

I have been to France (and Paris) once before. The summer of 2007, my mom and her cousin and her cousin's daughter visited for a week (we spent another week in the South of France). I did a lot of the tourist-y stuff then, and I had the time of my life.

(The Eiffel Tower was excellent, but I did not go up it. I figured I'd save some things to do for next time.)

This time around, I will be living with a host family; a woman who has two children who live with her every other week. I am a little nervous to find out what kind of people they will be. I hope that they are really good cooks and have dogs. I would even accept a cat. Anything furry.

This blog will be an easy place for all of my family and friends to keep up with what I am doing abroad--all of the trips that I will take, the French things I will experience. I will try to post photos or link to an online album so that everyone can see the sights.

A la prochaine!