Francophile in the West

It's been a busy month! Soon after everyone arrived back in Nantes, the four of us girls (N., V., C., and me) went to see an opera at the Théâtre Graslin (which is two minutes from my place!). The opera house itself is just gorgeous. It has a very classic facade and lobby, with lots of columns and a huge staircase, and the main theater is amazing. I really felt like we were watching an opera in the 1700s! That was a fun event to experience, and it was cheap! I love getting discounts for being under 25. I have to profit while I still can (only one year left, yikes!)! The lobby of the Nantes Opera House! The ceiling inside the theater. Not too long after the opera, everyone woke up to SNOW on the ground! What an awesome surprise! Nantes reacted just like Seattle always does, and the city was basically shut down, haha. No buses, but the trams worked, so I managed to get to school, despite an icy 15-minute walk from the tram stop to school. Almost all of the snow had melted a

Now that I've been living in my apartment for four months, I think it's about time I posted some pictures! Without further ado, voila mon appartement français (Apologies for the harsh lighting! Silly energy-efficient light bulbs)! This is my street. Booyah!! All those stairs? There are 135 of them. There is no elevator, and it's about 20m/60ft to the ground floor. I make an average of 3 trips up and down these suckers each day. No need to work out! Once you reach the top of the stairs and arrive on the 5th floor, you are greeted by this, The Creepy Hallway. Continuation of The Creepy Hallway. Three people have separately told me that it looks like something from the movie "Saw", haha. Luckily, the door to my apartment is just left in the well-lit patch there at the end. Random storage areas are on either side of my place. What you see when you open the door and look right. Thanks to everyone who has been sending me things to put on my

I'VE BEEN ACCEPTED INTO THE UNIVERSITY OF DENVER'S KORBEL SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FOR MY MASTERS DEGREE!!!!!!!! Mile-High City , here I come!!!! I am BEYOND excited and SO happy and grateful for this wonderful news!!!! I can't believe I heard back so early, I wasn't supposed to hear until March! Tonight called for a celebration, bien sur , and I happened to be meeting with the gals to plan another girls' trip to Lyon in March, so I treated myself to a glass of champagne. :) In addition, I've loved this song since it was released, but it is now  officially the song that defines my 20s. I am particularly struck by the perfection of the lyrics when he sings, "To my friends in New York, I say 'Hello' / My friends in L.A., they don't know / Where I've been for the past few years or so: / Paris to China to COLORADO" YESSSSSSSS!!!!!!!

Hello again! After a month of blogging silence, we're back! The "end of the world"(aka, false alarm, again ) happened, returning to the US happened, Christmas and New Year's Eve happened, 2013 came around, and now I'm back in France! Here's a bit of a recap: Well, holy cow, those first four months in Europe sure did fly by fast!! Classes wrapped up nicely for the first semester and C. hosted a lovely pre-holiday bash for the assistants before we all headed to our respective native countries for the two-week break. Christmas party with the gals! And what a break it was! The first challenge, of course, was getting back on US soil. This proved to be quite the adventure! I had a super epic 36-hour trek from Nantes back to Vancouver, WA. This included spending the night in Paris-Orly airport (A bit of advice: do not sleep in an airport. Ever.), and massive layovers in London and Seattle. However, I made the most of it and was actually feeling quite good when