Chapter 4 - Belle Paris

music|white collar boy - belle & sebastian
lit|da vinci code - dan brown
film|C.R.A.Z.Y.

Alright, this'll be a fairly short one as I have my first exam tomorrow, and we honestly didn't do too much besides recover and wander Paris. But there're still things to tell, such as for me to rant against the da vinci code (though it would seem almost every major movie critic has beat me to it, check metacritic, some of the reviews near the bottom end are actually pretty funny ).

It was my birthday (May 3rd - don't worry if you forgot it or didn't know it... my bro's got two years of forgetting it under his belt and I still love him, somehow) when we arrived in Paris, with the original intent of staying only for a couple nights. But then Helene suprised me with my birthday gift... two tickets to see Belle & Sebastian live on May 5th! What a great girl, the funny thing is she really hadn't heard much of them (and of course my iPod was crashed but I couldn't show her) but did know I liked them, and was able to easily remember the name since it's also the name of a very famous children's cartoon in France (from what I'm reading it was a Nickelodeon cartoon, but I'll be damned if I ever saw it... but French TV is typically a decade or so behind America anyways). As for my birthday night, we spent it on Montmartre, looking out in the gorgeous weather on the Parisian landscape. Unfortunately, all the photos turned out miserably, but take my word that it was truly spectacular.

As for the concert two nights later it was great. Get your hands on their new album, The Life Pursuit, it's definitely worth a spin, got a bit of a new pornographers vibe. The song of the night was white collar boy, which I had played ad nausea at the appartment while my iPod was still in working order, so much so that Helene was convinced that it'd been a hit in France since she'd heard it so many times. I seem to recall Muff dubing me the King of the 10 track playlist. Or maybe it was Jeffy. Peu importe.

The rest of the time? Well, I got to revisit the Pantheon since my last visit two years ago had been an extremely hurried one. This is the fairly modern church where you'll find Foucault's pendulum (showing us the world really does turn) haning from the cupola, as well as the tombs of many a great Frenchmen, including Mon. Victor Hugo, Voltaire, Rousseau, Zola etc., (Zola, Hugo, and Dumas, the great writers, were tomb roomies) and a great view from the roof. A couple pics, one of the great Voltaire's tomb (he's the only one that got a neat statue) and of me frolicing amongst the pillars.

Helene and I were really bushed, so we stopped in this cool little cafe run by the Mosque it was attatched too, absolutely serene little garden where you sat and enjoyed some arab tea. It was glorious.

The rest of the time we just explored Paris by foot, and chilled out at Helene's sister's place, and had coffees and beers with a bunch of Helene's friends scattered through Paris. It was while chilling out that I finally, after years of resisting, read The Da Vinci Code. Why had I resisted? My point was that I'd read that type of novel a hundred times before, that it wouldn't challenge me nor make me think, and I would be nothing more than a consumer of pop trash left at the end with an empty feeling of having nothing interesting to think about. Why did I cave? Because this belief came into direct conflict with another of my beliefs - the book is always better than the movie, I like to read the book first, and the movie had Audrey Tatou (who, as an adopted Frenchmen I'm not allowed to dislike), Tom Hanks and Ian McKellan. So I sucked it up and read the bloody thing one afternoon. First of all, let me get any praise I had out of the way. The plot wasn't bad, got me caught up anyways, and of course I was a fan of the symbology detailing. But the writing was the equivalent of being struck over the head with a blunt hammer repetitively, so much so that it jarred me several times from the flow of the book. And in the end, I was greeted by that empty feeling of having absolutely nothing intellectual to chew on, and I felt unbelievably unsatisfied. Though Muff does make a good point in that it does give a good shot to the Catholic Church, but as Philippe Solers (French writer, married to Julia Kristeva, I recently triumphed through his book le secret for my 20th Century Literature course) points out, it's now in fact become far more revolutionary and countercultural to be Catholic (in France anyways, and I think judging by the success of the book, you could say the same in America).

That was essentially our trip, we came back to Clermont absolutely haggered and wound up sleeping our faces off for at least a couple days before classes started up again... and now I'm within a week of leaving Clermont! I'm hoping I might do a day as a photographer in Clermont for the blog, I also was up on the Puy de Dome last weekend and hiked around, it was fantastic. But as for now, my plans sit this way: a week and a half with Helene in the Tours region (her hometown) as well as on the coast at St. Palais (during which time the 'rents'll be visiting me in France), and afterwards I've also booked a week in southern England, near Exeter, to visit my buddy Olly, who I haven't seen since my exchange. From there? Well, I'll post more when I know more.

All the best.

P.S. - A quick film recommendation, a great film called C.R.A.Z.Y. came out here in France, it's a Quebecois film and is increidbly well done (and I was proud to discover all the Quebecois words I learned in Canada and had thought useless in France were suddenly useful again, Tabernac! Did you know that they had subtitles for the French audience for 40% of the film?)... but I'm starting to get the impression (as shameful as it is) that it's easier to see a French Canadian film in France than in anglophone Canada. That's something that needs to be changed...

Chapter 3 - All the Glory That Is Amsterdam On Queen's Day (and then another 4 days afterwards and Noordwijk briefly at the end)
paint|wheatfield with a reaper - van gogh
photo|world press photo 2006

Insanity. We arrived in Amsterdam to find a huge party just getting under way on the streets. We hurried to our hostel, the flying pig, ditched are stuff, and descended on the streets. Again, imagine the most crowded, happening club you've ever been in, mix it with a fair atmosphere, put it on every street in Amsterdam, and mix in liquor (and of course drugs, this is Amsterdam) to boot. The highlights of the day included Kiran bungee jumping in the heart of Amsterdam (along with a big dutchmen who was so fried that day he forgot he had bungee jumped the next day... luckily we had it on video for him), and a crazy techno stage with some damn good music. The vibe was pretty much just a continuation of the insanity of the night before, tons of different stages with different vibes all around town, and plenty of boat parties floating up and down the canals of Amsterdam. I've put up a few photos to give you a sense, but I won't bother trying to describe it (I think I did my best last chapter and failed).

The next day hurt. But everyone knows the best way to get over a hangover is to actually go and run around a bit, get the blood flowing, work the garbage out of the system. So Helene and I rented a tandem. Wow. Like I said in the 'prologue', the hardest part of a tandem is not being in the front, it's being in the back. Especially with a lunatic of a driver with a history of car crashes (of course female)(joking helene!) in the front, taking you down sidestreets so insanely crowded that she takes the tram tracks, only to find that a tram baralleling right towards you and no way to get off the tram cause there're people everywhere...! Yes that did happen, but it wasn't nearly as dramatic, I got a video from the back while we were on a less crowded street (didn't have the courage to try it on the insane ones), but it was a blast, even if the crappy dutch bike seats had my ass sore until I was in Paris. It was also a great way to see Amsterdam, and Helene and I came back with rosy faces and huge smiles to the hostel, where everyone else seemed really hurting from the night before, in full recovery mode...

I'll mention the red light district brefiely here (since it's probably been played to death in every tourist guide every made for Amsterdam) only to say walking down the streets is one of the most surreal experiences you'll ever have. No video / photos are allowed, but you essentially have these windowed doors in the front where you have woman dressed in lingere (not necessarily pretty I might add) doing all these subtle little things to attract your attention. If someone is interested they open the little door, negociate, and then disappear into some backroom, and then the curtains are drawn (the boys even saw a wife negotiating for her husband)... Seeing woman like that, reduced to little more than trinkets in a vending machine, was actually pretty sombering. Yes I realize that the woman were better off that way, with full medical benefits and a clean safe environment, but to see desire packaged that way made me feel like the world was turned upside down. A shear emotional reaction, but I wasn't a fan. On a lighter note, if you were ever curious how our culture came to equate XXX with pornographic material, it's because it's the prevalent feature on the flag of Amsterdam. It's kinda funny when you go into the churches of Amsterdam to find the XXX emblem beautifully immortalized on every pillar. I've also posted a photo of a bronze we found on the sidewalk (at least we were allowed to take pictures of that).

But more important was what we found inside the church in the middle of the red light district. There was a huge display of all the winning photos of the world press photo competition for 2006. Each picture was placed with a little explacation of the event that occured this year... and they were all breathtaking. Honestly take an instant to browse that website, and get a sense for what a crazy year it was, or even browse the past year and see just how crazy this world is each and every year. Also gives you a sense of some of the big stories you might've missed too... If I ever make tons of money, I'll order the books for each year, the highlight of Amsterdam for me and to think I only stumbled on it by accident.

The day after that was our chance to go to the Van Gogh museum, which had a surprisingly small collection from what I'd imagine. But it was still worth the visit, and I had two big favourites. The first was wheatfield with a reaper, where I got to see a wheatfield that had the same complexity as the sky in Van Gogh's famous stary night, wind swirling and twirling every piece of that field. The other really interesting piece wasn't one by Van Gogh, but rather Gauguin, another famous painter, who did a portrait of Van Gogh painting his favourite, sun flowers... in winter. This is somewhat of an enormous shot at Van Gogh, with whom he spent 3 or 4 months trying to start an artist commune in France before getting completely fed up and fleeing to tropical islands (it's also interesting to note that it was for Gauguin that Van Gogh cut off his ear...) Anyways, the story is Van Gogh could never paint from imagination, he always needed to have his subjects in front of him. And Gauguin spent hours trying to convince Van Gogh to paint from imagination but he never could, and hence this painting of Van Gogh painting sunflowers in winter, a direct shot at his artistic ability. The most interesting part of this story is that a few years later, while Van Gogh was insitutionalized for his mental illness, he finally took Gauguin's advice and painted one painting completely from imagination. The result? The Stary Night, his most famous and celebrated work.

The final big stop on our Amsterdam tour was the Heineken brewery / museum. If anyone ever designed a museum specifically designed for students, this is it. Three beers are included in the tour, with a bar halfway through and at the end of the tour, as well as a gift (which turned out, of course, to be a Heineken bottle opener). Had some crazy rides, such as the experience of being a Heineken bottle of beer, as well as explaining their history, how beer is made, and tons of interactive stuff do like being a virtual DJ or giving you time to browse through a huge library of Heineken commercials while lying back in hyperfuturistic lounge chairs equipped with a personal screen and stereo. Really fun, and a must see for anyone in Amsterdam, the funniest thing was seeing a French family go through with their 2 year old who was dancing about, and who was even pouring beer by the end of the tour with the Heineken barmen (that kid is gonna be soo cool when he's older). The second funniest thing was that Heineken brewery also had Dutch karoke... you can see the disaterous results here (the irony of course is that me, who knows zero Dutch is belting her out but Helene, who knows at least how to pronounce the words correcty after a year in Holland, is barely audible). I must say that this museum was pretty damn effective propaganda, I find Heineken has found a very special place in my heart despite being just an above average, pretty standard beer.

In the end, after so many days in Amsterdam we were sick of the city, so we wound up going to the flying pig's beach hostel in Noordwijk for our last night. Of course, the free shuttle bus was late in the day and early the next one, so we didn't get all that much time there, but it reminded me of Royan (where I studied French in the wall) a beautiful holiday town with enormous beaches. I have to tell you the, sea air did some good after so long in the city. We got a photo on our evening walk, and the next morning we set an early alarm so we could enjoy the beaches a bit before leaving... only to have been so exhausted that we slept right through it and were in a hurried panic to even make the shuttle bus back to Amsterdam to catch our train. Oh well, another visit I suppose, but we did get to see some beautiful tulips on the way out and back.

Anyways, after that we headed to Paris... where Chapter 4 will pick up. Cheers.

Chapter 2 - Garage Sales and Techno, a.k.a. Queen's Night
music|in the reins - calexico & iron and wine

And the saga conitinues... Actually, it occured to me that breaking my adventure into chapters isn't making my entries any shorter, but rather is giving me poetic lisence to blab on more than usual. Sorry. That being said, I think I'll stay the course. It's far easier to apologize and to continue doing what you're doing. Y'know.

First, let's introduce the city, and then the hodgepodge of people I wound up passing the majority of time in Holland with. Utrecht is a charming Dutch city south of Amsterdam with a beautfiul little canal running right through the centre of town. This was somewhat of a homecoming for Helene, as this was where she spent her exchange semester last year. We were hitched on the idea when we discovered that Kiran, a friend of my close friend of Shannon who were both on exchange in Utrecht the same year as Helene (this is the sort of the convoluded connections that to me meeting Helene), was coming back to Amsterdam for a wee visit, to enjoy the glories of Queen's Night. Coming with her from Toronto was her friend Leah, and in Utrect we also met up with a bunch of Kiran's friends that she made hosteling in Poland. Kate, an Aussie who'd been in Europe for a year or so, bartending in Austria among other things, and two Brits, Ashley and Sean, Ashley being a policeman and Sean the guy on the dispatch radio for the cops as well. Here's a photo of enjoying a nice simple communal meal cooked in the hostel kitchen of.... pasta and tomato sauce. Oh hostel life. Meet the gang!


So we arrived in Utrecht, and I have to say the first thing that struck me were quite simply the bikes. Rows upon rows, whole three story parking garage's dedicated to bikes, bikes locked to every rail pole and fence imaginable, and the constant impression that, walking on the sidewalk, you were going to be run down by a dutch bicyclist. These things are far more scary, not like cars, you can hear those fuckers coming, bikes are silent killers! Helene tellls me that everyone gets hit at least once while in Holland (she, of course, had been hit twice). Here, meet the bikes, meet the canal, meet Utrecht.

Our first night was a thursday, the traditional student party night, and Helene was dead set on reliving a tradition of the year before : that of partying hard at Tivoli, the local student club, concert venue. OK, it's here that I must exorcise my one regret from the trip. We arrived that day, and Helene took me see the canal strip before we ate, drank, and prepared for the night. And by fluke, an Iron & Wine / Calexico concert had been rescheduled for that night! I was incredibly excited, but no one had heard of them and the 30 euro pricetag wasn't all that enticing. Plus the concert started early so the club could function as a nightclub that night... I had one chance to convince everyone we should go, my iPod, to play some of the album they put out together and get everyone on board. AND... my fucking iPod crashed, right there and then, and it's been COMPLETELY fucked since. So needless to say we missed the concert, but I would've really liked to have caught it, and so In The Reins sits as my music for this leg. Give it a listen, you won't be disappointed. Luckily my concert bug would be satisfied in Paris, but that's two chapters away...

Anyways, we had another problem for that night, in that our hostel had a curfew of 2AM. This curfew was luckily lifted for the next night's Queen's Night celebrations. However for that night, the Tifovi didn't really get going till around 1:30, so we had two options - come back to the hostel and recharge our batteries, or give 'er everything we had until we could get back in to the hostel at 8AM the next morning. In the club, the girls and guys opted for plan b, but Helene was dead set on staying out (especially in that by coincidence literally all her friends from the exchange last year had all come back from all over Europe to the same club at that moment for the celebrations). So Helene and I had to find somewhere to crash. And that's where Benjamin came in. Meet Benjamin, partying with Helene (I'm gonna get shot for posting that pic). Benjamin, a native frenchmen now living in Utrecht who was buddy's with Helene last year, was gracious enough to lend us the mattress on the floor in his one bedroom appartment to crash the few hours between 5AM and the opening of our hostel. However, Benjamin got more than he bargained for, cause the English boys, embarassed at being shown up by their arch rivals the French, and a boy from the 'colonies' on how to party, came flying back in full form an hour later to giv'er everything they had. It was a great night, but poor Benjamin wound up putting all of us up in his one room appartment, and took so much good hearted abuse on the 45 minute walk to his place from the club that I think he may have regretted his generosity at several points on the walk home (the rendition of La Marseillaise was particularly touching). The video of us all stuffed into this little room, strewn about and completely wrecked is classic, hopefully the boys'll get that posted soon. But a big thanks to Benjamin for puting up with us.

The next day was a severe recovery day and we needed to prepare for the big celebrations coming that night, so what better way to do it than get some street Vietnamese grub and go hang out in a beautiful chuch courtyard. The peace was definitely appreciated. Next thing we knew, it was time to gear up for Queen's Night, the Dutch celebration of the Queen's b-day. Not the current Queen, changing days continuously would be too confusing, so they took the late-Queen mother's birthday (why the Queen mother? dunno, makes about as much sense to me as mayo and fries), and stuck with it. Little would prepare me for the giant street party that broke out, somewhat similar to my memories of the Red Mile but even nuttier (and less breasts). It was a mix between concerts, techno, percussion groups, dance groups, choir groups, plenty of beer, density on the streets like the busiest club you've ever been to and... garage sales? Yes, it seems that this is the only night that the Dutch do garage sales, and all through the streets you could see people with blankets laid out trying to sell the most useless shit in the entire world. Also, everyone is completely outfitted in orange, a strange choice considering the country's flag contains aboslutely no orange whatsoever, but when you discover that when the Netherlands got their independence from France in the 19th Century they were governed by the House of Orange, it all starts to come together. Plenty of Heineken (which is cheap cause it's domestic!) and celebration all night, just a crazy good time. I've uploaded my clearest photo of the scene (most of my photos are pretty dark) of a crazy choir group that was singing their hearts out, just to give you a sense of what was going on. Again, I got some pretty good drum troup videos, anyone knows how to upload videos onto blogger let me know.

Well we partied all night again, and the next morning it was time to slowly pack our bags and head to the nation's capital to celebrate the actual holiday, Queen's Day, in the heart of Amsterdam. I leave you with a little photo of the most recognizable of Utrecht's landmarks, a giant jackrabbit. Why a jackrabbit? Why not? But if Holland was ever interested in distancing itself from the central point for druggie, alice in wonderland type tripouts, I think this staute would have to be first to go...

Actually, I better upload one embarassing photo of me to keep the scales even with Helene. They were giving out free crowns in the club we were at Queen's night, and I couldn't help myself. Until next time!

Chapter 1 - 'Don't Make Me Run, I'm All Full Of Chocolate', or, Brussels
sculpt|mannekin-pis - duquesnoy
paint|the death of marat - david
drink|chimay beer

The first leg of my spring break took me up to Brussels to visit a close friend of Helene's from her exchange last year in Utrecht, a great guy by the name of Guillaume, who took us in for a couple nights and became our own personal tour guide for the the three days we would spend there. That's what so great about the friends you make everywhere around the world, sometimes you lose touch and you never know how or where you'll meet next, but it's always great times when you do. A quick reiteration to my many friends scattered everythere, there is always an open invite to come and hit-up Calgary whenever you fancy it. Just say the word.

After getting aquainted, our first night was dedicated to sampling the many fine beers that Belgium is famous for. If you know anything about Belgium, you'll know they're particulary famous for three particularly glorious culinary accomplishments: they're home to the best beer, waffles, and chocolate in the world. Well, instead of going to the ridiculous bar that had 2006 beers on tap (and a menu like a phone book, to quote my buddy ed) we went to a smaller pub that had 'only' 200 beers on tap (here's a wee photo of the menu just so you get a real sense of what 200 beers means). The great fun of course, was for all three of us to order a pint of something different and then try each other's beer. I'd always been a fan of wine testing but this trumped it for sure, and I whilst doing so I had hazy recollections of the great beer testing day I had not so long ago at the Spirits of Oakride chez moi (eh Rico?). Only, of course, with a little more of an international feel. Also, I was fortunate enough to have Guillaume educating me on Belgium beer, the most famous being the illustrious 'trappistes' of which only 7 exist in the world, 6 of those being Belgian (yes I know the link is in french, but here's an old friend who never let me down in French translations in highschool). My favourite of the ones I tried was the Chimay bleue, and I could wax poetic on it's fruity aromas a la faux Muskoka barman, but I think it suffices to say it was one incredible beer.

Day 2 began with a wee wander, which took us to the breathtaking Grand Place, a place that Victor Hugo is quoted as calling one of the most beautiful places on earth (and as a current adopted Frenchmen now, I'm required to take everything said by Victor Hugo as holy sacrament). What was absolutely striking was how each building was a beautiful in it's own way, but different from the one next to it and showed some startlingly different architecture, and the in some spots these incredible buildings looking like they were literally leaning on one another, and if I were a little more of a paranoiac I might even suggest they were conspiring... Certainly gives the square an incredible, vibrant feel, an almost cartoon-like characteristic. I took a video circular sweep of the entire square, but unfortunately I've no bloody clue how to upload videos, so here're a few pics. The one of the building all by itself is L'Hotel de Ville (city hall).

After the square we satisfied two addictions... we satisfied Helene's unbelievable sweet tooth by getting some belgian chocalate. So expensive (we're talking a euro a pop) but so delicious... you can see how Mr. Bernard Callebaut got to be so damn good at what he does, all he had to do was grow up in Brussels! Next, we satisfied my sometimes insufferable fine art tooth (as some of you may attest from my previous mass e-mails on Italy) and went to the Musee des Beaux Arts, where I saw one of my favourite neo-classic works, David's The Death of Marat. If you ever wanted a case study on propaganda, this would make a great one. Marat, a member of the Paris Convention during the Revolution (when it's capitalized it means to a frenchmen that it's THE revolution, otherwise known in the rest of the world as the French revolution). A Jacobin and close friend of Robespierre, we was assisnated by a Royalist Charlotte Corday while soaking in the tub, which he often did for hours on end to treat a disfiguring skin disease from which he suffered. So the Revolutionary government commission David (also a member of the Convention) to paint a portrait glorifying Marat and the Revolutionary project. And here it is. You'll notice that the disfiguring skin disease has disappeared, and rather you now have a Christ-like figure, bathed in dark somber light. I found myself feeling the same emotion you do standing before a typical religious depiction of Christ's suffering (another form of propaganda, but let's not get started on that road). But truly an extraordinary work of art, so happy to have gotten to see it, especially as I didn't even realize it was in Brussels.

The other interesting art nestled in Brussels is Manneken-Pis, a little angelic statue/fountain of a young boy proudly peeing what can only be described as freely in the middle of Brussels. Easily findable (just look for the huge group of Asian tourists), the statue was cute, but was interesting to me for a couple of reasons. First, right next to the fountain a Chocolate shop, which wisely took advantage of it's location (see photo), I was more struck by the rampant rampant commercialization by all the shops close by, which a lot of tourists seemed more interested in than the fountain itself (like buying a deck of cards with the fountain dressed as a different european figure on each card). The other interesting thing was that most tourist had absolutely no interest in seeing it's sister statue: literally a girl squating to pee freely. Just looking at the two photos I think the comparison is stark, the girl is behind bars next to graffiti tags nestled in the back corner of a back alley (actually very close to the 2006 beer place), and the little boy is glorified out in the open with throngs of tourists and top-notch maitenance. Is it really that much more romantic and artistic to have a penis? In the peeing world, I suppose so. But I suppose only if you're a young boy. Somehow I don't think it would be as charming with a middle-aged man.

The final adventure of the trip came the next morning where, before an 11:45 train booked to Amsterdam, we squeezed in Brussel's famous Atomium. The building's story is the same as the Eiffel Tower's essentially... assembled for the World Fair when it was in Brussels, it was deemd to cool to destroy (or to profitable a tourist attraction to destroy, either or) and now sits proudly on the edge of town. It looks really like an atom, only blown up to gigantic silver proportions. The problem for us was that the train station was clear at the other end of town, and the Atomium didn't open until 10:30. It was once said that the Dandy approach to seeing the Louvre would be in full sprint, finishing in 7 minutes. Well imagine that approach applied to the Atomium, we flew from ball to ball in that thing, and even got the front desk to have us skip the line to take the elevator to the top (the looks we got...) Actually, in the end the coolest thing about it was seeing the siloulette's of repairman hanging off these giant silver balls 300 feet in the air with climbing gear. Anyways, we wound up running with our giant backpacks from the Atomium in full sprint and I'm pretty sure, judginge from the looks we got, that most tourists who witnessed the spectacle were sure the Atomium was going to explode in a mere instant. At least I'd showered that morning, my usual anti-shaving attitudes while traveling certainly would've given me a terrorist like air. We wound up making our train with 5 minutes to spare, with wich we used to buy a Belgian waffle (or 'gauffre') and scarf it back breathlessly in the train station.

Alright, next chapter is Utrecht... hmm, maybe I'm feeling inspired enough to start it now! A huge thank you goes out to Guillaume and his family for their hospitality and kindness while we were in their neck of the woods. Guillaume, you know you're more than welcome in Cowtown (that's Calgary in silly western slang) anytime.

Spring Break!!

Allright, here's the story. I needed to put something up, especially as my beloved Calgary Flames have fallen from the playoffs, and seeing my last post now is just like pouring salt all over a wound (stupid karma). Begrudgingly, my cheers are now backing the last Canadian team standing, the Edmonton Oilers (well, it could be worse, it could be the Leafs). God speed Edmonton, make Alberta / Canada proud.

Well I've had a quite the adventure over the past few weeks, 12 days of travels that took me to Brussels, Utrecht, Amsterdam, Noordwijk, and Paris. Rather than post one giant entry, as has been my tendancy, I've rather broken the trip into Chapters which I will post as they are completed. This will be my procrastination project, which I will do in lieu of studying French, as I have exams approaching in a week (which ironically won't actually mean anything at all in the big picture, more just a way of personally testing my French).

Sometime soon, I will also make a post about what I'm planning to do with my summer, as it is still somewhat unclear. I could be in St. Ives, China, or anywhere on a giant list of UN internships if they're interested in my profile, or even back at home sweet home. I've posted a picture that sums my life up nicely, anyone who has ridden on the back of a tandem bike (as I did all through the streets Amsterdam) will know the feeling. Essentially, you can't control anything, and that in itself is an absolutely surreal feeling. All you can do is sit back and enjoy the ride, pedaling as hard as you can the whole way. You give everything you have without knowing where you're going. I call this photo 'Life'. *tear*. lol.

Finally, I'm putting a demand out to all those I've lost touch with to write me and let me know what they've got planned for the summer. You never know, our paths could cross in the strangest of places...


All the best.