VDM

[12:47:53 AM] Alex McColgan: woah i just had an epic fail
[12:48:47 AM] Justine Fleischner: what did you doooo??
[12:50:09 AM] Alex McColgan: omg
[12:50:10 AM] Alex McColgan: so
[12:50:19 AM] Alex McColgan: this girl danielle i met last week on the free tour
[12:50:22 AM] Alex McColgan: calls and is like
[12:50:28 AM] Alex McColgan: hey come to this erasmus party
[12:50:37 AM] Alex McColgan: she calls aroun 1050 and says to meet there at 1145
[12:50:42 AM] Alex McColgan: at Porte Maillot
[12:50:54 AM] Alex McColgan: so obviously being french i dont leave my house till 1145
[12:51:01 AM] sys: Available commands:
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For more help please see http://www.skype.com/go/help.chathelp
[12:51:11 AM] Alex McColgan: woah
[12:51:17 AM] Alex McColgan: i dont know wTF that was
[12:51:23 AM] Alex McColgan: i meant to say, it was actually 12am
[12:51:27 AM] Alex McColgan: try to catch the metro
[12:51:29 AM] Alex McColgan: have to wait
[12:51:33 AM] Alex McColgan: AND THEN IT LIGHTS ON FIRE
[12:51:41 AM] Alex McColgan: THE TRAIN
[12:51:44 AM] Alex McColgan: when it gets there
[12:51:56 AM] Alex McColgan: but of course they are parisian and dont explain anything to anyone
[12:51:59 AM] Alex McColgan: i am out of credit (phone credit)
[12:52:20 AM] Alex McColgan: she calls me and i tell her the train is on fire so i dont thnk im going to make it
[12:52:25 AM] Alex McColgan: but then the fire train leaves
[12:52:30 AM] Alex McColgan: and a new one comes
[12:52:34 AM] Alex McColgan: so im like, fuck it
[12:52:45 AM] Alex McColgan: i got out of bed and dressed im just gonna do it
[12:52:53 AM] Alex McColgan: even tho i have no way to reach her....
[12:52:54 AM] Alex McColgan: THEN
[12:53:02 AM] Alex McColgan: i have to change at CDG to line 1
[12:53:16 AM] Alex McColgan: AND IT'S CLOSED
[12:53:17 AM] Alex McColgan: RED TAPE
[12:53:22 AM] Alex McColgan: so im stuck
[12:53:34 AM] Alex McColgan: 2 italian guys are leering at me
[12:53:56 AM] Alex McColgan: luckily i wore my boots so if shit goes down i can kick
[12:54:16 AM] Alex McColgan: thankfully (the only good news) i manage to catch the last train back to passy
[12:54:17 AM] Alex McColgan: and here i am
[12:54:25 AM] Alex McColgan: F A I L
[12:55:10 AM] Alex McColgan: are you still writing a cover letter?

Plus tard: I went to put jam in my yogurt and it was MOLDY.  I tried to watch 30 rock and couldn't find a working link.  I tried to respond to my landlady, but am out of credit!  I tried to apply for an Australian visa, and somehow wound up with the wrong one!  There goes more money I don't have.  Sleep would have been the better decision.  viedemerde

On monsters...

Maîtresse, est-ce qu'on a la droite de faire une queue?

Yes child, you have the right to draw a tail on your monster!  It's a monster!

No Babies

The day I introduced myself to the principal and teachers at my main school this year was memorable.  The door opens and after saying Bonjour, I introduce myself as the pregnant woman with English.......it was one of those moments where I knew it was going to happen before it did and I tried to stop it and that's why it happened.  Tu vois?
The word for teacher is Enseignant (en-seing-aunt), and the word for pregnant is Enceinte (en-saunt) and yes I knew the difference, very well in fact.  I have often thought about how similar the words sound to me.  Maybe I foresaw this happening in my future, or maybe my thinking about it made it happen.  We'll never know, but I was clearly off to a great start because it turns out the guy I was embarassing myself to was my new boss! 
At first he was just confused and pointed me in the direction of the maternity school, and then he realized that I'm a dumbass and tried not to laugh.  How we managed to hold a successful meeting after I do not know.  I had to fight off cracking up constantly.  He was much more professional.  Et voilà my most embarassing moment.
Anyways, moral of my story is my boss rocks.  I continue to embarass myself and he is nothing but awesome and gracious.  Work is so much nicer when you like who you're working for.

Lucky lucky lucky.  I am so lucky.  And I think I'm moving to Australia

To the Humming Meadow

We were walking there and I had tangles in my hair, but you make me feel so pretty.

Its happening all the time when I open my eyes, I'm still taken by surprise.
I shall never grow up, make believe is much too fun.

hXc

Portugal: Partie 2

Day 7:  We woke up around 7 and wound up an hour early to the station.

Much better than a minute late, so no complaints there.  We hung out with a seagull while eating our fruity breakfast.  I'm pretty sure the only things we ate while in Portugal were bananas, lettuce, tomatoes, yogurt, oranges, carrots, mushrooms and pretzels.  Also, I was a little sick the first week and had a tomato sauce craving.   As it turns out, chugging this tomato/garlic sauce is absolutely delicious, so that became a staple.  Kristen started dipping everything in it...like lettuce, par exemple.  Anyways, life tasted good and fresh in Portugal.  We got on our train and passed out till we arrived in Lagos around 13:00.  So great.  This is where the 'We're in Paradise' feeling really kicked in.
We wandered around the town to find a hostel where we could store our bags.  There was only one open because it was off-season, but they were very nice and let us store our shit there.  After the cheapest wax ever it was off to the beach!

Helllooo Paradise

Our petite beach

Could not have imagined better

What an amazing surprise!...I don't know what I was expecting of Portugal, but this wasn't it.  So great.  But, enough wonder.  We sun-bathed the rest of the day.  And swam!  The water was cold, but perfect for a dip.  We were sad to leave, but not too sad, as we knew we were just parting to our next beach town:  Albufeira.  We caught a train there at the end of the day to meet our next host and adventure :)

Nero!

We made sure to have an espresso before we got on the train because we planned to go out that night.
Not the best decision of the trip.  Our CSer was very nice, he's a DJ and had just gotten back from a show in Russia.  This is his big, friendly dog Nero!  He warned us that everything would be dead that night because it was Wednesday, but we were determined to find that out for ourselves.
And we did!  Ghost town.
Apparently Albufeira hosts only 20,000 people for the majority of the year, but 400,000 in the summer!  All the reviews online however, are in regards to summer haha so we were expecting nightlife even on a Wednesday.  Oh well.  We didn't feel like drinking if there was going to be no going out so we just got dinner.  Most expensive dinner of the trip if you include the taxi there and back!  But, still cheaper then any dinner in Paris.  Let's keep things in perspective.

Day 8:  We stopped by the local market to pick up some food for the day in the morning.  The old lady was adorable.  We couldn't decide how many bananas we wanted and she goes 'two banana, two people!' with a big smile on her face.  I obviously can't convey the cuteness of the accent here.  After, we figured out the bus schedule and got on the blue line for the beach.  It did not dissapoint.

ohay

Oh how I miss living at the beach!  It was so refreshing to be there.  We brought a bottle of white wine with us (I was inspired by Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises).  I wanted to chill it in the water, but there were no rocks.  Tant pis.
That night we went to Ladies Night at a Casino.  Which means 10euros and 3 drinks.  And then a lot more free drinks.  And dancing!  We wound up staying very late...because it didn't open till 2 and got a ride home with our 3 new friends.  Much better than a taxi.  I love traveling; people are so nice.

Day 9:  Beach day Part 2.  Amazing.  And then a train in the evening to Faro after another espresso :)
Our next hosts were 2 Brazilian girls that just started their Erasmus in Faro.  They were so fun!  They took us to the 'beach boys' house.  An amazing house with a lake for the backyard and the ocean in the front.  It was the first house party we had been to in Portugal and it was really fun.  All Erasmus students.  There was even a frenchy!  Who is definitely the coolest frenchy I've ever met.  He was so happy and fun.

The house party was iust a pre-game for the Portuguese however, so around 2 we went out to the clubs!

Our host's neighbor and host :)

Day 10:  It was a bit of a struggle to wake up after not much sleep, but we managed.
Day 3 of market, bus, beach.

Rough Life

We went on a walk around the area looking for the bbq of the beach boys, but we never found it.  We hadn't paid enough attention the night before.  Nice walk though.

The lake behind the houses

At the end of the day we watched the bus leave right as we got to the station!  Not the best timing.  So we waited an hour for the next bus.  Because, it got there and still made everyone wait outside until just before it was ready to leave.  So lame!  It was fuckin chilly!  We had a fascinating time watching 2 HUGE spiders eat their breakfast in the wall of the bus station.  It was so creepy!  First there was one.  Then two.  Then they were fighting!  The biggest one obviously won.  Then three.  Then four!  It was awesome, but definitely freaky.  I should have taken a picture.
That night we went out again (Saturday night) and had a fantastic time!  We had a movie moment in the club that I will not go into here.  Kristen had to be at the airport to catch her flight at 6am so we parted around 5 and then I almost missed my train to Sevilla which was at 8am. Kind of like how I almost missed my flight to Portugal.  I'm seeing a trend here.
Anyways, I made it :)  And woke up in Sevilla 5 hours later.  It was kinda like The Hangover.  Except I remembered everything.

Day 11:  I'm not sure where day 10 ends and 11 starts, but I will start with getting off the bus.  Sevilla was cool.  I had a hostel to stay in that I had figured out how to get to the day before thankfully.  It was called Urbanity?  Or something I don't really remember.  Turned out to be a great hostel though because they had a free walking tour that started at 15:30.  Sweeet.  So I got to see all the cool things Sevilla had to offer.  Like the church where Christopher Colombus is potentially buried.  And all the orange trees that I apparently didn't take any pictures of.  The oranges are especially cool because they taste like lemons!  I love lemons.  Plaza de Espana was the prettiest place.

Plaza de España

But the highlight of my day was watching two doves make love!  Haha if you can call it that.  The picture is very poor:

they are on top of the sign, just finished business

But it was awesome.
That night I went out for tapas with 3 guys in my dorm.  They were cute nerds from somewhere in the states.  I don't actually remember, but they were studying abroad in Barcelona.  The tapas were not very good, I accidentally wound up with some friend ham thing.  Blerg.  Ham is HUGE there, apparently because during the Inquisitions the church would give out free/really cheap ham to the people.  If you didn't take it they'd know you weren't christian and would torture, kill, or do some other equally Christian thing to you.  The bartenders were very funny old Spanish men though.

Day 12:  Luckily, my new friends had an early flight as well, so they were able to lead me to the airport in the AM.  One of the guys reminded me so much of Eric Landau, it was uncanny!  We got breakfast at the airport.  I finally tried one of those chocolate churro pastries that are very typical there.  And enjoyed my last cappucino for a long time...since they are too expensive in Paris.  Deeelicious.
Then it was off to my flight.  We parted without exchanging info, it's crazy the way life works.  We'll never see each other again, but it was a very nice, random time we shared anyway.  C'est la vie.
I arrived in Paris around 10am Monday, happy to be home :)

The good weather is affecting me

Disclaimer:  I thought I posted this months ago

I really do love French people, they just take awhile to get used.  They are hard to open up, but once you're accepted it's great.  I love that they eat 5 course meals like it ain't no thing.  I love how they sit at outdoor cafés, sipping bitter espresso and chain smoking cigarettes.  Actually, I don't really like the cigarette part, but it is clearly an integral part of them.  I love that their food isn't all high-fructose corn syrup and processed yet and that they take pride in the fine and somewhat hedonistic things in life, food wine art, love.  I love that they take pride in knowledge and intelligence, and don't condone and cater to stupidity and ignorance.  Although that is changing.  The fucking McDonald's effect.  I love their language and I love that I understand it.  I hate that I struggle to speak it.  I love their fucking Eiffel Tower, what the fuck is that?!  I love that they take the time to enjoy living.  Work does not define them and does not rule their lives, living does.  I am clearly generalizing, but how else am I supposed to express the differences?

Someone once told me that French people are like coconuts and Americans are like peaches.  That makes the French hard on the outside, but soft in the center.  I concur.

Portugal

Day 1:  BOOM land in Porto via RyanAir at 00:00 against all odds:

I had taken a ride on the Hot Mess Express the night before.  It was one of my most successful rides and therefore I didn't get home to pack for Portugal until 17:00.  There is one bus that leaves for the RyanAir airport at 19:50, and if you miss it, you are fucked, because the only other option is a taxi.  Although it might appear otherwise, I do not have money for taxis in Paris.  It takes half an hour to get to the bus via metro from where I live.  This all might seem possible, however...
I have barely slept, I have not eaten, I am yet to be sober/am borderline hungover.  There are dirty dishes everywhere, the trash needs to be taken out.  Basically, in this moment my life is a mess.
To add to the excitement, I have yet to print out my boarding pass.  If I fail to do so, I will be charged a 40euro fee by the RyanAssholes, which is more than it cost for my flight!  Why I never manage to print out a ticket avant la dernière minute?  We may never know.
I discover, toute de suite, that there are also no internet cafés in my quartier.  Parfait.  I'm running out of time!  But then, my landlady pops into my head!  She probably has a printer!  Call her.  Oh wait, I have no credit.  SKYPE to the rescue!  And yes she does have a printer at work and can bring me home my ticket :)  Miracle of miracles.  However, by the time we figure out how she can open the link to my boarding pass and she gets back from work with it, the chances are high that I will miss this bus.  I am very lucky though, my landlady es un vrai ange and says it will be better if she just drives me to the bus, rather than having to deal with my suitcase on the metro.  My savoir, really.  So, I arrive with some time to spare at the bus station, grâce au dieu je crois.  Or rather, Michèle.
Kristen somehow manages to arrive as well!  She had to literallyrun to make her connections (her flight from Nice flew into a different airport than the one we were leaving from), but she did it!
I arrive before her and occupy myself with the Belgian beer Josh had brought with him the weekend before that I decided to bring along in my suitcase.  This logic because I believe very much in the 'hair of the dog that bit you' theory.  I was going to drink it on the bus, however I didn't have an opener.  Merde.  Or a lighter, or a highlighter, or anything that would be useful.  When I get to the airport, I decide to try to use the end of my deodorant for leverage.  However, I only manage to cut my fingers up before giving up.  Epic Fail.  Here marks the first time not having an opener has thwarted me.  Haha.  Kristen shows up and we think the hard part is over!
Touchdown in Porto-town.  We are so excited!  Our CouchSurfer is supposed to pick us up from the airport and take us back to his place.  Unfortunately, that doesn't happen.  We are pretty much the last people left at the airport.  Typical.  My dumb ass forgot to write the guy's number down in my rush to make the flight.  This is one of those moments where a Smartphone would be ideal.  During our wait, something awesome happened.  The Portugal futbol bus pulled up and parked in front of us.  Half an hour later the entire Porto team, which had just beat Sevilla, marched out in their adorable suits to the bus.  We both regret not hopping on the bus with them.
But back to real life:  we were feeling pretty doomed around 1:30 and then realize we can call someone to check my CS account to get his  number!  Harriet saves the day and we are able to call him!  He's pretty pissed...apparently he was there and didn't see us and the police wouldn't let him stop his car.  Anyways, he comes back to get us and all is well.  He reminds us exactly of one of our best tranny friends Leo!  And we get along really well.  He takes us on a driving tour through the city, showing us all the coolest spots and best views of the city.  After, we stay up till 5 drinking Port with him around the dinner table, discussing Portugal and life in general.  He's a super interesting guy and speaks tons of languages (just like our Leo...they even had the same 'lack of accent'!).  He's actually from Poland and has only been living in Portugal for 8 months, before that he lived in Denmark for 10 years.  At 5:00 we turned in.  We had our own chambre and everthing was lovely.  Except we froze!  The blanket was a mattress cover hahah so we bundled up, and cuddled up, and I put on my Furry hat.  We survived.


Day 2:  For breakfast he made us a 'very typical' Portuguese breakfast of eggs, cod, onions, cheese and olives.  Pretty delicious.  Then, he dropped us off to our next CouchSurfer, Ricardo.  Ricardo was so friendly!  We dropped our bags off quickly though because we didn't wanna lose the day, and we were off to explore the city.  He told us about his couchsurfing friend Fernando, who was giving a tour that day.  We decided to go meet up with them on the 'tour'.  Haha, funniest tour ever.  It was pretty rainy and Fernando, this big grandpa looking man, just walked us around some streets cracking women jokes.  There were 3 Russian girls that were his couchsurfers taking the tour as well.  He would walk us into a café and be like 'this is where you take your boyfriend to buy you drink!'.  And tell jokes like 'What is the hardest language to understand?'  'WOMAN!!'  Haha he cracked himself up!  It was cute.  He didn't seem to like the rain very much, which is why we didn't get to see too much.  We did see some things though.  For example:

The markets! which I was surprised to find were Completely run by women, unlike in France where they are run by Arab men.

Always fresh

The house with the Beatles on the wall!

The famous blue tile on a church

All things very typical of Porto :)

That night we made dinner with them and another Russian lady, another man, and Ricardo.  Kristen and I made a dank salad, and the Russian girls made pancakes.  Yum.

Me, Kristen, the 4 Russians + Fernando

Later, Kristen and I went back with Ricardo to change before we went out.  The Portuguese don't go out till 2am!  And they party till 8, it's fucking nuts!  We made sure to have some espresso.

Around 23:00 Ricardo took us to this cool bar where we got our first caïpirinhas of the trip!  So delicious.  With cheese toasties!  Aka grilled cheese, so good.

Did I mention it was raining?  And windy!

Fail.

Around 2 we went to the club, where they played awesome minimal in one room, and swing music in the other.  Very fun night, we got home when the sun was well and up.  Very typical! - We encountered this expression by every Portuguese we met, so silly.


Day 3:  We managed to get up at a decent hour the next day, and went about exploring all the key points of the city.  Porto is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever been to - on par with Florence.  I haven't felt awe or wonder like that in quite some time, it was refreshing.  The views are amazing because it's such a hilly city.  First we saw the views from the bridge.  There is a bridge there made by Eiffel :)

Amazing

Hillsides

The bookstore from the Harry Potter movies!

Taste us

The street next to the river is comprised soley of Port wineries. Awesome. Port is not really my preferred drink, way too sweet! The wineries were neat though. After checking Sandeman and Croft out, we headed to the train station to catch our train to Lisbon. Accidentally sat in 1st class and had to lug all of our tranny shit through the train to the back when the conductor came through! Classy.We arrived in Lisbon around 23:30 Saturday night and were picked up by our next CSer, João!  Drank for a bit at his place with his friends and then went to an Awesome club called Lux.

The line

Inside

The club was right on the water, beautiful sunrise :)

The morning after

Day 4:  Somehow woke up at a reasonable hour again and set off to tour the nearby city Sintra and to deliver fish to João's uncle's house.  The drive was along the coast, so beautiful!  Cliffs everywhere.  In parts it looked just like Santa Barbara.  Kristen said it looked like Half Moon Bay (she's from NorCal).  I guess coasts always have their similarities.  João's uncle's house turned out to be the sickest house ever!  I would have No problem living there.  As we looked from afar at the houses, he asked which one we would pick to live in.   Kristen replied 'the one with the blue shutters'.  Ten minutes later we show up at that house.  Turns out his uncle lives there :)  So cool.  The house was quaint, and the view was fantastic.  The uncle's lady friend was there and she was so sweet.  She was french and immediately offered us a drink.  We were both still feeling the night before so Kristen went with espresso and I went with the white wine.  The lady told me we are part of the same club haha.  I wish I had taken a picture of her, she was awesome.  I wanna live like her when I grow up.

Our engagement photo - you can kinda see the blue shutters on the left house up top

Patio of The House with the Blue Shutters

View

Unfortunately, I'm not the best with video cameras.  Apparently you can't change your mind half-way about the direction, but hopefully you can still see sideways.

Next we allons-y-eed to the most Western Point of Europe.  Awesome!  Never thought I'd be there.

 Cabo da Roca

After we got Pastries at the best pastry shop in Lisbon.  I'm not a big pastry fan, but I do admit they were deeelicious.

MIAM-MIAM

Afterwards, we were dropped off at our next host...Mustafa?  We never actually caught his name :-o  He was very nice though.  We went straight to bed that night.

Day 5:  We woke up at 9:30 and set off to explore Lisbon!

The yellow trollies are very typical of Lisboa

And the Golden Gate bridge replica! California, tu me manques.

The Bellini

The fountain!

Bairro Alto

We walked at least 5 miles to make to to this little contraption. The walk was beautiful, what with the Golden Gate and being on the coast, but our feet definitely felt it. So it goes when you're too cheap to buy a metro pass. That night we went out to Bairro Alto again, with Joao and got PINTS of caïpirinha. That is what happens when I go to the bathroom and let Kristen order drinks. Fun night. I forgot to mention we went to Bairro Alto the first night in Lisbon before club Lux. The street is so packed on weekends you can barely walk. Vive le nightlife Portuguese!

Day 6:   Day trip to Sintra! Sintra holds the coolest castle I've seen. It's techni-colored! And up so high, we had to take a train and then a bus and then hike uphill. The forest was beautiful as well.

Alex in Wonderland

Pena Palace

And dinner!

We went to sleep early that night so we could catch a train to Lagos in the morning.  Thank god taxis are cheap in Portugal or getting to the station would have been un cauchemar.

Part 2 

Lolito

I live right next to this French high school full of hot little classy french boys.  I think that makes me a pedophile, although I'm not exactly sure of the rules in France.  If I posted pictures to prove my point that would definitely be creepier, so I will refrain.  I don't think it helps that I am currently reading Lolita.  Does it make it more ok because I look like I'm in high school?  I think so.

Les petites choses...

Je viens de voir une étoile filante!  Juste à côté la tour Eiffel!  C'est impressionnant surtout parce qu'il y était seulement 3 étoiles que je pouvais voir dans le ciel.  Que ce rêve n’arrête jamais.  C'est super de marcher avec la tête dans les nuages.