I've had a bit of time to reflect back on my experience, and honestly, if I could do it all over again, I would, but with a different study abroad program. I really didn't think too much about my decision to do IES Paris, even though my school offers five different Paris study abroad programs. I had chosen IES Tokyo for the fall because I'd already had experiences with them when I went on my Janterm 2006 trip to Japan, and I knew that if I chose IES Paris for the spring I could get a slight discount on my expenses. So that was it, that sold me, I didn't look at any details, I didn't check to see what kind of a program it would be, nothing. I blindly chose it.
Big mistake! Please, prospective students, don't do that. Do some careful research on the programs your school offers (if it offers more than one for your desired location). Below, I'll highlight some major sources of dissatisfaction I had with my program, and thus things to look out for in a program.
The classes
My biggest, #1 beef with the program is that it is its own universe. The IES Paris Center is located on a quiet market street in a completely different part of town than the usual university area with all the other schools. There are the offices, computer labs, and a building of classrooms out back. That's it! That's everything! That's where all your classes, or at least most of them, will be. That's where you'll be spending the majority of your time and that's where you'll be limited to meeting people, for the most part. You can take outside classes at French universities, generally one or two in addition to your IES classes, but the scheduling is so difficult to work out that it's almost not worth it (that turned out to be my case, much as I struggled to make it fit). I did take one outside class for Japanese, and it was such a great experience just to get me out of that bubble that I wish more of that had been my time there. But it wasn't.
So basically, when you go to classes, you're not mingling with other French or international students. You're just interacting with other Americans--not who you came to Paris to meet, right? Sure, they're fun to get to know, but they're not going to help you improve your French, no matter how everyone attempts to natter on in badly-accented grammatically-incorrect French to each other. And yes, the IES classes are taught all in French by French professors, but it still felt terribly closed-off to only be in them with other Americans. It pretty much feels like you came to Paris to study abroad and ended up going to some special American school which has no connection to the French university life you supposedly came to experience. IES Paris and its classes form its own self-contained bubble, which it is very hard to break out of.
What I would have much rather preferred is if, first of all, the Center itself was located where all the other French universities are (the Latin Quarter) so we have a much greater chance of running into other French students at cafes nearby or at least simply seeing them on the street, as opposed to old ladies lugging their rolly grocery suitcases to and from the market. Second, while the Center can offer its own IES classes, they should at least be held in the classrooms of one of the French universities, so we can go to school in the same building as other French students and have a greater chance of running into them and making friends with them.
(For a working example of this, they can simply look at IES Tokyo.)
The housing options
I chose homestay first and foremost because I wanted my own room. I'd had roommates for the first two years of college, and while I got along with them, I was ready to move on and grow up and have my own room. I'd had my own room in Japan the preceding semester; I was not ready to give that up again. I also chose homestay because after choosing dorm the previous semester, I'd realized I was in a minority, and it was making it hard to fit in with the friends I was making initially (as they would have different meetings to go to, etc), and I wanted to be a part of the majority the next time around to minimize that awkward out-of-place feeling at the beginning.
With IES Paris, the only way to be guaranteed your own room is to do a homestay. There are a variety of dorm choices, but they all involve a roommate. In terms of language immersion, of course homestay is one of the most encouraged routes, but sometimes that's just not what you want, but you also don't want to share a room and have to deal with any possible ensuing drama. Simply put, there need to be more options.
Moreover, in those dorm options, your roommate is always going to be another American IES student. Back to the IES bubble--even in your housing options, you're only ever going to run into other Americans, never anyone outside the English-speaking world, which puts you at a MAJOR disadvantage and leaves you wondering if you ever experienced real French life at all.
I found out from someone who did a different Paris program that her program had a MUCH wider array of options, and also that if you chose dorm/apartment housing, you weren't going to be placed with other Americans. You were going to be placed in an actual, non-IES-only dorm inhabited by OTHER foreigners from other countries besides America with whom your only language in common would be French, so you'd have to speak French with them. Wow! What an ideal option. When I heard about this, a wave of jealousy swept over me. It would have been perfect. And I only wish I could have been able to choose something like this. But I couldn't, because IES Paris keeps its students in a bubble.
The meal plan
This is the worst part. If you are in a homestay, you only get two dinners a week with your host family. You get breakfast every morning, but only two dinners a week. That is ridiculous.
Apparently you used to get meals every night, but lots of students abused this privilege and would stay out and not tell their families they were coming back home, so the extra food went to waste, etc. That's great and all--but not all of us are flaky like that. Some of us want to have dinner with our host families every night, because here are our options for the off nights:
1) go out with your friends to eat. First of all, each person's host family has different designated dinner nights. So first you have to make sure your friends can even eat with you--and it often happens that everyone you ask is eating with their family, and you are the only one not. Second, you have to find a place to eat that is affordable. This is nearly impossible in Paris. Eating dinner in a café/restaurant is going to run you about $15-25, and cheaper options such as buying a crepe or kebab on the street, or hitting McDonald's or a similar fast food institution, may be slightly cheaper (though not by much) but they will almost certainly cause you to gain weight if you make it a habit, and since it's a cheap option that wound up being one thing we did a lot (and I did, in fact, gain weight!). Early in the program my friends and I tried eating at university cafeterias, which are incredibly cheap, but the cheapness means you will be eating disgusting barely-edible food with homeless people. Wow! Thank you, IES Paris! This is indeed exactly why I chose to study abroad: so I could eat gross food with homeless people just so I don't go broke trying to pay for my meals. How did you know!!
2) stay at home with your family and feel really really awkward as they all go to the dining room to eat, while you stay in your room. I CANNOT EXPRESS HOW AWKWARD THIS IS. And sometimes it's unavoidable that you stay home, because you need to write a paper or study for a test. Technically, yes, I could have made my own meals in the kitchen, but that would have also been very awkward, as I would have been cooking either before or after their meal. What I would end up doing is purchasing some pre-made lunch food (pasta cups, vegetable sides, sandwiches etc) from Monoprix grocery store, then eating it in my room. But it always felt so pathetic and I hated it, and I hated that except for two nights a week, unless I wanted to spend extra money and/or eat fatty yet cheap food and/or eat cheap food in a dangerous environment, the program itself was forcing me to feel anxious and crappy about myself.
Both of those options suck, and I can't believe we couldn't just choose "I want dinner two nights a week" or "I want dinner every night" and have the price adjusted accordingly. But no, everyone has to suffer thanks to a few bad apples in the past. Great.
Of course, in other Paris (and other) study abroad programs I heard of, and in IES Tokyo, dinner happened every night a week (with maybe a break on Sunday or the whole weekend). Of course! Anything, it seems, is better than what IES Paris offers.
The field trips
Apparently, I was very spoiled during IES Tokyo and our two multiple-night trips away (fully included in our fees, nothing extra charged), which felt like a fun class trip and which gave all the students a great chance to hang out with each other and bond, while sightseeing in a different part of the country we might not have ventured to otherwise. I was incredibly shocked to learn that for IES Paris, all the trips except one were day trips to various cities around Paris. And you couldn't even go on all the trips; due to the amount of students my semester (130+) there were about six options and you could choose two. The one overnight visit (only one night overnight) to Normandy was evidently so popular yet space was so limited that if you wanted to go, you had to write an essay explaining why, and those who'd written the best essays were chosen to go. And obviously the overnight trip cost more than the day trips but I don't recall receiving a refund check due to not going on it, so it's pretty unfair that a more expensive trip was treated the same as all the rest. It all felt extremely cheap. Like, "We have more students this year than usual, so even though everyone's paying the same amount as previous years, IF NOT MORE, everyone will get shortchanged even more than usual"--by only doing day trips, and only 2/6 trips are possible, etc.
Utterly ridiculous! Day trips are something we could have easily done on our own; I felt like we were shortchanged out of the opportunity to go on one extended vacation somewhere as an entire group, say the south of France (Nice, Marseilles, etc), all expenses paid by IES as part of our fees. I realize that if IES gave us several days off in a row some people would seize the opportunity to do their own traveling (in addition to our weeklong spring break), but most of us would be economical and realize that we should go on the trip we'd already paid for. So I really hated the "day trips are the only field trips" aspect of it. I would have liked for IES to use the field trip funds to take me to other regions of France it would be harder for us to get to on our own, like the Loire Valley, Brittany, what have you--not towns surrounding Paris we could do on our own like Versailles, Vaux-le-Vicomte, Giverny, etc (as delightful as those trips were... they just weren't worth it if we could have had an extended overnight trip instead).
The program itself
I think the IES Paris program can be almost perfectly encapsulated in how we were instructed to get to our Paris lodgings upon arrival at the airport: completely by ourselves. That's right. A bunch of American students arrive in a foreign city, one many of them have never been to, and are told they must make their own way, alone, in a city known for pickpockets and scammers ready to prey upon innocent tourists, to where they will be staying in Paris, whether it be dorm, homestay, what have you.
When I first read those instructions I could not believe it. With IES Tokyo, upon our arrival we were met at the airport by IES Tokyo staff members, who helped us buy bus tickets, convert our money, forward our luggage along, and get on the bus. Then they led us to the hotel we would be staying at during orientation. Staying at a hotel as one big group for a few days was a great way to get to know everyone else in the program and start off the semester, but IES Paris orientation was nothing like that. After arriving at our lodgings, we commuted--by ourselves--into the IES Paris center, where we were divided into two groups and watched some slideshows and heard some lectures. At the end of those few days we had a dinner on a boat along the Seine. But still--if you weren't going out of your way to hang out with people outside of class, it wasn't happening. Not everyone is magically gifted at making friends, and this left a lot of people in the cold (myself included to some degree). When we were all staying at the same hotel, engaged in scheduled activities every night, it definitely fostered friendships a lot easier!
Arriving in Paris alone, taking a taxi alone, meeting my homestay family alone, then traveling across Paris to the IES center alone--it was all very, well, lonely and unsettling. The beginning of a semester often sets the tone for the rest of it, and I just don't think IES Paris does a good job of setting a "we'll take care of you whatever you need" tone. It was more aloof, cool, "we'll do what we can I suppose but we're shoving you out there on your own whether you like it or not." And it wasn't a great feeling to experience, especially when you've paid thousands of dollars for the privilege.
Overall, please don't go with IES Paris unless everything I've described above suits your needs (and frankly, a lot of the kind of people I was meeting in the program did seem like the type to be satisfied by that, since all they were after was a home base out of which they could fly to various European tourist destinations every weekend, but I was looking for something more, and this had big ramifications on how likely I was to find a group of friends who fit well with me--as it turned out, not that likely at all). So research your options. Put some thought into this! Don't make the same mistake I did. :)
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Saturday, May 05, 2007
Leaving Paris...
So, I've just returned from my last day/night in Paris... and it was perfect. I'm really, really happy with how everything ended.
Finals were over yesterday, so today was the IES goodbye party, at the IES center at noon, and we had delicious catered food; it was all so good. After that I went shopping around for souvenirs with McKenzie, Scott, Mark and Joe. We went to the Champs-Elysées, then Latin Quarter/Odéon. I got some presents for my AC friends and this apple-patterned bag I'd been eyeing (I like it because I'm fond of apples, but this bag is like super-popular and I've seen like 5 different girls carrying it around Paris). It was really full circle because Champs-Elysées and the Latin Quarter are like two of the first places I/we ever went, and we knew so little then and now we know so much more. I think the word "full circle" came up in conversation numerous times today. I loved it...
Later we (McKenzie, Mark, Allie, Lindsey, and Joe) had dinner and decided to go out right, at a very nice cute French place we heard about from Katie's dad (a pilot, so we saw other airline-employee-looking people there too). The food was very good, naturally. After that there was supposed to be this big party at the Champ de Mars, the big park out behind the Eiffel Tower, with not just IES kids but French kids too. But the sky had opened up during the afternoon and it got canceled. But after dinner we went over there anyway, and no one was there but we just sat on a couple benches and talked and hung out. It was really, really nice, we laughed a lot. Around midnight we started walking up towards the Métro and when we got under the Eiffel Tower, just by chance, we met some other IES girls and chatted with them. Then it was time for us to part and I said goodbye to everyone and continued on alone, and they went the other way. I was only wearing a dress and a cold wind was blowing, but it wasn't terrible. When I got to Palais de Chaillot the tower burst into sparkles, as it does, and it was amazing, especially when I got up to that platform. I walked the rest of the way home for the last time.
so yeah. A perfect ending. I didn't get to say goodbye to some people, unfortunately, but you can never get everyone. Now I will finish packing, go to sleep, and tomorrow my host dad is going to drive me to where the bus to the airport is (meaning I don't have to take a taxi from my house) and then I will get on a plane and go hooooome!! Oh, I can't even believe it's over, and I'm so happy it ended on a high note...
But the time has come
To move along...
Finals were over yesterday, so today was the IES goodbye party, at the IES center at noon, and we had delicious catered food; it was all so good. After that I went shopping around for souvenirs with McKenzie, Scott, Mark and Joe. We went to the Champs-Elysées, then Latin Quarter/Odéon. I got some presents for my AC friends and this apple-patterned bag I'd been eyeing (I like it because I'm fond of apples, but this bag is like super-popular and I've seen like 5 different girls carrying it around Paris). It was really full circle because Champs-Elysées and the Latin Quarter are like two of the first places I/we ever went, and we knew so little then and now we know so much more. I think the word "full circle" came up in conversation numerous times today. I loved it...
Later we (McKenzie, Mark, Allie, Lindsey, and Joe) had dinner and decided to go out right, at a very nice cute French place we heard about from Katie's dad (a pilot, so we saw other airline-employee-looking people there too). The food was very good, naturally. After that there was supposed to be this big party at the Champ de Mars, the big park out behind the Eiffel Tower, with not just IES kids but French kids too. But the sky had opened up during the afternoon and it got canceled. But after dinner we went over there anyway, and no one was there but we just sat on a couple benches and talked and hung out. It was really, really nice, we laughed a lot. Around midnight we started walking up towards the Métro and when we got under the Eiffel Tower, just by chance, we met some other IES girls and chatted with them. Then it was time for us to part and I said goodbye to everyone and continued on alone, and they went the other way. I was only wearing a dress and a cold wind was blowing, but it wasn't terrible. When I got to Palais de Chaillot the tower burst into sparkles, as it does, and it was amazing, especially when I got up to that platform. I walked the rest of the way home for the last time.
so yeah. A perfect ending. I didn't get to say goodbye to some people, unfortunately, but you can never get everyone. Now I will finish packing, go to sleep, and tomorrow my host dad is going to drive me to where the bus to the airport is (meaning I don't have to take a taxi from my house) and then I will get on a plane and go hooooome!! Oh, I can't even believe it's over, and I'm so happy it ended on a high note...
But the time has come
To move along...
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Weekend in Scotland!
Scotland was very fun, and I am very grateful to Rebecca for letting me crash at her place while I was there. We went to the beach and the golf course (got presents for my dad -_-) and castle ruins and Edinburgh and all sorts of places. Walking on the beach was very fun because no waves attacked me this time, I could just walk around barefoot with my jeans rolled up. It's when you start to actually GO in the water that bad things happen. mrrrr
Friday, April 27
My flight out of Paris was at 9, so I had to get up pretty early (before anyone else in my host family) and get on the train. I took the 9 to the 4 to Gare du Nord, where I transferred to RER B. I did my sneaky thing so I didn't have to buy an 8-euro real ticket to the airport, mwa ha. First I flew to Frankfurt, then got on another plane to Edinburgh, arriving around 1 p.m. Rebecca was waiting for me outside the gates and we took an awesome double-decker bus to Edinburgh Waverley station, where we checked my bag in and then went sightseeing around Edinburgh (since that's an hour away from St. Andrews, where she actually lives). We walked around, sort of looked into the possibility of a dungeons tour (but they're soooo expensive), checked out all the cool winding pathways, and wound up outside Edinburgh Castle. I almost didn't want to go because it cost so much, but we went in the end. Hooked up with a tour guide group led by a very amusing guy, so we got a little tour of the castle and then wandered around on our own. The wax figures inside one of the buildings illustrating its history were really amusing to me, hahaha. It was pretty cool to be up so high and look down at Edinburgh :)
Cannons!
Really windy... haha.
windyyy
looking back at the castle
After we were done looking around the city we retrieved my bag from the station and then bought tickets to St. Andrews. The train ride there was about an hour, and once we got there we took a bus into St. Andrews itself and then walked to Rebecca's house where she lives with four other girls. That night we went to the grocery store (Tesco, one of the most happening places in St. Andrews apparently) and then over to the house of a friend of hers from Japanese class, where another fellow classmate was. We all geeked out over Gackt and other various nerdy j-music things, it was a lot of fun.
Saturday, April 28
We got up and went to go check out the famous St. Andrews golf course. We went into the shop and I got some souvenirs to give to my dad (a hat, and a towel) and then put on the hat and had Rebecca take some pictures of me in front of the Old Course. Then we walked around the edges of the course a bit before heading down to the beach, where I had her take more pictures of me and I ran around in the cold cold water, but it was a lot of fun. yay beach!
Old Course!
Me in front of the 18th with the hat I bought for my dad.
Clubhouse
You better watch out.
Beaaach!
Me on the beach!
In the water!
After that we went to Rebecca's old dorm on the St. Andrews campus, which is of course more like Hogwarts Castle with its fancy wooden staircases and lounges and TURRETS and TOWERS and all these super cool things that the AC dorms definitely lack (;_;)... though I'm sure schools like Yale etc have dorms like this. We wandered around there for a while, then went outside where the inhabitants of the dorm were having some sort of spring party. Get this: they were serving beer. AT A SCHOOL-SPONSORED FUNCTION. I could not get over it. There is no way there would be alcohol at any AC sponsored event (besides Senior Happy Hour in the pub, but that doesn't count, I mean like an outdoor event!). Really kinda cool. And there was ice cream, and hamburgers (long lines though), and kiddie pools that guys were dumping other guys into... it was pretty great.
At night we made dinner and then Rebecca had to go to work so I worked on my history paper a little bit while she was gone. Bed after that, I think.
Irn-Bru! A delicious Scottish soft drink :)
While we were hanging out, things got silly. She took my camera and began a series of (sometimes frightening) self-portraits.
Poor Stitch
Then she fell off the edge of the bed HAHHAHAHA I mean...
I had to get in on the action. Stitch family!
Sunday, April 29
We had lunch at this awesome little cafe that had two things I had not tasted in months because they are not available in Paris: bagels and bacon. I had an amazing toasted bagel with cream cheese and I just put the bacon right on top of it. ahhhh delicioussss
Then we wandered around St. Andrews and wound up at the ruins of St. Andrews church and castle, which were so cool to explore. They were right on the coast so I messed with some seagulls. But the ruins were so awesome!
Craggy coastline
Church ruins!
At St. Andrews castle.
Pools built into the beach!
This seagull got all mad at me taking pictures over the railing. Deal with it, seagull!
At night we went to the flat of a friend of Rebecca's, who is actually an American who just decided she wanted to go to college abroad (like she isn't a study abroad student, she just goes here for school full-time). That's pretty cool. Apparently there are lots of Americans at St. Andrews, both study-abroad students and full-time students. You can pick them out because of the pajamas/sweatpants and flip-flops they wear around town. ...yeeep, American college students can't dress and think lazy looks best. (NO IT DOESN'T. I don't dress like that!!) Anyway, we hung out there with a bunch of other people watching this crazy movie.
Monday, April 30
My last day! Woowww and this day was like a huge long day of various kinds of public transportation. Let's see... got up at 8 or 9, took the bus from St. Andrews to Leuchars station, 1-hour train ride to Edinburgh (said goodbye to Rebecca before getting on the train), bus to the airport caught from outside Edinburgh Waverley station, plane to Frankfurt, plane to Paris, RER B, line 4, line 9, AHH HOME AT LAST, at 9 pm. It seriously took the entire day just to return home... but it was fun, I didn't mind. Look at me, all independent, doin' all this all on my own!
But yeah, I had a great little visit to Scotland, Rebecca was a great hostess, and I'm glad I finally made it to SOMEWHERE on the British Isles after reading like soooooo many books set there and learning so much information about it and its history. I hope to come back to go to Ireland/England/Wales someday, as well as hit up more of Scotland. :)
I must also gloat about how I've discovered a way to get to and from the airport FOR FREE (as opposed to buying a stupid 8-euro ticket each way). mwa haaaa! See, the line that goes to the airport, RER B, has 2 Charles de Gaulle stops, one for Terminals 1 & 3, and one for Terminal 2. This Terminal 1 & 3 one is hideously under-securitized, and that's where you can totally get away with stuff >:D They have NO outgoing AND incoming ticket gates!!! So you don't need to have a proper ticket to get out, and you don't need one to get in. You can seriously just breeze on through and onto the train, which NEVER happens. Now, at the station you either get on or get off this RER line from (for me, it was Gare du Nord), you will need a proper ticket there to get in and out of the RER area, but if you just have a monthly pass, as I do, you can put that in and since you're still in zones 1 & 2 (which is what the monthly pass covers, and the airport is out in zone 5 so it's not usually covered) it totally works. Then you can just get on the train to the airport and since no conductor ever comes around ticket-checking, and since there's no gate to stop you when you get out--IT'S FREEE. :D :D I am brilliant. So when I got back today, I just hopped on the train, used my monthly pass to get out of the RER area, and bammmm it so worked. Since the monthly pass is already expensive, I don't feel bad at all. I've just saved myself 16 euros :D!
I'm also happy about the delicious doughnuts Rebecca bought me before I left, which were soooo gooood but sadly they are gone now, and I don't live in St Andrews so I can't get any more. D: Butterscotch frosting, cream inside. mmmmm :3
OH YES and my passport was stamped which was AWESOME! It hadn't happened yet. Ever. Seriously. (Except for when I arrived in France, of course.) I don't know what's up, but I didn't have to go through customs, like, AT ALL leaving France for Germany and leaving Italy for France. I seriously just breezed on through and out of there. (It does make sense, it's all EU/continental Europe, but still.) But this time, no! Even at the airport in Frankfurt where I had to get a connecting flight, THEY stamped the passport. Then arriving in Edinburgh, they stamped it again too. I had to go in the special "Non-EU members" line where almost no one was (ha ha ha), and fill out a CARD, and then they stamped it and I can stay in Scotland for 6 months if I want to. Which I can't. But it's nice to know I have the option! However, they didn't stamp it or check it upon my departure, I guess they don't care who leaves the country. They did again at Frankfurt though. Three stamps!!! (full of glee)
Friday, April 27
My flight out of Paris was at 9, so I had to get up pretty early (before anyone else in my host family) and get on the train. I took the 9 to the 4 to Gare du Nord, where I transferred to RER B. I did my sneaky thing so I didn't have to buy an 8-euro real ticket to the airport, mwa ha. First I flew to Frankfurt, then got on another plane to Edinburgh, arriving around 1 p.m. Rebecca was waiting for me outside the gates and we took an awesome double-decker bus to Edinburgh Waverley station, where we checked my bag in and then went sightseeing around Edinburgh (since that's an hour away from St. Andrews, where she actually lives). We walked around, sort of looked into the possibility of a dungeons tour (but they're soooo expensive), checked out all the cool winding pathways, and wound up outside Edinburgh Castle. I almost didn't want to go because it cost so much, but we went in the end. Hooked up with a tour guide group led by a very amusing guy, so we got a little tour of the castle and then wandered around on our own. The wax figures inside one of the buildings illustrating its history were really amusing to me, hahaha. It was pretty cool to be up so high and look down at Edinburgh :)
Cannons!
Really windy... haha.
windyyy
looking back at the castle
After we were done looking around the city we retrieved my bag from the station and then bought tickets to St. Andrews. The train ride there was about an hour, and once we got there we took a bus into St. Andrews itself and then walked to Rebecca's house where she lives with four other girls. That night we went to the grocery store (Tesco, one of the most happening places in St. Andrews apparently) and then over to the house of a friend of hers from Japanese class, where another fellow classmate was. We all geeked out over Gackt and other various nerdy j-music things, it was a lot of fun.
Saturday, April 28
We got up and went to go check out the famous St. Andrews golf course. We went into the shop and I got some souvenirs to give to my dad (a hat, and a towel) and then put on the hat and had Rebecca take some pictures of me in front of the Old Course. Then we walked around the edges of the course a bit before heading down to the beach, where I had her take more pictures of me and I ran around in the cold cold water, but it was a lot of fun. yay beach!
Old Course!
Me in front of the 18th with the hat I bought for my dad.
Clubhouse
You better watch out.
Beaaach!
Me on the beach!
In the water!
After that we went to Rebecca's old dorm on the St. Andrews campus, which is of course more like Hogwarts Castle with its fancy wooden staircases and lounges and TURRETS and TOWERS and all these super cool things that the AC dorms definitely lack (;_;)... though I'm sure schools like Yale etc have dorms like this. We wandered around there for a while, then went outside where the inhabitants of the dorm were having some sort of spring party. Get this: they were serving beer. AT A SCHOOL-SPONSORED FUNCTION. I could not get over it. There is no way there would be alcohol at any AC sponsored event (besides Senior Happy Hour in the pub, but that doesn't count, I mean like an outdoor event!). Really kinda cool. And there was ice cream, and hamburgers (long lines though), and kiddie pools that guys were dumping other guys into... it was pretty great.
At night we made dinner and then Rebecca had to go to work so I worked on my history paper a little bit while she was gone. Bed after that, I think.
Irn-Bru! A delicious Scottish soft drink :)
While we were hanging out, things got silly. She took my camera and began a series of (sometimes frightening) self-portraits.
Poor Stitch
Then she fell off the edge of the bed HAHHAHAHA I mean...
I had to get in on the action. Stitch family!
Sunday, April 29
We had lunch at this awesome little cafe that had two things I had not tasted in months because they are not available in Paris: bagels and bacon. I had an amazing toasted bagel with cream cheese and I just put the bacon right on top of it. ahhhh delicioussss
Then we wandered around St. Andrews and wound up at the ruins of St. Andrews church and castle, which were so cool to explore. They were right on the coast so I messed with some seagulls. But the ruins were so awesome!
Craggy coastline
Church ruins!
At St. Andrews castle.
Pools built into the beach!
This seagull got all mad at me taking pictures over the railing. Deal with it, seagull!
At night we went to the flat of a friend of Rebecca's, who is actually an American who just decided she wanted to go to college abroad (like she isn't a study abroad student, she just goes here for school full-time). That's pretty cool. Apparently there are lots of Americans at St. Andrews, both study-abroad students and full-time students. You can pick them out because of the pajamas/sweatpants and flip-flops they wear around town. ...yeeep, American college students can't dress and think lazy looks best. (NO IT DOESN'T. I don't dress like that!!) Anyway, we hung out there with a bunch of other people watching this crazy movie.
Monday, April 30
My last day! Woowww and this day was like a huge long day of various kinds of public transportation. Let's see... got up at 8 or 9, took the bus from St. Andrews to Leuchars station, 1-hour train ride to Edinburgh (said goodbye to Rebecca before getting on the train), bus to the airport caught from outside Edinburgh Waverley station, plane to Frankfurt, plane to Paris, RER B, line 4, line 9, AHH HOME AT LAST, at 9 pm. It seriously took the entire day just to return home... but it was fun, I didn't mind. Look at me, all independent, doin' all this all on my own!
But yeah, I had a great little visit to Scotland, Rebecca was a great hostess, and I'm glad I finally made it to SOMEWHERE on the British Isles after reading like soooooo many books set there and learning so much information about it and its history. I hope to come back to go to Ireland/England/Wales someday, as well as hit up more of Scotland. :)
I must also gloat about how I've discovered a way to get to and from the airport FOR FREE (as opposed to buying a stupid 8-euro ticket each way). mwa haaaa! See, the line that goes to the airport, RER B, has 2 Charles de Gaulle stops, one for Terminals 1 & 3, and one for Terminal 2. This Terminal 1 & 3 one is hideously under-securitized, and that's where you can totally get away with stuff >:D They have NO outgoing AND incoming ticket gates!!! So you don't need to have a proper ticket to get out, and you don't need one to get in. You can seriously just breeze on through and onto the train, which NEVER happens. Now, at the station you either get on or get off this RER line from (for me, it was Gare du Nord), you will need a proper ticket there to get in and out of the RER area, but if you just have a monthly pass, as I do, you can put that in and since you're still in zones 1 & 2 (which is what the monthly pass covers, and the airport is out in zone 5 so it's not usually covered) it totally works. Then you can just get on the train to the airport and since no conductor ever comes around ticket-checking, and since there's no gate to stop you when you get out--IT'S FREEE. :D :D I am brilliant. So when I got back today, I just hopped on the train, used my monthly pass to get out of the RER area, and bammmm it so worked. Since the monthly pass is already expensive, I don't feel bad at all. I've just saved myself 16 euros :D!
I'm also happy about the delicious doughnuts Rebecca bought me before I left, which were soooo gooood but sadly they are gone now, and I don't live in St Andrews so I can't get any more. D: Butterscotch frosting, cream inside. mmmmm :3
OH YES and my passport was stamped which was AWESOME! It hadn't happened yet. Ever. Seriously. (Except for when I arrived in France, of course.) I don't know what's up, but I didn't have to go through customs, like, AT ALL leaving France for Germany and leaving Italy for France. I seriously just breezed on through and out of there. (It does make sense, it's all EU/continental Europe, but still.) But this time, no! Even at the airport in Frankfurt where I had to get a connecting flight, THEY stamped the passport. Then arriving in Edinburgh, they stamped it again too. I had to go in the special "Non-EU members" line where almost no one was (ha ha ha), and fill out a CARD, and then they stamped it and I can stay in Scotland for 6 months if I want to. Which I can't. But it's nice to know I have the option! However, they didn't stamp it or check it upon my departure, I guess they don't care who leaves the country. They did again at Frankfurt though. Three stamps!!! (full of glee)
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