3 trains, 4 buses and 2 planes later.. I arrived in France!! I am here visiting my dad for the weekend. And we are having a blast. The moment I walked off the plane and out to the public he was standing there waiting for me in his Notre Dame purple windbreaker and jeans. I was so excited that I literally ran out the gates to go give him a hug! One of the interns working for his company offered him a ride and he even dropped us off at home after! We walked in and we had cheese, bread, and a whole bottle of wine. The Bordeaux was to die for and he said it was only 3.43 euro! After a long day of travel we just relaxed and we watched TV, in French.
On Saturday DAD MADE ME EGGS! Man I have missed his eggs. Breakfast in Europe is small and usually something like a pastry! We then walked to downtown Toulouse and explored alot! Let me tell you, it was definitely a hoppin' college town. Their chocolate eclairs aren't too shabby and neither are their men! Hubba hubba, were some of them good lookin'! Our one mission downtown was to find Dad's favorite restaurant in France, "The Coughing Donkey". We pulled out his computer in the Capitol square just so we could get a map out to find the place. We stopped for lunch, and like father like daughter, we both had Caesar salads. After a few hours of walking around the Coughing Donkey eventually opened at 7:00. We grabbed a beer in some little cute pub before heading to dinner, which was delicious!! He definitely picked a place my mother would enjoy. After hours of laughter and conversation we had a three mile walk back to the apartment. Schena Family, if you are reading this I thought of you guys because the MOON in Toulouse was glowing as bright as ever and it made me think of when you guys visited Arizona and saw the MOONA!!
It's nice to spend some time with my dad. I learn a lot from him and I enjoy his company. Spending the weekend with one of my best friends was a good choice.
The past week has been busy with preparing for midterms before spring break. I spent a few hours this week with the fifth graders watching the singing/dancing of a few the Grease songs. They are doing splendid! They will have their concert at the beginning of May and I am so excited for them! It's really been a blast helping them learn the songs and getting them to speak English!
For my Sustainability class this week we visited the Accademia Fisiocritici, which is a natural history museum that was founded in 1691. It is filled with different kingdoms, phylums classes, orders, and species. Dr. Allred would have LOVED this museum. The taxonomy portion was overwhelming. Surrounded by all the dead animals gave me the heebee geebees. Thursday afternoon I was walking home in the rain and I was taking pictures of drops of rain water coming off of some leaves and an old man walked up to me and starting speaking to me. I explained that I only spoke a little bit of Italian because I was in school studying there. Yet we had a full conversation. It was great. I also had another run in similar to that. A French couple stopped me on the street and asked me something in French. I had no idea what they said and asked them if they spoke English. No English. I asked if they spoke Italian and the woman replied a little bit. So there I was, in the middle of the streets of Siena with a French couple looking for St. Catherine's Sanctuary and I gave directions in Italian and she replied in Italian. What was so amazing was that for both of us Italian is not our first language! Yet I was able to get them to St. Catherine's (I hope). I was pretty amazed.
Habemus Papam! Wednesday night was crazy! Watching the announcement of the Pope was probably a once in a lifetime opportunity because I watched it in ITALY! It was amazing! I had goosebumps the entire time. I was watching it on the big screen in our family room while I was listening to CNN for an English re-cap.
I head back to Siena EARLY tomorrow morning and head right into school. Thanks mom for the early flight (not)!!
Ciao
-kali
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