No more!

I've been mopping around for the last couple of weeks. I guess this homesickness has really affected me, especially with the holiday season. I have been feeling really helpless, lazy, and basically, not like myself. I need to snap out of this phase that I'm going through. I need to live it up. Interact more. Be less of a recluse. Go out. This was inevitably going to happen while I'm here. I need to realize that I can't be with my family this holiday season and yeah, it sucks, but I'm in France for only a limited amount of time. Il faut profiter d'être en France. :)

Ski! Snow! Finland?

So, I'm going skiing tomorrow. First time. Fucking excited, but nervous. I hope I can take some lessons. It'll be definitely interesting tomorrow. :)

I met some Finnish girls tonight. I was in the kitchen and they were preparing the table and were talking in Finnish. I asked them, "What are you girls doing?" They were preparing a dinner for their other Finnish friend. I ended up spending like 3 hours with them. I ate a traditional Finnish meal, which consisted of mashed potatoes and Finnish meatballs, drank "hot wine," ate some Finnish desserts. They were all very nice. I definitely enjoyed their company. They might have been really pretty too. :P We mostly talked in French, but something we would talk in English. I'm really surprised by how well the Finnish and the Swedish speak English. It's like, speaking to another American. It's fucking insane. These Finnish girls can speak Finnish, Swedish (which is the 2nd official language in Finland), English, and French. They spoke all of them well too. Fuck, I'm jealous. I'm at like, 0.25 languages.

Well, I hope I don't break anything tomorrow.

Bitches love my new haircut.

I finally got my hair cut today and shaved for the first time in 25 days. I feel pretty good. It's nice to be clean. :)

Haircuts are expensive here. The cheapest I found was about 15 euros, student price for guys, which is like 25 dollars. I have no clue what it would cost a girl to get their haircut. I went to Jean Louis David and spent 21 euros, student price for guys. I think it's fucking expensive. I complain when I spent 30 dollars in the US to get my haircut.

Âllo!

So, Thanksgiving is turning out to be a huge undertaking. We reduced the size of the company to around 20, but still, it's going to be rough. Anne did some preliminary calculations last night (what an engineer!), and it's looking like... 3 kg canberry sauce (if it exists), 5 kg of bread, 8 L of gravy, and 6 kg of turkey. In addition, we need marshmallows, a shit ton of potatoes, green beans, carrots, onions, etc. This will be interesting.

I'm getting a haircut. It's hard to describe what I want in French. I guess I should go in prepared.

Today, I'm going to start being a real student. Promise. :)

Boo! I'm back!

So, I haven't blogged in a while again. It doesn't seem like anybody is following it anymore, but I don't care. It's nice to blog.

Thanksgiving is this Thursday. France doesn't celebrate it. I got the chance to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving as a special Canadian guest about a month ago, but I think that Anne Thiel and I are going to hold the important one, the American one. I think we're planning on doing it on Saturday or Sunday night. Unfortunately, we don't get a break like in the US, so we can't do it on Thanksgiving. We're planning on feeding about 30 people, which means we have to buy a lot of turkey, green beans, carrots, cranberries, marshmallows, yams, potatoes, and gravy. :)

They're starting to put up Christmas lights downtown and they're installing the ice rink in the center. I do enjoy the early Christmas spirit, but it fucking makes me homesick.

On a happier note: I bought everything that I need for skiing. The ski season starts the 5th of december, so I'm pumped. I can't wait to get out there!

Okay, onto my "differences in France" rant:
What's really weird is that I can't find chicken at the supermarkets here. I can find, beef, pork, turkey, sheep, lamb, horse regularly, but I can't find chicken at all. It's so weird, coming from a nation dependent on chicken. Maybe I'll check out a charcuterie (butchery). Also, deodorant exists, but in liquid form? I can't seem to find it in the solid form. Weird. Those anti-sweat body sprays seem to be the in-thing. Pop selection is slim. It's coke, coke light, fanta, orangina, and sprite (if you're lucky). Pepsi doesn't really exist here. What does makes me happy is that Starbucks does not exist here. I think there's only a handful in all of France. It's all about the tiny, unique cafés. Also, the French subtitles suck when the French watch American shows, like Lost, How I Met Your Mother, Friends, Big Bang Theory, Gossip Girl, etc... I guess there isn't a translation to everything in English, but they lose so much meaning in each translation.

I promise, I'll post more. :)

Christmas Plans

So, I booked my tickets to England for Christmas. It ended being about 120 euros, round-trip. I really wanted to come back to the US for Christmas, but it's way too expensive. It would end up costing over 1500 euros, easily. I'll be with my cousins in London for a bit, then up to Bradford to see my aunt and uncle for Christmas, then back down to London for New Year's. It'll definitely be interesting this year. I mean, if you guys want to send me gift. Feel free. Talk to me and I'll give you my address. :)

I miss you guys.