UPDATES

Friends, Romans, Countrymen…I have updates on my life.

Some time has passed between my last post and now, and within that short time some updates in my life have occurred that are worth noting.

And while I would love nothing more than to sew all of these updates together cohesively and poetically -- it is Friday; and I have neither the patience nor the creativity for that at the moment.

My patience for this week was tapped out on Wednesday by a cantankerous French woman…whom I will go into more detail about later.

C’mon, cut me some slack. I heard even Ovid and Homer took Fridays off from writing…

Okay. Are you ready?

That's what I always ask delicious, fresh bread before I eat it...

But back to the updates!

Here we go.

I finally have my return ticket booked

At 6:35pm on May 18^th 2013 I will OFFICIALLY be back in the United States, baby.

See? It’s really happening.

I would be lying to you if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed that I won’t be spending my 21^st birthday in the United States and with my wonderful friends and family, but I think I’ll manage celebrating a mere 48 hours afterwards.

I also will be treating myself to a trip to Nice, France for about a week leading up to my birthday on the 16^th…I gotta ease the pain of not being at home for my birthday somehow, right? Another girl in my program turns 21 on May 17^th, so we decided to ring in our 21^st a little bit early on the beaches of Nice with a drink in hand.

Life can be so hard sometimes.

My trip to the UK and Ireland is almost completely organized.

And when I say organized, I’m talkin’ minute-by-minute plans.

Seriously, if to-do lists and itineraries were a religion, I swear I think I would be the Messiah.

Seriously, nothing gets my little heart racing more than a well-organized trip.

In fact, when my sister and my mom came for a quick trip to NYC to see me this summer I had an entire spreadsheet of activities planned with exact time intervals in which to fulfill them in.

I had plan As, plan Bs, Plan Cs, Murphy’s Law back-up plans…the whole kit and kaboodle. If you’re interested, I think my mom or Katie might still have their itinerary saved somewhere. They thought it was hilarious. Why they thought this I don’t know…it was all business for me.

And have you ever seen my Christmas list? I won’t go into detail, but all I’ll say is that spreadsheets and hyperlinks are involved.

Why am I programmed the way I am? This I’ll never know. Some people get a rush from skydiving, shoplifting, or extreme sports.

Me? Excel spreadsheets, binders, folders, and to-do lists have the same effect on me.

And if organization ever does become a religion, this place would definitely be the Mecca.

That trip is planned for February 25-March 3, and once I get back to Dijon I will give a detailed report of my adventures, experiences and most importantly the new foods I get to try.

My trip to Copenhagen is officially booked.

This trip is one I am especially looking forward to because I am going to be able to see my Aunt and my two young cousins who live there. It’s been too long since I last saw them and I am incredibly excited to see them and the lovely city of Copenhagen.

That trip is scheduled for April 5-7.

There will be a quiz on these dates at the end, so I hope you’re taking notes.

I’m going to Amsterdam

Yup, you heard me. It’s happening.

And it happened on such a whim too, which only makes me believe even more that it was totally meant to be.

Right? That makes the most sense to you too?

Good. I’m glad you think so too.

Anyway, we booked this trip yesterday. We, as in two other girls in my program. I originally had my sights set on Rome for Easter Break, but it proved to be too complicated to finagle, and I plan on going to Florence in the upcoming weeks to visit friends, and it would be the most economical to do both Rome and Florence in one trip instead of two different ones.

This is my ugly schedule for next week

(try not to look at it straight in the eye, you might turn to stone)

Luckily, this will be one of the most work intensive weeks of the semester, so I’m happy to get it out of the way now.

The Insanity 60-Day Challenge has been going really well

I friggin' love this program. I actually look forward to doing it every day. It's such a great physical release of energy, and it goes by so quickly!

I had my second fit test the other day, and I'm proud to report that I beat every score from my original fit test. Some I even tripled my numbers!

This is something I'll definitely adopt into my exercise routine. I'm so grateful for this program (Thank you again, Ann!), for I already feel so much stronger and it's only been 2 and a half weeks. I'm anxious to see what next month brings with the new set of DVDs, for from what I hear it becomes even more insane (which I didn't think was possible).

The honeymoon phase I think is officially over.

I was warned that this was going to happen.

But being an eternal optimist I never thought there would be a day that I wasn’t enchanted with Europe and the fact that I’m in France.

Until Wednesday happened.

I needed to buy a special kind of stamp. This stamp is necessary for me to get my Visa validated, and they are oddly only sold at Tobacco shops. Well, I passed one the other day when I took a different route to school, and I took it as sign that I should not procrastinate and just go in and get the stamps. I even had the sheet that had the exact name of the stamp written down in French on me at that moment, so that solidified my thoughts even more that I should go in and buy it.

So I go in, and this kind woman behind the counter greets me with a smile and “bonjour!” and I return the salutation and proceed to ask her in French if she speaks any English. She regretfully says she doesn’t, but I was undeterred, as I knew enough basic words and phrases that I could get my point across – just not as lucidly as I could have in English.

58 Euro later (these puppies are expensive), I go home only to realize that she had given me the wrong stamps.

So I frantically rush to Google Translate on my computer and type up this whole apologetic explanation of what had happened and how I needed a different stamp blah, blah, blah.

The clock is ticking closer and closer to noon at this point, and I knew I had to rush back to the Tobacco shop before then because everything in this town literally shuts down between 12pm to 2pm for lunch. Which, yeah, sounds romantic and all until you realize that that is primetime to get errands done.

Anyway, I make it into the shop just in the nick of time and the sweet, kind woman I had interfaced with a mere 20 minutes earlier morphed into this crabby, surly woman who literally treated me so rudely that her manager then came out from the back room to see what was happening. All the while, she is reprimanding me in French (which is terrifying, by the way), homeboy suddenly sticks his nose into my business and also decides to give me a good scolding for this stamp confusion.

THEY’RE STAMPS PEOPLE, WHY ARE WE IN SUCH A TIZZY?!

Frustrated and caught completely off-guard by this woman’s sudden rashness, I, for the first time since I’ve been here, felt so completely overwhelmed/stupid/helpless/taken advantage of that all I could do was scurry home and Skype with my mom, who, true to form, made everything all better and restored my emotions back to equilibrium.

(Thanks again momma)

I’ve been here a little over a month now, and when we first arrived, all the exchange students had to go to this lecture about adapting to French culture. The woman who spoke was fantastic, and also a native of Vermont. This fellow New Englander moved to Dijon about 15 years ago, and she went through this whole PowerPoint of all the things she wish someone had told her when she moved to Dijon.

One thing that really stuck with me was when she mentioned that we’re all in the “honeymoon” phase, and that that would end, but at different times for each of us.

Like I said earlier, I never thought that day would really come for me, but after that unfortunate encounter I was left with a not-so-great taste in my mouth.

But that being said, that’s how relationships work.

If every couple decided to break things off the minute things weren’t rainbows and butterflies anymore, then no one would stay together for very long.

Dijon is my partner in this relationship. And for the most part we get along really great, and have a fantastic give-and-take relationship. That being said, we definitely have our issues that we need to work through and learn from as we progress.

So that’s what I’m doing right now. We’re in couples counseling and working on bettering ourselves together.

Dijon and I are great together. We just hit a bump in the road is all. And with my upcoming trips planned in the near future I think this all came at a great time.

Because like they say, distance makes the heart grow fonder.