Okay, so sorry for being too lazy to update the blog this week! (although, a piece of advice, if your life is revolving around my blog updates, it MIGHT possibly be time for you to get a hobby (or a life) before it's too late :D)
So, the week in review:
Weather- it has been raining on and off ALL week for like the 3rd week in a row, and let me tell you, it's getting a bit depressing. Luckily I've been able to get creative with my free time (i.e. napping and eating), but I have now confirmed that I am never ever moving to Seattle.
Internship- soooo this internship is getting more and more complicated as we go along. I have to be honest that it can be a bit frustrating at times, not knowing what I'm doing and not being able to get help from the prof since the work hours are so strange; HOWEVER it does make it all that much more gratifying when I figure it out. Plus my friend Xi just downloaded all 10 seasons of Friends to my laptop at work. Win = me. Don't worry, I'm still being productive, especially by French standards ;)
Running- Running has been great this week. I found this 33 km bike trail that encircles the entire city, and it starts right by where I'm living, so it's great! I can easily do some of my longer runs on it, no problem. I love following the trail because the environment changes so quickly from quaint city to rolling countryside to Baltimore Inner Harbor-ish...very cool. Plus (warning, another slightly offensive French stereotype alert) since the French aren't really known for their athleticism, they DEFINITELY don't venture out in the rain to run. So the last time it was raining (luckily it's been pretty warm rain), I went running and felt like such a champ. People were actually cheering for me and congratulating me on going out running in such "horrible" weather (i.e. a drizzle).
Week(end) Activities- this weekend has been pretty jam-packed. Mid-week we always have a Syracuse program picnic, with fresh breads, cheeses, cakes, fruits, and meats from the local markets. Well, me trying to be helpful before the picnic volunteered to slice the bread and ended up slicing my finger open instead. Yeah, not my best move. But hey, at least now if I want to become a criminal my finger prints are all different than they were before!
The weight room has had some weirdly inconvenient hours lately so my friend Laura and I decided to supplement our workouts. We went to "les Bains Municipals" on Friday afternoon, and Hot Yoga on Saturday. Les Bains Municipals are basically these old public pools, which are beautifully architectured but also very old-school, not your state-of-the-art place. I do give them credit though, they are pretty strict on hygiene. Girls have to wear their hair up at all times, guys can only wear speedos (ugh *shudder*), and people must shower before and after entering the pool. We met these three French guys who were econ majors who were pretty nice and wanted to practice their English with us (I've found that that is pretty common here, when people learn we speak English), which was awfully confusing because I don't know much about Keynesian economics in English, let alone French. Saturday was Hot Yoga and boy was it HOT. The room was basically a sauna- I have literally never perspired so much in my life. I looked like someone poured water on me. Really, I didn't know people sweat out their shins. And I've never done real yoga before...it was SO difficult! Those people can contort themselves in ways that I'm pretty certain aren't natural. Probably one of the hardest workouts in my entire life. Definitely not making fun of those yoga-ers ever again. There was this one over-weight old guy there who did a perfect "Russian Dancer". I could barely do the child's pose. How pathetic am I?
Friday night we headed out to our usual French discotheque, "Seven". It surprises me how much the French here love our pop music. Most of the songs I recognize. I didn't get in until around 3:30 but my host mom was already up, doing Sudoku in the kitchen. I guess considering she goes to bed around 7 PM, that's not too bad, but it still scared the daylights out of me, walking in to find her standing in the doorway!
Today was a program excursion to the ruins of a castle and to The Black Forest (home of the chocolate-cherry-brandy Black Forest Cake, nomnomnom). It was really windy and slightly drizzling so we were glad to be able to eat a nice meal inside a warm restaurant. I ordered Wild Boar, which I was perfectly happy about until my vegetarian friend told me that I mind as well have been eating Pumba. Great. :P We were able to explore parts of the Black Forest and also walk around Baden-Baden, an aristocratic German town famous for its high-end hotels, casinos, and natural luxurious hot-spring baths (oh, and cuckoo clocks!).
Yup, so that was my week in review. This Tuesday is a huge city-wide music festival and of course we have another picnic. I put up all my Milan pictures on facebook and I'm going to try to get around to putting up more Strasbourg pics, but I've adopted the French work mentality more than I'd like to admit, so it might not happen :)
Becky
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