525,600 minutes

How do you measure a year? Actually, I'm a nerd and googled how many minutes are really in a year and it's 525,948.766 minutes, but that just doesn't have the same effect when you're trying to cram it into Seasons of Love from Rent...I see the problem and the need for a modification in order to make the song work. The point is, a year ago today I landed in France ready for my big adventure. Here's how I would measure my year:

in visitors

in vacations

in strange foods

in lunch dates with Marie

in cheese

in bread

in wine

I could also measure my year in new friends, homework, skype dates, metro problems, second-hand smoke, chocolate croissants, cultural misunderstandings, ups, downs, and many more things that make me smile (or, sometimes cringe). I'm looking forward to the next 525,948.766 minutes...and at the moment it doesn't seem like enough. I love it here.

growing pains

Ok well, I'm not in Minneapolis but I am back in Paris...again, already, finally - I'm not really sure which word to use here. My trip home was strange because it felt long but short, it made me happy but sad, I was busy but bored, and the list goes on. December was a month of growing pains for me on a few different levels. The first big thing that happened was the day after I arrived in Minnesota - I turned 26, tipping the scale slightly closer to 30 than I'm comfortable with. This is the first year where I feel old, where I look at my friends and think they're old and I look at my family (no offense, guys) and think they're really old if I'm already 26. Worry not, I took a trip to Target with Jaime (well...one of several hundred trips to Target) and she took me to the vitamin aisle where I had a silent breakdown and started my vitamin enriched 26th year. So far, so good.

With my birthday came one of the biggest snowstorms that Minnesota has seen in the past few decades...we were completely snowed in my first full day at home, but we were still able to go outside to relax and enjoy the view...

Although the storm foiled plans for a little birthday celebration with friends, at the end of the day it felt good to be home, snowed in with my favorite cake, good wine and good company - mostly by choice but also because it was the only option. This year I will be turning 26 again, FYI. 27 is just not an option.


Another growing pain while I was home came in the form of unwanted pounds added on to the scale. After being gone for a year, it was hard to turn down my favorite snacks and meals so I just decided to go for it and indulge...in everything. Chipotle, lattes, home cooked meals, hint of lime tortilla chips, cookies, bagels, you name it - I ate it. It felt good to come back to Paris and go back to my normal eating habits, though. When I got back I wasn't hungry for a week. All is good on the scale again...although my Chipotle cravings are beginning to resurface again. Word on the street is that Paris will be getting one this spring. I'm trying to contain my excitement and not worry about the fact that burritos will probably be $30 in France. More to come on that, though.

The last growing pain I experienced while I was home was dealing with friendships that maybe I've outgrown or they've outgrown me. My time at home with friends surprised me - some friendships I expected to feel different but felt the same, and others that I thought would pick up where we left off felt different - like a kind of tangible emptiness had wedged its way in over the course of the year. I always thought keeping up with friendships was my "thing" that I'm good at, but I'm finding it's difficult to do with the distance for an extended period of time and that makes me sad. I thought three weeks would be enough time to see everyone but it really wasn't - I didn't get to see everyone and the people I did spend time with was only for a few hours, just enough to check in and catch up before I was on the plane again.

So to sum it up, home was good...

I spent time with good friends

and family, too (again with the eating. here are my great aunts with about 15 different kinds of desserts for 11 people...pretty standard)

...I laughed a lot.

and got my ass kicked in scrabble.

oregano

How have I been? Busy. I need to quit saying things like "I literally could not be busier than I am right now" because I've said that several times in the past few months and if anything, I get busier.

It seems like everyone has telltale signs that correspond with how busy they are. Here are mine:
- my gmail inbox surpasses the average 5-7 emails that are usually hanging around. instead of reading and responding, i read and forget and the pile grows to like 50 (ok, 15. not that many people email me)
- i repeat things
- i ask my students how their weekends were...on Friday
- my bedroom is on the receiving end of what looks like a closet explosion - reject outfits don't make their way back to where they came from
- i repeat things
- the only things in my refrigerator are necessities: diet coke, bread, yogurt

More recently, I've developed some sort of memory issue that seems to be a result of my increasingly busy schedule. I noticed this a few weeks ago when making my mom's spaghetti (side note, YUM) and discovered an unusual abundance of oregano in my cupboard. I never really cook with oregano so the fact that I'm now set for the next few years concerns me. Over the span of a week or two, I kept passing the spice rack at the grocery store, stopped in my tracks and thought to myself "Ohmygod! I need oregano for spaghetti...good thing I remembered while I was here!" Well that thought must have crossed my mind about four times because that's how many brand new jars I have. The worst part? I specifically remember now, looking back, walking by the spice rack each time and being so happy that I remembered to get oregano because it wasn't on my list. So I'm set on the oregano front and have some to spare if anyone out there is running low...

In order to control the crazy, I made the difficult decision over the weekend to quit my job teaching English. I have two weeks left and then I'm moving on to something that's a little less of a time committment on my end. I'm not exactly sure what my next adventure will be, but I'm looking forward to a change. In the meantime - I've got loads of schoolwork to finish before I return to Minnesota for winter break. 17 days! Trust me - when you start a countdown from 70 something days and finally get into the teens, it's cause for celebration! I'm so excited to see everyone and to get my Chipotle fix.

And lastly, Happy Birthday to the girl who loved Paris just as much as I do! My best friend, Rachael, passed away two years ago would have been 25 today. I'm happy to be in Paris enjoying the city but wish she could be here to see it all again. Here are some of my favorite pictures from when she came to visit in 2006

i am invincible invisible

So I caved this summer and finally started reading the Harry Potter series. I'm half way through book number five (of seven) and although I'm not a die hard fan (what are Harry Potter fans called, potheads? I don't know, but this is what I will call them), they are extremely well written and entertaining and I have a general appreciation for them now. I don't power through a 500 page book in a night, or even a week, like many potheads I have met (there are a lot of them out there, by the way). For those of you who haven't read the series, Harry has this invisibility cloak that he received as a gift in the first book and he uses it throughout the series for various things. When he puts the cloak on, nobody can see him, but he still has to be careful because wearing the cloak only makes him invisible - people cannot pass through him because he is still physically there. Welcome to my life in Paris. Most days, I feel like I'm invisible as soon as my feet hit the cobblestone. Parisians are always in a rush, on foot and by car. I have battle wounds from people running into me - I'm constantly getting side checked and stepped on - and there have been many times where people run into me head on only to realize that there's something there stopping them dead in their tracks....ME! I'm used to lanes of pedestrian traffic, where if you are given space you stick to the right side and people just kind of flow like cars on the road. I thought this mentality of spatial unawareness was European, but the more I travel the more I realize it's a Parisian-specific condition...they just don't care. I'm quite certain that if it wasn't for traffic signals and crosswalks, I would be in a full body cast because Parisians don't care if you're in the crosswalk if they have a green light. To them, green means "go" - it doesn't mean "go with caution and look for pedestrians". Even the homeless people don't notice me...A week ago, a decrepit bum dropped his pants in the metro station and came dangerously close to pissing on my feet. So next time you are faced with one of those questions that's something like "would you rather have the ability to fly or be invisible?", think twice about your answer. Although I haven't experienced flying, I've had enough experience with being invisible and it's not as fun as it sounds.

In other news, my good friend Christina recently came to visit and got to be invisible with me for a week. It was so much fun to have her here - we wandered around Paris and also escaped to Barcelona for a few days!

waiting for the eiffel tower's light show

a trip to the basilica

christina turned 25 while she was in paris...a good excuse for delicious desserts!

barcelona - christina took me for a nice boat ride in one of these...she did all the work and I took pictures

the mediterranean...some people were swimming but this is as far as we went in

a beautiful day in barcelona

au revoir, free time

School started last Monday and with the beginning of the semester came the abrupt end to my summer. It's good to be busy but it's hard to go from being kind of bored during the summer to crazy busy almost overnight. It's like someone turned the switch on one day and my free time disappeared...Oh well, it was fun while it lasted!

The two weeks leading up to school were filled with lots of fun, so it was a good way to end the summer. Here is what the last part of my summer consisted of:

Walking around Paris (Mom and Tom in the Luxembourg Gardens)

Marveling at Parisian sights

Some serious shopping with Jenny and Christie (friends from Minnesota)

Sipping wine at outdoor cafés and people watching

and lastly...Indulging in some decadent desserts

Although it's kind of sad to see summer end, we're coming up on my favorite time of the year! I live for September 1 through January 1. I'm excited for the semester ahead, for fall weather, for holidays, visitors, weekend getaways and a trip home in Decemeber to eat lots of Chipotle to see friends and family!