7h26....boooooo.

So, just waved good bye for the THIRD time to Hank (this time, admittedly, was a lot easier than the last two) as he headed off to Germany to start an internship working on engines and turbo thingymabobs. I just finished doing some random cleaning things around the house that I'd been putting off for awhile, because my host family gets home from Australia at some point today or tomorrow. I, of course, forgot when Hugues told me they were coming back so it will be somewhat of a surprise. Now its about half past seven and I'm not sure whether to sleep or brave the day. As a compromise, I decided to write a petit blog in bed.

Hank's visit was pretty uneventful, but fun. In typical Bretagne fashion, the weather didn't co-operate with us for most of the week (lots of rain), but we managed to get out and enjoy the moments of sunshine. I had the week off from school, so it was nice just to relax and hang out before he starts work. Because his internship goes til August, we'll have spent a whole year abroad and apart by the end of all this and I'm happy to have any opportunity to spend time with him! We weren't complete lazy bums though. We went on a couple runs, rode bikes to Cesson (a nearby town)...On Sunday Leah, Hank, and I went to Stade Rennais to watch Rennes battle it out against Lille. It was a good game, and I had high hopes for Rennes! It was tied 1-1 for most of the game, but in the last 5 minutes Lille got a lucky shot off and beat us 2-1. Oh well.....Rennes beat Bordeaux earlier in the season and that's all that matters! Even with the loss and the inevitable rain during the match, it was a fun night.

On Tuesday, Leah hosted an Olympics party at her place to watch figure skating. Unfortunately for us, France insists on making everything live, so in order to watch any of the cool events, its necessary to stay up until about 3 or 4 am. Skating started at 1h30, so we spent the majority of the evening eating pizza, chips, and cookies (Leah, Hank, and I made sugar cookies in the shape of the Olympic rings....epic) and drinking red, white, and blue drinks in the spirit of America. Yoann was the sole Frenchie, so while he tried to cheer on his country during events, he was usually drowned out by the USA! USA! USA! chants. We managed to stay up long enough to see the first American skater before calling it quits and sleeping in til noon the next day.

This week was a week of culinary endeavors because, with the bad weather, there wasn't much else to do. Hank made me lots of yummy dinners (I think Hank enjoyed the food a little too much by the looks of the picture on the left...) and I made mousse au chocolat from scratch! I was very proud of myself and it was super yummy. Maybe I'll post the recipe on here sometime as its really easy to do. I took Hank to the marché des lices, and I think he was impressed with the size of the market and also the quantity of cheese. It definitely rivals the farmer's market in Madison. We got some goat cheese with Mexican spices on it and fresh baked bread plus lots of fruit and veggies. And I made Hank try a galette saucisse, which is basically a brat wrapped in a galette (the really yummy wheat crêpes that Bretagne is famous for). Not the most nutritious thing, but delicious.

Yoann challenged Hank and I to play 2v2 soccer against him and his little brother on Thursday (we tried several times of the course of the week, but the weather didn't clear up until then so we profited bien of the break in the rain). It was an epic battle, really, the stuff legends are made of, duked out in the mud and mush (which was slippery and lots of fun), USA vs France, and in the end.........USA PREVAILED! By a lot. Final score: 20-10. Although, I did accidentally kick Yoann's brother (who is like 12) and he told me he would never be able to run again. Whoops. But, hey, all is fair......

Leah and I are in the middle of planning April break and its really exciting! Bruxelles, Amsterdam, Copenhagen/Aarhus, and possibly Belfast! I think Hank might try and meet up with us for one of the weekends too. We leave for Barcelona in 2 weeks....AH! I wish I would have traveled more last semester, even though I couldn't have really afforded it, because there's really no time left this semester! We've got most weekends taken up by CIEE trips or trips of our own and my travel wish list is wayyy too long. I have less than three months and I'll be back in Madison for the summer. Crazy. Side note/complaint: For our return flight, Leah and I planned on taking a train at 6h10 from Rennes straight to the airport. It was perfect because with all our bags, navigating Paris would just be a nightmare. Normally, there is a train EVERY DAY (except Sundays) at 6h10. EVERY MONDAY. So, when the tickets went up a couple days ago, Leah and I went online to buy our tickets. No train at 6h10. May 24th is the ONLY Monday without a train at 6h10. Tuesday has one. The Monday before has one. Of course, the day we need a train is the day they decided to let the conductors sleep in? I talked to a guy at the gare and he didn't know why. He said to check in a week and see if any new trains get put up. Otherwise Leah and I will have to go in the night before and spend money on a hotel room. Boo France.

I think I'm going to try and take a mini nap before heading to the market this morning. Talk to you soon! Bisous!

So, just a quick update. Hank got to Rennes today (he had to quite literally run through 2 airports to make it here) and we had a lovely lazy afternoon eating pizza and watching Disney movies :)

Its 11pm now, and the jet lagged boy is sleeping so I don't want to make too much noise.

A la prochaine!

¡¡¡¡Aye Mexico!!!!

Or Barcelona. Because I'm going there in March with Leah. Bought the tickets AND booked the hostel today. Go us!!! Too bad neither of us speak Spanish. Una assietta por fovora?!?

Getting back down to business

So, all my visitors are gone, I'm back in school (at least until the end of February when we get another week of vacation....), I've actually got homework (for once), things are starting to get back to normal here in Rennes, France. Yesterday was another one of the world famous CIEE excursions, which usually end up with us spending wayyyyyy to long in the most random of places and then sleeping on the bus. We went to Saint Malo and Mont Saint Michel, and even though I'd already been both places, they're really interesting towns, so it wasn't too bad. The only downfall was the weather, which decided to be gray, cold, and windy. And a sad change from last semester, CIEE is only doing one overnight excursion (to the Loire Valley) in lieu of 2, but now we get two day trips (the one yesterday and another to Vannes/Carnac). I always had a lot of fun on the overnight trips, and it was a good way to get to know the other kids in the program. Ohhhh well.

Leah and I recently tried to plan out our trips for the upcoming semester. So far we've got: Barcelona in March, Amsterdam and Copenhagen/Aarhus (maybe Brussels/Belfast???) in April, Bordeaux (who knows when), Paris and Versailles in May (we already bought the tickets for this one!), and then we want to try for Rome/Prague/Dublin at some point in the semester if money holds out. Although you always hear about cheap travel in Europe, it never really ends up being all that cheap.....You have to get to the airport, usually Paris (or Beauvais for RyanAir, which is a HUGE hassle), and then the cheap airlines don't really fly into the main airports, so you have to get from the airport to the city you want to go to, if you don't know anyone in the place you're visiting, you have to pay for a place to stay, food, cool things to do, etc. It adds up fast. But, Leah and I decided we have around 100 days left here, we need to make the most of it and not worry tooooooooooooo much about the cost. It just means we have to resist the glowing lights and fashionable clothes of H&M a lot more this semester. PLUS the euro is down to $1.36. Best. News. Ever. Well......

Maybe even better news than the falling exchange rate: Hank got an internship in Stuttgart, Germany starting MARCH 1st!!!!!!!! Which means I have to add Germany on my list of travels. This internship was such a last minute thing, and its a great opportunity for him. Knowing my love of tigers, Hank promised me a trip to the zoo in Stuttgart, so I'm pretty excited :) I'm hoping he'll be able to stop by Rennes before he starts work, because it might be kind of hard to plan to see each other when both of us our busy with our European lives. Its pretty cool that we'll both be over here at the same time, and I hope that we can at least meet up once or twice before I fly off at the end of May.

I'm starting the job search for summer in Madison, because after all these destinations I'm hoping to see I'm going to be BROKE. I turned in my application for the desk job I had last summer, but I'm a little worried that since I'm coming back home so late I won't be able to get it. So, if anybody knows anybody who are employing nice, hard working, French speaking, awesome people, let me know.

Til next time,
Katie

Thats so owl.

We're so cute on the Champs Elysées

So, my resolution to post more = 2 posts in January (whoops). BUT to make up for it, you get 2 bloggers for the price of 1!!!!

Elise is here in Rennes with me, and we've been hanging out and seeing the sights of Bretagne for the past week and a half. We started with a whirlwind tour of Paris. Off the plane, we dropped our bags off at our cute little yellow hotel room with a crooked door and headed straight to Notre Dame to chill with Quasimodo. We got up close and personal with some gargoyles (although we learned that they aren't really gargoyles but in fact are chimères. Darn you cartoons for your false information [anybody else watch that besides us?]). They were pretty cute. We named a few, such as Stan (he was on a postcard, we never actually found him). There were lots and lots of spiral stairs, 400 to be exact, because French people like making tourists climb steep dark stairs. We like to call this the Paris workout. We also saw a HUGE bell. I was tempted to lick it, just like Barney, but it was too far away. The following photos are a few of our favorite new friends from atop Notre Dame:

After climbing the towers of the cathedral, we hopped on the métro over to the Eiffel Tower, just in time to see it light up. We dodged several dudes trying to sell us glowing souvenirs, took some awesome pictures and then Elise saw the Eiffel Tower sparkle!!!!! She didn't know it did that, so she was pretty pumped (and thats an understatement).

SPAAAAAAARRRKKLLLLLLEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!! You know how a lot of time the really cool touristy things aren't as cool in person?!? The Eiffel Tower does NOT fall into that category- its sweeeeeet. Since it was Friday, the Louvre was open late (AND FREEEEEEEE - for people under 26...sucks to be old) so we went to hang out with Mona. We covered a lot of ground in a short amount of time. The Louvre is kind of overwhelming and basically is a lot of paintings of Jesus, so its hard to find the really cool stuff. It probably took us half an hour to find Hammurabi's Code (the first written law). We managed to hit all the important things, and we even tested out Mona's eyes. They really do follow you around the room. By the time we made it out, we were exhausted from all the stairs, and we headed back home and went to bed!

The next morning, after a somewhat slow start and slightly dreary Paris weather, we went to Musée D'Orsay to enjoy impressionism, among other things. It was easier to differentiate paintings/artwork, given some range in subject matter other than religion. We really enjoyed the room of all of Monet's work, including some of the lily pads. It was really cool to see some of the paintings that took up a WHOLE wall and some of the furniture was strange (and a tease, since you could not test out the comfort levels of each item. Some of the chairs looked really promising too). There was a special exhibit by this special dude, who after being harshly criticized by the public, became obsessed with painting these masks represented the distortion of the evil masses of the cruel public. Obviously he did not handle criticism well- but some of these masks were SUPER creepy. On a lighter note, one of the paintings we enjoyed the most, was The Orgy Painting. Basically, a whole bunch of Romans were having too much fun one night, drinking, making out, you know- the usual, and there was just a lot of drama going on among these young drunken Romans.


As you can see above, alcohol leads to no good. The older Romans obviously think these young-ins can't hold their own, there are love triangles, make out sessions, jealous emo kids- a high school dance gone wrong. Just looking at the picture makes me giggle.

In search of food and coffee, we walked along the Champs Elysées (one of the chic-est streets in Paris), where we stopped to admire (or laugh) at Louis Vuitton, especially because we both already own, you know, like 35 pairs of sun glasses each (at 350 euro a pop). We picked out our favorite trunks (because we are on the Titanic) to ship back home (and use as furniture on our porch, to copy the mannequins). The Champs Elysées was probably the start to this weird obsession with leather and boots, even the desire to wear cool high heels, that France seems to have instilled in me (Elise). At the end of the Champs is the Arc de Triomphe, a GINORMOUS monument built by Napoleon to compensate for his dwarf status. See the man in a blue letter jacket? Elise decided to flash a smile in his direction.


French boys are creepy. No smiling- ever. Lesson learned.

The Arc is HUGE and very cool to look at, especially the ceiling (like all the other cool ceiling in France- seems to be a requirement). There is a flame always lit, for the Tomb of the Unknown Solider. The intersection around the Arc is terrifying, since all the main streets intersect here, thus to cross the street, there are underground tunnels to get to and from the Arc. By the way, we found the Ericson family of France to take the above photo (creepy man included). They were at least 10 feet tall- even the mom. Also the by the way, people in France really like, like obsessed with, How I Met Your Mother- which is wonderful. Everyone loves Barney.

We went to the Père Lachaise cemetery, where lots of famous French and international people are buried. Its huge and complicated, with tons of different sections. We took a picture of the map with our camera, hoping to take advantage of zoom, but we still couldn't find stuff. We visited Jim Morrison's grave first, once we found it. Then, meandered towards Oscar Wilde's grave, which also took a while to find because we overshot it. Once we were in the right section, it is fairly easy to find because it is covered in lipstick and kisses. It is a popular tradition to kiss his grave; a tradition we decided to take part in. Never have I ever kissed a grave....Shoot.

We were rushed out of the cemetery as it started to get darker- probably because of zombies, so, we left and decided it was probably safer in the sex district of Paris, Montmartre. Some day, when rich and famous, we will return to the actual Moulin Rouge.

While meandering more cobblestone, dangerous even in flat shoes, we bought some HOT WINE to keep warm. The wine is warmed, has some spices and orange slices and is delicious. Yum.

We continued to wander, saw the Sacré Coeur, a beautiful white church, whose service was in progress while we quietly walked around the outside. This was another example of the stair climbing for the Paris Workout. At the bottom of the hill, there were a bunch of guys with string, who tried to grab your wrists and make you a bracelet for lots of euro. No thank you.

Katie made me (elise) try more French-y things, like KIRS. It is white wine and a fruity syrup. We drank it at this cute little cafe over by our cute little hotel. We had crepes that night. I had NUTELLA and BANANA- it was messy, but brilliant. We had a train early the next day, so we headed to bed, and woke early to quickly carry all of my stuff to the sketchy metro stop at 7am. Saw a homeless man penis (my favorite early morning surprise) and the cops stopped the metro to search for some man, who we then saw them handcuff. Cool. Good morning.

Other noteable Paris things: Where's Waldo is actually... Where is Charlie?!?! And Quick Burger has lots of signs for STRONG BACON, as well as strong cheese. Not as exciting as STRONG BACON.

Our first afternoon in Rennes was filled with an intense...wait for it....ping pong tournament. Yeah. It is hardcore. We watched Yoann destroy a wall in hot pursuit of a ball, lots of french swearing, followed by beer and baguettes. Yoann's family cooked us a delicious meal, a chinese-inspired dish of Beef and caramel, with wine, as well as a delicious fruit crumble desert and french cheese. This was my first French cheese experience. Nothing like Wisconsin cheese. But the Munster was DELICIOUS.

Monday, I (Katie) had to sign up for classes because my month and a half vacation came to an end this week. Tragic, really. In French style, Leah and my schedule ended up getting messed up, but, I guess we're used to France disorganization. For our long stay visas, Leah and I needed to go get x-rays of our lungs. WHICH WE GET TO KEEEEEEP!!!!!!!! Proud to say, I'm tuberculosis free! Check. I'm putting my x-ray up on the fridge when I get back to Madison. Also, we had to get a doctors appointment. Our doctor was about 12. Wore skinny pants, pointy boots, and had his scooter helmet on his desk. I think his backpack had red spider webs on it. I told him about Milwaukee (he'd never heard of it) and I almost tipped over the medical table, whoops. He told me the x-ray was a "beau cadeau" (beautiful present) and to take care of it. Awesome.

Katie, Leah and I took a day trip to Saint Malo, a walled beach town which is about a 45 minute train ride. I really like the trains- they make me sleepy. The weather was surprisingly nice, it was SUNNY, and we walked along the wall and adventured along the beach. Apparently the tide rises really quickly and its easy to get stuck out on the little island like forts- but we didn't get stuck. Just enjoyed each of the forts. We found Chateaubriand's grave overlooking the ocean. He was a moody French author who was born in Saint Malo. We agreed that it was a fitting and very EPIC place to be buried; very beautiful. It was also completely lovely to walk along the water, with lots of little kids bundled up playing, as well as dogs running about. We wandered about in the town searching for a place to eat and eventually ate wonderfully delicious Galettes, which are crepes, with egg, ham and cheese in them. We eat them a bunch, because they are super yummy. We also drank cider and had a sugar crepe for desert (Leah splurged and got a caramel crepe). We mostly hung out, looked at the ocean, and enjoyed the sunshine. It was peaceful and wonderful.





Things We've Explored in Rennes:
-We walked through the garden to hang out with the birds. They were chirping up a storm; I reckon they like to gossip.

-The HOT CHOCOLATE specialty place. They have soooooooooo many different types of hot chocolate. YUM. I got raspberry flavored hot chocolate and Katie got honey and vanilla. They give you a little bit of brownie too. There are board games to be played and a lovely warm ambiance.

-The CHAI place. We've been there twice. Also delicious. They play good music and we snagged a table with cushions the second time we went. We've also decided to open our own little hippie coffeeshop some day when we are old- sometime after Katie has worked at Curves/Hollister and I've lived in a cardboard box somewhere? Ooooh the places we'll go.

-The Saturday Morning Market: We wandered through the fruit section, where Katie got a FREE apple, a quite tasty one, and I got a super yummy pear. We tried galette saucisse, which is a brat wrapped in a galette. While in line it started to HAIL, then snow, a little bit of rain and then it was sunny again. Bretagne has weird weather. They have EVEN more cheese than the farmers market in Madison, which is impressive. Also, a lot of honey. We also walked through the meat part of the market, which was pretty gross, with HUGE slabs of meat, cow eye balls and chickens with their heads still on. Yikes.

-Katie and I ate at this cute little restaurant in Rennes that we happened to meander into. We got a lovely student deal for pasta (which had corn in it, which was apparently debated about among the cooks/waitress, and they went for it, and it was a good addition), wine and coffee and we bought a dessert too. To our luck, they didn't have the dessert we wanted, so we got a super fancy and wonderful fancy dessert (it was really fancy) for the price of the cheaper brownie one. Awesome. Seated next to us was a man dining alone. Dun dun dun.....and he wouldn't stop talking to us. Unfortunately for me (Katie), Elise doesn't speak French, so I was stuck having to answer his questions. Upon leaving, the waitress asked me if we were bothered by him. I said no, it wasn't a big deal. She replied "Good. Because usually we don't let him in. He likes to chat up young girls." Great. The dessert was totally worth it.

-Magical Bakery: everything is jumbo sized, chocolately, and magical. End of story.

-Funny assortment dinner- We needed to pick up dinner before heading to Leah's, so we stopped to get sushi. We also got clementines (probably the yummiest clementines i've ever eaten). We also got brownies. Yum. Elise's sushi had mango and mint in it. Weird combo, but was delicious. I got one with cream cheese, avacado, and salmon. Called the Philadelphia. Also yummy.

-Sneaking wine in my room like 2 high schoolers. We also did not have the corkscrew to open it. Thus, we discovered, all you need is: a fork, a pen, nail clippers, tweezers...and a tad bit of DEDICATION.

So. Thursday night. You see...i've been hearing about how Thursday night is THE night to go out, wander the cobblestone, hang out in the other Mad Ave (not that any place could ever even touch the classy-ness of the wonderful Mad Ave Dance Club that we often frequent in Madison), take some smurf shots, drink a beer, dance in the streets. Viva la revolution. To start our night out solidly, we ate some pasta and got FREEEEEE dessert. Leah, Katie and I then enjoyed some cider and cheap red wine in a rando alleyway, because, we are obviously, a) super classy and b) we can. I really did enjoy the Madison Avenue here on the Rue de la Soif (Thirsty Road....interesting. Thirsty Thursday, France style). The conveniently cute bartender kept dancing to all of the Shaggy songs that played. We also saw a hobbit, who talked to us, mooned the bar, and tried to get with this chick. Good work, Frodo- protect that ring. We met up with Joanna and Adelene, two lovely French friends, hung out til bar time, and then, when kicked out of the bars, everyone moves to the streets. We had to move, twice, due to the impeding doom of fights getting close to us. So, this guy, came by and opened a seemingly locked door with his butt. So....obviously....we did too. We took turns, around the circle, opening the said locked door, with our booties. It was great fun. THEN! we met Barney Stinson, or so he claimed. Insisting that he was awesome, he demanded validation as the French Barney Stinson. However, he had no suit. No Suit = No Barney Stinson. Suit up, man....duh. VIVA LA REVOLUTION. We slumberpartied (yeah, verb) at Leah's, tried to watch a How I Met Your Mother even though Leah and I fell asleep pretty prompty and Katie finished it, and then awoke for an adventure to NANTES.

A Trip to Nantes: We went there. Most importantly, there is a CASSSSSSSSTTTLLLLEEEEEEEEEEE. We are princesses. The castle belonged to the Duc de Bretagne back in the day. He was pretty cool. Rebellious, viva la revolution, and all that. The only let down was the lack of dungeon. No dragons, but there was a legit moat. And machicoulis, these holes in the floor of the walls that people used to throw shit through to smash invaders!!!!! SOOOOO cool. (Katie is obssessed, if you can't tell).

Like stated above, PRINCESSES

We wandered a bit, although the weather was iffy (it is Bretagne after all), and stopped in a bunch of random shops to look at shoes (Elise wants leather boots. I just bought some.). We found this random indoor mall that looked like some Victorian awesome thing. We learned about it in the castle. We found a big bell tower, a cool fountain, drank some cafe where we discovered that Katie may in fact be the devil, if not at least related, due to her 6.66 of change, saw a huge cathedral that was slightly lame (I think they rebuilt a lot of it), PLAYED WITH PUPPIES, drank a beer with some Irishmen, ate Thai food SUPER FAST (we had a train to catch), and then headed home to watch some How I Met Your Mother (obviously). Its been fun to explore parts of Bretagne that I haven't been to yet, even though they're super close and I've been here 5 (almost 6...holy cow.) months. Its been an adventure for both of us!!!! Plus we'll have cool pics to put on our porch next year (on top of the Louis Vuitton trunks).


Other observations: Escalators, while prominent, are always broken. French women can walk in crazy high heels and dress quite nicely- almost annoyingly nice. Lots of funny little inserts of English, such as STRONG BACON, and GO. There has also been many debates about PIRATES v. NINJAS- although we don't particularly understand the debate (Pirates would obviously be way more fun to be at a bar with.) Or...zombies v. vampires?!?!

Lucille and I engaged in a very serious and intense TICKLE FIGHT. She is crazy. We also played a game where one person was blind folded and had to run around and grab someone else. Katie and I had the advantage, since she is tiny and easy to guess. Lucile also thought it was funny that Elise couldn't understand what she was saying. I had to translate a lot.

I REALLY like all the graffiti on all the walls. I don't have any idea how they tag some of the places that they do, like the really high up ledges and such, but it think its super sweeet. (even the sorta lame ones are still pretty cool).

We hope you've enjoyed our witty banter, as we've enjoyed our adventures. And always remember, VIVA LA REVOLUTION. À bientôt!


-Katie and Elise

Warming up by the fire

I'm at home, sitting by the fireplace, enjoying a bit of peace (after a pretty peaceful day)....

Today Leah and I bought our plane tickets home. Doesn't seem like that big of deal, but it got me thinking. Up until now, I was just going about my days here in Rennes, which has been kind of just like a giant vacation from the real world, with out much thinking of how one day I am in fact going to have to go back. Sure, I've thought of the things I want to do when my plane touches down in Chicago (Mickey's Dairy Bar and a BIG GIANT NON ESPRESSO REAL COFFEE from Indie), but home seemed very very far away. I now have a deadline. May 24th I'll be heading non-stop to Chicago in an airplane, waving goodbye to Rennes and a fantastic year abroad.

Leah and I counted the days. 124 (soon to be 123). I now have 124 days to do absolutely everything I want to do. All the cafés and pastries and traveling and galettes and chaï and silly French people I can handle. I'm hoping its enough. I've always been that person that writes a million lists and then never looks at them again. This time, I'm going to write that list of things I want to do and I'm going to cross them off. (well hopefully most of them)

Other exciting news: Elise is coming on Friday (as in a day and a half!). I foresee lots of adventures in France (and possibly elsewhere?). Its been so great to have visits from home. After 5 months away, seeing Hank and now Elise has been a big boost of morale. I'm leaving Friday morning to get her from the airport and we're going to spend the weekend in Paris, doing awesome Parisian things. The Louvre is open late on Fridays, so I think we're going to take advantage of that, and if the weathers holds, maybe a picnic with La Tour Eiffel herself on Saturday. J'ai hâte de la voir!!!!!

Random French quirk: They like to change the titles of English movies into different titles, in ENGLISH. Not even in French. A few examples:
The Hangover = A Very Bad Trip
Pirate Radio = Good Morning England
Whip It (which I saw yesterday) = Bliss
I can understand translated titles into your language, but really? A Very Bad Trip? C'mon.

Well, its getting awful close to my bedtime. Being in a house with kids has lead to me catching un rhume several times this semester....even Sophie's (my host moms) essential oils and teas can't ward of all illness. So, its off to bed to battle a cold I go......

2 weeks gone by way too fast

Tomorrow I head to Paris to say bye to Hank, who has been visiting me for the past two weeks. We've done a lot of fun things, spent New Years Eve in Paris, drank lots of coffee (and wine) in Strasbourg, hung out at the Hofbrauhaus in Munich, and relaxed in Rennes with my host family....

It went by way too fast, and I can't believe I'm going to have to say goodbye to Hank (for the second time) on Sunday. But, we made the most of our time together, and I know that this next semester will go by just as fast. Pretty soon, I'll be back in Madison hanging out on the terrace, just like usual.

One of my New Years resolutions was to keep this thing more up to date, because I failed at it first semester. So, hopefully this means more awesome posts by moi in the future. I'll put up some pics for those of you without facebook to see of my trip through Europe with Hank and write a more detailed post later. I will do it. Promise.

Ta ta for now.

Katie and Hank