This Is What Dreams Are Made Of

Ladies and gentlemen of the friends and family variety,

Please accept my apologies for dropping off the face of the earth for the past couple of weeks. In my defense, I legitimately couldn’t write for a majority of the month of February since I was only home for less than a week of it thanks to four trips to Normandie, Rennes, Picardie, and Italy. Still not much of an excuse for my absence over the past relatively un-busy week. I’ve thought about writing nearly everyday since I returned from my last trip, but every day that I put it off, it unfortunately seems like more and more of a chore. With more than three weeks since my last entry, it seems like there are a million things to write about, but no logical or interesting way to go about it. Please forgive my momentary lack of creativity. Basically, I have gone to a lot of pretty places, seen a lot of really cool things, eaten a lot of delicious foods, and spent time with a lot of great people. All good things.

When I last left y’all, I was getting ready to head to Picardie in Northwestern France with my roomie, Alex, and my landlord, a.k.a. French grandpa, René. We were invited to stay with René’s girlfriend, Monique, for a week in the French countryside. It was an unbelievably relaxing week full of extravagant dinners, thoughtful conversations, interesting day trips, and music. Also, I got to cuddle with an enormous cat which made me giddy! This laid-back lifestyle made me want to be an 80 year old retired Frenchman in the middle-of-nowhere France. Then I realized that my current life is essentially that of an 80 year old retired Frenchman, with two exceptions: the handful of hours that I “work” at the high school, and the late nights spent out with friends. Strange. Anyway, here are some pictures from my time in Nord-Pas-de-Calais:

Monique's charming house

Le jardin

Alex waiting for dinner by the fire!

Funny anecdote: One of the things René had planned for us during the week was a day trip to the Baie de Somme on the northern coast. It is a beautiful, expansive bay with amazing views and exciting wildlife. René was really excited to bring us there because there was a chance we might see seals. The night before, he said to Alex and me:

“Peut-être on va voir des PHOQUES!”

While this simply translates to, “Maybe we’ll see some seals!”, it sounds a lot more like, “Maybe we’ll see some FUCKS!” to an anglophone. Being the mature 22 year old that I am, I of course burst out laughing, knowing full well what “phoques” meant. I luckily managed to avoid explaining myself. Even more luckily, I actually got to see a real seal in real life the next day!

A real-life phoque!

After this first calm and meticulously planned week in Picardie, I hopped on a plane and headed to Venice for an extremely unorganized and somewhat last minute trip with my travel buddy and BFFL, Kate! We basically decided to go to Italy because I had found a Ryanair flight from Paris to Venice for 10.99€, and who could resist that?! Italy was on the top of my must-visit list, and it was during our winter break and during the world famous Carnaval of Venice. Perfect on a million levels.

Before my trip, a majority of my knowledge of Italy came from movies like Letters to Juliet, When in Rome featuring Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, and The Lizzie McGuire Movie (which Kate and I may or may not have watched on her iPod touch, and which may or my not have inspired title of this post…) leaving me with the expectations of a prepubescent American girl. Sadly, I didn’t get to mend the broken heart of an elderly British woman, I wasn’t offered a job working for a high-profile fashion designer, nor was I mistaken for an Italian pop idol, but I did manage to have an unforgettable trip nonetheless.

Which one is your fave!?

It became extremely clear from the get-go that our trip was spontaneous, a.k.a. not thought out. Kate and I had been searching for a couchsurfing host for about a week to no avail. Everyone was out of town or already busy with other visitors, since it was Carnaval after all. We held out until the very end, hoping that something would turn up, but around 11pm the night before my flight, we decided it was probably best to try and find alternative lodging. All of the good hostels were of course booked by this point, but we did somehow manage to find a hotel that was only 22€ a night! Skeptical of the price, but willing to take the risk and persuaded by the charming photographs, we booked it for two nights with little hesitation.

Knowing how small the city is, we figured it would be easy to get around, right? Wrong. That city, while beyond gorgeous, is a crazy messed up labyrinth that is impossible to navigate. I had printed out directions from the train station to our hotel, but these FORTY-TWO STEPS proved to be rather unhelpful, as you can imagine…

Don’t worry, we eventually made it there after taking a number of detours and deciding that it was probably best to just find our way to the coast and circumnavigate the island until we we closer to our destination. We were together, and we were in Venice, and we were happy. But we were also very hungry. And it was also very late. We had hoped to find a grocery store after checking in, but this was a silly an unrealistic wish at 10pm in Europe. We gave up pretty quickly on the idea of finding a grocery store, and instead went in search of a restaurant near our hotel. No dice. Everything in our area was unfortunately already closed. Well, we said, at least there are vending machines in our hotel lobby! That should be fine until tomorrow, right? Wrong. With only 2 euros in coins between the two of us, and a hotel receptionist who refused to give us change for our paper money, we weren’t going to feast tonight. To top it off, one of our two selections got stuck in the machine! Kate wiggled it out eventually, thank god. In the end, our menu consisted of a 0.5 liter bottle of fizzy water and six saltine crackers, split between the two of us. Proof that planning is helpful when traveling.

Please, laugh at this.

After a full night of sleep, the rest of our stay in Venice was much more enjoyable. We wandered everywhere, snapped a lot of photos, saw the main sights, happened upon magical allies filled with colorful laundry, took a boat trip over the island of Murano to buy teeny tiny glass figurines, ate some mediocre pizza and pretended to be in postcards. If you ever get a chance to visit this lovely city, I would HIGHLY recommend it. There are tourists galore, but it is a beautiful destination, and it is going to sink into the ocean one day, so you should get there before that happens. Also, if you like tacky chandeliers, cats greeting you in the morning, and you don’t mind crumbling walls, I would suggest staying at the Hotel Alla Salute! The location is great (once you find it) and the prices were surprisingly low for a hotel in Venice! Seriously. Not the nicest place I’ve ever stayed, but definitely worth it for the price and location.

PURE MAGIC

Postcards from Italy

SO TINY! SO CUTE!

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After Venice, we hit up Florence for one day. You might be thinking, “But there is so much to see in Florence! Why would you go for just one day!?” I was a little worried about this at first too, but after visiting, I can attest to the fact that you can get through pretty much everything in 24 hours. Maaaybe 48 if you want to do absolutely EVERYTHING, but really, one day was plenty for us since everything is so centrally located. We climbed the tour next the Il Duomo, saw [the replica of] David, walked through the Medici residence, went on a mini-hike to take in a panoramic view, ate some delicious Italian cuisine, saw Rossini’s dead body, and went to the Uffizi Gallery to see more Botticelli than you could shake a stick at. To be completely honest, the Uffizi was rather disappointing after having been to The Louvre in Paris. So much of the same thing. No variety! It would’ve been better like this…

Birth of MEOW

View of the Cathedral after 300-some steps up the tower next-door!

We were too lazy and too cheap to go to the museum where the real deal is hiding, but we figured this was good enough

After Florence, the rest of our winter break was spent in the one and only Roma! Unlike Florence, Rome can definitely not be seen in a day. There is a buttload of old things to see, and an abundance of pizza and gelato to be eaten there. Luckily for us, the weather was beyond perfect for exploring, sunny with a light breeze everyday. We did the tourist circuit, of course, in order to follow in Hilary Duff’s Lizzie McGuire’s footsteps, but we did fit in a few other things that were off the beaten track. For example, visiting a bone museum disguised as “catacombs” (with an extremely racist entrance guard who forces visitors to “donate” a euro to enter), going to the museum of ancient musical instruments, and playing with kitties at the AMAZING cat sanctuary hidden in the city center under some ruins! Should you find yourself in Rome, I would suggest skipping the bones and going straight to the CATS! The people that work there are incredibly nice and caring, and the cats are ADORABLE!

I WANT TO ADOPT THEM ALL

We also ate the world’s best pizza at Pizza Roma in the Trastevere neighborhood. If you go to Rome, you HAVE to look this place up because their pizza is fantastic, and really well priced!

THE BEST PIZZA I'VE EVER EATEN EVER

Kate and I kimchi-ing like crazy (photo collage courtesy of Kate)

The kimchi-ing continues (Courtesy of Kate)

This is real life. One of the most amazing sunsets in the history of sunsets.

Colosseum by night, where Kate and I attempted about 1230518351 times to get a nice photo of us, and never succeeded.

This bird, or one of his friends, pooped on my hood at the Vatican. That was some holy shit.

There are more pictures (which can be seen here if we’re FB friends!) and more stories to be told, but I’ve been uploading/writing/sitting in front of my computer for far too long, so this will have to suffice for now, dear readers. Chat me up if you’d like to hear or see more!

Bisous bbs! xoxo