Study Abroad 2013 Day 1/2 - Paris

Paris 2013

I have beaten my record of number of times falling asleep while standing up and walking. The only other time I've ever done that was the last time I flew to Europe and suffered from severe jet lag. I woke up around 6 A.M. yesterday and last night I had a fitful, terrible somewhat-sleep on the plane (monitors flashing, babies screaming, contortionist exercises to find a comfortable position). Let's say I got maybe two hours of sleep. Then the plane landed in Paris at around 9:30 A.M. and we went about our business as if we hadn't just spent the night on an airplane. By 5:00 P.M., I was dragging.

Whenever we stopped to look at something during our evening walk, I nodded off and almost fell over a few times. I even fell asleep while I was walking. That was kind of dangerous- I kept veering off into other people and the road. Not cool. The human body just has a point at which it simply can no longer function on the amount of energy it has. I reached that point today. Jet lag, yay.

I woke up when we went to Notre-Dame cathedral. I've been there before, and honestly, I wasn't too impressed with it. However, there was something about it this time that made me really love being there. I suspect they sand-blasted the walls and ceilings- it seemed much less dark and scary in there today than it did three years ago. As it happens, Notre-Dame is celebrating a rather large milestone: its 850th anniversary. Among other things, the cathedral has recently received new bells.

The stained glass in Notre-Dame is simply breathtaking. I don't know why that never registered with me before, but today it hit me with full force and I was just amazed. I could picture Esmeralda running around and singing about helping the outcasts. Here, have a clip. I was always pretty amazed at the accuracy with which the Disney animators portrayed the cathedral in the movie. It looks remarkably similar: except the little side rooms like the one Esmeralda went into are fenced off now, and there are pews, and also there are a few TV screens and speakers. And there are a TON more people, and an alarmingly large number of them don't respect the signs that request SILENCE in the cathedral.

It's raining in Paris right now. It's been raining a while. We were out floundering around in it. It's supposed to be rainy tomorrow, too. What would we do without rain?

You have noooooo idea how many times I fell asleep while writing this. Good gnight!

Random Fact #10

Random Fact #10: When you go to a restaurant in France and order a calzone that includes egg as one of the featured ingredients, you may, in fact, receive a calzone with a drippy egg seeping through it from the center.

Source: Someone else's personal experience that I merely observed

Today I Leave The Country

Ladies and gentlebloggers, this is a very big day. I write this from the airport as I await the plane which will take me to Miami. Then I'll sit in that airport and await an airplane that will take me to Paris.

That's right. I'm going to France.

I'll be in France for about a month as part of a study abroad program, and then I'll go straight to Ireland for about another month. I'll be blogging my experiences in the two awesome countries! I also brought my Wacom tablet, so maybe I'll be able to whip up a few fun cartoons for you guys.

The toughest part of this trip so far has been applying for the trip and filling out the paperwork (reference the Studying Abroad haiku/cartoon). The second toughest part has been packing everything I'll need for two months abroad in a suitcase and a backpack. The third toughest part, which runs a close race with Tough Thing #2, was saying goodbye to my family. I've been mentally preparing for it, but it was still pretty tough. It wasn't like going to college for the first time- my parents were only two and a half hours away. This is different- there's an ocean between is and I won't be coming home for two months. We won't even be awake at the same times (actually, that's not that different from how it normally is). So... Yeah. Pretty tough.

Now that I've got all the hard stuff out of the way, it should be smooth sailing for the rest of the trip!

Random Fact #9

Random Fact #9: When you change Siri's settings to French, she turns into a man.

Source: Personal Experience

Two iPhones Walk Into A Bar...

This is just a sketchy comic that I thought ended up being kinda funny. It was written sort of as one long strip across a sheet of paper, but I don't currently have access to a scanner and it was too wide for my iPhone camera, so I split it up. You'll need to click on the images to read it. And even then you might not be able to, so I'll write out the dialogue underneath. Just in case.

iPhone: Two iPhones walk into a bar... I forget the rest.

Samsung Reality: LAME! Just look it up!

LG Phone: Yeah! You've got Internet... Use it!

Disney Mobile Phone: What's Internet?

These are all the cell phones I've had in my lifetime. My iPhone, Samsung Reality, LG brand phone whose model never had a catchy name, and... the Disney Mobile phone. Did you know that Disney once had its own line of cell phones and service? It did. It didn't last very long.

I had a Disney mobile phone. It was my first cell phone, and I was completely in love with it. These were the first cell phones my family ever had that had a color display. It came with "Bare Necessities" and "Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride" as ringtones, and I bought the Pink Panther theme to be another one. My parents liked it because we could send special text messages called Family Alerts to each other for free. I got the phone in eighth grade and kept it for about a year until Disney Mobile gave up the ghost and we had to switch to Verizon.

I got another flip phone. I remember at the time I really wanted a Razr, but I was talked out of it for some reason or other. Man, talking about this makes me feel old... and it really wasn't even that long ago. We had four identical phones in the house, so we got our phones mixed up a lot. At one point we were able to tell whose phone was whose by seeing if it was broken at the hinge. I think every single one of our phones broke that way eventually.

My next phone was awesome. It was the Samsung Reality. It had a touch screen, a slide-out QWERTY keypad, a doodle pad, conversation-style text message view, and it could go to the Internet. Awesome phone, and awesome for texting. If I hit a point in my life at which I am no longer able to afford a smartphone, I'll go back to something like this. I became very, very fond of this phone. It got me through the end of junior year and senior year of high school as well as my freshman year of college. The only reason I upgraded was that it couldn't quite do all the things a smartphone can.

Just before the start of my sophomore year of college, something miraculous happened. Something I'd been wishing for since eighth grade but with no hopes of ever actually getting it. My parents got me an iPhone. I don't have to tell you about iPhones. They're pretty cool. I got a white iPhone 4S just a few short months before they came out with the iPhone 5. And you know what? I don't even care! My phone is awesome. So there.

Cell phones have changed a lot in a relatively short period of time. My little cell phone time line spans seven years- and look how much has changed!

I got into a habit of naming my cell phones over the years. From earliest to latest, their names are Flippy McFlipperflip, Buttons McButtonbutton, Touché McTouchemoi, and... Well, I never actually named my iPhone. For all intents and purposes, let's just call it Siri.

But really... Quit avoiding the question, Siri. You're capable of doing Internet searches. Why don't you just look up the end of that joke?

Random Fact #8

Random Fact #8: A hegira is a flight or journey to escape a bad place.

Source: my sister's vocabulary flash cards

Random Fact #7

Random Fact #7: Sometimes when you empty out a dorm room, plug in a vacuum cleaner, and then turn the vacuum on, it makes the electricity in the entire room (and just that room) go out.

Source: Personal Experience. This has happened to me on two out of two moving-out days. Never had any problems vacuuming the entire year. The last day when I've just packed up all my stuff: plbbt. Power's out. Uncanny.