So it has been almost 1,000 years since I have blogged so
this post will hopefully be a quick wrap up of the last few months while I sit
at dance, waiting for H. It is currently the first 2 week vacation break of
this half of the year. The boys are going to their day camp type thing and I
don’t have school so it is kind of a vacation for me as well… except for the
occasional errands. Here is a quick list of all the things in this blog post:
Tupperware party, getting wallet stolen, birthday, small details and then the
best/worst thing that has ever happened to me.
This last weekend I went to a Tupperware party hosted by
some of the girls on Siobhan’s field hockey team and it was actually a ton of
fun. The woman who ran the party brought all her Tupperware and then taught us
to make a bunch of really simple recipes (using her products of course) and
then we all got to eat and hang out. I learned how to make ham and cheese
croissants, chocolate fondant, English crème with a meringue, and these little
cake things with shrimp and zucchini. Of course, I have zero money (this story
coming next) so I couldn’t buy anything from her, but if I could have trust me
I would have bought almost the entire catalogue. However, just for attending
they are sending me a ravioli press, so I’m pretty excited about that.
The reason I have no money is not for lack of it, but
because someone stole my wallet! I was at WOS as per usual and my bag was
hanging on a hook underneath the bar in the middle of all of my friends. None
of us had moved from that location so we are all at a loss as to how it
happened, but all of the sudden I look down and my wallet was hanging outside
of my bag, completely empty. Not even a single centime. Annoying. Now, French
credit/debit cards all have a microchip in them and are ONLY usable with a pin
number, so that was essentially useless to this person. My American card was
called and cancelled immediately. My navigo pass (for the train/metro) was gone
but had my name and photo on it and if anyone is caught using it there is a
HUGE fine, then my student ID card from IU and my Indiana Drivers License were
all stolen as well. I think there was possibly 20 euro in the wallet at the
time, so really, the most that person got away with was a 20 euro bill and one
really good photo of me from college (the only reason I kept the IU ID).
Luckily, I have the most wonderful friends in the universe and they took care
of me, drove me home, gave me money to take the metro and fed me. Actually, I
spent the night at Siobhan and Thomas’s apartment and in the morning they let
me make cookies in their kitchen and it made me feel about 1000x better. Upon
returning home that day, my parents called me to let me know that someone had
found my driver’s license, used the address on it to find my home phone number
and had called my parents to tell them they found it. How nice is that?! So the
man left it in an envelope at a café for me and I went to pick it up this
weekend. Other than that, replacing things has been annoying. My navigo cost 23
euro to replace and they only take Carte Bancaire (credit/debit cards) at most
stations. Can someone please tell me how that makes sense at all? Someone stole
my wallet. HOW WOULD I HAVE A CB TO PAY YOU? After going to 4 different RATP
offices (being redirected about 1,000 times because 1. There was no one working
2. They only took CB 3. They weren’t authorized to do replacements) I get to
the 4th completely and obviously exhausted (and also poor from
buying all the metro tickets to cart myself around) when the woman tells me
that they too only take CB. I must have had an exasperated look on my face
because the woman said, “listen… do you have the 23 euro in cash on you right
now in exact change?” I did. “I will put it on my CB and you can pay me the
cash directly.” If there hadn’t been a window and a desk between us I would
have hugged her. So then within about 5 minutes, I had a new navigo.
My other American cards are on their way here, and I need to
go tomorrow and talk to my French bank about getting my French card replaced.
I’ve been avoiding it because they don’t like me very much… every other week I
get a phone call from them about how I don’t have a positive balance and blah
blah blah. My bad, guys.
My birthday was good. Definitely very strange being away
from my friends and family, but luckily I had a wonderful time with the people
here (despite getting robbed haha) Katherine, Valerie and I got sushi and ice
cream for lunch on the day of my birthday then after work I headed to WOS for a
small drink and Siobhan had made me a chocolate cake and even brought candles.
They lit the cake and sang happy birthday and then I proceeded to embarrass myself
in front of the entire bar when they were trick candles and I absolutely COULD
NOT get them to go out. We all had a good chuckle and then I went home and
watched IU win in REAL LIVE TIME. Host dad was travelling for business on my
birthday so we didn’t do anything; but they invited me to their apartment for
dinner Saturday night. We had a raclette (my first) and it was delicious.
Basically it’s just melted cheese on top of a potato and ham, what’s not to
love about that? Then when dinner was over, A told me he had a surprise and he
and host mom went into the kitchen and came back with a cake that he had baked
for me, they sang me happy birthday and then I let all the kids help me blow
out the candles. It was really sweet.
Let’s see… what else... I feel like I am pretty much
skipping January because it was cold and I don’t really think anything too
amazing happened? I basically laid in bed and was cold all month except for the
week that AUGUSTA came to visit. It was literally wonderful being reunited with
her and if she is reading this she just needs to stop dragging her feet and
move back because I miss her.
Jen also moved back to the US during these few months which
made me sad but before that happened we went to Versailles which, as everyone
knows, is my favorite place in the universe so… that was perfect even though it
was freezing. We were the coldest people on the planet that day.
OH WAIT. I KNOW WHAT HAPPENED IN JANUARY. THIS IS THE
GREATEST STORY OF MY LIFE. SO, for Siobhan’s birthday, Thomas bought her a gift
certificate to a Hammam, a Turkish steam bath. Upon hearing that it was not
that expensive, Katherine and I decided to tag along. We made the reservations
and were happy little clams. We knew very little about hammam’s but knew that
there is some level of unabashed nudity involved. We chalked it up to being in
Europe and just decided to bite the bullet and get over it. We get to the spa,
which was absolutely gorgeous, and are slowly directed around. We are taken to
a little locker room type area and given lockers and told to get ready and then
when we were, we could head into the steam room where someone would greet us
and tell us what to do/where to go. In these lockers were flip flops, white
cotton robes, towels and something in a little plastic bag that we assumed was
a shower cap (this was only confirmed at a much later date).
At this point, we all look around awkwardly and realize that this is it; it’s officially time for us to get naked under our little robes. We kinda look around to see if we should get all the way naked or what, and we see a girl start to put her underwear on so we just decide to go for it. We head into the steam room fully unclothed but wearing our little cotton robes and a woman comes to greet us. She says she will take our robes and we can get started. So there we are, the three of us standing naked in the middle of a spa room with massage tables, exfoliating tables, women who work there, and clients. I see one of the women workers absolutely crack up and I look around and realize that everyone else is wearing some kind of underwear or bathing suit. Except us. Naked as the day we were born. In public. God bless the woman who was in charge of us because she handled it with so much grace that I would never have been able to muster. She got us the right equipment (weird disposable underwear) and got us on our way. They explained the spa to us and said we could get started. We sit in the first steam room for a while and relax and then it gets hot and we go into the second room they told us we could go into if we were hot. In this room there are benches and also a little cool water pool, so we go into the pool. After about 5 minutes of being in the pool, a woman comes in to tell us that the pool is the very LAST thing on the agenda, and that we aren’t allowed in until after. So not only did we just get super naked in front of everyone, now we are doing the wrong thing and in trouble. After that we just kept our heads down. We got a full body exfoliation, a shampoo treatment and a head massage, THEN we were allowed in the lavender bath and they gave us homemade lemonade and we went about our evening. CASUALLY OF COURSE. And now dance is over so I guess that’s all for now.
At this point, we all look around awkwardly and realize that this is it; it’s officially time for us to get naked under our little robes. We kinda look around to see if we should get all the way naked or what, and we see a girl start to put her underwear on so we just decide to go for it. We head into the steam room fully unclothed but wearing our little cotton robes and a woman comes to greet us. She says she will take our robes and we can get started. So there we are, the three of us standing naked in the middle of a spa room with massage tables, exfoliating tables, women who work there, and clients. I see one of the women workers absolutely crack up and I look around and realize that everyone else is wearing some kind of underwear or bathing suit. Except us. Naked as the day we were born. In public. God bless the woman who was in charge of us because she handled it with so much grace that I would never have been able to muster. She got us the right equipment (weird disposable underwear) and got us on our way. They explained the spa to us and said we could get started. We sit in the first steam room for a while and relax and then it gets hot and we go into the second room they told us we could go into if we were hot. In this room there are benches and also a little cool water pool, so we go into the pool. After about 5 minutes of being in the pool, a woman comes in to tell us that the pool is the very LAST thing on the agenda, and that we aren’t allowed in until after. So not only did we just get super naked in front of everyone, now we are doing the wrong thing and in trouble. After that we just kept our heads down. We got a full body exfoliation, a shampoo treatment and a head massage, THEN we were allowed in the lavender bath and they gave us homemade lemonade and we went about our evening. CASUALLY OF COURSE. And now dance is over so I guess that’s all for now.
What is my life?
