Welcome to Barcelona!

I woke up at 5:10 and was surprisingly awake. I think I had been so worried about over sleeping that I was on edge all night. I woke up at 430 too. But I woke up and put on clothes and went to the living room. Madame was up and Beebow was staring at me as he does in the mornings. Madame wished me a safe trip and hoped I would have a good time. She offered for me to take some food with me for the trip but I declined because I didn't really want to eat anything. I double checked I had all my stuff and then went out the door.

I got to the hotel whichever was a little scary walking alone when it was kind of dark still and all the drunk people were walking around. I put all my valuables on my person in case my bag got jacked. It was all good though. I got there and found Patrick and we got on the bus. Gina, Sally, LaSia and Jonny. They sat in front of us so we were all together.

We all passed out on the bus until about 8:50 when the bus stopped at a convenience store to take a bathroom/breakfast break. I bought a chocolate milk which didn't taste too bad so that was good. Also a baguette that I shared with the group. Gina, LaSia, and Jonny ate these little cheese things. They were really cute. I saw something finally that I could have bought for Thad but I didn't go for it... :-/ maybe I will find something better. They put on the first Sherlock Holmes movie on the

We watched a video of Barcelona which was cool. I guess some important guy wanted the government to build 60 cool houses but then they only built 2. After that they wanted to build a room with 100 columns and it is called the room with 100 columns but there are only 84! LOLs. After that the lady came in and asked who we wanted to room with. The six of us got a room together which the lady was hesitant about because we were mixing genders but it's not like we are going to be doing anything so it was fine I guess. We are adults.

We got to Barcelona and got off the bus to go get some lunch. We walked past the column with Christopher Columbus pointing to America and a bunch of lion statues. After that we walked along one of the major streets where there were a lot of tourist shop things. They had some cool looking stuff but we didn't really have enough time to look at them. We went to this little restaurant where the waiter wasn't the greatest. I had a plate of spaghetti and went against my better judgement to not get pizza which was a bit dumb. I should have gotten pizza.

After that we headed back to the bus to get our stuff. We got put back on the bus to get talked to and then after that got back off the bus to get our stuff and walk back the way we just were to go to to our hostel. It was kind of chaos getting everyone into rooms. But eventually we got it figured out. We got two room keys for our room and then we have our own bathroom between the six of us.  It's not too shabby. It's a dorm size room with four bunk beds and a set of lockers. Our bathroom is a shower with a single toilet so it's one room. It is our private bathroom though for the six of us so it is nice.

After we did that,  we left the hostel to go on a walking tour of the city. It was pretty cool but kind of chaotic and hard to stick together so by the end of it there were only like thirteen of us. We walked by the Barcelona Cathedral which took over 700 years to finish. That's a long time. Oh and I figured out the guy who wanted to make the 60 houses was Gaudi who is apparently a pretty big deal here... And his stuff is pretty cool. We walked around a lot and went by lots of cool shops. Lots of them were VERY expensive though.

After that my group went to the tourism office and I bought a map of Barcelona. I figure I can give it to mom when I'm done. After that we went to a big market. It reminded me a lot of the Spanish markets that I have been to. Oh wait... Duh that's probably why... I'm stupid sometimes. I bought some fruit cup and then a sliced mango and it was literally the best mango of my entire life. Yes. It was so good. After that we went to the grocery store to get some snacks. I tried to buy oranges but then after waiting twenty minutes in line I needed to have a barcode so I just said whatever. The group bought two bottles of wine to share later.

We dropped our stuff off at the hostel and then we went to a place for dinner. Tonight was a soccer game between Barcelona and Real Madrid so everyone was watching the game. The tv was on so we watched it too. Barcelona won so people have been celebrating tonight. I ordered a chicken and pineapple salad which had shrimp in it so but I just ate it anyways. We also got desserts and I got pastilleroz maybe that's how you spell it. It was cream puffs with chocolate on it. It was very good. I also tried Jonnys Cuddlefish and Ginas creme Catalan which was pretty good but not as good as creme brûlée according to the group. I was the only one who got not the creme Catalan. It was good though.

After that we came home and I learned we don't get towels so I decided to go buy an expensive but cute Barcelona towel. The group came too and I finally found something (lame but cute) for Thad. I also got something for Spencer and eyed something for mom so I can get it later.

We came home and popped open a bottle of wine and I took a shower. Literally the best shower I've had in 2 months. I was in heaven. I can't wait to take another one. We just chilled in the hostel for the rest of the time and talked. It was really nice and I liked it. :-)

We only get internet in the ground floor of the hostel so I will say bye for now! :-) Love you all!

Lazy Friday before Barcelona

Ce matin I woke up at 8 thanks to the constant and loud BANGING next door. It was so obnoxious. I yelled at them in my head and then knowing they weren’t going to stop I put in earplugs and shut all the doors. That helped a bit. After that I slept for another hour and then woke up and took a quick shower. Ha. They are all quick in my book. I got dressed and then had breakfast before heading out to the school to hang out for the day.

When I got there we sat for a while and LaSia seemed a bit annoyed because Patrick wasn’t checking his phone and they were trying to iron out their plans for the break and he was absent so that was frustrating I can imagine. We sat around and I went and printed my Paris Pass voucher for Paris which I had almost forgotten to do. Then after that I watched Spencers videos and then we decided to head out. We went to Claires and then over to the shopping centers and I bought some minutes for my phone so now I have it up and working again. I figured that was pretty important for my trip.

Cassandra and I went to Monprix where I bought apple juice, pizza goldfish, speculoos, and some cheap colored pencils. So no one sent me any! After that we went and got a pizza and then went and ate it in the cave and then killed time until 5. I colored and drew while Cassandra played on her iPad. Then we went to the bank and when we came back hit up the bathroom at the school just before they closed it. Then we went to Woohoo to celebrate finishing midterms and starting our break. Patrick met us there and we told him he was supposed to check his email and he seemed a little miffed a us that we told him that. But we were just doing what we were told. We got drinks and talked about stuff from Senior year of highschool and what everyones classes did and what trips their school took them on. I didn’t really talk much about that because their schools like sent them to Disneyworld or they put alarm clocks all over the school to go off at certain times. It was fun to listen to but I didn’t really have much to add. But that’s fine with me.

After that I went home and packed for Barcelona and then went downstairs. Apparently Paul is sick though so we sat on the other sie of the room as him. I hope I don’t get sick. That would really suck. But he played on my iPod and I talked with Madame about Barcelona and my plans and stuff like that. I told her I do not want to eat breakfast in the morning. She said she understood. After that Laurence came home and they talked about Paul. She told me some cool places in Barcelona I could check out and some foods I could try. After that Paul started another game but we were supposed to leave so I stayed til he finished though he started another immediately. But then I won anyways because the iPod died. He was not very happy but I said that’s what you get for not following directions. Then I went upstairs.

We had chicken nuggets and fries for dinner because we thought Paul was going to eat with us but then he was sick. So we ate it anyways and it was good. After that I tried to Skype Thad but the internet was not having it. After 20 minutes I stopped (sort of) trying to get it to work. I was really bummed though because now I might not be able to talk to him at all until next week… :-/ That’s a sucky concept… I hope that isn’t true.

Today is 5 months that we have been together and two of those have been with me gone. But I feel comfortable. We are pretty solid so that is helpful in all this.

Then Madame and I watched Masterchef and I went to bed early because I have to be at the hotel to leave for Barcelona tomorrow at 6am! Gross! But I am excited!

Mousse and Mice

 How I know I am learning french: Yesterday I learned a word for the first time and today I used it without thinking about it. WIN.

Today I woke up before my alarm again! But then I kept lounging in bed and napping for an extra hour. I decided to shower and shave and sort of figured out the best way to do it. I had turned on my iPod and forgot to turn it off of the single song repeat so that was a little annoying to keep hearing the same song. I got out and promptly changed it. Then I went and had breakfast and talked to Beebow. He played with the mice and I did my morning facebooking. After that I got all my things in order and decided not to bring my iPod with me this time. I also didn’t do the homework on the syllabus because I figured that we wouldn’t be getting to it today because we were already behind a lecture.

I was right. The other class was still in our room when I got there so I went down to the cave and found Cassandra. She was reading so I came in and interrupted her. Then Sally and Sarah came down from lunch. Then Gina came down with a new haircut and color. It looked nice but she said that she paid 75 Euros for it! That is crazy! I am just waiting until I get home. We talked down there about our break plans and then about other stuff. I started playing cookie clicker on my iPod which is a stupid game.

Then we went up to class and sat around on the stairs until the frenchies left our room. We went and had class. It was kind of interesting today we talked about the Ottoman, Austiran, and some other Empire. I just am blanking. We talked about the modern day countries that are there and it is interesting to think they have been there even less time that the US has. We think of the US as being really old but it really isn’t and some other countries are even younger than us! It was cool though we talked about all the countries and what language and religion they are.

After class I went and bought Vietnamese food and ate it in the library with Patrick before our class. We turned in our one page papers. And finally started talking about the Brother K. It was not very exciting but more of a little overview. There were a lot of people missing from class though, probably because break is so close. Well for me that was my last class. After it was over I was relieved! I am done thinking about school! I went downstairs and read until Cassandra got done with her class just to have something to do.

After she got done we went to a paper place close by to look for colored pencils. We found them but they were 7 Euros for 12 Crayola colored pencils. I pretty much decided I would forget it after that. I can buy those for less than a dollar at home. And I won’t be here very long so it’s no biggie. Then we went to Monoprix and Cassandra bought couscous and I had some very DELICIOUS chocolate mousse. It was so good. After that I came back home.

I started reading and then Madame came up to get her phone cord and we got to talking a bit and she told me I need to go out a lot when I’m n Barcelona and Paris. She thinks that I don’t go out and party enough and that I should even if I don’t like it to take advantage of my youth. After that I went downstairs and played with Paul. We played a game where you put up 4 cards and then have 4 cards in you r hand and the goal is to swap out your cards with the shown cards to get 4 of the same color. I asked Paul what color names he knew in English. He said he didn’t know any but then listed, green, blue, and red. I taught him the other ones. Oh and Orange but that is the came in French. Then Laurence and Jean-Claude came home and we got to talking. They asked if it was in the US that an Orca whale ate a woman and I said I didn’t know but I knew one killed her trainer by drowning her. (noyé= to drown) I just learned that word yesterday and then used it without even thinking about it. That means I really am learning French even if I don’t realize it! I felt really smart and I got my point across really well so that was cool.

After tat we came upstairs and Madame made sauerkraut and sausage and bacon and potatoes. It was very filling and pretty good actually. After that we had cake. I thanked her for dinner and then we started watching League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. It was good Madame slept. I IMed Thad and Cassidy and it was fun.

Tomorrow I am going to Happy Hour with Patrick and Cassandra and maybe others and will probably walk around a while with Cassandra when I wake up. No alarm tomorrow so we will see what happens. Should be fun. Now I’m watching Bridesmaids until I fall asleep. Goodnight!

Midterms Done!

 I am in a very good mood! :-)

Today I woke up and Madame had breakfast on the table. I had a pain au chocolat with jam which I though was a little weird to have chocolate and jam but it was good. I also had a kiwi and a banana. After that Madame and I talked about the weather as we do every Wednesday because they are laundry days! The French don’t use dryers so all the clothes are air dried or hung up outside. It is a lot easier to get your clothes dry when it isn’t raining out! It was supposed to rain today unfortunately so that wasn’t so good. I gave her my laundry anyways and before leaving she told me she might make a cake today!

I left and went up to my history classroom. Thad was online so I talked to him a little bit before class. That was nice. Then I had class and had trouble concentrating, in fact all day I had this problem. Class wasn’t very interesting today it was just describing a building that I had already read about so I wasn’t too interested in it. After class I uploaded a bunch more photos to Facebook of my trip last weekend. After that I watched the new videos Spencer put up of him playing games.  I went and got a baguette and some oranges for lunch and then ate them in the cave. I listened to music today and doodled. After that I decided I should write my one page paper. So I did that and then went and talked to Grace about our Paris plans. We figured out we wanted the 4 day Paris Pass and I also bought our tickets for the Eiffel Tower. I also bought Cassandra and I’s tickets for our 5 hour tour of the Dachau Concentration camp for Munich. We don’t have a lot of time in Munich but really I just wanted to go to Germany and I really wanted to go to a camp so I am accomplishing those two things which were secret goals that I had for this trip. I am excited. I am really into World War II/ Holocaust stuff so I think it will be an invaluable experience.

 After that I went and printed out all of this information to be sure that I have it ready to go this weekend because the school and therefore printer will be unusable during the break. I am not looking forward to Tuesday/Wednesday morning because I get back from Barcelona at 23h and have to be AT the train station at 6 to go to Paris so it will be more like a nap than anything else. Hopefully I tire myself out in Barcelona and get some sleep on the bus. But it will all be worth it no doubt. I am excited for both. After that I tried to look over some verb stuff for my Midterm but I don’t think it really helped.

I went in to the final and because I had nothing to study for it was nice but also frieghtening. She gave us a passage in English from the book of Peter Pan and we had to put it into French. It was not easy. I got really mixed up with the verb tense so I think there will be errors mostly with that. Then we had an excerpt from something else in French that we had to put in English. I am much better at going that way. So I think I did alright on that section. I didn’t come out of the test feeling good but didn’t come out crying so that means I must have done okay. I was the last one to finish about 20 minutes after everyone else and I went over time. I just kept getting blocked on words and because I was slower it was awkward to ask the meaning of words she had said before so I would write them down and then get caught off track. But I did finish.

I came home not feeling super great but then I got to read a bit before Paul came up. He played some minions and Temple run and then went back down. Madame made dinner. I was sitting playing with paul and was like dang it smells like Bacon… I miss bacon. Then when she put dinner on the table it was green beans and BACON and ham! All things that I like!!! It was great. I bet when I tell my friends tomorrow I had bacon they will all be jealous. It was soooo good though. Then we had bread and cheese and then Madames cake with Nutella. It is a srange cake because it isn’t exactly sweet but it is soft and spongy like cake. Its almost like an angels food cake but not sweet like angels food. It is good with Nutella though. It also has a strange smell that is familiar but I can’t place. It tastes good though!

 After that I got to talk to Thad which put me in a good mood. J Madame keeps getting game notifications on her phone that I am trying to figure out how to turn off. The owl movie Legend of the Guardians is on TV and we have been floating between other channels and that movie. It looks cute but also like why is this movie about owls except to show how many different owls there are. Madame gave me a pamphlet of the animals that are native here and it is cool. Tomorrow is my last day of classes and then I am on fall break!!! Woo hoo!!!

Also I figured out finally why there are sometimes random J's in my posts! They are smiley faces from Word that when I transfer them to here they turn into J's! Hahah! Mystery solved!

History is History

Today I woke up at 9 which is weird because I usually sleep in until ten. I think my body was scared about not being ready for the test… I got up and had a Pain au Chocolat and a banana, then took a shower and got dressed. I went and put up my blog and then sat down to study. Spencer created a livestream so I can watch him play games in my free time but today I didn’t have any because I had to study. .. Boo. I studied here and then around ten thirty decided to study at school. I packed up all my stuff including a bag of all my snacks which I learned I don’t eat unless they are at school. So I walked to school and when I got there put my food in my locker and then went and studied some more until noon when we started the class.

The professor didn’t really give us a specific thing to study so I had to look back at the last 6 weeks of notes to guess what it would be. When we got the subject it was really vague and also covered a really large time period. I wrote 4 ½ pages and put in a lot of info so I feel like I did well but I am not sure if I covered the material that he necessarily wanted? I guess I will see but I didn’t come out saying I failed but I would say it was probably a solid B or B- at least. It is hard to tell because each person that I talked to about it wrote something different and thinks that was explicitly what it was asking for. One girl I talked to said she thought she didn’t do well and that she had mixed up the leaders of each country. She asked me, “So Bismark and France made an alliance again Prussia right?” I felt bad but I was like “No, Bismark was the leader of Prussia…” I didn’t have the heart to tell her an alliance between Prussia or Austria and France was never a thing… I feel bad. Also I threw away the shirt I was wearing because I realized that every time I wear it, it makes me mad because it fits really bizarrely. So I decided it wasn’t worth putting up with anymore and chucked it.

Patrick wrote his on the revolution and about Napoleon and I didn’t really talk about that but focused more on post-Napoleon Era. Cassandra talked more about the later revolution and didn’t mention German and Italian unifications. And I did some on the second revolution/overview of France and then the German and Italian unification. So I guess one of us will get it. We’ll see. But I feel like I put enough information in mine (though I had some slip ups I think but not on big stuff just like years) to justify getting a decent grade. So I guess we will see. He probably won’t get it done by Thursday so I will have to wait until after break, so I will have completely forgot about it by then.

After all that I went to a boulangerie and bought a slice of pizza and a GIANT cookie for lunch to celebrate not doing terrible/ if I did I have good conscious that I ate my feelings ;-) After that I had to go to my Literature class where we talked about the film that was like City of Angels. It was a good class. We got off topic a lot though but I think it was still good. Tomorrow I need to write a whole page about the movie. Man that page is going to be sooo hard… Not. The topic is so vague I could write on anything about the movie. I have some good ideas of what I want to say so I can probably just throw it out tomorrow during my big break before my midterm that there isn’t a way to study for. It’s for my translation class and it’s a text from French to English and then another from English to French. It will either go well or it will go poorly… So hopefully it goes well. I am mostly concerned about my verb tenses and their English equivalents so I might be able to review that before the test. After class I went downstairs and got in another 40ish pages in this book. It is still boring to me but I am starting to get used to the style which is making it easier to get through. I have a hard time with the characters though. I find them all very obnoxious and unbelievable. They are all drama queens in my opinion and not the good ones. Hopefully the murder happens soon.

After that Patrick and Cassandra got done with their class so I went and caught up with them before they left. Cassandra agreed to go with me to get a crepe because I was hungry. We went and got that (banana and nutella, I have a thing for bananas right now) and then as we were sitting there I was saying how much I wish I had a little like sketch pad to doodle in since I have been feeling creatively stifled/ really wanting to be artsy because of how inspiring everything is here. After I ate my crepe we went up the street to a paper place that I had heard about. I learned I should have bought my notebooks there since they are cheap and have more options. But we eventually found a cheap and good little sketch pad. I like it, it’s Pink! I don’t imagine I will be making any masterpieces but sometimes I just want to doodle. Come to think of it I don’t even have a pencil that isn’t mechanical… That’s a problem… Oh well. Then I would have to buy a sharpener and that’s too much work. But if I get annoyed with my pens or mechanical pencil I’ll go get one.

After that we parted ways and I came back to the apartment. When I came in Madame was cursing up a storm about her phone because she couldn’t figure out why it kept making weird noises. I learned one of her apps had sent her a notification and she clicked it and it opened a ton of dumb things so that was why. I explained it to her and she said next time it did it she would show it to me. Also last night after I had gone to my room to sleep she knocked on my door to see if I was asleep because her phone kept making bubble noises (Did I say this already?) and she wanted my help to stop it. I helped her out and then she thanked me. Then she asked if I would rather have pasta or salad for dinner and I said salad. She ran to the store and I stayed and did my Provencal history homework. After that, we watched the Price is Right but French version and had a glass of rose and pretzel cracker breadstick things. I have had them before and they are good.

Then Paul came up and showed me his Skylanders that you can change the top and bottom of with magnets and then played some Minions. After a while Madame called me into the kitchen to see Beebow standing in the sink batting at the running water. It was pretty funny. Shari asked if she could use my pictures for a background for her books website and I said sure why not. I decided to share that info with Madame and she got really confused and somehow thought that I was giving them to Shari so she could say that she made the monuments? Or so that she could put them in a book about French monuments? It was very confusing and then we got to talking about like copyrights and stuff like that. But I mean I see no problem with that since they are my pictures and they are of public monuments, so I have a right to take them and give them to whoever I want. Madame just wasn’t understanding, but we got it all figured out. Then Paul went back downstairs and we had our salads. They were good. I had a mandarin orange for dessert and then three cookie wafer things. They are like KitKat bars but soft and bigger and with dark chocolate. I wrote my blog and finished my homework while Madame watched the news. She watches a lot of news. Tomorrow it is going to rain which she isn’t happy about because that is when she usually does laundry. She says she might make a cake tomorrow if she has time.  I talked to Chris and Melissa a bit tonight and Melissa told me some cool places to go in Barcelona since she went there last year for a weekend. I am pretty excited to go though!

After a while Madame and I got tired so we decided to head to bed. She was yawning which would make me yawn and then would make Beebow yawn. And now I just yawned thinking about yawning. It was all very funny.

Baptistery

This morning I was so tired I woke up at 7:30 to go to the bathroom and then said screw it and went back to bed until 8. I went to get breakfast and found Madame had bought pain au chocolat’s instead of rolls this time! They don’t even need anything put on them! It was a win so I grabbed a banana and some oranges and had breakfast really fast because I got to skip getting a bunch of dishes and things out. I brushed my hair put on clothes and then headed out. It was harder to put on clothes today as I couldn’t lean four inches forward without a lot of back pain. I am missing my chiro… Like a lot. I think I might ask housing what the situation is with that and if the insurance we have pays for those. Plus I need to talk to her anyways from my last visit to get my money back.

So I got to school and went and put my laptop in my locker knowing that today we were having a visit to the cathedral so I would have to carry it around in my backpack for an hour. I decided that was a bad idea. So the locker was a smart move. We went and met outside the cathedral and then started out class after checking everyone was there. My professor first started by asking if any of us were gypsy or arab because I guess on the news there is a big thing going around that a girl was taken out of a class trip by the police because they found the parents in france illegally but then their born on French soil daughter had to go with them I guess that is the gyst from what I understood but then now it is a big question of rights and stuff so that’s why he brought it up so we would be aware of it.

We went into the cathedral and learned today about the baptistery. It was pretty cool looking and pretty pretty. We learned that a lot of it has been redone since 120 BC. SURPRISE! And a bunch of stuff about the room like that the doors to enter was the west and leaving was the east so that you would enter towards the sun/god. That was kind of a cool idea to me. Also we learned that there are eight pillars because the resurrection happened on the eighth day. Which is not to say he was in the grave eight days but it is an expression. In other words, I do believe that Jesus rose on the third day.   The third day after he was in the grave three days and three nights and the third day He rose from the dead.   It wasn’t eight days, but from another standpoint, even a biblical stand point; He was the firstborn of a new creation, the eighth day that’s referred to in the Bible as a new beginning. (Found on the internet not my words but I was curious myself) But I thought that was pretty cool. We talked about the baptism bath and how they did used to do full dunks before the Catholic started doing sprinklings. And then after that they added oil on the shoulders after the baptism because the oil was supposed to keep the devil from getting to you because he would slide off? Not sure how much to believe but I will keep it for now so I remember it for my tests. The room itself was pretty cool and used to only have one window directly above the pool so I thought that was pretty dramatic.

After that we went and walked around and found these little tiny streets that you could barely walk side by side with someone on which were what road in the first century were like. Very small! After that class was done and I went back to the school. I watched Spencers Minecraft videos and ate some oranges and then we tried to set up a livestream but it didn’t work today. Then I spent a lot of time fixing some of my blogs/ writing them and also uploading pictures to Facebook before it like started erroring out and not letting me anymore. Then I took blogs and edited them and put them up on the WOU blog which I haven’t remembered to do all month… oops. I knew I would always forget to do that while I was here. I even said that at the very beginning! But I did that and it took a very long time. I ran to the a place and got a slice of pizza for lunch and then a friend of mine gave me the rest of their lunch that they were going to throw away. But that was in the middle of all the uploading and blog changing.

Cassandra came down and gave me my package slip to take to the other building to redeem my package(s) so then we went to get a snack at the Casino and then I went to get my package. I was glad the heating pad was here because I was really in need of it! I went and watched project runway with my heating pad and by the time it was over I had to go up to class in the other building so I packed up all my stuff and marched over there. Class was pretty good and not super hard. Our final on Wednesday isn’t something that is study able because it is going to be a translation from French to English and then one vice versa so really there isn’t a way to study. But I kind of like that because then I can’t get really stressed out over it, which is a good thing. But also scary because I don’t know how well I will do on it since I sort of struggle with my verb tenses and their English equivalents so maybe I will try to study that. Because I know them all I just forget them so fast.

After class I packed all my stuff home and then went and talked to Madame. I gave Beebow his mice fro mom and he loved them. I think they might not have catnip here because I tried to explain it to Madame and she had no idea what I was talking about. We watched French Price is Right and I studied for my History midterm tomorrow over a really broad subject that is all but one week of what we have studied so far. I’m a little nervous for the test and also not looking forward to doing it. After the show got over we had dinner. Madame told me that tonight we were trying something new and I had a gut feeling it was going to be the fish soup. It was. It was also not very good… I said I didn’t really like it much when she asked so that she wouldn’t make it again because I really didn’t like it. It was purr’ed thank goodness or I would have died but it still just tasted like salty stinky fish. I tried to cover it up with croutons and cheese but that just made it worse because I have to chew the croutons instead of swallowing the soup as quick as I could to not taste it. I only threw up in my mouth once. Which I count as a success. About half way through the bowl Paul called Madame so I was saved a bit of time to recoup. I strongly considered how long I would have until she came back and whether I could quickly dump it but then decided it would be really bad if I got caught doing that. But I was struggling to get any more down. I ooured myself a big glass of water and tried to keep going. Fortunately Paul came in to show me a big snake toy he bought at Ikea. It was taller than him standing up. It was very long. It was a puppet too so he really liked it. I have the most fluent conversations with Paul and I seem to understand him the best of everyone. He even has a more advanced vocabulary than me and I still understand him better than anyone else. I don’t know why. Maybe he just uses more common phrases?

When Paul left Madame came and sat down and then looked at me and took my bowl away half done. I think she could tell by a look on my face or something but she knew I didn’t like it. She said well don’t force yourself this isn’t Germany and then brought out cheese for me. I had two helpings of that in place of dinner but I know I will be starving in the morning. I guess I was glad I got to try the soup but I am very glad to not need to again. Madame told me its too bad because it is good for my health just like Tomatoes. I refrained from saying yeah but they will kill my throat when I have to throw them up because my gag reflex hates them. I was already feeling sick from the soup.

After that we had crepes which were good I had a nutella, a sugar, and a jam crepe. All very good! Then I got online and Skyped Thad who I hadn’t talked to in a long while. It was nice to talk to him as always. We talked a lot about religious stuff today because I wanted to ask him about stuff I had learned about at the Cathedral. It was good but all too soon he had to go to lunch and signed out. He seems to have a hectic week ahead of him. After that I studied a little more and then Madame and I went to bed.