i uploaded all my pics and other people's too onto my shutterfly, if you dont have facebook. woohoo! Im an uploading machine..

http://laurakay.shutterfly.com/action/

but i am le tired.

tired, physically and also of blogging, when i already send personal emails back and forth with what ive been doing. siiiiigh. anyway, got home from paris 2 nights ago, and back in the "grind," if you can call it that. according to my apple counter, 22 days til i am home once more- crazy! so soon.

a short recap of what i did in paris- inquire for more details. :)

tuesday 11/21
- fly into paris late at night, check into hostel with the rudest employee of all time, SLEEP

wed 11/22
- wake up pretty early- big group of us meets up with jo in marait (spelling?)
- picasso museum and lunch of hamburgers and fries mmmm
- notre dame, some more wandering with meg
- meet ashley, jon, and jordan back at the hostel
- dinner near our hostel- salmon #1 of the week, pretty tasty
- eiffel tower- carousel and nutella crepes mmmmm
- nightclub called queen- alex found out it was a gay club later on, but it was ladies night so we got in free. quite an experience

thurs 11/23
- shopping in the morning with ashley- H&M!!!
- lunch with ashley, jon, and jordan in st germain
- get lost on way to musee d'orsay- eventually make it, didnt really scratch the surface in the time we had :( but superneat
- big argument over thanksgiving dinner- frustration but eventually lebanese food (?) that was delish
- back to the bar in our hostel for some cooldown time

fri 11/24
- climb most of the eiffel tower in the pouring rain- elevator up the last bit, ashley took a little dive on the stairs- oh my!
- metroed to montmarte for lunch and wandering
- arc de triomphe (spelling?) and champs elysees real quick
- back to hostel to argue a refund out of the people and get a quick nap in
- louvre free for everyone under 26- woohoo! saw the mona lisa, madonna of the rocks, nike, some vermeers, other very cool things, but i need to go back. it was too big!
(thats what she said, teddy)
- hassle trying to get to restaurant to meet jo but when we do- mmmmmmm. had the "pleasure meal" of a goat cheese pastry with salad, and a great salmon, much wine, and a taste of ashley and nell's dessert platter of love. ow ow!
- back to hostel bar AGAIN

sat 11/25
- the boys went out and brought back baguettes, butter, OJ, etc for us to eat in the hostel
- in what will go down in history, i somehow misplaced the receipt for JUST the sheets, not anything else, so i did not get back the money i paid as a deposit for our 6 sets of sheets. bullshit, 3 ducks hostel. breathe, laura.
- get very lost on the way to the airport on the metro, end up at wrong terminal and the group splits into two- we end up making it to the flight barely, and convince the people to wait for our friends who got taken out of the city (wtf?). we all make it home, thank god.

other notes:
- traveling in big groups- never again, so so so frustrating
- why did i end up having to be the mom?
- losing money to jerk hostel workers sucks
- our hostel had bathrooms/showers outside, and very little space for 4 people in one room.. close quarters with jon, nell and ash.
- i could live on crepes forever
- i want to go back to paris.

im the worst blogger ever. went to venice this weekend for art history class- beautiful, but quite foggy and gray, and many of us were not in the best moods. oh well.

art history presentation today, then i am home free (kind of) for paris tomorrow night!! cant believe thanksgiving is here. i have so much to do before i leave- starting to get into panic mode.

by the way, im living in mirrielees when i get back. im happy about that, i think.

hard to concentrate

words cannot describe how pumped i am for paris in 9 days. dear god, im just having such "florence cabin fever" for some reason-most likely seeing the same people day after day-it is time to take a break. plus, for my mental health, i kind of need to see some familiar faces who AREN'T in my program.


went to siena today- quite small, but a nice little town. wish id gone earlier in the quarter, as i have now seen many small tuscan towns and have trouble differentiating between them.

tomorrow morning i am eating scrambled eggs and bacon.



p.s. i hope you all appreciated the rhcp reference in my title, as i am so appropriately listening to that song AND it applies to my entry. zing!

0% work ethic

the title says it all. i had 3 midterms and a quiz this week, and it was the hardest time of my life trying to concentrate. i fear stanford winter quarter.

this week we had such grand travel plans for this coming weekend- we researched dublin (!), copenhagen, sardinia, valencia, even morocco, but sadly, NOTHING flies in and out of italy for less than a million euros. sigh. alas, my weekend plans are far less glamorous but still fun nonetheless. Saturday val, carolyn, nell, amanda and i are going to siena- sadly neither sara nor christine will be there though!- but should be fun. Sunday we are going to get American brunch somewhere!! oh man, what i'd give for some scrambled eggs and hashbrowns. Then shopping will be had by all- if shopping can be had. i need to buy some presents, but if i see something cute for myself along the way, whats the harm, right?

cori will be in barcelona all weekend with brad and will- sad day. they left me in the dust cause im going after the program :/ ohhhhhhhhhhh well.

that's all for now, i think. time to go out.

va bene cosi

ive been rather absent from the blogging world lately. so much so that i cant really remember whats happened lately to write about, so ill just write about my "weekend."

thursday we had to go to Rome for a history field trip. Lauren harper and i rode the train down together, first class baby, and trekked to the parliament. we heard the budget guy speak in italian, heard the US ambassador to italy speak in English, and toured the Parliament. solid day i guess, but disappointing that i wont get to go next weekend for the entire weekend, because everyone changed their plans on me. no comment. had a bad bus experience in which the bus left the city instead of going near my house.. hmm. got home though.

friday afternoon, brad and i watched Lost--a crazy episode too!! and him, will and i went to Chiaroscuro, this cafe, to drink coffee and play cards. Then, Ashley got in from london later that night! woo! i picked her up at her hotel, we ate dinner, drank a lot of wine, and met up with Breena and Nell at a bar. It was so weird being in Europe with both Breena and Ashley, but mostly when Breena and i started reminiscing about st. joes in like 3rd-5th grades. And i have found that i cant really remember who i went to middle school with, and who i went to high school with. Anyways, even tho it was like 20 below, ashley still wanted gelato so we took her to vivoli--only the best for our redhead. took a cab home from ashleys hotel.. a very expensive one. crap.

saturday i met ash and we did some major shopping, the first time for me since being here! i actually found 3 sweaters i loved, which is rare for me here, and another pashmina. i also did some gift shopping. we ate at the mercato centrale, mmmm, and then ash and i went to moyo to use the internet and watch grey's anatomy. Cori, brad, will, and nell met us there for aperitivi later on! i bought one glass of wine and got lots of appetizers.. nice. then we ventured off to find dinner somewhere even though we were full, and we picked a rather mediocre place, sadly. it was funny though- what a ridiculous group of people in one place hahah. we could not find a place that would let us just hang out and chill, so eventually we gave up and went homeeee.

sunday i finally had to do some work :( i wrote my art history paper, but also met ashley for lunch and dinner later. also had a train fiasco with ashleys train to arezzo.. my bad. ashley and i had a tearful goodbye.. ok not so tearful.. cause ill see her in like 2 weeks, but yes, she left. sigh. she said she was tired of being hit on.