Days 108 & 109 - Unfortunate days and testing ways

So the string of bad luck I had yesterday was just...terrible. I mean, It was bad. Really bad. Bad in the way that just makes you want to sit in a corner with soft objects or press the reset button on the day so you can have a do-over. It started when I woke up. The ring I was wearing had turned my finger green where the metal touched the skin. Guess I need to put clear nail polish on it so it doesn't happen again. I got everything ready and went to school to study, stopping by the REWE (grocery store) to get some lunch for later. When I arrived at AIB, there were some people there, but I was really thirsty and went to grab one of the mugs so I could get a glass of water. As I pulled one cup away from the stack of 3, the other two tipped over and shattered on the ground. At least they weren't glass and I was wearing my trusty boots, so nothing actually hurt me. As I was cleaning up the mess with the help of the people who were previously studying, I noticed that the paper towel I was holding had blood on it...from my finger which I guess was sliced from the flying ceramic pieces when the mugs broke. So I had to fix that one as well.

After I drank the water I had finally acquired, I decided to break into the soda I had bought from the REWE, and promptly spilled cherry coke all over myself and the table. Yay. As I was cleaning it up, I noticed that I had smudged some chocolate on my marathon shirt. I hadn't even been in the building for an hour! But wait, it doesn't end there! About an hour later, I slightly burned my fingers handling my lunch, and the table I was sitting at creaked and moved as I sat down. It was really not my day. In fact, some of my classmates sat me down and played "bad day" for me, which ironically made my day a little better. After that fiasco of a morning, we all studied for our physiology test tomorrow, mainly going over respiratory and cardiovascular material. At about 3, our teacher came in and answered questions for us for an hour or so.

Once our little review was finished, I worked on the DHF presentation that's due tomorrow a little bit and tried to study physiology. I eventually gave up and went home, where I discovered I'm back in the main part of the house again! Marie is still a little on the sickly side, but much better and all her spots are gone, so I can interact with my host family without fear of getting infected. I'm excited to spend these last few days with them in between all the tests that I have going on, I'm even making dinner for them on Sunday, which will be awesome! Then the following Tuesday I leave...I have one more week until I leave Europe and head back to Texas. Wow.

At least today was a lot better than yesterday. I woke up and went to school with enough time to study for my test. I didn't last that long though and degenerated into listening to others quizzing each other while I played with a really cool toy consisting of two sticks and a weighted stick that can be passed from one tong to the other. It's actually a lot of fun, and I've gotten to be really good at in the last few days. Anyway, I played with that and listened to music to calm myself down before the test. The a tail test wasn't that bad a it was basically a combination of all the previous questions, though some changes were made on some questions. Overall, it was simple to answe the questions and finish up. Once that test was done, it was time for lunch before the design "final" which wa really just a presentation over what we put together for the DHF. Unfortunately, we skipped a rather important slide towards the beginning and it was awkward going back to cover the same material. It's done though, so all that's left is the signals final to study for. I'm not too worried.

When all the tests were done, everyone seemed drained and almost no one studied for their upcoming test. Instead, we played Catan or listened to music or worked on the DHF that still needed work done. Soon after that, I left and hung out at my host home, posting pictures and decidedly not studying for my test. That's for tomorrow.

Tomorrow is May Day (a huge holiday here) and then the final final. I'm in the home stretch! Finals are almost done!
Wish me luck!
Erin Z

Day 107 - Spaghetti Eis

Alright, so in the grand scheme of things, nothing is really that much different from today, but it does end the era of stress for physiology. That's right, I finally took my test today. At the end I was going a little bit spare because my friend would ask me about what a specific hormone would do to the kidneys or what kind of cells make gastric and what that meant for the GI tract, and I would have no clue! Seriously, at one point she asked me what the pancreatic duct cells secreted, and I said I don't know, to which she replied "It's a...digestion enzyme." I thought she was just trying to give me a hint, so I replied I didn't know. Turns out, digestion enzyme was the answer. In the end I decided I would just bite the bullet and let whatever grade that came just happen. The test wasn't that bad though and mostly focused on the renal portion of our learning.

After the test was done, we all went over what we thought the answers were before heading out to get food at the grocery store. When we came back from eating, we were surprised to see that our tests were already graded and ready to be looked over. At this point, everyone started calculating what kind of grade they needed to get on the final to get the overall grade they wanted. i think I'm pretty good, as I need to make a 'B' on the final to get an 'A' in the course. If I want to shoot low for an overall score of a 'B', I just need to answer 1/3 of the questions correctly. It's nice to be able to relax these next few days. We reviewed our tests and wrote down notes that we could study for our final in only a few days. I'm actually not that concerned with that test because Dr. Wasser likes to reuse concepts for his tests, so I just need to restudy Cardiovascular and Respiratory because I just studied the rest of the material for this test.

How we feel about the test

When all the tests were turned in, Sarah took the stage to finish going over Fourier transforms before recapping everything that we've learned for the year. I think I have a good grasp on it, but we'll have to wait until after Friday for the official personal verdict on that class. When we finished with that, all the students were so done with anything school related. Instead of studying or doing anything productive, we went out to get spaghetti eis, ice cream that was shaped in the form of spaghetti. We even got Sarah to come with us! By the way, I now have a new favorite way to eat ice cream. The ice cream was shaped like spaghetti noodles with whipped cream on the inside and covered in strawberry syrup. It didn't exactly look like spaghetti, but I bet if someone wanted to, they could actually trick people into thinking that their taste buds were lying to them.

 This seems to happen a lot when we're bored/stressed/tired

My spaghetti eis

After that, I went back to my host home and wrote this, worked on the DHF, and posted photos on facebook. I haven't psoted photos on there since Karnival. KARNIVAL! Two months of pictures left sad and neglected on my computer, begging to be seen by all my friends on facebook. Ah well, it's being fixed, so that's a good thing. Oh! don't expect a post tomorrow, nothing's going on. Wednesday though, that will be a tough day. One test and a presentation...ugh.

Ciao!
Erin Z

Days 105 & 106 - Study

Yeah...so I've kind of accepted that 2 day posts might be a thing for a while. It's not so much the fact that I'm being lazy, but more the fact that there's really nothing that interesting going on. Now, this won't be true tomorrow because we're planning on going out for a special kind of ice cream after the test, but this next week is mainly going to be filled with studying for tests and taking said tests. Oh! and before I forget, it's come to my attention that I never resolved the whole "forgetting my Kindle in Paris" thing from a while ago. No worries, I found it laying at the bottom of my backpack hidden by my textbook, binder, and computer. It's actually one of the main things that I'm studying from for my tests.

Tomorrow is my first test of the week over the renal system and GI tract, so naturally everyone is spending their time studying. Yesterday I woke up, made my way to AIB, and studied. The entire day. I got through the renal system and partway into the GI tract, but that still left the rest of the GI and metabolism sections to get through before Monday. After studying, I went back and ate before studying some more and going to sleep. And...that was it for Saturday.

Today was a bit better. I woke up and headed to AIB (it's really the only place I can get work done) to study some more. About an hour into studying, a group of us left to see the enormous flea market that was going on between the Haupbahnhof and our building. It was really cool to see all the antiques that were being sold, even some pretty sweet record players and records. Of course, it would be super difficult to bring them back home, so we didn't actually get anything there. The rest of the day was spent studying some more before going to mass and heading back to my host home to...you guessed it: study some more. So really, these last few days didn't have anything special going on. I still need to get through the last little bit of metabolism though, which is another reason why this post is so short. It's only 20 pages, but it will take me forever to get through it.

The test is tomorrow as well as a little bit of an ice cream social amongst the students, so there's a good chance that I'll post something for tomorrow. Till then, wish me luck on the test!
Erin Z

Days 103 & 104 - Grudges and SUN!

Again, I'm so sorry for this two day post and not posting yesterday. I kind of passed out yesterday when I got back, probably left over recovery from the weekend in Paris. But before that, I have a big announcement! Two nights ago, just after I had posted for days 101 and 102, I stayed to study a bit more and work on homework as I said. I decided I would take the night bus so I could get back home at about 1, but not have to walk for 20 min in the dark from my tram stop. It also had the added bonus of allowing me to work some more in an environment where I would actually get stuff done. Anyway, I was waiting at the stop waiting for the bus to stop when I heard English. Now, one thing about living in an foreign land where English is not the primary language is that when you actually understand words, you kind of perk up and try to find the speaker and possibly have a conversation. Not only was this person speaking English, but he was talking to a girl and called her "Elle." It just so happened to be the exchange student from Wales that I had met late one night at the exact same stop when the buses didn't come. It was really early in the year, so if anyone doesn't remember her, it's alright, but I met her on day 20, so a few months ago. We kind of looked at each other and were shocked because...what are the odds that we would meet again at the same stop? Turns out her brother and mother were with her, so I was able to meet them and talk with them for a little bit on the bus before they had to get off. Still, I never thought I'd see her again, so this was actually a pretty cool thing.

Yesterday started off well with the final bit of Physiology where we finished up with metabolism. Unfortunately, I was a little late because my tram broke down in the middle of transporting everyone to the Hauptbahnhof, but I got there in the end which is all that matters. After class, we had a completely class free rest of the day. I spent the first part finishing up the signals homework that was due and turned it into Sarah when she came in. The rest of the day was spent alternating between a semi-alseep state and playing Catan. Turns out I'm not that good at the nuances of the rules and courtesies of the game yet, because I managed to piss off all of my fellow players super early on in the game. With three people doing their utmost to make sure that I didn't win, I of course lost by a large margin. It was fun while it lasted though and it just made my determination to make my own Catan board grow. Maybe as a summer project... There was one more game that was played that day, but I was sort of a supporting character and not one of the main players. It's a good thing too because I had to leave halfway through the game to get back home. Who knew that two hours could pass by in the blink of an eye?

When I got home, I dropped my stuff off in my room, turned on the light because it was starting to get a little dark out, and promptly passed out with music in my ears. Maybe I shouldn't have had spotify on "Relaxation Music." I woke up briefly when the music stopped a few hours later, or it might have been because the light I left on was so different from the pitch black skies outside. I had the presence of mind to check and send off an important email before sleeping again...in my day clothes. I was really tired.

When I woke up today, the sun was shining and the forecast had absolutely no rain with a high of 75 (Fahrenheit) so I was able to wear shorts! I haven't worn shorts since...before I came here, so about 5 months. Walking to school today was awesome since I almost felt like it was Texas. The slight breeze was really nice too. it was just a beautiful day. Oh! And the blooming flowers made everything smell sweet, it was almost like being up at the lake again. It was a really good day and it wasn't even 10 yet. The only thing we had to do was an interview with Dr. Wasser where he sat us down with a bloggie and basically said: talk about the study abroad trip. It also doubled as our final exam in History of Medicine. After that, we had a small review in Signals for our test on Friday. It was nice to go back over all the concepts without huge gaps between the lessons. Then it was a quick lunch before going back to class for a review in physiology before out test on Monday. Unfortunately, because we only have a few days left before classes are completely over, we didn't pay very much attention to what was going on. We were too distracted by what was going on across the room. When the review was done for the day, we sat around reviewing for a few more hours. It's been so long since we even touched on renal physiology, I forgot everything! Luckily we have another review on it tomorrow (today's was only the GI tract) so we still have some time.

 We're all enjoying the nice day our

Look at what happens when we get bored. We draw on people who fall asleep.

This is why we are always doing something.

After reviewing and reading the textbook, I went back home to possibly spend some time with my host family. Unfortunately, Marie is still sick with the Chickenpox, so I'm still being quarantined away from them so I don't get sick just before going on an international flight and not get on. It's sweet of them to think of me like that, even if I'm not in any danger because I've already had them.

Tomorrow is the review and possibly a trip to the Botanical Gardens or the Hofgarten. It's supposed to be a beautiful day tomorrow and I would love to go and study in the sun.

Till then!
Erin Z

Days 101 & 102 - Recovery and Dinner

Again, sorry about the delay for the pictures for Paris. If you missed them, they should be posted below this post. Go see them, they are pretty good if I do say so myself. Anyway, yesterday was a rather early day what with getting on the train. We were actually in the main station looking at each other when someone pointed out that we had class in 3 hours. We were sort of in the wrong country though, so it just made the situation really surreal, not to mention the commute was so far! We got on the train and I wrote the blog post, tried to work on homework, and freaked out when I couldn't find my kindle thinking I had left it in the hotel. We arrived into Cologne a little bit late and informed our teacher we'd be a little bit late for class. Luckily it wasn't that difficult to get the next train heading to Bonn and we were on our way. When we got into Bonn, we just missed the tram that would bring us to the nearest stop to our school, and the next one was 10 minutes later, so I walked to school.

When I arrived, Sarah was going over the DHF that had already been turned in with the rest of my group and I caught the tail end of the conversation. The rest of the day was basically working on the DHF and signals homework. It was a really chill day, which was nice for someone who had just come in from and international train. At the end of the day, I went home looking forward to seeing my host family. However, I got about 2 steps into the main living room when my host mom stopped me, saying that Marie was sick with the Chicken Pox and I shouldn't be in the same room so I don't catch them with only 2 weeks left to go before I return home. She also gave me my "rabbits" for Easter, which was really nice of her as I wasn't around for the actual day. After that, I ate dinner with Sophie and since I couldn't hang out in the main living room, I went up to my room to work on more homework.

I didn't get much done. Instead, I talked to my family and my friends, and ended up missing home that much more. I think I finally hit the real homesickness stage. All I want is to eat some good Mexican food with spicy salsa and free water before going home and spending some quality time with my family and pets.

This morning was a rather easy day as well, with the only class being one of the last physiology classes over metabolism. The last one will be tomorrow, and the test on Monday with the final on Wednesday. A week from today I won't have Physiology anymore. Wow. Anyway, the rest of the day was free, so all of us spent it working on our DHF and the homework for Signals that we have due tomorrow. Luckily Sarah was around so we could ask her questions whenever we got stuck...which was a lot. Seriously, that class is difficult and we can get the concepts when she tells us, but we don't really understand them until we do them ourselves once we've struggled to get through only about 10% of the work for a few hours before giving up and getting Sarah to help us.

The whole day passed that day until the night came around. You see, we planned to surprise our professors with a dinner out, so they couldn't know. And I'm pretty sure that they didn't. When Sarah was done helping me out only a few minutes before we were supposed to head over, she said that she hoped I got everything as she wouldn't be around much longer. When I asked why, she said that all the teachers had a dinner date that night, so we wouldn't see them after about 6:30. All the students walked to the Ethiopian restaurant and waited for the professors to get there. They were pretty surprised to see us all at the same restaurant. We had a great dinner and payed for all the food as a thanks for all their help. We were there for about 2.5 hours, and by the time we left the restaurant, it was starting to get dark as it was 9. We all went back to AIB to continue to work on our homework and DHF. And yes, we actually did work throughout this whole time and didn't slack off that much. This is hard stuff that we're doing and requires a lot of work to get done. It doesn't help that we struggle with signals and can spend a few hours painstakingly going through a problem.

Tomorrow is another chill day without much going on. Sorry, no pictures of today, but the Paris pictures below should be enough to make up for it.

Bye!
Erin Z

Paris Pictures

Heh heh, sorry about the delay in getting this out to y'all. But they're out now! And the post for yesterday and today will be up in about an hour as well.

 First view of the Eiffel Tower

 The best picture of the Mona Lisa. It's so small!

 And the picture of the Wedding of Cana across from it. As you can see, everyone's lookign to the Mona Lisa

 This was just a cool statue of Hermes

 The Venus de Milo

 A sphinx

 Hieroglyphs! They're so cool!

King Ramese II

 The tower just looks so great everywhere in Paris!

 The Arc de Triomphe

 The view from the Arc

 The Sacre Coeur where we had Good Friday mass

 My favorite picture from inside the church

 Our first picture in front of Versailles

 The view from the exclusive access we got from the accidentally open gate

 Hey look! Flowers grew in his beard!

 These fountains were pretty cool

 So were the statues

 I found a Magikarp! (Pokemon reference) Also, these dragons were pretty cool

 The Easter Bunny visited us all the way in Paris!

 And there's me in front of the Notre Dame. I'm so excited to see Easter mass inside!

 The front arch of the church

 Inside at the beginning of mass

 I love these organs and stained glass windows! It's the perfect picture by my tastes

 Found Ground Zero!

 Our first look at the lock bridge. That's not mesh on the sides either...

 Our lock

 And us throwing away the key

 Look at it! It's gorgeous!

 The look inside the Museum D'orsey

 Our picnic in front of the Eiffel Tower on Monday

 And us climbing up the tower

 The view from the tower looking down on the green we were just eating on

 So scary! There's only a few inches between us and the drop

 The Notre Dame is right in the middle. See it?

 And there's the Arc de Triomphe

 Looking up to the top. It's so high, I'm glad we didn't go up there

 The tower sparkles every hour. And I caught it!

 A better look of the tower just as dusk falls

Aggie Muster has been competed in Paris

And that's it for Paris! Thanks for going through this huge wall of pictures. I tried to only pick the best ones.

Erin Z

Day 100 - Aggie Muster

So sorry for the delay in this post, but as I said last night, I got back at the hotel (with lobby wifi only) at about midnight with an early train to catch and it takes an hour to write each post. It was smarter to get a good night’s sleep and catch the train than to miss the train because I didn’t sleep trying to get this post out. As I may have mentioned, yesterday was day number 100. Wow. I’ve been in Europe for triple digit days now. I’m ready to go home now. Actually, can I please just skip the next few days and go straight back to the states? We counted up what we have in store for us in these next weeks yesterday and we determined that we have 2 physiology tests, 2 signals homeworks (a feat in themselves), 1 presentation, 1 signals test, a whole bunch of Design homework, and (for some) a paper to write. It’s going to be a long two weeks.

Anyway, yesterday was great! We were able to get to bed relatively early at about midnight and wake up rather late at around 10. It was glorious. After we woke up, we had one last breakfast, eating everything we could so there wouldn’t be perishables in the fridge when we left. We cleaned up the kitchen and packed everything away before knocking on the door opposite ours to get the guy living in there to check us out. Since our original renter was away for the week, he graciously offered to take over her position so we could leave the apartment on that day. I’m not going to lie, it was depressing leaving the quaint little building, and I wish we could have stayed in it for our final night. Ah well, c’est la vie right? We left after checkout with all of our bags to transfer to the hotel that was really close to the station we would need to go to the next day and thankfully everything went well and we ended up getting our stuff into the rooms.

Once that was done, we split up into two groups, one to go to the Eiffel tower and the other to go to a school/museum of research. Those of us that went to the tower wanted to set up a picnic on the green and went to the grocery store to grab a little bit of food for lunch. When we got to the tower, we set ourselves up on the green and enjoyed our little picnic before the Eiffel tower. Seriously, my life is so surreal! I mean, I went to Paris during Easter and was eating a picnic on the grass in front of the Eiffel tower! I’m going to get back and tell people this stuff and they won’t believe me! The only thing that put a damper on the mood were the Gypsies that came around to ask us for money or for a bit of our food, but we used our German skills to pretend like we didn’t know what was being said and they walked away. Anyway, we enjoyed ourselves on the grass and just sitting with the Eiffel tower in front of us and the sun sometimes peeking through the clouds to warms us up. It was amazing. When we had had enough, we headed up to the actual tower to do a tourist tradition: climb up the Eiffel tower. We had to wait in line for a while, but we climbed up all 681 stairs to get to the second floor of the tower. It wasn’t the top, they wouldn’t let anyone climb up that high and you had to take a lift to get up there, which was really expensive. Wow, did I just use “lift” instead of “elevator?” I’m starting to conform to the European way!

Anyway, we climbed up to the second floor of the tower and the view was absolutely breathtaking. We could see everything from the Arc de Triomphe to the Sacre Coeur to the Notre Dame and beyond. We saw things that we didn’t even know were a part of Paris because we couldn’t see it from the ground. There was a part of the tower that jutted out over the space in the middle with thick glass covering it. It was sort of like the Sears tower in Chicago, but not a box sticking out of the building and more like a continuation of the actual tower. We were able to stand on it and look down to see the ground and people below us. I tried it, but had to leave soon after because even though I didn’t exactly inherit my dad’s fear of heights, they still freak me out when all that’s holding me up is a little bit of glass. It’s why I didn’t go out in the box on the Sears tower and why I scurried off to safer ground when my whole group thought it would be a great idea to all jump at the same time on the glass. We could have stayed up there for hours, and I guess we did, but we had to leave so we could eat at a restaurant that the twins really wanted to try out and still get back to the tower in time to meet up with the other group so we could hold Aggie Muster.

The restaurant was really good! It was a mussels restaurant and I enjoyed having a semi-fancy meal for my last real dinner in Paris. I still can’t get over it. I was in Paris! Who says that? Especially if they’re still in school? Sorry, it just boggles my mind. Anyway, we finished and left to visit a place that serves really good dessert on the recommendation of a friend so we could have crème brulee or chocolate mousse depending on our preference, but we discovered that we needed a reservation to get in and decided to just go to the tower. At the tower, we met up with the other half of our group, but lost the twins who needed to go back to their hotel. The eight of us got together to celebrate Aggie Muster. For those of you not familiar with this tradition, it’s a really special thing that Aggies do every year on April the 21^st to remember the Aggies – graduated or not – who have died within the last year. The tradition states that if there are two Aggies within 20 miles of each other, they should get together to grab a bite to eat and remember both their lost comrades and their school experiences. So we held Muster in front of the Eiffel tower, yelling out the Aggie War Hymn, reading some poems, remembering those in our years who passed away as well as mentioning some personal friends who were unable to come to ATM because they were taken before their time. It was really rather sweet and humbling to think that on this day, we were a part of something bigger than ourselves that spanned the entire globe through the Aggie Network, all of us remembering our fallen colleagues and reminiscing about our days at school.

After all the poems were read and the speeches said, we concluded Muster and sang the Spirit of Aggieland before we went out to get a bite to eat. In this case, we stopped at a nice restaurant to finally have our crème brulee and chocolate mousse. We arrived at our hotel at about midnight and just about collapsed into our beds. Hey, we walked quite a bit yesterday, and the day before, and the one before that…actually, this entire trip has been one of walking, sightseeing, eating, walking, eating, eating, and walking. It’s been absolutely amazing being in Paris, and I wish I didn’t have to leave, but I know that we probably hit the sweet spot of seeing and experiencing everything with just one or two things more to see but not overstaying. I will say that I don’t think my poor feet could handle any more serious walking with the blisters I have, nor could my wallet sustain me for much longer because even though we got into a bunch of places for free, we still experienced everything, including the expensive price of living in Paris. Right now, I’m on a train back to Bonn, where we’ll arrive just in time to get to our class, but I’ll save that update for when I can write it tonight.

It’s been a great weekend. Happy hundred day, Easter Weekend, and Aggie Muster!

Erin Z

P.S.: Still no pictures for now to keep with the form for the past few days. I’ll upload them tonight in one giant wall of pictures. Expect a lot. Ciao!

Announcement

Happy hundred day! Unfortunately, we have a problem. I just got back to our hotel, it's midnight, I have an early train, the only wifi is in the lobby, and it takes roughly an hour to write each post. You see my problem? Don't worry though, today was not only hundred day, but Aggie Muster and the last day in Paris, so the post is only delayed. I'll write it up on the train tomorrow and post it during class, so in about 12 hours from when this was posted. It will be awesome!

Until then, I must sleep, so happy hundred day/muster!
Erin Z

Day 99 - Easter

Today has been so amazing. Seriously, I was happy enough after mass, but then we went to a museum and it was so amazing! We decided that maybe going to the 8:30 mass was a bit unreasonable considering how far away we're living from the city and the fact that we've never been to the Notre Dame before. So instead we woke up at about 8:30 so we could eat a small breakfast and actually get seats at the 11:45 mass. When we woke up, we found a surprise waiting for us. It seems that someone (or something) left us Easter candy, one for all of us that were staying at the apartment. When asked, everyone said that they didn't leave it. I think the Easter Bunny may have left us a present, which is just awesome! After that little surprise, we planned out our rout to get to the church and walked around, looking for what could possibly be the Notre Dame. We finally turned a corner to see the church rising above the buildings surrounding it, with a ton of people milling about in front of it. It was a pretty safe bet that we had found what we were looking for. Unfortunately, there was a line to get in regardless of if you were going to mass or just a tourist wanting to see the inside. We waited in the long line, and just when we were at the front door, the gates started to close. We sort of freaked out thinking that they would close us out, so all six of us rushed forward, pushing to be a part of the group that made it inside. We made it. Once inside, we admired the stained glass windows and tried to find a spot where we could sit down for the next mass. The previous mass was still going on and there were scores of people lined up on the sides for both the actual mass and then next one.

Finally, the mass ended and the three of us wanting to stay for mass grabbed some seats while the others wandered around. Mass was awesome! The bishop was there to help say the mass and it was beautiful to listen to all the French being said around us, even if we didn't have a clue what was being said. Well, not until we found the English translation in the little booklet that they gave us. Throughout the mass, there were people both walking around the church looking at the architecture, and people within the actual church taking pictures of the church, mass, anything that looked cool. I was absolutely giddy about being at the Notre Dame for Easter. Eventually, mass ended so we walked around a little bit and acted like the tourists we were. Once we got outside, I spotted point zero, which is the official marking for "Paris" and everything that's measured to Paris is done at that point. We met up with the other half of our group to go for lunch and found that they had found the Lock Bridge and bought a lock, engraving "Aggie Family" on it so we can show that the Aggie family bond will last forever.

We got some crepes for lunch and stopped at a bakery where I tried and eclair...in Paris. Then we headed over to the Lock bridge and locked our lock around the bridge and threw away the keys. Across the street, there was a couple that had on what looked like wedding clothes doing a whole ceremony, so that was pretty cool. After that, we decided that we wanted to go to the D'orsay Museum, which is a huge museum filled with all sorts of art, from Monet to Van Gogh and all sorts of other famous painters. Once again, we got in for free. Goodness gracious, I love my Visa. We walked around for hours until 6 came around, at which point we decided to go get some groceries for dinner that night to have a good filling cheap dinner. We ended up getting ingredients for pesto pasta with chicken and salad, with baked brie for dessert. When we got back to the apartment, I was able to call my family and wish them a Happy Easter, and to say that I would be home in two weeks. Yes, I'll be home in just over 2 weeks and I'll be able to see my brother and family in person. I'm both excited and dreading it, because even though I'm having a ball here in Europe, I'm ready to be back home.

We had dinner and brie with honey, and we were going to go climb the Eiffel tower at night, but by the time everything was said and done, it was about 10:15 and we didn't have enough time to get to the tower, get tickets, walk up, enjoy ourselves, and walk down before the tower would have closed, so we stayed in. It's alright though because this is the first night we'll get to sleep at a semi-reasonable hour and we'll be able to sleep in a bit tomorrow so we can check out. We move to another hotel tomorrow, one closer to the train station so we can wake up early on Tuesday. We are also planning on picnicking at the tower, climbing up it in the day and at night, as well as maybe going to the Moulin Rouge area. We want to make sure that we get as much into this trip as possible, and I'd say that we've succeeded so far. It's also out last day here in Paris before going back to school on Tuesday, and none of us want to think about it that much. One last thing before I sign off: Paris is awesome!!

Happy Easter!
Erin Z