jackson holy wyoming

alright yinz guys, 

after two blog entries, i am a tired blog writer, but on i must forge for our loyal 3 followers, our moms.

so yesterday we drove through the whole state of wyoming, which was wildly enthralling. it literally looks like the mario kart level so much that i took  a picture of it to show the world!

mario kart levelll

the most beautiful mountains in all of the land

we ate in this little cafe in dubois wyoming which is probably the smallest town in the world, besides alex's. I was really pumped about our waitress because she kept trying to make us eat, and she was nice as pie, and she made pies, which I didn’t eat because I felt naucious from sitting in the black hole of death (the backseat) but I wanted to. then jenni was like “ is she is your people, daina?” and I was thinking in my head “if it’s because she’s enjoys excessive amounts of pie and wears tie die Wyoming tshirts, then yes, she is definitely my people.”

then onward we went to jackson hole. We saw the GRAND teton mountains, which were the best thing I’ve ever seen. It was like germany where the Disney world castle is, which I’ve only seen in postcards. I took about 6000 pictures of them. we ate some pizza at alex's friend carol's house, who we are staying with. and then we went out on the town in jackson hole

saddles for seats!1 wahoo!

carol and alex

we went to this bar place in town where all of the cowboys go. it was wild. these old cowboys would scout the room and make girls dance with them, carol told us not to look them in the eyes. then this giant cowboy man from australia came over to our table and wanted one of us to dance with him, we nominated alex because of her tininess and easy ability to be lifted into the air. this giant man swung alex to both sides of his hips. It was like  country version of dancing with the stars with a giant and a dwarf, which is a difficult scene to imagine! then we went to another cowboy bar and had drinks on saddles!

because of all the cars

Then carol drunk dialed alex’s mom, who is her best friend, and we interrupted their anniversary moment. Then the next day we woke up and I decided that  I am one pound away from entering obesity camp, which I don’t even know if that exists, but if it does I’m only one pound away from it! Anyway so I went on a run/more of a walk on the trail right by our friends’ house, it was absolutely amazing, and I don’t normally say shit like that. It was the biggest greenest most tree-ey hills I’ve ever seen back dropped with the teton mountains. And as I was almost done I looked to my right. HOLY SMOKES! It was an animal of which type I had no idea! I was pooping my pants because it was elk like in nature and then wondered if I was going to to die/get charged. I didn’t. it just sat there, and then I walked on staring at it t he whole time, which I think is what you’re( <- notice this punctuation sarah fryd) not supposed to do. But I lived.

alex and her giant cowboy man

Then we drove to Jackson hole, the ski resort and went on the biggest tram in the world! Up to the top of the mountain, I would like to tell you this story about a tour group of 42 korean people, me alex and jenni, and Amanda britton’s cousin, our tram leader. The tram had 5 towers and every time we passed a toer the tram would rock forward, it’s a thing that it does, totally normal. Literally every single time we passed one of these towers, the Korean people in unison would ooooooooooh, for 35 seconds, it was one of my top 5 moments in life. Even Amanda brittons cousin was dying. Also then we were talking to the tram leader, Amanda brittons cousin, and she was like, I have a cousin named Amanda britton, and then we were like “we know her!” and that was that.

tramming

Then we went to a rodeo. Holy smokes this was the best thing that’s ever happened to me. This is how a rodeo, or at least this one, started, first there was a horse lap for Wyoming, the cowboy state, then there were like 3 laps for America, and we praised old glory, then we had like 5 laps for jesus, praise the lord, no one will get hurt tonight, honest to pete, your riding a bull, with horns, someone is going to get hurt, this ain’t my first rodeo, but actually it was.

bucking bronco

Then yesterday we got really super sad about Bucknell, I was too depressed to even blog, which is not saying much because writing is one of my top least favorite things in life. I would say my least things in life are 1.paying attention, to anything, I have the add 2. Writing things 3. I only hate those two things

this is alex and her best friend in the whole world, lil kitty, that is her name

I would like to take this moment to talk about alex, my friend, who is a traveler with me, and her 3 things in life. 1. Animals: high pitched voice “COME HERE LIL KITTY, you are my best friend in the whole wide world!! YOU ARE THE FLUFFIEST THING IN THE  WHOLE WORLD!!” 2. Windshield wiping, like at the gas station, this is alex’s rekindled passion life, approximately every 45 minutes this is what happens “HOLY SHIT guys look at the windshield! Lets clean it!” and then jenni and I watch her scweegy like there is no tomorrow at each gas station.

these are elk horns

i look like i am about to attack them

old faithful was not faithful and was not working

christmas trees for days

who knew about idaho

the black hole of death, and the effing pillow

Now we drove from Jackson hole Wyoming today, to Missoula Montana, through Yellowstone national park, I’m hoping you know all of these locations. If not, google this, the internet is helpful. We started our journey at 9 am, at 6 pm, we decided, we are going to  screw the hotel, and drive on, so now we are dying, it will bring our total of the day up til 17 hours til we get to alex’s little cowboy theme town. Fortunately we are still alive in Idaho, the only things I know about Idaho are the following, Idaho, udaho, and that I think they are good with potatoes. But now I’m learning that it is beautifullll, which I like to say beeyuteefoll. There are a plethora of pine trees, which we have concluded, you could always have a Christmas tree if you lived here, like you could have a million.

There are some things that we do to keep morale high in our car. We check on everyone’s morale, kind of like in the Oregon trail, except no one has died of dysentery yet, we did shoot 470 buffalo though. We all put our hands in the middle console and shout “one two three, CAR” this really boosts our morale high.

south dakota is the worst state in america

Rochester to Mt Rushmore

So right now we are stopped at subway in South Dakota and I am contemplating suicide. South Dakota is everything I dreamed it would be, many toothless people,  13 year olds and 95 year olds driving pick up trucks and more motorcycles than cars, no one ever wearing helmets. Everyone is nice as pie though!

I have made alex and jenni listen to this song I just discovered called pretty girl rock. It says “don’t hate me cause I’m beautiful” (my philosophy on life) and I really enjoy the tune.

In Minnesota we saw more wind mills than I have ever seen in all of my life combined. It was fascinating, alex and jenni asked me how they worked cause I am a smart engineer, so I explained how wind energy is converted to electricity using a generator. Now that I’m a college graduate I can discuss things like that

this is a 95 year old lady driving a pickup truck in south dakota, you can't see her because she is so small because she is so old

we saw 2000 windmills

we left alex here to be in her natural habitat

 wyoming, there are only horses, no cars

this is a wildabeast we found in hannibals house, i thought  wildabeasts were fictional, but they're real and here is one

Update, we are only 2 license plates away from being CHAMPIONS OF THE LICENSE PLATE GAME 2012!!!! If you see Hawaii or lousiana in the near future please shoot me a text, because there’s a better chance of finding a chipotle in all of the Midwest, and I checked. There are none.

Then I checked all of the news, to see what is happening outside of south Dakota, w hich  is hard because this is such a happening place. That dude is Syria is such a prick and I hope someone abducts him and brings him to South Dakota, then he’ll really wanna bomb things.

this is south dakota and this is all that there is here

In the distance there was a ray of hope in the form of a badland. Thank the sweet god above they were there because I ready to lay down and die in the endless prairies. i'd have more luck being eaten by a cow than run over by a car because there arent any! These are things we passed in south Dakota that made me thank every god in the world that I wasn’t born in south Dakota, a palace made of corn, and the lady from little house on the praire. well, her birthplace, not actually her, i think she's dead. Holy actual smokes how could someone make a tv show from that.

Anyway, so we drove thru the badlands and took 47 pictures, all of which we tried to be artsy and emo and looking like we were contemplating serious moments. Here are some

wow...life

Then we had a debacle because of our hotel, which was the president’s inn suite resort . Google it. It is bad news. We had to switch it or face death by bed bugs, which wouldn’t be my favorite way to die. So because my faja is a traveling salesman, see death of a salesman, that is what my childhood was like, he is a platinum member at holiday inn expresses! So he got us a free one! So we switched hotels. When we got there, the lady was like “listen we’re out of queen beds, can we upgrade you?” and I was thinking in my head, “in what way would a king bed and a jazcuzzi in my room be not ok?” so we got upgraded and alex and jenni swam laps in our Jacuzzi!

our lover's suite!!!

Then we went to mt rushmore, and it was wild! We think that george washington’s ear is going to fall off, in case you were concerned about the future of our metamorphic founding fathers. then we drove around the mt rushmore parking lot looking for louisiana, we found saskatchewan.

mt rushmore!!!!

being bad in the badlands

our favorite photo of the trip

also jill, shout out to you because jenni and i have been taking vitamins every day so were as healthy as the oxen we see in south dakota!

Then we drove through the black hills of south Dakota which was pretty wild. Then we went to Wyoming which is everything you would imagine what Wyoming would look like. Do you know the level in Mario kart that is is the middle of nowhere and there is a train? That is what Wyoming looks like. We took 3 roads in Wyoming and on our first road alex said “holy shit look at this road, there is nothing there!” then she said that for the next 3 roads because there was nothing there.

this is wyoming

chicagoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Chicago to Minnesota

So as soon as we got to chicago, we drove to alex’s cousin, whose name is tommy, restaurant. Tommy valet parked the car and then we had the nicest dinner in all of time. we had an appetizer and cocktails! Only things that adults have! And it was all free!! There is nothing better than a free meal to a college student, and I am still considering us college students, because tommy said that we are all grouped into the college student category. I’ll allow it. Then we walked around in wicker park which is so wild and trendy and nice. One lady was walking down the street, and alex was like “ is that a hooker?” and I was like “no she is just trendy”. Very confusing  wardrobes for country bumpkins like ourselves. Then we went into American apparel and wondered why colorful spandex and sweatshirts were so expensive. We also talked about hipsters and wondered why they have to wear weird shit, and they all wear the same weird shit, which makes them th e same, which is the opposite of what a hipster wants. I am a hipster for wearing my yellow shoes around, no one in the world has those. Too trendy.

lookin good in millenium park

deep dish pizza

Then the next day we went into Chicago, with the help of tommy, alex’s cousin, who was the best tour guide in all of tour guide history, he knew more about my favorite water building than I did, and I love buildings. He told us where to go to the bean, so that was our number one priority. We ate pizza that was deep dish and is more like a lactoseintolerants worst nightmare, but delicious as hell. Then we went to a fountain which alex said, in alex voice “guys, this fountain shoots 100 stories high!!!”  alex, if that was the case it would be about the height of the world trade center, and the water pressure needed to power that fountain would be redonkulous. Then we found the bean. There was a model there who weighed probably 50 pounds. I wanted to give her a hamburger. I’ve never realized how skinny they are in real life. Then we went to my favorite building in all of time! the aqua building. It is new skyscraper in Chicago that has concrete plates in circular shapes that make it look super duper sweet!

leavin the burgh

cheese for days

trendy as hell

 Then Justin met us and we went for sushi at his old restaurant, I’ve only ever eaten bison sushi, so it was super duper and it had raw fish and I actually didn’t throw up!

Then we went to justin’s friends house and hung out, which gave us hope for the afterlife (aka after college) because all graduates are bonded together due to our love of alcoholic beverages and willingness to cut off an arm to go back to college. This kid was all knowing about lsd, getting arrested, and editing movie scripts, 3 things we knew all about. Wanting to fit in to our surroundings, we pretended we knew what in the heck he was talking about. We didn’t.  side note. We are about to win the license plate game, we only have 5 states left.

my favorite building in all fo time!

Then we went home and woke up and went to dunkin donuts where they only gave us 2 ketchups/breakfast sandwich, had a 30 minute seating limit, and had to be buzzed into the bathroom. It was also hot as balls. We were sweating. And then I thought, this is not India people. Then after I ate a breakfast sandwich, I wanted nothing more than chocolate ice cream, which is unusual because I hate chocolate ice cream, however, it may or maynot have been my time of the month. Conveniently the dunkin donuts was also a baskin robbins! Wow! 

So then I got chocolate ice cream but it took this man, whose name was mohammed, 6.3 minutes to check me out. He pressed 107 buttons, which is weird because I got a childs size cup of chocolate ice cream. Then alex came out of the bath room and I told her to watch our stuff, which immediately she did not listen to and she was like “ ICE CREAM!’” Then I had to raise my voice and I was like no watch our stuff, because there was a snatcher lurking, I saw him. Then she went over and watched out stuff.

the beannnn

Now we are driving and have 6 hours to go. We are visiting my cousin Hannibal lecter who i have not seen in 7 years.

Day 1-PITTSBURGH to chicago

Hey Yinz Guys,

before you do anything, type america into google.

So yesterday we drove away from our home for four years and it was emotional as hell! Alex started balling at the house, and although I cried there, I totally lost it when we pulled away from our friends.  Plug for Bucknell, we realized that we met some of our best friends in the world there, had some amazing times, and will definitely be lifelong friends!  But then I said to myself, people graduate from college every single year and they survive! Then we went to the burgh! And Alex’s car was holding like 17 dead bodies, or the weight of that anyway, and could barely go more than 45 miles on the highway. I would like to talk at this point about Alex’s effing pillow, that is what Jenni and I call it. It is husband in nature (with those arm things) and about 16/17 dead bodies. It won’t smush at all, and she WILL NOT get rid of it, coming fom the girl who decided to bring half a bottle of soysauce and olive oil across the country, because we’ll really need those when we run out of soysauce for our mcdonalds hamburgers. She won’t let us throw it away although Jenni and I have tried 3x already. Once we arrived in a burgh, We had spaghetti with Sandlebar, my mom, whose passion in life is making people eat food, so we ate a lot of food. For the first time in my life I had to be packed neatly, I normally throw all of my shit in the car bagless and go Pittsburgh or bust. However, now that I am real (an adult) I packed very adult like and neat. I am so responsible now. I also have stopped checking for bad guys when I go to sleep the day that I graduated from college, 4 days and counting. My friends came over and we drank yuengling like true yinzers. Then we slept for days, Alex and I went to get her car fixed when we woke up to make sure we didn’t die on our trip. Sand fed us again and then we were off on our way to Chicago! The Windy City! The Land of the Bean! Wahoo!

On our way to Chicago, specifically, in ohio, the worst state in America, although somehow with the best rest stops ever. As we are driving, guess who we see? Three girls who we don’t know, but they are driving to Washington! What a coincidence! Wowzers!!

Real Pictures will come tomorrow

i was kicked by a greek hobo

i am supposed to be cleaning my room/ workin on my bod right now. but i'd rather sit here, be emo and type blog entries all day. so here it is

rome was awesome. as soon as we got there i took the metro to st. peter's basicica to st peters square. important. st peters square is actually st peters ellipse, so don't be fooled/extremely disappointed when you travel all the way to rome and not be able to find corners. then i walked across the Tiber (hey mesopotamia unit in 4th grade) to the Trevi fountain and Spanish Steps. I must say, i was a little disappointed with the steps, they are just steps, but dont worry, they grew on my exponentially, they are great for sitting on and looking good.

lookin good on those steps

the trevi fountain was super watery and neat with all those statues spewing water everywhere. i dug it a whole lot. we took a million pictures in front of that and then went to meet courtney and her friends for dinner. we found a place for 12, wait 10 euros (because we were smelly college students) and got wine and salad and pasta and it was great! i really havent seen a vegetable since 2010, when i last saw Sand my mom, and she provided nice vegetables right in front of my face on my plate at dinner.

this is me throwing a coin into the fountain, lookin trendy

then we walked home. people may doubt that rome is walkable, but to broke backpacking college kids, any city can be tackled via dirty tennis shoes. the next day we hit the Colosseum and i made my poor friends take about a million pictures of me in front with my terrible towel. gotta rep that yinzer pride.

here is me, the terrible towel, and the colisseum

we are taking a picture in front of some ruin, love ruins

after contemplating what it'd be like to be slaughtered alive by lions, gladiator men wearing minimal clothing, etc, we went to the pantheon! let me tell you i love backpacking as much as the next person, but after 2.5 solid weeks of sightseeing, monuments start to blend together. the parthenon was cool though, especially because im reading angels and demons. i do want you to know it is the worlds largest unreinforced, (holy smokes!) concrete dome.

we then went back to our hostel and the english majors journaled about life while i ran around all over packing and not journaling. witte has noticed that i can't sit still really ever, and every time we go to a train station, airport, ferry dock, etc i have to go explore the area while she is forced to man the luggage. i think this further proves my little theory that i have undiagnosed add ( and maybe a flair for the dramatic). my mom still never will let me get tested all because i had 4.0 in hs, where is my 4.0 now? out the window with the adderall i dont have.

so anyway they contemplated the meaning of life while i just sat there. then we had pizza and wine so that was delicious.

friday we had one goal: the sistine chapel, so we went and it was all nice and we got shhhed alot by the shhhhers, whose life passion and occupation is to crush joyful comments of Sistine Chapel first timers. Michaelangelo painted the whole thing and 

a. who has that much time?

b. who knew he wasn't just a ninja turtle

painting by day and fighting bad guys by night must have left little michaelA with no time to contemplate life

this is the famous painting thing but it was illegal to take pcitures and all the shhshers were shhhing me so sorry that it is blurry i was nervous

stairs in vatican

Courtney and I went to the Steelers bar afterwards. amazing. definitely one of the best days of life, and i kept being like, this is the best day of my life.

and look at these

my favorite is this terrible towel wrapped around jesus. my other favorite thing is my friend alex asked me if i put the terrible towel around the jesus. yes, alex, i stood on a chair, hijacked the jesus and placed my yellow towel around it. and get kicked out of my favorite bar in the world? do you know how important jesus's are to roman people? there is a high probability id spend the night in jail. no i did not do that.

anyway, the guy is not evern from pittsburgh, but whatever he was super duper for existing. and his bar existing too.

also an ad just came on for will and kate, is there job to walkround from place to place kissing babies and receiving flowers? because i can do that.

i also got rosary beads blessed by the pope! wow. impulse by though, let me tell you. as soon as i wen tto st peters elliptical square i saw this guy with rosary beads and i knew i had to get some for my gig, my grandma, she'll die, not literally, she's going to outlive me the rate things are going, but she be real happy. and it was on my checklist of abroad things to do. travel the world. check. rosary beads for my gram. check. i wanted to do some rosary bead exploring before i bought some, wooden or metal, jesus or no jesus. but this guy was like , "this is the only day you can get them blessed by the pope" ( he comes out on wednesdays and blesses the people) so i had to get them (although i doubt the pope is like "and i bless you and you and the rosary bead guy at the back", but whatevs, mission accomplished)

then we went to greece

and now were here.

i think the world doesn't want me to like athens. we got to our hostel and our greek man told us all the acropolis/parthenony/reasons for going to athens/ stuff closed at 2 and since we got there at 1:30, we were out of time. as i explored all i really saw was alot of garbage and stray dogs, pretty wild. but i know they just went through some bad economic times, so i'll come back one day athens, and i expect you to get your shit together.

we went to bed and then in the middle of the night i thought we were gonna be attached because someone kept coming to our floor. and no one was staying on our floor. and when its like 3am you always think your gonna be taken by bad guys, like that is their "stealing kids time" or something, but no worries, we weren't attacked, and me taking out my one orange earplug (i lost 2 in florence) was pointless.

the nest day we hiked up the acropolis. we hiked up to the top and saw some old Zeus buildings and stuff and the parthenon, everyone knows the parthenon! (not really) and when we got to the top we saw this building that looked like the parthenon that a wrecking ball had hit, and we could see this other really parthenony buildling was way below us. the is the time where you think, "i wish i bought a guidebook because the dumbest question i could ask at the parthenon is 'is this the parthenon'", well good news, it was, some southern lady from upstate new york told us. also why can't upstate newyorkers just be like "im from albany" or say the location for petes sake. is there somethin goin on in upstate new york that no one can say that?

after we got back we grabbed our bags and went to catch the ferry. now let me tell you this real  life story about how i got kicked by a drunk greek man. i am sitting there on my giant backpack in the subway and this man comes up to me and gives me this really weird look, then he kicked me with hi swork boot, then i screamed, even though it was in slow motion because he was so drunk, but i screamed anyway. then he death stared the shit out of me, and i death stared the shit out of him. then witte and i ran away because we got scared.

then we got on the bus to the fairy. and i had my huggggge backpack on. and i was real squished with my big backpack on and witte was like "daina move over" then this weird barefoot old man with long hair and a beard was like "you have the power" so then i was like "alrigh ti have the power and i moved over" tight squeeze though,  then as we got off we found out that this old barefoot man was not in fact homeless but he has a whole backpacking family and backpacking baby. he had his entire life on his back and his family's too and his baby in front. then his backpacking family followed him onto his ferry forever.

i have eaten 15 gelatos

so now i am in italy and i am in love. we started off in cinque terre where we walked along the cliffs and saw beautiful sunsets and everything beautiful in the whole wide world. also, one of the trails was closed, so ryan led us on a cliff


florence- i have never had better food in my entire life. kait and jenny took me to a great place where a little italian man talked and sang to us the entire time, while his wife cooked us food of the gods. if jesus made pasta, it wouldnt be as good as this ladys. holy smokes. he also took pictures of us every half an hour because whe wanted our dinner to be well documented. additionally, i would like to point out that the stereotype is true. italian women do everything, and the men hang out all day. he told us about his life in the boyscouts while his wife slaved away making gnocci with buffalo mozzarella. i almost fainted and threw up! faint because that could be my favorite thing in the entire world and threw up because i ate so much. but neither happened! and also we had unlimited wine, which is like angels words to 5 broke college girls. and it was all 15 euros, really.

the next night we went to a pizza place which in fact, there is one with the same name in the burgh! i melted with the pizza because it was so delicious. also we got wine again, they drink wine more than water. which i didnt even think i liked wine, im just learning that italian wine is a bit better than franzia.

also, i counted how many gelatos i have eaten. but then i stopped, because it ebcame embarassing. kait took me to her favorite place and if jesus specialized in ice cream and not saving people he wouldnàt compare. actually maybe he would. i dunno jesus doesnt make ice cream. i had fig because im trying to do stereotypical study abroad things, cliff diving, eating fish heads, you know.

then i climbed the duomo. 453 steps to the top. my new thing i hate in life is people that block tiny European staircases. the stairs in the duomo are tenny tiny and  spiraly. this man kep ttaking pictures of every brick in the goddam buildling so we had to stand and wait and be done. i learned an important lesson in life a long time ago, that when you get back from your trips, your not gonna print all your brick pictures, your gonna print your people pictures, so flex in front of the duomo or something.

then kaitlin took me to the leather market. my mom kept being like, daina, go to the leather market and buy yourself a nice leather coat, its timeless. and im like, ma, im not gonna spend your 8 million dollars on a leather coat, yes im now on my moms dime, dont come to a country where the exchange rate is double. go to south america or something. but actually do come. as were walkin through the market this guy alex came up to me and made me try on like 17 leather jackets and i was like ''alex, listen there bud i am broke as shit  i am not buying one of you rleather jackets'' then he was like ''i will give it to you for 70 percent off''. now that is a deal. so now i have a timeless leather jacket that i am wearing around europe, i look rull trendy and good, so let me know if you see me.

next, i saw a canoli in the window, and i thought, oh my goodness, im in italy and this is a canoli, so i got it. ( my new passion/goal in life is to eat all of the barbs in italy and believe me it s challenge, but dont worry, things are going great so far). it was awful, the canoli. jesus definitely could have made a better one. so then i went on a canoli search because i was like holy moly i have to eat a good one while im here. the end.

finally, i would like to tell you how i do with beggars. not well. europe is known for its variety and originality of beggars trying to scam daina. probably my soft green eyes and gentle face that lure these suckers in. probably my wealthy looking appearance ( i have worn the same £1.50 fleece and shorts the entire time ive been traveling, witte is concerned that people will notice that i have been wearing the same blue fleece and shorts the whole time. no. im not. i am wearing them right now. and i feel great) anyway, so these beggar people find me and i really can never shake them. women with clipboards, firls with postcards saying they cant speak english but need money, men without legs. it had become a joke that i am always the target, my favorite was when i went to the bathroom in the marseilles train station, which you have to pay for but i really had to pee. i couldnt figure out how to put my money in the gosh darn slow and then this kind old man came up and showed me , spoke english with me, and talked to me about his, german french an dbelgian wife. then he showed me the slot to get a token! ah thats what i was missing! then i was thinking, wow what a nice guy, hes a winner, then he goes,'' can i have 4 euros? i need a bus ticket'' fiddlesticks! fooled again

also last night i thought of a great idea. jenni kait and i were going to sleep and then i thought what if bucknell had a sorority paintball fight to become the most popular group of sorostitutes!! maybe the best one ive ever had. 1000 sorostitutes running around campus with sorority color corresponded paintballs. so now weve been debating who would be agile and stealthy and strategizing. now the end.

also, there are alot of words and i apologize for the lack of pictures. iwould be really bored and wouldnt read this, so if you did. wow.thanks. your really nice.

EN FRANCE (throaty voice)

i am currently updating from paris. the city d'amour. my new passion in life is speaking frenglish. anyway, paris was amazing. i have been to the eiffel tower 3/3 nights 100% eiffel tower all the time is what i'm about. and for those engineers out there, it really is in the shape of its moment diagram.
the first day we got here we went there, and it was amazing. then we walked to the hotel des invalides, which is napoleon's tomb, and we weren't even supposed to go there, another reason why i love europe, you just walk around, and your like " oh yeah, this built in long time ago century and this is the most important monument in the world" all the time. then we went to the champs d'elysees and saw the arc de triomphe. then kristen left to go write a paper, and i went to. THE. STEAKFRITES PLACE I'VE BEEN DREAMING ABOUT FOR 6 YEARS. when i came to paris in high school we went to this place that served steakfrites (steaks and fries) with this magical green sauce. Mrahskis and i have been craving steakfrites since that day.when i got here i thought id give a google search a try, and what do you know, there are like a billion "entrecote" aka steak frites places. its a chain! but thats ok cause it s delicious chain! anyway, so i went to "entrecote" and ate the whole dang thing, then i felt sick afterwards but i walked towards the eiffel tower (time number 2) and got a crepe and sat from the palais du something..palais this, hotel that...its hard to keep em straight,  but it gave a great view of paris and the eiffel tower. so i had a crepe in my right hand, and i just sat and watched it for 1.5 hours (im not joking imreally that werid) then it sparkled. WHICH IS LITERALLY MY FAVORITE THING IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD.  then i rolled back to the apartment and then i was really sick. but that's ok. cause steakfrites and a shit ton of crepes was so worth it.
the last thing we did in paris was go to the top of the eiffel tower, which was amazing, but the most important thing about paris are

eiffel tower guys. these are men that stand everywhere within a 2 mile circumference of paris and beg you to buy little mini keychain eiffel towers.67 for one euro people. its a deal. anyway, so for some reason, either my akwardly masculine walk, or my "innocent look" witte calls it. these men target me instantly. and beg me to buy their eiffel towers. for 2.5 days i was strong, i said no, also key to this, once you look them in the eye your dead, so look away, anyway, the last night we were on the eiffel tower, we came down from the eiffel tower and were hit with the most eiffel tower guys i've ever seen, right as you leave the gate so you can't escape. somehow we managed, thennnn were walkin along back to the metro, and we decide, "you know waht 6 for 1 euro, thats a goddam steal, theyre practically giving them away" so we bought 6. feeling satisfied after our colorful metally purchase, we continued to walk, only to be presented with the DEAL OF THE CENTURY. 7 for 1 euro. boom done. now we had 13 eiffel towers. what the hell do you do with 13 eiffel towers? we still don't know because they are currently in our backpack in nice. so if you want one, let me know.


after paris, we were off to marseilles to meet ryan. we took the tgv, and i made the mistake of not making train reservations til the day of, so we got to the station at 9:30, and the next available train didn't leave til 1:30. we had a lot of time, and nothing to do. so we went to this frenchy coffee shop in the train station and everything was super expensive because they know your trapped in there so they can make you spend as much as they want. anyway, so i ordered a coffee because i love coffee. it was 3 euros. i was really excited for my coffee. then it came, and it was the size of a peanut, not actually, but it was one of those espresso things, maybe its because  im from amurica where everything is bigger but its hard to drink one sip of coffee in a four hour duration.

then we went on the TAY JAY VAY as the french people call it and that was rockin because it went super fast i felt like i was in a rocket ship and there were bathrooms and everything. it was magical.

we got to marseilles and it was absolutely beautiful, we walked around the town and took millions of pictures. then we bought 16 euros worth of awful guacamole, never buy european guacamole or salsa ever. ever. ever. ever. not in london, or germany, or france. so after we had our shitty dinner, we met some americans. they were super duper cool and we hung out with them

then we went on this trail in marseilles where we had to take an hour long bus ride and then hike for an hour, but then we got to this cove-ish thing that you can now see, and your probably like ,, "wow that looks super tropical" it was super tropical. also i jumped off a rock into the water, which is big for me, cause i usually dont like heights or anything involing fun and/or adrenaline. it was amazing. it's the new me, so i'm probably going to go skydiving, get a couple tats and do other adventurous things. 

then later we all went out to dinner, and i ate boulyabase, which is spelled wrong, but i dunno how to spell it, anyway, my uncles always are all "boulyabase this, boulyabase that" so i thought id try it cause its marseilles famous thing, so alot of us tried it. and it turned out to be fish heads and soup. whcih was weird, and kind of gross, and kinda delicious, and i ate it anyway, it was a magical evening but i am too tired/not creative enough, to describe it.

now we are in nice, which is nice. but actually nicer than nice. it is great, we went on another hour long bus ride to this place called cope d'ail, which means garlic island or something, i dunno, there wasn't any garlic there, but there was a completely awesome facebook default picture perfect place. and some nude people and guys in speedos, welcome to france(and i say that in a throaty, escargot, kind of voice...shout out to #stephanie  cutler) ( i dont understand # signs) also i laugh like a french person "hoh hoh hoh, france, escargots" all the time in my french accent, because i think its funny, but then kristen gets mad, and says i can't do that in their own country, but i say, when in france. anyway, i am having the best times of life in the history of time for me. i cant write anymore cause i gotta go to bed! 

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