I had a blast in Europe! Amsterdam was mostly boring, I think if you aren’t into drugs or hookers, Amsterdam is a little meh. We were walking around near our hotel and some girl was rubbing her goodies all over the window. After a moment of confusion, I noticed the red lights in the window. We didn’t get to go to the Van Gogh museum & the line outside the Anne Frank house was too long to wait, but hey -we went on a canal cruise, ate some really freaking good pancakes, and saw hookers through a window.

Brussels was so pretty. I had no idea how nice it would be. I wish we had taken a day off of Amsterdam and spent one more in Brussels. Oh well, if I’m ever in the area again I guess…

I loved Paris!!!! I seriously cannot wait to go back. It wasn’t as relaxing as Syndey, so that’s still #1 to me but Paris was awesome. We went to Versailles, I went to Voltaire’s tomb in the Panthéon and accidentally went up the stairs to the top (long story). We went to Notre Dame (but not to the top) and La Conciergerie where prisoners (including Marie Antoinette) awaited their trials during the revolution. I’m sure a lot of the historical stuff was boring to everyone else, but I had a lot of fun. Hushbear took a lot of pictures, but he is taking forever to put them up.

I really like my classes for the semester (for the moment) but French might be harder than I thought. The professor teaches it differently than any other language class I have taken. I took 3 years of Spanish in JR high/high school & 4 semesters in college. French is similar, but I keep pronouncing things like they would be in Spanish.

Of course I am looking forward to my class with Dr. S. I’ve been wanting to take it for 2 semesters. My Modern France class seems like it will be interesting as well. The professor started out with the French Revolution and since no one else in the class knows anything about it he kept calling on me. (eek!) I was able to answer most things, but I couldn’t remember when they changed the calendar and one other thing. I hate speaking in class. I’m getting better but I still don’t like it.

The biggest problem this semester is the location of my classes. They didn’t reserve a room for Modern France so we are stuck in the far corner of the campus in the engineering technology building. It takes more than 10 minutes to get there from one class & close to 15 to get from there to my next class on the other side of campus. By the time I get to my classes I am red in the face and all sweaty, it’s so attractive.

I have more reading than I realized I would. 21 required books & 4 optional ones. Any chance I am buying the optional ones? Hell to the no!