Holá from Madrid!

We are having a wonderful time in this beautiful city. The weather is great and we are staying in the middle of the old part of town, only a few blocks from the Puerta del Sol.

Yesterday, we visited the National Palace and explored. It is so big, and when we looked at it from the outside, we realized we´d only seen a fraction of the whole palace. The day finished with the flamenco ballet of Carmen. Great costumes, fun dancing, lovely music.

Today, we are going to visit the art museum. Hopefully, the afternoon will be finished by meeting Abraham at the train station. He will be arriving in Madrid this afternoon for work. We have a night train out of Madrid and should be in Paris by 8:30 tomorrow morning.

Tours

Currently, we are in Tours. We arrived at about 2 am on Bastille Day, so we slept in the next morning. We explored the town in the afternoon and generally enjoyed the beautiful, hot weather. In the afternoon, we took the little train for tourists around town and bonded with the old French people on the tour. It was in French, and I half-heartedly translated for Jessie. Translating is more difficult than I thought!

We can't be in Tours without visiting the chateaux. Whenever I think of the Loire Valley, I am reminded of high school French projects! Anyway, we decided to bike to a chateau today. The nearest was Villandry, the construction of which was overseen by the same man as Chateau Chambord. Biking through the countryside in the Loire Valley is absolutely beautiful. THe weather was perfect: overcast and cool. However, after biking over 60 km (about 40 miles) I am very sore and sitting hurts rather a lot.

Tomorrow, we head to Bordeaux. I can't believe I only have a week left.

Our trip is going by sooo fast! I am currently in Köln, Germany, where we are staying with my friend Janina from Alliance Francaise. So sweet! Last night, we walked by the Dom and had an authentic German meal at a restaurant. It was a lot of fun! The weather here was really nice, although Janina says it has been raining for the last two weeks.

Unfortunately, our stay in Köln will be rather short. We were supposed to arrive by about one yesterday. FYI: don't travel on Friday the 13th - it's bad luck. Every train we tried to take yesterday was delayed or cancelled. Oh well... c'est la vie!

Today, we are headed back to France - Tours particularly. Our plans have suddenly seemed to change drastically. Currently, we are planning Tours, Bordeaux, Biarritz, Madrid, then back to Paris. This is kind of funny considering we weren't even planning to go to Spain. Funny how travel plans change!

Backpacking begins....

It has been a crazy couple of days and since i only have a few minutes to use the funny fnrech keyboard on the computer ill do a quick breakdown.

saturday july 7 - nice to milan

sunday july 8 - milan to interlaken to wengen, switzerland

monday july 9 - wengen to geneva to lausanne

tuesday july 10 - lausanne to dijon, france

wednesday july && - dijon to bruxelles, belgium

unfortunately it is rather cold and rainy, so jessie and i are forced to wear the only sweatshirts we brought, which happen to be the matching mcdermott ones. we also awkwardly managed to also wear almost the exact same outfits on monday, which made for a funny picture.

Happy 4th of July!

To celebrate (and since I know how much the Europeans love Americans) I brought pastries to class. There are no Americans in my class of 14. Countries represented include Scotland (well... Great Britain), Germany, Syria, Kazakhstan, Spain, Mexico, Poland, Italy, Brazil, and Japan. This is my favorite part about being here. Although I have indeed learned quite a bit of French, most importantly I have learned so much about different cultures and met so many interesting people. It was really hard for me at first because I was in a strange city on a new continent where I didn't speak the language and didn't know anyone and there were no Americans. I was forced to make new friends. Now, I plan to meet people I know in Milan, Amsterdam, Koln, and Lyon when Jessie and I travel (not to mention Alejandro in Paris and Sherry in Prague). Also, Americans have it easy (no wonder we have a reputation for being a bit lazy) because everyone in Europe speaks English. Some of my friends told me that their English improved more than their French because English was the only language they really had in common with their friends at Alliance Française. One of my German friends who came in not knowing French talked to her French host mom in English at first because that was the only language they both spoke!

After class I walked to the Musée Chegal. I enjoyed it. I decided not to go to the Musée Matisse because it is pretty small, and I am going to see quite a few Matisse pieces in Paris, I think.

Interesting fact: there is big Texas Instruments business in the valley right outside of Nice. I have met several people who work for Texas Instruments (no Americans). What a small world!

Yesterday, I didn't have class because there were so many new students who were taking placement tests. Luckily, I got my money back.

Instead, I went to Cannes. You know, the Cannes Film Festival. As my host mother said, "C'est la meme que Nice, mais il est plus riche." In other words, it looks a bit more posh than Nice. We walked around and saw famous people's handprints and then went to the beach. I didn't like the beach as much as the beach in Nice because it was sandy. Since it was windy, the sand kept blowing. I prefer my rocks, thank you!

Only a few days left in Nice and I have mixed feelings. I am taking 5 hours of class every day this week, which is more than I was doing before. (They only offer 4 hours, except in June and July). Today, I had a new teacher, whom I think I like better than my other one. Since it was a new class, I got asked if I had a cowboy hat. I said, "Of course, and I ride a horse to school and I have lots of oil." Yes, I do get those questions more than I would like. I am really enjoying the French, and I do understand quite a lot. I am 2/3 done with L'Etranger by Camus, a little side project I adopted last week! Most importantly, I am much more confident in my speaking, which was my real problem to begin with.

Most of my friends left at the end of June, so its a bit lonely. I decided that I should actually be a tourist and go see all the museums this week, so I walked several miles to the top of the hill to see the Chegal and Matisse museums only to find that they are closed on Tuesdays. Arggh! O well, it was a good walk. Everyone here thinks it's really hot. I just laugh at them. They've obviously never been in Houston in August.

I still have to do laundry before I leave.