in a holidaze ya know

Hello my balls of sunshine!!! I hope you are all fantastic and still in a semi Thanksgiving food coma! I realized I have yet to write about my time living out the movie Love Actually in real life, so here we go! I mean, if you're just laying on the couch, binge-watching Scandal, you should probably take a break eventually...right? Or if you're headed back to school, here's some cheer from overseas to put a smile on your face as you pull away from your own version of a cloud bed. Or here's something to distract you from the homework you've ignored all weekend. (no judgement). Whatever you need it for.

So we must preface this blog post by saying Love Actually is my all-time favorite movie. I can definitely recite it word for word, and I have strong opinions regarding the many different couples in the film. I mean my relationship with this movie can be described like by Jonah's with running or Mac's with horses: intense. (Hi Mac and Jonah!!! Miss you two!!!). Obviously, visiting London during Christmas time was a must for me. If you don't know what Love Actually is, go watch it. It's on Netflix (another great break from Scandal-binging). Then come back and finish this.

All I can say is London did NOT disappoint.

Obviously, Christmas is a magical time and I'm lucky enough to live on a continent where Christmas celebrations get started just after the middle of November. I had HIGH expectations for Christmas in London, obviously because of Love Actually. Even though I didn't run into Hugh Grant at 10 Downing Street, didn't find Alan Rickman slumming the streets with some slut named Mia, and didn't see a little ten year old boy breach airport security, the city was literally perfect. Since I'm running out of words, here's some pictures! My friend Lindsay is studying abroad for a year in London so she and two of her roommates showed me around their London--absolutely fantastic woof.

my fab Londoners!!!!

ain't the green but still decent I'd say

OH on the topic of the holidays: Thanksgiving. Even though Thanksgiving is looked over/most people don't even know what it is, my program was nice enough to give us Americans turkey and pie on the actual day. Honestly, it was perfect, even if the turkey was a little salty and the stuffing almost non-apparent. The pumpkin pie stole my heart 4 real (I mean the last time I had pumpkin pie was a year ago, so I don't have much to actually compare it to) and the gesture was actually so perfect. It did make me miss my family though (obviously), and skyping with them was hilarious. My grandma had my dad ask all her questions, even though I could clearly hear her, and a One Direction love life discussion spurred. Andrew didn't talk to me, just regressed to his eight-year-old self by sitting in the back and moving a lot while making strange faces. Overall very typical. Now that it's the holidays, I do find myself missing them more and more but for the weird things: I miss driving to run errands with my dad while singing along to the Rat Pack Christmas CD, especially their version of Baby, It's Cold Outside; I miss walking into the kitchen when my mom is baking holiday cookie boxes for the neighbors and stealing all the cookie dough scraps; and strangely enough, I miss finding Andrew in the kitchen after swim practice, looking like he's practicing for the World Eating Championships. (sorry that got long and cheesy, but the fam rocks).

Pie Appreciation Month 2013 was a success

I'm staying in Aix until winter break--exams are coming up and I actually have to study!! Strange, I know, studying on study abroad...it'll certainly be an interesting experience! But my winter break consists of going to Vienna with Lindsay (apparently they have one of the best Christmas markets in the world there!!!), Christmas with my wonderful French couple, and a trip back to Finland for a little family lovin with my aunt! I've said this before, but I literally cannot believe how lucky I am weeeeeee life is fantastic. Even if it DOES snow here and it DOES get cold--not quite what I signed up for, but that's okay with me. Still paradise.


Kisses from (a sometimes snowy) France!

I thought this was dandruff at first...deniallll

Sarah

We're gonna party all night!!!

Waaaaaazup guys!!! I know, it's been a while. Too long, I'd say. This blog post comes to you sponsored by the one and only HUMO HELL WEEK!!! WOOHOO!

We were good at being pretty and also good at "winning"

**If you know what humo is, you can skip this next part**

What's Humo, you ask? Well if you're asking, you probably either a) just met me or b) never met me. Humorology (Humo is the abbrev cause we hip over here) has been one of my favorite parts of college thus far. It is the largest student-run philanthropy at UW-Madison and basically frats and srats (ew that's a horrible abbrev) team up to create a 20-minute production to raise money for Camp One Heartland, a camp for kids with AIDS. Super philanthropic, super fun, yay life.

Humo hell week is the week before either auditions (which are this Saturday) or the two weeks before the show (which is in the spring). You basically devote your whole life to the show. Any interaction with people outside your cast is frowned upon and you get branded within your cast. Not really, but it is impossible to see anyone else. It sucks but also rocks at the same time. You also end up with the dances drilled into your head FOR ETERNITY. I can still do all the dances from my freshman year, and definitely all of them from last year.

**okay you can start reading again here**

My pal Ruska tweeted at me last night requesting a blog post, so Ruska, this one is for you, along with all the other humo addicts I've met ! I met Ruska through humo (duh) and it's humo hell week now (again, duh) so hopefully this distracts all of them from the fact they'll probably get a collective eight hours of sleep for the week or accidentally sleep until lunch every day of the week. Both bad (not speaking from experience, mom, I promise) but it's always FTK!

I don't have a pic of Ruska so this will work

Ruska specifically wanted to know about the nightlife here and yesterday I happened to indulge so this is perfect!!

The night started abnormally--I do not usually make dinner with my program director and six other kids in my program. But last night, we made moule frites chez Kelly! And it was really a fantastic job cooking on our part, even if the most helpful thing I did was wash moules and drink a borderline inappropriate amount of wine, which consequently led to me crying over how good this butter was. BUT IT WAS WARRANTED because I've had a lot of bad butter in my time (read: oxidized) and literally this butter was PURE fat and salt, with no other distracting flavors omg I really couldn't handle it. If your name is Sam, Wilson, or Olin, tell your mama that she taught me well and I impressed Kelly and now she wants to set me up with her friend who runs the cheese shop. I knew being a cheese taste tester would come in handy!!!!

boys working a good ratio comme d'habitude

yeah man I made that (ha)

Tears over butter...lol dairy state probz

OKAY ANYWAYS on to the actual nightlife. So I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before but Aix is expensive as...idk, Versailles (okay no but I needed an analogy). Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING that's not wine is cringeworthily priced. I've gotten used to it, a little, but also I've found the "cheap" places to shop, eat, and obviously drink. When it's nice out, so the first couple months I was here along with the random days that come in November, I usually start off at this cute little wine shop that lines a plaza. That's followed by sitting in the plaza/standing in the streets with my friends for like four hours. If we feel up to it, we continue on to clubs, but usually on nights we could get in for free or, in my case, when someone else pays for me. If not, we find some other shenanigans to get into lawl idk but it's always a good time, always. When it's cold, we actually have to sit inside bars and that calls for meeting very interesting people, many who have had much more to drink than me.

I do probably have more to say, but I got a minimal amount of sleep last night and training for a stupid marathon is stupid tiring. Oh!! I am slowly coming to terms that I will not be able to eat all of my mama's fab cooking come next Thursday so that's sad. Luckily she's fantastic and sent me pumpkin bread mixes, but nothing beats Lindstrom originals. Woof. So when you eat your Thanksgiving, indulge a little extra for me !!! And to my lovely humo pals, GOOD LUCK, I LOVE YOU, and plz take embarrassing photos of each other come Saturday night (or earlier) and send them to me so I can laugh.

This was way longer than I expected!!! Hope it proved a good distraction!!!

xoxo,

Sarah

Oh, worth noting that TVs dream couple, Leighton Meester and Adam Brody (Blair Waldorf and Seth Cohen) got engaged so if that's not a reason to binge on Gossip Girl and the OC, I don't know what is.

yelling obv because I love humo and engagements

To Finlandia and Beeeeeeyond!

SO in France, they actually give you fall breaks (if you're a student at UW-Madison, you understand the complete agony of having no break until Thanksgiving. It's kind of like torture. If you're one of my friends that actually has a fall break, I don't like you). I took this opportunity to head way north, to Finland by way of Paris with a surprise stop in Estonia.

**WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG POST TO GIVE YOU AN IMPORTANT LESSON IN THE GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE**

I told many people that I was in Finland/going to Estonia and many of them responded with "where's that again?" so here's a map of Europe. Finland is circled, Estonia is directly south. I hope you all know where Paris is. If not, that's on the map too!

OKAY anyways, first up is Paris! Honestly I wasn't expecting to love it as much as I did. A lot of people told me they had such high expectations for the city that they ended up kind of hating it. I guess having low expectations as well as a sunny day to explore really worked in my advantage. After taking various French classes for eight years now, I've read a lot about the Paris monuments and whatnot. Actually seeing some of them in person actually took my breath away. I didn't stay long, only like 12 hours, but man I cannot wait to go back. 

my heart wut

feelin triumphant haha

someone give my friend Amy a dollar

Then I went to Finland! I think I caught the country at kind of an awkward time: it's not summer, it's not winter, so there wasn't much to do (no snow :( boo) but I enjoyed myself none the less. It was absolutely a blast to stay with my aunt: she's lived in Finland for 25ish years, so growing up, I saw her sporadically at best. Plus, my cousin (her son) just got married so I had many family stories to catch up on and pictures to see of her granddaughter. I spent the days wandering Helsinki, which is right along the sea and quite beautiful. It stole my heart for two reasons: one, it's easy to walk around and see everything and two: it has a lot of thrift stores!!! You never know how much you love thrift stores until you live in a city so bourgeois there's literally only one. I managed to find a fantastic nordic sweater, which I refuse to take off. Nothing beats wool sweaters in fall, even in France where I got weird looks on the train yesterday (haters gon hate I guess). Oh and Finns are known for having strong, strong, STRONG coffee so that didn't hurt their case either. 

what a view

that coffee almost gave me a heart attack

Saturday was a high holy day in Finland (All Saints' Day I think?) so the whole country was going to be shut down. Naturally, my aunt and I decided to jump ship (literally) and go to Estonia for the day! It's a two and a half hour boat ride from Helsinki to Tallinn, so away we went! Tallinn was one of the coolest places I've been to date: most of the landmark buildings were built in the 12/13th centuries, and parts of the original town wall are still in tact and snake through the city. The tallest building there was probably the tallest building in the world for a while! Like in the 1400s, but it's still tall now! In "tourist season" aka not when I was there, you can go up in the steeple and there's an awesome view of the city! I guess I may have to go back to Tallinn and Helsinki then...

"probably" the tallest building, at one point

sew many ancient churches

I'm back in France now, ready to tackle the rest of the semester! Weird that it's already November ah I have no idea how I feel about that. Can't time just slow the eff down so I can stay here forever? I was so happy to get back to Aix after my marathon day of traveling--I guess it really does feel like home here. It's not the same, but that's why I love it! I did miss a monumental event in Wisconsin though this weekend--necessary shoutout to my brother Andrew and the West cross country boys for getting second in state and to my basically brother Olin for winning the whole thing!!! Proud is an understatment :)

Okay that's all for now, I guess you'll hear from me next when I travel again--so the end of the month! I'm going to Nice and Monaco (for real this time) and London because why not?

xoxo,

did you know it gets cold on boats in November?

Sarah