under pressure

With many of my friends from America finally in the same time zone as me, and almost all with their own blogs, I feel pressure to update this more sooooo here we go!

Second semester has officially begun, and my life is now a five-day weekend with a quick two days of class. Feels good to know I can focus more on traveling this semester than studying hehehe JUST KIDDING MOM AND DAD I promise to be a good student!

The most exciting thing I've done recently would definitely be swimming in the Mediterranean last weekend with my friend Alex. (no, Lucy, we're not dating. Sorry!) Alex decided he is going to swim in the sea every month and last weekend, with Carbon's yearly "come back to the pool" email, I needed water to soothe my soul, you know? Plus who wouldn't want to say they swam outside in January? So he was nice enough to take me along on this month's swim. It took some (a ton) of courage (and maybe a beer), and the French people that drove by in their boats thought we had completely lost our minds as the water felt like ice. Luckily, I didn't lose any of my fingers or toes or ears and it only took me like an hour to completely dethaw.

pics or it didn't happen?

does it get any better? no

Hmmm what else...oh!! The new kids arrived the same day I came back from Finland so I've been getting to know them/scaring them with information I easily found while stalking them instead of studying/loathing them for not bringing me bagels/loving them because they told me they thought about it so I guess it's the thought that counts, right? I am so quickly transported back into my first couple weeks here and I am able to see more clearly than ever, how much I've adjusted to the French way of life and not just in the superficial "all I drink is wine and eat are baguettes" kind of way. I move at a slower pace--I'm actually late to things! Conversing in French comes almost as easily as conversing in English. Somehow I've ended up with more black and grey sweaters than I can count. I've come to fully embrace the differences between America and France, without resenting most of the things the French do differently (although I still would kill for Culver's and Target. Sue me) I'm sure there's more that's changed about me, but obviously I can't think of all of them/they're probably not even that obvious to me.

Their arrival, coupled with the arrival of the new year and semester, really freaked me out as well. How on earth is it possible that my time here is almost half over? I won't believe it, I can't believe it. I now have two reoccurring nightmares that come up at least twice a week: one, where I'm paying for things with dollars instead of euros and the other where I'm physically trapped in Madison and cannot get out. Oof. Needless to say, I'm thankful that I decided to jump all in and study abroad for a year--sure, I had to miss game days, the many athletic accomplishments of my brother/basically brothers, along with other things, but I got a million new friends and priceless experiences in their place. Culture shock was rough at the beginning, but I can't even begin to imagine what reverse culture shock is like. Maybe I'll just stay here forever so I don't have to experience that.


LAWLZIEZ sorry I'm feeling deep and pensive today. I'm off to Sevilla at the end of the month to see my friend Julia which is the beginning of me actually seeing people I haven't seen since May!!! The semester brought like 425 friends over to me, 417 that are in Rome (literally think it's impossible to know any more people in Rome than I do right now) so the adventures that are on the horizon are unreal. Don't go far!!!

Oh also HUGE shoutout to the Tracy/Messner/Schwabe/Anna Jaye family for the care package that colored my walls and warmed my heart way too much. Yee always WEEEEEE

xoxo,

gossip girl

da holly jolly dayz of Christmas abroad

Okay soooo sorry for the complete void in December blog posts, I had finals (which were quite an interesting experience that we won't go into) and then I was traveling around with little to no time to update this bad boy! Just a warning: this WILL be the longest blog post to date so I hope you're ready for a marathon of adventures and mishaps!!!

Right after finals, I jetsetted off to Vienna, Austria to meet up with my London pal Lindsay HAYO. We both have come to terms that we will not be seeing all these beautiful Europe cities in their prime--it was foggy/misting/34 degrees when we were there BUT it was still possible to entertain ourselves. Literally up the street from our hostel was the Austrian royal "summer home" aka a huge ass palace with a massive garden AND because it was Christmas time, a fantastic Christmas market. Side note--the Christmas markets in Vienna a) all over the place and b) huge and wonderful and christmasy! We stumbled upon like seven of them just by walking. Back to the palace: we had our first encounter with Wiscawnsin tourists! They were sitting next to us on some steps of the palace and talked about a mansion in Oshkosh with "77 rooms and a Christmas tree in each room!" SO Wisconsin--from the accents to the fleeces to the grey hair with reddish/purplish highlights. Winners.

fog 4 dayz

markets 4 dayz

surriously markets 4 dayz 

The two of us also have an affinity for thai food and I'm not kidding you when I say we tried going to three different restaurants just to get our pad thai fix. At the restaurant we finally found that was open, and after trying to sort of interpret German (I know NO German and German is really the weirdest language so that was a challange), we were not disappointed. We even got serenaded by a trio of carolers! They gave us fortune cookies! What more could you want, really?! Don't worry though, we did definitely indulge in Austrian food/beer culture so thai food was a necessary last stop.

hi Linds!!! 

Christmas Eve: french couple invited me to their Christmas celebration and I obviously couldn't turn them down. So I caught a flight from Vienna at 6 AM to Paris to take the train down to Aix, something I could now do in my sleep. However, due to the disgustingly strong wind, my plane had to circle Paris forever, finally landing at the other airport in Paris, Orly. Needless to say, I missed my train (she missed the train!!!!!!!! *clap clap*) and was left stranded without any information on how to actually get to Aix in time for Christmas, so I definitely freaked out a little. Thanks to the nice ladies I found at the information desk, I caught a train from Gare de Lyon. Crisis averted.

The actual celebration of Christmas was unlike anything I've ever been a part of. Dinner on Christmas Eve was at Alex's parents' apartment in Avignon, an hourish drive north of Aix and holymacncheese it was bourgeois and I mean that in the most delicious way possible. The menu consisted of truffle mushroom soup (no words), a lobster per person (okay fine), probably seven bottles of champagne/wine (i can work with that), cheese (duh), foie gras (which I LOVE) chocolate from actually the best chocolate maker in France (he won an award to prove it), and in typical French fashion, a bouche de Noel. I obviously was still stuffed as a turkey when we dug in to the Christmas day feast, which was equally as impressive: poultry, stuffing, a weird meat substance that I can't remember the name of that was still delicious, a lot of bread, more foie gras, and not one but TWO bouches de Noel. Nomz for days. It was truly a magical Christmas and I have no idea where I'd be right now without Alex, Sebastian or their families for making me feel so at home in France :)

You guys still with me? Hope so!!!

With just a day of rest from all the holiday hoopla, I flew off to Helsinki to spend a week with my absolutely wonderful Aunt Karen. She treated me to a short but sweet trip to Lapland, Finland, which is the province of Finland above the Arctic Circle!!!

holla homeslices 

We chose an interesting time to go mainly because there was only about four hours of daylight which is hard for anyone to process. The town we were in reminded me a little of the Dells--you can tell how much they depend on tourism and so that was a little depressing but the nature/skiing holy man did not disappoint at all. It was my first time skiing and it was honestly one of the most peaceful/hard things I've ever done and I loved it, to say the least. I may not know how to slow down, stop without falling, go downhill without falling, or turn most of the time, but cross country skiing has definitely stolen my heart. (Necessary mention goes to my friend Tess whose love for skiing can be rivaled only by my love of Shorewood hehehe miss you!!!).

if you go skiing and don't take a selfie, did it really happen?

how can you not love this

To get to and from Lapland, we opted to take the night train, which was obviously an adventure in itself. The train we were on both ways was, I kid you not, straight out of the 20s with a redecoration in the 60s with orange vinyl sink/mirror included. There were an abundance of Russians and a definite lack of sleep, but there was something a little magical about the night train and for me, a welcome break from planes.

sew modern lawl

OH and in REALLY exciting news, MY FAM IS OFFICIALLY COMING TO FRANCE TO HANG OUT WITH ME!!!!! They'll be here in a short 89 days, for my marathon (so that's in 91 days which is actually terrifying). I couldn't be more excited to see them weeeeeeee.

But for now, I'm ecstatic to be back in Aix, where the sun is always shining and I'm not at risk of losing my toes or my eyes freezing if I walk outside. I do still have two exams to take, so I suppose I should wrap this up and go study.

Until my next adventure,

selfie Lindstrom stlye

Sarah