Vernissage

Yesterday I finalized my spring break plans. I will be spending the first week traveling through Switzerland, Austria, and the Czech Republic by train. Then I'll be flying from Prague to Paris, where I'll meet an army of 16 of my family members. How lucky am I that so many of them are coming to visit!? We're going to spend six days in Paris, then a couple in London. I can't wait for spring break. As much as I love Paris, living in a big city can feel somewhat cramped and chaotic at times, especially when the weather is nice and people are everywhere. It will be nice to get away to the Alps for a week then spend tons of time with my family that I miss so much!

Vernissage

Last night our Paris by Site professor, Katie, invited us to her vernissage, which is the French word for an art gallery opening. She promised us there would be homemade cookies and wine. Free food and alcohol? She sure knows the way to college students' hearts. We decided to go and met tons of interesting people. Almost everyone there were Americans living elsewhere, so it was very interesting learning what brought each person to their current country. We also met Katie's husband, who is Polish but fled Poland to escape communism, grew up in Germany, then moved to America for higher education and is now living in France. He was so cool to talk to, because he had so many stories and is very culturally diverse. We also found out that after three years of looking for a job back in the States, Katie just got hired at Dartmouth. Needless to say, the evening was also a giant celebration.

Me, Chris, and our KFC!

 After a couple of hours of free wine, nothing sounded better than the KFC we found a block away (by the way, KFC is pronounced kah-eff-say here. LOL). We went and got some chicken and it was absolutely fantastic. How is it possible that France can take our fast food and make it taste even better? We then headed back to the vernissage, where we convinced our professors and their spouses that KFC is exactly what they needed. We went back to KFC with them and shared a bucket of fried chicken. That's one of my favorite things about this whole experience abroad- the personal relationships we've made with our professors. How many people at a huge university can say that they ended a Saturday night of wine-drinking over a bucket of KFC at 11pm with their professors? The other day in class, our photography professor set aside time to talk to us about our lives here because he wanted to make sure that we were all adjusting well and not feeling lost. As much as I love U of M, you just don't get relationships with professors like that in Ann Arbor.

Affecteusement,

Katie