So I've been meaning to update this for a really long time now. Time seems to fly by when I'm having fun – and even when I'm not. I'm sure this will be my last journal entry in this blog. I want to wrap it up with some thoughts and reflections regarding the life I had in France. If I'm ever so lucky to have another opportunity like that, I'll just start up another blog. ;)

I returned from France in May. With approx. 140 lbs, in luggage and not a soul daring to glance my way, getting to the airport was quite the experience. And when I did get to the airport, there ended up being some bomb scare so a police officer told us to leave the hallway that I was in as quickly as possible. Once again, with people staring on – watching a girl carry more luggage than what she weighs, I was on the move to my terminal.

The flight didn't seem to last too long. Before I knew it, I was hovering over Detroit and that stupid sense of patriotism rose within me. I was really happy to be home – good ol' US soil. I went to the baggage claim and through customs – with people saying hello to me and giving me a nod of the head when eye contact was made. It's a small thing, but I rarely had it in 8 months, and oh it was so good to be home.

After waiting in Detroit for my connecting flight to Cbus, my Dad met me at the airport and dropped me off at my mom's so that I could do what I had been waiting so long to do – see my Shadow. And then there she was. Grayer than I had remembered, and more passive than I had expected at seeing her mother. It was a great feeling to be home.

3 weeks after returning from France I got an email from an instructor at a University in Reims, and the next day I got a letter from a high school near the one where I was placed before. Both wanted to know if I'd be interested in an assistantship position. As flattered as I was, I had just gotten home, and was in no mood to go anywhere. I respectfully declined the offers – but maybe one day… ;)

The summer months progressed the same – job searching, job searching, and more job searching. I started getting a little pissed that I was offered not one but TWO jobs in France, and no employer in my own damn country would hire me. (Have no fear…as of September I found a job at NetJets, Inc. (an International company, I should add) ;)

So now I'm working again. Why didn't someone remind me exactly all that joining the workforce again entailed…?!?! ;)

When I was a Freshman in college I was hanging out with a girl from my class who was 30. She had a habit of saying a lot of stupid things, so when she told me that "25 was a good year for me. When you turn 25, it'll be a great year…." I didn't exactly put a lot of weight to it. I smile now thinking about that because she was absolutely right. I had the most amazing experience of my life. I lived, I loved, I went, I saw, I conquered. The stories, the memories, the people I met along the way, and the things I learned, will forever be with me. I feel so fortunate to have done something that many only speak about and never get to do. I did it…and I lived up every single moment.

The only unfortunate thing about it is that I don't know if I can stop. The wanderlust can of worms has been opened, and I'm fairly certain that it can never be closed. Every day I think about something that happened when I was teaching or living in France , or on one of my many vacations. I miss it. I miss it dearly. I try to see any movie I can that is set in Paris (or any of the many other European cities that I adore). I spend hours in the bookstore flipping through and reading travel essays or looking at picture books and smiling to myself because I can say that I was there.

We'll see what life has in store, but I'm pretty sure there'll be another blog to write.

Thanks for reading...it's been more than a blast!

this will be my last entry from europe. i cant believe that i am going home tomorrow. in many MANY ways i am ready to go home, but in many ways i am sad, too.

Ugh. Berlin is ugly...and big...i dont really like it.

i got here on wednesday early afternoon and took a "berlin walks" tour. usually that is not something i would be interested in at all, but 5 countries and umpteen cities later, i'm freakin' tired of 'getting my bearings'. plus, as i am too interested in all things WWII and nazi (thank god i'm a minority or else i would certainly be on someone's neo-nazi watchlist), berlin is definitely history-rich in that sense. anywho, the tour was really great. we saw hitler's old bunker, the site of the ss and gestapo HQ, the holocaust memorial, the berlin wall...and all kinds of other cool historical things. like i said, i'm not really a fan of berlin itself as a city, but the history here is just amazing!

the following day i visited a TON of museums - checkpoint charlie (about the berlin wall), the WWII german resistance museum , the topography oof terror (outlining the nuremberg trials and other exhibits), and the german historical museum. my brain seriously hurts from all of the information that i have taken in the past two days. after that i went and visited the reichstag building and saw the view of the city - ugly).

i also hqd the chance to visit the nearby city of potsdam. that was a nice treat. it is a beautiful city! i went there to go see sanssouci palace, but opted instead to tour schloss cecilienhoff (i think i spelled that wrong but i dont really care). this is where the potsdam conference with "the big 3" occurred. im glad i did this palace because it was really beautiful. it's just an old cottage in the middle of a huge park/forest. then i walked around potsdam a bit more and headed back to berlin.

anyway, as i've done WAY too much in the past few days, and as i dont like it here that much, i have opted to spend my last days in someplace i DO like... so i'm flying back to italy! ha! plane leaves soon... gotta run...

the trip started out good...got here late on sunday night, got to the hostel, and discovered that i was in a 4-bed dorm and that no one else would be in there for my entire stay. so for 20 euros per night, i had hotel-like accomodations. rockin'!!

and the trip hasnt let me down since...

i was asked last week what the most beautiful city that i had visited in europe was. i wasnt sure of my answer. maybe because i prefer "gritty" to "pretty". but prague is definitely the prettiest. cobblestone streets, the charles bridge and its statues, the castle and cathedral on top of the hill...oh, it's so cute! i usually average 30 pictures or so per day, but i ended up taking 70 the first day i was here.

there isnt really much to do in prague, per se. it's just a great walking town. you just walk and see what you run into. i spent my first morning wandering around the old town, and then i headed across the bridge to the other side to check out the castle (great views of the city from there). then i walked around the mala strana district underneath the castle, and then went back to the old town. i walked yesterday from about 10-10...it was ridiculous how much i saw.

today i checked out the jewish quarter and explored some other areas in the old town. having pretty much seen everything that i wanted to yesterday, i was just wandering today.

as much as i like the city, i am going to head out earlier than planned. tomorrow morning i am going to head to berlin. i've seen everything i wanted to see, and there are a lot of things on the list for berlin.

andiamo...

munich! how i love it here!! i just get a really cool vibe from the city and its inhabitants. bicycles and drunken chanting by german football fans rule here, and i am totally loving it!! i mean, where else can you find people surfing in a river? it´s just too cool...

man, this is a great city!! but i will start from the beginning...

friday i went down to fussen, which is 2 hours south of munich, and also the end to the romantic road. this cute little town is the base for exploring the castes of king ludwig - in which disney got it´s inspiration. i went to both castles, and spent some time in the city, and then came back to munich to wander around and check things out.

saturday i went on a ´third reich´ walking tour. as a lover of wwii history, i thought it was so cool to see places in person that i had seen in photographs. after that i was just walking around the city and ran into a cool canadian girl ;) (hey yvonne!), and we chilled out and walked around the city for the rest of the day - seeing more sights than i feel like mentioning. i covered the city, and then some...we´ll just make it easy here.

this morning i went to dachau. it was incredible to see and a harrowing experience, but personally i got more choked up at the anne frank house in amsterdam. not sure why...

and today i´m just chillin´. since it is sunday everything is closed. i did visit the stadthaus museum...but unfortunately i didnt make time for the deutschesmuseum - which gives me an excuse to come back. ;)

out of all of the places that i have visited, i would say this is the only place that i would have liked more time. not necessarily just in munich, but around the area (throughout bavaria). i would say this is city #4 on the list - behind paris, rome, and istanbul. i had a great time here...

now i´m off to prague...

so i decided to come to salzburg for the day since it is on the way to munich. i am really glad that i did, too. first, the train ride from vienna comes in at #3 on the list - behind the ride through tuscany, and from paris to nice. second, it is SO pretty here. first off, the weather finally decided to cooperate, so that makes me happy. second, the city on its own is just fabulous!! very very cute. this is the city where mozart was born, and where "the sound of music" movie got its inspiration. (i havent told anyone here that i have never seen the movie).

so i have just been walking around the city and enjoying the nice sights. i went into a mozart museum and his house...ducked into a few churches...climbed up to a fortress...and went into the panorama museum - which is one of my fav museums. it has drawings of cities around the world as they looked in 1900. super cool stuff!

i have a few hours to kill before the train to munich, so i am just going to lolly-gag around and enjoy being a tourist on a non-hectic pace for once.

So i've been here for two days and i am pretty much finished sightseeing. first off, the weather is terrible. it has rained non-stop today and is windy and cold. yesterday it was the same except there were breaks in the rain. blech!

i have busted out a lot of sightseeing, though. before i go to a city i always make my list of things that i want to see and visit. i had a ton of things for vienna, but once i got here, i knocked them all out pretty quickly. the thing is, is that after you have been to umpteen countries, you just dont want to spend any more money to tour the parliament (been there, done that), or pay 5 euros for a church, or 10 bucks for a museum with paintings of jesus on the cross (i have REALLY been there done THAT). so i've just kinda been taking it easy and getting really wet in the process.

i've visited st stephen's church (which is probably one of the coolest interiors of any church i've seen), saw the parliament building, took a tour of the opera house, visited the belvedere and schonnbrun palaces, saw the lipizzaner horses, and went to hundertwasser's museum (he's like a lesser-known Gaudi - who i really like), and the danube tower. and per usual, i have spent a ridiculous amount of time on the main shopping street - karntnerstrasse. it always amazes me that i spend so much time on the main shopping drags in all of the cities i go to - i dont do any shopping, so i really have no business being there. i just like being around people (imagine that) and seeing the sights.

so tomorrow i am going to stay here for a bit and then go to salzburg, i think - or maybe i will go to bratislava, slovakia for the day - who knows? i havent decided. then i am going to go to munich. we're wrapping up the europe tour...it's getting exciting!!

so this is my third and final day in budapest. i flew in on saturday afternoon, and have been taking it fairly easy. budapest is a nice walking town and there isnt an overload of things to do, so it's been quite nice.

when i got here on saturday i just spent some time walking around the Pest side of the city. walked to the city park and saw the millennium memorial and the vajdahunyad castle. checked out the opera house, and visited the st. stephen's basilica. walked up the river to the parliament, and then i walked down the vaci utca (budapest's champs-elysees), and went back to the hostel when the weather started getting icky.

on sunday i was on the Buda side the whole day. i started on castle hill - where there's the fisherman's bastion, st matyas church, and buda palace. then i went on ridiculous walk to the citadel - which at least has great views of the city, so the time and energy spent wasnt totally wasted. and there is also a really cool church nearby that is located in a cave. finished the day at the terror house museum - which recalls the time of nazi and soviet times in budapest. it was pretty cool.

today i got up early and got tickets to tour the parliament. then i went to the synagogue and visited the jewish museum. took another stroll down vaci utca and ate at a restaurant that doesnt take credit cards, but does take other currencies. (hmmm...). now i'm back at the hostel to pick up my stuff and head off in a few to catch the train to vienna - where i am staying for 3 days...

so i spent this week in paris with a former client that came to visit. it has been nice, but crazy.

i got home on saturday from italy at 10pm and her train pulled in at 11. so from then on i was pretty much a non-stop tourguide for paris. we had a really nice time together, and i actually did some things that i hadnt done yet - the sewer tour (almost gagged a few times), and the louvre (saw the mona lisa, and probably a lot of other important things that i have no clue what they are). :)

what else? ummm...we had another scare with shadow and i was so close to coming home on thursday, but it looks like the medicine that was making her sick is filtering out of her system, so she is ok. so once again, i'll be home in 17 days - on the 21st.

off to budapest tomorrow morning...cant wait!!!

i think that in an earlier entry i posted some rules. here is another:

- dont go out with american girls that are wearing short skirts and spaghetti-string tank tops. you will hear cat calls such as: 'ass ass very nice', and 'yeah, mama!'. i guess being a lazy, jeans and tshirt girl isnt such a bad thing afterall.

in real life (aka. when i am in the US) i really like spaghetti. and i feel like i am just a 'plain jane' when i go to a restaurant and order spaghetti all the time. but here, i swear that the only things on the menu are pizza and spaghetti...and gelato, of course. so i have really emjoyed being 'plain', yet like the locals, in this country. and my stomach is happy too.

my friend spent 47 euros to fill up her gas tank. her car is about the same size as a honda civic hatchback. i am still working on the conversions from km - miles, and gallons to liters, so that i can figure out if that is just as outrageous as it sounds.

when i eat salad i like to put italian dressing on the salad. in italy, they dont have italian dressing. they have olive oil, and that's it. quite the abomination, i would say.

the italians eat their pizza with their hands vs. the french who eat it with their knife and fork. hooray for the italians! gotta love the "unrefined"

speaking of them...french people are really crazy. i should know that since i have lived with them the past 7 months, but sometimes they never cease to amaze me. so i was waiting with 3 other people for a table at a restaurant. there was a large group of women paying their bill, and the waiter comes over to the 4 of us to explain that when they finish eating he will separate the tables and both parties can sit down. in the States i would probably be mad - but this is europe, and you just get used to not rushing people out of restaurants like we do back home. so... this group of people continues to chit-chat after paying the bill. the french people waiting with me were just incredulous as to how they could continue to take up the tables like they. they started stomping around and making noises trying to get the group's attention. they just kept saying 'cest pas vrai' ('it's not true', or in this case, 'it cant be!'). i sat there incredulous as to how this impatient american could sit there and be fine with things, and how these frenchies - who *invented* long dinners and indifference towards other potential clients - were so pissed. how dumb.

i leave tomorrow for paris. which means just 23 days until i come home! hooray!