Gândeşte Liber!

Ook. So it’s been a while. Sorry. But! I come bearing gifts. Allow me to beg for forgiveness with none other than….pictures!

Though this entry is going to end up being posted at night, I’m actually writing it at 2:15ish, in Word, in my room, (no wireless in the room,) while the pictures load from the card onto the computer. (I borrowed a cord from one of the Korean guys.) Anndd it’s taking a while for the 800 prom/graduation/recital/Romania/crap pictures to load, so I figured I’d just write the entry now.

So there’s kind of been a lot going on, buutt at the same time, you’ve haven’t been missing out on THAT much. I can’t check now, but I think my last entry was maybe a week and a half ago, the angry one. I think I wrote it last Sunday? I’ll just assume that I did. So the beginning of last week was more of the same, classes in the morning, and then on Monday night we had this stupid “seara multiculturala,” where the only people that took the time to make presentations about their countries were Turkey, Spain, and of course, the teachers did something about Romania. Tuesday night there was a “serata muzicala” where 4 musicians came from the Universitatii Nationale de Muzica in Bucuresti to play a little concert. They didn’t play traditional Romanian stuff, I don’t even think they played any Enesco, they just played little things like La Vie En Rose and Over The Rainbow, and some real classical stuff like Tchaikovsky and Dvorak anndd whatever. Me being the pretentious musical prick that I’ve become, thought that they were pretty bad. They sounded like they had never played together. You could tell that individually they were good, but that they had never rehearsed. (And now I don’t feel guilty saying that because I found out later from one of the violin players that they had, in fact, only chosen the pieces and rehearsed a few hours before.) So whatever. On the other hand, they actually took the time to come and play for nothing more than a meal and a free night in a hotel in Sinaia, so I give them major credit for that. But all the people in the program was verrryy impressed and also gave them major credit for actually taking the time to come, so we invited them to come for bowling and drinks with us. (yes. bowling.) And they did, and it was fun. And they actually came with us on our “excursie” the next day, which brings us to Wednesday. On Wednesday we went to Sighisoara, which was cute and all, but kind of a waste of time because it was 3 hours both ways just to see a relatively large old town with a few churches. Not to say that it wasn’t beautiful, or that it’s completely not worth seeing, but it was a big trip and ehhh. Then Thursday was pretty boring, I think I took a nap at some point, (I’ve been taking quite a few of those actually. I think my energy level has dropped to zero because the farthest I walk is down the block to the bar or the school or a store and then I come back here and move back and forth between the lobby and the basement and my room and while I’m not that active at home, I’m ridiculously sedentary here.) and then at night I watched 4 luni, 3 saptamani, si 2 zile. Anndd I’m glad I saw it, since it got the Palme D’Or at Cannes and all, and it was good, but it was better for the picture it painted of live during communism than for the actually plot/story itself. Not to mention that keep the camera set on the dead fetus for a minute and half wasn’t awesome. But hey. Anndd finally, we get to the fun part. Friday we left for Bucarest. I think this actually deserves a new paragraph.

Friday, Carmen and I took the 5:05 train to Bucharest. The trains are Harry Potter style, where there are rooms with 6 seats in them, all facing inward. (Like 3 facing the other 3.) It took about an hour and 40 minutes to get to Bucharest, and I was pretty much asleep the whole way there. The way back, on the other hand, I actually looked outside and it was soo beautiful. Then I found out that better than looking outside, is actually standing up and sticking your head out the window. That was verryy fun. And not as dumb as it sounds. I swear. But anyways, we got to Bucharest, and Smaranda and Alexandra were waiting for us at the train station. We met, we drove back to their house, we brought our stuff upstairs. We got dressed, and we went out to have drinks with 3 friends, a girl named….oof, I can’t remember her name…but her, her boyfriend, and another friend of A and S, Alexandra. (A different Alexandra.) Theenn we went to the club, called Expirat. It was crowded and smoky, and Carmen’s eyes were driving her insane, so she didn’t have much fun, but I danced and had a good time. The girl and her boyfriend didn’t come, but Alexandra did, and I met some other friends of theirs, one of which was Paul, who also came clubbing with us on Saturday. Also, two of the musicians from Sinaia, Gabriel and Alexandru, were there. But we left by maybe…4? Maybe earlier? Because Carmen really wasn’t feeling well. Theenn we went to bed, and woke up the next morning between 1:30 and 2:30. That was glorious. Then we ate lunch at the house, then I think at 6 we finally left (with a friend of theirs, Dana,) to go out shopping. J I bought 2 dresses and a skirt. Woooo. Then we stopped home and changed, and Smaranda went with a friend, Karina, to drop of her brother in godknowswhere, and Alexandra and Carmen and I went to a terrace called Embassy to get drinks. (There was actually a whole fiasco with us going to the wrong place in an effort to meet up with her friends, but whatever.) And Paul was there, as was A&S’s cousin, I think her name was Silvia, Silvia’s boyfriend, Alexandra’s boyfriend Alex, (yup…), umm, and I think 3 other people that I didn’t know. Then we went to meet Smaranda &co at the club. This one was called B52. Andd this one wasn’t as crowded and we all had a lot a lot of fun, anndd ended up going to sleep around 6. BUT. We did not wake up at 2. we woke up at noon!. (gasp.) Because we wanted to make sure that we had time to go, (and for Carmen and I to pay,) for lunch with the girls. We went to this (semi-famous? Maybe?) restaurant called Caru cu Bere, and it was verry good. Then Carmen & I didn’t have enough money and I ended up having to put it on my credit card. (And by my credit card I mean my mother’s so sorry and thank youuu.) And then we walked around in the park for a while to digest the obscene amount of food we had eaten and then we came back to the mountains. It was an eventful weekend. Anndd we didn’t feel bad not doing anything cultural because Carmen went to Bucharest and saw the sights right before she came to Sinaia, and I hypothetically saw them last year. Sooo we were all set to have fun and be idiots instead and it was faabbuloouss.

Yesterday I was exhausted, I went to class, then took a nap while everyone took this optional exam that I decided not to take, (I have a whole rant on why I didn’t take it but I’m trying to actually take a nap sometime in the next couple hours,) and then Carmen, Alida, (yayyy Alida’s back!), this guy named Shakeer, and I went to have pizza for dinner to celebrate Alida’s return. Anndd then Alida and I decided that we wanted to go clubbing even though it was Monday. So under the excuse that I can’t go clubbing in America, and that I only have a week and a half left of vacation, anndd that both of us were very in the mood to dance, we went and bought some drinks before going, (cheaper,) and then went clubbing. But Carmen ended up wimping out, as did Karim, so it was just Alida, Shakeer, and I, and some random 8 other people in the club, buutt we didn’t really care cause we were having fun with each other, and it was actually kind of fun to have that much empty space to dance and yeah. It was cute. Buutt we got home at 4am. At which point Alida apparently got sick, but I was sleeping like a rock next door. She didn’t go to class this morning. (But I did! Props to meeeeee.) And here we are. And now that we have reached this fabulous location, I offer photos.

First I offer you the glorious view from the balcony, the first picture being from my first day here, the second being from Karim’s balcony next door, I think during the weekend between the first and second weeks, right after one of the storms.

I never got to get into the frustration of taking ugly pictures of beautiful things. It’s unbelievably frustrating to feel unable to actually capture how overwhelmingly gorgeous something is. Like the first time I saw that view I thought it was breathtaking, and the pictures seems so wimpy. Gyah.

Also, to throw in some people, I give you Karim, in Sighisoara, with Clement from Belgium on the left:

2 pictures of Carmen and I, first before (or maybe after?) we went out in Bucharest on Saturday night, the second at Caru Cu Bere.

Then 2 of us four girls, first on the street on the way to Caru Cu Bere, then during the meal.


Now a picture from the train. The views from the train was beautiful. Huggee fields that make you realize how big the sky is, if that makes any sense. Just endless fields with occasional houses in the distance and this unbelievable amount cloudless blue above them. This pic (which I like a lot for some reason) has a tree, (wowww a tree) and a trillion million sunflowers. I remember when we were driving to Sinaia I was completely blown away by the number of sunflowers and how gorgeous and alive they were. By this trip they were actually kind of dying, and I'm not sure why that is. Probably because it's been so hot. But they were unbelievable all the same. There were so many!

Another pic of the balcony, with Carmen overlooking it. (I just like the pic.)

And finally, I throw in this picture where I look like a total asshole and no one is paying attention to the camera, just so that you can snag a look at Frans from the Netherlands, the nicest sweetest man you’ll ever meet:

(he's in the middle, karim on the left, obnoxious girl on the right)

Oh yeah. and for paternal viewing pleasure: a picture of me with the grandparents in Bucharest. I look horrendous. But it's far away, so I figure maybe you'll like it anyway.

Enjoy.

I miss you all like mad.

I’m actually quite homesick.

And am slowly easing into my “fuck I’m only going to have 4 days” panic attacks. Other than that though, I’ve been relatively relaxed, if I dare say that I may have learned the definition of the word.

Oh, and I’m getting really fat. A week of only bread eating for my stomach + maybe possibly some beer drinking (maybe. just a little.) + bad hotel food so we eat out = try not to look so shocked when I get home.

Lovelovelove <3

ps. I didn't actually reread the majority of this entry before posting it at night. Hopefully I was coherent 6 hours ago. Apologies if not.

pps. I might as well throw in a description of today to spare my having to do it later. (though it really was not eventful at all.) As I said before, I actually did wake up and go to class, which was relatively miraculous. Then I came home, wrote this while loading the pictures, then took a nap. Then I showered, went for a walk with Carmen and Alida to a church nearby, (which turned out to be quite beautiful, I'd throw in a pic of that too but I haven't loaded today's yet, and I gave the device back to the Korean guys), then ate dinner, anndd now I'm back on the computer actually posting the pics and checking my mail and crap. And then I think Alida, Carmen, and I are going to go onto the hotel terrace restaurant thing to have a chocolate fondue, (fruit and melted chocolate mmmmmmm) and then I'll likely go to bed? Karim and Frans went to the casino, and some other people went clubbing since tomorrow there's the excursion to the vineyard and no one will actually need to use their minds, but I'm pretty tired, and I want to do either part or all of my homework tonight so I don't have to deal with it tomorrow.

Annnd here we are again.
Have a good day all. After that sleep well.
I miss you dearly.

Ehh, as a goodbye I throw in two last Bucharest pictures, the first a (very.) [sorry.] drunken picture of Smaranda & I, and thefour of us in the park before we left for the station:


<3

intelege?

excuse my rudeness.
but.
my blog is a privilege. not a right.
and i know that sounds horrible, but i wrote when i started that my posts probably wouldn't remain novel-length, and now people think that if i don't write for a day, it's either a. because i hate you or b. because i'm deathly ill. but honestly, it is as tiring to describe every single little thing that i saw/did/said/wore/ate on this as it is to do so on the phone, and i'm tired, and i'm have homework, and crap, and now on top of that i'm sick, and during the day, when i'm in class and bored, i think of all the things i'm going to write on this blog, but right after class we have lunch, and right after that we usually have an event that we're expected to attend, and right after that we have dinner, and that brings us to 8pm. That's when I start the homework, maybe, MAYBE, have a coffee with people, (but usually only in the context of our lobby-homework-parties,) and then call one of you or talk online or check my email. Soo I'm sleepy. And I'm really not doing all that much.

Snippits about everything:

I have class every day. The classes aren't that hard for me. There are only 5 people in my class. A couple people say that they don't understand everything they hear and read, whereas I usually do. But I really can't speak at all, still, and my writing is pitiful at best. (Hence the fact that the homework takes me foreverforever.) So the class as a whole averages out to a pretty good level for me.

The trip to bran/brasov was good. It rained at brasov. But I really wanted to find these tea kettles that I thought were super cool, (even though they weren't really THAT special,) and I did. So I was glad. The castle at bran was beautiful, but more for the views from the castle windows than for the castle itself. When we arrived at brasov, we went to a restaurant that had long tables set out for us, already set. The appetizer that was on the table was all beautiful, with a tomato stuffed with vinete, and some cheese, and cute stuff like that. Then soup, main course, dessert. During the meal there were all these dancers dressed up in traditional Romanian clothing dancing traditional dances from Brasov and it was crazy and ridiculous and awesome and actually quite impressive. And when they weren't dancers, there was a singer singing along with the live band. (Band was also dressed in Romanian garb.)

My friend Alida left, which makes me really sad because she was honestly so so so sweet. Her father lives in Romania, in Craiova, with her grandfather, and her grandfather was sick for a while, but has recently become more ill, so she left to go be with him.

And last but not least, today i went to the hospital. That was eventful. Alexandra, Oana's older daughter, took me in the morning. (I didn't go to class.) It's so funny, because the hospital signs are blue, with a big white H on them, like in america, and then underneath it says "Spital." Now...why would the signs here have an H on them if the romanian word for hospital starts with an S? Anyway, so I went because my stomach has been totally out of wack for the last couple days, starting with Thursday I guess. And most of the time it wasn't constant, but would be like (what I imagine) contractions are like? I dunno, every 5/10 minutes my abdomen/stomach would just tighten up like mad and it was rather painful and pretty unpleasant. And then last night I thought to check if I had a fever, and I kinda did, (100.1. eh.) and so I went to ask Oana if if I was still sick in the morning, if I could go late to class, or miss it altogether. (This was equally because I felt like shit and because I hadn't yet done my 150 word tema and really didn't want to.) Anyway, she said that because of the fever and because it had been for a couple days straight she really wanted me to go to the doctor. I knew that the fever would be gone in the morning, but I agreed and this morning, we went. The hospital was pretty funny actually. We walked to where the hospital used to be, only to find out that it had moved, and so we took a cab to the hospital. Then were 2 slightly more urgent emergencies, so they went first, and then the doctor saw me. He asked me some questions, Alexandra translated everything, (though I did understand what he was saying,) and then he gave me 3 medications for my stomach. Then he told me to go into the hallway and sit. Sooo I did. And he or the nurse would come by every 8 minutes or so to ask if I was better, and I would say that I wouldn't, and they would say "ok, sit a little longer." That went on for a good half an hour or more, and then my head started to hurt, so next time he asked if my stomach was better, i said no, but that my head was hurting. sooo he gave me something for my head. And then, all drugged up, I was told to sit. So I did that for another 15 minutes and finally i told Alexandra that we might as well just peace out cause this was stupid. So i got a prescription, which Alexandra filled for me a little later, and we left. I slept for maybe half an hour when i got back, and my stomach felt slightly better, but it's kind of moved from the bitchy contractions to just constant icky-ness. (for any friends that are reading this, i'm truly sorry to talk so long about the intricacies of my illness. for you it is too much, but for my family members it is significantly too little. best middle ground i can do.) So Oana and family are on crazy food-watch for me, and for lunch and dinner, Oana asked them to make me rice+grilled chicken, and pasta, respectively, which was super nice of her. And I've been drinking mint tea. Which I dislike, but I've been told it's the only type of tea i'm allowed to drink. The whole family is extremely sweet and nice and funny and wonderful.

Anndd now my nose is running like mad and that just started and i hopehopehope that i'm not getting a cold cause that would really suck.

Today we visited the castle at peles. Being the lazy-sick-bum that I am, Smaranda, Alexandra, Carmen, and I split a cab to the castle. (everyone else walked. ~45 min walk.) The castle was absolutely beautiful, inside and out.

Now i'm gonna go, because despite the fact that I want to talk about how i hate taking ugly pictures of beautiful things, and I want to talk about how my balcony could redeem everything bad on the trip, and about the awkwardness of asking a guy where his wife was staying, and being told he was married to a man, and about the fact that this same guy actually fainted briefly today, and more about living with carmen, and about buying a pencil and it not coming with any lead in it, and about alllll this random crap.....well despite my desire to talk about all that, i'm tired. and i want to go upstairs and take a shower. and i want to go to bed (relatively) early because i think it'll make me feel better, andd yeah.


i love you all a LOT and i'm sorry that i'm not in contact as much as you'd all like, but it's not cause i don't want to talk to you, just because I'm lame and boring and tired. butt i miss you all a lot. and will trytrytry to write something of substance soon.

night

rush hour

today i realized that the title is incorrect.
that was sad.

there was a trip to bran. and brasov. there was a restaurant with vinete in tomatos and dancing Romanians in traditional garb. that was entertaining. i, on the other hand, just finished homework and are not entertained and had planned quite the epic blog post but have no energy to write it. (again.) but i PROMISE i will go back to being scarsdale's primary source of entertainment very very soon. promise. swear.

-lovelovelove-

lull

tired.
wake up, breakfast, class (not too hard, rather easy, should be fine), conference, (big important woman, barely understood anything, was falling asleep, oops,) nap, movie, (eh,) dinner, homework (ew,) chill, sleep!

measuring cups

i knew the laziness would come.
bulletpoints again.
hopefully the motivation will come again as well.

• slept til 1 :)
• lunch at 2
• pool!
• we had to pay 30 lei to use the hotel pool. (=$15. per day!) BUT. it was nice. the top was windows, and all the walls were painted greek style, with painted leaves hanging down from the lamps, and columns painted, and scenery painted on the sides. There was also a jacuzzi, a sauna, and a hamam. I've never been in one of those before. It was HOT so Alida and I only made it about a minute and a half, but it's basically a steam room. Hot steam rises up into a closed tiled room. It was nice. Alida described one near her home in Montpelier that she loves a lot. Anyway, so we swam, read a little by the pool, jacuzzi-ed, etc. It was fun. And it killed about 2.5 hours.
• Shower. Carmen returns from trip to Bucharest that I didn't find out about til she returned. (She just wasn't there when I got back at 4am. Unexpected. But she's quite nice. We haven't spoken much, but we're definitely respectful of each other in the room, and so far she's very easy to live with, (though admittedly i haven't seen her very much,) and hopefully she'll start coming out with us a little more often. We'll see.
  
• There was supposed to be a "cultural Romanian night." I believe it was supposed to consist of a video/presentation sort of thing and a typical Romanian dinner. There were problems with the laptop that the presentation was on, so we ended up just having the dinner. Oana said hi to make sure that everything is ok. She's being very very nice.
  
• Went out with Alida, Franz, (oh yeah. France's name is Franz. But he really does say it like France.) and this German guy who's name I don't know to get ice cream and coffee.
• We came home pretty early because we have to wake up super early tomorrow. (classes are beginning. eek. i'm actually really nervous. i have yet to get over my romanian shame and even the friends i've made here and just told me to suck it up and speak. and actually, i think there are more beginners that are worse than me than there are advanced speakers that are far better than me. But of course, the group of people I've befriended are either high intermediate or advanced. And so i'm intimidated! but my friends have inisisted that starting tomorrow we're going to speak Romanian between us. That's interesting, because they can say almost everything, if not everything that they need to say, in Romanian. I, on the other hand, most definitely cannot. So we'll see how that goes. I'm kind of annoying. Because I want it to get easier. But it has to get hard before it gets easy and I try so hard to avoid being at all embarrassed or ashamed. And without those, I'll just never speak. (And without speaking, I'll never learn.) So I do understand the detrimental nature of my retarded ashamed mindset. Especially in this setting where we're all here to learn the language. But we're only 3 days in. So I've got 3 weeks to make it happen.
• And on that note. wtf? I'm only 3 days in? I feel like I've been here forever. Jesus.

So my bulletpointed entry ended up looking a lot like a regular entry with some random dots in it. But so be it.

I'm gonna go to bed soon. I'm definitely in need of some sleep. (Am I ever not?)

-love you all. miss you all. sorry if i'm edgy on the phone. as dad pointed out to me, i need to get out of my new york mindset. stress and craziness and ten-things-at-one don't work here. things are just calm. dare i say, relaxed. I, on the other hand, don't really know the definitions of those words or how to apply them to my brain or life. but again. i'm a few days in. a lot more to go. we'll see...

nightnight.

let's twist again

it is 4am.
i am tired.
i shall bulletpoint the day, and hopefully will be awake and motivated enough tomorrow to provide elaborations.

• carmen arrived this morning at 9:30am, complete with boyfriend
• when he was there it was awkward, but all 3 of us were rarely in the same room at the same time. he also did his laundry in our sink. that was pretty awkward too. as was his lying shirtless on her bed. she seems nice though. but we haven't spoken much.
  
• Had an intro meeting with Oana, the director of the University, a Romanian teacher from a Korean University, and a professor. They spoke a bunch. There was some lecturing. Honestly, I was kinda falling alsleep.
  
• Took a one-hour nap
  
• took the romanian placement test. that was brutal. i've never written before and the whole thing was writing. THAT was exciting to see. it was like physics all over again.
• i got put in the 3rd level out of 4. I don't know how I feel about that. The 2 people I know in the level before me are a little worse than me, but the 2 people I know in the same level are much better. so i'm either gonna work my ass off and try to rid myself of my shame, or take it slightly easy but hopefully get my fundamentals well? i'm going to talk to oana tomorrow. i'm sure she knows what she's doing though. she definitely knows my level, and she knows the other students' levels, and we have a day or two to change. so whatever.
  
• Went out for a drink with Christian, (Austrian guy who's been living in Romania for 2 years) and Karim, to recover from painful placement test, though both of them are far better than me, soo it was more me who was doing the coping
  
• Ate dinner
  
• Got ready & went out.
• Drinks at a cafe, maybe 11 of us. It was cold, but we sat outside anyway. Then dancinngg at a club. Lots of money down the drain. But cheaper than NY. And good exchange rate. Can't complain.

Shower + Sleep time

Miss. Love. Gnight!

redemption song

ok well i have to redeem the unhappiness of this afternoon's post with a happy summary of the evening. mom: again, sorry about the phone. you're not getting the best end of me today. :( sorry.

so after the blog entry I took a short nap, went for a walk, and read a little, and spoke to my mom on the phone. Then I called Oana to ask if I could go over and give her the gifts. And I did. And then I asked her when/where dinner was, and she said that we would go downstairs and she could show me, and then asked if I had met the spanish girl. I told her no, and that I didn't think she had arrived. She told me that she must have arrived, because she (Oana) had called my room looking for me, (probably while I was out taking the walk,) and that this girl, Carmen, had picked up the phone. Then she asked quizzically if I hadn't noticed any luggage in the room? Now I'm usually a pretty perceptive person, so surprised myself, I told her no. So before we went downstairs, I stopped by my room to get my bag and looked if I had somehow missed a big suitcase sitting in the room. But there was no luggage in the room. So I said that to Oana when I came back out, and so the two of us went to the lobby and asked if this girl had requested to change rooms or something. But the woman at the desk just said that she had arrived, that they had put her in my room, and that they had told her that she had a roommate, and that was all. Soo that was particularly curious. BUT this is when the story gets good. So these 2 girls that i know are part of the program are standing there putting their passports and stuff in the hotel safe. (PS. mom/dad: should i do that? and if so, should i also put $$?) Anndd I had heard them say that they were in room 519. (I'm in 520.) It appears that only one of them speaks Romanian well, so between them they speak English. Annywayy, so I go up to the one in Romanian, and ask, in hesitant/shitty Romanian, if they're in room 519, and tell them that I'm in 520. I only did that because when Oana had showed me the restaurant area where we were eating, it was completely empty, annnddd i really wanted eating buddies. Annndd I had successfully found some! So that was good. One girl, Alida, was from France, and the other, Dalia, was from Turkey. And the 3 of us ate together. And Dalia had met 2 other people from Turkey, that were sitting at another people, and so the 2 people from Turkey came over when they were finished to tell us that they were going out for drinks, and asked us if we wanted to come. Soooo we went. And it was the 2 turkish guys, two girls from greece, this guy karim from luxembourg, (he was the one in the van with me, who's been learning since March,) the two girls I ate with, (Alida and Dalia,) this guy from the Netherlands named France. (ironic as that sounds, i'm quite sure that's right.) And that was actually quite fun. It was mellow, and the conversation wasn't really exciting, but it was cool, because I was mainly talking with France, Karim, and Alida, (that sounds weird..), and they all speak French, and speak Romanian pretty well, and speak English pretty well. (I'm inferior to everyone in French, probably to everyone in Romanian, but perhaps not to France, and well...at least I'm winning in English....but they speak English well too!) I'm really outdone with the languages. But anyway, so all 3 languages were getting thrown around, having one conversation in French and another in Romanian, then a few in English, and there was usually a da thrown around in the French conversation, and a yes in the Romanian, and it was really cool. Though I was still really intimidated and said like 2 words in french, and very little in Romanian. I know I shouldn't be intimidated, and that they're just students like me, but they're so superior at all the languages! it's insane! and here i come, flouncing along with my ridiculous american accent, i just feel a bit like a joke. I know I should get over it. I'm trying. But it's hard. Shameless-ness doesn't come very easily.

BUT the night overall was fun. And hearing all the difference languages was pretty awesome. Very L'auberge Espagnol - esque. And at the very least, I'm thrilled to have breakfast buddies for tomorrow morning, and hopefully meal buddies from now on. On the other hand, this was only like 11 people, and I'm curious as to what the other 20 are up to?

Oh! So. We came home from dinner, and I carefully walked into the room wondering whether or not I was going to find this supposed Spanish roommate. But alas! She was not there. So I gave Oana a call to let her know, and she was like, "well i can't do anything at this point," and I was trying to tell her that I didn't want, let alone expect, her to do anything, I just thought I had some kind of obligation to let her know that one of the students was missing. So I get a room to myself tonight. :) Oana said that maybe she knew someone in the area and was staying with them, but I'm hoping that she knew someone in the hotel and is staying with them, and that i'll get a single room without the extra money. But I probably just jinxed it by saying that. But whatever, at least I get to sleep and shower in peace for one more night. wooooo.

So today redeemed itself. I'm still kind of homesick. Which as my mother pointed out, is weird. I went to france for the past 2 summers and have gone away for extended time before, and wasn't homesick at all. I think it has to do with the fact that this is more foreign, (can a country be more foreign?) or that I just don't know how to say anything or do anything or talk to anyone, etc. But I suppose things will be alright.

hope I didn't leave anything out. email me pleeasseeee. lotsalove.