Summer Vacation/France, Part 1
Sooo, school got out May 5. From there, I stayed with my friend Jenna all the way over in New Jersey for 10 days. Within those 10 days, we went to the city. While in the city, we spent a little bit on Canal St. where one of Jenna's friends, Cecil, scored me a sweet Chanel bag for $35. It was freaking amazing and I have decided that I'm never going to Canal St. unless Cecil is with me. After that, I saw my first Broadway play, The Wedding Singer. Yes, they made that movie into a Broadway show. And do you know who stars in it? Effing Stephen Lynch. If you don't know him, I highly recommend that you check this guy out. After the show, we hung around the stage entrance until some of the stars came out. I really wanted to get both Robbie and Julia to sign it, but I never saw the lady that played her come out. Unless she was the one that ran away from the crowd. So, I met Stephen Lynch again and got him to sign my little booklet thingee. We then proceeded to Carmine's (amazing and expensive Italian restaurant) over on 90th. We started walking from 45th. Had our reservations been later, we would have walked the entire 45 blocks, but we were late and ended up only walking 15ish of those 45 blocks. Hailed a taxi and were on our way. It was only until later that night when we went home that I found out there was a Carmine's over in the theater district on 44th. So...we went 45 blocks to a restaurant that was also one block away. That was all Cecil's doing. She practically lives in the city so we all put our trust in her. Bad move. Oh well, what's done is done. Later on in the week, Jenna and I went to Six Flags. It was Mother's Day, so there was no one there. None of the lines were longer than 30 minutes which led to an amazing day. Unfortunately, Kingda Ka was closed. It's the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world. Everytime I looked at it, I shat myself. Maybe it was a good thing that it wasn't open. All in all, Six Flags was great, along with my 10-day stay in Jersey.
Monday morning, it was off to UPS to ship stuff home and then to JFK. Got to JFK around 1-1:30, the flight wasn't until 7pm and the group didn't really have to meet until 4. While it sucked being alone, it will probably end up being the last time having time to myself until I get home. Just so you know, that flight was killer. Only ended up getting about 3 hours of sleep, and to combat jet lag, we were supposed to stay up the entire day when we got to France, which was at 9am. We were welcomed with a 7 hour flight to Paris and a 4 hour bus ride to Dijon. What a great first day, right? I ended up conking out at about 9:30 and waking up in the middle of the night and staying up for a couple of hours. We had a tour the next day that started at 9, so that was no good. I made it, but I was practically dead and I had to shoot stuff for our documentary that morning. We took a tour of the school that's sponsoring our trip then a tour of Dijon. I pawned off the camera to the guy that was shooting in the afternoon during the city tour. I was taking pictures like any normal tourist...and then my battery decided to run out of juice. It doesn't take normal batteries, it has one of its own. To make matters worse, I don't have one of those fun little power converters. YAAAAAY. Hopefully I'll be able to find one before we go to Paris, otherwise I'll be stealling everyone else's pictures off of Facebook :) After the tours and such, we all decided to go out to the club. It was kind of depressing because we were practically the only people in there and I ended up dropping about 20 euros on drinks. Honestly, that isn't that much, but it was a lot more than I was planning on spending. The bartender was giving free shots to all the ladies, and it was good. I was quite drunk by the end of the evening, but I was by no means the worst. It was a fun night. We ended up getting back to the hotel around 1am, knowing that we had to meet at 8:30 the next morning. It was great. I ended up passing out as soon as I hit the bed, but I also woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to normal sleep. Woke up in the morning, did our lecture thing, had a break, a tour of a radio station, and then cooking class. We made this chicken dish with puff pastries. It was AMAZING. We teamed up in groups of 2 and ate our own dishes. Our sauce had a little too much mustard, but it was still reeeeeeeally good. They served us wine, which I found out I don't like as much as I thought. We each got a recipe to take home and got to keep our aprons and tea towels (covered in chicken guts) as a souvenir. That was seriously the best thing ever. You have no idea how happy I was when we got to keep those things. After that, the chaperones of the trip told us they were going out that night to the club and would enjoy the group to come out with them. We were very discreet as we walked down the street at 10:30 in a giant group of 22 people. We didn't look touristy at all. And we were not the stereotypical loud Americans. We drank, we dance, and half of us left early in pursuit of food. Those of us that left early missed a dance-off between one of the chaperones and one of the students. Apparently the chaperone did the worm and won. That would have been so awesome to see. Those who stayed got back to the rooms around 1:30. Those that left the club walked around for half an hour looking for kebobs. We found the little store, ordered, then went to the theater steps across the street and told stories and talked about how to not look too touristy and stupid. We ended up getting back to our rooms at 1. We all knew that there was a lecture at 9am the next morning. I don't know how much sleep I've gotten in the past few days, but it certainly isn't enough and I haven't completely gotten over my jet lag. But it's ok because we're all having a blast. And that, my friends, is my France trip in a nutshell.
Monday morning, it was off to UPS to ship stuff home and then to JFK. Got to JFK around 1-1:30, the flight wasn't until 7pm and the group didn't really have to meet until 4. While it sucked being alone, it will probably end up being the last time having time to myself until I get home. Just so you know, that flight was killer. Only ended up getting about 3 hours of sleep, and to combat jet lag, we were supposed to stay up the entire day when we got to France, which was at 9am. We were welcomed with a 7 hour flight to Paris and a 4 hour bus ride to Dijon. What a great first day, right? I ended up conking out at about 9:30 and waking up in the middle of the night and staying up for a couple of hours. We had a tour the next day that started at 9, so that was no good. I made it, but I was practically dead and I had to shoot stuff for our documentary that morning. We took a tour of the school that's sponsoring our trip then a tour of Dijon. I pawned off the camera to the guy that was shooting in the afternoon during the city tour. I was taking pictures like any normal tourist...and then my battery decided to run out of juice. It doesn't take normal batteries, it has one of its own. To make matters worse, I don't have one of those fun little power converters. YAAAAAY. Hopefully I'll be able to find one before we go to Paris, otherwise I'll be stealling everyone else's pictures off of Facebook :) After the tours and such, we all decided to go out to the club. It was kind of depressing because we were practically the only people in there and I ended up dropping about 20 euros on drinks. Honestly, that isn't that much, but it was a lot more than I was planning on spending. The bartender was giving free shots to all the ladies, and it was good. I was quite drunk by the end of the evening, but I was by no means the worst. It was a fun night. We ended up getting back to the hotel around 1am, knowing that we had to meet at 8:30 the next morning. It was great. I ended up passing out as soon as I hit the bed, but I also woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to normal sleep. Woke up in the morning, did our lecture thing, had a break, a tour of a radio station, and then cooking class. We made this chicken dish with puff pastries. It was AMAZING. We teamed up in groups of 2 and ate our own dishes. Our sauce had a little too much mustard, but it was still reeeeeeeally good. They served us wine, which I found out I don't like as much as I thought. We each got a recipe to take home and got to keep our aprons and tea towels (covered in chicken guts) as a souvenir. That was seriously the best thing ever. You have no idea how happy I was when we got to keep those things. After that, the chaperones of the trip told us they were going out that night to the club and would enjoy the group to come out with them. We were very discreet as we walked down the street at 10:30 in a giant group of 22 people. We didn't look touristy at all. And we were not the stereotypical loud Americans. We drank, we dance, and half of us left early in pursuit of food. Those of us that left early missed a dance-off between one of the chaperones and one of the students. Apparently the chaperone did the worm and won. That would have been so awesome to see. Those who stayed got back to the rooms around 1:30. Those that left the club walked around for half an hour looking for kebobs. We found the little store, ordered, then went to the theater steps across the street and told stories and talked about how to not look too touristy and stupid. We ended up getting back to our rooms at 1. We all knew that there was a lecture at 9am the next morning. I don't know how much sleep I've gotten in the past few days, but it certainly isn't enough and I haven't completely gotten over my jet lag. But it's ok because we're all having a blast. And that, my friends, is my France trip in a nutshell.