I do stuff

Hello again.

Yes, it has been a pretty long time. At this point there's too many photos and too many stories all jumbled up together to really make any sense trying to write about it. Or rather one train of thought ends up leading me through different events that took place over the course of a week, or of one afternoon and I'm not really sure what day it is anymore because my class schedule is so irregular.

I CHALLENGE YOU TO GUESS WHAT DAY I TOOK THIS I HAVE NO IDEA 

I went to London this past weekend, did you know?

We just barely missed the changing of the guards

And had some amazing sangria just before the Borough Market's 1000 anniversary

But a few days before that I went to two museums that related to France's colonial history and UNESCO and I went to the Catacombs this morning and yesterday some guy at a cafe tried to make me pay for a cafe au lait when what I asked for was a cafe noisette and did he really think that I was going to pay an extra two euro because I've been here for two weeks now and know the difference between those two things at least. I also bought new shoes and spoke to the very nice lady at the counter in Chinese and she gave me a discount!

We basically became Chengdu celebrities for speaking Mandarin (as Americans) at an exhibit produced for the Vice President of China (My friends more so than I, they were interviewed by a camera crew, I only spoke to a reporter)

I also saw Beyonce in Paris. Nbd.

I made friends with Thomas the concierge at the hotel (he's super classy) and yesterday met a Mauritanian who spoke Spanish and was trying to learn French except he couldn't find anyone to talk to. P.s. I butchered Spanish pretty effectively yesterday but we did, in fact, have a conversation.

I decided to stop taking elevators and escalators and walk even more because I can't drag myself out of bed in the morning to go running and I've been eating so much bread.

Holly has been somewhat integrated into the PittMAP group, and we've been given a hashtag (#rachandH or #Handrach depending on who you ask)

Yeah Holly came to London too and we took a terrible selfie in front of Big Ben

These are all events I would like to elaborate on at some point but... it's a lot and there's way more. Also the fact that it takes forever to upload pictures is not exactly incentive to post more.

Anyway things are great and I'm having fun and contrary to popular belief I am taking classes as well. I will get to it all eventually!

Salut,

Rachel