The Adventure Begins!

Alright friends, here I am in PARIS! It was quite a journey getting here and it is way too late to write everything so I will just get through tuesday:

I woke up in St. Louis at 4 in the morning to get the airport. My plane left around 6:30 and I had a layover  in Chicago. I had a very bad cold and could not stop blowing my nose and it was disgusting.

My flight to England was extremely boring. I could not sleep and didn't feel very good because of the cold I just mentioned. The man next to me was this big black guy with all these tattoos and a remarkable talent for talking on the phone in a way that no one around him could understand. Seriously, I was impressed. He talked and talked until the plane took off and he was right next to me and the whole time I had NO IDEA what he said. No idea. And he was speaking in English. Anyway, he was quiet but nice and just slept the whole time with a blanket over his head. Later I found out that he is a musician and was going to London with his band- cool beans.

As most of you have already seen from my facebook post, my flight got a little more interesting when we landed in Heathrow. They made an announcement that we needed to stay in our seats upon landing so that the police could board. This struck me as very odd and my mind immediately jumped to Harry Potter 3 when the dementors board the Hogwarts Express on Harry's way to school. (Yes...I am a nerd). Anyway, about 5 police came on the plane and I was lucky enough to have the action right near me. Long story short, they kept us waiting for forever and wouldn't tell us anything except that it wasn't a terrorist attack and then they led a passenger away in Handcuffs.  The police took a few people's information so that they could contact witnesses in case of an investigation and then we got to go.

Thank you very much police! Because of your faithful service of justice (I learned from other passengers later that the pervert had been feeling up his neighbor lady's leg and stole her money) I missed the last shuttle to my hotel. No fear! I stood in line behind an American couple at the information booth, overheard that they were going to the same hotel as me and weaseled my way into sharing a private car with them. Which is great because I got to split the cost with someone and I felt more safe (it was about midnight). Thus my first lesson of international travel: find families and follow them.

 I signed in at the hotel (with way more difficulty understanding the receptionist's accent than I had anticipated (imagine a asian/british accent!) and found my room and suddenly felt kind of lonely because there were two little twin beds and just one of me (Marilyn, I miss you and Contiki!). Here is a picture of the room:

Magnificent. Anyway, I was totally in survival mode because I got 3 hours of sleep and then had to be out of the room by 6:30 the next morning to catch my shuttle to the airport for my flight to Paris. Getting to my airport terminal was not a problem and it was exciting to catch my first day-time view of England. Getting from Heathrow to Paris is a whole other story. Actually it was a nightmare. I flew AirFrance and I give you three guess about what went wrong...  (to be continued)

Goodbye America Party!

GOODBYE AMERICA PARTY!!!

Alright, since I have the most amazing family ever they decided (well mostly Emily decided) to throw me a going away party. You'd think I was moving indefinitely but no. I shall only be in Europe for two months. However it will be 6 months before I get to come home and see my sister and nephews and brother etc etc so I think Emily was feeling nostalgic and decided to spoil me. That's generally the way we function. Emily loves throwing parties and I love receiving them. I like to think that it's a symbiotic relationship. 

The theme of the party was "nasty food that only American's would dream up" and so on the table were: tatter tots, corn dogs, fried green beans, pizza roles and corn (corn because apparently that's what our economy runs on?) That part was a bit over my head but it sparked a healthy discussion of American politics during which Glenn Beck, mormons and ObamaCare were mentioned. Since these are all pretty American things it seemed appropriate. 

To top it all off, Matt regaled us with stories of "Marine Week." This was apparently a magical few days when ninja marines floated eerily past his office window and landed at the base of The Arch.

Emily got patriotic tattoos for the girls. She's sticking her chest out so you can see the little flag there. Totally the first place I would think to put it 

Alex was really happy to be there

Cake Master Emily strikes again! Not only did I get my favorite dessert (Schnucks cookie cake) she decorated it adorably and we had another quintessentially american dessert to go along with it: root beer floats!

Baby Love. Next time I see him he will be a 1 year old!

To finish the evening off we went outside and set off little poppers which blew confetti into the air.

Thanks family for an amazing  (by which I mean quite silly/overthetop/perfect) send off! Now all I have to do is get myself packed tomorrow and I will be arriving at Heathrow in no time...

Lost in Translation

So I'm leaving for England on June 28th. But before my programme (thats right two m's!) starts I'm going to spend a few days in France with my Mom's cousin and her family.

Now my mom and her cousin have been emailing back and forth about this for a few weeks and I'm all set but since I'm a big girl now it seemed like a good idea to write her myself as well. It's incredibly nice of her to welcome me into her home on such short notice especially since I don't really know her and I wanted to communicate that to her in my e-mail (which is in French).

Since I wanted to make sure my letter was comprehensible, I stuck it back into an online translator to see how it looked in English. The resulting giggle seemed worth sharing.

Good morning Chère Bene,

First, I mean thank you very much for will receive me at you. It is really nice and I you thank one thousand times! I wait with anticipation for my trip in Europe. This is going to be my second stay in France and I am sure that as I had loved France and my French family when I was seventeen years old, I go loves them the same and more now!

I hope that my French is better than in last time but, unfortunately, I cannot promised! (As you can see, my French need help.) therefore, grieve for the American terror of my accent and my errors of grammar ahead of time!

When I read your e-mail to my mother, I was very happy that you want to make of the shopping on Saturday parce - that I want to make it as everybody knows, stores in Paris are marvellous. For other activities, I do not want to be a problem for you. Therefore, if you have the time to take me in sites in Paris, I would be very happy. But if you have other things to be made, I can take for a walk and explore alone and this goes very also.

Still, very many thanks for your generosity. I wait my for visit with impatience!

- spinning jenny

If the French version is half as clear as the English, I'm sure there will be no communication gap at all. Yeah. Especially if they " grieve for the American terror of my accent and my errors of grammar ahead of time!"

Staunton Virginia

Hello Everyone!

I thought this might be a good place to start my "travel blog"  since I am currently stranded in a small town in Virginia. The unsuspecting little Hurst family (actually it was just me, Alex and our parents) were on our way home from a lovely family vacation (which included the Shipp and Johnson branches) in Nags Head, North Carolina when, to my surprise, we pulled over on the side of the highway. Our engine was smoking and their were weird noises. We sat in the stifling heat for about twenty minutes hoping that if the engine cooled down we could get somewhere.

No such luck.

Of course, the next step was to start calling repair companies. Absolutely none of them were open. Keep in mind that this was a Saturday afternoon, not the middle of the night or something. But everything was closed. No need to go through all the extraneous details and decision making processes. The highlights are that we sat by the side of the highway for almost an hour, swatting ants off our feet while waiting for a tow truck and that Alex and I broke the law.

I will explain. Since the tow truck only had room for two actual passengers Alex and I sat in the back seats of our van which was being carried on the platform. We had to keep our heads down for the few miles till we reached our hotel and, though I felt like a fugitive, the whole experience of crouching in the back, ten feet off the road with the wind rushing through the open windows was strangely serene.

We got a room at the Hampton Inn (which gives out free cookies in the evening!) and were able to pass the evening at Applebees and watching the new X-Men movie at this tiny old theater that still uses a slide projector for the pre-movie adds. This morning I was treated to a lovely continental breakfast and have been bumming around in the hotel room for a few hours.

So, clearly this whole adventure was no tragedy for me.

But poor Alex had to miss an important meeting for work and is now in trouble with his boss. Add to that the fact that he starts his internship tomorrow, and there is a little bit of stress cooped up in this hotel room. The plan is to rent a car and drive home tonight and then this little adventure will be over--until someone has to come back to pick up the van that is!

Anyway, I just thought I would pontificate a little about the small town life to which I have been exposed. I have learned that southern accents rub off alarmingly fast (I find myself having to watch my vowels at gas stations) and that contrary to my West County upbringing, not all malls are created equal (or all  movie theaters). Anyway, the people here seem nice and it's definitely good for us to step outside our suburban bubble for a bit... I'll just be happy to my familiar Chesterfield Schnucks store in the morning!

In the end it's just three cheers for family bonding time, I suppose.




 (here is our hotel which thankfully is a short walking distance from civilization. Cars were such an inspired invention)