the last day

My last day in Boston was bittersweet but perfect. Diego and I drove to New Hampshire to the Andres Art Institute, one of my favorite places in New England. We walked up and down the mountain, enjoying spending time with each other and looking at the art.






We stopped for lunch at a little place in Hollis, where I had an incredible thanksgiving sandwich (turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce). YUM!

On the way back, we stopped by the Burlington Mall. I managed to find black leather waterproof boots and Diego bought a beautiful new winter coat.

And then we had dinner at Uburger near Kenmore, so that I could have onion rings.

So many places that I love. It took me years to discover them all. But while I was at Uburger, I read some of the news clippings framed on the wall. Uburger first opened in 2006. Its been open less than half of my time in Boston! Sometimes change is good. Here's hoping that Paris is good too!

I have a visa!

Back to Paris on Sunday! :-D

La Vie de Paris

Today I went to an expat orientation event at the American Church of Paris called Bloom Where You're Planted. No matter your religious (or non-religious) beliefs, its a great introduction to living in Paris! My only complaint was that I had a hard time meeting people there. Well, I met lots of people, but there was definitely a lack of young professional women there. In fact, in the activities open house, many of the groups I inquired about were focused on women as trailing spouses, so their meetings were during business hours. Not so great for me. But luckily I did manage to find some other professional women, so now that we've traded email addresses hopefully I'll have a few new friends in this city!

Afterwards, I went for a crepe dinner with one of my new friends, Adrienne. (I like her name because it reminds me of my Aunt Adria). Then we sat on the Champ de Mars eating our crepes, talking, and admiring the view. Pretty crazy that this is 3 blocks from my apartment!

Lazy (sick/tired) Dinner

This post is for Diego, who told me that France doesn't have frozen meals.

They do.

And when nothing tastes right and you're broke, a 2 Euro meal from your microwave sounds perfect. I chose the spinach and salmon flavored pasta because I could actually see little bits of real salmon in it. Also, it was in the refrigerator section, which somehow seems fresher than the frozen section. No idea how true that really is, but anyways...

First challenge: figuring out how to use the Microwave-grill. If anyone can find a manual for this thing, it would be GREATLY appreciated.



Then, it was pasta time!


It was actually pretty decent. Or at least, I think it was. My taste buds are not champions with this cold - everything tastes weird. (Although the milk always tasted weird - what is demi-ecremé and what is closest to 1%?) But at least I ate something nutritious!

Bugs

Its been a long time since I've lived alone. Last night I returned to my Parisian apartment and tried to settle in a bit. I went to take a shower and had to kill a spider in the bathroom. People who know me know how good I am at dealing with bugs.

While still trying to shake off the spider-killing, I walked into the main room and a HUGE flying bug had found its way in through the open window (no, there are no screens in this country, and no, I don't know why not). While trying to fan it towards the window, I must have gotten a bit too enthusiastic and hit it. It landed in the sink and flailed around. So I slapped the sink cover on the sink. I thought it would die by this morning. Well, that didn't work. Then I poured dish soap on it. Now I have a slimy huge bug in my sink (its way too big to go down the drain). GREAT. And then, as if that wasn't enough, I noticed a spider making a happy home in the fake plants outside on the window railing. I tried to douse it with water, but its already back up and making a new web. [[sigh]]

What gets to me about living alone isn't even necessarily killing the bugs. Its that no one comes home later and laughs with me about trying to drown the spider or congratulates me on taking out the huge flying thing. Instead its just me, just doing what needs to be done. Oh, and having a major cold while doing it. What the heck is Nyquil called in French? :-(

Punting in Cambridge

One of the things I told Tanya that we absolutely had to do while I was in Cambridge was go punting. I had visited twice before and never managed to do the quintessentially Cambridge activity.


So, with my visit winding down, Tanya invited me to come on a punting trip with the new group of Marshall Scholars. We rented punts from St. John's College (where two of the Marshalls were members) and ventured out onto the River Cam.


We managed to avoid most collisions and maneuvered up and down the river for almost two hours! We returned the punts right before closing at 6:30pm, but that also meant that we got to see King's lit up with beautiful late-afternoon light.


Nothing like a little history along with your uni education, huh?

A British Maths Conference

Yes, I said "MathS" in the title! Because that's how they say it here!

The conference is going well. I'm connecting with a whole different set of people than the ones I normally meet. Also, they are math(s) people, just the sort of people I need to collaborate with (so that I don't have to do all the calculations myself). And best of all, my advisor is here! (I guess I should say former advisor, but heck, she's still advising me on everything from academics to life!). So its been a productive few days for meeting people and working on papers.

My only complaint? INTERNET! Seriously, no wifi, slower than dialup speeds, and the connection only works for 30 seconds to one minute before dropping out for 10 or 15 minutes! This is worse than when I lived in New Zealand! And that was a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific! So no pictures, just use your imagination (imagine small British town, old stone university buildings, some pubs, you get the idea). And wait for Thursday when I make it back to Paris, the land of INTERNET!