I didn't have much time to recover from the Paris whirlwind because the very next day my friend Christi came to visit. She's from Homer, Alaska as well and had been traveling around for awhile with Morgan and fancied a visit to Scotland. Since I still had classes I left Christi to herself on Tuesday and she ended up addicted to the Twilight book series, of which I had two lying around my room. That was all well and good because I was very addicted to them and had moved on to the third one. Of course we didn't just read the whole time, so once we had peeled our eyes off the pages of our beloved books we headed into town with the rugby girls for a night out. Our game for Wednesday had been canceled but we never miss out on a reason to party. They embraced Christi into the graffiti party and soon our white shirts were covered in all sort of endearing and derogatory comments in bright marker. Complete with metallic party hats, we looked quite frightful but decided to brave the stares of passersby and return to Wavell.


We had taught the group to play an American drinking game called beer pong where you throw ping-pong balls into plastic cups on a table. They loved it! The night ended up to be quite the memory complete with the guys trying to steal my mattress (which was Christi's bed at the time) and a large number of plastic gold beads scattered on my floor.

Sarah and I were invited out to a party in Paris that last night and we were a little skeptical--since Sarah didn't know the girl hosting it-- but decided to go anyways. The people there were very welcoming but I still felt really out of place again not knowing what anyone was saying. It was fine with Sarah and her friends, but this was way different because there were more people and most of them didn't know me or Sarah and didn't know I didn't speak French, in any case it would have been uncomfortable even without the language barrier. With the social lubricating nature of alcohol and the graciousness of French people I began to feel much better and starting enjoying myself and chatting with a few of the people around me. The apartment was just for the one girl and was absolutely minuscule so squished in together and started to get to know each other rather well. I met a lovely boy named Johan Janvier while I was at the party too and I'll be keeping in touch with him. Friends in Paris, how wonderful! He'd like to visit Alaska sometime too and I told him he'd love Homer since he's a musician.

The next day Johan, Sarah and I went out for crepes at this cozy little place nearby her flat. We had fun deciphering the menu and ordering some rather daring crepes (Sarah's had a type of mushroom called the "trumpet of death") which were so good I can't describe it. I just knew that my goal of eating good food in Paris was so surpassed by the food we ate at that place (forgot the name!) because we also ordered dessert crepes, mine being one with dark chocolate and cream. Mmm.

Our brunch went late so before I knew it we were all on a train to the airport. Things got iffy when we had trouble buying tickets and I knew it was going to be a close one. Once I finally got to the airport I nearly ran to the check-in kiosks which refused to check me in. So I begged the front desk lady to let me through since I still had 27 minutes to make it to the gate and that was really plenty of time even for someone with all their toes bitten off. She agreed to let me through and just encouraged me to "hurry". I said the quickest good-bye to Sarah and Johan and flew through security so that I wasn't even the last one boarding my flight. To calm my nerves I ordered a gin and tonic and I finally realized how handy it is to serve alcoholic beverages on flights. The stress of those places is incredible sometimes! I enjoyed my flights back to Aberdeen by listening to Muse and thinking about all that had happened this weekend. Even the bus ride into town and the walk back up to Hillhead was nice and relaxing before finally falling into my bed for a beautiful night of sleep. The return from Paris made me realize how much Aberdeen feels like home now, and of course how comforting it is to be back in Wavell and amongst speech I actually understand.