New York

So i was in paris right, walked around a lot, saw some stuff. the family i stayed with told me that they loved wall-mart, that's not something im used to hearing.

i was supposed to fly out on the 29th and have a connection in chicago before flying to la guardia and arriving at 7:45pm. this was gonna be fine until my first fly was gonna be delayed inexplicably by 3 hrs causing me to miss my connection. so waiting in line at the airport i get to talking to this older gentleman behind me and he suggests that i try to get onto his flight which was leaving to new york in like 2 hours. so basically i got on the standby list and after a lot anxious waiting i got on the flight.

so i arrived at JFK instead of 1:15 instead of 7. i ended up sitting next to the same dude on the plane, hes lived all over the world and works as a rock and roll producer... or baiscally just music producer, but thats not how he described it to me.

now im here with my new fangled cousins. im staying with marc who i met at the wedding in budapest a couple months ago. he lives like my friend ralph. also his first cousin linda is here. she really awesome and from montreal. yay for family all over the world!!

Le jour de trop beaucoup chocolate

(the day of too much chocolate)

yes im blogging on christmas. what of it?
im in victorine (my french exchange student)'s house with her lovely family. they picked me up from the brussels airport on tuesday, and we drove to bruges which is called the venice of the north. it was here that chocolate was ruined for me forever, or hopefully just for a while.
we walked around, ate lunch, its so adorable, then her mom bought us all chocolate lolli's and nutella covered waffels and hot chocolate. sounds lovely right? well it mostly was but the thing is im a super slow eater, and french people are pretty fast eaters, so i kinda had to choke down the nutella waffel concoction, not an easy task.
so i get a little nervous everytime im staying with an unfamiliar family, or just when im traveling in genreal, and kinda tend to loose my appetite. so that night i tried to finish my dinner so as not to offend and not keep them waiting while i tried to keep up. everything seemed fine and dandy until i woke up in the middle of night with a stomache ache that would not subside. i threw up, and the next morning had a slight fever and had to sleep the entire day. i dont exactly know what caused it, but im pretty sure it had something to do with not sleeping well for weeks, what with leaving prague and packing and finals and going to venice and staying in cheap hostels and hauling my luggage up and down flights of stairs. i guess it was bound to catch up with me eventually.

christmas in the family was basically last night, it was vraiment formidable. we dressed up a little and drank lots of champagne, opened presents, and then ate dinner of raw meats which u cooked for yourself on your own little skillet. a good way to catch salminella if you ask me, also quite dangerous after everyone has been drinking. it was very nice nevertheless. i tried frog legs, not bad actually.
then we had chocolate ice cream and i got another stomache ache (this just simple cannot be) and we watched love actually in french, just as i suspected i dont even need to understand the language to love that movie.

Continued

Ok rested now. Feel like I'm starting to get sick but my vitamin c is in my luggage in the other hostel.
So basically here's what happened: leaving Prague was a lot harder than expected I was mopey and stressed for about a week and a half before and then I may or maynot have cried the whole way to venice but we can blame that in hormones if were looking for an excuse.
Arrive in Venice and it'd beautiful and sunny and there's a bit of snow on the ground. Trag myself and my luggage to my first hostel, the Venice fish. I met some nice people, specifically a kiwi named Danielle. We went to a bar that night and three other girls and I got to ride in a motor boat with two itailians who worked for the hostel. That was amazing.
The next day Danielle and I walked all around an went to the Guggenheim. That evening I was suppose to transplant to a different hostel where Martha would meet me. I get there an it's terrifying, well at least to me... U know.
I have to push my stuff up 3 flights of stairs which wouldve been bad enough but there were sone areas where the light switches dint work. In my efforts I accedentally rang some sort if doorbell that was on the wall. There was this big open room I had to walk threw to which I couldn't find the switch at all. I had to use my cell phone to open my door and the room to no suprise was very nice either. But at least Martha will b with me. So I go back to the fish cause I told Danielle I'd meet her and then I find out that marthas flight is cancelled. No way in he'll am I staying at that abandoned boarding school alone! So I go with the hostel people to another hostel, the Venice museaum. For dinner and just resolve to stay there. There ceilings are really cool but there is hardly anyone staying there. After I get my stuff from the scary place back to the museum everyone walks back to the fish. As soon as I get here exhautiob strikes and I can't do anything least of all find my way back to the museum. So I slept there in my clothes come toujour. I probably should say this but I've been wearing the same shirt nonstop since I left sat morn and I just now realized that it's on inside out because I was so tired when u got dressed for the airport.
Anywho! Martha should b flying in today and then well have one more night here and then tomorrow I leave at 5 30 to ge a bus to treviso to take a plane to Brussels where victorine(former French exchange student) and her mom are picking me up. Let's hope my flight doesn't get cancelled

Venezia

I'm soooo tired all of a sudden. I ended up hostel hopping again, it's ok just exhausting.
Tooo tired to type. but also too tired to give up and try and hoof it back to the hostel from wenst I came. It's a bit of a story, I'll have to get to it tomorrow.

finals

you may be surprised to hear that i actually was taking classes here. aside from the occasional mention of my favorite teacher , maria homerlova (or homegirlova as my friend andy affectionately calls her). naturally i am now in the middle of finals and also my last weekend in prague. i am also currently procrastinating going to the library. ok, i'm off.

Cinema Dance

I signed up for this class called Cinema Dance while I was registering simply because I liked both of those words, and i wanted to take as many classes at the film school as possible. the contents of the class where kept under wraps even until we got there. it was a three day getaway in a camp in the woods of the czech republic, a place called Poněšice. We were put into groups with other american and international film students and then assigned rolls to make a film. i was put into a group with a film student from croatia (who was assigned director) an animation student from israel (assigned screenwriter), a choreography student from slovania...i think (also screenwriter) and an american girl from my program (assigned cinematographer) and then i was assigned producer and editor. what basically happened is we all got really frustrated on friday trying to agree on a story, also struggling with the fact that most of us weren't native english speakers, and then on saturday we just gave complete freedom to the director who knew what he wanted and also knew how to use a camera and edit sorta kinda. i got to chose the ending song though! once i get it off my friends computer i will to you present but until then, enjoy this film made my another group in which i make a brief but adorable cameo:

Where to go? from Anya Gibian on Vimeo.

all of the angst was worth it thought because our location was soooo beautiful! as you could probably tell by the short. the camp was next to a river which was completly frozen over, i took many a photo but of course i'll have to show you later.