Eight Planes in Seven Days

Now that I've finished all of my exams (I just wrote for two hours about a character named "Gelinda." Unfortunately, not Galinda from Wicked, although how awesome would that be? I'd ace a Wicked exam with my eyes closed), it's probably time for me to inform you all about the shenanigans that occurred last week in Cannes and Prague with my wonderful roommate Michaela. I should also probably finish packing, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

HAHAHA. Crossing the bridge. Get it?!

SO like I said earlier, I spent last week in-between exams travelling around Europe with Michaela! She's studying in Cannes at the infamous College International de Cannes, aka French Middle School, this semester. Since I had a week off, and she had a few days off from school, I decided to make it a long trip and visit Cannes and Prague, returning right before my last exam. I flew to Cannes on Tuesday and spoke French like a champ (it was necessary in order to get to the College from the airport. I'm proud). Michaela showed me around the College and we dined on chicken nuggets for dinner. Dinner was thoroughly exciting for me, because there were PEOPLE FROM CHAPMAN there! It was so cool to hang out with people and discuss how much we hate webadvisor with people who actually understood everything that I was saying. We talked about how class registration for sophomores is terrible etc etc. It was just nice to be around familiar faces. Not that I don't love everyone I've met here at Glasgow, because I do. It was pretty awesome though.

Tuesday night was open mic night at one of the pubs in town. We headed over to Morrison's (the pub) and listened to a few people perform. Two people from the College (who also happened to be from Chapman) were performing that night, so we stayed and watched them. So yes, I did fly all the way from Scotland to go to an Irish pub and hear people from Chapman sing Scottish songs. Mel Problems.

Wednesday was a bit more exciting. Michaela had class until noon-ish so I just slept in/stayed in my room until she came and collected me. She also brought me a croissant (BEST ROOMMATE EVER) and then we headed off to explore town! She showed me all of the Cannes hotspots (aka the Palais du Festival) and then we stopped in some stores. We got crepes from someone who clearly should be working at BagelFail back in Orange and so we tried to eat those as best we could without making a huge mess of ourselves. It didn't work. On our way back, we stopped for some ice cream which was delicious (duh, when is ice cream NOT delicious)! Once we got back to the College, we mostly just lounged around and figured out our schedule woes and how to fix them, or whether or not we should try and fix them. Chapman Problems.

Michaela had class until 3:30 on Thursday, so I spent my day at the beach! The weather was SO nice, and I got to use a bit more of my French. I also got pretty sunburned, which was unfortunate, but it's mostly faded into a tan by now so that's pretty cool. Believe it or not, I also studied for my exam (that I just took today) while relaxing on the beach! I found Michaela after her class and we went shopping again. We also managed to exchange some Euros for Czech money (which was far more complicated than it should have been) and we printed our boarding passes, because Friday we were leaving for Prague!

Prague was beyond exciting. I have always wanted to go to Prague and I can't really explain why. I just have. So I was super stoked that I was finally going! We flew Swiss Air where they give you FREE CHOCOLATE on every flight. Fortunately, we had three more flights with them before our weekend was up, so we were definitely looking forward to that. Anyway we made it to our hotel which turned out to be a mini-Las Vegas... there was a bowling alley, casino, and like, five restaurants in there. We chose to eat at the Fairytale themed one. There were benches covered in lambswool and the whole place looked like Snow White's cottage or something. It was entertaining.

Saturday we left to explore Prague! We figured out the metro system and also got really lost. We walked into quite a bit of souvenir shops and things like that and ended up buying a TON. Everything was really cheap, so obviously we had to buy a lot of it. Our main goal was to find the clock tower. We walked in the direction we thought the clock tower was in, which of course was incorrect, and we somehow ended up at a cafe so we decided to stop for lunch. After lunch, we eventually found our way to Old Town Square and the clock tower. We took the typical tourist pictures and then continued on our merry way towards the Jewish quarter! Once we got there, we realized that everything was closed because it was Shabbat, so we headed back to the hotel and decided we would go back again tomorrow.

Once at our hotel, we somehow ended up following a group of Italian teenagers to their pre-paid dinner. And they let us in. Which means we didn't actually pay for dinner. But it was good, and nobody seemed to notice or care, soooo that's cool!

Sunday we trekked back to the Jewish quarter! We went into the Old-New Synagogue and looked around in quite a few Judaica stores. Unfortunately everything was crystal and cost around $1000 otherwise I probably would have bought things. Also, nothing else would fit in my backpack. Anyway, after that we headed over to find the famous bridge. We had lunch at a small cafe on the river with a beautiful view of Prague. We then crossed said famous bridge and bought a few things from street vendors, where we were warned about the large storm coming our way soon. We continued along the other side of the river for a few minutes before deciding we should probably listen to that guy and head back to our hotel before the storm started.

We had almost made it back to our hotel before the heavy rain - it was drizzling as we were crossing the parking lot, and then I promptly screamed at the sky "NO!! YOU CAN'T START YET!! WE'RE NOT IN THE HOTEL!!" and then it started pouring. Of course. After that, we printed our boarding passes for our flights home (four flights and five countries in one day for me, I think that must be some kind of record) and headed off to dinner, which we actually paid for this time. I felt much better knowing that we were no longer stealing food. Although that free dinner was quite enjoyable.

Monday came time to part ways. We flew from Prague to Geneva and from Geneva to Nice together, and then we bid each other adieu and I headed back to London and then on to Glasgow. Now that I've finished my exams and this blog entry, I suppose I should finish packing.. ahh.

Love you all! See you soon!!

PS I have over 30 postcards that I still have to send, sooooo you'll probably get those.. soon...ish... okay.