i officially need to sleep more:

on my way to my room tonight (at about 11pm) i got on the elevator and pressed the button. it wouldn't stay lit up, and the door did this weird semi-close and re-open thing, so i pressed it again. it took me 4 tries to figure, 'hey....maybe the elevator is broken. i should get off because i really have to pee and it'd suck if i got stuck.' and so i got off, then turned around because only then did i realize i'd been pressing 1 rather than 5.

ARRRH! Beware of Pirates! --hello kitty and the mouse she's selling ice cream to on our door (wow that sounds weird)

i now have the ultimate pirate story. our hall had this open door night and room decorating contest tonight, and my roommate really wanted to decorate our room like a pirate ship. our room has this overhang thingy over the window, which makes it perfect for a pirate captain's cabin (the back of the boat...like in peter pan or something). we went all out, and spent probably 5 hours decorating. seriously. SO...at like 8:04 all these girls were waiting outside our door as we scrambled to finish the hidden treasure map and parrots, and to find suitable pirate music. they all filed in...and awkwardly commented on how creative we were. "oh wow, you guys really should decorate for our hall halloween contest (a big thing kinsolving does every year)." "you guys are so talented." "you even have music..."

we decided to check out the other rooms while everyone was still gawking at ours. the few doors that were open in the hall looked empty and bright (we had mood lighting and a pumpkin propping our door open), so we thought we would wait to see the decorated ones when everyone was done. we went back to our room, and then the group led us to their respective rooms....

AWKWARDNESS!! apparently the contest was simply a dorm room 'look how girly i can be with pictures of my bajillion friends and coordinating bean bag' decorating one. and we were the only ones to misinterpret it. YAY! when it came time for voting, there was a tie between our room and our suitemates' room. a second vote proclaimed........our suitemates won. RATS!

we went back to our room, and after a while our suities came to chat and give us their prize. i felt guilty, but we did do more than just clean our room. and because of that, we're now the weird ones that live in a pirate ship. we've decided to run around in pirate hats and say, "ARRRH!" in our rooms for the rest of the year. when jessica's mom comes to visit in two weeks, she's gonna wear a hat and eyepatch so that we can introduce her to the hall. some girls from the hall were shocked to hear that we found each other through potluck...imagine, two girls that lived like pirates coming together to live in the same dorm!

that's our awesome room, but the pictures don't do it justice. we have wood floors and nautical rope throughout the room.

thank god we ended up not dressing up (i contemplated being the parrot)!

i am the WORST updater ever. i got through half of a post on the second day of paris and gave up. but i'm bored now so i suppose i'll do a brief summary of my life: saw a bunch of amazing stuff in paris; went to amsterdam, bruges, strasbourg, marseille, berne, and arcachon/bordeaux; got pink luggage and a pink purse; fell in love again with french; ate too much cheese, chocolate, and coffee; climbed the biggest sand dune in europe (you know you're jealous!); officially outlawed the word "chocolate"; filmed a documentary on bears; had awkward conversations with the fruit stand guy about "les ananas"; witnessed pigeon murder; was groped in a train station; mastered yet another metro system; walked a bajillion meters a day and took just as many pictures.

school started, but it doesn't really feel like it (at least i'm not in that working mentality yet). my roommate has katamari, which is exciting. one of my microbiology classes is so exciting i can hardly stay in my seat. francais is ubereasy, but happy. get this: in the class of like 20 people, there's another bethany. a bethany b, even. it's the first time in my life there's been another bethany in my class. it's INSANE.

OH! and jakob dylan smiled at me several times last night. he looked in my general area while he sang during practically the whole concert, and then during 'god don't make lonely girls' he even pointed into our little section. i almost died (i may have, actually...).

let me know if you wanna see any awesome pictures---i'm happy to share:D

le premier jour

i am soo tired. we arrived in paris this afternoon (well, technically at noon) to the most wonderful weather. it's about 63F and a tad overcast, but it hasn't really rained since we've been here. i hear it's raining cats and dogs in austin today; there were storms all around dallas last night that kept us on the tarmac for 2 hours before we were able to leave. ugh. the flight was turbulent the entire time, but i eventually fell asleep for a few hours (i think). there was some really disgusting pda on the plane--ask me about it later. our tiny appartment is tres mignon. our first shopping trip was a little awkward, especially when this guy tried to sell me pineapples (and something more, but i didn't understand any of what he said). i had a very awful moment walking to buy cheese; a stupid fat pigeon decided to sit in the middle of a narrow strip of sidewalk, and when this man began walking past it in the opposite direction we were walking, the pigeon freaked and took flight. unfortunately there were people standing about in every direction around the pigeon, and the stupid fat pigeon flew straight into my face (well, its wings slapped me). i don't know if i'm up to the bird market now:P

i'm sooo exhausted, so we're going to fall asleep watching my favorite movie (while the sun is still up!). bonsoir.