the above are two of my favorite pictures that i took in my 5 day paris extravaganza. i'm so cute, right? in paris i climbed really high and looked at the city (aka my favorite touristy activity), i ran around different parts each day, ate some various cheeses, drank a lot of very small glasses of wine, saw a bunch of middlebury people, ate a lot of falafel at the #1 recommended by lenny kravitz l'as du falafel in the marais (they should pay me for that plug), and managed to keep my spending down to a very amazingly low minimum.

i also slept on the floor of my cousin's incredibly tiny apartment and really bonded with her, which was probably the best part. my entire life i joked about being adopted, but really felt a sort of "my so-called life" alienation from everyone i was related to. now that we're both old enough to bridge the awkward age-gap that comes on with adolescence, in my cousin gabriella i finally found someone in my pseudo-immediate family that i 100% understand and connect to. im not saying we listen to the same music or watch the same movies, but she reads! interesting intelligent books! she travels! she understands leaving new jersey! she's funny! and smart! and honest! and not crazy! i mean, i don't want to gush, but it was a pretty big revelation. the only downside is that since she is much like me, and we both are pretty independent and disconnected from the family, we most likely won't cross paths at the traditional carrasquillo pool party bbq surprise party events, especially since she's moving to california to be with her boyfriend. it's still nice to know i'm not the only one in that family that, i dunno, gets it.

lately spring has sprung in europe, which is nice, and i think it has improved my general outlook on everything. i've spent a fair amount of time lately soaking up the first weak springtime sunrays on my balcony, brunching with tim, roaming flea markets with jack, and this week marked the first week of my spring semester! i feel like i'm pretty much getting all my shit together, but you know, always the same issues: worried about being homeless for my last month here, my room being in a permanent state of dirt and chaos, frustration at a lack of time/energy left for pleasure reading, blahblahblah.

travel always inspires me to take lots of cheesy pictures, yet throughout these adventures i feel that i have mostly stuck to my anti-technology-age platform as usual. for those uninitiated with this platform, it's simple. i, much like any self-respecting young adult in 2008, have multiple internet outlets for my personality. i got my first livejournal when i was a freshman in high school, in order to fit in, duh. this was at the time that people might not remember, when livejournal was selective and you needed to get invited to get one. a user had only one invite and they could then invite you to get an account - i think i gave my invite to molly or chrissy, i'm not sure. i'm pretty sure that one year later i got the opportunity for another invite and i definitely gave it to dan pierson. anyway. shortly thereafter i got a myspace, probably within the month. im not trying to brag and say i was ahead of the trend, really the bizarre sinkhole of culture that is southern new jersey is the culprit. everyone everyone everyone has this. college was the first place where i realized that not everyone's social life was so deeply enmeshed in the internet and it became practically a source of shame that i had gleaned a fair amount of html knowledge by putting together my friend's livejournal backgrounds.

but one thing that is universally accepted on college campuses is facebook, and let me just say this: facebook is no less creepy, exploitative, egotistical or soul-sucking than myspace, livejournal, friendster (yeah i had one of those too), xanga (never thank god), centerfuse (which is a philly/south jersey thing only) ... it might even be worse, due to its sheer popularity and mass appeal.

where is this current rant going? having spent my formative high school years focused on the internet and documenting much of my life there, i am no stranger to the concept that you want all of your friends to be able to see the good times you have with each other and talk about it, but instead of spending money on film and physical photos and spending time together looking at them, everyone can interact in front of their computers, individually, most likely unshowered and sitting around in their underpants. facebook has warped this pastime into something more sinister in my opinion. suddenly if something has not merited a facebook photo album, if you are not tagged in pictures of something, it did not happen and you were not there. i hate this. i hate the way you feel when you see the next day that you did not merit entry into the internet verification of your identity. i hate the popularity-contest circle-jerk that facebook incites (sorry for the language mom).

so for that reason, i share these two pictures of my daytime touristy exploits in paris. that is what pictures were about when i was little - we looked at this thing and made big cheesy smiles in front of it. am i hypocritical for remaining a cog in the internet system? i mean, i have a facebook, i post pictures on it of my travels, my friends see them and talk to me about it. i still maintain an extremely neglected livejournal and myspace page, despite consistent threats that i'll delete the whole mess. i justify it thusly: i refuse to drag my camera to every club, to every dinner party, to every cafe date. i consciously leave my camera at home more often than not. i generally avoid pictures of myself anyway, due to my surprising non-photogenic tendencies. i refuse to feed into the idea that i need to document every aspect of my life. i also refuse to let facebook depress me or alter my self-esteem with digital images of events that i didnt go to because i happened to be 3000 miles away, enjoying the best year of my life without the aid of photo documentation.

i suspect that there will be a huge facebook fall in the near future. as it is, the coolest hippest kids don't have one, and the top-tier cool kids have extremely limited facebook profiles. as the website evolves to become more and more involved in every aspect of your life and tie it all together with your real-life non-computer devices like your cell phone, it will go the way of any trend ever in the history of everything and lose touch with youth. just like when livejournal stopped requiring invites, when adults started getting myspaces, and when your parents and middle school-aged little sister got facebooks, it'll be gone soon. but while it's still around, and still mad creepy, i can rant, and get serious - besides the internet, complaining is my FAVORITE hobby.

well springtime is finally here and i have neglected this blog for way too long. the weird thing about studying abroad, at least for me, is that when i was first considering going there was no question in my mind that it would be berlin for one year. i immediately wanted to read as many "abroad" blogs as i could, glean all the useful how-to information and have the most prepared, knowledgeable, perfect abroad experience ever. when saying goodbyes, i felt so attached to my life at home and the people i was leaving, i insisted to myself that i would do everything differently and magically spent all sorts of free time writing long heartfelt letters, sending (surprisingly expensive!) postcards, and keeping up with group emails.

the ultimate truth that i've discovered about study abroad is that it is an intimate, at times indescribable experience more than anything. a friend of mine from middlebury said that after he and his group of friends all got back from their respective study-abroad countries, they all sort of collectively said "oh my gosh it was amazing" and then went on with their lives. its impossible to sum up a year of your life for someone. when someone emails me asking "how is berlin?" i kind of want to laugh a little ... its similar to asking "how was being five years old?". its almost intangible and difficult to summarize, and i think that generalizing my experience month by month will only cheapen it. i can say, without a doubt, this has been the most amazing six months of my life, but i'm struggling to find a medium between that vague communication, and the tedious daily emails i send my mother about what i ate or whom i saw, etc etc.

i will struggle on, though, for posterity's sake, and for the sake of vanity and my ego as well. my last final paper was turned in on march 9th. the feeling on the tenth was pretty much indescribable. after two intense months of work, it was all over. i felt guilty about being a bad student and taking so long to get everything done until this morning, when i got an email from another girl in the program who is finishing her work NEXT WEEK. how she even got that kind of an extension is beyond me. anyway, on the tenth, jordan was here! and decided after spending 3 days in berlin to stay, um, for a long time. shortly there after, i scooted over to prague again for a weekend, which is always raucous, and then jack came and stayed with me for a week and a half.

when jack came boy oh boy was everything full of hail and snow and awful weather, not to mention residual bitterness over the ubahn strike. yesterday, however, the temperature was about 16 C, which is about 61 F. today is 15, which is about 58. still. wow. wow wow wow. i know i know, dont get my hopes up, its going to rain, go back around 8 or 9, but still. the excitement over this weather is reaching the kind of hysteria levels reserved for middlebury spring, which usually comes about on may 1st, and is elusive and ephemeral until we all leave two weeks later.

i can not wait to experience berlin in springtime and even better - SUMMER. today the daylight officially reached 13 hours. in july, berlin gets about 17 or 18 hours of sunlight, which is insane. i plan on my bacchanalian lifestyle to increase threefold, and my general glee to be doubly as intense as my wintertime gloom. tomorrow night im flying to paris, just to increase the happy. add to that the fact that next year i am most likely (99% on this one) going to be living at 77 main street with three other friends, a living situation that is so much better than anything i imagined last month.

everything is so good that i'm a little afraid to jinx it: travel, new semester, new friends, beautiful weather, old friends, a new bike, a fresh start. i mean, granted, there are tiny lows. a giant melodramatic blow up with a certain ex boyfriend (who has never read this blog anyway, so i can talk about him all i want) hasn't really gotten me down, but really has liberated me even further. the thing is, i still sort of feel sad about it, but very very little and the feeling is continually passing. also i have some weird sort of cold happening, which i blame on the sudden changes in weather. hopefully i can drink a ton of water and juice today and get it under control by tomorrow.

i don't want to complain, or think about the bad stuff though, because i feel that it's something that i need to change about myself ultimately. i need to accept being happy and trust it. it's like, after holding on to bad feelings for so long its really hard to let go of them. it makes me think of the "trust building" leadership exercises we would do at high school retreats, where you would close your eyes and cross your arms and fall backward, and your group of 15 people would have to catch you. you have to trust them. sometimes i feel like i have a hard time closing my eyes and simply letting the universe catch me.