It's getting colder! The wind is blowing, the trees are swaying, and it's about 40 degrees Fahrenheit outside! I wore my one piece suit (Thanks a million Tordles!) to bed last night, Sylvie said it looked like I was on my way to the moon! I said au revoir, zipped it up over my face, and rocketed into my room for the night!

I am officially 20 years old, and it feels great! Paradoxically, the more years I get, the younger I feel! Now that I am 20 I am ready to explore the world and I feel adventurous! I am about to leave for Italy for 10 days all on my own, and the world seems so big yet so small to me! I want to see everything and be everywhere and the more I stare at the map on the wall the smaller I feel, but at the same time I trip to Italy seems like a piece of cake. It is just another land and another group of people living in a different manner, as is any other country! Nothing to be afraid of! Bring it on.

The night before my birthday I went out to dinner for crepes with 10 others friends! For my own memory, the poeple there were: Jade, her petit ami, Estelle, Laura, Juliette, Raphael, Eric, Emily, Brandon, Janeene. We ate crepes "de blé noir" aka of a black grain, which means the crepes are savory. I had delicious ham/cheese/egg/tomato/mushrooms (very in season!) with a glass of Cuir! Cuir is a drink that is traditional in Bretagne that is made from a mixture of hard cider and creme de cassis (a flavoring of the berry cassis, like a blue berry). The restaurant brought it to me for free for my birthday! After dinner, my friends Laura and Estelle gave me stationary of different pieces of art from the Orsay Museum because Laura and I went there together last week in Paris! My favorite is Guigin and the Impressionist Era. Juliette and Raphael gave me some "eau de toilette" aka "toilet water" aka perfume (i find that french translation funny) from Sephora! Où la la! Then we ordered sweet crepes and Emily and I shared a chocolate, banana, coconut and whipped cream crepe with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top! Having such a complex crepe was definitely not french; everyone else at the table got just plain sugar or plain chocolate or apple and honey. But with our American spirit, we wanted everything! It was amazing!

At my dinner I also heard Erik (my roommate) speak English for the first time. It turns out he speaks even better English than he does French (and he speaks well in French). Who would've thought! But it was the WEIRDEST sensation to see him speak to my friends in English as if we had been speaking English the whole time! I had the weirdest sensation - I felt like I was in a dream. I stepped into a world where the people that I usually speak French with were living normally, except conversing in perfect English instead of French, as a dream would be. It was so weird. I told him never again - French only. Too weird.

Then on my real birthday I ate lunch with Benedict, walked around town for a few hours and did some window shopping, and enjoyed the day. Then when I went home for dinner, Sylvie cracked a bottle of champagne and got out the fancy glasses! Then she also made me an apple tart (amazing!) and put 20 candles on it! You know you are still young when you can fit all the candles on the cake. Bravo! Then I finished my night skyping my dad and opening my presents in front of him! It was great! Thanks Mimi and Philly Pooh and Grammy and Grumpa for the AMAZING cards!

Also last weekend was so fun! I first went to Paris for 2 nights for a meeting with the school. I met a bunch of French business people, part of the Partenariate Publique et Privé, and have some ideas for an internship next summer if I want it! Or maybe the summer after? Who knows! And I also hung out with Sam (Australian) and Emma (an English girl I met in Montpellier last summer). Both were so nice and it made me realize how fun it is having friends from all over the world! It had been 3 years since I have seen Sam, ad 5 since we really hung out, but we completely picked up where we left off! And same with Emma! I also saw Verseilles with Emma which is humungous and beautiful. My favorite was not the Palace, but Marie Antoinette's chateau/guest houses/garden. They were smaller and more quaint classic French, with surrounding ponds and swans and pumpkins and all sorts of other things growing!

Then last Sunday I joined the Club Alpin de Lyon and (as the only person under 30) we headed up to the Près-Alpes for a day of hiking!! Pictures are to follow - but it was beautiful. We hiked 9-4:30 non-stop, saw poisonous mushrooms, got lost once, climbed through long dark tunnels, saw fields of deer, and sand songs from the Sound of Music (well, that was just me and my friend)! Then aftewards we had a big dinner with foods from the region: Bread, wine, prociutto/ham/pâté, fresh cheese (almost like yogurt, where you add lots of honey as a dessert), cheese tart, and then a fluffy sugary bread thing for dessert! And then we had a raffle and I got to be the prize chooser. One guy I chose won a paragliding ride, but he was too scared, so he gave it to ME! I get to go paragliding in the French Mountains soon!!!! YAYYYY!

Time to go to my Right of International Commerce class, but more pictures and stories coming soon!