Shipping up to Boston

Now you know why I refused to talk to anyone at the end of last week: I was afraid I would spill the secret! For anyone who was not at the Head of the Charles this weekend, you missed out, because I was. My dad had some frequent flier miles that were set to expire at the end of the month and I had a visa questions to sort out, so I figured, what better time to come home than the weekend that the entire rowing world was in Boston (and the Red Sox were playing...but I don't want to talk about that)?

My mom and sister didn't even know I was coming home; my dad knew because he helped set it up and I only told Ellie, Elyssa, and a couple of people here, so we managed to keep it pretty under wraps. My mother's reaction when I walked in the door was priceless, and Mina's shriek when I jumped out from behind the wall at her was a close second. So I definitely got the reception I had hoped for.

It was really great to be home, although it was kind of a tease. When I'm here, I decide about once a day that I am going to blow off America entirely and stay here, but by the time I boarded the plane for Boston, I was pretty sure I was just going to stay home and re-enroll in Trinity mid-semester. I have a lot of things to look forward to both here and in Hartford, which is really exciting. Anyway, the highlight of the weekend (other than the Trinity women's hard-earned third-place finish) was the amount of American food I consumed. I have literally never tasted better clam chowder than what they serve during Charles, so obviously I tied last year's record with three bowls. And with Halloween fast approaching, my father was happy to pick up bags of fun-sized Hershey bars and Reese's for me to bring back over here.

I arrived in Boston Friday afternoon and left Monday evening (I got back here just in time for my morning classes), and with jet-lag and racecourse-walking and general travel fatigue, I slept for 14 hours last night, which I needed badly. Oh! And after a little mishap with some hydrogen peroxide and my eyes (Marissa uses it to clean her contacts before putting them in solution; I was a little bleary-eyed and misunderstood the label and used it AS solution), I have finally ditched the glasses and I am back to contacts. What a relief, especially since it's been raining here.

Last night I went to a Caravan Palace concert after class. You've never heard of them. They're French and a friend of mine saw them play in Bruges and said they were the most fun band she'd ever seen live, so we traipsed over to the Bastille to see them. They lived up to the billing. It's kind of funny, because I don't think I would ever listen to their CD in my room (they play kind of a mix of circus music and techno), but they were amazing live. It probably had something to do with the fact that they were rocking out on stage like they were at latenight and projecting cartoons and old Charlie Chaplin movies and a ton of other random things on the wall behind them, and every person there was just so into it. Plus the lighting was terrific. I tried to take little videos with my digital camera and they're up on Picasa (Mom, do you think you can find the URL by yourself this time?), but they really don't capture how much fun it was. Also, KANYE is coming to Paris November 20 and obviously I already have my ticket. I don't think I have to explain how excited I am.

Well, it's been the weekend over here for like 32 hours already, so I guess I don't have to go to bed, but it probably wouldn't be a bad idea since I have grand plans for tomorrow: I am going to register to use the library. If this doesn't seem like a big deal to you, you probably have no idea how impossible the French bureaucracy (and let's be honest, the French language) is.

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