Pretty Buildings

Hi everyone!!
I'm sorry I'm so late in posting!! It's been hectic around here! Who am I kidding, it's still hectic around here haha. I gave a presentation yesterday, took a test today, and have another presentation to give tomorrow!! Oy! But, I'm a stickler for that whole "chronological order" thing, so we'll get there soon haha
Well, last week was pretty decent.  Nothing really exciting happened in my classes, but on Tuesday Mira invited me to go to the SUAPS with her for an excise class.  The SUAPS is like our university Wellness Center - It's free for all students, you can use it whenever you want, and there are awesome classes that you can jump into without paying anything or having to sign up.  We went to an aerobics dance-type class, which I'm not normally very into but, I'm not gonna lie, Mira lured me in with promises that the instructor was ridiculously attractive.  She didn't exaggerate either! He was, however, very very gay haha. I don't care who you are, no straight man can move his hips and shoulders at the same time like that, while singing along to Lady Gaga with a huge grin on his face haha! It was a decent workout, though, and I left feeling amazing!! I'd forgotten how much I love working out! We went back again on Wednesday, but I can't remember what we did... but when I got back that night, I had a package waiting for me from Mum!! It was so exciting!!  Haha Thank you Mama and Grammy!! I love you guys!! I also love getting mail. You guys should send me more ;P I'm working on sending a couple of postcards out, too! I have them all written up, they just need stamps! On Thursday we did laps during the free swim time in the pool! Oh man, did that show me how out of shape I've gotten haha, but we did about 25-30 laps in 45 minutes (I was pretty proud of that ;P ) and when we left, it was so nice outside, even at night, that I didn't have to put my jacket on to walk back! Maybe I should have, though, because I woke up the next morning with a wicked head cold that I'm still on the tail end of...
Now, I don't know if you guys really care about this, but I figure you can skip ahead a paragraph if you don't ;P I have had a rotating playlist of 3 songs stuck in my head for this past week and a half... They're gorgeous songs and I thought you guys might like to listen to them as well because....well just because. They are all kind of sad songs but they are all absolutely beautiful... The first is part of the reason for the title of this post - it's called "Pretty Buildings" by People in Planes (the English major in me comes out when I read that -- such beautiful alliteration!! ;D ) :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7LVtJ3U_TU
The lyrics are in the info just below the video, if you're curious.
The second is Self Conclusion by Spill Canvas and this one has the lyrics right in the video for you!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEyQI7tmkG4
The last song that I've been singing day in and day out is called Isabelle by Gregory and the Hawk.  It has the lyrics in the video as well, for your convenience. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQKCdIQtzy4
Our generation has a tendency to say that life needs background music like in the movies -- this has been my background music for a while and I'm sure I won't get them out of my head any time soon haha <3
Back to the chronological story-telling!! On Friday, a group of about 10 of us went out to eat at an Italian restraunt for dinner.  We pass this restraunt every weekend on our way out to the bars and I've been wanting to stop in and check it out but it looked a lot more expensive than it really was.   It was about 10€ for a huge plate of good food and about 4€ for a good glass of wine.  The staff there was absolutely fantastic, too!! There are two kinds of servers in France -- the ones who turn incredibly rude as soon as they realize you aren't native French, and the ones who speak Franglish with you when they realize the same thing. You can guess which kind these were.  They were all very friendly and VERY funny! When we asked them to take a picture for us, they stole the camera for about 10 minutes and took pictures of themselves doing weird poses around the restraunt haha!! They chatted with us, too and helped us pick which wine would go best with our food. It was great! Plus, we all had fun out with each other! After dinner and dessert (I felt very French taking a petit café after dinner ;P) our group split in two, part off towards the bars and the other part - the part I was in - back towards home.  We were hoping to do a relaxed movie and wine night with a few of us but most of the people crapped out (did I mention that dinner time here is around 9 pm?) and it ended up being just me and Tom, one of the other UND students.  We ended up talking through most of the Rum Diary (which was a really good movie, from the little I saw...I'll have to go back and actually watch it sometime haha) and finishing off two bottles of wine and a lot of cheese and chocolate chip cookies between us haha.  We also watched a little bit of The Big Bang Theory, because he hadn't seen it before and I definitely got another person hooked on that show haha!! (If you haven't seen it either.....GO WATCH IT NOW. It's fantastically hilarious.) I didn't get home until about 430am haha but it was a lot of fun and it was nice to have a quite night, rather than go out to the bars like usual. 
Saturday was the day that I finally got out of Caen!!!! I took a day trip to Cherbourg (see map --> http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl ) with Mira and Cat.  We left around 10am and took an hour and a half long train ride to get there.  At the station in Caen, it looked like the day would be really rainy and gross, but when we arrived in Cherbourg, the sun was shining, the skies were blue, and there was barely a cloud in the sky!! We left the train station and we started walking in the direction that we thought the tourist office was but we ended up at the port instead! That was the first time I'd seen the sea since arriving in France!! It was absolutely gorgeous! (Pictures are already up on facebook, although my camera died halfway through the day. Mira and Cat had theirs too, though and their pictures will be up soon.)  It was very very very windy, but it was that fresh wind straight off the ocean that was somehow refreshing as it was tangling our hair into dreadlocks haha.  Right by the port, they had a nautical museum with quite a few submarines and we spent probably an hour in there because it was so interesting! Did you guys know that the Titanic was supposed to dock in Cherbourg??? After that, we finally found the tourism office and the nice lady there gave us a map of the city with all the interesting places marked and told us that there was a really cool museum that we should check out on the other side of town.  We decided to go that way, but first we found a cathedral a couple blocks away called Basilique Saint-Trinité and ducked in for a look.  I'm so glad we did because that was THE most beautiful cathedral I have ever seen in my life.  The stained glass windows were perfect and threw rainbows everywhere, the floors and archways were painted with beautiful patterns, the smaller chapels within had amazing statues and the alter at the front was..... awe-inspiring.  The carvings were perfect, they were all gilted and the architect had put in a tiny skylight that brought rays of light perfectly across it all, along with the rainbows from the stained glass.  I was floored.  My camera died just as we got inside so I don't have any pictures yet, but the girls got some really beautiful ones that I will steal soon so you can all see it.  After that, we walked across town on our way to the museum.  First, we passed through an absolutely beautiful public garden and sat for a while watching the water and the birds and the people.  Then, we headed up the mountain - yes, the freaking Mountain - that the museum was on top of.  That was probably a better work out than all three days in the gym combined seeing as I was wearing high heels haha! We made it to the top after much complaining and much picture taking (you could see the entire city from that vantage point) and went into the Musée de la Libération.  The museum was all about the second world war and the people involved in it.  It was all very intense and very cool - I'm very glad we made the long trek to see it.  After the museum, we were out of time so we made our way back to the train station, which was, thankfully, very close to the base of the mountain and headed home. 
After that, I got pretty lazy.  Sunday, I did homework for most of the day and watched some tv in the evening.  Monday, my least favorite class was canceled and there was sun again (two days in one week with sun?? This is unheard of in Normandy!!!!) and so I had a pretty great day even if I didn't do a whole lot haha.  Yesterday, I gave a group presentation on the regional languages of France and it went really well! The professor seemed impressed, so that's good haha.  Today, I almost missed a test in Oral because I took a nap before class and unthinkingly shut off my alarm when it went off... Thankfully, one of my friends in class texted me and told me to get my butt down there so I only showed up about 20 minutes late and didn't miss the test! *relieved sigh*
Tomorrow, I have to give a solo presentation and be in front of the class for about 15-20 minutes!! Thankfully, some of that time is class discussion time, but I'm still a little nervous.  I really want to tell you guys about the subject I'm presenting though, because it's really interesting and extremely important.  I will be talking about an organization called Invisible Children (you may have heard of this before) and a man named Joseph Kony.  Kony has led a rebel army in central Africa for 26 years - Twenty-Six Years- with no goal other than to gain and keep power for himself.  His soldiers are children that he abducts from their families in the middle of the night and brainwashes into fighting for him. Well, the boys fight. The young girls become sex slaves. This has gone on for FAR too long, because none of the big powers in the world are willing to get involved internationally unless it is somehow tied to our national security or financial gain.  This organization, however, took matters into their own hands and have been working for nearly 9 years to raise awareness and support against Kony and his crimes. Now, Invisible Children is launching an attack.  They are raising awareness in a huge way, pulling in celebrities and policy-makers alike to urge the government into action.  If we all band together, this will be the last year that Kony is free to use children and destroy families.  I know I'm starting to sound like propaganda but this is a really important subject. Please, just watch this video and then tell me this war doesn't need every single one of us, even if it's just to sign the petition.  --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc
The website, if you want to get a little more involved after that is kony2012.com
Please, help us save the world.
So, that's all for this week! I'll try to be more timely with my next post so you'll hopefully hear from me again very soon! I love you all and hope you're all doing well!!
Gros bisous!! <3
À bientôt mes amis,
Morgan