The Whirlwind Week That Was.

Hello from Paris! I don't even know how to begin describing the past week. First, miraculously, my passport arrived at the Southampton DHL last Wednesday morning at 8.28am (thanks for the prayers). We arrived at the ferry landing just in time to check in -- many thanks to dear Mr. Wall for getting us safely on the boat and Mrs. Wall for packing an excellent lunch on the assumption that we'd make it! The ride across the English Channel was stunning. White cliffs, wind, blue water... oh yes, and a passport in my pocket. We arrived in the little port of Dieppe, hopped on a bus to the train station, took a train to the town of Rouen, and spent two nights with our sweet host, Linda, and her rather aggressive cat, Jules. Rouen is where Joan of Arc was imprisoned and killed, so we learned a lot about her and explored pretty much all of the little city. 

On Friday, we arrived in Paris and once again found ourselves trying to maneuver the maze of a huge city transport system with all our baggage. There really is nothing more fun, and by fun I mean exhausting and stressful. We stored our bags, grabbed some quiche, and scoped out Notre Dame before going to our hosts Flo and Bruno's, a lovely French couple in the suburb of Alesia. Over the weekend we explored le Jardin du Luxembourg, Jardin de Tuileries, the Louvre, Champs D'Elysee, Arc de Triomphe, and probably our favourite thing after all that touristy stuff -- a darling little marche aux puce (flea market) in Port de Vanves. Yesterday after exploring as much as we could of the insides of the Louvre in 3 hours, we found our second Parisien hosts, Sophie and Thomas, in Ourq. Today we explored gorgeous Parc des Buttes Chaumont near their apartment, and hiked to the Pere Lachaise Cemetery, where we managed to find the graves of Edith Piaf,Frédéric Chopin, and Oscar Wilde among a bajillion tombstones. A few photos from the wild week..

Saying goodbye to England and the white cliffs of the south. 

At the Jeanne d'Arc wax museum. 

A REAL Monet, at a fine arts museum in Rouen
that we got into free with our student cards!

Is she alive? 

Notre Dame, the Siene, Maren, and the rain. 

Inside. 

We have grown to love this sign very, very much. 

A Louis Vuitton window display on the Champs D'Elysee.
Completment bizarre.. 

Arc de Triomphe at 8 in the morning!

Love locks on the bridge. 

Maren mange une baguette avec les petites ouiseaux. 

A fireworks display at La Defense.

We love flea markets. 

This is about as close as we could get to Miss Mona Lisa. 

About half way through the Louvre, Maren realized her map was in  German.
Didn't help much that mine was in Polish. 

View of the Louvre, from inside the Louvre. 

Salutations from Southampton!

And what a week it has been. Starting from last Thursday: Maren and I met up with Barrett at the train station, said goodbye to Sheffield, went to London, had lunch outside Westminster Abbey, and gave a presentation on dissertation placement and findings. We stayed at a coursemate's that night, ventured halfway across the city the next day, stashed our luggage at a very overpriced bag storage centre, and met up with an old friend, Josh, to 'do' London. Considering we started at 11am and went nearly everywhere on foot, I'm pretty happy about our checklist of tourist hotspots for the day: Borough markets, London Bridge, Millennium Bridge, Covent Gardens, Apple markets, Buckingham Palace, St. Paul's Cathedral, The George (oldest pub in London, frequented by Dickens back in the day), Monument, Tower of London, Trafalgar Square, the National Galleries, Leicester Square, and the Globe Theatre. For anyone else going to London soon, you can get £5 tickets to see a Shakespeare show from the standing section at the Globe. We discovered this in hour 10 of being on our feet so it was not terribly appealing, but looked like quite the experience. We somehow found our way to another old friend, Patrice's, that night. She was a 20-minute walk from the tube station, and lives in a third story apartment without a lift, which only increased my fast-growing affection for my ridiculously heavy bags. I cannot aptly describe how absolutely glorious it was to fall into bed that night.

Saturday we ventured back to the tube and made our way to the Victoria coach station, where we waited for our Greyhound bus to Southampton, which was an hour late due to traffic from a football match. (You know you're in England when...) We eventually made it to the lovely Stan and Bernadette's that evening and have been spoiled the past 4 days with lovely meals, clean laundry, and excellent day trips. These have included Portchester Castle, Jane Austen's house, Winchester Cathedral, and the building/room in which Eisenhower and his crew planned D-day. Pictures below. 

Minor side note: while leaving my little house in Sheffield for the final time last Thursday, I realized I didn't have my passport. After going through my bags at the train station, I realized I had accidentally shipped it home in a box of clothes and books. Awesome. The box arrived in Bellingham Friday, Dad mailed the passport Saturday, and it is currently somewhere between Cincinnati and the UK. If it arrives at the Southampton DHL tomorrow before 9am, Stan will race us to Newhaven (2 hours away) to catch our ferry to France. If it's after 9am, we'll have to go with plan B. Which we're still coming up with. 

If any of this sounds familiar, it's because this was exactly what I was doing last year at this time -- waiting for my passport to show up in the mail so I could get on a plane to the UK. Oh the irony. For you praying people, prayers for a swift reunion with the passport would be very, very much appreciated. 

Love to you all!

Maren and I with the only Ben I know
taller than my favourite Ben.

Maren at the Borough Market.

Maren with Tower Bridge. 

The Victoria Statue outside Buckingham Palace.

View from the top of Monument, which we climbed all 311 stairs of!

Josh and Maren outside St. Paul's Cathedral, where
the little old bird lady fed the birds, tuppence a bag.

Maren in what remains of Portchester Castle. 

View of  Portchester Castle and much of Southampton from hillside. 

Where D-Day was planned. 

Maren at Jane Austen's house!

We went crazy at the Jane Austen House and
almost bought embroidery kits of Pride & Prejudice
characters to work on in France..

We love sunny English countrysides!

Panoramic view of city + country. 

P.S. For alternative perspectives of this trip and more consistent, less wordy entries, please visit Maren's blog. 

Almost There.

I'm blogging at 7.17am. That is a first.
Monday: editing, editing, formatting, editing.
Tuesday: turned in a 60-page placement portfolio and spent 4 hours figuring out printing issues.
Yesterday: submitted the 72-page document that is my dissertation. Ran home and shipped a very large box back to the US.
Today: packing up a suitcase and heading to London to do a presentation for Restless Development on our placement and study findings.
Then: on to Southampton and France for 2 weeks, before HOME. Considering we just now got confirmation on where we're sleeping in London tonight, this should be an interesting trip.
Living in a haze of stress, elation, and disbelief that things are finally wrapping up. Maren has been to Edinburgh and back, taken lots of naps, and done a great job tolerating a generally manic sister.

Maren experiencing pub life. 

Maren falling asleep in the bushes when we went on a hike
to combat jet lag...

A Sunday picnic at Chatsworth House!

Sissies. 

All the train tickets I've used this year. 

Post-hand-in. 

Thanks for your prayers. Miss you all. 

The End is Near.

Back in Sheffield, again.
But it is with great joy and exhaustion that I say that for the very last time. The countdown has begun!

Dissertation is due next Thursday. 300 words to be cut, then the final stages of formatting, then printing and binding.This paper is like my firstborn child -- I love it more than anything else in the world, and simultaneously hate it for stealing my sleep, social life, sanity, and all other pre-existing forms of normalcy.

Maren arrives tomorrow! Not today, which is when I thought she was coming when I purchased train tickets a month ago and made plans for this weekend. Nice little fiasco trying to sort that out yesterday, in the midst of last-minute editing before an advisor meeting.

These days I'm living by the theory that eating well and exercising will make up for sub-par sleeping habits. There is just too much to do in the day. I am so excited to start cleaning, sorting, and packing that working on my dissertation at home is becoming nearly impossible. There is nothing quite as good as realizing you've reached the end of a  period of time that once seemed like it would never end. Having the finish line in sight is a beautiful thing.

Prayers for stamina to finish strong academically, get all (/the most important) trip details sorted, and mentally/emotionally survive the next week would be much appreciated.

Here are a few photos from the last days in beautiful Finlandia.
Missing you all more than ever. See you in just a few short weeks!

Turku Castle, one of the oldest buildings in Finland.

My favourite ceiling. 

By the Aura River in Turku, which is a town nicknamed
"the butt crack of Finland". I have NO idea why. 

We spent a night in the cabin of Kirsten and Leif on an island
off the coast of Helsinki. Kirsten was one of the spryest
women over 70 I've ever met. Right after I took this picture she climbed
onto the roof of the house. 

Moose poo!

At Ina's friend Maya's, in Espoo. 

Pre-flight coffee stop at Regatta Cafe in Helsinki. So much sunshine!

Fun with Numbers.

3. the number of ticks i found on me yesterday after mushroom and berry picking in the woods all morning. 

1. the number of poisonous snakes i almost stepped on at ina's cabin. 

15. the number of 'tourist hot spots' ina and i visited in tampere during our 4 hours in the city. 

102. ina's temperature yesterday. 

4. the number of times i stalled the car driving around Turku trying to find an open pharmacy to buy her some medicine.

5. the number of euros spent on a new outfit from a finnish thrift store.. a truly divine experience.

8. the average number of times i get lost trying to go on runs around finnish towns. 

10. the average number of courses in a finnish breakfast. 

The cabin/cooking area we hiked into outside Jyvaskyla. 

With lovely Sorkkila by the lake.

Matilda berry picking the old-fashioned way, while Henkka
uses a new-fangled contraption. 

A mini sauna IN THE BATHROOM. Amazing.

Textile museum in Tampere. Yay flannel pajamas!

Random tourist shot with a gingerbread house.

Another massive breakfast...

Ina struck "Finnish Gold"!

The fruits of our labour. 

View from Johanssen's Cabin. 

Wineberries! And some other berry I have yet to identify that
looks like a miniature watermelon. 

With Ina's Grandma, Linnea. She didn't know
any English, but kept trying to speak to me in
Swedish... she must've known it's in the blood. 

Another INGENIOUS Finnish invention: a dish
drying rack in your cupboard.