Happy Birthday to Me~

I'm currently finishing enjoying the most expensive birthday present ever. One which I've given myself. I'm in Paris! Whee!

Junior year of high school my French teacher made us listen to a CD of a musical version of Romeo and Juliet that she'd bought. Most people were less than enthused, but I, being the nerd that I am, fell in love with it. To the point that I downloaded all of the music, copied the DVDs that my teacher had of it, and then translated the entire thing for my best friend so someone could watch/enjoy it with me. (I learned a lot of new vocabulary that way. Super nerd!) Fast forward six years: while playing around on YouTube when I was in France last spring, I discovered a new song from the show. Why? Because they'd updated it as it was almost ten years old. And I also discovered that it was going to be back in Paris this spring for the 10th anniversary. Fast forward again to like three weeks ago: I'm killing time in the computer lab between classes and on a whim I check the website for it. I have no idea what made me think of it, but I'm so glad I did. Oh hey, it's playing in Paris from 2 Feb to 4 April. Bam, I'm there.

I left Ifrane on Wednesday right after my class got out at noon. Spent the night in the Madrid airport. Flew out late that afternoon and got to Paris Thursday night. Spent yesterday wandering around, saw the show last night, spent today wandering a bit, and am peacing out early tomorrow morning. (But not getting back to Ifrane til like 8pm because discount airlines' schedules are made of epic fail.)

This has definitely been one of the most epic weekends ever. I swear I've been in a good mood since my plane landed. I don't think I've stopped smiling. This is the first time I've really traveled anywhere by myself and I LOVE it. And I think I really needed to get out of Morocco. Or at least away from AUI. It's hard to get away from there for an extended period of time because it's up in the middle of nowhere and there's a curfew and whatnot. And yeah, so I skipped two days of classes. Whatever. (I would have come over the long weekend but I thought I would be in Marrakech so I decided against it. Oh well.)

This has really been an awesome, awesome time though. I don't know why, but I feel at home here. I could never live in Paris because I don't really like it that much, but I feel totally comfortable here and nothing has bothered me at all. Sure it helps that I speak the language, but even still. I have been totally fine wandering aimlessly, jumping on and off the metro, and just doing whatever. Logic probably says I should be uncomfortable wandering around in a gigantic city like this by myself with no one I know in the country, let alone the city, but I'm totally okay with it. It' so awesome. I'm going to stop now because otherwise I'll just keep repeating myself. Posts to come later about my wanderings and about the epicness that was Roméo et Juliette. (SO EPIC.) Photos will be added once I get back to Morocco. God I'm such a nerd.