Picnic on the canal

Only nine days left till I'm back in the States!  The weather's been pretty nice lately, so I've been taking advantage and picnicing all the time.  I went to the canal St Martin with a friend last night, and we hung out near a group of Italians who all had guitars and were singing, and some (presumably) Americans who were setting off fireworks.  I'm going to miss the cheap wine and all the awesome picnic spots when I leave!
All my friends are leaving this week to go on vacation!  I'm going to have to entertain myself this weekend.  Well, it's probably a good thing that no one will be around, since I still need to work on going through all my stuff and getting my suitcase weight down.  Also I need to visit the catacombs, since I still haven't been.  I think that the catacombs are the only tourist thing left here that I haven't done yet.  

Picture roundup

Birthday dinner at a friend's place, with macarons, salmon and goat cheese salad, and handmade sweets from Tunisia

Parc des Buttes Charmont

By the lake at the park

I amsterdam, by a museum that I can't spell, with a bunch of other people also taking pictures

Amsterdam central station

On a pedalboat on the canals

It's summertime already!

And picnic season is definitely here!  I'm going to another picnic today, at the Parc Buttes Charmont this time.  I'm going to have picnic'd at every park in Paris at this rate, haha.  Parc Monceau was really pretty, and I got burnt laying out in the sun with my friend.  Oops!  Fortunately it wasn't bad, just a touch of red on my legs and shoulders that has already faded.  I'm remembering sunscreen today though!  Also we will be opening our wine immediately - last time, we got so involved in talking we forgot to open the wine we had bought, and by the time we remembered it, it was HOT.  I'm so happy the sun is back!  The weather has actually been approaching 80 degrees lately! 
I found a pair of running shoes on sale for only 20 euros, so I'm going to pick them up and start jogging.  There's a Paris 10k race in June that I'm going to train with a couple of my friends for.  I've never run something like that before, so wish me luck!
 Amsterdam tomorrow!  Our train leaves at 10.25, and we'll be in Amsterdam around 12.30 I think.  It's slightly cooler in Amsterdam, but it's not supposed to be too bad.  I still have to pack!  We'll only be there for the weekend though, so I'm just gonna throw some stuff in a tote I think.  I'm hoping my little canvas tote I picked up from the Musei Vaticani will be up for the job.
Anyway I better get going, I just realized how late it is! Already 10, and the picnic's at noon!

Stuff

Not much has really been happening since my Spain trip and new year's... I've just been hanging out in Paris, going out with friends, working.  The weather has finally turned nice!!  We've had a solid week of amazing temperatures, it's been great.  The sun has been out, and it's been in the 70s, the flowers are blooming all over the place, it's fantastic.  I've been doing a lot of picnics with friends in the Tuileries and at the Sacre Couer.  Now that I have my French bank card, I can use the Velib system and bike around Paris, too.  I tried it out for the first time yesterday, it's kind of cool.  The bikes themselves are a little hard to ride (really heavy, and the seats are super slippery) but it's cool to be able to just rent a bike to get wherever I'm going instead of taking the metro, or even just to bike around for fun. 

I'm having my birthday party today at a friend's apartment in Paris after (yet another) picnic in the Tuilieries.  I'm gonna have to miss part of my own picnic, though, because I ended up having to just bite the bullet and make a doctor's appointment to do something about my ear.  It's been hurting for six days now, ear drops didn't have any effect, and the pain seems to be getting worse.  Fortunately one of my friends who's been living here for a while gave me some advice about finding a doctor, so I managed to find one who speaks English who is 'conventionne secteur 1' which apparently means that he has to charge me the minimum price for my visit.  So I'll be going there at 2pm today.

Anyway that's about all!  I'll be doing some more traveling soon, I'm going to Amsterdam with a friend over Easter weekend.  I'll post pictures from that trip after I'm back. 

New Years!

My internet connection has been super spotty lately so I don't have all my Spain pictures up, but I have some from new years to tide you over in the meantime!  My friends and I did the tourist thing and we went to the Eiffel Tower for midnight, where we watched the fireworks and drank champagne straight from a bottle that we bought from a dude on the street, haha.  Afterward we went to a house party in the 5th and partied all night!  The champagne was definitely flowing, and I felt it the next day but it was a nice way to ring in the new year.