Think of that friend who always seems to be flawlessly stylish, multiply them by a million or so, add in some more fashionable friends and you’d get the general population of Paris. In honor of fashion week, I’d like to share my experiences with the street style of Paris. Understandably, there are a few unfashionable people in the city of a little over 2 million people, but for the most part Parisians are a fairly fashionable bunch.

It recently dawned on me that I have made it through nearly two months of study abroad blogging without mentioning academics.

I’ve had my reasons, first and foremost being that registration at Trinity is an unholy pain from which I’m still recovering. I thought I was prepared for it, having been thoroughly warned by IES officials and Wash U advisors, usually with the optimistic spin that “It’s not like the US, but you came here to experience new things!”

This weekend, some friends and I went to Prague, which was really fun!

On Saturday, we did a lot of exploring. We walked from our hostel to the Old City, which was really cool to see and had a lot of character. The main square was full of people and there were a few performers and food stands. We got mulled wine and trdelník (all the consonants), which was a kind of flakey pastry on a stick with some cinnamon sugar situation on top and it was amazing.

I saw this in another blog post and I thought it was a good idea, so I have decided to write about a few things that I have been noticing in Vienna recently.

1. Advertising

I had never been one to enthusiastically celebrate Valentine’s Day, but a weekend in Paris with close friends made it difficult to not become a hopeless romantic.  From fresh out-of-the-oven baguettes to perfectly balanced macaroons, I fell in lust with the glamour of France.

Last Sunday IES took us on a day trip to Nagahama, a city in the Shiga Prefecture of Japan just one hour away from Nagoya by bus. Having taken off at around 9 am, we made our first stop at Nagahama’s Hokkoku pottery studio. I tried making a bowl for the first time. Hopefully when the studio sends the bowls back to us I will have something good enough to drink tea with!

There are two things that I guarantee happen in almost every single conversation. Immediately there is the greeting like a hello, how are you, or the casual “what’s up.” Then of course the meat of the conversation follows (you could say that the greeting was one of the buns), which can vary in length and quality. Then, at the close, the final bun in this delicious conversational sandwich-metaphor is put on, the goodbye. These two components, the hello and the goodbye, have forever kept our conversations together like book-ends on a book shelf.

Through IES, I am able to participate in an internship this semester. I am so excited, and I feel so lucky to be able to have the experience of working in Rome. My internship this semester is through the C.R.E.T.A Rome Gallery and Ceramics School which I mentioned in my previous blog! After going to the pottery aperitivo and meeting both Lori-Ann and Paolo, I knew I wanted to have my internship experience with them.