The past week...

The weekend is fast approaching and as is my trip to Dublin to meet up with my friend Danielle! Actually fast approaching is an understatement as I'm getting ready to leave for the airport in about an hour...Anyway, Danielle is flying in from the states and I cannot wait to see her and have her show me around Dublin since she studied abroad there last year. Tonight I have an overnight layover in London (yay!) where I'm staying at a little bed and breakfast near the airport. Although I've done plenty of plane travel by myself this will be my first actual overnight traveling alone and I'm quite looking forward to it. I'm just crossing my fingers that my flight arrives on time so I can make it for the free shuttle to my hotel...Or else, I'll just have to pay for a taxi- not ideal, however not a problem because they speak English! Oh how nice traveling in English speaking countries is :)

This past week has actually been quite busy with school and activities and a friend's birthday. I've had my first round of exams and presentations in my classes and I'll find out how I did on those next week...eek! I realize I hardly ever talk about my hometown here in Aix but I'm working on a video project all about studying abroad here so I'll try to keep updating with photos and perhaps some video clips. The weather was just starting to get nice but then we had another cold spell and it snowed the other night! They say it's been one of the coldest and longest winters in history. I am certainly excited for it to end- mainly because I have a limited amount of winter clothes and I'm so tired of wearing the same things over and over! I've also finally gotten into a really good workout routine and it's rough running when you feel like your lungs are burning. Speaking of working out, however, I've finally found this large park where it seems that all the Aixoise like to go walk and jog. I've been running on the various tracks in the area and another small park, so to find this was quite exciting. I've mentioned before that sometimes I feel like I stand out here because you hardly ever see anyone exercising so I felt right at home in this park amongst other recreational athletes. There's a large stream that runs through the park and lots of meandering paths- I'll have to take some photos sometime as I think I'll be spending a lot of time there...

Other than that my wrist is healing quite well and I should be able to stop wearing the brace in a week! Wow time is really flying by here...I've been taking it out every now and then to get a little movement and so far so good. I'll have to create my own mini rehab program which will definitely include swimming in the pool. I was all set to go with my goggles, swim cap and all, and then I just had to tumble down a mountain...needless to say I have been counting down the days that I can reunite with swimming. It's going to be great.

That's about it for now- time to go do last minute packing and then off to the airport! On a final note- with my new obsession for cooking has come an addiction to reading food blogs. I am now a frequent reader of quite a few, and this one called 101 Cookbooks is my favorite. Heidi Swanson lives in the Bay Area and really focusses on cooking with whole grains and lots of fruits and veggies. All her recipes are really easy to make and follow and the photographs that accompany them are incredible! I highly recommend giving it a look if you have a minute.

Here's the link:

http://www.101cookbooks.com/index.html

Bon week-end!