A Year Ago Today... My Adventure Began

I can NOT believe it's been exactly a year since the beginning of my exchange adventures in Europe! If memory serves me correct, I was on the plane from Toronto - Paris - Toulouse on January 3rd and classes at ESC started on January 5th.

Since I'm seriously missing exchange right now, I've decided to recount my exchange adventures on this blog by posting pictures and memories of what I experienced a year ago. This task would be much easier if I had kept a journal of what I did as I was actually experiencing everything... but I guess this is better than just leaving everything to memory as I'm sure I'll start forgetting tidbits of things a few years down the road.

Things I remember:

- hopping onto my Air France flight with Lauren Lefcoe, Jane Traversy, and Andrew McMahon
- missing our connecting flight from Paris to Toulouse and having a mild freakout at the airport... it was our first attempt at using French to communicate with the locals
- spending half an hour freaking out at the airport, thinking I lost my Tiffany bangle, only to realize it was in my jacket all along
- having a random French man help me with my luggage after seeing me struggle with my suitcase that had malfunctioning wheels... this was when I started to be amazed by the kindness of Toulouse people
- meeting French hottie Jean Pascal for the first time... he carried my overweight luggage with one hand each and lifted it up 6 flights of stairs... I think I instantly fell in love
- as if fate called for it, all 8 of us Queen's kids coincidentally saw each other that day at the local McDonald's... and that began our bond and continuous inside joke with McD's- exploring my loft at the residence next to the ESC business school...

Seriously missing it so much and hoping that the next group of kiddies at Toulouse are loving it right now!

Cathédrale Saint-Étienne de Toulouse

Place du Capitol - center of Toulouse

ESC Toulouse - our school of exchange for the Winter term

The Toulouse canal - went running down these trails in the Spring

Cheers,

Chelsea *

First Blog Post Ever!

What better way to start off a new year and a new decade than to start a blog to share my thoughts? In the past few years, I have really wanted to keep a blog but never got the chance to... mostly because of stupid excuses like "I'm too busy" and "it'll interfere with my work and studying". For those who knew me in high school, I was an avid user of Xanga and frequently posted updates about my life and feelings. I really miss having that type of outlet to express my thoughts... so enough with the excuses! I'm finally starting a blog! 2010 is going to be a fresh start and I'm hoping it's a year that will bring many positive changes. :)

So New Years was a few days ago and as I was counting down the last few seconds of 2009, I realized I didn't have any New Years resolutions! I usually don't really set any resolutions for myself and when I HAVE set them in the past, I never quite followed them. So this year, I'm hoping to be a little more disciplined. I really didn't know what resolutions to set for this year but as I was checking my Twitter today, somebody had tweeted a "New Years Resolution Generator" for inspiration. Try it out here if you're still trying to find a New Years Resolution: http://moninavelarde.com/newyears/

My New Years Resolutions:
1. Update and maintain my blog on a regular basis
2. Engage in physical activity at least 3 times a week
3. Do more real cooking and experimenting in addition to the baking I usually do
4. Learn to calm down and stress less
5. Improve on maintaining contact with old and new friends
6. Do a better job at avoiding foods I'm sensitive to
7. Reconnect with my parents
9. Challenge myself by learning something new (exactly what... TBD)
10. Live. Laugh. Love. Basically, enjoy life and cherish every second of it.

So that's it for now... Happy New Year to everyone! May 2010 bring many challenges, adventures, and new memories.

Cheers,
Chelsea *