It is official: I am done, done, done my undergrad! How fabulous! I honestly feel all grown up all of a sudden. Not really actually. Strange though, I’m excited that I’m done however you are faced with the realities of getting a job. And quickly. Fabulous. Nothing like celebrating eh.
Well the girls took me for a night out, supposedly to complete the meter beer challenge without having the same results as last time, however the bar was packed. And I mean packed. I don’t know why so many people were there, but we found a lovely little bar close by: Solferino. Brilliant. Instead of having a horizontal meter beer, we had a vertical keg of sorts that held almost 10 beers. Super cool. Of course, the girls being the girls, they got me to close my eyes. I was then presented with a fantastically large card and a makeshift cap. Bright yellow to make it even better. Love those girls. The top of my hat said “Looking for a free ride to Paris! – Class 2010” and the card noted how much I had learned over the past semester. Really, tons actually.
In my defense though, I swear Margaret Thatcher sounds like a poet’s name.
It is strange, once I was finished all my exams you can hardly believe that I have been here almost 5 months. Where has the time gone? Ridiculous. Now the issue is people start leaving you.
First to go was my lovely roommate Laura. She left us on May 15th to take the train to London where she would then fly back to Canada the 26th. We had done a last lovely lunch, aka pizza in Vieux Lille: it was perfect. One last girls lunch with the 5 of us: Storm Troopers all present. Now, her suitcase’s wheels were broken and it was way too heavy for us to carry. What do we do? As we are walking past Carrefour (our beloved grocery store down from my house) we had the brilliant idea of using one of their metal trolley systems. Hmm. Mags and I went to check it out. At first they had no idea what the hell we were talking about, but one of the guys had literally seen all 5 of us trying to carry the damn bag down the street so he knew we needed help. Not a problem he said, as long as we bring it back. Ha. We come strolling down the street to meet Laura and her bag and they were stunned. We were totally gonna push her suitcase the entire way to the station on a grocery store stacker pushy device. So funny I can’t even tell you.
We got there there alright where we held up the sign “We’ll miss you Chang!”. Tears were exchanged and it just didn’t feel real. I have been living with her for months, I go take naps on her bed while she is on the computer. We get ready to go out together and I always make her tea. What was I going to do now?
Second off was AP this past week. Once again, the girls plus one hit up Grand Place for a beer, then to our surprise McD's. Now I won’t’ kill you with the details, but I waited for about 30 minutes for my meal, then dropped my fries all over the floor. She gave me an ice cream but it was too damn hot it melted into practically water. Oh and Amy had been staying at my place for a couple days since we had moved her out of hers (her landlord was INSANE), but Amy had been living in Basia’s room all weekend while she was in Vienna, so she took Basia’s keys and Basia took mine. We are sitting having our beer when I remind Amy she has to let us back into our apartment. Of course, she doesn’t have her keys. Super. Do a little texting to the other roomies with no response. Have no fear, someone will be there. We got something to eat in the meantime and when we realized it was 5:20 and her train was at 6,we rushed back to our apartment. Was someone going to be there? Da da dummmmmm; THEY WERE! Yay, so we got AP’s bags and were off like lightning to the train station.
So there we were: Mags, Petey, myself AP and Pierre. Her train was 10 minutes late, but it was the strangest feeling standing there. You meet these new friends five months ago and all of a sudden they are leaving again. Strange feeling. AP had a tearful goodbye and she got on the train. We had a couple minutes to kill so we sent her loves messages on the glass and when it time for the train to start rolling away…we ran. What else do you do? We are running alongside the train blowing kisses to one of the girls. Pretty epic farewell if I do say so myself.
And then there were 3: Mags, Petey and I. What a better way to say bye to Petey than a night of 167 and tacos with the girls. We got dolled up and met at Mags house. 3 bottles of 167, 3 bottles of jagger and a german shot belt: a solid evening. Of course as always, we had a freaking blast. A night with the girls turned into the photoshoot of the century, I mean how could we resist right? Vivi came over later and we began the party with the four of us. Well I guess we were louder than we assumed because all of a sudden paper snowballs started flying by the window. Hmm. Weird? Yes. So we stick our heads out. 2 minutes later it turned into a paper snowball contest between us and the neighbors: Vivi was the best although she may have hit the guys face twice. Stuck in the crossfire of it all I suppose. And for some reason, God only knows, we busted out the Lion King soundtrack. But damn, did we ever rock that bad boy. I mean, we were exhausted; we put on about 3 shows a night. (Side note: Maggie’s landlord received 30 complaints from her building and swore she had a huge party at her house: party aka four girls and a Lion King soundtrack? Absolutely).
The next day Mags, Vivi, Petey and I had some tacos for her last sendoff. What the hell was I going to do without Petey? 167 had masked that thought the night before, but being sober and pulling her suitcase to the bus was weird. I saw that kid’s face every damn day. She slept in my room 99/100 nights and well, we kind of fell 15 feet together, so that counts for something. We took her to the bus and as the Polish bus approached we knew it was hers. Of course she would be on the Polish Express. Oh yeah, so she had to pay the drive 10 EUR to get her large ass bags on the bus, but other than that, no issues. We gave our hugs and said “see you soon”. Literally. My ass will be on that same bus in one month going to Berlin. FML: 13 hour bus ride. I can’t wait. And like the past couple send offs Mags and I were there like proud parents waving our Petey away. She did the running motion as the bus started and Mags and I were off running like gazelles beside the bus. Run and jump, run and jump. I’m sure Petey was all over that. We looked ridiculous. But it was all worth it, duh, I mean c’mon, its Petey.
And then we were down to 2. Jesus. Where had the time gone? My girls, and then nada. Everyone was leaving. But no one went out quite like the bam that is Mags. We had realized the night before that Mags elevator no longer worked. Crap. She lives of course on the 7th floor, but the beautiful thing about her apartment is that the 1st floor is technically the 3rd…so we had about 10 flights to work with. Fabulous. I have never been so excited. I had promised Mags I would be there at 10am with our last bottle of 167 and my running shoes to giver my all. Well funny thing about us all going out the night before, we got home late, and well I didn’t set an alarm. For anyone who knows me, my physical alarm clock is non-existant. I was just not programmed that way. I will sleep my day away. So, I’m thinking the alarm is set for 930 and you know that feeling in bed where it feels like noon, but your alarm hasn’t gone off. The best. Then I realize I didn’t set an alarm and jump off. 11am. Shatttttt. I was supposed to be there an hour ago. So I call Mags from bed, and to my luck her fam was stuck in traffic and would be there super late too. So I got my life together and headed over. We made a cheers to the last bottle of 167 and her family arrived.
One hello to Tom her dad and BAM: Brooklyn accent. You would know it in a heartbeat. How fabulous. So there were 5 of us moving Mags out: her dad, boyfriend Bram, her and I and Aberlardo came over to help us too. We could do this. Funny thing about when Mags moved in, she kinda did a confetti spill of everything, everywhere. And since packing up she had no suitcases, everything was in plastic bags. Hmm. Amen for IKEA bags though, they are the best. And huge. We had to do about 4 or 5 flights up, but man oh man, 10 flights killed us. You basically sign up for a marathon every time you enter the damn stairwell. It was insane. But we did it. Took numerous hours, but we managed just fine. How do you celebrate? Lunch.
One final lunch with Mags, her dad and Bram and she was off like lightning. The last of my Storm Trooper ladies. I was officially the last one standing. Normally you get a trophy or something, yeah, not so much in this case. It’s strange how people come in and out of your life like a flash. We met five months ago and these ladies saved me. They won’t know the impact they have had on my life. They are one of the best things that has happened to me, and certainly my Euro experience would not have been the same without them. And they came at a perfect time in my life. They were the girls who make your world a better place and make the day better just by being there. The hours we spent together, the nights we went out, the thousands of pictures and hundreds of times we have been brought to tears of laugher.
Thank you ladies; you made my trip amazing and changed me forever
Storm Troopers 167 forever xoxo
One final lunch with Mags, her dad and Bram and she was off like lightning. The last of my Storm Trooper ladies. I was officially the last one standing. Normally you get a trophy or something, yeah, not so much in this case. It’s strange how people come in and out of your life like a flash. We met five months ago and these ladies saved me. They won’t know the impact they have had on my life. They are one of the best things that has happened to me, and certainly my Euro experience would not have been the same without them. And they came at a perfect time in my life. They were the girls who make your world a better place and make the day better just by being there. The hours we spent together, the nights we went out, the thousands of pictures and hundreds of times we have been brought to tears of laugher.
Thank you ladies; you made my trip amazing and changed me forever
Storm Troopers 167 forever xoxo
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