life is fun when you have no internet.

i've just got to say that i'm sitting outside on a curb with tiff and the director's son henri in sarlat, france blogging because it's the only place i can get internet. including the hotel. that's how sucky it is. paaathetic. but i refuse to get even farther behind in blogging. moving on...
sooo everybody thinks i don't have a middle name, but really i do.

my full name is michelle "i love chocolate" dastrup.

okay that's stupid, no it's not.

but the other day, i got to fulfill a lifelong dream of mine by going to a museum of chocolate.

okay, not actually a lifelong dream. more like a nightlong dream because i dreamt about it the whooole night before. and i was everything i dreamed it would be. 

let me rewind a bit...

we took a day trip on thursday down to biarritz to go to the musee du chocolat aka place that gives you free chocolate.

it started off with hand-painting/decorating our own bars of chocolate.

sidenote: i took a full minute long video of the lady describing what we were doing only because her hot assistant was standing behind her. and i'd load that video, but i'm keeping that creepy baby to myself, thank you very much. plus i have a dorky laugh in it.

[painting some tribal markings on my chocolate. why i decided to go that route, i do not know...]

[me sipping the suuuper dark hot chocolate. too rich for my blood...]

we also watched a video showing how chocolate is made starting with the cacao bean, which was really interesting. then we went into the chocolate shop, where i died.

[ohhhhh yeah.]

[how cute are these? yes, i bought one. yes, i'm debating just eating the chocolate piece on the bottom and not waiting for hot milk to make hot chocolate.]

after the chocolate museum, we rode to bayonne where we stopped for lunch, the basque museum, and sightseeing, annnnd SHOPPING. duh.

 [bayonne view.]

 [oh, me just frolicking the streets of bayonne. maybe trotting too.]

 [me and tiffy.]

[some hotties. the one in the purple's mine.]

[i promise i had some real food in between this glace and the chocolat i chowed down snacked on earlier, but the pictures wouldn't post! promise.]

[the absolutely beautiful cathedral. seriously, it was my first one, so i think i've got a million pictures.]

[prayers.]

i also got this really pretty sweater that is gray with tan day-of-the-dead skulls all over it. sounds sketch, but it's really cute, and i fell in love, and paris is the place to fall in love, yes? even though i'm in bayonne.....whatever. after everything, we went back to saint jean-de-luz and went to dinner with the international rep that was here [aaron] [<--soooo freakin' hilarious, jit, you'd die laughing everytime he talks like i did]. we went to the bar basque, where i think hemingway used to eat there, once upon a time.
i got a delicious salad. mmmmm :]

and this was my dessert that i was told was like tirimisu...i can't remember what it's called. i wrote it down on my hand....and then washed my hand...yeah, cool beans. it had cocoa powder on top and cream and then berries on the bottom and nuts. SO BOMB.

aight peeps, i'm freezin' my butt off. bonne nuit!

saint jean-de-luz aka favorite place of my life.

[jump if you love france! obviously i really do.]

okay, number 1: the internet in this hotel is totally lame. it's being the slowest of the slow and it's killing me...softly...with his song...

like i said, the second day [wednesday.....tuesday-ish for you stupid americaines] of paris, we had to wake up suuuuper early to take off on a 10 day vacation to southern france. i know, why is my life so hard?

anyways, we took off on a TGV [france's reeeally fast train] for the next five hours....

 and finally landed in the basque country [saint jean-de-luz to be more precise] where we're staying in an etap hotel [don't ask me what that means, translator says etap means etap in english so that helps a bunch]. saint jean-de-luz is a gorgeous little beach town that is a little bit tourist-y, but most of the tourists are french so it's not over-crowded or anything.

me, tiff, and sam went off and found food...panini's to be exact. i got your basic tomate, fromage, basilic kind..you know. and then we went down to the beach to party.

[yes, my panini says "panini". adorable, n'est pas? oui.]

[the humidity works wonders on my hair, makin' it all wavy and frizzy and stuff.]

[me and sammie. "party" is french for jumping pictures, obviously.]

[oh, this is just one of my french lovers jean-pierre. we have a open relationship. and don't worry, he's basically wearing a million layers compared to what others were wearing.]

then we decided to walk up the coast, taking pictures of pretty buildings/pretty people [us, of course] on the way.

[supa cauuute pink building.]

[me and sam looking out at the water.]

[a cute little orange european car. and me with my fattie face.] 

[yeah, i know. and this is real life for me now.]

 we walked up to this hill that overlooked the whole city/ocean, which was the best decision made because we got some gorgeous shots/almost died by climbing a fence/got stopped by a slug/laughed it up. the view from up there was absolutely beautiful. it really was one of the most amazing experiences ever looking out at the ocean and watching the waves crash on the rocks. everything up there was so green and lush and gorgeous.

[i was pretty much obsessed with taking pictures up here. i took about a million. okay, maybe 15 or so.]

[illegally climbed a fence for this bebe. and was watched by a little old lady. cool beans.]

[i realize it's alittle odd for me to actually post my picture of the slug, but i'll have you know it took a ridiculous 10 shots to get this one and i'm very proud of it, hence the postage of it. moving on...]

after our lovely night, we decided to stop back at the bar that we were going to go to for food earlier, but they were closed. it's the weirdest thing.....alot of the restaurants here won't be open until at least 7 o'clock because french people eat their dinner reeeaally late. anyways, we all got salads.

 [that's ham Serrano, asparagus, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, artichoke hearts, and a dressing. at the time, i thought it was decent, but looking back, it was pretty gross. the meat literally tasted like dog and the asparagus was like pickled and cold. makes me shudder thinking about it now. fsakfhkafabs]

hopefully i've provided enough scenery porn to last you a lifetime because i don't know when exactly i'll be able to post again if have to deal with this internet and my sanity at the same time. as franny always says, "patience is a virtue...that i don't have". amen amen amen.

dear long airplane ride to france, you suck.

so basically, i'm in france now... :]

i knew i was in trouble the second i stepped on the plane and the hot french plane man said "bonjour" and i melted/died. no dating, yeah right!....suuure. kidding. kinda. 

anyways, about that plane ride, it SUCKED. especially because i took two dramamine and still couldn't fall asleep. maybe because the lady in front of me was totally laying on me and the lady behind me wouldn't let me lean back. yeah, i paid $1300 for this seat lady, pretty sure i'm gonna do whatever i want with it.
and also, i'd have a picture of me on the dang plane ride because the lady next to me was a so-called "professional photographer", but she made me look like frickin fat albert. "the photographer is only as good as it's subject" is what she said to me. ummmm, thanks? i'm hideous? cool.

so i flew into the charles de gaulle airport [without sleeping AT ALL] in the late morning on tuesday and met up with some other girls from the study abroad to then go meet up with some more girls to take a shuttle together. all with no phones to reach each other. yeah, super fun game! not. we somehow managed to find each other though and then made our way to paris. one super embarrassing side note: our driver dropped us off a little ways away from out hotel, so we all had to drag our luggage through the cobblestone streets with french people staring at us. yeah, real cool.
so after we checked in, me and tiffany [roomie] decided to do some sightseeing [aka go see the eiffel tower in our backyard]. it was so unreal!

[shoutout to my girl taylor who gave me my eiffel tower necklace! loooove it. also, don't judge my looks, this is riiight after my plane ride from heck]
 that's one thing that i just can't get over is that i'm actually in france. i know that sounds so stupid, but i just keep forgetting and then i hear people speaking french and it all hits me again.
after sightseeing, we met up with our program director daryl who sent us on a "scavenger hunt" to basically get used to walking around the city and taking the metro and stuff.

highlights:
-getting some delicious creamy semi-bitter hot chocolate and stumbing through my french to get it.
-seeing the notre dame cathedral. again, so amazing.

-going to dinner with all the girls and the lee's after opening orientation and eating THE yummiest food ever, aka:
[this vegetable tart. doesn't look good but it was seriously sooo good.]

[duck and fries. you heard me, DUCK. tasted kinda like turkey, and really wasn't super yummy. but the fries were perfectly crispy/chewy/mmmm]

[pear tart for dessert. cinnamon-y drizzle. so good fo-shizzle. i'm done.]

we ended the night suuuuper late because we [me, tiff, samantha] were packing for our trip down to southern france that we basically had to leave for at the crack of dawn the next day. crazy crap. thoroughly exhausted, but absolutely in love with this country.

 [just try with all your might to not throw back your head and laugh at my "serious" face. i suck at em'.]

[i was really trying to get a picture of the lady in the striped cardigan. stupid notre dame got in the way.]

more updates coming soon! duh.

trippin', part dos. or deux.

[this is what i think of YOU, paris summer reading!]

they call it "the ladies' paradise", and i call it "kill me now". and "hat", obviously.

i know i look stupid, but i've resorted to doing other things with this book other than actually reading it because that's apparently not gonna happen today.

and i need to tell you that right as i was taking this picture, eduardo [not tryin' to be racist...it could be his name..], the pool man, decides to walk riiight in front of me [see sunglasses]. and blatantly stare. but of course, the self-timer's still going and i have no choice but to hold my pose. yup, no shame. gotta take one for the team/blog/world.

and if you must know, i was listening to that new-ish song "pumped up kicks" by foster the people. something about it makes me want to dance all over the place, doing the mashed potato and stuff.

anyways, the REAL point of this post was to tell about the utah portion of my trippy. i wanted to go because i needed to exchange my summer/california clothes for some fall/paris clothes because the styles/weather are so different between the two. and i wanted to get some unlimited kneaders french toast. oh, and see my loved ones blah blah blah :] it was a blast though! 

my top favs of the trip have to be: 

1.) going to the lupe fiasco concert with chelsea. 

["lucy, you know i don't speak mexican.." "i am NOT a mexican!"]

my best friend chelsea invited me to come a month ago, and i definitely wasn't going to pass it up. i don't really know lupe personally, but i'm a fan of "the show goes on"...and "kick, push" [even though i can only listen to it for 10 seconds before i have to turn it off]. the night was a slight bummer though because "big krit", lupe's opener, took foreverrrrrr cussing rapping and there were some crazies around us, and we were on a time crunch because we parked at a meter....so long story short, we didn't get to see mr. fiasco. yes, it's embarrassing. but oh well, it was still fun dancing and getting the "concert experience" [i'm a bit of a concert virgin]. we also drove around salt lake after and went to the citris grill after, so the night wasn't completely hopeless [i love how food saved the night for me haha.].

2.) going to the lake with my brother joe, sister-in-law lindsey, nephew maximus, and some of their friends.

[check out max's face, what a kook.]

 this, i was SO excited for because i haven't been to the lake in like, three years. i basically grew up on the lake, so i was glad to get back. and it only took me 42190412 tries to get up on the wakeboard again. stupid stubborn me. the highlight of this though was spending time with max. he is the most adorable thing ever! seriously, i'm in love. 

lindsey and him do this thing that goes like this:  

L-"what do they say in tenessee?" 

M-"heehee" 

L-"what do they say in arkansas?"

 M-"haha" 

L-what do they say in idaho?"

M-"hoho"

he didn't do it in the video, but the "hoho" gets me everytime! especially coming from him. most adorable baby dork ever. and thank you joe and linds for taking me! 

3.) having pizookies with my long-time besties jenn and chelsea. i haven't seen jenn in months, and she's pregnant with a baby girl! so excited for her and paul. and slightly jealous, but not at the same time haha. but still, SO happy for her! we sat and talked for hours while paul baked the cookies, it was awesome. [i stupidly forgot to take a picture with her, which i'm mad about, but then again i broke my camera when i tripped running in the rain an hour later, so it doesn't matter that much. YES, i broke my camera :(]

4.) seeing all my old roommates/best friends [tracy, annie, brinn, courtney, ashley, carly] and their significant others/boyfriends/boytoys. and meeting new friends like tanner and jamie [absolutely adore her!], who's got the BEST stash of nail polish i've ever seen. seriously, i was overwhelmed. as in i couldn't choose a color and painted each nail a different one because i loved them all. and then somehow randomly settled on a bright glittery pink when i normally go dark. yeah, where's the sense in that? that's what happens when you stay up til 1:30 with carly doin' them. anyways, we all just hung out the whole time, laughing hysterically and eating [typical]. 

quotes of the weekend: 

"pig benis" [don't ask, i'm not gonna tell.], "does this feel good or am i doing it for no reason?" "my legs are spread, i've got to pee, let's make this quick" "we've got a live one here!" "i'm probably not gonna get any, but i'm still excited" "want some apple pie? [splat!]. granted, basically all of these were with brinn and carly, who i spent most of my time with, but big whoop.

5.) having a pizza picnic with joe, linds, max, sam, and brinn/yogurtland with mom and mark/kneaders/cafe rio with mommy/jason's deli with carly and brinn [crotch tickler]/going to sonic and getting symphony bars/seeing "one day" [best movie ever, oh my gosh i bawled like a baby!]/new byu gym with troncy/nelson's class where nelson had a snake in his pants ["what was i talking about before i pulled the snake outta my pants?"] and i got called out for coming back/laying in brinn's bed and laughing and taking pictures/school shopping at target and getting samples.

all in all, even though i'm not a utah lover, i'll always love coming back and seeing my friends and family. they freakin' make that state. i love them all and am so grateful for their support and love and always making me laugh. really, i'm spoiled.

 [maxi-pad driving da boat]

 [yoseph and maximus]

 [i'm his favorite aunt!]

[tall t's and flat-bill hats, yo.]

 [freeeaks.]

 [cute holt sisters.]

 [carly, brinn, and me just being normal.]

[whoaa, put it in park girl.]

well, off to go "read". au revoir.