French Healthcare

Hello again!

Recent news: Tuesday night basketball game resulted in a trip to the ER with Charlie. I jumped and landed on another person’s foot, twisting my ankle. It swelled immediately but luckily for us, we were playing in the fireman’s gym attached to the their station. So, two friendly english-speaking firemen took off my shoe, immobilized my foot, and put me in an ambulance to the hospital in Le Chesnay. I’m not going to play it down, the sprain REALLY hurt – a pain I haven’t felt in AGEs. I had an x-ray and nothing was broken, but I know that I tore something down there. I have crutches for five days and have to keep a removable cast on it for another month. No swimming for 15 days and no exercise for a month. What luck.

Amazing, though, that I didn’t have any form of ID on me and no money (this was a two hour gym experience, and I didn’t want to bring tons of things with me!) and they still cared for me. I had to get all the pain medications, crutches, and brace from the pharmacy with the prescriptions they gave me, but even that wasn’t that expensive. The doctors will be sending the bill to the school…

I will still be going to Lourdes with Colleen this weekend… I am really amped about it – maybe some miracles will happen! I don’t think that miracles have stopped occuring, but few people allowed themselves to be completely abandoned to their faith. This is where they happen.

I think I got the BathHouse boards fixed, but they take awhile to load. I’ll be putting up more work later.

Take care!

Liz

BathHouse Boards

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What do I do here?

Hello again! Someone brought it to my attention that I haven’t posted any of my work on this website yet. Well, there are a lot of sketches, but unfortunately Rosemary took both my sketch books back home with her… Here are some pictures of the project last semester – A BathHouse in Paris’ 19th arrondissment.

Our new semester design project is a entrance/ticket area/library/shop/exhibition gallery/banquet hall/restaurant/amphitheatre complex for the Potager du Roi (The King’s Gardens). The site is a 4 minute walk from my school (The King’s Stables) and today I had my first design crit. It is a MASSIVE space, bordered by a wall and the gardens and the landscaping school on the other side.

I had a wallet stolen a couple weeks ago and yesterday finally got around to reporting it to the police. My friend Bea, a graduate student here working on her diploma helped me through the paperwork and translated what the police wanted. Everything was great but as we were nearly back to the school we noticed that they marked me as a “Madame” meaning that I was married. We laughed and had a French bonding moment. Glee.

This upcoming weekend, Colleen and I will be taking a train to Lourdes and stay there for awhile. When I told my landlords, who I already have a bumpy relationship with, about this, they were very happy and asked me to fill a bottle with the grotto water for them. Anything to get on their good side But I am really looking forward to it despite spending 8 hours on a train there and back.  In late February I’m going to Spain for the Spring study/sketch break with Max and Charlie. We are very proud of ourselves because we’ve got everything booked and bought in advance. The order of cities: Barcelona, Bilbao, Seville, Cordoba, Granada, and Valencia.

More later!

Love,

Liz

Back from Break for Another Semester

Hello Everyone! Well break was amazing. I was able to see and hang out with Rosemary and my Gma. It was super relaxing, and then for the last couple days before January 7th, Rose and I took a bus to London, England and hung out there for awhile and met up with a fellow classmate.

Right now I’m back in school after an intensive week of Modern Architectural History lectures and site visits to Mecca’s such as Villa Savoye by Le Corbusier and Maison Carree by Alvar Aalto.  Rosemary was also here for that hellish week (for more than one reason) and I dropped her off at CDG Airport on Sunday. I am currently working on a structures project, which I feel like a 4th grader every time I explain it to anyone outside. We have to construct meter tall towers under 500g with spaghetti. My group has come up with a very complex tower with a lot of little pieces… a lot of man hours will be going into this. And we have to make two.

More to come later… Hasta Luego!

Love,

Liz