Pardon my deliquence?

The last few weeks have been ridiculously hectic -- but good hectic, because friends have been coming to visit!!!

First Erin came with her mom and sister, and then Caitlin and Marina got here!!! Unfortunately I haven't been able to spend as much time with anyone as I might have liked since I work a lot and things are just generally busy, but it's great to vent at full speed in my own particular variant of English for a change :)

In the grand tradition of Tuesday nights, I have been promising to make blue bazookas since I found all of the ingredients here. For those that are sadly deprived, bazookas are the Tuesday night drink special of our favorite bar in Binghamton, Tom and Marty's. They come in red, blue, green and purple (plus now I think orange, pink and something else), but blue ones are the BEST. They are typically served in mason jars (yes, THAT classy), but since I only had a few jars we were forced to drink them in glasses. Oh well :)

To make that into the most perfect night, we made bazookas, then met my friends Sydney and Guillaume at my favorite Parisian bar, Café l'Epoque in Pigalle. It's the karaoke bar that I love, and like Tom and Marty's, it's awesome on week nights, and insufferable on the weekends! We split a beer tower (just like home) and sang important karaoke classics, like Mamma Mia, Whitney Houston, Queen, etc. On top of the already stunning amounts of awesomeness, IT STARTED SNOWING!!!

That was one of my favorite nights out yet :)

The night before that we went out to dinner in Saint Michel, to the French restaurant La Cochonaille (Mommy, it's the one we went to in the Latin quarter, where the owner loved you because of your Canadian accent!), because I remembered really liking it when I went there with my mom two years ago. I liked it, and I think Caitlin and Marina did too!

Last night I went to see the Enesco Quartet at the Salle Gaveau with a bunch of friends from orchestra. We all know the second violinist and cellist from orchestra, they're the professional musicians that sit principal in their respective sections. They played a Haydn quartet that was fun (Op. 33, or the 2nd or something I think), a Bartok quartet, and Schubert's Maiden and Death which I really liked. For the encore, they played a transcription of an Enesco piece, which was pretty awesome too.

Every time I see a concert, it makes me want to go home and practice. Unfortunately, the vast majority of concerts are at night, and something tells me people might object to me running home at 1130 pm and busting out my violin. Just a thought. I do want to make playing look as effortless and graceful as other people do though. Gotta work on that.

Caitlin and Marina get back from London (they went to visit Jane!) tonight, so I get a little more friend time!!! Time to go to orchestra ...