à bientôt mes amis

By the end of this weekend, I’ll be on my way to Europe! (With one of my dear friends, Sarah, who I met in my French program at U of T.)

I can’t think of a more literary excursion to be taking this summer, and I am beyond excited to be visiting some of the greatest settings in literary history…especially now that I have two literature degrees, count ’em, two!  My trip begins in Italy, where I plan to visit Florence and the landmarks where Boccaccio gathered inspiration for his famous novella collection The Decameron (which I wrote many a long-winded paper on during my MA degree)!  I also plan to visit tourist sites in Rome, such as the Vatican…and maybe my excitement stems from how engrossing I found Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons, but I certainly won’t mention that to any Roman Catholic priests I might run into!  Then, I’ll be heading to France to visit some of the places I’ve always dreamed of seeing, like the Opéra Garnier, where Erik fell madly in love with Christine, and Notre Dame de Paris, where Quasimodo fell madly in love with Esméralda (apparently love is a big deal in France!)!  Finally, I’ll return to England and revisit the world of Dickens and Austen and my favourite sibling authoresses (10 useless points to anyone who can guess who they are!)!

Alas, as I will be away from home, and so away from my computer, I won’t be able to update this blog for quite awhile…but rest assured that I will be reading (probably a French collection of poetry by a certain famous author by the name of Monsieur Hugo) and I will be soaking in all the literary culture that surrounds me!

Until my return!

JNG

Girl with a Green Heart