We interrupt this blog to bring you a very important… RANT.

This semester, for me, could go by any number of names. I'm just brainstorming, but here are a few ideas:

The Semester When Allie Learned to Clean Her Own Toilet
The Semester When Allie's Boyfriend Enjoyed Quiche, Tiepins, and Ballet
The Semester When Allie Ate As Many Pastries As Vegetables
The Semester When Allie Fell in Love With Amsterdam
The Semester When Allie Learned That Red Wine Gives Her Asian Flush

There are others, but let's not be excessive. I'll give you just one more:

The Semester When Allie Experienced Many Annoying Things

So, you already knew about the mouse. Which later became mice, when I caught one in the kitchen nibbling on a granola bar. But so as not to seem unappreciative, I've avoided telling you about a couple other things. Well, that sure backfired. Now it's all built up and I have to write a whole post of whining.

Let's make a numbered list.

1. The mice
2. A leak in my roof
3. A few perpetually broken lights
4. Food poisoning: round one
5. An outer ear infection, treated by a Dutch-speaking doctor
6. Food poisoning: round two
7. A canceled flight back from Barcelona, rerouted to Paris 5 hours later, ending with a $120 train ride back to Brussels
8. Recently, no heat in my apartment
9. And the real kicker… BEDBUGS

That's right, you heard it. Bedbugs are real, and they live in my room. When the sun goes down, the little rice-sized pests crawl out from the cracks in my wood floor and find their dinner. On me. I wake up with tiny bites forming trails along my shoulders, hands, and lower back.

Needless to say, I haven't been handling this latest problem calmly. On Thursday, I dragged Ceej back to my apartment after class to help with my makeshift debugging strategy. We vacuumed for hours. We sprayed an entire can of insecticide on my bed, floors, and baseboards. After that, we hauled my blankets, sheets, rug, and pajamas to the laundromat for an extremely hot washing. This turned my white sheets pink. It's almost like my papa's here.

I ended my de-pest-fest around 8 last night, ate dinner, and went to my computer to start writing a politics paper that's due on Monday. Before a single paragraph was written, two bedbugs crawled across my desk.

That was the breaking point. I cried, a lot. I called home and cried some more. I didn't want to be a grown up anymore.

Very little progress was made on my paper, and by 2 a.m. I knew that I wouldn't be able to go on the planned trip to Alsace this weekend. I sent Ceej an apologetic email, hoping that he would have enough fun with the rest of the CIEE group to not resent my abandoning him.

Today was a little better. I realized that if I wait until 5 a.m. to go to sleep, I only have to suffer through an hour or so of the bedbuggy darkness. When the sun comes up, they go back in hiding, and I can sleep peacefully for a few hours.

It's obviously a temporary solution. My European roommates have been incredibly helpful in calling our landlord and nagging him to hire an exterminator. I think that they have also sensed my need to get out of the house and toss back a few. Sonja invited me to go to a bar in our neighborhood with her and a semi-American friend.

We started with kir, my favorite, because it's so irresistible. But after that, we ordered a half bottle of white wine from Alsace. If I had to stay home to battle my bedbugs, I would at least be with Ceejay in spirit(s)*.





*I feel the need to admit that this post was born entirely of my wish to publish this really, really awful pun.