Paris, England, Corsica, and the End of It All

It came upon me without warning, the end of the year. My French school days are over, and all of my friends are slowly leaving this beautiful city we've lived in for the past nine months. It's crazy how quickly time goes. I'll catch you up on the last month of my life.

After spending a weekend in Paris, coming back to Aix for two days, then leaving again for London for a week, my body apparently couldn't handle all of the excitement, so it broke down and got sick. I spent the last day in London with a fever, and the next three days sick in bed in my apartment. No fun.

However.

Paris was a blast! Every other time I've been there, it's been to rush around seeing as much as possible, trying to get in all of the tourist attractions I can. This time around, because we had already done all of the touristy things there, we took it a lot slower. Most of our time was spent eating baguettes, cheese, and sausage and reading on the riverbank or in the parks.

The last day we were there, we found a really awesome castle on the outskirts of the city with a really nice park. It was so far out of the way that it wasn't touristy at all, which was a really nice break from everything else in the city. But it was still beautiful! (It is Paris, after all.)


London/Oxford

Before I get into everything we did in England, I would like to explain how much I love this country, and how much I have looked forward to this trip. I didn't realize until about a month ago quite how much my reading has been based on English literature, but apparently the majority of it has been. Here's the list (off the top of my head):

Harry Potter
Lord of the Rings
Agatha Christie novels
Jane Austen
Jane Eyre
Shakespeare
C.S. Lewis
North & South

and my absolute favorite, which I'm sure almost none of you have heard of: To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis.

Anyway. Now that you know that, I'll continue.

We got to London last Thursday night at about midnight. We had decided beforehand that we were going to spend the night at the airport because we thought there wouldn't be a shuttle service running from the airport to downtown London at that time, but, unfortunately for us, there was one. We both got about 2-3 hours of sleep total that night, and it being Good Friday, I couldn't even snack to give myself more energy. Not the best thought-out plan ever. We finally left the airport at about 7am on the shuttle service to the city. The drive takes about an hour and a half, so we napped a little more on the bus, but it wasn't anything very substantial.

London weather was hot, at least it was with all of our jackets and bags we were carrying to the hostel. We got there, changed into new clothes, dropped our bags off, and grabbed a free breakfast (cereal and toast) before heading out into the city. Our hostel was right by the Thames, so we walked there and followed the river up to Parliament, and took pictures, but only on Josh's camera because mine was out of battery and my extra ones were still packed away at the hostel. Anyway. We saw Parliament, Big Ben, and then we crossed the street and made our way into Westminster Abbey (for free) for a Good Friday sermon that was thoroughly British. The Anglican priests are very fond of quoting Shakespeare and Chaucer in their sermons.

Then we went into a tavern, had fish and chips, and then went into Green Park for an afternoon nap because we were both running on empty. Unfortunately, I couldn't really sleep. I have trouble taking naps, apparently even when absolutely exhausted. After that, we went to Buckingham Palace, took pictures, and then decided to head back to the hostel to check in, use their kitchen to cook some pasta, and then sleep in our sixth floor, overcrowded, overheated, hostel room. We shared the room with two Finnish girls, and another mystery couple that never seemed to speak.

The next day we left for Oxford!!!!

In case you didn't know, I was excited about this. We left London at about 11 am via train. The train was overcrowded, but totally worth it. We got to see the beautiful English countryside as we traveled along the Thames and some minor tributaries to get to "The City of Dreaming Spires". Gorgeous, through and through. Along the way, we kept seeing fields of yellow flowers--literally fields of them. We found out later on that they're called rapeseed, and that they're grown for their oil.

Anyway, once we got to Oxford, we found our hostel and deposited our bags there before we explored the city. We decided right off the bat that we were going to take advantage of the gorgeous weather and go punting on the Thames. In case you don't know what punting is--and not in the American football sense of the word--it is basically like powering your own gondola. You are your own gondolier, and it's so much fun! We ended up lunching on the river between shifts. We were told to try a certain type of Ginger Ale that is actually Ale, but we didn't have a bottle opener, so we spent some time staring at the bottle trying to figure out how to open it before giving up and going back to enjoying the river.

After that, we spent some time exploring the city, especially finding areas that I've only ever read about. It was really cool to see them in person--finally.

The next day was Easter, so we woke up early, checked out of our room, and went to Mass in a Dominican brother's church. It was the "Family Mass", which basically meant that there were a lot of kids involved in that Mass, especially in the orchestra. Which also meant that the music was... great! (for a third-grade level) But it was still nice going to church in English for once.

After that, we went and hung out with the people at our hostel at a barbecue that the hostel hosted in this area oustide of Oxford that is basically a no-man's land. In England, they call it common land. This area was really cool because it was surrounded by water full of sailboats, and apparently people let their farm animals (cows, horses, etc.) loose in the middle of this place. So we just hung out at the barbecue for a couple hours, before we caught a bus back to London and checked back into our hostel.

The next day, we headed up to the West End to pick up our tickets for Les Miserables! We lunched in Chinatown at an all-you-can-eat buffet, and then we slowly worked our way back to our hostel before leaving for the musical that night. It was amazing, but both of us were getting pretty short on money, so we didn't even have enough to buy a program, which was a little disappointing, especially because Josh had never seen it before.

The next day, I woke up sick, but I wanted to take advantage of actually being in London, so we saw Platform 9 3/4, although it ended up being under construction, so all we got a picture with was a fake-looking cardboard wall that was glued on top of the scaffolding. We also went to Hyde Park, St Paul's cathedral where we saw a free choral concert, and then made our way across Milennium Bridge to see the Tate Modern, which ended up closing just after we walked in, and then Shakespeare's Theatre. Unfortunately, my fever was so bad at this point that I didn't feel like I could stay awake for very much longer, so we decided to head back after seeing Tower Bridge at night. Apparently, I was getting delirious and clumsy, though, because I misplaced by Underground day pass, so I ended up buying a single voyage, and we went straight back to the hostel instead. And I slept until we woke up to leave for our flight back to France.

Exams and Corsica

The next week was finals, so I had a half-week to study for those. I felt pretty confident about them, but I apparently overestimated how well I had done. I'll just say that my previous 4.0 GPA will no longer be accurate, unfortunately. The last night of finals week, our program hosted a dinner for all the students. At the end, all the year-long students stayed and we took pictures together, and I cried, because that's what I do.

The week after that, I went to Corsica with four of my friends. After catching a train to Nice and then taking a four-hour ferry to Calvi, which is in northwestern Corsica and is absolutely adorable. The city has a population of 5,000 during most of the year, but during the summer, the population spikes to 100,000. Supposedly, Christopher Columbus was born in the tiny town of Calvi, but that's only a claim you'll find in Calvi.

After we got off the ferry, we called the man we rented a little cottage from, and he was nice enough to come pick us up in his SUV. He drove us to the cottage and made sure we felt at home before we turned in for the night. The next morning, I woke up early, and Josh and I walked to the city to go to Mass, which ended up being more of an adventure than I thought it would be. The walk to the city took about 40 minutes, and we walked up to the citadel area of the city because that's where we thought the church was. We found the church, waited until 5 minutes after Mass was supposed to start, and then decided to leave because we were obviously in the wrong place. We had no idea where to go, so we explored the citadel and took in the view of the Mediterranean from the top of the city. Then, as we were heading back to the cottage, we spotted another church steeple and decided to head over to it just to see if it was where we were supposed to be. Luckily for us, Mass started half an hour later than I had thought, so we were only a few minutes late!

Later that day, we all headed to the beautiful beach outside the city, and it was perfect. The rest of the week played out basically the same way. We would wake up late, eat breakfast, pack lunch, and then head to the beach where we covered ourselves in sunscreen, and then relaxed. We would head back to the cottage at about 6:30, relax some more, and then cook dinner before settling down to watch a movie.

The End of It All

Now, it's come down to say goodbye to everyone. While I'm still staying in Aix for another three weeks, my friends have mostly gone. A couple are leaving tomorrow, and then by Saturday night, I'll be the only one left. Fortunately, I'll have a week in Ireland to get over my depression before saying goodbye to Josh and coming back to France to meet my parents.

This year has been amazing. I'm so grateful to have met the people in the program and here in Aix--you have all changed me and taught me new things. I've done my fair share of crying already, but it's only because you've all meant the world to me, and I'm sad to see this year come to a close. We've all got new experiences waiting for us, and I'm lucky to say that we were friends. Thanks everyone.

Strasbourg and Turkey

A couple weeks ago, I went to Strasbourg with Abby and Alexa via overnight train. The ride there wasn't so bad; I think I got between 4-5 hours of sleep amid stopping, and lights flicking on and off, and noisy passengers getting on and off the train. We left Marseille at about 11 pm and got to Strasbourg at about 8:30 am.

The weather was perfect; apparently we were able to experience the warmest weather in Strasbourg so far this year: a clear 67-69 degrees. We spent our time walking around admiring the architecture, which was so quaintly German half-timber that you couldn't help but like it, and in the Office of Tourism getting directions to the various places we wanted to visit.

On the first day, we spent most of the day eating, walking around getting our bearings, and getting situated in the hotel. That evening, we went to a wine cellar in the basement of the hospital. We saw huge barrels of Reisling and Gewurztraminer wine that are aged in the cellar--pretty cool!

We ended up meeting up with Erika (a girl I know from IPFW) who is studying abroad in Strasbourg, and she showed us her school and the main university campus in Strasbourg. All I have to say is that those Strasbourgeois kids are lucky! It was a beautiful building that had marble columns and beautiful woodwork--and there was NO graffiti! Aix needs to get its act together because I feel like Strasbourg sets the standard way above Aix's schools.

Anyway! The rest of the weekend was spent exploring the city--it's absolutely beautiful. The city is built on the Rhine and various other tributaries, which give the city a natural feel; the rivers are a central part of Strasbourg, and each river bank is lined with grass and trees, neither of which we see very much in Aix.

Then this past weekend, I went with six of my friends to Istanbul, Turkey. We took a flight out of Marseille that left at 1:55 am and arrived at about 6 am Istanbul time, which is an hour ahead of Aix. So we got almost no sleep that night. I'm feeling pretty lazy at the moment, so I'm going to make the description of the city pretty short (and therefore inaccurate). We spent most of our time eating and getting lost. Istanbul happens to be a huge city (population: 13 million), and it is very spread out. We saw several mosques, which were cool, but I still definitely prefer my Catholic churches :) Food-wise, we ate a lot of kebabs, which are a very traditional Turkish food. They're basically gyros, but Turkish. I also got a lot of Turkish Delights, of Narnia fame. They're delicious, but you have to watch how many you eat because they can get to be a little rich.

I posted the pictures from both trips, so look at the links on the side. I'm leaving for Paris tomorrow, coming back Monday night, and then leaving for London again on Thursday. Busy schedule!

The Alps and Allemagne

I'm writing this during my spare time between studying for exams, taking exams, packing, and in general stressing out. However, last week was probably one of my favorites since coming to France, so it sort of balances the craziness of this week.

On Sunday, I went skiing in the Alps for the second time, and it was just as fun as the first time. It took some getting used to because the ski resort was set up completely different than the first place we had gone, but I liked the setup by the end of the day. We all ended up with mild bruising around our calves from the ski boots, but I was definitely in the best shape on the ride home. Unfortunately, I have no proof of this because all three of us forgot our cameras!

It rained most of the week from Monday-Wednesday. It looked like the skies were clearing up Wednesday afternoon, so I went to play football with Josh, his sister, and his friend Nate (they were visiting for Spring Break), and as soon as we got to the field, it started pouring again. We decided to stick it out and play mud football instead, which must have looked like an interesting sight to all the Frenchies who saw us playing. And let me tell you, by the time we were done, we were all soaked and covered in mud. It was in my hair, and all over my clothes. Luckily, I had taken my shoes off to keep them from getting completely gross. But that meant my feet were also covered in mud. Needless to say, it was fun.

Thursday morning, I woke up and caught a flight to Dusseldorf at 9 am with Josh, Abby, and Josh's visitors. We got to the airport and stepped off the plane into the middle of nowhere. And it smelled like manure. We then found out that the city of Dusseldorf is actually an hour away from the airport, so we hopped on a bus and then a train to get to the city, then hopped on a tram, got lost, got Starbucks, asked for multilingual directions, guessed a little, and finally found our hostel. Which turned out to be really nice (for a hostel)! We explored the city a little bit once we had all gotten settled in, but spent most of our time waiting for our food, or shopping.

The next day, we slept in because we were all exhausted, went to the market in the Altstadt (the old city), and ate lunch there. We left the main part of Dusseldorf and took a train into a suburb with an old ruined castle in it. We may or may not have hopped a fence (a very short one!) in order to see the ruins like we wanted to. We weren't sure why the gate wasn't open because there weren't any hours posted for the ruins, so we spent about 15 minutes exploring what was left of the fortress. The ruins were situated on a river (the Rhine), so we walked along that for a bit before we ran down to the bank and skipped rocks on it for an hour or so. There are lots of pictures. You'll see.

Then we headed back to the train station to get back in to Dusseldorf and walked straight through what looked like the field from Pride & Prejudice. I kid you not! Abby took a pictures as proof.

Then cold, tired, hungry, and wet, we made our way back in to the city to eat dinner at a very typical German-looking restaurant. If it hadn't been Friday, I would have enjoyed a nice big hearty meal full of steak and sausage, but I had to stick with their seared salmon with a side of boiled potatoes. It takes like salmon patties. Which I do not like.

Anyway. We hung out at the hostel that night for a while, tried to go out for one last German beer but ended up having a misadventure, and then came back to the hostel to get some shut eye before we had to get up at 3am to catch our 6am flight.

We made it back safely (after a 140 Euro taxi ride to the airport!) and immediately proceeded to climb the mountain just outside of Aix. It was the second time for me, but the first time for Josh (and obviously) his visitors. By the time we got up and down again, we were all completely worn out and in need of naps.

Now, I need to get back to studying for my exam tomorrow, and then tomorrow night, I'm leaving for Strasbourg with Alexa and Abby! I'll be back Monday morning! In the meantime, check out my new pictures from Germany and climbing the mountain.

There and Back Again

Whew! First of all, I'm very sorry for not having updated in the last month or so. At first, I was very busy, then not very busy and I felt like an update would have been a little boring, then I got too busy again! Now, I'm procrastinating. Which is always great for blog productivity!

A month ago, the program took a field trip to see Roman/Greek/Gallic ruins, which were very cool. I'll post pictures. Then we went to Arles, where van Gogh (which is pronounced by the French as "van goh-g") painted many of his masterpieces. Arles is also home to many other cool vestiges of Roman history--there is a Coliseum, a theatre, and other cool places to visit. Then we finished the day with another trip to the Pont du Gard, which is one of my favorite places we've visited; it has water, trails, nature, beauty, and it's quiet. You don't know how much I miss silence here sometimes.

Last week, I took a trip home to see my family, and it was a great time. Not much to report--most of it was personal time and therefore not very interesting to the public. My flights to and from the US went smoothly, despite hearing about a shooting in the Frankfort airport that had happened only a couple days before I got there.

I had a midterm yesterday, and it went okay. It was one of those tests that I felt like I had studied for, but then I realized how much I had missed about a half hour before class started, so I had to cram. Not the best feeling, but I've definitely done worse.

This weekend marks the beginning of a ca-razy semester for me. I suppose I should say that last weekend did because I was traveling, but it didn't feel like it counted because I went home. Traveling schedule for the semester (at least, what I have planned so far):

March 13: Skiing day in the Alps!
March 17-19: Dusseldorf, Germany
March 24-27: Strasbourg, France
April 6-10: Istanbul, Turkey
April 14-17: Paris
April 21-27: London and Oxford, England
then hopefully May 15-21: Corsica!
sometime in June: Rome with my parents!

Tomorrow starts the beginning of Lent, which will finish while I am in England, so we'll see how the Brits celebrate Easter!

(300) Days of Sunshine

Unlike you poor folk at home, the past couple of days here have been remarkably warm and beautiful. No snow, no rain, and hardly any clouds. The temperature has been in the fifties, and the sun has been dazzlingly bright. Ever since the drizzling, freezing rain we had last week, I feel like Provence has been making a serious effort to show us those supposed 300 days of sunshine we have here each year.

I just finished cleaning my apartment to an old-time jazzy swing mix with my windows thrown wide open. The current temperature here is a clear 60 degrees (Farenheit, of course--it's 15 degrees Celsius). Today is only Friday, but it feels like Saturday because I don't have school on Fridays--or Thursdays, for that matter.

I celebrated the traditional French holiday of La Chandaleur on Wednesday night with some of my friends. Tradition states that we all make crepes together, everyone taking a turn flipping the crepe in the pan with their right hand while holding a coin in the other hand. If you flip the crepe successfully, you'll have a year of good luck! It seemed a lot harder than it actually was, but I didn't exactly get the crepe all the way flipped. It was more of a flop than a flip, but I'm not too worried about my luck for the next year anyway. Oops, I hope I didn't just jinx that.

After crepes, we all played Spoons together, which I then lost--but it's okay! I'm still undefeated in Euchre (in France), so I'm not completely disheartened when it comes to cards.

Sunday is the Superbowl, and I'm going to be watching that with my friends here, although I really don't know if I can root for either team. I'm surrounded by Wisconsinites, so of course they keep rubbing it in that Green Bay is finally in the Superbowl again, which doesn't exactly encourage my sympathies for their team, but I refuse to root for the Steelers. I think I might just cheer any time anything bad happens for either team. We'll see.

We've got a theater outing tonight with the program, so we'll all be getting snazzy for that, tomorrow I'm touring an absinthe factory with some of my friends, and next Saturday we have a day trip to Arles--I'm keeping busy, don't worry!

Escaping to the Alps

I decided early on that this semester would be full of traveling and seeing Europe. And now, here I am, having been back in France a full two weeks now, and I've already left Aix twice!

Last weekend, a few of my friends and I decided that we would be going skiing this past weekend (the 22nd and 23rd) and that to do so, we would need to be wearing appropriate winter clothing. Which none of us had. So off we went to Marseille to a thrift store that was selling full ski suits (that looked like they were from the 80s) for only 10€! In American money, that's like $12-13. So, it was a really good deal! I got boots, gloves, and a full (absolutely ridiculous-looking) snowsuit all for under 20€. You'll see the pictures and understand. If anyone in the pictures doesn't look like a marker box exploded on them, they were lucky enough to have their French families loan them ski clothes. Needless to say, we looked amazing.

Having completely outfitted ourselves in a vibrant array of colors, our little family proceeded to plan meals and buy groceries and necessities for the weekend. Having spent the majority of Thursday buying food, most of us spent Friday actually getting ourselves packed and ready to go for the weekend. Our bus left at about 6:30pm on Friday and was scheduled to arrive at the ski station at about 10.

We got to the ski station a little after 10, and by then we were all starving because we hadn't really had dinner yet. We had planned to have sausage and potatoes for dinner that night, so we got to work on that as soon as we could and scarfed that food down while we watched a movie in one of our cozy apartments. (There were 8 of us, so they split us up into two groups.)

The next morning when we all woke up at about 8, we ate breakfast and then headed over to the ski rental place to get our snowboards and skis. Only three of us had ever skied or snowboarded before, so the majority of us were beginners. We all headed over to the bunny hill to figure out how to handle ourselves. And I made it down without falling! So I hopped back on the ski lift (which was a sort of weird pole system with mini seats on the end that kind of looked like plungers. You put the pole between your legs and it pulled you to the top of the hill while you stood on your skis.) Anyway, halfway up the hill, I was enjoying the ease of the ski lift when all of a sudden, I was falling and I couldn't move my legs in the direction I wanted. My only focus was not losing my grip on the pole that was slipping out of my hand. Finally, after being dragged on my knees without any control, I decided that I should just let go and figure out what went wrong. So I let go of the pole--and promptly faceplanted. I rolled out of the way of my laughing friends who were coming up the lift behind me only to see that the reason I had fallen so suddenly was because one of my skis had popped off of my foot. So I didn't fall at all while I was going down the bunny slope--just up.

Anyway, most of us decided to move on to the next level hill once we'd gotten the gist of the bunny hill down, so we headed over to the other lift and hopped on. But what we thought was a little hill turned out to have a curve in it that you couldn't see from the bottom--the hill was at least twice as high as we had originally thought. But I did well on my first try; I only fell four times on that descent! By the end of the first day, I only managed to get down that hill once without falling, and the rest of the group hadn't had much luck either. We were all exhausted by the time the slopes closed at 4:30, so we went inside, took turns showering, and started cooking dinner.

The next day was much better. I figured out how to get down the intermediate hill without falling, so I decided to step it up a notch and went up the mountain on the real ski lift with Alexa, Kevin, and Josh (the three snowboarders). It turns out that I should never assume I know how tall a slope is just because I can only see so far up. The mountain was, well, a mountain. I was terrified. I had a camera in my pocket, but I was too scared to let go of the ski lift to take pictures. We made it up to the first stop on the mountain trails and got off. Quick side note: French people are all ridiculously good at skiing. What seemed terrifying and dangerous to me was only a beginner level for them. Anyway, we all made it up the mountain and off the ski lift without incident, and then we started our descent. If I had thought the second hill was scary, that was nothing compared to the mountain. There were so many times when I would be approaching a hill/curve with only a cliff on the other side that I would just fall in order to stop myself instead of risking getting killed. The very last hill on the mountain was actually probably steeper than the others, but it was also less scary because I knew that once I got to the bottom of it, I was done. To give you an idea of how steep it was, I couldn't see the bottom from where I was at the top of it. The only way I knew where to go was by watching where the person's head in front of me had disappeared. So I started down the hill, braking the entire way to avoid hurting myself, but I couldn't keep it up forever, so I just tucked into the speed skiing pose--and it was awesome! I was flying down that hill!! The only scary part was that the snow wasn't very powdery, and I was going so fast that any time there was a slight bump, I was worried I would lose control and go crashing into the packed snow. But we all made it down the mountain safely--and I've decided I love skiing. Basically, winter and I should spend some more time together because we get along really well.

On the way home from the trip, the sun started setting on the mountains, and we made it to this beautiful area with a really big lake. It was probably the most beautiful area I have ever seen in my life. You'll have to see the pictures I took from the bus. They should be uploaded soon.



Edit: Pictures are FINALLY available!

Back in France!

Hello, everyone! I'm back in France after having spent probably one of the loveliest Christmas breaks ever at home. My cousin got married--and I got to be there as a bridesmaid (!!!), I got my haircut for the first time in a year, and now I'm back in my beloved France speaking French and making travel plans. (I'll get to that in a bit.)

My two exams were last week, and they went fairly well. I'm not sure when I'll actually find out how I did, but I feel fairly confident I won't fail them. Not only have exams finished, but new classes already started, too. I'm already done with my first week because I only have class Monday-Wednesday, so I'm hoping my schedule will facilitate weekend traveling.

I'm really excited for this semester because I really like all of my classes so far. Last semester, all of my classes followed the exact same format: three-hour lectures once a week. And when I say "lecture", I mean lecture. It was all dictation of our notes without pausing for questions. However! This semester, I have three classes that seem like they will be more interactive. I learn best in an interactive environment, so I'm excited to actually get to speak up in the classroom. (I know, I sound like a nerd. Get used to it.)

Anyway! This weekend, I'm going skiing in the Alps! I'm going with seven of my friends from the program to a little village called Pelvoux that has a population of about 454. I'm so excited! We're leaving tomorrow (Friday) night and coming back Sunday night, so we should have about two days to spend in the snow! I'm not even sure how much I want to go skiing--I've never done it before, so I have a feeling I'll just end up sledding to avoid getting hurt and embarrassed, but my friends and I all have plans to build forts and make snow angels and have a snowball fight. It's going to be great!!