Christmastime in France

Aix is getting to be pretty beautiful. My roommate and I have been busy decorating our apartment whilst listening to our favorite Christmas songs. After a day-long field trip to our local IKEA and Carrefour (France's Walmart), we found a small fiber-optic Christmas tree and a strand of lights. We set that up in our apartment, and after adding some red and gold ornaments to the tree, our apartment is feeling pretty Christmasey.

To get to the stores, we have to take a half-hour bus trip to small town outside of Aix called Vitrolles. The bus to and from Vitrolles only runs every so often, so as I was getting off of the bus, I asked our bus driver if he had a copy of the schedule so we would know when we could get back to Aix after going to IKEA. After getting off the bus, the driver immediately called me back and told me to call my friends back as well. He told us he had a 20-minute break between dropping us off and needing to leave again, so he decided to take us to IKEA--for free! We chatted with him on the way there, and he joked and told us how he loves to laugh, unlike those Parisians. They're much too serious.

Anyway! I'm also getting ready to head home in two days. Actually, my flight is leaving in exactly 48 hours. I can't wait! In between now and then, I have one class this morning and a final exam tomorrow morning, so I'll be keeping busy trying to get all of my packing and Christmas shopping finished by then.

This past Saturday, I was actually able to take a last-minute field trip to Les Baux-de-Provence, which is this beautiful little castle village that sits in the Alpilles (the little Alps). The castle is now only ruins, but the village has a really rich history, and it's got some great views. While there, we were able to visit this amazing photo gallery that's not exactly a photo gallery. It's called La Cathédrale d'Images, and it's basically this huge underground cavern that has images and videos projected on to all of its walls. But there are more than four walls--it's enormous, and I don't think you could really understand until you see the videos.

Actually, I had been looking for this place for a long time. I had seen pictures of it, and I knew it was in Provence somewhere, but I had no idea where, and I didn't know what it was called, so I didn't really have a way of finding out. Luckily for me, I happened to be dragged to it by the people who drove us! It was everything I had hoped it would be. I'm uploading the pictures I took right now, so I'll get the link posted on the right as soon as I can. I'm also working on a video compilation of the streets of Aix, but I'm having issues with that, so that might not be posted until I get home. I may spend my time flying home working on that project. I'm flying Marseille > Paris > Atlanta > home!

Well, to everyone at home, à bientôt!

Edit: The pictures are now available!

All of my favorite things

I love my life. Seriously, it's not even fair how many good things have happened to me--not only in the past year, but in my entire life. And I've got another one to add to the list: I'm coming home for Christmas--and my cousin's wedding! For a long time I thought that the only possible way for me to go to Kelly's wedding would be to come home for the weekend between my two finals weeks here. Not so! God loves me: I will be home for a solid two weeks. I can't wait!

Okay, so that's pretty awesome, but I'm also going to tell you about how I spent my favorite holiday whilst abroad (Thanksgiving, in case you didn't know). It was a pretty normal day: I woke up, got ready for the day, and then headed over to my friend Bri's apartment to have a baking/studying day. We made a pumpkin pie, but--alas--the evaporated milk I had bought was not evaporated milk. Instead, it was extra thick cream. We made do my halving it with normal milk, and then acting like nothing had happened. It turned out pretty well! It tastes a little different than my usual pumpkin pies, but it could have definitely been worse.

Then I headed over to theater class, which I love, laughed a lot, and then walked home in the pouring rain without a single umbrella among my class. It was fun. I changed really quickly, and walked with my neighbors to the restaurant where our program was going to have a Thanksgiving meal. It took forever to find due to a recent name change, but we found it eventually and ended up having an amazing meal. The turkey was delicious, and the stuffing was the best I've ever had. The cranberry sauce was more like warmed pie filling, but it was good nonetheless. The downer was the mashed potatoes: they were definitely instant, which I don't understand in a refined French restaurant. But oh well.

I saw Harry Potter in French on Wednesday, and it was really, really good! Then Friday, I celebrated my birthday with some of my friends by going bowling and then karaokeing afterward. Bowling was... interesting. Definitely the smallest bowling alley I've ever been in, and half of the balls make a thunk-thunk-thunk sound as they "rolled" down the lane, but we all made it out alive in the end.

Then Saturday, I went with my friends to Marseille to see another professional soccer game, and while we were waiting for the bus, it started snowing!! Which is my favorite thing, and it's only supposed to do that once a year here. But so far, the weather has pretty much mimicked the weather in Indiana, so I'm not sure how much I should believe. Anyway, it made me really happy, and then when we got to Marseille, we went to Starbucks to warm ourselves up. Then after we all got soaked during the game, I came back and watched a Disney movie--another thing I'm convinced I will never outgrow.

I just can't believe how lucky I am. So thanks to everyone in my life for being in my life. You're all great!

Oh! And today, I'm 21!

The Time Difference

Okay, so we all know that there is a serious time difference between the United States and France. Specifically, from the East Coast the difference is 6 hours. But that just means that when it's noon here, it's 6am at home. It doesn't mean that France's 6pm is equal to Indiana's 6pm. Because it's not.

Basically, one of the weird things to get used to is how differently parts of the day are labelled. In the United States, it's not odd for a restaurant to start serving lunch at about 11am. Here, lunch usually starts about 1pm (or 13h, as the French say). There are some restaurants that open at noon, but the restaurants don't get busy until about 1. Lunch lasts about two hours, but can easily be stretched into three if you really want it to.

And then there's afternoon tea. Restaurants here are really specialized. It's pretty common to find a restaurant that only serves lunch until a certain time and then they become a tea and coffee shop until they close at 5 or 6pm. You come in, sit down, and the waiter almost immediately will come up to you and ask for your order. I don't think I've ever seen anyone ask for a menu at one of these places before, but you can find them inside if you look for them.

Honestly, it was a little frustrating at first because most restaurants don't advertise if and when they serve dinner. So I was really surprised when I (finally) figured out that most restaurants don't even open for dinner until about 7. Typically, people don't even start showing up to the restaurants until about 8. The restaurants will then close anywhere between 11 and midnight, and usually it's closer to the latter.

It's really funny because a lot of the program students have to sometimes rearrange our schedules around our family dinners each week. Occasionally, this will include rearranging/skipping some of our program classes. (Don't worry, Mom and Dad, I haven't yet!) When discussing the situation with our theater teacher, he asks us what time we usually arrive at our families' homes, and when we respond with 6:30pm, his response is either "Waaooh!" or "Oh, la." because he thinks that we start eating as soon as we arrive. But don't worry, our families are thoroughly French. The earliest I have ever had a meal start is 7pm.

In other news, this week happens to be my favorite week of the entire year for several reasons, as follows:
1) In the US, it's usually only a two or three day school week. Here, I'm not so fortunate, but it's okay because I'm living in France. So I won't complain.
2) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 is coming out in the theaters here on Wednesday. Of course, I'm going to see it, silly goose! Also, on the flip side, it's already out everywhere else in the world. Lucky for me, the internet is a wonderful thing, so I've already seen it--sort of. It was kind of a terrible version where most of the screen was just black, but I could at least figure out what was going on. And anyway, I'm not going to feel guilty about it because I'm going to see it in theaters several times anyway. But this week, I'm only going to have the opportunity to see the movie dubbed in French. You're probably not aware of this, but a lot of the major names in the Harry Potter world are not the same in French as they are in English. For example, Hogwarts is Poudlards. I know. I don't understand it either.
3) Black Friday. I love my electronic deals.
4) The official beginning of Christmas season.
5) The beginning of Advent!
6) THANKSGIVING. Love, love, love this holiday. It usually means my favorite foods and my favorite people and playing cards and generally just feeling warm and fuzzy and loved.
7) My birthday! Who doesn't love birthdays?

So you all better have a fantastic week, too, because it's going to be awesome!

The End of the Busiest Week Ever

My Colts are coming on in five minutes, so I have to make this quick.

This week has been by far the busiest I have been since arriving in the country. I had something to do every night this week, what with the theater on Tuesday, my French language partner exchange on Wednesday night, then my family dinner on Thursday night. I couldn't understand why I felt so exhausted by the time Friday rolled around until I stopped to look at everything I had done during the week.

School should be settling down again this week. I'm done with all of my midterms now. I only have a project due next week, but I don't feel like that will be quite as stressful as my tests were.

I've got some big milestones coming up in my life:

-Over 1000 views to my blog (just passed this, actually)
-Three months in France
-The Harry Potter movie is coming out
-My 21st birthday
-The beginning of my first Christmas season in France

So obviously I'm very excited about all of this, and I will definitely try to take more pictures of everyday life here.

Also, MAJOR UPDATE: I FOUND CANNED PUMPKIN. So I WILL have pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. I'm happy!!

French Theatre

Last night, I saw my first-ever French play in a real French theater. The play was fantastic and the theater was gorgeous! Unfortunately, I did not have the foresight to bring my camera, so I didn't get any pictures, but a couple of my classmates did, so I'll have to steal pictures from them. It was really neat; the theater was really old--like older-than-the-United States old. It wasn't huge, but it was gorgeous. (I know I keep saying gorgeous, but the only other word I can think of to describe it is "lovely", and that's a little too demure for this theater. So gorgeous it is.) It had the old-fashioned painted ceiling with cherubs and angels, and in the middle of the ceiling was a humongous chandelier.

The actual theater was pretty small. I think there were probably about 400 seats in total, but I couldn't really see the lower level from where I was sitting. There were four levels of balconies. The first balcony was pretty much how you would expect it, with about a third of the seats of the lower level. The other three balconies were box-seats only, and it looked like it would have been pretty fun to watch from up there.

The play was great! It was called La Serva Amorosa, and I was surprised by how much of it I was able to understand. It was written in the 1700s and it was originally a Venetian play. I think the fact that it's a translation helped my comprehension a lot because it put the dialogue in more modern-day terms instead of the more archaic (but lovely) and fast-paced verse. I laughed the entire time during the play, save the first ten minutes, so I definitely enjoyed it. Every character had funny lines, and the best part was that I was able to understand them!

But in other news, tomorrow is the anniversary of the Armistice of World War I. When I was walking to school today, I was a little surprised to see tanks and helicopters parked in Parc Jourdan, but then I realized what tomorrow is. Since it's a national holiday, we're supposed to have the day off. For me, however, my day is even busier than it usually would be. I have a program class in the afternoon, and then I'm having dinner with my French family right after that.

I also met a French-American girl in one of my classes today. She was born in the US, but moved to France about nine years ago, so she speaks perfect French and English. Not fair. But she's really nice, and she told me where I can find canned pumpkin here!!! So that's going on the agenda for this weekend.

The French Lifestyle: Buying Groceries

I've made a lot of adjustments to my life since moving here. And because I like cooking, one of the biggest changes for me has been buying groceries. I've never really explained how that works here. At home, I would always go to one of the supermarkets near my house. There were two that were within three minutes' driving distance, and I almost never went anywhere else.

Here, shopping is a little different. The big department store here, Monoprix, also has a supermarket in its basement. But usually, I just do my shopping at our local little Vival, a marché. A marché is basically a mini-supermarket. It has all the necessities like bread, milk, eggs, cheese, and (for the French) wine, with a few extras thrown in. Basically, it's like shopping the food section at Walgreens, but with fruits and some vegetables thrown in too.

However, the cheapest option is to go to a real supermarket. Everything is usually at least 50 cents--or centimes--cheaper. But the closest supermarket is at least a 10-minute walk away through winding little French streets. It may not sound like much, but it makes loading up on groceries a little more difficult when you have to carry them all home, usually with the bags cutting off the circulation to one of your limbs. However, the absolute cheapest option is to go to a hypermarché (of which there is only one in Aix), which is an even bigger store than a supermarché. The French version of Kroger is called Casino (not the best choice of names, in my opinion. I like to feel like I'm not gambling everytime I give them my credit card.) and it has three different store sizes:

Petit Casino
Casino supermarché
Casino hypermarché

Another option is the outdoor markets. You can find an amazing array of local food there: fruits, vegetables, honey, homemade sausages, breads, and the biggest variety of mushrooms I have ever seen in my life. Some of these markets also include locally-made clothing and locally-grown flowers. I'll have to remember to take pictures the next time I go.

As far as the availability of wine goes, you might find it interesting to note that it is easy to find a bottle of wine for about a euro. When it goes on sale, you can get it for even cheaper. The cheapest I have ever seen it is about 87 centimes. A bottle of water here costs just under 2 euro. So literally, wine is cheaper than water.

Who wants to come visit?

Barcelona

Where to begin? This weekend was amazing from start to finish. So I suppose I should start at the beginning.

Saturday October 30, 2010

Our bus left at about 6am on Saturday morning, and the drive there was supposed to take about 6-7 hours. We drove along the Mediterranean for a while, and we got to see a lot of charming cities situated on the coast. It was really surprising how much the landscape differed from France to Spain once we crossed the border. It was very mountainey in Spain--and gorgeous!

So we got to Barcelona at about noon, and we headed over to our hostel, which was right up Les Ramblas, one of the main roads in Barcelona. It took a little bit to get everyone from our group situated, but we finally got everyone settled in. From there, Bri and I went to grab some lunch and see some of the city. She had bought a Barcelona guide book, so we ended up doing a lot of walking to see the main sights. Luck seemed to be against us because we kept getting to the churches only to find out they were closed. Not everything went wrong, though. The weather was gorgeous, and we found the main market in the city almost right away: La Boqueria!

The market was awesome. It was huge, for one thing. And for another, I bought some delicious chocolate candies. And you know that makes me happy. So we walked around for a while, getting a feel for the city. At some point, we were looking for a map, and an English man asked us if we were trying to find tickets for the soccer game that night. Bri and I looked at each other and asked how much the tickets were. We were really, really tempted (that's a huge understatement) to buy them and go, but we decided they were too expensive.

Anyway! That night we decided to eat real Spanish food, so we ended up getting Paella, Sangria, and Tappas. From there, we decided to take the metro to check out the city's Magic Fountains, which are these fountains that have a choreographed light and music show every night from 7 to 9 pm. Again, luck was against us, because we got there only to find out that the fountains are currently under construction. Bummer! We ended up just sitting by the empty fountains and enjoying the great view of the city while a Spanish guitarist serenaded us. (There is a video of that I'll be putting up.) We took the metro back to near our hotel and decided to walk along the boardwalk at night, just to see what it was like. It was gorgeous. We sat on the docks and listened to the water and the night for a while. It was a really nice and relaxing. From there we headed back to the hostel to sleep in our dorm bunk beds.

Sunday October 31, 2010

Because we wanted to get a headstart on seeing the city on Sunday, we decided to wake up early. Except we didn't know how early we had actually gotten up. Apparently, Europe has daylight savings time too, and it was this weekend. So we ate breakfast at the hostel--definitely not the best thing I've ever eaten. Then we headed out to see the sights again after a short pitstop to get some Starbucks while we could. We went to the churches again to see if they were open. One of them wasn't, so we went to the cathedral instead to find out what times Mass were for the day. A really nice little Spanish lady helped me, and we decided to come back later that night for one of the evening Masses.

We headed to the beach after that, which was beautiful! According to National Geographic, it's supposed to be one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. It was completely redone for the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, and they've kept it up ever since. Bri and I rolled up our jeans so we could get our feet wet, but we ended up getting our jeans completely soaked anyway because the waves kept coming in bigger than we expected.

The rest of the day was a little slower. We went to Mass at the Cathedral in Catalan, and then we just walked around the city for a while enjoying all the Halloween costumes. We found out this weekend that Halloween is a lot bigger in Spain than it is in France. The costumes were really, really good! We actually ended up getting a Spanish specialty on La Rambla that night: churros and chocolate. It was so good!

Monday November 1, 2010

We woke up extra early on Monday to get to La Sagrada Familia before it opened. We ended up getting there right at 9 o'clock, so we still had a pretty substantial line, but it wasn't terrible. The church is so beautiful on the inside! We had already seen the outside of the church the day before with our group, but we hadn't gone in yet. The inside was absolutely incredible. The church has been under construction since 1882, and it's still not scheduled to be finished for another 30 years. The inside of the church is designed to have a foresty feel to it, and it definitely does. It's surprising how much light is in the church--everything is really brightly lit with natural light. Even the stained glass windows have a brighter feel to them than normal church windows. I really liked it, but I had to leave a little early to get to Mass for All Saints Day in the smaller chapel of the church.

After I got done with Mass, we hustled over to the aquarium. We were told that it is "the biggest aquarium in the world". That information is incorrect. We paid a hefty entrance fee, which we thought was worth it for the biggest aquarium in the world, but we were a little disappointed. We got to see a lot of cool fish--lots of sharks, and there was an underwater tunnel we got to go through, but that was about it in the aquarium. So after that, we took it slow, bought some Cuban cigars as gifts for people Bri knows, and got on the bus to come home.

I'll be getting pictures posted soon; they're actually uploading right now!

Edit: Photos are now available on the right!

Before Barcelona

I think this is the longest I've gone without updating--and I'm sorry for that, but this week was definitely the busiest school week I've had so far. I had a big presentation in my literature class on Tuesday, so I spent all of Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday morning working on that. Then after that was over, I spent Tuesday night and Wednesday morning studying for my midterm in my Languages of the World class.

My presentation went pretty well, as far as I can tell. I know I made at least one mistake with gender agreements when I was speaking, which was really dumb because I had written in down the right way. But the professor kept referring to what I had said after I was done, and she kept using my examples as really good examples, so I'm hoping that means I got the equivalent of an American A. My midterm was so-so. I don't really have any idea on how well I did because it was a short essay test, and I don't really know exactly what my professor was expecting, so I'll just have to wait and see how I did.

Last weekend, I was playing soccer with my friends at our soccer court. We all take turns playing goalie because nobody likes being stuck in one place for very long, but it's also nice to take a break sometimes. Whenever I'm in goal, the other team usually scores a minimum of two goals. And usually the only reason it's not more than that is because someone switches positions with me before I can do any more damage. My turn didn't exactly end like that the last time, though.

See, I like soccer because I have terrible--and I mean terrible--hand-eye coordination. When I'm in goal, I'm supposed to use my hands to stop the ball, which I have already explained is definitely not my forte. So usually I try to do something involving my feet stopping the ball. I have more success with this than with my hands--usually. So when the ball came to my feet, I thought I had the save in the bag. No sweat. So I didn't exactly watch where I was putting my foot on the ball. Instead of stopping the ball, I stepped on the ball and swiftly wiped out in a weird side-ways, clunking, everyone-thought-I-broke-my-arm kind of way. It wasn't anything too impressive, just a scraped elbow for which I have to use three band-aids to cover the entire wound. It's a nice little badge of courage.

Tomorrow I'm leaving for Barcelona! Despite France being a "secular" country, they still take all of the major Catholic feast days off. So for All-Saints' Day (November 1st), we get a week off of school. I'm going with my friend Bri for the weekend. A few of the other students from our program are also going to be going, so we might meet up with them there. I don't speak any Spanish, so I'm hoping that Spain is like France in that most people are bilingual--with English being the second language. (I know, how terribly touristy of me!) But I suppose if French is the second language I'd be alright, too.

I'm going to be gong to IKEA again this afternoon and then Carrefour to do some shopping. Carrefour is France's equivalent of Wal-Mart--which I hate--but it's cheap, and they have everything you could wish for on the planet, so I suppose I'll take it. It's also my last hope for finding canned pumpkin here, otherwise I'm going to have to go straight for the whole pumpkin, if I can find one.

I'll take a lot of pictures for you this weekend, and I'll get them uploaded on Tuesday sometime once I'm back in Aix, so check back then!

The Grève Situation

(Grève = Strike)

So. As some of you may know, there have been some pretty serious strikes in France lately. I know I talked about them the first day they happened here. If you thought that that was the end of it--basically, you were wrong. Things have definitely intensified.

Oil workers have gone on strike now, which means that there is a shortage of fuel throughout the country. Which means that buses won't be able to run, and that people can't drive anywhere. Furthermore, the train workers are striking. So... nobody can go anywhere in the country.

Basically, the whole country is in an uproar because the government is changing the age when full retirement benefits kick in. Instead of it being 60 (the lowest in all of Europe), the government is changing it to 62 to save some money for the tons of other government benefits everyone gets here. In case you were wondering, 62 would still be the lowest in all of Europe.

Until today, I hadn't been affected by the strike at all. It was a little disappointing, actually. Everyone else had at least one dramatic story to tell, and I had to sit on the sidelines and listen. Actually, my story really isn't all that dramatic. I had thought that my midterm for one of my classes was this Saturday, so I opted out of a free excursion to Avignon and Les Baux de Provence, which I really wanted to see. But anyway. Lyndsy and I went to class today, and our TA told us that due to the strikes, he won't be able to make it on Saturday, so we won't have to come either. So it turns out that I didn't even need to miss the excursion. (Sad face.) But another little exciting bit of news: parts of the school were blockaded today as part of the student grève. Tables and chairs were stacked against all the entrance doors to the school and at the access points to the stairs into the main hall of the school. I got a picture on my friend's camera, which I will hopefully be able to share with you all soon!

In any case, please pray that the strikes don't escalate too much. There has been talk that only violence gets the attention of government officials, but I'm hoping nothing too terrible will happen.

I would also like to point out that I have added new pictures on the right side of the page. I have been doing this pretty regularly, but I haven't mentioned it in my updates. Check them out!

Enjoying Being Alive

Every Tuesday night, my parish hosts this huge gathering of students (and "young professionals") for dinner called La Cave/The Cave. There is Mass beforehand for the Catholics, but everybody else can just show up at 8 for the meal. The meals consist of three courses: appetizer, main course, and dessert, and it's only 3,50€ for everything. Anyone can come, and it's a really, really great way to meet new people. This is the third week that I've gone (out of a possible three weeks, so I'm on a roll!), and I've loved it every time. They claim that there is a rule that forbids you to sit near anyone from your own country, but I don't think many people adhere to it.

The first week I met two other American girls who are really nice. One of them is from Minnesota and the other is from Colorado. They're both at the American school that's right across from the cathedral here, so I really only see them on Tuesday nights, but it's still really nice to meet other people!

Last week was interesting. I sat at a table with all French people (and one girl who has dual citizenship in the US and France), so I had to speak French the entire time. It was a little disheartening because everyone was speaking so quickly that I couldn't follow the entire conversation, so it was a little hard to contribute. Our table ended up "winning" the job of doing dishes after the meal. Doing dishes for a three-course meal for sixty people is not exactly what I would call fun. It took a long time to wash, rinse, dry, and put away all those dishes, so I didn't get home until about 11:30.

This week was really fun! I sat with one of the girls that I met the first week, and we talked with two guys she had already met last week. It was awesome! They were so funny--I actually left tonight with cheeks that hurt from so much laughing. They ended up inviting themselves over so that I can cook for them at some point, so we'll see if that happens.

But anyway. I had a really awesome day today, so I want to share it with you. Not because it was anything particularly special, just because I enjoyed life. I woke up without my alarm at about 8:30 and got up right away. I decided right off the bat that I felt like being productive today, so I started my book (Mon Faust by Paul Valéry) for my literature class this afternoon, and I got 50 pages into it, literally laughing out loud the entire way. Faust is supposed to be a depressing story about the damnation of a hopeless human soul, but this version is so witty that I can't help but enjoy it. That sounds terrible, I know.

So I went to class today and made friends with two other English-speakers: a girl from Austria and another girl from England. I was actually feeling so confident in my French abilities today that I signed up for a presentation next week over this same book. And then on my walk home from school, I listened to some really upbeat music, and I was in such a good mood that I'm pretty sure I had a few people stop and stare at me because I was practically skipping down the street.

Tomorrow is going to be a really busy day. I have class in the morning from 8:30-11:30, another class at 2 until 5, and then I have dinner with my French family starting at 6:30 until about 10. I'm going to have no free time!

Optimism

Today was a good day!

In case you haven't noticed, I really miss having fall surround me. It's so odd here because I have to really search for the things that are almost obnoxious in the United States because they are so evident. Like Halloween--the candy, the costumes, the excitement. And pumpkins, and Pumpkin Spice Lattes, and pumpkin pie and the trees changing colors. I can't really find any of that here.

So my consolation has been apples, which are apparently a very universal thing. You can do so much with apples! I've never appreciated them so much before now. First, I love apple cider. My mom can make a killer wassail at Christmastime, and I kind of used her recipe to modify the cider here--because the only type of cider I have been able to find is alcoholic cider, which gives it a sort of weird aftertaste from what I'm used to. So I've been heating it up and adding oranges, cinnamon, and nutmeg to it--and voilà! A wonderfully fall-y drink without a weird aftertaste. (I think it also helps that I've been heating it a little longer so it cooks some of the alcohol out.)

Anyway, today a few friends and I went to our outdoor market to buy apples because I really wanted to make apple dumplings. So we bought eight Golden Delicious apples--huge Golden Delicious apples--and went on our merry way back to my friend's apartment because she has an oven. We started peeling and cutting the apples, and it turned out that we had bought way too many, even for eight apple dumplings. So we made eight apple dumplings and an apple tart.

The dumplings turned out really, really well! I always love it when people say that something I make (or help make) is the best thing they've eaten in France so far, which has actually happened quite a few times. But the dumplings were really good. It also helped that we just happened to have vanilla ice cream or milk to eat with them.

It was just a really nice, relaxing day. I absolutely love cooking and baking, and it especially made me happy because everybody kept saying how it finally felt like fall. If anything, that made me happiest. So while the dumplings and the pie/tart baked, we played euchre--which was also really nice because I play euchre a lot with my family and it made it seem like I was at home for a little while. And while all this was happening, my friend Lyndsy came over and made Pumpkin Spice Lattes for us all. It was basically perfect.

Marseille, Take 3--and Homesickness

Yesterday, all the program students had to go to Marseille for our physicals to get our carte de séjour. And since I had found out about there being a Starbucks in Marseille (the next closest one is in Lyon--200 miles away), a bunch of the students decided to go get coffee while we could. It was a little disappointing because they didn't have the usual fall specialties like they have in the States, so no Pumpkin Spice Lattes for me. BUT I was able to get a Venti White Mocha--which led to a caffeine rush by the time I had finally finished it. And we all know how that goes with me.

So by the time we got back to Aix, I was still not settled down and was definitely ready to play some soccer. So I skipped home, changed into workout clothes, and bounced over to the soccer court. We got there and found out that there were already a bunch of guys getting ready to play a game, but we were too late and too many to join. So after a while, we started rotating into the game, but being a girl, naturally the guys wouldn't pass to me. So that was fun.

Today's been sort of the culminating point of a terrible week for me. I've had so many issues with my cell phone being cancelled after I had already paid for four months. Instead of honoring that, the company decided to say that unless I added more money on to my account, all of my 75 Euros would be gone. So I'm disputing that. And then there was the disappointment with Starbucks not having Pumpkin Spice Lattes. It all sounds sort of stupid and trivial, but some days it seems like a bigger deal than others. Today's one of those not-so-great days.

I don't know exactly what set me off today, but I know that I came back to my apartment and basically cried for a good two hours. I love it here, but there are so many things I miss from home--but it's mostly the people. I know it's all part of the experience--being independent in a foreign country--but I know I'm going to be ready to go home when this is all over.

Mountains and Monaco

Again--I've been busy! I feel like I sort of bumble my way through the week without updating here, and then I remember all of the good stories all at once on the weekends. So prepare yourselves. This is going to take a while.

I went to classes on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday at the university (or the fac, short for faculté), and everything went pretty normally. On Wednesday morning, I went to hang out with my French friend at her apartment. I got there and was a little lost because there were four different apartments that were marked with the exact same number as hers. So I called her to find out which one was the right one, and it turned out that none of them were hers. Plus, she'd forgotten that we'd made plans for Wednesday instead of Thursday. We got it all sorted out, and she ended up driving us to McDonald's because we were running out of time to eat before our classes started that day. I know--shame! I don't even like McDonald's in the US!

Thursday was a little bit more interesting. One of my American friends here just got coffee sent to her from the US. We have all been missing our usual non-espresso cups of coffee, so we decided to get up and make ourselves a real American-style breakfast: scrambled eggs with peppers, potatoes, and zucchini, with Old Crown coffee. It was amazing--and probably the best breakfast I've had since I've been in France. After we ate, we spent most of our morning just exploring Aix. I thought I'd pretty much gotten to know the city by now, but it turns out it's a lot bigger than I thought it was. So it was fun visiting places I'd never been before!

Thursday night we went to our theatre class, and a bunch of us went out to eat together to celebrate the birthday of one of the American girls here. We ended up going back to her apartment for chocolate cake with sprinkles! It was delicious.

Friday was a little slower, which was really nice. I had dinner with my French family again, and that was really fun! It was only me, the mom, and the two boys, but the three of them ended up spending a long time trying to say the word "rollerblading", which is really hard for the French, apparently. The family gave me two French DVDs for me to watch this week. I'm really comfortable being around them because their family dynamic is really similar to what I'm used to. It makes it really easy to get along with them. I came back to the apartment and ended up spending the night alone in my apartment--and it was wonderful.

Saturday, I went with a few of the girls from our program to climb what is known as Cezanne's mountain: Sainte-Victoire. I have wanted to climb it since I first saw it a month ago, and I finally got the opportunity, so I didn't want to miss it. We left from downtown Aix at about 11:15 and actually started climbing just after noon. We reached the summit at about 4:00 after we stopped and ate lunch. It was absolutely amazing. I've climbed mountains before with my high school youth group in West Virginia, but that was nothing compared to this. We were so high yesterday. It was absolutely incredible.



When we were at the top, the wind was whipping around us. I wasn't sure if it was because we were so high up or because of the Mistral, but there wasn't any wind in Aix, so I'm assuming it was because of our altitude. Awesome! (Actually, it was a little scary because we kept seeing people's hats getting ripped off their heads, so we knew the wind was pretty strong, and there wasn't really that much room to stand at the very top.)

We made it back to Aix at about 6:30 after waiting for the bus to pick us up for about 45 minutes. While we waited, we made friends with a French family that had just climbed the mountain too. Saturday night I was exhausted and a little sunburned, so I went to bed semi-early before our big day today.

Today we went to Monaco and Nice! We met at the bus at about 8:30 and finally got on the road at about 9. The group was actually so big that we took two buses, but I wasn't aware of that fact until we were nearly back tonight. We got to Monaco at about 11, unloaded, and got to the Palace just in time to see the changing of the guard! It was actually pretty anticlimactic, especially because it was hard to see, but it's also not very exciting. Oh, well. At least now I can say that I've seen it! After that, I went with one of my friends to find the casino because I'd been practicing how to play craps online just so that I could play it once in Monte Carlo. It was really disappointing to find out that there is a 10€ cover charge to get in to the table room. So instead Bri and I played the slot machines--which are incredibly difficult to understand for how popular they are. Basically, our gambling was more like us putting our money in the machine and slapping random buttons until we ran out of money. And apparently this was a common experience among the Americans.

One thing that stood out while we were in Monaco was how clean everything was. It was really funny because my friend and I agreed that if it wasn't an independent state from France, it would be the stereotypical French city. And then we realized that it really is the stereotypical French city anyway because it claims to be independent but it relies on others to protect it. Funny, huh?

Another thing that really affected our day was the wind. Oh my goodness! The wind was insane! At one point, we ended up making a video about the near-hurricane conditions. Fortunately for us, the rain didn't actually start until we were on the bus on our way home.

On the way back, we ended up making an hour-long pit stop in Nice at a parfumerie, or in English, a perfume factory called Fragonard. It smelled really, really good! We got a tour of the factory, and then we got to sample their best-selling scents. Their candles smelled soooo good, and I'm a sucker for candles. I didn't have enough cash on me at the time to buy anything, though. Which was probably a good thing.

Wednesday, we have to go to Marseille to get a medical examination for our carte de séjour, and I'm very excited because there is a Starbucks in Marseille, which (hopefully) means that I'll be able to have my Pumpkin Spice Latte soon!!! You really have no idea what that would mean to me. It's bad enough that there aren't any pumpkins here for decorations and pies, but no Pumpkin Spice Lattes would be absolutely unbearable.

Nimes and Pont du Gard

Today was a beautiful day.

The program paid for us to go on an excursion to Nimes, which is a really neat little city about an hour and a half away from Aix. It has a bunch of old Roman ruins in it, including a real-life coliseum where real gladiators fought and died. It was pretty neat. We also visited the "biggest, prettiest, and best-preserved aqueduct in the world" today, the Pont du Gard. Pretty awesome.

I have to say, it was really nice to get out of Aix. I mean, as thrilled as I am to be in France doing the things I am doing, we've started to realize that our options as far as activities go are pretty limited here. So getting out and about in foreign surroundings did us all some good, and it was really nice to see clean city streets that aren't overcrowded with people everywhere (in Nimes). We've also come to realize that everything is really crowded here.

First, we went to the Jardin de la Fontaine, a big park in the middle of Nimes. It has a bunch of fountains and statues and a few Roman ruins.

Next, we took a little hike up to a tower at the top of the park, La Tour Magne. I think we were told that it's the highest point in the department (sort of like a French county), and it's definitely the highest point in the city. And we got to go to the top of the tower where there is an awesome panoramic view of the city!

After the tower, I got lunch with a couple of my friends while everybody else went on the the coliseum. I got some sort of steak that was accompanied with two sides (salad, fries, rice, or vegetables). I ended up going with the fries and salad, and I was really happy with what I got. While we were still eating, every single other student from our program somehow ended up walking down the street where we were eating, and at least five of the other students sat down at our restaurant, saw what I had on my plate, and proceeded to all order the exact same thing as me. All five of them.

After lunch, we headed over to the coliseum, where we walked around for a little bit. It was really, really cool because you could go just about anywhere you wanted to. Actually, the arena is still used today for all sorts of things. In May, there are bull fights, and I think there are even recreations of gladiator battles at another time in the year. The pictures don't really do it justice, so I tried to take a lot of videos throughout the day. You can find those over on the right side of the page under the "Nimes Photos" link.

Pont du Gard was next--and I LOVED it! It was awesome, not necessarily because of the aqueduct, but because of the trails we could hike, the super clear river water, and the gorgeous, perfect weather. But everything was definitely enhanced by the presence of the aqueduct. (And actually, I'm having a really hard time choosing which pictures to post directly on the blog and which ones to leave for the link on the right because I feel like they're all so good!) After hiking for about an hour with a couple of girls from the program, we decided to go cool our feet off in the river water. After rolling up our jeans, we waded in. The water was a little chilly at first, but we got used to it surprisingly quickly! We just stood there for a while, enjoying the moment, occasionally skipping rocks across the water. It was really lovely--and my favorite part about the whole day.

I feel like I could have stayed there all day. It would be the perfect place to bring a picnic and just enjoy being outdoors--real outdoors, without the noise of a city 20 feet away. One of the best parts about the day really was the silence. If you get a chance, listen to the videos in the photo album I posted for today; the only noises are natural ones. It was a really nice change of pace for us, and I'm really hoping to go back soon with some of the other program students!

Today=Fantastico

No, that's not French. I'm pretty sure it's Spanish? But it could also be Italian... I'm not really up on my other Romance languages, although I would really love it if I were.

Anyway! The last couple days have been not-so-great. I "attrapéd the rhume" as one of my peers so neatly put it. For those of you non-franglophones, that's a really grammatically--maybe just linguistically--terrible way of saying that I got the flu. I woke up yesterday with a terrible headache, a sore throat, and a fever. I'd been feeling a little sick the two previous days, but I thought I could fight it off with water, which I then proceeded to not drink. Good decision, apparently.

So I spent all day lying in bed trying to make myself feel better. I had class at 1pm yesterday, so I got up and showered and went to that, practically slept through the first half of class because I was so incoherent, left early, came home and slept some more, finally had some soup, slept a little more, and then a wonderful friend made me a nice healthy dinner and tea. I was supposed to have my second dinner with the French family, but because I was sick, we decided to reschedule for tomorrow night if they're free.

I woke up this morning feeling better--not 100%--but without a voice. After a couple cups of tea, I finally could talk and walk without losing my balance (having fevers makes me a little dizzy), and I went to go meet my French friend for coffee. She's really nice, and she hates English, so I can only speak French with her, which is really good practice for me! Apparently we're in two of the same classes without knowing it, so I'm going to be seeing a lot of her this semester. She showed me some of the ins and outs of the university--like the super cheap cafeteria that's on a different campus--and I showed her how to get to Parc Jourdan from the university.

I got a care package from my family today! Unfortunately, I had to pay a tax of 47€ in order to receive it, but it came nonetheless! I'm so happy to have my apron with me, and my Colts jersey (I have a friend here who is an avid Packers fan and won't let me forget that he's the "true fan" because he brought his jersey and I didn't, so obviously I had to fix that situation), my lotions, and good-smelling fall scents!!

Tonight, I've got my awesome theater class, and hopefully I'll have a nice, slow night so my body can fully recuperate.

I realize how boring this blog looks at first glance--I'll try to post more pictures soon! Several of my latest videos have not been the best. Last week I tried to get a video of our theater where the class is held and instead I got a video of me falling down the stairs and everyone laughing at me. So... we'll try for a better one this time.

Tuesday. Wednesday. Monday.

Today has been one of those days. I have spent all day thinking it was either tomorrow or the day after that, which is weird because I'm living in what I was considering the past. Yeah, it's been one of those days, too.

I had lexicology class this morning, and I'm still feeling really good about the class. Whenever our professor asks a question and I don't know the answer, none of the other kids in the class know either, so I know I'm not behind. Tomorrow I have class in the afternoon, and it's my literature class. I got the books for that class today, so I think I might try to get a head start on the reading tomorrow morning! I've been feeling productive lately.

Tonight, we had a couple of our neighbors over (program kids), and I cooked my spicy sausage sauce (say that 10 times fast) with penne pasta. The sauce was extra spicy tonight, and it sort of burned on the way down, but in a good way. After dinner, I made crepes! Real, Frenchie, French crepes! In a French kitchen, with French ingredients, and French utensils! It was so French! As per accidental tradition, the first crepe I made was terrible, but I got the hang of it really quickly and the rest of them all turned out really well! We had chantilly (whipped cream), Nutella, and des bananes (if you can't figure that one out, you don't deserve to know)!

In other news, my Colts won yesterday against the Broncos! Any day when the Colts win is followed by a fantastic day--at least on my part. I have been so happy that I've been able to watch the games here. It's not very French of me, but I've sort of realized I'm going to have to embrace my Americanism at some point because my accent is not going to go away. Even if I have been told it's a very good accent. Several times. By French people.

Okay! Enough of that! I've added new photos of our most recent trip to Marseille, so check out the link to those on the right side of the page.

A long update

Well! I have been busy! Because this update is going to be so long, I'm going to have little headers with the different sections in case you don't care too much about one subject.

School

We started real university classes on Monday, and (shockingly) I think they're going pretty well so far! My first class is a second-year lexicology class, which is basically an application of linguistics skills, and I'm well-versed in that department. I feel like I'm where I would usually be in a class in the States, which sort of makes me feel like I'm not challenging myself enough because everyone only ever talked about how horribly difficult our classes would be for us.

I'm also taking a comparative literature class that discusses the way translation has affected the meanings of works and how characters have evolved over time in their different representations. We're focusing on Faust and Macbeth, but we're reading everything in French, which should be interesting! Those are the two school classes I'm most excited about, but I'm also taking a Languages of the World class with a million first-year university students. The class size is too big for me to like it, and I feel like I've already learned all the material in another class I took in the States, except it was in English before. The funny thing is that most of the terms are so technical that they end up being the same thing in French but with an accent. For example, Indo-European languages are "les langues Indo-Européennes". So I'm hoping that class will be an easy A.

My other classes consist of a Modern and Contemporary African History class, a theatre course offered by the program, and a University Methodolody class offered by the program. I think I might end up dropping the African History course because it is a four-hour class for third-year French History majors. I've never taken a history class before in college, so I don't feel like I'm sufficiently prepared to take an advanced history course, especially in French. But we'll see!

I really like the theater course. It's a course designed to help us with our oral French, but it's really fun because we end up doing a lot of improvisation involving acting and being ridiculous--two things I rather enjoy doing anyway!

Meeting Real French People!

On Thursday of this week, some of my friends in the program hosted a dinner party/potluck at their apartment. All in all, there were at least twelve people who ate and several more who came later in the evening. The girls in the apartment have a French roommate (named Violette), and she invited several of her friends to come to the party too, so I got to meet real French people who are my age for the first time! At one point in the evening, we learned that one of the French girls (Sonia) had studied in England for a year. I was coaxed into speaking in my English accent to see if she could understand me better without the American accent. It turned out that Sonia could understand me fine either way, but another girl could only understand me when I spoke in the accent. So for the rest of the night if I spoke in English at all, I had to speak with an English accent so that everyone could understand the conversation.

On Friday night, I had my first dinner with my French exchange family. The way the dinner was to go was explained to me as, "You will speak to the children in English for an hour and a half before dinner, and then during dinner, they will correct your French." Which made me feel really confident in my French abilities. The organization for it happened really quickly; Thursday night I was told I might meet the family on Friday night if they called me back on Friday, and then early Friday afternoon, I heard back from the mom in the family and we got everything set up for that night. I really like the family. The kids are ages 16 (girl), 15 (boy), and 13 (boy). It was nice to be in the middle of a family setting again. I mean, the program kids all joke around about how we're a huge family at this point--and it's true, it's what it feels like--but I miss the real thing. It was nice to be among bickering siblings again--and I really do mean that wholeheartedly.

Marseille

Yesterday, I went with a few of the program kids to Marseille to see a professional football game here--or as we Americans are prone to say, soccer. We were able to find tickets to the game for only 30€, and train tickets are also pretty cheap to Marseille. The game was fantastic! Marseille won 2-1 versus Sochaux, so everyone was happy. The Mistral was playing games with the temperature here again, so we were all sort of freezing, but it was like we were at home again watching an American football game. We were all pretty happy with the results of the night. After the game, we went out to eat and I got Marseille's specialty: bouillabaisse! It was okay, not amazing but not terrible either. I'm happy I got it at least once, anyway. The bouillabaisse was followed by profiteroles and coffee, and it seemed like a pretty great French night overall.

Commencement

It ends and begins.

I have been so emotional lately. We had our last day of orientation class today, and I almost cried so. many. times. It was slightly ridiculous. I watched Finding Neverland last night with one of my friends, and that was not a good idea. It is impossible to watch that movie without crying at least once--for any normal person. For me, it's somewhere between three and four times. (Christy, I blame you!) So that got my tear ducts all revved up and ready for today.

So today in class we watched a French film about family and how it's great even with its ups and downs. And obviously that's another great idea considering that I've been getting homesick lately. No tears from me at all. (Said the liar.) Leaving class today was actually really bittersweet because I've gotten really fond of our professors but I'm also really excited about starting real classes on Monday.

I don't think I've ever explained about the wonderful cafeteria at the school. The man in charge--the chef, if you will--is amazing. Every day during our coffee breaks (they are an essential part of the French lifestyle), we would all walk into the cafeteria to get our coffee and he would give us special deals after first bursting out in laughter and shouting, "Vive les Américains!" Some days he would bring us pain au chocolat--amazing pain au chocolat, mind you--and he would always greet us with some sort of compliment, trivia question, or joke. Once he had us name four American presidents before we could get our coffee. (Just FYI, France has only had six presidents so far, including Sarkozy. So it was a little easier for Americans than it would have been for the French.) Today, for our last day, he surprised us with a huge array of drinks, pastries, and fruit. It was so nice! And so French!

Aside from all that, I had a sort of revelation earlier today about what exactly makes life here so incredible. Life here really isn't all that different from life in the United States, but everyone here expects life to be amazing, so it is. Every time we do something, it's somehow transformed into an experience instead of just a task we have to get done. Life is so much better when you live every day as if it were extraordinary!

The past week in review

This week has been very busy, and most of it has been due to our scholastic endeavors here. We all studied really hard this weekend for a test we thought we had on Monday over grammar. It turned out not to be a test on grammar, but instead was a large essay, which is something you can't really study for. We're finishing up our orientation classes this week before our real university classes start on Monday, so this week has been filled with tests. Today, for example, we had our huge history test, an oral comprehension test, and an essay. Our history test consisted of two and a half blank pages of printer paper which we needed to fill with a timeline of all of our knowledge of French history, the names of 15 presidents of countries that are frequently discussed in world news, and an "article" discussing the strengths and weaknesses of France.

I'm pretty sure I aced the first two sections of the history test because I studied like I was crazy, despite other people telling me there was no way we needed to know all of that stuff. Hmph.

To study for the test yesterday, I went with one of my friends to the park here in Aix called Parc Jourdain. It was really nice to go someplace besides the apartment to just sit and relax for a few hours. It was also really nice to be able to sit on grass and under trees again. I brought a blanket from my apartment to the park, and we just laid on the ground for a while listening to my jazz music and watching the cloudless sky.

Today's weather is acting a little more like what I expected from fall here. The sky is a little overcast, but there are still patches of sunlight, and it's supposed to rain tomorrow and Saturday here. I was planning on going to Cassis with a few friends this weekend, but with the weather turning colder, I decided I would just rather stay here and get some good cleaning in.

Tonight, I'm trying a new recipe with some pork chops I got from our local discount store: Orange-Topped Chops. I'm really excited!

France: Our Secret Time Machine/Simplicity of Life

The longer I'm here, the more I realize just how lucky how I am. Sometimes I'll wake up in the morning, and I'll just think to myself, "You live in the South of France." I just can't get over how great this all is.

I don't know if I can even convey the extent of my happiness here. Every time I have finished a meal with my friends, we all have just agreed that "We're so happy." I happen to have quite a large collection of Miles Davis jazz, and we've taken to listening to it during our meals, which have also been candlelit (see left). We're still poor college students, so it's not like our meals are super fancy, but they've all been really delicious and relaxing, which I think sums up life in France in general. The picture on the left is at our neighbors' apartment, which is not as well-furnished as ours is, so they've taken to empty wine bottles for candle holders.

Yesterday afternoon, bunch of program students and I went out to find somewhere were we could play soccer. Our program office distributed a bunch of supplies that were left for us by previous students, and one of my friends got a soccer ball, but the only problem is that he ball is a little flat (or maybe really flat). But it was good enough for us to play with yesterday. We found a soccer court to play on yesterday--just like a basketball court, paved and everything, except with soccer goals instead of hoops. Not the best, but it did the job, and I remembered how much I love soccer. Which is a lot.

The French don't really have the concept of exercising like Americans do. Gyms are really hard to come by, and the only forms of exercise that we've seen so far have been walking (everywhere) and dancing.

Today, there is sort of community club fair on the Cours Mirabeau, which is the main street in Aix. Every club or student group or sports club is supposed to have a booth set up so that we can walk around and pick up leaflets at any place that interests us. I think the ratio of salsa dancing clubs to any other club is about 30:1. It's insane. The only other type of activity that was easy to find is martial arts. It was a little disappointing because a lot of us students had had our hearts set on playing sports with other students our age, and the only place I found that plays sports is a basketball league for girls. Anything involving a lot of hand-eye coordination is not really my thing, which basically leaves soccer in the mix. Which is too bad because we didn't find a single place that plays soccer.

In other news, I should be starting to have weekly dinners with a family either this week or next week, so I'll keep you all updated on that situation too.

Finalement... Internet in my apartment

You should all be very, very proud of me. I successfully installed our internet by following instructions in French--and by myself, I might add. So we now have internet in our apartment! It's also sort of extra special because we're the first program kids to have internet in our apartment because everybody else either went to the internet/phone store after we did, or they asked for a person to come out and install it for them. Well, not me. I can do it myself!

In other news, the program had us start looking at classes for our schedules because we can start scheduling classes next week. The only problem is, it's the most difficult thing I've ever done in my life. French schools, apparently, only have a student body because it's free. Because nobody in their right mind would knowingly pay to have to go through the entire school website just to find a single class that they want to take.

Okay. Let me back up and explain a little.

So. This is me having an open mind. Ahem. French schools are not set up the same way American ones are. Schooling is free in France, so long as you go to a public school. Universities are included in this until you get to the Grands Ecoles, which are sort of like the French Ivy League. The schools aren't organized as an overall school--that's just for the classrooms--but are instead organized according to department. That all sounds reasonable so far, right? I agree. However. (You knew it was coming, don't be surprised.) The departments act as individual entities when it comes to scheduling. So to find a class list (if you're lucky enough to have it in a complete list), you have to go to each individual department's webpage. But as each department is its own entity, there is no rule as to when the class lists are updated or where the classes will be found on the department website.

Can you understand why I'm getting frustrated? Oh, America. You do so many organizational things right.

So far, I've found the Linguistics deparment's website and class list--for last year.

I'm not a happy camper right now.

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I'm updating this as I'm preparing for what is to be my third dinner party in my apartment here in Aix. It's so great! There are going to be seven of us total. It was going to be eight, but someone dropped out on us at the last minute. The menu: Salt & Pepper Chicken with a Mexican Rice/Bean sauce, the necessary baguette and Camembert (cheese, for those non-gourmands out there, but oh-so delicious cheese), Pain au Chocolat, and two different varieties of wine. I'm getting so excited, especially because I'm coming to appreciate how well our apartment is placed in the city.

Oh! And for those of you who haven't seen, I posted two links (so far) to my pictures of St. Tropez and Marseille. More to come of other adventures in France!

Rain and Strikes in France

So today is the beginning of a nationwide strike involving transportation, schools, and hospitals. We were warned that we may have to walk to our school today because the bus system would be down, and it’s a good twenty minute ride from our bus stop to the school, so I was not looking forward to that, especially as today is the first day in forever that it’s slated to rain. It ended up being alright in the end because the bus system is up during the peak hours, but really limited in the middle of the day. We can still see effects of the strike in odd places, though, because the library in our school is closed for the strike. We’re not sure if it’s just today or if this is an open-ended sort of thing.

Yesterday was a really good day. Our apartment is completely tiled, so it hasn't really felt comfortable because we can't take off our shoes. We found an awesome thrift store near our apartment where we found a 5'x6' rug for 19€--a steal, really. So we bought that right away and a fan, and our apartment is finally starting to feel like a home instead of the place we sleep.

I don't know exactly how dry it's been back in the States, but I know it's been really, super dry here. Trees have begun losing their leaves here, not because it's been cold (although the Mistral has been playing games with the temperature here), but because it's been so dry. It started raining last night at about 11, and it was a beautiful thing. I was hosting a dinner party for several of the program students on our street (there are five of us altogether), and we were doing our homework. We were just finishing up when we heard the sound of the rain on the roof. We looked outside the two windows in our living room, and four of us just watched the people and their umbrellas rushing by on the street. It was so simple and still so gorgeous, that moment.

Marseille

Oh, la belle France!

We went to Marseille on Saturday as part of our program, so the only thing I paid for all day was lunch--thank goodness because I have been spending money left and right lately! It was really beautiful, of course, because this is the south of France we're talking about right now, but it was also really cool.

The first thing we did once we got to Marseille was visit the Chateau d'If. If you don't know what that is exactly, but it sounds familiar, think The Count of Monte Cristo or The Man in the Iron Mask, both of which took place (at least partially) at Chateau d'If. So we got to go in and take a look around all of the cells, which really weren't half bad. I mean, if I had to be stuck in a room for the rest of my life, they at least would give me a chimney for the middle of winter, and most of the rooms had some sunlight filtering in somewhere.

After Chateau d'If, we went and had lunch during the typical French two-hour lunch break. On the way to Marseille, I kept telling everyone to remind me at lunch to find Bouillabaisse, which is the Marseille specialty, and I really, really wanted to have some. Well, wouldn't you know it, everyone forgot, but I ended up having something adventurous anyway. It was seafood, but as it turns out, it was Belgian and not the Marseillais I was going for. Oh, well. At least now I can say I've eaten moules-frites (mussels and fries), and it wasn't half bad!

We went to a museum next, and it was really neat. Ever since I took an awesome class last semester that was a combination of history, literature, and art, I've really come to appreciate paintings, especially French and Italian paintings. This museum featured Italian paintings, and it also had an Egyptian mummy exhibit. I didn't realize at the time that there were real mummies there, so I spent almost my entire time in the painting and sculpture exhibits. Oh, well. I probably would have gotten a little freaked out by the mummies anyway.

My favorite part: but then we went up to the top of this huge hill to Notre Dame de la Garde. So cool! Not only was the view from the top breathtaking, but the basilica was amazing, too. I mean, it wasn't Lyon's basilica, but it was still really cool. I walked in on the second half of Mass, so I stayed for that and asked the priest where I could find a copy of the Mass written in French. He walked me to the bookstore and told me what book to ask for. So now I'm set! At least for the month of September.

Last night I went to Mass at my church here in Aix, and some of my friends came with me. I had met the priest earlier that day because I asked him what time Mass was for sure last night, and then he asked me a little bit about myself and I said I was a new student from America. So he featured me during the homily last night, telling everyone how "I don't know a single person in Aix." It sounded a little pathetic, but then he encouraged everyone to befriend me. So it was alright in the end! I really love my church because it's the "student parish" of the diocese, and I signed up for the church choir, and everyone seems really, really awesome, especially because they don't speak very much English!

INTERNET

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is how happy I am to have found internet in a location that is both convenient and free! I think I may even devote this entire entry to a sonnet I'm going to write about counting the ways I love thee. I mean, the internet.

Or maybe not. (I know, you're all extremely relieved. But really. I'm so happy to have found internet.)

Oh! And FYI, if you haven't seen them yet, I wrote two entries below this one that I just added as well that detail my last two days lost at sea, so you can get in some good reading--not to be conceited or anything.

Well, we just finished our first test for our cours intensif, and it wasn't bad. Simple, straightforward, in short, exactly my cup of tea. I think things are finally settling down here. I have to go buy another bus pass today, but other than that, I think we only have a few minor housekeeping details to care of, like buying spices and meat, etc.

I'm kind of starving right now, but I honestly feel like my need to communicate with the world supersedes my need to eat. Also, did you know it's spelled "supersedes"? I totally thought it was "supercedes". Anyway. (By the way, if you haven't noticed, this is how my mind works--jumping around spasmatically--and it takes super-concentration to get a clear thought completed when I write.)

I'm going to go eat now.

Life without internet/Entry for September 2nd

Okay, so update number 2 without internet. (Un petit paranthèse: I’m getting used to the French notion of the “Internet”, which is always capitalized. It takes real self-control to write it the American way now.) It’s amazing how much more time I feel like I have now that we don’t have internet readily available to us any time I want it. It’s actually been really good for my productivity level, and I haven’t felt guilty about not being in contact with everyone at home while I’ve been busy doing other important things. I have begun to miss home a little bit, though.

Yesterday we had our first civilization class with M. Pelopidas. In the two-hour timeframe he was given, our teacher somehow covered 3000 years of French history in detail. It was amazing! Anyone who can get that much done has to have a high energy level, and M. Pelopidas never lost his enthusiasm. It was a little difficult to show as much excitement for it as M. Pelopidas did, but it was really interesting. Today we covered French politics since World War II, and I have to say, I find French politics way more interesting than American politics. It definitely helps that I took an amazing culture class last semester that seems to have covered every major topic anyone has mentioned to us. Our teachers keep making references to events, and I know exactly what they’re talking about. It’s kind of cool because I’ve been explaining some of it to my classmates when they get a little lost. Like today with the French political parties.

After class today, I went with some of my classmates to get our bank accounts set up because we all wanted internet, and the only way to get it is to have a bank account. So we went to the bank, got all that taken care of (I deposited a whopping 30€ in my account), and then we took off for the phone/internet store. We signed all the papers, got everything in order, and then I asked if anyone would be coming out to set it up, and the girl just replied, “No.” I thought maybe she would ask if I wanted someone to come out, but it looks like we’re on our own now. I just have to wait for them to text us that our internet and phone lines are working before I can set up our box.

Life without internet/Entry for September 1st

Oh. My. Goodness.

I wouldn't usually call myself a techie, or really even that reliant on technology in my everyday life, but I have had to live two days without internet, and it has been awful.

I wrote these entries on Word the last two days because I felt like I needed to keep everyone updated somehow.

So!

Wednesday September 1, 2010

Well! Life has been busy! We started our cours intensif on Monday after taking a two-hour placement test. Really, I’m not even sure how much the test had to do with anything. I know I got placed in my class because I asked to be. The test was split in two parts: written and oral, which is the same way the classes are split. The oral exam consisted of them asking us simple questions about French (why we are interested in it, how we plan to use it in the future, etc.), and the written exam was pretty run-of-the-mill. I feel pretty confident in my written French, so I requested to be put in the conversation class.

In other news, we finally got moved into our apartment! I got my key on Tuesday night, and my roommate got her stuff moved in that night. I decided to wait until Wednesday morning to move because I wanted to clean everything before I got stuff moved in. The apartment was pretty dirty before we moved in. None of the dishes were put away; everything was lying out so that we could see it for inventory purposes, but none of the cupboards were clean either. So I spent three hours wiping down our kitchen’s cupboards, shelves, and dishes. I even had to clean our dish drying rack because it had a bunch of dust coating it. It was a little gross.

I went out today and got sheets for my bed and some candles for the apartment. While I was doing that, Andrea was going grocery shopping for us, and when she got back I made dinner for us. She wiped down our shower while I cooked, and we had our first home-cooked meal here: spaghetti. Simple, cheap, and so worth it.

We did have a little incident last night when I went to hang my sopping wet towel (from the washing machine) on our clothesline. There is a restaurant that’s only open at night in our courtyard right below our clothesline, so I checked to make sure it wouldn’t be dripping on anybody before I hung the towel up. There was only a tin roof below the clothesline, so I thought I would be fine. About ten minutes later, two guys ring our doorbell, so I stick my head out the window to see who it is, and I don’t recognize them. They’re yelling indistinguishable French up at me, and I keep telling them they have the wrong apartment until finally one of them says, “Do you speeek Eeengleeesh?” I yell “Yes!” back to them from my fourth-story window, and he yells back, “Your napkeen! Weeeth thee waterrr! Iss dripping on my customerss!”

So I can’t do laundry at night anymore. Bummer.

We still don’t have internet in our apartment because everything in France takes forever, so I have to type up these entries in Word and then upload them while I’m at the program’s office. It’s definitely weird not being able to check email whenever I want. I think we’re going to get internet from my dad’s favorite (and maybe his only) French word: Orange.

Tomorrow we go to open our bank accounts here, and then Friday we get to see what the former students of the program left us all in terms of furnishings for our apartments!

Major updates/Life in Aix

So my life is so completely different now. Before, I was worried about my financial aid coming through successfully, finding an apartment, getting a French cell phone, finding a roommate, and somehow making calls home. I can now scratch all of those things off of my list. This is my second full day in Aix, and I've already got all of that done. "How?" you ask. Well, let's just say I've been busy.

Yesterday, to say the least, was hectic. I woke up at about 8 and sat on our balcony, which has a really nice view (see right), and then we all (everyone in my program) went on a tour of Aix starting at 10. We saw a lot, and I apparently was supposed to remember it all. I remember where the main stuff in Aix is, like the Hotel de Ville (the city hall) and the Place de la Rotonde (the huge fountain in the city's center), but that's only because I had found those with my parents. We got done with the tour just after noon, which was a bit of a problem for me because I told my parents I would meet them at my hotel at noon for lunch. So I skeedaddled back to the hotel by myself after a short interlude when I was semi-lost. Ahem.

We ate lunch (pizza), and then we found the church I'm going to be going to this year. It's the Church of the Holy Spirit. They have Adoration and confession every day for an hour just before Mass. Awesome, right? The only problem is that Mass is at 7 in the evening, so I'm hoping my schedule will fit around that.

So then I came back to our hotel for a program meeting where they pretty much scared half of us to death. They listed off every single expense we might possibly have, and I know I was more than a little worried. Our meeting ended up going over by an hour, so we got out at 5pm instead of 4, like I thought we would. After the meeting, it was pretty chaotic for a while because they told us to go look at the apartments they had listed for us but that they were also taking a group of us to the cell phone store to walk us through the process of getting a French phone.

In all of this, I still didn't know what I was going to do about getting a roommate. There was no way I could afford a studio apartment by myself (500€/month), so I absolutely had to have a roommate, but I was scared to ask someone and get rejected. Fortunately for me, the girl next to me in the meeting turned to me and--well, the exchange went like this:

Andrea: "I don't have a roommate ye--"
Me: "I'llbeyourroommate!"
Andrea: "Well, okay!"

So that was that. We went out and looked at a cheap apartment and we ended up agreeing to sign the lease this morning. It's small, and there's not a lot of room in the bedroom, but it's got everything we need. We have a living room, a bathroom, a bedroom, and a little dinky kitchen (around 10 square feet, if even) that somehow manages to have a stove, a fridge, a microwave, and counterspace. It's also really nice because it's only a block away from the church I looked at with Mom and Dad!

So we agreed to go back this morning to sign the lease and to bring our passports so the landlord could make a copy of them. Then we left and hotfooted it over to the cell phone store and we each got a cheap cell phone. French cell phone plans are a little different because every plan includes unlimited texting, and the contracts are extremely short; the plans range from 15 days to 4 months.

As far as making calls home goes, Gmail has a new awesome feature that lets you call any phone in the US or Canada for free. It's pretty neat. I made my first call yesterday!

And I checked the status of my financial aid payment at IU this morning, and it finally came through! So I don't have to worry about that either!

Life is good.

Avignon and some updates

Okay, so. We're here. In Avignon. In France. It's 93 degrees, we have nowhere to go, and I miss home a lot right now.

Really, Avignon isn't all it's cracked up to be. I mean, it has the Palais des Papes (the Pope's Palace) and a bridge. But... that's it. And the Pope's Palace is kind of a bust. It's 15 Euros just to get in, and then once you're in, all you do is stare at bare walls while a headset dictates very specific architectural terms without giving any history of the place. So disappointing! There's nothing inside. Oh! Except there is a weird artist who decided to have some sort of exhibition in the Palais. Seriously, it's weird. On one of the statues, the face had broken off, and I guess this artist decided that it would be a good idea to strap a deer skull on instead. Not a good idea, my friend. Not at all.

So that's what we've done today! We drove from Lyon to Avignon in our Passat without any mishaps along the way, which we were all grateful for. And all along the drive we kept seeing the coolest crops. We saw pear tree farms and a couple different types of sunflower farms, vineyards, apple orchards, peaches, and a whole bunch of stuff. It was really neat! We're in Provence now, so everything is really picturesque as you drive.

As far as my financial aid goes, I'm still waiting on IU to process the check that IPFW sent to them. Once that's done, all of that should be taken care of. And as far as legal concerns go, I'm in the country now, so I have my visa and all of the required papers. I just have to make sure I check in with Immigrations with the rest of my classmates.

I'm going to go down to the pool and swim off some of this heat. It's so hot!

An American in Lyon: A Novel

Yeah, you read that right. We're in Lyon now--surprise! And apologies for not having updated again before now, so to make it up to you, I'll try to catch you up.

Well, we went through our short time in Paris with a bang. We saw everything a proper tourist should see: la Tour Eiffel, the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre, Notre Dame, Les Invalides, the Seine, Parisian cafes, Montmartre, Sacre Coeur, etc. And as much as we walked--and believe me, we walked a lot--we didn't have to do as much walking as we could have, thanks to my professor for a lovely tip about something called the Batobus, which is a bus on the river that takes tourists to a lot of the major attractions in Paris. You can get an unlimited pass for two or three days to get on and off the boat as many times as you like. However, you can also buy a Batobus ticket in conjunction with another company, L'OpenTour, to get a real bus to take you to the landlocked monuments. So that's what we did!

I've always enjoyed speaking French whenever I can at home, especially with my sister. But it's really different when you're the only one in your group than can understand anything a French person says and everyone is relying on you. I have to confess, I miss the days when I didn't have to speak French just to get some food (although it has been very good food!).

So we left Paris yesterday via the TGV. Supposedly, train travel is nice and leisurely. You can relax in your private compartment with your companions, and if you get hungry, you can go to the dinner car and buy yourself a meal or a sandwich. And when you get near to school, you change into your wizard's robes.

Or maybe that was just my wishful thinking.

Instead, with our (my) 400 pounds of luggage, we hustled our way into the Gare Lyon in Paris an hour early so that we could figure out what to do. Remember, we were as new to this ball game as you are right now. Which is not a fun situation to be in when you're thrown in with a bunch of players who don't even speak your language. So Dad found a helpful employee who guided us through the process.

Basically, the French like waiting until the last minute for a lot of things. Apparently, scheduling where trains are leaving from is one of those things. The process of getting on a train at a TGV station goes like this: get to the station, find out which of the two terminals your train will be coming to, and wait. "Wait for what?" you say. Well, my dear readers, I shall tell you. You wait to find out what gate you are at. When do you find out? Anywhere from twenty minutes before to five minutes before your train is scheduled to leave. Fortunately for us, our train's location showed up right at 20 minutes until departure time. So we found our train, bumbled our way into our car, and pathetically asked a nice French lady for help finding our seats. As she spoke no English, she just pointed to our seats, but it was fine in the end.

For her.

Her seat was in the very front of our car. Our seats were in the back. And it seemed that a little old lady and her husband were in two of our seats. After some rapid-fire French between our helper lady and the wife, things seemed to be getting sorted out. The wife was not, in fact, actually the man's wife. She was his cousin, coming to see him off on his trip back to Lyon, and she was only helping him get settled in on the train. So off she went, and we found our seats facing each other at a little table by the window of our car, and everything seemed so quaint and delightful, even the little old French man named Jean-Paul whose seat was next to ours.

But, oh my gosh, that little old man loved to talk. As he said it, "I love to talk." No truer statement has ever been made, my friends. I learned this over the entire two and a half hour trip, during which we (he) discussed religion, politics, French celebrities, and Jean-Paul's life story. We (he) was interrupted once when a woman from the front of the car came back to tell him to "stop talking! You're perturbing the other passengers!"

There was some excitement on our track because a person committed suicide on our train tracks (not on our train, though, thank goodness), so our train got delayed about half an hour. It was a little shocking how blasé the French were about the suicide, but I suppose no one really could have done anything about it from where we were.

Anyway, we are now finishing up our time in Lyon. When we got here, our travel agent had booked us a rental car, so we picked that up. It turned out to be a manual transmission Passat, a nice car if you're used to manual. Unfortunately, my dad hadn't driven manual in over twenty years. To top it off, all of the instructions or switches were in an odd combination of French and German. Long story short: we ended up stalling at the exit of the parking garage for about ten minutes while Dad fought with the parking brake. We eventually solved the situation after the parking garage attendant (who spoke only French and apparently broken Spanish) came out to see what the problem was. Dad, who can never remember the proper way to ask this in French said, “¿Parler inglés?" We got the parking brake off after the attendant repeatedly asked Dad to put the car in "uno"--first gear.

We drove around for a while so that Dad could relearn how to drive manual transmission. Dad seemed to think the best policy was to accelerate if anything seemed to be going wrong with the car. When accelerating seemed like it would be fatal, Dad slammed on the brakes instead. Two moments stand out in all of this: once when we were stopped at a light on one of the few hills in Lyon, Dad somehow had his foot on all three pedals: clutch, brake, and accelerator. Our tires were doing a lot of squealing at this point, but we weren't going anywhere until we got a green light and our car took off like a rocket. The other memorable moment happened when Dad was having trouble deciding which way to turn at an intersection. Our car kept lurching so much that the driver behind us got out to check his bumper to see if he had hit us. I'm pretty sure he didn't.

So after all that hard work on my Dad's part--45 minutes of it--we made it to our hotel. Which, as it turned out, was right next door to the train station. 174 paces away, to be exact. Poor Dad, all that hard work, and we didn't even need the car.

For the rest of the day, Mom and Dad went out and got dinner while I got some desperately-needed quiet time in the hotel room, and then the three of us explored the humongous shopping mall across the street.

Today was the best day by far. Mom and Dad woke up early to go running, and I got to have some more quiet time to myself as I showered and got ready for the day. Our plan was to go see the Basilica of Notre Dame de Fourvière and the local Cathédral de St. Jean. We bought all-day metro passes and set off on our journey. When we got to the cathedral, I realized I forgot my camera today. I KNOW.

The cathedral was beautiful, like all cathedrals here. We looked around and admired the stained glass, and Mom and I picked out some postcards for people back home. We then set off for the Wonder on the Hill, the basilica. It looked like quite a climb to us, and we turned out to be right. Being the model companion I am, I didn't complain at all...

But all the hard work paid off in the end. We walked into the church, and it literally took my breath away. I have never seen something so beautiful in my entire life. Every single surface of the church is covered by some sort of ornamentation. The walls have huge mural-mosaics, and the floors are covered in mosaics too. There is a huge painting on the rear wall of the church of the Virgin and Child, and the ceiling is covered with angels and saints. Everything is gold and blue for Mary, and it all holds some sort of symbolism for the Church. It doesn't seem real, even when you're there looking directly at it. I can't describe the beauty of this place, and the pictures can't capture it; I just know I want to go back.

Simply put: I love Lyon, and I wish we had another day or two here!