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!!

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.