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!

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.

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!

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.