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!
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Sunday, December 19, 2010
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!
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!
Sunday, November 28, 2010
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!
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!
Sunday, November 14, 2010
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!!
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!!
Saturday, October 16, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
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.
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.
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