So the adventure is over. I’m stopping now and looking back, thinking “wow.” I had looked forward to studying abroad for a couple of years, and then about a year as a serious consideration. This time last year, I had almost finished my application and was rearing to go. Cally and I were giggling about all the exciting adventures we would have in Europe. Did we? Hell yes. I’m not wondering where the time went, or regretting anything, because I had a great time overall, despite a few (mostly academic) mistakes. But live moves on.
The last week or so in Bordeaux was filled with life. I had to see everyone before I left, do everything one last time, and pack my entire life into four bags. For the last one, I knew I was in trouble when my souvenirs alone filled up more than half of my giant suitcase… but I threw quite a few things away, so it all fit after time. The rest was not quite so simple, but still a lot of fun. Despite continually being bailed on for plans, I managed to go clubbing in Bordeaux twice, once with my housemates and once alone. Both times were “experiences” and the alone one brought me the closest I had ever been to being pickpocketed. The friends one brought me walking three miles home barefoot. But that aside, I had good times. The weather had cooled down, so in the past week (as everyone has heard me say numerous times) it never really got above freezing. I was loving it; I was less loving hearing everyone else bitching about it. The cold did bring one wonderful thing: Snow! The first time it snowed, it was fairly light, and we went outside and watched it for a while. The second time it was much heavier and during the day, and we were outside in it for a bit, then we just watched it from our window. Neither time did it pile up, but it was still pretty. The other last thing I have to mention is what I did on my last night in Bordeaux. The logical thing to do would be to stay at home and pack… but the even more logical thing would be to already be finished packing and go to a football game! It was amazing, the Bordeaux Girondins won 4-1, we screamed, we couldn’t hear ourselves think, our toes froze, I saw the guy from clubbing the night before in McDonalds after… The whole thing made me dearly wish that I had gone to a game sooner. Next time I’m in Europe, I promise.
Coming back to the States was a bit of an adventure, not too much. The biggest physical strain was the kilometer getting to the tram. I had my giant suitcase, about 50 pounds, my duffle bag on top of it (about 25 pounds), my backpack (around 30 pounds), and then my purse. Rolling the 75 pounds of luggage was FUN, my arms were absolutely killing me. But I made it! Goal number 2 was getting to the airport, which was uninteresting. Once I was there, I waited, checked my baggage, and went through security. While waiting around, I met two Scottish guys, had coffee with them (they bought me one and I decided to just drink it. Still hate coffee, sorry all), waited with them. They were very upbeat, I actually recognized them since they worked at a bar I went to a couple of times… Bad? Anyway, we had a fun time. I was a little miffed when our plane was supposed to leave at 16h45 and at that time, we were still at the gate waiting to board. But despite our plane being delayed, it was a fine flight. Goal 3 was to get to the hotel, and this was a very big goal. I had hoped to get there around seven… But with the wait to get on the bus to Heathrow, the traffic on the way there (due to the iciness), the different stops, then the time waiting for the bus to the hotel, I didn’t get into my room until nine. In order to go into London like I had wanted, I would’ve had to walk about a km back to the airport, taken the hour-long Tube, then had to catch the last one around 11. Not gonna happen. So I just relaxed at the very nice hotel, had a buffet dinner (including haggis!), took a bath. Watched British mythbusters.
Goal 4 was to get on the plane back to America. This wasn’t that big of a deal; I woke up early, played in the snow, got on the bus to the airport. Let me note that I think all London bus drivers are cooky old men and I love it. I made it there, I checked in, I checked my baggage, I got breakfast, I browsed shops, I got carded on a whiskey tasting (the ONLY time in Europe!), I got on the plane. Very uninteresting. The flight was equally uninteresting; I was in the middle seat with a British guy on my right and a Swiss guy on my left. I watched The Hangover, Harry Potter 6, and 500 Days of Summer. I read a bit. Our flight had been sitting on the taxiway (I have no clue what that’s called) for an hour, there was ice on the wings or something. It did make it so we were on that lovely plane for about twelve hours, my butt was KILLING me by the end of it. But luckily, we made it out of there safe; I am VERY glad that I missed the weather mishaps, and the BA strike threat, and the terrorists and the security amps after… Anywho, waited in long custom line number 1 talking to a guy from Texas and the British guy who was next to me. Got my baggage quickly, then was waiting in long custom line number 2 (about thirty minutes) when a guy pulled me over, saying it was a random in-depth check. I was panicking because I had only declared about twenty dollars of souvenirs (I was lazy and didn’t want to list everything), but he didn’t even care, he just looked at the card and let me bypass the line. I’m okay with this. So I go out, have the reunion with the best friend and the sister, and then freak out when it’s boiling outside. (Relatively… 20 degrees C verses negative five? Come on.)
Being back has been interesting, it’s definitely reverse culture shock. For the first few days all my English was with a bit of an accent, I would be weirded out when I heard only that language around me, it’s freaking hot here yet everyone’s complaining about being cold… It’s definitely been fun. It’s been nice to see all my friends at home, though there are a few more that I need to catch up with though I don’t think I have time before returning to Irvine on Saturday. Christmas was very nice, though this all is made a bit more annoying because I got some kind of cough when I got back. It’s nothing that keeps me awake at night, it’s just a pain in the ass. I’m much too lazy to take medicine though; it’ll go away eventually. It’s mostly gone now anyway. Nothing else really great to mention about home… my sister did a fantastic job cleaning before I got home, which is nice. Driving is weird – I realized that while American drivers aren’t as crazy as Europeans, they are much, much more stupid. I went ice skating with Cally on Christmas Eve, and that was a bit of a shock… it was so different than in Bordeaux! The food, while it’s great to be back in America, is going to kill me, I swear. I think I’m going to stay far away from fast food (except In-N-Out) for a while.
Which brings me to the fact that it’s New Year’s Eve. Corny resolutions much? What can I do, though… if I don’t write them down I’ll forget them like all the rest of them. It’s interesting to think that this time last year I was looking forward to a great time in Europe… and let me say, it really was. Not quite what I expected it to be, but I don’t think any of the major things in life are what we believe they will be. Moving on to the resolutions, which are more for my own purpose than anything else.
Resolution Numéro 1 is to lose weight.
I’m not one of those people who loves talking about my weight and shoving it into people’s faces; we all know someone like that. I don’t like talking about it much, and I know that others don’t want to hear it. But damnit, I lost twenty pounds in France, I’m allowed to gloat! The big challenge will be keeping that off in the very different American environment, and I wouldn’t mind losing another twenty. This involves keeping the exercise up (belly dancing, yoga, and running) as well as watching what I eat – shouldn’t be too hard, since I’ll be paying for all my own food and I’m kind of a cheapskate. (Though the “alcohol and pastries” diet seemed to work well…)
Resolution Number 2 is to get a job.
Yeah, I know, that’s everyone’s resolution. But I’d like something to get me through the rest of UCI, nothing too special. It would have been wonderful to get my tutoring job back, but the position’s not there anymore, probably just due to budget cuts. Sigh. I’ve applied to a couple places online, but I’ll get on that once I get down to Irvine. I just really need to get some income that isn’t my parents so I can start really standing on my own.
Resolution Number 3 is to party more.
Sounds like a terrible resolution, doesn’t it? But with my turning 21 this year, I think it’s reasonable. I’ve spent my first two years at university passing most of that stuff up, but I really enjoyed all the clubbing and partying I did in Europe, and I’d like to continue that. In moderation, of course, I promise to never appear on TFLN or FML or anything like that as the girl puking in weird places… This also includes meeting more people.
Resolution Number 4 is to do well in school.
Especially after the catastrophe that was my education at Bordeaux, I really need to work my ass off these next few quarters to get my GPA back up. Next quarter I’m taking five classes, all looking relatively difficult, so I’ll really need to get it in high gear and stop messing around… maybe I should actually apply myself? (And no, this doesn’t conflict with Resolution 3 – you can do both!)
Resolution Number 5 is to start working towards what I want to do after Uni.
Here’s when you start wondering what the future holds in store. Especially after studying abroad, I’m thinking about taking a year or two off before heading to grad school, using that time to do something productive abroad… something like the Peace Corps or other organizations where you “work” abroad for several months. My logic is that I expanded my horizons with studying in Europe; now I need to throw my comfort zone out of the window completely and get out there. Africa or something would be nice. Hopefully my French will help me with that, since it’s a fairly strong international language. We’ll see where that gets me, but I don’t think I can follow a boring path into my middle-aged life. At the very least, though, I want to spend a month or two backpacking around Europe after I graduate and seeing everything I didn’t see before.
Will I accomplish all this? Who knows. Possibly. An unofficial resolution is to keep this blog up… will my life be interesting enough? Maybe. I’ll see you all next year.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Don't Bring Me Down
I considered doing a long, deep blog entry, but I’ll sum it up into one sentence: Commitment looks big and scary and I think I’m going to avoid it for the next ten years and live my own life.
Moving on. A lot’s been happening today, hence why I haven’t been able to sit down and write a blog. I’ve been busy living it up for my last month in Bordeaux and Europe, which I suppose is a good thing. Thanksgiving was a couple of weeks ago, and for that the EAP program teamed up with the Bordeaux-America organizations, and there was a large dinner, with the French trying their hardest to give us a Thanksgiving dinner. It was very French, but their pumpkin pie failed pretty badly, though I liked it a great deal. (I had also had half a bottle of wine – I couldn’t let it go to waste, now could I?) I had a good time, though. It was food, it was people; you can’t really go wrong with that. It did, however, cause Becky, Katie, and me to go a couple nights later and bake home-made pumpkin pie. A good night was had by all. Also in this packed Bordeaux weekend, Danita and I went to a French opera, called “Le Balcon.” It was… weird. Very weird. It also included me discovering that my cocktail dress that fit so well back in January was now nice and loose. On top of this all, while walking down the smooth opera stairs, I slipped and fell down half of them, causing the population of Bordeaux to freak out and worry about me, only adding to my embarrassment. It was an experience. Yet another experience to add to the list was the medical appointment all visa applicants had to go through. It was uninteresting, except for the “dreaded” x-ray, in which you had to take all upper clothing off. I, being me, didn’t really give a damn. But many of the Californian girls were absolutely flipping out about it, complaining, whining. One girl went as far as to say she was Mormon so she wouldn’t have to do it, and I’m just kind of like, “…really? I mean, really? How old are you again?” It just seems ridiculous that this is that big of a deal. You get undressed in a little room, you come out, you cross your arms, you push against a cold wall-thing for the x-ray, you get dressed. The female doctor does not care, she doesn’t even look. She’s seen thousands of boobs, she won’t care about yours. (I also already don’t like this girl, so go figure.)
Then after this week, there was the weekend in Lyon for le “Fête des lumières,” or Festival of Lights. Not too much to say about that; I traveled EasyJet with Erick, we explored Lyon. It’s a gorgeous, cold city, but there’s not much to see or do there. We ate decent Chinese food, and at eleven at night we had to go pick up Danita from the bus stop and take her back to the hotel. No comment. We did end up going and getting a late dinner, though, which was nice. The next day we basically retraced our steps so Danita could see everything. Then for the night, we had an amazing two-hour French dinner, and the festival itself was amazing. So many people, and some incredibly creative light displays and shows. It was pretty magical. The only worry I had going in was that we didn’t have a hotel room for the second night, since something like four million people come in for the festival and we couldn’t find one, but apparently our hotel had a cancelation so we were able to snag one. It made me happy. Other than that, really, not much to report. A good time was had.
Then back to Bordeaux one last time. The other night I was walking back from Becky’s place after watching the Avatar finale, and it’s about a twenty-minute walk. And I just looked around and I realized how Bordeaux just has this golden glow about it. Sure, the novelty of the city’s worn off, and I’ve gone to other places and realized that Bordeaux isn’t the wonderful place that it first appeared to me. But I still love it in its own way, especially now that it’s decked out for Christmas. Lights everywhere, Christmas trees around every corner, shops open all the time… And on top of it all, it’s not that cold. This actually makes me very sad; I hear stories back home about people having to pry open their car doors since it’s covered in ice, or that peoples’ locks are frozen. Here, it’s a toasty 50 degrees, sometimes even warmer. This isn’t what I signed up for. It’s comfortable, though, I suppose. I’m certainly glad that I’m leaving Bordeaux in the holiday season, though, so my last memories of it will be very fond. Even though now, I’m getting a lot of melancholy at the thought of leaving this amazing country, I’m ridiculously excited to go home at the same time. Very mixed there. On one hand, I can’t wait to see my friends, my family, go back to a school that makes sense… on the other, I’ve made a couple of really good friends here that I’ll miss, I love France, I love traveling around. I think I’m just starting to feel less like a vacation and more like actual life, and then there I go back to home. But it’ll be nice to be back in the loop again…
The past week has been fun, and I have a lot more ahead of me to do. Trust me. Last night was our “end of semester” cocktail, which was a lot different from what I expected. It took forever to find the place, and then we just stood around chatting for an hour before being kicked out. There were no big speeches, no sad farewells, no closure at all. It’s interesting to think that at least ninety percent of these people I’ll never see again. But that’s generally what happens in life, isn’t it? As people move on through different stages in life, such as high school, college, work, you meet people, but then you change location, and they become only memories. Anyway. After this cocktail (which did have cute little food and lots of wine, which was enough to content me) Betty, Danita, and I all went ice skating. Next to St Andrès Cathedral, one of my favourite places in Bordeaux, they had set up an ice skating rink for three euros, so we went there. It was a great amount of fun; I got the hang of it pretty quick, despite having only gone ice skating once before. However, near the end of the night, I had an absolutely spectacular fall. It wasn’t a “teehee, I fell” type of fall, it was an “oh shit, losing balance, losing balance, slow motion, legs going out from underneath, I hope I don’t break anything” type of fall. Luckily I didn’t break anything; now I just have several bruises on my arm and my bum, and it’s pretty uncomfortable to sit too much on my right side.
So now I’m just looking forward. I’ve started packing my suitcases, traveling will certainly be an adventure. I have some scattered exams from what I can figure out, but we’ll see how those go. Not my biggest concern. I’ve got plenty of things left to do in Bordeaux, many things to explore, football games to see, shopping to do… It’ll be fun.
On a completely random note - whose bright idea was it to give up Figgy?! We're doomed, Angels. Doomed.
Moving on. A lot’s been happening today, hence why I haven’t been able to sit down and write a blog. I’ve been busy living it up for my last month in Bordeaux and Europe, which I suppose is a good thing. Thanksgiving was a couple of weeks ago, and for that the EAP program teamed up with the Bordeaux-America organizations, and there was a large dinner, with the French trying their hardest to give us a Thanksgiving dinner. It was very French, but their pumpkin pie failed pretty badly, though I liked it a great deal. (I had also had half a bottle of wine – I couldn’t let it go to waste, now could I?) I had a good time, though. It was food, it was people; you can’t really go wrong with that. It did, however, cause Becky, Katie, and me to go a couple nights later and bake home-made pumpkin pie. A good night was had by all. Also in this packed Bordeaux weekend, Danita and I went to a French opera, called “Le Balcon.” It was… weird. Very weird. It also included me discovering that my cocktail dress that fit so well back in January was now nice and loose. On top of this all, while walking down the smooth opera stairs, I slipped and fell down half of them, causing the population of Bordeaux to freak out and worry about me, only adding to my embarrassment. It was an experience. Yet another experience to add to the list was the medical appointment all visa applicants had to go through. It was uninteresting, except for the “dreaded” x-ray, in which you had to take all upper clothing off. I, being me, didn’t really give a damn. But many of the Californian girls were absolutely flipping out about it, complaining, whining. One girl went as far as to say she was Mormon so she wouldn’t have to do it, and I’m just kind of like, “…really? I mean, really? How old are you again?” It just seems ridiculous that this is that big of a deal. You get undressed in a little room, you come out, you cross your arms, you push against a cold wall-thing for the x-ray, you get dressed. The female doctor does not care, she doesn’t even look. She’s seen thousands of boobs, she won’t care about yours. (I also already don’t like this girl, so go figure.)
Then after this week, there was the weekend in Lyon for le “Fête des lumières,” or Festival of Lights. Not too much to say about that; I traveled EasyJet with Erick, we explored Lyon. It’s a gorgeous, cold city, but there’s not much to see or do there. We ate decent Chinese food, and at eleven at night we had to go pick up Danita from the bus stop and take her back to the hotel. No comment. We did end up going and getting a late dinner, though, which was nice. The next day we basically retraced our steps so Danita could see everything. Then for the night, we had an amazing two-hour French dinner, and the festival itself was amazing. So many people, and some incredibly creative light displays and shows. It was pretty magical. The only worry I had going in was that we didn’t have a hotel room for the second night, since something like four million people come in for the festival and we couldn’t find one, but apparently our hotel had a cancelation so we were able to snag one. It made me happy. Other than that, really, not much to report. A good time was had.
Then back to Bordeaux one last time. The other night I was walking back from Becky’s place after watching the Avatar finale, and it’s about a twenty-minute walk. And I just looked around and I realized how Bordeaux just has this golden glow about it. Sure, the novelty of the city’s worn off, and I’ve gone to other places and realized that Bordeaux isn’t the wonderful place that it first appeared to me. But I still love it in its own way, especially now that it’s decked out for Christmas. Lights everywhere, Christmas trees around every corner, shops open all the time… And on top of it all, it’s not that cold. This actually makes me very sad; I hear stories back home about people having to pry open their car doors since it’s covered in ice, or that peoples’ locks are frozen. Here, it’s a toasty 50 degrees, sometimes even warmer. This isn’t what I signed up for. It’s comfortable, though, I suppose. I’m certainly glad that I’m leaving Bordeaux in the holiday season, though, so my last memories of it will be very fond. Even though now, I’m getting a lot of melancholy at the thought of leaving this amazing country, I’m ridiculously excited to go home at the same time. Very mixed there. On one hand, I can’t wait to see my friends, my family, go back to a school that makes sense… on the other, I’ve made a couple of really good friends here that I’ll miss, I love France, I love traveling around. I think I’m just starting to feel less like a vacation and more like actual life, and then there I go back to home. But it’ll be nice to be back in the loop again…
The past week has been fun, and I have a lot more ahead of me to do. Trust me. Last night was our “end of semester” cocktail, which was a lot different from what I expected. It took forever to find the place, and then we just stood around chatting for an hour before being kicked out. There were no big speeches, no sad farewells, no closure at all. It’s interesting to think that at least ninety percent of these people I’ll never see again. But that’s generally what happens in life, isn’t it? As people move on through different stages in life, such as high school, college, work, you meet people, but then you change location, and they become only memories. Anyway. After this cocktail (which did have cute little food and lots of wine, which was enough to content me) Betty, Danita, and I all went ice skating. Next to St Andrès Cathedral, one of my favourite places in Bordeaux, they had set up an ice skating rink for three euros, so we went there. It was a great amount of fun; I got the hang of it pretty quick, despite having only gone ice skating once before. However, near the end of the night, I had an absolutely spectacular fall. It wasn’t a “teehee, I fell” type of fall, it was an “oh shit, losing balance, losing balance, slow motion, legs going out from underneath, I hope I don’t break anything” type of fall. Luckily I didn’t break anything; now I just have several bruises on my arm and my bum, and it’s pretty uncomfortable to sit too much on my right side.
So now I’m just looking forward. I’ve started packing my suitcases, traveling will certainly be an adventure. I have some scattered exams from what I can figure out, but we’ll see how those go. Not my biggest concern. I’ve got plenty of things left to do in Bordeaux, many things to explore, football games to see, shopping to do… It’ll be fun.
On a completely random note - whose bright idea was it to give up Figgy?! We're doomed, Angels. Doomed.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
It's Almost There
I’ve been searching around in Bordeaux for a good poster that I can take home and plaster on my wall back home. For the most part, anything good is at least twenty euros, not quite the five or ten I was hoping for. And then the other day I was going grocery shopping, and I looked at the bag I had bought several months ago… it’s quite gorgeous, with pictures of all my favourite places in Bordeaux. The likelihood is that I’ll bring it back and plaster it on my wall. Am I a cheap college student? You bet.
So this past weekend I went to Edinburgh, Scotland. It was hampered slightly at the very beginning by finding out that I will not, in fact, have a job when I return back to Irvine, which makes me slightly nervous. I’m working my hardest on becoming financially independent from my parents (as much as my father argues it =P) and I was kind of hoping that I’d get that job back, but I suppose it just means that I’ll have to start looking when I get back. With this in mind, however, I headed to Scotland. The voyage there was uninteresting; Gatwick’s ending up being one of my favourite airports, especially now that it’s all decked out for Christmas. When I landed I instinctively started speaking to someone in French, and he stared at me and said, “do you speak English?” Oops. I took a double-decker bus into downtown, took many pictures, got off at the right stop and met up with Cally. She reintroduced me to dorm food (it was very meaty and hearty, but not that great) and then we went out clubbing all Friday night, since I had heard of Edinburgh’s great night life. We had a great time. I’ll leave it there.
Saturday morning we got up and went to Edinburgh Castle; her EAP program was getting in people in for free, so who was I to deny this opportunity? The castle was very neat, ancient, cold, rainy. I tried some honey whiskey and ended up buying a couple of small bottles, it was amazing. After that, we wandered down the Royal Mile, I did some shopping, I bought Starbucks, it was good. In the afternoon we had the Thanksgiving lunch, which was probably the highlight of the trip. Tied with clubbing. I was chatting with a ton of different people, the food was good, the Scottish dancing was exhaustingly incredible, and there was good wine to top it all off. After the party, Cally and I went back to her dorm to rest before going out to dinner with Henri. The pub we found wasn’t so great with the service, but the food was decent. The main point is – I ate haggis! It was fried in little balls, but I ate it damnit. And it was… pretty decent, for being ground sheep organs. After dinner we went out for drinks, but I swear the bartender (pubtender?) put something in mine, since I was falling asleep after the first one. So we retired fairly early, as in midnight-ish, but I think it was making up for the lack of sleep the night before.
Sunday involved relaxing. We woke up gradually, went to brunch, then went to climb Arthur’s Seat, the extinct volcano next to the city. It was cold, but we were prepared. Climbing up the steps gave me the creeps, for whatever reason (perhaps it was the perilous drop next to the uneven stairs?) but about halfway through, we decided to head back down after getting some amazing views. I’m quite okay with this. We then headed the whiskey museum, which was quite a treat for eight-and-something pounds. We got to ride in barrels (it was like Disneyland, but alcoholic), we learned all about the making of whiskey and the different types, we saw many expensive bottles… it was a good time. And we got to taste some, and keep the glasses! So I was content. After, we swung by Burger King for a cheap dinner, expecting to take the Underground Ghost tour at 19h30, but when we got out it was pouring and wind was flying everywhere… we decided to instead just take it easy at her place. A wise decision, I’d like to think.
Monday’s return back was more chaotic and stressful than it really needed to be. I woke up nice and early and made my way down, no worries. Found the bus, got to the airport, fine. Ate breakfast. Around this time, I checked my American phone and saw that someone had left me a message, but it didn’t record a missed call. I figured it was my family, and got rather worried, but naturally my phone died when I tried to call them. I sent my dad a text with my French phone, figuring if there was an emergency he could call that. Still a little anxious, I went through security, found my gate, and saw my flight was delayed. While waiting for my plane, I discover that my boarding pass isn’t in my bag, or in either of my coat pockets. Great. So I go back and search for it, eventually ending up asking and getting a new pass printed after some time. I was less than happy at this point, adding to the fact that I hadn’t slept the night before. (I can never sleep mornings before I travel, too many dreams about missing my flight/train.) To be fair, I found the first boarding pass at a later time… after security, I had stuck it in my sweater pocket, which was then covered by my jacket. Sigh. And then when we finally took off, an hour after waiting, take-off was particularly bad for me. Our plane leveled off at some point, dipped down, and then continued going upwards, which freaked. Me. Out. This was all made better by the small bottle of wine I got, though. Landed in Gatwick, had a few minutes to switch planes and grab ice cream, got back to Bordeaux.
You’d think that the adventure would end there, and normally it does. This time was the exception. While boarding in Gatwick, I had been talking with a couple of women very casually about Bordeaux and whatnot. When I was walking off the plane, I ran into one of them. She was a retired schoolteacher from west-coast Canada, who had been told via a prediction-sort thing that she would end up in southern France. She had blown it off, but her life back home kept getting worse and worse, so she gave in and hopped on a plane. So she had just arrived from a ten-hour flight from British Columbia, understood enough French but didn’t speak it very well, and was unable to get in contact with the group she was supposed to be living with. So for the next hour I spent my time walking around the airport to her, helping her get cash, her luggage, a luggage cart, calling the group (we never got in contact with them), etc. I felt terrible for her; I remember how exhausted I was when I first arrived in France, and she didn’t even really have a place to stay. She wanted to take a train off to a town about an hour east of Bordeaux that I had never heard of, but I suggested that she go ahead and get a hotel room so she can rest and figure out her plan of action. I talked to the information desk, and they called up and got her a reservation at a hotel if she desired to go there. I eventually ended up leaving her before she made her decision of what to do; I had things to do at home, it was late, and I was exhausted. I hope she was able to make it to her place well enough; at the very least, that night all she had to do was get a taxi to the hotel or to get a shuttle to the train station. My thoughts are with her, most definitely, and I hope her spiritual trip to France is as amazing as it should be.
In other news. Bordeaux is still Bordeaux. I’m glad that the Christmas decorations are mostly up; while they’re not lit up yet, it’s given me confidence that I’ll leave the city as in love with it as I was when I got here. The class situation is still the same; I really just can’t get myself to care for the ten units of anthropology classes that I’m taking. I go, I pay attention, and it just doesn’t catch me. I’m mixed on what to do about them, really, since I just honestly don’t care. I find that my time is better spent wandering the city, finding small parks, reading for my other classes, meeting people… Europe just makes me want to do other things. The other two classes I’m taking are fine; methodology has had some timing problems so that we either haven’t had it or I haven’t been able to go for the past month. The professor seems rather understanding of this, though. My Brit/American Lit class is fine, last time I spent my time writing vampire jokes to Becky and talking about the difference between schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder, which my prof didn’t seem to understand. It was a good class. I realized recently why I never cook in Bordeaux: our kitchen is pitifully small, only big enough for one person, and ninety percent of the time the kitchen is occupied by a person who is not me. This does not make me happy, but what can you do? In other other news, I finally have my medical appointment on Friday. A bit nervous about this, but I’m sure it’ll be fine.
In very last other news, the off-season of baseball makes me very very sad. The worst shock so far has definitely been watching the Angels let go of Rex and Steve – I have to agree in saying, “what the HELL are you thinking?!” With Lackey and Figgins up for free agency, this might be the most heartbreaking yet.
So this past weekend I went to Edinburgh, Scotland. It was hampered slightly at the very beginning by finding out that I will not, in fact, have a job when I return back to Irvine, which makes me slightly nervous. I’m working my hardest on becoming financially independent from my parents (as much as my father argues it =P) and I was kind of hoping that I’d get that job back, but I suppose it just means that I’ll have to start looking when I get back. With this in mind, however, I headed to Scotland. The voyage there was uninteresting; Gatwick’s ending up being one of my favourite airports, especially now that it’s all decked out for Christmas. When I landed I instinctively started speaking to someone in French, and he stared at me and said, “do you speak English?” Oops. I took a double-decker bus into downtown, took many pictures, got off at the right stop and met up with Cally. She reintroduced me to dorm food (it was very meaty and hearty, but not that great) and then we went out clubbing all Friday night, since I had heard of Edinburgh’s great night life. We had a great time. I’ll leave it there.
Saturday morning we got up and went to Edinburgh Castle; her EAP program was getting in people in for free, so who was I to deny this opportunity? The castle was very neat, ancient, cold, rainy. I tried some honey whiskey and ended up buying a couple of small bottles, it was amazing. After that, we wandered down the Royal Mile, I did some shopping, I bought Starbucks, it was good. In the afternoon we had the Thanksgiving lunch, which was probably the highlight of the trip. Tied with clubbing. I was chatting with a ton of different people, the food was good, the Scottish dancing was exhaustingly incredible, and there was good wine to top it all off. After the party, Cally and I went back to her dorm to rest before going out to dinner with Henri. The pub we found wasn’t so great with the service, but the food was decent. The main point is – I ate haggis! It was fried in little balls, but I ate it damnit. And it was… pretty decent, for being ground sheep organs. After dinner we went out for drinks, but I swear the bartender (pubtender?) put something in mine, since I was falling asleep after the first one. So we retired fairly early, as in midnight-ish, but I think it was making up for the lack of sleep the night before.
Sunday involved relaxing. We woke up gradually, went to brunch, then went to climb Arthur’s Seat, the extinct volcano next to the city. It was cold, but we were prepared. Climbing up the steps gave me the creeps, for whatever reason (perhaps it was the perilous drop next to the uneven stairs?) but about halfway through, we decided to head back down after getting some amazing views. I’m quite okay with this. We then headed the whiskey museum, which was quite a treat for eight-and-something pounds. We got to ride in barrels (it was like Disneyland, but alcoholic), we learned all about the making of whiskey and the different types, we saw many expensive bottles… it was a good time. And we got to taste some, and keep the glasses! So I was content. After, we swung by Burger King for a cheap dinner, expecting to take the Underground Ghost tour at 19h30, but when we got out it was pouring and wind was flying everywhere… we decided to instead just take it easy at her place. A wise decision, I’d like to think.
Monday’s return back was more chaotic and stressful than it really needed to be. I woke up nice and early and made my way down, no worries. Found the bus, got to the airport, fine. Ate breakfast. Around this time, I checked my American phone and saw that someone had left me a message, but it didn’t record a missed call. I figured it was my family, and got rather worried, but naturally my phone died when I tried to call them. I sent my dad a text with my French phone, figuring if there was an emergency he could call that. Still a little anxious, I went through security, found my gate, and saw my flight was delayed. While waiting for my plane, I discover that my boarding pass isn’t in my bag, or in either of my coat pockets. Great. So I go back and search for it, eventually ending up asking and getting a new pass printed after some time. I was less than happy at this point, adding to the fact that I hadn’t slept the night before. (I can never sleep mornings before I travel, too many dreams about missing my flight/train.) To be fair, I found the first boarding pass at a later time… after security, I had stuck it in my sweater pocket, which was then covered by my jacket. Sigh. And then when we finally took off, an hour after waiting, take-off was particularly bad for me. Our plane leveled off at some point, dipped down, and then continued going upwards, which freaked. Me. Out. This was all made better by the small bottle of wine I got, though. Landed in Gatwick, had a few minutes to switch planes and grab ice cream, got back to Bordeaux.
You’d think that the adventure would end there, and normally it does. This time was the exception. While boarding in Gatwick, I had been talking with a couple of women very casually about Bordeaux and whatnot. When I was walking off the plane, I ran into one of them. She was a retired schoolteacher from west-coast Canada, who had been told via a prediction-sort thing that she would end up in southern France. She had blown it off, but her life back home kept getting worse and worse, so she gave in and hopped on a plane. So she had just arrived from a ten-hour flight from British Columbia, understood enough French but didn’t speak it very well, and was unable to get in contact with the group she was supposed to be living with. So for the next hour I spent my time walking around the airport to her, helping her get cash, her luggage, a luggage cart, calling the group (we never got in contact with them), etc. I felt terrible for her; I remember how exhausted I was when I first arrived in France, and she didn’t even really have a place to stay. She wanted to take a train off to a town about an hour east of Bordeaux that I had never heard of, but I suggested that she go ahead and get a hotel room so she can rest and figure out her plan of action. I talked to the information desk, and they called up and got her a reservation at a hotel if she desired to go there. I eventually ended up leaving her before she made her decision of what to do; I had things to do at home, it was late, and I was exhausted. I hope she was able to make it to her place well enough; at the very least, that night all she had to do was get a taxi to the hotel or to get a shuttle to the train station. My thoughts are with her, most definitely, and I hope her spiritual trip to France is as amazing as it should be.
In other news. Bordeaux is still Bordeaux. I’m glad that the Christmas decorations are mostly up; while they’re not lit up yet, it’s given me confidence that I’ll leave the city as in love with it as I was when I got here. The class situation is still the same; I really just can’t get myself to care for the ten units of anthropology classes that I’m taking. I go, I pay attention, and it just doesn’t catch me. I’m mixed on what to do about them, really, since I just honestly don’t care. I find that my time is better spent wandering the city, finding small parks, reading for my other classes, meeting people… Europe just makes me want to do other things. The other two classes I’m taking are fine; methodology has had some timing problems so that we either haven’t had it or I haven’t been able to go for the past month. The professor seems rather understanding of this, though. My Brit/American Lit class is fine, last time I spent my time writing vampire jokes to Becky and talking about the difference between schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder, which my prof didn’t seem to understand. It was a good class. I realized recently why I never cook in Bordeaux: our kitchen is pitifully small, only big enough for one person, and ninety percent of the time the kitchen is occupied by a person who is not me. This does not make me happy, but what can you do? In other other news, I finally have my medical appointment on Friday. A bit nervous about this, but I’m sure it’ll be fine.
In very last other news, the off-season of baseball makes me very very sad. The worst shock so far has definitely been watching the Angels let go of Rex and Steve – I have to agree in saying, “what the HELL are you thinking?!” With Lackey and Figgins up for free agency, this might be the most heartbreaking yet.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Nothing is Too Wonderful to be True
I think that Europe is a girl’s paradise simply because when you’re craving chocolate, you don’t need to go to silly things like Hershey’s or Nestle; instead, you can indulge in random French and Swedish chocolate. Happy. (Well, not happy, I’m lying in bed after enjoying many painkillers and still feeling the cramps, but you know what I mean.)
So this weekend I spent in my lovely town of Paris; the original plan was that my friend’s mom was going to be there, we’d go together, I’d stay with her, so on and so forth. But then it ended up that my friend wanted to stay longer than me, she couldn’t get another bed in the room, and she ended up spending most of her time with her mum. Luckily, I had mentioned the trip to my crazy, crazy Bro and she was like “PARIS! Heck yes!” So she and her two friends, whom I had met in London, decided to come. So I hung out with them instead. A very different experience from that first time all on my own, but it just made me love the city even more.
It was the same schedule as when I went the first time. I got up nice and early on Friday morning (about five), got on a train, went to Paris. This time, though, I knew exactly where I was going and how to get to my hostel. I went and dropped off my backpack, the entire time wondering what I would do with my day, since Cally and Deane weren’t arriving until evening. I had wanted to do something I hadn’t before; Disneyland had popped into my head, but the price tag was a bit daunting (44 euros for one park, about 65-70 dollars). So I realized when I saw a poster in my hostel what I was going to do: I went to Versailles. About five euros round-trip on the RER train, free entrance for EU students if you show your student visa. (A tip I learned from Jennifer, otherwise they’re rather snooty and won’t accept just my student card.) Other costs included the guy checking my passport winking at me and saying something suggestive about my “Kiss me, I’m an anteater” shirt, though it is France. I think I deserved that one. Worth it, though? I think so. It was AMAZING, I wandered around the palace for hours, and had no doubts that the Parisians in the late eighteenth century were pissed. After, I went out to the gardens, but didn’t wander for too long… it was cold and getting dark, and it’s an hour’s trip back into Paris. Still fantastic, though. So I returned to Paris, chilled in the hostel, chatted with a (kind of creepy) guy from Egypt, who couldn’t tell that I was reading and didn’t really want to be disturbed. My friends arrived rather late, around nine, but we went to dinner (I chugged bad wine!) and then walked over to La Tour Eiffel. I still love it. As we were sitting on a bench talking, though, we had three French guys come up to us and start chatting. One spoke English about as well as I spoke French, while the other two spoke none, really. It was an amusing experience as we talked, I translated, it was awkward as they repeatedly told me that my two friends were “super sexy” (thanks guys, really charming, I’m not translating that). But I think we all had a good time, at the end of it all we gave our goodbyes and walked off, laughing and rather having enjoyed the night.
Day Two, Saturday. We slowly got up, got out, grabbed breakfast, got on the metro. Since we weren’t able to do la Louvre the night before, we did that in the morning. Gorgeous museum, I had a good time, especially since we spent a good part of our time in the Egyptian/Greek art. Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo say hi. We got out about noon/one, wandered until we found a slightly less expensive café for lunch. (So I don’t have to say it, we didn’t have a single bad meal in Paris. It was all amazing.) Then we went back to the hostel and snoozed until our free tour at four, where we found Henri, who had flown in that afternoon. The tour was fine, I had seen all of the places and known a good bit of the things she said, but other things I found quite amusing. The weather had been raining off and on, and it got fairly cold a ways in, then started raining two and a half hours or so after we had started. This is when Deane, who had been freezing despite my hat, umbrella, and hugs, subtly insisted that we cut out, so we did. At la Place de la Concorde, we managed to fight our way through the Diabetes people to the metro, and we went to Montmarte for dinner. After dinner and a bottle of wine, naturally we all felt better (there was generally a trend, we’d be cranky before and jolly after) so we went up (raced up, more) to Sacre Coeur, my personal favourite view of Paris. We ooh’d, we ah’d, we bought another bottle of wine, we went down to the red light district of Paris, we wandered, I bought a crepe. It was good, I really love these mofos. We headed back to the hostel and the four of us had a room all to ourselves – sweet!
Day Three, Sunday. We got up even later than the day before, missed breakfast. Went to la Place de la Concorde since it’s one of my favourite places in Paris, and I thought the others should get a proper viewing of it. Then we headed up les Champs-Elysees, which was all decked out for Christmas, like much of Paris, though nothing was turned on yet. We had a nice time being tourists and me the tour guide, we went in the Disney store, we frolicked. We waved at l’Arc du Triomph, since we were hungry and cranky by then (and my lovely cramps were complaining by now), then popped into the metro over to the Pantheon. I had seen a tempting crepe shop my last time in Paris, and Deane had wanted to try crepes before she left in the afternoon. It was heavenly, let me say. Deane had wanted the Eiffel Tower to be her climax, but we assured her that she could have multiple ones. We ate, we headed to the Tower, and then we walked up the stairs to the first level. There, Deane was happy, and the two of us decided to head down so she could catch her flight and I could show her to the metro, and the other two decided to go all the way to the top. When I got back to the Tower, I ended up waiting about an hour at the bottom, cold, crampy, and with a dead phone.
Once Henri and Cally got down, though, we went back to the hostel, I charged my phone, I was happy. For dinner, we decided to do escargot (we were going to do it the night before, but time and cold had changed that), and I had looked up a restaurant, so I called Becky to meet up with her and we headed over there, by Les Halls. You might remember that I got miserably lost around there my first time in Paris… Guess what happened this time? We ended up going the wrong direction, but we glanced at a couple of cafes and one had escargot as an entrée (appetizer for all you Americans), so we decided to eat there. Possibly the best decision of Paris, this place was the most mind-blowing restaurant ever. The escargot was… interesting. I actually really liked the taste and texture (it was in a basil sauce), I just couldn’t get past the fact that I was eating a snail. But I ate it! Then for my main dish I got this lasagna that was beyond words, and the salad was orgasmic, and the whole thing was just the best plate I’ve had so far. I preferred the overall dinner in Venice more, but for one dish, that lasagna and salad wins. Anyway, after dessert we paid and left (the one bill that took us less than five minutes to split!), then (big surprise) went to the Eiffel Tower, grabbed some wine, and just sat there for an hour or so, talking, watching the Anniversary light show… No creepy French guys this time, minus the guys selling the souvenirs. On the way back to the hostel, we took the metro since it had started to rain, but for some reason Henri’s ticket wasn’t working. I gave him mine, then convinced some random cute French guy to let me go in with him. It was fun. When we got back, Deane’s bed had been taken by a French guy from Strasbourg, I think he said, but he was walking around without pants on… a little weird. We had some good conversations in French, though, which made me happy.
Monday morning I got up, got dressed, left. Instead of reading Gulliver’s Travels like I should have, I doodled and reminisced. As I watched the Eiffel Tower disappearing behind buildings, I had quite a sad moment when I realized that I don’t know when I’ll see it again. I’m quite certain that I will, when I live in Geneva I’ll certainly come over all the time. But when that will be, who knows… I do know for a fact that after I graduate UCI, whether or not I take some time off before grad school, I’m traveling again. I want to hit up more of Europe, more Eastern Europe, and I’d love to see southeast Asia while I’m still young, and Africa, and… I need to stop dreaming and start saving, eh? Which leads me to other things. I’m still at the point where I’m looking forward to coming home in a month or so, especially since I just registered for classes. I got a “maybe, give me a week or two” response from my advisor back at LARC regarding a job, but hopefully if that falls through Natalie can hook me up at her theatre. Life in Bordeaux has still not changed. I got my appointment for my medical visit, and it is happily not at a time that’s inconvenient, though I might have to leave a class early… On that note, classes are still meh. I find myself still not caring; it’s really something where I only really care about the end result. I just find that my European interests spread past class, it’s strange for me. I’ll work extra-hard when I get back to my 20 units of UCI winter. I did, however, switch out of my one psych class (it had been painstakingly boring and repetitive) into an English/American class. Which is kind of cool.
The best part of this whole thing? Even in France or Italy, people still look at my wallet and think I’m awesome. My poor, poor, empty wallet.
So this weekend I spent in my lovely town of Paris; the original plan was that my friend’s mom was going to be there, we’d go together, I’d stay with her, so on and so forth. But then it ended up that my friend wanted to stay longer than me, she couldn’t get another bed in the room, and she ended up spending most of her time with her mum. Luckily, I had mentioned the trip to my crazy, crazy Bro and she was like “PARIS! Heck yes!” So she and her two friends, whom I had met in London, decided to come. So I hung out with them instead. A very different experience from that first time all on my own, but it just made me love the city even more.
It was the same schedule as when I went the first time. I got up nice and early on Friday morning (about five), got on a train, went to Paris. This time, though, I knew exactly where I was going and how to get to my hostel. I went and dropped off my backpack, the entire time wondering what I would do with my day, since Cally and Deane weren’t arriving until evening. I had wanted to do something I hadn’t before; Disneyland had popped into my head, but the price tag was a bit daunting (44 euros for one park, about 65-70 dollars). So I realized when I saw a poster in my hostel what I was going to do: I went to Versailles. About five euros round-trip on the RER train, free entrance for EU students if you show your student visa. (A tip I learned from Jennifer, otherwise they’re rather snooty and won’t accept just my student card.) Other costs included the guy checking my passport winking at me and saying something suggestive about my “Kiss me, I’m an anteater” shirt, though it is France. I think I deserved that one. Worth it, though? I think so. It was AMAZING, I wandered around the palace for hours, and had no doubts that the Parisians in the late eighteenth century were pissed. After, I went out to the gardens, but didn’t wander for too long… it was cold and getting dark, and it’s an hour’s trip back into Paris. Still fantastic, though. So I returned to Paris, chilled in the hostel, chatted with a (kind of creepy) guy from Egypt, who couldn’t tell that I was reading and didn’t really want to be disturbed. My friends arrived rather late, around nine, but we went to dinner (I chugged bad wine!) and then walked over to La Tour Eiffel. I still love it. As we were sitting on a bench talking, though, we had three French guys come up to us and start chatting. One spoke English about as well as I spoke French, while the other two spoke none, really. It was an amusing experience as we talked, I translated, it was awkward as they repeatedly told me that my two friends were “super sexy” (thanks guys, really charming, I’m not translating that). But I think we all had a good time, at the end of it all we gave our goodbyes and walked off, laughing and rather having enjoyed the night.
Day Two, Saturday. We slowly got up, got out, grabbed breakfast, got on the metro. Since we weren’t able to do la Louvre the night before, we did that in the morning. Gorgeous museum, I had a good time, especially since we spent a good part of our time in the Egyptian/Greek art. Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo say hi. We got out about noon/one, wandered until we found a slightly less expensive café for lunch. (So I don’t have to say it, we didn’t have a single bad meal in Paris. It was all amazing.) Then we went back to the hostel and snoozed until our free tour at four, where we found Henri, who had flown in that afternoon. The tour was fine, I had seen all of the places and known a good bit of the things she said, but other things I found quite amusing. The weather had been raining off and on, and it got fairly cold a ways in, then started raining two and a half hours or so after we had started. This is when Deane, who had been freezing despite my hat, umbrella, and hugs, subtly insisted that we cut out, so we did. At la Place de la Concorde, we managed to fight our way through the Diabetes people to the metro, and we went to Montmarte for dinner. After dinner and a bottle of wine, naturally we all felt better (there was generally a trend, we’d be cranky before and jolly after) so we went up (raced up, more) to Sacre Coeur, my personal favourite view of Paris. We ooh’d, we ah’d, we bought another bottle of wine, we went down to the red light district of Paris, we wandered, I bought a crepe. It was good, I really love these mofos. We headed back to the hostel and the four of us had a room all to ourselves – sweet!
Day Three, Sunday. We got up even later than the day before, missed breakfast. Went to la Place de la Concorde since it’s one of my favourite places in Paris, and I thought the others should get a proper viewing of it. Then we headed up les Champs-Elysees, which was all decked out for Christmas, like much of Paris, though nothing was turned on yet. We had a nice time being tourists and me the tour guide, we went in the Disney store, we frolicked. We waved at l’Arc du Triomph, since we were hungry and cranky by then (and my lovely cramps were complaining by now), then popped into the metro over to the Pantheon. I had seen a tempting crepe shop my last time in Paris, and Deane had wanted to try crepes before she left in the afternoon. It was heavenly, let me say. Deane had wanted the Eiffel Tower to be her climax, but we assured her that she could have multiple ones. We ate, we headed to the Tower, and then we walked up the stairs to the first level. There, Deane was happy, and the two of us decided to head down so she could catch her flight and I could show her to the metro, and the other two decided to go all the way to the top. When I got back to the Tower, I ended up waiting about an hour at the bottom, cold, crampy, and with a dead phone.
Once Henri and Cally got down, though, we went back to the hostel, I charged my phone, I was happy. For dinner, we decided to do escargot (we were going to do it the night before, but time and cold had changed that), and I had looked up a restaurant, so I called Becky to meet up with her and we headed over there, by Les Halls. You might remember that I got miserably lost around there my first time in Paris… Guess what happened this time? We ended up going the wrong direction, but we glanced at a couple of cafes and one had escargot as an entrée (appetizer for all you Americans), so we decided to eat there. Possibly the best decision of Paris, this place was the most mind-blowing restaurant ever. The escargot was… interesting. I actually really liked the taste and texture (it was in a basil sauce), I just couldn’t get past the fact that I was eating a snail. But I ate it! Then for my main dish I got this lasagna that was beyond words, and the salad was orgasmic, and the whole thing was just the best plate I’ve had so far. I preferred the overall dinner in Venice more, but for one dish, that lasagna and salad wins. Anyway, after dessert we paid and left (the one bill that took us less than five minutes to split!), then (big surprise) went to the Eiffel Tower, grabbed some wine, and just sat there for an hour or so, talking, watching the Anniversary light show… No creepy French guys this time, minus the guys selling the souvenirs. On the way back to the hostel, we took the metro since it had started to rain, but for some reason Henri’s ticket wasn’t working. I gave him mine, then convinced some random cute French guy to let me go in with him. It was fun. When we got back, Deane’s bed had been taken by a French guy from Strasbourg, I think he said, but he was walking around without pants on… a little weird. We had some good conversations in French, though, which made me happy.
Monday morning I got up, got dressed, left. Instead of reading Gulliver’s Travels like I should have, I doodled and reminisced. As I watched the Eiffel Tower disappearing behind buildings, I had quite a sad moment when I realized that I don’t know when I’ll see it again. I’m quite certain that I will, when I live in Geneva I’ll certainly come over all the time. But when that will be, who knows… I do know for a fact that after I graduate UCI, whether or not I take some time off before grad school, I’m traveling again. I want to hit up more of Europe, more Eastern Europe, and I’d love to see southeast Asia while I’m still young, and Africa, and… I need to stop dreaming and start saving, eh? Which leads me to other things. I’m still at the point where I’m looking forward to coming home in a month or so, especially since I just registered for classes. I got a “maybe, give me a week or two” response from my advisor back at LARC regarding a job, but hopefully if that falls through Natalie can hook me up at her theatre. Life in Bordeaux has still not changed. I got my appointment for my medical visit, and it is happily not at a time that’s inconvenient, though I might have to leave a class early… On that note, classes are still meh. I find myself still not caring; it’s really something where I only really care about the end result. I just find that my European interests spread past class, it’s strange for me. I’ll work extra-hard when I get back to my 20 units of UCI winter. I did, however, switch out of my one psych class (it had been painstakingly boring and repetitive) into an English/American class. Which is kind of cool.
The best part of this whole thing? Even in France or Italy, people still look at my wallet and think I’m awesome. My poor, poor, empty wallet.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Wasn't Me
Some of you who have known me for a longer period, mainly my family, will remember my old nickname: “Crash.” For those of you who don’t remember, I got this nickname mainly from my baseball days, but it has other implications as well… back in my baseball league I would always get whacked in the face with a bat, or hit on the side of the head with a ball, or run into a wall in the outfield… It also comes from my general clumsiness, what with me tripping, hitting, breaking, smashing, and generally colliding into/with things. This is one of those stories.
I was going to take a shower, so I had turned on the hot water as I got undressed. Not unusual; sometimes it takes a while to heat up. As I’m finishing, I see that the room has filled with steam, and I’m like, “damn, too hot,” so I hop into our little shower, avoiding the steaming water, but in my franticness to turn off the hot water without getting scalded I accidently turn it the wrong way. This causes the shower head to go flying off the water line, fly about a centimeter away from my skull, hit off the wall right behind me, hit my side, and fall to the ground. Meanwhile, steaming water is now shooting at the ceiling. I scream, turn off the water, grab a towel, and throw open the door to watch steam flow out into the room. Luckily my roommate wasn’t here to observe this lovely spectacle.
So our room is now a little warmer, I proceeded to replace the shower head and cautiously resume my shower, and now there’s a mixture of a bruise and a burn on my side (it hasn’t decided which to be yet). I’m a little afraid of today; I think Bordeaux wants to kill me.
I was going to take a shower, so I had turned on the hot water as I got undressed. Not unusual; sometimes it takes a while to heat up. As I’m finishing, I see that the room has filled with steam, and I’m like, “damn, too hot,” so I hop into our little shower, avoiding the steaming water, but in my franticness to turn off the hot water without getting scalded I accidently turn it the wrong way. This causes the shower head to go flying off the water line, fly about a centimeter away from my skull, hit off the wall right behind me, hit my side, and fall to the ground. Meanwhile, steaming water is now shooting at the ceiling. I scream, turn off the water, grab a towel, and throw open the door to watch steam flow out into the room. Luckily my roommate wasn’t here to observe this lovely spectacle.
So our room is now a little warmer, I proceeded to replace the shower head and cautiously resume my shower, and now there’s a mixture of a bruise and a burn on my side (it hasn’t decided which to be yet). I’m a little afraid of today; I think Bordeaux wants to kill me.
A New Love
If it were possible to marry cities, I would marry Geneva. I would definitely still have some hot affairs with Paris, since it’s flashy and amazing, but Geneva would hold my eternal, calm, undying love.
Back up, back up, I know. So first off: I’ve been sick for the past week. It was a cough on Halloween, the 31st, turned into a strong cough Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday transferred to a sniffle and a cough, then Thursday calmed down into just a light cough. Still there, not really bothering me, but noticeable. (The friend I was traveling in Italy with also came down with it, but instead of missing a couple days of classes and resting she pushed on… and then got even sicker at the end of it all. So I guess it’s good that I rested.) Anywho, because of this, I wasn’t that excited for the trip… I was kind of thinking, “okay, Geneva’ll be nice, there’s not that much to do, but it’ll be relaxing, hopefully I won’t get sicker… and then PARIS the week after!” So it was kind of a filler trip.
Geneva blew that right out of my mind. Homigod. It started, surprisingly, with the plane ride. We were flying a Swiss airline called Baboo; I had never heard of it before, but it was cheap. We get on our plane, and there’s actually room, and comfort! After we take off, the stewardesses (flight attendant? I don’t know anymore) handed out waterbottles… and then little kabobs… and then tiramisu… and then chocolate. And we’re like, “holy crap! This airline is feeding us for an hour flight and it’s GOOD!” So we were very impressed. Then we land in the airport, which is about two/three miles from downtown, a manageable walk. Yet they have free train tickets to downtown, which is kind of awesome. We had to wait thirty minutes, but we make it there. Then we realize that we don’t have a map, and I have only a vague idea how to get to the hotel… So we sneak into a shop (mind you, let me state that it’s about ten at night) and casually look at the map. Make our way to the hotel in the around 35 degree (1 degree Celsius) weather. And we see the receptionist leaving, despite that it’s 10.55 and they weren’t supposed to close until eleven, and I told them that I’d be arriving a little late. We call her over and she grudgingly lets us in… it was an interesting experience. Even more interesting when we get up to the room and it has a double bed, a single double bed, for two of us. Not awkward, really.
So next day. We get up, we eat breakfast (I love Europe and its included meals!), we go out. And, as I had expected, it’s cold and raining. This I don’t mind so much; I had brought warm clothes, an umbrella, and as everyone knows, I love the rain! “Life,” however, made it less enjoyable, as “Life” kept reminding me constantly that it was cold and raining and Life hates the rain. So anyway, umbrellas above our heads, we go out to explore. Walking along the river, we see a bridge that has an exhibition on walls for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall (today, Nov 9th!). We wander, we pop into shops, we go explore the older part of town. While we’re having fun, we’re also getting wet, and Life makes sure to remind me with cold, wet feet. All this is forgotten as we come out of the buildings to an absolutely breathtaking view of town and mountains… both of us taking pictures and then just staring, taking in the magnificence. After a bit of staring, we remember we’re cold and we head down to a park to play Giant Chess, woohoo! More wandering; more shopping. We end up back at the lake again, and the Fountain is going off, which is pretty cool. At this point it’s around one, I’m hungry and Danita isn’t, so we split up so I can get food and she can find a bank to exchange money.
This is an excellent point to stop and rant about prices. I was very excited for the Suisse Franc, since it’s on a one-to-one ratio with the dollar, as opposed to the Euro, which just keeps getting worse. People had told me that Switzerland was expensive, but I figured it couldn’t be worse than the Euro. I was wrong. It took me twenty minutes to find a place where a single lunch was less than twenty francs; the cheapest I found was an individual (well, rather large individ but still single) pizza for fifteen francs. It was delicious, but my wallet hurt. So yes, stuff is expensive in la Suisse. Ridiculously expensive.
So back to business. I had a grand old time wandering around, and as I’m crossing a street into a park I hear these two guys talking in (I thought) Irish accents, one calling the other a wimp. I laughed and moved on. As I’m just looking over the lake admiring the beauty, a couple of foreign-looking guys ask me to take their picture, and I agree. They put their arms around each other, and I’m like, “aww, cute.” After I hand them back their camera, they start asking me questions and I’m answering, and then he asked if I spoke English. I hesitantly answered yes, (I can’t pull the whole French student thing because I have a fairly clear American accent in my French that Genevians can easily spot) and he switched to even worse English, saying he wanted to practice. But he keeps asking me things like what the name of the area was, what the lake was called, where I’m from, scolding me if I slip into French. After a bit, I insist that I need to go meet my friend (which is true) and manage to pull away. As I’m walking, I see the two “Irish” guys sitting on a park bench. One smirks at me and is like, “hey. I heard you laughing at our conversation earlier.” So we get into casual, nice conversation, which is fine. Turns out one’s German and one’s Italian, they just happen to speak English with Irish accents, and they were exchange students in Geneva. They started asking if I wanted to go get a coffee, and while I was tempted, I did have the whole “meeting up with roommate” thing. I moved on to the Floral Clock to meet up with roommate, and a nice English couple asks me to take their picture. I do this for several people, and then there’s the Foreign Guys again! I take their picture and the one I was talking to before goes back to the questions… what was my name, what hotel was I staying at, we should meet up again and do something. (Joelle, Hotel Riviera, non merci, my friend and I are going to a play tonight – all clearly lies). It got creepy, since these guys are in at least their forties, so I insisted that I saw my friend and needed to go. Thankfully they backed off and Danita came to save the day!
The rest of the day was just spent meandering, lots of shopping; I bought a cute purple hat. Then we headed back to the hotel around seven, maybe. We had a TV, which was amazing! We watched Looney Tunes, some random movies, Mot de Passe (Password in French), and a showing of different marching bands around the world. It was pretty cool. At some point we got hungry and went down to the receptionist if she knew of any good restaurants around the area. Surprisingly enough, she didn’t. Couldn’t even name one. So we went and wandered in the cold, finally gave up and found a kebab restaurant and bought a dinner for eighteen francs, brought it back. It was… pretty terrible. But we ate it anyway. I zonked out to sleep pretty early, wanting to be ready for the next day.
The next day brought BLUE SKIES! At least a little. We got up, ate breakfast, and headed out. We found very quickly that everything was closed… and while I had really wanted to go up in the mountains, that didn’t seem like a possibility. So we wandered. Once the skies had lightened up a bit, I was hit by just how much gorgeous fall foliage there was. I mean seriously, I’ve got hundreds of pictures of this stuff. So beautiful… why can’t we have this back in California? Anyway, we walked along the other side of the lake, saw a marching band of different countries, sat on a park bench for a couple hours just watching the world go by and enjoying the warm sun. Fell in love with the city in the mean time, and decided that it’s not a life goal, it’s a life necessity to come back and live here. When the warm sun left, we had to move on, walking through a park filled with gorgeousness. We made our way up through the park to the UN building, which was closed but still cool, and we passed buildings like UNICEF, OMM, etc. etc. Then we went to the Red Cross Museum, which was insanely cool. I feel like it broadened my horizons a lot on healthcare and wartime care and such. By this time, we were up in the hills around downtown, and as we walked farther from that and closer to the airport, the surroundings went from French to Swiss, which was really neat. At some point, we got a view of the mountains on the other side of Geneva, and were just in shock by how awesome they were. I was also reminded of how much I miss living around mountains… damn you, Bordeaux, for not having any.
So we get back to the airport nice and early. I watched the sunset over the mountains, we got a light dinner. The flight back was much less picturesque than the first… takeoff I felt like we didn’t have enough thrust so my “I hate flying” fears had kicked in, the food wasn’t as good as the first time… not a bad experience, but just different. We land in Bordeaux, and we’re like, “…oh. Bordeaux.” Compared to the amazingness of Geneva (what with how clean it was, how clear the water was, not much smoking, fresh air, beautiful landscapes, etc) Bordeaux was just… meh. But I’m going to Paris on Friday! So, woohoo! And now I need to stretch because my legs are killing me. Fun.
I had a dream where I got home and wanted Jamba Juice but my sister didn’t. Sad.
Back up, back up, I know. So first off: I’ve been sick for the past week. It was a cough on Halloween, the 31st, turned into a strong cough Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday transferred to a sniffle and a cough, then Thursday calmed down into just a light cough. Still there, not really bothering me, but noticeable. (The friend I was traveling in Italy with also came down with it, but instead of missing a couple days of classes and resting she pushed on… and then got even sicker at the end of it all. So I guess it’s good that I rested.) Anywho, because of this, I wasn’t that excited for the trip… I was kind of thinking, “okay, Geneva’ll be nice, there’s not that much to do, but it’ll be relaxing, hopefully I won’t get sicker… and then PARIS the week after!” So it was kind of a filler trip.
Geneva blew that right out of my mind. Homigod. It started, surprisingly, with the plane ride. We were flying a Swiss airline called Baboo; I had never heard of it before, but it was cheap. We get on our plane, and there’s actually room, and comfort! After we take off, the stewardesses (flight attendant? I don’t know anymore) handed out waterbottles… and then little kabobs… and then tiramisu… and then chocolate. And we’re like, “holy crap! This airline is feeding us for an hour flight and it’s GOOD!” So we were very impressed. Then we land in the airport, which is about two/three miles from downtown, a manageable walk. Yet they have free train tickets to downtown, which is kind of awesome. We had to wait thirty minutes, but we make it there. Then we realize that we don’t have a map, and I have only a vague idea how to get to the hotel… So we sneak into a shop (mind you, let me state that it’s about ten at night) and casually look at the map. Make our way to the hotel in the around 35 degree (1 degree Celsius) weather. And we see the receptionist leaving, despite that it’s 10.55 and they weren’t supposed to close until eleven, and I told them that I’d be arriving a little late. We call her over and she grudgingly lets us in… it was an interesting experience. Even more interesting when we get up to the room and it has a double bed, a single double bed, for two of us. Not awkward, really.
So next day. We get up, we eat breakfast (I love Europe and its included meals!), we go out. And, as I had expected, it’s cold and raining. This I don’t mind so much; I had brought warm clothes, an umbrella, and as everyone knows, I love the rain! “Life,” however, made it less enjoyable, as “Life” kept reminding me constantly that it was cold and raining and Life hates the rain. So anyway, umbrellas above our heads, we go out to explore. Walking along the river, we see a bridge that has an exhibition on walls for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall (today, Nov 9th!). We wander, we pop into shops, we go explore the older part of town. While we’re having fun, we’re also getting wet, and Life makes sure to remind me with cold, wet feet. All this is forgotten as we come out of the buildings to an absolutely breathtaking view of town and mountains… both of us taking pictures and then just staring, taking in the magnificence. After a bit of staring, we remember we’re cold and we head down to a park to play Giant Chess, woohoo! More wandering; more shopping. We end up back at the lake again, and the Fountain is going off, which is pretty cool. At this point it’s around one, I’m hungry and Danita isn’t, so we split up so I can get food and she can find a bank to exchange money.
This is an excellent point to stop and rant about prices. I was very excited for the Suisse Franc, since it’s on a one-to-one ratio with the dollar, as opposed to the Euro, which just keeps getting worse. People had told me that Switzerland was expensive, but I figured it couldn’t be worse than the Euro. I was wrong. It took me twenty minutes to find a place where a single lunch was less than twenty francs; the cheapest I found was an individual (well, rather large individ but still single) pizza for fifteen francs. It was delicious, but my wallet hurt. So yes, stuff is expensive in la Suisse. Ridiculously expensive.
So back to business. I had a grand old time wandering around, and as I’m crossing a street into a park I hear these two guys talking in (I thought) Irish accents, one calling the other a wimp. I laughed and moved on. As I’m just looking over the lake admiring the beauty, a couple of foreign-looking guys ask me to take their picture, and I agree. They put their arms around each other, and I’m like, “aww, cute.” After I hand them back their camera, they start asking me questions and I’m answering, and then he asked if I spoke English. I hesitantly answered yes, (I can’t pull the whole French student thing because I have a fairly clear American accent in my French that Genevians can easily spot) and he switched to even worse English, saying he wanted to practice. But he keeps asking me things like what the name of the area was, what the lake was called, where I’m from, scolding me if I slip into French. After a bit, I insist that I need to go meet my friend (which is true) and manage to pull away. As I’m walking, I see the two “Irish” guys sitting on a park bench. One smirks at me and is like, “hey. I heard you laughing at our conversation earlier.” So we get into casual, nice conversation, which is fine. Turns out one’s German and one’s Italian, they just happen to speak English with Irish accents, and they were exchange students in Geneva. They started asking if I wanted to go get a coffee, and while I was tempted, I did have the whole “meeting up with roommate” thing. I moved on to the Floral Clock to meet up with roommate, and a nice English couple asks me to take their picture. I do this for several people, and then there’s the Foreign Guys again! I take their picture and the one I was talking to before goes back to the questions… what was my name, what hotel was I staying at, we should meet up again and do something. (Joelle, Hotel Riviera, non merci, my friend and I are going to a play tonight – all clearly lies). It got creepy, since these guys are in at least their forties, so I insisted that I saw my friend and needed to go. Thankfully they backed off and Danita came to save the day!
The rest of the day was just spent meandering, lots of shopping; I bought a cute purple hat. Then we headed back to the hotel around seven, maybe. We had a TV, which was amazing! We watched Looney Tunes, some random movies, Mot de Passe (Password in French), and a showing of different marching bands around the world. It was pretty cool. At some point we got hungry and went down to the receptionist if she knew of any good restaurants around the area. Surprisingly enough, she didn’t. Couldn’t even name one. So we went and wandered in the cold, finally gave up and found a kebab restaurant and bought a dinner for eighteen francs, brought it back. It was… pretty terrible. But we ate it anyway. I zonked out to sleep pretty early, wanting to be ready for the next day.
The next day brought BLUE SKIES! At least a little. We got up, ate breakfast, and headed out. We found very quickly that everything was closed… and while I had really wanted to go up in the mountains, that didn’t seem like a possibility. So we wandered. Once the skies had lightened up a bit, I was hit by just how much gorgeous fall foliage there was. I mean seriously, I’ve got hundreds of pictures of this stuff. So beautiful… why can’t we have this back in California? Anyway, we walked along the other side of the lake, saw a marching band of different countries, sat on a park bench for a couple hours just watching the world go by and enjoying the warm sun. Fell in love with the city in the mean time, and decided that it’s not a life goal, it’s a life necessity to come back and live here. When the warm sun left, we had to move on, walking through a park filled with gorgeousness. We made our way up through the park to the UN building, which was closed but still cool, and we passed buildings like UNICEF, OMM, etc. etc. Then we went to the Red Cross Museum, which was insanely cool. I feel like it broadened my horizons a lot on healthcare and wartime care and such. By this time, we were up in the hills around downtown, and as we walked farther from that and closer to the airport, the surroundings went from French to Swiss, which was really neat. At some point, we got a view of the mountains on the other side of Geneva, and were just in shock by how awesome they were. I was also reminded of how much I miss living around mountains… damn you, Bordeaux, for not having any.
So we get back to the airport nice and early. I watched the sunset over the mountains, we got a light dinner. The flight back was much less picturesque than the first… takeoff I felt like we didn’t have enough thrust so my “I hate flying” fears had kicked in, the food wasn’t as good as the first time… not a bad experience, but just different. We land in Bordeaux, and we’re like, “…oh. Bordeaux.” Compared to the amazingness of Geneva (what with how clean it was, how clear the water was, not much smoking, fresh air, beautiful landscapes, etc) Bordeaux was just… meh. But I’m going to Paris on Friday! So, woohoo! And now I need to stretch because my legs are killing me. Fun.
I had a dream where I got home and wanted Jamba Juice but my sister didn’t. Sad.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Over the River and Through the Woods
I have done a miracle: I spent a week in Italy without anything getting stolen. Woohoo! Anyway, so I’m back in Bordeaux, and while it’s nice to have some sense of familiarity I really do miss home a lot. So… here we go. (Insanely long blog post ahead; if you want a quick summary, go to the end.)
First stop: Rome! We leave Friday, the 23rd. Traveling is me, my roommate Danita, and my travel buddy Becky, who is the type of person where I wonder where she’s been all my life. We meet at noon, we take the bus, it’s all good. We get to the airport with about two hours to kill, which is just the way I like it. We relax, we read a magazine on Paris, I take pictures of planes, it was all good. The flight over was fine; we were in this petite, petite plane only three seats across, it was pretty cool. We had to check our backpacks as we walked up to the plane due to it being too crowded inside… Flight itself was uninteresting, a bit less than two hours. We landed, and they had just thrown our bags onto the wet ground. Lovely. We take this bus-thing to the main airport, with me and Danita staggering and tumbling with nothing to hold onto, since we were too short to reach the handles on top. It was pretty funny. Then we go through and we meet Giulio, Becky’s family friend who’ll be housing us for a few nights. He’s incredibly nice, very hospitable, an incredible experience staying with him and his family. Let me say this right now, though: Italian driving is insane. Absolutely bloody insane. Lanes are merely guidelines that no one follows, everyone just kind of wanders around cutting each other off every minute, weaving through traffic (doesn’t matter which way they’re going, they use all of the lanes, even the oncoming traffic lane!), and coming within inches of each other constantly. Heart attack. So we arrive fairly late in Rome, drop off Danita at her hostel, and have dinner chez Giulio. It was this French gateau, with mashed potatoes and pruischetta (how do you spell that?) and cheese and breadcrumbs and GOD. His wife, Vittoria, was an amazing cook. We decide to just stay in, since we were pretty tired.
The next day, Day One, we did EVERYTHING in Rome… We started from the Piazza del Popolo and zigzagged down, hitting up the Spanish Steps (I loved the view from the top, loved that in general), the Fountain of Trevi (not actually one of my favourite things, I wasn’t that impressed), and then we got gelato at a place frequently called Rome’s best Giolitti. And I’ll believe it; I got watermelon, chocolate, and hazelnut, and it was AMAZING. Absolutely fantastic. While eating this gelato, we got… really lost. Wandering around, we were just pulling out the map when one of us said, “hey… is that the Pantheon?” as we emerged from an alleyway. And sure enough, it was! So that’s our fun story of Rome; we just kind of stumbled onto that building. It was pretty cool, we couldn’t go inside because there was prayer but it was still cool to look at. Continuing, we went to the Piazza Navona, which I really, really liked, lots of life. Then we meandered, saw some ruins, saw some buildings, and ended up at the Giant White Thing (AKA the Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II). This was one of my favourite parts of Rome; it’s freaking HUGE, it’s fun to climb, when you get to the top there’s this fantastic panoramic view of Rome, with Ancient on one side and New on the other. Positively incredible. We wandered around here and ended up at the Campidoglia, I think it was called, and we relaxed there for a good time. Then we meandered around until we hit the Teatro Marcello, some very cool ruins. We walked around there, got nice and lost, and after a couple tiring hours, made it back to ancient Rome. Can I just say that the Coliseum is as cool as everyone says it is? We paid the twelve euros each to get in (actually, I did – since Becky paid for the plane tickets, I was on the job paying for all the food, museums, etc to pay her back), we stood in line, and my god was it cool. We spent a good couple hours inside there, but first we ate pizza right next to there, with a gorgeous view of it. By this time it was around five or six, so the sun was setting and I was getting chilly. But I persevered! We wandered Rome at night, hitting up again the Pantheon (went inside this time, very cool) and the Fountain of Trevi. Still not that impressed. Then we took the metro back and crashed.
Rome’s metro system is very cool. I freaking love public transit; why can’t the United States (or hell, mostly just LA) get a clue? This one even has TVs with commercials and little stories with this thief guy. It was pretty cool.
Anyway. So day two, Rome again. We get up nice and early and go to Vatican City. We decided to do St Peter’s Basilica first, with only a couple minutes in line. That was very cool, though the Pieta was closed. We then got into the mighty line for the Vatican Museum… An interesting thing to do indeed. We were waiting, and we heard the British family behind us talking, since the father had gone and was talking about how humongous the line was. Now, this fact that I’m about to tell you is very important: Becky and I had spent the vacation speaking mostly French, including while in line. So we start chatting with them in French accents, and then our favourite game was started. It wasn’t to be mean, or to hurt anyone; we were just bored. But oh, did we have a good time with it! So an hour and a half later, we made it into the museum, which was overall very cool. Favourite part might be the Library, with the guys going “No Photo. No Video. No Noise.” Got some pictures anyway. We left there about twelve-thirty, missing the popes’ blessing (but he reminds us too strongly of the Emperor, so the blessing might have become a blessé if you know what I mean…) Anyway. We then went to Forum and we were there until sunset; the ticket cost was covered in the Coliseum ticket, so we figured we’d use it wisely. We then went back to Giulio’s and packed for our night train that night – we hadn’t been able to buy our tickets online (stupid Italian internet site) but Giulio had very kindly taken us to a travel agency, and I bought them there.
Anyway, we got to the train station a couple hours early, talked (in French accents) to this Brazilian girl who was waiting with us. Standing on the platform, there was another train there, and these American high school students weren’t sure if it was theirs or not, so half of them were waiting on the platform and half of them were on the train asking. (You know where this is going.) After a minute and several loud whistles blowing, the train left, with the students yelling and then freaking out and calling each other. I giggled. Our train was at 22h30, or 10.30 if you prefer, and we’d get into Venice about 5h30. Not a happy trip. So we’re in these six-person compartments, with our backpacks in our laps before we stuck them under our seats due to it being crowded. Just sitting, your knees were bumping into the person’s across from you (except me, I freaking LOVE being short). So in this compartment are me and Becky, along with this sleeping woman on one side. On the other side, this guy who was between Middle Eastern and black, a guy who I think was Indian, and then a hobo-looking Italian guy who just slept. The light was off most of the night, so most of the train ride involved me and the Indian guy staring at each other trying not to fall asleep, while the other four snoozed. Around midnight or one I finally dozed off a bit, clutching my bag protectively. Nothing bad happened, thank god… But about two I woke up, and decided to start texting people about the Angels game going on. Sad that we lost. =( We arrived in Venice when it was still dark, so we decided to sit in the train station until the sun rose. At this point I kind of bent over and just fell asleep on my backpack, I was pretty exhausted. Slept for about half an hour while Becky kept watch, since she had slept on the train. Then we finally got up, tried to figure out how the vaporetti work, failed, got on one without tickets, got to our hotel. We couldn’t check in until noon, but we dropped off our backpacks and went to “explore the town” anyway.
So the vaporetti are essentially the buses of Venice; since cars aren’t allowed on the main island, they have boats instead. It’s 6.50 euros per person per one-way trip, so we decided to buy one and just not validate, and play the stupid tourist card if anyone asked. We never got checked, so no worries. Lets see… so we went to the main island, to St Marco’s piazza. No one was really there, not even the pigeons yet, so we just sat, I sketched (to look legit), and then around ten we started wandering, since we were exhausted and falling asleep. We came upon a Hard Rock Café, which sounded REALLY good to us, but it supposedly didn’t open until eleven. Okay, we sat, watched gondolas go by, came back at eleven. They still weren’t open, and weren’t until 11h45 or so. Whatever. We ate, and it was godly – the first real American food in two months? Heck yes. Anyway, we ate, it was amazing. Then we went back to our hotel and slept. It felt incredible. I woke up at five, took a shower, got all refreshed, we left at about 6.30. Wandered Venice at night, which was still even more beautiful. We ate dinner after a few hours at this really nice place, we each got a glass of wine, an entrée, and we shared a dessert, along with a bottle of water. The price? A whopping 50 euros together. Damn you, Venice, damn you. Totally worth it, but goddamn. Then we headed back to our hotel and slept.
So Day Four. Venice proper, I liked calling it. We got up and we had the free breakfast at the hotel, which was heavenly… bread and nutella and CREAM CHEESE and lots of other delicious things. We stole some bread for later food and then headed out. Becky met up with her old Italian friend, and they were speaking Italian and having a good time and I quickly became a third wheel, so I said I’d meet up with them in a couple of hours and headed off by myself. Had a good time meandering, shopping, writing postcards. Then I met up with them and her friend headed off, and the two of us went to Murano, the glass-making island. It was very cool, wandering the shops, seeing all the glass, admiring the gondolas. This is where over a hundred euros of my hard-earned money went… Worth it? Of course. I’m just not allowed to eat for the next year or so. And it was legitly about 80% stuff for other people, so I’m really pleased with it. Hopefully all that glass will make it home… We were there for several hours, for a little we watched glass being made, it was all good. We headed back to the main island when we got hungry, we ate at the train station. Bored and with about three hours to kill, we wandered around and ended up sitting in a park watching children play. Creepy? Perhaps. I just thought it was interesting that you can still understand what’s going on with the kids, even in another language. It was adorable and fun, leave me alone. Anyway, we left after a bit, got on our train. Much less shady this time, much more like an airplane. We sat with this couple from Buffalo, NY, who were visiting their daughter studying abroad in Venice, and then were going to Rome. We had a good time chatting with them, then got off in Florence after a couple of hours. Got to our hostel, and the guy there talked our ears off (mostly in Italian) before explaining to us that our room was actually a couple of blocks away in another building. Lovely. So we exhaustedly dragged ourselves over there, got to our room, which was REALLY nice.
Part 3, Florence. Our big problem… our two roommates, a mom and son from Mexico, snored like bears. They were very nice and whatnot, but goddamn. So anyway, didn’t sleep much the first night, but after they got up at six and left, we slept until ten… we missed breakfast, but that sleep felt good. Then we got up, ate lunch (fruits and breads obtained in previous places, awesome) in a piazza, went to the Academia gallery. Loved it, saw the David, checked him out for a while, loved the sculptures there. Spent about two hours in it. Then we wandered, saw the Duomo, had some weird French woman take pictures of us eating gelato (tiramisu flavor for me), talked about M-Preg in the cathedral (probably the reason the pope didn’t bless us), went down to the river. We ended the day by climbing up to Michelangelo’s piazza and watching the sunset there, with a beautiful view of the city. Good times. The night, however, we found an American bar and were there from five-thirty to nine-thirty. We had dinner, it was empty and kind of awkward. But it got fun we started the drinks… We mostly shared eight, so that’s four a piece. It was a good night. We made the several kilometer walk back quite easily, and collapsed in bed.
Day Six, I woke up at three-thirty due to snoring, felt rather sick because it sounded like the guy was hacking up a lung. We got up around nine, packed, checked out at ten. Went down to the Uffizi gallery, got COMPLETELY lost, as in “hey, that’s the train station, that’s the opposite direction we wanted to be going!” lost. Why is it that drunk, we can find our way around fine, but sober, we get turned around? Anywho. We eventually made our way there, stood in line for an hour and a half or so. I was kind of grumpy about this, I wasn’t feeling too hot in the first place and there were a lot of things I wanted to see. We go into the museum, and after climbing the three flights of stairs (we felt like we were going to puke – what do you think the fine would be for upchucking on the lady taking tickets, or the Birth of Venus painting?) we split up. I did the museum in about an hour… I thought it was actually HIGHLY overrated. Met up again with Becky, and we had to pick up our luggage at two, so we made our way back there, then to the train station. In waiting four hours in a café, Becky and I had many deep, intellectual conversations, rather like the night before… Then on our train back to Rome, I got to sit in the corridor. It was fun. Getting back to Rome and seeing Giulio and family again was pretty damn fantastic, I must say.
Day Seven, day of sadness. =( I was on my own here, since Becky wanted to go to a gallery I wasn’t that interested in. Woke up at seven, got a text from Danita (who was also back in Rome), so we met up and went shopping together. We wandered, we got gelato, we went in the Pantheon. We had a really good time checking up, and then I went back for lunch at 2.30. Our flight was at 5.50, but we figured that, you know, it’s kind of annoying always waiting three hours for flights and trains, we might as well try the whole “get there an hour before your flight” thing. Biggest. Mistake. Ever. We did just that; we left at 3.30, got to the train station at 4.00, took the train to the airport and got there about 4.50. It took us a while to find the place to get our tickets, even though we had already checked in online, and then security wouldn’t let me through with this letter opener I had bought in Murano for my dad. I tried to run back to check my bag (without shoes on, I didn’t have time to put them back in after security) but the very cranky, snotty girl at the desk said I couldn’t, so I had to leave the letter opener. RIP, you were beautiful. Ran back to security, dashed through, Becky and I ran to our gate, ran down to the ground, ran to the bus to take us back to the plane, ran onto the plane. I then put my shoes back on, as we nervously laughed that thank god we didn’t miss it.
Being back in Bordeaux is nice, but it’s made me realize how much I really miss the familiarity of home. I’m at the stage where I really just can’t wait to be back there, not that I’m not having a good time or loving it here or anything. It’s just kind of feels like a long vacation that I want to have finished up now… but we’re at the half-way point now, and I have so much thrown at me in the next month and a half that I don’t think I’ll have much time to worry about it. So now I’m just relaxing; it’s Halloween and there are several things I can do, I’m not sure which I’ll do. My housemates are having a party, not sure how long I’ll be there; Sherlock’s having a party there, might drop in there. Not really sure. Enjoying just relaxing and not doing anything for the moment except writing this and listening to music. I really should go and buy some groceries, since I have no food except some cans of vegetables, but I am le lazy. No update on the medical appointment for my visa; I give them another week before I drop in. I apologize for the insanely long blog entry… I promise you don’t have to read it all. Here’s a summary:
Rome was really really cool. Ruins, giant white monument thing.
Overnight trains are shady.
Venice was exhausting, but beautiful and relaxing.
Florence was alright, not my favourite.
Almost missed my flight back home.
I now speak a little bit of Italian, it’s cool. Ciao.
First stop: Rome! We leave Friday, the 23rd. Traveling is me, my roommate Danita, and my travel buddy Becky, who is the type of person where I wonder where she’s been all my life. We meet at noon, we take the bus, it’s all good. We get to the airport with about two hours to kill, which is just the way I like it. We relax, we read a magazine on Paris, I take pictures of planes, it was all good. The flight over was fine; we were in this petite, petite plane only three seats across, it was pretty cool. We had to check our backpacks as we walked up to the plane due to it being too crowded inside… Flight itself was uninteresting, a bit less than two hours. We landed, and they had just thrown our bags onto the wet ground. Lovely. We take this bus-thing to the main airport, with me and Danita staggering and tumbling with nothing to hold onto, since we were too short to reach the handles on top. It was pretty funny. Then we go through and we meet Giulio, Becky’s family friend who’ll be housing us for a few nights. He’s incredibly nice, very hospitable, an incredible experience staying with him and his family. Let me say this right now, though: Italian driving is insane. Absolutely bloody insane. Lanes are merely guidelines that no one follows, everyone just kind of wanders around cutting each other off every minute, weaving through traffic (doesn’t matter which way they’re going, they use all of the lanes, even the oncoming traffic lane!), and coming within inches of each other constantly. Heart attack. So we arrive fairly late in Rome, drop off Danita at her hostel, and have dinner chez Giulio. It was this French gateau, with mashed potatoes and pruischetta (how do you spell that?) and cheese and breadcrumbs and GOD. His wife, Vittoria, was an amazing cook. We decide to just stay in, since we were pretty tired.
The next day, Day One, we did EVERYTHING in Rome… We started from the Piazza del Popolo and zigzagged down, hitting up the Spanish Steps (I loved the view from the top, loved that in general), the Fountain of Trevi (not actually one of my favourite things, I wasn’t that impressed), and then we got gelato at a place frequently called Rome’s best Giolitti. And I’ll believe it; I got watermelon, chocolate, and hazelnut, and it was AMAZING. Absolutely fantastic. While eating this gelato, we got… really lost. Wandering around, we were just pulling out the map when one of us said, “hey… is that the Pantheon?” as we emerged from an alleyway. And sure enough, it was! So that’s our fun story of Rome; we just kind of stumbled onto that building. It was pretty cool, we couldn’t go inside because there was prayer but it was still cool to look at. Continuing, we went to the Piazza Navona, which I really, really liked, lots of life. Then we meandered, saw some ruins, saw some buildings, and ended up at the Giant White Thing (AKA the Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II). This was one of my favourite parts of Rome; it’s freaking HUGE, it’s fun to climb, when you get to the top there’s this fantastic panoramic view of Rome, with Ancient on one side and New on the other. Positively incredible. We wandered around here and ended up at the Campidoglia, I think it was called, and we relaxed there for a good time. Then we meandered around until we hit the Teatro Marcello, some very cool ruins. We walked around there, got nice and lost, and after a couple tiring hours, made it back to ancient Rome. Can I just say that the Coliseum is as cool as everyone says it is? We paid the twelve euros each to get in (actually, I did – since Becky paid for the plane tickets, I was on the job paying for all the food, museums, etc to pay her back), we stood in line, and my god was it cool. We spent a good couple hours inside there, but first we ate pizza right next to there, with a gorgeous view of it. By this time it was around five or six, so the sun was setting and I was getting chilly. But I persevered! We wandered Rome at night, hitting up again the Pantheon (went inside this time, very cool) and the Fountain of Trevi. Still not that impressed. Then we took the metro back and crashed.
Rome’s metro system is very cool. I freaking love public transit; why can’t the United States (or hell, mostly just LA) get a clue? This one even has TVs with commercials and little stories with this thief guy. It was pretty cool.
Anyway. So day two, Rome again. We get up nice and early and go to Vatican City. We decided to do St Peter’s Basilica first, with only a couple minutes in line. That was very cool, though the Pieta was closed. We then got into the mighty line for the Vatican Museum… An interesting thing to do indeed. We were waiting, and we heard the British family behind us talking, since the father had gone and was talking about how humongous the line was. Now, this fact that I’m about to tell you is very important: Becky and I had spent the vacation speaking mostly French, including while in line. So we start chatting with them in French accents, and then our favourite game was started. It wasn’t to be mean, or to hurt anyone; we were just bored. But oh, did we have a good time with it! So an hour and a half later, we made it into the museum, which was overall very cool. Favourite part might be the Library, with the guys going “No Photo. No Video. No Noise.” Got some pictures anyway. We left there about twelve-thirty, missing the popes’ blessing (but he reminds us too strongly of the Emperor, so the blessing might have become a blessé if you know what I mean…) Anyway. We then went to Forum and we were there until sunset; the ticket cost was covered in the Coliseum ticket, so we figured we’d use it wisely. We then went back to Giulio’s and packed for our night train that night – we hadn’t been able to buy our tickets online (stupid Italian internet site) but Giulio had very kindly taken us to a travel agency, and I bought them there.
Anyway, we got to the train station a couple hours early, talked (in French accents) to this Brazilian girl who was waiting with us. Standing on the platform, there was another train there, and these American high school students weren’t sure if it was theirs or not, so half of them were waiting on the platform and half of them were on the train asking. (You know where this is going.) After a minute and several loud whistles blowing, the train left, with the students yelling and then freaking out and calling each other. I giggled. Our train was at 22h30, or 10.30 if you prefer, and we’d get into Venice about 5h30. Not a happy trip. So we’re in these six-person compartments, with our backpacks in our laps before we stuck them under our seats due to it being crowded. Just sitting, your knees were bumping into the person’s across from you (except me, I freaking LOVE being short). So in this compartment are me and Becky, along with this sleeping woman on one side. On the other side, this guy who was between Middle Eastern and black, a guy who I think was Indian, and then a hobo-looking Italian guy who just slept. The light was off most of the night, so most of the train ride involved me and the Indian guy staring at each other trying not to fall asleep, while the other four snoozed. Around midnight or one I finally dozed off a bit, clutching my bag protectively. Nothing bad happened, thank god… But about two I woke up, and decided to start texting people about the Angels game going on. Sad that we lost. =( We arrived in Venice when it was still dark, so we decided to sit in the train station until the sun rose. At this point I kind of bent over and just fell asleep on my backpack, I was pretty exhausted. Slept for about half an hour while Becky kept watch, since she had slept on the train. Then we finally got up, tried to figure out how the vaporetti work, failed, got on one without tickets, got to our hotel. We couldn’t check in until noon, but we dropped off our backpacks and went to “explore the town” anyway.
So the vaporetti are essentially the buses of Venice; since cars aren’t allowed on the main island, they have boats instead. It’s 6.50 euros per person per one-way trip, so we decided to buy one and just not validate, and play the stupid tourist card if anyone asked. We never got checked, so no worries. Lets see… so we went to the main island, to St Marco’s piazza. No one was really there, not even the pigeons yet, so we just sat, I sketched (to look legit), and then around ten we started wandering, since we were exhausted and falling asleep. We came upon a Hard Rock Café, which sounded REALLY good to us, but it supposedly didn’t open until eleven. Okay, we sat, watched gondolas go by, came back at eleven. They still weren’t open, and weren’t until 11h45 or so. Whatever. We ate, and it was godly – the first real American food in two months? Heck yes. Anyway, we ate, it was amazing. Then we went back to our hotel and slept. It felt incredible. I woke up at five, took a shower, got all refreshed, we left at about 6.30. Wandered Venice at night, which was still even more beautiful. We ate dinner after a few hours at this really nice place, we each got a glass of wine, an entrée, and we shared a dessert, along with a bottle of water. The price? A whopping 50 euros together. Damn you, Venice, damn you. Totally worth it, but goddamn. Then we headed back to our hotel and slept.
So Day Four. Venice proper, I liked calling it. We got up and we had the free breakfast at the hotel, which was heavenly… bread and nutella and CREAM CHEESE and lots of other delicious things. We stole some bread for later food and then headed out. Becky met up with her old Italian friend, and they were speaking Italian and having a good time and I quickly became a third wheel, so I said I’d meet up with them in a couple of hours and headed off by myself. Had a good time meandering, shopping, writing postcards. Then I met up with them and her friend headed off, and the two of us went to Murano, the glass-making island. It was very cool, wandering the shops, seeing all the glass, admiring the gondolas. This is where over a hundred euros of my hard-earned money went… Worth it? Of course. I’m just not allowed to eat for the next year or so. And it was legitly about 80% stuff for other people, so I’m really pleased with it. Hopefully all that glass will make it home… We were there for several hours, for a little we watched glass being made, it was all good. We headed back to the main island when we got hungry, we ate at the train station. Bored and with about three hours to kill, we wandered around and ended up sitting in a park watching children play. Creepy? Perhaps. I just thought it was interesting that you can still understand what’s going on with the kids, even in another language. It was adorable and fun, leave me alone. Anyway, we left after a bit, got on our train. Much less shady this time, much more like an airplane. We sat with this couple from Buffalo, NY, who were visiting their daughter studying abroad in Venice, and then were going to Rome. We had a good time chatting with them, then got off in Florence after a couple of hours. Got to our hostel, and the guy there talked our ears off (mostly in Italian) before explaining to us that our room was actually a couple of blocks away in another building. Lovely. So we exhaustedly dragged ourselves over there, got to our room, which was REALLY nice.
Part 3, Florence. Our big problem… our two roommates, a mom and son from Mexico, snored like bears. They were very nice and whatnot, but goddamn. So anyway, didn’t sleep much the first night, but after they got up at six and left, we slept until ten… we missed breakfast, but that sleep felt good. Then we got up, ate lunch (fruits and breads obtained in previous places, awesome) in a piazza, went to the Academia gallery. Loved it, saw the David, checked him out for a while, loved the sculptures there. Spent about two hours in it. Then we wandered, saw the Duomo, had some weird French woman take pictures of us eating gelato (tiramisu flavor for me), talked about M-Preg in the cathedral (probably the reason the pope didn’t bless us), went down to the river. We ended the day by climbing up to Michelangelo’s piazza and watching the sunset there, with a beautiful view of the city. Good times. The night, however, we found an American bar and were there from five-thirty to nine-thirty. We had dinner, it was empty and kind of awkward. But it got fun we started the drinks… We mostly shared eight, so that’s four a piece. It was a good night. We made the several kilometer walk back quite easily, and collapsed in bed.
Day Six, I woke up at three-thirty due to snoring, felt rather sick because it sounded like the guy was hacking up a lung. We got up around nine, packed, checked out at ten. Went down to the Uffizi gallery, got COMPLETELY lost, as in “hey, that’s the train station, that’s the opposite direction we wanted to be going!” lost. Why is it that drunk, we can find our way around fine, but sober, we get turned around? Anywho. We eventually made our way there, stood in line for an hour and a half or so. I was kind of grumpy about this, I wasn’t feeling too hot in the first place and there were a lot of things I wanted to see. We go into the museum, and after climbing the three flights of stairs (we felt like we were going to puke – what do you think the fine would be for upchucking on the lady taking tickets, or the Birth of Venus painting?) we split up. I did the museum in about an hour… I thought it was actually HIGHLY overrated. Met up again with Becky, and we had to pick up our luggage at two, so we made our way back there, then to the train station. In waiting four hours in a café, Becky and I had many deep, intellectual conversations, rather like the night before… Then on our train back to Rome, I got to sit in the corridor. It was fun. Getting back to Rome and seeing Giulio and family again was pretty damn fantastic, I must say.
Day Seven, day of sadness. =( I was on my own here, since Becky wanted to go to a gallery I wasn’t that interested in. Woke up at seven, got a text from Danita (who was also back in Rome), so we met up and went shopping together. We wandered, we got gelato, we went in the Pantheon. We had a really good time checking up, and then I went back for lunch at 2.30. Our flight was at 5.50, but we figured that, you know, it’s kind of annoying always waiting three hours for flights and trains, we might as well try the whole “get there an hour before your flight” thing. Biggest. Mistake. Ever. We did just that; we left at 3.30, got to the train station at 4.00, took the train to the airport and got there about 4.50. It took us a while to find the place to get our tickets, even though we had already checked in online, and then security wouldn’t let me through with this letter opener I had bought in Murano for my dad. I tried to run back to check my bag (without shoes on, I didn’t have time to put them back in after security) but the very cranky, snotty girl at the desk said I couldn’t, so I had to leave the letter opener. RIP, you were beautiful. Ran back to security, dashed through, Becky and I ran to our gate, ran down to the ground, ran to the bus to take us back to the plane, ran onto the plane. I then put my shoes back on, as we nervously laughed that thank god we didn’t miss it.
Being back in Bordeaux is nice, but it’s made me realize how much I really miss the familiarity of home. I’m at the stage where I really just can’t wait to be back there, not that I’m not having a good time or loving it here or anything. It’s just kind of feels like a long vacation that I want to have finished up now… but we’re at the half-way point now, and I have so much thrown at me in the next month and a half that I don’t think I’ll have much time to worry about it. So now I’m just relaxing; it’s Halloween and there are several things I can do, I’m not sure which I’ll do. My housemates are having a party, not sure how long I’ll be there; Sherlock’s having a party there, might drop in there. Not really sure. Enjoying just relaxing and not doing anything for the moment except writing this and listening to music. I really should go and buy some groceries, since I have no food except some cans of vegetables, but I am le lazy. No update on the medical appointment for my visa; I give them another week before I drop in. I apologize for the insanely long blog entry… I promise you don’t have to read it all. Here’s a summary:
Rome was really really cool. Ruins, giant white monument thing.
Overnight trains are shady.
Venice was exhausting, but beautiful and relaxing.
Florence was alright, not my favourite.
Almost missed my flight back home.
I now speak a little bit of Italian, it’s cool. Ciao.
Monday, October 19, 2009
My Dad is at ALCS and I'm not. ANGST.
The French government is a pain in the ass, but I can forgive them when they occasionally redeem themselves.
So for the visa process, part of finishing it is going to this medical appointment, which included various things and moneys. This visit needed to be done before we had been in the country for three months, AKA by mid-November. Our directors had told us that we would get the date in the mail late October, and it would probably be in late November or early December. Then I got mine before everyone else, and it was scheduled for the 29th, when I was due to return from Rome on the 30th. Naturally I was very upset, but I had gone through a lot of thinking and figured that okay, I'll go talk to the OFII (Office Français de l’Immigration and de l’Intergration), but I wasn't expecting anything because the directors had continually told us that it was completely unchangeable; rather like they how told us that it would be in November. I figured that it was worth a try, at least, but I would end up calling Air France and try switching my flight to the 28th out of Florence, or just buy a new ticket and eat the $200 on the other one from Rome on the 30th. I was being a good, mature person, accepting that life sometimes throws shit at you and there's nothing you can do about it.
This mindset clearly paid off. I went to the OFII the first chance I got, today before my class. I waited for a bit, then talked to a very nice woman there, and I luckily didn’t even have to explain what was going on (later findings showed that I had gotten a response via e-mail from the office right before I got there, so common sense leads that she had probably read my e-mail) before she agreed to reschedule my appointment. I didn’t believe it at first, but she went, made a photocopy of my paper, and wrote “Excused, reschedule” on it! So as far as I know, I’m in the clear, and from what I understand I’m just waiting for a new appointment. I am A-OKAY with this. French people are just that, so it shouldn’t interfere with any other travel plans because they don’t work on the weekends, nor do they generally work very much on Fridays. So I am happy as a dog, my Italy plans are all go, and it’s good.
Italy’s looking to be super exciting, we’re hitting up Rome for two days, Venice for two days, Florence for two days, then back to Rome for another day and then flying back out of there. I’m totally happy to be going with Becky, she’s one of the few (AKA like, two) people that I’ve clicked with here. Studying up on my Italian, that’s my next language of choice! Plus, I love getting away from Bordeaux, then getting back and getting to know the city all over again. After that we have a free weekend (Halloween! Is it already the end of October?), then Geneva, then Paris, then Edinburgh, then free weekend, then Lyon, then two free weekends, me leaving on the Sunday of the second weekend. Looking forward to coming back to reality, though I know I’ve got a ways to go. It’s still cold, and I’m still having a good time. I love French food. So, so much. I will miss being able to just grab a baguette or go to a patisserie. Or buy two-Euro wine and have it still be amazing.
And the Angels better open up a bottle of home-made whoopass on the Yanks, or else I will be very sad. Very sad indeed. Especially because I’m staying up late for tonight’s game, and I have class at 8h30. And I’m going to miss game 6 and 7, then games 1 and 2 for the World Series. Very, very, very sad about that. I’ll recruit someone to send me texts with scores…
Reading Romeo and Juliet in French. It’s awesome, and possibly even more vulgar. Probably last blog entry before I return from Italy.
So for the visa process, part of finishing it is going to this medical appointment, which included various things and moneys. This visit needed to be done before we had been in the country for three months, AKA by mid-November. Our directors had told us that we would get the date in the mail late October, and it would probably be in late November or early December. Then I got mine before everyone else, and it was scheduled for the 29th, when I was due to return from Rome on the 30th. Naturally I was very upset, but I had gone through a lot of thinking and figured that okay, I'll go talk to the OFII (Office Français de l’Immigration and de l’Intergration), but I wasn't expecting anything because the directors had continually told us that it was completely unchangeable; rather like they how told us that it would be in November. I figured that it was worth a try, at least, but I would end up calling Air France and try switching my flight to the 28th out of Florence, or just buy a new ticket and eat the $200 on the other one from Rome on the 30th. I was being a good, mature person, accepting that life sometimes throws shit at you and there's nothing you can do about it.
This mindset clearly paid off. I went to the OFII the first chance I got, today before my class. I waited for a bit, then talked to a very nice woman there, and I luckily didn’t even have to explain what was going on (later findings showed that I had gotten a response via e-mail from the office right before I got there, so common sense leads that she had probably read my e-mail) before she agreed to reschedule my appointment. I didn’t believe it at first, but she went, made a photocopy of my paper, and wrote “Excused, reschedule” on it! So as far as I know, I’m in the clear, and from what I understand I’m just waiting for a new appointment. I am A-OKAY with this. French people are just that, so it shouldn’t interfere with any other travel plans because they don’t work on the weekends, nor do they generally work very much on Fridays. So I am happy as a dog, my Italy plans are all go, and it’s good.
Italy’s looking to be super exciting, we’re hitting up Rome for two days, Venice for two days, Florence for two days, then back to Rome for another day and then flying back out of there. I’m totally happy to be going with Becky, she’s one of the few (AKA like, two) people that I’ve clicked with here. Studying up on my Italian, that’s my next language of choice! Plus, I love getting away from Bordeaux, then getting back and getting to know the city all over again. After that we have a free weekend (Halloween! Is it already the end of October?), then Geneva, then Paris, then Edinburgh, then free weekend, then Lyon, then two free weekends, me leaving on the Sunday of the second weekend. Looking forward to coming back to reality, though I know I’ve got a ways to go. It’s still cold, and I’m still having a good time. I love French food. So, so much. I will miss being able to just grab a baguette or go to a patisserie. Or buy two-Euro wine and have it still be amazing.
And the Angels better open up a bottle of home-made whoopass on the Yanks, or else I will be very sad. Very sad indeed. Especially because I’m staying up late for tonight’s game, and I have class at 8h30. And I’m going to miss game 6 and 7, then games 1 and 2 for the World Series. Very, very, very sad about that. I’ll recruit someone to send me texts with scores…
Reading Romeo and Juliet in French. It’s awesome, and possibly even more vulgar. Probably last blog entry before I return from Italy.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Culture Battles
I have won a battle of bitchiness with a French woman. I feel rather accomplished.
So today I went grocery shopping. This wasn’t that unordinary; I go once, maybe twice a week. Usually spend about ten euros. I wander around the store, usually find some good things to eat. Today, I was in the cheese aisle, I believe it was, when I saw this little girl running around while her mother shopped. Now, people can criticize American parenting all they want; French parenting ain’t any better. So I’m watching this girl, maybe five or six, run around, grabbing things, being crazy. I roll my eyes and ignore her. The little girl then decided that it would be a good idea to run into me, full-speed, knocking me over.
I get up, grumbling to myself, only to see a very angry French Mother. She starts yelling at me, and continues for about five minutes, about how I should watch out for her daughter, and I was irresponsible for running into her, and how rude Americans are. I tried to escape several times, but she yelled at me more when I tried to do so. Eventually she walks off in a huff, and I sigh and continue on with my shopping. I finish my trip by using the easy self-check out things; they’re basically the exact same things as in the States, so I like them a great deal. As I’m ringing up my items, who should come in line behind me but Madame French Bitch. Once she realizes it’s me, she rolls her eyes, insisting that I hurry up. Her little girl is squirming, not liking the idea of standing in line. So I just smile sweetly and continue scanning my items. My total was around twelve euros, and I had a ten in my pocket. Instead, I pulled out my coin purse, and slowly, painstakingly took the effort to search through it, finding every single last coin to make that purchase. A couple of times I even “accidentally” pulled out some pounds and said “oops! My bad, that’s not a Euro!” She continued to glare at me and say “dépêche-toi, dépêche-toi, utilise les notes!” But I’d merely shrug and smile, saying, “pardon, Madame, je suis étudiante, je n’ai pas de notes, je suis pauvre.” I had a great amount of fun. Like really, taking five minutes to put in my money shouldn’t be so enjoyable. But finally, I had to pack away my purchases and move along. I made sure to smile cheerily at la Madame and wish her a “bonne soirée” before I left, though.
In other news. It has gotten very, very cold in Bordeaux suddenly. Naturally, cold is a relative term, so let me define. Right now, I looked up on the weather site, and it says that it’s “50F/10C degrees, feels like 44/7.” It was 75/24, at least, on Monday. Now, anyone who knows me understands that I love the cold. I thrive in it, I’m excited to live in a place with actual weather changes. So while it’s a little sudden (I walked outside this morning to 38/3 degree freezing cold, expecting it to be about twice that temperature) I am loving it. What I am not loving is hearing everyone else COMPLAIN about it. Yes, it’s cold. Yes, I know it’s cold, you’ve said it ten times in the past five minutes. No, we don’t seem to have a heater. No, I don’t particularly care, it’s called a blanket. I don’t want to hear everyone moan and whine about how this is ridiculous, why is it so cold, yadda yadda yadda. Shut up. Really. It’s Europe. It’s not California, it’s Europe. If you wanted to wear flip flops all year, you should have stayed in California. Rant over.
New rant commencing. Methodology. I want to like the professor, I really do. But it’s really quite frustrating to have her always talk about how the French are so accepting of other people’s ideas, and then give us a quote and tell us that the only correct interpretation of the quote is hers, and if you came up with something else it doesn’t matter how good your writing or whatever you did is, it’s wrong if it doesn’t agree with her mindset. It’s very frustrating, because I’d like to think I’m smarter than that. I can’t have someone tell me that this is how I need to think and write, because I have my own thoughts, my own feelings, my opinions, and my own damn interpretations. And I don’t really appreciate walking up to the prof to show her my work for her to glance at it and cross it out, saying, “no, I don’t like this, it’s wrong.” And people say the French are open to new ideas.
I apologize for this rather rant-filled, angsty blog. Next time will be more cheery.
So today I went grocery shopping. This wasn’t that unordinary; I go once, maybe twice a week. Usually spend about ten euros. I wander around the store, usually find some good things to eat. Today, I was in the cheese aisle, I believe it was, when I saw this little girl running around while her mother shopped. Now, people can criticize American parenting all they want; French parenting ain’t any better. So I’m watching this girl, maybe five or six, run around, grabbing things, being crazy. I roll my eyes and ignore her. The little girl then decided that it would be a good idea to run into me, full-speed, knocking me over.
I get up, grumbling to myself, only to see a very angry French Mother. She starts yelling at me, and continues for about five minutes, about how I should watch out for her daughter, and I was irresponsible for running into her, and how rude Americans are. I tried to escape several times, but she yelled at me more when I tried to do so. Eventually she walks off in a huff, and I sigh and continue on with my shopping. I finish my trip by using the easy self-check out things; they’re basically the exact same things as in the States, so I like them a great deal. As I’m ringing up my items, who should come in line behind me but Madame French Bitch. Once she realizes it’s me, she rolls her eyes, insisting that I hurry up. Her little girl is squirming, not liking the idea of standing in line. So I just smile sweetly and continue scanning my items. My total was around twelve euros, and I had a ten in my pocket. Instead, I pulled out my coin purse, and slowly, painstakingly took the effort to search through it, finding every single last coin to make that purchase. A couple of times I even “accidentally” pulled out some pounds and said “oops! My bad, that’s not a Euro!” She continued to glare at me and say “dépêche-toi, dépêche-toi, utilise les notes!” But I’d merely shrug and smile, saying, “pardon, Madame, je suis étudiante, je n’ai pas de notes, je suis pauvre.” I had a great amount of fun. Like really, taking five minutes to put in my money shouldn’t be so enjoyable. But finally, I had to pack away my purchases and move along. I made sure to smile cheerily at la Madame and wish her a “bonne soirée” before I left, though.
In other news. It has gotten very, very cold in Bordeaux suddenly. Naturally, cold is a relative term, so let me define. Right now, I looked up on the weather site, and it says that it’s “50F/10C degrees, feels like 44/7.” It was 75/24, at least, on Monday. Now, anyone who knows me understands that I love the cold. I thrive in it, I’m excited to live in a place with actual weather changes. So while it’s a little sudden (I walked outside this morning to 38/3 degree freezing cold, expecting it to be about twice that temperature) I am loving it. What I am not loving is hearing everyone else COMPLAIN about it. Yes, it’s cold. Yes, I know it’s cold, you’ve said it ten times in the past five minutes. No, we don’t seem to have a heater. No, I don’t particularly care, it’s called a blanket. I don’t want to hear everyone moan and whine about how this is ridiculous, why is it so cold, yadda yadda yadda. Shut up. Really. It’s Europe. It’s not California, it’s Europe. If you wanted to wear flip flops all year, you should have stayed in California. Rant over.
New rant commencing. Methodology. I want to like the professor, I really do. But it’s really quite frustrating to have her always talk about how the French are so accepting of other people’s ideas, and then give us a quote and tell us that the only correct interpretation of the quote is hers, and if you came up with something else it doesn’t matter how good your writing or whatever you did is, it’s wrong if it doesn’t agree with her mindset. It’s very frustrating, because I’d like to think I’m smarter than that. I can’t have someone tell me that this is how I need to think and write, because I have my own thoughts, my own feelings, my opinions, and my own damn interpretations. And I don’t really appreciate walking up to the prof to show her my work for her to glance at it and cross it out, saying, “no, I don’t like this, it’s wrong.” And people say the French are open to new ideas.
I apologize for this rather rant-filled, angsty blog. Next time will be more cheery.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
London - like an older New England
I’ve spent a couple of minutes thinking of some clever or witty way to begin this blog, but no inspiration has come to me. So I’ll just jump right into it.
London was really awesome. I don’t think I loved it as much as I loved Paris, but I would prefer to live there over Paris – weird? Perhaps. I did enjoy it a great deal, though, it was much more friendly and familiar to me than anything I’ve had in the past couple of months, for two main reasons that I noticed. The first is pretty plain: everything was in English. This made me very, very happy, and confused me for a little bit at first. The second I realized on the bus back to the airport; London’s architecture and overall setup as very similar to (big shock here) New England back in the States. Minus the whole “New” part… I realized that it reminded me a lot of anything similar to home that I’ve seen, not to mention that I was hanging out with one of my best friends from back home, so I was in an incredibly familiar atmosphere. The only regret I have is not having enough time there… I got into my hostel about nine PM on Friday and left around 8h30 AM Sunday morning. Nowhere near as much time as I’d love to have in that city, but I feel like it’s one of the European cities I can return to several times in my life… hopefully. It’s made me realize that I really want to go backpacking in Europe after I finish college. Starting to save up as soon as I get back in the States!
So, London itself. I had quite a good time… I landed in Luton airport, about thirty miles outside of the city, and it was – surprise – raining. I was quite happy to be back on the ground, though; unsurprisingly after my whole January death threat, I still rather hate commercial flying (though I love going up with my dad!). Anyway. Killed some time at the airport before taking the two-hour bus ride into town, snoozed. (I had been up until seven or so the night before, listening to the Angels CRUSH the Red Sox! Still so joyous about that. This did mean, however, that I was exhausted.) I killed time by watching some TV in the court room of my hostel, the Clink, then went down and had a drink or two in the bar while waiting for my friends to come into King’s Cross. Met some interesting people, mostly Australians. Went to bed after Cally and gang got there, around three. This hostel was again quite different from the Aloha back in Paris; twelve beds instead of six. Kind of interesting.
Saturday we got up early, had breakfast, went on a free tour around London where we saw all the main sights, including the Changing of the Guards. (See Facebook album http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=113885&id=605917964&ref=nf for more on that.) Our tour guide, Pip, was very cute, very adorable. We went out to lunch as a giant group with him, and I had, shock and amazement, fish and chips! I figured it was part of the local cuisine, and I had to. It was pretty good, fishiness aside. After we wandered around to some of the sites before going back to the Clink. The rest of the night was spent napping, Henri, Cally, and I went to dinner over by the London Bridge (Mediterranean food, it was amazing), and then we just generally lounged around. Then Sunday I got up nice and early, hugged a sleepy Cally goodbye, then headed back to the bus and back to Luton.
So I definitely need to get back to London, that’s my first thought. I feel like there’s so much more that I need to see, though I think I got the basics done. Lets see… I rode the Underground plenty, I lost one day ticket and had to buy another (a single trip is four pounds and a day trip is 5.60 (Cally, you still owe me back for yours!) so you should really just buy a day…), though when I discovered I had lost mine I did end up having to dash through the exitway after an old lady in order to get out of the Tube. Other interesting stories… Oh, being in London the day that Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize was definitely interesting. While he’s generally liked overseas, I think just about everyone’s response is “wait- what? He hasn’t even done anything yet!” Talked with several people on that, getting generally the same opinion from everyone. So to finish that off, I know that I have at least one night in London left, the night before I go back to the States. Many thoughts on that… I could spend my last night in Europe drinking, or just wandering the city looking at the Christmas decorations, I could go to a play… The possibilities are limitless. I think I’ll be staying in a hotel rather than a hostel, though, since I’ll have two giant suitcases full of stuff, and I’ll pay for the extra security.
So, other life other than London… how about other travels? Yesterday, made two big travel plans: bought my plane tickets to Italy for a week with Becky, and plane tickets to Geneva for a weekend with Danita. Both look to be fun… Italy will be from October 23rd – 30th, we’re flying in and out of Rome, but hoping to go via train to Venice and Florence. Yet the stupid Italian train website doesn’t accept American credit cards, so we’ll just buy tickets when we get there. It’ll be an adventure, really. As well as that, I’m looking at another Paris weekend and a weekend in Edinburgh, both in November. Add Lyon into the picture, and I have a whole of three spare weekends before I leave. Not complaining at all, though, really. While I love Bordeaux, I see enough of it during the week, and I don’t necessarily need to be here all the time. On a good note, though, it’s cooled down so it’s in the sixties. Not quite the cold I was looking for, but I suppose we’ll get there eventually. (And if not, hell, I’m going to Edinburgh and Geneva!)
Other news… classes are fine. Uninteresting, surprisingly enough. Still on a baseball high after the Angels utterly crushed the Red Sox – I couldn’t help but whoop when they walked Torii, and then first pitch Vladdy hit gave us the win. Classic. Trying out our washing machine for the first time since we got here… The door doesn’t work so you have to use a knife to open it, which made me a little hesitant (I don’t exactly want my clothes to be stuck in a laundry machine to get mouldy) but the others have been using it without any problems, so I figure why not. Maybe my clothes will actually be clean now… What else. Honestly, there isn’t much going on right now. Travels, trying not to spend money while in Bordeaux. Classes. Trying to make my bright blue coat a signature trait of me and coldness. (And damn was it cold in London! Even though it was bright and sunny during Saturday.)
I think that’s all I have to say for now. Peace out.
London was really awesome. I don’t think I loved it as much as I loved Paris, but I would prefer to live there over Paris – weird? Perhaps. I did enjoy it a great deal, though, it was much more friendly and familiar to me than anything I’ve had in the past couple of months, for two main reasons that I noticed. The first is pretty plain: everything was in English. This made me very, very happy, and confused me for a little bit at first. The second I realized on the bus back to the airport; London’s architecture and overall setup as very similar to (big shock here) New England back in the States. Minus the whole “New” part… I realized that it reminded me a lot of anything similar to home that I’ve seen, not to mention that I was hanging out with one of my best friends from back home, so I was in an incredibly familiar atmosphere. The only regret I have is not having enough time there… I got into my hostel about nine PM on Friday and left around 8h30 AM Sunday morning. Nowhere near as much time as I’d love to have in that city, but I feel like it’s one of the European cities I can return to several times in my life… hopefully. It’s made me realize that I really want to go backpacking in Europe after I finish college. Starting to save up as soon as I get back in the States!
So, London itself. I had quite a good time… I landed in Luton airport, about thirty miles outside of the city, and it was – surprise – raining. I was quite happy to be back on the ground, though; unsurprisingly after my whole January death threat, I still rather hate commercial flying (though I love going up with my dad!). Anyway. Killed some time at the airport before taking the two-hour bus ride into town, snoozed. (I had been up until seven or so the night before, listening to the Angels CRUSH the Red Sox! Still so joyous about that. This did mean, however, that I was exhausted.) I killed time by watching some TV in the court room of my hostel, the Clink, then went down and had a drink or two in the bar while waiting for my friends to come into King’s Cross. Met some interesting people, mostly Australians. Went to bed after Cally and gang got there, around three. This hostel was again quite different from the Aloha back in Paris; twelve beds instead of six. Kind of interesting.
Saturday we got up early, had breakfast, went on a free tour around London where we saw all the main sights, including the Changing of the Guards. (See Facebook album http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=113885&id=605917964&ref=nf for more on that.) Our tour guide, Pip, was very cute, very adorable. We went out to lunch as a giant group with him, and I had, shock and amazement, fish and chips! I figured it was part of the local cuisine, and I had to. It was pretty good, fishiness aside. After we wandered around to some of the sites before going back to the Clink. The rest of the night was spent napping, Henri, Cally, and I went to dinner over by the London Bridge (Mediterranean food, it was amazing), and then we just generally lounged around. Then Sunday I got up nice and early, hugged a sleepy Cally goodbye, then headed back to the bus and back to Luton.
So I definitely need to get back to London, that’s my first thought. I feel like there’s so much more that I need to see, though I think I got the basics done. Lets see… I rode the Underground plenty, I lost one day ticket and had to buy another (a single trip is four pounds and a day trip is 5.60 (Cally, you still owe me back for yours!) so you should really just buy a day…), though when I discovered I had lost mine I did end up having to dash through the exitway after an old lady in order to get out of the Tube. Other interesting stories… Oh, being in London the day that Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize was definitely interesting. While he’s generally liked overseas, I think just about everyone’s response is “wait- what? He hasn’t even done anything yet!” Talked with several people on that, getting generally the same opinion from everyone. So to finish that off, I know that I have at least one night in London left, the night before I go back to the States. Many thoughts on that… I could spend my last night in Europe drinking, or just wandering the city looking at the Christmas decorations, I could go to a play… The possibilities are limitless. I think I’ll be staying in a hotel rather than a hostel, though, since I’ll have two giant suitcases full of stuff, and I’ll pay for the extra security.
So, other life other than London… how about other travels? Yesterday, made two big travel plans: bought my plane tickets to Italy for a week with Becky, and plane tickets to Geneva for a weekend with Danita. Both look to be fun… Italy will be from October 23rd – 30th, we’re flying in and out of Rome, but hoping to go via train to Venice and Florence. Yet the stupid Italian train website doesn’t accept American credit cards, so we’ll just buy tickets when we get there. It’ll be an adventure, really. As well as that, I’m looking at another Paris weekend and a weekend in Edinburgh, both in November. Add Lyon into the picture, and I have a whole of three spare weekends before I leave. Not complaining at all, though, really. While I love Bordeaux, I see enough of it during the week, and I don’t necessarily need to be here all the time. On a good note, though, it’s cooled down so it’s in the sixties. Not quite the cold I was looking for, but I suppose we’ll get there eventually. (And if not, hell, I’m going to Edinburgh and Geneva!)
Other news… classes are fine. Uninteresting, surprisingly enough. Still on a baseball high after the Angels utterly crushed the Red Sox – I couldn’t help but whoop when they walked Torii, and then first pitch Vladdy hit gave us the win. Classic. Trying out our washing machine for the first time since we got here… The door doesn’t work so you have to use a knife to open it, which made me a little hesitant (I don’t exactly want my clothes to be stuck in a laundry machine to get mouldy) but the others have been using it without any problems, so I figure why not. Maybe my clothes will actually be clean now… What else. Honestly, there isn’t much going on right now. Travels, trying not to spend money while in Bordeaux. Classes. Trying to make my bright blue coat a signature trait of me and coldness. (And damn was it cold in London! Even though it was bright and sunny during Saturday.)
I think that’s all I have to say for now. Peace out.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
The Unusual Becoming the Normal
Wine makes things better. I just had to get that out of the way right now.
So the last week and a half have been… interesting, if boring. Contradiction, eh? Long story short, I got mildly sick with a cold, and I was having serious motivation problems with classes. It’s a bit difficult to follow, especially when you’re sitting in uncomfortable chairs from eight in the morning until noon, so I was getting the whole “I’m going to fail anyway, so what’s the point?” feeling after missing a couple of classes due to a fever and cough. However, now that I’ve gotten myself back in, talked to family, made friends in classes, I think I’m feeling better. We’ll have to see. Hopefully I’ll be able to make my way through these classes and not fail… I don’t think my GPA could stand that.
Other than that, life has been fairly boring. As said, I spent most of last week sleeping and resting, trying to get rid of a cold. Friday I saw “La Proposition” AKA “The Proposal”, which was fun. Saturday I spent most of the day just meandering about the city, staying in places and just writing in my little notebook. It was exciting, people thought I looked artistic and took pictures! Saturday night I decided that it would be a brilliant idea to go and get drunk, so I met up with a couple friends and had, I believe, about two (maybe three) tequila sunrises, a Baileys Coco, a shot of tequila, and a shot of Jager. Yet I still managed to walk home just fine… It was a good night. We walked through Quinconces singing songs from Avenue Q. Becky decided that she wanted to go to Italy with me, so I have a friend going with me – and she speaks Italian! It will be good. Plans for that are in motion, along with plans for Lyon. Plans for going to London this weekend, very excited about that. My poor, poor bank account. Anyway, Sunday was also spent exploring Bordeaux with Becky. Good times were had.
Let’s see, life stories… I’ve decided that French hate music. Sure, everyone goes around with their iPod earphones in their ears… But if you so much as bob your head to the music, people glare at you. Me being me, I always walk around mouthing the lyrics, and people just give me the weirdest looks, like “freaking Americans, what the hell.” It’s kind of funny. Also, yesterday we went to our landlady to give her rent, and in the typical French fashion we sat around chatting for an hour. She ended up giving us a bottle of wine, which was pretty badass. I do like my landlady. Hmmm… Other than that, I can’t say that anything really interesting has happened. Looking forward to London this weekend, hoping it won’t be too much of an adventure. My Tuesdays suck, what with nine hours of class. Hence the wine. Definitely looking forward to the playoffs coming up back home… we will CRUSH Boston!
So the last week and a half have been… interesting, if boring. Contradiction, eh? Long story short, I got mildly sick with a cold, and I was having serious motivation problems with classes. It’s a bit difficult to follow, especially when you’re sitting in uncomfortable chairs from eight in the morning until noon, so I was getting the whole “I’m going to fail anyway, so what’s the point?” feeling after missing a couple of classes due to a fever and cough. However, now that I’ve gotten myself back in, talked to family, made friends in classes, I think I’m feeling better. We’ll have to see. Hopefully I’ll be able to make my way through these classes and not fail… I don’t think my GPA could stand that.
Other than that, life has been fairly boring. As said, I spent most of last week sleeping and resting, trying to get rid of a cold. Friday I saw “La Proposition” AKA “The Proposal”, which was fun. Saturday I spent most of the day just meandering about the city, staying in places and just writing in my little notebook. It was exciting, people thought I looked artistic and took pictures! Saturday night I decided that it would be a brilliant idea to go and get drunk, so I met up with a couple friends and had, I believe, about two (maybe three) tequila sunrises, a Baileys Coco, a shot of tequila, and a shot of Jager. Yet I still managed to walk home just fine… It was a good night. We walked through Quinconces singing songs from Avenue Q. Becky decided that she wanted to go to Italy with me, so I have a friend going with me – and she speaks Italian! It will be good. Plans for that are in motion, along with plans for Lyon. Plans for going to London this weekend, very excited about that. My poor, poor bank account. Anyway, Sunday was also spent exploring Bordeaux with Becky. Good times were had.
Let’s see, life stories… I’ve decided that French hate music. Sure, everyone goes around with their iPod earphones in their ears… But if you so much as bob your head to the music, people glare at you. Me being me, I always walk around mouthing the lyrics, and people just give me the weirdest looks, like “freaking Americans, what the hell.” It’s kind of funny. Also, yesterday we went to our landlady to give her rent, and in the typical French fashion we sat around chatting for an hour. She ended up giving us a bottle of wine, which was pretty badass. I do like my landlady. Hmmm… Other than that, I can’t say that anything really interesting has happened. Looking forward to London this weekend, hoping it won’t be too much of an adventure. My Tuesdays suck, what with nine hours of class. Hence the wine. Definitely looking forward to the playoffs coming up back home… we will CRUSH Boston!
Monday, September 28, 2009
PARIS - does it need a title?
I have to dearly apologize to all the cities I’ve visited in the past that I love. I love you, I do. I just have a new favourite city in the whole world. Nothing personal.
So, Paris, Paris, Paris. LOVED it. Loved it beyond words. (Doesn’t mean that this will be a short blog by any means, though…) It was a lot of firsts for me – my first time going on a vacation all by my lonesome, the first train trip, my first time in Paris… I absolutely cannot wait until the next time I go. And strangely, I loved travelling alone. I could do whatever I wanted at my own pace, I could change my plans, and I could meet people to do things with if I so desired. I was a bit worried at first, but Paris was such a safe-feeling city I had no worries once I was there. I actually feel like I had a lot better time BECAUSE I went alone… no offense to any of my dear friends. This has just assured me that any further solo trips will be excellent as well. (Though note that I wouldn’t want to live here… that would spoil a lot of the magicalness.)
Day 1. My train left at seven-thirty, and I was there in plenty of time. Someone had told me that the TGV, the high-speed train, was the only way to travel, and I didn’t believe her. I now do. It’s easy: you can buy a ticket on the spot or beforehand, you get on the train (no security or lines), they check your ticket on the train. You get off, you leave. It was spectacular, and quiet, and peaceful, and safe-feeling. And three hours isn’t a bad time at all… admittedly, I slept this time. I got to Paris, nearly fangasmed when I first saw the Eiffel Tower, and somehow made it to my hostel, about a kilometer and a half walk, using the wonderful guide that Sammy got me for my birthday. I then went everywhere… Eiffel Tower, Arc du Triumph, Champs-Elysees, Place de la Concorde, and then up the Tower at night. Interesting stories… People aren’t kidding about the gypsies around Paris. They’re everywhere, begging for money… What they had was a piece of paper (each the same one, with different names – in Paris, no money, baby, mother dead, whatnot) and go around asking if you speak English. Pretty typical. Driving in Paris is something I never, ever want to do. It’s like a Dodgers’ Stadium parking lot after a game against the Giants, except all the time. CRAZY. Don’t do it. I spent a lot of my relaxing time taking pictures for people… it’s just fun, making people’s vacations just a little bit better with a picture of both of them. I guess I looked pretty legit, though, people kept asking me directions and questions… admittedly, I knew the answers to most, so it was pretty cool. Other interesting people story: while standing in line to get up in the Tower (about an hour overall, forty-five minutes at the bottom and fifteen in the middle to get to the summit) I was talking to an older British couple in front of me, very interesting. Behind me, a French couple was busy loudly sucking face and bumping into me. Standing in line later to get to the summit, I was in front of this middle-aged, balding, fat Italian guy (maybe German, but I’m pretty sure he was Italian) who didn’t understand the idea of personal space. He was constantly standing too close, with at least his gut (a couple times his full body) pressed into me, and he didn’t understand “ne me touche pas” nor “please don’t touch me.” So I ended up moving back in line to get him away from me… I don’t think he was doing it to be creepy, he just needed to be as far up in line as possible or something.
Day 2. Had a terrible night of sleep – three of my roommates were constantly coming in between midnight and three, talking loudly, turning the lights off and on… Then the other two roommates left at five in the morning. Not a happy night. Got up and walked around, Montparesse Cemetery, Opera Garnier, hung around the Louvre, Notre Dame, Bastille. (For pictures of this trip, go to http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=113885&id=605917964&l=490004510b if you’re not already friends with me on Facebook…) My first metro trip – the system’s quite nice, I have to admit. I prefer Bordeaux’s system, it feels safer and easier, but this was still really cool, especially when you have musicians popping in and out of trains, and all over the connections. Which leads me to my absolute favourite part of the trip: Near the Louvre, I found a little string orchestra, and just sat and listened for an hour. Truly talented kids, just getting together in a plaza to play. There’s a lot of street music in Bordeaux, but these guys really stood out. I took plenty of video, so I’ll have to show people, especially I think my music friends, when I get home. Hm… I didn’t go into Notre Dame, since the line was fairly long and I only have a limited amount of time, but I have to say I kind of preferred St. Andrès Cathedral. Maybe it’s just me. I saw Irv and Julie, Sammy’s parents, which was great… they were coincidentally in Paris for one night while I was there, so they were kind and took me out for dinner, and I had fun being a sort of translator there. (It was a little awkward when the waiter handed me the check, though…) Another cool thing – we saw some kids in the Champs de Mars dancing to Michael Jackson videos, and dancing well. It was pretty cool.
Day 3 – the final one. This one I definitely took it easy, after having walked so much… I bought a metro pass and saw things that were a little far out, such as Sacre-Coeur. I planned to go to the Louvre and spend a couple hours there, but both time and money didn’t agree, since I had spent so much time just wandering. I did go to a bookstore, however, and I bought some Shakespeare in French, along with the Hunchback of Notre Dame by Hugo. Really excited to start those, though they’ll be challenging. This day does bring me to a rant, though… Paris has no bathrooms. None. I wandered around for two hours having to pee like a mofo before I found a public bathroom that worked. I can kind of understand why people pee in alleys here. The day itself was alright. The night, however, made it. In my room, I had made friends with a German girl, a Dutch girl, and two guys from Seattle, though one was some other nationality that I’m blanking on right now… (Later remembered to be Hungarian, I believe?) Anyway, a cool bunch of people. Around nine (after all of us had taken hour-long naps) we grabbed a bunch of wine and went out to Sacre-Coeur, and just sat there. Had a good time, drank, talked, laughed. Meandering out, we ran into a very, very drunk British woman, and we went on a very difficult mission to get her back to her hotel. We succeeded, we went to the Moulin Rouge, we went home. We sat around in our room until maybe two, three, four? I don’t even remember anymore. Late. We just sat around in a circle, one girl was a travelling musical therapist so she played music… it was amazing. Overall, I liked the hostel experience. It’s something I’ll have to try again.
So needless to say, it was an incredible adventure, an amazing trip. It has thoroughly encouraged me to spend lots of money to go on other amazing trips, even if it is on my own. I’ll meet people, it’ll all be good. Other than that trip, life has been fine. School is tiring and slightly frustrating still. Student life is fine, calming down but still busy enough. It’s funny, I’m watching all of my friends and roommates be a little stircrazy, needing to get out of Bordeaux, and I’m just laughing. I love laughing, it’s amazing.
So, Paris, Paris, Paris. LOVED it. Loved it beyond words. (Doesn’t mean that this will be a short blog by any means, though…) It was a lot of firsts for me – my first time going on a vacation all by my lonesome, the first train trip, my first time in Paris… I absolutely cannot wait until the next time I go. And strangely, I loved travelling alone. I could do whatever I wanted at my own pace, I could change my plans, and I could meet people to do things with if I so desired. I was a bit worried at first, but Paris was such a safe-feeling city I had no worries once I was there. I actually feel like I had a lot better time BECAUSE I went alone… no offense to any of my dear friends. This has just assured me that any further solo trips will be excellent as well. (Though note that I wouldn’t want to live here… that would spoil a lot of the magicalness.)
Day 1. My train left at seven-thirty, and I was there in plenty of time. Someone had told me that the TGV, the high-speed train, was the only way to travel, and I didn’t believe her. I now do. It’s easy: you can buy a ticket on the spot or beforehand, you get on the train (no security or lines), they check your ticket on the train. You get off, you leave. It was spectacular, and quiet, and peaceful, and safe-feeling. And three hours isn’t a bad time at all… admittedly, I slept this time. I got to Paris, nearly fangasmed when I first saw the Eiffel Tower, and somehow made it to my hostel, about a kilometer and a half walk, using the wonderful guide that Sammy got me for my birthday. I then went everywhere… Eiffel Tower, Arc du Triumph, Champs-Elysees, Place de la Concorde, and then up the Tower at night. Interesting stories… People aren’t kidding about the gypsies around Paris. They’re everywhere, begging for money… What they had was a piece of paper (each the same one, with different names – in Paris, no money, baby, mother dead, whatnot) and go around asking if you speak English. Pretty typical. Driving in Paris is something I never, ever want to do. It’s like a Dodgers’ Stadium parking lot after a game against the Giants, except all the time. CRAZY. Don’t do it. I spent a lot of my relaxing time taking pictures for people… it’s just fun, making people’s vacations just a little bit better with a picture of both of them. I guess I looked pretty legit, though, people kept asking me directions and questions… admittedly, I knew the answers to most, so it was pretty cool. Other interesting people story: while standing in line to get up in the Tower (about an hour overall, forty-five minutes at the bottom and fifteen in the middle to get to the summit) I was talking to an older British couple in front of me, very interesting. Behind me, a French couple was busy loudly sucking face and bumping into me. Standing in line later to get to the summit, I was in front of this middle-aged, balding, fat Italian guy (maybe German, but I’m pretty sure he was Italian) who didn’t understand the idea of personal space. He was constantly standing too close, with at least his gut (a couple times his full body) pressed into me, and he didn’t understand “ne me touche pas” nor “please don’t touch me.” So I ended up moving back in line to get him away from me… I don’t think he was doing it to be creepy, he just needed to be as far up in line as possible or something.
Day 2. Had a terrible night of sleep – three of my roommates were constantly coming in between midnight and three, talking loudly, turning the lights off and on… Then the other two roommates left at five in the morning. Not a happy night. Got up and walked around, Montparesse Cemetery, Opera Garnier, hung around the Louvre, Notre Dame, Bastille. (For pictures of this trip, go to http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=113885&id=605917964&l=490004510b if you’re not already friends with me on Facebook…) My first metro trip – the system’s quite nice, I have to admit. I prefer Bordeaux’s system, it feels safer and easier, but this was still really cool, especially when you have musicians popping in and out of trains, and all over the connections. Which leads me to my absolute favourite part of the trip: Near the Louvre, I found a little string orchestra, and just sat and listened for an hour. Truly talented kids, just getting together in a plaza to play. There’s a lot of street music in Bordeaux, but these guys really stood out. I took plenty of video, so I’ll have to show people, especially I think my music friends, when I get home. Hm… I didn’t go into Notre Dame, since the line was fairly long and I only have a limited amount of time, but I have to say I kind of preferred St. Andrès Cathedral. Maybe it’s just me. I saw Irv and Julie, Sammy’s parents, which was great… they were coincidentally in Paris for one night while I was there, so they were kind and took me out for dinner, and I had fun being a sort of translator there. (It was a little awkward when the waiter handed me the check, though…) Another cool thing – we saw some kids in the Champs de Mars dancing to Michael Jackson videos, and dancing well. It was pretty cool.
Day 3 – the final one. This one I definitely took it easy, after having walked so much… I bought a metro pass and saw things that were a little far out, such as Sacre-Coeur. I planned to go to the Louvre and spend a couple hours there, but both time and money didn’t agree, since I had spent so much time just wandering. I did go to a bookstore, however, and I bought some Shakespeare in French, along with the Hunchback of Notre Dame by Hugo. Really excited to start those, though they’ll be challenging. This day does bring me to a rant, though… Paris has no bathrooms. None. I wandered around for two hours having to pee like a mofo before I found a public bathroom that worked. I can kind of understand why people pee in alleys here. The day itself was alright. The night, however, made it. In my room, I had made friends with a German girl, a Dutch girl, and two guys from Seattle, though one was some other nationality that I’m blanking on right now… (Later remembered to be Hungarian, I believe?) Anyway, a cool bunch of people. Around nine (after all of us had taken hour-long naps) we grabbed a bunch of wine and went out to Sacre-Coeur, and just sat there. Had a good time, drank, talked, laughed. Meandering out, we ran into a very, very drunk British woman, and we went on a very difficult mission to get her back to her hotel. We succeeded, we went to the Moulin Rouge, we went home. We sat around in our room until maybe two, three, four? I don’t even remember anymore. Late. We just sat around in a circle, one girl was a travelling musical therapist so she played music… it was amazing. Overall, I liked the hostel experience. It’s something I’ll have to try again.
So needless to say, it was an incredible adventure, an amazing trip. It has thoroughly encouraged me to spend lots of money to go on other amazing trips, even if it is on my own. I’ll meet people, it’ll all be good. Other than that trip, life has been fine. School is tiring and slightly frustrating still. Student life is fine, calming down but still busy enough. It’s funny, I’m watching all of my friends and roommates be a little stircrazy, needing to get out of Bordeaux, and I’m just laughing. I love laughing, it’s amazing.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Not Yet Dead
There is a big difference between constantly saying that I’ll be broke after I return from Europe after all my travels and experiences and purchases, and then actually seeing the numbers slowly go down in my bank account. Sigh.
I apologize for not checking in sooner, it has (quite understandably) been a kind of hectic and straining week. Due to the fact that I haven’t checked in for a week, it will probably be rather long, and I apologize again. I’ll try and summarize shortly. Classes have been… interesting. Many of them I get there and they don’t start until next week, or I just plain won’t be able to find them at all. Right now my worries are just getting enough units, enough classes… then I’ll start worrying about how I’m going to fail all my classes. I can kind of follow what the professors are saying, but it’s really difficult to comprehend and write while they’re talking. But in all my free time, I’ve explored the city a little bit, found some zen places, had a good time. Had some interesting experiences… the post office, thinking I was gonna get mugged by a random gypsy woman, an ABC party (Anything But Clothes – I wore a dress made out of bags!), having some random French guy sit next to me then take his shirt off…
The weather remains to be slightly bizarre. It’s been cold lately, with occasional rain showers… rain showers meaning that it’s actually RAINING! Not this pansy thing that Californians have. Mind you, once it rained on my laundry (it was clear when I went to bed…), but other than that I’m loving it. The apartment has been pretty cool… It’s nice and big, the kitchen is ridiculously small, our fridge is cleaned out but still slightly gross, our shower sprays water everywhere and has the water pressure of god… But it’s all good. For three hundred Euros a month, that’s not bad. My area is mysteriously always messy, even five minutes after I clean it.
The most exciting thing that’s happening, really, is that I just today made my plans to go to Paris next weekend. I’m leaving Friday morning, train’s at 7:30, and I’m returning on Monday morning in time for class at three. Eighty-eight Euros round-trip (about 110, 120 dollars), and three nights of living is looking to be about seventy Euros. Exciting indeed… Add that onto the shopping I did today (I bought boots, some scarves, and a nice shirt… earlier in the week, I bought a bright teal jacket and matching bag, all equaling up to around eighty euros) and my bank account is sad. But I’m living it up, which is good. I need to just buy food for the next month, though… and only food at the grocery store. Must cut down on kebabs. The French is coming along well enough… in some situations I feel really good about it, others bad. Meh.
A mini-rant: What the hell are the Angels doing, getting their asses handed to them by Boston?! This does not please me.
I apologize for not checking in sooner, it has (quite understandably) been a kind of hectic and straining week. Due to the fact that I haven’t checked in for a week, it will probably be rather long, and I apologize again. I’ll try and summarize shortly. Classes have been… interesting. Many of them I get there and they don’t start until next week, or I just plain won’t be able to find them at all. Right now my worries are just getting enough units, enough classes… then I’ll start worrying about how I’m going to fail all my classes. I can kind of follow what the professors are saying, but it’s really difficult to comprehend and write while they’re talking. But in all my free time, I’ve explored the city a little bit, found some zen places, had a good time. Had some interesting experiences… the post office, thinking I was gonna get mugged by a random gypsy woman, an ABC party (Anything But Clothes – I wore a dress made out of bags!), having some random French guy sit next to me then take his shirt off…
The weather remains to be slightly bizarre. It’s been cold lately, with occasional rain showers… rain showers meaning that it’s actually RAINING! Not this pansy thing that Californians have. Mind you, once it rained on my laundry (it was clear when I went to bed…), but other than that I’m loving it. The apartment has been pretty cool… It’s nice and big, the kitchen is ridiculously small, our fridge is cleaned out but still slightly gross, our shower sprays water everywhere and has the water pressure of god… But it’s all good. For three hundred Euros a month, that’s not bad. My area is mysteriously always messy, even five minutes after I clean it.
The most exciting thing that’s happening, really, is that I just today made my plans to go to Paris next weekend. I’m leaving Friday morning, train’s at 7:30, and I’m returning on Monday morning in time for class at three. Eighty-eight Euros round-trip (about 110, 120 dollars), and three nights of living is looking to be about seventy Euros. Exciting indeed… Add that onto the shopping I did today (I bought boots, some scarves, and a nice shirt… earlier in the week, I bought a bright teal jacket and matching bag, all equaling up to around eighty euros) and my bank account is sad. But I’m living it up, which is good. I need to just buy food for the next month, though… and only food at the grocery store. Must cut down on kebabs. The French is coming along well enough… in some situations I feel really good about it, others bad. Meh.
A mini-rant: What the hell are the Angels doing, getting their asses handed to them by Boston?! This does not please me.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
This Magic Moment
Free drinks are awesome. Like, ridiculously awesome. It just doesn’t get much better than that.
Still alive here! I think I always say this like it should be a surprise… but I do worry occasionally that my stay here hasn’t been accident-plagued enough. I mean, considerably the worst thing that has happened is perhaps leaving my phone charger and having to go get it. Really, that’s been it; it’s been absolutely fantastic so far. This worries me greatly. I’m sure enough chaos and stress will come as soon as we dip into classes and I realize that I have no idea what’s going on, either with classes themselves or with registration. I’m going to die. I will never again take organization in the States for granted… Our classes start tomorrow, and we still don’t have hours for classes, merely class descriptions, for the psychology classes. Lets hope to god that I don’t have anything in the morning…
Me and my posse here moved into our new studio apartments on Friday. It’s three studio apartments, one small one with one student and two larger ones with two in it. It’s been an adventure so far, for sure… my roommate is great, but we’re having an exciting time discovering all the little quirks. Like how there wasn’t hot water for the first day because we had to flip the switch and take the time to heat it up, or how the laundry machine’s door is broken and Danita, my roommate, had her clothes stuck in there for several days before prying it open with a knife. So laundry now consists of soaking clothes in a trash bin full of soapy water, then hang-drying them. I’m not sure how my clothes are going to last this… hopefully they won’t stretch out too much. Any advice from anyone? Other fun things: our fridge (and kitchen in general) is kind of disgusting, covered in mold because the girl living here before seems to have been a bit of a slob, and left food everywhere. Did most of the cleaning up to now, lets see how this works out. But we’ve been having garden parties and potluck dinners, and been playing the Sims and having people come and visit… it’s been good fun.
My night-life is still rather booming and it still frightens me just a bit. Thursday we had our end of ILP dinner, which involved my first eating of duck. It was extremely good, as long as I ignored the constant complaining of several around me. After that, me and Danita wandered by the river (which is just beautiful at night) before heading to a party there. Everyone had gone there after the party, so there were far too many Americans and not enough drinks for my taste, but hopefully next time will be better. Friday night I was exhausted after move-in, and I drank a large amount of wine at dinner, so I was good with that. Saturday night we were going to go clubbing, but we left fairly late and stopped at a bar for drinks. It was right as the football game was ending (I had wanted to go, but everyone wanted to go out instead… so I ended up going to that. Sigh) so the atmosphere was very joyous… The bartender saw that we were Californians, and all we could really hear over the music was “Motherfucking Westcoasters!” as he joyously slammed down a bottle of champagne and five glasses for us, claiming that it was on him. We did not argue. It got more exciting as I went to get a cocktail and he gave it to me for free (though after a couple of people he started charging, though at a lesser rate), and then he gave us all free shots of Jagen later. Good stuff. Clubbing then didn’t happen as the person in charge of finding the club forgot where it was, and people were just standing around so a few of us decided to hop on the last tram and go home rather than walking (though it’s no more than a kilometer or so outside of downtown).
Today I was planning on going out, just riding the tram and walking all over the city, having a tourist day… But then the hours went by, and I did laundry, and my feet were hurting from walking in heels… that didn’t happen. We did, however, start making tentative plans to go to Paris in two weeks. That will be SUPER fun if it doesn’t fall through. We’ll make it happen. *cross fingers*
Interesting little things… I got a very slinky purple dress for ten Euros at the (rather shady, one friend had some little gypsy girl search through her bag) marché, though Danita and I have not yet gone boot/jacket shopping. That will happen at some point, as will a football match! It’s part of the experience, yo! Elsewhere, I got Skype… I’m michiness42, I believe, so add me and we can chat. If you don’t, get it so we can talk. Also, I (for the time being) have internet at the apartment. The French student already living here has it, and he’s letting us pay him to use it… though we haven’t paid anything yet. Odd. And with that, I am going to listen to the Angels game. I’m excited. Wish me luck with the first classes! *gulp*
Still alive here! I think I always say this like it should be a surprise… but I do worry occasionally that my stay here hasn’t been accident-plagued enough. I mean, considerably the worst thing that has happened is perhaps leaving my phone charger and having to go get it. Really, that’s been it; it’s been absolutely fantastic so far. This worries me greatly. I’m sure enough chaos and stress will come as soon as we dip into classes and I realize that I have no idea what’s going on, either with classes themselves or with registration. I’m going to die. I will never again take organization in the States for granted… Our classes start tomorrow, and we still don’t have hours for classes, merely class descriptions, for the psychology classes. Lets hope to god that I don’t have anything in the morning…
Me and my posse here moved into our new studio apartments on Friday. It’s three studio apartments, one small one with one student and two larger ones with two in it. It’s been an adventure so far, for sure… my roommate is great, but we’re having an exciting time discovering all the little quirks. Like how there wasn’t hot water for the first day because we had to flip the switch and take the time to heat it up, or how the laundry machine’s door is broken and Danita, my roommate, had her clothes stuck in there for several days before prying it open with a knife. So laundry now consists of soaking clothes in a trash bin full of soapy water, then hang-drying them. I’m not sure how my clothes are going to last this… hopefully they won’t stretch out too much. Any advice from anyone? Other fun things: our fridge (and kitchen in general) is kind of disgusting, covered in mold because the girl living here before seems to have been a bit of a slob, and left food everywhere. Did most of the cleaning up to now, lets see how this works out. But we’ve been having garden parties and potluck dinners, and been playing the Sims and having people come and visit… it’s been good fun.
My night-life is still rather booming and it still frightens me just a bit. Thursday we had our end of ILP dinner, which involved my first eating of duck. It was extremely good, as long as I ignored the constant complaining of several around me. After that, me and Danita wandered by the river (which is just beautiful at night) before heading to a party there. Everyone had gone there after the party, so there were far too many Americans and not enough drinks for my taste, but hopefully next time will be better. Friday night I was exhausted after move-in, and I drank a large amount of wine at dinner, so I was good with that. Saturday night we were going to go clubbing, but we left fairly late and stopped at a bar for drinks. It was right as the football game was ending (I had wanted to go, but everyone wanted to go out instead… so I ended up going to that. Sigh) so the atmosphere was very joyous… The bartender saw that we were Californians, and all we could really hear over the music was “Motherfucking Westcoasters!” as he joyously slammed down a bottle of champagne and five glasses for us, claiming that it was on him. We did not argue. It got more exciting as I went to get a cocktail and he gave it to me for free (though after a couple of people he started charging, though at a lesser rate), and then he gave us all free shots of Jagen later. Good stuff. Clubbing then didn’t happen as the person in charge of finding the club forgot where it was, and people were just standing around so a few of us decided to hop on the last tram and go home rather than walking (though it’s no more than a kilometer or so outside of downtown).
Today I was planning on going out, just riding the tram and walking all over the city, having a tourist day… But then the hours went by, and I did laundry, and my feet were hurting from walking in heels… that didn’t happen. We did, however, start making tentative plans to go to Paris in two weeks. That will be SUPER fun if it doesn’t fall through. We’ll make it happen. *cross fingers*
Interesting little things… I got a very slinky purple dress for ten Euros at the (rather shady, one friend had some little gypsy girl search through her bag) marché, though Danita and I have not yet gone boot/jacket shopping. That will happen at some point, as will a football match! It’s part of the experience, yo! Elsewhere, I got Skype… I’m michiness42, I believe, so add me and we can chat. If you don’t, get it so we can talk. Also, I (for the time being) have internet at the apartment. The French student already living here has it, and he’s letting us pay him to use it… though we haven’t paid anything yet. Odd. And with that, I am going to listen to the Angels game. I’m excited. Wish me luck with the first classes! *gulp*
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Two Weeks In
Eating a kebab, the French equivalent of cheap Mexican food with mystery meat, while listening to Sweeney Todd is not a very good idea.
Anyhow. Not much to update on this time, though I do feel like it’s necessary to check in every few days here. I’ve been keeping myself plenty busy, I certainly haven’t had much alone time since arriving in France… which is nice on one hand, because it means that I’m doing things, but on the other hand it’s nice to just relax, read, take a nap, and have some free time. I’ve been drawing plenty since I got here, though admittedly most of it is on my notes while I’m listening to my professor squawk. Though I’m nearly finished with my old sketchbook, and ready to move onto the next… Lots of little new drawings to show everyone when I get back, though. Another interesting life update is that I went running today for the first time since arrival. Bad that it’s taken me two weeks, but I suppose I’m allowed some settling time, what with all the walking and stair-climbing I’ve been doing (have I mentioned I’m on the 4th floor?) it might have killed me earlier.
Speaking of the fourth floor, move-out is on Friday. Which means that I have to drag my giant suitcase all the way back down those lovely stairs… Better than dragging it up, though, I suppose? I already moved part of my things over to the apartment, so it shouldn’t be that bad. It’s only one suitcase and a backpack, assuming I can fit it all back in there. I’ll just be glad, very very glad, that the ILP class will be over by then. This week our original professor returned, and I realized how much I dislike her… she speaks with what sounds like a German accent, though she has a very high-pitched, jerky voice. Listening to her speak for four hours with no break is a bit strenuous. Not to mention once she yelled at me for five minutes (no exaggeration) just because I was looking something up in my little pocket dictionary. She always nitpicks every single thing that I do, and leaves the other students alone, even if their pronunciation is enough to make me want to commit French suicide. Two days left, two days… And then I get to start the real big adventure: actual French classes! The lack of organization is driving me absolutely insane. There’s not even class lists up yet for most of the departments, and classes start on Monday. We have to register ourselves by going and talking to about five different people, and doing about a million other things that just make my mind spin. I will be totally screwed… and all this is even BEFORE classes actually start! Oh dear god, what have I gotten myself into?
I’m going to talk about pizza because that makes me happy. For our weekly picnic given to us by the lovely ladies at the Centre de Californie, they had pizza! And the usual cheese and bread and juice. But the pizza was heavenly, even though there was only a small slice per person. Mmm.
Something else that creeps me out intensely, but is slightly interesting as well: the gypsies. People told me that they would be here, begging for money and whatnot, and I was ready for that. What I was not prepared for was them to move into the little park across the street about a week and a half after move-in, and then every couple of nights at three or four in the morning, come into the dorms and knock on everyone’s doors and trying to get into people’s rooms to steal their money. I have slept through these encounters, I’m not sure how, but I have. Probably a good thing, though. There are numerous horror stories, none of which I’m sure are true, such as them coming and looking under people’s doors while they’re showering. There is definite proof that they’ve been using the showers, though, and the most annoying thing: They pooed in our staircase. Our staircase now smells like ass.
For anyone who is wondering or concerned, I am not only hanging out with Americans. Starting Monday, the area has been FLOODED with international students from all over the place. On Monday, we had a four-hour test for placement in the DEFLE classes, and I just talked to people (in French, which was interesting when people had different accents). I have talked to people from: Libya, South Africa, Argentina, Algeria, Germany, Russia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, China, Iceland, Australia, and Poland. The list keeps growing. But naturally, I’m also hanging out with French people. From parties and bars and whatnot, we’ve all made French friends, and hung out with them several times. It’s also nice to just run into people I know on the tram and have chats about strikes in French. I’m liking the French people very much, not to mention going out with them gives me an excuse to not hang out with some of the loud, annoying Americans that I happen to know here.
And that, my friends, has been my life. I feel a little bad always going out and draining my battery down every night, but hopefully it won’t do too much damage… I don’t think we’ll have internet as soon as we move into the apartment, but I guess that’s what McDonalds is for. We’ll see how often I’m on after that, until people figure out how to get organized. Starting to look into different travel plans. Still definitely looking into Italy for the break, but also thinking Lyon in early December for their lights festival (and snow!), Paris relatively soon, in the next month once we get settled in… We’ll see, we’ll see. There definitely isn’t enough time here to see everything that I want to see, but that’s what life is for, eh?
Anyhow. Not much to update on this time, though I do feel like it’s necessary to check in every few days here. I’ve been keeping myself plenty busy, I certainly haven’t had much alone time since arriving in France… which is nice on one hand, because it means that I’m doing things, but on the other hand it’s nice to just relax, read, take a nap, and have some free time. I’ve been drawing plenty since I got here, though admittedly most of it is on my notes while I’m listening to my professor squawk. Though I’m nearly finished with my old sketchbook, and ready to move onto the next… Lots of little new drawings to show everyone when I get back, though. Another interesting life update is that I went running today for the first time since arrival. Bad that it’s taken me two weeks, but I suppose I’m allowed some settling time, what with all the walking and stair-climbing I’ve been doing (have I mentioned I’m on the 4th floor?) it might have killed me earlier.
Speaking of the fourth floor, move-out is on Friday. Which means that I have to drag my giant suitcase all the way back down those lovely stairs… Better than dragging it up, though, I suppose? I already moved part of my things over to the apartment, so it shouldn’t be that bad. It’s only one suitcase and a backpack, assuming I can fit it all back in there. I’ll just be glad, very very glad, that the ILP class will be over by then. This week our original professor returned, and I realized how much I dislike her… she speaks with what sounds like a German accent, though she has a very high-pitched, jerky voice. Listening to her speak for four hours with no break is a bit strenuous. Not to mention once she yelled at me for five minutes (no exaggeration) just because I was looking something up in my little pocket dictionary. She always nitpicks every single thing that I do, and leaves the other students alone, even if their pronunciation is enough to make me want to commit French suicide. Two days left, two days… And then I get to start the real big adventure: actual French classes! The lack of organization is driving me absolutely insane. There’s not even class lists up yet for most of the departments, and classes start on Monday. We have to register ourselves by going and talking to about five different people, and doing about a million other things that just make my mind spin. I will be totally screwed… and all this is even BEFORE classes actually start! Oh dear god, what have I gotten myself into?
I’m going to talk about pizza because that makes me happy. For our weekly picnic given to us by the lovely ladies at the Centre de Californie, they had pizza! And the usual cheese and bread and juice. But the pizza was heavenly, even though there was only a small slice per person. Mmm.
Something else that creeps me out intensely, but is slightly interesting as well: the gypsies. People told me that they would be here, begging for money and whatnot, and I was ready for that. What I was not prepared for was them to move into the little park across the street about a week and a half after move-in, and then every couple of nights at three or four in the morning, come into the dorms and knock on everyone’s doors and trying to get into people’s rooms to steal their money. I have slept through these encounters, I’m not sure how, but I have. Probably a good thing, though. There are numerous horror stories, none of which I’m sure are true, such as them coming and looking under people’s doors while they’re showering. There is definite proof that they’ve been using the showers, though, and the most annoying thing: They pooed in our staircase. Our staircase now smells like ass.
For anyone who is wondering or concerned, I am not only hanging out with Americans. Starting Monday, the area has been FLOODED with international students from all over the place. On Monday, we had a four-hour test for placement in the DEFLE classes, and I just talked to people (in French, which was interesting when people had different accents). I have talked to people from: Libya, South Africa, Argentina, Algeria, Germany, Russia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, China, Iceland, Australia, and Poland. The list keeps growing. But naturally, I’m also hanging out with French people. From parties and bars and whatnot, we’ve all made French friends, and hung out with them several times. It’s also nice to just run into people I know on the tram and have chats about strikes in French. I’m liking the French people very much, not to mention going out with them gives me an excuse to not hang out with some of the loud, annoying Americans that I happen to know here.
And that, my friends, has been my life. I feel a little bad always going out and draining my battery down every night, but hopefully it won’t do too much damage… I don’t think we’ll have internet as soon as we move into the apartment, but I guess that’s what McDonalds is for. We’ll see how often I’m on after that, until people figure out how to get organized. Starting to look into different travel plans. Still definitely looking into Italy for the break, but also thinking Lyon in early December for their lights festival (and snow!), Paris relatively soon, in the next month once we get settled in… We’ll see, we’ll see. There definitely isn’t enough time here to see everything that I want to see, but that’s what life is for, eh?
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