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.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
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.
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