Almost French

France is like a maddening, moody lover who inspires emotional highs and lows. One minute it fills you with a rush of passion, the next you're full of fury, itching to smack the mouth of some sneering shopkeeper or smug civil servant. Yes, it's a love-hate relationship. But it's charged with so much mystery, longing and that French specialty- seduction- that we can't resist coming back for more."
-- Almost French- Sarah Turnbull

I borrowed this book from the people that I am babysitting for and it is very true. It is pretty much exactly how I feel about France at this moment and many of my friends here agree. I love France. I love being here, traveling, living, experiencing. But sometimes it is just really frustrating: not understanding the language completely, getting confused over cultural differences, trying to do the simplest thing and failing because of something as simple as a mispronounced word. And yet I wouldn't change where I am right now for anything. I am lucky and grateful to be here. And I am happy. Each day I learn something new, meet someone interesting. Yesterday on the bus ride home from Pertuis (where I babysit) I talked to the bus driver the entire time. He is a really cool guy and he has traveled a lot of places. I realize how much I like speaking French, especially to strangers. Telling them about myself. Finding out about them. I just love the feeling of being able to communicate in a different language. Speaking to people that speak no English is one of the best feelings I have over here because if I didn't speak French, there would be no way to communicate. It sounds cliche but language is a beautiful thing.

Walking around in Aix right now is amazing. It is decorated for the holidays (I'll post pictures soon I promise) and on every street there are sapins (christmas trees) lining the streets and decorations hanging from the tops of the buildings. The main street, Cours Mirabeau, comes alive at night. Little shops were built for the holiday that sell things from soap to chocolate in the shape of cheese to toy helicopters. They sell "barbe a papa" which literally means papa's beard but we know it as cotton candy. There is also vin chaud which is red wine heated with spices like nutmeg and cinnamon. There are even carnival rides like bumper cars! At night everyone walks along the street, chatting in French and English listening to the music coming from the speakers lining the road. Christmas was my favorite time of year before, but now it is even moreso. We put a christmas tree up in our house as well. We decorated it with homemade decorations. Less expensive and better memories. :-D

Traveling around is also amazing. A couple weekends ago I went to Gap with my friend. Gap is a city in the Alps about 3 hours away from here by train. I had an awesome time. We got there friday night and the guy we were staying with (Tom) made us dinner and we talked for awhile and played some games. His house was awesome. It was in the middle of the country and he had a woodburning heater that kept us nice and warm, a bookshelf full of some of my favorite authors (Jack Kerouac and Paulo Coehlo), and a beautiful view.



On saturday we took a hike up a mountain near his house. At the beginning of the hike we could hear nothing but the twinkling of bells around the necks of the cows in a nearby field. Walking up that mountain made me realize how out of shape I really was, but the view at the top was definately worth it.





Saqib and I realized also that when the french hike, they eat well. Actually they eat well all the time, but for our hike Tom packed a pasta salad, a baguette, cheese, carrots, yogurt, apples, snack bars, and who knows what else he could have fit in his backpack. We joked that next time we were going to have fondue as well. We finished the hike and went back to his house and had some tea and got warm. That night we went to a party with a bunch of French people and ate so much food, so many deserts, it was amazing. Sunday we went on a little walk to the chapel and chateau that were near Tom's house. The Alps were so beautiful and it was such a nice day.



Sunday night we had to take the train back to Aix, but that could never be a bad thing, coming home to France. :-D

Alex is here now. The next 2 months are going to be great fun!

Quick Update

Last week was super busy. In fact the past couple weeks have been. Last week was midterms and I had a test in pretty much all my classes. Some of them went well, others not so much. I just wanted to post a few pics of the past couple weeks. A couple weeks ago it snowed here. It was amazing! No one was expecting it, including the French, though somehow no one looked as excited as we were. My friends and I were running through the streets taking pictures. :-P







Oddly the snow cleared up by the weekend and I went to Luberon on saturday and I went rock climbing on sunday. Luberon was cool. We went to three different cities: Apt, Roussillon, and Gourdes. We got to see Albert Camus's grave site also.





This is the park we went to in Roussillon:






For Thanksgiving our group had a dinner at a restaurant. We had duck. It was not the best duck I have ever had. Roomie pic for thanksgiving:



We also had our own thanksgiving at our house on the saturday after. We invited a bunch of people over and everyone brought a dish. We had sooo much food. We had salads, rotissary chicken, pizza, stuffing, mashed potatoes, yams. Jenae even made pumpkin pie. :-D It was like real thanksgiving, but in France. A lot of people that were there had never had thanksgiving before so it was fun to do.

Espagne

Bonjour tout le monde. :-D

It has been a long time since I last wrote a blog and a lot has happened. I suppose I shall go in order of the happenings. Over break I went to Spain and had a lot of fun there. But did I stay in just one city? Of course not. :-D On friday my friend Kat and I left for Madrid. We took a night train that was 15 hours long but we slept the first part of it so it was alright. We finally got to Madrid and my friend Beth met us there. We stayed with her and her boyfriend for the whole time that we were there. She was really good to us and we had an amazing time with her. We went to a birthday party where everyone spoke Spanish on saturday night. We stayed out till the wee hours of the morning then had a Spanish specialty called Churros con Chocolate. You dip churros in a cup of chocolate and its pretty sweet.





We walked around a lot at night too. Madrid is in the exact center of Spain apparently and there in a plaque in the exact center of Madrid. It is from this spot that all of the roads of Spain start from apparently.



The next day we woke up and went to the giant market in Madrid and we bought some scarves for super cheap. We met up with our other friend and went to a BULLFIGHT!! We found out later that it was the last one of the season so we had perfect timing. It was so much fun! Kat didn't know that they kill the bulls at the end so she was freaked out, but I thought that it was a fun thing to watch.









Kat and I also went to a few museums. We went to the Reina Sophia and saw some awesome Dali paintings. I fell in love with Dali. There were also some Picasso paintings there. We went to the Prado museum too but I didn't like it as much. We waited in line for so long to get in because it is one of the most famous museums in the world and it was not worth it for me. The paintings inside were by people like Raphael and El Greco and I don't really like their paintings as much as contemporary art. This is me in front of the Prado, on the day that it was closed so there is no one there.



We also took a boat ride. We rented paddle boats and went out on a lake in the giant park in the city. It was beautiful and it was a perfect day for it.






The bad part about Spain is that they had a lot of fast food restaurants. There was a KFC everywhere we went and I am in love with KFC mashed potatoes, as is evident:



Unfortunately there are no burritos in Spain. I was not informed of this before I left so I was really looking forward to a burrito and I was disappointed. They do have a lot of tapas though and we got some good ones. I also learned that Madrid is a city that has a lot of ham. Beth was explaining that the cooks in Madrid try and put ham/bacon/pork in everything that they can, which is not cool cuz it is not my favorite food. But I survived. There was a lot of good food there besides the food with ham.

Kat and I took a day trip to Toledo one day. Toledo is an amazing city. At one time it was in the running to be the capital of Spain, but Madrid beat it out. Toledo is surrounded on three sides by water and the three main religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) have lived there peacefully for a long time.





It is a medieval town too so there are a lot of stories and legends about it. We took a little train around the city and learned about how you can still hear the cries of a princess who jumped off of a building and took her last swim because her dad had not allowed her to be with a man she loved. We walked almost down to the water and explored a lot. It was such a cool town. :-D



On our last day in Madrid we explored a little more. By this time we felt like we knew the city pretty well because we were there for 6 days. We went on almost every metro line and we visited all of the things that we wanted to. The park was one of our favorite places, we were there almost every day. This is me and Kat and Saqib in front of one of the fountains in the park.



This is a really cool place called the crystal palace which was also in the park.



We also found this building when we were walkin around. We were trying to figure out what it was. When we figured it out we were amazed. What do you think it is??



Nope you are wrong....its the post office!!! pretty fancy for a post office huh.

Our next stop was Barcelona. We met up with a bunch of other people from our group in France. In Barcelona, instead of taking the metro everywhere we bought a 2 day sightseeing bus ticket. We got to see all of the things that Barcelona is popular for. We took a skycab up to the top of a hill so we could see all of Barcelona. It was pretty cool up there.



We went to Guell Park and we saw the Sangrada Familia which were both designed/have a bunch of stuff in them by Gaudi. A Guadi house:



We also went and saw a light show. It was so beautiful!!



We also walked around the port a little bit. The bus ride back to Aix from Barcelona took forever and we all just wanted to get home, and when we did I was happy to be back in France. :-D

I have been rock climbing a lot as well. This weekend I am going to learn how to "grimpe en tete" which means lead climb. I am lookin forward to it.

I also got a job. I am babysitting three french kids on tuesday nights and wednesdays. It should be fun. :-D They are all really cool and I will learn even more French!

Well that is about it. Hope everyone is doin well. For the few of you that read this. :-P

Rugby, Avignon, et l'Escalade

Things I learned the past 2 weeks:

-I know nothing about Aix-en-Provence, and I am a bad tour guide
-I can't explain English grammar, how sad I don't even know my own language
-When I am lazy and don't want to do something but actually do it, it turns out amazing.
-I love France (ok I think I already knew that)


So I had a dream (or I would call it a nightmare) last week that all of the CSU people had to go home after only one semester and I went home not knowing French. I was really angry and really sad and I was crying the whole time. I woke up and decided I needed to try harder and get on top of things. So far it has gone good.

Last weekend was the semi finals of Rugby. My friends and I painted our faces bleu blanc et rouge (frances colors) and watched the game.



It was France versus England so it was a HUGE game here. Everyone was psyched and it was wild. We sat at a table with English guys and we kept arguing with them that France was better. Talkin big and stuff like that. Unfortunately, when it came down to it, France could not keep up and they lost right at the end 14-9. :-( We were all very sad.

This weekend the CSU group went to Avignon. It was very beautiful but le mistral has begun. Le mistral is the winter wind and it was freezing and incredibly windy. But we still had a good time.



Christa and I bein cool: :-D



We went to the palais de papes, which is the largest cathedral in france. It is also the number one tourist attraction in France apparently, even though I had never heard of it. It was pretty cool, we got little listening things where we could listen to all the information we needed to know. The pope used to reside there apparently. I wanted to explore the places that were locked off to the public, but unfortunately I could not.





I could get up to the top of one section though and it was so pretty there:


My friend Aaron and I at the top:


We also went to Le Pont du Gard, which is a giant old bridge. It was windy there too but we made up for it by havin lots of fun. :-D



A few of us got up onto the top level of the bridge and we sneakily transversed it.


We just hung out at the bridge for awhile after that then we went home.


The rest of the weekend was amazing too. For the past 23 hours I was surrounded by only French and I spoke only french. I spent the night at a french girls house with her mom and I had dinner with them. Then today I went rock climbing with them and a bunch of other people. I miss rock climbing. We went to a place that was really good and we could see really far. I climbed about 6 times and I made it to the top of all of them. So proud. I learned a bunch of french words for rock climbing gear and everything. The cold day ended with some nice warm hot chocolate and french conversation. :-D

And the real year begins

Last weekend the CSU group went to the lavender fields, Moustiers-Ste Marie, and les gorges du verdon. My friend Tina and I had a photo shoot in the lavender fields. Kinda like the one in front of the gate in Berlin but more appropriate.





Saqib: "Be an orangutan"


Saqib: "Be a giraffe"


After the Lavender fields we went to an amazingly cute little city, Moustiers-Ste Marie. It had a chapel in the hills and we had to hike up to it. My friend Travis and I tried to hike to the chapel and we ended up taking the long way, but it was well worth it because we got to see a whole other view and it was beautiful. We found a little cave too. :-D


The view of the city from above was pretty cool too.


The chapel on the top was just like all the other chapels I have seen, but it was on top of a hill so that made it cooler. This is my roomate and I in front of it.


And this is part of les gorges du verdon, which is also known as the grand canyon of france. We went down to the bottom to the lake and my 2 friends and I went kayaking while everyone else just sat around. Kayaking was so great. It was a perfect day for it too.


I also started school this week. It has gone very well so far. I love all my teachers and the classes are actually really fun. I think it will be a lot of work, but it will be worth it. Have a good week all!