La Belle Vie à Lille

Un (TRÈS) petit tour de France: Lyon et Reims

2010-04-22T03:31:00.041+02:00

If you remember back to this fateful Wednesday in April, it was the day that all the flights in Europe started because of that silly Icelandic volcano. Thankfully, I didn’t have any issues getting out of Rome, but I’m pretty sure flights started being canceled later that day. Yikes! However, made it into Lyon without any problems except for the fact that we were exhausted. When we got off our metro stop, we realized that we had a loooong uphill hike ahead of us to get to the hostel. With our packs full of two weeks of vacation, we struggled making it up. When we checked into the hostel, we were hit by yet another surprise—we needed to buy Hostelling International Membership Cards…ouch. Thankfully, Lyon is the gastronomic capital of France, so we were in the right place to eat our cares away—which is exactly what we did. A typical Lyonais bistro is called a “bouchon”. I still don’t really know why, because everywhere else that means traffic jam, but we’ll go with it. I had a delicious salad with walnuts and gruyere cheese, filet de colin (a white fish) with rice and tomato sauce, and topped it all off with some delicious mousse au chocolate. Yummm. Sadie let me sample bites of her meal, too. Dang, she can pick ‘em. Her French onion soup, steak, and gratin dauphinois was out of this world! Needless to say, we went away feeling very satisfied. We stopped by the Cathédrale Saint Jean as we wandered through Vieux Lyon.

It’s a really beautiful medieval church with amazing stained glass and the most incredible astrological clock I’ve seen. It still works! We wandered a bit through Vieux Lyon, which is seriously adorable, toward the river (Saône) so we could find the Fresque des Lyonais. Lyon is famous for its random immense wall murals. When I say there’s a really cool fresco on the side of some random building in Lyon, it doesn’t sound all that cool, but in reality it is. Promise. It’s painted to look like it’s part of the building it’s on, and there are all sorts of famous people from Lyon and French history hanging out on all of the balconies. When we were done admiring the fresco, we wandered over towards Place Terreaux, which is kind of like the Grand Place of Lyon.

There is a super cool fountain there that was designed by the same guy who did the Statue of Liberty. As we were sitting by the fountain, a random Tunisian guy started talking to me because he heard me speaking English with Sadie and he kept talking about how great America is and it was a little uncomfortable. I kept trying to say, “you know, America has problems, too! Life isn’t perfect for everyone!” and he wouldn’t have any of it. Traveling as an American is really awkward at times. It often makes me want to tell people I’m Canadian. They’re less polarizing. Anyway, once we got rid of that guy, we wandered up to the Croix Rousse district, which is supposed to be kind of artsy. It was pretty cool, but I wish we could have gone to the market there. The one thing that we did see was another one of the frescos—the Mur des Canauts (Silkweavers’ Wall). Lyon has a long textile history and it used to be famous for its silk. The fresco was really cool—it was more realistic than the other one because all of the people were from the same time period. By this point, it had started to drizzle a bit, so we headed back to our hostel to relax for a little bit before dinner. We took the furnicular up the hill this time, which was an experience all its own. It’s kind of like a cable car that only goes uphils and the car was all tiered. Quite interesting. We originally planned to go out for sushi and a drink, but by the time we were done with our sushi at Matsuki, we were too tired for a drink. We went back to the hostel and quietly got ready for bed because two of our roommates were already asleep. Around midnight, as Sadie and I were about to fall asleep, some Asian lady and her daughter burst into the room and turned all of the lights on. I happened to be standing at the sink taking my contacts out, because I had almost forgotten to, and I very quietly tried to tell them which beds were open and that they should turn off the lights because some of the girls were asleep, but there must have been some sort of communication lapse because they proceeded to turn on more lights and I listened to them noisily sort through their twelve plastic bags through my iPod as I tried to fall asleep—not exactly my idea of a lullaby.

The next morning, we got some breakfast at our hostel, then headed up to see the Basilique de Notre Dame, which looms on a hill over Lyon. The mosaics inside were pretty incredible, and the views from the hill couldn’t be beat!

When we were done there, we headed down the hill a bit to the ancient Théâtre Romain. It wasn’t the Coliseum, but it was still really cool. I read somewhere that in the summer, there are sometimes concerts there. How sweet is that? As we continued down the hill, we stopped at the hostel to get our bags, then went through the traboules of Vieux Lyon. The traboules are passages between buildings that were originally used for silk trade to protect the fabric in rainy weather, but they were also used in WWII by the resistance fighters. We only went through a couple of them, but apparently they go all through the city. While we were in Vieux Lyon, we stopped at a Petit Casino and a boulangerie to gather some supplies for our train lunch feast of baguette, salami, cheese, fruit, etc. mmmm.

We headed to the train station to find that our train was no longer listed. Cool. The SNCF decided to strike during two of the busiest weeks of the year, so the station was MADNESS. We were supposed to take a TER, but we asked at information, and the lady told us to just get on the TGV an hour and a half later. Okay? So instead of having a train feast, we ended up with a train station feast. When we finally got on the train, it was crazy. There was no room because all the people who were supposed to take the TER were on the TGV without reserved places, so I sat on the floor of the train…next to the bathroom…yum. We changed trains in Dijon and had originally planned visiting the city for a little bit, but we were pretty worn out, so that was a no go. Sadie had a cold, too, and was feeling pretty gross at this point. When we finally got to Reims, we went straight to our hostel, which was SO nice! I couldn’t believe how awesome it was for 12 Euro per night! We had a private room with sink and shower, so we lounged for a bit before going out around 10 to pick up a pizza for dinner. Lazy night, but it was necessary at this point in our trip.

The next morning, we headed out towards the champagne caves to do a tour of the Pommery. Our tour was pretty awesome! We went all through the caves, learned about how champagne is made, found out what makes certain types of champagne different, and got to taste some at the end of our tour.

After the tour, we headed over to the Basilique St. Rémi, which is where St. Rémi, the bishop who baptized Clovis (the first king of France), is entombed. Basically, we were having a French History geek field day. Then, we went back towards town to grab a sandwich for lunch and see the Cathédrale Notre Dame de Reims. I know that this means nothing to anyone who doesn’t know much about French History, so I’ll keep it brief.

This is the cathedral where all of the coronations of the kings of France took place because it’s also where Clovis was baptized. For the religious, Joan of Arc stood beside Charles V in this cathedral as he re-took the French throne after the Hundred Years War. We still had a lot of time to kill after we saw the church, so we went through the Beaux-Arts museum. I’m actually really glad we did, because it’s a really good museum. It’s kind of funny, because the main reason I wanted to go was to see the painting The Death of Marat, but after we went through the whole museum we found out that it was on loan to another museum. Shucks! But it was all good because they had a ton of really awesome impressionist works, which is my favorite! Once we were done with the museum, it was time to make our way to the train station (which we actually had to go WAY out of Reims to get to…debocle), and go home to Lille! It was a really good trip, and I’m really glad we got to see some more of France. Lyon is now my favorite city in France, but I think Reims was especially important to visit because of the rich history there, which we should appreciate as French students. Very enjoyable trip, but it’s good to be stationary back in Lille! :-)

See more pictures on mobileme.

Italia Parte Due: Firenze e Roma!

2010-04-18T12:26:00.077+02:00

Getting to Florence was a little hectic. We had to get a train from Corniglia to La Spezzia, where our train to Florence left from, but our train to La Spezzia was late…go figure. We were REALLY pushing it close on time. I think we were supposed to have like five minutes before our Florence train was scheduled to leave, but we really go into La Spezzia with about two minutes. We BOOKED it to our train, praying it hadn’t left yet! Thankfully, trains in Italy do not run on time, so we had no issue making our train to Florence, which was also late. In fact, the train hadn’t even arrived at the station by the time it was supposed to have left. Whew! Close call. When we got on our train, I pulled out my book to do a little reading. The woman sitting next to me was apparently very interested in The Rock Warrior’s Way, because as soon as I pulled it out, she did a double take and practically crawled into my chair with me to read it. I think she was more interested in the fact that I spoke English, because she proceeded to try to have a conversation with me—half of which I could NOT understand.

It was strange because she was on her phone a lot and speaking a mix of Italian, English, and French. Confused much? Anyway, we finally made it to Florence and Sebastiano, another of Sadie’s mom’s friends, picked us up at the station to take us to his house in Ugnano, just outside of Florence. The weather was completely amazing and the views of the surrounding hills were perfect! We met Sebastiano’s wife Lucia, and one year old son Valerio. We enjoyed an amazing lunch with all of them, and had fun playing with Valerio. He is so completely adorable! After lunch, we went into Florence to meet Mark on the Ponte Vecchio, which crosses the Arno River. It’s a medieval bridge that is home to dozens of jewelry shops. We stopped for some amazing gelato, then headed to the Uffizi to try to get tickets for the next day, but we missed the closing by only a few minutes. We took a brief walk through the Piazza della Signoria, where the city hall and a bunch of copies of famous statues are, before going up to the Piazza Michelangelo, which has amazing views of Florence. We watched most of the sunset, then headed back down for dinner. Mark’s hostel had recommended a place called Kitsch, that had a tapas buffet and drink special. For a buffet, it was surprisingly delicious. I think those deals are the best bang for your buck in Florence. We went back to Sebastiano’s after dinner to catch some Z’s because we were exhausted!

The next day, we had to wake up early to go to the Uffizi, which is like the Louvre of Italy. Mark was SO kind and waited in line for us, as we were late getting into Florence. Sadie and I basically skipped the hour and a half long line and walked right in. We didn’t have much time, so Sadie and I were pretty much just trying to see the highlights. I honestly don’t remember much, but I do remember my two favorite paintings: Birth of Venus and Primavera, both Botticelli. I also really liked the unfinished DaVinci painting. It’s kind of amazing that that guy was so good that he got his rough draft put in one of the best art museums in the world. I kind of was getting overloaded by art at this point—especially since Classical and Renaissance art is not high on my list of favorite things ever. After the Uffizi, we went back to Ugnano to have lunch with Sebastiano and his family. We had some issues with the bus…which never seemed to come when we wanted it to, but we made it after Sebastiano picked us up from the stop. Our lunch was a delicious artichoke risotto. Sebastiano was telling us that they try to eat locally, so the artichokes were from their garden, and the wine we had was from a farmer that Lucia’s dad is friends with. Knowing that your food is local makes lunch that much more delicious! We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out and playing with Valerio, before heading back to Florence to meet Mark for dinner. We went to another buffet, called La Pirata. The food at this one was seriously delicious. I had some of the most amazing porchetta I had ever had. Man I missed that stuff!! After dinner, we said goodbye to Mark (for a couple days) and went back to Ugnano, where we talked with Sebastiano for a while and then went to bed.

On Monday, we were supposed to go to Pisa, but we decided to skip it to see more of Florence. We got to sleep in a bit, then were about to head to the bus stop, but Lucia’s mom intercepted us to give us breakfast. We had some breakfast cookies, then she offered us coffee. I, of course, accepted. Then, she told us she was going downstairs to check on Valerio and that if the coffee finished, I should turn the burner off; however, it was more difficult than it sounds because we were trying to communicate through my broken Italian and her broken English. We figured it out eventually, though. Apparently, though, she was very confused after we left because the moka pot was still on the stove, but empty—I had taken the coffee and then left it on a different burner to cool off—and she was worried that she had forgotten to turn it on and was upset that she hadn’t made coffee for us! It was pretty funny once everyone figured out what was going on. Anyway, Sadie and I first went to Santa Croce, which is a church that contains the tombs of Galileo, Michelangelo, Machivelli, and Rossini. Wow! It’s pretty humbling to be hanging around the tombs of some of the most important people in history. After Santa Croce, we went to Il Duomo—the main sight of Florence. The basilica, which was designed by Brunelleschi, was built without any supports, which is amazing considering the size of the dome. We went up to the cupola, which was SUPER worth it. The views of Tuscany were absolutely spectacular! When we came back down, we went inside, which was not quite as thrilling. The dome is definitely the highlight of the basilica. We also went to the Baptistery next door, where Dante was baptized. There was some kind of odd art project going on because students were spread over half the floor tracing the mosaics on the floor.

We just sat inside and took in the amazing ceiling mosaics. When we came out, we were starving because we hadn’t eaten anything since our gelato snack while waiting in line for the cupola. We found a pretty cheap pizza place, and went in. We were a little wary because the place was absolutely deserted, but we figured out why when we looked at the time…it was 3:30. After lunch, we walked to the Palazzo Pitti, where we spent basically all of our time wandering around the Boboli gardens. They were enormous and gorgeous, so it was kind of a relaxing way to end our day. We went back home for some Tuscan Barbeque…wow. I’ve never had anything like it. We had salad, bread, sausages, and steaks that were just seared on the outside. Delicious food and great company! When you’re traveling, I think the best place to get authentic regional food is at someone’s house. It was a perfect way to end our three days in Florence!

With that, we headed down to Rome the next morning. Our train took a bit longer than expected—four hours, so we didn’t have much time to do stuff. We got to our hostel, where we dropped off our bags and met up with Sadie’s friend, Sarah. First stop of the afternoon: the Coliseum and Roman Forum. Okay, so when we went to Morocco, I thought Volubilis was cool. This was Volubilis on STEROIDS! So amazing! The Coliseum was first, and I thought it was super interesting. I had no idea that it was used as a public forum for capital punishment. I guess it has a pretty gruesome history. It was a little weird walking through it, because I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was walking through a really old baseball stadium. After the Coliseum, we went up to Palatine Hill, where Romulus killed Remus, and where Caesar Augustus’ former house was located. When we got through the gardens and looked out over the Roman Forum, I’m pretty sure all of our jaws dropped. Walking around, you could picture the Ancient Romans walking around, going in and out of all of the buildings. It’s amazing that everything is so well preserved! I also randomly met a guy there who had graduated from Brookfield East. Small world, hey? When we left the Roman Forum and finally tracked down Lukas and Mark, we decided to get some gelato before dinner. I had some really delicious chocolate with orange flavor variety. I wish I had written down more of the flavors I sampled, because I like to try new ones and I ate a LOT of gelato ( 1+ times per day), but my samplings have melted together in my mind into one big delicious mess. We went to find some dinner after our gelato, where I had bucatini all'amatriciana (a traditional roman pasta made with tomato, bacon, and onion), and sampled my first limoncello. When I was in Italy last, I was too afraid to try it. It’s a digestivo—an after dinner drink that is supposed to cap off the meal and aid in digestion—that is made with lemon flavored liquor. It was actually really good! Not too sweet, not too sour, and not to liquor-y. We went back to our hostel after dinner, and I crashed. I was exhausted from our long day of travel and tourism!

On our last day in Italy, we packed in a lot of Roman sightseeing—what Lukas would call “Nazi Tourism”. This was our Vatican day, so we first when to St. Peter’s Square. The basilica was temporarily closed, because the Pope was scheduled to appear in St. Peter’s Square to offer a blessing, which he does every Wednesday. Lukas and I weren’t too keen on waiting around forever to see the Pope, so we decided to head over to the Musei Vaticani to beat the lines there. It was nice to take it pretty leisurely. First, we went through the Egyptian rooms, which were pretty awesome. There was one fully intact mummy that was quite amazing to see. Next, we went through a bunch of rooms of Roman statues. For about half an hour it was really interesting. Then I lost focus and it just became a major overdose. Lukas and I spent a while just waiting for the others to get there, and when they finally did, we had to go back though everything again with them. I’m glad they got to see everything, but I was getting really tired, hungry, and crabby. By this point, all I wanted was to see the Sistine Chapel and get out of there! Unfortunately, I really wasn’t prepared for how big the museum is, and we had to walk though literally everything to get to the chapel. It really wasn’t I was expecting at all. It’s very large for a chapel and there is really nothing to it besides the Michelangelo paintings. Sadie told me something really interesting though—Michelangelo worked from back to front in his work, but the story of Genesis works from front to back. Also, the famous Creation of Adam is no larger than any other panel and is not even in the center. It kind of makes you wonder why that one is the famous one? I guess and art historian could probably tell me why, but it’s something interesting to ponder. We tried to get out of there after the Sistine Chapel, but once again, easier said than done. Still took FOREVER. Once we reached open air, I think we were all hungry and a little edgy. We got pasta and were ready to go back to hit St. Peter’s Basilica. Even though I had seen it before, it was still incredible. I don’t know what it is, but going in that place makes you feel different. I got to enjoy it more because I spent more time just walking around instead of racing up to the cupola.

We also went down to the crypt, which was insane. Not only did we see what is supposedly Peter’s tomb, which is what the Vatican is built over, but Pope John Paul II’s tomb. That really hit home because I remember his death so clearly—he wasn’t just another dead guy. It was the first time I’ve seen the tomb of someone famous and felt like they were a real person—that might sound weird, but it’s true. After we were done at the Vatican, we ran around to Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, and the Spanish Steps. We stopped near the Pantheon for a cappuccino at a place Lukas and Mark recommended—best cup of coffee I’ve had in Europe. Once we met back up with the boys at the Spanish Steps, we went up to Piazza Bonaparte I for a pretty sweet view of Rome at night. We met up with some of Lukas’s IESEG friends for dinner. I was getting really confused at first because I had been speaking in English all day, was trying to order in Italian, and was now conversing in French. My brain cannot handle three languages at once! It was really fun though and Lukas’s friends were very nice. Actually, Stephanie is friends with Noémie, who lives in Global Village back at MU. Once again…small world, hey? After we all got dinner together, we went to see the Trevi Fountain, which was so cool! I was glad I got to see all of the big things I missed on my first time in Rome. We spent quite a while hanging out there, and I was once again exhausted by the time I got back to the hostel. Only difference was that this time, I had to catch an early bus to the airport in the morning! General thoughts on my Italy trip: I LOVE Italy! I could go back a million and three times and never be tired of it. What a beautiful country with friendly people and ridiculous amounts of history and art to see! Amazing. Can’t wait to go back!

If you didn't see them already, more photos here.

Buongiorno Italia! Venizia e Cinque Terre

2010-04-13T18:18:00.072+02:00

As you saw in my last post, Sadie and I caught 3:30 AM shuttle to the airport in Budapest for our flight to Venice. Needless to say, we were pretty tired. From the shuttle, to waiting around in the airport, the plane and the bus to Venice, we tried to catch some Z’s, but it was difficult. By the time we arrived in the “city center” we were completely disoriented and dazed. Finding our hostel was even more fun in this confused state. If you have been to Venice, then you know that it is a labyrinth. The roads all curve in crazy directions, you’re pretty lucky to find clearly marked streets, and every other turn you take dead ends into a piazza or a canal. After what felt like forever, we finally made it to A Venice Museum, where all we wanted to do was take a nap, but unfortunately our room wasn’t ready. We dropped off our bags and went out to grab a bite to eat and start sightseeing. We had a delicious panino for lunch to sustain ourselves, then went to see some churches. First stop: Frari.

This church is home to some amazing Titian paintings, but as I don’t really have an affinity towards classical art, I was more drawn to the amazing choir stalls. They were in beautiful dark handcarved wood. Next, we visited Titian’s rival’s (Tintoretto) Scuola Grande di San Rocco. There are two halls—upper and lower—the first of which is not super thrilling, but when we came up the stairs we realized why this place was worth it—an amazing hall that is literally 360o of art. The carved wood stalls and the mosaic marble floors both take a backseat to the twenty or thirty overhead Tintoretto paintings. Probably one of the most unanticipated amazing things I’ve ever seen. We also stopped by the church next door to see a few more paintings, then headed back to our hostel for a short siesta. We needed it. When we were somewhat revived, we went to the Piazzale Roma to catch a vaporetto, or water bus, for our self-guided Gran Canal tour. With gondolas at around 80 Euro a pop, this is how you do Venice on a student budget.

We passed by many of the main sights of Venice—dozens of palazzi (palaces), the Ponte di Rialto, the Ponte dell’Academia and the Ponte Calatrava. Milwaukeeans should recognize this name—he designed the new wing of the art museum! Very cool to see his work elsewhere in the world. Our first views of the Gran Canal were pretty amazing and seemed to make the whole stress and exhaustion of the morning worth it. We ended up Piazza San Marco—ciao touristi! If you’ve seen someone’s pictures from Venice, chances are they were from this piazza. I’ve never seen people so excited to see pigeons! Anyway, we went into the Basilica San Marco, which was pretty amazing. The whole massive ceiling is in very intricate golden mosaic. We went upstairs and got to look out over Piazza San Marco, which was very cool and me feeling all of the romance that Venice offers.

We headed across the piazza to the Museo Correr, by which point the fatigue was definitely setting in. The museum is in an old palace, which was kind of cool, but the collections were less than thrilling. Sadie and I zipped through it. We got out of there in time to catch some of the sunset at the Ponte di Rialto—very touristy, but so beautiful! Although, I’m pretty sure a sunset in Venice would be beautiful from anywhere. We left to find a restaurant for dinner, having eaten lunch so early. Lonely Planet led us to a really delicious pizzeria—how I missed Italian food! We headed back to our hostel early to try to catch up on sleep. Unfortunately, we returned to a rave going on next to our room, and girls talking at full volume as we lay in our beds in pajamas. Right. Around midnight, I was woken up by my bunkmate to tell me I was snoring…sorry? I’ll try to sleep more quietly next time as to not interrupt your precious slumber.

The next morning didn’t win any points for our hostel, either. The staff never told us when breakfast ended, so when we came in an hour and fifteen minutes after it started, we were pretty shocked to find the food completely gone. Only one thing to do in that case: eat gelato for breakfast. So we did. Next stop after gelato: Palazzo Ducale back at Piazza San Marco. Basically, it was enormous and pretty exhausting. I really thought it would go on forever! The prisons were probably the coolest part because they are under the canal. We grabbed some lunch—spaghetti and clams for me—before going over to Teatro la Fenice, the birthplace of Venetian opera! This was one of my highlights of Venice. It’s a completely amazing theater, and even if it has been rebuilt (two or three different fires), it’s really cool to know that some of the first operas were played there.

After our visit, we wandered along the zatarre (kind of like a boardwalk, but marble?) towards la Chiesa di Santa Maria della Salute—a Venetian landmark that is impossible to miss. We continued our walk towards a live jazz band that someone from our hostel told us about. Apparently free live music in Venice is pretty unheard of, so we go lucky. As we dangled our feet over the canal, watching the sunset, sipping bellini and listening to jazz, I had one of those my-life-is-not-real-right-now moments. Sometimes life just seems bigger than you and you feel really privileged to be here. It was one of those moments. We enjoyed another leisurely pizza dinner, then headed to the train station for our “night” train to Venice. Ha. This was one of those times when you can’t believe your life because it is just THAT crazy. We were supposed to wait for about an hour at the train station, so we headed into the waiting room…which had a really creepy guy in it that kept staring at us…and it literally smelled like poop. I should have guessed then that I was in for a long night. Thankfully, our train got there early, so we could get on and start sleeping. At 1:15 AM, we arrived in Bologna, where we had to wait until 3:30 or so for our train to Parma. Originally, I thought chilling at the train station would be no big deal, but what I didn’t realize was that all the hobos sleep at the train station. I mean, a quite place, clean floor, and roof over your head…what’s not to like? I don’t think I’ve ever felt that alert at that time in the night. After what seemed like forever, we finally got on our Parma train—where we didn’t have real seats. Makes sleeping a bit difficult, but I think we got into Parma around 5, then had to wait for our train to La Spezzia. We were freezing, but we couldn’t go in the waiting room, because it was also full of hobos. Great. Thankfully, our train came in early, so we got to sit on the train for about an hour before it actually left the station, and we had real seats! It’s amazing how the little things in life can make all the difference.

Honestly, I have no idea what time we got to La Spezzia, but I know we had to buy our Cinque Terre park passes and then wait an hour for the train to Corniglia. (Cinque Terre, meaning five lands, is a national park that groups five small towns.) We finally made it to our hostel around 10, so we checked in our stuff, but we couldn’t stay there because we arrived at the beginning of lockout. So, as in Venice, that meant it was time to go exploring! I had to stop for some espresso first, so we went to…well, the one of the only cafes in town. After getting some caffeine, we checked out the Corniglia viewpoints. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many backpackers in my whole life. A whole different breed of more-hardcore-than-thou tourists that reminded me of climbers—except that a lot of them were older. Anyway, the views were pretty amazing, but paled in comparison to our next stop. We took the train over to Vernazza, where we took everything in by lazing in the sun and enjoying a pasta lunch in the main piazza. I got pesto (delicious!), which is apparently a regional specialty. Mmmm. We wanted to head back to our hostel when it reopened around 3, but we accidentally took the train in the wrong direction, so we ended up in Monterosso and had to wait an hour for the next train back to Corniglia. We chilled on the beach and even dipped our feet in the water! The water was pretty freezing, but the fact that it was actually warm enough to take our shoes off and dip our feet in was pretty exciting!

When we got back to Corniglia, we rested and took showers. I really wanted to back to one of the Corniglia viewpoints to watch the sunset, so I got ready to go after my shower and headed over there. Sadie was pretty tired, so she took a little bit longer waking up from her nap and met me later. The sunset, which I BARELY caught, was completely worth it—one of the best I’ve seen. Once Sadie caught up with me, we went on a mission to find some dinner. We were staying in a very small, sleepy town, so our options were limited to like…one. No matter though, I ordered cozzi ripini, or stuffed mussels, which were incredible! One of the best things I’ve eaten, hands down. After dinner we went back to our hostel for a peaceful night of sleep, which was all the more appreciated after the previous few nights.

Our next morning in Cinque Terre, we had our sights set high on taking the costal trail to the next town over, Manarola, as well as the town after that, Riomaggiore. Before we set out, I grabbed a pastry and an espresso from the same café in Corniglia—gotta love routine. The trail was completely amazing, as evidenced in my pictures. Before we walked into Manarola we took a “dangerous” trail down to the water to get some sweet views. Frankly, stairs are not a part of my idea of “dangerous.”

Once we got to Manarola, we chilled on some rocks in the marina for a bit just lounging in the sun, then decided to get some lunch. We had delicious bruschetta from a restaurant that had New Glarus stickers on the door. Wisco represent! After lunch, we made our way over to Riomaggiore on the famous Via dell’Amore. I have to admit, it was so sickeningly adorable that it was vomit worthy. There were HUNDREDS of locks on the fences all along it. I’m not really sure where this tradition comes from, but I got the feeling that it has something to do with locking your love up? We saw quite a few locks on the bridges of Venice, too. When we finally got to Riomaggiore, we walked around a little bit and then went to the beach to hang out and catch some rays. Personally, I didn’t find Riomaggiore to be as nice as a lot of the other towns we went to because of its size, but it was pretty nonetheless.

We decided to head back to Vernazza to watch the sunset and get some dinner. On our way back towards Vernazza, Sadie and I both realize that we really needed to use the bathroom, but we were really struggling to find a bathroom that was not a hole in the ground. We decided to go up to the castle in Vernazza to see if there was a bathroom…sure enough, there was, but only for castle visitors. We sucked it up and paid our three euro to primarily use the bathroom and secondarily see the castle. Sadie took the key and walked in…bummer…another hole, but we sucked it up and used it anyway. The castle was actually really worth it. We went up the tower and got great views of the town. We came back down and sat on the rocks in the marina to enjoy the sunset. Afterwards, we headed to a Lonely Planet recommended restaurant in Vernazza for dinner. The special was seafood spaghetti for two—fortunately Sadie and I were both thinking the same thing and decided to get it, because it was amazing! Perfectly fresh pasta, seafood right out of the water, and local La Spezzia red wine to accompany it all. Yum! When we tried to head back to Corniglia, we had some problems with the train. They were running late, so had some time to kill. We decided to hit up a nearby bar for cocktails, but as we finished our drinks, it was pretty apparent that it was closing.

We got out of there and went back to check on the trains. Apparently the train we thought was late got in earlier than expected, because we missed it. Oops. We had more time to kill before the next train, so we went to a nearby playground to channel our inner children. I think we both realized that we can no longer handle those merry-go-round things, but it was pretty hilarious. We FINALLY got a train back to Corniglia, but had to walk into town (about 10-15 min up the hill from the train station). Thankfully we were near a couple of other people, so we weren’t totally alone because it was kind of creepy. Major plus was the stars, though. Such a clear night and completely dark! I was pretty sad to leave Cinque Terre the next day, but I know I will be back. Favorite place I’ve ever been!

Photos on mobileme.

Bratislava and Budapest

2010-04-07T13:45:00.002+02:00

Well, 3 planes, 13 trains, and 15 cities later, I have returned from my two week euro trip. This spring break, I got to tick off two new countries: Slovenia and Hungary. My first travel day was completely exhausting.

Sadie and I caught a train to Charleroi airport in Belgium at 7:30 in the morning, and didn't get to Budapest until 6:30 that night. Whew! I don't have much to say about our brief stay in Bratislava, but Sadie and I just went out shooting pictures for about an hour before our train to Budapest, so you can look through them on my mobileme. When we got off the train, we were greeted by Sadie's mom's friend, Annamaria. She was unbelievably welcoming, although she had never met either of us! She gave us much needed hugs after our long day and took us to her apartment in Budapest. She prepared a whole meal for us, complete with the famous sweet white Hungarian wine, Tokaj; and hab (meringue) cake for dessert. Yum! We had a really nice time getting to know each other on our first night in Budapest, but shortly after dinner, Sadie and I passed out from our long day of travel.

On our first day in Budapest, Annamaria had laid out a whole plan for us. She is studying to become a tour guide, so she is very knowledge about the cite(s) (Budapest is actually made up of three old cities--Buda, Pest, and Obuda), and the best places to visit. We went to the oldest part of the city, Castile Hill, to see the old fortress, the beautiful royal palace, Matthias Church (which we didn't go inside), and walk around the Fisherman's Bastion, which provided amazing views of the city and the Danube. Sadie and I were awed by the size and the beauty of Budapest. I had no idea Eastern Europe was so unbelievably gorgeous! It's quite different because it's much more industrialized/commercialized than a lot of cities in Western Europe, but completely beautiful. At Castle Hill, there was also an old part of the fortress covered in scars of bombs from the era of Turkish rule. Pretty crazy. After Castle Hill, we wandered down to Andrássy út, the largest boulevard in Budapest.

We went by the Terror Museum, which is a memorial to those who were tortured and/or killed during the communist/fascist regime. While it would have been really enlightening to go inside, I think it would also have been very depressing. I also kind of got the feeling Annamaria wasn't really keen on going on. Instead, we got some dobostorta, a popular Hungarian cake, at Lukács--a beautiful upscale café. We also made a stop at the opera house, which was very cool. Hungary has an incredible music tradition, having given us composers like Franz Liszt and Béla Bartók. Later, we headed down towards St. Stephen's Basilica, which is a pretty incredible basilica because of its beauty.

Also, in the chapel, there is a case that holds the right hand of St. Stephen, who was the first king of Hungary. By this point, it was getting close to dusk, so we walked across the Liberty Bridge (which was my favorite bridge) towards the Liberty Statue. On our way up, we stopped in this church that is literally in a cave. The rock inside is all covered in concrete (which is sad), but the church is built into the side of a mountain. How cool is that? There is actually a pretty good deal of rock in Budapest (odd for a city). I even saw a couple boulderers out and about! We hiked up the side of the hill to the Liberty Statue and the Citadella. What a perfect place to see the sun go down on an amazing city!

The next day was Easter, which was one of my highlights of my entire trip. Annamaria took us to her parents house for Easter where we enjoyed one of the most intense feasts of my life. Her parents greeted us like we were their own children, with open arms and and big smiles. We sat down for a delicious lunch of chicken soup, stuffed cabbage (so amazing!), breaded chicken, potatoes, salad, and pastry. I opted for the cherry pastry of the three different kinds. I loved it, so Annamaria's mom insisted that I try the turo kind, which is kind of like a Hungarian custard. Hard to describe, but I split one with Sadie. By this point, I literally felt like I was going to explode, so I had to refuse when she told me to try the apple kind, too. Then, she asked me if she could bring out the next course. That's right. The next course. So, we had an amazing chocolate cake, after which my stomach actually blew up. Just kidding. We retreated to the living room for juice and more cracker type things.

I don't think I've ever been so full in my life. After lunch, Annamaria's dad took us to Eger--a beautiful town not far from Annamaria's village. We walked around Dobó Square, Eger Castle, and the basilica. It's such a picturesque little town! It was pretty funny--at the castle there was something going on that reminded me of Civil War days in Brookfield, where everyone dresses up in period costume. Kind of odd to see people walking around in tights with arrows slung over their shoulder. After enjoying our walk around Eger, we a little bit outside the town to the wine caves, where we sampled Bull's Blood--one of the more famous Hungarian wines.

It wasn't my favorite wine ever, but it was good. The experience was more interesting than the wine itself. Being in a cave with a Hungarian woman decanting the wine out of....well, you'll have to see my pictures because I just do NOT know how to describe it. We went back to Annamaria's parents house, where her mom force fed us ham and bread out of the kindness of her heart. I didn't think I would ever eat again. We got on the train back to Budapest where I took a small coma.

On our last day in Budapest, we had a bit of a late start. It was by this day that I realized that Hungarians frequently eat sandwiches for breakfast. We're taking salami...for breakfast.

I was kind of expecting this because I read something about southern Europe eating sweeter things in the morning and northern Europe eating more savory foods. Interesting to get used to as I ate my ham sandwich for breakfast. Because we slept in, we didn't see too much. It was also raining, so that was a bit of a bummer. Our first stop was Heros' Square, which is home to a monument honoring the founders of Hungary. It's massive and takes over the whole end of Andrássy út. It's definitely impossible to miss. After walking around the square, we went to Vajdahunyad Castle--a copy of a castle in Romania. Very pretty! Inside it is a Magyar History Museum. Side note: Hungary is not anything like "Hungary" in Hungarian. It's actually "Magyarország." Right.

Therefore "hungarian" is "magyar." Anyway, the museum was not super thrilling, but the building was beautiful. Then we walked past Parliament before doing some souvenir shopping and eating some kurtokalacs--a Hungarian pastry that is thin dough cooked on a spit over coals and covered with sugar. Mmmm. The weather was pretty miserable, so we retreated back to Annamaria's for leftover stuffed cabbage and a LOT of sweets that her mom packed up for us. So delicious! We spent the rest of the evening packing up and trying to get to bed semi-early so we could get up for a 3:30 AM airport shuttle...whew!!

More pictures on mobileme.

L'anniversaire de Mandi à Paris

2010-03-25T18:01:00.000+01:00

For Mandi's 21st birthday, Sadie, Emily, and I took her to Paris for her first visit ever! Sadie and I met Emily and Mandi at Notre Dame in the oldest part of the city. The cathedral was beautiful, as always, but we decided to go up the bell tower, which I had never done before. SO WORTH IT!

The views were probably the best I've seen in all of Paris and I've seen quite a few (top of Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Sacré Coeur hill, etc.). Completely gorgeous! There was also a smattering of quotes from Victor Hugo's Cathédrale de Notre Dame (more commonly known to anglophones as The Hunchback of Notre Dame), which conjured images of the Disney movie in my mind. I felt like Quasimodo as climbed the ladder up to the tower and stood next to a larger-than-life sized bell. Very cool! We were pretty hungry, so we stopped for kebabs and leisurely ate them while sitting next to the Hôtel de Ville. Next stop was the Eiffel Tower, for posterity's sake.

After walking through the Champs de Mars, we hiked up to the Trocadero for a more complete view and hung out there for a while. We did the obligatory walk down the Champs Elysées to the Arc de Triomphe, and then headed to the Latin Quarter for dinner. By this point, it started pouring. Literally. I haven't seen rain like that in a loooong time! We ran into the first decent looking restaurant we could find. We had planned to stop by a bar in the Latin Quarter after dinner, but our long day and the rain persuaded us otherwise. We ended up buying some champagne and cookies to while celebrating in our luxury accommodations of Hotel Luna. And by luxury, I mean pretty freaking modest. We had a good time just being ridiculous together.

The next morning, our first venture was to Saint-Chappelle, which was built by Louis IX, I believe. (Perhaps I did learn something in l'Histoire de la France?) Holy wow. I have never seen stained glass like that in my life. If you are ever in Paris, this is a DO NOT MISS church! Definitely one of the more incredible churches I have ever been in period.

We then walked across the Pont Neuf (the oldest bridge in Paris) to the Louvre just to see the building and stroll through the Jardin des Tuileries. Before we went home, we had a couple more stops to make: Sacré Coeur, Montmartre (where we ate lunch) and the Moulin Rouge. The Moulin Rouge was a new stop for me, and I'm glad we saw it. It's one of those silly touristy things that are just hard to miss. We got a coffee across the street and chatted for a while, then headed back home to Lille.

Although I didn't see a lot of new things in Paris, it was really fun to watch someone experience for the first time. I also had kind of forgotten how much I really do love Paris. I can sit here and complain about how touristy it is, but the fact is, there's just something about the city that draws people to it. I can't explain it, but Paris really is a little magical. Photos on mobileme.

Antwerpen

2010-03-19T11:35:00.000+01:00

Well, we've had quite a lack of updates recently, but now that I'm back from my vacation and basically done with finals, I have a lot more time to update everyone on my life in the past month or so.

On the 13/14 of March, I went to Antwerp to visit my former Global Village roommate, Florence. Yay! I was so psyched to see her!! Apparently, I was so excited that I forgot to bring my camera...which means no pictures. When I got of the train at Antwerpen Centraal, I walked through an enormous station out to an incredible entrance, which you can see in this youtube video. I waited a little bit for Florence to get there, but finally found her taking a picture for some tourists in true Florence fashion. I was so happy to see her! Florence knows a TON about Antwerp, so we immediately set out on our tour. We walked near the shopping district, where Florence explained about the gold statues on top of the buildings, which were symbols of the former guilds that were housed there. Our first stop was an iconic Antwerp landmark--Rubenshuis--the former house of the painter, Rubens. The house was amazingly luxurious for a painter. I guess Rubens was not exactly the starving artist type. There was a lot of Italian influence in some sculptures he had and Asian influence in his curio cabinets and china. I was really amazed by his walls, which were gilded leather. Pretty plush, huh? After wandering our way through Rubens' house, we met our other Global Village friend Dennis and headed towards the Grand Place. First thing we noticed: some odd contest going on with cows. Kind of made me feel at home in a weird way. I think they had to try to guess the weight of the cow and then they could keep it? Not really sure...it was a little bizarre. Still a little bizarre, but entertaining was the story that Florence and Dennis told me about how Antwerp got its name. The story goes that there was a giant who lived under a bridge and made everyone who passed him pay a toll. One guy was upset about this and refused to pay the toll. They got into a spat and the guy cut off the giant's hand and threw it at him--hence the name Antwerpen, or "Throwing Hand". Kinda crazy, right? We walked over towards the river and the old fortress, which was really cool. The fortress was small, but really pretty--I just wish you could go inside! After that, we decided to make our way over towards the University of Antwerp where Flo and Dennis go to school for a short tour. On our way, we stopped in a gorgeous little courtyard with an amazing Jesuit Church. This was one of the prettier churches I have ever seen, and Florence's sister just got married there last weekend (April 24th?)! It's always nice to have a personal connection with all of these old European buildings. We walked all around the University campus (which is pretty small), which was an interesting mix of old and modern. I even got to see a classroom--a little more high tech than ours in Lille. And by a little, I mean a lot. It's a beautiful school! We stopped for a coffee in the student union and then visited Dennis' apartment. I'm sure anyone from GV would be seriously curious about Dennis' natural habitat. Let me just say, it's much tidier then you would expect, but there is no food besides Coke. 5 liters to be exact, because that's how much Coke Dennis drinks every week. After this pit stop, we parted with Dennis and walked around the shopping district for a bit. I must say that Antwerp seems extremely chic to me. I'm not sure, but I would guess that's due to the diamond trading history in Antwerp and the money associated with it. By this time, it was starting to get dark and we were starting to get tired, so we headed towards Flo's house, which is just a little bit outside of Antwerp. Her house is so amazing! Very modern in a super Flemish neighborhood. Let me tell you a secret: we may have different traditions, languages, foods, etc., but when it comes down to it, a family is still a family no matter where you are, and a home is a still a home. I feel like everyone is always so excited to meet a foreign family, but we're all a lot more similar than you think. Her family was so kind and welcoming to me--I was so appreciative! More on that in later entries. Florence and I had been planning to go back downtown for dinner, but the smells coming from her kitchen persuaded us otherwise. We ate with her parents, younger sister, and two brothers. Flo has another older sister and older brother, too. Huge family! It was really cute because most of them speak some English and were all trying very hard to include me in the conversation. It made me smile. We had a wonderful dinner of steak, potatoes, salad (with olive oil from their home in Tuscany), and finished with dessert rice with raspberry coulis. I'd never had dessert rice before, but it was so amazing! Of course, Flo also had to end with a couple pieces of chocolate. I think her family is just as amazed at her chocolate obsession as we were last semester! Delicious and enjoyable meal. After dinner, Florence and I went downtown for a drink. We passed the new courthouse, which Florence told me was built with cones on top as a tribute to the french fry culture there--pretty cool. We went to a really cute little restaurant and had a glass of wine, then decided to head back home for a restful night of sleep.

The next morning, we woke up to bakery and fresh squeezed orange juice that Florence's mom had got for us. So delicious! After breakfast, I said goodbye to her family, and we left to meet Sadie at the train station. We took Sadie through a quick tour around Antwerp of a lot of the same things I had seen the day before. Then we went to the Plantin-Moretus Museum, the house and workshop of the owners of one of the first printing companies. This museum was SO cool! It was amazing to see some of the first books ever and the place where they were printed. The museum also houses the two oldest working presses in the world. One of my favorite things was a score I saw--one of the first ever printed. It was amazing to see something so monumental to the world of music. After the museum, we were starving, so we got some lunch. It was also--surprise, surprise--delicious. Sadie and I both got stoofkarbonaden (yes, I had to look that up), which is a kind of beef stew made with beer, and fries--very Flemish, indeed. Another GV friend, Christophe, met up with us for a bit as we finished our lunch. We walked around a bit and they took us through the tunnel under the river. You go down two sets of these incredibly long wooden escalators, then walk 500 meters to the escalators up, and eventually pop out on the other side of the river, in a park with perfect views of Antwerp. So pretty, and the journey over is definitely worth a story. To round off my trip to Antwerp, we stopped at Désiré de Lille for waffles. Yummm. :-)

Here is one of Sadie's pictures of the two of us by the river:

Comment-on s'amuse à Lille?

2010-03-18T12:40:00.002+01:00

March has been a long month of lots of work and lots of play. First, let's talk about play. I've been able to discover a lot of new things in this city since returning from my trip, and I've come to appreciate Lille more than ever. I really do love this city!

Mandi and I have been spending many afternoons discovering cafés around Lille. We really like Café de Paris, which is a pretty standard French café, but the people who work there are very nice to us, it's not outrageously expensive, and the coffee is good. We also had some really good coffee at a place over by Wazemmes one Sunday morning. Look at this adorable sugar cubes they gave us! It says "veux tu m'épouser? oui ou non," which means "do you want to marry me? yes or no." Love them! All of the sugars have different phrases. I think I kept this one. I've really been enjoying our coffee dates and frequent walks through Vieux Lille, which is most definitely the best part of Lille. The Jardins Vauban (Vauban Gardens) are pretty, too. We ate lunch there one day before our Flaubert mid-term and there were all sorts of children running around doing a scavenger hunt. Too cute!

We've also been exploring some new bars. The Vieux Lille bar scene is twenty times different from the bars on Rue Solférino which the students frequent. We've been to Drugstore (funny name, I know) a couple times, which is a lot more relaxed and good for having a couple drinks and good conversation. Just a more pleasant atmosphere overall, however I do appreciate the fact that O'Scotland has like...23 beers on tap for me to sample.

I also had my first legitimate discothéque experience. Very French. We went to celebrate Monika's birthday, so it was fun being out with a lot of people from my residence, but I'm not jumping to go back en boîte anytime soon. I just am not capable of going out like the French. They usually go to the bars until around 1 or 2 AM and THEN head out to the discothéque. By then, it is most definitely my bedtime no matter what continent I'm on. They stay out until 4 or 5 in the morning...a little much for me, but it was fun for one night.

After that very French night, we decided that we needed to throw a North American party in our residence. Angela, Sadie, and I worked hard on music playlists, Emily made burgers (hand packed!) and fries, and we feasted. That burger tasted so delicious, I can't even describe it. After we cleaned up, we headed downstairs to the basement to listen to North American music and hang out. Mandi and Emily taught the French kids how to play Flip Cup, which was hilarious. I'll admit, I did my part and played for Team 'Merica one round. I was a good contributer, too, because I flipped my cup on the second try. Guess who won? Team 'Merica, of course. It turned into a hilarious battle of France vs. USA. In the eternal words of Tom Petty "she was an American girl."

Un jour mon prince viendra...

2010-03-07T16:47:00.015+01:00

On the weekend of March 6, I went to the place where all dreams come true. That's right--Disneyland Paris! Our friend Mikael, who used to live in Global Village, graciously took Mandi, Angela, and I to Disneyland for the day, got us discounted tickets and food, and procured something like 50 fast passes for us!

The night before we left, the three of us went with Mikael to his friend Charlotte's house for dinner so we could all meet each other and make some plans for the next day. Mandi and I were jumping-out-of-our-skin excited, and it was Angela's first time going to Disneyland, so I think she was part excited, part terrified of our Disney obsess-fest. We had a good time trying to figure out what the French Disney songs translated to in English. Difficult ones include "A la file indienne," "Ce rêve bleu," and "Tu t'envoles." (Lit: "To The Indian Line" "This Blue Dream" and "You Make Yourself Fly"...Real Translation: "Following the Leader" "A Whole New World" and "You Can Fly.") There were a couple other difficult ones that I can't remember the translations for. Guess them for extra credit: "J'en ai rêvé" and "Partir là-bas." We went to bed pretty early though because it was going to be an early morning.

We left Lille at 6:30 AM. Yes, you read that right. We're serious about our Disney! We got to Walt Disney Studios as it opened and jumped in line for Crush's Coaster. The line gets REALLY long if you're not there early, and there are no fast passes. I have trouble explaining this ride, but it was awesome. It's a roller coaster, but it starts off as kind of a story thing, then you get to the top of a hill, and the car starts spinning freely as you "ride the East Australian Current." Watch the video if you want a better idea. It was cute because Crush, the turtle, had a southern French accent instead of a Californian accent. We also went to Stitch, Live! which was interesting because we saw it in French. In this show, Stitch interacts with the audience, so the three American girls were praying we wouldn't get called on! We were able to understand everything that was going on, but I really didn't feel like butchering the French language in a room full of French people. We met up with Mikael's friend Aurélien, and all rode the Tower of Terror and the Rockin' Roller Coaster. Fun!

After that, we headed over to Disneyland to secure Fast Passes. We also met up with Mikael's friend Caroline. Caroline, Aurélien, and Mikael all work at Disney, so they know how to cheat the system and we were able to get Fast Passes for everyone for all the rides at one time. Score! After we rounded everyone up, we got some lunch. Those chicken nuggets tasted like America, but I still paid tribute to France by putting mayonnaise on my fries. We had a great afternoon of rides like Indiana Jones, Pirates, Space Mountain, Les Voyages de Pinocchio, Peter Pan's Flight, Buzz Lightyear's Lazer Blast (my first time on it...so fun!), It's a Small World (it really is), Big Thunder Mountain, Phantom Manor, and Star Tours (made me really motion sick...ugh).

We also got to see the Once Upon a Dream Parade, and saw the fireworks before park closing. I ended the night with my first BigMac ever, and made it home to Lille at 2:30 AM. Long day, but what can I say? There's nothing like Disney to bring out the child in anyone.

Josh Ritter and the Swell Season!

2010-02-26T12:43:00.004+01:00

(EDIT: Morocco post here! Pictures on mobileme.)

Shortly after my return to France, I went with Angela to see Josh Ritter and the Swell Season (from the film Once) in concert in Paris. Random Thursday night trip! In fact, I had told Angela I would go a long time ago and forgotten about it until she reminded me on Wednesday night. Whoo! Surprise Paris adventure! Thankfully TGV tickets were not TOO expensive, so we skipped our French class and headed over to Paris. We left kind of early to save a bit on our train, so we grabbed some dinner in a café near the venue. We're sitting there chatting, eating our pizza, when in walks Glen Hansard from the Swell Season with some of his crew. Umm...what?!? That was my brush with fame for the day. After dinner, we headed over to the Bataclan for the concert. The venue was actually really nice and we managed to get pretty good seats. Josh Ritter opened, although I have to admit I wish he had been the headliner. He is such an amazing performer! Highlights included him playing Girl in the War completely unplugged (lights out even!) and To The Dogs or Whoever a whole minute faster than normal...fantastic.

Josh got cut a couple minutes short because some rando girl came up on stage to play a really bad song...bummer. But after her, The Swell Season came on, and although I'm not super familiar with their music, it is right up my alley and I really enjoyed the show. Glen Hansard is intense and Markéta Irglová is adorable. Plus, they played the only song that I know (When Your Mind's Made Up), which was exciting. We left right before the encore, so that was a little sad, but it was fine. We were actually lucky because the women who was at the merchandise stand told us normally Josh joins them for the encore but that night he happened to be out with his wife instead, so we didn't miss it! I would have cried if I had missed a single moment of Josh Ritter because he is seriously that good.

L'affaire d'OFII

2010-02-24T19:51:00.002+01:00

So, I realize I've been slacking more than a bit on the blog, so I've decided to back date everything and skip over some of the vacation stuff for a bit because it takes FOREVER to write! Don't worry--I'll get to it soon enough now that my midterms are over, but I want to provide you with a few tidbits from the last month in the meantime. I'll provide a link when I post anything about my February vacation.

(EDIT: Lisbon and Madrid post now available here!)

Upon my arrival back in Lille, I was greeted by an envelope in my room from the French government. This can only mean good things. It was a letter informing me about my mandatory medical exam for OFII (don't ask me what that stands for...) to insure that I hadn't infected the entire population of France with tuberculosis and provide me with certification of my legality in France. Thankfully, a few of the other international kids had their appointments at the same time as me so I didn't have to trek it out to the office alone.

Fun situation number 1: When we got to the office for our 12:30 appointments (which I had to miss an exam for, by the way), we found out just how French this office is--it doesn't even open until 1!! Surprise! So, we waited outside until they finally opened and went in with a bunch of other people. They ladies at the desk took our names and we waited until we were called.

Fun situation number 2: After a bit, they called Sadie and I back for our chest x-rays. They took us each to little changing-esque rooms and told us to take our shirts off. Sadie went into the x-ray room before me and I could hear the woman talking to her and telling her to go back a few times. After a few minutes of awkwardly standing in a two doored room in my jeans and my bra, the woman came to get me and not so politely told me that I also needed to take my bra off...HELLO! Bienvenue à la France, I guess... That was more than a little strange for me. After that...experience...there was a lot of waiting around until the doctor strutted in a few hours later to ask me if I was healthy, smoke, or take any medications. After that, they took my 55 euro stamp (which I'm still not sure the purpose of) and pasted something in my passport claiming my legality in France.

Fun situation number 3: You thought this would end after the visit, right? Wrong. We finally all finished and headed out back towards the tram to go back to Lille for class. I needed a ticket, so I put my money in the machine...it thought for a while...then told me there was a problem with the payment and ended the transaction! I sat there for about a minute sputtering about what I should do and a nice guy came up and asked me what had happened. I explained to him how the machine ate my money and he told me that I could go to the office down the road to get a ticket, but they wouldn't give me my money back. A tram showed up on the other side and he said he would be right back and jumped over to talk to the conductor. It was at this point that I realized he was from Transpole, the transportation company in Lille. When he got back he told me that there would be someone coming to help me out. The next tram showed up and I thanked him for his help and a bunch of other Transpole guys got off. They came up to me and started asking me what was going on and I explained everything...kind of intimidating when about five French men are all talking over each other and asking you questions at the same time, but eventually one of them wrote me my own personal ticket (I still have it!). They were actually super nice and pretty funny. One of the guys asked us where we were from and we told them we were Americans studying at La Catho and they wanted to know where in America we were from. When I told one of them I was from Wisconsin, he got all excited about Little House on the Prairie. Pretty funny...apparently that's a popular show here? I didn't even know it WAS a show. Then there was the one who asked Sadie if she was planning on marrying a French guy or an American guy when we were on the tram. Okay?? I finally made it back just in time for Version class, but definitely not without some excitement.

Maroc (Tanger, Meknes, Casablanca, et Marrakech)

2010-02-19T16:51:00.094+01:00

Finally...the last installment of my February travels! On Valentine's Day, we left Madrid for our six day Moroccan adventure. We flew in to Tangier, where it was really comforting to hear some French again after a few days of not knowing which end was up. We arrived in Tangier, and I have to admit it was one of the oddest sensations I've ever had. I have never been anywhere where I was very clearly a minority and I felt really vulnerable. After going through passport check, we changed our money to Moroccan Dihrams (1 Dihram is about 11 Euros), and grabbed a taxi to our hotel. Our taxi driver was really nice and basically talked our ears off. I got the impression that Moroccans are extremely friendly. As we got into the city, I realized that the driving situation in Morocco is CRAZY. There are no lanes, and few stop signs. Driving is more like a game of chicken than an organized set of rules and traffic laws. And I thought European drivers were crazy! There also aren't seat belts in cabs, which was weird for me. I feel naked in a car without a seat belt, so I grabbed for it every time I crawled into a petit-taxi, with no seat belt to be found. Somewhere between our first taxi ride and hotel check-in, we realized that the currency was going to be a problem. What was good was that everything in Morocco is really cheap, but the bills are really big, so we were in a constant cycle of Mandi-owes-Lauren-who-owes-Sadie-who-owes-Mandi. It was slightly terrifying going from the airport to the hotel with 2,000 Moroccan Dihrams in my wallet. Yikes! By the time we checked in, we realized we were really hungry, so we went across the street to a small restaurant that the Lonely Planet book had recommended called Number 1. We were the only customers in the restaurant, so we had excellent service. They took our orders and gave us some olives to munch on while we waited for our food. I'm not a huge olive person, but I really tried to like them while we were in Morocco. I warmed up to them a little...but I can't say that I really enjoy them very much. Our food came after a bit, and it was possibly the most heavenly thing I have ever eaten. I ordered Tagine d'Agneau with plum sauce. The lamb was perfectly cooked in its own juices and plums...delicious. We all had excellent lunches there. We went exploring for a bit after lunch. We walked down to the coast, where we could see Gibraltar across the straits. Very cool! The only downside of the coast was that we were constantly harassed by guys who were shouting at us in Spanish, English, French, Arabic, and various other languages. Little did we know this would be a theme throughout our trip. I kind of knew this would be a problem because we were three girls traveling alone, but it was still annoying. We caught a petit-taxi to the Medina (city center), where we literally got lost. We ended up past the shops near the Kasbah wandering around through narrow walkways to peoples' houses. Being lost in the Tangier Medina was slightly invigorating, but also kind of terrifying. I had some weird emotions going on because I've never been put in a culture that is so different from my own before. I really was experiencing quite a bit of shock and, as I said, vulnerability. I really can't describe how I felt besides uncomfortable. I kept saying that I felt like I was intruding on someone else's life--that I was in a private place, where I really wasn't supposed to be. It began to rain as we made it back towards the shops, so we caught a taxi home. We we really excited to find the Olympics in English on the TV in our hotel, so we watched them for a while. It's really not that safe/acceptable for women to be out alone after dark, so we got dinner in the hotel restaurant and watched some more Olympics before going to bed.

In the morning, we were supposed to take a train from Tangier to Meknes, but apparently the trains were not running from Tangier. I have yet to figure out why. So, we ended up taking a bus to Kenitra and then getting on a train from Kenitra to Meknes. A really nice grand-taxi guy took us from the train station in Meknes to our hostel. This was my first experience in a Hosteling International hostel...it was a little bootleg, but we made light of the situation. More on that later. We were starving by the time we got there, so we went out to El-Hdim Square to find some food. When we walked into the square, I was floored. Not only was it beautiful, but it was filled with people watching musicians, listening to storytellers, and vendors trying to sell magical cures. This is the Morocco that I was talking about. We sat down to eat a restaurant overlooking the square and were thrilled to see food. I ordered my first mint tea of the trip, and it was everything I could have hoped for it to be! Unfortunately, there were stray cats lurking. I have never seen such aggressive cats in my life. They could clearly smell our food and were just about jumping up onto the table to get at it. I love cats, but we were shooing these ones away every 30 seconds to keep them from jumping up onto our legs and begging for food. We moved inside the restaurant, hoping it would get better, but no luck there either. The cats followed us. Then, the heavens opened up and it started hurricaning. Okay, perhaps hurricaning is an exaggeration, but it was pouring rain and the winds were knocking umbrellas over like crazy. About this time, we decided to get out of there. We went back to our hostel and stayed in for the rest of the night. Speaking of our hostel...it was interesting. Kind of like glorified camping. Our door opened up to the outside, there was one window in the room and one light. Our beds were configured in a tight U-shape, and we were freezing. They charged for the showers, and the bathrooms were a short walk away. This would have been fine...if they had provided toilet paper (which we had to buy at the market), and if the water hadn't been completely shut off after 11 PM. Woot. But, we made the best of it by spending our evening trading stories and playing cards. Just so you know how big of French nerds we are, we played BS in French...making it MT (merde de taurau), which amused us for hours. We had a good time just being goofy, and eventually went to bed.

The next morning, we went to Volubilis, just outside of Meknes, which is a UNESCO site of well preserved Ancient Roman ruins. We called our taxi driver from the day before and asked him if he could take us out there. He said he could, but he ended up switching with another driver who shares his car because it was his day to work. To switch, we ended up going right into the slums of Meknes. That was really eye opening. That was the first moment when I realized that I really was in Africa. Morocco is very well developed, but the slums look just like any other African country. That was one of the first moments in my life that I felt truly grateful for everything I have and the opportunities I've been given. We drove out of the slums and into the countryside. It was so beautiful green and lush. After about 40 minutes, we finally made it to Volubilis. Despite the mud and rain, this was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. It's literally like a Roman city in the middle of North Africa. Amazing. We hired a guide to show us around the grounds, and he kindly took our pictures throughout the site while he explained the history of the ruins. The mosaics were incredible, and the hammams (baths) were recognizable. The giant arch near the forum was probably my favorite part. I stood in the middle of the forum and smiled as I thought about how thousands of years ago, ancient romans stood on that same spot discussing politics and who knows what else. One of the more amazing moments in my life. After our tour, we went back to the train station and were on our way to Casablanca. After we got there, we had "linner" at a nice place called La Taverne du Dauphin, where I had a delicious piece of St. Pierre fish. The staff was extremely nice and complimented us on our French. That was a common theme throughout Morocco which was really nice. Definitely doesn't happen in France! After our meal, we wanted to walk around a little bit, but it started to rain again, so we went back to the hostel to hanging out. Sadie read to Mandi and me about the history of Morocco. Easier to follow when you're reading it yourself, but still interesting.

On our one full day in Casablanca, the first thing we did was tour the Mosque Hassan II. This mosque was so incredibly beautiful! I've never seen anything like it. The prayer room was absolutely stunning! Almost everything in the mosque came from Morocco except for some marble and glass from Italy. The mosque can fit 25,000 people indoors, plus a bunch on the grounds outside. Our guide was really nice and took a liking to us because we spoke French (even though we were on an English tour). We also saw the hammam downstairs (it's not operating yet, but it is expected to be in a couple years), and another room where people can wash their hands before they pray. The entire grounds were incredible, and I think it was one of the best sights we saw in Morocco. After the mosque, we went on an adventure to retrace Sadie's grandmother's footsteps. We had some problems getting a petit-taxi because they wanted to rip us off because we are tourists, but we knew better. We eventually got one and headed over to the old stade (stadium) where Sadie's grandmother used to go running. After that we headed over to find her old house. It was pretty cool seeing someone reconnect with their family's past like that. By this point, we were getting pretty hungry, so we stopped at the nearby Café Rif for lunch. Of course, I had tagine and mint tea--it wouldn't be Morocco without either of them. After lunch, we did a walking tour of Casablanca, as laid out by Lonely Planet. It was really cool to walk around and learn a little bit about the history of Casablanca with Sadie as our guide. At one point, we were in a square full of pigeons--literally--and all of the little kids were running around chasing them, laughing their brains out. It's moments like those that make you realize that people aren't always as different as they seem, and the same things make all of us tick. Those children were so adorable to watch! After our walk, we went back to our hostel to rest for a little bit, then headed out to dinner at Squala--a restaurant in a old castle near our hostel. Our food was really delicious and the highlight may have been dessert when Sadie ordered chocolate fondue and they brought her trough full of fruit and chocolate. We returned to our hostel with full bellies and had a very restful night of sleep.

The next morning we caught our Harry Potter style train to Marrakech--compartments and everything! Unfortunately no Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, though. The scenery from the train was incredible--from the slums, to the greenery, to the desert. I'd never seen anything like it. When we arrived in Marrakech it was pouring...surprise, surprise. Our hostel was in the middle of the Medina, so finding it was quite a challenge. The directions we had were something to the effect of "walk straight into the souqs, turn left at the jewelry stand, go under and arch, turn right, go under another arch, walk past a goat, walk down three stairs, duck under a beam, walk straight, and you'll see our door!" Right. Not at all simple. After a long time, we finally made it there. We settled in, but went out right away to go find some lunch. We went back out towards the Djemaa El Fna Square, where we basically just sat down at the first random place that looked cheap and appetizing enough. It was hilarious though, because the longer we sat there, the more we got to hear of the guy working the front: "Hello tourist! Shish-kabob! Hola tourist! Couscous! Thank you tourist!" Too funny. We were feeling pretty ambitious after we were fed, so we set out to see some sights. Trying to go through the Medina to get to said sights was apparently not the greatest idea, because we got super lost in the pouring rain. Eventually we made it back towards the hostel and just chilled until the rain calmed down a bit and got some dinner before going to bed.

The next day--our last in Morocco--we finally got to do some sight-seeing, and the weather was beautiful! We went to the Marrakech museum, which was beautiful. It was an old palace and housed collections of Moroccan artisanal products. Then we went over to the Madrasa Ben Yussef, which used to be an Islamic college. If only Marquette looked like that college...wow! I have to admit that our dormitories are significantly larger, though. The tile work all over Morocco is really impressive, and this college made no exception. We also got admission to some old hammams, which were fun to walk around. After touring, we went back to the souqs to do some shopping. We wandered around haggling with shopkeepers for the wares, and stopped to get lunch at a really delicious café for pita sandwiches. We walked around a bit more after lunch, then headed back to the hostel to get our bags and go to the airport. And so ended my exhausting and wonderful February vacation! Actually, when we got back to Paris, we saw on the news that a mosque in Meknes had collapsed, killing and injuring countless people, because of the unseasonable rains just three days after we had been there. It's amazing how much more connected you feel with the world when you're traveling. If I had been in the United States, I would never have known of the event even occurring or where in the world Meknes is located. I feel a lot more connected to parts of the world I wouldn't have thought twice about before, and I think that's the reason why seeing the world is so important. As cheesy as it may sound, we are all in this thing together, so we need to learn to look outside ourselves and see what life is like for someone else. Compassion makes the world go around.

A lot more pictures on mobile me. Check them out!

Lisboa y Madrid

2010-02-14T00:27:00.000+01:00

How cool is it that "y" means "and" in both Portuguese and Spanish?? Well, I think so at least.

We last left off at my journey to the airport for my flight to Lisbon. I had no problems and actually had the most pleasant flight of any on Air Lingus. I guess it pays to fly a legit airline? The nice Irish woman next to me offered me candy after we got on the plane, too...further proof that the Irish are some of the nicest people around. I was also really grateful for my Aussie friend, James that I met while getting off the plane. Neither of us spoke any Portuguese and we both needed to get to the city from the airport, so we tackled the bus together and chatted a bit. Always nice to have someone else with you. James got off a couple stops off before me, so then I was on my own until I could find Sadie. I made it to the general vicinity of the hostel, but then got very confused due to my poor navigation skills and couldn't figure out where the hostel was. I was texting Sadie to see if she was in the city yet and where she was so I could find her....and all of a sudden there I was...lost in Lisbon...in the rain...with a dead phone. Great. Fortunately, I walked back towards where I thought the hostel might be and found Sadie waiting outside the hostel! We walked inside and I was floored! The hostel (Living Lounge Hostel) was probably nicer than most of the hostels I have ever stayed in. The staff was incredibly nice/helpful and the location (in Chiado) was perfect. There's my ten second ad for them--they were great! By the way, our room was music themed and therefore had a working disco ball...cool, right? Sadie and I were both starving by the time we got there, so we ventured out to find a quick bite to eat. We ended up in a café a couple doors down where we had our first-time-in-this-country-don't-speak-the-language experience that was OH so familiar to me from Italy. One of the waiters spoke English, though, so we made it through. After lunch, we took the historic Tram 28 up through the windy hills and narrow streets of Lisbon towards the town. After we got off, we spent the entire rest of the day wandering back down towards our area of town taking pictures and stopping at various view points along the way. Lisbon is a beautiful city--one of the most beautiful I have ever seen--and I was awed by it. I was completely taken with the tiles that cover the facades of the majority of the buildings and couldn't stop commenting about how pretty they were. We stopped at the Sé, which is a cathedral from the middle ages. The cathedral itself was beautiful, but what was even more beautiful was the old cloister. After the Lisbon Earthquake in 1755, they were excavating to rebuild the cathedral and found a huge pit of roman ruins, so they rebuilt the cathedral right in front of the old cloister and you can go back to see the remains of it and the roman ruins. Sadie and I were not at all expecting to see roman ruins in this random cathedral, so we were really pleasantly surprised! Interesting note: while we were at the Sé, we saw both James and the German couple Sadie was sitting with on her train...random?? When we finally made it back to our hostel, we were both exhausted and hungry. Luckily, our hostel provided meals each night from their chef for 8 euros: soup, salad, main course, dessert, and wine! Doesn't get much cheaper. We made a reservation and then relaxed a bit. In Portugal, dinner is pretty late, so the hostel served it around 8 PM...not exactly the dinner time we were used to. When we finally got to dinner, we were starving and in a stupor from a) exhaustion and b) the amazing smells wafting up to our room from the kitchen. Our dinner was excellent and the company was even better. We ate with one of the hostel owners and this guy from Goa who works as a massage therapist at the hostel. We had a good chat about traveling, but by the end I was literally falling asleep at the table. Sadie and I had both been up since about 4 AM that morning and it was going on 11 or 12 PM...long day. We went back upstairs and I slept like a baby until the next morning.

The next day, Sadie and I took a day trip to Sintra, which is a small town near Lisbon. We started our morning with breakfast at the hostel, then we were off to the train station. I was pretty excited because I handled our entire ticket transaction in Portuguese. Small battles mean a lot when it comes to languages. When we got to Sintra, we took a bus up the mountain to the area where the Castelo dos Mouros and the Palácio de Pena are. The bus ride reminded me a bit of Kentucky with the hills, winding roads, and vegetation. Once we got there, Sadie and I spent forever just wandering around exploring the castle. There were incredible views of Sintra and surrounding cities, and the castle itself was built around the 10th century, so there was plenty of exploring to do at the castle itself. It was rebuilt a little in the 19th century by King Ferdinand II because he enjoyed painting there. It was obvious why! Ferdinand II actually spent his time in more luxury digs at the nearby Palácio de Pena. Completely gorgeous! I can't even describe how beautiful this palace was. Not only was the outside with all of the colors and arches amazing, but the inside was full of period furniture and so incredibly opulent. Pretty amazing. It was really interesting because Sadie and I encountered a lot of French tourists in Portugal...popular vacation destination I guess?? When we were through exploring the Palácio de Pena, we headed back down towards town to visit the Palácio Nacional de Sintra. We accidentally went to the gardens first, which weren't much of anything, but then we wandered over towards the correct entrance. Thankfully our European Student ID Cards get us in to a lot of monuments all over Europe for free or nearly so. It's a seriously valuable little card! After we wandered through the palace, we headed back home and had a bit of a rest. We were pretty exhausted from walking around all day. We had a late dinner at a sushi restaurant called Nood that was really good. It was around this point in my trip that I discovered the beauty of Lonely Planet guidebooks. They give great recommendations all around--from places to stay, places to eat, and things to see. They rarely led us astray! Sadie and I ended up sitting in the restaurant chatting for a good three hours. We wanted to go find a little wine bar somewhere to hang out for a bit before heading back to the hostel, but the one we tried was closed. Darn! We were fairly exhausted though, so it wasn't a big deal.

Our last day was even more packed with sightseeing. We made a quick tour of the Convento do Carmo, which is the home of two extremely well-intact Peruvian mummies. Sadie really want to see them after her Anthropology of Latin America last semester, and I have to admit they were really interesting, even kind of creepy. It would be weird if it weren't a little eerie, because Sadie was explaining to me about how the Peruvian Incas were tortured. After our quick stop there, we headed out towards Belém, which is on the far west side of Lisbon. The first thing we wanted to see was the Mosterio dos Jerónimos. The monastery was amazingly beautiful with huge gothic arches along the ceiling. There was quite a bit of gold plating, too, which is always pretty. It was very ornate. As Sadie and I were walking around, we spotted a couple tombs on either side of the church. We walked over towards one that a lot of people were huddled around. We looked at the sign next to it and read that it was Vasco de Gama's tomb. Woah. How often do you just walk up to Vasco de Gama's tomb?? Never! That was really cool. After the monastery, we stopped at a modern art museum that we thought had some Warhols. We spent a good hour there and no Warhols, but a lot of really interesting and downright weird exhibitions. There was a really prominent use of electronic media in most of them...sometimes cool...sometimes bizarre. After leaving, we walked down the Tejo River towards the Torre de Belém. Not only is it really sweet looking, but apparently it used to be a political prison for the Portuguese when Portugal was under the control of Spain. Historical value bonus! I loved walking around inside it because of the beautiful views of the Tejo and the Ponte de 25 Avril--a bridge that looks just like the Golden Gate. In fact, Lisbon is basically San Francisco. They are both hilly, colorful, have Golden Gate bridges, etc. I was constantly amazed by their similarities. After we finished our explore, we walked back along the river towards town to get lunch and Pastis de Belém. I'm not even sure how to begin describing the amazingness that is a Pastis de Belém. They are little pastry puff shells filled with a kind of warm ricey custard with powdered sugar and cinnamon sprinkled on top. Heaven! We caught out tram back towards Lisbon so we could get to the Castelo São Jorge. Well, getting to the castle was much less simple than it seemed. When our bus dropped us off in Rossio Square, I thought, "no problem...I can see the castle from here, so we just go up to the hill to get to it!" Wrong. We wandered up and down winding streets, marching up never-ending staircases and getting trapped by dead-ends. After pulling out Sadie's iPhone for GPS (those things really are handy!), we finally made it. The castle was really cool to wander around. We went up almost every single turret just to check everything out. How many times do you get to hang out in the place where Vasco de Gama was welcomed back to Portugal after his explorations?? The gods must have heard us when we said we were going to leave, because the skies opened up and it started pouring. Just our luck. Not only were we not really appropriately attired for the rain, but we were exhausted and semi-lost...long walk home. We decided to eat dinner again at the hostel to avoid the rain. We ended up sitting with some girls who happened to be American--and teaching in France...more specifically Lille! What a small world. We had an interesting conversation about Portuguese where I learned that to say "thank you" you say "obrigado"(m) or "obrigada"(f) depending upon your OWN gender...not the gender of whomever you are saying it to. That was one of the weirder language rules I have encountered. After dinner, Sadie and I were going to rest for a bit before going out for a drink, but we never actually made it out. We spent the evening going through our phrase books (Spanish and Portuguese) quizzing each other on the most random phrases we could come up with. Really entertaining game for language nerds like us. We crashed with visions of verbs conjugations dancing in our heads.

In the morning we got ready to go to Madrid. We made a quick stop at the famous café O Brasillio for an espresso, then we were off to the airport and on our way to Spain. Once we arrived, we checked in to our hostel (a major downgrade from Lisbon, although actually pretty nice) and met up with Mandi and Nikki. We got a quick lunch and then headed towards Retiro Park. Really beautiful! I would have liked to spend a little more time walking around, but we didn't have a whole lot of time. On our way back towards the area where our hostel was, we walked down into what we thought was a metro station, but it was actually a shanty town full of box houses and homeless people. That was pretty eye-opening. Seeing stuff like that really opens my eyes to how lucky I am to have such a high standard of living as well as the kind of opportunities I have right now to study in another country and travel. We came back out and got on the metro at an actual stop. We got churros and chocolate at a popular place for them...delicious. On our way back towards the hostel, we ran into the Carnival parade...what luck! We stuck around for a bit and took some pictures. The floats were absolutely incredible! Sadie and I were lucky that when we got back to our hostel, we realized we could see it all from our balcony and a bunch of the parade was about to go by again. If I got to see one thing in Madrid, I'm glad I saw that parade...how cool! We went to Puerto del Sol (the center of Spain) to meet up again with Mandi and Nikki to go for wine and tapas. Being me, in the middle of Spain, I face planted and rolled as I was walking through the Plaza. That's not at all embarrassing... It especially wasn't embarrassing when a nice Spanish man came rushing to help me up and asked me if I was okay and I couldn't come up with a coherent sentence to let him know I was fine. Love my life. I got over it...but the bruises lasted for a couple weeks. We headed towards Plaza Mayor where we saw a really interesting street performer play piano in the air while parallel to the ground. Funny thing: he jumared up to the piano, which everyone thought was really amazing...except for me...because he was using climbing gear. After the performance we wandered to a few places for wine and tapas. I was definitely the most adventurous eater. When faced with a plate of deep fried anchovies for the table, I ate up. I'll try almost anything once. I also had my first taste of sangria, which is delicious! Made with love. Eventually we also stopped by some bar where Sadie's friend from home was hanging out. It was called Del Diego, and is apparently one of the top 100 bars in the world. Cool?? By this time, I was thoroughly exhausted and ready to catch some z's before my plane to Tangier in the morning!

Don't forget to check out the rest of my pictures on my mobileme!

Ireland (Galway and Dublin) WARNING: Long Post!

2010-02-09T14:25:00.000+01:00

Friday morning began my Feb. break adventure with my flight to Dublin. Before I left I was feeling surprisingly anxious and nervous as you could tell from my prior blog post. Not really sure why...but I settled down after getting on my train to Charleroi. Meghan and I didn't have any problems getting to the airport and were running pretty early because we had to take an early-ish train, so we were able to relax a little in the airport and get a bite to eat. We were in the cafe through security waiting for them to post something about our flight, when we suddenly heard an announcement telling us that our flight was in final boarding and we needed to get to the gate immediately, so we panicked and ran as fast as we could to the gate, but we had to go through a passport check first. Only annoying thing--the guy at the passport control desk almost wasn't going to let us through because he didn't understand that "autorise travail" means we have permission to work and do not have working visas...even though he speaks French...that was fun. Finally we got to the gate and on the plane and took off for Ireland! My first Ryanair experience was...interesting. I found out the whole flight is basically one big commercial and the flight attendants only wear half of a wing pin. Right. Brings a whole new light to the term "budget airline." I cracked up upon landing because they play this little thing that tells you that you were part of another on-time flight like it's monumental or something. Trust me...it was ridiculous. After arriving in Dublin, I really weirded out to hear English and understand everything everyone around me was saying when they gave me directions to our bus to Galway. Unfortunately for us, we had some bus problems because ours wouldn't start. Yikes. They brought another bus over and jumped ours (the battery was dead) and then we were on our way only about 20 minutes late. It was really cool driving through Dublin along the river at night, but once we got outside of the city I passed out. We got to Galway, found Meghan's friend Kelsey and dropped our stuff off at her apartment. The apartment she is in with three other girls is HUGE! I couldn't even believe it! Her living room alone was nearly three times the size of my dorm. Despite my fatigue, the three of us went out to meet some other people at this bar called Hole in the Wall...not my kind of place. Dirty...bad music...and Budweiser. I really felt like I was in Ireland as I walked down the street with rickshaws full of drunk people swerving around me. Kinda crazy. Thankfully, we went back home soon and I slept like a baby even though I was crunched on a small couch with my jackets for pillows and only my sleeping bag liner and a blanket. I can't complain about free lodging though!

In the morning, we looked outside and it was eerily foggy, which seemed especially Irish to me. We got ready and set out on our day of exploring Galway. First, we went to Galway Cathedral which was super pretty and seemed especially Irish to me. Next, we were off on a search for St. Nicholas' Collegiate Cathedral--easier said than done because apparently nobody really seems to feel that they should put up street signs in Ireland...right. This Cathedral is famous for all of the graves in the church and around it, which was pretty cool. There is one outside called the Lynch Memorial which has an interesting story. Lynch was a huge political power in Galway who had some family issue and he hanged his son...creepy. After the cathedral we walked through the market a little, which was the cutest market ever. Tons of little artisan stands--kind of like the famer's market in Madison, but with the ambiance of a small Irish city. We walked along the river down to the bay and the Spanish Arch, which was beautiful. I was so happy to finally see water, but that didn't cure my desire to see more. I wish I could have gone to the Cliffs of Moor, but that just means I have to go back. :-) We also stopped by the Galway Museum, which was pretty cool. They had a statue of...Paddy O'Connor??...which is the same as the guy in the Milwaukee Public Museum who tells you stories if you put money in. Love the MKE connections. We were pretty tired from a lot of walking around at this point, so we got coffee and relaxed for a bit before going for burritos. Delicious. We miss mexican food so much!! We went to a couple pubs after dinner, which was okay. At Hole in The Wall there was this HUGE group of crazy sorority girls dressed in neon 80s clothes. Galway definitely lived up the Irish stereotype of lots of drinking!

On Sunday morning, Meghan and I got up early to catch our train to Dublin. It was the nicest train I have ever been on hands down and it was an amazingly organized system--which reminded me of the US. I kind of decided Ireland is the US in Europe, so if you really like the US and want to go to Europe, go to Ireland. Minimal culture shock. The train ride was really pretty and we finally got to see the countryside, so that was cool. When we got to Dublin, we checked in to our hostel (The Times), which was so nice! It was rated number one hostel in Dublin, so we were a little spoiled. :-) We relaxed for a bit after our long train ride, then went out to walk around Temple Bar a bit. After visiting the book market, we were getting a little hungry, so we ventured to find somewhere to eat. We ended up going to Davy Byrne's Pub without knowing it, which was featured later in the evening at our Literary Pub Crawl--our next stop. It began at Duke's Pub where the actors performed a bit from Waiting for Godot (Samuel Beckett went to school at Trinity College) and talked about James Joyce who frequented the area and talked about Davy Byrne's Pub in his book Ulysses. Also where I had my first Guinness! Yum. On the way to our next pub, we stopped at Trinity to talk about Beckett and Oscar Wilde. We also learned that supposedly the bell tower only rings when a virgin stands underneath...crickets. Apparently though, it hasn't rung in something like 100+ years. Our next stop was O'Neill's where we talked about James Plunkett, and I tried Irish red beer, which was quite good, then to The Old Stand and finally back to Davy Byrne's. Can't say I learned too much on this tour though...I found it to be a little stale and too rehearsed, but it was fun none the less. If you have done the math, you may have figured out this was Superbowl Sunday, so Meghan and I tried to find somewhere to watch it after the pub crawl...but we had a major fail. We were recommended to go to one place that did NOT look like they were playing it, and then tried to go to one place that looked like it was...but I'm pretty sure it was in a strip club. We almost went because we thought it was in the pub part, but then we were led downstairs to something called "Rain". With all the drunk guys and the half naked cheerleader on the back of my coupon card from the doorman, I put two and two together and got out of there and went home.

Our next day in Dublin was really full...so prepare yourself for a lot of information. First adventure of the day: Dublin Free Walking Tour. Honestly, this was one of the best things I did on my ENTIRE vacation. The guides work solely on commission, so the tours they give are informative and entertaining. Our guide, Seamus (pronounced Shay-mus), took us to Dublin Castle for our first stop and talked about the two statues of the entrance. He explained why he hates them: the first one, Fortitude, is completely unproportional between the guy and the lion next to him. The lion honestly looks like a large house cat, but Seamus called Fortitude the "Venus de fucking Milo" (there's some Irish english for you) compared to Justice. Justice has no blindfold, so she is a partial judge, her scale is unbalanced because the rain falls more on one side than the other, and she has her back turned to the city--which apparently made a lot of people angry. After that, we went to the oldest part of the castle still standing which was the tower from 1204 where Seamus told us the story of Rebel Hugh O'Donnell. Apparently, this guy ended a huge centuries long family feud, so clearly Elizabeth I needed to capture him...and she did. He was locked up there behind the 4.6 meter thick walls and was the only prisoner there to ever escape successfully--by digging a hole down to the sewage pipe. Gross, right? But...kind of cool? We continued around the back of the castle where we could see all the different types of architecture. Some parts of it are medieval, some georgian, some victorian, gothic, and modern, so you have a really wide mixture, which is interesting. We went out by the garden which has these tiny pathways all around it that are in a celtic design. The garden also serves as a helicopter landing pad, which makes it the most interesting one to look at in the world! Pretty cool. From the castle we stopped by Jonathan Swift's birthplace...which isn't that exciting...but still cool. It brought me back to reading A Modest Proposal in Brit Lit. Next stop was Trinity College--again--where we learned that it is still legal to shoot a Catholic on campus with a bow and arrow. We also went by the library where The Book of Kells lives, which is this biblical book that I still don't totally understand the significance of and then to the "cricket pitch" to chat about the Easter Rising which was the start of the Irish revolution against Britain. Meghan and I grabbed a quick bite to eat, and then decided to do the tour of Dublin Castle. The first thing I learned was Ireland has had a female president for the past 21 years...go Ireland! In one of the first rooms they had a bunch of chairs that came from Versailles that depict scenes from the fables of Jean LaFontaine (the Aesop's Fables of France), so those were really cool to see. The conference room was interesting too, because some of the chairs were lower backed and wider seated than the others, which apparently were for the ladies to provide ample room for their skirts. There were a few interesting notes about the other rooms, but I'll spare you the details. After the tour inside the castle, we went down to see the remains of the old Powder Tower, the fire in which was the whole reason the whole medieval castle needed to be rebuilt. We also saw the River Poddle, which runs underneath Dublin and is how the city got its name. When the Vikings came to Dublin, they named the river Dubh Linn (meaning black pool because the water was so dark), which eventually became modern day Dublin. After the Dublin Castle tour, Meghan and I hiked over to the Guinness Factory for the Guinness Storehouse Tour. It's not really a tour so much as a Guinness museum where you learn about how they make Guinness, but it's super well done. At the end of the tour, you go up to the Gravity Bar for 360 views of Dublin and a free pint of Guinness--great way to end the day. Just as we got up there, the sun was starting to set, so the views were absolutely amazing! We went home after the tour to make dinner and hang out. We actually ended up playing games with some of the guys staying at our hostel, which was really fun.

On our last day in Ireland, we spent most of the morning recovering Meghan's pictures because her stupid camera deleted them all!! What a bummer...but I got a chance to get a few more pictures that were better than my originals. We also walked by the Leinster House (parliament) where it looked like something official was going on, and stopped by the site of the first performance of Handel's Messiah! It's a hotel now, which kind of sucks, but cool none the less. I'll never understand why they don't leave original structures of important things like that. We also went through the famous St. Stephan's Green, which was so pretty! One of the best parks I have ever seen. After walking around for a bit, we went back toward the Leinster House to go to the Archeological National Museum of Ireland. It was interesting looking at all the artifacts, but the really interesting part was one room where they had all these small circular rooms you could walk in to. We didn't know what they were at first so Meghan just started walking around the corner when she saw a dead person! Lovely way to start the day. Apparently, back in the day when people died, their bodies were really well preserved by the bogs in Ireland, so the museum had about 5 extremely well preserved bodies. Gross, but interesting. After the museum, we started on our walk to Kilmainham Gaol, which was crazy long. And it was hailing. Needless to say, we were really happy when we finally got there. Kilmainham Gaol is a 17th century jail where they held political rebels during the Irish Revolution and Civil War. It was really creepy inside, but the tour was really interesting. When the jail was first created, they held public executions right in front of the jail, but public execution was outlawed and they moved them inside the jail grounds, but the last execution there was sometime around 1920, so the history of it is pretty fresh. After the jail tour, Meghan and I went over to the Irish Museum of Modern Art for lunch and a visit. The weirdest thing was when we went out in the gardens by this fountain because as soon as we walked within about 10 feet of it, it turned off, then we walked away and it turned on again, then back towards it, and it turned on. Coincidence?? We hadn't seen it turn off any other time. We headed back towards the center of the city to relax and eat something before our last Dublin hurrah--the Ghost Bus Tour. Most of the tour was pretty mild...just going around Dublin on the bus with our guide telling stories about the darker sides of city's past, but getting off the bus was actually terrifying. The first place was SERIOUSLY creepy. We went to St. Kevin's Park, which used to be a graveyard, but then someone decided it should be a park and asked people to claim their dead--which not many did--and then just moved the gravestones--all of which are still lined up around the periphery of the park. Right. Well, there's this chapel in the middle of it that has a really dark past. There was a Catholic priest who was determined to give a Catholic mass before he died even though it was illegal, so he gave it in that chapel, but he was caught and was executed right outside the chapel. This was a much more gruesome execution than you're thinking though--he was put over a fire with metal boots filled with oil on, so the oil literally melted his body--over the course of three days. What a way to go. Then, we went inside the chapel...great! The chapel has caught on fire mysteriously on numerous occasions, so the last time it did, they stopped rebuilding it. There were numerous creepy details about ley lines, spontaneous combustion, and the ghost of a little boy who died in one of the fires. We drove by St. Patrick's Cathedral where our guide told us the story about The Lady in White, who was buried alive the morning after her wedding, which apparently was pretty common. That's actually where "dead ringer" comes from--they would bury you with a string attaching your finger to a bell, so the expression came from seeing people who you thought had died walking around because they were actually buried alive. Our next stop actually getting off the bus was at "The Haunted Stairs" which were a set of stairs that led from the rich area of Dublin straight down to an underground city where the shadier types lived. Pickpockets used the stairs to escape after they robbed the rich people. The underground area came to be known as Hell, so the door is actually known as "the Gateway to Hell." There were a few stories about the stairs, but none nearly as creepy as the chapel. So ended my trip to Ireland! Good thing we did the haunted tour last. Next morning I caught an early flight to Lisbon... Check my mobileme for more pictures from my Ireland trip!

Les vacances!!

2010-02-05T13:25:00.001+01:00

Wow...I haven't written in quite a while...this has been a crazy week as far as homework goes. Here are some highlights from LAST week:

Tues: I saw Up In The Air with Mandi and the canadians from my dorm. It made me feel so nostalgic! Some of the movie takes place in Wisconsin and it made me realize how much I miss Milwaukee. Overall, I really liked the movie, but kind of an interesting message. I actually kind of understand how he feels because I'm about to take off on a two week journey where all I have is my backpack and it IS kind of liberating...and terrifying...but more on that later.

Thurs: It was Alberto's (one of the Canadians) birthday! A bunch of us went out for Indian food, and then to O'Scotland for a bit. It was fun hanging out with everyone and then Indian food was delicious! It's comforting to know I can still get ethnic food in Lille. :-)

Weekend: This weekend was very lazy. I wanted to take it easy because I had a midterm this week and I had a lot of trip planning to do. I spent the majority of the weekend reading and lazing around. Saturday night was a little intense. Mandi, Sadie and I needed to book all of our hostels for Morocco, which took a lot more work than expected. When you need to coordinate good places to stay that are cheap, train schedules, check-out times, check-in times, and cities that you want to visit, it gets a little tough! It took about three hours, but we FINALLY figured it out. I've been really stressed out all week though because of these trips--definitely the most intense yet unplanned trip of my life. I got a break from all the stress on Sunday when we went to Wazemmes. I bought some food and another poulet rôti...mmmmm. :-)

This week was busy with homework and planning. My first mid-term (on La Princesse de Clèves) was...not bad. M. Godo definitely babied the international kids--the French kids had to do five short answers and three long answers in two hours, but the internationals only had to do two short and one long answer with the aid of a dictionary and our books. I felt like I didn't really write enough...but we'll see. I also had to do a short writing assignment for French this week, but that class is a bit of a joke, so I'm not concerned. Midterm stress is fast approaching after the break...but before then:

TODAY to Feb. 10 = Galway and Dublin, Ireland
Feb. 10 to Feb. 13 = Lisbon, Portugal
Feb. 13 to Feb. 14 = Madrid, Spain (less than 24 hours)
Feb. 14 to Feb. 19 = Tangier, Meknes, Casablanca, and Marrakech, Morocco
Feb. 19 to Feb. 20 = Paris, France
Feb. 20 = home to Lille!!

This trip is going to be a whirlwind! I am SO anxious and stress out right now it's not even funny. I'm leaving here in an hour and 45 minutes and my nerves are just going crazy! I'm super excited for this trip, but I feel extremely unprepared...I'll just figure it out when I get there! At least I have hotels and hostels all booked...phew. Unfortunately, this also means I'll be out of communication for the next couple of weeks. Expect a LOT of posts and a LOT of pictures when I get back though! I'll probably do a few posts divided by countries, but maybe a couple installments for Ireland and Morocco. We'll see. I'm also going to be really busy when I get back with midterms, so I'll try to be as timely as possible, but I can't make any promises! I'll be writing down things I want to blog about every night, so I won't forget anything important. :-) On that note, talk to you all in a couple of weeks and...

Bye! Tchau! Adiós! وداعاً، إلى اللقاء! (beats me how you say that...) Salut!

Finalement...l'escalade!!

2010-01-26T00:38:00.001+01:00

Even though the weather was nasty in Lille this weekend, I still managed to do a lot of really fun things!

On Friday night I went to the Fanfarlow concert with Sadie and Angela at Le Grand Mix in Tourcoing. I didn't know anything about the band--apart from the fact that they are British--but they were really good! Before I wasn't sure if I wanted to do anything at all that night, but I was really glad I went. They had kind of a weird opener though. They were called Morningstar Pop Choir, also British, but strange. It was mostly one guy who was trying REALLY hard, plus some back up people and a choir. When the choir left, I actually enjoyed them a little, but the choir was just god awful. I won't lie.

Saturday was supposed to be a day for haning around Lille and exploring, but it was cold and rainy, so Mandi, Emily, and I went to a random museum in Roubaix instead. It was called La Piscine because the building was an old pool house in the early 1900s, but had been since converted into an art museum. Very cool! The collections were great and the pool was stunning. There were two big art-deco stained glass windows on either end of the hall and incredible marble statues lining the sides of the pool. Most of the old showers are also still intact and some of them house some of the art collections. Just a really neat place for an art museum. After the museum, we stopped at a coffee shop and then hopped on the subway back home. I really wasn't feeling well by the time I got back due to a massive headache and motion sickness, so I just chilled the rest of the night. We had a pleasant surprise at dinner though when one of the Polish girls offered us homemade pierogies. Yum!

Sunday was a low-key morning, followed by a fantastic afternoon! Meghan teaches english at the Franco-American Club here on Wednesday nights (similar to the Alliance Française in MKE), and they held a "Country Danse" this weekend that we went to. It was so fun! It was nice to go somewhere where the people openly accept Americans and their culture...what a relief! The people there were incredibly kind and really fun. The whole evening consisted of assorted country-esque music ranging from Shania Twain to celtic tunes and a lot of Frenchies doing some hardcore line dancing. They even played the Electric Slide and we got to show off a few of our moves. It was really funny how surprised some of them were that we didn't know the line dances or the songs. I seriously felt like I could have been in the South! Hilarious. After the Country Danse, we all went out for chinese for dinner, which was actually pretty delicious. Definitely a good choice.

Today I had class at 2 and then I FINALLY (drumroll..........) got to go climbing! I honestly woke up antsy this morning because I was so excited to go. It was a fairly successful venture. I gathered two partners and headed to the gym in Wambrechies. We got a little lost due to my fault map reading skills...but that was resolved relatively quickly. We finally made it to the gym and I went up to the counter and asked for three day passes, to which the woman said, "well, the gym is closed right now...we don't open until 6 on Mondays." FOILED! She was very kind though, and let us hang out there until the gym technically opened. We ventured out for food to kill some time, but there wasn't much open, so we stopped in a boulangerie and headed back. 6 o'clock finally arrived and we were able to climb. It wasn't my most productive day ever, but I taught them how to belay and tie a figure 8, so at least we got that all figured out for the future. I did maybe four routes, but nothing harder than a 5c (5.8). I was a little nervous about falling on a fresh belayer. Good news is we're going back on Friday! Can't wait!

Cette semaine...

2010-01-22T14:50:00.001+01:00

This week was more or less of the same. We went to Wazemmes again on Sunday, but it was better this time. Much less overwhelming and we actually bought stuff! :-) Mandi and I got a rotisserie chicken and potatoes for lunch which was really good. The weather was great and I had one of those little, "I love France" moments. I was in the market with all these people, vendors yelling in french, gypsies playing accordions, and I just felt happy to be there and take it all in. Monday was really fun. John Brunner from MU/GV was in town so we got dinner with him, his friend who is teaching in Lille, Aude from GV, and Mikael from GV. Really fun! We went to Flam's, which I didn't realize serves flammenkuche, which is regional. It's a type of pizza that is made with really thin crust, crème fraiche, and cheese plus toppings. It was delicious! It was so good to see all of them and kind of amazing to travel over 4,000 miles and still have Marquette connections.

The rest of the week has been pretty low key. The homework is starting to hit...I have a lot of reading to do in the next couple weeks. In France, they expect that the students have read the books for Literature classes before the class begins. Kinda crazy...but the way the class works is really nice. Most of them focus on a couple books and the teacher gives an overview of the book and historical setting the first couple classes, then you go into detail and interpret. It's really focused, which I appreciate. My French class yesterday was a little overwhelming. We're talking about passive voice which we studied a little bit in my grammar class, but we're talking about extremely idiomatic forms that I look at and really can't understand how they mean what they mean. For anyone who has some french background, check out this for an explanation...kind of. Really bizarre stuff.

Last night I went to the grocery store and decided to make a real dinner, so I made pork with mushrooms, onions, and red wine. I definitely made up the recipe, but it actually turned out pretty well! I think I would make a few modifications next time, but overall pretty good. This meal also included my first glass of Bordeaux, which I have to admit was quite good. It was cheap, so it was a little watery, but otherwise tasty. I also did some laundry last night, which doesn't sound exciting, but I have a point to make. Our basement literally looks like a horror movie could be filmed down there. The TV room is all fine and dandy, but then you go down the hall to the laundry room, and it's SCARY. There is an old kitchen down there that is all locked up and it looks all dilapidated and stuff...just creepy. I seriously don't think I could go down there alone. Especially at night. I'll get some pictures next time.

I really wanted to go climbing today, but my prospective partners bailed on me. I'm seriously itching to go. Most mornings I wake up dreaming about climbing, which makes me really anxious. I hope I can round up some people to go with me after class on Monday seeing as most Internationals have minimal classes on Fridays and Mondays. If that doesn't work...I'll just figure it out myself! I can't wait much longer!

Some observations about France/Lille:
1) It smells like cigarettes and leather all the time.
2) It's really easy to interpret French people negatively because of cultural differences--this can cause problems. They aren't actually mean, just not super open to those who aren't already one of the friends.
3) Americans are poorly educated. I have never felt so stupid in my life!
4) "Rules" here are relative. Nothing is set in stone. For example: my responsable said that there is a rule that you can't smoke in your dorm, but it was actually, "try not to smoke in your dorm if possible, and if you do, open your window." The same kind of thing goes for alcohol in the residence.
5) People are CRAZY drivers.
6) People really don't like Americans, so it's better not to bring attention to the fact that you are one.

I'll add some more as I think of them.

Bisous à tous!!

Bruxelles!

2010-01-19T15:56:00.000+01:00

Saturday was our day trip to Brussels! How awesome is it that we can just go to another country on a whim?? It's literally about 20 minutes to the border by train. Very cool. First stop when we arrived: the Atomium! I was really excited. It's thid huge structure that was built for the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels. Basically, it's a giant atom--I believe an iron atom blown up to 165 billion times its size. Either 4 or 5 of the 9 spheres are open to the public and the top gets you some cool views of the fair grounds and Brussels. Very cool!

After our Atomium visit, we went into the main part of the city and saw Grande Place. So amazing! This was the first point in my Europe trip so far that I really felt like I was in Europe. I walked into Grande Place and saw all the ornate gothic buildings, gold gilding and cobblestones...I finally hit the honeymoon stage. :-)

After admiring Grande Place, we went into a coffee and waffle house and finally had gaufres! Wow. Most delicious thing I've ever eaten. The whole time was basically a party in my mouth. No words to even describe the amazingness.

After our gaufres, we went over to the Chocolate Museum where we saw how Belgians make such delicious chocolate and even got some free samples! Seriously, those Belgians know what's up when it comes to chocolate. Completely amazing.

Next up was a brisk walk through the expensive shops in les Galeries Royals. Very pretty, but waaay too expensive. Nice to walk through though. :-) Then we went by Rue des Bouchers, which is a tiny little street loaded with restaurants that we ended up eating dinner on. Past this point was a race against the clock...a little more hectic that I would have hoped for. We basically ran around Brussels looking at lots of buildings and stuff, but I found it kind of hard to appreciate all of it. We saw the EU Building, which was actually pretty cool, but it's not open to the public. We walked up towards the Grande Palais, but unfortunately it was closed. By this point it had also started to rain quite a bit, so it was getting pretty interesting. We walked through les Jardins Cinquantenaire, which would have been a lot nicer had it been better weather and not so treacherously icy on the paths. We wandered down by la Musée de l'Armée through the arch, then headed back to Rue des Bouchers for dinner. I was happy to order moules et frites with a beer for what might be the most Belgian meal conceivable.

After dinner we hopped over to a huge café for a coffee before running to make our train back to Lille. My cappuccino was delicious, and so was the Belgian butter wafer that came with it...mmm. Overall, it was a very successful day and I'm glad we were able to go! Here's a link to all of my pictures from Brussels.

Un petit monde

2010-01-17T00:21:00.000+01:00

Wow...a whole school week to catch up on. I'm a little behind! I'll try to just hit the highlights from this week. :-)

Monday

I had my Thème class, which is translation from English to French. I think this class will prove to be just as helpful as my Version class, but a little easier. Only problems I will run into involve not knowing french vocabulary. Crazily enough, I found out my professor for the class is American and spent a good chunk of his childhood/adolescence in Wauwautosa...shrinking the world by about a million degrees. Never thought one of my professors in Lille, France would have roots that come from 15 minutes away from my own! After class, Angela, Mandi, and I went out to find a café for some mid-afternoon coffee. We stopped at some little place that was kind of mediocre...didn't have the charm I was looking for, but man...the french know how to make a darn good pastry. Even though the place we went was pretty sub-par, the pain au chocolat was flaky, buttery, melt-in-your-mouth chocolatey glory! Delicious. Dear USA: take some notes!

Tuesday and Wednesday

Mostly just lots of long classes these couple of days. Wednesday night was super fun, though! We were starving after a long day of class, so we went down a little before 7 to start making dinner in the kitchen. We were cooking and chatting for quite a while, and waited down there until the welcome meeting for our residence, which was interesting...we've been having some prime conversations as of late. After the meeting, we celebrated the Feast of the Three Kings in traditional French fashion...with a galette des rois, which is a cake that gets baked with a little porcelain figure or a bean inside it. Whoever get the figure/bean in their piece becomes "king" for the day, so you see a ton of little kids running around wearing paper crowns this time of year. Very cute!

Thursday

We had a monumental discovery on Thursday. We found the elusive crêperie for lunch!! Serious deliciousness for dining hall food...or any food for that matter! For a meal ticket you get a drink, a lunch crêpe, a salad, and a dessert crêpe. Yum:

Also monumental: a sunny afternoon in Lille! It's been super overcast the entire time I've been here except for the first couple of days and Thursday. Nothing like a little vitamin D to perk you up and make Lille look even better. :-) That afternoon I had my French class...of which I tested into the highest level. How this happened...I have no clue! It was a little intimidating at first, but I think it will be good. It's definitely not over my head. We actually spent the majority of the class introducing ourselves...haha. Thursday night almost all of the international kids went to a bar called Le Zeppelin, which was...overwhelming. The atmosphere was just kind of intense for me...techno music, super mod, and WAY too many flashing lights. Oye. I also ended up going to my first dance club as to avoid not getting left walking home or at the bar alone. It was kind of fun, but I was glad to leave after about 10 minutes. Again...too intense for my liking. Definitely not a club kind of girl.

Friday

Friday was our first Geography class. It's an international student class, so the teacher spoke EXTRA slowly...bordering on boring, but it was overall pretty interesting. We were talking about the physical geography of Europe and at the end of the class, he basically was like, "so, as you see, france is the best situated country out of all the countries in the entire world." Hilarious. Don't think I'll come out of that class without a bias... Friday afternoon we chilled out for a while then went shopping for a bit. Pretty fun--went through the Gallaries Lafayettes, which was pretty cool. Still a little cher for me! We also went to the bookstore in centre ville called Le Furet (?), which is ENORMOUS! I need to get back there to check all of it out. We got kebab after shopping, which was delicious as usual. When we got back from dinner, there was an explosion of OIE (Office of International Education) drama, which resulted in an hour long phone call to their office. So frustrated with them right now...got an e-mail on Monday telling us we owe OIE some random $1000 tout de suite for housing fees they paid for us and I should be getting an e-mail soon telling me the credit ratio is changing from 5 ECTS equals 3 MU to 2 ECTS equals 1 MU. Awesome...just because MU hasn't started doesn't mean I haven't, and we've already passed the add date! Thanks for that one OIE. Besides frustration from that, I was feeling really upset about the French students because I really feel like they don't like us. In fact, I got yelled at twice by the same girl yesterday for being too loud, when I really wasn't doing anything wrong. After the second time I went up to my room and started sobbing out of sheer frustration and stress. Definitely hit a low point in my adjustment to France. Hopefully that means it can only get better??

Today was my trip to Brussels, but I'll save that story for tomorrow!

Ma chambre et la catho!

2010-01-10T00:42:00.000+01:00

Not too much today. Lazy morning...then we finally got motivated enough to go to Carrefour (France's equivalent of Wal-Mart) and IKEA. EXHAUSTING! I got some stuff for my dorm...like general life necessities and a few things to make life a little more pleasant (like a 2 euro rug and some tea lights). :-) After making dinner, we watched Garden State with Sadie (from NC State) and Monica (Monika?) and Anna (the two polish girls). Good times! A bunch of us are going to the market at Wazemmes tomorrow morning, so I'm going to bed pretty soon! Thought I would share some pictures of my dorm room (sans latest purchases, but no huge differences) and La Catho (the building where I go to school).

La porte:

L'entrée et mon bureau:

Mon placard et mon lavabo:

Le bureau et mon lit (où je reste le plus quand je suis dans ma chambre):

La Catho:

Pas d’Internet!!

2010-01-09T14:30:00.000+01:00

Our Internet is out right now! Sad day. :-( Really hoping that gets fixed soon…but it was out last night through this morning…and it’s France…so I can’t really count on it. Well, the good news is, if I’m posting this blog entry, the Internet has finally returned!

Anywho, Thursday…my English Lit class should be fine. Seems like Madame Bray is a good teacher. It was funny thought because most of the kids in the class are French kids that are English majors and we were asked to brainstorm about what a “thriller” entails. The first thing I said was “fast paced” and when I went to write it down, I wrote “fact passed.” Right…I speak English as my maternal language… I got lunch from one of the dining halls (sandwich, drink, and dessert >3€!) and then came back to Notre Dame for some Skype calls. I actually had my semi-first taste of gaufre (waffle), too. For my dessert with my lunch I got a packaged gaufre that had like…marzipan filling and one side covered in chocolate…yum! I still want a real gaufre, but this was not a bad start. At 4 we had our French placement test and we took the bus to school, so we learned how that system works. Super easy and convenient for when I’m feeling lazy. I really don’t mind the walk except for when I’m cold. The test was…harder than I expected. I feel like I royally screwed up the listening comprehension. It wasn’t what I’m used to, so I found it really difficult. Basically, it was some French guy spewing off random facts about vacations French people take really really rapidly and we had to answer questions about what he said. I think if it had been slower I would have been okay, but alas. I kind of made some stuff up...or rather guessed, but oh well. There was a list of idiomatic phrases we had to define from the listening too, but I think I actually got all of those! I was proud. The rest of the test was better, although I’m sure I still did some things wrong. Honestly though, I would have been screwed had it not been for M. Taylor’s grammar class. Everything I knew about how to fill-in those blanks came from him! After the test, Angela, Tom, and I stopped by the grocery store to pick up some things to make dinner and then ate. It was fun observing all of the frenchies in the kitchen. :-)

Yesterday…well, we weren’t sure if we had our Geography class or not because we hadn’t written down the dates…so we resolved to be good students and wake up in time to check the board and go to class. Ughh…we got there and realized, sure enough…no class. So…we decided to go to the bank so Angela and I could get our paperwork in for our accounts and Mandi and Tom could hopefully pick up theirs. Tom’s was the only one that was ready though. The banker was SUPER nice. He even recognized Tom! We got that all set up, came back to the res and relaxed for a while/took naps. Around 1, Mandi, Angela, and I decided to go get lunch and we had our first taste of Kebab.

Holy delicious! There’s even a place that’s really close to our res, so that’s nice. It was literally the best thing I’ve eaten since I’ve been here. Still on the list of things to eat: (1) a real gaufre and (2) moules (mussles), which are a regional specialty. We came back and lazed around again for a while, and eventually went out for pizza with the NC State kids and a ton of the Canadian kids. It was really fun! We hung out for a bit afterwards and just chatted at Foyer (the international dorm), and then took the metro home. I should probably get ready for the day though…it’s already 11:14! A tout a l’heure!

PS: Internet fixed! :-)

Les cours

2010-01-07T00:55:00.001+01:00

Okay, first things first, I DO NOT hate Lille. At all. I’m having some pretty interesting experiences and sometimes feel like I’m on an emotional roller coaster, but I think a lot of that is just due to the stress of everything happening so fast. We keep saying that our moods depend a lot on our levels of stress, hunger, warmth, and energy! It’s definitely true. Last night was particularly interesting. We ventured out to find food for dinner after spending the day signing up for classes and attending orientation. We eventually found a pizza place and were impressed by our ability to get through all of meal using French with the waiters without any communication problems or them speaking English to us, but we spend a good hour extra at the restaurant trying to figure out how in the world we were supposed to pay. We had no idea whether it was more normal for the waiter to bring the bill, to ask for the bill, or to just walk up to the cash register. Good thing by now we are starting to laugh at these misunderstandings rather than being frustrated by them. Things got even crazier when we got back to our residence and we were locked out. No joke! The key would not work! Needless to say, it was time for creative problem solving. We all tried the door, started pushing buttons on the buzzer system, opened the next door over, couldn’t find any other doors our keys worked on, then Tom and Mandi FINALLY found the back door where the people who park their bikes come in, and let Angela and I in. Whew!!

Today was the first day of classes, and overall, they went really well. I really like my Madame de Lafayette class. The professor, Monsieur Godo seems really nice and really good. He’s also really accommodating to Internationals, which is helpful. I felt really good about being able to listen and understand almost everything he was talking about. I had a relaxing afternoon and then went to my Vérsion class, which is translation from English to French. Way cool class. I was super interested in taking the translation courses, so I’m excited about it! The teacher, Monsieur Roger, also seems nice. Funny thing: we found out we missed a class today. In France and other European schools, whenever they change the classroom for classes, they put the new schedule on these bulletin boards in a hallway of FLSH (Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines). Last night, we checked the boards for our rooms and saw that our History of France class was going to be on Thursday, NOT Wednesday like we originally thought. Turns out, Emily—one of the Canadian girls—stops by our floor tonight and tells Tom, Angela, and I that we missed our class. AH! While not a disaster, we were wrong because we were trying to be diligent students by CHECKING the boards. Oh, the irony… At any rate, classes tomorrow should be fine. I have an English Lit class as well as my French placement test, but I’m not too worried. :-) But for now, it’s bedtime!

La première journée

2010-01-05T00:09:00.000+01:00

I am feeling much better about life today. I got a lot of stress taken care of between paying my rent, filling out the forms for my student ID, paying for medical insurance, getting a phone, and moving in to my residence. I can’t even explain how good it feels to have some place to call home here!! I didn’t sleep very well last night because of all the stress, but I hope tonight will be much better. :-) I also finally got Internet today so I spent most of the afternoon unpacking and skyping with my parents and JJ. What a relief! I also used a lot more French today than yesterday, so I feel at least marginally more comfortable with the language issue, but it will still take some time. The five of us went out for dinner at Flam’s tonight—a pizza place. Quite delicious! The pizza here, while different, is just as good as Italy. (But don’t tell the Italians I said that!) After dinner we scoured over the course offerings to figure out what we should take because we sign up for courses tomorrow morning.

Observation About France #1: They are SUPER energy conscious. The AEU gets fined if things aren’t properly recycled in the residences. The lights in the halls turn off unless you push a button (like in Italy). It’s FREEEEZING everywhere! You could crank the heat to the max and still be wrapped in five blankets. Note to self: must get five blankets. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing AT ALL, but it does make things rather interesting when you’re in the shower trying to hold the shower head in one hand, shampoo in the other, and press the button every 30 seconds to make it turn on. And no, I’m not exaggerating.

I think it’s time for me to wrap it up and go to bed though, because I need to wake up early to pick classes and take care of some other official stuff and then go to on orientation lecture in the afternoon.

Feel free to Skype me at: lauren.goods

L'arrive

2010-01-04T16:30:00.000+01:00

Well, here I am in Lille. I have to say this was a much less enchanting arrival than Cagli. Or perhaps I just don’t remember it clearly enough? The journey was relatively smooth—only the flight from Frankfurt to Paris was delayed and we had problems meeting up with Mandi in CDG, but we all arrived at the train stations in Lille this afternoon safely. What more can you ask for? Meghan took us to her residence hall to drop off our bags and she very kindly made us lunch. I was starved! After lunch, we took a little tour of Lille. Although it’s not huge by any means, right now it seems rather daunting. It’s not as comfortable as Cagli seemed to be—big group of students, faculty leaders, small town, etc. I saw the same people every day and by the end of my time could recognize pretty much everyone from the town. I’m not sure it’s going to be that way here, but only time will tell. One thing was really exciting though: the ferris wheel in the middle of town that is up at Christmas was still up when we got here, so we decided to take a ride and got some amazing views of Lille! We also walked around the Musée des Beaux-Arts for a bit. I just don’t feel as amazed as I have been every other time I’ve been to Europe. Maybe it’ll kick in after a few days? Right now I just feel stressed out and unsettled. I think I’ll be going to sleep in the not too distant future, and then the real fun starts—paying rent, getting medical insurance, moving to my new dorm…sounds exciting, right? Hopefully the rest of the day will bring more fun.

Nerves

2009-12-30T00:35:00.000+01:00

Well here I am in Denver International Airport after spending a week with relatives for Christmas with only a few short days before I leave for France! It's still completely surreal--especially since I haven't even started packing yet. Right now I'm feeling pretty stressed out about packing and traveling and really nervous about my French. The closer I get to leaving, the more French I seem to forget. I might spend the remaining flight to Milwaukee watching Amélie to brush up a little. So many mixed emotions about the upcoming semester...I don't know what to think! It's so strange that something I've been looking forward to for so long is suddenly becoming so terrifying. Good thing I know I have a great support system to get me through the rough times. :-)