Beautiful spring days in France

Hello!

I went to Annecy yesterday, it was short and sweet. Because of the dumb strikes, there were many less trains going. We planned on having about 6 hours there, getting there about one and leaving at seven, but these trains were not running. The soonest we could get there was 2, and then the last train back was at 5. This was too bad because it was really beautiful, but I got to see all that I wanted to. There is a pretty lake, pretty town, a castle, mountians in the backgroud- pretty much about all you could ask for. The lake is the cleanest one in Europe I heard. If we would have haed more time I would have loved to rent a paddle boat or just hang out in the park- oh well. French people really know how to get good use out of their parks. There are always so many people laying around and playing sports- it seems they use them much more than Americans do.

Today I went to a market in Grenoble. It was really cool and big, I've never seen anything like it really in America. The one I went to had food, but mostly clothing and shoes and lots of random things you could think of. I went with a girl from my class, then we ate outside at a cafe. It is a beautiful day here so we tried to rent bikes after lunch, but there weren't any left- I guess everybody else had the same idea. This was really a bummer, it was really something I wanted to do. They close off the street by the river to cars on Sundays, it would have been really fun to ride a bike down there. Oh well.........

Overall, very good last weekend in Grenoble, the weather helped out a lot too! (next weekend I will be in Provence the entire weekend).

I have a lot planned for this week- shopping, eating fondue, going to caves of the Chartreuse (look it up if you don't know) going on a picnic with my class, maybe trying to rent a bike again, and I'm leaving on Friday for Provence.

Me eating my tartine

Okay gotta go

start my homework!

its been a while

I know its been a while, but I just feel like nothing has happened to talk about. The fact is that probably lots of stuff has happened but I'm just used to it now since I've been living here so it doesn't feel like anything interesting to write about.

So Monday and Tuesday I had class all afternoon and didn't do much at all. Tuesday I ate a kebab for lunch and had a really hard time eating it! It was huge! I had chicken in it and tons of fries in it and ranch dressing poured on top and it was REALLY good, but REALLY hard to eat. That is also the first time I've seen ranch dressing here, so it was good to have.

Wednesday was really nice in the afternoon. I sat outside at a cafe, ate at my favorite sandwhich shop, and then went to a movie with a friend. We went to a French movie called "Les invites de mon pere"- The guests of my father. It was about an old guy who married a young immigrant so her and her daughter could live in France. It was very French- makes you think about things and brings up social issues and all that. I kept waiting for something to happen though, like in the movies I'm used to, and nothing ever really happened...it was so so. I like that I can watch movies and also consider it a "learning experience".

Today I had a very hard test in class, but its over so its just downhill from here. After class I hiked up to the Bastille again, maybe for the last time? It was fun, it started to rain just as I started, but stopped and was very nice out. This past week I have noticed the pollution that is around when you look at the mountains. I don't know why I never noticed it as much before. It isn't awful, I think I always just passed it off as fog, but today it was pretty bad, I hope it doesn't get too bad the mountains are so beautiful.

Tomorrow I may be going to Annecy, which is a pretty town with a pretty lake. Sunday I am going to a French market and then I don't know what else, I might rent a bike and ride that around for the day. I have next week left of school and am leaving the Tuesday after that so I have to make sure that I get everything in that I need to!

A plus tard!

Pretty views of Grenoble, there are plenty of mountains in the background, but you couldn't really see them today

Look to the top of the highest point of the mountain, the one in the middle, I hiked up to that.

lots of pictures!

Italy Pictures:

Top of Duomo

Me on top of the dome in Florence

The Pope is up there

Gelato..yummmm and the Colosseum

______________________________

Friday night I went to the faire (foire) in town. It is here for about three weeks (during spring break). It is a big fair and very similar to in America. They have rides and food and games. The carnival food was good and they have barbe a papa (papa's beard literally) which is cotton candy. They also had hotdogs and crepes and donuts with nutella and churros and lots of yummy food. The rides were also huge for carnival rides I though, but maybe I'm just used to smaller carnivals. It was a very fun night!

Saturday morning I woke up early and found out again that I could not go to Dijon. SO FRUSTRATING!!!! They were still striking and most of the trains were back up but not the ones going to Dijon. Tomorrow they are on strike again so I will be taking the bus to school...grrr. It turned out, however, to be a great day! A bunch of the people from my program brought a picnic to the Chateau de Vizille (we went there about a month ago but it snowed). It was a beautiful day, the gardens were very pretty, the flowers were coming out, the grass was green...it was a very fun day! We just got baguettes and cheese and nutella and strawberries and ate and laid around in the sun. It was an enjoyable day and is one of those things that I am going to remember for a long time and that I'm going be thinking after I go back home "I wish I could just have a picnic in the gardens of a castle".

Today it was nice again so we ate lunch outside and i worked on my homework pretty much all day. I have a lot to catch up on after missing a few days to go to Italy. In class we are writing resumes and letters of motivation, in French.

That's all! This week I'm going to hopefully be doing some fun things since my time is starting to

run out!

Italia!

Ahh well yesterday I spent a while updating my first couple of days of my trip, and I think it got deleted, so I'm giving a just a brief overview of this.

I got into Rome on Friday and visited the Colosseum, Roman Forum, and Palentine Hill. There were so many ancient Roman ruins, it was really interesting! My friend Kimberly didn't meet up until Saturday though, and although it was very interesting, I learned that I much prefer traveling with people!

Saturday we decided to head to the Vatican after Kimberly came. We headed in and wanted to visit the Vatican museums with the Sistine Chapel. It said though, that it was closed at 12:30 on Saturday, and since it was Easter weekend, it was also closed on Sunday and Monday, and we would have been gone by then. This is my one regret of the whole trip, that I didn't get to see the Sistine Chapel. Also, we could not get into St. Peter's Basilica because they were setting up for the Mass that night. We walked around the streets and got some gelato, and then went to sit on the steps of the square. We decided to wait and watch the mass on TV because there were people lining up for mass about 3-4 hours in advance! Write as people were going in, a couple came and offered us their tickets. We decided why not and went to the Easter Vigil in the Vatican! It was very cool and the Pope came to baptise the new people and do thier first communion and confirmation. The Basilica was awesome and it was just a fun night!

Sunday it was rainy, but we still did a lot. We visited the Spanish steps and threw our coins into the Trevi Fountain. After this, we just walked around and discovered so many beautiful Churches. All you have to do is walk around and you'll find something in Rome. We eventually found a really cool park and walked around in that looking at the statues too. That night we had a really nice dinner outside.

Monday morning we headed by train to Florence. There, my friend Sid picked us up from the train station and told us where to go. We were planning on going to the museums that day and spending the next day with him. Then as we headed to our first museum, we realized that all of the museums are closed on Mondays! So we had to come up with something else to do. There is a really awesome cathedral that we went in, and then we took a tour up to the top of the duomo (dome). In the dome there was a really amazing painting of The Last Judgement, it was incredible, and we were up so high and the view was amazing.

Tuesday we went to see where my friend Sid had been living for the semester. I didn't realize that he has been living in a castle- but he definitely has been! Their school's program has a villa, which is just like a castle. They live and have class in there, there is a personal chef, and they have huge gardens- it's so cool! We started off the morning by hiking through the Tuscan hills and finding some waterfalls. It was really beautiful and really cool to see the not so touristy things. We ate some great lunch with him cooked by their personal chef, and then Kimberly and I set out to do all we had planned to do the day before while Sid went to class. We first went to the Boboli gardens which are really expansive and pretty gardens. Then we went to the museum with the statue of David. It was amazing I had no idea. First of all, it was a lot bigger than I expected. It also was soo human-like I am still amazed how he got stone to look like that. There were vains, wrinkles in his skin, fingernail beds, everything that a human had I expected him to walk off the platform. We spent our last night hanging out with Sid at his castle : ) after a very yummy dinner of course.

Wednesday was a day of traveling- alllllll dayyyy longggg to get back. I got back about 12:30 am.

Thursday I had a creme brulee lesson with the host dad of one of the students. It was very fun and I'm glad I know how to make it now.

Today, I was planning on going to Dijon for the weekend with some friends. However, there has been a strike with the trains, and there are no trains to Dijon! It is a huge bummer and I am really hoping that we can leave early in the morning, although they would not sell us tickets because they just did not know. Strikes are sooo annoying, they also made me 45 minutes late to class!

So hopefully this will be my last post until Sunday, because then that means that I will be in Dijon tomorrow. I will put pictures from Italy up soon!

Off to Italy

Well, tomorrow at 4:30 in the morning I am leaving for Italy. I have to take a taxi to the bus station, a bus to the airport in Lyon, and then I will arrive in Rome about 9:00 am. I am planning to do a lot and it should be fun. I'm going with my friend Kimberly and then on Monday we are heading to Florence to visit our friend Sid who is studying there. I will be back Wednesday night, so probably won't blog for a while but will make up for it when I get back!

The past couple days I have just been getting ready and looking up what I want to do...if you have any suggestions write them in the comments. Today I went to a friend's apartment after class to eat lunch. She is Chinese and wanted to prepare a meal for a couple of us from class. It was pretty good there was egg/tomato things, peppers, and some soup with pig skin or something, I didn't eat that. I like food, but Chinese food isn't totally my thing, although it was pretty good and very fun.

I then came back to pack my bags and that is what I'm doing tonight and then going to bed early. I'm excited and hope it all goes smoothly!

See ya next week!

Lundi

Today I had class. It was pretty boring since a new sessions starts tomorrow, so they old people were gone and the new people were not here yet. We did however, talk about something that happened yesterday here, and that is daylight savings. Apparantly here at least there is a lot of controversy over it and most poeple do not really like it, this was news to me. I'm a fan I like the light longer.

After class I grabbed a hot dog, yes American. But what is not American is the fact that it is stuffed into a baguette which is so so good.

I then went up to the Bastille again for a work out and my legs hurt now! It was an extremely nice day and very pretty out and I'm mad I forgot my camera. After I sat in the park, ate a crepe, and read "le petit prince" a book which Mary gave me which I have not yet read yet. It was a very fun Frenchy afternoon.

For dinner we had couscous, and we discussed what my host family does for Easter (paques). It is nothing religious to at least my host family. They are going to decorate eggs, and here they have chocolate eggs with stuff inside rather than plastic eggs with candy inside. Also, she talked about how she would make tiny little holes in each side of the egg, empty the egg, then refill it with chocolate filling, then decorate the egg. They will also decorate hardboiled eggs and when the kids find them they have to see if its chocolate or not. Sounds kind of fun. However, she showed me how to empty the egg...VERY HARD! I broke the first one and succeeded with the second one. We made little tiny holes in each side and then you have to blow all the insides out of the egg. Pretty interesting.

Now I am going to catch up on some stuff and start my new class tomorrow afternoon. I'm also still preparing for Italy! I'm planning on eating lots of pizza and pasta and am very excited!

Not much new

Today it rained all day, I spent the morning sleeping in and reading from the new book Mary got me, Le Petit Prince, which I had not yet read- good so far!

This afternoon I went to La Rafle. It was a very good movie, although that is hard to say because it was not very fun to watch. It was about the many Jews that got arrested and sent to concentration camps by French police who were Nazi accomplices. It was a very powerful movie and it was all true, even the family that it followed was a real family. I am glad I saw it, although it was very sad.

Tomorrow I will probably have lunch at a friends house (sometimes people bring some things to eat and make it all there) it is easier than going to try to get an entire meal on our own since nothing is open on Sunday!

So really nothing new with the rain, just a relaxing weekend

Au revoir!