A picture is worth a thousand words

Places I've been in the last month:
Barcelona, Spain
Taghazout, Morocco
Paris, France
Prague, Czech Republic
Malmö, Sweden

And if you count the 7 stops from my 31-hour train extravaganza (thanks to the Icelandic Volcano) from Malmö to Aix en Provence...
Copenhagen, Denmark
Fredericia, Denmark
Hamburg, Germany
Basel, Switzerland
Mulhouse, France
Lyon, France

Then this past weekend: Paris (yes, again... I just can't get enough)

WOAH.

Here's the short version...

BARCELONA:

Our rooftop terrace at Ideal Hostel:



At the fountain show:


Enjoying the sun on the longest bench in the world:



MOROCCO:

The terrace view:



At the beach with Julia:



Kennedy taking a camel ride:



Ocean view:



PARIS:

Arc de Triomphe and the Champs d'Elysées:



PRAGUE:

The Original Disneyland:



MALMÖ:

I went to Malmö to visit my nanny from when I was younger who now has a child of her very own!
Elsa, only 10 months old and getting cuter by the second



PARIS (Round 2):

The view from the Eiffel Tower:



The beautiful Opera House:




...So I'd like to use all my traveling as an excuse as to why I haven't updated my blog in a really long time but it's mostly cause I'm lazy, sorry, France just does that to you. BUT I actually have a 10-page paper due in 2 weeks, 5 written exams and 1 monologue performance (for my Expression Orale class) coming up at the end of May so I am legitimately busy to some extent. I should finish the semester by the first of June but it looks like I'll be hanging out in Aix en Provence for an extra month because my flight back to the U.S. isn't until June 30th. I could change it but... what's the rush? ESPECIALLY with the world cup starting on June 11th, I can't miss that! SO I only have 2 more months left to "profiter" and learn as much French as I can, wish me luck ;)

Here's some more for ya...

I realized I didn't add any pictures last time so...

Here's a lovely picture of me doing an awkward pose on the Pont du Gard:



This is a picture from the Marseille-Lyon soccer game...



Here's a picture of my rainy visit to Marseille...



Here's one of me and my Polish friend Dominka having a good time at IPN, a local "discothèque"



One more really random thing, at physical therapy this morning, there was a guy wearing a baseball-type T-shirt with "Greenwich" (a.k.a. my hometown) written across it... très bizarre.

So even though it feels like we just got back from our February break, my spring break starts this Thursday night!!! And we don't start class again until April 19th!!!! LOVE IT. Anyway, my friends and I had a giant list of places we wanted to see but we were eventually able to narrow it down... First, we're taking an overnight bus to Barcelona (~8 hours) Thursday night and staying there til Monday afternoon (and taking the bus back). Then we leave Tuesday afternoon to go to Taghazout, Morocco for 4 days at a surf house. Unfortunately, since the act of surfing emulates the exact same motion of how I injured my knee, and considering I've never surfed before, I won't be able to try it out. But lying on a beach doesn't seem too bad to me. From there, we head to Prague, where maybe I'll run into Seth! Then the last stop on my journey is Malmo, Sweden to visit my nanny from when I was younger and hopefully get see Sanna (a swedish friend from high school) too! When I go to Sweden, the rest of my friends are continuing on to Berlin and then Amsterdam after that. It's gonna be A TON of traveling but I know we're gonna have a great time!

I am a teeny, tiny bit sad I won't be staying in Aix en Provence though because it's just starting to get really beautiful here. With the exception of some on and off rain, the weather's been in the low 60's and beautiful blue skies! And I finally got the chance to go to giant open air market in the center of town on Saturday (usually I'm on an excursion... or just sleeping in from staying out the night before...)! It was AMAZING. I can't believe I've taken this long to go! There are vendors for anything and everything you can imagine... there's a section for all types of clothes, shoes, bags and then there's a wide open area for a free-for-all section. There were books, linen's, wicker baskets, jewelry, CDs, DVDs, sunglasses, paintings, sculptures, knives (?!?), etc. And then the whole other side of the square is dedicated to food; fruits & vegetables of course but also... spices, chocolates, pastries, dried fruits, meat, fish, rotisserie chicken, cheese, couscous, olive oil (a specialty of the region)... I could go on and on! I got there a little late because I had to go get a new french credit card from the bank since my old one was one of the many stolen items and that took a bit longer than I thought. But I should have known better, the French are never in a rush...

So after dinner, my host family usually sits together for a while and watches TV or a movie. The other night they watched Inglorious Bastards, but I had an exam to study for so I didn't watch it with them. I've never seen it before and I just don't think I'd understand it enough to really appreciate it. Plus, I don't think Brad Pitt's marvelous accent can really be translated into French... But anyway, the reason I brought it up was because my host mom had me look through their version of TV Guide to see if there was anything I'd wanna watch. What I found was quite intriguing... I don't know who decides what American films they bring over and which ones they don't but it doesn't make sense to me... Most of the movies are from the 80's or 90's and I've never even heard of them before! And the TV shows... they have "Friends" and "CSI" which is understandable but they have shows like "Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye"?!? Have you ever heard of that before?!? AND they have Degrassi!!!! I'm still shocked...


I've also been reading Harry Potter en français! My host mom loves the books (just like me) and she let me borrow them. I just got done with the first one and can't wait to start the next. I definitely didn't understand every single word but since I already knew the story, I didn't have to struggle too much.

And I hate to say this but... When I got here, I thought I would die from lack of sports, but I actually have been doing just fine without it. I do miss Kevin Borseth and watching the Women's team play, especially since they're in the FINAL FOUR OF THE WNIT TOURNAMENT (WOOOHOO!!!!) but other than that... I looked at the bracket for the NCAA's but I had no idea what teams were good and I haven't heard much more about it since then. In fact, it was quite a culture shock when my family came to visit and right after they said hi, the next words out of their mouths were about basketball. People just don't talk much about sports here, unless its soccer of course. Sara, this just makes one more reason that you would not like it here.


I think that's about it for now... talk to ya after break!!!

Finally...

Sorry for the long delay on my blog updates! ..but you knew that was gonna happen, come on... I actually have had stuff to do so don't get too angry! Oh, and there will probably be some grammatical errors or phrases that don't make sense, just to warn you...

ANYWAY... where oh where to begin...
Let's see, how about an update of my crippled knee. I went running yesterday for the first time in 189 days!! It was AWESOME. Well at least the first 5 minutes were awesome, I was just so happy and listening to Fergie's "London Bridge" on my iPod pumped me up even more... but then I got tired. But it was a "I haven't done this in a long time" tired, not like "my knee is hurting and I need to stop" tired. I have been doing physical therapy 3 times a week since I got here but next week I'm switching to only 2 times per week. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!! I can even do the stair master and one-legged jumps without too much of a problem now ;) And even though it was such a rough time being on crutches and just being crippled in general, it's starting to get hard to even remember what it was like to not be able to walk! Which is not necessarily a bad thing.. But whenever I see a person on crutches or someone who's just injured in general, I always get this huge feeling of sympathy and want to help them out in any way possible.

Ok, got that covered... how about classes next?
So I have actually had to study on study abroad, who would have thought??? I had an exam today in Anthropology of France and 2 exams last week (one in Expression Ecrite and one in Language, Culture, and Society). They were nothing compared to the exams I've taken at Michigan but they were in French so that did add a factor of difficulty... I think they went okay (they were all essay-type exams) but I don't think I will be getting my grades back anytime soon. I was talking to the French guy who generously sends me his notes in Anthropology of France and he says it usually takes around a month to get your grade back. Oh, France. And I actually spent some time in the library this week! I needed to study for my exams but I also needed to start reading a book for a 15-20 page "dossier" (a.k.a. research paper) for my Anthropology of games and sports class. Unfortunately the library closes at 5:30 pm (?!?!?) so I could only do so much. I don't understand when (or if) people study here. They have class in the morning, 2 hour lunches, classes in the afternoon, the libraries close, and then they eat dinner. What a life. So anyway, classes are going pretty well, I can pretty much understand most of what the professors are saying... it's extracting meaning from it that's the hard part. They just talk at you for 3 hours about really obscure, seemingly unrelated topics. Example, Anthropology of France topics: Folklore. Santa Clause. Running/Marathons. The European Identity. WHAT?! Oh, and I almost forgot, I've had multiple classes get canceled this semester for one reason or the other. My one class, language and the brain, has gotten canceled 4 times because our teacher likes to travel a lot...? Or, like last Tuesday, the teachers decide to strike for some unknown reason (even the libraries were closed!). And sometimes teachers just don't show up for class. C'est la vie.

I've been really trying to improve my French outside the classroom as well. I joined a group through the university called Mozaïk, which is basically a group for foreign and french students to meet and do random activities together (i.e. making/eating dinner together, excursions). We went in a group to a Marseille soccer game, which is one of the better teams in France, it was AMAZING... but it was still a bit chilly outside so it was hard to fully enjoy the game. But I got to meet a lot of cool people at least and speak a lot of french. The group also helped me find a language exchange partner. Her name is Anaïs, she's 25, recently graduated from some crazy intense financial program and is searching for a job right now. She wants to be fluent in english to help her get the best jobs so she went searching for a language partner. She already spent a year in Texas doing a study abroad exchange so she's basically fluent already. She's also close to fluency in spanish. I'm so jealous! But I'm getting better... I recently started volunteering at an after school program to help kids learn english too, but most aren't that good yet so I spend most of my time speaking french anyway. And things are going GREAT with my host family. Even though the son, who's 17, still doesn't really talk to me (I don't think it's personal, it's just that he's got his own thing going on so he's not really interested), I've been talking more and more with my host mom. As my french is getting better, I can understand her more and have discovered that she's HILARIOUS and has a lot of interesting opinions. And I got the chance to cook an American meal the other day. Given my resources and my limited cooking skills, I made some mac & cheese and they seemed to like it a lot. My host brother who doesn't like to talk also doesn't like to eat much other than chocolate and cookies so when he had 2 servings of my mac & cheese, I was pretty pleased with myself.

So my family came to visit me from March 11th to the 20th (another excuse why I didn't have a lot of time to write on my blog...)! I don't have classes Friday so we left that morning to go to Nice for the weekend. Even though it was a bit cold, we had a great time walking around and enjoying the city. We even had lunch right on the beach (I got a bunch of freckles that day). During the week, my family would take little day trips during the times I had class and then we'd meet for dinner. Everything was going swimmingly until we went to Cassis, a beautiful little town right off the Mediterranean, where mine and my mom's purses were STOLEN. We drove up the Calanques (=cliffs) to see the amazing views, parked our car at a viewing spot, and walked around a bit. It's still debated but we think my dad left the car unlocked while my mom and I left our bags in plain view at a tourist spot, so it was a recipe for disaster. I got off easy, only my iPhone, french phone, wallet (with credit cards & student IDs), camera, all my notes from classes got stolen but my mom had Mickey's, Jonathan's and her own passport in her purse. After we scrambled to cancel all our credit cards (for some reason they didn't take my dad's phone and Jonathan had his phone with him), we went to the police station to file a police report. The woman working there didn't speak any english so Mickey and I did our best (he did most of the talking actually). Once that was taken care of, my mom started to freak out that they wouldn't be able to return to the U.S. (since any and all pieces of identity were stolen). The next morning they went to the Embassy in Marseille and luckily were able to get temporary passports (phew!) and make it back home. It's taking a little while to get everything back to order but it's coming along. I'm still using a grocery bag as my purse cause I don't want to spend too much money but everything else is almost the same as before. Anyway, other than that, I had a great time with the family. My host family had them over for a feast on tuesday night. My host mom speaks a little english so she could talk to my family pretty well but my host brother didn't say a word all night.

well there's a lot more to tell you but it's getting a bit late so I'll have to continue tomorrow!

Italia! - Rome

We decided to fly with EasyJet to Rome because it was the cheapest and quickest way of getting there. While I did have to pay 27 euro to check my back pack (because you're only allowed one piece of luggage on the plane and I had a purse...) the flight itself was around 15 I think. It actually was a very nice plane and big too, the only weird thing was that you chose your own seats, so it's kind of a free-for-all mélée once we all got off the bus that took us to the plane from the gate. We got there in the early afternoon and found the hostel quickly (since we had stayed in this same place the first night we got to Italy). We had our own room of 4 this time so it was really nice to not have to worry about our stuff getting stolen or disturbing someone. We dropped off our stuff and went to find lunch. After that, Jenna and Julia really wanted some gelato so we searched for one. There was not one, but three places that had a giant ice cream cone outside their store and yet had NO gelato. It was really bizarre and actually quite frustrating. Shouldn't there be some kind of rule against false advertising like this?? So we decide to just stop at an Italian pastry shop (can't go wrong there!). Jenna got a gigantic cannoli that turned out to cost 5 euro and then proceeded to flip out about how much money she had been spending this trip. But then she decided that the cannoli was really delicious and she calmed down.

After we got settled in the hostel, we met up with Leigh, Molly, and Jesse again to see the spanish steps. By this time it was raining, so we decided to take the subway. Rome has 2 subway lines that are extremely overcrowded (at least at peak times) and stop at really obscure places. I was not impressed. But it did get us closer to the spanish steps, so I guess I shouldn't complain too much. Once we got out of the subway, it was pouring! I just had my rain jacket so unlike the other girls with umbrellas, I was accosted by creepy umbrella salesman lining the sidewalks. On our way there, we saw signs for the Trevi Fountain so we changed course and decided to go there instead.



Right after I throw my "penny" (i.e. the euro equivalent of a penny) into the fountain, my french phone starts to ring. It turns out to be Amanda, my best friend from high school, who is currently studying in Rome! I had told her I was coming but I kinda doubted my organizational/planning skills that we would actually get together. But sure enough, she was on top of it and we made plans to meet at the campo di fiori later that night. We headed back to the hostel after that because we had had enough of the rain. So after figuring out where campo di fiori is, we realized it was pretty darn far from our hostel but of course, the subway didn't go anywhere near there. So we had to figure out the Roman bus system. It actually wasn't that bad but there were no bus maps or lists of stops or time tables so it could have been much worse I suppose. We finally find the place and Amanda!



I rarely see the girl when we're home from school and then I get to hang out with her in Italy! Who would have thought? Her family is visiting her at the same time so her sister Nicole is with her, as well as one of Nicole's friends. We have a nice relaxing time at "Sloppy Sam's" just talking and enjoying the ambiance. We got to meet some of Amanda's friends who are also from Northeastern studying architecture and they all seem pretty cool. She lives in refurnished monastery apartment thing with 17 other students! 17! It's getting pretty late so we decide to head back and on the way, we find a gelateria so Jenna and Julia can finally get their gelato. We weren't sure if the buses were still running (we didn't see any at least) and we didn't know where the bus stop was for the direction we needed so we decided to take a taxi. That day, I'm pretty sure we took every form of public transportation possible: bus, plane, train, subway, bus, taxi. Boats don't count.

The next morning, we got up (relatively) early to meet with a tour guide that Kelsey had arranged for us. We met in the Piazza Navona and he took us to 4 churches in the area. The artwork was pretty impressive, as well as the actual structures and ages of the churches but after a while, they all started to kinda look the same. It reminded me of when I was applying to college and took so many tours at so many different schools. Then he took us to "the best gelateria in Rome." While I support that statement because I (unfortunately) haven't been to every gelateria, this place was pretty darn good. My favorite was the Kinder Bueno flavor, which is from the amazing candy bar that basically tastes like nutella. Then he took us to the Pantheon, which was definitely one of my favorite sites the whole trip. It's still standing ~2,000 years later and it's monstrous! People STILL don't know how they built it! The dome is a perfectly symmetrical hemisphere and if it were to continue, the sphere would fit perfectly inside the square base. Plus, there's a giant opening in the top of it so you get the sunlight (or rain, but don't worry, they were experts in drainage systems too).



Anyway, I really liked it.

So we had some lunch and decided to make our way over to the coliseum. But it took us a while to get there. Rome has this amazing "turn the corner" effect. You'll be walking down a tiny side street, window shopping or getting attacked by streetwalking salesmen, when you turn the corner and suddenly you're standing in front of the Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele, for example. We found some ancient ruins and a bunch of other sites. It's really bizarre to see something so old just chillin' right next to modern cars and street signs.



We finally make it to the coliseum but it closes at 4 pm so we couldn't go inside. While I love it here, in America, this would never happen. It would be open 24/7, constantly shuttling people in and out, making the most money possible. USA USA USA! It was still great to see of course, so I can't be mad, especially since I had been there once before with my family when I was younger. We headed back to the hostel to what had become our daily siesta (or I guess I should say: pennichella). Later we took the subway to meet Amanda for dinner at a great Indian restaurant she loves. We had some Kamasutra wine (that was the name of the brand) and thoroughly enjoyed our food (as always). Julia even loved it, and she used to work at Shalimar, so you know it must be good. Then we got to see her apartment and meet some more roommates before we headed out to a club. It took us a while to find it but we made it! Amanda has 2 Italian friends with connections so we were able to get in for free (saved us 15 euro each!). Amanda had never been there before so none of us knew what to expect but it was a nice club. It was "très chic" and they played good music most of the time. Not to mention that collectively, the group of people at that club was probably the most attractive bunch of people I've ever seen. It was a little intimidating at first, but I like to think we blended in haha. That was really fun but we had to head back since we were getting up early for another tour.

Actually, the reason we had to get up so early was because there was a planned strike of public transportation from 9 am - 12:30 pm. That's right, they plan when their strikes will end. In my opinion, this is just a really long coffee break, but whatever... Anyway, this tour was specifically for the Vatican. We also got to take a quick tour of a small university that the tour guide's wife is studying at, so that was an interesting perspective. We got to go inside St. Peter's Basilica and our tour guide seemed to know anything and everything about all the different paintings and sculptures so we were there for a while.



Not to offend anyone or anything, but the whole time I was in there I was thinking, "Isn't this just a bit extravagant? Can't this money be better spent doing one of what I gather to be the main goals of the Catholic Church: helping people?" Anyway, we went to buy some souvenirs and get some lunch nearby. The rest of the group wanted to see the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel, but I wasn't really feeling it (or the 12 euros it costs to get in) so I broke off from the group. As I was walking down a random side street towards the center of the city, who do I run into but Amanda's parents?!?! I haven't seen them in at least a year but yet I run into them in ROME?!? weird. Especially since I had just recently talked to Amanda and made plans to go out to dinner with her family. So after getting over the shock of seeing them, I went on my merry way. I went to check out the Pantheon again (it's just so cool!) and then I went to see the Trevi fountain in the sunlight! I people watched (one of my favorite, albeit creepy, activities) for a while and then headed to Piazza del Popolo. The other time I was in Rome, I stayed with my family in a hotel really close to this Piazza so I kept having random déjà vu moments. Then I walked through a park that's on one of the 7 hills of the city so you can get a great view:



Then I ended up at the Spanish steps and did some more people watching. I was exhausted by the end so I headed back to the hostel. I got to rest for a bit before I headed out to meet with Amanda for dinner. We went to a cozy little italian restaurant. Amanda showed off her italian skills since the waiter didn't really know any english. It was really nice to catch-up with the Bakers, Karen's always good for a laugh. Amanda, Nicole, her friend and I then headed to campo di fiori again to meet up with my friends. The bars were much more crowded so we got a drink and then enjoyed them sitting on the fountain in the middle of the square since it was a pretty nice night. We were at the end of our vacation and we were all pretty darn tired, so we didn't stay out too late but we still enjoyed ourselves.

Our flight "home" was pretty uneventful... well it was for me at least. We were on a small plane and hit a bit of turbulence, so Jenna thought we were gonna die, but it all worked out. When we finally got back to Aix, it was so nice to be "home." While all I wanted to do was sleep, I went to the grocery store (because they're all closed Sunday) so I'd have something for dinner. I was planning on staying in the night but my new polish friend Dominika convinced me to go out. We hung out at a friends apartment and then went to a bar and dance club. I was having a great time and surprisingly wasn't feeling too bad even though I was kinda sick at this point in time and hadn't gotten as much sleep as normal in the past week. But I'm not used to European time when it comes to going out... by 4:30, I was a bit tired of dancing, and by 5:30 I was having trouble walking cause I was so tired. When I finally got home at 6 in the morning (woah) I just fell into my bed. But I had all day Sunday to do nothing, so I recovered well, don't worry.



So now I have to start planning what I'm going to do for my 2-week break in April. Surfing in Morocco perhaps? Soaking up the sun in Athens? ... What a tough life I have.

Italia! - Venice

So our train to Venice what at a much more reasonable hour (10:30am) so there were no problems getting there on time. It was a 3 hour train ride so it was nice to arrive and it was actually sunny! We walk out of the train station and there's just a giant mass of people everywhere! In the square right outside, there was a bunch of people who set up stands where you can get your face painted. We weave our way through the tiny sidewalk-size streets and find our hostel. Our room overlooked the Grand Canal, it was awesome! The manager & another woman who worked there were unbelievably nice so it was more like staying with a friend than a hostel. We did the grocery shopping, cooked and ate dinner together both nights and then they took us out at night and showed us the best places to go... but more on that later. So we were starving by this time and we found a typical little italian café to eat at that just happened to be right across from a dessert stand. I say dessert stand cause I'm not sure what else to call it... they just had every type of chocolate covered anything (pears, bananas, strawberries, rice-krispie treats, peanuts) and a bunch of italian candies. After we had refueled our energy, we decided to "get lost" in Venice. There was no real point in trying to navigating the streets with a map because it's just too confusing. We make it about 2 feet before we stop at a shop dedicated entirely to selling touristy carnevale masks. It was tiny but every surface was covered with these elaborately decorated masks. I lost count of how many we looked at but we all eventually found one we loved. And then we just kept walking around.



I don't think there's a single ugly spot in Venice; even when the sun went behind the clouds, the views were amazing! Just walking over the tiny bridges and looking down the canals was beautiful. We retrace our steps and somehow find our way back to the hostel. We headed out to the grocery store to get some dinner supplies and got cooking right away.



While I would have liked to help, there were already enough people in the kitchen so me and two other girls watched some youtube videos until dinner was ready. We ate an immense amount of delicious pasta, all for 2 euro! By far the cheapest meal yet! My knee was really bothering me at this point, I guess all the walking had finally caught up to me, so I got out of doing dishes so I could lie in bed with a bag of frozen peas on my knee. But it's Carnevale! So I took some motrin and started feeling better really quickly. We all wore our masks and headed toward Piazza San Marco. People were just partying up in the streets, it reminded me of Ann Arbor during welcome week (with infinitely less beer pong tables and solo cups). We danced in an open square for a bit to some random guy playing his drums... why not? Then we headed to a bar where they only played reggae music, this was quite a contrast from all the techno we'd were used to. Then we wandered around for a bit more going to different bars and/or open squares but we were pretty exhausted so we headed back.

The next day we took the main street that winded all the way down to Piazza San Marco and near the Rialto bridge. We started off near the train station and the 3 girls I was with decided to get their faces painted.



I would have done it but it costs 5 euros, I already had my mask, and I knew I would accidentally rub my face right after I got it done so I opted out. Anyway, we continued down the main street where there were tons of people of course. Some of the costumes were pretty ridiculous but the best ones were the traditional victorian-era dresses with beautiful masks to match! There were a lot of other costumes too, I noticed a lot of people dressed up as Heath Ledger's Joker. We finally make it to the famous Piazza San Marco and it is absolutely packed. It's so big and open compared to the rest of Venice, with its tiny streets and all. We wandered around for a bit but we felt like we were going to get pick-pocketed so we didn't stay there for too long. Then we took a 50 cent gondola ride across the grand canal (it lasted about a minute). We were all set to splurge on the traditional, romantic hour-long gondola rides but it was 80 euro for 40 minutes!! And it was cold and cloudy, so I think we made the right choice. We explored some more and somehow managed to get away from the crowds. We walked along the water and just enjoyed the view (again)! But as you might of guessed, we were getting tired again so we decided to take the water bus (a.k.a. the vaporetto) on a scenic route down the grand canal back to our hostel.



We all took a nap and when I woke up, half my group was missing! They had already went to the grocery store to get all the ingredients for a giant lasagna. Once again, it was delicious and we all got to spend some quality time together... it was 11 pm by the time we had finished eating! We were going to go see some fire works at 8 but that didn't work out, as you can guess. But we still went out after dinner to an open square that was packed with people dancing and having a good time. So the hours flew by while we were doing just that.



We had such a good time in Venice but the next morning it was time to leave... But we were going to Rome so it's hard to be sad. Andiamo!

Italia! - Florence

Where oh where to begin...

For winter vacation, I went to Italy with 3 friends (who all go to Michigan actually): Jenna, Julia, and Kelsey. Kelsey flew into Rome Friday morning but Julia, Jenna, and I had a flight later that night. We all met up with our giant backpacks and set out to the bus station to get to the airport. If I was with my family for 8 days in Italy, I would have normally brought a huge suitcase but I guess I'm getting better at economizing. Anyway, we eventually find our gate after weaving through the overly-complicated airport. We were about to go through security but Julia realizes she has some snacks that she might not be allowed to bring to another country, a.k.a. a slab of ham and an apple. As I soon learn later on, Julia is very good at eating (as we all are really) so we make it to our gate with plenty of time to spare. Especially because it was delayed 2 and a half hours for no apparent reason. We finally get to Italy and have to take a train from the airport to the center of Rome. By the time we meet up with Kelsey, get some food and go back to the hostel, it's 1:30 am! And we had a train at 6:30 later that morning to Florence (we figured it'd be cheaper to do a round trip flight so we came back to Rome later). We made it to the train without any problems since Mom (a.k.a. Kelsey) woke us up and made sure we were there on time. The problem arose once we were actually on the train where we found that the seats on Jenna's and Julia's tickets don't exist. But it turned out it wasn't a big deal and we just found some random car to sit in.

So we get to Florence and check-in at our hostel. This was a pretty great place, it had free internet, free breakfast, free dinner, free 3-hour walking tours of the city... We had a 6-person room so we shared with 2 other people. There was a Scottish woman who was probably around 40 years old who was really nice but we're still not quite sure she was traveling around by herself staying in youth hostels. Then the other bed was occupied by an Australian girl in the middle of doing a tour around Europe. She left on Sunday and a different Australian girl filled her spot, also doing a tour of Europe, by herself. We met Australians all over the place! Anyway, we just missed the walking tour so we set out to explore Florence by ourselves. First we made a pit stop at a patisserie/café. The cappuccino was just as delicious as I had imagined! And all the Italians working there were soooo nice! They all spoke English and were very friendly. While I wouldn't say the French are mean, they're definitely a bit cold, especially if you don't speak French. They don't have the same mentality of "the customer's always right" or that they're there to serve the customer, it's kind of the opposite: it's my choice to serve you and if you don't like it, you can leave. Of course that's a grand generalization but... that was far from the case in Italy! We were enjoying our food and drinks and we decided on another Italian generalization... the majority of the men were extremely attractive. Maybe we were just used to the super-skinny, coiffed, kinda feminine looking men in France but we were all in awe. Or maybe it was the sleep deprivation. ANYWAY, we headed toward the center of the city to the duomo (="the dome") which is a beautiful cathedral. We decided to spend the 8 euros to climb the 463 stairs to the top and it was definitely worth the view. But it was a good thing that I've been doing the stairmaster in my physical therapy because otherwise I don't think I would have made it.





After that, we tried to find the Galleria dell'Academia to see the David (the sculpture by Michaelangelo). And when I say we, I mean me. I became the designated navigator of the trip somehow, but I didn't mind, I like to know where I'm going. I think I get it from my mom, who prints out maps zoomed-in at different levels and studies them the night before we go there. And we were the only ones that never got lost going to random soccer games or tournaments so it was worth it I suppose... of course then we would be at the field and the rest of the team wasn't anywhere to be found but that's a different story. Back to florence... we got to see the David and a small exhibit in the museum about the history of sound & music. We also saw what I'm sure were some very important jesus paintings but I'm not really into that kind of stuff. As we headed back to the hostel, we walked through a giant market selling wallets, purses, scarves, jackets and other random touristy items. There was so much leather! Are there a lot of cows in Italy? I didn't know it was so popular there.

We got back to the hostel and took a siesta. Normally I'm not a fan of naps but walking around all day can make you a bit tired. Then we met up with 3 other students (Molly, Leigh, and Jesse) who are studying in Aix who also happened to be in Florence. And when I say happened to be, I mean they copied our entire plan for winter break. They were in the same cities as us, at the same time, staying at the same hostels. But they're pretty nice people so it's all good. Anyway, we decided to go to Aperitivo at a bar that a friend of one of the girl's who had studied abroad in Florence recommended. For those of you who don't know what Aperitivo is (which I had no idea what it was), it's when you go to a bar and buy one drink, and then you get unlimited access to a delicious Italian buffet. They had everything from pasta to sandwiches, parmesan cheese and dried apricots (weird but delicious combination), and a couple other dishes that we still don't know what they were but tasted great. I wish I could say the same about the drinks but... the study abroad friend had recommended the daiquiri so 5 of us got those. It tasted like nail polish. We were expecting a fruity, girly drink but it was just straight up alcohol. Megan Boddy would have loved it! haha. Next we did some bar hopping. The first place we went to wasn't anything special but the one guy that was with us burned a hole in his coat so we had a good laugh. We noticed the burning smell but thought it was something in the oven until one of the girls saw smoke. There were a bunch of little candles around the bar and he just got a bit to close. So after that, we decided to leave. We found an americanized bar with Karaoke so of course we had to stay and sing a couple songs. Molly and I were the first of the group to sing and we kicked it of with "Man, I feel like a woman" by Shania Twain. It took us a while to decide but we made the right choice. After that, people did some songs from Grease and Lady Marmalade in honor of us studying in France (i.e. "Voulez-vous couchez avec moi, ce soir?"). Later we went to a club/bar that was way too crowded so we went to find some where else. We found a place with a giant dance floor so we were happy. At this time there were the 6 of us girls all dancing together, when we were approached by a guy asking us "Are you guys American?" I guess we stuck out more than we thought... He started dancing with one of us and then all of a sudden all the italian men around us pounced! Everyone was dancing with someone else in the blink of an eye, it probably doesn't sound that funny but it was hilarious at the time how it just took one to break up the group and then it was fair game. Anyway, this guy started fist-pumping and shouting about the jersey shore (he actually looked like he could have been from there) so that just made the night even more enjoyable! We finally get tired and head "home"... not bad for our first night in Italy!

The next morning we took one of the free walking tours offered by the hostel. It was given by a cute italian woman with a thick accent and was really interesting. She pointed out random buildings that I would never have normally taken particular notice of and explained the history behind it.



In the picture, our tour guide is pointing out a wine window, where you used to just walk up to it, knock, and buy a glass of wine. Kinda like the drive through beer depot in Ann Arbor but classier. Anyway, after that she took us to the best gelateria in Florence. And it was pretty darn good. The only 3 Italian words I used during my trip: cappuccino, gratzi, gelato. Anyway, once the tour was done, we did some exploring on our own again. We saw the Ponte Vecchio bridge, another giant cathedrale, and an outdoor (and free!) mini-museum of sculptures. Then we went back to the market to make some purchases since we had already scoped out the place. My friends got scarves, t-shirts, sun glasses, and a fake louis vuitton purse. I invested in a beautiful (and what I think to be very Italian) coat that was only 23 euro! Interestingly enough, it's not made of leather. I do love my coats... I have way to many but it's ok, I won't be cold at least. We get back to the hostel and enjoy the free dinner. It was good but pretty small so, since we're still hungry, we go out searching for dessert. We find a cute restaurant and take a seat in an outside area (but it had a plastic cover and heat lamps so it wasn't cold at all). Right after we sit down, 2 italian men approach the window (a.k.a. plastic) and the one claims he is in love with Jenna. Since it's valentine's day, Jenna goes to talk to him. Turns out he doesn't speak much english so that ended quickly and we enjoy our dessert. It was already pretty late by this time so we decided to head back to the hostel and hang out in the common room and enjoy some Italian red wine. We went to sleep not to long after that to get some rest for Venice... and CARNEVALE!

it's already been 1 month?!?!

Yesterday marks the one month anniversary of my arrival in Aix... I can't believe it! The time is flying by! Not to mention that we've only had class for 2 weeks and winter vacation starts this Saturday. Me and 3 friends are going to Italy for 8 days: Florence, Venice and Rome. And we're gonna be in Venice during carnivale, I can't wait! I mean, I've basically been on vacation for the last month, but this is like the cherry on the cake.

I do still have class going on, it's just so much less stressful than back at Michigan... unless I was a physical education major, then it'd pretty much be the same (haha sorry Sara, I had to say it ;) I really have to focus in class but there's no homework or exams to study for (until the end that is), so I have a lot of down time. I have gone to the library a few times, and I even worked up the courage to talk to the help desk to get a "membership" so I can take out books. The problem is that we're provided with a list of around 20 books (for each class) and that's as close as you get to a syllabus. You have to decipher which books are important/which ones will help your understanding... but in order to do that, you have to read them all! So I'm kinda stuck in the middle... not to mention that reading all this stuff in French generally doesn't help my understanding and can even leave me more confused than when I started. But I'm trying! And I'm also trying to make French friends in class so that I can bum notes off them. They take meticulous notes, they use rulers to make everything perfect and they also use different color pens and highlighters to color-code their notes. Or they use their computer and just type out everything the professor says, but those are more rare species. I did find a guy in my Anthropology of France class that was typing up notes though. My new polish friend (more on her later) and I decided that we needed to ask him for help but we were both too intimidated to ask him so after trying to think of the least awkward/embarassing way of asking him for help, we came up with: pass him a note, 6th grade style. He was so confused when we passed him the note but once he read it, he laughed and told us it was no big deal. Once class was done, I thanked him and told him if he ever needed help with English, I'd be happy to help. So he sends us an email with his notes attached and sure enough, the message part of the email is written in PERFECT English. So much for me being able to help him... This just goes to show you that stereotypes are not all true (a.k.a. that French people aren't the nicest bunch of people), how many American students would share their notes with a perfect stranger? But anyway... to sum it up, classes are going pretty well. I just have to work on my confidence with my speaking ability so I can participate in class and talk to other students.

So I met this polish girl, Dominika, the first day of my first class and we've become pretty good friends. It's great because she can't really speak English and I can definitely NOT speak Polish so we have to practice our French when we're together. She lives in the university dorms, which are one of the few things that are close to my house, so it's working out pretty well. Luckily she's in the refurnished dorms (she has her own bathroom and all the furniture is new) because the older dorms are really shady. Although I've never actually been inside (so I don't want to pass to many judgments), the outside looks like an old prison. But that's kind of what our school looks like too so it matches up well. Anyway, we've hung out in her room a couple times just talking or watching random movies. She only has 2 movies on her computer: Enchanted and Eurotrip. HA. We get along pretty well and she took me to her favorite bar/dance club on Friday night. It was great! The theme of the night was something along the lines of honoring great music of the past so I walk in and "Grease Lightning is playing". Throughout the night, some of the highlights were: "Celebration," "Bohemian Rhapsody," "Cotton-eye Joe," "Hot Stuff," and of course the Macarena! But there were so many, it's hard to pick favorites. You might be wondering why there's so much American music at a French bar, but like I've said, they love American music over here. Especially Tik Tok by Kesha (?!?). So we left around 3 o'clock in the morning... even though I had to get up at 7:15 am for an excursion to Antibes and Vence. Not my brightest moment but I had a great time so even though I was exhausted the next day, I'd say it was worth it.

Speaking of this excursion, it was fun to see more of France but we went to a bunch of museums and a chapel, which aren't really my cup of tea. And the fact that I was so tired did not help the situation. We did get to a bit of free time in each city so I thoroughly enjoyed walking around. There was a huge outdoor market going on in Antibes while we were there and my friend got this old/falling apart book but the pages are cut out so there's a secret hiding spot! ... I thought it was really cool. Then we went to the "Chapelle du Rosaire" which was described to us as a sacred art monument, unique to the world. And while I can appreciate the work that went into it, I don't think I really enjoyed the experience as much as other people might have. Especially since once we were all sitting down, I realized that I had already been there once before. Talk about a weird time to have déjà vu. It turns out that I had visited the chapel when I did a 6-week language learning program between my junior and senior year of high school. It was a group of around 20 high school students and we traveled around France, staying in ~7 different cities. Anyway, we continued on to a Picasso museum (the 2nd of the day) in Vence. Once we got back, my friends and I headed to our favorite restaurant that we've gone to every weekend since we've been here. The manager/owner loves my beautiful blond friend Julia so always get the best treatment there... and free drinks. Not to mention that the food is delicious! But then again, all the food here is delicious. I don't think I've eaten one thing I haven't liked yet... the French some how even make duck liver taste good, I don't know how but they do.

So after my long night sleep, I had a day of leisure (even more than any other day that is). I did some laundry, although I don't have a dryer so I all my clothes are currently scattered throughout my room drying. According to my host mom, it's pretty rare (in the south of France at least) to have a dryer since it's usually so sunny and warm out all the time that people just hang out everything to dry. As long as you don't mind waiting a day for your clothes to dry (I'm in no rush), it really doesn't make a difference to me! I actually had some homework (it was for my expression ecrite class with all the other American students) so I did that and I also tried to find a job for the summer so I can have an excuse to stay here and keep improving my French. But it seems pretty difficult to get one so we'll see how that goes... Since it was a beautiful sunny day, I decided to take a walk and get lost in Aix. First, I went to a soccer complex to see if my host brother had a game (he usually has one on Sundays but since he doesn't really talk to me, I wasn't sure). It turns out there's a decent size carnival where the soccer fields usually are, fully equipped with games, giant slides, bumper cars, even a (small) roller coaster! I walked through it but was by myself so it was kinda weird if I lingered, so I didn't stay there very long. Then I walked into the center of town. Most stores are closed Sundays but there were a few shops and bar/cafés that were open. There was a giant book sale in the hôtel de ville square so I took a look around there. Then I just kinda wandered around, still enjoying the fact that I can walk without crutches and/or being in pain. I stumbled across a really beautiful little park... the only bad thing was I'm not really sure how I got there so I'll have to study a map to find out where I was. The sun was starting to go down and I realized I had been walking for about 2 hours! Of course as soon as I realized this, my feet started to hurt and I got really tired so I started to head home. Turns out I really was lost at that point, but I had a map and figured it out easily enough, no worries!

That's about all for now... next time you hear from me I'll hopefully have some fun Italy stories for you!


A spot in Aix I found during my long walk


Me and Jenny outside the chapel in Vence


The sunrise on Saturday morning on my way to meet everyone for the excursion

la fin de janvier

So it's been two weeks since my last update... sorry but I've had a lot of stuff going on! Last week we finished up our "cours intensif" (our preparatory class for the real Université of Provence classes). We had some grammar quizzes and presentations to do so I actually had to do some work outside of class... weird. We had to do a 5-10 minute presentation on a monument or museum or basically anything/any place that you can go and visit. I decided to do mine on the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial. I had the chance to visit the memorial when my parents and I were in Paris in May 2008 when Mickey was doing his study abroad. I think it went pretty well especially since I had some sweet pictures of Mickey and me exploring the abandoned trenches of the Normandy beach (if you want to see them, check my facebook). We were allowed to have notes but for the most part, you were supposed to just wing it so it's a good thing that my French is getting a bit better. Overall, the cours intensif wasn't so bad at all. We mostly learned about French culture and its differences from that of America (...I think my English is getting worse, sorry if that last sentence didn't make sense). I find it really interesting to talk about this kinda stuff. For example, do you know the word for "snack" in French??? Don't bother looking it up, it's just snack. Do you know why? Because before America's eating behaviors influenced French culture, the idea of snacking did not exist here! Oh, America, what a positive influence we have on the rest of the world. Speaking of that, it's crazy how much they love Barack Obama here. Every time I meet new people, who are not from the U.S., they instantly know I'm a foreigner from my accent (even if I only say "Bonjour") and they say, "Oh, Barack Obama? Yes we can!" Only be sure to imagine that phrase with a thick French accent.

Anyway, this week we started our real classes at "la FAC" (the university). There's 2 buildings that students from our program take classes in. The one building is a 25 minute bus ride from me and I'm taking 2 classes there: Anthropology of France and Anthropology of games and sports. It's definitely a hike to get there but the building/facilities there are much, much nicer than the other building so it's a fair compromise, I guess. In the other building, I'm taking a language, society, and culture class as well as a class called "expression écrite." The expression ecrite class is with all the students from the program (from Wisconsin, Michigan, and Indiana) that are hear for the second semester. It's a required class that will help us in writing any kind of dissertations or papers that we may come across during the semester, as well as some French grammar and important vocabulary. I'm also thinking about taking a phonetics class but seeing as how I know absolutely nothing about phonetics, I might drop it. Then my last class is "expression orale" which is also put on through the program but it's not obligatory. We basically practice our speaking and comprehension through various improv and performance activities. It's gonna be interesting for sure, especially since our teacher seems amazing and slightly crazy. I'm really looking forward to the rest of the semester, especially the classes that are not put on by the program, i.e. classes in French with French professors with French students. Actually, there a lot of "study abroad" students here from all around the world. In my language, culture, and society class alone there are students from: Spain, Italy, Japan, Korea, Ireland, Australia, and Canada. The format of the classes are quite different though. Four of the classes I'm taking are 3 hours long and the other two are 2 hours long. It takes all of my attention in order for me to understand the majority of what the professor is saying so I'm pretty drained by the end. Luckily, almost all teachers have a "petite pause" halfway through the class to get coffee or smoking... C'est la vie en France! The other thing about them is that the professors just talk at you and you take notes. They give you reading lists of 20 books or more and while you're usually not expected to read every one of them, you are supposed to use some of them to help you study. And most of the classes only have 1 final at the end of the semester, that's all you get. Go big or go home. So it's really important to not procrastinate (which I usually do) and just cram (which I always do) at the end of the semester. I'm not doing so badly yet, I went to the library on Thursday and Friday for a bit to read some of these books from my reading lists. The thing is though, these books that are supposed to help us better understand the material are in French so... they don't always help. But there's always wikipedia!

On a different note, I was finally able to find a physical therapist and restart my rehab! My first session was January 19th and I've had 3 others since then. My physical therapist is pretty "aggressive" with my knee (does lots of stretches, forces it into full extension/flexion) so I feel like it's going to get a lot better. Doing physical therapy here is really interesting since everything is so... French. It's a small office with a small open room with smaller (& less) versions of the workout equipment than any basic gym I've been to in America. Plus, nobody in France really wants to admit that they work out or sweat so everyone wears jeans to the place. They do change usually but into pants and long-sleeved "athletic wear" (aka velour sweat suits for women)... or the men just decide to walk around in there boxers, no big deal (?!). The first time I went, I wore shorts and a T-shirt and I felt extremely out of place... oh well. Oh and did I mention that my physical therapist spent 10 years working in America? So he's speaks fluent English and French and he's from Holland so I imagine he's also fluent in Dutch. woah. Anyway, it's been really helpful for me to be able to explain stuff in English (like how I hurt my knee, flexion/extension etc.) but I think I'm going to ask him to start speaking French so I can learn a whole new set of vocab! I already learned the word for painful. I should be able to run by February and hopefully be playing sports by May. It's so sad that I can't play soccer here because it's everywhere... and I really wanna show these French guys what a female American soccer player can do. It's funny, every time I try to explain that I play soccer or got injured playing "football," the person always asks, "football americain?" They must really not understand the game at all to think that a girl would be playing the sport at a college level... or they just think we Americans know absolutely nothing about the sport so we therefore must be talking about American football.

Let's see... what else has been going on... I'm finally meeting some French people (and/or people from other countries that are impossibly good at speaking French). I met a girl from Poland in my very first class and we hung out a bit today in her dorm room just chatting it up (in French of course). She promised to take me out with her French friends this Friday so I'm pretty excited! Then I also talked to a Canadian guy in my Anthropology of games and sports class. Side note - the first (and only, thus far) class I walked in 20 minutes late because I thought it started at 10 but no, it was 9:30. And it was in a small room with about 15 other people. awkward city. And so I start to apologize for being late (but the teacher's not at all upset luckily) and he instantly asks me where I'm from (hearing my blatant accent of course). So I tell him I'm from Michigan (it's much easier to say than Connecticut with a French accent) and for the rest of the 3 hour class, whenever he would refer to some American, he would turn to me and ask me a question. That was not so fun, but it's good for me... gotta learn somehow! Anyway... last night, my friend Jenna and I went to an apartment of a French girl that Jenna had become friends with and it was awesome. We spoke French the whole night! Well, except when they sometimes spoke to us in English (they want to practice their language skills too). It was great to hear/learn some "argot" (=slang). All we've ever learned in class is the grammatically correct way to say things and vocabulary concerning scholarly topics so it was awesome to just be around them. Even if they did speak super fast while simultaneously not moving their lips. Last night I also had the opportunity to learn some traditional Provençal (the region that Aix-en-Provence is in) dances. Jenna's host-mom had known about this "workshop" I guess you could call it and thought it'd be interesting for her to see. I could do most of the dances but my knee was kinda sore by the end of it. But it was really fun to learn about this whole different culture (they even have their own language!).

I think that's about it for now... stay tuned!

The pictures I've posted are: (1) traditional provençal dancing (2) some of my new (American) friends and I, partyin' it up! (3) a view from "la FAC"

my first full week

Bonjour, tout le monde!

I survived my first full week of classes in France, although I don't know if I would really call them classes. They were more like discussions about random aspects of french life. For the first two weeks, everyone in program who's going to take classes at "la FAC" has to take a "cours intensif" to help us improve our french and prepare us for taking classes at a french university. Even though the class is only 2 weeks long, we get 2 credits for it since we spend an average of 4 and a half hours a day in class. Fortunately for us though, the french professors don't like to go more than an hour without taking "une pose" (a 15-minute break) for coffee. Not to mention that class got canceled Friday morning too because the teacher's son was sick. We've done a couple of grammar exercises but mostly it's just information about french culture and learning new, useful vocabulary (such as words associated with cell phones). This will probably be the easiest credit I will ever get while going to Michigan. The only possible negative I've found so far is that the building where our classes are is about a 25-minute walk from my homestay... but it's good exercise and it's probably helping my bum knee, so I can't really complain.



There was also a lot of administrative meetings this week, like opening a french bank account and choosing classes. You would not believe how unorganized the Université de Provence is in terms of posting information about class options (course descriptions, times, locations, etc.). Let's just say I will never complain about Wolverine Access ever again. Basically, every department (history, literature, etc.) has their own website and each website is formatted completely differently. Plus, instead of only listing classes that are for this specific semester, they list them based on how far along you are in your degree. I know I'm probably not explaining this very well, but I don't think I understand it either... Anyway, long story short, it's quite difficult to make a schedule. But since I really only have to fill my french minor requirements while studying here, I'm not too stressed out about it. To fulfill my requirements, I need 9 credits in classes that are about France in general. And it's not too hard to find a class about France at my french university, so I think it'll be ok. Not to mention that Michigan doesn't count the credits we get here towards our GPA so I'm in a pretty good spot right now I'd say.

Like I mentioned earlier, we had the choice of whether or not we wanted to open a bank account but I decided to do it because it's the only way you can get any reimbursement from the "sécurité sociale" (national health insurance). Basically, if you don't have a french bank account, you don't get any money back when you see a doctor. And since I'm planning on doing physical therapy here, it seems to be a good investment. You only get 70% reimbursed but it's better than nothing! Of course, when I signed up to open account, I'm pretty sure I signed my life away. I signed no less than 9 documents, all in French, and I'm still not completely sure what they said. There was a woman with the program that made sure we did everything that was necessary so I think my bases are covered.

And speaking of my bum knee, I had a doctor's appointment Friday morning with an orthopedic surgeon. I was going to go see him by myself but fortunately on Thursday, my program director offered to come with me. I don't know what I would have done if she wasn't there to help me explain everything... you don't realize how much many words you don't know until you need them. It was so cool though to see/hear some the vocab I've learned from my movement science classes in French. I'm not sure why it fascinates me so much, but I had a great time (other than the awkwardness of not being able to communicate very well with the doctor). Anyway, he said that my knee looks good and stable, and he wrote me a prescription for physical therapy. Now I just have to find a physical therapist that's available... my director has been searching for one but it seems as if I won't get to see anyone until the beginning of February. They all seem to be booked up or on vacation! But at least I'm making some steps in the right direction...

Everything's going pretty well with my host family. I'm starting to actually have a personality when I speak french, as opposed to me just answering yes or no questions. The son who's 17 still doesn't really like to talk to me but at least he says hello to me now! And if I ask him how his day was, he'll ask me how mine was. Actually, today I went to watch his soccer, sorry I mean football, game. Unfortunately, within 3 minutes of us getting there, he was called for an intentional hand ball and got a red card. He was thrown out of the game and won't be able to play in the next 3 matches! I guess I'm just bad luck because their team ended up losing... the other team was ranked higher though and they were playing a man down for most of the game. Even though I didn't get to see Étienne play, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Not only did I get to watch soccer and live vicariously through the players, I got to learn a bunch of new french vocab. I learned the words they use for things like "man on" and "switch the field," not to mention a bunch of other vocab from the angry parents yelling at the ref. Actually, they have a giant fence in front of the stands to keep the parents off the field.

So the big story of the week: I went to Monaco/Monte-Carlo yesterday. There's a company that puts on tours of neighboring attractions so a bunch of us from the program paid 25 euros each and took a bus to Monaco. It was about a 2 and a half hour drive but even the ride there was an experience. The views from the road was absolutely amazing. We were riding up and down mountains and passed through Cannes and Nice. We even saw the Alps from a distance. Then when we got to Monaco, it was even more amazing. It's pretty much impossible to describe it to you but I tried to take a bunch of pictures. There are houses built right into the sides of super steep cliffs, it was unbelievable. We walked around for a bit and just took in the scenery. We also got to see the palace of Monaco, where the royal family lives. Then we went to Monte-Carlo which I think is possibly the wealthiest place on earth. It's composed entirely of casinos, hotels, and stores like Gucci and Prada. It was ridiculous. Everywhere you look you see women in high heels and fur walking their tiny dog! But pay attention because if you're not careful you might get hit by a Bentely or a red Ferrari. It was great to see but soooo extravagant. And keep in mind that when I say this, I am from Greenwich, Connecticut. Anyway, on the way back to Aix we stopped at a perfume factory and learned all about it. Did you know that there are people who's only job is to smell different scents? They're called a "nez" (nose) and they can differentiate around 1,500 different scents. Crazy stuff.

So then we drove through Nice and the beautiful Promenade des Anglais. It was a great day but I was quite tired from waking up at 6:45 and all that walking, but my knee wasn't hurting at least! Some friends and I went out to dinner (since our host family's aren't responsible for feeding us on Saturday nights) to the same place we went last week since it was so good. The owner/manager there remembered us from last week and seemed very happy to see us. Right after we sat down, he comes over and hands us 3 free drinks! And then after dinner, he brought us some more free shots. I went home after that since I had a far walk ahead of me and I was already tired (I know, I'm lame). But I did go out Friday night! We went to the international bar again and it was Karaoke night! What luck! I was so pumped, needless to say. There was a very random selection ranging from the Beatles to P. Diddy. There were some french songs too but for the most part they were american ones. Of course I had to go at least once... my friend Jenna really wanted to do 'Lose Yourself' by Eminem and represent Michigan. It was surprisingly hard, but we got through the whole song. The some friends of ours did a song by Cher which was a real crowd pleaser. It was a great time; not only did I get to sing but I got to hear the french people struggle with the english lyrics (which made me feel infinitely better about my inferior french linguistic skills).

So I've got another week of "cours intensif" and then I start classes at the Université de Provence for real! Woah.

À Bientôt!

Here's a video of a random street band that was playing outside the grocery store on Friday evening. Sorry it's sideways but I haven't quite figured out how to rotate it yet...

My first few days...

I finally made it to Europe after spending 7 and a half hours in a middle seat next to 2 guys who hogged the arm rests. I had a connection in Amsterdam, where I arrived at what would be the equivalent of 2:17 am our time. I then had to walk 20 minutes to the gate for the flight to Marseille, luckily I had enough time to spare. We arrive safely in Marseille but unfortunately, the airline has lost my luggage! Of course I didn't follow the suggestion of packing 3 days worth of clothes/toiletries in your carry-on so I was a bit nervous... but after speaking to a representative using my rusty French, I found out it would be delivered to my homestay address later that night. Fortunately, my super nice host mom took off work to come pick me up from the airport. She had to go back to work though so she basically dropped me off, helped me connect to the internet and then left again. I was on my own for the afternoon so I decided to take a walk around town so I wouldn't fall asleep. I'm living about 15-20 minutes from the center of town so it's a bit of a hike but not too bad. I walked around the beautiful little town for an hour or so before I got so tired that I had to come back. I decided I had to take a nap or I would pass out at the dinner table, which I imagine would not have made a good first impression. My 65-lb. bag finally arrived at 9:45 and we hauled it up the stairs where I could unpack. As soon as I finished, I fell asleep instantly.

I woke up the next morning and went downstairs for a breakfast of what else: bread (& jam and some amazing coffee), it was delicious! I walked into town for our first meeting with the program, where we had a guided tour of Aix en Provence (in French, of course). I got to meet most of the people in the program and everyone is super friendly. Actually, one of the girls from Wisconsin (it's a joint program with Michigan, Wisconsin, and Indiana students) had taken a french class with my older brother. weird. We had an information session later that day where the directors of the program tried to explain some cultural differences and give us some advice. She basically explained that, as a woman walking on the street, if you make eye contact with a guy, he will approach you and he will try to seduce you. Apparently that's just how the French roll... but it's better than Italian guys at least (be careful, Amanda!). Then our director got a phone call, that she later told us was about the cancellation of exams (for the year-long students) for that day and the following day because there was snow in the forecast. They also canceled our mini-excursion on saturday and shut down stores because it was EXPECTED to snow a couple of centimeters. I don't think these people would handle living in Ann Arbor very well. So then most of us went to buy cheap phones; the workers at the store we went to were a little overwhelmed when about 25 loud american college students came into the store but they worked really efficiently.

I got to sleep in a bit Friday morning but I still had a great breakfast waiting for me! I went into town to take a placement exam (to decide the level of our french abilities) and then we had a meeting about opening a french bank account. Now I understand that we are here to learn french but all of this really, really important information was told to us in french so there's a very large possibility that I missed a giant chunk of info that I made need for future decisions... but hopefully it'll all work out. When I went home for dinner, I found out my host-mom was having a "fête des voisins" which is like a neighborhood party (all the neighbors come over and bring different kinds of food and alcohol). Interestingly enough, another student from Wisconsin who's in the same program I'm in (except he's doing the full year, not just a semester like me) arrived with one of the families that came to the party. My host-mom was so impressed by his speaking abilities, that she thought he was from Paris before he told everyone he was from Wisconsin. One of my goals for the semester: be mistaken for a French person. Anyway, there was a bunch of different foods to pick on, such as foie gras and un petit pizza (which my host mom cut up using scissors! I've never seen that done before). But more importantly, there was a lot of alcohol. We started with champagne, then red wine, then white wine, and then one of the guests proceeded to make a mixed drink with some kind of rum. It's so great to be able to taste all these different foods and drinks, part of what makes France: France.

So I wake up Saturday morning and it actually snowed!! Now almost everything is shut down. My host-brother is at a friends house 20 km away but according to my host-mom, it's too dangerous to drive. The bus system has stopped as well. There was about 3-5 inches (if that) on the ground. But I can't blame them too much, the streets are so narrow, the cars are so little, and they don't really have the machinery to clear the roads so it's better to be safe than sorry I guess. I found out that a supermarket is somehow still open though so I go to buy some toiletries and some food for lunch (because lunch is not covered in my monthly "rent" for my homestay). I go to get a grocery cart inside the store but I don't see any, so I walk back outside to get one but there all locked together. I found out after pulling on it and pushing in random spots that you have to pay 1 Euro to use the cart!! So I finally get in the store and I keep running into everyone cause it's super busy and it's a really big cart. I get everything I need, which is about 15 items, so the cart is practically empty and everyone is looking at me like "what an idiot" especially since right near the registers are hand baskets that would have been the perfect size and I wouldn't have had to pay... but you live and you learn!

Later that night, some friends from the program and I decide to go see a french movie and go out to dinner. My host-mom lets me borrow her hiking boots cause I didn't bring any snow or rain boots (of course I only brought my nice suede ones), but once I make it off my little side street, there is absolutely no snow on the sidewalks and I realize I didn't really need them at all. I make it into town and we wait in line to see "le siffleur" (the whistler). I didn't fully understand everything that was going on but I got the gist and it was pretty funny. It was absolutely freezing outside, and we were starving, so we went to one of the first restaurants we saw. It turns out to be absolutely delicious (I don't think I've eaten anything I didn't like yet) and we spend about 2 hours just talking and enjoying the atmosphere. When we finished with dinner and dessert, we were still relaxing at the table and who we think was the owner of the restaurant gave us free shots. Apparently being a girl in France means free drinks, which I don't think any of us were complaining about. So once we paid and figured out where we were on a map, we went searching for a bar that a lot of international students go to called "the woohoo". None of us knew where it was exactly so we wandered around for a little bit and finally found it. We met some other american students doing study abroad programs and chatted for a while during which time we got more free shots. The bar didn't start to get crowded until around 12:30 am and finally people started dancing around 1. I love dancing, even with my bum knee and all, so I was having a great time. The music got a bit too techno for our liking though so our new study abroad friends (who had been there for the fall semester too) took us to a club. It was reasonably empty but still fun because there was a lot of space for dancing (and I didn't have to worry about messing up my knee). Our new friend knew someone who worked there so we got free champagne. More people started to arrive at 2:30 and it was pretty crowded by 3 but I was super tired by 3:30 and my knee was bothering me a lot so I asked my friends to leave with me (I know, I'm lame) so I wouldn't have to walk alone. I live much farther away than everyone else so I took a taxi home and tried to make as little noise as possible. So that was my first night of going out in Aix... did I mention I was wearing hiking boots?? That was a little awkward cause everyone is so nicely dressed here but it's ok, I "made it work" as Tim Gunn would say.

So that brings me to this morning where I got to sleep in cause it was our "free day." I haven't done much but read a french comic book and watch some TV with my host-mom. I got to talk to my family today too which is always a pleasure ;) If anyone ever wants to set up a skype date, let me know!

That's it for now, tomorrow I start 2 weeks of our "cours intensif" which is put on by the program to help us adjust to life and school in France. We have an average of about 5 hours of class a day so I'll be keeping busy.
À bientôt!

P.S. the first 3 pictures are from my night out on Saturday and the other 2 are views from the window of my homestay.