A day full of adventures!

Today I:
-climbed a small mountain
-saw a beautiful waterfall
-explored two cemeteries
-went to like eight panoramas
-adventured through the wilderness
-broke a lock
-picnicked next to the med
-swam in the med
-shared watermelon with some kids from people to people
-got a hint of a sunburn
-witnessed so many men in speedos and topless women it isn't even funny

Nice is absolutely gorgeous. Tomorrow we leave at 7:25 am to head to Milan!!!

Well hello there Mediterranean sea

After five and a half hours on a train (the nice lady sitting next to us gave us cherries) and half an hour wandering around looking for the hostel, we have safely arrived in Nice! This city kind of reminds me of Eluthera with the brightly colored houses and beach-town vibe, and I absolutely love it. The architecture is totally different from Paris with terra cotta roofs and stucco walls and so so so many flowers. Today it was about 85 and sunny, an there are palm trees everywhere. After two weeks of almost perpetual rain showers, I am positively in heaven! There are also a ton of tourists here, and there was an Ironman earlier this morning.

The hostel itself is so cute, but the rooms are TINY! Molly, Griff and I are all in one room with bunk beds which have just enough room to walk between them. We've also got a sink and a push button shower, but the toilet is shared with the rest of the hall. In case you ever stay in a hostel, don't assume that "linens included" means towels. We had to use today's clothes to dry off after showers. The staff seem friendly and helpful, there is free wifi, and free breakfast so all in all this place is a steal. Did I mention that we are two blocks from the MEDITERRANEAN?!?!

So as soon as we checked in, we went straight to the beach. It's a stone beac instead of sand, and the water is so dang blue it almost hurts to look
at. You don't even have to try to float the water is so salty. I could swim out there forever. There was an interesting cast of characters at the beach which included topless women, men in speedos, and tons of naked children. Typical France.

"Castles are not for crying."

Yesterday was my last day of classes, and I'm going to miss all of my classmates so so much! Now I have an excuse to visit Spain, Ireland, Ukraine, and Australia just to visit them! We had the final group dinner at a restaurant called Nos Ancestres Les Gaulois, and it was absolutely delicious. Here's the menu:

appetizer-a huge basket of raw vegetables, sausage and a veal pâté , and coarse bread.
Main dish-I chose côtes d'agneau which is like lamb cutlets but you either had a choice of some form of beef or lamb.
This was followed by a cheese course to cleanse the palate (kind of a foreign concept to me but it was so great).
Dessert-chocolate mousse that I traded to Molly because she didn't like the caramel crème brûlée.

The whole restaurant was set up like a huge old tavern complete with animals skins adorning the walls and a giant barrel of red wine where you served yourself.

Today we went to Chambourd, a GIANT castle about two and a half hours away from Paris, and I took my final final for 3126 (and got credit!). There was a festival going on so we didnt really get to explore the open fields nearby, but the castle was absolutely beautiful and we got to explore most of it. I also found Gracie's long haired French cousin. Kelley, Molly and I decided we will be coming back to Paris next summer for the music festival and then we'll get ball gowns and pretend we're royalty at Chambourd. We ended the excursion at a winery that has been handed down through five generations of the same family. The whole operation seemed so personal and cute, and the wine was wonderful! It was a lot more flavorful than the three euro stuff we occasionally pick up. I got a bottle of a floral white to bring home (if I can find a way to get it through customs), just because it has such a unique taste.

I leave for Nice tomorrow so this may be my last post for a week depending on wifi. A bientôt my faithful readers!

Things the French do:
-drive like maniacs if they've got motorcycles. They essentially create their own lanes in between each lane of traffic on the highway
-pink toilet paper.
-man-on-man bises

Things they don't:
-seats on public toilets
-have any qualms about PDA or excessive wine consumption in public
-American bear hugs. I always mistake bises as the start of a hug and things get awkward quickly.

Ps Griff has successfully made it to Paris! The photo is really dark, but here's proof:

The city appears to have a hangover

Oh my goodness. Yesterday was the annual Fête de la Musique which means all of Paris was in the streets celebrating every style of music. I started in the Marais and witnessed jazz bands, drumlines, reggae, rock, acapella, and an Edith Piaf cover artist. I also participated in a spontaneous parade that took over the main boulevard, bathroom hunted like a champ, and danced to the YMCA. next we headed to Bourse. In the Palais Royale gardens a band played back in the ussr so of course we stopped an danced to that. Then we finally ended up at a Redman (reggae) concert at place de la bourse which was absolutely insane. I have never seen so many people just going nuts at once. I survived the night without stepping on any glass or any encounters with creepy pick up artists, and we ran into our new friend from Canada! I made it home by 12:45, but the city was no where near finished. I'm pretty sure I saw people staggering home during my 8:15 métro ride this morning. I really wish I could upload videos to the so you could understand how insane this was. The whole city was celebrating, bars closed the insides and just set up tables outside, and everyone danced. I love Paris.

"It's a part of our culture."

Let me just say that I am a girl who loves to sleep. I need around eight hours to fully function, and naps are pretty far up there on my list of favorite things, second only to really hot showers. Let me also say that a good nights sleep here is usually between five and six hours. At this point exhausted is an understatement.

Yesterday I had my final for oral proficiency, so now I just have one more post-final thing to do on Saturday. I also took the final for my class at the alliance today, so tomorrow should just be a fun day. Last night I went with some girls from tech and some of their friends to a canal to hang out for a while. It was so great to meet new people, and I learned a little bit of Russian (I've already forgotten it though)! Apparently being on time is a key part of swiss culture, and a lot of Quebecois is English spoken with a french accent. And in the spirit of random information, the restrooms in McDonalds and KFCs in Paris are upstairs and usually require a coin to get in.

Today my class had a picnic in the Luxembourg Gardens! It was so fun to have so many languages swirling around. I had to explain why american football is so great, what prom court is, how frat parties work, and then I demonstrated my southern accent. In return, they taught me how Spanish and English universities work, how to hitchhike in Spain, and a few words of Italian that I need to memorize before next week. I am going to miss these people so much!!

Weather update: Paris weather is just as crazy as Blacksburg weather. I got a sunburn at our picnic, and then thirty minutes later I was sprinting home in a thunderstorm with torrential rain and marble sized hail. Wooooo!

It's just not France without a strike.

We finally made it out to the science and industry museum, only to find out that the cleaning staff are on strike. We still went in, though, because we desperately needed the museum to finish the culture and civ class. The nettoyage had literally scattered paper and confetti everywhere and were sitting in the lobby of the museum looking sullen and handing out flyers. The museum itself ended up being a lot like the Richmond Children's Science Museum. I learned a lot about the ancient Gauls and earthquakes and then genetics. Wooooo science.

I also mailed the last of the postcards today, but my stamps said china even though I asked for ones to the US, so who knows if they'll actually make t to the states. It's the thought that counts right? Sorry these last posts have been short, I am behind on writing and I want to be done by Thursday!

C'est lundi

Blogger Hier

Well, in case you didn't know, La Cité des Arts et des Sciences is closed on Mondays. Quelle surprise. My whole afternoon was basically a wash today. After about two hours on the metro, I tried to go to la Caféothèque but there wasn't a free table to be found. Then we tried to go to a tea shop that's said to have great hot chocolate, but it's closed on Mondays too. We ended up getting crêpes at a cute-ish restaurant and then going shopping. Ile-St.-Louis has surprisingly good prices!

Wild and wonderful weekend

Happy father's day!

The excursion to Montmartre was a HUGE success. First we got gelato (hazelnut, chocolate, and cinnamon; see photo), then we did some shopping, and then we got dinner around 8:30. Montmartre has the best little shops with the neatest jewelry and decent prices. Dinner was so much fun, although the food didn't match up to the ambiance. To begin with, the restaurant was tiny with two realllllly long tables pressed up against a bench-lined wall. If the waiters decided you were going to sit along the wall, they made you step up on a chair and over the table. I was lucky enough to get a chair, but Molly and Kelley clambered over quite gracefully. The first course was a fruity little apèro and a plate full of cheese, olives, and different sausage slices. The main course was a Swiss-ish cheese fondue with bread chunks to dip. This was served with your choice of red or white wine in a baby bottle. Bizarre, but so much fun. Dessert was a surprisingly refreshing fruit salad. Because of the way we were sitting, we got to know the girls to the left of us really well. Almost every place on our table was taken by American sorority girls, and I'm not sure the waiters knew how to handle so many divas making so much noise. Oh, and I added a little hokie spirit to the bathroom graffiti. We made it back to St.Michel around 10:30 and then we decided to take a bâteau mouche around the city! It was beyond beautiful, albeit a little bit chilly.

Today, we finally went to Versailles! After getting on (and off at the next stop) the wrong train, we made it it in time for a quick stroll through the city and lunch at a café. Today's menu included a salad with a vinaigrette dressing and goat cheese on toast. Yum! Then we went to Versailles itself, which was mind-blowingly beautiful! The line to get inside was really long, so we went out to the gardens first. Marie Antoinette's hamlet was by far the most quaint, beautiful thing I've ever seen. The rest of the gardens were also awesome, but this one was more natural and untamed and just so green! Then I got us thoroughly lost in the garden, but it was fine because we found some really cool stuff and then I had blueberry sorbet. By then it was about 4, so we waited in the slightly diminished line for the palace. It was also gorgeous and so so luxurious, but I really preferred the gardens.

Funny occurrences of the day:
1. Getting on the wrong train
2. Dresses on a windy day
3. Two Asian tourists asking to take a picture with me. I guess they like Americans? This has the potential to be creepy, but I'm just going to take it as flattering and try not to think about random people having a picture with me in it as a souvenir of their trip to France.
4. The coolest dog that rode back next to us on the train. The train was packed, so when I say next to us I mean snuggled up on the floor of the train.

Blueberry jam!

Today marks the third day my teacher hasn't returned journals and I've had to write on looseleaf. The horror. After an hour or so of writing, we went to the neatest restaurant for breakfast/brunch. It was called Le Pain Quotidien, and the food was so good. I ordered hot chocolate, and they brought a bowl of hot milk and a tiny pitcher of melted fudge that you mix together yourself. Delicious! They also had realllly good blueberry jam and a hazelnut butter spread that almost beat nutella. The place was set up sort of like a castle with exposed beams, raw wooden tables, and stone floors. Then, because it's STILL raining, we went to the shopping gallery by Palais Royale to do some more writing, people watching, and window shopping. This is the place of all places to window shop. You're basically in an indoor alley way that connects a couple different buildings and all the shops have huge windows where they casually display ancient books and 230€ shoes that positively shout your name. After a quick trip back to the FIAP for a power nap and another layer of clothes to combat this froideur, we're off to Montmartre. Molly heard of a restaurant where you drink wine out of baby bottles and listen to live jazz. Even if it is a wash, there is no way we can escape the night without some gelato so it's bound to be a success.

"Il y a des perverts partout."

Today was my favorite brazilian's last day. She has degrees in psychology and literature, a phd in psychology, had her own practice for a while, and now she teaches and does research at a university in Sao Paolo. And she was the nicest lady I've ever met. Yodita, you're an inspiration. Culture clash side note-- I went to hug her goodbye but she though we were just doing the French bises so she was a little startled.

My main adventure involved going to a pharmacy (you don't go to a doctor here unless you're near death). I keep biting the inside of my lip, and it turned into a huge ulcer that killed every time I tried to eat or speak. No big deal, except I'm in a language class every day and I'm in the amazing-bread capital of the world. Anyway, I successfully communicated the issue and got the right medication and I'm already mostly healed!

I'm spending this lovely Friday night hiding from the rain and resting up from this last week/for this coming week (see the calendar) in the company of Mum and Sons and some ice cream we smuggled into the building. The weather really has been dreary for the last week.

Oh, and the quote above is my professor's favorite thing to say when we're discussing faits diverses (random stories that typically deal with death and bizarre occurrences like a cheese rolling competition that put 13 people in the hospital).

But really, how much for that doggy in the window?

Today we tried to go to our favorite bakery by Mouton Duvernet, but there was some strange police event taking place. They had the whole block taped up and about fifteen of them were lounging around in riot gear outside of a restaurant. No one seemed particularly stressed though, so we just wandered past and found another bakery where the owners were even friendlier. Across from the bakery was the cutest pet store I've ever seen. I'm pretty certain they only sold dogs because there were so many tiny puppies playing in the window. It was beyond precious.

After lunch, Kelley and I tried to find the last museum we need for the culture and civ class. We spent about an hour on the metro getting to the outskirts of the city and came up in the middle of the ghetto. I'm not exaggerating here-- there was trash and dirty diapers everywhere and people were just chilling on street corners and all the buildings were HLMs. We halfheartedly looked for the museum, but we got back on the metro pretty quickly. We might try again later when there is more daylight and we're not wearing dresses in an area dominated by Muslim families. Nothing shouts tourist like two light-haired girls in sundresses with backpacks looking for signs that point to a museum.

Later on we went to watch the Eiffel tower sparkle and met a Californian girl who was actually from Mississippi named Tess. Once we got tired of fending off the champagne-sellers and a really persistent homeless man who kept coming back for wine, we headed back to the fiap.

It's not a lifestyle until you smell.

Today's metro ride was particularly horrendous. Normally it's uncomfortably crowded, kind of like sardines in a can. Today, it was more like a trash compactor. It started out when Molly had her arm behind me so that she could reach the handrails, but I didn't know it was her so I was trying my hardest not to be leaning against a stranger. This shifted my center of gravity way forward so I crashed in to so many people at every turn. Then the crowd changed at Montparnasse-Bienvenüe, one of the more crowded stations. I was left squished up against this disheveled (lifestyle*) man. We were so close that if I hadn't turned my head, our noses would have been touching. Such a great way to start the morning!

Class was fun, I learned that most young Chinese are capable of hacking into different servers and therefor getting around the Facebook/YouTube ban. I also learned that French spoken with a Slavic accent is the hardest to understand.

Molly, Kelley and I are spending the afternoon at the Luxembourg gardens. They certainly are magnificent, but I still prefer the Palais-Royale. It's a lot less touristy and therefor a lot more enjoyable, but it does lack all the runners and the occasional duck.

*We've established that disheveled, like most other outfit choices, is a style in France. There is a line, however, that separates the willingly disheveled (style) from the possibly homeless (lifestyle). It's determined by smell, but other than that it can be very difficult to differentiate between the two.

And to wrap up the day, I saw a production of Cyrano de Bergerac that was really, really good! The play was followed by some amazing pesto pasta and a dessert called profiteroles (ice cream inside of a croissant-like pastry with fudge drizzled on top). I also attempted to wear those awesome shoes and I would have been fine except I had to walk about half a mile at once (we walked from street number 15 to 85). Luckily another girl on the trip was kind enough to change shoes with me for the way back! I'll be paying her back in wine.

L'art moderne

In class today, we wrapped up our unit on education and started a unit on media. I'm interested to see how this goes considering our first topic is freedom of the press. The diversity in my class is really going to show, especially because one woman is a human rights activist who is already arguing that the issue is not freedom of press, but freedom to inform one's self. Also, did you know that France's current president isn't married? The first lady of France, if such a title exists, is his current girlfriend. It's interesting to see how the image of stability and willingness to be a part of traditional society, which Americans often define as being in a lasting marriage, is defined differently.

I spent the afternoon today in the Centre Pompidou, home of a fanatic collection of modern art. It walks you through all the greats, from Matisse and fauvism to Picasso and cubism to whatever you call the neat concentric circle art to dali's surrealism. Other artists worth mentioning include Modigliani and the Delaunays. Some of it was really great. Some of it (see below) was not.

I don't know if I've previously addressed this, but French men wear bags. Satchels, backpacks, eastpak slings, shoulder bags, even the occasional fanny pack. The weird thing is, I didn't even notice this fashion phenomenon until recently because they wear them so darn well. French men redefine the phrase fresh-to-death when it comes to fashion, and they're even easier identify on the metro than women. Think edgier James Bond and you've basically got the look down pat.

Blogger issues!

My phone stopped recognizing the server over the weekend, but now it seems to be working though the homepage for google has changed itself to French. On Saturday, I looked at different architecture including a gorgeous office park, an interesting building dedicated to Arab culture, and a future forward sports complex that I didn't really like. I also bought my first pair of French heels. My next task is to master walking in them on cobblestones. Eep.

Sunday meant another day of hardcore journaling in La Caféothèque. They play such great music there (mostly American music) so it was great! Bob Dylan and Mumford and Sons make great coffee house jams. I only have two more long papers to do for culture and civ!

Today I looked at steps

And also Napoleon III's living quarters, La Joconde, the Winged Victory, and so many other works of art at the Louvre. My mind was just blown by the tread-patterns left on the stone staircases that show where thousands or maybe millions of people have walked before. It was especially neat on the marble floors where each color stone has worn away at a different rate so that the floor is a little uneven.

I'm not ashamed to say that I'm staying home on this chilly Friday night and probably going to bed within the next hour or so. The amount of walking and metro hopping I've done in the last three days, accompanied with the madness that is four hours of language class a day and so much extra writing that my hands cramp has left me zonked.

It's 10:15 and there's a crow outside my window raising a ruckus. What is this madness and why isn't the sun down. Also, the weather here has been just as finicky as Blacksburg weather for the last three days. Bonne nuit!

La Tour Eiffel

Before you get too excited, I've still yet to climb it. But I did spend about four hours beside it yesterday! The lawn is really just a great place to picnic and people watch.

Before we went to the Eiffel tower, Dr. J took Kelley, Molly and I to a tea shop. We each got a café gourmand which is basically a shot of espresso, a scoop of ice cream, and two little desserts. Mine came with pecan praline ice cream, some kind of cherry cake, and a dense chocolate walnut cake that was divine. After the afternoon snack, the three of us did a little shopping and then headed to the Eiffel tower. The plan was to meet Molly's friends at 6, but they ended up not being able to come until about 9, and then we stayed for about two more hours.

Below you can see our lovely snack:
Two bottles of wine that cost about 6€ total, Rochefort cheese (that was a mistake. Don't buy that cheese unless you like really strong, smelly cheeses), some odd crackers that aren't pictured, and dark chocolate from Haiti. The chocolate is a commerce equitable product, which means the middle man is mostly eliminated and the producers get more of the profit. Fun fact learned in class, in case you were wondering. Also for your fun-fact knowledge, when in doubt, go for the wine that says bottled at the chateau. Those are always better than the random ones with cute labels, though our Cotes du Rhone did hold its own.

Montmartre et Sacré Cœur

In class today we discussed the different education systems around the world. Apparently Finland has the best system, and Brazil and France are tied for the worst. It's funny to listen to the Chinese girl rag on her education system so much, but it really does sound awful. I'm one of two Americans in the class, and although our system is a little flawed, I'm happy to have ha such good schools.

After class we had our final walking tour. In the approximately fifteen miles we covered, we voyaged from the opera house (I forget the name but it's not the Bastille) to Montmartre, the city on the hill that overlooks all of Paris. I looooove Montmartre because it lacks the super-tourist/mega-glam aura that hangs over a lot of Paris. I saw people going grocery shopping in flats and several kids were even wearing sweatpants as they made their way to a soccer game. Yay real people!

I'm keeping this post short because I'm absolutely exhausted and the only down time I'll have tomorrow will be time spent on the metro. A demain!

Ps, I found honeysuckle and jasmine today. Even more reason why I love Montmartre.