Spring Break!!

Okay so I'm really sorry I've been so bad at updating my blog! Anyway, so the past 10 days or so has been spring break for me and so far I've been to Copenhagen, Denmark and Prague, Czech Republic and I'm currently in Greece!! I have one more stop to make, a brief overnight trip to Milan to stay with Alyssa before heading back to France. I've really had a lot of fun so far!! Everything is soooo beautiful!!!

Copenhagen was really fun - I went with my friend Melanie from my program and we got there and wandered around. I've never seen so many statues in one city before!! Copenhagen is really easy to navigate and our hostel was in downtown in a really good location. We walked passed the Tivoli Gardens but never ended up going in it because it was closed, and then when it opened the weather wasn't very good. But we went on a Hans Christian Anderson hunt since he's from Denmark. We had lots of fun running all over the city looking for his three statues - we only found two that my book said and found a third in the H.C. Anderson museum so we dubbed that the third one. haha. And yes, I did buy a book a HC Anderson fairy tales. It's pretty much amazing!!!

One day while we were there we rented bikes and rode around the city which was really nice. We saw a lot of gardens, we saw the Queen's Palace and the Marble church as well as the cemetery where Anderson, Kierkegaard and Neils Bohr are buried. So it was a pretty cool trip all around. We also wandered up and down the pedestrian area a lot and had Danishes! Yummm!!! Other than that we just had a really relaxing trip and all of that jazz....I'll write more later, this is just a summary.


As for Prague, it got off to a rough start because Alyssa's flight was cancelled and we didn't get ahold of each other until later so I didn't know where she was and was really confused and scared, so I went to the hotel and checked in. She ended up getting in Friday night instead of Thursday night so I spent Friday wandering around Prague by myself. It was a little weird, but I love Prague! It's gorgeous. The architecture is amazing and you can really get a sense of how rough their history has been. My favorite things were the Prague Castle/Charles Bridge and then the Astronomical clock which was just sooooooo cool!! We went to go see the Jewish Quarter (what they called the Jewish Ghetto, which is an accurate name, but just doesn't seem right either...) but most of it was closed because it was passover. So in that respect, I think maybe Easter wasn't the best time to go visit Prague because a lot of things were closed or on holiday hours. But I really liked the architecture. I had a tourbook of Prague that said that there were some houses in Prague that are so old, they were there before there were house numbers so to tell them apart they'd put images of their professions or something similar over their doors - so I went on a treasure hunt to find all of them. Twas quite amusing. And by all of them I mean the ones that were mentioned in book :-)

I just got to Greece this afternoon, and we just booked a couple of tours to get a feel for the city. We're getting up really early tomorrow because our tour starts at 7:45 which is just so early, but I'm also very excited.

Anyways, I miss all of you and I'm really sorry I haven't been better and staying in touch and/or updating my blog!!!

Wow long time no update....

Wow so it's been 2 months since I've updated....awkward. I'm going to try to catch you all up on things, but we're going to go with the brief version that way my hands don't fall off from typing!! 

So the first week of February, French universities went on strike to protest some law that effects the research that teachers are allowed to do and still be paid by the State. In theory it was only supposed to last a week, when in actuality it's still continuing, but instead of the teachers, it's now the students who are protesting. I'm thinking the strike is going to end soon (this week if not next) which means I'll have my second class at the fac this semester - and I'm still getting credit! Woohoo!!

For February break Mom and Dad came to visit me!!! That was AMAZING!!! They came to Nantes and spent two days here, met my host mom, saw a little more of Nantes, and just generally walked around - the weather was really nice but cold. And then on Monday morning of break, Mom, Dad and I went to Paris to catch our flight to Vienna! It was GORGEOUS there, although it was also FREEZING!! The first night we were there, we walked around a little but mostly just ate dinner and went to be because we got up early and we were all tired, especially them because of the jet-lag. The next day we took a bus tour of Vienna and saw all sorts of cool things including the Theater and the Schonbrunn Palace! I really liked it! It's where Marie-Antoinette (the future queen of France who was beheaded during the French Revolution) was born and her family lived. It's also where Mozart got to perform so they were all over the place. 

Afterwards we wandered through a square with lots of cool looking buildings (I forget the name, but I have it written down somewhere). On Wednesday we took the train from Vienna to Salzburg which was cool because we got to see the Austrian countryside during the day - it was still snowing and really cold so when we passed all these cute looking towns there were kids sledding, and animals playing in the snow. We also saw St. Stephan's Cathedral which was really really cool. 

When we got to Salzburg it was afternoon and we basically just wandered around a little bit to get a feel for the city. I really really liked it! I actually preferred it to Vienna - I liked Vienna but it was more spread out and too much to see in not enough time. Salzburg is split into two parts - Old Town (where Mozart was born, and still looks like what he knew) and New Town. Thursday we took a "Sound of Music" Tour because that's where the movie was filmed. It was so cool!! I learned lots of interesting trivia about the movie, the actors and the actual von Trapp family. 

Then Mom and Dad had to leave which was sad... :-( Since then it's mostly been just school as usual. Two weekends ago I went to Versailles with my host mom which was really fun. Her grandkids live there and her son and daughter-in-law went to Kenya so she was watching her grandkids for the week and I went to visit for the weekend. I got to see the gardens and the inside of Versailles and my host mom's family only lives like a 10 minute walk from the chateau which is so weird!! And my host mom told me (like it was the most normal thing in the world) that this winter when everything freezed over because it was so cold, that her grandkids went ice skating on the giant lake that's in like EVERY picture of Versailles....

This past weekend I went to Normandy with IES to see the Disembarkment Beaches. It was so cool. Incredibly depressing but amazing at the same time....there aren't really words. It was beautiful there and eerily quiet - and it was so weird seeing all the crosses (9387) and then seeing all the names of those who they never found. The thing that struck me is that unlike Arlington National Cemetery where there are thousands of markers - here all the dates were within a 2 year period, and even with those, most of them were within a 2 month period. 

After we saw the beaches we went to Point du Hoc which is where the Nazis were fortified and served as a look out point over Omaha and Utah beaches. On D-Day, the British Air Force flew around France and attacked Point du Hoc so it looked like they were attacking from the South, within France to distract them from the attack on the beaches....

So that's the REALLY abbreviated version of what I've been up to. I miss you all! 

Nationwide Protest

As is normal everytime the French decide that they're upset, they protest. Normally though it's just one sector of the society - teachers, public transit workers, the post office, or something like that. Today has been dubbed "black thursday" because nearly every major sector in France is protesting. They're worried about job insecurity. Personally, and maybe this is just because I'm American, but you'd think that protesting wouldn't really help because the companies would fire them and just hire different people. But that's just me. If you're at all interested, here's an article from cnn.com.

The other night my host mom and I were talking about how German is not a "beautiful language" and she was like "yeah but I'm biased because of the German occupation" and then proceeded to tell me about her experience during the Nazi occupation! I was really surprised - I knew she lived through it and must remember it but didn't think that I should ask. But it was really cool and sad. She was 7 or 8 and had to shelter Nazis in her house because it had enough room for several of them - and her house became like Nazi headquarters for her town. But then she was like "I remember when the Americans came to liberate us; my mom had old curtains that were in blue and red and we made little French flags and gave them to the American soldiers as they walked past our house." And then she was like "it was really cool because we'd see them all over town, getting their haircuts or something" lol. She said she kept in touch with a few of them and they sent her gum and cigarettes until she turned 18 - even though they were only in her little town for 2 days or so. But I thought that was really cool (and sad obviously, that she had Nazis in her house).

Other than that not a lot is happening. I'm getting back into my classes which are alright. The class selection this semester sucks but I have enough classes so whatever. I miss you all!

The French take on the Inauguration

We officially have a new president. And of course, since the French were *such* fans of Bush (haha not really) they are all very excited that America has a new president. I didn't see the whole thing, but I did notice a few things that I found very interesting. 

1) Everytime someone said "Barack Obama" in English, the French translator would say "Barack Hussein Obama"

2) They showed George Bush leaving the White House via helicopter and then promptly stopped talking about him - that was their way of saying goodbye, I guess. 

3) Miss France, who is of a mixed heritage, was in Washington to see the inauguration and started crying and really couldn't say more than three words. It was quite amusing watching the reporter handle that

4) The news showed a black and white picture of Superman standing in front of an American flag and superimposed an image of Obama's face on it - with the caption "Un nouveau Amèrique" (A new America) and then the reporter said that nothing could shake Obama. Somehow I don't think that's true

and finally

5) In true French style, after the actual inauguration and speeches and all that jazz is over, they show pictures of the parties and all the famous political people and start discussing (and criticizing) the food choice for the dinners and lunches. 

It's been quite interesting over here today. I think all of France is glad that Obama's the president. We shall see how long that lasts. 

Retour à Nantes

I got back to Nantes yesterday. My flights were long and I barely made my connection to Paris in Amsterdam but I made it. I couldn't really do anything in Paris. I got my bag - it was one of the first ones off the plane, how weird! - and then I hung out at CDG/the train station until 3:45 when my train was supposed to leave. It was a few minutes late though. So I got to Nantes and unpacked and went to bed. It was very uneventful.

Today, though, I'm really tired. I'm still jetlagged and I didn't sleep well last night which surprised me! There was really strong winds last night and since I sleep on the top floor, they kept me up which was really annoying. I was laying in bed thinking to myself - why am I awake, I just want to sleep!!

I've only had one class so far today, grammaire, which was really easy (just for today though) and then later this afternoon I have French Romanticism which I didn't really want to take but I needed another class, so....yeah. Annoying. I might still find another class to take instead though. Anyway, that's all for now!

Where did the semester go?!

I'M DONE WITH FINALS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't believe I come home in 2 days! It's crazy!!! The semester flew by! I had a ton of fun though, now all that's left is finish finding Christmas presents, packing and flying home!!! WOOHOO!!!

I love France but it doesn't seem like it's almost Christmas...plus I want to play in the snow!!

Finals, Crepes, Jeff and Clementines

On Friday was my dreaded grammar final. It was __________. I'm really not sure how it went. It wasn't nearly as long as I thought it would be, and instead of it being on conjugations and all the stuff we had talked about relentlessly in class it was on prepositions which I cannot do for the life of me. But then the free writing part I think I did alright, although that was the part where my prof came by, looked at the 5 things I had crossed out (because we had to write in pen and I made a mistake, etc) and she looks at me and says "Elizabeth, tu es trop bete, qu'est-ce que c'est tous ca? C'est moche!! Qu'est-ce que tu penses?? Il faut que tu fasse attention!!!!" (Elizabeth, you're so stupid, what is all of this? It's ugly, what are you thinking??? You have to pay attention!!!) Which, as you can imagine, did NOT help my nerves and all that. But the subject for the free style was an excerpt from someone writing on being abroad and not understanding anything and then it was like "now that you've been in France for 4 months, reflect on and write your experiences similar to these" which I was able to do, so....we shall see. 

Yesterday, Jeff and Laura came to see me and it was fun!! I wanted to take them to go see les machines de l'ile which is a mechanical elephant....but it rained so much yesterday and the night before that they were closed. So we ended up going to the chateau, the cool old bookstore, le jardin des plantes, the Christmas markets, we saw the  Theater, and IES. We went to the boulangerie and all of that fun stuff. I think they had a good time....It was kind of sad though cause there wasn't a ton to do because a lot was closed because of the rain. 

Last night after Jeff and Laura left, I came back and studied for a little bit before I met my friends for our last out to dinner for crepes. It was really fun. We took some pictures and then went out for drinks afterwards, instead of coming back home and studying more since I hadn't studied basically all day....

On Monday (tomorrow) I have 2 finals (Art History and Translation); Tuesday I have French Lit; Wednesday I have nothing!!!; Thursday I have sociology and then Friday I'm going to finish packing and then I'll be home for Christmas!! 

This week is surprisingly full of things (other than finals) to do! Monday evening my grammar teacher (the one who yelled at me in the final) is inviting us over for drinks which I just find amusing....and then Tuesday I'm having dinner at Erica's house, Wednesday I don't have anything and then Thursday it's the end of IES shindig thing....I'm going to go but I also told my host mom that I would eat dinner with her since it's my last night in Nantes for a month. 

Oooh and my host mom put up some of her Christmas decorations and they're so cool! I really like her Nativity Scene!! And we're hoping her wreath doesn't get stolen (apparently that's a problem here...I'm really not sure why....). 

The other thing: I really don't ever want to eat a clementine again. My host mom seems to think that since I eat fruit at school that I don't eat fruit (this is also following a misunderstanding about what fruit I can and cannot eat because she was going to use some of it for a meal...whatever) so she decided that since she knew that I like citrus fruit that she should go get some clementines. A logical assumption, I must say. However, she bought the clementines on Thursday afternoon and wants me to eat all of them by the time I leave on Friday. Normally - not a problem. So how many clementines did she buy??? She bought 5 kilos of clementines. Now I really only have to eat like 3.5 kilos because her family's coming over today and they apparently really like them and she'll eat them too, but she's expecting me to eat almost all of them. Of course, now that I saw I never want to eat a clementine again, I'm going to get back to the States and want a freaking clementine. lol. Anyway I miss you all a lot! I get back to Portland on Dec. 20th in the evening! :-)  But I'll be in the States around noon Portland time (assuming my flight is not delayed) so feel free to call me while I'm chilling in the airport!! 

So little time left!

There's only 10 days until I come home for Christmas! How crazy!!! Things here are going well. My host mom has been gone the past couple of days but is coming home today so that's good. On Saturday night I accidently left the back door open all night because I thought I had shut and locked it earlier in the day but as it turns out the door wasn't all the way closed so the wind blew it open and then it was open all night. Normally, not a huge deal because it hasn't been super cold until the past couple days -- but the high on Saturday was 30 and on Sunday was like 32 so it was FREEZING in my house. But it's gradually warming up again.

Last night I asked Sophie for help with grammar and she was able to answer most of my questions, although she had difficulty explaining some of it. Oh well, it was good anyway. So since I only have 10 days left, it means that I have finals!! This Friday I have grammar (which I'm totally afraid of). Monday I have art history and translation, Tuesday I have French lit (which I just found out should be pretty easy!) and then Wednesday I have off, and Thursday morning I have sociology and then I'm done! 

This semester has flown by! I can't believe it's almost over! I'm so glad I'm coming back! I love my host mom, and France - although I am ready for a break. :-) Only 10 days until I come home and 40-ish days until I come back! <3 

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas...

The Christmas decorations in Nantes are all up and lit and it's so pretty! Earlier today I went Christmas shopping - at first with friends but then they all had to go catch trains and planes, so I went by myself for the last little bit. I love it here - it's so beautiful!! I can't believe the semester's almost over!! I think tonight or tomorrow night I'm going to take my camera and take pictures of all the pretty lights - they're truly gorgeous! And I love the Christmas markets! There are two of them really close to my house and IES. Today I went and had lunch with Laura at the markets - I had Tarteflette which was really good. It's like sliced potatoes, cheese, meat and spices. Yummy! We ate on the steps outside of the FNAC - very French-young adult like. hahahaha. I'm starting to get ideas for people for Christmas which is good. The only weird thing about the Christmas markets - they don't play Christmas music. They play American music like Katy Perry, Jason Mraz and on occassion French rap....it kind of makes it seem fake. Maybe next time I'll bring my iPod and listen to Christmas music on that, lol. 

My host mom is going to be gone this weekend but she said when she gets back she'll probably decorate a little bit. She also offered to take me to her neighbor's house because they have an amazing nativity scene that she wants me to see! I know this is going to sound silly, but being in France around Christmas time sometimes feels like how you see Christmas portrayed in Love Actually or Harry Potter. Weird huh? It's obviously not exactly the same - I'm not in a massive city nor am I in England, but it has the same sort of feel, which I think is so cool!!! 

Next Friday is my grammar final - I'm so nervous for that! Lately I've been making silly mistakes - conjugating things wrong, forgetting accents, etc and I really really want to do well!!! We shall see how it goes....

Paris!

I forgot to write about my weekend in Paris....last weekend, after thanksgiving, I went with Erica, Anna and Alee to Paris for the weekend! It was good for the most part. Our hostel was awful but the actual seeing Paris part was really fun!!! Alee has friends in Paris so Friday night we ate at their house, but before that we wandered up and down the Champs and looked at all the lights, the window displays and the Christmas markets. It was soooo beautiful!! I took soooooo many pictures! I have 2 photo albums online and I didn't even post all of them! lol. So after the Champs, we went to Alee's friend's house and had dinner then back to the hostel. 

Saturday we got up and we saw Montmartre, Sacre Coeur -- which was really cool because they started putting up their Nativity Scene which was BEAUTIFUL. Then after Sacre Coeur we made our way over to Notre Dame and the Latin Quarter. Notre Dame was also gorgeous - it had a big tree with lights on it outside, and the inside had another amazing Nativity Scene. When we went to Notre Dame, actually, there was a service going on and they were singing Christmas carols and celebrating the beginning of Advent. After that we wandered around and then decided to go to Sainte Chapelle which was really pretty, but it wasn't super sunny so you couldn't appreciate it as much. Saturday night we went and saw the Eiffel Tower and night and took pictures - it was lit up blue with the EU stars on it because the French President Sarkozy is currently the head of the EU.  Then we went and ate dinner at this cute little restaurant nearby. Then we headed back to our hostel. 

So when we woke up both Saturday and Sunday we noticed that we had bug bites on us but didn't really think about it, until Saturday into Sunday when Erica and I woke up and had bugs all over us! it was DISGUSTING! We have since figured out that they were bed bugs and that all of us got bit even though we had our sleep sheets, our beds were apparently infested which is just NASTY! We all took really long showers and washed all of our clothes and now we're all paranoid about bugs. It was seriously GROSS. 

Sunday morning, we were going to go to the Jewish Quarter but it was rainy and gross so we decided to spend the whole day in the Louvre which was cool. We saw a lot of paintings we studied in Art History, the Mona Lisa, the Coronation of King Louis, and other cool paintings. We also saw Hamarabi's Code in the Egyptian exhibit which I thought was sooooooo cool! and we also saw Napoleon's apartments, Marie-Antoinette's last letter, King Louis' last letter and all sorts of really cool things. 

Here are pictures from Paris: album one and album two. 

ooh PS - I come home in 17 days! I love it here, but I'm excited to come home. It's weird seeing all of the Christmas decorations and trying to think of Christmas ideas for people - so if you have any ideas, please please let me know!!! <3 

Thanksgiving

I've decided that it's not really Thanksgiving if I have to go to school and I don't get a real Thanksgiving dinner. Wow that sounded really bratty...I could change it, but it's true. lol. Last Thursday was, of course, Thanksgiving and I had to go to the Musée des Beaux Arts for art history and then had the longest, most boring lit class ever - which is saying something. But exciting news, in between my two horrible classes, I played football in the park!! Which was totally bad, I'm really not that good, but it was really fun -- but I was the best of the girls! lol. So instead of writing my paper, I played football in the park for an hour and a half. and my team won!!! It was amazing!! I still don't understand the rules really or anything, but still! And then I went back to my host mom's house and got ready for dinner. Madame Béchaux wanted to come but  couldn't because she had to watch her grandkids so I met Erica and we went together. It was interesting. Slightly depressing. The food was really really weird too....and then I got sick from dinner. Overall, not the best day....I miss you all!!

Pictures from Thanksgiving....

Woohoo!!

Today we celebrated November birthdays and whenever we celebrate birthdays, Madame Rouchet and Monsieur de Berranger recognize 5 students who they think did a good job of always speaking French - and I was one of those people! WOOHOO!! As a reward, I got 15 euros! lol. yay!! It's quite exciting, I think. :-D

The country of Shakespeare, Churchill, the Beatles, Sean Connery, Harry Potter. David Beckham's right foot. David Beckham's left foot come to that" an

I had SUCH an amazing weekend!!!!! On Thursday I skipped my last class and went to London to see Christina!! I got there late because the bus I was taking said it would take 45 minutes to get to where I wanted to be, but it really took 1 hour and 45 minutes and then I had to take the metro but between construction and a transit authority giving me bad directions, I ended up getting there like 2 hours later, but I made it! AND I SAW CHRISTINA AND SPENT THE WHOLE WEEKEND WITH HER!!!!!!!! It was amazing!! The first night we went and got dinner and watched "who wants to be a millionaire" in German. We, of course, didn't understand it but one of the answers was Tellytubby land. lol. So we had dinner, talked and then went to bed. 

Friday morning we got up, went and got coffee, and went walking through Hyde Park, saw Kensington Palace from a distance, went and saw this really cool statue in gold and stone but I don't remember the name, and then we went on a guided tour via Christina's travelbook and saw St. James's park, and got a little lost and ended up at the Stable Yard for the police where we asked for directions and the cop told us that we had a "truly dreadful, truly horrendous" map. haha. Then we wandered our way to Buckingham Palace where we thought someone famous was going to come out because there were guards everywhere and the Queen's flag was flying, but we think it was just the changing of the guard. It was cool, but it was also FREEZING cold and there were people everywhere, pushing, shoving, being rude, etc. But it was still fun to see!! Then we went on a walk through another park and had lunch and saw Parliament and Big Ben from afar. After that, we were tired and decided we wanted to go someplace warm so we wen tot Harrods and went shopping which was really fun. It's so easy to get lost in that store!! And then we wandered up and down Sloane Street (like the fashion street with all the designer stores) and then we headed back to our hotel, then headed back out towards Parliament and Big Ben so we could see those at night. 

We ended up eating at a little Italian restaurant right off of Trafalgar Square that had hamburgers and other food. Except by hamburgers, it was like beef and pork and funny tasting but that's okay. So we tok pictures of all the cool things at night and then tried to hail a cab but failed because they drive backwards so we were on the wrong side of the street -- we ended up taking the metro back. 

Saturday, we got up and took the metro to see Westminster Abbey, Parliament, Big Ben, and Trafalgar Square in the daylight which was cool. I took pictures at Westminster Abbey but not inside which, of course, was the coolest part. But we saw all these tombs and memorial stones for all these famous people -- the royals obviously, Sir Isaac Newton (da Vinci code anyone?), Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Jane Austen just to name a few! It was pretty cool!! And it was amazingly beautiful, I wish I could've taken pictures on the inside! After Westminster, we went and looked a Parliament and Big Ben before we went to St. Paul's Cathedral because Christina wanted to see the Room of Whispers but it cost 10 pounds to enter and we only wanted tos ee one room and so we decided it wasn't worth it. But we took pictures outside,  and then we walked to Shakespeare's Globe Theater, then to London Bridge and eventually to Tower Bridge. It was soooooo cold though! So on one side of the bridge we stopped and got tea, walked across the bridge and headed to Tower Hill. We got there before it closed, but we only had 30 minutes and we wanted to make sure we had enough time to explore  everything so we got tickets for Sunday morning and then headed back to Trafalgar Square so we could see the National Gallery. 

We weren't at the gallery for very long, but it was cool! We saw the painting that Christina wrote her final art history paper on - which happens to be a painting that we just studied in my art history class, so that was cool. We also saw the pencil sketch by da Vinci of the Madonna and Jesus on a saint's lap. Apparently it was supposed to be a sketch for a painting, but he left it as its own piece of art. We wandered around for a little bit and I saw some of the other paintings that we talked about abut in art history. Then both of us decided that our feet hurt so we got dinner and went back to the hotel. 

Sunday morning we got a late start and we made our way to the Tower of London, which I really like! But, of course, you can't have a trip to London without rain, so as soon as we got off the metro, it was POURING rain. I had my really dinky umbrella, which helped a little, but for the most part we still ended up quite drenched. We saw the guards with the fuzzy hats, and the crown jewels and we were going to go see bloody tour but we thought we might not have time to go do other things before I had to go and catch my plane so we didn't end up seeing it. Afterwards, though, we went to Kings Cross station and Platform 9 and 3/4 and took pictures!

Then I had to leave to go to the airport. I had issues getting home -- which is a whole long story which I don't really feel like typing. But I had a FANTASTICALLY AMAZING TIME!!!!!!!!!!! :-D I miss you all, and I come home in about 3 weeks so I'll hopefully get to see you soon!! 

Here are my pictures from London with Christina!!

Grammar, Love Actually, Strike and London!

So I took my grammar midterm today - I'm not sure how it went....more importantly tomorrow is exactly 5 weeks til Christmas which means that I could start watching Love Actually! AAAANNND even more important than that, CHRISTINA'S COMING!!! WOOOHOOOOO!!! I'm so excited! So tomorrow I'm going to London (baby!!!) the only slight kink in the plans is that there's a TAN (public transit) strike tomorrow so I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to get to the airport. I think I'm going to ask my host mom and if that doesn't work then I'll end up taking a taxi which is going to be horrendously expensive so I hope that doesn't happen!! I miss you all! 

Carte de Séjour

I finally have my carte de séjour! woohoo! I never have to go back to the prefacture again!! woohoo!! I'm quite excited! :-D Sorry this is so short but I thought I'd share....miss you all!

Marseille, Arles and Avignon

Friday through Tuesday we had a five day break (as a type of fall break thing) and classes started again on Wednesday. I went to Marseille, Arles and Avignon with Amy, Emily E., Minsoo and Danielle which was interesting. Our group consisted of really quiet people and really outspoken people so it made for an interesting dynamic - and since we never split into smaller groups, there was some tense moments, but it was really fun!

On Friday morning, I took the TGV to Marseille and we got there early afternoon. We checked into our hostel and then decided to go wander around. We weren't very far from the train station or the Old Port so we decided to go to the Old Port and look around. It's so cool! There were a ton of boats (obviously) and there was a fish market and it was so cool! I can definitely see why Marseille became such a big city! I thought it was really cool, too, to see the differences between Nantes and Marseille. Marseille is on the Mediterranean so it has a more diverse population but the architecture and colors of everything are so different! The colors are warmer - more oranges, reds, and warm earthy colors and the buildings are taller (probably because it's a bigger city). And the style of architecture is more...adobe like in certain parts and then other parts it's closer to Nantes. I made the dumb mistake of saying (without thinking, of course) that it looks more Mediterranean than Nantes does...well duh! I felt like an idiot...haha. After visiting the old port a little bit and wandering around, we still had some time to kill before we could check into our hostel so we went to this tiny beach and I stuck my feet in the Mediterranean Sea! We hung out there for an hour, taking pictures, looking at sea shells and jumping waves :-) 

Then on Saturday we decided that we were going to go see the Basilica of Notre Dame de la Garde which over looks the Naval Port which we saw the day before. It was amazing!! The inside of the basilica was gorgeous and then it was sitting up on one of the highest hills so it has a view of the whole city, the Mediterranean and beyond! I took lots of pictures! That night we took a TGV to Arles which I think was my favorite city that we visited. It's a lot smaller than Marseille and slightly smaller than Nantes so it was really different. But it was really cool because it has a whole bunch of Roman ruins that are really well-preserved! When we got there it was night so we just got some dinner at the Kebabery (spelling?) down the street and then went to bed. The next day after we had breakfast we went to the tourism office and got maps and bought a day pass to go see the roman ruins since the museums were all closed. We went to the ancient theater first which was really cool but we had to go back later because when we got there it was closed. But when we went back, we went inside and looked around instead of just looking from the outside. And I climbed up on the old stage and stood on some of the ruins even though I wasn't supposed too - although to be fair, other people were doing it too and no one was watching...although I sound a lot cooler if I don't say that part. haha. Anyway, between our first and second visit to the ancient theater we went and got some groceries then we headed to the old amphitheater where we ended up eating lunch. It was cool - not as big as the Coliseum in Rome, but better preserved. And apparently at one time when Arles was under a threat, they fortified the walls of the amphitheater and moved the whole city inside! The amphitheater was big, but not big enough where I can imagine fitting a whole city! After the amphitheater and the ancient theater we went to the roman baths which were all hyped up by the tourism office - they were cool but not as cool as everyone made it out to be. It was small and not that exciting, sort of a disappointment. Then we went to the old graveyard which was pretty cool. 

While we were in Arles, we also saw a whole bunch of things that had to do with Van Gogh because he lived and painted there for awhile. I found this particularly interesting (more interesting than the other girls who I was traveling with) because I had just been in Amsterdam and seen most of his art in the museum, so I've officially made the Van Gogh tour. It was really cool though because we got to see the Van Gogh Café which is in his painting of "the Night Café" and I took a picture from the same point of view as the painting - it didn't look the same though haha. We also saw the stone that said where he house (the yellow house) once stood, but during WWII it was bombed and destroyed. Then we took the TGV again, this time to Avignon.

I didn't find Avignon particularly cool - I liked it but I saw it four years ago with my school group and I kind of wish I didn't go on this part, because by then my patience was wearing thin, and I had already seen everything so I was bored. But it was still cool. I took pictures - we saw the Palais des Papes where the Popes lived when there was division in the Catholic church and some popes moved to France. We also saw the Pont d'Avignon which is a half-bridge that got destroyed in a military thing, was rebuilt and was about to fall into the river and they fortified half of it before the rest of it fell and then they never rebuilt the rest. After that we saw a cute little park and some cool rock formations (I can't remember the name) and then went back to the train station to take the night train from Avignon to Lyon to Nantes. Avignon was cool though because the hostel that we stayed in was literally right across the river from the Palais and the bridge so at night you could see it from our window. 

During my 5 day adventure I took lots of pictures and now I have (once again) two albums: the first one and the second one. I have pictures of Marseille in the first one, Arles in both, and Avignon in the second one. 

Pictures from Amsterdam

Erica and I behind the counter of a Dutch restaurant where they were serving a traditional Dutch thing -- fries with mayonnaise. I tried it and didn't like it, but still, I tried!

Erica and me in front of the bikes and canals. 

I'm in a clog!!! hahahaha

Here are my pictures from Amsterdam (as well as some pictures that my friend took of me on her camera above).

Amsterdam & the election

Last weekend I had Friday off, so I went to Amsterdam with Erica and Alee. Alee left Friday morning while Erica and I left Thursday night. It was really fun!! The first night Erica and I stayed in a hostel that was surprisingly nice and clean. The next day (Friday/Halloween) Erica and I met Alee at the Anee Frank house which was really cool but depressing! I always thought that the Anne Frank house would be like really small cause I always pictured her staying in like a closet with 8 other people, but as it turns out, the part of the house/store where she stayed was really big! I was surprised -- not that I would want to be couped up in a house for two years, but still. I was surprised. It was cool but kind of a Debbie Downer. oh well. So after that we went to go get lunch and then we wandered around and took pictures. We found a cookie bar which served really yummy cakes and cookies, tea and hot chocolate and had a wine cellar which is just weird, but it was really cool. The architecture was amazing, it was very European, small, cozy and quaint (yes I did just use the word quaint). After the cookie bar, Erica and I went to meet Maurits, her friend who lives in Amsterdam, at his house.

Oh my goodness, his house is amazing! It was really old, had amazing architecture and he had a library!! And Erica and I didn't just get to stay in the guest room, we had essentially the whole floor to ourselves, it was really cool. So Friday night was Halloween and one of Maurits' friends was having a halloween party so we went out to a bar and then to the Halloween party where we stayed until like 4:45 in the morning and then went back to his house. The next day we slept until about 10 and then we went to go see the Saturday market kind of thing which was really cool. After that we wandered around and took pictures and his dad got us tickets for a canal tour so we went on a canal tour which was really cool! We saw all these historic buildings, and there was one part of the trip where we saw seven bridges that go over the same canal (which is supposedly really rare because the canals turn so much) so that was really cool! After that we went back to his house for dinner then we left again because it was museum night in Amsterdam.

Museum night is when (if you have tickets) all the museums are open and you can go to which ever museum you want, so that was really cool. We saw a whole bunch of museums whos' names I can't remember right now. I wrote them down but I don't have the list with me. The last museum we went to that night was the Van Gogh museum but by the time we got there it was closed so we went to a bar and then home. Then Sunday morning we got up early and went to the Van Gogh museum quickly before having to catch the train back to France.

I have lots of pictures, and I'll post the link to them later.

So as I'm sure you all know (unless you've been hiding under a rock, lol) Obama won the election. The French are going completely crazy. Well not really, but they're all really happy that he won, which makes life easier for me. I'm really glad it's all over now though because I was sick of trying to explain the American electoral process to them without the necessary vocabulary and even if I did, they wouldn't understand it anyway -- they all think it's way to complicated. So anyway, I'm glad that that's over.

Oh and I went to the Prefacture again yesterday (where I get my carte de sejour) and they told me to come back sometime after 28/10 so I decided to go back yesterday and I took my receipt and everything and they told me it wasn't ready, they didn't have it and to come back after the 13th of November. How dumb!! If they don't give it to me soon, then I can't re-enter the country after Christmas! And I'm getting really annoyed because they keep promising me that the next time I come I can get it, but they keep lying. So in total I've been to the Prefacture 10 times (once for the actual request, four times for my name and five times because they keep telling me to come back to get my carte de sejour). I'm getting really irritated, but whatever. Hopefully I'll get my carte de sejour before my visa expires. Although I know it doesn't expire until the first of December so I have until then to get it otherwise once I leave France I can't come back! :-(

I miss you all and hope you're doing well!

Raspberry Tarts are AMAZING!

I just had the best Raspberry tart EVER. It was so delicious! I could go on for an entire page about how fantastic this tart was -- Sarah knows cause I totally just wrote her an entire email based on this tart -- sorry Sarah! :-) 

On Friday I had my grammar midterm which I can't tell how I did. I know I  messed up some things -- conjugated the passé simple incorrectly, etc but I also think I did alright. Although the other grammar class that's already had their midterm didn't do very well so I'm not really getting my hopes up. 

This week should be busy. I have a sociology midterm on Monday and on Tuesday is conversation club and the halloween party we're throwing for the French college students who come to conversation club. Wednesday we're throwing a halloween party for our host family's who have young kids. Then Thursday I'm going to Amsterdam until Sunday night!! I'm super excited! Woohoo!!

So I calculated how much time I actually have left in Nantes - this past week was the end of week 8 so I'm officially halfway through the semester. This weekend I'm going to Amsterdam, then I come back to Nantes for three days and then go to the south of France then come back and have a weekend here in Nantes then I go to London with CHRISTINA!! WOOHOO!! then it's Thanksgiving and then I go to Paris and then I have two weekends and then I come home for Christmas! So really I only have three weekends left in Nantes! It's going to go by so fast!!! It has gone by so fast and I haven't been doing as much as I have planned for the next half of the semester! 

I miss you all!! I hope things are going well! <3 

LONDON BABY!!!!! -- the extended disco version...complete with Christina!!!!!!!

OMG CHRISTINA'S COMING TO VISIT ME AND WE'RE GOING TO LONDON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm sooooo-10 o's-ooooo excited!!! woohoo!! So she's coming in 29 days (20/11) which means YAY!

I had my art history midterm today, i think it went okay, although I think I confused two artists which isn't that good. I have my grammar midterm tomorrow and another midterm (sociology) on Monday at 7:45am BLECH. but you know, that's just how it goes. I'm really looking forward to sleeping in this weekend!! I didn't sleep at all last night except maybe like an hour and a half.

In a few minutes I'm going to the stupid Prefacture again to see if now they have my carte de sejour. LAME. i'm not really looking forward to that. Then i'm going to study for grammar and then go to my class then more studying....i miss you all!!