Les Vosges...Strasbourg...La France me manquera tellement

Salut tout le monde!  So it is May 3--Essentially 11 days until I come home.  Had a great second to last weekend in France and just thought I should share it with you before I do some more studying (don't worry I don't actually have finals until Tuesday...).

Alors, Friday was a "jour férié" basically a holiday, the french's version of Labor Day.  So I slept in a little bit, got up, cleaned my room.  Then one of my friend's host parents was nice enough to let her have a couple people over for brunch.  So she made french toast (yes, I had french toast in France haha, although really french toast is an american thing...) and fruit and whipped cream was brought along with orange juice...and champagne...Good start to the day!  Also, one of the girls who was here last semester, Helen, came in this weekend to visit so it was really nice to see her and reminisce about the first semester (Helen's in Rennes right now so it was easy for her to come by train).  Then I met up with some friends for tarte flambées for dinner and Alsatian beer.  Anyways, I called it an early night after having worked very hard for my finals for my Syracuse classes.  Oh yeah--all done with the classes at the Syracuse center...most of the Syracuse students have dispersed...except for the other students doing the same program I am and other students who are kinda lingering...otherwise they already are back home or are traveling around Europe.

Saturday...not much done.  Got up around 9am, did a little work, or as much as I could throughout the day.  Saturday afternoon I took the train to Selestat and my host mom picked me up at that train station to go up to their house in Thannenkirch.  Relaxed, did a little studying, had dinner, watched a movie with my host parents, went to bed at like 11pm--sounds dorky but the 9ish hours of sleep I got felt great.

Sunday--AMAZING.  Woke up at 8:30 to have breakfast.  Then got changed and went on a hike with my host mom up to one of the tops of the mountains called Taennchel.  I'm not sure of the distance we hiked, but I know that the ascent was 950m, which my host mom and I did in less than an hour--we thought that was pretty impressive.  This top is kind of famous in the Vosges because it is a top of a mountain that is flat.  Literally, at the top it is pretty much as if you were walking down Central Street.  Anyways, the association that keeps up the trails in the Vosges every first Sunday of May each year has a mass at the top of the mountain to bless the nature.  Then of course people stay after and talk for a while, have some wine, coffee, bring some lunch.  This year they had a pig roast at the top of the mountain.  NOTE:  WHAT I'M ABOUT TO SAY WILL PROBABLY SOUND A LITTLE BARBARIC...Anyways, I was hesitant to take a piece of meat off the pig at first.  But then I heard everyone else say how good it was...and it had been smoked and was cooking for a good while, in other words the meat looked done and everything so I took a piece that the very nice gentleman cut off of the pig for me (the feminine side of this is that I let the men on top of the mountain do all of the barbecuing and cutting, etc.).  IT WAS AMAZING.  They had put sauce on it while it was rotating over the fire...it was smoky, tender, barbecue-y, juicy, delicious.  Mind you this all is at the top of a mountain.  I was at the top of a mountain, talking to french people--not one word in english, sipping on some wine, eating delicious pork that was just cut off the of the pig rotating in front of me.  What a cultural experience.  Dad are you jealous?

hehe anyways, now I'm back in Strasbourg.  And my clothes still smell like smoke from fires in the forest.  It reminds me of when we used to go up to Paschen's cottage.  One of my favorite smells, I was even kind of reluctant to take a shower because then the smell would get out of my hair hahaha.  Anyways, agenda for the next 11 days: study, pass exams, pack, ship some stuff home, try and soak up as much of France as I can, if that's still possible after my cultural experience today.  Get home the 14th into O'Hare International Terminal 5 at 4:40 pm.  Let me tell ya, it's going to be damn hard to leave this place.  Can't wait to see everyone at home.  Can wait to leave France.  Love and miss you all.  See you soon.  

Joyeuses Pâques!

Salut tout le monde!

Ok, in english now...Easter weekend was actually great. I did not travel out of the country, although now that the weekend's over I'm glad that I did not. Friday I had off, it is a holiday in the region of Alsace (but no where else in France haha we're special) and I actually did not do much that day. I think my body was still thrown off from having to wake up at 4 am on Tuesday morning to register for classes in the fall. Anyways, I slept in, ate lunch, and then seeing as it was practically beach weather, I met up with some friends to walk around parc de l'orangerie (big park in Strasbourg with a zoo, bowling alley, it's own mini river where supposedly you can row, flowers, fields, gazebos, you know, no big deal). I ate dinner at home to make things cheaper and then went to see the movie Ponyo with my friends. It's a japanese animated film about a goldfish who wants to become a human--and it is ADORABLE. I highly recommend it. The illustrations, music, story line, everything was well done. Went out for a beer afterwards.

Saturday I went on a hike in the Vosges mountains with the sports center at the french university. We started in Turckheim, which is still in France, the whole hike was still in France even though the names sounds German. Then we made a huge circle to Kaysersberg and ended up back at Turckheim. However, we often went off trail...multiple ascents and descents instead of one ascent and one descent. Distance: 22km Amount of elevation: 950m, sorry can't do the conversions in my head. Anyways, it was exhausting and I was hurting by the end. However it was nice to meet other students from Spain, the Czech Republic, Italy, and Albania, and France of course. Despite the pain that I was in at the end, it was beautiful and great to meet new people and speak french all day and be in the Vosges mountains!

Sunday, needless to say was laid back. I got up and went to church at the Strasbourg Cathedral. Lots of stupid tourists in the cathedral, heard multiple phones go off during the mass (granted I was more towards the back but still), people who would get up mid service and just walk out (down the main aisle mind you) like as if they were tourists who just wanted to see it for two seconds. Seriously, it annoyed the heck out of me. But anyways, it was a pretty ceremony--the Strasbourg cathedral is beautiful enough in itself, a men's choir did the singing, the organ belting out hymns, the mass said in the beautiful language of french. Ok, enough of that. I returned home after that to eat lunch, nap, straighten up my room, and then headed to the train station to go back up to the Vosges mountains. I took the train to Selestat (south of strasbourg) where my host mom picked me up to go to their house in the Vosges mountains. That night I had dinner with my host mom, host brother, and his girlfriend. Dinner was baked potatoes, and they had an aparatus where you could put things in a mini plate and melt them so like lardons (ham) cheese, stuff like that, and you mashed the potatoes and then after the things you put on the hot plate were melted, you mixed everything together and ate it. Delicious. Dinner was followed by two games of scrabble in french haha. My scores were around 90, but for my first time playing scrabble in french not bad right?

Today my host mom's brother and his wife and two kids came up to the house in the mountains. We had a nice big lunch and then did another hike through the mountains. The hike was not nearly as intense as the one on Saturday, but it was good. Her brother was in Chicago for 9 years in Wheeling and Skokie, so it was fun to talk to him about Chicago in french. He told me that he was more of a fan of the bears and that he didn't really have a preference between the Sox and the Cubs. Smart man. Anyways, then I returned to Strasbourg and here I am.

Again, all in all, a great weekend, and now you see why I am glad that I didn't travel. It was a lot cheaper too haha. Hope everything is going well on the homefront. Just barely over a month until I come home. Holy Cow! as Harrey Carray would say. Love and miss you all, can't wait to see you. More to come :)

Paris, je t'aime toujours

Salut toute le monde! This past weekend I went to Paris with my art history class--needless to say it was a weekend chockfull of museums all with tours guided by my art history teacher (Louvre, Orsay (my fave!), Goustave Moreau, Picasso, Maxim). On one hand, it was great to feel really smart and see the paintings we had been studying in class up close and personal--some of them are gargantuan as Quinn would say. But seriously, they are. However in my opinion, the Mona Lisa (La Jaconde en français) is very anti-climactic, not to be Debbie Downer.

Anyways, did I hit up any of the really touristy places besides the museum that I went to? No, I don't feel like I am really a tourist anymore in Paris when I go there. I love it. I went to a museum that I had never been to, Musée Maxim, metro stop Concorde on line 1, just to let you know. (Side note--if you go to Paris, line 1 on the metro is the tourist line, which means it hits all the touristy spots which means you need to be especially careful of your purse on this when you are on this line. Faites Attention s'il vous plait!) They had an exposition of drawings by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. If you don't know the name, think of all the famous poster designs for the Moulin Rouge Bal--Toulouse-Lautrec did plenty of them. At one point in his life, he did 39 drawings of the circus to make prove to people that he hadn't lost his memory, and this expo was all 39 of those plus some. Very interesting to see.

Otherwise, I met up with Maggie again. Went to Sacre-Coeur and Montmartre. Listened to live music on the steps of Sacre-Coeur, saw crazy drunk old man dancing to the music. Got a video of it. Laughed a lot, ate good food. Walked a ton. Actually saw the first gay people in Paris this past weekend besides some of the guys who have been in my program. It was funny because there really is no gay scene in Strasbourg. And they all dress so well...and with European fashion and labels. Beautiful.

Hostel I stayed at with my class--FIAP Jean Monnet. Decent hostel, but not centralized at all for tourists who want to see the touristy sites. Across the street from a mental institution--No joke. So I'd suggest looking at other places, you can definitely find better. But it was not bad, I can't complain.

In the process of planning courses for summer online and fall...going to wake up at 4:15 am for registration. Going on a hike this weekend in the Vosges mountains, then maybe up to Thannenkirch for sunday night and come back monday day "so i don't have to be alone on Easter" as my host mom said. Man am I going to miss my host family. Wow.

Anyways, hope all is well on the homefront. Happy opening day! GO CUBS!

C'est dix heures dans le matin à dimanche...oui, on va goûter la champagne...pourquoi pas??

This weekend was the weekend trip with the Syracuse group. This semester it was different however--we went around Nancy, Verdun, and Reims (all around the Champagne region). Different trip from the Burgundy trip last semester but still had its own perks.

Friday afternoon we arrived in Nancy and of course got a walking tour of Nancy. My tour was all in french which was not the problem (the problem was my attention span that disappeared after 10-15 minutes). It was a good way to definitely get to see most of Nancy...which is pretty tiny and actually a pretty young town according to european standards. It's funny because on the walking tour I saw styles of houses or just little signs/things on the road that I thought..."only in france would one see this" then we would go to the main roads of Nancy and see a Lacoste store and tons of banks, pieces of Art Nouveau on buildings....it was interesting...but very small. That night we had dinner in our hotel and then I went out in the town to see the main square at night which was really pretty. The main square during the day is just as pretty--plated with gold, les fleurs de lis, fountains, statues, french architecture...very regally french.

Saturday we got up early to go to Verdun, one of the major battles of World War I. We went to the site of an Osuary (french word for "bone" = un os) hence the name osuary. In and under the building are bones of soldiers which they found while they were cleaning up this certain site. The bones are not just from french soldiers, but from everyone who died on that field. It is really quite amazing how the bones just have not decomposed at all. To see the bones you have to go outside and look through a window underneath the main floor to see them, it's not like you walk in and that's the first thing you see...there is parafinalia and of course a theatre for an oh-so-educational war museum film. Around the Osuary were cemeteries for the soldiers, and then we got to walk around the site a bit. It was amazing/scary to see how the land around there is still screwed up from all the shells that blew up during that battle. It was scary because we were told to stay on the path...it was very possible that there were still shells there that had not yet exploded...needless to say not even the goofiest goofs tried to go into those holes. After that we got back onto the bus to and headed over to Reims. Of course, we engaged on another excursion into a cathedral in Europe with an audio guided tour. The best part of that cathedral was the stained glass in all of the windows...very pretty. Whether it was classical colorful stained glass or just white glass artwork, it helped me forget that I could see my breath while breathing in that cathedral.

Of course, being in the Champagne region of France it would be an abolute utter disgrace if we did not get to do a champagne tasting! So our director scheduled the champagne tasting for Sunday morning. We went to the caves of the Taittinger family...very very good champagne and very cool caves. For champagne, it's the chalk in the soil that makes the difference. It was cool because I noted how the walls in the under ground caves (12, 16, and 18 meters underground) would be perfect for wall climbing...and then someone was like, but then your hands would be full of chalk! But that's why it would be perfect...the chalk would dry your hands so you wouldn't need to carry it on your harness! Anyways, I thought it would have been inappropriate if I had tried to scale the chalk walled caves that were actually dug out initially by the ancient Romans, so they're pretty old. We learned the process of making champagne which was acutally what I thought was a really cool process...and of course at the end we got to taste the champagne which was well, french champagne from the champagne region.

All in all a great weekend. The visit to Verdun was very sombering...but interesting to be in a place where the War actually happened. I saw a couple films last semester about the first world war, and learned about it in my history class last semester...so to be there and see physical evidence of shells and craters etc. just made everything more real to me. I had a good weekend though. Learned how champagne was made, got to talk to people who I haven't really gotten to talk to a lot this semester. Saturday I spent a couple minutes in the red wine aisle of a "hyper-marché" (like France's versions of a super target) trying to pick a good bottle for me and my friends to split. I ended up buying a 2004 Côtes du Rhones (my favorite red wine)--I thought that would make my dad proud hahaha.

Anyways, coming up--only 6 more whole weeks left here...exciting but scary at the same time. No french university classes this week due to the NATO summit that is coming here and will be Friday and Saturday. OH COOL! No, not really...the city is going to be chaos and they have blocked off certain regions of Centre Ville to the point where only people who live there and have a special permit can get into those zones...and Strasbourg is going to practically close down later this week. Their goal of shutting down the university is to try and get students away from Strasbourg...in the hopes that they won't protest if they don't have school (a lot of the french are against France being with/cooperating with NATO). Of course, Syracuse courses still go on and as I just made a list of what I have to do for this week, I won't have as much free time as I thought. But that's ok.

Next weekend: Paris, again but this time with my art history class. Naturally, several museums in one weekend...so obviously more to come. Love you and miss you all. Be home soon. Scary.

Paris, je t'aime

Alright...to sum up the last weekend of my vacation...Paris. I stayed with my roommate from freshman year at CU, Maggie Ferguson. Maggie lives with one other girl who is also from Boulder, and I liked her a lot too. They live in a really cute apartment in the Latin Quarter in Paris.

Of course, every time I am in Paris, I forget how much I like it. When I got to Paris on Thursday night, I found Maggie who guided me to her apartment for her "house warming" party. It was nice and chill for the first night being in Paris. Friday we attempted to get tickets for a football game at the Stade de France although unfortunately we did not. It was going to be a good one too--with Lyon, who are in the champions' league. Anyways, after that we did a little shopping in Paris and had a coffee at Les Deux Magots--a cafe that Ernest Hemingway used to frequent. We went back to her apartment and made pasta for dinner then headed over to the Louvre for the night. Every Friday night from 6-10pm the Louvre is free for students, so as long as you have a student ID with you on a Friday night in Paris, I highly suggest that you go.

Saturday we went on a search for Jim Morrison's grave. The cemetery where he is buried holds the graves of tons of famous people. Jim Morrison, Molière, Jean-Paul Sartre, and many other famous ones. Maggie and I got a little lost searching for Jim Morrison's grave, although we finally found it. A little anti-climactic in my opinion, although I am a fan of the Doors. Then we headed over to the Gare Saint-Lazare where Monet did a lot of paintings. After long walks and metro rides, we decided to get lunch, and rest after that. At night we went to a potluck dinner with her orientation group so I met a lot of other international students. I also met some other french students once we went out in Paris.

All in all my break was great. I am very lucky to have been able to travel around Spain and be able to see old friends who I hadn't seen in a while. Although I realized that Strasbourg really has become a home for me and a lot of the week I was homesick for Strasbourg. Anyways, I'm not exactly sure how much more traveling I will be doing, but we'll see. I realized that even though I only have good things to look forward to when I get home, I really just do not want to leave Strasbourg. It really a pierced a hole in my heart. So, I won't be able to really live much for the next three days, due to midterms and papers that are due...however after those, I am going to make sure that I get everything I can out of my remaining weeks in Strasbourg. Maybe the title of this blog should have been Strasbourg, je t'aime. Hope everything is going well on the homefront. More to come :)

Sevilla y Granada

So I left off with the end of Barcelona the last blog. Monday night I flew from Barcelona to Sevilla. The weather in general in Spain was not nearly as nice as I was expecting, and I think that's why my thoughts of my trip in Spain were jaded, because I really did have a great time/ate some GREAT food in Spain.

Sevilla was cute--small but quaint, very charming. I also stayed in a GREAT hostel that was not expensive. The Oasis backpacker's hostel in Sevilla is a great hostel to stay at if you are looking for one. There is also apparently one in Granada. Anyways, I got to Granada airport, took a bus from the airport to the bus station, and then the tram to Placa Nueva and walked about 5 minutes to my hostel in the rain. Was not the ideal way to get to my hostel, although the hostel was so nice when I got there.

My first day there I walked all around Seville with someone who I just met at my hostel who was really nice and funny. It was great to see the city just by the back streets and stuff like that. I did go to the cathedral there, which is not gothic style and I think the 4th largest cathedral in the world. Supposedly Christopher Columbus's tomb is there, although I was too mesmerized by either the organ that traverses the width of the church or the altar of GOLD. It was beautiful. Has a great road for shopping. Small town--I would suggest that you could definitely see Seville, the entirety of what you need to see in two days.

I made my way over to Granada on Wednesday for the day--easy way to get there, either bus or train. Bus by www.alsa.es Anyways, they cost just about the same and take just about the same amount of time. I saw TINA!! It was so fun to see her. As we discussed, she's the only friend who I've had since kindergarten, and even though we're not like the closest friends in the world, we are the oldest friends that each other has. We just get together every once in a while and spill out our lives to each other and then resume at some other point. Anyways, I went up to the highest point in Granada, and we went into the very small cathedral, which has the tombs of the King and Queen of Spain who made Spain catholic. Then we went and got tea--it was raining and cold the whole time I was there, but it was really nice to see Tina.

Some of my favorite spanish food:

gezspacho: cold tomato soup, some of them were very cucumber-y, some very tomato-y but very good cold spanish soup

croquetas: the ones that I had were only filled with cheese and not ham, but basically the tapas version of cheese curds

chocolate con churros: ok picture churros without the cinnamon or sugar, so just the fried dough, and then picture a cup of melted chocolate to dip them in and drink after you are done with the churros. amazing.

bavarias (i think that's the name of what it was): fried fish. granted, not the irish fish n chips, but still pretty good.

spanish tortilla: basically like an omelette with potato

bravas: potato chunks/wedges and a sauce. the sauce can either be the touristy kind (mayonnaise-ish with spicy sauce so it looks pink) or an orange spicy sauce and a mayonnaise-y sauce slapped on there separately, although that is the more authentic version.

cava: spanish version of champagne. ok, i know, not a food.

Vino tinto: sangria mixed with fanta. yes, i know, again, not a food.

Those ones are the ones that I can remember as of now. I'm with my friend Maggie right now at her apartment in Paris. Loving Paris again as usual. Have fallen back in love with it. Will come back often to Paris. Will blog about Paris on Sunday when I get back into Strasbourg. Love and miss you all. See you in like nine and a half weeks! Yikes! More to come :)

Barcelona!

Barcelona. Former home of great artists such as Pablo Picasso and Antonio Gaudi. Current home of the best football team in the world. Party city to the max.

When I landed in Girona, it was beautiful--kind of hot, sunny, you could see the mountains from the runway. I ran into a lot of friends who were on the same flight going to Barcelona, so that was fun. I took a bus about an hour in length to Barcelona and found my hostel. Then I called my friend Coop, (Christen Cooper, girl who i met summer before freshman year at orientation). It was really nice to see her for a good amount of time because as she said i had been MIA for the past couple months.

Friday night we really just wandered around a little, went to the beach and people watched. Then we got tapas and sangria for dinner and met up with a couple of her friends afterwards.

Saturday, we did a lot of walking. We went to Guell Park, the park that Antonio Gaudi designed, and the park that is in the movie L´Auberge Espagnole (one of my recent favorite movies). That park is just filled with mosaics, beautiful works by Gaudi. There is actually a family who lives in a house right above the park--imagine how rich they must be. Then we went to all you can eat sushi, and yea, i ate all you can eat sushi in Barcelona. Anyways, it was amazing. After that we walked to the Hospital of St. Pau which is again just a beautiful hospital still in use today. After seeing the outside of the hospital we walked over to Gaudi´s famous cathedral, and it actually does look like it´s melting at some points. It was cool to see from the outside. Before dinner Coop and I slipped in some shopping which is always a plus. We went to the top of this hill, I forget the name right now but there is a museum/palace at the top and waterfalls galore. There was a light show with the main fountain so my friends and I sat on the steps and watched the fountain show while sipping on some Cava, Spain´s version of champagne. After that we went to a museum very close to that park that was mostly modern art. I remembered how much I´m not a fan of modern art, although I also saw an exhibit of Joaquim Mir, a spanish impressionist which was interesting at least.

Phew. Sunday we didn´t do as much, Coop and I did a lot of walking around little side streets in Barcelona. We discovered many little squares with orange trees and fountains. We also went to the Picasso Museum and had a great dinner at night. Monday day I got up, checked out of my hostel and did more walking, souvenir shopping, and then made my way through the maze of metros and buses to get to the Barcelona airport. Luckily I was successful.

All in all, I like Barcelona. I don´t know if I liked it a lot, but I did like it. It was really nice to see Coop and have sangria and real tapas. Although so far, I´m liking Seville better...but I´ll write about Seville later. Hope all is well on the home front. Love and miss you all. More to come :)

Demi-vacances...

Hello all! Hope everything is going well so far! My birthday is tomorrow, which means it's the end of February...really really scary...this semester is seriously flying by way too fast. Do I have any big plans for my birthday? No, and actually I'm not really that excited for it because I've been going to the bars here for a couple months already, so it's not a big deal here. Oh well. We'll see what happens when I get home in the summer... :)

Anyways, what have I been up to? I'm still climbing once a week, although after the break I might sign up to do it twice a week if I can...I've started actually working out again which feels really good. I may actually end up going back to lacrosse for my senior year...so I have a lot of work cut out for me in terms of conditioning. It's doable though. I've been working hard with my classes, just living life, discovering new little parts of Strasbourg and I've realized lately how much I really like going to see the orchestra here. Also, there's been plays that I've had to go to for my literature class because it's a drama class...they've all been modern plays...one was well just very poorly directed and the other one I liked...so we'll see how those keep going.

The other weekend I went to Carnavale in Kehl--quite a spectacle. Being Germany, I would not say that it was the most glorious carnavale but it was fun to see nonetheless. The masks and costumes that people had on ranged from some of the ugliest I've seen to german girls in their traditional skirts and everything (think like the girl on the St. Pauli's Girl bottles...). It was cool to see it in Kehl, and I felt like everyone who was walking in the parade knew everyone in the crowd. For example, people would go up to kids, lift their mask up a little bit to show them who they were, and then just pick the kid up and take them! Also there was TONS of confetti blasted into the air, landing in my hair, shoes, pretty much everywhere...I think I still see some little flakes on the floor of my room haha. Nonetheless, it was pretty funnn and free. I need to go back to Kehl someday so I can get a currywurst...yum. Kehl is about a 15 minute bus ride and then a 10-ish minute walk over the "Pont de L'Europe"...so not far at all.

Oh, interesting thing I learned recently: a lot of Strasbourg's cultural buildings/companies receive money directly from Paris. For example, the big theatre is Théâtre Nationale de Strasbourg, L'Orchestre Philharmonique Nationale de Strasbourg, Bibliothèque Nationale de Strasbourg, et L'Opéra Nationale du Rhin. The word Nationale in all of those names implies that they receive money from Paris because in 1918, after World War I and after Alsace became french again, they wanted to make sure it stayed French so they fund a lot of cultural ongoings here. Just thought that was a cool little side note for all of you.

I'm half on vacation this week...I don't have any french university classes, but I still have my two Syracuse classes, and it is forbidden to skip my Syracuse classes. So I'm half on break...on Friday I'll be traveling to Barcelona, Seville, Granada, and Paris. I'm sure I'll have a lot more interesting things to tell you guys after that. Love and miss all of you!

Lacrosse me manque

Halfway through February, about 6th month abroad...and right now all I can think about is how much I miss lacrosse--mom and dad if you come out to visit can you bring my stick and a ball? It's the one with the black Colorado shaft--I can't remember exactly where in the house it is though--what a surprise. So I might as well ask this question for the 5 millionth time in my life, "Mom, I can't find it, have you seen it recently?" Unfortunately NONE OF THE FRENCH have ever heard of the sport lacrosse--I went into the adidas store yesterday to admire the new shiny colorful kleats on the wall and the guy who worked there asked me if i played soccer. I said no, i play lacrosse...and then I explained to him what lacrosse was, in franglish. At the end miraculously it turned out that he had heard of it. But boy, explaining lacrosse in Franglish might have been one of the highlights of my time in Strasbourg lol.

Besides missing lacrosse a lot and the bank screwing me over once again, things are going well. I have not been traveling--it is too expensive and I like discovering parts of Strasbourg. For example, I just went to the Musée des Beaux-arts for the first time last night with my host mom. There was an expo of Flemmish and Irish paintings and I also looked through the rest of the museum. It's beautiful. I climbed the cathedral once again. I've stopped randomnly at little outside markets that I stumble upon, I do my homework at my favorite café L'Artichaut. In short, I feel like in place of traveling a lot this semester, I actually have a life in Strasbourg.

I start my spring break on February 27th with Barcelona to visit one of my best friends Coop, we met at freshman orientation and have just kept hanging out for the whole of our college career. We're in separate sororities, but at Colorado, she's the one who I've known the longest. Next, I'm going down to Sevilla to visit Tina! I'm so excited and can not believe that this is the first time I will have seen her when it's not the summer! We've been friends since we were what, 5 or something? I'm not exagerating. Finally, I'm going to end my break in Paris and visit my friend Maggie, she was my roommate freshman year (the good one) and I'm also very excited for that!

So I'm watching a rugby match right now on tv and just realized how short men's rugby shorts are. Ew/awkward.

Other than those things, I have just been living life. The carnavals start soon. There is one in Kehl (Germany) which is like a 15 minute bus ride away on Sunday, so I'll probably go to that. Strasbourg supposedly has their carnaval after mardi gras...weird. Oh, Mardi Gras? oh yeah, that's my birthday...finally 21...in a country where they couldn't care less about my age when I go to bars. Oh well, it'll be fun.

Hope everything is going well for everyone--I'll once again miss Roe's annual Valentine's Day ladies get together--if she's having it. Can't wait to see everyone in May! More to come :)

D'accord

Salut toute le monde!

Well it's pretty much the end of January already...classes have fully started up both at Syracuse and at IIEF. I went on an excursion around Alsace this past Sunday with Syracuse again--it was pretty much the same agenda from last time, but who could resist a free lunch and wine tasting? Not me. Nonetheless, it was a good opportunity to get to be able to socialize with Syracuse students--a lot who I feel like I still don't really know.

Oh well, I'm with the same group that I was with last semester at the IIEF, so that is fun. I finally worked my schedule out today which is nice. I'm pretty sure that I will have time for a wall climbing class on Mondays which I'm really excited for, although I still have to go and sign up for it...anyways, I'm set with books, bought a french-french dictionary, and also a dictionary of synonyms...kicking the french into high gear now.

Tomorrow there is going to be a strike in France--for what reason? Well not just for one reason, for many reasons. I could list all of them but that would make for a long blog post. So basically if I want to get anywhere, I will have to walk but that's probably better for me anyways. I don't think I have anything else to write...just felt like letting you guys know that I was alive and stuff like that. Ok cool. more to come :)

Quelle week-end!

So I am still feeling jet lag I think...I am not yet able to sleep through the night, even though I was able to the first night that I got here. I will be fast asleep for about 3-4 hours, and then my body will wake itself up and I'll toss and turn for most of the rest of the night. Anyways, I'm sure that'll fix itself soon.

This past weekend went pretty well. Friday night I went out with a bunch of the new SU people and the two other girls who stayed this semester. It was nice to get to know some of the new people. All of those who I've met so far are pretty cool and nice. I had one of my favorite beers out here, Kriek--it's a Belgian Blonde beer made from cherries, so really you think you're just drinking a carbonated cherry drink.

Anyways, saturday was a lazy day for me--I spent most of the day trying to see what prices there were for my winter break which will be at the end of February, 3 days after my birthday. In the afternoon, I went with my host family to "les bains chauds" It's a place that is like a spa, it has a ton of hot pools though--however there is a certain order you go. Each time you go it gets hotter and hotter. This place was in Germany just outside of Freiberg, which was only about an hour drive from Strasbourg. After being there for a good chunk of time and practically falling asleep in the hot pool that had music and plenty of noodles for you to float on, we made our way to Colmar.

Colmar is another quaint little town in Alsace--way smaller than Strasbourg however. I like it a lot for its quaintness actually. We ate a great dinner at a restaurant there and met a guy from Chicago who worked for Wrigley (apparently there is a Wrigley factory around Colmar). Throughout the dinner I helped translate between him and the waitress which had its comical moments. After eating a HUGE dinner, we drove up to their cabin in Thannenkirch which is in the Vosges mountains and stayed there for Sunday. My host mom and I braved the drizzle and fog to go on a short hike, then I napped, then I watched "Les Bronzés font du ski" with my host parents. One of the funniest french movies I've seen so far. We ended the weekend in Strasbourg with a dinner at my host grandma's apartment--these dinners are always huge. Needless to say I will need to rent that bike soon so I can start exercising in some way again.

Hope everything is going well on that side of the ocean, or on this side of the ocean for that matter. More to come :)

Je suis tellement contente d'être à Strasbourg

Back in the saddle again. Classes have not started yet, I am only doing orientation right now--half of which I don't have to go to because I did it last semester. The flights over here were fine, I slept a little, probably not as much as I wanted to. TIP--if you ever want to sleep on a plane, don't go with tylenol pm...granted I only took one, but a. it took a long time to kick in and b. i felt like my brain was just slow for a while after the pill had worn off.

Anyways, I would suggest Aer Lingus to people who want to fly somewhere in Europe from O'Hare. Their service in my opinion is pretty much the same and Air France and their accents are cuter and they are cheaper. Usually you do make a stop in Dublin and have about a three hour layover there, but for the price and service it is worth it. Anyways, what's the harm in relaxing in the Dublin airport? They have an abundance of Irish souvenirs to shop around and look at (duty-free!), or you can just relax with a glass of that black stuff they call Guinness (I didn't get to sit with the black stuff, I was too jetlagged to think about a nice cold beer).

Anyways, all in all, traveling here was very very long, but worked out well. After flying from Chicago to Dublin to Paris, taking the tram to the train station, and the TGV to Strasbourg, and being picked up by my host mom, I had one of the best night's sleep of my life. I probably fell asleep and woke up in the same position. It was glorious.

Today I met as many of the new kids in the Syracuse group as I could. So far, I like everyone who I've met. There are about 4 girls in our program from CU-Boulder I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure I'll be hearing a lot of stories about host families tomorrow, because everyone else met their host families for the first time tonight. So, so far, so good. I can't tell you how happy I am to be back in Strasbourg, and I can't tell you why exactly either, but I am. Hope everything is going well on that side of the ocean. A bientôt!