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!