Kristin's Adventures in Bordeaux

Winter Wonderland

2008-12-13T17:59:00.003+01:00

I’ve decided that I’m over it. I’m over the sitting-inside-because-its-cold. I’m over the never-walking-to-the-tram-because-it’s-raining. I only have a week and a half left in Bordeaux, and I’m not going to waste it sitting inside!

I formulated a plan… I had yet to visit the Jardin Public, which all of my friends had been to and said was absolutely beautiful, and I also wanted to visit the Marché de Noël, set up right next to Place des Quinconces. So I braved the weather, grabbed a scarf, gloves, and my parapluie and headed out.

First stop? Souvenir shopping, of course! I picked up some wine-openers and some corks that were handmade and said “Bordeaux” on them, as well as rounding out my postcard collection to send out to my family members across the states. From there, I headed back to Hôtel de Ville, where they have one of the many ice skating rinks that have magically appeared in Bordeaux since the start of the month. I happen to be a horrible ice skater, but I figured that I might as well glide around a few times with the native Bordelais and give them all a good laugh when I fell on my face… plus, it was a bargain deal at only 3 euro for unlimited rink time and skate rentals.

You will be happy to know that I did not fall ONCE while on the rink, although I did stay pretty close to the railing the whole time and the high schoolers on the rink with me were spinning circles around me while balancing on one leg while doing inverse zig-zag patterns… I tottered off the rink, down the stairs, and headed for the skate return window… at which point, I tripped and fell flat on my face. My fellow ice-skaters found that quite hysterical, and they proceeded to laugh and applaud for me… I decided that the only thing I could do (since, I’ll admit, it was pretty funny, probably looked pretty ridiculous, and the high-pitched squeal I let out as I was falling towards the ground sounded rather silly, I’m sure) was roll with it and take a bow, which is exactly what I did. After gathering myself and dusting ice shavings off my jacket, Lauren and I headed for Monoprix to gather supplies for our picnic in the Jardin Public.

We gathered what we considered to be a “French meal” (cheese, bread, and some Pepperidge Farm Soft-Baked Double Chocolate Chip Cookies) and meandered through Bordeaux, eventually landing at the gates of the Jardin (absolutely splendid… green, trees, carousel, lake), where we sat back and enjoyed what had turned into beautiful weather.

Then it was off to the Marché de Noël, a small little market of little cabins lined up next to each other, offering you a splendid assortment of Christmas goodies and sugary delights. I indulged in a freshly made gaufre (Belgian waffle looking-thing) topped with Nutella, and wandered through the stores.

Soon, after a short trip through the Christmas tree farm, it was time to head home and start studying for finals… a quick tram ride and I was back home, drying out my gloves and putting on thicker socks. I would say that my early Friday morning weather-defying attitude turned out quite well. Now I just have to get up the guts to visit the Miroir d’Eau in the freezing nighttime temperatures!

Bisous!

Donde esta la fiesta?

2008-12-12T17:48:00.003+01:00

6 December 2008

We’re deprived. Very very deprived. No Chipotle, no taco sauce… “tortilla chips” means that you go to the store and buy overpriced “nature flavor” Doritos in a bag that is way too small to satisfy any kind of Mexican food urge.

But then, Erin’s mom took matters into her own hands. She went to Trader Joe’s and purchased 1) tortillas and 2) beans. Sheer magic in Ziplocs and aluminum containers.

Fast forward 10 days, and the package has arrived in Bordeaux. This leads us to a frenzy of shopping for chicken, peppers, Tabasco sauce, and avocados. I proceed to make the most amazing guacamole ever, and we compliment the lemony-avocadoy goodness with chicken fajitas… and a bottle of Bacardi (before dinner), a bottle of wine (during dinner), and a bottle of Mint Chocolate Bailey’s (after dinner). Add in some drunk Skyping and the Miss France competition (brought to you courtesy of TF1), and you have yourselves a house party.

Needless to say, it was quite fun and enjoyable, and we all had a good time. I probably could have used a little more water and some Advil, but all in all, the six of us (who I shall not name to protect their dignity) were thoroughly ridiculous, loud, and obnoxious… and had a ton of fun. Nights like this just reinforce how great the life Bordelaise is, even if there is only one meal of Mexican food every four months… first stop when I get back to California? Someplace where they’ll serve me a really big burrito.

Paris in the Fall… It’s not supposed to snow in the fall, is it?

2008-12-05T21:41:00.003+01:00

November 28th-December 1st

The last out-of-Bordeaux trip of the semester turned out to be my weekend in Pair-ee… not exactly a bad way to end my semester travels, that’s for sure. The weekend started off much the same as in Barcelona… 17:51 train to Paris, eat a lot of food on the way. This time, however, there were 7 of our friends on the same train (repeat Geneva American obnoxiousness), and when we arrived in Paris at 10pm, we headed to a hostel via Metro, wandering in the right direction… this time, I was smart enough to get directions so we wouldn’t end up on the coast of Normandie.

Upon arriving at the hostel, which was in Montmartre (Parisian red-light district), Lauren and I were pleasantly surprised by the proximity to the Metro and the proximity to McDo, probably more important in the long run. After checking in to our 3-person room (complete with bathroom, one hanger, and TV), we headed out to the Moulin Rouge to meet up with Erin and Jackie. After taking lots of ridiculous pictures there, we wandered across the street to this bar called The Station… prime attraction? Live music.

Said “live music” just happened to be playing Sweet Home Alabama when we walked in… we took this as a sign and plopped our butts in the nearest booth, then proceeded to order food and drinks while singing along and cheering quite loudly… “loudly” probably because we were the only ones cheering and dancing in our seats. Luckily, the waiter got a kick out of us and did not only point to us and then cup his ear every time the band finished a song (since we were evidently not being loud enough for him), he also came over and started dancing with us, next to our table. We ordered a bruschetta and continued to sing along to a medley of old-school rock and roll.

We left just in time to catch the last Metro, returning to our luxurious hostel chamber to prepare for the next day’s tourist activities.

First stop on the Parisian sightseeing tour? Cimitiere Père Lachaise, a massive 60 acre cemetery where one can find lots of famous dead people, such as Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, and Jim Morrison. The place is so huge that it even has street signs inside, and the newsstands outside the cemetery walls sell maps of the cemetery.

After taking sufficient “rock on” pictures with my good friend Jim, it was back to the Metro for the day’s second adventure: searching for Hard Rock and Starbucks. After walking around in a circle for about 45 minutes (it should have been a 20 minute walk, according to Mr. Office of Tourism) and asking for directions at a pharmacy, we located not only Starbucks, but Hard Rock Café-Paris right next door! You better believe I got a huge White Chocolate Mocha and batted my eyelashes all the way to a free shot glass.

This is the part where we cue the soundtrack… the song is called, appropriately enough, “Aux Champs-Élysées,” and that’s exactly where we were headed next… find the NoFx version if you can, its quite entertaining…

Long lines, tourists, some sightseeing pictures, a marché de Noël, and one very overbearing heater later, Lauren and I had not only spent some more money, but were on our way to St. Michel (that’s near the Notre-Dame area) to meet up with Lauren’s friend Sara, currently studying in Paris via EAP. She not only took us to a delicious crêpe street stand, but to Angelina’s, a hot chocolate and pastry mecca. They basically served me a cup of melted chocolate to drink with some unsweetened egg whites as thickener (right, cuz I totally needed thickener)… and of course, I got a delicious berry cake thing to complement it. Feeling sufficiently stuffed and on the verge of the food coma, we returned to our hostel to drop off our bags and see what the night held.

Turns out the night held one very sketchy late-night McDo run and some weird French TV (think American Gladiators, but with only one “gladiator” and mental exercises too, like putting together puzzles), since we wanted to go to bed early in preparation for our day at EuroDisney.

The most exciting part of the Disney day started before we even left our creepy Parisian hostel corner. As we left the hostel and headed for the Metro, we realized that the rain falling from the sky wasn’t quite right… examination of the flakes landing on our hands and jackets revealed that it was definitely not rain… it was SNOW!!! That’s right, it SNOWED in Paris!! We were like little kids freaking out and running around, aside from the fact that it was melting as soon as it hit the ground and meant that it was cold enough to freeze the rain on the way down. Nonetheless, it snowed!! Snow!! In the fall!! Gah its cold here. Anyway…

As you can imagine, aside from getting up early, having to buy an expensive RER ticket to get home, it raining all day, and me losing a glove before I even got out of the RER station, Disneyland was indeed Disneyland, and therefore quite fun and fantastic. All the Christmas decorations were up and they’re celebrating their 15-year anniversary, so the entire place was decked out. My favorite part of the day? (Aside from WAY TOO MUCH SHOPPING… I should have had a leash on me or something… too many shiny objects.) The “souvenir mug, coffee, free refill, and Mickey-shaped brioche stuffed with Nutella” combo. Delicious, and above all, warm. Of course, we had to see le Père Noël too… he told us that he was going to give us French fiancés for Christmas.

After spending the day as a Mouseketeers, I returned to the hostel loaded down with Disney paraphernalia and a very angry credit card. Our train was set to leave at 8:10am the next day (I had a 1:30 class), so we set the alarm for a ridiculously early hour (allotting time for the Metro) and drifted off to sleep, with dreams of Tinkerbell and Mickey brioche dancing in our heads.

Barthelonaaaaa

2008-11-26T17:16:00.001+01:00

November 21st-24th...

It began with spit, continued to vomit, and ended with a lot of snot. Weekend Barcelone.

In order to get to Barcelona the cheapest way possible, it was necessary to take a train to Paris, spend a whopping 8 hours there, and then fly to Barcelona… geographically stupid, economically smart. After feasting on a delicious meal of quiche and Coca light, we arrived in Paris at 10pm. Pulling an all-nighter is called “avoir une nuit blanche,” literally translated as “to have a white night,” but the expression is akin to “sleepless night.” Here is the chronology of our nuit blanche.

22h00: arrival at Gare Montparnasse. In the midst of our wandering out of the train station, Lindsay discovers an Uno piece on the ground (the McDo game equivalent to playing Monopoly with your soda cups and large fries)…. It turns out to be a free cheeseburger (!)

22h15: hocked loogies upon poor unsuspecting smokers below… then ran away fast.

22h20: We exit the train station (in the rain) and begin our walking tour of Paris. Destination: Eiffel Tower. Which turns out to be in the exact opposite direction that we were headed.

22h21: reversed directions.

23h45: McDo trip to claim said free cheeseburger

01h30, Saturday November 22: found Eiffel Tower. Note: it turns off at 0100.

01h35: said “bon soir” to police with large machine guns… our hope was that being polite would make them less likely to shoot us.

01h45: found vomit on metro

01h46: changed metro cars

01h51: descend metro to find man passed out on floor. Dead (?)

01h53: arrival at Porte Maillot… we now have approximately four hours until the bus will whisk us off to the airport… our goal was to find some place warm to hang out that “homeless people weren’t already sleeping in.”

02h30:stumbled upon concierge bored and unfortunate enough to offer us shelter from the cold… Lindsay made her “pathetic” face, which greatly upped our odds of being welcomed in. We obliged and spent the rest of the night making awkward small talk in this tiny hotel lobby, all in French, and declining several propositions to join drunken Frenchies up to their rooms. We also enjoyed a game of “find this united state” and “find this French city” on two badly drawn maps, which we succeeded at tremendously. We redeemed all of America in these three French people’s eyes… the Germans, however, were decidedly unconcerned with our geography skills and were very insistent on giving us a tour of “ROOM 19! NUMBER 19!” Needless to say, we did not oblige.

04h45: breakfast pastries arrive at the hotel… ingest croissant.

05h30: left the hotel (after exchanging emails and phone numbers) and ventured out into the (freezing) cold

06h00: nuit blanche ends, as it is definitely the morning and we are en route to the airport…

The weekend continues…

Upon arrival at the airport, we check in, fly to Girona, and take another bus to Barceona. After this, we all took naps in our hostel room, which overlooked the lovely Plaça Reial and was only steps away from Las Ramblas. After waking up and taking a shower in the most disgusting shower I’ve ever seen (I brought shower shoes, don’t worry), it was time to explore the city and do some souvenir shopping. Post-money spending, we returned to the hostel to enjoy happy hour and make some Brazilian, Canadian, French, and Romanian friends… and take advantage of the 2-for-1 happy hour deal at the bar. We got in the dinner line just in time (dinner is included in the hostel price, but they don’t cook for everyone, so once they’re out, they’re out), and were the last three people to get food… which was then shared with our newfound friends, who were all in line behind us.

Being such kind and considerate people left us rather hungry, so Erin and I took advantage of the vending machines in the bar/common room… and then we proceeded to ask the clerk at the front desk directions to the nearest churro con chocolate store… the proceeded to leave the hostel, have a conversation about Barcelonian attractions with two Frenchmen, walk to Las Ramblas, run into our Canadian friends, and finally make it to the Café de l’Opera, where we ordered a pitcher of Sangria and three servings of churros con chocolate, which was basically a platter of churros (just the fried dough, not rolled in sugar) and a coffee cup full of hot, melted chocolate for each of us. We then ate all of it. Tasty.

Sunday morning rolls around, and we are determined to be touristy. Following our free breakfast and the purchase of futbol tickets, we headed out to the Parc Gueil (aka the Gaudi Park). For those who don’t know (I had no idea before I came here, don’t feel bad) this mosaic artist named Gaudi had a huge influence on Barcelona… architecture, style, art, everything. Barcelona even calls itself the “City of Gaudi.” If you’ve ever seen a movie set in Barcelona, then you’ve probably seen this park… it offers panoramic views of the city (forest and beach) and is absolutely gorgeous… Gaudi’s old house is partially converted into a school and partially into a museum… there are mosaic’s everywhere up this steep hill, which offers those of us not-stair-inclined escalators to pull us to the top.

After Gaudi, it was lunchtime… cheap kabobs, anyone? Post-Pita Inn, it was off to the Picasso Museum, which chronicled his life through his paintings… very interesting, and very cool… Picasso did a lot of other stuff besides paint, which I had no idea about (lithography, pottery), plus it turns out he was kind of a perv and kind of a pimp.

Art appreciation led us to gelato consumption and then a metro ride to the futbol game, in the largest stadium in all of Europe… Barcelona tied 1-1, and the security guys even let us move up a couple rows! (Not like it made a huge difference, we were in the nosebleed section anyway).

The night concluded with some more common time in the common room, then packing and off to bed… which had a sheet hanging across the bottom bunk when I woke up… guess we all know what the Australian dude did last night!

Monday was another day of traveling… metro, bus, airplane, bus, train, tram... home in time for dinner! Overall, a very successful and slightly ridiculous weekend. And I can now speak one Portuguese phrase and do some very silly impressions of Romanians, Canadians, and Brazilians.

PS: If you’re wondering where the aforementioned “snot” came in, I seem to have developed a slight cold and spent a lot of time sneezing…

Les Grèves de 20 novembre

2008-11-26T10:33:00.002+01:00

“Aucun tram et bus ne circule.”

This means “no trams or buses today.” Why, you ask? Well, according to the TBC website, there was a strike/demonstration today (a grève), planned to coincide with the strike by the national teacher’s association… meaning that in addition to me having no way to get to school, which I actually needed to go to, my homestay brother, Balam, got to sleep in and didn’t have to go to school. Evidently, they passed out fliers announcing the planned absence of all staff that day.

My story begins with me standing in the freezing cold waiting for the bus at 7:45am… after getting up at 6:30am. The bus is late, but I suspect that if it’s already 5 minutes late, then its not going to show up (this has happened before) and I’ll have to wait for the 8:01 bus and deal with the tram being very crowded. There is one other guy standing at the bus stop waiting with me… he’s also waiting for the 34; I recognize him from prior days at the bus stop. Then, a series of rather strange and certainly unusual events occurs.

First, the guy waiting next to me gets a phone call. He mumbles something in unintelligible French and hangs up. 30 seconds later, he gets another phone call, mumbles again, and walks away.

Event Two: There is a middle-school aged girl who lives in the house directly across from the bus stop. Every morning, she meets her friend outside and they jaywalk across the street to the bus stop. Today, she meets her friend outside and they head to the crosswalk. Weird, I think, but I guess they’ve decided to be safe this morning... except that instead of turning back towards the bus stop when they cross the street, they keep going, meaning that they’re not talking the bus this morning and they’re walking wherever they need to go.

Event Three/Realization #1: The people waiting for the 34 on the other side of the street (as in the bus going in the opposite direction as the one I’m waiting for) walk away. I realize that I haven’t seen any bus at all in any direction… and I should have seen about four by this point in time.

Event Four: The French guy waiting for the bus next to me (a new French guy) looks at the bus schedule and says “Je crois qu’il n y a pas de bus aujourd’hui.” (Translation: I don’t think that there are any buses today.) Greaaaaaaat.

I walk home and my homestay mom says “there’s no bus?!” Me: “Nope.” I check the website, which informs me that “Aucun tram et bus ne circule” due to a strike. Meaning that I have no way to get to school, save walking or biking or driving… and no one else in the city of Bordeaux has the ability to get anywhere either. Thankfully, my homestay mom has a lunch date in Talence (where campus is) at around 11:30, so she drives me and Lauren to school… and then comes back and picks us up at 3:30, since we were basically stranded once she dropped us off. I missed my first class and my second class, but I did indeed make it to my third and final class… then returned home to check the times for the SNCF (railway) strikes to make sure that we wouldn’t have any problems the next day with our TGV train to Barcelona… thankfully, the email from SNCF that informed me of the strike (with precise hours) reassured me that this voyage would be sans problèmes.

Ah, la France.

Oversized, Overpriced, Overcaffinated Beverages (11/14-11/16)

2008-11-19T19:27:00.001+01:00

This past weekend I took a trip to the lovely Swiss town of Geneva (or Genève, as the French and French-speaking Swiss would say). It was approximately 50 degrees all weekend, but miracle of miracles, the sun was actually shining and not hidden behind clouds!

Our flight left Friday night, thankfully from Bordeaux… after arriving at the airport (thanks to my wonderful homestay mom Guadalupe, who dropped me and Lauren off) and browsing through a cheesy souvenir shop, Lauren and I headed to the gate, where we found five of our fellow EAP-ers sitting around. After a half an hour delay, we finally made it on to the white and bright orange EasyJet plane, all seven of us sitting together, and proceeded to be loud, obnoxious, American girls.

We landed at around 10:30, grabbed our baggage, and went our separate ways… some to the train, one to Interlocken, and me and Lauren to the taxi… yeah, the train was probably cheaper and just as adequate, but the ride in the heated Mercedes was quite lovely. That was basically the end of the night, since it was nearly midnight at this point and “tired” was an accurate statement of how I felt.

Saturday morning, we got up bright and early, headed to the free hostel breakfast, and then headed out to Old Town… not that this was extraordinarily older than any other part of town… it was fully equipped with several supermarkets, an H&M, and a McDonalds. We browsed the streets for a while, taking full advantage of the lovely walking path around the lake, then eventually worked our way to the cathedral… not before stopping at Starbucks, however! It was the most expensive Starbucks I’ve ever ordered… and you better believe I got the venti Dark Cherry Mocha in celebration of red cup season. And you also better believe that I took pictures with it… and asked someone else to take pictures of me with it in front of Starbucks. “Professional tourist” is one new thing I’ll be able to add to my résumé when I get back, that’s for sure! Back to the cathedral… Lauren and I climbed all the way up the tower, which permits those who survive the extremely small and tight spiral staircase to partake in the breathtakingly fantastic panoramic view of the city. And, as our luck would have it, it just happened to be turning noon right as we got up to the top, so we were serenaded by the church bells ringing the hour, and then were able to hear other bells ringing all throughout the city. Quite lovely, if I do say so myself.

Post-tower adventure, I grabbed a hot dog from a street vendor (the fact that it was indeed a street vendor advertising “American style” hot dogs, which were definitely not what I would call American style, made me feel like I was in New York, but still… fondue is expensive!), then headed back to the hostel to drop off the morning’s haul of loot… basically, I was lazy and didn’t want to carry it around all day. Lauren and I headed back out to the wild and crazy Genevan streets, directly towards MANOR.

Yes, MANOR does need to be in all capital letters. It is a huge mega store “where you can find everything,” as the woman at the Office of Tourism so eloquently put it. Seven floors of anything and everything, and my guess is that you could indeed purchase a kitchen sink as well. Luckily for me, I was not in need of plumbing equipment but of souvenirs, and that is exactly what I found, as the bright red “Switzerland!” display basically attacks you from the moment that you walk in the door. After fighting small children and angry old ladies in the chocolate department, I successfully paid and headed out, walking past the fully stocked grocery store and its sushi bar.

From MANOR it was back to Old Town, where my shopping was completed… I got a Swatch and probably spent way too much money on various Swiss paraphernalia and a gourmet meal from McDonalds. Pre-McDonalds I made a short stop at another large and very well stocked supermarket in search of Swiss sausage (saucisse Suisse seche), basically Swiss salami, which is incredibly hard to find and everyone at the meat counter gives you a funny look when you ask for it… nonetheless, mission accomplished.

Lauren and I found a paper for a free concert at the cathedral, so we headed back there to enjoy the free choir concert… until walking in and realizing that 1) everyone had tickets, 2) the concert was not free but 60 francs for the good seats and 30 for the cheapos, and 3) there were no good seats left, so our choir experience would have consisted of staring at a large stone pillar about four feet in diameter for an hour and a half. Needless to say, we passed on that experience and headed to (where else?) Starbucks!

After sufficiently caffiinating ourselves, we realized that there was basically nothing to do in Geneva after dark (unless we wanted to spend far too much money on fondue), so we stayed at Starbucks and continued our strict regiment of overpriced caffination. Eventually, we meandered our way back to the hostel and called it a night.

Sunday morning marked our final day in la Suisse, and a short one at that, since EasyJet only flies one or two flights a day on the Bordeaux-Geneva route, and our choices were either 7:30 am or 3:30pm… we opted for the latter.

Free breakfast and check-out (during which I had a mild panic attack… one of the other people in our room locked her key in the bathroom and borrowed mine… unbeknownst to me, until I tried to open my locker and went to the front desk, she accidentally switched our keys… I ran through the hostel and almost started screaming “Lauren! We need to find the Italians!” because I was extraordinarily worried that they had already checked out and my stuff was going to be locked in the locker forever, luckily they had yet to depart)… then we went back to Old Town and back to Starbucks! The barista didn’t quite understand “one White Mocha” so Lauren ended up with two grande White Mochas and one venti Cappuccino… I had no qualms finishing them both, to say the least.

We made a quick pit stop at McDo for some Chicken McNuggets (I think chicken nuggets are a universal fast food item… very reliable) and then to the hostel, to the train station (free train ride since we stood for the five minute trip!), and to the airport, where our flight was delayed for half an hour.

The seven of us snagged seats together again and repeated our obnoxiousness; upon arrival in Bordeaux, we all went our separate ways, as my homestay family was waiting for me and Lauren to emerge from the black hole called baggage claim. We made it home in time for dinner, but I think I’m having Starbucks withdrawals… this will soon be remedied, as the Starbucks Store Locater informs me that my next destination, Barcelona, is home to 20 stores… ahh, the joy of knowing I’m getting ripped off for the pleasure of holding that red cup and having someone take a picture of me…

Semester Break- Homeward Bound

2008-11-08T12:53:00.001+01:00

Day 8- 11/1

The final day on the trip, and what a very long day it was. I got up at 6:15, packed (thank god the suitcase expands), and took a taxi back to Waverly Bridge, because I was not interested in stumbling the half-hour walk there in the freezing cold. Shuttle-d it back to the airport, where I repeated the same procedure as before (without the bagel store)… arrived in London and it was train, tube, train… and that’s where things got fun and interesting. I made it to the train station without a problem, although I was fairly hungry at that point. It’s a good thing that I didn’t stop to eat anything, because when I got there my train wasn’t on the board. I was not exactly thrilled about this fact, since I didn’t really want to have to find an alternative way to get to Paris by 6pm. The somewhat rude lady at the check-in desk informed me that the timetable had been moved up by half an hour… better early than late, I guess.

I got in to Paris and took a taxi to the next train station (this was the first time that I felt like I wasn’t a tourist anymore… the taxi driver had me explain the US election system and pointed out where President Chirac lives, but driving by the Louvre was unmentioned). I finally got some food, and then sat around and waited. And waited. And waited. The platform number is supposed to come up on the board 20 minutes before the train leaves. Well, my train was supposed to leave at 6:50pm. Nothing on the board at 6:30, or 6:35, or 6:40. Then I realized that the trains that were supposed to leave at 6:15 were still on the board. Meaning delays… and then, the board changed… and the train that was supposed to leave at 5:15 came up on the board. Meaning that my train was going to be at least an hour and a half late. NOOOOOOOOO. I ran down to the platform and tried to get on every train that was going to Bordeaux… of course, because of seat reservations and because it’s a TGV (meaning nice, high-speed bullet train), I couldn’t just convince them that it was totally fine for me to stand in the corridor for three hours.

Finally, I hear a muffled announcement in French that I don’t totally comprehend… but I heard the key words “Bordeaux” and “Voie Une”… this was after hearing the muffled announcement involving the words “3-4 hours,” which I assumed meant “3-4 hours late.” Following the crowd of people to platform 1, I asked if the train would take me to Bordeaux, was told “oui” and “montez-là,” meaning “get on the train.” I do as instructed, then look around and stop. After asking the SNCF train-mistress if I could sit anywhere, she told me “just take whatever empty seat you find,” and I wasn’t about to argue, because I had walked right into first class. I spent the next 5 and a half hours in my nice cushy first-class seats, with about five other people in the entire car. Personal table, personal light, personal window… aside from the fact that I was on a TGV train on a normal-speed track (hence the 5.5 hour ride), I managed to read the first three books in the Twilight series (I need Breaking Dawn in English NOW). I took a taxi home from the train station (I didn’t exactly want to walk past the prostitutes on the corner by the tram stop, and I might have already missed the last tram) and basically knocked out, back in Bordeaux at 12:30am. Ah, vacations.

Onward to Edinburgh!

2008-11-08T12:52:00.000+01:00

Day 4- 10/28

Another day spent travelling! My alarm went off far too early, but I managed to convince myself to get up, get ready, and pack up. Vanessa walked me out (very nice of her) and then went back to sleep (very smart idea). I navigated the tube, boarded the Heathrow Express, and found my way to Rapid Check-In in Terminal 5 of Heathrow Airport. The place is quite massive… if your flight leaves from gate numbers staring in B or C, you have to take a bus… and that’s just one terminal!

I made it though security without any issues, aside from the fact that the guy had to run all over the terminal to find a trash can to dump my water bottle in (the 45 year old guy next to me informed me that only the pretty girls could get them to do that… I think he was bitter about a previous liquid experience) and I almost left my passport in the security bins. After a short visit to an airport gift store and a place called Bagel Street (where they had run out of cream cheese), it was time to board my flight to Edinburgh!

First of all, the country and the city is absolutely gorgeous… everything is lush and green! I took a shuttle from the airport to Waverly Bridge, then started walking. For a really long time. Erin had given me directions, very good directions, I might add, but I neglected to write anything down but “when you get to Blockbuster, its like 3 more blocks.” Therefore, after 20 minutes of walking and seeing the street name change four times, I was slightly worried that I had gone in the wrong direction, and would have to turn around and walk all the way back… luckily, about 6 minutes later the blue-and-yellow sign appeared, and I continued my journey up the hill, quite relieved. After illegally entering the dorm building (not my fault the services button doesn’t work!), I stood there for approximately 30 seconds when I heard Erin and Anjali approaching behind me. We had quite a joyous reunion, and then it was off to lunch, my second hamburger (chilli burger this time) in two days. Erin and I bid Anjali farewell (she was off to class) and then we climbed Arthur’s Seat, this mountain/hill thingy in the middle of the city that has spectacular views from the top. Dinner was tacos (Mexican food!!!!) courtesy of Anjali, then we did a little pre-partying and headed to the Cascada concert.

This concert was an event unlike any that I had ever been to before, to say the least. Cascada is techno, basically dance music, and I basically went to a rave. Everyone there (except for the four of us, who were obviously out of the loop) was wearing spandex, tutus, and had glow sticks. I took a ton of pictures and some video, and she closed with a Rascal Flatts song… overall, wonderful night! You should ask me for more details if you want to hear the full story… it’s hard to give a brief overview to something that ridiculous.

Day 5- 10/29

Today was the day that I returned to the life of a student. I went to class with Erin (Art History… the teacher was American, and it was the first lecture in a very long time that I actually understood everything the professor was saying!), worked on my French homework, and wrote a few postcards. We then headed to lunch with Nick, who is in the EAP program and is from Berkeley, where the two of them talked about a chem lab and I read 007 articles in the newspaper. Back to Erin’s dorm, where I stayed behind to be productive and she went to lab… after her return, we went grocery shopping at Tesco and cooked ourselves (and Anj) a lovely dinner. Erin headed to swim practice, and Anj and I headed to the Frisbee team’s social night. It was lots of fun (I got carded!) and I even learned a couple new drinking games!

Day 6- 10/30

I slept in while Erin went to class (my productivity quota had been filled for awhile), and Anj picked me up for some more touristy sightseeing. I hit up a souvenir store and we proceeded to go to Chocolate Soup, which is exactly what it sounds like. Aside from soups and sandwiches, they have a massive list of various types of hot chocolate, which is served to you in a huge soup bowl, overflowing with chocolatey goodness and whipped cream frothiness. We shared one of those and headed out to face the windy Scottish weather, hopping on a free tour of the city. After we made it to the castle, we split off from the group (Erin had another lab anyway) and did some more touristy shopping and sightseeing. Then to class again (sheesh, that’s all the Scots do!), and then shopping for non-touristy items… it was Halloween costume time! We hit up H&M for some cheap neon-colored articles (80’s themed costumes) and then proceeded home with all our goodies. A short stop at Tesco, then dinner and “fancy dress” time. Erin, Charlotte (one of Erin’s flatmates), and I headed to Frankenstein’s, a pub that was having a Freshers Party… free shot with your first drink! Mine was blue and tasted exactly like Capri Sun, so I doubt that there was much of anything in there. I was pretty much falling asleep on my feet, so we headed home shortly before midnight, and then proceeded to sing to Erin in the dorm hallway. Early to bed=energy conservation for Halloween night.

Day 7- 10/31

Got up, went to class (this time about the kidney system- basically it was a 50 minute lecture on pee), and went back to the dorms to be (sigh) productive. I actually completed my homework (one of the first few legitimate assignments I’ve done since the semester started), and we prepared for the night’s festivities. We donned fancy dress outfit #1- Bond girl outfits- and headed to the theatre to see the new flim on opening day! Quite a few people were dressed in Bond-ish outfits, and one guy was dressed in a full-on cow costume… interesting contrast, to say the least. I grabbed some self-serve popcorn and enjoyed the show (you should all go see it, by the way, but it might be helpful to watch Casino Royale first).

It had then started to rain, of course, but that just motivated us to walk faster, if anything. We arrived back at the dorms, consumed some pasta (carbo-loading=energy), and donned fancy dress outfit #2- 80’s. It’s too bad that my hair wasn’t long enough to put in a side ponytail, but the green tights with black fishnets, turquoise leg warmers, black skirt, and burnt orange cardigan (with ridiculous multi-colored necklace) did a pretty good job of getting the message across. Erin, Anj, and I headed to a friend’s flat to be merry (and eat some cake!), then our very very merry selves headed to Tiviot, the on-campus Halloween party. I had a conversation with the ID checker about how you’re not allowed to smile in your driver’s licence picture there, and then it was off to coat check and to the dance floor! (It was an on-campus bar, but the only thing that I ordered was a glass of water… it seemed like a good idea at that point.) We stayed there for awhile, ran into some friends (and Anj’s flatmates), and I even got a picture with “Michael Phelps.” We headed home (freezing, but the rain had stopped) and fell asleep somewhere around 2:30am. Not that late, but all of us had to be up at very early hours in the morning (me at 6:15, them at 6:45-7ish to get to the meeting point for a weekend race trip at 8am) and we were all sufficiently… enjoying our Halloween, to say the least. Too bad that the leg-warmers I wore were Anj’s (she went as buried treasure that night)… I could use them here in Bordeaux!

Semester Break- The London Days

2008-11-08T12:49:00.000+01:00

Day 1- 10/25

First Stop? Definitely Not La Rochelle...

The train to La Rochelle ( where the airport was) left Bordeaux at 12:11. The train left Bordeaux, I did not. I left my house in what I thought was plenty of time to walk to the tram, take the tram, and get on the train. Evidently the clock at Gare St. Jean is slightly faster than every other clock in the world, so despite me running madly through the train station, the train was off the board and therefore gone when I arrived at 12:13. After a slight panic attack (omg, if I can’t get to La Rochelle then I’m missing my flight and there is no other flight and I'M NOT GOING ON SEMESTER BREAK!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAH!!!!!), I talked to the lady at the ticket window, who wrote the time of the next train on my ticket (2pm), and then I returned home to wait out my two hours. My homestay mom had returned from work when I got back, and she was rather surprised to see me but guessed what happened, bombarded me with questions about when my train left, and told me that she would take me to the train station, after offering me lunch and a glass of wine.

I made it to the train this time, got on the train, and then stood in the space between cars for the entire two and a half hour ride. In France, they have these things called seat reservations, and because I didn’t book my ticket three months in advance, I didn’t have one… therefore, standing…. At least it was near the bathroom J. I arrived in La Rochelle and didn’t have many difficulties from then on… shared a cab to the airport, checked in, and the magical visa in my passport got me through security without problems. Aside from the fact that RyanAir charges for EVERYTHING on the plane (including tap water), I made it to London sans problèmes.

Customs, train, tube. Vanessa was waiting for me at the tube station (thank God, because I never would have found my way to her dorm otherwise), and then we headed to her building, which is huge and has 15 stories. After I dropped off my stuff, we hopped back on the tube and headed to our rendez-vous with some friends, in a place called Camden, which is evidently the hotspot for nightlife. We left in time to catch the tube before our day passes would expire (with a slight detour at King’s Cross to take very touristy pictures at Platform 9 ¾) and then played a round of Ring of Fire (aka King’s Cup) with some of Vanessa’s floormates. I’d rather not think about what was in that cup, since I have doubts that it was washed recently….

Day 2- 10/26

Tourist day! I met up with Lina for some normal-sized coffee and breakfast, and then we proceeded to take a free walking tour of London (after borrowing poundage from Vanessa because my ATM card didn’t work). It was raining and a Sunday morning, and we were the only two that showed up. Private tour! We hit up Mr. Wu’s all-you-can-eat Chinese food buffet (for only five pounds), and then proeeded to hop on the afternoon free tour of a different part of the city. Once again, we were the only two that showed up. Free, private tour! Definetly a trip highlight… we ended the tour completely freezing and headed back to Vanessa’s, where we then walked around the corner to a delicious Indian food place and proceeded to order four things and share and eat them all. After bidding Lina farewell, the night was mellow and uneventful, aside from me trying to figure out how to make the toilet in Vanessa’s dorm flush.

Day 3- 10/27

Tourist day #2! After sleeping in, I hit up the ATM (successful this time) and then we headed to Hard Rock Café, the original! I enjoyed a deliciously large hamburger and some kind of mixed beverage (it was pink, since it’s breast cancer awareness month), and they even had ranch dressing! Quite a lovely lunch, particularly because we arrived at the perfect time and took the last outside table (also the last free table in the restaurant) and therefore didn’t have to wait at all. Following the rapid consumption of all of our food, we headed to the store, where I proceeded to buy copious amounts of souvenirs. Being a tourist is wonderful because it means I have an excuse to go shopping! We then headed to the Imperial War Museum, where there was a James Bond/Ian Fleming exhibit… those of you that know me well know my obsession with 007… sadly, we couldn’t take pciitures inside the exhibit, although that was probably a good thing in the long run because otherwise I would have spent all day in there! After a short detour back to Hard Rock (the guy gave us the same two souvenir glasses and our drinks came in different ones), we headed to the dorm to drop off all our stuff, then to Starbucks, where I ordered yet another normal-sized coffee (in a real mug!) and actually was slightly productive. Yes, I did some homework. A visit to McDonald’s resulted in a Happy Meal and a toy that I couldn’t figure out how to use for the life of me (even after I read the directions like 8 times), then it was to bed fairly early, since I had to get up at an ungodly hour of the morning to get to Edinburgh.

A Toast to Carcasses and Castles (not really a toast, but it sounded cool)

2008-10-15T20:56:00.000+02:00

This weekend, I went to Carcassonne, a lovely fortified city that is a three hour train ride from Bordeaux. Since I have no idea how to put pictures on my blog, I’m just going to tell you to look it up on Wikipedia, since they probably have better photos than I would have, if I had remembered to bring my camera. I realized this on the tram to the train station, had a mild panic attack, and seriously considered going back home to get it. Thankfully Lindsay, who was sitting next to me, answered in the affirmative when I asked her if she had a picture-taking device. However, her computer hard drive is full and therefore she has to wait for her mom to bring her an external hard drive next week before she can put the pictures on her computer. Quelle chance.

After our lovely 3-hour train ride, which, unlike the one home from Biarritz, lacked any noxious odors, we arrived in Carcassonne. Technically, we arrived in the lower city of Carcassonne, the basin that the peasants expanded into after the space inside the city was filled by various royal buildings. We walked around the basin a little, located the Office of Tourisme, and procured a map, at which point we began our lovely walk to the castle.

You have to walk up a hill to get to the castle, which is on the other side of the river from the basin… luckily, this river came equipped with a handy-dandy pedestrian only walkway! As we rounded the curve on our walk, the city appeared in front of us… and darn it, it was pretty dang cool. Like way cool. Like totally cool. Like the coolest thing I’ve seen since I got to France cool. A huge, medieval walled city sitting on a hill, complete with drawbridge and dry moat.

Entrance into the city is free; everything else in the city is not. The first goal of the day was to locate someplace for lunch. We settled on a nice little place with a nice view of the chateau (inside the city, basically where all the royals hung out) covered patio and overly friendly waiter. We got the meal deal, meaning a glass of wine (starting that at 12pm on an empty stomach was probably not the brightest of ideas), salad (I think they just chopped up a head of lettuce, added some vinaigrette, and put the whole thing in a bowl… one for each of us), and a Cassoulet all for the bargain price of 11 euros. And what, you ask, is a Cassoulet? Well, it is a regional dish that is basically compiled of beans (haricots… white beans), a chopped up onion, some spices, a little cheese on top, and a sausage as a garnish. This is then baked in a large ceramic bowl until nice and thick. Deliciousness. Needless to say, I enjoyed the cassoulet so much that I not only ate all of mine but half of Lindsay’s as well… the waiter evidently noticed this, because when he asked if we wanted dessert, he made a comment to the effect of “Are you sure you don’t want any? She can eat both of them…” Thaaaaaanks, French waiter man. Thanks.

After this, we moseyed around the chateau and became experts on the construction, destruction, and reconstruction of the city. We also took a lot of weird pictures and hit up the gift shop… I now have a foot-long cylindrical eraser about half an inch in diameter that says “Cité de Carcassonne” on it… useless souvenir? I think not!

Following a trip to our hostel to check in and drop off our stuff (the hostel tthat was, might I add, in the middle of the walled ancient city?! In the middle! Of the city! And there was a vending machine in the lobby! The lobby of the hostel that was in the middle of the medieval city!), we ventured around the ramparts and went on a walk around the city perimeter. At this point in the trip, a goal was fulfilled… we went to CARCASSonne, and although the name is completely unrelated to any kind of carcass at all (it is named after Dame Carcas, who once outsmarted some invaders and used the bells to call the soldiers to attention, therefore ambushing the unsuspecting invaders… anyway, the point is that her name is Carcas and “to ring” in French is “sonner,” so when conjugated its “Carcas sonne” or “Carcas rings”), it was determined that we had to find a carcass at some point. Although we took numerous pictures of the numerous Dame Carcas statues, I was fully prepared to lie on the floor and play dead if necessary… it turns out that a crow had met its untimely demise via a collision with the ground… carcass found.

After some more souvenir shopping and store-browsing, we met up with our new-found friends Eric and Maxime for one last photo op before their train departed. Post-réunion, we headed back to the hostel, where I read and Lindsay took a nap (there was also some cell phone Sudoku involved) and then went out into the blustery night to find a cheap place to eat dinner. This was rapidly accomplished, as their meal-deal time limit was about to expire… once again, more delicious food, but we stayed away from the Cassoulet. The waiter could tell that we were not French, and when we told him we were from California, he proceeded to ask if we had any dollars… I was extremely confused until he explained that it was for his collection… I handed over a twenty (don’t ask why I was carrying American dollars around… I have no idea) and to my surprise, he handed me 20 euros… that is by far the best exchange rate that anyone has ever gotten in a Euro-Dollar transaction in a really long time… ah, the French.

The next morning, we enjoyed our free breaky and took one last walk around the city, touring the cathedral and theatre that we didn’t see the day before. We collected our belongings and hopped a train to Narbonne, where there was a lot more really cool old stuff to see, like a huge unfinished cathedral that now houses the mayors office and a ton more stuff, some documents from the 900s or so, and a lot of interesting art. After some lunch and some free exhibits, we returned to Carcassonne (where it happened to be raining), wandered around the basin, and took our train home.

The city is quite spectacular, and like I said, the coolest thing I’ve seen since I got here almost two months ago… I’m so glad I have the eraser to remember it by….

La Chatte

2008-10-05T18:35:00.001+02:00

Well, avid readers, I think its time to update you on the members of my homestay family. First, we have Alain, my “dad,” a history professor who splits his time between Bordeaux and Paris, working for some kind of national professor’s syndicate or something. Then, Guadalupe, my “mom,” raised in Texas, went to college at Whittier in LA, and moved to Paris for school many years ago. She now teaches English to students of all ages in after-school or after-work classes, but is home most of the day (which is nice for me, because she usually offers me coffee when I get home!). Balam is my ten-year-old “brother,” who attends middle school, enjoys bike riding, rugby, and plays an assortment of instruments… fairly unobnoxious for a ten-year-old.

Finally, the most important member of the family (and no, I’m not talking about myself), the cat. Ayole. The world’s smartest cat, and I am not exaggerating or using sarcasm here. The thing is so stinking smart its unbelievable! Try as I might, its always a step ahead of me, and if I try to get a step ahead of it, it usually threatens to bite me.

I will illustrate with several examples.

This first example requires some background information. My room is Guadalupe’s daughter’s old room… and it’s her daughter’s cat. The daughter is currently away at school in Germany, sometimes comes home for a long weekend (has yet to since I’ve been here), but the cat stayed here. This means that the cat is conditioned to coming into my room and hanging out, scratching things, getting into bed, etc. I have told the tale of the cat jumping into my bed and having to be scared out in a previous entry; I’ve also mentioned the shower invasion before.

Aside from repeatedly jumping on to the counter and opening my room door and the kitchen door to the garage, the cat also knows how to open my armoires.

Oh yes, my armoires. Where I keep things like shoes and coats and nice shirts that do NOT need/want/desire cat hair all over them. The first time this happened, I had left one of the doors open just a crack, so I figured that it had just kinda pushed on the door, which had then opened, and gone in there. The second time, I heard a creak when I was standing in the hallway, ran into my room (one of my main activities is preventing cat hair from getting on my bed, so I was rather worried when I heard the door), and saw a tail disappear into the wardrobe. I figured I must have left it open or barely closed again, and the cat had pushed its way in. Yesterday, however, I learned just how smart the cat is. I saw the cat come into my room, something that I’m now fine with, as long as it doesn’t make a move for the desk or the armchair (which acts as a stepping stone to my bed), and walk over to the wardrobe. I then watched it use its little paws to paw open the door to the wardrobe (which doesn’t have a handle, you have to grab the little edge and pull) and, while I sat there in amazed stupor, crawl inside. It doesn’t have opposable thumbs, for goodness sake! How can it open doors?!

This weekend, my homestay family is gone. Alain is in Paris for work, and Guadalupe joined him there Saturday afternoon, returning Monday evening. Balam is at a friend’s house, so he has a way to go to school and such. So it’s just me and the cat. I decided that I was going to lock the cat in the garage last night… this is fairly common, since the cat can open the doors, and Guadalupe just locks it when she goes to bed, cat inside or not. I fed the cats (there is a strictly outdoor one) and when Ayole went into the garage, I locked the door. I could hear her try and open the door a couple times, but there was no way I was letting it back in to wreck terror and havoc on the house and get cat hair everywhere. When I got up this morning, I went to open the door and let the cat in, only to have it run past me from the inside and go out. WTF?! How did the cat get inside?! Then I locked the door again, and went to take a shower. The bathroom has a window in it that leads to the garage; it’s usually open when we take showers to act as a kind of ventilator for the steam and such. The cat was sitting in the bathroom when I got out of my shower. I then connected the dots: I didn’t leave the window open last night, the cat figured out it was there and pushed it open from the garage, so it could get back inside. This theory was confirmed when I was brushing my teeth and it pushed the window open. WAY TOO SMART.

At the moment, it is curled up looking all cutesy on my armchair… the thing has an innocent face and a mischievous face, I swear… life with la chatte is definitely interesting, that’s for sure!

Beaches, Operas, and Viva!

2008-09-29T21:27:00.000+02:00

Two weekends ago I trekked horrifically far (a whopping two hours on train… gasp!) to the disturbingly lovely beachside town of Biarritz. It had quite a Southern California feel to it, with ice cream and sand and water… you know, all the makings of a typical beach town. With the slight exception that on Sundays, everyone (well not me and the other prudish Americans I was with) goes topless and cavorts around the beach.

Sandwiched within my fantastical Biarritz weekend (the Friday night of which we stayed in Anglet, a lovely little Biarritz suburb that also has land access and was where our hostel was located, the downtown area of which has many bars and restaurants, including a Tex-Mex place called Chili’s… different from the US chain, but still passable “Mexican” food and strawberry margaritas), was a day and a half trip across the French border to San Sebastian (thank God Lauren took three years of Spanish in high school…). Aside from being in Spain (goal: check!), having a beach, and wonderful weather, we got to experience Spanish night life at its finest. This means that our hostel was in an ideal location, and although Lauren and I did not end up staying in the private double room that I thought I reserved, and although we ended up sharing a room with five other people and a bed with each other, and although I didn’t go to sleep until 4am because the ideal location of the hostel meant that there was a party outside our window all night, I still had some wonderful sangria that I did not pay for and the glass that I did not return to prove it.

After standing outside our hostel (in front of several bars) in the street for a couple hours, we returned to our lovely bed to rest up for the Jesus Hike. San Sebastian has a huge Jesus on a hill that faces the one in Rio, and not only is there a lovely view from the top, but ruins the whole way up the cobblestone path and a church that lots of cute little old people go to Mass at on Sunday mornings.

Following copious amounts of picture taking with Jesus, we returned to our hostel to gather our belongings and headed to the San Sebastian beach, where the perfect weather provided us with a couple good hours of sunbathing (and one too many completely naked 70-year-old-man sightings) before we had to get back to the train station and (darn) return to Biarritz.

The rest of the day was much more of the same… sunbathing (I got a tan!), beach time, I had some gelato, and we headed to the train station to return to Bordeaux. One of the far more interesting parts of the weekend was the train ride; not only were we in a car with lots of smelly people (and no windows and no doors), but someone had too many beans for dinner, if you catch my drift, and we were forced to abandon our seats for awhile to visit our "amies" in the car ahead of us… luckily, not only could we bask in the Biarritz sun, but we could do so with about seven of our friends, four of whom not only shared our hostel room, but were located in the more pleasantly scented train car ahead of us.

After returning to Bordeaux, Lauren and I attempted to take the tram and walk home… we took the tram quite successfully, but the walk home was another story… having never been home from the tram station at night by ourselves walking (it was pointed out to us in a car once), we got extraordinarily lost and spent about 40 minutes wandering around Bègles, blindly following the signs for the Stade, the rugby stadium next to our houses. Returning home after seeing a creepy guy in a garden, I locked my door and promptly fell asleep.

The following day, Fall Semester at Bordeaux 3 officially began. My first class of the week/semester/day/France experience turned out to be a class on the “subject forgotten from the French textbooks…” that’s right, it was a course on American History! Clearly that wasn’t the 18^th century religion, cultures, and ideas of Europe class that I signed up for… after realizing that about 5 minutes in to class, I also realized that I was stuck in the lecture for the next hour and fifty-five minutes. The seats in French lecture halls are basically the same as at Davis… like stadium or theatre seats. Except, instead of having desks attached to the chairs that go up and down, there is a large plank of wood that stretches across the entire row, and once you sit down and put your feet under it, and the person next to you does the same thing, you’re stuck there until everyone else gets up. Meaning that after I had decided to drop the class, I sat there and doodled because I had no way to get out besides being extremely obvious. Thankfully, my second class of the day turned out to match the description and was only an hour and a half.

Tuesday commenced with another adventure. My class was in room C200. One would think, having visited numerous other buildings and rooms on campus that followed this logical numeration, that this amphitheater was in the C building, on the second (technically third) floor. NOT. Aside from the fact that I was already late because I missed the bus by two minutes and had to wait for a tram that I could cram myself onto, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what the sign on the walls of the second floor of the C building meant, the ones that were supposedly sending me to C200. This is an example of the idea that no matter how much you study a language, certain idioms and abbreviations don’t make sense unless you know the colloquial context. In this case, I could translate every word on the sign, but had no idea what the thing meant as a whole. Luckily, I ran into an also-lost German girl and an understanding French student, and eventually made it to class about 30 minutes late. Which was fine, because the prof was just setting up the PowerPoint (!!).

The rest of the week went fairly smoothly, although equally stressful. Following that class, the discussion section (TD) I went to with everyone else in the class still didn’t have a prof after half an hour, so we all left, only to find out that the TD was rescheduled to Friday. At 1:30. For two hours. Lovely. In addition, my Thursday TD was cancelled last week (a fact I was unaware of until I realized that me and one other guy were the only ones in class five minutes after class was supposed to start… at that point, I checked the bulletin board in the history department), but all of the profs are used to having international students in their courses and come up with alternate (most often meaning “fewer”) assignments for us to do, which is perfectly fine by me. One guy even translated a word I didn’t understand into English for me. Très bon.

Friday night, a group of us headed to the Grand Theatre, a famous Bordeaux architectural delight, with capacity for 1,114 people and absolutely amazing interior design. The ceiling and stage are ornately painted, and it gives you quite the feeling of 16^th century glamour. We went to see an opera, which turned out to be in English (bah, whatever… I think that means we got the best comprehension out of everyone!), and was… um… the work of fantastic light technicians. To put it mildly, I enjoyed it, but I think I’m more of a play-musical-symphony kind of person. Needless to say, it was a lot of fun and one of those things that the tour book recommends doing.

The week closed out with a day trip to Saint Émilion, a town known for its wine (clear from the moment you get there… every storefront offers shipping around the world and English-speaking staff). The landscape is absolutely gorgeous, and Lauren and I of course had to be touristy and do the guided tour of the catacombs and church… although we did take the one in French, not the English one.

Yesterday I went to a Mexican Independence Day celebration with my homestay family. It was quite the unusual experience, and definitely very interesting and lots of fun… “Viva Mexico!” is all I have to say about that, since written words just don’t do the event justice.

Week Two of school started today… I now understand why there is an hour break for lunch (as opposed to the 11:50-12:10 break at Davis)… you spend half of it waiting in line! With 60,000 students, a good percentage of whom are on campus any given day, it gets slightly ridiculous very quickly… thank goodness my mom is sending me peanut butter, because if I have to wait in line every single day for 20 minutes, I might revert to seventh grade and cut in line…

Stay tuned for more adventures from the land of wine and cheese!

La Raclette

2008-09-18T18:32:00.000+02:00

No, the title does not refer to a place, a class, or a sport. It describes a delicious traditional French meal preparation technique, which I have had the good fortune of experiencing twice in the last week. “Une raclette” is a table-top cooker, like a fondue pot but more sophisticated. The top is a round, flat griddle, about a foot in diameter. There is an inch gap or so underneath this, where the heating element is located. Small, triangle shaped pans with handles go into this gap, where one melts cheese and warms other delicacies. On the top, you cook veggies or meat (or in our case, fry cold cuts) or both, then scrape the cheese on top. Delicious.

This was the first meal that I experienced in my host family, a mom, a dad, and a son who are quite nice and have been hosting students from California for ten years (TEN YEARS?!)… the mom is actually an American (and therefore the dad teases her quite a lot… “my American wife, she drinks too much”… imagine that in English with a French accent), she grew up in Texas and went to college at Whittier in LA. French happens to be her third language.

My weekend en famille went quite well… Lauren lives across the street, so my “mom” took us to the train station to get bus schedules and then to the mall on Saturday. After that, I went with her to a birthday party, where I was offered a job teaching English. Apparently foosball and Borat are good conversation starters with the 13-16 year old age group. There was a slight issue with the WiFi; Microsoft Outlook decided to delete some important emails, including the one with the password, but it was soon fixed.

I woke up Saturday morning to find my door open… strange, but didn’t think much of it. Then, about 3 minutes later, the cat opened the door (yes, the cat opened the door… as in jumped and pushed the handle), ran in, and hopped up onto my lofted bed. I attempted to chase it off, but it merely sat there and looked mad, as if I was disturbing it somehow. I then employed Balam (my host brother, who is 10) to chase the cat away, which he did by yelling at it and making angry noises. The cat is far too smart… it decided it would be funny to open the door to the bathroom yesterday while I was taking a shower… I heard a door open, didn’t think that it would be the bathroom, saw the door was closed, and then realized the cat was sitting there, looking at me as if I should have taken a faster shower so I could let him out of the bathroom. It will be an interesting time here with the cat, to say the least.

Sunday included a trip to the Parc Bordelaise, a beautiful park in Bordeaux with a set of interesting animals in the middle. There’s also a pond and a small café, and a puppet show on the weekends! After lunch at Hippo (think gourmet hamburgers) where we heard the birthday song play about five times (apparently in France they find it amusing to blast a jazz choir singing you happy birthday over the restaurant PA system), we returned home, ate another delicious dinner several hours later, and Lauren and I figured out the bus schedule to take us to school the following morning.

After many days of trekking to campus and wandering the halls in search of schedules and departments (and thanks to the Centre de Californie’s subject binders) I now have classes! Some classes, anyway… hopefully I successfully get into all my courses, because I have to go introduce myself to the professors after class (which starts officially this upcoming Monday), and I don’t have priority because I’m an international student. Stressful, but the process is hopefully coming to an end, and I can already feel the relief at the end of the tunnel!

This weekend, after much ado, we have decided to go to Biarritz and San Sebastian. Both beach towns, Biarritz is about two hours away and San Sebastian another two hours from there. Be prepared for pictures!

Unlike Toulouse, I called ahead this time, but only to the hostel in Biarritz, because I speak approximately zero Spanish, so getting around and finding someplace to stay the night in San Sebastian will be the primary adventure of the trip, I’m sure!

A Weekend in Toulouse

2008-09-11T18:12:00.000+02:00

This weekend was our first free weekend. No excursions, no meetings, no pique-niques… the schedule even said “libre.” So, being the bold and brave travelers that we are, Lauren and I decided that “we should go somewhere this weekend. Where? I dunno, but somewhere besides the cinema!”

A quick look at the map and Toulouse was chosen. Add a general invite to everyone standing around us, and a group was formed. Our first official adventure! (Although in French it is une excursion, because avoir une aventure, literally translated as “to have an adventure”, actually means to have an affair. I was given this little lesson on Monday morning when my teacher asked me what I did this weekend and I said “Je suis allée au Toulouse pour avoir une aventure!” She looked slightly horrified before correcting me.)

8am train to Bordeaux for the 8:25 train to Toulouse… ran through the Bordeaux station in search of Quai 6, in the process almost getting on the TGV to Paris. After the man in the official hat instructed us to “montez-la!” we promptly hopped on the train only to see the doors close swiftly behind us and the train exit the station. I get the feeling that I will find it unfortunate that the trains leave on time here in the near future.

Two hours later, we arrived! In the rain! After a quick stop for some baguette and café and a look at a very undescriptive map with lots of symbols, we set out for the Office du Tourisme, in hopes of a) directions to the hostel and b) a real map.

Thankfully, both were accomplished (due most likely to the fact that the girl at the counter spoke broken English and I speak broken French), and we set out for our next destination: the Cité de l’Espace. Toulouse is the hub/plant/place of creation of Airbus, Concorde, and the Ariane 5 rocket, and they have an entire “city” dedicated to this. It has a moonbounce chair, a planetarium, and an IMAX, among other attractions. We decided to walk there, to counteract the copious amounts of pain au chocolat and bread that we’ve all been eating.

Alas, the path was abound with distractions. After a stop at the Église des Jacobins and the Musée des Augustins (free with student card!) we looked at the map and calculated how far we had walked and how much further we had to go. The result? Not very far and VERY far. Thus, we wandered through centre-ville and located a café, where we consumed more café and proceeded to be “French.” Two hours later, we headed out for the nearest metro station, successfully navigating ticket buying and metro-mounting. Then, we proceeded to walk down a very long street and discovered that we should have gotten off the metro one stop earlier… the story has a happy ending though, because after our long trek uphill, we arrived at the hostel!

After this, we learned two very important things: first, the hostel was full, and second, there is only one hostel in all of Toulouse.

Our plan of attack after this mild moment of panic was to head to Champion, the nearby grocery store, in hopes of finding a tour book or pamphlet with cheap lodging. Fate smiled on us, however, and we asked the security guard if he knew of any cheap hotels. After he switched positions with his colleague, he took us back to the hostel (slight communication barrier), then to the metro stop, helped us buy tickets, gave us directions, wrote down his phone number, and instructed us to call him after he got off work at 8 if we couldn’t find anywhere to stay. He and his jolie femme (beautiful wife) had three rooms and we were welcome to stay there. Ah, the French.

Returning to our point of entry, the train station, we inquired about switching tickets to that night, instead of the following morning. The last train out was at 9:30, and the window closed at 7:30, giving us an hour and a half to find someplace to sleep.

Wandering through the streets of Toulouse (okay, so we went 200 feet away from the train station), we came across a hotel promising a room for four for only 64 euros. This was equivalent to the price of a night at the hostel, so we decided it was a possibility. As luck would have it, room 105 was available, with two double beds, a full size bath, and a balcony! We handed over the cash and the concierge handed over the TV remote.

After a short trip to the store across the street, we returned to our luxury accommodations with food and wine, turned on the France-Austria football game, and proceeded to enjoy ourselves. Basically, we had no idea where we were in Toulouse (aside from “near the train station”) and were in the presence of a functioning television, something that none of us had seen for the better part of two weeks, so we were quite content to stay at the hotel and stare at the TV screen.

The next morning, Lauren, Jaime and I headed out to the corner café and consumed some cappuccinos, returning to the hotel for check out at 11. We then headed to centre-ville, stopping at a fresh meat and fish (and pasta and pastry and bread) market… quite a sight, to say the least.

Then we headed to the Sunday morning flea market, somewhat of a tourist and local attraction for the Toulousians… you could literally buy anything. Comic books? Sure! Purses? Why not? Olives? But of course! A zipper? Definitely!

After stopping to admire the basilica nearby, we headed to yet another café, where we indulged in crepes and salads. The food here is beginning to be a problem… there is far too much of it and it is far too good.

After that, it was off to the train station, where for a measly 3.10 euros we traded our tickets in for an earlier train ride, which turned out to be a wonderful idea, because the train we were on was a TGV headed to Paris after it stopped in Bordeaux. This means that the seats were huge, comfy, and had lights. We arrived in Bordeaux slightly delayed and missed our train to Pessac; instead, we hopped on the tram, along with everyone else at the train station. Finally, around 8, we made it back to the dorms (our train left at 4 and is only supposed to be a 2-2 ½ hour ride).

Post-drop off of all our stuff, Lauren and I headed to Chez Mario, where we proceeded to order and consume an entire large pizza in about 15 minutes. Lauren and I are approximately the same size, so this was a feat to behold.

Following our speed-eating session, we returned to the dorms to unpack, admire our souvenirs, and prepare for our second test of the season, another lovely placement test au DEFLE. One successful weekend for the books… and since we didn’t make it to the Cité de l’Espace, perhaps a day trip is in order later in the season…

Did I mention that the TGV bathroom had purple toilet paper? I love this country!

The Raid Game

2008-09-04T20:34:00.000+02:00

KRISTIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!!!

KRISTINNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!

HELP!!!!

This is what I heard last night, calling out to me from the dark. While you might be expecting a story comparable to Caitlin's Mt. Fuji tale, with dangerous weather and a strong sense of trepidation while adventuring through France, I'm afraid that I shall have to disappoint you at this point in time, because Jackie was not calling out to me from a mountainous cliff or darkened alleyway, but rather from her dorm room, with my can of Raid in her hand.

We've created a new game since our arrival in Bordeaux. Its called The Raid Game. You see, the French have no concept of those strange American contraptions called "window screens," thus, when you open your window to air out your room, the entire insect population of Southwest France decides to throw you a housewarming party.

I, however, am a party pooper.

Armed with my can of Raid, I turn on one light in my room, watch the bugs flock towards it, and spray the buggers. Then I switch lights and kill some more. Such a sense of satisfaction to see the critters twitching on the floor. Jackie joined in the game last night, but required some teammate back-up when a particularly resistant creature decided to defy the Raid can and fly directly towards her face. After spraying madly, I walked into her room to see her crouched down in front of the closet, making noise and moving stuff to bring the critters into the open. Teamwork is always the best way to proceed, if that gives you a hint about who the victors of the game were :).

I may not be the most athletic and sporty individual, but when it comes to the Raid Game, I am a CHAMPION.

Oh my god, California!

2008-09-02T18:06:00.000+02:00

Me and Lauren enter the movie theater “Bonjour Monsieurs!”

Me and Lauren turn on computers and start using the WeeFee

One hour later….

Lauren: Hey, my family is on Skype! <Begins Skyping>

One and a half hours later…

Lauren: KRISTIN! Does Champion close at 8?

Me: Oh $&@#! I think it does! <Cut to shot of clock, reading 7:53>

I think you can guess where it went from there… we madly ran across the parking lot to Champion (it’s a grocery store, don’t know if I mentioned that before), only to discover that the door was indeed “ferme” as the homeless panhandler has so kindly informed us. Cut to us running around the building, sprinting to the open door when someone walked out. Following the cashier screaming “trois minutes!” when we ran in, the manager turned off all the lights while Lauren was somewhere in the cereal aisle. However, once the manager heard me speaking to her, he said “Ah, she speaks English! You should practice your English with her!” (the “you” that he referred to was our favorite grumpy cashier)… this guy then proceeded to question us, half in English and half in French, with the conversation going roughly like this “Where are you from? The US, we’re students from California. California! Oh my god California! They’re from California! Yeah, we’re here for a semester at the university. California! Can you believe that!”

The guy then bid us farewell, we were very gracious, and seriously hoping that he is the manager every single time that we go in there, because we’re from California, by god, and that means that we get to shop at Champion until 8:01, unlike the rest of Pessac. Therefore, my fairly bad French accent can get me late-night produce and has just made me a new friend at Champion… not a bad place to have connections to the management, if I do say so…

Overall, a successful adventure… I got me some gum and salad fixings, Christine some peaches, and my new tram pass works wonderfully!

Les huîtres

2008-09-02T18:05:00.000+02:00

So today, we went on our first group excursion, to several places. There is an area called Arcachon that produces a great quantity of oysters, has the largest sand dune in Europe, and has multiple lovely beaches with fairly decent temperature of water.

I think I can sum up the trip like this: the bus has mandatory seat belts, a call button, a personal fan, and a tray table with cup holder, as well as a movable arm rest, handles, and a mesh pocket for each passenger. Lunch was oysters, bread, butter, various cheeses and meats, and wine.

C’est bon, no?

Musings from E105.

2008-08-29T16:39:00.000+02:00

It seems like everyday is really long and a lot happens, but time still flies by, especially since dinner doesn’t even start until 7pm. My dorm room is definitely not Miller, but it is a single and has all the standard amenities: bed, mattress, side table, lots of shelving, closet, even a sink, medicine cabinet, and desk lamp. No WiFi (read: weefee), so we have to steal passwords until our accounts are activated, which hopefully will be soon.

Yesterday involved window shopping… shoes for 3 euro?! Once I get into the homestay, I better find another suitcase, because I’m going to be in serious trouble… Breakfast this morning involved the food that they gave us upon move-in, meaning crackers and cheese. Tomorrow, a granola bar is on the menu. One of the cafeterias on campus opened for lunch today, but it only serves lunch and we had an adventure instead.

I now have a tram/bus card (like an ID card but you load money for tickets on it or can buy a monthly pass that you swipe as validation) with my picture on it, an ID card with my picture, a 10 tram ride pass, internet instructions, and proof that I’m actually enrolled here… I’m beginning to wonder what other kinds of cards with my face on it have been deemed necessary for life in Bordeaux.

Two orientation meetings down, several more to go… the first was a general meeting, with standard stuff that I basically already knew since I’ve been here since Friday. Today we got our paperwork and a detailed schedule of events, including information about homestay meetings and the dates that we have to pick classes by. Excursions and such were marked on there… beach, oysters, vineyard, museums… heck yeah I’m a tourist!

Following our orientation meeting today, we went in search of lunch. Jaime saw a boulangerie (bread store) on her run this morning, so we set out in search of it… stopped at a Pharmacie and asked for directions, after walking ¾ of the way there and turning around to walk halfway back and ask for directions. We ended up walking to Pessac Centre, which is about a 7 minute tram ride and a 30 minute walk, but our need for coffee and food was fulfilled. Joelle almost got run over by a bus, but other than that, I would deem it a success.

After lunch, we headed to Quinconces to meet up with our group for our walking tour of historic Bordeaux. Very informative, a lot of cool old buildings, we went near the river, and I ended up with a couple blisters. In addition, the entire thing was given in French, and I would say I understood 85% of it… I prefer not to think of the fact that she was speaking slowly and clearly because we were obviously Americans and not comprehending everything.

Taking a tip from fellow EAP-ers, we headed back to Pessac (via tram this time) and hopped on the free WiFi at a movie theatre, followed by a trip to Champion, a standard supermarket, for some pasta and salad material. I bought Barilla Tomato and Ricotta pasta sauce… there are a lot of unique things in these supermarkets that I want to take home with me… I get the feeling that I’m going to be adding some poundage here, since “Patisseries” are like Starbucks here… one on every corner!

Tomorrow, we are taking our first language placement test of two. This one will determine which ILP class we are in (our French summer school class); the second determines if we have to take a French class this semester. I wouldn’t mind either way… it would be a lighter workload class for sure. My most recent accomplishment has been to comprehend the women speaking rapid-fire French on the other end of the voicemail button to determine how to set up my account, pick a code, get my messages, personalize my greeting, and return to the menu. I don’t think I’ve been so excited to get a voicemail in my entire life! On that highly uplifting and personally positive note, I’m off to review the subjunctive before I spray some more Febreze and head back to sleep, with my can of Raid by my side.

Bonjour! Quoi? Ehhh....

2008-08-25T18:14:00.000+02:00

So after arrival on Friday, we checked out the hotel restaurant (very good, had menus in English), called my mom (my Dad's Crackberry has currently checked out, so we've run up the phone bill), and went to sleep, because we were tired, to say the least. We also drove around a little, took a wrong turn, and ended up accidentally driving by Géant Casino, which is the equivalent of a Walmart Supercenter... As we discovered later, Casino is a supermarket chain and brand name, and Géant means its freakishly large with other small stores outside it and a restaurant called Casino Cafeteria.

Saturday morning, we got up and went to Géant... stocked up on shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, and so forth. I realized that travel-size containers of everything wouldn't exactly last me for four months, so I made a list of everything in French and wandered through the aisles aimlessly. People don't exactly bend over backwards to ask if you need help finding anything, so I avoided any awkward semi-coherent conversations. I even managed to figure out that you had to buy the electronic devices at the electronic counter and show the separate receipt when you left.

So one toothbrush and four boxes of granola bars later, it was lunch time. After that, back to Géant to stop at the Orange mini store to get a cell phone... which currently doesn't work, because I have to wait for the charge to clear on the US end before I can call internationally.

Then, to the campus, to locate my dorm. The place is... interesting.... not exactly Miller Hall, to say the least. But it is right near the post office, a tram stop, and the DEFLE (foreign students) building. Plus, the letters and science building is right next to the dorms and there is a DC equivalent on the corner. Good location, but I'm glad I only have to sleep there for three weeks.

Next, to the tram stop to go to the actual town of Bordeaux for dinner. We went to Rue de Saint Catherine, the longest pedestrian walkway in Europe. I located important locations like H&M and a place to buy contact solution, as well as a number of bread and pastry shops. We ate dinner at a place called Café des Arts (Happy Birthday dinner to me!) and walked back to the Hotel de Ville (mayor's center) to get on the tram and return to Pessac. Important note: people don't do the pooper scooper thing around here. AT ALL.

Sunday, we went to the beach. Drove around for awhile, I put the wrong GPS coordinates in at first, but its not exactly an ugly place to get lost, so it was okay. We weren't on the beach side, but the boat side... you could take cruises around the peninsula and oysters are definitely what you eat there... people had beach buckets full of them! We ended up at a pizza place on accident. We have a tour book with all these different restaurants in the area, so we picked one on the coast and off we went. We get there, and the place is closed... not "closed until 6pm" closed, but boarded up and abandoned closed. The pizza was delish, and I successfully ordered our meal in French! Small victories....

Today, breakfast at the hotel and another trip to Géant for school supplies. First of all, they don't have paper that is perforated, and everything is a different size, so I now have writing paper that looks like graph paper and an oversized folder.

Back to campus in search of a nearby supermarché (next to a tram stop, luckily enough) and postal service.

Then, the most exciting part. We drove to wine country and visited Chateau Mouton Rothschild and Chateau Lafite-Rothschild, famous premier wine-making estates, and bought a whole bunch of stuff. Ah, shopping...

Currently I'm utilizing the free WiFi (pronounce WeeFee) at the hotel. Tomorrow, the program starts. Orientation, language placement, and an excursion. Sadly, no three-day weekend for Labor Day, but stay tuned for more updates!

I'm 20!!!

2008-08-23T22:55:00.000+02:00

I turned 20 in Bordeaux... definitely once-in-a-lifetime (aside from the fact that I will only turn 20 once)... but the French are far more subtle... no birthday song and certainly no birthday Ice Cream Sundae... even when the cell phone guy asked for my ID and entered my birthday he barely commented! I guess that is why I have all of you lovely individuals as my friends... to decorate my Facebook wall! Many thanks!! Look for another update on my pre-program activities soon!

Getting There... er, Here....

2008-08-22T21:19:00.000+02:00

So I have finally made it to Bordeaux, France. I have yet to plug anything into my adapters to see if I short-circuit the hotel, but I think I'll save that adventure for another entry.

I departed Simi Valley around 3:00 PM California time, reached the airport, and made it through ticketing and security without too much trouble. It helps that my dad is with me... this may not sound ideal to some of you, but this means that I don't have to show up on the day that I'm supposed to be there before 5pm, don't have to pay for hotel accomodations, will get a cell phone purchased for me, fed, and he even rented a car, so I didn't have to try and figure out the tram situation. Works for me.

Our flight was scheduled to leave at 6:30... we started boarding at 6:45. Why, you ask, is such an illustrious airline as Air France running way late? Because the shuttle that took the crew from their hotel to LAX got in an accident.

Until somewhere over Canada, the flight was highly uneventful. Then we hit two hours of turbulence. Hardcore turbulence. As in "I feel like I'm free-falling on the Tower of Terror ride at Disneyland" hardcore turbulence. And of course, you all know my extremely small bladder situation. Luckily enough, with a stern warning, during the second and not so nasty bout of turbulence, the highly disapproving flight attendant let me go to the bathroom.

We land in Paris at 2:30 PM ish French time, proceed to Terminal 2F, Gate 24, and sit around for a little. This is after I was accused of having scissors in my backpack by French security. I did NOT have any scissors, but I couldn't remember the French word for scissors and the security guy was talking very fast... luckily, no major delays and terrorist accusations.

It is raining in Paris, so we go down the stairs, onto a bus, and are driven to our plane. We then board the air stairs (think Burbank Airport) and on to the plane. No major issues here- I even have a window seat! So I'm sitting there with my dad's video camera filming our descent to Bordeaux, and taking some scenery shots when we land, and then I look down at the tarmac, where they are unloading luggage. The first suitcase that comes off the plane is large and purple- undeniably mine. I immediately turn to my dad and start freaking out.

The suitcase has two zipper compartments on the outside, one of which is open and I can see all of my stuff chilling inside the pouch. What I hope is all my stuff, anyway. I make it down to baggage claim, snatch the suitcase, and inspect the damage: both zippers on the top pouch are completely gone. Next stop: Air France baggage claim, where, after waiting in line and giving the guy some information about my address in France that is probably not entirely accurate, I am informed that I can go to one of their agent repair people, who will fix the suitcase at no charge to me. Yay! The only problem is that I have to wait a month to do so, after I have moved into my homestay and no longer need the suitcase. Sigh.

Made it through rental cars and hotel check-in relatively unscathed; the hotel restaurant is quite good, but it is French, and as such, is closed on the weekend. Oh well. The Chinese place down the road looks... interesting...

Tomorrow is shopping day (for things like shampoo and conditioner) and hopefully I can locate where I have to show up on Tuesday. I hope to have consistent internet access, so hopefully I can talk to you all soon!