It All Starts Here

Paris.

2008-05-12T15:22:00.000-07:00

I know that everybody knows that Paris in the Springtime is something special, but I think you really have to be there to fully realize it. Both of my other trips to the city have been during the winter, and though wonderful, they were also cold and gray. We were lucky enough to arrive into Paris with blue skies and t-shirt weather. Since we had all been before our days weren't rushed and we meandered around the city on a continuous search for twist cones. We picnicked and laid out and just enjoyed relaxing which is something you forget about after countless 'MUST SIGHTSEE' trips.

The Parisians probably think it's incredibly tacky but I am in love with the Eiffel tower light show. We were strolling by the Seine and stopped to snap a picture of the tower from afar when it burst into the show, surprising all of us. Although it went off while we were climbing it in February, seeing it from afar is a completely different experience. Being up close is a total shock to the senses. It combines with the surrounding city, lit up for the night and almost overwhelms you.

From the Seine it's more of a sparkle.

My favorite is when you look just to the left or right of it and let it slip out of focus and it's more like a diamond catching the light or the sun hitting the water. I don't know, for some reason it gave me a sense of perspective. Sometimes you just have to move yourself out of a situation and look at it from a different place. It's really easy to panic about study abroad ending, or coming up to the beginning of senior year, or all the unexpected things that roll your way but I guess one thing I've realized from this whole experience is that things always tend to work out. You miss your flight, you make new friends and have the best tapas of your life, you have a bad night and your nouveau amis talk you through, and even though people leave, you find ways to keep them close or ways to get through it.

Tomorrow Lauren, Coder and Jackie leave early for Amsterdam and Vicky doesn't get in until seven, which makes it my first day exploring a town on my own. As much as it probably won't feel right to picnic alone, I think it will also make me wish I'd taken a little time to travel by myself...except for the lack of jumping pics. We'll see, we'll see. Regardless, I'm so excited to see Vicky and explore three new places together...Amsterdam, Turkey and Greece.

I guess I have a big butt.

2008-05-08T12:44:00.001-07:00

My mission all spring long has been to find a cute, wild European bathing suit and I had almost given up until this afternoon. We were in Cassis, saying goodbye after a dip in the med and what did we run into but a shop with said suits. Unfortunately all they had on display were larges, so I asked a saleswoman in broken French if they had any smalls. What she did next needed no translation. She pointed to my butt, raised her eyebrows and said, petit??

I. Kid. You. Not.

I awkwardly shrugged while she shook her head and rummaged through a pile of suits off to the side while my friends cackled with glee in the background. She found my small and I tried it on, only to discover that the pockets puffed out and it was indeed too tight on my crepe fed butt. She came back to check on me and could not contain her giddiness at my suit that did not fit. When she had finally composed herself she said she would go fetch me a medium. I tried it on and it fit much better. She saw my approval, raised her eyebrow again and said...

Large!

I looked, and sure enough the tag had a big 'L' on it, and she positively beamed. I went back to change out of my new suit and I was later informed by my friends that she pointed to my butt once again and giggled to herself as I entered the changing room. She continued to smile as I purchased the suit and I managed to make it two steps out the door before bursting out in uncontrollable laughter.

I'd take a picture of my new suit but my backside probably wouldn't fit in the frame.

Haha, what a day, what a day.

Last Day of Teaching

2008-05-06T13:09:00.001-07:00

So it was my last day of teaching the French kiddies on Monday and as much as I dreaded walking to that school every Monday it's also a little sad to be done. For the last class, we were of course sans a lesson plan as usual and we decided to have the kids draw their families. In a hilarious turn of events they ended up drawing pictures of my teaching partner and I. This sassy little one named Anouk came up to me, ordered me to stand still, and demanded a 'rouge' marker to color in my nose. I told her that I had gotten 'beaucoup de soleil' over the weekend and she popped her hip and said 'moi aussi'. Haha! I totally got dissed by a six year old French girl.

The pictures turned out great, most of them showed Danielle and I in castles (hmm?) with hearts around us, and in a couple of them we were pooping. Ok, I laughed, a lot...I never promised to be a mature teacher. With 10 minutes left and nothing to do I saw that they had music sheets on their desk and told them to sing for us. It turned out to be the best moment of my life when they one by one stood up and joined into the circus tune that went a little bit like this, 'Blim Blim, Bloum, Bloum, Tra la la la Lere' and went on to talk about French clowns and such. Even the little badass with the rat tail that said his name was 'toilette' in the beginning of the semester was singing along and it was probably the cutest thing I've ever seen. That was until the little girl that told me I was sunburnt gave me bisous to say goodbye. Oh the French. I'll miss those little punks!

Real updates on life coming soon.

Things are ending and I'm not sure how I feel about it.

I like Bordeaux.

2008-04-21T12:15:00.000-07:00

With half of our second day of vacay already planned for us, all Lauren and I only had to figure out what to do in the morning. Bordeaux made it easy for us by giving us a gorgeous day to explore the jardins publique. We of course stopped at Paul for our daily coffee and actually ended up accidentally running into the gardens. Madame T. had lived in Bordeaux for two years before Aix and highly recommended the gardens and I could immediately see why. Although the rest of the city was still on slow Sunday morning time, the gardens were bustling with joggers, bikers and adorable old couples all out enjoying the morning. We did a little exploring and ended up unknowingly beginning a theme of the trip, feeding ducks. It’s unreal how many times we gave our old bread (or bought new baguettes) just to feed these crazy critters.

We caught some great videos of swans, ducks and odd colored geese fighting over scraps of bread we tossed their way. Some highlights include one particularly fiery goose that was all business in a showdown with a gray speckled goose with a messed up wing. I think when it came down to it, some tiny sparrow ended up with the bread but it was a riot to watch them charge each other. We took turns feeding the geese, getting dangerously close to letting them grab it from our mouths but we took a step back, realized we would probably get goose flu or lose an eye, and moved on. The botanic gardens were beautiful as well, but still needed a bit of time to hit full bloom, leaving a lot of empty patches here and there. There were some nice wisteria trees and bright pink flowers that looked like koosh balls, and there might have been some more ducks. I’m not proud of it.

When we finally snapped out of park mode we realized it was time to book it back to the hostel, make embarrassing stop number three at Paul’s for sandwiches. Right after Paul is when the real magic occurred. That's right, we found our mega pain au chocolat! It was almost five euro and the size of about 10 normal pastries but we saw it, glistening in the sun (or florescent lights) and HAD to have it. It was melty and flaky and everything I imagined it to be. We ate it in the shadow of a gorgeous cathedral with blue skies and puffy clouds and seriously...it's one of my favorite memories of the entire break. After that we realized we really had to go and made it to the office of tourism with enough time to listen to some tunez while we waited for the bus. The tour took us to one of the oldest vineyards in Bordeaux and included wine tasting and a pretty in depth guide to the wine making process. We learned the types of terrain best for growing particular varieties of grapes, which regions were famous for what wine, and an explanation on wine aging. Lauren had an incredibly apt light bulb moment of realization about the word vin-tage connecting with wine age while we sipped our three varieties of vin rouge. Our guide was great and part of the family that had owned the vineyard since the 1700s, joking that the only time the wine had decreased in quality was during the war and for two reasons. First, the bombings, second the fact that the women took over the wine making. He also made a crack about wine production in other regions, dissing the Loire Valley (our next stop on the honeymoon) pretty harshly. Oops!

After the wine tasting we headed to the medieval formerly walled village of St. Emilion. As we illegally gorged on our sandwiches on the bus, an older French woman (who may have been a little tipsy from the tasting) came up and told us that eating was forbidden and then giggled. She went on to describe her breakfast and how she had eaten KELLOG’S CORN FLAKES. She highly stressed that, and talked about how she really liked to eat them with sugar. We were both windblown and awkwardly trying to chew our sandwiches while responding, it was a mess. Anyways, the town was gorgeous and played well off of the gray skies and interesting clouds. Our tour guide was apparently pretty VIP because she got the keys to the catacombs of the old church and took us down to explore, resulting in some truly haunting pictures between Lauren and I. We snuck off from the group shortly after that to accomplish our goal of trying the small vanilla soaked cakes that are famous in the region and shock, we loved them. We were pretty beat after that and headed back to the bus just as the dark clouds started rolling in, making for an oddly comforting bus ride back. We once again cleaned up and headed to a little Italian café with great lighting and large portions, what more can you ask for? We were crushed to find out the gelateria we had been dying to go to was closed so we ended up getting an overpriced strawberry ice cream sundae thing from the restaurant. Exhausted, we once again crashed as soon as we could since we had a heinously early train to Tours the next morning.

Sand dunes and midnight trains

2008-04-19T12:40:00.000-07:00

In my opinion, any vacation that begins with Journey is guaranteed to be at least moderately successful. In our case, we got really lucky and it turned out to be one of the best trips of my life, and here in several parts is a recap that I hope can nearly do it justice.

One Lauren J. Metz and I took a midnight train to Bordeaux last Friday night. No matter how many terrible trips I have with cramped overheated (or under-heated) night busses or trains, there’s always a sense of allure and mystery to the whole experience. I don’t know if it’s the quietness of your surroundings or the difference of the scenery lit up by moonlight but for me it’s an interesting mix of calming and exciting. This combination of emotions usually leaves me staring out the window for hours, alternating between thinking about my life and planning the upcoming trip in my head. This trip was easily the most painless of my night travels (aka not Venice) since we had sufficient legroom, cushy seats and “Don’t Stop Believing” at the ready on my ipod. We both managed to sleep for most of the ride and got the pleasure of waking up to a beautiful French sunrise from the panoramic train windows. Bordeaux at 8 AM was impeccably clean, impressively grandiose and completely empty. We found our way to the hotel pretty easily and dropped off our bags until check in. From there we booked it to the Office of Tourism to get our bearings on what exactly we’d be doing that weekend. In a surprisingly easy encounter we decided on visiting the Atlantic coast that afternoon and booking a wine tour for Sunday. Thankfully cafes started opening up around this time allowing us to get our morning fix of caffeine and carbs. When sufficiently revved up for the day we took to exploring Bordeaux, finding the staples of an early morning classy French ville…barred up stores and empty streets. We stumbled upon a cool church and some possible dinner locations before heading back to the hotel to officially get settled in. Our room was cute, with a window view of a garden, a real shower and of course our double bed since a couples trip through the wine and chateau regions of France is basically a honeymoon. On a tight schedule we booked it to the train station and missed our train in a startlingly similar fashion to the whole Alicante debacle. This one was a whole lot easier to clean up and just involved us waiting another hour to board a different train. With our newfound time Lauren and I took to the streets to search for the legendary pain au chocolat that’s supposed to be as ‘big as your tête’. While our pastry remained illusive, we found quite the array of seedy shops in the area of town the guidebook deemed ‘dicey’. With our quota of bad punned rubber duckies with ‘duck me’ signs on them we headed back to the train station to ensure a seat on train number two. It had been a drizzly morning and we were excited to see that the train to Arcachon, a city on the lower Atlantic coast was heading towards nothing but blue skies.

The guidebook which became our Bible of the trip, gave Arcachon a rave review that made us pretty excited to get a taste of the town and sink our feet into the largest sand dune in Europe, but again timing wasn’t going to make it easy for us. The bus we needed to catch was leaving four minutes after the train arrived and we had no idea where anything was! Lauren used her map sense to point us directly where we needed to be and BAM we were on that bus with three minutes to spare. We weaved through some of the most interestingly designed houses I’ve seen yet in France but I couldn’t find a common aesthetic to link them other than a slight feeling of off-season abandonment. Most of the homes in the city have daring landscaping or wacky names engraved on the walls and more often than not empty driveways and shut up windows, which makes me think that they’re mostly summer homes. As it does in any country, the first glimpse of the ocean doubled our excitement and made us bounce in our seats, ready to go. The bus schedule back became an afterthought as we raced towards the colossal dune we could see poking through the pine trees. Fearing we wouldn’t make it up without a little sustenance we grabbed some lackluster paninis and made our way through the touristy shops that sold shirts with cat faces and leaping dolphins. No matter how much you prepare yourself for a natural phenomenon like the redwood forests or Rocky Mountains, they always has a way of knocking your socks off. In this case, the dune literally did take our breath away and compel us to pack up our shoes and socks and ditch the staircase to climb up the side like the wilderness people we are.

Whoops, a few problems.

First and foremost, the only thing wilderness about me at that point was that I had forgotten to shave that morning and had a minor case of windblown hair. For some reason dune climbing inspired me to wear a black wool sweater vest and my new leather bag. Lauren wasn’t much better off with pants that refused to stay rolled up and her leather bag which doesn’t have a zipper. Enter rain. As soon as we got to taking the completely necessary jumping pics at the base of the dune the light drizzle turned into a steady rain and before we knew it we were soaked and sandy halfway up the steepest dune I’ve ever seen. From this point on, the entire dune experience becomes a wonderful blur of dark skies, laughter and lost inhibitions. You know when you’re in a situation that is just so incredibly ridiculous that everyone experiencing it has the exact same “are you serious??” look on their face? That was how this was. The wind was blowing so hard that it didn’t matter a grown man was running around in a diaper. The clouds were rolling in so fast and dark that it wasn’t a big deal that people were tripping down the side of the dune headfirst. So of course when the hail started pummeling all of us it definitely didn’t matter that Lauren and I were screaming our heads off, laughing uncontrollably as we tumbled and jumped our way around and down the dune praying our cameras would make it past the first day. At the base of the dune after having to go back and find a rogue Liongirl Peterson buried in the sand we realized that we were wet and cold and wanted to be on the bus that left in approximately six minutes from the front of the park. Unfortunately down at the bottom, how you acted actually did matter and we didn’t quite transition fast enough to fit in. Still shoeless, soaking wet in our somewhat dressy attire we sprinted past gawking families and barking dogs, trying not to squeal too loudly about how heinous we must have looked. Literally steaming from the humid day, we made it to the bus on time and gingerly put our shoes back on our sandy feet to appear somewhat civilized. There was absolutely no way to do so while reviewing the pictures, so we gave in to being terribly embarrassing Americans in hysterics on the back of the bus. That’s something I should probably clarify right now, for some reason when Lauren and I left Aix en Provence, our French ‘attempt to be quiet and sophisticated’ mindsets stayed put leaving us completely out of control ninety percent of the time. As much as we were stared down-nosed at by the locals, it only enhanced our experience and Lauren helped to remind me that you only live once, so go ahead burp on that park bench. (Or drop that change in the hostel as much as you want Sabrina!…Or 20 euro in the popcorn machine…Or go all out and grab an ear?)

We were all set to catch an early train back to Bordeaux to clean up and get some downtime before dinner but then we saw the skies clear up and the ocean sparkle right in front of us. We pounded the stop button immediately and waddled off the bus, shoes in tow once again. Although we now had blue skies, the wind was still pretty strong forcing us to keep our jackets on while we took our inaugural first toe dips in the other side of the Atlantic. We saved some oysters lives, enjoyed the sun and suddenly there we were standing in front of the largest beached jellyfish I’ve ever seen! It was clear orange and humongous and I’m pretty sure we gawked at it for a solid twenty minutes taking a series of escalating photos climaxing with Liongirl touching the jellyfish. With the backdrop of the sand and ocean available our next move was pretty natural, setting up my tripod and taking tandem jumping pics. Unfortunately I haven’t mastered taking multiple shots at once so after every shot I had to run to the camera, set it up again and run back for the shot.

We took about twenty-five.

There was a family sitting on a ledge nearby, obviously somewhere between amused and disgusted at our blatant disregard of any and everyone else. Aside from the already outrageous scene, almost every jump set us off into another round of breathless hysteria ending in a poorly timed collision that probably sprained roast beef of my left foot, evening out my already injured right ankle from a field jump gone wrong the week before. A surprisingly low number of the pictures turned out leaving us to snap close ups of billowing scarves or dramatic black and whites instead. When we were too wind burnt to stay at the beach any longer we opted to walk the rest of the way back into town, photographing the beautiful houses and trees that lined the quiet streets of the city. This took quite some time and when we finally reached the heart of the city to find ice cream we were walking (and looking) like zombies. All our trials throughout the day were rewarded by stumbling upon the most incredible crepe/ice cream/gaufre stand ever, producing an impossibly delicious nutella et chantilly waffle that left us in a food coma, covered in whipped cream smiling with satisfaction. I’m pretty confident that with our food smeared faces, dirtied damp clothes and large bags we could have made some phat cash playing the homeless card but we sadly we had to move it on back to Bordeaux.

Other than our mutual train crush and the bottle of wine we weren’t sure we were allowed to have on the train, the ride back was pretty uneventful and we were both on a path to rid ourselves of the sand that had worked its way through every article of clothing we had on. After showers and an episode of Arrested Development we were finally ready to get back to civilization and have our first dinner of spring break. After much indecision we ended up sitting outside at a cute café looking out at a big square with a fountain, basically the ideal setting to begin with. We splurged and did a three-course meal with wine and just enjoyed the evening. With another busy day planned, we headed home early and crashed as soon as our heads hit the pillows.

No. More. Rocks.

2008-04-06T10:16:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately I just finished day one of the weekend spanning archeology field trip to the gorge verdon. Initially, I was angry because although it’s gorgeous, I had already visited the gorge and felt like I was wasting time. Upon arriving at our destination I was surprised at the lack of stark cliffs, blue/green waters and heavily treed forests. We were in the middle of a field near a lake that my friend Kaitlin aptly compared to a summer camp in Pennsylvania. On the agenda that day was a trip through the museum of prehistory, a lunch by the lake and a visit to a reconstruction of a prehistoric hut village. We entered the museum and were excited to see life size stuffed mammoths and saber tooth tigers and an entire exhibit dedicated to the mythical yeti. Unfortunately that was all downstairs and we breezed right by it to go look at case after case of arrowheads.

It was like driving past Disney World to go to a match factory.

With our hopes of wooly mammoth photo shoots and caveman reenactments crushed, we moved on and listened to our professor lecture on and on about the evolution of prehistoric arrowheads for an hour and a half. We walked from display case to display case yawning over rocks that honestly looked no different than the ones we had stumbled over in the parking lot, which makes me question the validity of the museum as a whole. For all we know the employees could spend their evenings looking for pointy rocks to trick tourists into believing were ancient arrowheads. If I had to spend all my time in that museum, I think I would stoop to such acts. By the sixth display case the entire class was finding creative ways to sit or lean against things so they could relax while feigning interest. At this point I snapped an entire series of ‘(name)…is bored’ photos, capturing some candid gems of yawns and ‘are you serious’ faces.

We finally reached the light at the end of the tunnel and were allowed an hour and a half for lunch, which we eagerly took advantage of. With lunches in tow we booked it to the lake where in a few weeks they’ll undoubtedly start kayaking and canoeing up a storm, but as of now it was just us…and the swans. One of few things I learned from this field trip is that swans are major d-bags. A male and a female swan came swimming up to us at a speed that made me nervous. My nervousness heightened when the man arched his wings to create a more intimidating form. They continued their charge and eventually ended up at the edge of the dock we were sitting at, flapping their feet in the water, looking angry and mean. Thankfully we held strong and they went off to harass a weaker target, a lone student sitting on the opposite dock. I looked over a minute later and a swan was literally biting his shoe. He ended up ok and only lost one toe to the whole experience. Moral of the story, don’t mess with swans.

The sun was beautiful and we basked for the rest of the lunch, which is wonderful but incredibly tiring. All worn out and suffering from mild sunstroke we had to sit through an hour long lecture about six different types of prehistoric dwellings. We entertained ourselves as much as we could…but you can only take so many pictures pretending to live in a prehistoric hut. It was honestly the most pointless day trip I’ve ever been on, and what’s even worse is that we have to return tomorrow, at 7:45 AM. I’m hoping that although the hour is blasphemous to everything I believe in, the day turns out to be more successful than the first. Day two includes a three-hour hike to a prehistoric cave, lessons on making fire from flint and an instructional course on spear throwing. I’m secretly hoping they have life size replicas of wooly mammoths as targets so we can pretend to be cave people on the hunt and not just be boring old javelin throwers. Either way, it’s supposed to be beautiful and I can’t believe I won’t be at the beach.

Some words

2008-04-05T09:46:00.000-07:00

So I just found out I didn't get the internship I was hoping for with Hallmark this summer.

Not going to lie, I'm kinda bummed but I guess in situations like these you have to look at the positives. I finally made a resume and wrote a pretty cute poem about old love for the application...in honor of my lost position here it is!

We’re full of contradictions

We’re grumpy then we’re kind

I laugh, you scowl

I pout, you grin

I’m near deaf, you’re going blind.

I bake, you mow

But we both know

That after all things said and done

This old love still has room to grow.

I’m half. You’re half.

We’re one.

Here’s to you Vincent

2008-03-31T02:07:00.000-07:00

Today I saw the most amazing art exhibition in the Cathedrale D’images in the medieval village of Les Baux. The village is known for its haunting rock formations, picturesque ruins and gigantic stone quarries. The quarries have since been shut down and transformed into deep caverns with flat walls and high ceilings. Some artistically gifted genius cooked up the idea to project large-scale works of art onto the quarry walls and accompany them with various classical music. The images shift and change with the music and span every wall and much of the ground, literally surrounding you floor to ceiling with art. Last year transformed the quarry into Venice and this year was the much-anticipated Van Gogh exhibit. We walked into the quarry to soothing cello music backing the bright ochre tones Van Gogh so artfully mastered. His haystacks transformed into bedrooms, to self portraits, to still lifes. The entire quarry turned into a starry night and then the sun rose through a metamorphosis of his paintings. A haunting a capella piece glided through the air as I was dwarfed by at least 15 projections of Vincent’s eyes staring down from the walls. Aside from the sunrise, my favorite part was the water. I sat down on a bench where I could see multiple walls all covered in paintings of sailboats and seas. The projections gave the paintings movement and the lilting voices of the Saint-Saens chorus meshed perfectly with the surroundings. Overall it was absolutely incredible and if you're ever in the area, GO; especially while the Van Gogh exhibit is still being shown. I've always enjoyed his work but this amped it up to the next level. While his homelife may not have been the most stable thing on earth, the man had some crazy passion and it definitely shows in his paintings.

Torro! Torro! Tor--waaaait a minute, ew.

2008-03-24T11:07:00.000-07:00

Although right now I’m warm in bed eating dark chocolate Easter eggs from Madame, outside my window the Mistral has arrived. That’s right, the very wind that drove Van Gogh mad is ripping through the South of France this very moment. It stays for intervals of three days and usually coincides with some of the crispest blue skies of the season. Sadly this wind joined us on our trip to Arles today, but I have to say it just added to the day’s many unexpected adventures. We loaded up the bus at the god-awful hour of 8:30 AM and after a rough night of sleep I kept asking myself what I was doing…but it was Easter and I decided I’d much rather be out doing something than stay cooped up in windy old Aix.

Surprise number one came when George, after asking us about a million times if we had paid our twenty euros, announced that we still had to pay for the bullfight. We were a little bit outraged, but decided to see how much it was before pitching a hissy fit that he would most likely not understand. We checked the price; decided it was worth it and went on a little tour before it started. After the tour we got the pleasure of seeing the French version of the running of the bulls, which was basically an excuse for a bunch of ‘hard-ass’ French adolescents to bro it up and puff out their chests—until the bull came when they’d safely hop behind bars again. One or two bulls would race from point A to point B and back again several times. We watched through our cameras for about 15 minutes, determined to get some decent pictures, which proved mildly successful. From there we scuttled off to the ancient Roman amphitheater to get our seats for the actual bullfight!

With a great view of the arena and patchy blue skies, we were pretty stoked to see the French version of a bullfight, where they didn’t kill the bull. How naïve we were. Little did we know that while we carelessly ate our chocolate bunnies and watched the matadors get introduced in their glittery spandex attire, several bulls were about to be killed in that very arena. I hate to admit it, but aside from the gruesome torture and murder of the bulls, the rest of the show was spectacular. The bright colors of the matadors’ outfits, the energy of the crowd and the positioning of the ‘players’ in the arena combined to create a significant wow factor. It really appeared as though the bull and matador were doing some sort of dance, which was only enhanced by the big brass band playing in the stands. It had the rhythm of a waltz and the dark twist of a tango and showed the connection the matador felt with the bull. It’s unreal to think that we were sitting in an arena where gladiators fought lions thousands of years ago. We were completely shocked to see the bulls get stabbed and stagger to the ground to the crowd’s glee. None of us could watch as blood streamed out of the bull’s nostrils in the final moments. That was about the moment that the matadors turned into major D-bags in our heads and we started rooting for the bulls. The second bull managed to nab a matador, which proved to be one of the highlights of the fight. This one was more energetic and put up much more of a fight. The second matador put the first to shame and did some jumps worth of a Greg and Patrick jumping pic photo shoot. Amanda caught him mid air in one of the coolest jumping shots I’ve ever seen. After a much more gruesome slaying of the second bull they put chains around his neck and dragged him the length of the arena while Amanda, Stephanie and I tried to distract ourselves. With over an hour left we embraced our roles as the grossed out Americans and got the hell out of there.

Chilled to the bone literally and figuratively we ran to the nearest café to caffeinate and debate whether or not we were bad people for seeing the bullfight. Once warmed up and out of the arena we decided it was a cultural thing and we weren’t too morally repellent. Oh, I almost forgot! Another surprise occurred directly after we left the amphitheater. At the foot of the stairs a man stood with a flaming stick and a gallon of gasoline; ladies and gentlemen, enter the fire breather. He blew flames of dragon proportion, which looked stunning against the provençal blue skies. Flames spewed several feet above our heads, over his shoulder and through his legs; I was impressed. If I wasn’t so grossed out by the thought of chugging gasoline I might have considered taking it up, it would be a hell of a trick to pull out at parties. Upon Professor Potter’s recommendation we headed towards the alyscamps, or for our purposes the famous cemetery in Arles. Sadly, it was closed for lunch and reopened at the exact time our bus left, so we missed out on it for the second time. Instead we walked through the lively streets of Arles on Easter, being tempted by kabobs and crepes. We ended up stumbling upon the hospital where Van Gogh was kept and the beautiful garden within. I absolutely love taking photos of nature, and flowers are some of my favorite things to photograph so this garden with its abundance of color and variety of flowers was basically heaven. We spent some time there and had to get back to the bus, seeing a few more bulls and horses on the way.

The bus ride to the camargue was a nice breather from the action of the day, not to mention it was absolutely beautiful with its vibrant spring greens. The region is known for its white horses and pink flamingoes, both of which were plentiful out the windows of the bus. Our destination was a little bit further to the town Marie de la Mer or something like that. Instead of taking the guided tour we went by ourselves to the beach, which was one of my favorite parts of the day. The sky was the most intense gray blue and the wind made the waves crash against the shore. We walked down the long rock pier and marveled at the changing colors of the sky and the sea. I took some of my favorite photos of the day before the wind transformed from a sea breeze to a sea monster and forced us back to land. Enticed by the warmth of civilization we ended up at a creperie that also boasted some very delicious looking gelato, too bad it was freezing outside! Too bad for us that is, because we of course sucked it up and ate it in the cold anyways. How could you turn down calisone gelato?! You can’t, that’s what I say. From there we took shelter in the nearby church and were entranced by the overall atmosphere. As we neared the basement, a group of flautists practicing for the night’s concert played a haunting tune that fit perfectly with the mood. As their notes echoed through the church we descended into a cave full of candles. The small stone alcove was as hot as a sauna and had a yellow glow from all the flickering lights. It was incredible. After that the sky looked like it was literally about to crack open and pour out torrents of wind and rain...to our left. To our right it was beautiful and sunny still, quite surreal. Not gonna lie, the busride home with gray skies and rain pouring down the windows was a comforting feeling, made me miss the good old midwest a bit though. I suppose I'll be back to that soon enough.

Cloudy Friday, First Movie

2008-03-22T10:47:00.000-07:00

For some reason it’s been a day with solemn undertones. I think it mainly has to do with the gray skies and drizzle that has plagued Aix all day. When almost every day is accompanied by a clear blue sky it’s a shock to the system to see marbling clouds when you walk out the door in the morning; especially when you’re late. I pulled a U of I this morning and slept through 3 alarms only to wake with a start six minutes after class had started. Somehow I pulled a not U of I and convinced myself it was worth it to make the 15 minute walk to class and got there by 9:30. Although the French are very strict in their education policies, they seem to have their priorities straight. When I rushed into class late and said I left right from getting up my professor was shocked I didn’t have breakfast and insisted it would be alright for me to go downstairs and get a coffee if I needed it. I think I like this country.

With most of my regular Friday afternoon hang out crew already gone for the weekend and half of my French class sick or too hung over to make it to class I felt a little bit like a lost sheep and bummed around on the internet for awhile, and got the pleasure of talking to one Ms. Sabrina Kaiser! We caught up and planned our respective lives and careers around each other and it was completely and utterly wonderful. She had to go and the day turned into a double downer when I was informed that our horseback-riding excursion scheduled for that afternoon was cancelled due to poor weather. At that point I needed something good and thanks to my recent hero’s diligent youtube work, I was able to watch the most recent episode! Although a little piece of my heart chipped off when Amis left the week before, the new episode proved pretty entertaining and I loved the photo shoot, close ups are always interesting. Not gonna lie, little bit shocked with the results but I won’t spoil anything.

By the end of the ep, ANTM had quite a little fan base in the Trustee’s room of the university and we all decided to get lunch. On a whim we decided to try the Vietnamese place much preferred by locals. It’s one of those places you know will be good because people wait outside the gates for it to open and stand in amusement park-esque lines just to get their Mi-Sao and egg rolls. We waited in line for about an hour, over half the time outside and I realized I would have died riding a horse in this weather.

While we waited in line, a hush came over the little street that we were on and a huge group of people led by a priest with a huge wooden cross slowly marched towards us. Sandwiched by police officers, they sang a haunting tune and looked straight forward as if led towards some destination we all couldn’t see. To quote Madonna, I’m not religious, but I felt so moved. I don’t know if it was the gray sky or the intensity of the crowd but it was a very surreal experience. Sadly this only distracted us from our quest for Vietnamese food for about 3 minutes and then we were back to cursing the slow, perfectly practiced scoops and garnishes of the employees and multi portion orders of the customers. Finally acquiring our food equivalents to the holy grail we basically sprinted back to the school to stuff our faces. It turned out to be the best egg roll I’ve ever eaten and it was completely worth the wait. Just goes to show you should always trust where the locals flock!

From there my day gets less and less interesting. I sat in the cave for a few hours, and eventually walked home to finish Ratatouille and wait til dinner. Off to see the Darjeeling Limited in a few and I couldn’t be more excited. I have no idea what the movie is about but I’m excited to be warm inside somewhere. Also, I haven’t seen a movie in theaters since I think early December and I have missed it thoroughly.

Luberon.

2008-03-20T02:55:00.000-07:00

Luberon Villages Day Trip 3-16-08

The South of France is a dangerous place. It’s giving me all kinds of ambitions to become disgustingly rich so I can afford to buy a quaint little fixer upper in a French mountain town and pour millions of dollars into authentic restoration. The cities we toured today were absolutely incredible. The tour guides weren’t lying when they said that the villages in the Luberon Mountains were some of the most beautiful in all of France, and we came during the off season when the place isn’t even in full bloom! As I’ve said a million times, there’s just something about this place…

The morning was rushed as usual; I found the only way to get out of bed was to dream my way to the kitchen for my breakfast toast. Once I was finished in that department, I rushed off to the bus and surprisingly made it on time. As we weaved around mountain passes with our wonderful tour guide Carol, the scenery was breathtaking. We had a great day going for us. Bright blue skies and puffy white clouds made the perfect backdrop for the deep browns and greens of the forests we sped by. We learned the bloody history of the medieval mountain towns we passed and made it to our first stop, Lumerer. Not quite nestled in the mountains enough to be considered a mountaintop village, but that didn’t take away from the charm. We began by circling the beautiful old stone church and making our way to the graveyard where famous writer Albert Camus is buried. On the way there, we had a slight detour for class purposes. In my comm. class, we watched a film that ends with all of the characters holding hands and dancing around a windmill, and on this lovely March day we just happened to pass a windmill very much like the one in the movie. Cut to Amelia, Kaitlin and I posing mid dance to bring back to class, it was pretty magical. Once we got the cemetery, it was one of the most florally decorated I have ever seen and all of its inhabitants were very well remembered. I’m not sure if it’s a provençal thing or not, but many of the graves had ceramic flowers on top of the mausoleums, it was pretty neat.

From there we took a long road back to the town, upon which Emma and I mused about France and how lucky we were to be here. Back in the town center we found it quite bustling and bought some lunch and pastries to picnic on later. By then we had used up our designated hour and a half and had to board the bus again to get to our next destination; the hilltop village of Odeon villue. The trip there involved driving through many more scenic mountain passes peppered with towns that boasted the previous residence of the Comte de Sade, or Peter Mahle. We arrived at our drop off and were told it was an absolute must to climb to the top of the hill and take in the scenery. I’m increasingly glad I did as I review the photos taken up there. It was arguably one of the most interesting sights I’ve come across in France and the skies switch to cloudy grays and deep blues only enhanced the mysterious feel the town elicited. We picnicked near the old chapel until we were itching to explore. We climbed through old stone windows, cautiously peered over steep mountain drop offs and attempted to take it all in for the half hour we had left. Caitlin, Lauren and I were so wrapped up in it all that we ended up being the last ones up there with under 5 minutes to get back to the bus. This led to one of the absolute funniest moments I’ve experienced this semester. The steepness of the grade and the speed at which we were running merged with the fact that we had done the exact same thing to catch our bus at Mt. Saint Victoire and one way or another we all started laughing hysterically while we ran. Hysterical laughter is funny when you’re in a controlled situation, and completely elevated when you’re running down a hill. Somehow our laughs were transformed into cackles and squeals and the three of us all doing so in unison basically put us one step away from seizing up and collapsing with tears streaming down our faces. We made it down somewhat composed only to see people lazily throwing footballs, idly chatting and taking last trips to the bathroom. We weren’t late at all.

With the air blasting to cool us down we headed to the last village of the day, Roussillon. On the bus towards the village, we got the pleasure of hearing the two variations on why the rocks and soil shine the bright bold colors that they do; one scientific and one romantic. I think we can all guess which one I’m going to sum up right here. Many years ago in the medieval village of Roussillon lived the king and queen and their townspeople. The king was a very stern, perhaps even barbaric man who found pleasure in long hunting trips, leaving his wife alone for days on end. She busied herself with sewing and crafting like many women did at the time and would have most likely continued to do so had not a young handsome troubadour arrived. Well known for their ability to tempt and captivate noblewomen with their poems and romantic lyrics, the troubadours were infamous throughout the land and the queen found herself quite taken with this young man. Their situation remained blissful for awhile due to the kings extended absences but as it would in any small town, word spread and eventually reached the king. His rage was unparalleled and unfortunately he had a wit to match. He smartly invited the troubadour to join him in a hunting trip with him and his men. Naturally such a trip was considered a great honor during those times and the troubadour proudly accepted. Soon after they departed the king ordered his men to kill the troubadour and cut out his heart. The king returned early from his hunting trip with the troubadour’s heart in tow. He ordered the castle cooks to include the heart in the queen’s dinner. That evening the queen was served her food and she ate it without question. When the plates had been cleared the king asked his wife if she had any thoughts about her dinner. She replied that she hadn’t a clue what it was but it was quite delicious. With a smirk the king coldly replied that she had just consumed the heart of her dead lover. Horrified, the queen ran from the table with her hands to her throat and threw herself off a nearby cliff. Legend says the severe reds and orange colors that made Roussillon famous are the result of the spilt blood of the queen and her troubadour love.

I could probably write seven pages on how gorgeous the ochre colors were and how well the village paralleled the painted cliffs but I think I’ll leave it to your imagination, aka I’m exhausted. Moral of the story, if you ever get a chance to visit the Luberon I would highly recommend it, and if you get a chance have Carol as your tour guide. She tells a great story with tones that are oddly similar to the soothing voice of Delilah from the light rock radio station back home. Anyways, it was a day very well spent and I look forward to exploring

Microwave Incompetent

2008-03-20T02:53:00.000-07:00

As I type, church bells from the steeple right outside my window are chiming away, letting everyone know it’s dinner time in Aix. Sadly Madame was still out for the weekend so it was dinner for one in the big old kitchen for the second night of the week. The other night everything was ready for me in the oven, but tonight I had the task of microwaving some soup for myself. It’s relatively common knowledge that my mom has been grossly opposed to microwaves for as long as I can remember, so the Peterson household never had one. I’m not sure if she had a freak accident while trying to explode a peep in her youth or if she thinks there’s some secret radiation factor but regardless, my lack of experience with microwaves proved quite embarrassing tonight.

I get to the table and there’s the carton of soup, scissors at the ready to cut it open and a menu Madame wrote out for my dinner. I was pretty proud of myself when I figured out that she wanted me to microwave the vegetable soup, but from there I got lost. Not only was I unsure about how to use the tricky French microwave, I couldn’t even find a time on the carton. For microwave savvy people, this may not seem like a crisis, just pop it in and see how it goes after a minute. I was unfortunately in over my head and had to call Lauren and weakly ask her to recite the rules of microwave cooking. As I put away the metal pot I was contemplating using (oops!) I realized that I missed Madame. Even if our conversations are short and simple, they’re better than silence and terrifying microwave experiences.

Regulars

2008-03-18T06:10:00.000-07:00

As I’ve probably mentioned, my friends and I have become regulars at a wonderful little creperie that is ironically named “Uncle Sam’s.” Of course we choose the one place on the Cours Mirabou that boasts an American name and 10+ Ben & Jerry’s flavors. Regardless, the employees are very French and have come to love us. The other night Amelia got a free pitcher and tonight I had one of my most endearing experiences from my whole time in France. After my obligatory pint of Guinness for St. Patrick’s Day, I obviously had to top it off with a nutella smothered gaufre from Uncle Sam’s. A few days earlier, I had passed our beloved establishment and waved at one of the two workers that is always there at night. In an incredibly awkward scene she squinted and definitely did not wave back. Nervous that I had ruined our connection for good I scuttled off and didn’t give it another thought until tonight. As we go up to order our various chocolatey deserts the same woman I just mentioned smiles, wishes us a good night, and starts speaking to me in very slow, but understandable English. She said “I’m sorry, the other day, you waved, and I have bad eyesight, and I could not see you, and I felt bad so I wanted to tell you I’m sorry.” It was probably the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen and I told her repeatedly “No pas probleme! No pas probleme!” and it was basically one of those moments where you walk away smiling.

teachin'

2008-03-12T14:03:00.001-07:00

So, teaching English to French 6-7 year olds is really, really hard.

Especially when a) you barely speak French b) it's their last class of the day.

My teaching partner and I had our most coherent lesson plan of 'Food Bingo' made out and went in there with a little less dread than usual, however about 2 of the students understood the concept of bingo and just x'd out pictures at random and screamed "BANAN, BANAN!" We kept playing because our favorite student, who informed me she lived in Louisiana for 4 years, was having a great time. She's naturally our favorite because she's that girl that bounces in her seat with excitement when she knows an answer and helps us control the wild ones.

The best part of the lesson was when we handed out a picture of Massachusetts to explain where my partner was from and told them to color it in with red white and blue to represent America! (We're just that patriotic) Again, a few students were confused, a few enthusiastic about it and the rest drew French flags inside the state of Massachusetts. Haha, it was a mega failure, except for our little English prodigy who drew a billowing American flag inside of the state. We should have probably known better than to introduce the state with the longest name ever.

After coloring we pretty much lost them (and ran out of things to talk about) so we asked them if they knew what kind of animals lived in Massachusetts. First of all, I don't even know what kind of animals live in Massachusetts...but I had to try not to pee my pants when all of the answers were zebras, gazelles and crocodiles. I get to teach them about the great state of Illinois, any recommendations? If all else fails I think I'm going to resort to showing them juicycampus.com and letting them in on all of the gossip about the KDs. I think I could probably have a whole lesson on the significance of PIKENATION. I think the boy with the rat tail that throws paper airplanes could really relate. Haha, am I a horrible teacher for making fun of my students? Maybe. WhOoPs!

I'll miss you.

2008-03-09T11:16:00.000-07:00

After French class on Friday I checked my email and had a few new messages from the fam. The first one from my mom said my Grandpa had taken a turn for the worse and possibly had pneumonia and might be moving rooms. An email down I saw the unforgettable words that he'd passed away. These stories always start out with, I woke up feeling uneasy or I knew something was wrong when I checked this but really...I had no idea and after reading it I just felt numb. I didn't even realize I was crying until someone in my class asked if I was ok. He was 81 and pretty sick so it was somewhat expected but when you're this far away, everything seems like a dream anyways. I left for France before he started getting really bad so I can't even picture the full extent of everything, it jarred me to see his photo in an online obituary and it kills me that I can't go to his funeral. He really was an amazing man...he was in the air force, raised four kids, and even loved Nutmeg. He loved lemon drops too, and the same generic brand of chocolate chip ice cream his whole life. Even though we'd been to same museum dozens of times, he would always take us there because he knew we were crazy about it. He loved real golf, but he'd still always take us mini golfing every time we visited. I can't even imagine going to the house without him there. The last time I saw him was on Christmas and he told me how proud he was of U of I and that he knew I'd do great things. Sending all the love you've given the whole family back your way, here's to you Grandpa.

Thoughts on "Change"

2008-03-04T01:55:00.001-08:00

Oddly enough I first heard this song when I rented season one of ‘Big Love’ from rentertainment my lonely summer in Urbana with no cable, no internet and very few friends. If you asked me who I thought would have the newest theme song for the montage of HBO series at the beginning of the disk, Tracy Chapman would probably be the last person I would have guessed. It didn’t seem terribly fitting but I suppose it got me to hear the song and listen to it afterwards; my hats off to HBO on that one. So last night while I was enjoying my nightly ritual of spider solitaire and itunes shuffle (congratulations on your 75^th birthday Greg!) ‘Change’ came up and it really got me thinking. You know how a song can just be perfect for the moment you’re in? That’s how this one went. The combination of her voice and the lyrics really packed a punch to my solitaire stimulated late night mind. It starts off with a bang posing the question “if you knew that you would die today, would you change?” I won’t lie, open ended apocalyptic questions like that have left me panicked with phone in hand before, ready to call everyone I’ve ever connected with to tell them what they meant to me…but my reaction tonight was much more literal. What keeps me, or people in general from changing the things we feel aren’t right about our lives? In general, anyone who knows me would probably cry out unanimously, “because you’re incredibly lazy Greg!’ and leave it at that. Although true at times, I don’t think a die-hard commitment to procrastination is the core of it. As I’ve previously mentioned, Europe leaves me fluctuating back and forth from inspired and exhausted which too often averages out to stagnant.

When it comes down to it I think comfort is my main problem, meaning that I can usually make myself content in any situation, giving me the feeling that I’m happy. Change is overwhelming, and I usually try to accomplish too much of it at once, which leaves me tired and ready to crawl back into whatever nook I’ve made until the next time I get a bout of inspiration. In terms of love, if you knew that you were heading for a major fall would you still give all you have just so you were sure you did all you could? How bad does it need to get before you save yourself, and how good does it have to promise to be in the end to stick through it? I feel like a terrible Sarah Jessica Parker knock off typing out all these questions but some nights you’ve just gotta do it. Although it sounds silly, I think I’m going to dedicate next week to some major life bookkeeping. Planning trips, picking classes (oooh shit senior year), finalizing the applications for summer work that miraculously aren’t due til mid-March, and getting the personal side of things squared away too. In all honesty it shouldn’t take a well timed song or a near death experience to motivate me to get things done in life but it beats the (very weird) game I used to play with myself. I guess it was more of a test than a game but whatever. It all started while watching an E! true Hollywood special on Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey. It was after their first split I believe, and J-Simp was talking about her reaction when she heard about September 11^th. Even though they weren’t together anymore, her first thoughts were about Nick and whether he was ok or not. I am not in the LEAST saying that Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey are, or were even close to defining true love, but her reaction made me think. Later that night I got really anxious, thinking about never being able to see the people I loved again. I still sometimes classify those I love based on my reaction to that thought. With certain people my breath gets caught in my chest, my heart starts beating faster and it takes all I have not to call them and lamely pour my entire heart out about how much they mean to me. In all honesty, maybe I should make that a more regular thing. People always say they like a little mystery and once you get too personal lines can get crossed but fuck that. Why not say what’s on your mind, if something bad should happen, it sure beats living with your unshared thoughts forever. Anyways, this is an absolutely terrible thing to do right before you go to bed, especially without internet…but that’s usually when my mind wanders the most.

Moral of the story: spit out your feelings and find something that gets you motivated.

Madrid, YoUrE CraZy!

2008-03-04T01:53:00.000-08:00

Part 5: Madrid

We once again took an early morning train ride to a new Spanish city, and this time found our hostel right off the bat. We awkwardly deodorized, primped and changed in the hallways since our room wasn’t ready yet. All starving, we went on a quest for lunch and were incredibly disheartened to see that the TGIFridays across the street wasn’t open until a few hours later. We grudgingly walked on until we arrived at another American fast food beacon, Burger King. We shamelessly devoured double cheeseburgers and greasy fries and enjoyed it almost a little too much for being in Spain. Finally nourished we headed to the Reine Sofia museum which had a four story exhibit on all things Picasso. Boy did we see Picasso. In all honesty, I can’t see why some of that stuff is up on the walls of a museum, aka a pencil sketch of a horse that genuinely looked like a kindergartner drew it. And I mean, La Guernica? Come on, that’s a piece of crap. Haha, ok that’s a big huge fat lie, it was pretty incredible, but I think I just wasn’t in the mood for an art museum. Dana, Lauren, Liz and I instead got yelled at by museum employees for taking pictures, drinking water, talking too loud, and going too close to exhibits. We went as far as to have a ‘crying contest’ next to some famous works of Picasso’s to make people think we were genuinely moved by the work. Call us uncultured, but it was a pretty fun game, especially when Lauren tried so hard to squeeze out tears she produced the manliest grunt ever to be heard in the Reine Sofia! Us bored folks busted out of there soon after to tackle the more important issue of alcohol for the night. We splurged on cheap champagne and sangria for the night, getting overly excited at the sight of 6 mini champagne bottles that were absolutely perfect for our purposes. Motivated now by the Hagen Dazs we had spotted on the way over, we backtracked until we found it, spending a collective 34 euro on ice cream for four people. Worth it.

Once again we napped for a few hours, which actually helped a lot in the rejuvenating process. Ready to attack the night we monopolized the two showers for about an hour and decided to make it a completely American day by dining at Fridays. Another great decision actually. With fruity drinks and wonderfully fried food, we were ready to drink away the evening illegally in our hostel before the biggest discoteque in Spain! We played circle, which turned into never have I ever, and a little orange juice mishap caused me to have to switch outfits which ended up being a good thing. We went through 3 boxes of sangria, 2 bottles of Champagne and realized we needed to book it and take our mini bottles for the road. Decided we weren’t nearly drunk enough and after annoying them completely made friends with some locals via my broken Spanish and endless ‘MUY BONITAS!’ We took too many shots, and I got called guapo by a Spanish Gwen Stefani a la Tragic Kingdom. Taxi’d our way over to the club and boy was it bumping. I cut in line behind a Spanish girl named Maria who was very bitter about all the foreigners at her club (other than me she said). I agreed for a second then decided I needed to be closer and hopped up to where Dana and Liz had gotten. They were busy trying to convince an Irish man that he was in fact NOT Irish. He told them he had a scar from a knife fight at which I challenged him to a ‘scar off’ yielding my scar from climbing over a highway fence…I think I told him I got shot or something ridiculous like that. Totally believed me. The bouncers were NOT happy with all the cutting and got really rough with some girls near us, but somehow we managed to get inside, pay our 15 euro and bask in the glory of 7 stories of strobe lights and wild dancing. We stayed together for about 20 minutes before promising to meet back in front of the naked man poster on floor two at 5:30AM.

Dana, Liz and Emma (until she blacked out and disappeared) snuck into the VIP section where they scolded the richies for doing coke. They stole as many bottles as they could and ended up getting yelled at by the VIPs, oops! On the main floor, Coder got DOWN with some Spanish man and ended up attached at the mouth for most of the night. As soon as the well muscled ‘sailors’ got off stage, Lauren and I drunkenly climbed up there and danced our hearts out for a few minutes in full view of all seven stories of the club. We broke out some surprisingly cohesive choreography from Dirty Dancing and for once had enough sense to get down before we were kicked off. We moved over to a platform and Lauren totes danced with a boy with braces. I embarrassingly asked everyone to clear the platform so Lauren and I could have a last dance together around 5:30AM. They surprisingly obliged and we took that shit over, bending and snapping, popping and dropping, getting dirrty all over the place. It was a great end to the night…part one of the night that is.

Part two involves an extensive search for our three missing comrades through the entire club. I weaved through each floor in a semi sober haze, ending up with nothing. Lauren had managed to drop her camera while I was gone, resulting in a fatal lens error that left it bent and unusable. We need to start a support group for stories like ours, seriously. With no friends to be found, we took a taxi home and were surprised to come upon an empty room. “Wow they must be having FUN!” we thought as we collapsed in our beds. 10 minutes later, a very flustered Liz and Dana walked in, coatless and annoyed at getting lost in a taxi, for the second time in Spain. What was worse was there was no Emma. Liz took charge and screamed “WE MUST MOBILIZE!” which surprisingly got people up and moving. People besides me that is. I was worried, I swear…just really really tired. We heard a buzz as we were about to set off to find our girl and were never so happy to see Ms. Bassett stumbling through the doorway, trashed and gloating about using the metro. With the Emma situation solved, all that was left was the three missing coats problem. Dana and Liz were about to set off alone, but I drunkenly argued that I knew better Spanish and that I needed to go. All in terrible moods we somehow navigated the metro and finally cracked a smile when we heard a man on a saxophone playing the pink panther. Back at the club the gates were all closed down and it looked like our mission was hopeless. WRONG. We charged over to the side door where people were exiting, and weren’t given the time of day until I somehow spoke the clearest Spanish of my life, telling the man at the door that my sister and friends left their coats inside. He told us to come back tomorrow but I insisted we were leaving early and needed them, very very badly. Liz and Dana threw choruses of “Por Favor!!” at him and finally as I waved the coat check ticket in the air, he gave in and went to get our coats. Good thing too because we saw a man inside rifling through the pockets of coats that had been left behind. He came back with all three intact and we thanked him profusely and decided to reward ourselves with a taxi ride back rather than the metro.

We crashed for about an hour and realized we had to get up for our flight back to Marseille. Poor Emma was still completely trashed as we packed up and got ready to go. We somehow made our flight, traveled smoothly and made it back to Aix with enough time to enjoy the sunset and give Dana a full tour of the dessert cuisine of Southern France.

I like Gardens and Flamenco

2008-03-04T01:52:00.000-08:00

Part 4: Sevilla day 2

Any grudges held towards Sevilla were completely erased when we were holding gigantic cups of free coffee in the Spanish sunlight on top of the hostel roof. The responsible ones had woken up early and toured the area, plotting out our day for us. They picked the absolute perfect day to visit the Royal Alcazar. Palaces and churches can still be incredible on dreary days, but sunlight does amazing things to a garden. We dipped our fingers in the fountains, sat underneath orange trees and strolled through the lush Spanish palace gardens. The flowers were a dream to photograph and I used up about half my memory card alone on Birds of Paradise. We ran past the hedge maze, found a lizard through the thickets and enjoyed the view of it all from above on the palace ledge. The buildings were so colorful, with cerulean metal, lilac walls and orange stones.

Once we finished there, food and gelato were of course our next missions. We got our hot eats and cool treats in a big square in the center of town and sat down to enjoy them before heading to the palace that influenced the architecture of Naboo in Star Wars. I wasn’t exactly sure how that would translate in my mind, but once I got there, I could completely visualize it from the movie, it was amazing. We jumped in front of the fountain and probably held up several groups of tourists attempting to take legitimate pictures. After that we doubled back to the hostel to rest up before a traditional Flamenco show in the very town where the dance originated. By ‘doubled back’ I mean stopped at a different H&M and of course made more purchases. The flamenco show had the bonus of live guitar and singing and a whole lot of flawless well-timed clapping rhythms. We all fell in love with the male dancer and fought over who would win his heart after the show. Not sure where to eat, we stumbled on a cute little Italian restaurant that looked far more expensive than it was. We shared stories and immensely enjoyed our dishes, feeling oh so European due to the amount of time we sat and mingled after our food. The ambiance was as perfect as the pricing and we couldn’t refuse desert and I feel like my life would be significantly worse if we hadn’t. It was so, SO good. The perfect way to end a great vacation in Sevilla.

Falling in Love with Sevilla

2008-03-04T01:51:00.000-08:00

Part 3: Sevilla Day 1

It took about half an hour for me to fall completely in love with Spain via incredibly blue skies, white clouds and green pastures flying by through the train window. I took way too many pictures and made a playlist of songs that just made sense for the moment. I don’t know if it was just shock from being on a means of transportation that didn’t involve B.O. and snoring, but I was all about it. We made it into Sevilla and booked it to our hostel with the help of some locals and fellow travelers. It was another oasis and boasted free internet and a great rooftop lookout. We got settled in and headed out to find the biggest church in the world! Seeing this would of course take a lot of out of us, so we had to prep ourselves with some Ben & Jerry’s. The lady at the ice cream stand had quite a time dealing with all of our indecision, broken Spanish and overall gluttony. It was endearing how she just smiled through our struggling and genuinely felt bad that she couldn’t understand us while many other cultures would turn snooty in about .2 seconds. I have to say, Ben & Jerry’s translates incredibly well to Spanish and GOD it was good. We devoured our cones and passed an inordinate amount of Zaras, Mangos and H&Ms, again promising ourselves we’d be back. You know you have a problem when you pass H&M and almost want to go there instead of seeing one of the most famous churches in the world. We used some extreme will power and finally got to the church. All I can say is wow. Turret after turret combined to make a church worthy enough in charm and magic to be in any Disney movie. One thing I love about Spain is the power that a smile has. When you greet someone with a genuine smile and bright eyes they seem to appreciate it immensely, allowing you to slide by without a student card or get just a little bit more gelato on your cone. I think France is still working on that concept. Anyways, before entering the church Dana and I were trying to self-take a picture of us with the church in the background and a man from Canada came up to us and asked if we wanted someone to take it for us. Unfortunately he mistook us for a couple and in an effort to make us smile for the picture said “Think of something you two shouldn’t be doing together!” As a result the picture shows a mix of shock and awkwardly furrowed eyebrows on our faces and a beautiful church in the background. We entered and toured the gold adorned everything and were wowed again by the beautifully detailed high arching ceilings. We saw where Christopher Columbus was supposedly buried and marveled at the artistry behind the elaborate decorations. We took a trip to the top of the tower and of course made lame (oops, awesome) jokes about “Pedromodo”, Quasimodo’s long lost Spanish bell-ringing cousin. The views were amazing and somewhat enhanced by the somber gray Sevilla sky. After the tour, some of us made good on our promise and returned to the shopping plaza to whittle away our money on the Spanish H&M which we convinced ourselves was bolder and trendier so we wouldn’t feel bad buying things there.

Exhausted from shopping, sightseeing and general lack of sleep we napped for a little bit and all got ready for a night of tapas and dancing. I drank several beers and ate everything from octopus to quail eggs. Although I’m glad we tried it, I still have to say the simple but flavorful tapas of Alicante shone brighter than all the rest! Surprised by how late it had gotten we busted out of there to meet up with Liz’s friends and experience some wild Sevilla nightlife. We bought some not twist off beers and raced to the riverside to drink before the club. Liz and I drunkenly tried to open the bottles on every single metal object we passed by and I somehow got one of mine to pop off and spray all over the wall of a church, whoops! We drank in the shadow of the torre del oro and chugged our beers way too fast for our own good, rushing to get taxis to the club. We made it but unfortunately missed out on the free passes by a minute or two, and were promised free drinks instead. That didn’t happen. So 8 euros cover later and 10 euros worth of drinks later we were slamming wine juice boxes in the middle of the club, dancing to old hits from the early 2000s. Apparently things ended a bit too early for my liking and I pouted my way home after a girl stole the taxi we were going to take. I think I called her a d-bag, double oops. That’s how Emma, Alice, and some boy I christened “stripes” walked all the way through Sevilla back to our hostel. Stripes reprimanded me for picking an orange off the tree and told me it was silly to spend my life savings on gelato after I jokingly said I was going to do so. I think I called him a d-bag too. For some reason this trip made me quite fond of that word. Anyways, we made it home after a terribly long walk and we all just crashed with mixed feelings about Sevilla.

The bus ride from hell and the Granada that followed

2008-03-04T01:47:00.000-08:00

Part 2: Granada

With our spirits high from the beautiful trip to Alicante, Dana and I boarded the bus piling many an awkward seating mishap onto our list of great vacay moments. Finally in the right seats we prepped ourselves for the journey. The old man next to us seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with nuts and seeds as he chowed down on peanuts and spewed the shells all over my coat and bag. A few minutes into the ride he looks at me and offers me some of his sunflower seeds. I politely decline. Dana for some reason accepts, and he comes back to me. I shrug as in ‘No thank you’ but unfortunately cupped my hands at the same time, apparently giving him the impression that I wanted a sky high pile of them, there had to be 75 in my hand. I managed a smile and gingerly ate as many as I could, finding it harder and harder to stow the shells somewhere. When he finally closed his eyes I threw them all in my bag and prayed he wouldn’t notice that the crunching to his left had stopped. We really should have taken this as a sign that we should get off the bus but nah, it was just 2-3 hours on a bus to Granada right? We’d be there by 1, get to our hostel by 1:30, perfect. Here’s why that didn’t happen.

The man to our right continued to crunch on seeds.

The man diagonal from us in an orange corduroy blazer was snoring up a storm.

The man in front of us had unimaginable B.O. and was doing (no joke) arm stretches.

A little girl a few rows up was puking on and off for the entire ride.

An hour into the ride the little girl moved back two rows closer to us.

The ride was actually supposed to be 4-5 hours.

Our driver got lost, nearly inciting a riot led by a young Spanish man screaming a mix of English and Spanish curse words at him. We made out about 7 ‘Mother Fuckers!’ and 5 “Idiota!’s” before we figured we were going to die on this bus.

We finally rolled into the bus stop at around 4:30 AM and took an unhelpful taxi to a location a few blocks from our hostel and thanks to Katie’s directions made it to the street we needed to be on to find the place, but even with blangin’ directions…our exhausted minds could not comprehend how to find our hostel. We rolled our incredibly loud wheeled suitcases back and forth over the same cobble stone street 3 times before I decided to scout things out sans suitcase and finally found it on a bizarre poorly marked half street. It was now nearing 5 AM. We stumbled into the hostel and blindly accepted our two separate rooms, one with strangers and one with my friends. We randomly picked our rooms and said goodnight, crashing immediately.

I had set my alarm for 9 AM so I would be able to meet up with everyone and let them know we’d arrived before they left for sightseeing or whatever. I of course stayed in bed longer, awkwardly peeking out from under my covers every time someone walked by in hopes that it would be one of my friends. It never was. And they always noticed me quickly closing my eyes when I realized I didn’t know them. Haha in retrospect it seems terribly awkward, but in the moment it was 9 AM and I was exhausted. I crawled downstairs half expecting more strangers, but was pleasantly surprised to find Dana and everyone else in the same room!! She had of course continued the Peterson tradition, creating an awkward situation by waking up and softly saying the only name of my friends she knew…”sugarpants…??” We shared our story and heard about their weekend in Barthalona, all stoked to finally be together! The skies were gray but Granada was beautiful! Coder, Sugarpants and Liz went to get tickets to the Alhambra while we all waited around in the hostel. A few hours later, the soaked trio arrived, letting us know that a) it was pouring and b) we had to book it to the Alhambra to make our tour. With our new friend Phyllis in tow we trekked out into the rain to visit one of the most gorgeous sights in Spain. It’s impossible to summarize such a place in a journal entry, but I’ll do what I can. The views from the top of the hill alone allow your imagination to run wild, recreating ancient battle scenes or lavish garden parties thrown by Spanish royalty. The architecture and colors were absolutely gorgeous. It was enough to make me add ‘arches’ to my favorite things list. The red clay pillars stood in perfect symmetry surrounding the spiraling hedge mazes. Rectangular ponds reflected the marbling clouds in the open air courtyards and freshly blossomed orange trees happily gave off their post rain scent. The sun started shining as we exited the palace, which changed the day entirely. The flowers got brighter, the palace walls glowed a dusty orange and the clay tile roofs of the surrounding village created a colorful mosaic that will always come to mind when I think of Granada.

All a little more in love with Spain, we headed back to the hostel to get cleaned up and ready for whatever else the day had in store for us. We grabbed some lunch and Dana and I decided to do some intense shopping. Although we were warned that Granada wasn’t a great place to shop, we were completely caught off guard by the amount of very shoppable stores toting ‘Rebajo!’ signs in the windows. With an hour to go on, we browsed like champs but turned up nothing, swearing to ourselves we’d return ready to swipe away after buying tickets for the train to Sevilla the next morning. Once the group all reassembled we made the trek to the train station to purchase said tickets, which turned out to be a little bit of a hassle. On the walk back Dana and I spotted a fountain and veered off to take advantage of the beautiful post rain, exceptionally colorful Spanish sunset behind a large monument and fountain. We took our fair share of jumping pictures and headed back to the hostel ready for our welcome drinks and a tapas tour! After arriving at the first bar we decided to break off from our overly large tourist group and go to a smaller place so we could actually get our tapa on. As Rihanna played in the background Dana geniusly decided that the nights theme should be “Please Don’t Stop the Tapas.” We drank and enjoyed the free food that came with it, cursing the fact that we would never get drunk, but loving the fact that we were eating tapas! We moved onto another bar and kept on going, drinking and eating far too much but heading home early so we’d actually catch our train to Sevilla the next day.

Ten More Minutes?

2008-03-04T01:46:00.000-08:00

I guess it’s time to do what I should have been doing for quite some time now aside from French homework, education journals and archeology readings; recap Spain. Although I’m confident that our weeklong excursion to Espana was exciting enough to warrant a play by play recap, I don’t think my fingers or my memory can provide that at this point so we’re going to do highlights and the juiciest stories I can think of from each city.

One story I must tell in full though, my accidental journey to the beautiful coastal town that is Alicante, which is where we’ll begin.

“Ten more minutes.”

Waking up to travel after a wine night is never easy, but take my advice and get up after the first alarm and save yourself some potential trouble. We groaned and ignored that crucial reminder of important things to do that day and rolled over for Ten. More. Minutes. After a rushed goodbye with our weekend travel companion, ms. Zider, we realized how behind schedule we really were and booked it to the metro station. We had some luck in catching the actual metro trains but once we had to transfer to the RER and buy separate 15euro tickets with either change or credit cards we were in a different boat. We waited in various extra long lines, behind the most incompetent, single ticket at a time 6 person family on earth until we finally found that American credit cards were a no go. With less time than ever and a new sense of panic we ran to a nearby candy store where a woman first ignored us then told us she couldn’t make change. I tried to buy something and she said she wasn’t going to give us change and rolled her eyes at us. I barely managed to get out the door before calling her a cunt a little too loudly for the lady passing by’s comfort. Pressure situation, sorry. Dana got in line for the actual tellers and I ran upstairs to see what I could do. Miraculously found a short line and ran down the stairs waving our tickets like Charlie on his way to see Willy Wonka…except a little more frazzled. We got on our train and had a minute to breathe before we read that we were supposed to be there 45 minutes before hand to ensure we could board the plane. We finally arrive at Charles DeGaul with stress bitten nails and plots to act handicapped for their sympathy if it came down to it. (We’re not proud of it) Somewhere between two to four minutes after check in was supposed to end we made it to the counter. After a minute of waiting behind some people in the same boat as us, we got the pleasure of watching the magical word “Granada” disappear and flicker into “Barcelona”. After a drawn out phone conversation the lady at the desk smugly told us “No es posible” and told us we’d need to rebook.

Dana and I discussed this and with anyone else we would have been in freak out mode, but somehow we managed to laugh at ourselves just enough to keep from crying. We toyed with the idea of canceling our flights home and going somewhere crazy like Madagascar or Switzerland but after approximately 12 trips to the vueling airlines representatives we decided we should go meet up with Spain. Flying directly into Granada was not an option so we asked the man at information what we should do. He told us to either fly into Madrid and take a long bus ride to Granada or fly into Alicante sooner and take a 2-3 hour bus ride there. Had we been more savvy travelers we would have double checked his information before booking a ticket to an unknown Spanish city, but us Petersons tend to have unprecedented amounts of faith in strangers so we took his word for it.

Four hours later we were landing in what appeared to be a region populated by cacti and small huts, the Alicante airport. We should have known something was off when we retrieved our bags only to find mine laying in the middle of the conveyor loop, off the track. We stepped out into Alicante and were pleasantly surprised by the balmy temperatures and excessive amounts of palm trees. We smiled about it the entire walk to the rental car stand until the man looked at us like we were crazy for trying to find a bus to Granada. He told us we were in the wrong place and needed to take a bus to the city center of Alicante and look for one there. Information guy in Paris, I thought you were our friend! Instead of doing something productive we immediately started taking back all of the nice things we’d said about the man at the information desk, wishing bad things upon his family and sulking. With absolutely no idea of what bus to get on, where it would take us, and how much it cost, we stood in section C6 of the airport amongst happy Spaniards talking and joking light heartedly. I think that’s one of the most frustrating things about traveling, being completely stressed out and lost in a foreign place and being surrounded by happy, chatty locals. Anyways, somehow or another I got up the nerve to ask the girl sitting on the bench at the bus stop whether or not she spoke English and funny story, she did and was from Barington, a town quite close to Naperville! We chatted it up for awhile, played the ‘do you know’ game unsuccessfully and she told us she was studying abroad here and would take us to the bus station to buy our tickets. Thanks Morgan! She continued this streak of kindness by calling all of her friends to find out information about buses to Granada. It’s funny but for some reason, once we drove by the ocean I knew we’d be ok.

We got off the bus in a much more bumping area and Morgan walked us to the bus station, talked to the people at the counter and helped us book the next available tickets for 9:45PM…5 hours from then. We definitely picked the right person to chat up at the bus stop because she insisted that we return back to her apartment to put our stuff down for awhile and offered us food, drinks and a bathroom. Her roommates returned from their various weekend excursions and all showed similar hospitality. That’s how Katie and Morgan ended up taking us to their favorite tapas bar in Alicante. I don’t know if it was because I was incredibly hungry or if they really were incredible but the tapas we ate in Alicante were better than anywhere else in Spain. Papas Bravas, dates wrapped in bacon, and a tangy lemon chicken were the three Dana and I split and OMG they were amazing. From there we got a guided tour of Alicante from our lovely new friends, including a walk through the bar scene and past the gorgeous marina. We ended up at the grocery store to buy snacks for the bus ride. They pointed out all the best buys including WINE JUICE BOXES. When comparing our salty snacks and gummy candy to their fresh vegetables and fruit juices we looked like 5 year olds on their first trip to the grocery store with full reign over the cart, but oh well. The walk home turned into a discussion about high school musical (the universal pleasure) and the girls were absolutely shocked that Dana hadn’t seen it. We had about an hour to kill before leaving for the bus so while Katie wrote out a detailed list of directions from the bus station to our hostel in Granada, they had High School Musical set up for us to watch. It felt like we were being babysat and I absolutely loved it. Katie and Morgan proceeded to walk us to the bus station, assign an older Spanish couple also heading to Granada to watch out for us, and send us off with candied almonds and warm wishes. It was the absolutely incredible.

I knew people like this existed somewhere.

Holler atcha V-day

2008-02-14T06:19:00.000-08:00

As it rolled past midnight this Valentine’s day, Patrick Swayze was teaching Baby lifts in the lake in Dirty Dancing. I’ve recently re-realized how much I love that movie. One of the best for sure.

Anyways, the book we’re reading in one of my classes has a theme of ‘courtly love’ and in one of the chapters lists off The Rules of Lovecraft. There are 31 rules in total, most in old-tyme English. In honor of this oh so romantic holiday I’m going to give a little recap of these rules for all the modern provencal lovers out there.

Love shouldn’t be held up by anything, even marriage…but you should never have more than two love affairs at a time. To properly love you must be a jealous mess half of the time, and if it’s true love the jealousy will only enhance. Small things drive you crazy and you’re often insatiable when your ‘beloved’ can’t be yours. You turn pale when they walk in the room and can’t eat nor sleep when you can’t have them—you desire only their love and no one else’s and if it’s easy it’s probably wrong.

So there you have it, the chopped up and modernized version of what the old French romantics had to say on the matter of love. But in closing, here’s one more quote from the book that’s kinda beautiful and timeless the way it is.

In Provence, they somehow unconsciously believe that sincere loving polishes and perfects souls, just as they still believe that the eyes are the base of the soul…it seems quite obvious that the only rational occupation for a sane man or woman is to think about love—and to think about it profoundly and continuously, in full tapestry.

Happy Valentine's Day, have a grrrreat one!

Je m'appelle Greg et...

2008-02-13T09:10:00.001-08:00

Four stories.

1) So the other day I was walking to class, and some man probably a few years older than I approached me. I hadn't paused or made eye contact and I definitely didn't know him, but he proceeds to stop me mid-stride and start speaking to me in French. I awkwardly smile and shrug and he says "Ohhh, Anglais?" I nod and he puts his hand on my shoulder and grins, then asks me if he can try on my sunglasses? Haha I was way awkwarded out but I went with it anyways and he tried them on. He smiled and said "I look good right?" I flashed him a very confused thumbs up, he patted me on the back and I power walked my way out of there. I've seen French men be crazy and outgoing but normally in dark bars, to girls, at night...and none of those criteria were filled. How bizarre is that??

2) At dinner last night Madame T was questioning me on what French phrases I'd learned so far, so we went over the usuals...
Je m'appelle Greg, J'ai vignt ans, J'aime voyager, dance, et musique etc. etc. etc. Once those were worn out, Madame gets this little smile on her face and says (in French) I've got a phrase for you!
"Je m'appelle Greg, je dors trop tard et j'oblie prendre le petit-dejuner!"

Translation: My name is Greg, I sleep too late and forget to eat breakfast!

Oops!
Haha we all got a good laugh out of that, OH Madame, you old tiger you.

3) For a presentation in my Provence class I'm writing an essay on French trees and a book called "The Man Who Planted Tree" (sounds weird, looks interesting) and I decided to go to the local bookstore, Book in Bar to find it. I get there and the lady's face lights up when I ask for it and she scuttles off to go find it for me. Sadly, they were all out and they needed to reorder, but she asked for my name and number to put in their system so they could contact me when they got it in. Easy enough right? Wrong.
Who knew this process would require me to know my own phone number? Haha or even have the right number saved under 'me' in my address book. I embarrassingly gave her my number with a) the French country code b) one too few numbers
I had to call someone to have them call me back with my own number. She was laughing so hard at me, haha...whateverrrrr, we're kinda best friends now so I'm glad she has my actual number.

4) This entry was originally going to be called three stories, but tonight at the dinner table (of course) another awkwardly hilarious interaction occurred. The fourth and I believe final of Madame T’s children joined us for dinner tonight. We chatted comfortably for awhile in our respective broken languages and indulged in multiple helpings of Madame’s incredible meal. During the cheese course, Andrew went back to try more of a different type of cheese and young Monsieur T (probably about 45) tried to say something that required a dictionary referencing (which we always have at the ready next to the table). After a strenuous search, he looked up with a smile and said, ‘Greedy?’ ‘Fond of food’, ‘Good eats?’ He pointed to the French word in the dictionary and next to it was also ‘gluttonous.’ We got called fat by our host mom’s son!! Haha, I think it has a slightly different meaning here because he looked nothing but amiable when he said it, but it was still hilarious to try and produce the appropriate reaction to being called gluttonous at the dinner table.

Coasty McCoasts a Lot

2008-02-12T12:37:00.000-08:00

Before I forget or this gets terrible outdated...here's a recap of Nice, Cannes and Monaco.

I'm lazy, this may or may not have originally been an email to my family...

You really figure out how dependent you are on the internet when you're away from it for a day and a half and feel like it's been weeks. If not already evident, I'm back from the coast of southern France! It was a school sponsored trip which began by catching an early morning bus to Nice. Thankfully these buses were MUCH better than the ones we were in for our trek to Venice, so the ride was a breeze. As we neared Nice we got our first look at the Mediterranean, and it definitely did not disappoint. The water was so incredibly blue...it was unbelievable. Comparable or maybe even better than? the Caribbean.

Regardless, they dropped us off and it was like we had landed in some colorful, sunny utopia. The only way I can describe it is as a perfect fusion of South Beach, FL and old-time Italy. The buildings were so richly colored and the architecture switched off from quaint, bright, and old-worldly to bold art deco creations. Near the city center there was a market selling fresh EVERYTHING. I went on a sample spree running from basil pate to almond pastries, from sun-dried tomatoes to mini mandarin oranges. The colors were all so bright, my biggest problem was deciding whether I wanted to drop everything and become a food sampler or a food photographer.

We finally tore ourselves away from the market and decided to trek up to the highest point of downtown Nice where there were great views of the Med (after I bought some olives, carrots and oranges for a hiking snack of course) There was the option to take an elevator or the equivalent of probably 50 flights of stairs up to the top, due to my ADK training I opted to take the stairs, which ended up being well worth it. Every plateau we hit it seemed like it couldn't get prettier...then it would. The water changed colors and dropped off at certain points, making the view spectacular. We finally reached the top, broke out our food and appreciated the gorgeous day. Hate to mention it to the snowy mid-westerners but it was nearing 70 degrees and sunny. We toured an old cemetery, weaved down the huge hill, and eventually ended up back where we started passing by the market. We were pretty hungry at that point so we went to a nice little outdoor cafe and got some baguette sandwiches. From there we indulged in possibly the best gelato I've ever had, which led to one of the best moments in my entire life. Stepping into the sun on the coast of Nice eating the most rich chocolate ever it just hit me that all of this was really happening, haha simple pleasures I guess.

All a bit exhausted we boarded the bus and headed to a tour of a famous hilltop perfume factory. We walked through the building and after having our noses attacked by over 1,000 scents we got to climb to the top of an exclusive Medieval looking village called Ez. It was absolutely amazing, and we didn't even reach the top. The view of the coast and other hilltop villages is unparalleled. All stone buildings, cobble stone roads, tiny wooden doors and old fashioned lamps...I can't believe people actually live and work there! Dinner at one of the restaurants would put you back a couple hundred euro though...so I meant what I said about it being exclusive.

We got to our hostel and ate a comfortably American dinner of chicken and french fries...even though I'm digging the French cuisine, it was amazing to relapse back to inhaling ketchup covered fries three at a time. After dinner we got a little dressed up and took a bus to neighboring Monaco, where the rich and famous spend their nights hiding out in Monte Carlo casinos and trendy restaurants. In comparison with the old time charm we've encountered day in and out in Southern France, a modern ritzy city gave me a little bit of culture shock. It was beautiful (and impeccably clean) but I think I much prefer the smaller, more down to earth cities we've visited. After that we went to a discoteque where the highlight/low point involved me completely splitting my pants while dancing. Haha, it ended up being fine though, and I've got a friend who sews here so crisis averted.

Woke up early the next morning and drove to Cannes, home of the annual film festival. We did all the usual things, put our hands up to celebrity handprints, ate by the water, cruised the beach and had an amazing time. It was a Sunday so things were pretty low key, but it was another beautiful Southern French city I'd highly recommend visiting if you get the chance! The film festival isn't for another few months, but if I'm still here I'm thinking about stopping by. We'll see how it goes, weekends are filling up fast and I'm terrified of running out of time already!

Aix Musings

2008-02-11T07:35:00.000-08:00

God, France is beautiful.

I went on a coast trip to Nice, Cannes, and Monaco this weekend and it was absolutely incredible. After Venice, the two and a half hour bus ride home was a breeze; I listened to some music, had a little nap and took in the scenery. During the last 10 minutes of the ride I had a startling moment of perspective. The weekend had felt like a vacation, thus I felt like I was going home. For a second, ‘home’ confused me because it wasn’t completely disorienting thinking of Aix as the place that fills that term. It’s always weird freshman year of college the first time you call your dorm ‘home’ and take it back a million times because you have ONE home and it’s with your family. Maybe I’m getting better at adapting to things or it’s possible that I haven’t fully realized that I’m going to be in France for four more months, but one way or another I’m really ok with being here. I of course miss the people I love and the little luxuries of things like perpetual snacking and stand up showers, but I’m thinking that abroad was definitely the right decision for me. For some reason I’ve been feeling really inspired lately, like there’s something I should be doing…and that if I really want to, I could be good at it. I want to draw, and paint, and dance and play soccer and read and write and hike and explore, and speak French and do EVERYTHING.

Ahhh I just need to take a second and organize things.

So many dreams swinging outta the blue,

Well let them come true.

Oooops!

2008-02-08T01:35:00.000-08:00

Well it's finally happened, I've gotten more into post-dinner movies rather than post-dinner blogging...luckily I can quick fix it with one of my favorite things on earth.
A LIST, top ten list to be exact.

So here goes, the top ten notable things that have happened since I last updated

10) I watched a woman get dragged screaming into a police car on my way out this Tuesday night.

The police had the dogs out walking down the street with them and when they started barking, I knew something was going down. Then from across the street lights started flashing and she starts going crazy. I've never really seen anything like it, it was more intense than a lot of movie scenes. Yikes! Good thing I only had a bottle of wine in my hand and a beer in my pocket.

9) I got kicked out of at least one bar last week, and am now semi-infamous in Aix.

I pregamed with my own bottle of wine, then had 2+ pints of beer, 3 shots and god knows what else. All I remember before my tragic walk home is a floating head telling me I had to leave the bar. This story relates to number 8.

8) I realized that French people enjoy pranks as much as Americans do

So on that hazy Tuesday night last week, my other drunken half Emma and I were absolute MESSES. At one point someone ordered me a tequila shot and I said no (impressive, right??) so she took it back and told the bartenders I didn't want it, and they traded it for a different shot. Right about then a light bulb went off in Emma's head. "OMG let's trade water shots for real shots!!" It worked at first, then the bartenders got savvy and confronted us. We played the stupid Americans card and they walked away incredibly frustrated. After much convincing we went back this Tuesday for Lauren's birthday. We were at the bar, thinking everything was cool, patting ourselves on the back for making it back without anyone noticing us...then we let the bartender know it was Lauren's birthday and he was like 'OH! BIRTHDAY SHOTS!!" and he gives Lauren and Emma a shot. They take it and Emma is just like...that was...water? And the bartenders ALL start cracking up and high fiving, jumping around screaming AMERICANS: 1, FRENCH: 1, YEAH BABY, YEAH!! She got punk'd in France.

7) I danced all night in Piazza Saint Marco in Venice on Saturday.

Carnivale in Venice was probably one of the most incredible experiences of my life. We drove a total of 22 hours, bought Venetian masks, ate exorbitant amounts of gelato, laughed ourselves to tears, fell further in love with jam, toured the basilica, watched a costume competition, peed in every alley in Venice, and were part of the longest conga line in history. Oh yeah, and we were on Italian TV dancing like fools to Michael Jackson in our masks.

6) I've begun chronicling my relationship history.

So the other night I was a little homesick and I looked through an embarrassing amount of IM conversations, amongst them some with very old crushes, flings and boyfriends. I made a list of the substantial ones and begun typing up a storm. 5 single spaced Microsoft word pages later I was finished typing up brief anecdotes and long summaries of my love life up until college. It's become a project for me and I'm actually learning a lot through reexamination. Who would've thought, self-reflection really is cruc!

5) I cried for the first time abroad.

Nothing too serious, just missing people at home. Hey, I made it a couple of weeks right? That’s better than I expected. You can bash crying all you want, but I think it’s totally a legit thing to do every now and then. (Cut to a 50 year old Greg living alone with 10 cats, scheduling in his daily cry hour)

4) The sales in Europe are about to end.

I’ve loved walking to class every day seeing ‘SOLDE’ in absolutely every store window, and markdowns of 10-70%…but give it one more week it’s all over folks. I need to get my head in the game and make some big purchases while stuff is in (or somewhat kinda maybe nearby) my price range!

3) I got an A on my first French test!!!

That’s right, a solid ‘Tres bien!’ A! I could basically teach the language now, aka introduce myself to Jean-Paul and thank him very much for the package, both formally and informally.

2) The weather here is incredible.

Since the skies are always so blue here and it seldom rains, I feel like I need to get outside before things change…but then I realize it will only get better. The trees are all bare right now, but apparently when they begin blooming they create the most gorgeously thick canopy over roads and parks. I’m waiting, I’m ready, CANOPY ME. Oh PS, it's supposed to be 75 degrees in Nice this weekend and I'm visiting!!

1) I’m obsessed with French food

Every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday there is this amazing farmers market where dozens and dozens of local farmers bring in their wares for sampling and sale. I have a two hour break between classes where I stuff my face with fresh bread, cheese and carrots. The fruit and vegetables are better than any I’ve ever had, and after falling in love with French carrots, I’m really nervous to go back to the US. We’ll see how it goes. Plus, Madame T is like chef city and makes amazing meals every second of life. I’m trying things I would probably never eat at home. Politeness has turned out to be delicious.

I'll be gone for the weekend a la Nice and Cannes but after that I'm cracking down and making this blog more blangin.

2008-01-26T03:46:00.001-08:00

Friday, January 25, 2008

It’s officially been a week since I was shipped off from Chicago and I can’t even believe it. Experience wise I feel like I’ve been here at least a month, it’s out of this world! I had my very first French class today, and I’m feeling better about the language already. My pronunciation was nothing to write home about and I keep reflexively using a Spanish accent but the fact that I’m actually in a class learning the language makes me feel a lot better. The class only has about 10 people in it, which I’m sure will be nice in the long run, but made today’s individual pronunciations pretty intimidating. The professor is v. nice though and makes me feel like I’ll be able to rock it out if I practice a lot. After French, voila! I was done for the day. Hung out in the cave per usual and got a chance to read some of the emails from the fam! I’m glad they’re keeping in communication so well; it’s always nice to have a few newbies in the inbox.

During the cave time, we also continued the incredibly difficult task of planning our travels. Surprisingly we’ve made some important decisions and have a lot of booking to do. I’m not looking forward to the email my parents will send once they see how much traveling will cause our co-signed visa to be swiped. I’m realizing why people say study abroad goes so fast! In an afternoon I booked my entire February, weekend-wise. Care to hear my travel plans? Thought so!

February 1^st-4^th—Carnivale in Venice!

We leave Friday on a 10-hour, overnight bus ride to Venice, where gondolas replace cars and papier-mâché masks come alive! Apparently it’s all kinds of magical and I’m turbo excited to see it in action!

February 9^th-10^th—Coast Trip to Nice and Cannes

This one’s set up through the school. The brochure boasts of the narrow buildings, pastels and the promenade des Anglais in Nice. Cannes is supposed to have a pretty boisterous street life and beautiful waterfronts. Apparently a girl on the trip drank half a bottle of Jose Cuervo on the beach last year and almost got kicked out of the program, oops!

February 16^th—DANA PETERSON ARRIVES IN PARIS! I’m going to take the fast train out to meet her and hopefully Zider and co. as well! We’ll spend Saturday and Sunday exploring the city.

February 18^th-21^st—We’re off to Switzerland! Hopefully staying in Interlock (sp?) and enjoying some Swiss outdoorsy activities.

February 22^nd—Traveling back to Aix to show Dana around

February 23^rd—Day trip to go skiing in the Alps

February 24^th—Alas, Dana goes home L

February 27^th—Going to the ballet! We apparently get to do a meet and greet with a prestigious ballet academy touring the area. Maybe they’ll help me begin my career as a world renown ballet dancer!

We were pretty exhausted after all this figuring, so we decided it was time to picnic. With a gingham blanket, baguettes, brie, and wine we headed to a park to enjoy the beautiful day. It was the perfect way to spend the afternoon. But then comes the time old question, how can something be perfect without jumping pictures? You’re right, it just can’t be. To remedy this situation we all flocked to the nearby fountain and jumped our hearts out, producing some truly phenomenal photos.

From there began a lackluster treasure hunt which led to a much needed rest period. I bummed around and watched arrested while waiting for dinner. A couple hours later Madame T announced that dinner tonight would just be Andrew and I due to her prior engagement. She of course left us a magnificent multi-course meal in her stead. We sat down and ate, having a major H2H which was really nice. After that, I got ready for one of my all time favorite nights out.

WARNING: Drunk addition, read at your own risk

I sit here with red wine on my breath, nutella on my lips and global politics on my mind. Lauren, Emma and I took on our first real Friday night with a casual gusto that left us comfortably directionless. We walked with a purpose to nowhere in particular and just enjoyed each other’s company on our search for a late night grocery store to cater our wine needs. We eventually found one and bought a few bottles of red wine. After a discussion of life goals which included musicals and ballet Lauren returned from the liquor store to tell us of our newest gig; a position in a French film! Apparently, in a month or so we’ll be getting a call back as American actors in a film that will run in New Zealand, France, America and Singapore! Haha, it will probably be a way low budget weirdo thang but seriously, how ridiculous is that? We’re both pretty stoked and I can’t wait to see where this leads. Tell Zac Efron to watch out!

The Global Issue of Scrubs

2008-01-25T02:57:00.001-08:00

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Well let’s begin by wishing a happy birthday to Ashley! We got to ring in the big 2-1 at the local student bar, IPN. Since my day yesterday consisted mostly of sitting around with no class, we’ll start with the evening of January 23. At some point I got home and had another hilarious dinner with Matilde and Ahnd-rooh. Well it was basically us sitting with her while she ate that was a riot. She had this huge plate of noodles and was of course being ridiculously goofy whenever Andrew tried to fake steal any of her food. At one point we tricked her into getting out of her seat and Andrew took her place, causing this amazing video to occur. (See bottom of page)

After Matilde headed off to bed we began the real dinner, with Madame e Monsieur T and their son in law. Madame T did it again and served a knockout French meal of some delicious soup, a pork roast with a mushroom sauce and sautéed potatoes. I’m not even that huge on mushrooms, but omg I was piling them on my plate like there was no tomorrow. We ended with two new kinds of cheese and a fully stocked fruit bowl. Dinner ran late, so luckily I already had my outfit planned out for going out that night and I got ready in record time. On my way out I realized I had failed Madame y Monsieur T again by not bringing pictures of the family. Andrew was showing them his family and pets and since I have dad’s old computer, he deleted all the old stuff and left off my pictures so there would be room for all my new stuff. I’ll have Dana bring some pictures and such when she comes to visit…in less than a month!! Flew down the 6 flights of stairs and took the shortcut to the school and eventually to an apartment nearby to pound some wine and mingle with our fellow Wednesday night IPNers.

Met some new friends and jumped out the door to get our beer pong on because it was ‘American night!’ We all loved the advertisements for the night, ‘beer pong and the finest American hip-hop’. We should have realized that when people use the word ‘finest’ to describe hip-hop, they’re probably on a slightly different page. Since we were a little late for the beer pong we just cheered on our fellow IAUers, the die-hard team of Emma and Kathryn who were on a 5 game winning streak. Midnight struck and with it came two things; Ashley’s coming of age and HIP-HOP. Wished our girl a great one and headed to the oh so empty dance floor to get our groove on to “No Diggity”. Mhmm, that was the beginning of hip hop night and we were ALL about it, mainly because there was a pole on a mini platform in the back. I’ll take the liberty of calling myself a connoisseur of poles and let me tell you, this one was pretty good. Appropriate height, nice space around it and thin enough to rock out some sweet moves, but sturdy enough to feel comfortable. The girls and I tore it up for awhile, until Emma and I decided to walk around the bar for awhile until a good song came on. We had gone no further than 2 feet when “No Scrubs” by TLC came on and without a moment of hesitation we ran back to the dance floor. It’s good to know that TLC’s message about scrubs still rings loud and clear worldwide.

Boomsday.

2008-01-23T04:45:00.000-08:00

I’m really cool. I write mini book reports.

so....

A Book Report on Boomsday

The true test of a book’s power to engage is to bring it to a foreign country where there are endless new sights to see and tons of opportunities to explore the area. If you find yourself curled up in bed reading instead of roaming the streets of Southern France then I think you’ve got a winner on your hands. Boomsday, by Charles Buckley, the author of Thank You For Smoking is another political comedy that excels in the time old presentation of characters you love battling characters you love to hate. As far as my reading experiences go, it’s been the norm for male authors to introduce a male protagonist rather than a female. It’s refreshing to see Buckley’s dedication to the creation of a brainy blonde ‘PR chick’ with a hefty political agenda. His ability to maintain such hilarious and biting dialogue is commendable. The characters are totally eccentric and completely relatable to modern US politicians. It’s as if we as readers get to go behind the scenes of a chaotic election process and see what we all imagine politicians to be like off camera. Buckley made his humor rewarding by consistently connecting situations and creating small ironic twists purely for the enjoyment of the reader who catches the little things. Overall, Boomsday kept me laughing and always ready to dive back in.

Meet my new bestie, Nutella.

2008-01-22T04:08:00.000-08:00

POTD.

Monday, January 21, 2008

All I can say is that it’s been an amazing day to be in Aix. The weather was cold, the orientation was long, but the people are remarkable and the fam can’t be beat. I was once again woken up ‘way too early’ aka 8 o’clock to get ready for our first day of actual planned activity; orientation. ‘Showered’, ate a little breakfast and headed to the university! It was a little nerve wracking walking there, not really knowing what to expect, but I suppose that’s always the way it goes. On our way to the university we were intercepted by an employee and told to go to the building on the right. This building was actually a cave from medieval times. I swear I thought I was on set for Phantom of the Opera when I walked down the steps into a stone cavern with a yellowish glow. Andrew went to go sit with some friends and I just sat in the middle, ready to get the orientation over with. The director gave a rather moving speech about how he ‘found himself’ while studying abroad and hoped we could all do the same. Even though he was clearly reading off of a piece of paper, it was clear that what he said was genuine and that he really wanted us to be involved in becoming as introspective as possible. He recommended really driving ourselves into the culture and being as active as we could be. I plan on taking his advice and living it up.

Afterwards, I got to officially say hello to Lauren, a friend from high school and beyond who was actually my inspiration for going on this program. We got a substantial group together and had café in a little square near the university. It was tres French, haha. Actually tres American because we were pretty shaky in our French and all giggling at the adorable waiter we had. Anyways, from there I met some truly hilarious people and started getting a really good vibe from the program as a whole. My original predictions of an hour or two of orientation were completely off and we found out we would be there roughly until five, so that was a major downer. Before we set out on this momentous welcoming process we decided to get some lunch so we wouldn’t pass out somewhere in the middle of a tour. Grabbed some French sandwiches and were good to go. After that we went through some talks on housing, classes, and ‘how to survive at the university’. I’m hoping they’re giving a gung-ho tough introduction to scare the weak into submission…but you never know, we’ll see within the next few weeks. We are apparently not supposed to get intoxicated, but OOPS, I just broke that rule at the pub! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not like belligerent, but if I had to blow, I’d probably be above the level.

After all the orientation hoo ha was done some IAU-ers and I headed to Monaprix, basically the wal-mart of Aix. Went in looking for school supplies and was appalled to learn that the French, at least in Aix, only use graph paper! Either all the lined paper was sold out or they heart
graphing…either way I was not pleased. I got some extra bright, color-coordinated folders to make up for it. From there I tried to take a new way home but got dreadfully mixed up and ended up taking a round about shortcut that kinda worked out. Ran to the internet café shortly after that and finally got to talk to some people on AIM! It was nice that it 10 AM at home rather than like 4:30AM. Headed back to the apt. and Madame T was rushing to the hospital to see her new baby granddaughter! Very cute. Hung around for awhile, finished my book, then Andrew and the fam returned and dinner followed shortly after. At dinner, I had some of the most hilarious moments with Matilde yet. As previously stated, the girl is a riot. My two favorite parts of dinner were when she was attempting to grasp a fork properly and pick up a potato slice but couldn’t do it for about five minutes and then just threw her fork down, grabbed the potato in her fist and crammed it into her mouth. It was completely candid and adorable and I had to sustain my laughter. Second, since I am so poorly versed in French, Andrew, Madame T, and her son in law were in the midst of an intense political conversation and I have no idea what’s going on so I talk to Matilde. We’re finally gaining some understanding in our mutual agreement that ‘chocolate is yummy.’ I of course didn’t know how to say ‘yummy’ in French so I rubbed my belly when she said ‘chocolate’ and we both had a good laugh. The rest of the fam probably thought I was crazy, or handicapped, but it was a good laugh for me.

Lauren and I decided that going out was a must for the night, so at our early lunch we told some people to meet at the large fountain at the center of town. By the end of the day we had spread word to basically all of the group and large numbers of people were expected to be there. I headed towards the area shortly after dinner and the prediction of a big group was completely warranted. It looked like a street gang, except way less tough and way more disoriented. Luckily most of the groups split up and we had some smaller ones head to separate pubs. I basically loved all the girls in our little group so that was a major plus. I also decided to bootleg the old snowball cheesy pick-up lines routine Rachel and I did and use it for the Aix talent show with Lauren and Kathryn. They were all about it. We had some good conversations over a few pints of beer and headed back to our respective homes…AFTER the best moment of life involving nutella-covered waffles. In all honesty that may have to become a new staple in my life because really, it was fucking delicious. They ran out by the time I got there, but I had enough of Lauren’s to swear by it for the rest of my life. GOD it was good. Walked some ladies part of the way home, had some major trouble with the lighting and key situation and finally I’m in bed, ready for more orientation and CLASSES STARTING TOMORROW. Ay yi yi, never a dull moment. I completely love it though. Settled.

Tu e Cucol!!

2008-01-21T08:57:00.000-08:00

Sunday, January 20, 2008

I’ve decided to go by Gregory here. I much prefer the way ‘Ghregoree’ sounds to a struggled ‘Greg’. I think it makes it easier for them too…maybe. Regardless, since it’s only the second day, it shouldn’t be that hard to pull.

The day began with a knock on the door at what I assumed was very early and by whom I assumed Madame T. Wrong on both counts. 10:30 AM and Andrew were the correct answers. He was going to check out the internet café and then look for a phone but I was in no position to do the former at that time. I agreed to meet him around noon to look for phones and decided to shower before then. Things work a little differently here and by shower I mean sit in a tub with a handheld showerhead. It went pretty well after I figured out how to get a comfortable water temperature. After that I decided I was up for my first solo walk around Aix. It was another nice day but I was still a little nervous that young French street punks would make fun of my jeans or something. I guess I wouldn’t understand them anyways…but you know the scenarios you think up in your head when you’re unsure about something. I made it 1/3 of the way I’d gone with Madame T the day before and headed home. Baby steps, baby steps. Read some more then had lunch with Madame T and I have to say, I still just love cheese and it’s role in everyday French life.

By then I had definitely missed phone searching with Andrew so I decided to try the internet café myself and get in touch with the states. It was ‘free’ wifi but you’re allotted an hour and supposed to buy a drink. I ordered a ‘café’ got a shot of espresso and was ok with that. As long as I was caffeinated and had facebook I was happy. The further I travel, the longer I feel like I’ve been gone especially when I can’t check facebook every say, 20 mins? I always expect that first log in to have like 30 new notifications, but really I’ve only been gone a day or two. I spose I’ll have to deal with my two notifications. Andrew showed up at the café and internet-ed for a bit with me. Headed back shortly after that and had some down time until Madame T got up from her nap to take us exploring via her car. She ended up taking us to the mountains that Cézanne was famous for painting. Even though it was cloudy and you could only see the base of the mountains well, the way they lit up in the sunset made it clear why they became so well known.

One thing I absolutely love about France is the trees. It all began last winter break in Paris when we were in the gardens of Versailles and I took one of my favorite pictures ever…of French trees. I don’t know if it’s just winter or what but there is a certain type that has such white bark, I think Madame T called them platana something. Regardless, they are often planted in such straight lines which makes perfect tree lined lanes. I can’t wait until summer when they actually have leaves to canopy over the streets. Simple pleasures I guess. We walked around for a bit and I definitely want to go back around that area and hike around. Somehow I have no class on Wednesday so I plan on doing a lot of exploring. I’m excited to see if they have anywhere where you can rent a bike for a day or something like that. If so I am for sure renting one, packing a lunch and exploring…hopefully making it back.

The next big event was the arrival of the T’s daughter and son in law, who had their two daughters in tow. The parents were nice and thankfully understanding of my language incompetence and the daughters were adorable. Matilde was the oldest and I don’t think I can spell the second, Omarenu or something? Matilde was running around yelling ‘Cucol’ which translates to ‘silly’ or ‘mischievous’ It reminded me completely of arrested development. One of my favorite parts of that show is how each family member has a different sound for a chicken. Whenever someone calls Michael a chicken they accompany it with some obscure sound and I think Gob’s is very similar to ‘CUCOL, CUCOL!’ I loved it. Matilde was a riot and was just in the beginning of learning English, so she knew words like ‘crocodile’, ‘elephant’, and ‘dog’. We played with her, talked with the dad and drank some licorice tasting alcohol that is supposedly famous in Marseille. I feel like mom would have liked it more than I did, but it wasn’t bad. Apparently you’re supposed to add water to it, but I thought he was just pouring a small sample so he poured the straight alcohol and I went to drink it and everyone was like ‘NO!!!’ Oops! I was gonna take it U of I style. Probably would have either killed me or brought me back to New Years Eve in Berlin (aka near death via straight booze) We ate dinner, played with Matilde some more and at the end of the night we got a ‘Night Americans!’ from her, which was amazing. Early start tomorrow, ahh! orientation for school. I’m excited to be starting but still semi nervous. More so about what to wear than the actual school part but you know how it goes…first day of school jitters. I can’t wait to get the excursion schedule and find out when I can go where! There will be much to report tomorrow I’m sure, so I think I’m gonna read some more and maybe watch a bit of Ryan’s slideshow and hopefully not get too homesick.

An American boi in France pt. 2

2008-01-20T05:19:00.000-08:00

Back in the airport we were greeted by an incredibly cheerful IAU worker who I can only describe as being like an older more enthused version of the lady who ran Madeline’s orphanage in those stories…Madame Clevelle? Haha, I’m not sure entirely why she reminded me of her, probably because I’d find out that a whole lot in France reminded me of those silly little (wonderful) books. We got our luggage without too many hitches and rounded up our substantial group to catch the bus to Aix! Did a little mini meet and greet while we waited for the bus and eventually got out there. It was gorgeous and pretty green for being winter, definitely did not make me miss the freezing cold of Chicago. However, the weather in Chicago did come in handy because with the complete language barrier all I had to do when someone asked me where I was from was say ‘Chicago’ and hold myself and pretend to shutter. 9/10 times people got it right away and chuckled, most likely due to my heinously over exaggerated gestures.

After a quick bus ride we pulled up to a median and saw hordes of adults, from middle aged to older couples—our new parents. It was the most adorable sight to see them all holding up printed off signs of our names and bumbling around excitedly waiting for their new American houseguests to step down from the huge bus with tinted windows. It was finally my turn and I was led to an adorable woman, probably about my mom’s age wearing cropped white riding pants, black boots and an artfully placed black waist belt. On the up side, she was trendy and smiley, on the down side she spoke no English and I no French. My new Madame Clevelle was very worried about this arrangement for the entire 30 second walk to the car then she shooed me in and said ‘Au revoir, see you Monday’. The car ride was pretty but a little bit uncomfortably silent. She tried to point and explain some things in French but in my dazed and completely unfrench state all I could muster up was a weak ‘oui’ every now and then.

We drove from open highways to cramped parkways to ‘omg are we going to make it through’ alleys. In one of these alleys was my new home. We got my bags out of the car and walked up to a huge very regal door adorned with gold plating and accents. We entered into a humongous checker floored, entryway. After three flights of stairs with my enormous bag we reached the apartment and it was probably the most exciting moment of the trip thus far. She opened the door and

OMG.

I’m living in a wing of Marie Antoinette’s palace.

I was in awe as we toured the place. We walked down the long corridor that was comparably sized to a floor on a motel, with doors on either side. On the left we passed the two bedrooms for Andrew and I, the toilet, her son’s room, the bathroom, a storage room and the kitchen. Then on the right there was a storage room, her room (amazing), a large dining room, and the salon. It was absolutely gorgeous. Since the weather was beautiful, the windows were all open airing out the house and making the curtains billow. The rooms had large mirrors with gold designs elaborately swirling around them, and had a darker reflection making me feel less like a ghost from central Illinois. Large still life paintings hung above display boxes of French soldiers, eliciting the feeling of being in an art museum. Large, lavish couches and loveseats were artfully spaced throughout the salon, complimenting each other with their summery shades of green, yellow and gold. My absolute favorite part was the view from the entryway. The sun was shining through the large open windows, casting a glow on a small wooden desk that sat in front of one of the five (that I’ve seen so far) fireplaces in the apartment. On top of the desk sat some paperwork, a few books, and no joke, a feather quill. The combination of the feather quill and the antique gold mantle above the fireplace made me want to cry.

Madame T (as I’ve decided to call her here) then had to move the car, so I had the overwhelming job of picking a room. I kept telling myself that it was not a vacation and that I’d have to live with this decision for four months. Before she left, I think she saw me running back and forth from the rooms at least 80 times…she must think I’m absolutely insane. The first room was smaller, but well lit by the windows and glowing from the simple bright furniture. I liked the fact that it was well lit, but it had a smaller desk and no mirror (the biggest factor). The other room was much more royal, possibly a study before it turned into a guest room. There was a large bookcase with antique looking books bearing gold covers. It was darker than the other room, with a large wooden desk and a much more open floor. There was a grandiose mirror and the bed was in the corner. I no joke, continued to run back and forth, nearly hyperventilating at one point, until finally I came to a decision. The small bright room was going to be my home for the next four months. Settled. In the end it came down to color scheme. I decided if I ever got terribly homesick or upset about something, I’d much rather come back to a sunny bedspread than a cavernous though regal room. The mirror was a big factor but I guess it made sense to choose sanity over vanity. (LoLz) Plus I found out if I leaned over the glass coffee table at a certain angle I could catch a decent reflection.

After I had a substantial enough freak out about the apartment, I unpacked all my things and got the room as cozy as I could, noting I'd packed minimally other than clothes. I made a mental note to go print out some pictures somewhere and give the place a little bit of Illinois love. Madame T returned and asked me to join her for lunch via soft-spoken French and universal signals such as spooning air food into her mouth. I followed her to the rustic French kitchen and watched her whip together plates of bread, meat, and various cheese. Thankfully she ate with me so I didn't have to just sit there chewing and smiling with nothing to say. I think I got the message across that I love cheese, I'm sure something along the lines of 'j'adore' fromage!' made her giggle internally, but I think she knew I was trying.

We went on a short walk afterwards and I think I'll be able to fall in love with this area very easily once I start getting at least a foundation for the language. The streets are lined with shops and I've become very familiar with the term 'solde' (sale) Apparently January is a BIG month for liquidating everything, and I have absolutely no problem with that. It was cool to get to walk around everywhere and just take the area in. We went to the university, saw countless fountains, and stopped into an art gallery. Overall a nice way to introduce the country.

Ah, well I have like a second of internet left but still to come is the introduction to my housemate, my first French dinner (with family friends) and learning how to use the tub.

Au revoir!

(I swear I won't use broken French salutations in all my posts, but it's still new to me so I'm gonna embrace it)

** As to not get totally confused, here's the rest of what happened that day, beginning with meeting Andrew (or ‘ahnd-rooh’ as would be pronounced)

Ahnd-rooh arrived in the early evening and with the intense amount of stairs they needed an extra set of hands to grab some of the luggage. I brought a bag up and Madame T went to move the car. Andrew and I went through the normal pleasantries then mused at the incredible apartment. I walked him through what I’d been shown the day before and was wowed even more. From there it was basically do your thang until dinner. So far, all of my down time has consisted of reading ‘Boomsday’, a political comedy about US finances and the social security crisis. It’s funny and interesting and I think I’m going to check out some other books from this author. On our visit to the university yesterday I saw that there was an ‘American library’ so I hope they have fiction because at this rate I’ll be running through books fast.

Shortly after I met Monsieur T and I think the best word to describe him would be ‘jolly.’ He’s very talkative so I am constantly kicking myself for not knowing the language better/at all. The language barrier is definitely smudging my usually pretty decent conversation skills. I hope they don’t think I’m distant or haughty because of my confusion. I think I’ve had two expressions here, one where my brow is wrinkled looking for understanding or two, where I have a smile plastered to my face hoping I was just told a joke. This gives me the perfect foundational drive for learning the language though! Nothing like awkward situations and a desire for conversations in one language (not frenglish) to get you motivated. Shortly after, guests arrived making me even more aware of how little I could speak. Dinner was delicious; Madame T is quite the cook. I felt awful when people would try to ask me things and I’d respond with a strained expression and muffled words. It was nice to see the host parents interacting with their friends though. They definitely seem very laid back and funny, which is always a good thing. By the end of the meal Andrew and I were pretty exhausted so we headed to bed. I attempted to write a little bit more but gave in to my slight headache and comfy bed.

An American boi in France pt. 1

2008-01-20T05:13:00.000-08:00

So it’s finally actually happened. After two flights, a sleepy layover and a delayed bus ride here I am in a gorgeous, airy bountifully windowed French apartment. Surprisingly the travel portion turned out to be a breeze, but per usual the frantic pre-flight preparation left me running around like a maniac. My favorite R’s were obviously over until late last night (welcomely) delaying my packing, so by 2 AM after a long convo with the boy I finally began to take things seriously and whip my bag into shape. Little did I know it would end up weighing in at 30 kg…just a litttttle beyond the limit, but we’ll get to that part later.

Once that thing zipped up there was no way anything else was getting done that night so I made a checklist with no less than 30 tasks to complete before noon the next day and set my alarm for a way too soon 8 AM. The next morning the fam, off to their various work places popped into my room with the dual purpose of actually getting me up and saying goodbye. I was bleary eyed and sleep deprived so I was a lot less heartfelt than I would have liked to be. Actually, as a whole I think my goodbyes were almost a cop out. I still feel like this whole thing is just some crazy wild NOT four month vacation and I’ll see everyone within the next few weeks. It will be interesting to see how I do once I actually catch on to the actual longevity of the trip.

After enjoying one last American shower I lazily crammed my other bag full of a bunch of crap I may or may not need and called it a day. By then it was noon and after a few more phone goodbyes I was on my way to the airport. My nervousness peaked when we drove up to the international terminal and I had to hand over my phone to my mom who is for whatever reason the only individual on earth who doesn’t have a cell phone. She basically just waits for one of us kids to go on a long trip overseas where we won’t need it, which recently has given her a phone for many months out of the year. Mom went to park the car and I waited in line to check my bags. The lady at the desk was a little shocked at the weight of my bag and asked if there was any way I could transfer some of that weight to my smaller bag so she didn’t have to charge me an additional fee. So my mom and I step to the side and unzip the beasts that were my suitcases, crawling around on our knees trying to cram, and move and switch all kinds of things. I ended up changing shoes and adding a scarf to my already bulky outfit. The bag lost a little weight and she waved us over, acknowledging our effort and not charging us. After that my nervousness quickly receded and was replaced by my first wave of exhaustion. Pathetic, I know, I’d only been up for like four hours but hey, they were grueling. Of course I messed up and didn’t bring a zip lock bag and had to go back through security to scavenger around O’Hare shops until I found one to save my cologne. When I ran into Ashley, another girl from the trip sitting with her family in the waiting area I realized I was a little early to be getting ready to board, but oh well, security set me back a little bit.

Using travel techniques mastered in Egypt I bought the biggest bottle of water I could find with some gum and took a seat right by the gate. Ashley and Lindsay from the program showed up shortly after and we were getting pretty excited about all of this actually happening. Skimming a US weekly during this waiting period also informed me of some of the most crucial news I’m sure I’ll get for quite some time. ANTM cycle ten (I think) airs in mid-February. Gosh, it’s going to get expensive to fly home every Wednesday and watch it with Patrick.

The plane ride was pretty lackluster. I slept for a good chunk of it and managed to wake up for a dinner that for me just allotted to bread and cheese. I also caught The Nanny Diaries and overall I’m not entirely sure how I felt about it. Actually I am pretty sure. I didn’t really like it. It was way predictable but I guess Scarlet Johansson did a pretty dec job. Anyways, after more airplane seat contortionist napping we arrived in Milan for our layover where shocker, I fell asleep again. Boarded the plane and boy did I pass out. I even missed the snack this time. Thankfully I was coherent enough at the end of the flight to look out the window and see our amazing entrance into France. Mountains and villages and varied shades of farmland making a patchwork pattern from the plane, in short, it was beautiful. Then beautiful got redefined when we stepped off the plane. I was wearing a hoodie and a puffy vest and felt like I could have gone without either. It was incredible. It was like ‘fresh’ had been sucked out of everywhere I’d ever been and power launched at me as I stepped off the plane and I loved it. Brought me back to my old pancake café accidental saying, ‘keep it fresh, keep it fresh.’ (If I had blog footnotes I’d tell the story about how an old man joked about putting ketchup on his pancakes and I didn’t get it, then he said something about it being a joke and to their bewilderment I smiled and said ‘keep it fresh, keep it fresh’)
Ooh la la, I'm in France!!
I haven't had internet yet, so I've been journaling a la microsoft word and I'm now transferring that to this, so I'm gonna try and split it up to not make it too brutally long. Thus ends the journey to France, coming soon..the first day.

20 years of Christmas

2007-12-24T22:57:00.000-08:00

The transition from childhood to adolescence is certainly one that promises no subtlety. Obvious changes occur quickly and often uncomfortably, leaving you well aware of their presence, but some transitions are more gradual and you don't realize the change until it's already complete,
Like Christmas.
I didn't note the first year I was able to sleep through the night without waking from excitement, it wasn't a shock that I started staying up later than my parents on Christmas Eve, and I can't even remember how many years it's been since I'd have preferred a toaster to an action figure. As a kid I'd be shocked as my teenage sisters moaned and groaned when I finally dragged my parents out of bed on Christmas morning. Didn't they understand that it was Christmas? The single most magical day on the planet? I promised myself I would never waver in my Christmas commitment, but I fear I've let little Greg down.
I have to admit though, I have been somewhat aware of this change over the last few years. Spending much of the Christmas season at college was probably one of the major catalysts in this process, introducing finals and cramped dorm rooms into the picture. There was only so much a mini Christmas tree and a strand of lights could do in a room about the size of a shoe box.
The last week before Christmas would leave me in a panic, trying to squeeze any and every holiday activity into my work-laden schedule. By Christmas Eve I'd always plan for a much more involved, strictly regimented Christmas spirit schedule for the next year.

This year I have a kinda different take on the matter. From where I see it, it's easy (not to mention completely wonderful) to look back on previous years and remember a cozy blur of red and green amid perfect snowfalls coupled with a big cup of hot cocoa, but really other stuff was going on then too. There were fights and exams and projects and colds, busy schedules and exhausted parents. For some reason though, Christmas memories always seem to make the good overshadow everything else. I'm getting off track here, but my main point is that Christmas spirit doesn't have to be an all encompassing, full season thing. It's about the little moments that make you think back to earlier years, falling in love with snow all over again, and realizing that sometimes time with family is better than any gift you could get.
My Grandpa was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease a few years ago, and this holiday season has been the first where that's really hit home. He has good and bad days, but recently he's become disoriented more frequently. It's just him and my Grandma in the house they raised four kids in, hours away from the rest of the family, and the other day he didn't know who my Grandma was. She called my aunt crying, saying that she just knew it would be his last Christmas. While opening presents today he got a framed picture of my cousins and could only remember one of their names. He's always been an independent man and you can tell that this is incredibly hard on him. He put the picture down and said that while his memory wasn't so good with names, that didn't mean he didn't love any of us any less.
It scares me to be going abroad at a time where his health is so questionable, but also made me much more aware of how my family interactions have shifted. Christmas in previous years would always mean getting to the house and running past the adults to my cousins so we could sneak cookies and play games until present time. We'd grudgingly partake in a toast and squirm through home videos and tear at our packages without looking at names. With this year's celebration fresh in my memory, the differences are startling. My uncle put in a video of Christmas a few years ago, and I'm so glad I looked around the room because I haven't seen my Grandpa smile that wide in months. The toast to a Merry Christmas and insistence of 'clinking' every glass has become endearing rather than annoying, and I'm in no rush to dart off to the TV anymore as soon as I finish with my gifts.

Overall, all you can do is take whatever little things you can from the season. Don't take family time for granted, spend some time by the Christmas tree and if you've got somebody special, kiss 'em under the mistletoe with all the Christmas spirit you've got.
So yeah, the way I see Christmas has changed, but in all honesty I wouldn't have it any other way.