DONE.

05.13.09

DONE! Classes are done. Exams are done! And now I have two days left to enjoy Montpellier. Most everyone from our classes went out last night, and we celebrated big. It is bittersweet though, since a majority of them I will most likely never see again, unless I happen to make a trip to Sweden or Germany in the future (this definitely is on my to do list). Vero is adorable and decided she wanted to cook dinner for my family when they come! She is planning on making duck for our main entrée and some type of cherry cobbler for dessert! She also told me she wanted to get a bunch of cheeses for them to try and keeps asking me what they like to drink. She went out and bought whiskey and coke today, not sure if the fam is big on this but she is sweet for putting in the effort. She even bought me some canned duck from the south of France to bring back to the US!

Our whole language and culture gang is going out to dinner tonight at a nice restaurant to say our goodbyes and farewells. I am actually getting sad, and realizing that it may be quite some time until I come back to France again, but maybe my life may surprise me and I will end up here sooner than I think. Until then, I have a little over a week in France to explore and enjoy it! I am really looking forward to seeing Paris again, and especially going to Versailles! The gardens should be blooming away; I’m sure it will look surreal. Tomorrow I legitimately have to start packing, let’s hope I can get everything to fit! We are going to try to check out a Palace tomorrow that is in Montpellier, that we just found out about. It shall be an adventure!

PARENTALS: 2 days!

Last week?

05.10.09

Time is officially winding down, with all classes being done and only two days of finals to go! My first two finals were interesting to say the least. The first was hard, with only 14 questions discussing random facts that our prof had barely gone over. The second was a breeze, since our professor told us what to study and it was pretty straight to the point. I’m hoping they balance each other out, but we will see!

The integrated kids (the other program within ours), mostly all left today! It is crazy how fast time flies, since it feels like this semester just started. The kids in our program leave Friday, with many people taking the group flight at 6 am. My fam gets in around 1pm Friday (5 DAYS!) and I am meeting them at their hotel! I seriously can’t wait to see them, and especially for them to meet my French family! Vero has officially marked their visit on her calendar, so this made me happy she wouldn’t forget.

I basically lived at Maddie and Lauren’s apartment this entire weekend, along with Lexi and Mare. This was our last weekend together, a little bit sad! We all go to the U of M, except for Mare who goes to Penn State. It is going to be awesome to be able to hang out on campus, and we are obviously going to make a trip out to Pennsylvania soon. Mare actually already has a flight booked to come to MN this summer for Lexi’s bday in July, which all of us are already looking forward to. The weather this weekend was unfortunately not too nice, so we couldn’t make any beach trips, but we definitely made the most of it! I am so thankful for the wonderful friends I have made, and am so fortunate that the majority of them live so close. All in all, I am ready to go home, but I am definitely going to miss France, and my crazy French fam. Even though Vero wasn’t around all the time, I still thoroughly enjoyed my time with the boys, their crazy three pets, and Vero’s spunky self. Last week in Montpellier starts now..!

Les jours final.

05.05.09

The weather this weekend was absolutely gorgeous! I was so happy I was not traveling and was able to enjoy it! Friday was Labor Day, Le Fête du Travail. It is apparently a huge deal and everyone was off of work! This included the tram workers, thus there were no trams the entire day. This was a bit of a pain, but I enjoyed the nice walk into town, taking me around 40 minutes. Maddie and I grabbed some delicious gelato and were able to observe a crazy parade! I am still not quite sure what it was for, but everyone was dressed like peasants, playing various instruments and frolicking around. It was amusing to us, and everyone else seemed to enjoy it too. There was an abundance of people in Montpellier this weekend, especially around the main Place de la Comedie. We spotted many French tourists, this being couples and families taking a quick vacation to the southern part of France for their long weekend. All in all, I was able to get some much needed sun in everyday. The man who served my food at lunch today even commented on my bronzed skin…woo!

I was also able to go out with my class this weekend! There are about 15 of us total who comprise B1 group 1, and around half of us made it out. It was enjoyable to see everyone out of the classroom environment and have a little fun! I learned a few things about my crazy classmates, including: Gia from Vietnam is 31 years old, Ming-y from Taiwan is taking up a job offer to be a web designer in California for the summer, and Soojee is staying in France for 6 years to complete all of her studies here! My class is great and I am going to miss them! This Wednesday morning we are headed to the Zoo to have a pique-nique (picnic) with our entire class, and two of our teachers. It will be a bit of a last hurrah to the end of classes and right before our finals start!

FAMILY COUNTDOWN: 10 days!

2 weeks to go!

04.29.09

This past weekend was hands down one of my favorites so far in France. Don’t get me wrong, I loveeee traveling, but it was so great just to relax after our long adventure. Mare and I basically spent the entire weekend at Maddie and Laurens, just hanging out. Saturday we made tacos, could life get any better? This weekend, the majority of my program is headed to Barcelona, Spain. I decided not to go, since I already went to meet up with my girls abroad. Lauren and Maddie are not going either, so we will basically have a repeat of last weekend, with a little studying for finals mixed in. Vero informed me yesterday that she ‘might’ be gone Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and return Sunday. Her ‘might’ quickly became affirmative, but she said that she would make me meals for every night she would be gone. She usually makes way too much food, thus Mads, Lauren, and I can hopefully have a feast!

Last night Lily and I rode the tram home and an adorable British lady in her mid twenty’s started talking to us. She had just arrived to Montpellier last Saturday, and was so happy to hear ENGLISH. We were able to comfort her, tell her we have been living here for about 3 months, improving, and loving France! It is crazy to think that we were in her exact situation such a short time ago; trying to meet friends, yet now we are able to help out and give advice.

2 weeks from Friday my parents come to Montpellier! I am soo anxious for them to come and can’t wait for them to meet the fam. I told Vero they were coming, and she seemed excited! Let’s just hope she doesn’t plan an extravagant dinner out with Pierre for the same day. The plan so far with the rents is to stay in Montpellier the first night, then train it out to Avignon for a night, and then make it up to PARIS! This will be my mom’s first time to Europe, and for both, their first time to France, so I really hope they enjoy it!

Before I can get too excited though, I have to get through my finals! I have my two optional class finals (Civilizaton of the South and Culture et Patrimone), in which the final is definitely not optional. We were given an overview of what we need to study for one, but not the other. We have our last class tomorrow, so hopefully we can get things cleared up before next Thursday! As for my other classes, we have a 3 hour Comprehension Ecrit final the following Monday, a 2 hour Grammaire Final on Tuesday, followed by a 1 hour Comprehension Orale, where we will listen to a reading and answer questions. I still have no idea where my grade stands in any class, but hopefully the fact that I am one of the few who goes everyday will help!

Until then, BIS!

Part deux- GREECE!

04.24.09-GREECE!

Athens. Santorini. (April 13-18) Our flight was incredibly nice and relaxing, we were even served lunch! We arrived in Athens, took an hour and a half bus ride in attempt to find our hostel. We met a really cute woman who lives in Athens, but is originally from England, who explained to us how to maneuver around and where to buy ferry tickets. Even with her help, we got a little lost, and scored a taxi. Athens is so lively, and there is a ton to see and do! After meeting up with our other friends (Mare, Lexi, and Lauren) we made our way to the Acropolis and Parthenon. It was crazy to see something soooo old, and still intact. The views from atop were once again incredible of the city, and we stayed until it began to get dark.

We caught an early ferry to Santorini in the morning, leaving the port around 7:30am. It took 7 hours, so we arrived around 3pm and were greeted by the adorable family of Villa Alizia. The women who owned it were so adorable, and only spoke a little English. They were hilarious and would smile franticly at us from afar, and even made us breakfast in the morning. I don’t think any of us could believe we were in Greece, it was so different and I could live there in an instant. The picturesque views, incredible sunsets, and delicious GYROS (we quickly became obsessed with lamb and baklava), were only a few of the great wonders of Santorini. Our hostel was located in Fira, the capital city of the Island, and where most of the action was. That day, we took a boat ride out to a volcano and to some hot springs. The views from the volcano were amazing, minus the fact it started raining, but it cleared up quick! Maddie, Nick, and Lauren jumped into the ‘hot spring’ from our boat, in all of their clothes! We were not informed we were going to be able to swim, so I did not prepare/dress appropriately! They claimed it was freeeezing and that the hot spring was maybe near the means of ‘warm’. We were also able to take a two hour donkey ride around the city, thanks to our friends at Villa Alizia. It was so much fun, and at various points our donkey leader, decided to gallop away, kind of terrifying, but ridiculously fun. The night life was hopping on the island and it was great to catch up with our other friends and hear about their adventures. We rented ATV’s the next day, an incredible deal for only 15 euros for an entire day.

We explored 3 different beaches, including two black and one red sand beach. Driving the ATV’s may have been my favorite thing, even though they did not go that fast. We were able to see amazing views of the coast, and it was so easy to get from place to place. Our plans were interrupted when our ferry to Ios was cancelled, due to an ‘accident’ with another boat. Our delightful ladies at our hotel, told us we could stay another night, which was a relief! I’m so happy we had another day in Santorini, where we were able to explore Oia, and see the sunset (where they filmed sisterhood of the traveling pants!) and lay out on the beach. We actually all got a little color, since it was incredibly nice! Every dinner we had in there was absolutely delicious. We tried all of the Greek specialties, even the flaming cheese and ouzo! Santorini was incredible; I don’t think I can say it enough. AND I neeed to go back to Greece sometime/hopefully more than once when I am older. We took an overnight ferry back to Athens, where we got in around 6am. Only problem was that we could not check in our hotel until 10am, so we dropped off our bags and grabbed starbucks and chatted for a few hours. We split up after we checked in, since a few of us wanted to shop, a few to see the new Olympic stadium, and a couple to nap. I was involved in the shopping crew, and definitely did quite the shopping! There was so much to see and look at in all of the stores and even down the streets. We ended our trip with a delicious family style greek meal, and got a few hours of sleep before our adventure began in the morning! Waking up at 3am and getting home at 3am, was not ideal, but we did it! Overall, I am still incredibly exhausted, but I had the time of my life, with awesome new friends! I am very sad it is over; it literally went by so fast. Hopefully I will get to venture back to Italy and Greece one day!

Being back in France is a little crazy, since we haven’t spoken French in over 2 weeks and it seems like we have been gone for around a month. I was greeted by Arthur when I arrived home with 3 bisous, and it was great to see the fam! Vero came home later, but I was greeted first by her best friend, Katrine, who is in town from Strasbourg for the week. She is gorgeous, straight outta Vogue, and is very friendly. Vero told me Katrine is dating a man who doesn’t speak French, but only English and German. She doesn’t speak German, thus they speak English. This seems a little crazy, but I guess they are teaching each other! Quick update on Vero. She is now dating a man named Pierre, hence why she is hardly home! I met him before I left for break, and he seems nice, so I’m happy! I have received delicious meals so far this week through from her friend Katrine, since Vero has been out on some hot dates. ALSO. I half got scolded today. I was the last one to leave the house and locked both locks, out of habit. I somehow managed to forget that the boys don’t have the key to the top lock, thus they were locked out of the house! I felt bad, but it was an honest mistake, so nothing I could really do!
This weekend should be relaxing, since I’m staying here, and hopefully saving a little money! The weather is supposed to be nice, so hopefully we can spend the weekend at the beach!

CIAO my loves!
… I officially have one month left in FRANCE!

Trip of a Lifetime-Italia

04.22.09

WE finally made it home! 24 hours of traveling, all modes of transportation taken, including a broken down train, but we arrived! Our last train from Nice to Montpellier literally broke down 2 hours into the ride, and we were stuck in the middle of NOWHERE France, in the dark. We were a little bit scared, first of all since it was getting dark and we were stuck in a forest. AND our train kept making bizarre creaking noises; basically we were partaking in a new horror film! 2 and a half hours later, we somehow miraculously started moving after the problem was fixed, and arrived home by 2:30 am. Other than this minor flop, this was the best trip/SPRING BREAK I have ever had!

We (me, Maddie, and Nick) started our wonderful adventure in Monte Carlo, with a 3 hour layover to explore. It is seriously unlike any where I have ever seen; kind of surreal. Monaco is the second smallest country in the world, and we literally walked the entire width within a few minutes! We tried to check our bags, but since the train station is so small, lockers did not exist here. Thus, we had to truck our bags across town looking like MAJOR tourists, but life was good. It was gorgeous weather and we were starving, so we opted to find a little sandwich shop. This was not as easy as you may think. We started walking by the shore, only spotting huge yachts, expensive seafood joints, and pricy designer labels. We finally came across the local ‘mall’, where a giant escalator took us down to find a gorgeous shopping complex, while chandeliers covering the ceiling. We found a sandwich joint and took them to the park to enjoy the weather and people watching. Every blade of grass was cut to perfection and all the locals were strolling around the park in their Sunday’s best accompanied by their chic little dogs. Seriously, this place was nuts! Afterwards, we hiked up to a palace (with luggage in hand) and got a beautiful view of the city. Milan was our next destination, and we couldn’t wait to arrive!

Milano. (April 4-5) Definitely not the prettiest city I have ever seen, but it was a great place for us to start our adventures! We were able to stay with Maddie’s friend, Emily, which was extremely convenient and so nice. The city is much more industrial, and has tons of great shopping. Most importantly, the duomo (Cathedral) in Milan is hands down worth going there for. It is the thrid largest Catherdral in the world, and is seriously incredible. We were able to climb to the top, and walk on the entire roof and explore. The architecture is extremely intricate, simply stunning. Seeing it in the night was even more incredible, with its while color jumping off the night sky. We dined on some tasty gelato, and made a great dinner Sunday. A delicious mozzarella and tomato salad, chicken and potatoes, Italian wine, and a fruit salad. It was actually quite fun to cook, since I am so used to Vero making me dinner! I was also able to meet up with my friend Tara for dinner and gelato one night, which was great to catch up and see her in her city!

Venezia. (April 6-7) This was definitely one of my favorite places we visited. Such an incredible city, with around 420 islands all connected by bridges. It was everything I imagined, and so much more. It is a little strange since there are no cars, and their only form of transportation is by boat. It was funny to wake up and see the delivery men on their boats delivering goodies to different shops. We were able to spend two days here, which were so enjoyable. The weather was perfect, beautiful and sunny. We roamed the streets for hours; there was so much to see! Incredible mask shops, gondola men all about, gorgeous views, so many canals, and fun window shopping. We even scored a gondola ride, SO MUCH FUN! Our gondolier (Lucas) was a cute Italian man (who even sang to us!) and pointed out various sites around the city. We watched the sunset on a dock by our hostel that night, and it could not have been a more perfect day. We even scored an adorable dinner overlooking a main canal, where we ate their specialty of risotto. Delicious! I am in LOVE with Venice, and would love to go back.

Firenze. (April 8-9) We arrived in Florence mid afternoon and found our hostel after a minor detour, getting lost around the duomo. Florence’s duomo is the fourth largest in the world, and quite incredible indeed. We walked all the way up it (484 steps!) and got an incredible view of the city. We met up with one of Nick’s friends who is studying there who took us around to a few hot spots. We went to Michelangelo’s lookout point, with yet again another beautiful view of the entire city and we were able to see the duomo in all of its glory. He also took us to Vivolvi, a gelato shop, which was definitely the best gelato I had in Italy. I tried chocolate mousse and carmeled pear, soo yummy! We went to two different museums, with the Uffizi being the first. After waiting in a painfully longgg line (2 and a half hours!) we went inside and went straight to exploring. I really wanted to see the painting the Birth of Venus by Botticelli, which we found quickly. It is huge in person and is quite beautiful. Soon after, we ventured off to the famous leather market of Florence, where there were TONS of vendors everyone. They were selling every color scarf imaginable, leather bags, silk ties, random souvenirs, and it went on forever! Me and Maddie went home with a few too many scarves, but we couldn’t resist! We also went to the Galleria, where the infamous David is. The statue is seriously incredible, and huge! Seriously he is around 12ft tall! There is an immense amount of detail, you can literally see all of his veins popping out. There wasn’t much else to see in the gallery, but David was definitely worth going to see. We had a really interesting dinner that night too, someplace Nick’s friend recommended we try. We went into this cute artsy bar, ordered a drink (we all got Chianti, the specialty) and then got a free buffet of food! It was interesting since it was not Italian food, but it was delicious. Around 3 dozen different plates of vegetables, pastas, and various appetizers. It was a very fun and enjoyable way to eat! We were able to explore around the Old Bridge at night, there was even a full moon. Florence was definitely a close second to Venice, and I wish we would have had another day, since it had RIDICULOUS shopping. I even think it was better than Milan, which is supposedly the fashion capital of the world?

ROMA. (April 10-12) We arrived on Good Friday, were a little exhausted, but excited to see this great city! By this city, we were masters of the Italian lingo. And by masters, I mean we had three words perfected. Grazie, Prego, and tres (the number three). The meaning of prego was quite hysterical to all of us, since it seems appropriate to add it into any conversation. It can mean can I help you, you’re welcome, and probably oh so much more. Our hostel was kind of in the china town of rome, but was in a really good location. We had a few crazy Austailians who ‘lived at the hostel’, but other than them, it was a great place. The showers there were great and we even had a kitchen. Our new friend/manager of the place Azad, was adorable and always checking in on us to see where we were going next. He made me feel a little inadequate, since we found out he can speak NINE languages, including ones like Polish and Hindu. This fact kind of amazed me and makes me want to learn another asap. We went to the Colloseum that day, but to our surprise it was closing early. The pope was going to give a procession that night from the Colloseum, and people were already lining up outside at 5pm. After grabbing a quick dinner, we headed to the action ourselves. We were able to see the Pope from afar! His mass was given in 5 different languages, with French being the second and English being the third. The English voice, was a mix inbetween a Scottish lad and a southerner. It was difficult to understand, thus French was easier. Kind of ironic. That night we watched Gladiator in our hostel (cliché I know, when in rome), and prepared ourselves for an early night. We were headed to Vatican City in the morning and wanted to get there before it opened to avoid the lines! We took the metro, got there and only had to wait around thirty minutes, and even scored ourselves a free tour. Vatican City is the smallest county in the world, pretty crazy since we visted the second smallest as well. We toured St Peter’s Basilica, which is hands down the most gorgeous church I have ever seen. It looked as if there were gorgeous frescos all over, but to our surprise these frescos, were actually mosaics! Thus, the reason why you are able to take flash photography inside. We also saw Michealangelo’s famous statue of Pieta, translated to pity in English. It is now behind a bullet proof glass wall because in 1972 one man claimed he was Jesus, and smashed the statue fifty times with a hammer. Miraculously all the pieces were returned, since the pope made a public announcement to the city. We went to the Vatican Museums after, where the Sistine Chapel is. Walking through the ‘museum’ was truly insane. I have never been so in awe of the amazing amounts of detail covering the ceiling, floor, everywhere! The Sistine chapel was unbelievable as well, but absurdly overwhelming! You could hardly move, people were literally back to back. We soon found out this was the WORST day to be in the Vatican City, as our tour guide told us. The Museums and the Basicalla are closed Good Friday, then on Easter, then on Monday, HENSE everyone tries to go Saturday. We were able to see the Trevi fountain at night, we threw in a coin to make sure we returned to Rome one day. The fountain is gorgeous, especially at night.

The next morning(EASTER) it was off to the Colleseum again, bright and early hoping it would not ‘close’ this time. We all dressed springy, showing off a little Easter cheer. Once again I did not dress appropriately for the weather, but it was all in all good. We purchased our own personal tour guides aka audio guides and went off to exploring. The coliseum is amazing, and used to hold around 40,000-70,000 people for Gladiator matches. They would also have trap doors, where animals would jump out to distract them. We made ourselves a cute little Easter dinner, and even bought an Italian Easter cake. We saw people buying these ‘strange’ things at every grocery store in every city we visited, so we figured we should give it a try. It was delicious, and supposedly in the shape of a dove. We had leftovers, and brought it to the train station in the morning, and ate it while we waited for our train to the airport. Two Italian women saw us chowing down on their Easter tradition (mind you we were all wearing ‘Italia’ shirts), and were uncontrollably laughing. We stated cracking up ourselves, since I’m sure we looked ridiculous. Overall, Rome was great, minus the crazy amount of tourists!

Greece to come, soon!

FAMILY!

03.30.09

This weekend has been quite relaxing and low key, but really fun! We met some awesome girls from Ireland the other night at a local pub, and it was so fun to speak English and chat them away! They even tried to teach us an irish jig, quite hilarious indeed. Friday we went out with Kelli’s host brother (Jules) and a couple of his friends. They were really funny and I definitely enjoyed our time out with them! Saturday we lucked out and had cold, rainy weather, sooo the boat cruise was interesting to say the least. I had not checked the weather for the morning and decided to dress like it was going to be HOT. I wore a skirt, tights, SANDALS, and a little bomber jacket. We took a bus at 8 am to a little town called Agde and it literally started raining the moment we got there. It was extremely chilly, and our first boat ride through the Mediterranean was a little rocky, so a lot of us were on the very edge of being seasick. Our boat dropped us off, and we had time for lunch. They gave us 2 and a half hours actually….. so we decided to have a true ‘french’ lunch, and make it last for that long. Somehow we did, and finished off our meal with coffee and tea! We had another 2 and a half our boat ride through a canal after, which was a little miserable since it was painfully cold! It was fun though to spend the day with everyone from the program, but if only the weather was a little better!

Today, Véro left for the week to the Circus with her entire class! Virgile, Arthur, and I have the pad to ourselves, and I am quite excited! Hopefully they try and pull some crazy shenanigans with their friends. Their friends basically live at their house now, but I’m assuming next week they WILL live here. I actually enjoy being around them (even though they are 16!) and they try and ask me questions in English which is cute. One of Virgile’s friends was over last night for dinner and he is basically fluent in English since he moved to France from MADISON when he was 3! We spoke Franglais, but mostly English and had to translate to Virgile, which was different for once.

I actually have hardly seen Véro lately, since she has been going out a lot! She will make us dinner, and then usually leave right away. AND lately I have been beating her home the nights I go out; she’s quite the party animal. Good thing the boys are here or I would be a little lonely! One night she didn’t make dinner though, so Arthur said he would cook for us. He came into my room, told me he was making cheeseburgers, then 2 minutes later, came back and said dinner was ready! I started laughing and to my surprise he cooked them.. but they were frozen microwavable ones, still in the plastic wrapper. I found this hysterical, but they actually were not too terrible!

I FINALLLY scored a pic of the boys. I hassled them at dinner about it and they told me they hate pictures but would do it "for Rachel". The one on the left is the older one, Arthur, and the one on the right is Virgile, who is 16!

This week is definitely going to be a little hectic. Packing/finalizing plans for spring break will mostly consume us, but I am sooo sooo excited! ALSO terrific news. Tara will be in Milan for one day when I am there, so we are going to try and meet up! I hope everything goes smoothly/not knowing a word of Italian or Greek works out for us…. BUT hopefully we can get by with our English/French skills.

CIAO for now (2 weeeeeks!)
:)