Irish Pub

Sooo tonight Annie and I had the best meal EVER in France. I don't need any of that crazy french food, just find me an Irish pub that serves burgers, and I am alllllll set. Bacon cheeseburger with onions, curly fries, and cole slaw. And cute irish bartenders. Right around the corner from my house. I'm in heaven. And the bartender tried to deter us from eating dinner there with "but it's just pub grub." Pub grub? Exactly what the doctor ordered. Cross cheeseburger off my list of "must eat" food while I'm at home. Found them in France! ;-)

Thanksgiving--France style

Sooo Thanksgiving was last Thursday, as every american ever knows. But French people are like "what are you talking about, what is thanksgiving?" I explained it approximately 500 times to various french people! And it sounds pretty silly: "Well, the indians and the settlers [don't know word for "pilgrims"] ate a big meal together. And then they were friends. And no one knows if this actually happened. And now all families get together and eat a big meal." And the french people are like "that's it?" But hey, I love Thanksgiving! And the Dickinson Center put on a really nice dinner for us, complete with turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, sweet potatoes, and a massive amount of desserts. And it was so nice to get together with everyone on Thanksgiving, because at least we were with other Americans, being all together and lovey! I think everyone was a little homesick on that day.

So it was the job of the students to provide the desserts. Alright, great. So Annie and I decided to jointly make TollHouse Chocolate Chip cookies. An American classic. And we also decided to make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies too, just for good measure. So we looked up the recipes online (I love the internet), procured some american style measuring cups from Laura at the Dickinson Center, and set off the find the ingrediants. Umm hello, France, be more difficult. We went to FOUR different grocery stores trying to find everything. Apparently, baking soda doesn't exist (afterwards, we were told to try a pharmacy to find that...crazy), brown sugar as we know it is a big old veto, and chocolate chips, the foundation of our amazing recipe, were no where to be found. Well, I'm lying. We found these things that claimed to be "pepites au chocolate", but they were sooooo not even close to America-style chocolate chips. They were in these tiny little bags for about 3 euros each. We would have had to buy 6 bags just to get enough for the recipes! I was like "hellooo...Nestle, you are a brand available in France, I've seen you, why don't you introduce your TollHouse chocolate chips and start a revolution!" So we ended up buying these bigger Nestle chocolate pieces, which were less expensive, and then we cut them up. Which worked fine, but created lots of painful blisters from holding knives in awkward ways. And then after we made the cookies we were like "oh, these are such crap, they don't taste good at all!" And by "good" we meant "they don't taste like when we make them at home". But apparently, no one cares! Our cookies were a huge hit! So that boosted our egos a little bit, and I liked it.

And then on Friday, we particpated in very traditional post-Thanksgiving activities: eating the leftovers! And even though the gravy had turned a strange green color overnight and sort of congealed into a gel-like substance, I didn't care. And neither did anyone else. In fact, we ate it with relish. And also on Friday, I went and got my carte de sejour, aka residency card, aka i can stay in the country past November 30th when my visa runs out! Yaaaaaay! So that's neat. And I will be back in the United States of America on Dec. 17 and I cannot wait! I'm going to eat a lot of food, and have a lot of family and friends and Jason time, and be the happiest girl alive. And then come back to France and take finals? Umm...let's not think about that just yet. :-)

Bordeaux!

Rick Steves: "'Bordeaux' must mean 'boredom' in some ancient language. If I were offered a free trip to that town, I'd stay home and clean the fridge."

He might be right. Not gonna lie. I went to Bordeaux this weekend to visit my penpal (p.s. hate that word). Heloise and I have been corresponding since 5th grade! It's really crazy. So anyway, I thought I would pay her a visit, and it was really great to finally meet her! But Bordeaux was kind of boring. On Saturday, we walked around for a really long time to see the city. And it's different than Toulouse, because there are less inhabitants than Toulouse, but the size in physical area is bigger. So we pretty much drove everywhere in an old mini cooper (it was great! I miss driving around!), even though it looks like Heloise just lives right in the city (not in the suburbs or anything). So we saw a lot of Bordeaux, including everyone who was shopping on this nice pedestrian shopping road. It looked like someone was giving away candy at the other end, because you look down this road and it's literally a sea of people. We kind of avoided that. But Bordeaux did have some nice things, such as this turtle. Which I was in love with. And kids played on it! Too cute. Then Saturday night, we went out for a (loooong) dinner for the birthday of a friend of Heloise. The food was marginal, but the waiter was from L.A., so I enjoyed that. But I was sooo tired (stupid medicine for my cough has codeine in it), so I think I was fairly boring. And also, I could not follow the conversation whatsoever.

Anyway, on Sunday we did the museum thing. I didn't really like the first museum. It had an exhibit from this one photographer who did a lot of erotica weird stuff. And then the second museum was cool, it was housed in an old German submarine building thing from WWII. And it was an exhibit of Rene Bouilly, who did these really cool sketches, and used a lot of perspective and shadows and stuff: Look at the one at the very bottom, it's my favorite! The ones on top are awesome, they looked like you could pick the cloth up right from the canvas! It was cool. And then the third museum was like the Centre Pompidou, with contemporary art, which I just find hilarious, for the most part. I mean, I think it's really ugly and I don't understand how it's considered art, but it's pretty cool anyway. I especially liked the piece that was two blow up wading pools with all different size bowls and glasses floating in it, and then they would bang together and make really these really beautiful sounds. And it was continuous, so it sounded kind of like a windchime always played.

Then Sunday that night, Heloise and I went to a modern dance/theater thing at this big arena that ended up being really interesting. It was singing, and speaking (some in english!), and dancing. I couldn't really follow the story, and I don't actually know if there was a story, but then all of a sudden it was over. So it was definitely weird, but very cool nonetheless. Then today I came home today! And it was the first time that I rode the train by myself, and I did it successfully and felt pretty awesome!

Pyrenees!

Dan and I decided to take a hike in the Pyrenees this weekend! They are very accessble by bus or train, so it was a great opportunity to take. We took a train to Hospitalet, which is almost right on the border with Andorra, and also the last train stop before reaching Andorra (no trains run into Andorra, only buses!) Unfortunately, when I woke up on Sunday morning, it was rainy and cloudy and overall not a day you would choose to take a hike on. But we had already bought our train tickets, so we went anyway! And I am so glad we did! We got there around 11:30, and chose a trail that would take us around 4 hours. Probably took us a little longer, because I (naturally) stopped to take pictures every 5 seconds. And we also took the trail for the lazy people, because our trail only had "2 footprints" next to it, which apparently indicated that even the most out of shape person ever could do it. Which I think was a little much, because I huffed and puffed a little going up the hill! We didn't climb a mountain, per se, but when you start in a valley (such as the one in which Hospitalet is located) you kind of only have the choice of going up. We chose the "Refuge des Besines" trail, which took us to (you guessed it) the Refuge des Besines. So on the way up, it kind of rained and was really foggy, and generally fairly unpleasant. I was plenty warm in my 800 layers, but my feet got wet as we slopped through slushy snow and mud. And we could every once in a while see a peek of a peak (oh tehehe), but that was about it.

(getting a "peak" - really cracking myself up, btw)

Also, we hiked through this meadow that was apparently surrounded by beautiful mountains, but we couldn't see anything, because they were all obscured by fog! But don't worry, we got some great views on the way down! Anyway, so we get to the end of our hike, which was not the usual "I just climbed up a mountain and feel so satisfied, look at these great views over the landscape" because we didn't really climb all that much. But the Refuge des Besines did have a lovely lake that was surrounded by snow-capped peaks, that finally decided to come out of the fog obscurity and be pretty for us. We also met a fellow hiker, who was really way more hardcore than us (he laughed at Dan's sneakers and my jeans - hey, guy, I could only bring so many clothes, and I chose jeans over any sort of mountain man hiking clothes, gimme a break!) ;-)

But he was very nice, and told us a little about the area, and how there are these huts sprinkled all over, and some of them have wardens that live there and I guess kind of take care of the place. This one at Besines did not have a warden. So we picnicked by the lake, and got sufficiently cold because we weren't doing anything, and then started back down. And since all the fog had cleared, it was almost like taking a different hike altogether, because we got some amazing views! In that same meadow from before, we felt the need to sing "The hills are alive with the sound of music" because it seemed like it was right out of The Sound of Music! Mountains surrounded the meadow, and it was crazy because we had no idea they were there before! We were continually stopping to be like "whoaaaa, look at that one!" as another peak would emerge in front of us. I wish I knew the names of these mountains. If they have names, that is. They were nice. I liked them. And we walked by this weird like, concrete-y area that had some tracks running up to it. Did trains used to go up there? We tried to figure it out, but just couldn't. And I really liked seeing snow everywhere, because apparently it doesn't snow in Toulouse, and that upsets me. So anyway, after we got back down to the bottom, we got a hot chocolate at the one open hotel in the town (literally this "town" was probably about 20 buildings in total, teeny weeny!), and then we went to the train station to wait. And we saw our mountain man hiker friend! Turns out, he's from Toulouse and must have come down the mountain shortly after us because he was taking the same train as us! Funny and cool. Oh, and on our way down, we saw this man who was heading up who was wearing: loafers, jeans, a button down shirt, no jacket and no back pack. And we said "bonjour" and he answered with a nice american "Hi", and kept going. It was incredibly bizarre, seeing as how it was probably around 4 or 4:30 and it was going to get dark soon, and a lot colder! So we worried about the other American a little bit.

Anyway, incredibly successful hike, and I can't wait to do it again! Maybe when it's not so rainy, but the fog cleared, so I was a happy camper!

Burning cars

So everyone would think that going to France for study abroad would be really safe, but now there's all this crazy violence going on. Don't worry, I'm perfectly safe, as is everyone in our program, because the rioting and burning cars is only in the ghetto areas of Toulouse where all the immigrants live (sad, but true). So background info: there were these two black teenagers who were chased by the police into a power plant outside of Paris, and they were electrocuted to death. So now the poor, mostly immigrant, population of France is up in arms because they are not given the same opportunities as the rest of France, and there is a 50% unemployment rate, and that these kids were chased unfairly and they aren't even given a chance to succeed, etc. But this problem has been brewing for years, and now it's just manifesting itself because of the deaths of those two kids. Kind of reminiscent of the United States at various times in recent history? The violence started in Paris, and now has spread to over 200 towns in the rest of France, including Toulouse. And unfortunately, the Mirail University is located in the ghetto part of Toulouse. I don't take classes there, but a lot of people in our program do, so they have been given directions to come home before 4:30 to make sure they get a ride on the metro, because the metros and buses have been shutting down early to avoid going to the rioting areas at night. Kind of scary, but nothing goes on during the day, and I think things are starting to die down anyway, now that the French police/military has gotten its act together.

So that's just a little update on my life in Toulouse. Never a dull moment!

Paris--Day Three

Finally, Monday! On Monday morning, we met to go to the Centre Pompidou, which is a modern art museum. Like, really modern, as in there was literally a blue square made out of fabric that was supposedly art. Whatever. But there were some really cool things. First of all, the building itself is hideously ugly and cool. The pipes are all on the outside! So it's in this really swanky and nice neighborhood of Paris, with all these beautiful buildings, and then there's Pompidou with all these industrial pipes all over the place. Crazy. And then on the top floor of the museum, they have this kind of overlook place with really amazing views of the rooftops of Paris, and the Eiffel Tower! As for the arty part of the museum, our guide was amazing, and very informative. And she had us sit down in every room, which I loved because usually I get so antsy standing up all the time that I can't really pay attention. And another great thing was that our tour took place before the museum actually opened at 11 am. So we could actually see the art, and not just be herded around in a crowd. So after our tour ended, we had a few minutes with the museum all to ourselves, which was great for being silly with the art work. Because let me tell you, most of the art was fairly ridiculous. Hahaha.

Then after Pompidou, we were going to go to a free exhibition of this photographer, but then the line ended up being really long (Christine waited it out), and Annie and I went and strolled on the Champs-Elysees. Which really isn't that big of a deal, except that it's so famous. There are just a lot of stores, most of which I can come nowhere near to affording. But there is that whole Arc de Triomphe thing at the end, which is pretty amazing! I like this picture cause it looked like I just walked out into the middle of the road and took it. Maybe I did? Or maybe there was a median...you decide. But the Champs is basically just a very busy road. With weird shaped trees and a big old monument at the end. We went up on top of the Arc! That was cool. You could see really far! And, as with most things in Paris, you could see the Eiffel Tower really well too!





Then we kind of just walked around for a little while, and then went to H&M, which is a European store that we are so lucky to have at Eastview Mall, but not anywhere in Toulouse? That confuses me. So we went there. I bought some gloves. It was fairly exciting. Then we went back to the hotel to get pretty for the ballet that evening! We went to the National Opera House (top) to see "Joyaux", which means "jewel", and each act was based on a different precious gem. The first was emeralds (kind of boring, but I mean....emeralds are kind of boring too, right?), the second was rubies (incredibly cute and saucy and not ballet-like), and of course the last act was....diamonds (bottom)! And for the grand finale they had the whole company out on stage, and there was some majorly complicated choreogrphy. It was amazing. And that's Paris! A very successful excursion, and I can't wait to go back!

Sunday in Paris

Okay, so I ended off with Saturday night and a hilarious party. So even though we got an extra hour of sleep (yay turning the clocks back!), we were all feeling pretty rough for the 8:45 rendez-vous at the Louvre. We had a guided tour of the Egyptian collection, which ended up being pretty cool. We saw all this stuff they took out of the pyramids, including thousands of years old food, jewelry, and tools. And a mummy! Now, I really like mummies and bones and things like that. But it’s not like I want to decorate my house with them, I just like them in a “this is really gross, I can’t help but look at it…..cooooool!” way. Like little boys like snakes and stuff. So anyway, I think I frightened our assistant Laura when I was like “I love mummies!” Oh well. I do. So then after our guided tour, we were able to look around the Louvre for as long as we wanted, so we saw the Winged Victory statue (picture), which I think is absolutely gorgeous, and the Mona Lisa, and lots of other paintings and sculptures. But obviously, it being the Louvre, it was the most ridiculously crowded place I’ve ever been to. So it was kind of difficult to enjoy fully, but I think I got the most out of it that I could. So after we finished, we excited via the horrendously ugly yet still cool Louvre Pyramid. It’s just such a contrast to the centuries old Louvre building. And even though it doesn’t match whatsoever, I still really like it. And it was a really sunny day, so I think it was a great day to see a huge glass pyramid.

We then went to the Musée d’Orsay, which is more modern art than the Louvre, but still has 19^th century stuff. And good stuff, like Degas, Monet, and Van Gogh. Not like thecrazy “I put this blue square on the wall so now I deserve to be in a museum” art (that’s the Centre Pompidou, which we visited on Monday! You can probably tell I’m somewhat critical of modern art). But I really enjoyed Musée d’Orsay because it is housed in an old train station, and there were beautiful pieces of art, including this crazy Van Gogh and another artist combined piece. The other artist (can’t remember his name, something crazy like “kakakhegkhads”) took Van Gogh’s famous self-portrait and like, put it in a wheel barrow full of plastic oranges and lemons. I kid you not. It was kind of weird. I didn’t really like it that much, but I did think it was amusing.
After Musée d’Orsay, we become super-tourists and went to see Notre Dame and the rest of the goods on l’Ile de la Cité. Notre Dame was cool, but again so crowded that you couldn’t really appreciate it fully. And also, we’ve been seeing so many amazing cathedrals (ie. Albi, Conques, and our own St. Etienne of Toulouse) that it’s kind of hard to be impressed by another cathedral when we can visit these cathedrals and have the places to ourselves. But it was impressive just in the fact that is Notre Dame, and everyone in the whole world knows that name. We wanted to go up in the towers, but the line was really really long. So hopefully next time! Then we went to a Holocaust deportation memorial, which was very moving. Then we went to the archeological crypt that is housed underneath Notre Dame. I was hoping for some bones and stuff, but all that is there are the remains of ancient Paris, pre-Notre Dame. It’s pretty cool, and they had a really nice and informative presentation on it all. Then we went and met Katie to go to St. Chapelle, which was built by Louis IX to house relics from the Holy Land. We were all really excited because apparently it’s amazing when it’s a bright sunny day outside. So obviously it had been gorgeous all day, and then started to rain when we were going inside. C’est la vie. But the chapel was still incredibly breathtaking, with walls pretty much made of stained glass (hence the breathtaking-ness on a sunny day). Still, the collection of stained glass was still very impressive.

So we returned to the hotel for dinner and a little break, because my feet were killing me! Being a tourist is serious business! Then Sunday night we did probably my favoritething of the whole trip: visited the Eiffel Tower at night! Even though it’s so touristy and built-up, it’s still anincredibly amazing monument, especially all lit up at night! And it sparkles on the hour for about 10 minutes, so that amazed us for a while. We decided it was worth it to fork over 10.70 euros to go all the way up to the top, and I think it was definitely worth it. Seeing Paris all lit up from 275 meters was breathtaking. And they had these panoramic photos that identified what you were looking at. So you could be like “hey, what’s the blob of light right there” and look down at the photo and it corresponded almost perfectly with the window you were at. Very cool. And it was so windy at the top! I’m glad they had those grate things all over the top, otherwise I think I would have gotten blown away. So now I really want to visit the top of the Eiffel Tower during the day so I can see some really awesome views! But seeing all the lights was like being in a magical fairy land of wonderful sparkly-ness. Hahaha. And I liked it.

Well that’s enough for tonight; next time I will give you all the details on Monday in Paris! Bonne soirée!

City of Love!

Yay Paris! We just got back today, and it was an amazing and completely enjoyable trip. I’m pretty much going to give a play by play, and hopefully update pictures soon, so you should all check everything out! Friday: After arriving late to the train station (yes, I’m retarded), we left for our 6ish hour trip to Paris! I slept. When we arrived, it was craziness and we had to leave the train station, and jump on the metro to get to our hotel. But as well-run as the Paris metro is, you pretty much have to switch trains at least once anywhere you go. So I, being a country girl through and through, was like “wow….there are a lot of people here and it’s crazy”. And all of this was done carrying our bags. A ridiculously heavy bag in my case, because I do not know how to pack lightly. I must really buy a hiking kind of backpack and be a real college backpacking through Europe girl. So we get to our hotel, which was a short, but not short enough, walk from the metro stop (I thought my whole body was going to fall apart……what in god’s name did I have in that duffel bag?) Our hotel was kind of funny, in that it was kind of like a young people conference center, so most of the guests were on high school trip type things, and there were a lot of cute young British people. I liked it. Then we went to dinner in a mosque/restaurant. It was kind of crazy: it was a real mosque on one side, and then a restaurant on the other. Then after dinner we went out Parisian style in the Latin Quarter, and had a great night. I saw Notre Dame for the first time at 2 in the morning. ;-)


Saturday: After getting not enough sleep on Friday night, we had a rendez-vous at the Pont Neuf for our cruise on the Seine! We went as a whole group, and it was totally touristy and corny, but I loved every second of it. You can really get some great views from the Seine, and I went crazy with picture taking! We saw the Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Baudelaire’s house, the smallest house in Paris with two windows that some artist lived in, and the memorial right by the tunnel where Princess Di died (the memorial is an exact replica of the flame on the Statue of Liberty). And some other things, but unfortunately, I can’t remember what they were. But it was a gorgeous day for a nice cruise on the Seine, and I enjoyed it immensely. Then, in the afternoon, we were supposed to have a tour of an exposition of some sort as a group, but that ended up not happening, so Annie, Christine, and I went to Versailles, which was incredible. I slept on the train (that is kind of a theme for Paris for me; I slept on a lot of trains). Versailles is just so incredibly enormous, it boggles my mind. It cost so much to build, that the kings of France had to do some major fundraising afterwards to make up for it (like build elaborate bridges over the Seine, and then charge tolls to go over them). We had this nifty museum pass that let us bypass all the lines and get in to like, over 30 museums for free (well, Dickinson paid, so I guess I should ultimately say “thanks mom and dad!”). It’s an amazing pass, and anyone going to Paris (or most other major European cities—they all have one, I’m pretty sure) should invest, because you save so much time by not waiting in lines, and it’s a great deal! We also had unlimited metro cards for 5 days, which also made everyone’s lives sooo much better.


Anyway, Versailles was gorgeous, but very, very crowded so it was kind of hard to experience it fully. I mean, I guess seeing the ridiculous amount of crowds is kind of a part of experiencing Versailles, but you kind of felt like a herd of cows moving through various rooms in the chateau. Oh well. Oh, and the Hall of Mirrors was undergoing renovation! So I would like to go back to Versailles just to be able to see that in all its glory! Then we looked around the gardens and marveled just at the sheer size of it all. We looked in one direction, down towards this lake (see picture), and it literally stretched as far as the eye could see. The fountains were off, unfortunately, but the gardens were still very enjoyable on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. Saturday night, we ate with Katie (yayaya! A friend from home studying in Paris, for those of you that don’t know) at a crazy combination Greek/French restaurant, and had a fine meal, then went to a party that was…interesting! And ended up being a really good and hilarious time. ;-)

Well, I’m too tired to continue writing a quality summary right now, so I will continue with the adventures of Sunday and Monday tomorrow! Bonne nuit! (P.S. I took over 600 pictures in Paris....I think I have a picture taking problem! I might need to get some help for this...) ;-)