Birthday Craziness in Nice!

Well, this update is a week late, but oh well. I figured everyone would still want to hear about my birthday celebrations in Nice, France! I have a friend, Christine, who is studying in Nice for the semester, and we just so happen to have the same birthday! Soooo, it was planned long long ago that we would get together for our birthdays and have a beach party! Well, it happened! Annie and I took the train to Nice Friday afternoon, and got all settled into Christine’s apartment. And we also were incredibly jealous of her sweet apartment and location in the city and conspicuous lack of a host family. So Friday night, we all just caught up and drank delicious red wine and rang in our birthdays tranquillement. At midnight, I opened 2 cards from each of my grandmas, and diamond earrings from my parents! And an adorable necklace from Christine! Yay!

The next day (ie. Official birthday craziness day), we walked around Nice and enjoyed the beautiful weather. We went to a market in the old part of Nice, and Annie bought marzipan while Christine and I enjoyed cookies from another stand! We went in a bunch of little shops, and Annie and I were in heaven with the sunshine, because it hadn’t been that nice in Toulouse lately. Then, Christine went to the train station to pick up her friend from school, Sherry, and Sherry’s friend from her study abroad program in London, Jordan. While that was happening, Annie and I took a bus to the Matisse museum, which is in this neighborhood kind of overlooking the city of Nice with beautiful villas and mansions. I would definitely live there. The Matisse museum was in a cute park and a cute building, but the museum itself was kind of odd and not very well laid-out. Then we met back up with Christine, Sherry, and Jordan and went to an “early bird special” dinner, at 5pm-ish, which definitely doesn’t happen ever in France. But they gave us food, so we couldn’t complain. And also, Christine and I got “presents” from the bartenders. We saw these straws with butterfly cut-outs on them, and we really wanted some with which to enjoy the festivities later on. So Annie asked the bartender if we could have 2 straws for our birthdays, and he said yes, of course. Soooo we were overly excited about that for a while. Then we went back to the apartment, I took a little siesta, talked with my parents, and then the party started! We got endless amusement from “the bucket”, which was one of those drink mixes that comes in a bucket with a name like “Blue Hawaii”. Christine’s mom had sent it for a birthday present. In the directions on the back, there was the normal way to make it, where you freeze it for 8 hours or something, and then there was the “PARTY EMERGENCY” version of the recipe. We used the party emergency version and were endlessly amused by that. So we mixed up our bucket, along with some other drinks, and headed down to the beach for a beach party bash! ^ (enjoying the birthday bucket with the straws!)

We met a lot of cool people from Christine’s program, waded into the sea (it was cold), and had a great time! What a cool way to say you spent your birthday—on the French Riviera!

The next day, Sunday, we recovered until 3 pm, and then we took a walk up to the “Parc du Chateau” that overlooks the city. There was a huge waterfall with seagulls sitting on top, and lots of kids playing and running around, and a beautiful view of the harbor and of the beaches. There were huge boats in the harbor, and we saw a huge cruise ship leaving! And also, I saw Elton John’s house up on a hill. It didn’t look very nice from super far away. What’s up with that, Elton? For dinner, Annie and I (read: Annie, while I watched) cooked dinner for Christine and her roomies as a thank you for hosting us! We made a delicious sauce for the pasta. I would like to replicate it sometime. Then the next day, we got up to catch our train and said goodbye to Christine and Nice! Overall, a SUPER fun birthday celebration, plus a gorgeous city to celebrate it in!

Les Corbieres!

This weekend, we took a Dickinson excursion to Les Corbières region of France! Located about 2 hours southeast of Toulouse, Les Corbières is a well-known wine region that produces 80% red wine, and the other 20% rosé and white wines. Our trip was a ton of fun, with sooo much beautiful scenery, it was pretty landscape overload!

We left early Saturday morning, and went straight to the Abbey of Fontfroide, which is no longer an abbey but it used to be, obviously. The abbey was started in 1093! It was an abbey that grew its own wine and was basically a little self-sufficient farm. Then the monks had to stop being peaceful, wine growers and go into battle during the Crusades against the Cathares. Then they got to go back to growing wine and other products and it became one of the richest abbeys in their order! Now you can walk around and see the beautiful cloisters and chapels, and scenery!

Next we headed to Gruissan and the beach! Gruissan was a cute, if somewhat abandoned, Mediterranean fishing village! The only reason it looked abandoned was due to the off season, not actual abandonment. We took off our shoes and played on the beach and ran around and acted like 5 year olds! And we also saw a lot of little beach houses on stilts, which was apparently supposed to be a special thing, but I thought it looked like a trailer park, just a little higher off the ground. Oh well. Then we went to lunch in the village of Gruissan, and the restaurant was cute and had an enormous dog walking around. Unfortunately, the food was not that good. I had chosen “meat” for my main dish, before we had left for the trip. The other choices were “fish” or “vegetarian pizza”. I found it odd that they didn’t specify what kind of meat or fish would be served, but then I found out it was because they decided to put EVERY kind of meat/fish on the plate. I got a plate full of grilled lamb, sausage, steak, and chicken. And I’m not talking small portions. My steak was practically a whole cow. And there wasn’t any sort of decoration, or sauce or anything. Just meat. We all had a good laugh about that. And the fish plate had a big old fish in the middle, with other smaller sea life stationed around it, all with heads, legs, etc. I made fun of Thierry (Dickinson Center assistant Laura’s husband) because his fish was looking at me with a dead fish look.

After lunch, we headed to Narbonne, where we were scheduled to spend the night at this weirdo hostel type hotel for big groups where they didn’t give you towels (luckily, we knew beforehand and brought our own!) Oh well, it was a fine hotel, if a little strange. We went on a tour of Narbonne with the cutest tour guide ever, and we saw a roman market from 1 B.C.! It was all underground, and since I enjoy caves and tunnels, I was into this old roman market. The rest of Narbonne was okay; we had a hard time finding a restaurant for dinner! The whole town was asleep at 8 pm, I guess! But we ended up finding a good French/Italian place called “Le Joker”, which was worth it just for the silly name!

In the morning, we woke up not way too bright and early and went to Talairan to enjoy a day of hiking, wine, and sunshine! Quelle vie! It was excellent. We went to a vineyard called “La Rune”, which is owned by friends of our literature professor from last semester at Dickinson! The man and his wife who owned it could not have been cuter and more outdoorsy and lovable. First, we took a hike with the wife in “la garrigue” which translates to “scrubland”. I guess it’s a typical landscape found in the Mediterranean area, and it’s really good for growing wine! We found wild asparagus, and walked all around in the vines and the sunshine was so bright, it was heaven. We later made omelets over an open fire with the asparagus that we found on our hike! (Okay, clarification: I ate an omelet that had been cooked over the open fire by the winery man with asparagus that other people had found. I was not a good asparagus-finder.) When we got back, we learned about how wine is made, and then we tasted! I liked the rosé and the white, but not really the red. Maybe it was just that bottle, or type, or something. Then we had lunch! I am amazed that this little winery was able and/or willing to host more than 40 people for a tasting and lunch, and a hike! That is definitely not a normal day at a wine tasting, and I was really thankful that they agreed to host us for the day! So we all got some color in our faces and arms while eating delicious food off the grill, drinking delicious wine, and having great conversations with friends.

On the way back to Toulouse, we stopped in Lagrasse, which is an adorable little village with an abbey that dates from the 8^th century! Since it was Sunday, the village was fairly quiet, but Annie and I had a fun time exploring the little streets and taking a little walk in the countryside! We wanted to go to the abbey, but you had to pay to get in, so we just looked at it from outside, and then continued up this road that went to who-knows-where. But it was such beautiful weather and scenery that we walked for a good 30 minutes! We saw vineyards, olive trees, horses, and priests/monks (the abbey is actually still an abbey!)

Overall, what a great weekend! Now I don’t look like a pale monster from winter land (just a freckly/red one!) and I got to see a gorgeous region of France! A bientôt!

BIG NEWS

The big news of the week is that I (finally) switched host families! Yaaaaaaaaay! For those of you who I didn’t endlessly complain to, things were NOT going well with my old family. It all started with my room being too cold, and me wanting to change that, and it ended in shouting matches and incredibly bad blood between me and the Marfaings. My host mom just became a huge heinous bitch, out of nowhere, and was very immature, and insulted my friends, my boyfriend, and me. So I decided enough was enough, and I started the process to find a new host family! My new family couldn’t have me until today (Monday), but things got so bad with the ‘Faings that I couldn’t stay there a minute longer, so Gersende (Dickinson Center assistant) found me a “transition family” from Thursday through today. My transition family was amazing, and they really helped remind me what French family life should be like, not like the hell I had been living in for the past 3 months. We had conversations, and made jokes, and everything was great! I realized that I didn’t really ever talk at dinner with the Marfaings, and they never seemed to care about me at all, and it was totally different over the weekend! Even though I was only staying with them for a few days, transition family (they had a crazy last name that I can’t even begin to remember) showed so much interest in me and my welfare that it was completely refreshing! So I left there today with many good feelings and memories from my couple of days with them, and I headed to my new family! My new “family” is actually just an older woman named Francoise, who lives on a gorgeous “allée” (i.e. long tree lined avenue type thing) that is in the same neighborhood as the Marfaings. But I’m happy, because it’s a great neighborhood, close to everything that I need to be close to, and it’s a beautiful and huge apartment in a gorgeous old building! My room is all in pink! And I have a desk, a closet, a nightstand, and a bureau! I never thought I would take those things for granted, but after the “shed” at the ‘Faings, I am ecstatic! Francoise is so nice, she is just like a little host grandma who wants me to be at home and wants us to be in love. And it’s funny, because there are 2 British friends of hers living in the apartment too! But they are taking classes with Alliance Française (an exchange type program where Francoise works), so we only speak in French! But I like that at dinner, I am actually involved in the conversation, and I’m also not the only one that doesn’t speak French perfectly! I AM SO HAPPY!

So that’s the big news. Wish me luck with the new fam! Bisous!