French Food - some of the best in the world

I am sure I have mentioned a number of times how much I love the food here. I'm pretty sure I can count the things I haven't liked on one hand.. and not even use all of my fingers.

But I am not the only one who feels this way, just read this article my grandma showed me :)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/16/AR2010111604112.html

Whether it's simply the bread and cheese I eat on a regular basis for lunches during the week, or the various meals my host mom prepares (simple or more sophisticated), or whatever I might get in a restaurant or cafe, I know the food is going to be one of the things I miss most when I leave in June.

Honestly, I eat bread every day here and will never get sick of it. I don't understand how people might! It's so good! :)

Winter is here!

Looking back, I have decided to change my mind about some of the opinions/feelings I have had since being in France.

For one, after yesterday, my first real day of snow in Lyon, I decided that I did indeed like snow and would love to have a white winter. I take this back a little bit. Not entirely. But a little bit. If there shall be snow, then it means it needs to be really cold.. and it's not even December yet... so I am thinking I made my decision about loving snow a little prematurely. On the other hand, I prefer snow to rain. With rain, not only am I cold, but I am wet too. I have to carry my umbrella everywhere, and my arm starts to get tired from holding it up all day. With snow at least, you are dry! .. or at least mostly dry. Plus it is a whole new experience for me, which makes it exciting as well. Rain is just annoying.
But welcome to winter! The snow has barely started, and I am curious how much Lyon will really get.

oh and here are a few pictures to show my friends and me enjoying our first bit of snow! (I swear it is snowing in the pictures, you just can't entirely tell :/)

that would be a snowflake. i was surprised by the detail you could see in some of them!

and i'm not sure if everyone can see it, but there is also a video of me tagged on facebook.

What else has changed? A couple weekends ago (I think..), my host parents hosted a dinner party that I wasn't really invited to. Instead, they made sure I ate before the guests arrived, and I hung out in my room for the rest of the night doing who knows what because I didn't have any plans with friends and was pretty tired. At the time, I was a little hurt that I hadn't been included. But now, I realize (and I could be making this up entirely.. but hey, it makes me feel better), my host parents might have been protecting me. Tonight, they had their neighbors over for aperitifs because at least one of them is newish to the neighborhood. Again, I wasn't really invited. I was less bothered this time to start off though because I was actually focusing on studying, so I didn't really mind staying in my room (if I am able to focus on studying, it's a pretty good idea that I just keep at it for awhile until the focus wears off.. because it doesn't happen often). I did get called downstairs eventually to make sure I ate though. I said hi to the guests and then went to eat in the kitchen. They all continued their conversations. It was at this point that I realized I was kind of glad to have been relieved from this party. Everyone was talking on top of each other and speaking really fast (which is I'm sure is what dinner/aperitif parties at home sound like) and even though I was in the other room, I could tell that if I had been with them, I would never have been able to keep up with the conversation. Sure, I would have been fine if someone chose to speak to me one on one, but what probably would have happened is that I would have been sitting downstairs smiling wishing I could just go upstairs anyways.

And I almost forgot! I promised I would tell you about Harry Potter. After seeing the first part of book seven on screen, I really want to reread it again before I see the final installment. I had forgotten a lot, but upon seeing certain scenes remembered aspects of the book. I have to say it was a MAJOR improvement on the sixth movie which I really hated. It might possibly be the only movie I see in theaters while I am in Lyon (I would rather spend my money plane/train tickets than see a bunch of movies I could rent for cheaper when I get home), but I was definitely glad I chose to go. I mean, come on, I may not like all of the Harry Potter movies, but it will see EVERY SINGLE one in theaters. Also, the movie theater in Lyon was super nice. The seats were comfy, and the theater was warm. And apparently all of them are like that! I was very impressed.

I also realized I have been here for a little over 3 months now. It sounds kind of wierd to say it to be honest. And some of my friends will be heading home a month(ish) from now. Time passes pretty fast here, but I think this next month is going to pass fastest of all. What with the stress of some finals,  the sad thought of some people leaving Lyon, and the excitement for my winter travels, the new year is going to be here before I know it.

Happy Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving has been very different for me than any other, and for a number of reasons.
   I am not in LA with family
   I actually had to go to class
   It is evidently a gift giving holiday? (my host parents gave me a scarf!)
   I haven't seen a single turkey decoration
   I ate dinner in a restaurant - where there was no pumpkin pie, cranberry, or greenbeans
   And the next morning I woke up and there was sprinkling of snow on the rooftops and back wall of the yard!

Yes, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and though France did the best I could expect it to do for me considering its not even a holiday here, there was something left to be desired. Good thing I put on my own Thanksgiving with friends this summer to make sure I didn't go a year without some of my favorite foods.

But all of these differences have made me think about what I am thankful for:
family, friends (old and new), friends who have become family, France, Lyon, EAP, host parents, amazing directors, scarves, socks, gloves, coats, and boots, traveling, reese's peanut butter cups, good food, public transit that is actually useful, heating, raspberry tea, new experiences, that the drinking age here is 18, snow, and Harry Potter. 

Yes, Harry Potter. Which I will FINALLY get to be seeing later today! I'll let you know what I think of it in my next post.

And here are some pictures of our EAP Thanksgiving Dinner: Good, but just not the same.

 

After all of this, I headed home, and called all of my family. Happy to hear your voices, happy to actually get to wish everyone a Thanksgiving, and surprisingly even happy to hear about the kind of meal I wish I had gotten to have. 

But who can really complain when the reason you miss your favorite holiday is because you're in FRANCE?

oh i AM here to go to school! who knew?

classes. for those of you (grandma) who had been wanting to hear a little bit about my classes, here it is.

this was the first week i have actually had ALL of my classes. actually, i think there was one other week i technically did too, but this week was the start of my new class as well.

tuesdays i have histoire de lyon and psychologie social (pretty sure you guys can figure out what those are in english!)
i am not a big fan of my histoire de lyon class. we have had three different professors so far, one of which talked wayyy too fast for me to possibly be able to understand. i am taking this class pass/no pass because it isn't doing anything for me back home other than giving me some units, so there is really no need to mess up my gpa when i don't do well. what have i gotten out of the class so far? the gauls are from lyon. we have heard a lot about the gauls. and there are a few churches of some significance that are still around today. my notes in this class are terrible. there are barely any french students in the class, which means getting notes from someone is a little trickier. we found someone who will email us his notes... but not until the end, and then he'll send them all together. i mean thanks? but i feel like that's going to be terrifying to finally receive that email with tons of info i should have been learning all semester.
i am much happier with psychologie social. for one, it is actually doing something for me back home. there is always a powerpoint and the professor talks slow enough to be able to understand her. oh, and we just got a new professor... i'd forgotten that they were going to switch half way through. i love when she (both professors) talks about things i have already learned at home because it makes me feel like i really know what's going on. the only unfortunate part, however, is that we never get to see the videos that correspond to the studies the way we do back home. and i love the videos.

wednesdays i have slm. i really don't like that class. it's almost four hours long. and really boring. we get a break in the middle, and a lot of people took advantage of that and left this week. i wanted to so bad, but i also wanted to be able to say i actually went to all of my classes this week... so i stuck around. but hey, at least i have class with my friends? i got a couple postcards written even :)

thursdays i have sociologie: problematique du genre and psychologie du developpement. which i haven't had in about a month. it felt a little strange to back in those classes this week.
sociologie is basically all presentations. mine will be in december.. though i need to figure out what's going on with that! but yesterday, the second presentation led to a class wide discussion with people talking over each other and getting really into it. i do like this class for the most part, but sometimes it is hard to know what's going on because people talk so quietly that even if i could understand what they were saying, i can't always hear them! speak up frenchies! this week's discussion was something about girls going out at night at 3am and what reactions they might get. or something. and blaming guys for everything. and then one girl deciding to defend the guys. and the guys trying to defend themselves. i don't really know to be honest. with everyone talking over each other and talking so fast i was pretty lost.
psychologie du developpement doesn't have powerpoints, but the professor definitely talks slowly enough that it isn't really a problem. before we stopped having classes for a long time, i had actually taken a bunch of notes myself. this week, however, i realized there was a french girl with a laptop in front of me that i could actually see, so i mostly just copied all of her notes instead of paying slightly better attention and taking my own. i mean i was still listening, but sometimes its hard to take that many notes that fast, so it's nice to just be able to copy them :) of course, if the girl got a little behind, then i would take some of my own.

and finally fridays. societe francaise contemporain. this class is only for californians. because we are such a large group though, half took it for the first half of the semester. and obviously, i am in the second group seeing as i started this week. the professor is pretty easy to understand which is nice, and today we talked about what is typical french/lyonnais food. like pig. and all of its parts. ew for some of them. we were also handed an article about cheese which i think i am supposed to read.

as far as homework goes though? i don't really feel like i have much. i guess i managed to choose classes without midterms, which means i'm not freaking out about those right now the was some are. butttt it means i will probably stressing out extra come time for finals. which by the way i have no idea when they are. both psych classes i know are in january. but when i tried to ask my social psych professor when exactly she just looked at me like i was crazy for wanting to know right now and told me she didn't know except that it will be in january. thankssss. i was hoping to maybe plan some trips.
for slm i have a small paper most weeks. and by that i mean that the longest one has been 500 words.
and i guess i should be trying to read stuff for the other classes? i don't even know really. i've been trying to read freud... in french. to be honest it hasn't been going so well.

things are getting easier though. which is always a good sign.

staying put

i think this is now officially the longest i have ever been away from home for. twelve weeks ago my program officially began. and i am still doing pretty good. and am super excited for the next months to come. i do have my small moments of homesickness.. not really wanting to come home as much as wanting to talk to some people more and not being able to because of the time difference or whatever other reasons.
... so if you're reading this, and i haven't talked to you in awhile, tell me what's up with you! i really do want to hear about your life :)

i cant believe thanksgiving is already next week. as well as the fact that i wont be in los angeles for it for the first time in my entire life. that is gonna suck a little bit... probably what is leading to the homesickness? i mean it is my favorite holiday. but i am looking forward to whatever meal the program is providing for us. as well as whatever meal my friends and i might make the weekend after to make sure we actually get thanksgiving food.
i can't believe though that i will actually have to go to two classes that day though. that will be wierd. 

i figure once thanksgiving is over. and i get my next few trips planned. i will be good. our director even sent us an email saying this is the hardest part of the year, it only gets better from here :)
classes are all taking place again. which is good because i have something to keep me busy. when i didn't have classes and i wasn't traveling, i was starting to go a little bit stir crazy because i needed something to do. or to focus on.

on a brighter note. i no longer have to stress about where i might live next semester :) i knew when i chose to do homestay that if i ended up wanting to stay for the full year, then i was probably going to have to move at the end of the semester. which would have involved looking for an apartment and not knowing what i would be getting myself into. location wise. price wise. roommate wise. whatever food i might make for myself. you get the idea. but instead of all of that stress or those changes, i will be staying put. my host family is amazing and offered that i can stay until i find a place if i still want to move, or even until the end of the year. i realized that any of the few reasons i might have had for wanting to move to someplace new were far outweighed by the better reasons to stay. no reason to give up a living situation i already know i like for something i might not!

Annecy, France

After our adventure in Grenoble, Christina and I left our couchsurfers' apartment (almost reluctantly since we had had such an amazing time) and headed to the train station to catch the train to Annecy.
I was excited to get there, everyone who had already been there said it was a beautiful city, and when I told my host family I was going there, they were all super excited - jealous almost, it seemed.

It was a gorgeous day when we arrived, sunny with only a few wispy clouds in the sky. Seeing as we hadn't really eaten breakfast... and by that I actually mean hadn't at all... we were pretty hungry when we arrived just after 11am (keeping in mind we'd woken up at 8). Our first goal was to find some food. We found a boulangerie where we got some bread... as well as an interesting interaction with the woman behind the counter. I wouldn't necessarily say she was trying to be rude, but we definitely were wishing she would take our money a little bit faster so we could leave. She was definitely trying to practice her english on us.. which she wasn't very good at. And then joked with us that it sounded like we talked with cotton in our mouths... thanks? As soon as we'd payed for our bread, and decided to get some flawn (spelling?) too, we found the nearest carrefour where we got some tomatoes, cheese, and turkey to make the rest of our meal. We then set off to find the lake - taking a much longer route than was probably necessary. Eventually, we did find the lake, and found a nice bench to set up our picnic!

With some food in us we were ready to explore the city some more. But first, I wanted a picture with the lake. Partly because the lake was beautiful, and partly because I wanted it acknowledged that I was wearing shortsleeves and no jacket... at least for a bit... which was a nice relief from the temperatures I've been experiencing recently!

We wandered around the little park by the lake for a bit, and then decided that we would rent a pedal boat and go out on the lake!

The water was ridiculously clear.. and shallow too as far as I could tell. I was quite surprised... more by the seeming shallowness than the clearness.

Next idea was to walk around the town. Which is really cute. But also really small.

We even found a street that had a lot going on. Selling lots of food... particularly pig products. Which I found the tiniest bit disturbing since they also had live pigs hanging out there too. Kind of mean, right?

After wandering around for awhile, we decided ice cream sounded like an excellent idea. And considering we had sort of technically gotten lost on the way to the lake... seeing as we realized we definitely didn't take the most direct route there from the train station... keeping with Sackheim tradition seemed like the best thing to do!

We headed back to the park next to the lake to sit and eat our ice cream/ take a break for a little bit. With hours left until it would be time to head back to Lyon, we weren't really sure what to do with ourselves. Yes, Annecy is beautiful, but it just isn't that big and we were running out of ideas of what to do. We remembered people had mentioned something about a castle, so we set out to find that. It was a bit of a disappointment to us though because it was under construction and so we didn't really feel like paying to see more if it wasn't going to be the best it could be. But we did get to see a little more of the city.

After heading back into town again and sitting down for a bit just to people watch, we realized we were both kind of ready to just head back to Lyon. So we headed to the train station and managed to get on a bus two hours earlier than planned, which meant we arrived back in Lyon about the same time we should have originally been leaving Annecy.
Annecy was beautiful, but after two long days of adventuring and meeting new people and not running on a lot of sleep, and me still being a little bit sick, we were both ready to be back in Lyon.

I can't wait until my next travels though! :)
as well as what should actually be a full week of class this week. what a strangeee idea!

Grenoble, France!

thursday we had off for a holiday. friday i was supposed to start my societe francais class. which meant what could have been a super long weekend, wouldn't be. BUT THEN. it turns out, christine, our director, understands how mean that would be to make our first friday class start the day after a holiday, sooooo tuesday, she sent us an email saying we would be starting next week! what to do?

christina and i decided to take advantage of this extra day off and quickly planned a trip to grenoble. we had already planned to go to annecy on saturday, so we needed a city close by. we decided we would couchsurf because it made more sense to stay in grenoble and head to annecy from there, then to come all the way back to lyon and head out again. so as soon as i got home i made a couchsurfing account and started sending out requests. as soon as we had at least one yes, we bought our tickets!

so friday morning we woke up bright and early to catch our train at 7:45. which meant we were in grenoble by 9:30 and had a whole day to explore. we began by stopping by our couchsurfer's appartment, which was super easy to find since it was so close to the tram stop. our original couchsurfing contact wouldn't be there till evening because he had work, but he made sure his girlfriend was there so we would have someone to welcome us when we arrived. oh. the apartment we stayed in belonged to two french guys, one syrian guy, one indian guy, and a greek girl (but the greek girl wasn't there that night). so we were greeted by one of the french guy's girlfriends, as well as the syrian guy. after we dropped our stuff off, drank a glass of water, and sat and chatted for a bit, the syrian guy had an hour to kill so he showed us around grenoble a bit. it was cool for me when i was able to recognize things from four years ago!

there were also sheep painted all over town. not entirely sure what that was about, but we took pictures of every one we saw!

this one says: "je suis ceux que je suis" - i am what i am

when he had to go, christina and i decided to get some lunch before it was time to go up to the bastille.
we went to a pizza place along the river. there were about a million pizza places by the river. you think i'm joking? i'm not. every single place was a pizza place. it was kind of ridiculous. later our hosts said it must be the italian mafia, because of the nice cars in front of these restaurants haha. but who really knows.

next, off to the bastille we went! we took the telepherique up (since it looked like a long hike up, and i hadn't done it last time). not gonna lie, scared me a little since i'm a bit afraid of heights. but it was actually tons of fun!

la telepherique from the ground. aka "the balls"

in one of the balls!

we got to the top and went to see the view. honestly, we decided, it kind of felt like we were in heaven. i mean, we could see the entire city, and we were literally above the clouds! it was a beautiful view and i couldn't believe i hadn't seen it before!

the building in the bottom left with the dark roof is where we stayed!

so we walked around up at the bastille and found the artwork to be very interesting. lots of men with prominent gluteus maximuses!

there were even some caves for us to check out. 

this cave was actually dark... though it did have lights on for us to not kill ourselves

after we felt like we'd seen everything at the top. we headed back down the hill. this time walking. it took us awhile to get down. partly because we would stop and check out the view. partly because we weren't entirely sure which way to go! at one point, we thought if we went in the direction that seemed downhill that would work. boy were we wrong. this sign told us so:

"passage prohibited to the public" - i guess that means we'll be going uphill a bit first. after a bit longer, and starting to wonder if we were going to end up at the top of the hill and just need to take the telepherique down, we found another sign!

it told us grenoble was down some stairs! we even saw some people coming up the stairs, so we were able to verify with them that this was, indeed, the direction we wanted to go. what a relief! 

eventually we made it down the hill and into town again. we were walking around and passed a jewish resistance museum, so we decided to check it out. look! its almost educational!.. yknow since i never got to class anymore.. maybe that will change starting this week though.

anwyays. we were kind of hungry after our walk, so we we went to a bakery and split a couple desserts!

they were both very good. one with cream like in an eclaire. the other was called pudding. we were curious so we got it. it had a bit of a fruity taste to it! strange. but pretty good :)

next. we headed back to the apartment. our main host still wasn't there, so we just hung out for a bit and rested since we were kind of tired. soon though. our main host (meaning the guy we talked to first) and two of this other roommates showed up!

they were very welcoming. immediately bringing us beers and sitting down to chat with us. we were still waiting for  few more to arrive. (at this point we had three of the four roommates who would actually be there). but we were waiting for the fourth roommate to arrive. as well as a german couchsurfer. and two other american couchsurfers. and our main hosts girlfriend. 

when the german guy showed up, he said he knew immediately that christina and i were american. not really sure what that means lol. a little bit later the girlfriend showed up again. and even a bit later the other two americans showed up, two girls from kentucky! turns out i knew some of the people one of the girls knew, because she's studying in geneva. small world right? oh and our hosts' spanish friend came over too. 

soon after everyone was finally there. we were eleven at this point. two of our hosts prepared a delicious pasta dinner. i forget what its called but it had lardons and cheese in it too. 

we sat for a while, chatting, getting to know each other a bit, and the topic came up of where everybody LOOKED like they were from - though we already knew we had six nationalities between us. turns out, christina and i both look and sound VERY american. the other two american girls? apparently look greek and english! haha. and half of the others looked like they were from somewhere else too. 

our main guy wanted to know some very american words. we taught him "hella" though explained it is a very northern california word. he loved loved it. 

after taking a lovely group picture, we headed out for our evening adventures.

the guy in the norcal shirt (which christina gave him and he was very excited about) is our main couchsurfer.
everyone from left to right: german, spanish, french, indian, french, american, american, american, american, syrian. not pictured is the french girlfriend.

when we got outside we were trying to figure out what we should do. someone suggested we stick all of our hands in the middle, and before i knew it, we were doing the human knot! which, i might add, we solved ridiculously fast. i was very impressed. 

next we headed to a wine bar. where we each got just a taste of two different wines. both were kind of fruity. i forget what they were at this point, but they were pretty good! since it was so crowded there though, we moved on to the next place. 

this place had sand on the floor! i felt like i was back in santa cruz at the beach. except the sand didn't have lots of stuff in it.. we stayed here for a while, trying a couple different small drinks. and singing loudly our favorite song "lalalala la la la" .. which at this point i can't entirely remember the rhythm of. but it was a blast. and we even had some random guy come up trying to join us... because our party was just that awesome. 

later we went back to the house and hung out some more. we listened to an animaniacs song that lists every country (though is a little out of date) and had a rather good time. we made plans to visit each other again.. but we'll see if that actually happens haha. i mean they also made plans to get up at 5:30 and run. or more realistically have everyone wake up at 8 and eat breakfast because christina and i had to leave at 8:45.. but those plans failed lol. 

all in all though i can say i love couchsurfing. i'd never done it before and this group made the experience amazing. and definitely something i would want to do in the future. its cheaper for one. but more than that, it's more fun and interesting! you get to hang out with the locals and learn lots of new things!

cousin! now, who else in my family is going to come visit? :)

the visit was short, but today my cousin sam came to visit me! she has been staying in paris with her grandparents for the past week, and they were nice enough to come down to lyon for the day since i didn't have school :)
they were only in town for a few hours, but it was fun to have visitors all the same. and amazingly enough, it was really nice and sunny out the entire time! well that is until about 10 minutes before they were going to get on their train back to paris anyways.. it really couldn't have been better timing.

they arrived at perrache, which is the station further from me, but which was actually perfect because it meant we were already at the presqu'il and the main part of the city without them having to buy tram tickets. so we wandered around the main part of the city for awhile before we took the funiculaire up  to fourviere to see the view. at which point i was able to show them exactly where they had been, as well as where i would take them next! i really do love the view from fourviere. afterwards, i took them through the gardens as we walked back down the hill to vieux lyon. we wandered around for a bit before sam's grandpa treated us to a lovely lunch in vieux lyon. i can't think of what the restaurant was called, but the food was pretty good. sam and i each got a salade lyonnais, then chicken/rice/ratatouille (but the ratatouille was a little too salty.. i prefer my host mom's :)) and we especially liked the chocolate mousse we had for dessert :)

after lunch, we were starting to run low on time so we started making our way towards the university where we could catch the tram to gare part-dieu where they would be leaving from. we walked along the rhone and found the flower sculpture that i still can't decide if i like. so sam and i got a picture with it!

she tried to be taller than me. but i pointed out that i get to be the tallest girl in the waser family. it's just the way it is! haha

i tried to show them the university quai campus on the way to the gare, but seeing as it's a holiday today, the whole campus was locked up. too bad.

because we wanted to make sure we didn't miss their train for anyways. we chose to spend our last bit of time wandering around the mall just across the street from the station. it was also warm there :)

and then they left. but it was fun to have some family visit for at least a little bit!
one relative down... who's coming to visit me next?!?! :)

and tomorrow: grenoble!
and friday: annecy!
i looove studying abroad! and hey, maybe next week i'll actually get to go to my classes...

a dose of crazy

oh lyon, what am i gonna do with you?

once again, thursday classes were canceled because of the greves. luckily things were up and running again by friday... but i don't have class then.. well at least not until next week. and unfortunately, i actually like my thursday classes. and we don't have class next thursday because of a holiday. i have only been to my sociology twice so far.. and yes, you read that right. between confusion the first day, the teacher canceling class once because she was out of town, the greves, and vacation, i am starting to wonder if i am ever going to go to my sociology class again!

then fridayyyy, my friend rachel came to visit me! her visit was short, less than 24 hours, but we made the best of it :)
after stopping by my place after picking her up from the train station to drop off her bags, i took her up to fourviere to see the view and the church, then we walked down through the gardens to vieux lyon where we wandered around for awhile before meeting up with kirstin near hotel de ville to get some coffee. well i mean they got coffee. i got hot chocolate. afterwards i showed her the rest of the presqu'il and we headed home for dinner to make omelettes since my host parents were out of town and we didn't want to pay for dinner.

it was after this dinner, when we headed back downtown to meet up with friends, that things really started getting interesting. we got some wine and were sitting at hotel de ville outside the opera house enjoying ourselves before we figured out what we were really going to do with our night. suddenly some crazy french girl (yes i have had some creepy guy encounters since i have been in france, but i think this crazy french girl takes the cake), comes up and picks up our bottle. we then try to get it back from her and she goes nuts. i'm not sure what we did to offend her so badly, but she was cursing at us in french/arabic (according to my friend), and said she would do worse to us if it weren't for the nice old man wondering what was going on. she did actually smack one of my friends. the entire situation was kind of crazy. another friend of mine got her purse taken by another girl.. which luckily she got back.. though she later realized she was missing her mp3 player. it was an unfortunate beginning to the night, and i kind of wondered if it would have been very different if we had had guys with us this night (i might add this was one of the first times we didn't have guys going out with us). oh and don't worry. we're all fine.
from the strange encounter, our night did get better. we went to a dance club where we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. and from there to a pub.. where it turns out rachel got carded, and unfortunately didn't have her id on her, so we headed off to a different dance club. all in all it was a pretty fun night. though rachel and i headed home at about 1 because we had to be up early in time for her to make her 7am train that would be taking her to italy.

it was fun, though, to have a visitor from home, and get to hear about her study abroad stories as well as share my city with her :)

STAYING FOR THE YEAR

FINALLY. i finally got to sign the papers that make it official that i will be staying in lyon for next semester as well! i was pretty sad two weeks ago when all of our meetings with christine (the director) got canceled due to the greves because that's when i was actually supposed to sign the necessary papers... though i knew it shouldn't be a problem for me to stay the year, i was feeling a little antsy about something possibly coming up. but her office is up and running again, so i stopped by and made it official. SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW :)

when i originally applied last november, i told myself there was almost no chance i was going to stay for the full year (for various reasons of course, all of which have been thrown out the window at this point).. but decided to fill out the necessary paperwork to keep it an option anyways. which was a good thing since i began to consider staying for the full year last spring. debating it all spring and all summer. and being told by nathan and dad that of course i was staying the year, why did i keep telling myself i might only be staying the semester? (i even bought my original return flight ticket for june rather than december). and then, probably only two days after stepping of the plane in france, i knew there was no way i would want to go home at the end of december. i was already in love with this city.

so, i guess california, i'll be seeing you in june :)

Passau, Germany and a bit of Austria

it's amazing how even when the rhone express (the tram that gets me to the airport) isn't striking, it still gets affected by the greves. apparently when protesters decide to gather on the tracks, the tram isn't going to run them over - who woulda thunk it? for me, though, this meant getting to to the airport on time took a little more effort than anticipated, including going in circles, taking  an excessive amount of buses/metros, and feeling like i was participating in the amazing race as i ran from one type of public transportation to the next trying to get to a different place the rhone express would stop. it was during these sprints that i was really happy that i had packed light and was only carrying a backpack and a purse.. because more than that could have been a problem. luckily i made it though, because if this germany trip got messed up, i would not have been a happy camper.

my flights were short, and the best part was that they gave us chocolate! take that u.s. airlines that only provide peanuts or pretzels. then without too much trouble i managed to find the bus and train that joanna had mentioned me taking, and eventually i made it to passau! even got to see a cool sunset as my flight into munich landed:

i spent a lot of time the first couple days wandering around the city by myself since joanna and markus both had to work. for this reason, i love that passau is small because i am able to wander about the city freely without fear of getting lost. if the city were larger, i would really wish that i spoke some german so that when i inevitably got lost, i could ask someone for directions. but in passau, it was never an issue. the main city is in between two rivers, the inn and the danube, and i don't have a problem telling them apart. they come together at a point, and usually, there is a very distinct line because the rivers are different colors where they merge. not gonna lie, i was a little disappointed when that line wasn't there this time. but this town is pretty cute with cobble stoned roads in the city center, and practically countryside if you look across either river. so when i got tired of walking all over the city, it seemed like an excellent idea to sit on one of the many benches facing out to the river, and just enjoying being in germany! i love europe :)

cobblestone roads

beautiful view when i was sitting on a bench facing the Inn

an interesting touch also, which i think i enjoyed more than joanna did, was the graffitit i found. some of it i found rather enlightening:

some of it a little less so:

joanna teaches at the university in passau, and since one of her classes is in english i decided to tag along for the day and head to class. i figured since all of my classes had been canceled the week before, i might as well! i mean, i figured if i wasn't getting my classes in france, i might as well try one in germany. it was fun because it took no effort to understand everything - yknow.. because it wasn't in french... we discussed stereotypes of different european countries. it was interesting for me, though i didn't know very many compared the to the europeans. it was funny too when the students realized i wasn't german. and then realized i didn't even speak german. one kid even asked what i was even doing there.. i just pointed out that knew the professor, no big deal. i'm pretty cool right?
another thing i found interesting about the university were the toilets. yes, i said it. the toilets. in case i haven't mentioned this about lyon, many public toilets (including those at the university) are seriously lacking in the toilet seat department (supposedly for sanitary reasons), so of course when i noticed that passau didn't have this same problem, i was pretty excited. (don't judge, anybody (well the girls at least) in lyon with me would be excited too! hahaha)

while taking this picture, i realized i really needed to learn how to turn the sound off of my new camera...

and it turns out that this was an excellent week to visit passau because the weather was amazing (mostly sunny, a little cold, but let's be real here, it's germany in october..). which meant it was perfect for wandering around the city, as well as going on a couple hikes!
for the first "hike", joanna and i walked along the ilz river since i'm not sure that i saw it the last two times i was in passau. and i must say, i think it's my favorite, with the inn as a close second. the beauty of the ilz though, is that it doesn't have the city right next to it, so it's pretty peaceful, especially when you choose a day when not many people are visiting it!

the next day, markus joined us, and we headed off to austria for a significantly longer hike. after a few outfit changes, as well as shoe changes, and checking the map to figure out exactly where we were going, we finally headed off. i might also add, passau is so close to the german-austrian border, that we didn't even have to get in a car to do our austria hike (and on the way back, i didn't even realize when we were back in germany).

it was interesting for me to get to see the fields and foresty areas up close that i always see from planes. as well as to see how i could get from a crowded (in as far as all the buildings are close together) city, to countryside in 20 minutes flat. by foot. loove it.

i have to say though, i think my favorite part of the hike was the playground we stopped at before turning around and heading back. and by turning around i mean taking a different route back. but it was really cool. different parts of it represented different parts of the human body. just a few:

toes - little seats

spine - with springs underneath to jump on

face - the mouth part spins.. ours at home usually have something to hold on to

it had swings too! which, as some of you might know, i love swings. and so i was pretty excited about that.

on our way back, we headed to a watch tower. which joanna insisted we climb. which had a million steps.. i wish i had actually remembered to count. but in the end, the ridiculous amount of steps was definitely worth the energy it took to climb them becauseeeeee, from the top, was an amazing view! which included being able to see germany, austria, AND the czech republic. no big deal, just seeing three different countries while standing in one place, all in a day's work. so i guess this was my other favorite part :)

germany - now imagine having a view like this in all directions, and you'll start to get the idea

i also renewed my love of cows during this hike, though didn't entirely appreciate how much austria smelled like them.

now, because halloween was just around the corner, joanna and i came to the conclusion it was necessary to get pumpkins and carve them. we were a little afraid we wouldn't be able to find any acceptable pumpkins, but alas, we did, and halloween was saved.. or something like that. they took forever to carve because we wanted them to be glowy which meant making them thinner.. though i'm not entirely sure it worked for mine. but they did turn out rather nice :)

joanna's

mine

plus, we took advantage of the massive amounts of pumpkin junk we took out and made pumpkin soup for dinner the day i left! and we baked the seeds like my family does, and i must say they came out rather nicely. they needed salt of course, but they were the perfect color, not burnt at all!

though this was the extent of my halloween because i had an early flight back to lyon the next morning. joanna took me back to the train station, where we found a lovely group of people heading the same direction which made it possible for me to get a ticket for 4 euros instead of 20! cool system right? where you can have up to 5 people use the same ticket. it's great. i then headed to my hotel, which took a little longer to walk to than i had hoped because i couldn't find the pedestrian path that would have been a little shorter than the route cars have to take. but no big deal, i found it at least! and i was rewarded because my room was a lot nicer than i would have anticipated, even including a private bathroom which i hadn't expected!

that pillow was really comfy - i wanted to take it with me, but i didn't think the hotel owners would really appreciate that...

what i couldn't believe though, was that i was going to bed at 10:30 on halloween. ridiculous right? but i was planning on waking up a bit past 4 the next morning since i needed to catch a bus back at the train station that would take me to the airport at 5:25. turns out i was super early for that though since i found the pedestrian path, but hey, at least i wasn't worried about missing my flight!

and i have to say, when i got back to lyon, and i knew what to do (where to go, what tram to get on, etc.) it felt pretty good. especially considering when i first arrived i had no idea what to do, where exactly i was going, and had to sit and take a moment to get myself together and be willing to start asking for help - in french, while jetlagged, and without my luggage. but this time, i just took off for the rhone express again, knew exactly what to ask for, where to get off, and how to get home. and the best part? the greves appear to be over! which meant it didn't take any extra effort to figure out what might get me home :)