my last studious weekend in lyon

ok ok, you caught me, this was probably my only studious weekend all semester. i mean i did my hw (usually), but thats not really studying. that usually involved me realizing the night before that i hadn't quite gotten around to it yet, and then scrambling to be prepared for class the next morning (which i usually was.. mostly).

but this weekend was the weekend before finals. so obviously it had to be different. but don't by any means think this past weekend resembled a pre-finals weekend had i been in santa cruz. no no. going out still happened. enjoying myself still happened. oh yea, and i guess some studying happened too.

but let's start from the beginning. my weekends this semester start on thursday with the end of my salsa class. which means they essentially start at noon on thursday since i love my salsa class and dont even consider it school. when its cancelled, i am sad. but anyways. i went to my salsa class which as always was lots of fun. then i ended up going to chloes house and meeting up with zoe and her friend who was visiting (a girl who turns out actually goes to santa cruz!). we all ate dinner and chloe and i attempted to teach zoe and keya some salsa dance moves. which was interesting since chloe and i suddenly had to pretend we knew how to do the guys' part. but anyways, they weren't half bad :) that night we met up with patrick and went to mi barrio (the salsa club in town) and knew that some of our classmates would be going that night as well. after awhile we headed to barbarousse because it was keya's last night in town and we figured we should go to a regular bar/club too. once again the backroom was closed off, but it was fun nonetheless.

i was getting ready to leave by midnight when better music finally started, so i decided to stick around. plus, i figured out that juan lives close enough we could split a cab home! sweeeet. so we headed home around 1:30 instead. not excessively late, but not the beginning to my normal pre-finals weekend either.

friday did actually involve some studying. i met up with zoe and chloe to go to a cafe to study for a few hours before we had our eap get together at 5pm to shoot a video. the studying wasnt all that exciting, but you might be wondering about the video i am talking about. if you have access to my facebook, there is a link there (i'm hoping i will eventually have a way to actually save it). but anyways. the whole point of it? an eap student studying in bordeaux had the brilliant idea that eap students around the world dance to the same song, and then that will be pieced together to form one video to show future eap students (at least thats what i believe this was for). well it was decided that the song would be "love generation" by bob sinclaire, and our lyonnais group decided we would be doing this dance in place de terreaux in front of the statue. thats right. a bunch of foreign kids dancing around for five minutes in a very public square. i have to say i was nervous going in, afraid of making a fool of myself. but it was actually a ton of fun :) people were taking pictures of us, and a few even biked through the view, but im glad we got a bunch of us to participate.

i had told myself i wouldn't go out friday night because i should study because i wanted to go out saturday night. well that didn't happen. mj invited a few of us over for dinner and then beerpong, and that just sounded like more fun! dinner was a delicious million dollar chicken and couscous/quinoa prepared by chloe/mj. and then a couple games of beer pong followed with universitys teaming up. santa barbara beat both other uc pairs, but were finally taken down by a virginia team. sad. sure we had been routing against them at first, but we still wanted california to win!
i was sad because i was actually pretty good at getting the ball into the cup.. yknow, before the game actually started. then i got my first ball in, and missed everything after. but it was still a fun evening :)
as it started getting time to decide if we were in fact going to take the metro home as originally planned, we almost changed our minds before deciding to be responsable and realize we needed to study the following morning. so we headed home. and that was friday.

saturday didn't start out with studying either. i mean it couldn't immediately anyways since i slept at home and my laptop and all my notes were at chloe's from the day before. but thats not the point. i had made plans to meet up with elliot so we could find this message wall that kirstin and patrick and milena had told us about awhile ago. technically we came up with this plan forever ago, but we were finally going to make it happen. so we got ourselves up to fourviere.. and then realized we still had NO IDEA where the heck this wall was. we made a good effort, and even found some beautiful path with views i had never seen before (and want to go back and see again), but we failed at our original goal.

now, however, i have directions from kirstin, so we are going to try again wednesday (either that or find the actual croix-rousse.. i need to do both before i leave lyon).

when we finally gave up for the day, i headed to chloe and zoes to get my stuff. i picked up some beautiful looking strawberries from the marché on the way though since they were only 3 euros :) i had planned to study with zoe at some cafe, but with the stress i was suddenly feeling, i decided to grab my stuff (and by that i mean half of my belongings.. ok thats an exaggeration, but mannn had a lot of my stuff accummulated at their place over the last couple days) and head home to study by myself for awhile. they would come join me later for dinner since my host parents had left me a lot of food for the weekend and i hadnt really gotten through it seeing as how little i had actually been home. so i studied for a good few hours (didn't even let myself go upstairs where i get more easily distracted) before they came over. we ate our dinner and then decided to watch a movie on my computer before they headed home. we had decided earlier that that sounded like a better idea than actually going out since we all still had lots of studying to do on sunday. plus by the time they came over it was pouring and i decided i was perfectly happy to be able to stay dry!

sunday is when things started getting rough. well, i mean, everything started out just fine. i woke up. ate breakfast. and tried the whole studying downstairs thing again. i stayed downstairs long enough to let my laptop battery practically die, and then decided i would head up to my room and charge my computer. well that was going fine and dandy, up until about 30%, when suddenly, my charger decided it had had enough and wasn't up to the job anymore. which meant i had about an hour left on my computer. which i had actually been using for studying. awesome right? not really. of course i have NEVER had this issue before. and of course it had to happen when nobody i am living with has a mac (considering my last two years in school im surrounded by this kind of person). this meant i was suddenly without a computer seeing as it died. not ideal. and especially not ideal before finals. i got some studying done with my handwritten notes, but it was frustrating to not be able to look things up the way i like to. wikipedia is my friend, you know.

luckily, monday i managed to convince chloe and juan to move their study date to my place so that i could use juan's charger. by the time they arrived (which i had to push back because of lunch), i had been computerless for 24 hours. shocker. i know. i am definitely one who can live without my computer for a day. but i dont like it when that day is one when i actually need to use my computer for productive reasons. sure i felt distanced from facebook.. but thats not really what i was sad about. they were here long enough that i managed to get my computer charged back up to 98%, which gave me a few hours (the last of which i am using to write this blog.. obviously i am super dedicated to this studying stuff).
but i did find out there is some store called ephesus that is a legit mac store and hopefully i will be able to get a new charger tomorrow. i have no idea what i am going to do if i end up having to rely on friends to keep my computer charged.. that would be a huge problem. i guess probably spend way too much on a charger? im hoping my apple care plan will work for me in france to avoid this problem.

so obviously i had lots of fun this weekend with a little bit of studying on the side. in my defense though, i am only really studying for once class. i mean you can't really study for translation classes, and im waiting to get the paper for my creative writing class back so i can fix it up and turn it in again. it probably also doesnt help that i probably need a better attitude toward my psych class. i wasn't a huge fan of the class (im not a big cognitive person in the first place), and i found out about the date of the final very last minute. aka the week before. and i might point out thats not me being a slacker.. when i originally asked about the date of the final i was told it would be in may. meh. oh well. im a little worried about not passing it, but im doing my best to try and learn everything.. its hard though!

anyways. all of this will be over and done with in a few days and i will have about 44 days of freedom. yknow, to travel and finish my list of things i need to do in lyon before i head home. and to enjoy my summer since a week after my return to the states summer school starts. and i actually plan on doing well in summer school. which will involve much more reading and studying and test taking than this entire semester.

also. my 8 month marker happened to have passed yesterday. say whatttt?

planning for the future

i have to say, planning your future while abroad is not the most enjoyable experience. i don't mean to say i'm trying to figure out what i want to do with the rest of my life right now, i'm talking about more pressing issues.

i already have my flight back to the states set for june 11. that has been known for as long as i have had my flight to france since they were purchased at the same time in order to get my visa. figuring out what i am going to do with myself that week i have on the east coast is a whole other question though. as well as getting myself a plane ticket back to california. and not really being able to do it myself (maybe due to french internet? i'm not sure, but it wasn't working for me.. or at least southwest wasn't). and figuring out exactly who is going to pick me up when i arrive. and how i will get to santa cruz in order to be on time for my first summer school class the following day. and picking what phone i want to have when i return. with what phone company. and deciding whether or not i am actually going to take summer session two even though i signed up for it (with a little help from nathan due to internet problems on my end). will i end up staying in santa cruz for the majority of the summer taking classes? or will i manage to get my act together to search for an internship so that i can go home to sacramento for a while.. yknow considering i won't have been there in almost a year. i'd love to see splotch. and any friends who are in town. and my house, since i unfortunately learned awhile ago that it doesn't look like it's going to be ours for as long as i would have hoped. i also have to figure out where i'm going to live next year, and seeing as once again (no hard feelings toward anyone on this point, btw) i am on my own for that search, i am losing motivation to look again. problem right? and i should probably get myself signed up for summer housing on campus too. i have to figure out when fall class sign ups are, as well as what classes to actually sign up for.
and this is all stuff i have to figure out for after i return to the states.

but what about stuff that i still have to do that actually applies to my stay in france?
i have to study for exams for classes i'm not a huge fan of. including one that is next week when i thought it was going to be the third week in may. gotta love the french system :/
i need to acknowledge the list christine sent us for things that need to be done before we leave.. like closing our bank accounts and letting the caf people know they don't have to give me money anymore. and realizing that the end is creeping up on me faster than i would like.

i need to find a couchsurfer for glasgow. and i need to plan a trip to nice.

i need to get a new lyon map to hang on my wall next year. and decide if im actually going to buy a lyon tshirt even though its way too expensive.

but more than anything, i need to remember to continue to enjoy myself here as much as i can. i'm still trying to make it to a soccer game if it's possible (my host dad is working on that for me). i still need to eat grenouille (aka frogs). i still need to make it to a couple museums (the silk museum and lumiere museum, to be specific). i still need to rent a velo'v and bike along the quai, which will hopefully also include finding the tiny beachy area along the rhone. i need to take pictures of the entire city because i dont want to forget anything. i need to continue eating an excessive number of baguettes and cheese and pastries.

and when i have an off-day like recently, i need to make sure i stay out and about the next day, because hanging out by myself at home isn't doing me any good. if the sun is out, i should be outside. it is as simple as that.

:)

the BIG birthday weekend

ok so i'm a little late with this blog, but i've been busy.
to start. i cant believe im finally 21, and honestly it probably wont truly sink in until i get home because it just doesnt have the same stigma (or whatever the heck the word is) here.

the weekend started at chloes house doing hw because we both knew if the hw didnt get done first, it might not get done at all. look at us being all responsible and stuff!
but once we had finished, we headed to the circus! thats right, the circus. my host mom mentioned it was in town, so chloe and i decided to check it out. it turned out it was a lot further from perrache than we had intended, so we ended up walking about 4 tram stops unintentionally. when we finally found the big tent, we managed to walk the wrong way around the enclosure before finally figuring out a way to get in. it was actually pretty good, though smaller than i had anticipated (probably due to the fact that i dont think ive ever been to a circus before and therefore picture cirque du soleil on tv). we ended up leaving when the clowns came out because, lets be real, clowns are creepy. plusss. we wanted to get to patricks for dinner and chocolate! and we were already behind schedule.
a couple circus pictures:

on the way to patricks, chloe and i had to get on the less convenient bus because it was going to come a lot faster than the preferable one. only problem was, we managed to completely miss our stop which meant patrick had to come rescue us. hey, its not our fault he lives ridiculously far away.
patricks for dinner and chocolate was delicious. he had made macaroons and souffle and some other cake thing.

plus, the company was delightful :)

i made it home just after midnight and decided to post a facebook status about being 21. when i woke up in the morning, i found that people from home did not accept this because a few felt the need to point out that it wasn't my birthday yet in california. fineeee guys. ;)

in the morning i headed downstairs for breakfast. my host parents seemed surprised by the fact that i appeared at about 9:30. i feel like they forgot for a second that i dont sleep in super late like marc-philippe does when he's home haha. but they greeted me, each gave me a bisous, and told me bon anniversaire. they also gave me two macarons which i though was really sweet. and then my host dad asked me if would like some whisky since i was now 21. my host mom and i kind of looked at each other like what in the world is going on right now. i declined as my host mom and i both pointed out it was morning hahaha (i might point out right now that my host parents dont even drink that much.. though some familys have wine every night.. thats not how it is here, so i thought it was especially funny).

most of the family came over for lunch since i share my birthday with my host sister's husband.
when louis saw me he turned away from me. whaaat? its my birthday! i guess it just wasnt our day. that baby usually loves me :/
lunch was delicious followed by chocolate cake and a raspberry tarte. two of course because guillaume and i each needed one to blow out candles :) unfortunately the one for good luck was missing though. butttt happy birthday was sung first in french and then in english which made me super happy. i thought it was really cute to hear everybody sing in english :)
my host mom then gave me a bracelet and necklace and i finally got a picture with both of my host parents!

after lunch i probably had a whole half hour to myself to get stuff together and skype with my grandparents before heading out for the evening.
i met up with chloe and we ran some errands.. like getting food for dinner.. before finally heading to her house to get ready and eat.
giulia showed up to join us for our awesome pasta dinner and provided a very tasty salad.
and patrick and samina came over for cake afterwards.. a cake that patrick actually provided. once again it was candle time, and once again i felt it was missing one.. but i guess its not everybody's tradition.
(i would put a picture here, but i think it was on someone else's camera).
we ended up going to a couple bars and finally ended up at mi barrio. i was supposed to meet up with a couple other friends, but that kind of fell apart.
i did have a lot of fun though.
by the time we got back to chloes place around 3, i was completely exhausted and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

we had brunch the next morning which consisted of potatoes with peppers and it was quite good. then chloe and i got a little tiny nap in before we headed to the park to meet up with people again. it was super warm out and a couple people went to get ice cream they had to eat it quickly before it melted all over them!

i have to say though, it was a pretty good birthday weekend :)

the countdown that came too soon

from the day i arrived, i had always been counting up the amount of time i had been here. amazed that 3 days had passed so quickly! 2 weeks! 2 months! 6 months! and even 7 months!
and then something seemed to change, and i wasn't super happy about it. i found myself starting to count down the time i had left here. less than 3 months. and as of today, i have exactly 2 months left before i will be stepping on a plane that will take me back to the states, and i can't believe how little time that is.
i am still taking full advantage of my opportunities here, traveling a ton, going out, wandering around the city, eating too many pastries and baguettes and cheese, and loving every minute of it. but something is hanging in the air, the realization that soon this will all be over and i will have to get back to real life. it becomes more and more frequent that conversations turn toward realizing how sad we all are that our days here are now definitely numbered. until someone decides we simply need to stop talking about it.. of course until it manages to creep back into the conversation again. its like the white elephant in the room that noone wants to acknowledge, except that we can't stop bringing it up either.
we still wonder how time managed to fly by so quickly! it makes me sad when i realize there are so many trips i still want to take, but that just aren't going to happen because i don't want to give up my time in lyon at the very end either. i wish i had more time left so i could spread my trips out a little more.
its funny, i think this was probably the first time in my entire life that i was sad when april arrived. since its my birthday month, i usually can't wait. but this time i knew it meant i was just that much closer to the end. well, at least i have my birthday to look forward too! and making the most of the last two months of this incredible adventure.
im hoping time will slow down just a little bit.

Bordeaux, the other choice.

bordeaux was the city that i knew i was going to have to visit. there was just no way i was going to leave france without checking out the city that i could have chosen to make my home if i hadn't chosen lyon. i was curious where other eap students were spending there year, what their city was like. and i was even more curious whether or not i would get there and realize i had made the wrong decision a year and a half ago when i applied for the lyon program in the first place (not that this was a big possibility considering how much i love lyon).

we arrived sunday morning. it had obviously been raining a little, and the sunshine and warmth we had embraced the last two days in toulouse seemed to have disappeared. i realized in my comparisons between bordeaux and lyon, i was going to have to try not to be too biased based on the weather or the emptyness simply because we happened to not pick the most perfect day to be there.
we found our hotel immediately seeing as we knew it was right across the street from the gare, and went up to our room to drop things off. a bit cheaper than our toulouse hotel, it definitely wasn't as nice. this time much more reminiscent of a hostel. but it was fine, and i guess you get what you pay for.

as usual, lunch was our first priority. since it was sunday though, it was a little more complicated to find food. luckily though, we found a paul that was open, and then took our food back to a statue we had passed during our search.

the weather got kind of funny as we ate, sprinkling for about 2 minutes then getting super sunny for a little bit before turning back to overcast. but it was a nice place to sit and eat. plus we got to watch the guys filming a movie we believed. one guy had a bike and kept moving it. it was rather amusing to watch, though we had no idea what was going on.

after we had finished our lunch. we headed to the park (which of course is a necessity in every city that has a park, which essentially means every city). i think this park was my favorite part of bordeaux though. it was really pretty with a little river running through it. it reminded me a lot of parc de la tete d'or, but smaller, and different.

plus, it had a little play area!

next we made our way to saint-michel tower because we wanted to climb the massive number of steps to see a panoramic view of the city. first though, in the square right next to it, we saw a cart selling cheap wine, so we stopped buy and bought a liter plus of wine for 2.50. in a water bottle. we are classy people. but later when we drank it, it was actually quite good!

but anyways, back to the tower. we climbed all the way up to the top using a ridiculously tiny staircase (which at least spiraled in the correct direction) in order to see the panoramic view of the city.

getting back down the tower got interesting when another group was trying to come up at the same time.
we also decided to take a look inside the church.

and saw the outside of hotel de ville.

then took our usual cafe break at a cafe that happened to be named cafe rohan, which i thought was funny.

we found musee des beaux arts next and decided to take a look inside. only after seeing a large alligator (crocodile?) statue in the front which we really didnt understand.

we soon found ourselves at yet another small park, where we decided to eat our baguette snacks and break open our very classy wine.

since we still had time before we wanted to eat, we went to find the university. we aren't sure if it is the actual campus other eap students are at, but it was the only one we could find.

then, coolest of all, we found a sign with my name on it!

and finally we decided we needed to get some food in us again. we ended up eating at an italien place that was actually quite good, but the entree was massive. i reallyyy liked my salad though :) and the desserts were a little funny. i have to say i liked my panna cotta better in beaune than in bordeaux.

for the end of our evening we made our way back to the quai and sat down on the steps in front of the miroir d'eau. it was such a beautiful night and we were so full we just wanted to be outside but sitting for a little while.

we knew we wouldn't be staying up excessively late that night because we would have to get up at 6 the following morning in order to get to the airport to get us back to lyon in time to have a productive day.

but it was a very successful weekend and i was glad to have gotten to see more new french cities and enjoy them so much.

but moral of the story: bordeaux is a beautiful city, but there is no doubt in my mind that i made the right decision when i chose lyon :)

Toulouse

according to lindsay's guidebook, supposedly toulouse is the place to come when all french cities start to look the same.
its funny, its not like i thought toulouse was a super exciting city or anything, but i really enjoyed my time there. maybe it had something to do with the fact that it was actually hot out, or that the city really is different from everywhere i've seen recently, but i loved wandering around and taking it all in.

the trip started out at the ridiculously early hour of 7h11 when our train departed from gare part dieu. four hours, a nap or two, and a few stops later, we finally arrived. we found our hotel faster than i ever had before (probably having something to do with the fact that it was one metro stop away from the gare and about a 5 minute walk from there). amazingly enough we were actually able to check in even though we thought we'd just have to leave our bags with them for safe keeping because the room might not have been ours for a couple more hours. we were very impressed by how nice it was considering how little we were paying. so we dropped off our stuff and headed back out, ready to start the day.

we decided we would be picnicing for lunch because it was cheaper and just as delicious. so we went to monoprix to pick up some cheese, jambon, fruit, chips, cookies, and water before finding a boulangerie where we could buy better bread than we would probably find at monoprix. then we made our way to the river and sat down on the quai to eat our lunch in the sunshine staring out over the water.

with food finally in our stomachs, the real exploring began. we wandered through the streets and saw a couple churches. once going in mostly because we needed to get out of the heat for a couple minutes (oh how long i have waited to be able to say that!). but i mean, they were nice churches even without the added bonus of air conditioning. it was amazing to be able to walk around in shorts and a tshirt though, without worrying about being cold.

as we walked, we noticed blue was a pretty popular color in the city. plus the streets were just kind of cute. we also realized that there was an abundance of brick buildings. i felt a little bit like i was on the east coast because of it. but it certainly was a sign that this city was different.

soon we found ourselves in a park. but this one had something i haven't seen in quite some time. peacocks!

there was also a rooster, but every time i tried to take it's picture it moved away to fast walking behind a bush or flowers or whatever.
we had a nice break in the park, but eventually we realized we should probably check out more of the city, which would involve standing up. so we got our stuff together and moved on.

our next stop was a cafe where the drinks were delicious but the service was horrendous. and by horrendous i mean we first had to wait to get any attention at all. then we asked the lady if there was a 'menu' to which she responded they didn't serve food instead of deciding to acknowledge that we meant to say 'carte', before walking away. finally another server brought us the carte thought it took even a little while longer before we were even able to place our orders. which then took forever to arrive. mine even later than lindsay's and giulia's. at least the drinks were good though. my chocolat frappe turned out to be much closer to chocolate milk than i had expected. but it was chocolate and it was cold, which meant it was just what i wanted.

with renewed energy we explored the main square, place du capitole, and the museum inside it. we also learned that inside is apparently where everyone gets married, and saw at least two brides.

after feeling like we had explored a lot of the city already, and wanting to leave a little for the next day, as well as ready for another break, we found another nice little park. well maybe not a park like the one earlier in the day, but there was a fountain, a statue, benches, and plenty of grass for us to sit on where we could eat a snack.

for dinner, we picked a nice little restaurant that didn't seem to expensive on a street populated by restaurants. it turned out to be delicious. greek salad. wine. and a massive amount of ice cream for dessert. mmmm :)

after dinner we figured out the quai was a happening place to be at night. everybody was out, and the bars near the river were all completely packed. we ended up deciding to just wander around for awhile enjoying the fact that it was still an amazing temperature even though it was dark.

and to finish off that first day we decided to get a beer before heading back to the hotel. we all got les bieres fruitee, which i actually liked. although i realized that giulia's peach and lindsay's raspberry were much better than my choice of strawberry. oh well, it was ok anyways.

we started our second day reasonably early by heading to the marche in the main square. it turned out to not be quite as exciting as we had anticipated, but were glad we went anyways.

next though, on our way to check out a church, we found une fripperie, aka a flea market. giulia even found a book about california from 1969! it was interesting to look at the pictures, but i was disappointed when i realized sacramento wasn't in it, thinking it would of course be in there being the capital and all..

finally we got around to checking out the church, which of course was really nice. i especially liked this section:

we checked out the university next, and found a lot of the common blue shutters along the way.

we thought the campus was very nice, much more modern than our quai campus, and much prettier than our bron campus.

for lunch we decided to do the picnic thing again because it had worked out so well the day before. but this time we decided to head to the opposite side of the river and sit in a grassy area with shade. the sun had been great before, but this time it was just too hot to even consider it. and what a lovely view :)

next up we did some shopping. we found this vintage shop, and i actually found a small purse! i love how when i say i'm not willing to spend more than ten euros on anything i might buy, and then we find something i like and it fits into that category.

we also went to a store (that of course i forget the name of), but we referred to as the blue store. this store was known for its blue dye that the city is known for a little bit, and lindsay even bought a scarf.
my favorite purchase, however, was at a store called pylone. this store is super colorful and i wanted everything in it! but i settled for a new toothbrush holder. and reminiscent of an old obsession, i felt i had to choose the cow one.

when we started to feel like the sun and wandering was getting to be too much for us, we headed to monoprix to pick up some chips and salsa and go back to the fountain park where we had been the day before to relax. its amazing how much nicer it can be in the shade when its so hot out! but i definitely prefer to be a bit too hot than to be freezing when im already wearing about 6 layers.

after a nap and some time to clean up at the hotel, we headed out again in search of dinner. we had already decided on a place that was in the guidebook, so it was just a matter of figuring out where it was. and then after wandering around for awhile deciding to actually start walking in the correct direction. which for some reason was more difficult than usual, and we became very obvious tourists.

eventually, however, we did figure out the map and find the restaurant. turns out, it was a buffet style restaurant which we had not antipated, but decided to try it anyways. it wasn't amazing or anything, but it was fairly inexpensive, all you can eat, and had some variety.
we ended the night with a little wine and the thoughts that we would be going to some salsa bar... which it turns out doesn't exist anymore. which meant that seeing as it was a little past midnight when we figured it out, we just headed back to the hotel to hang out a bit before going to bed since we would be getting up fairly early the next morning to leave for bordeaux!