the beginning of the end

the past few days have been a mix of exciting moments and sad moments.

the sad parts? closing my bank account, ending my caf, and watching friends start to pack/having to start saying goodbye. its like looking two weeks into the future, and i dont like it. its wierd not knowing when i am going to see these people again who i have become so close to. the end is creeping up on me and i really dont appreciate it. today my host mom even asked me if i had started packing.. i responded uhh no. i dont want to leave haha. but more than that i just hate packing.

the exciting parts though? wandering around the city. watching louis learning to walk/spending time with my host parents. going on a scavenger hunt.
chloe and i had come up with this genius idea that patrick should make us a scavenger hunt. i have to say it was pretty fun. oh and milena and her brother joined us. it started with telling us to go get a kirstin flute.. which of course i was the only one to understand and meant that we were to go to the boulangerie by where kirstin used to live. from there we were told to listen to the ipod he had handed to us. specifically a selection by boris. who is boris? he is patrick using a ridiculous russian accent to send us around the city for no reason at all while he finishes placing other clues. but it was hilarious. i wish you could listen to it, because if you dont hear it, you just dont understand. we ended the day with ice cream. which i have eaten a lot of by the way. and by the time i headed home it was almost nine o'clock. seriously this whole being light out till almost ten thing is really throwing me off.

i also got ice cream at a really good cafe in place carnot with juan and patrick because my host mom told me it has the best ice cream in lyon. we were then gonna see two museums, but it was so nice out we just kept sitting at our table for a couple hours until it was too late to get into the museum once we showed up! we did pass a medieval marché along the way though. that was pretty cool.
then later in the evening lindsay and i went out to get a drink. who knew that every bar could be filled at 9pm on a saturday! guess barcalona vs. man u is a pretty big deal haha. no drinks for us then since werent really digging the super crowded bar idea.

today was la fete des meres (aka mothers day) and so i spent the whole day at home hanging out with my host family. delicious lunch. french all afternoon. louis to entertain during the time he wasnt taking his nap. id say it was a pretty good afternoon. until when everyone left and were saying au revoir et bon retour. and i was like whatttt.

also. it just hit me that i can now officially say i leave next week. yes, i may still have the better part of two full weeks left here. but today is sunday and i leave on a saturday. which means that when people ask when i leave, i can say la semaine prochaine.

get lost, eat ice cream

nine months. two continents. eight countries. twenty-nine cities (or let's just say, places).

FRANCE
Lyon. Paris. Beaujolais. Grenoble. Annecy. Dijon. Beaune. Toulouse. Bordeaux. Nice. Cannes. Monaco.
GERMANY
Passau.
SWITZERLAND
Geneva. Basal. Lucerne.
ITALY
Rome. Milan. Lake Como.
SPAIN
Barcelona. Madrid.
MOROCCO
Marrakech. Casablanca. Todra Gorge. Sahara Desert.
IRELAND
Dublin. Cork.
SCOTLAND
Edinburgh. Glasgow.

and would you believe there are still more places i just didn't have the time to make it to that i had hoped i would see? i guess i'll have to come back!

but i did learn a few things along the way to make traveling as unstressful as possible.. not that i didn't make mistakes along the way! but i figured i might impart some of my newfound wisdom here. after nine months, i think i've pretty much figured it out... not that i do it right every time of course.

i remember the first trip being so stressful. how to buy tickets? how to get a student discount? where to sleep? what to pack? how long does it take to get to the train station? how can i go broke in my first month? do i plan what i want to see before i get there? or just figure it out as i go?

well here's what i have figured out:
as far as packing goes. i made a list at the very beginning of everything would be wanting to bring with me on trips.. and then i just added to it or left things off since of course every trip is different.. but at least then i always knew what i had thought i needed in the past. considering i have a habit of packing at the very last minute possible, it was really nice to just have to check things off a list and then feel pretty comfortable that i had everything i would need.
it sucks to be cold all the time though and it sucks to be too hot. check the weather before you travel. and if people tell you its going to be freezing somewhere and they would definitely know.. believe them.
dress in layers.. then you can basically be prepared for anything.
and if you dont pack the right stuff. make the best of it and try not to think about it too much.
also, pack light. especially if you know you are going to be walking around a lot before you get to dump your stuff. its really not fun lugging a super heavy backpack around and feeling like you have to stop every ten minutes to rest your poor overworked back. plus, if theres any chance you want to get souvenirs, its probably better if your bag isnt already almost impossible to close.. not that that can be helped sometimes.
and wear shoes you can walk in comfortably. nothing ruins a perfectly lovely day like being stuck in shoes for hours that kill your feet.

buy your tickets as far in advance as possible.. because especially if your flying on cheap airlines, the prices will probably go up. and it may be a pain, but compare all of your options.. flying might be cheaper than a train, or the other way around. and dont forget do factor in buses and navettes getting you to and from airports. and how long airport security and waiting time can take.
print your tickets a couple days in advance. that way if you have trouble finding a printer, you still have some time to figure it out. seriously. it can be stressful if its the day before you are leaving and you realize you still dont have the tickets you need in your hand.
then if its a train ticket, dont forget to compost your billet. you can get fined for that.. though if youre lucky and have no money on you and dont speak the language, you can maybe get out of paying most of it :)

always give yourself extra time to get to your buses/trains/planes/whatever. its amazing the number of times i cut it closer than i meant to. i missed a train twice.. and once that had expensive consequences. once i made it with less than a minute to spare.. other times i have given myself plenty of time to get places, and then still manage to be running late. and pay attention to make sure you get off at the right stop.. yknow.. minor details.

where to sleep? couchsurf if you can! its free and you get to meet some really cool people :) otherwise, just try to find the cheapest hostel/hotel. who cares what it looks like.. how much time were you really planning on spending there anyways?

what to eat? always try some of the local food. but theres no reason to go out for every meal, because that will get super expensive super fast. just go to a grocery store and by sandwich stuff or whatever for most lunches and something simple for breakfast. and cook your own food if you are at a place where you can. and i mean, of course, go out at least once in every place. food is an important part of the traveling experience :)

try to find a map as soon as you get to a new city so that when you need to figure out where you are/where you are trying to go you can. but wander aimlessly as well. its amazing some of the cool stuff you can stumble upon when you aren't on a mission to find something specific. see some tourist attractions, but look into seeing some stuff that isnt specifically tourist oriented too. watch out for tourist traps.. they will find you and try to take your money.

make sure you get some sleep. and make sure you make time to eat. you will be a much nicer person to be around.

if things dont go as planned, accept it as just being part of the fun.

space out your trips a bit if you can.. you don't want to get burnt out. you'd be surprised, it can start to happen even if you still have a million places you want to see. traveling all the time can wear you out.

alright. i think that's all i've got for now.
so go get lost and be sure to eat some ice cream! :)

9 months.

its officially been 9 months that i've been abroad. and that is the last time i will be able to count an even number of months. how 9 months passed so quickly, i dont think i will ever understand where the time went. it seems like just yesterday i was freaking out because i would soon be heading to france.. and now im down to my last couple weeks. i tell myself not to think about how little time i have left.. and yet it always seems to creep into my thoughts. sure i'm excited to go back and see everybody, but its hard not knowing when exactly i will come back. i'm not ready to give up this life yet.

tonight i ate dinner at my host sisters house because my host parents are staying there to take care of louis while she and her husband visit new york. he is so big now! and basically walking! man he was so little when i got here, only five months old. its been fun to see him grow up.
then my host mom and i discussed what to do about my banking situation as far as whether or not it is even worth me getting a new carte bancaire with so little time left.. we decided its not and that well go to the bank tomorrow morning and work on closing my account, and then ill just pay her my last months rent in cash.. oh yea. and she told me i didnt have to pay anything for june! a gift from them to me. i love my host parents. they are awesome. she even showed me how to get to lac miribel since it is starting to get hot. hopefully ill make it there next week. by the way, i think i might die of heat stroke when i get home if it was only in the mid to low 80s today and i was already thinking its getting way too hot. pretty sure i'll be in trouble when i have to face 100 degree sacramento.

around 21h30, i finally headed home. the apartment is super close to the rhone, and i saw the sun setting, so i decided to go take a picture.

it was then i realized that though it would be so easy to walk two minutes and get on the c3 to take me home and then another two minutes walk when i got off, i just couldn't bring myself to do that. sure i live far, but it was a super nice night out and i decided to walk.. i figured i should probably do that at some point before i left. jeez i live far though.. took me almost an hour to get home! thats what happens when you live in the suburbs.

plus i just love walking around this city.
lyon <3

the south

zoe and i decided to see both monaco and cannes in the same day.. which meant we only got a couple hours in each, but at least we got to see both! :)

monaco:
after a short train ride from nice, we arrived at our first destination. from just outside the gare we could already see the water.. though it was pretty far down. we knew we wanted to see the changing of the guard at the palais princier at 11h55, so we had a little over an hour to see whatever we wanted and get ourselves over there.
with our spare time we decide to check out the outside of the famous casino.. we wanted to go inside, but it just didnt seem worth it to have to pay to not do anything but walk in.

as we passed the marina on our left on the way to the palais, we noticed there was not a single dingy looking boat. man this town was rich.

we made our way up a bunch of steps to the palais and found a beautiful view as we waited a bit before getting in position to watch the changing of the guard.

and then the main event. it was kind of hard to see because of so many people, and not quite as exciting as i had anticipated, but im still glad i went and had a good time. but how they werent dying of heat stroke in their uniforms, i will never understand.

i wanted to see one more thing before we left. so i took a look at the map and decided that a jardin exotique sounded interesting. we had no idea what it was so figured, hey, why not go investigate?
turns out, the particular jardin exotique was home to a million different kinds of cacti. ok, thats probably an exaggeration.. but there were a lot.

my favorites being one that looked wierd.

and one that i decided was a grandpa cactus because it was so wrinkly.

and of course there was a cool view since it was super high up.

and then we made our way back to the train station where we had the bad luck of missing a train by mere minutes and getting stuck waiting another hour to get to cannes. it was only once we were on the train that i had realized we'd missed seeing cathédrale de monaco and prince rainier and princess grace's graves.. but you can only do so much when you only give yourselves a few hours in a city!

next up:
cannes:
we happened to visit cannes the second to last day of the annual cannes films festival. seeing as it has been going on for about sixty-four years now i believe, its a pretty big deal, which meant, there were about a million extra people crowding the streets (again, probably exaggerating), but it was super crowded.

upon arriving, of course we immediately beelined toward the beach. some fair was going on, and we also realized it would not really be possible to get very close to the sand since there were so many private beach properties and restaurants. oh well.

we wandered up and down taking it all in. at one point we even saw a big crowd of people honing in on a car. i guess we got to see some famous french celebrity? i dont know who she was though.
eventually of course we also had to get ice cream.. in part because it was super hot out. in part for tradition. so we took a break and sat down. sure is fun people watching. there was a guy with this group who was dressed up like a condom.. the back of which said futur marié or something. bachelor party i guess!

as we continued walking and started investigating the main shopping street.. not to shop of course. i saw a bnp atm and decided to see if money from velo'vs was back in my account.. oh yea, and to get some cash out since i didnt have any. bad idea. the stupid machine ate my card! and of course the actual bnp was already closed. so i called and the guy basically told me he could turn off my card, but thats it for me right now. awesome. i guess im out of a card for a few days.. always hoped id have to get a brand new card just a couple weeks before id be closing my account for good. fail. i decided to do others a favor though and put up my own 'hors service' sign. i hope people actually paid attention to it!

soon after we found the red carpet and decided to stay and watch. it was funny, there were lots of people holding signs hoping for an invitation in! i wonder if that ever works. we were able to watch everyone walk up the red carpet.. on the screen behind us. this was our actual view:

that woman with the short blonde hair with her back to me is a pretty big deal. they kept focusing in on her on the big screen. but see? i got to see a famous person in person! ... even if i was kinda far away, and at a really bad angle.
we stayed there until everyone had gone into the theater, and then made our way to vieux cannes to investigate dinner possibilities as well as wander through the old city. i really do love the old parts of every city. they are so cute.

before actually picking a place to eat though, we found our way to the musée de la castre.. ok actually im not exactly sure what the museum was, but the whole point was to find the view of baie de cannes.. anyone surprised at this point that i was looking for the view? didnt think so.

finally we got some food. i felt like the waiter wasn't as attentive to us as other customers once he realized we werent french.. but maybe i was just tired. he never did bring us a bread basket though even though every other table had one.. hm. i dunno.
and finally, we were on our way back to the gare to return to our hostel in nice for the night before our early train ride back to lyon the following morning.

what a good weekend. sun. sea. views.

i just can't believe that the next time i leave lyon i will be stepping on a plane to head stateside. its mind boggling.

the french riviera

my final trip of my year abroad. did i really just say that? i can't believe it.
pour mon voyage final je suis allée à nice, monaco, et cannes. la sud de la france!
alors, nice:

my host parents had made it clear to me that i would need to venture through the south of france before i make my final departure. so i made a point to make sure that happened.

to my future children, a couple words to consider:
"oh, let's get rich and buy our parents homes in the south of france. let's get rich and give everybody nice sweaters and teach them how to dance" - ingrid michaelson's 'you and i'. this song was sort of the theme of our trip.

we started with a five-hour train ride, zoe, chloe and i. after sleeping for much of it since train rides arent always particularly exciting, we realized how beautiful it was outside for the last hour or so. la plage. ohhhh the beach. and seeing the water. so blue and clear! i couldn't wait to actually touch it.

we finally arrived in nice and bid adieu to chloe since she was going to get on another short train ride to spend the weekend with her uncle.
a few short minutes later we arrived at our hostel where we dropped off our bags before starting our real explorations.

we wandered around vieux nice for awhile checking out the marchés and lots of cute restaurants in big squares and small passage ways (though we wouldn't be eating out till the second night). i really like how windey a enclosed vieux nice is. i wish we had more areas in cities like this in the states.

we even found a church and decided to check it out since it seemed like the thing to do. we didn't feel like going out of our way to find churches after seeing so many this year, but if we had one in front of us, why not take a peak inside?

we took a break to try some socca, something chloe had told us is a specialty in nice. basically its like a hardy crepe. i looked it up and found out socca are actually chick-pea crepes. they werent super exciting, but they were really good. plus it was a good snack to hold us over until dinner.

finally we headed toward the water. we spent awhile simply sitting on a beach enjoying our surroundings: the beautiful blue sea in front of us, bikers and rollerbladers passing by, and the realization that we were finally in nice!

as the sun started to set we wished it was actually over the water, but figured you can only hope for so much.

finally we were hungry enough to go off in search of some dinner. to save money we decided to just get sandwiches the first night so we grabbed some and then made our way back to the beach, this time actually sitting on the rocks to eat them.

we managed to almost finish our food before a tunesian guy came up to us and tried talking to us. only problem was his french was terrible, i dont think he spoke english, and we couldnt really understand what he was trying to say. something about his family being in tunesia and wanting to watch the sunset like we were his sisters? i dunno. i felt a little bad for the poor guy since we just couldnt understand him at all. it was actually kind of perfect timing though because i was able to say we had been planning on leaving as soon as we finished eating, and after one more bite, we stood up and made our exit.
we wandered along the promenade des anglais admiring hotels we would never be able to afford in our lives with views straight out to the sea. we even found a creepy face... not really sure what that was about.

on our way back to our hostel i made us take the long way (aka turning randomly for no reason if a street seemed to look even a little bit more interesting). but along the way, we found this spray painting dude and managed to show up with perfect timing to watch from start to finish. look how cool it is!

and that was day one. successful i would say.

for our one full day in nice, we went to say hi to the sea on the way up to parc du chateau. what a beautiful day!

basically the parc du chateau is where a castle used to be? there were at least ruins of an old church.

the rest is a park. theres a playground. grass to sit on. a snackbar area. its actually really nice. and we hung out up there for an hour or two. the part i liked best though was the views.

if you explored enough you could essentially get a 360 view of the entire city. looove it.

oh and the fact that it was hot out! after the last trip where i had been cold for the majority of the time even with a scarf and jacket, it felt nice to finally be in shorts and a tank top and getting some sun! i was even good and wore sunscreen.
we ate our lunch in the grass and enjoyed the cool breeze that came through.

with a text from chloe we headed back to the train station to meet her since she would be rejoining us for the afternoon. what would we be doing? going to the beach of course! even getting a little swimming in :) ok.. mostly standing in the water.. but still. swimsuits were on, and we got in the water. it was so clear. and blue. and a tiny bit cold, but mostly just refreshing!
[pictures to come]
we got to lay on the rocks and enjoy the sun. a real vacation. giving up touring for a few hours to do nothing but relax? not something i've done on many of my trips. and i didn't even get burnt to a crisp! so proud of myself haha.

after our time by the water, we wandered through vieux nice to find a place chloe knew that had good socca, farcies, and cébette for a snack.

and then it was time to return chloe to the train station before heading back to the hostel for a bit to shower and whatever else before dinner.

for dinner, zoe and i found a restaurant that had a cheap menu and served typical nicoise food.. although every place claimed to serve typical nicoise food. anyways.
i ordered the salade nicoise, steak frite, and a tarte citron.
the salad:

it was good, but not my favorite. i also learned i really dont like anchovies. ew. the waiter saw that i had left mine on my plate and joked about it. i told him that at least i had tried it! he told me not hard enough. haha. the waiters at this place were amusing.

after dinner we walked along the promenade des anglais in the opposite direction as the night before, this time towards the harbor. we got closer to the pirate ship (ok probably not a pirate ship, but thats what we decided to call it), that we had seen from up on the hill earlier in the day.

to wrap up our night we stopped to watch some breakdancers that happened to be dancing in a square that was on our way back to the hostel. i mean, who wouldn't stop to watch the rest of the show if they realized they saw some guys dancing to 'single ladies' by beyonce? thought so.

the checklist

this week in between trips has been all about completing the checklist i made of things i still want to do in lyon. there are a couple i'm not sure will pan out, but here it is:
only lyon sign on the quai. eat grenouille. olympique lyonnais soccer game. soccer in the park. rent a velo'v. bike by the quai/all the way to the confluence. lumiere museum. gadagne museum. gallo-roman museum. soie museum. salsa dancing. paniches. billiards. buy lyon tshirt. get new lyon map. find message wall. find croix-rousse. find other cross?. adventure path at fourviere. get chloe a millefueille. visit veroniques school. le mur des canuts. granita. la voile.

the rain that suddenly arrived in lyon with my return provided an excellent opportunity to knock a couple museums off the list. the soie (aka silk) museum, or la maison des canuts, was tiny, but pretty cool. i wish some of the silk scarves weren't so expensive or i'd want to buy one!

we found le mur des canuts next. it was pretty realistic if you ask me.

the lumiere museum was pretty cool too.. and much larger. we got to see some old cameras and how films started out.

along with the specific checklist, i also just wanted to explore more of lyon. samina and i even found an amazing view we had never seen before! (pretend all of these pictures are in a line as a panoramic view.. haha)

tuesday was a big day and i got a lot from the list accomplished. chloe, patrick, juan, and i started up at forviere and i showed everybody the france adventure path that id found before. we continued to check out the cemetery.

and then patrick showed us the "message" wall which he had been trying to tell me wasn't that exciting. alright. it was basically a tonnnnn of stairs, and along the way there were a few small paintings on rocks. but at least i got to see it!

then it was time for some food. we wandered through vieux picking up bread and cheese and of course millefeuilles from my favorite place.

then we found a bench and ate our bread and cheese :) yummyyy

juan and patrick decided to get a beer next, so we all sat down. when the lady came to take our orders and both chloe and i wanted nothing, the lady got mad at us saying something about it being rude.. we thought it was wierd since its not like it was so busy we were taking up seats, and we were sitting outside anyways. whatever. the guys got her back by paying in change haha.
then we all made our way to the quai where we would eat our millefeuilles :) so delicious.

next up we made our way to the park. patrick took off ahead on his bike so he could go to chloe's place to get the soccer ball and then met us there. a french guy started talking to us so he joined us when we started kicking the ball around. soon we were playing a game, and shortly after a bunch of probably ten year old boys joined us. our own rule when they asked to play with us? ya gotta lose the shoes. we were all barefoot since chloe only had sandles and we didnt really feel like having them step all over our feet.. especially since at least one was wearing cleats. it was a ton of fun though. im not even sure who ended up winning.. not that we kept score after a certain point of course.
i returned home sweaty and exhausted, but pleased with all that i had accomplished and with what an amazing day it had been.

then today chloe and i spent the whole day outside again. this time we started at the park but began by renting velo'vs! so much fun. we biked around the park for about half an hour before stopping for our picnic lunch. im really not sure why i havent done that before. i miss biking.

after lunch, we biked around a little more before leaving the park to head north on the rhone in search of a sandy beach. we found it! ok.. it was really small.. but it was exciting to be so close to the water rather than just standing on the quai.

after a bit of relaxing.. and having some wierd guy come up to us and repeat phrases in english such as "i love you, good afternoon, cup of tea", we got back on our bikes and headed south on the rhone on the quai headed toward the confluence (aka where the rhone and the saone come together).
along the way, we stopped for a break when we came upon the only lyon sign that likes to travel around the city.

after taking some pictures we continued on our way. i'd never been that far down the river before.. sadly i didnt really take pictures because i dont have enough skill to be able to ride a bike and use a camera at the same time. but parts of the patrh were really pretty. and we made it to the confluence!

sadly, there was no bridge for us to cross there. it felt a little unsatisfying.. but oh well. so we headed back up the river again. we only got as far as the university before we returned the bikes and decided to cross the river to the presqu'il to get some granita because we were so hot and an icy beverage sounded so refreshing.

what a great week. i got to discover more of my amazing city. hang out with some pretty cool people. do stuff ive been planning on doing for who knows how long. and enjoy the sunshine!