When in Rome

rome was a whole new ballpark for me. it was like nothing i had ever seen before, and yet had that familiar european feel to me. i couldn't understand anything anybody said, which actually through me for a little bit of a loop, realizing that i have grown very accustomed to france.. maybe not understanding everything, but at this point at least always getting the gist of things.

kirstin, her sister tania, and i arrived in the rome fiumencino airport after having spent the previous night in basel (where we would be spending time later in the week). after trying to navigate the airport as well as carrying all of our stuff (kirstin's bag was particularly heavy and difficult to carry), we finally found tania's friend nicole who would be joining us for the rest of the week.

next up was getting to our couchsurfers place, which turned out to not be too hard to find luckily once we'd gotten on the appropriate train and gotten off at the appropriate stop. we were greeted by our hosts, who then offered to make us some pasta. considering it was 3ish and we hadn't eaten lunch.. we accepted.
we had plans to meet up with a friend of tania's later that evening, and our host, daniele, decided to accompany us and show us the way. we agreed to meet at the spanish steps, and off we went. daniele told us it would be about a 45 minute walk, and we decided that sounded like a nice idea. turns out this walk was much longer than anticipated... buttt we got to see a lot of the city by night, including the coloseum, the trevi fountain, a couple churches, some other fountains, and a couple other cool things:

colosseum

trevi fountain

you really do see a lot when you walk seven kilometers... but hey, i'd say i earned whatever i ate this week! plus, i learned that in rome, people don't wait on the sidewalk until there are no cars.. you simply start walking and the cars will slow down to avoid hitting you. it's much faster to get around once you realize this is the trick!

eventually, however we did find tania's friend, and soon decided dinner should probably be the next stop since we were all quite hungry. daniele knew of this club/bar type place that you would pay 10 euros and get a drink and all you can eat at a buffet. this sounded good to us, so we set off in search of it. when we arrived around 8, we found out it wasn't really going to start until 8:30, and so daniele decided to show us some other sites. we realized however, we really needed to get some food immediately, so it was determined that obviously a gelato stop would be necessary before dinner. daniele took us to what he said was the best gelato place in rome.. and i must say, it was pretty delicious. i got lemon cheesecake and milk chocolate. mmmmm.

by a little past 9 we made it back to where we would be eating our dinner. i had never seen anything like it before. it was really nice on the inside, with a bar in the first room. when you continued into the next room, you found another bar off to the side a bit, a few tables around the edges, and a couple long tables with different pastas and plates to serve yourselves. oh and there was some live music on stage at the front. it was quite interesting. after a lovely evening with friends, we headed back to daniele's apartment... taking the bus this time thankfully since we all had very tired feet. and soon after taking a shower and getting ready for bed, we crashed. i mean we did have a full day ahead of us the next day.. and nicole was completely jetlagged from having just arrived in europe.

day two was very busy. we got up a little bit later than planned, but still managed to start our adventures by 10:30 i do believe. first order of business once we were in town was of course to get some food. aka pastries and coffee.. well, no coffee for me.
next we went to find the colosseum.. which isn't all that hard considering we knew we were close and it is pretty obvious.

we decided we wanted to take a tour, so we went to find out when they would be so we could plan our day accordingly. when we got there, a lady came up to us and told us that it would be possible to get a tour of the colosseum and the roman forum in english, and get in with no line for 25 euros (well it should have been 28 for me and nicole, 25 for tania and kirstin because they are european citizens, but the lady told us we could just pretend we forgot our id at home.. and therefore it would be 25 for us as well! ... also, i just got curious how much it could have possibly cost us to take this tour, and it looks like it could have been almost 50! we got a deal :)).. but we had to do it right then because there weren't going to be any other english tours due to the lack of english speaking tourists due to the number of closed airports because of the snow (it was really nice weather in rome while we were there though!). anyways. it sounded like a great idea and we jumped at the opportunity. for the colosseum part of the tour we were even handed speaker things so that we could wander a bit but still be able to hear the guide.

inside the colosseum

the roman forum

i have to say, i love the colosseum. and i am so glad we glad we found that tour. i think it was my favorite part of rome.. though now i really want to watch gladiator.

just some everyday gladiators.. nbd

after the colosseum and the roman forum, we went to meet up with our friends elliot, minerva, and tina. eating lunch with them didn't work out.. so we just met them at the trevi fountain afterwards. we promptly decided it was appropriate to throw coins into the fountain.. seeing as it was tradition.

more wandering the city followed, starting with more gelato, then including getting a view from above a large christmas tree, and wandering around some woods in fog.. not creepy at all... ;)

we all got dinner afterward, which was delicious.. homemade pasta included. and after saying goodbye to our friends.. just for now, ill be seeing them all next semester!... we headed back to our couchsurfer's house. we arrived back around 11:30 and found he'd been wanting to take us out.. so though it was past midnight by the time we left again, tania, nicole, and i headed to what turned out to be some kind of hipster dive bar.. interesting to say the least... by the time we got back somewhere around 3:30, i was about ready to pass out... and i mean we still had another big day in rome ahead of us!

day three involved the vatican, st. peter's basilica, the pantheon, and a christmas market.
the vatican is big. and has a lot of cool artwork. and the cistine chapel of course... which you aren't supposed to take pictures of. and i have to admit, the chapel was different than i expected. i'm not really sure why, it just was. but it was pretty cool to realize i was in the building with the famous michelangelo painting that is always on postcards.. not that i bought one.

vatican

by the end of our time in the vatican (which was a couple hours i'm sure), i was starving.. i mean it was like 3 o'clock. but seeing as big sites close by 4 or 5, we decided to go see st. peter's basilica before getting lunch (i did make sure we stopped for a snack because otherwise i wasn't going to make it). the basilica was amazing. and we even got to see those guards in their silly outfits on the walk over.

st. peter's basilica

just a guard in a silly outfit.. apparently they are a pretty big deal still

when we finally got around to eating some lunch (around 4:30 or 5 i'd say), we went to a restaurant where the waiter was trying really hard to give us a deal.. that we just weren't really going for.. i think he was getting frustrated with us, but we knew what we wanted and were willing to take menu prices since it didn't fit with his deal. when the food finally arrived, it was ok, but i wasn't really all that thrilled especially after being a little annoyed with the waiter. but hey, i finally got some food!
we went to see the pantheon next, which was beautiful inside, but unfortunately had construction going on on the outside. i thought the big hole in the ceiling was interesting.

ceiling of the pantheon

we decided we needed some coffee/hot chocolate, so we went to find a cafe... which are not quite as common in italy as they are in france. but we found one that had coffee my friends enjoyed, and i got a hot chocolate. and what i mean by hot chocolate isn't chocolate milk that is hot. it was more like a large bar of chocolate melted and served in a cup. it was good, but rather rich.

next up was checking out the christmas market, which honestly reminded me of booths at the state fair, and looking for a restaurant for dinner. we checked out the menus of every restaurant in the square, and eventually decided on one. we got bruschetta, i got a spaghetti dish, and a glass of wine.. which i actually enjoyed! the meal as a whole was delicious. i was very happy with it, especially after having been a little disappointed with lunch.

after or amazing dinner we headed back to our couchsurfer's where we found them watching a movie. we just chilled for a bit, resting our feet, and thinking about sleeping. our new friends realized how tired we were and so decided to let us sleep. but first! we had gotten them a gift. a panitone.. because the other night we had returned to daniele just finishing up one. they decided to share it with us and we all moved to the kitchen to eat panitone, drink some wine, and chat. and soon some pandora was brought out as well (another cakey bready thing)! it was a nice last evening with them, and of course we realized a group picture would need to be taken before we said goodnight/goodbye... daniele had work early the next morning.

when we did wake up though/got packed/were ready to head out, we found francesco.. the other couchsurfer, had bought us each a pastry as well as a thing i forget whats it's called. something with a cheese filling that tastes like sweet cream rather than cheese? i dunno. it was amazing though. but soon we really did have to leave so that we wouldn't miss our train. but as a last minute gift to us, they had gotten us something as well. can you guess it? a panitone! to follow our new panitone tradition of course.

so it was a long 2 1/2 days in rome filled with lots of walking and not a ton of sleep, but it was fun. i was happy to be moving on to the next city though, not because i didn't love rome, but because i was excited to get to a slightly more relaxing city, with fewer plans/sites that needed to be seen. so off we went.. to switzerland!

forced to say goodbye

the end of the semester is coming to a close (well for those who are leaving a least, i still have a couple finals in january), and what does that mean? it means a start to new adventures as winter break begins (so get prepared to hear about lots of travels in the upcoming weeks!).

but unfortunately, it also means saying goodbye to some of the people that have made this study abroad adventure as amazing as it has been. without them, this experience so far wouldn't have been the same, and as much as i look forward to my next 6 months, it is saddening to realize that some of my closest friends won't be by my side for it. to be honest, when i first thought about studying abroad, and what friends i might have made, it never really occurred to me that i would be spending a lot of my time with other UC students, or that they would become some of my best friends. when i think about that now, it seems kind of mind boggling that i feel so close to people that i met just 4 months ago! never in my life did i think i would make friends that would become my new family so quickly. but i guess that is what happens when all of us are suddenly thrown into a new city, a new country, a new culture, and expected to suddenly become a part of it. we look to each other for support, because who would know better what you are going through than someone who is going through the same thing? when someone says they are homesick, even if you are not, you can understand and try to help them through it. or when someone says that as much as they miss their friends, they just couldn't imagine going home anytime soon, you understand that too. it doesn't necessarily matter which side of the situation you are on.

i also can't believe how quickly this first semester went by. beginning with the intensive language program that i don't think anybody really enjoyed, and then trying to figure out what classes to take and realizing that this was probably going to be harder than anticipated.
i remember the first week of classes when i went to a class i was sure i would be taking and realized that i didn't really know what i was getting myself into. everybody was already on the same page, talking fast and laughing at the same jokes. a project was assigned and i had no idea what was going on. and worst of all, i was the only international student. i walked out that day holding back tears realizing that this class i had been so sure i was going to take, just wasn't going to work out. how scary that had been! luckily i realized i would be able to take something else instead, and did manage to find classes where i didn't feel so completely and utterly lost. 

and look at us now! our french has improved, classes aren't as scary, this city is home, the public transit makes sense, and you finally feel like you fit in... well sort of haha.
i really do feel like i have three cities i can call home now: sacramento, santa cruz, and now lyon.

i have figured out couchsurfing. how to buy train tickets. and plane tickets. met tons of amazing people who i really hope i won't lose contact with as we go our separate ways.

its the end of one semester. and man has it flown by. but this is just the beginning. and i've been told the next 6 months will go by even faster. before i know it, it will be the end of my adventure.. but i don't really want to think about that right now!

oh and some inside jokes i will miss when certain people decide to not come back to lyon after break (i realize that these wont make sense to you readers, but keep in mind this blog is for me to look back on in the future too. so there ya go):
at least you're pretty
thanks mom
points

le 8 decembre et la fete des lumieres

it's the week before finals, and what are most college students doing? they are studying. reading. cramming. stressing. the works. is that what i am doing? no. is it what i should be doing? yea, probably. but hey, i have been told that if my choices are doing something cultural that i will only experience in france or studying, then i should skip the studying.

so, you might ask, what have i been up to this past week?
well, i have been doing just the opposite of many college students (not including those abroad).. well sort of. i have studied a little bit, and i have stressed a bunch. but mostly. i've been staying out till midnight or later almost every night doing nothing of the sort. and for those of you reading this, i am sure this must sound strange since it might seem totally out of character (me? going out every night when i should be studying? what? what has france done to this girl?!?!). but i promise you, there has been good reason for this lack of studiousness.

monday. as you may have read, i went to geneva. no studying there. but hey, there would be a full week ahead of me to do that.

tuesday. patrick and i finally accepted an invitation to eat at kirstin's house with her host family! it was lots of fun with soup, canelles (a typical lyonnais specialty), some salad (not normal, but i forget what kind), cheese, and of course some dessert (some orange cakey thing that was very good). it was a lovely evening and because kirstin lives in the center of town, we got to see a sneak peak into what the rest of the week was going to look like.

you might be asking, what am i talking about? well. this week was le 8 decembre and la fete des lumieres. really the 8th is a religious holiday about thanking the virgin mary for saving lyon from the plague back in the olden days. each year people place candles in their windows, and there is a procession up the hill to fourviere, which is lit up with different colors. the rest of the week is more for the tourists, and this entire city lit up.

if it is possible to be in love with a city, that is how i feel about this one. i am SO glad i decided to extend, because i honestly couldn't leave in a week or two and not know when i would be coming back. how i ever thought that a semester would be enough, i have no idea.

i will post a few pictures here, but they really don't do this week justice (look for more on facebook though). if you want to fully understand, you will just have to come see for yourself sometime... though i recommend coming before the last night.

here is a short description of what the rest of my week looked like:
wednesday. i went to the library to study a bit. this was a good decision to make, but a hard one, because as strange as this might sound after seeing my blogs about all the snow, wednesday it was gorgeous out! seriously. like 65 and sunny. here is a pic from kirstin's window:

yes, it is ok to be jealous of her view. i know i am.

after studying for a bit, kirstin and i went back to her place to take a break before the evening's festivities began. here is another picture out her window, just before we headed out:

the jealously grows a little...

at 6pm, there was a big show in place bellecour to start of la fete de lumieres, it was awesome. a small sample:

they were counting through the years they've done this...

hanging from a large balloon, an acrobat

after this, we headed back to her place to eat some pasta real fast before heading out again. this time, we went to see some fireworks over the rhone:

i didn't see much more that first night because we went to hang out at a friends apartment, which lasted longer than i anticipated, but was still fun. but i did get to see rue de la republique (a big pedestrian street) all lit up as i headed for the metro. which, by the way, was free wednesday night. and they were running until 1:30 wednesday-saturday at least (normally they end around midnight- 12:30).

 oh yea, and i ditched my slm class that would have been 4-8 so i could study and actually see all of the festivities. whoops. but hey, people ditch all the time and i'm not usually one of them, so i felt ok about it.


thursday. well, i went to my two classes, gave a presentation in one of them, and headed home. i was going to go downtown for an hour or so before dinner, but my bus was there (i often have to wait for it), so i just headed home because i was tired and knew i would be going out the next two nights anyways. plus, i figured, i should probably see my host parents since i hadn't seen them for more than 5 minutes in the past 3 days. i was rewarded with a really good soup for dinner too :)

friday. i believe i saw anything/everything there was to see on the presqu'il (the area between the rivers). mannn there were a lot of people. though not nearly as many as there would be saturday night. though it was more difficult to get around town then usual seeing as they blocked off certain streets (making them one way), so that to get to certain locations you had to go in big circles. but i saw a lot of cool stuff:

place de terreaux was my favorite (there were more designs than this):

 

 then place de celestin. it looked like the building was moving!:

 

 and i think next, was st. nizier:

 

and place des jacobins:

the statues aren't usually fishing haha

let's not forget the park in its firey amazingness:

and i promise you, these pictures dont do these things justice. especially the second two since they were constantly moving.

saturday. i left my house at 5:20 planning to take a bus to the metro to go see a parade at gare de vaise involving fire. well the bus didn't go as planned. and transferring metros takes FOREVER when you have to surface in between because everything is super regulated with so many people. well we saw some of the fire show, but it wasn't as exciting as i would have hoped and we wanted to see something at the parc too. so we left. and didn't actually make it to the parc because of the crowds. surprised? not really. but still kind of sad. christina and i did, however, find some the friends we had met in grenoble who had come to lyon to see the lights!

(i also tried to find some italien couchsurfer who wanted to meet up, but those plans failed miserably, and i must admit, i could have tried a little harder. but with sooooo many people, its hard to make too many plans). so christina and i took them to see some sights we had already seen but knew were really cool. i felt like a terrible tour guide since there were so many people and it was hard to get around, but we met them at the celestin, and managed to get them to see my other two favorites as well. plus a few others. so overall, i felt like we did alright. we eventually made it up to the croix-rousse (which i actually hadn't seen yet), though at this point, after seeing one wierd show, our friends had to leave. christina and i continued, however, and went off in search of a jellyfish light show (which was much more impressive in the brochure, in my opinion at least)

but we also found an cool egg, some animals, and the only lyon sign! which has been in three different places since i have lived in lyon. i tried to ask my host parents why it moves all over the city. they told me they didn't know, it just travels. haha

so after a 4 nights of lights, way too many crowds, and packed metros, i will be happy when the city returns to normal. this week was amazing, but i would love to be able to get places again!

and i guess, now that pictures are posted and this blog is written, i must acknowledge the reality that i have finals starting in two days that i am nowhere near prepared for. better get studying. wish me luck!

Geneva, Switzerland

kirstin and i decided to take a day trip to geneva to see the city and visit her sister. day trip to another country? no big deal! this is europe! the countries are as small as states, and it's cheaper to get between them!
though she had been to the train station many times, she hadn't actually seen much of the city... and i had no prior experience whatsoever. in fact. it was my first time in switzerland... at least that i remember.

seeing as it was a two hour train ride each way, in order to make sure we had as much time as possible in geneva, we left at the comfortable hour of 6:50... AM... did i say comfortable hour? i meant ridiculously early.. my bad. kirstin was going to sleep at my house the night before, but plans changed and we decided we would just meet at the gare at about 6:30 instead. i showed up at about 6:20.. plenty of time to spare. kirstin showed up at about 6:40, making me very nervous that she might not make it in time. one, i WOULDN'T have gone without her if she was late. two, i COULDN'T go if she was late.. seeing as she was the one with the tickets. luckily, she made it in time and we started on our journey, napping a bit on the way seeing as it was freakishly early in the morning.

we arrived in geneva shortly before 9am, meaning we had the whole day ahead of us. first: figure out where we might get a little bit of breakfast. but as we were working on that, surprise! tania (kirstin's sister) showed up at the train station to great us before she had to go to work! she showed us where the bus we would need was and then said goodbye.. we would be meeting up with her later in the day. with this info in hand, we set off to eat a little bit and then headed toward the united nations building where we were going to take a tour.

we saw four different rooms along with a number of paintings/photos/tapestries/whatever else donated by different countries. the tour was interesting, and this was definitely my favorite room because of the ceiling:

and i really like the united nations symbol (the earth as shown from the north pole, and two olive branches):

after our tour, we went to find the broken chair and the flags. we thought getting a picture of the chair by itself might be a challenge considering the number of other tourists taking pictures of it, when miraculously, they all left, and the chair was all ours!

next, we headed to the WHO building (world health organization) where tania works to meet her for lunch.

we hung out there for awhile. talking to her friends. and were then given a little tour of the building, including going up to the roof and seeing the amazing view. how they get work done with their views, i have no idea.

 next up, walking around town.  it's a pretty cute town actually. we walked into a church where i truly discovered that catholic churches are more interesting than protestant churches. sure it had pretty windows and arches and an organ.. but it wasn't anything spectacular in my opinion. although we did get to hear some organ.. i believe kirstin said it was being tuned. but i especially liked the christmas tree we found, and the stepping stones with little messages in different languages :)

oh and we found california in geneva!

next up, he hit the grocery store to get food to make dinner with back at tania's residence. tortilla soup. it was pretty bomb. but the BEST part of going to the grocery store? the chocolate of course! kirstin and i bought some for ourselves, and a little bit to give away too. mannn swiss chocolate is good :)

we enjoyed dinner with tania and a couple of her friends who we had met before when they were visiting lyon, met a few others, and soon we were headed back to the train station to catch the last train back to lyon. it was a lovely day, though sad to say goodbye to friendly faces so quickly. but we will be seeing a couple of them in two weeks in rome and basal! so that will be exciting :)

on the way home kirstin and i thought about our trip, our adventures ahead, and of course, about the finals that we have coming up. what to do? make lists to help make our stress managable!

i am now excited to head back to switzerland in a couple weeks, as well as many other new places, but i still love that every time i come back to lyon, it feels like home.

little white stuff is falling from the sky!

Snow and I have a love/hate relationship. I have never really been what you might call a 'snow person' preferring warmer weather and the ability to feel my hands and feet (I guess I really AM from California). But seeing as I will be spending my first winter ever completely surrounded by the stuff, I better get used to it and start seeing the good things it has to offer instead of just looking at the negative aspects.

My last blog about snow was a joke. When I said it was the first real snow, I evidently didn't know what I was getting into. Here is a picture of my backyard the morning after it snowed ALL DAY LONG.

I'm telling you, this snow was serious business. Do you see that table in the middle of the picture?! And how high that snow is?!

It is no surprise then, that public transportation was seriously affected. Buses stopped running and trams were slowed down. I even had to walk a mile or two after my evening class because the tram decided it wasn't going to go it's entire route. oh fun. not... especially when your feet are wet and you are afraid your toes might fall off.. even if the rest of you is dressed appropriately and therefore not terribly cold.

But as I said, I have started to look for the good things in snow too. Such as how pretty it looks when its fresh (it's kind of gross once everyone's been walking through it so it's all muddy and brown). But I don't think you really appreciate the beauty of snow until you are truly surrounded by it. And I don't just mean because you decided to go to Tahoe to go skiing. When everything around you is blanketed in the stuff, you can appreciate the fact that some places do actually have very different seasons. Though I am already ready for temperatures to start rising above freezing.. but I guess I will have to wait for that.

Other good things about snow? The fact that you get to have snowball fights. It doesn't matter if you are a little kid or a college student, it's still fun. Especially when all of your friends think snow is amazing because no one is accustomed to seeing it in their backyard. (But I might add that it can also be a downfall. The other day some kid hit me in the face with a snowball because he was hiding behind a corner and didn't realize I wasn't his friend until after the snowball had already landed. He did try to apologize realizing he had hit the wrong person, but I just gave him a dirty look and kept walking). When you plan the snowball fights, though, they can be lots of fun. Such as the one Kirstin, Patrick and I had when Patrick and I decided the second half of SLM wasn't worth sticking around for. Or when Kirstin, Patrick, Christina, and I all met at the park for the sole purpose of throwing snow at each other. Leaving with hands and feet frozen (at least for me), we felt our afternoon had been successful.

frozen hair was involved