two months

as far as i can tell the city has calmed down a lot since i wrote my last blog. there are no more large gatherings of people, and no more violence. or at least a lot less of both of these. the bill was passed though to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62, and at least two more protest days have been planned - october 28 and november 6 i believe - but i'll be gone for one of those becauseee i'm headed off to germany until the 1st!

in the meantime though, i have been trying to keep myself busy so i don't go stir crazy waiting to start traveling since classes have been canceled all week. i am starting to forget what school is/ that the reason i am here in the first place is to study! but i have gotten a few things accomplished this week. including finally buying some boots (now all i need is a peacoat and i will be ready for winter! - well maybe..) and got a haircut! thanks to a 5 dollar pair of scissors for ages 10+ and some amazing friends, my hair is shorter and split end free. :)

i also got the opportunity to feed my host family this past weekend. kirstin was going to be staying over (for the second night in a row - she lives right by where all the protests were going down, and didn't really feel like heading back that way the first night, and then was invited to stay over the second night), and my host parents were going to be going out, so we set out to make some spanish rice, salad, and chocolate cake. during our cooking fest my host parents showed up because they decided to wait to see the movie they had planned on seeing. turns out we had tonsss of extra rice anyways, so we invited them to join us! my host mom declined for the night because she was tired and not hungry, but my host dad loved it and took extra servings. and there was plenty left over to make it part of lunch the next day, during which my host mom told us it was pretty good too. so overall a successful evening :)

and my package from my parents arrived! super excited about that since it contains a brand new camera for me :) mine is old, still working, but old. and now it's missing a couple screws for some reason and is starting to want to come apart... so i figured it would be a good idea to get a new one before this one really decided to die on me. plus i got some reese's which i've been craving, and tea which i had recently run out of! a little sad this packaged didn't arrive 2 days ago when kirstin was still in town since she got a camera too. butttt at least it made it just in time for my trip!

and as of yesterday i have officially been here for 2 months. time flies so fast here its ridiculous!

Grèves, Grèves, Grèves

what is a grève? it's a strike. and in this case, a big one. a little bit of background: the french government is trying to raise the retirement age, and a lot of people are really unhappy about it. this has been going on for weeks, usually just messing up the buses/trams/metros a bit, making it a little difficult to get places, but otherwise it hasn't affected me all that much. now, however, it is getting worse. for one, school is cancelled until further notice. i have heard there has been some rioting, flipped cars, stones thrown through windows, and more.. though i haven't actually witnessed most of that myself. i have seen large groups of people protesting though.

i was especially sad that the university is being affected today because i was supposed to have a meeting with chris and christine this morning. what would have been so special about this meeting? well on top of just checking in with them about what classes i have chosen to take, i believe i was going to get to sign papers to make it official that i want to stay the year. yes, you heard that right. i definitely want to stay the year. for those of you who knew that before i did, congratulations. nathan and dad: you know me too well. for those of you who were hoping you'd get to see me before june, sorry about that, i guess you will just have to come visit me!

in other news. it is starting to get pretty cold around here. which means i reallyyy need to find some boots and a warmer peacoat soon. at least i've already got some scarves though :)

on a lighter note:
oh and i finally stayed out all night saturday night, which was a lot of fun. as i may have mentioned before, buses and everything here stop running by about 12-12:30, and start up again about about 5 am. so basically, if you want to get home in between that, you better be able to walk, bike, or be willing to call a cab and pay. well i spent the night hanging out with friends. we ended up spending most of our time at this one bar/club with some interesting choices of music. we hung out for awhile though in one room, and though the music wasn't all that good, we enjoyed ourselves anyway. after awhile, though, we decided we'd like some different music, and started to head out. which brought us to the front room, where some normal music was playing! so we ended up spending a long while there as well, with highlights including tik tok, american boy, barbie girl, and even the macarena (yes we did the dance. oh, and we even managed to get a bunch of people to copy us. it was amazing). around 3 am we decided we were done there and headed out. fairly soon we ran into a couple other people in our program and started chatting with them, along with a number of french people. when our friends decided they were heading elsewhere/home, we realized that we didn't really feel like paying to get home, and 5 o'clock wasn't all that far away anyways. so we chilled like bums next to hotel de ville until the metros would start running again to take us home. occasionally random people would come up to talk to us for a bit, and one of my friends kept getting cigarettes bummed off of him which was pretty funny. i have to say, it was a fun night, but definitely couldn't do it all the time.

yesterday, patrick, kirstin, and i decided to make an american breakfast. well lunch i guess. it involved biscuits, hashbrowns, sausage, omelettes, and a couple sauces.

biscuits

hashbrowns

gravy?

omelette :)

sausage!

making our own buttermilk.. because it doesn't exist here

let me tell you, the omelettes, hashbrowns, and sausage worked out wonderfully. loooveedd that sausage. but the rest? well the biscuits were a bit burnt due to us forgetting them in the oven. both batches. yes both. whoops. they were also just kind of boring.. not really sure what they were missing.. maybe also because we made our own buttermilk?, but i must say i prefer my bisquick biscuits. it was a good effort though. and the sauces? well kirstin's vegetarian sauce was ok.. kind of strong on the spices though. and the non-vegetarian one? well it was supposed to be gravy, but there wasn't nearly enough grease. and then something just wasn't working. not really sure what, it was just kind of bizarre. overall the meal was pretty good though. and definitely fun to make. plus then we wandered out into patrick's 'backyard' which had a cool view.. but i forgot my camera for that.

free to roam

i've already started to go back and read old blogs occasionally. and i am amazed every time i read that i was amazed how much time had already passed. 2 days! woah! 2 weeks.. what?! time flies here, its ridiculous. but i guess i will just keep realizing in blog after blog how long i have been here. as well as repeatedly mentioning how much i love it here. i'm kind of amazed at how quickly a foreign country can feel like home - even when i wish i spoke the language a lot better.. though i have improved since arriving..

it's been almost 2 months now and i still can't get enough of this place. i see friends around me start to get a little (or more than a little) homesick and it makes me a kind of sad because i couldn't imagine going home anytime soon. but i guess that just shows how much i have always wanted to study abroad - and i am glad that, at least so far, the experience has been far from a let down. i mean sure i have moments where i kind of miss my friends. or certain things from home... like splotch. but for the most part. i couldn't be happier here :)

highlights recently?
today i got my carte de sejour! in case you don't know what that means, it means i can officially leave the country and come back without being told i need to be on the next plane home. which is great since we have a week off at the end of october and i'll be spending most of it in germany!
to get this carte de sejour we had to have a doctors appointment. which was kind of interesting since they would get an xray, then send you back to the waiting room, then come and get you again to ask you questions, then send you back to the waiting room, then come get you again to run another test, then send you back to the waiting room where you waited a little bit longer before finally receiving your carte de sejour! anddd we got to keep our xrays.. which is cool i guess? i think i can even see what my minor scoliosis looks like! .. and i mean that's cool right? sure.

other highlights:
i finally saw the inside of hotel de ville! which my host dad described as a small version of versaille. he was in some meeting there about the city's budget or something, so he told me that i could bring a friend if i wanted and meet him outside a little bit before and he would take us inside to look around! he was right. this place is beautiful.

in the courtyard

and how cool is it that my host dad was actually in the cool room in a meeting?!

sad this picture is blurry :(

my host dad was sitting at the desk at the far right of this picture that isn't entirely shown

after sheila and i saw hotel de ville, we decided a pain au chocolat sounded like an amazing idea. and then we saw the maxi pain au chocolat.. and how could we resist?!

 oh and i'm still obsessed with le parc de la tete d'or. except i finally got to go back! and this time i dragged two friends who hadn't been yet :) and we saw all of the animals again. including the elephants who were rather amusing since they were begging for food since some people (who evidently don't know how to read) decided it would be fun to feed them.

how cute :) and earlier.. a different one was doing a little dance!

oh. and the little baby in the family picture (my host parent's grandson)? he loves me. he's here on tuesday nights and wednesdays. and last night he just had the biggest smile on his face whenever he looked at me. and i kept making him laugh. and to think he was afraid of me when he first got here! :)

not such a bad day afterall

if i'd written this blog this morning, none of it would have been in the happiest of spirits.

the reason? one of the first things i did this morning (as is true of most mornings), is check my e-mail. but this morning was different in one respect. my ucsc email had been disabled. seeing as this is the email i use for anything school or eap related, you can see how this would be a big problem. my first reaction was to get really stressed out and want to call santa cruz immediately - that is until i realized it was only just past midnight there! so i gave up on that idea realizing i would have to wait till evening here to get any questions answered. my next reaction was to find out if i was alone in my plight. turns out i was. awesome. that makes me feel a whooole lot better. but not really.

[as of this evening, i have called santa cruz. turns out it wasn't just my email, but something wrong with the system this morning. and as far as my portal...which i've been locked out of for a little while now.. i am back in! :)]

so that was the rough part of my morning. oh and the fact that my phone was telling me it was done after today when it shouldn't be done till december... but i knew that one would be easy to fix as long as i went into the store.

my day definitely went uphill from there. i went and talked to christine, gave her a different email address so i wouldn't miss anything important, and had her help me figure out what my class codes were before i went and turned in the two of five signatures i already had to get enrolled in classes.

from there, i met up with kirstin, ate some bread and nutella, and tried to check my email at her place. miraculously, it worked! never in my life did i think that checking my email and having it actually let me log in would make me so happy. but it did.

later, i headed to my last class for the week. normally i would have had sociology and developmental psych today, but the soc class was cancelled. but developmental. omgosh. today. today was the first day i actually walked out of class and felt accomplished. there was no powerpoint. there was nobody in front of me with a laptop so i could try to copy their notes. and i still managed to take a bunch! yes, they were messy. yes, i'm sure some of the words i wrote down are not in fact real words in french. and yes, i am sure i missed a bunch. but! i actually understood what the professor was talking about almost the entire time. and that, my friend, is progress. oh. and i also remembered to ask the girl behind me if she could email me her notes (to fill in the gaps for me of course), so i'm hoping those will show up in my inbox soon.
because of all of this, i have to say that developmental psych is my favorite so far.

in history of lyon this week, the professor spoke wayyy too fast. and i guess we will have multiple professors? and i wish his power points contained more words.
in social psych, there was a powerpoint which i am able to copy easily, but then its hard for me to take notes on top of that. though this week i did recognize one of the cases she talked about! i would have raised my hand, but i was too afraid i might be wrong, or my french skills would make me look really dumb... and once others had spoken, i didn't want to accidentally repeat what someone else had said.
as far as slm goes. well, that's my least favorite class. but at least i have made some friends :)
and i still don't know much about my sociology class.. but i am a little bit scared.

i am learning that i never realized how important powerpoints could be. or how fast a professor speaks. or how much i miss having a syllabus for every class. but it is getting the tiniest bit easier at least. i seriously think when i go home i am going to find the international students in my classes and just offer to give them my notes, because i know what it feels like to be completely lost.

finally. tapis rouge 2010. my host dad owns an antique shop on rue auguste compte, a street with lots of antique stores and others like it. and on the first thursday of every october everyone opens there doors to the public. some red carpet is rolled out. even some red polka dots. but i finally saw the inside of my host dad's store, as well as some other with interesting rugs, or lamps, or glasses, or whatever else. it was interesting to see, and my host dad seemed happy to show it to me :)

bon anniversaire

food coma. that basically sums up this weekend in case you haven't read the blog before this one. because on top of beaujolais and all of it's amazingness yesterday, today was my host mom's birthday, with lots more good food. i'm pretty sure i gained ten pounds in the last 48 hours.

oh and not sure what it is with the french and multiple desserts, but i'm loving it. tarte de fraises (strawberries), tiramisu, and some other little cake thing that my host mom made. not gonna lie, favorite part of the meal. :)

most of the lunch party:

my host mom is next to me, and my host dad is behind the camera. and a few other showed up just for dessert.

i am also loving the amazing weather this weekend has provided. but i believe my host mom says it's supposed to rain tomorrow, which is going to put a damper on me wanting to leave the house when i don't have class. but i guess i'll just have to tough it out.

after a weekend like this. how am i supposed to want to eat anything ever again? haha

Beaujolais

warning: if you are hungry, you may want to wait to read this blog, because i can tell you right now, it's all about food.

but anyways.

today. today was a great day. the whole eap group (both the immersion and language and culture programs) got to go on a field trip to Beaujolais, a beautiful area north of Lyon and south of Macon, between the Saone and le massif central and is the world capital of gastronomy. here, we were fed an amazing meal, learned a little about wine, a little about bread, and got to hang out in a vineyard. oh. and it was a gorgeous day on top of that. not too hot, not to cold, but juuuust right. talk about a perfect day? i'd say so. alright, well that's the short version. now let's really start from the beginning.

we were told to meet at 11:30 am where 70 of us boarded two buses that would take us to Beaujolais. from there it was about a 45 minute drive (okay, i'm not actually sure about that number.. but it wasn't all that long) to where we would be spending the day - the home/vineyard/bakery/winery/whatever else of Marie and Ludovic Gros - the lovely couple who made our amazing day possible.

the couple on the right are our hosts

the whole group of eap kids

they spoke to us for a bit, then we followed them into the cave where we would be eating our meal. we found the tables set, glasses of wine poured, two types of bread already on the table, and it all looked amazing.

soon, the first course arrived. pate, and more bread to go along with it:

next, came the salad. which had some amazing dressing on it.

and then. the real dinner arrived. rice and beef.

then a cheese course of course:

and if you thought we had already eaten enough at this point, you would be mistaken. next came dessert. and two kinds at that:

 oh. and some more wine. this stuff i liked more, but we were told not to drink to much because it could make us sick.

 

and that was our meal. oh wait. there were a few other breads too that i didn't get pictures of. but it was delicious and i wish we could go back every week. on top of this amazing meal, we were told a little bit about making wine:

and baking bread (as well as shown how it was made):

 Marie described the bread's texture as feeling like baby's skin. and then invited us all to touch it

 and best of all (as far as the bread is concerned at least), they sent each of us home with our own little loaf! and fresh out of the oven i might add.

and on top of all of this amazing food, we got to hang out in their vineyard for a bit.

oh. and these are the two amazing directors of the program who helped pull this together, and who help with any questions we might have along the way:

Christine and Chris

but all in all. today was amazing. and i wish we could have days like this every week. great food. great friends. great scenery. who could ask for more?

i. love. france. <3