Thanksgiving...the French way

Menu:

Apéritif (wine)
Various entrées- wide choice, suitable for all
Canard à l¹orange or vegetarian option (canard=duck)
Tarte aux pommes et glace vanille (apple tart w/ ice cream)
Wine
coffee

...not the traditional thanksgiving meal right? Nope. Well this was the menu for our CSU group dinner that we had at a nearby restaurant. Don’t get me wrong it was very nice and great to be able to have dinner with everyone from the group but it just didn’t feel like thanksgiving so of course we improvised. Jenea and Christa (two of the biggest fans of thanksgiving ever!) decided to have there own thanksgiving dinner at their house. The wanted to invite people from our classes, who come from all over the world, to have their first thanksgiving with us. We were all to bring a dish to share (family, I brought the mashed potatoes which were a hit even though I had to chance the recipe a bit because they don’t have everything here) It was an amazing experience we had French, Swiss, Chinese, Vietnamese and Americans all celebrating together. The of course had no idea what thanksgiving was all about so we did our best to explain it to them and then just told them that they basically just have to eat so much that their stomachs wouldn’t even be able to fit any more food. It was so funny to watch everyone eat the Americans we SO happy to have a full hearty meal while some of the others like the French were to slow to catch on to how much eating we would be doing because they are so used to small meals a little at a time and we just had plates piled full of food. It was great to have as close to a traditional dinner as we could and be with what is my family here. After we were done eating we decided to play charades…which was hilarious because not everyone spoke English well.

It was a fun night with TONS of food and great company…but it will be nice to have a real thanksgiving back in the US next year!

Picture time!

Another crazy CSU day

So these are way past due just like all of my posts I put up here. A few weeks ago we went on our last CSU group trip for the year we went to the cites of Luberon, Apt, Roussillon, and Gordes. It was a very out-doorsy day and tons of fun even though it was freezing out. We didn’t do to much and nothing too exciting happened, we just made short stops in each city and wandered around. Heres a slideshow of the day! ENJOY!

SNOW!

I have a couple random thoughts and i figured i would catch you all up!

1. It snowed here the other day! I was so excited it has been sooo long sense the last time i actually got to see it snow, and its actually very rare for it to snow here. I remember that being the first question that was asked when we would meet people from Aix, they always told us that there was no chance in it snowing so when it actually did it was great! I was in class at the time so i didnt really get to go outside but it was fun to be in my class because for a lot of my classmates they had never even seen snow. It was a neat experience.

2. Sorry it has taken me so long to write its hard to actually sit down and take the time to put all my adventures down...ill work on it. I hope everyone is still reading (id love to get e-mails)!!!

3. Classes are going well and my french is still slowly improving. Me and Christa went to a pub last weekend and met some new french friends (which is harder to do here than you would expect) so we now have more people to practice with!

4. I recently changed my room around and made it a little more comfy. There not to much I can do living with 3 boys but now i have my little corner so i dont feel like im living in a prison!
and lastly

5. Being that i wont be home for Thanksgiving and that obviously its not a holiday here i hope you all have a great Thanksgiving! I wish i could be around but instead ill be here having some lamb or soup or something strange because they dont have turkey! Miss you and love you all!

SAFE HOLIDAYS!

Barcelona

The morning after I got back from Ireland I was on a bus to Barcelona. I had booked a trip at a travel agency with a bunch of other students from the CSU program to go to Barcelona for 3 nights. The bus was about a 7 or so hour drive so we got there at around mid-afternoon on Thursday I spent the rest of that day just kind of wondering and having dinner. The next morning Myself, Jules, Kat, Lauren and Tobaus decided to buy a 2 day buss pass on the bus turistic, it’s a tourism bus that takes you all over the city and allows you to get on and off as you please. I spent the majority of the 2 days I was there doing that, the first day with the group and the second day with just Lauren. I was pretty worn out from Ireland so I didn’t enjoy Barcelona as much as I thought it would. It was SO crowded by tourists and I felt the city was a little dirty. I wasn’t in the best mindset for this trip. I spent a ton of time at huge monuments my favorite spots being Gaudi Park, the Gaudi designed buildings and this huge fountain that had a light show where the water danced and changed colors to the music. Barcelona was tons of fun don’t get me wrong I liked it a lot; it just didn’t make it to the top of my favorite places.

Here are some pictures from the trip!

Everybody loves the Irish

I figure the best way to do this is to go day by day that way it won’t get all bunched together.

It was pretty much just a spur of the moment trip for me. The day before I was to leave for Germany I was with Christa and Jenae two of the girls that im probably with the most here. They were talking about a trip and just mentioned Ireland and it all went from there we bought tickets online for about 20 euros each and planned on renting a car while we were there and just drive all around the country for 5 days. Ireland is a really small country so we figured we could drive a lot of it all the way north to all the way south but once we got there we realized that wasn’t realistic and we would have to change out plans because in Ireland the roads are really small and hard to drive on and things take a lot longer than in the US.

Day 1 (Friday)

We flew into Dublin airport and hoped on a bus to the center of town and figured we would go look for a tourist office or at least just find something to do. While in Dublin we were to stay with a couchsurfer Rory who has had HUNDREDS of people stay with him over the years. We found directions to his place dropped our stuff off at the front desk and then went on a hunt to find food. After walking for a while with no luck we somehow wondered down to Temple bar (which we thought was an actually bar but in reality isn’t at all, a “bar” is a town right next to a river) so while we were looking for “temple bar” to get hamburgers we got frustrated and just stopped at this Mediterranean restaurant. After we ate we made our way down to the Guinness factory. The factory was so much fun, it was huge! There are about 5 levels of information and at the top they have a sky bar with a 360 degree view of the city. Once we finished our Guinness’s we made our way back to Rory’s once there we learned that we weren’t the only ones that were supposed to stay there, it was the 3 of us, a boy from Scotland, a girl from Greece, a man from Italy, and a man from Israel, and a guy from Seattle. So with 8 of us supposed to be sleeping on the floor Rory suggested that we go stay with his friend Anthony a couchsurfer and good friend of his. We agreed so he drove us to Anthony’s house where we met 2 girls from New Zealand, a French couple living in Ireland, a guy from Brazil and a girl from Portugal, I was pretty overloaded but Anthony had made everyone dinner so we just sat and ate and chatted about just about everything. Later we all went out to a pub where here we were the league of nations just talking drinking and having a good time. It was so amazing and a time I know I will never forget.

Day 2 (Saturday)

We woke up early said our goodbyes and made it to Enterprise where we rented our car for the week. We took off and drove south-west heading to Cork where there was the Guinness Jazz Festival. On the way we stopped at Cashel Rock a hugely popular castle because this is where St. Patrick baptised the king of Munster. We also pulled off the road and stopped in a few small cities and once me and Christa stopped and got out and chased some cows. It was a fun day we just spent a lot of time in the car talking and just enjoying the country. That night we arrived in Cork found a organic place to eat and because we hadent found a place to stay we parked the car next to a river in Cork and spent the night.

Day 3 (Sunday)

After a good night sleep in the car (ha) I started driving…after a while of getting used to it we made our way up to the Ring of Kerry. The pictures or my description of it will never do it justice; I have never seen a more beautiful place in my life. The huge rolling green hills and the miles and miles of farm land with sheep and cows seemed to last forever. The sky was a little hazy and it was insanely windy but at the same time very fitting for my mental image of Ireland. The roads we really small and VERY hard to drive on, another plus side of growing up in the country I was able to handle the roads well and I felt really comfortable, I mean these roads barely fit one car let alone 2 and being on the very edge of a cliff. Driving seemed to bring out the most frustration between the 3 of us because for me and Christa when Jenea drove I think we both feared for our lives. We managed and spent the whole day just driving immersed in the beauty. I only wish I had better pictures but I guess you will all just have to make your way out there some day! That night we drove to Limerick and spent the night with a couchsurfer William that had stayed with Christa and Jenea before.

Day 4 (Monday)

Cliffs of Moher day!!!!! My favorite part of the trip! I started off driving and we made our way though hours of tiny roads and finally made it to the cliffs. We spent the bulk of this day just getting there and stopping everywhere along the way. When we finally did make it was SO windy your walking to what seems like nothing special but all of a sudden you see these amazing cliffs that your right on the edge of. It is so different over here compared to in the US because back home they would never let you get so close to the edge NEVER but here they let you just sit right on the edge, its insane. We walked around for hours and even got to see the sunset, it makes me sad that I can’t really give that great of a description because it is just so breathtaking. When we finally dragged ourselves away we got it the car and headed to Galway. A college town that is supposed to have a ton of great bars and clubs, but being that it’s a Monday night and we pretty wore out we just wanted to find a small traditional Irish pub, and that we did! We found this little pub in the center of town that had a live band playing traditional music. We stayed there all night talking to everyone in the pub (because we could finally speak English and be understood!), drinking and listening to the great music. That night we stayed in the car again because we couldn’t find a couchsurfer.

Day 5 (Tuesday)

Bummed that this was our last day and not to sure of what we wanted to do we just started off driving back in the direction of Dublin and stopping at every castle we could. The biggest of which was Birr castle this amazing castle that is 1 of the 12 castles that are still inhabited today, most families don’t live in their castles because of the price of upkeep. That night we stayed with this couchsurfing couple that had also stayed with Christa and Jenea a while back. They made us dinner and we just drank a last Guinness in Ireland and watch Boondock Saints and went to sleep.

We drove back to Dublin early Wednesday morning returned the car and made it to the airport. It was a long 5 days and a lot of hours in a car together but we made it through and all had an absolutely amazing time. I would love to make it back to Ireland someday and venture off into the northern part of the country. Ireland is just so beautiful and the people are just so amazingly nice and welcoming. We did not meet a single person who wasn’t willing to help us or didn’t have a suggestion on how we should spend are time, and as we said goodbye to each person we met they would just say “see you next time!”

Heres a slideshow of all my pictures i wish i could show more but these will do!

Avignon & Pont du Gard & a very long cold day!

This Saturday the CSU program took us on yet another group trip to Avignon. Avignon is unlike an other city I've seen in France so far surrounding the city is a wall which seems to turn the whole city into a fort. The city is probably best known for its Palais des Papes(Palace of the Popes), where the Popes lived for much of the 14th century and the reason the city placed a wall around all sides. Some of us decided to take a tour of the Palais where we took a audio guided tour of the entire palace. It was enormous it took us a couple hours just to go through the whole building, some of the rooms were amazing and bigger than i can even begin to describe. After the Palais we walked around town for a bit ate some lunch and then was off to our next stop, Pont du Gard.
The Pont du Gard is and aqueduct in the south of France constructed by the Roman Empire. From the Middle Ages to the 18th century, the aqueduct was used as a conventional bridge to facilitate foot traffic across the river. The Pont du Gard is today one of France's top five tourist attractions. It was so neat to see something that old still look so intact even though it had been through plenty of redevelopment. While we were there me and a couple others actually decided to kinnda break the rules, visitors used to be able to walk across the very top but now they have a gate blocking it off because of the wind. Well we kinnda decided to break those rules and we made it around the gate and crossed to the other side...i know i know we shouldn't have but it was well worth it the view was amazing!

It was good to get out of Aix and get our little history fix for the day and take a break from classes that i now have for 22 hours a week (i added another class). Even though it was absolutely freezing it was good to just let lose goof of and enjoy France.

Allez Les Bleus!

I knew Rugby was big in Europe but to actually experience the excitement is a whole other story. The French LOVE their rugby! Aix is a small town with not too many people so the streets and pubs are never very crowded but when a game is on the town becomes packed with people. I love it! One of my friends Drew plays rugby back in Illinois and I've been to one or two games in Long Beach but it is nothing like what they have here. I only wish I knew a little more about the game and started watching earlier in the season but i managed to catch up real quick when France made it into the semi-finals of the World cup which happened to take place in France this year. It was actually really cool the best known team and the team expected to win, The All Blacks from New Zealand stayed in our small town of Aix, so for a while we had some big rugby men walking around town.

A couple weeks ago in a game we were about to lose to the all blacks in a last minute miracle we ended up coming around in the last couple minutes to defeat them...the town went insane! It was crazy, the french were running around town yelling and chanting, breaking bottles and knocking over street barricades. They were partying and running around town until the early hours of the morning. The next game came around the semi's, France vs. England, everyone knows France hates England so we knew this was going to be a great game and plus whoever won this game was going to the championship. We had to get to the pub at about 6:30 even though the game wasn't supposed to start until 9. We grabbed a huge table with a few friends from England we have met here...them all in white and red and us on the other side of the table with the French flag painted on our faces, we were ready for a match! The game started and came to an end quite quickly and I'm guessing all of France was silent. We lost. England made it to the finals. It was sad, i wish i would have been here for the year that they made it all the way because i can only imagine how crazy it would have been.

Last night England went on to play South Africa in the world cup and ended up losing to them. It was a great experience to be here for something like that. I only wish in America we had a team that the whole country can cheer on. It brings out so much unity within the country. I know now that when i go home i will be watching a lot more rugby!

2nd CSU group trip!

It kinnda took me a while to post this but for our second CSU group trip all 42 (minus the few who didn't want to come) of us took a petit voyage to the Lavender Fields, Moustiers-Ste-Marie and Les Gorges du Verdon. The trip wasn't too exciting actually because the lavender wasn't in season and we weren't at the Gorges du Verdon ( also known as the grand canyon of France but in reality was nothing like it) long enough to swim very long or kayak. It was still amazingly georgous though and i had a great time with the program. So this is gonna be one of the posts where i just let the pictures speak for themselves!

First day of School!

Its been a week now from are first day of classes and i have to say that things are going alright. Before i came here i had only had 1 semester of French at Long Beach so im a little bit behind a lot of the other students who came here who have on average taken a couple year whether it being in high school or college. I was placed into Niveau II out of V so i mean thats not to bad its all i really needed for my classes to count and to even get to Niveau IV is an accomplishment. I have classes everyday of the week and take around 20 hours. My classes range from the Langue classes we are all required to take, to Phonetique and Entrainement a l'ecrit to my electives that are Litterature General and Vie Politique Francaise (French political life). There not to bad or too hard but i know that im going to have to work really hard to keep up, but thats okay its good for me it will only help me learn faster. The only thing now i have to deal with in my Langue teacher who obviously doesnt seem to be too fond of the students from California. O well there's always something!

Germany! Finally!

Were already running late and we havent even made it to the airport yet...there are 7 of us going on this trip and ive already learned from the last group outings that something always goes wrong. I was defiantly right things were not going as planned. Before the trip the whole group of us decided to travel to Germany for Octoberfest but of course we decided this and got the group together far to late to actually find a place to stay in Munich and the flights there were way to expensive for any of us. Instead we decided to buy a plane ticket to Hamburg, in northern Germany and get a German rail pass and take a train to Munich and just rent tents and camp out. To no surprise of mine we waited to long to buy the rail passes and the prices increased (a lot). We decided that our best bet would be to buy a twin rail pass where you pit 2 manes on one pass and just split the cost making it a lot cheaper for all of us. To buy the rail passes you have to be a US citizen and they must be sent to the US, well we were leaving in about 2 weeks at the time that we bought the passes so we had to buy them and have them sent to the US and the shipped to France. So here comes the night before we are going to leave still without passes just informed that there are no tents left at the camp site so were about to leave for Germany with no means of transportation and no accommodation, only a plane ticket to Lubeck a small town about an hour outside of Hamburg. Needless to say i was not happy and very stressed out. We got on the phone with the Poste and they informed us that out rail passes were in Marseille the same town the airport we were flying out of was in. They told us that we would be able to stop by and pick them us the morning of our flight and that it would be no problem. Once we got to the airport in Marseille the boys went off to find our rail passes while the rest of us checked in. Once they came back with the tickets i sat down and began to read all the restrictions, i learned that we must always be with the person whose name is also on the pass. Its common sense but none of us really thought about it, German, Travis and I all planned to stop in Berlin before heading to Munich and Kat, Sara, Jules and Saquib all planned on going straight to Munich. Well of course Jules and i were on a ticket, German and Kat were on a ticket and so was Travis and Sara, so at this point all of our plans needed to change. Me and Jules are both pretty stubborn so we both wanted to do what we originally planed to do but we knew that wouldn't happen. So after a bit of compromise we decided that we would spend the night in Lubeck then head to Berlin early the next morning stay one night there and then head to Munich to finish off our trip at Octoberfest, this way we would both get to do what we wanted.

Once in Lubeck everyone stresses seemed to go away we were all SO excited for our first trip out of France. It was a dreary, rainy day but i didn't really mind i was just ready to go explore and have my first German sausage and beer! One of Jules friends Jacob met us at the airport, he had lived in Germany for several years so he was fluent in the language and a huge help for us. We got on the bus and headed to our hostel to set our stuff down and figure out our next move. Lubeck in a cute town with beautiful old building a a ton of charm. Everyone seemed to be so nice compared to in France, i never really thought that the French were rude but in Germany everyone was just so nice and helpful. Jacob walked us around for a bit before we were all hungry and stopped at this little hole in the wall restaurant. It was dark and gloomy and very German, we sat down opened the menu and realized that we had no idea what anything was...its not like France where you could somewhat guess, i had NO idea! All of us knew what we wanted a big beer and a big hearty meal, we have all become wore out on the french cuisine of bread, cheese, ham and wine. Our waitress was so nice and so friendly she helped us each pick out something because she spoke English very well. I ordered a dish of potatoes with cheese, spinach and tomatoes covered with cream sauce and more cheese...it was the most amazing thing i have ever had! By far my favorite meal i have had here in Europe. After a while of talking taking pictures and digesting the 10lb mean i just ate we headed off to another small restaurant were we had a few drinks and just talked to Jacob about Germany. After that me and German decided to head back to the hostel while the others went to a club.

The next day i woke up at 7 and began to get ready for our train ride to Berlin! I was so excited! Berlin is a town with so much history and so many incredible things to see i was just full of anticipation. The only thing i was worried about was where Jules, Saquib and I were going to stay. The rest of the group decided that they were going to spend 2 nights in Berlin compared to our 1 so they had there own plans. I slowly started to wake everyone up from there crazy night at the club got some breakfast and headed for the train. Once we were in Berlin thats where we were parting ways. Jules and Saquib ended up finding us a place to stay with a couchsurfer named Andre. Couchsurfing is this online program where students share there couches with other travelers so they dont have to pay for a place to stay. I felt a lot better now that we had a place to sleep so now we just had to figure out what we wanted to do for the day. We ended up running into this kid from Ohio who had been in Germany for a couple days already so he asked if we would mind if he came along with. The 4 of us decided that we wanted to head to Brendenburg Gate, the Reichstag, the Holocaust memorial and of course the Berlin wall. The weather wasn't much better in Berlin it was rainy and crappy all day but it seemed to fit the city well. Finally after struggling to figure out the Deutsche Bahn system we headed to the gate. It was kinnda strange because once we got there there was a world inline competition going on at the spot where such historical events went on and men and women were skating around in neon spandex...it was quite a site. After the gate we walked a little further down to the Holocaust museum...it was amazing everyone was walking threw with their umbrellas in the rain, it just seemed very somber and fitting. I was getting tired of walking around in the rain so we decided to try and get a hold of Andre and meet up with him. We walked back to the train and found our way to Andres we set our stuff down changed out of our wet clothes and the Andre and another couchsurfer he had with him, Jasmine took us to this bar where the played live music. After the bar we went on a walk past part of the original Berlin wall, it was a part where they had recreated the other side of the wall to show what the "death strip" would of looked like. It was the craziest thing to picture how this wall was all over the town, they have signs on the sidewalk and a path to show where exactly it was and it just seems to be everywhere. I just remember walking around the town and noticing every time i crossed it, it was really hard to imagine what it must of been like to live there around 20 some years ago. Berlin was an incredible city I only wish i had much more than a day to explore all the amazing things in the city.

After the short stay with Andre we left early the next morning to head to Munich and Octoberfest. After about a 6 hour train ride we arrived and headed straight to the campsite to put down our bags. We were to excited to get on our way so we stopped by the side for about 20mins and then was off again. We headed down to the festival where i was going to meet one of my friends from Long Beach Myke. I was really excited to see him because it was really nice to see a familiar face. Octoberfest was INSANE! It is bigger than you can imagine, everything about the whole festival is extravagant from the carnival rides to the massive tents that fit around 5 thousand people to the litters of beer and whole chickens that they feed to you and the thousand of people that are dressed in traditional German outfits. I have never seen so many drunk people from 18 to 80 and people from all over the world, everyone was just so happy which is no surprise. We spent about 2 whole days at Octoberfest and then spent part of one day exploring the city of Munich. Munich wasn't as nice as Berlin in my opinion but it still was incredible.

I had the best experience in Germany. The whole country is amazing and i would love to go back there someday and spend more time at each place. It was a great first adventure even with all of the hold-ups and complications!