Hello. This will be a rather quick update since I'm catching a train in a hour to go to Nice for the weekend.
The weekend of May 8th-10th was spent in northern France in a small town near the town of Vannes. It was one of the best times I've had so far in France.
We left Thursday evening (after my classes) and we had to take three cars in order to get all of us there (we were 14 in all. 5 french, 1 british, 1 irish, 7 americans). Along the drive we stopped and had a picnic/dinner at a rest stop. We'd packed chips, sandwiches, drinks and cookies, ect. We didn't arrive at the cabin until around 1am friday morning. So we basically made our beds, gossiped a while and then went to bed. Elodie's cabin is awesome. There aren't a lot of neighbors and all the houses surrounding us were huge summer houses. Its also located right by the beach and one of the most huge castles in France. Her house came fully loaded with plenty of beds (including bunk beds), bicycles for all, picnic tables in the back yard, BBQ grill, sea kayaks, everything! I've decided I want a weekend get-away cabin like that when I get older.
Friday, our first day we woke up to a huge breakfast before spending the day at the beach. At the beach we enjoyed some beach volleyball, sea kayaking (it was my first time sea kayaking) and laying around soaking up the sun. The weatherman had predicted that it was going to being rainy, bad weather for us all weekend, but actually it turned out to be was nothing but sunshine. When we finally returned home we sat down for a huge BBQ dinner. In the evening we sat around chatting and playing games. Some of the boys played botchy ball and some others went for bicycle rides to the Castle down the road.
Saturday we took a ferry boat to the Ile d'Arz and spent the day walking around the entire island, soaking up some sun, having a picnic and playing more volleyball. After leaving the island we drove to Vannes and explored the town. In the evening we went to a Creperie restaurant which made both dinner crepes and dessert crepes. They were awesome.
Sunday morning we spent cleaning the entire cabin (so we'll be able to come back again sometime hopefully) and then we had a huge american breakfast including hashbrowns, bacon, eggs, pancakes, ect. Then headed into Sarzeau to visit a famous biscuterie (cookie store) where we tried all the free samples we could get our hands on. In the evening we jumped in the cars and headed back to Angouleme.
Monday was Nalleli's last day so we had a slumber party at the LISA tower. Tuesday was work. Wednesday we had a large BBQ at Elodie's to eat up all the left over food and alcohol from the weekend in the North. Thursday was school (boring). I can't remember what I did this weekend but I think I did a lot of reading and laundry. Tuesday Natalie and me went to watch a movie at the cinema (Angels and Demons).
Last night we had a huge BBQ at Emilie's house for Matt's going away party. It was so much fun. We literally kidnapped Matt off the street. He had no idea we were throwing him a party. We had some friends wearing nylons over there heads grab him and throw him into a camper (I was in the camper watching it all go down). We'd covered his head so he wouldn't know who was there and tied him up. We only spoke in spanish the entire time so he actually was freaked out thinking he'd been kidnapped. It took us about 25 mins to drive to Emilie's house which is outside of town so by the time we got there he was a little shakin' up and completely clueless to why everyone he knew was standing around laughing at him. It was one of the best kidnappings I've seen (not that I've seen a lot).
Today is a holiday so I didn't have to work. And now I must go in order to catch a train to Nice. I'll try to make sure to write everyday while I'm in Nice. LoveYa.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
More Pics
Bordeaux
Sitting at a park in Bordeaux
The Grand Theater of Bordeaux
Some old ruins called Palais Garnier in Bordeaux
Misty's last night in France. Paris.
St. Michel Monastery
An old windmill outside of Pontorson
St. Michel at night...
Public gardens in Rennes
Eating our lunch by a river
An old chateau that we discovered while driving.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Spring Vacation
Hello everyone. Long time, no write. Sorry about that, keeping a blog isn't as fun as it seems. ;)
So the first week of my Spring vacation (April 20th-24th) was spent teaching at "le stage" which I've mentioned before. It was a lot of fun to teach older kids (these ones were 16 year-olds) since I can actually talk to them in english and make jokes, as opposed to repeating the same five words for an entire class (which I do with my little kids). I think it was good experience for next year, since I've asked to teach high school next year instead of elementary school. My kids really liked me. I basically just B.S. with them for three hours and played games. On the last day I brought in some movies, candy, chips and soda and spent the three hours watching american films (superbad and v for vendetta). I was all alone for the week because everyone had left either to go home or on a road trip south. I went on a cleaning frenzy and cleaned-up/organized the common room and kitchen.
Saturday April 25th the tower was once more filled with life as the girls who were road tripping made a special stop to pick me up and take me north with them. they arrived late in the evening, but I had hot, homemade lasagna waiting for them (it was my first time ever making lasagna, but it didn't turn out to horrible...at least the girls were polite enough to eat all of it and tell me it was good...).
Sunday April 26th we awoke first thing in the morning and started our journey north. We stopped in a town along the way to have a lunch picnic along a river (I'm not sure which river it was). We drove through Nantes which is a gorgeous town, but we were in a hurry to get to Rennes so we didn't stop (I'm planning on heading there for a weekend before I leave so I can check the town out more thoroughly). When we arrived in Rennes there was a bizzilion rollerskaters. Apparently we'd arrived just at the end of some huge rollerblading competition, so there were men running around in tight spandex everywhere. :) The city center of the town was beautiful, but we decided we wanted to head a little further north before night fall so we jumped back in the car and drove to Pontorson which is small town near the St Michel Monastery. That night we snuck into the town/monastery (we found a door that wasn't locked and let ourselves in. We were going to play stupid tourist if we got caught, but there was no one around). St Michel Monastery is actually a small town and former Monastery on a very small island/hill. During high tide the island is completely surrounded by water. They've recently built a bridge that connects the island to the mainland at all times though, so that's why we were able to access it.
Monday April 27th we began our day by visiting St Michel again (this time when it was open, full of tourists and souvenir shops). I didn't actual go into the old monastery which sits at the top of the hill/island like a crown, because I didn't want to pay and we were also on a time crunch (we had to be to Paris by 8pm). We spent the day driving through different towns and occassionally getting out to explore the towns we went through. We made it to Paris just in time. We had reservations at my favorite hostel 'the peace and love' (actually we tried to book reservations but the internet said they were full, so I called in some favors to my friends who work there and they hooked us up). It was Misty's last night in France so we all went out to dinner and then stayed up drinking and gossiping at the bar until the wee hours of the morning.
Tuesday April 28th we dropped Misty off at the airport before heading back to Angouleme. We basically drove straight from Paris to Angouleme, because we had to have the rental car turned in by 6pm. So our only pit stops were for gas, pee breaks and a lunch stop at 'Quick' which is the french version of McDonalds (I'd never eaten there before and promised myself I'd try it before I left France, so I was actually happy to be chowing down on a greasy, over-processed piece of hamburger). Even though we did mostly driving during the trip it was a lot of fun. For one thing, I actually got to drive, because I was one of the few who knew how to drive a manual and I was also the best/safest driver (I've wrecked two cars, so you can imagine what the others drive like if I'm the best...let's just say we almost died multiple times...). It was also lovely to hang out with everyone in a small enclosed area because everyone is leaving soon so we just chatted and relived the memories of the past year.
The following couple of days (April 29th-May 2nd) were spent resting and relaxing. I was suppose to be leaving for Barcelona for the weekend, but plans kept on getting pushed backed and finally we decided to cancel it since we had waited to long to book a hostel and there weren't any trains on the days we needed. Another factor for not going to Barcelona is the Swine Flu scare. The french government advised its citizens not to visit infected countries (like spain) so we just hung out in Angouleme instead (they are actually trying to ban all flights to Mexico from France, but hopefully that won't happen or one of my roommates isn't going to be able to make it home). I still plan on visiting Barcelona, but on a later date (probably end of May or beginning of June if I can get the money together for it). There is only three of us left in the tower but the other two leave next week, so then I'll be all alone. We've been having a lot of fun with just the three of us here. Every night we have a family dinner (using up all the food that the others left when they left) and usually a movie after. We've been going on walks, shooting hoops at the park and we even had a slumber party in the common room the other night.
Sunday May 3rd Nalelli and me went to the cinema and watched the biography of Coco Chanel. It was a really great french film. The name of the film was 'Coco Avant Chanel' which means 'Coco before Chanel' it was the biography of her before she became a celebrated designer.
Monday May 4th Nalelli and me spent all day shopping. I was looking for sandals, but ended up buying another pair of boots. Oh well...
Tuesday May 5th was a beautiful day. It was so sunshiny and warm that even the fact that I had to work didn't get me down. After my classes I went to a huge park and met Matt there for some hotdogs and cool beers, while we chatted, read and edited some papers. I then met Emily in town and we grabbed a slushy before I headed home.
Wednesday May 6th was yet another beautiful day. In fact the perfect weather day. 75 degrees, no clouds in the sky and a light breeze that would blow occassionally to cool you down. Nalelli and me caught a train to Bordeaux today (actually we missed our first train because we're silly...we sat for almost ten minutes starring at this train and make fun of the people coming on and off it and as it started to pull away Nalelli jumped up and started following it saying 'I think that was our train'...oops, so we exchanged our tickets and caught the next train). Bordeaux is a beautiful city. The entire old town is listed as a World Heritage Site and there are huge theaters and monuments and parks around every corner. We walked around for a while stopping occassionally to look in a store or have a cool drink in a cafe. Then we grabbed some ice cream and headed for a park. We looked around for a while longer then headed to another park to enjoy the sun, read and watch people juggling. We took a six o'clock train home again (it's only a hour train ride home to Angouleme) and spent the rest of the evening relaxing and watching movies.
I'm going to be busy for the next couple of weeks because I have lots of plans in the work. Tomorrow I have classes in the morning and then I have to give oral exams in the afternoon. from there I'm leaving right away to head north for the weekend to a little town called Vennes. My friend Elodie's parents own a 'weekend get-away cabin' there, so 15 of us are piling into cars and road tripping up there (wait didn't I just get back from a road trip to the North?? Oh, well). It should be a lot of fun. It's near the coast and a lake, so were planning on picnicing and rowing and biking and all sorts of fun stuff. The following weekend I'm going to try to go to the Cannes Film Festival (depends on funds however, so I'll have to do some budgetting). I'd hate to miss it, because its one of those things that if your in France and you have the opportunity to go, you really can't pass it up (plus I want a photo with Johnny Depp who will definitely be there). TTYL. LoveYa.
So the first week of my Spring vacation (April 20th-24th) was spent teaching at "le stage" which I've mentioned before. It was a lot of fun to teach older kids (these ones were 16 year-olds) since I can actually talk to them in english and make jokes, as opposed to repeating the same five words for an entire class (which I do with my little kids). I think it was good experience for next year, since I've asked to teach high school next year instead of elementary school. My kids really liked me. I basically just B.S. with them for three hours and played games. On the last day I brought in some movies, candy, chips and soda and spent the three hours watching american films (superbad and v for vendetta). I was all alone for the week because everyone had left either to go home or on a road trip south. I went on a cleaning frenzy and cleaned-up/organized the common room and kitchen.
Saturday April 25th the tower was once more filled with life as the girls who were road tripping made a special stop to pick me up and take me north with them. they arrived late in the evening, but I had hot, homemade lasagna waiting for them (it was my first time ever making lasagna, but it didn't turn out to horrible...at least the girls were polite enough to eat all of it and tell me it was good...).
Sunday April 26th we awoke first thing in the morning and started our journey north. We stopped in a town along the way to have a lunch picnic along a river (I'm not sure which river it was). We drove through Nantes which is a gorgeous town, but we were in a hurry to get to Rennes so we didn't stop (I'm planning on heading there for a weekend before I leave so I can check the town out more thoroughly). When we arrived in Rennes there was a bizzilion rollerskaters. Apparently we'd arrived just at the end of some huge rollerblading competition, so there were men running around in tight spandex everywhere. :) The city center of the town was beautiful, but we decided we wanted to head a little further north before night fall so we jumped back in the car and drove to Pontorson which is small town near the St Michel Monastery. That night we snuck into the town/monastery (we found a door that wasn't locked and let ourselves in. We were going to play stupid tourist if we got caught, but there was no one around). St Michel Monastery is actually a small town and former Monastery on a very small island/hill. During high tide the island is completely surrounded by water. They've recently built a bridge that connects the island to the mainland at all times though, so that's why we were able to access it.
Monday April 27th we began our day by visiting St Michel again (this time when it was open, full of tourists and souvenir shops). I didn't actual go into the old monastery which sits at the top of the hill/island like a crown, because I didn't want to pay and we were also on a time crunch (we had to be to Paris by 8pm). We spent the day driving through different towns and occassionally getting out to explore the towns we went through. We made it to Paris just in time. We had reservations at my favorite hostel 'the peace and love' (actually we tried to book reservations but the internet said they were full, so I called in some favors to my friends who work there and they hooked us up). It was Misty's last night in France so we all went out to dinner and then stayed up drinking and gossiping at the bar until the wee hours of the morning.
Tuesday April 28th we dropped Misty off at the airport before heading back to Angouleme. We basically drove straight from Paris to Angouleme, because we had to have the rental car turned in by 6pm. So our only pit stops were for gas, pee breaks and a lunch stop at 'Quick' which is the french version of McDonalds (I'd never eaten there before and promised myself I'd try it before I left France, so I was actually happy to be chowing down on a greasy, over-processed piece of hamburger). Even though we did mostly driving during the trip it was a lot of fun. For one thing, I actually got to drive, because I was one of the few who knew how to drive a manual and I was also the best/safest driver (I've wrecked two cars, so you can imagine what the others drive like if I'm the best...let's just say we almost died multiple times...). It was also lovely to hang out with everyone in a small enclosed area because everyone is leaving soon so we just chatted and relived the memories of the past year.
The following couple of days (April 29th-May 2nd) were spent resting and relaxing. I was suppose to be leaving for Barcelona for the weekend, but plans kept on getting pushed backed and finally we decided to cancel it since we had waited to long to book a hostel and there weren't any trains on the days we needed. Another factor for not going to Barcelona is the Swine Flu scare. The french government advised its citizens not to visit infected countries (like spain) so we just hung out in Angouleme instead (they are actually trying to ban all flights to Mexico from France, but hopefully that won't happen or one of my roommates isn't going to be able to make it home). I still plan on visiting Barcelona, but on a later date (probably end of May or beginning of June if I can get the money together for it). There is only three of us left in the tower but the other two leave next week, so then I'll be all alone. We've been having a lot of fun with just the three of us here. Every night we have a family dinner (using up all the food that the others left when they left) and usually a movie after. We've been going on walks, shooting hoops at the park and we even had a slumber party in the common room the other night.
Sunday May 3rd Nalelli and me went to the cinema and watched the biography of Coco Chanel. It was a really great french film. The name of the film was 'Coco Avant Chanel' which means 'Coco before Chanel' it was the biography of her before she became a celebrated designer.
Monday May 4th Nalelli and me spent all day shopping. I was looking for sandals, but ended up buying another pair of boots. Oh well...
Tuesday May 5th was a beautiful day. It was so sunshiny and warm that even the fact that I had to work didn't get me down. After my classes I went to a huge park and met Matt there for some hotdogs and cool beers, while we chatted, read and edited some papers. I then met Emily in town and we grabbed a slushy before I headed home.
Wednesday May 6th was yet another beautiful day. In fact the perfect weather day. 75 degrees, no clouds in the sky and a light breeze that would blow occassionally to cool you down. Nalelli and me caught a train to Bordeaux today (actually we missed our first train because we're silly...we sat for almost ten minutes starring at this train and make fun of the people coming on and off it and as it started to pull away Nalelli jumped up and started following it saying 'I think that was our train'...oops, so we exchanged our tickets and caught the next train). Bordeaux is a beautiful city. The entire old town is listed as a World Heritage Site and there are huge theaters and monuments and parks around every corner. We walked around for a while stopping occassionally to look in a store or have a cool drink in a cafe. Then we grabbed some ice cream and headed for a park. We looked around for a while longer then headed to another park to enjoy the sun, read and watch people juggling. We took a six o'clock train home again (it's only a hour train ride home to Angouleme) and spent the rest of the evening relaxing and watching movies.
I'm going to be busy for the next couple of weeks because I have lots of plans in the work. Tomorrow I have classes in the morning and then I have to give oral exams in the afternoon. from there I'm leaving right away to head north for the weekend to a little town called Vennes. My friend Elodie's parents own a 'weekend get-away cabin' there, so 15 of us are piling into cars and road tripping up there (wait didn't I just get back from a road trip to the North?? Oh, well). It should be a lot of fun. It's near the coast and a lake, so were planning on picnicing and rowing and biking and all sorts of fun stuff. The following weekend I'm going to try to go to the Cannes Film Festival (depends on funds however, so I'll have to do some budgetting). I'd hate to miss it, because its one of those things that if your in France and you have the opportunity to go, you really can't pass it up (plus I want a photo with Johnny Depp who will definitely be there). TTYL. LoveYa.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Pics
At an outdoor concert on our last Friday night all together
At an outdoor concert on our last Friday night all together
At an outdoor concert on our last Friday night all together
Walking into town for our last night all together in Angouleme
Visiting the ruins of the Roman-Gallo Theater
Visiting the ruins of the Roman-Gallo Theater
Visiting the ruins of the Roman-Gallo Theater
The ruins of the Roman-Gallo Theater
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Life in Angouleme
Hello. So I've been keeping busy but I'll try to fill you all in.
Friday April 10th Anna and Dad arrived in Angouleme for the weekend. They arrived in the evening so I quickly checked them into thier hotel, so that we'd make it in time to watch the french film festival at the Espece Franquin (the Espece Franquin is a large community hall where different exhibits and exhibitions are held). The show was suppose to start at 7pm, but i should have known that we needn't have rushed to make it there on time. We were almost ten minutes late and they still hadn't started it yet. We have named this phenomenon "french time". Meaning that if a french person tells you to meet them at a certain time (for a drink, dinner, shopping, ect) always add at least fifteen minutes onto that time, because they are always late. The film festival ended up starting at 7:25pm instead of 7pm. We stayed and watched the first half of it before leaving to get dinner. They were so amusing that even though Dad and Anna who don't speak french still enjoyed them all. From there we ate dinner at my favorite Italian restaurant (we had to eat Italian because french put meat into everything and it was sabbath or something so they being good catholics couldn't eat meat). My roommates and I found this restaurant back in January its got great food and even better ambiance. We ended up eating and drinking wine there until almost midnight. The french tend to eat late dinners (and large ones that consist of lots of alcohol and at least three courses and ending in a cup of coffee to help with digestion), so lots of restaurants don't start serving food until after 8:30 at night and don't close until 1am, so its very normal to go out all night just for a dinner. Dad and Anna still haven't got used to this trend.
Saturday April 11th I gave dad and Anna a tour of Angouleme in the morning and in the afternoon we picked up Michaele and Pamela to go to the roman-gallo theater ruins which are 20mins outside of town. Yes, the Romans conquered France back near 1AD (there are also some roman baths nearby, but we didn't go to see those) and decided to build a huge amphitheater on the "Via Agrippa" which is the old roman trading route that connected Lyon to the Atlantic coast. In the evening we went out to dinner at a new restaurant that I hadn't tried yet but specializes in seafood and traditional Alsace regional dishes (the Alsace region is in Northern France and is very cold and mountainous...I believe it's near or in the Alps). Dad and Anna dropped me of at the LISA and we said our farewells because they were leaving the following morning really early to head to Bordeaux.
Sunday April 12th was a really uneventful Easter. We laid around all day and did nothing because the weather was terrible and rainy. In the morning I made pancakes for everyone, but other then that there were no festivities.
Tuesday April 14th I had classes like usual and then I went to a conference on "How Americans living in France view the European Union". I was just going to to support a friend who had to do the question and answer part of the conference and little did I know that the moment they heard I was an American living in France they were going to throw me into the conference too. They made me sit in front of a room full of close to 40 people with the local press snapping pictures and videoing. I was so terrified and as everyone probably knows I have a huge fear of public speaking (I thought I was going to throw-up or passout the whole time). The entire thing was in French. By the time they passed me the microphone to speak my mind drew a blank on how to speak french to where I could barely say "my name is (je m'appelle)" which is the first thing I ever learned in French. But thankfully I was able to stutter my way through it after a couple of minutes of complete silence and internal panic. The conference ended 90 minutes later with me only having to speak 2 more times (thankfully the other americans who had actually volunteered to speak at the conference did most of the commentary and answering of questions). Honestly it was more like a hour and a half bash on America and "us causing a global depression", so I wasn't too impressed with the conference. In fact I had a lot to say on the subject so I'm very sorry my french isn't good enough to hold a heated debate with the main instigator (some snotty 50 something year old french man who was born in the USA so he thinks he knows everything and can bash the USA as much as he wants since he was born there...I would have put him in his place if my french was better). So needless to say my nerves were pretty rattled after the conference so us Americans went out and grabbed some drinks to reflect and rant.
Friday April 17th was our last Friday night all together in Angouleme. Everyone is leaving soon so I'll soon have this entire tower to myself for two months. I think its going to be quite lonely, but thankfully I still have quite a few friends around town so I'll still have people to go do stuff with. Pamela leaves Monday. Celine and Carly on Wednesday. Nalleli, Misty and Kena are leaving for a road trip on Wednesday which leaves me all by myself for a week starting Wednesday. Thankfully Nalleli and Kena will be returning until the 14th of May, so I won't be all alone until then. So Friday night we all went downtown to celebrate together. We grabbed some drinks at one of our favorite pubs "le Girafe" and then stopped by a grocery store to buy some champagne before heading to the "Marche Square" where a live band was playing. After watching the band for a while and meeting some new french people we went to "L'havana" to dance.
Saturday April 18th I awoke surprisingly early and got dressed in order to join Nalleli who was going into town to do some shopping. I bought two new dresses and a pair of capris. By the time we returned to the LISA I was exhausted and went back to bed. In the evening we had a huge group dinner with lots of homemade traditional french food, before heading into town to meet up with some other assistants who will also be leaving soon. We decided that we'd hit-up all our favorite bars, so the evening began at the first bar we ever went to in Angouleme the "Kennedy's Irish Pub", then "l'Havana" and finally "le Girafe" where we met some new friends. our new friends are from Mexico, Brazil and France and go to University here. They accompanied us back to the LISA and we drank and talked until the wee hours of the morning (I actually went to bed at 4am because I was tired, but everyone else was up until 7am...theyz crazy).
Sunday April 19th is a sad day because it's our last night all together. Pamela leaves tomorrow morning, but we're trying to make the most of our last night all together. So this evening we are taking all the mattresses out of our rooms and putting them in the common room and we're going to have a huge slumber party. It should be a lot of fun.
So right now we are on vacation again. School doesn't start again until the 5th of May (I love having random two week breaks every couple of months). You might be wondering why I'm not joining the others on their roadtrip or off to explore some other area of Europe by myself. The reason is because I'm teaching at " le Stage" next week. Which is kind of like a week long english camp during the vacation. I'll be working 3 hours everyday this week from 9am to 12pm teaching oral english to high schoolers. I agreed to do this because they are paying me 30 euros a hour for helping them out, so I couldn't really resist. Another reason I'm not planning on doing much this vacation is because my travel funds are very low, but taking on these courses will give me a little extra spending money so the weekend of May 1st to May 4th I'm probably going to Barcelona with a friend to hangout for the weekend. So that will add another country under my belt (I live close to Spain, but I still haven't visited it yet). Also the following weekend Nalleli, Matt, Noreen, Nicholas, Elodie, me and a few others are headed to Vannes in Brittany which is in northwest France. We are going to crash at her grandma's house which is along the Atlantic Ocean, so we'll spend the weekend lounging and sunbathing by the ocean. I'll make sure to write and let everyone know how the vacations go.
Friday April 10th Anna and Dad arrived in Angouleme for the weekend. They arrived in the evening so I quickly checked them into thier hotel, so that we'd make it in time to watch the french film festival at the Espece Franquin (the Espece Franquin is a large community hall where different exhibits and exhibitions are held). The show was suppose to start at 7pm, but i should have known that we needn't have rushed to make it there on time. We were almost ten minutes late and they still hadn't started it yet. We have named this phenomenon "french time". Meaning that if a french person tells you to meet them at a certain time (for a drink, dinner, shopping, ect) always add at least fifteen minutes onto that time, because they are always late. The film festival ended up starting at 7:25pm instead of 7pm. We stayed and watched the first half of it before leaving to get dinner. They were so amusing that even though Dad and Anna who don't speak french still enjoyed them all. From there we ate dinner at my favorite Italian restaurant (we had to eat Italian because french put meat into everything and it was sabbath or something so they being good catholics couldn't eat meat). My roommates and I found this restaurant back in January its got great food and even better ambiance. We ended up eating and drinking wine there until almost midnight. The french tend to eat late dinners (and large ones that consist of lots of alcohol and at least three courses and ending in a cup of coffee to help with digestion), so lots of restaurants don't start serving food until after 8:30 at night and don't close until 1am, so its very normal to go out all night just for a dinner. Dad and Anna still haven't got used to this trend.
Saturday April 11th I gave dad and Anna a tour of Angouleme in the morning and in the afternoon we picked up Michaele and Pamela to go to the roman-gallo theater ruins which are 20mins outside of town. Yes, the Romans conquered France back near 1AD (there are also some roman baths nearby, but we didn't go to see those) and decided to build a huge amphitheater on the "Via Agrippa" which is the old roman trading route that connected Lyon to the Atlantic coast. In the evening we went out to dinner at a new restaurant that I hadn't tried yet but specializes in seafood and traditional Alsace regional dishes (the Alsace region is in Northern France and is very cold and mountainous...I believe it's near or in the Alps). Dad and Anna dropped me of at the LISA and we said our farewells because they were leaving the following morning really early to head to Bordeaux.
Sunday April 12th was a really uneventful Easter. We laid around all day and did nothing because the weather was terrible and rainy. In the morning I made pancakes for everyone, but other then that there were no festivities.
Tuesday April 14th I had classes like usual and then I went to a conference on "How Americans living in France view the European Union". I was just going to to support a friend who had to do the question and answer part of the conference and little did I know that the moment they heard I was an American living in France they were going to throw me into the conference too. They made me sit in front of a room full of close to 40 people with the local press snapping pictures and videoing. I was so terrified and as everyone probably knows I have a huge fear of public speaking (I thought I was going to throw-up or passout the whole time). The entire thing was in French. By the time they passed me the microphone to speak my mind drew a blank on how to speak french to where I could barely say "my name is (je m'appelle)" which is the first thing I ever learned in French. But thankfully I was able to stutter my way through it after a couple of minutes of complete silence and internal panic. The conference ended 90 minutes later with me only having to speak 2 more times (thankfully the other americans who had actually volunteered to speak at the conference did most of the commentary and answering of questions). Honestly it was more like a hour and a half bash on America and "us causing a global depression", so I wasn't too impressed with the conference. In fact I had a lot to say on the subject so I'm very sorry my french isn't good enough to hold a heated debate with the main instigator (some snotty 50 something year old french man who was born in the USA so he thinks he knows everything and can bash the USA as much as he wants since he was born there...I would have put him in his place if my french was better). So needless to say my nerves were pretty rattled after the conference so us Americans went out and grabbed some drinks to reflect and rant.
Friday April 17th was our last Friday night all together in Angouleme. Everyone is leaving soon so I'll soon have this entire tower to myself for two months. I think its going to be quite lonely, but thankfully I still have quite a few friends around town so I'll still have people to go do stuff with. Pamela leaves Monday. Celine and Carly on Wednesday. Nalleli, Misty and Kena are leaving for a road trip on Wednesday which leaves me all by myself for a week starting Wednesday. Thankfully Nalleli and Kena will be returning until the 14th of May, so I won't be all alone until then. So Friday night we all went downtown to celebrate together. We grabbed some drinks at one of our favorite pubs "le Girafe" and then stopped by a grocery store to buy some champagne before heading to the "Marche Square" where a live band was playing. After watching the band for a while and meeting some new french people we went to "L'havana" to dance.
Saturday April 18th I awoke surprisingly early and got dressed in order to join Nalleli who was going into town to do some shopping. I bought two new dresses and a pair of capris. By the time we returned to the LISA I was exhausted and went back to bed. In the evening we had a huge group dinner with lots of homemade traditional french food, before heading into town to meet up with some other assistants who will also be leaving soon. We decided that we'd hit-up all our favorite bars, so the evening began at the first bar we ever went to in Angouleme the "Kennedy's Irish Pub", then "l'Havana" and finally "le Girafe" where we met some new friends. our new friends are from Mexico, Brazil and France and go to University here. They accompanied us back to the LISA and we drank and talked until the wee hours of the morning (I actually went to bed at 4am because I was tired, but everyone else was up until 7am...theyz crazy).
Sunday April 19th is a sad day because it's our last night all together. Pamela leaves tomorrow morning, but we're trying to make the most of our last night all together. So this evening we are taking all the mattresses out of our rooms and putting them in the common room and we're going to have a huge slumber party. It should be a lot of fun.
So right now we are on vacation again. School doesn't start again until the 5th of May (I love having random two week breaks every couple of months). You might be wondering why I'm not joining the others on their roadtrip or off to explore some other area of Europe by myself. The reason is because I'm teaching at " le Stage" next week. Which is kind of like a week long english camp during the vacation. I'll be working 3 hours everyday this week from 9am to 12pm teaching oral english to high schoolers. I agreed to do this because they are paying me 30 euros a hour for helping them out, so I couldn't really resist. Another reason I'm not planning on doing much this vacation is because my travel funds are very low, but taking on these courses will give me a little extra spending money so the weekend of May 1st to May 4th I'm probably going to Barcelona with a friend to hangout for the weekend. So that will add another country under my belt (I live close to Spain, but I still haven't visited it yet). Also the following weekend Nalleli, Matt, Noreen, Nicholas, Elodie, me and a few others are headed to Vannes in Brittany which is in northwest France. We are going to crash at her grandma's house which is along the Atlantic Ocean, so we'll spend the weekend lounging and sunbathing by the ocean. I'll make sure to write and let everyone know how the vacations go.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Pictures Galore
Versailles Palace
Hall of Mirrors in Versailles
Typical room in Versailles
Outside the gates of Versailles
Eiffel Tower at night
Eiffel Tower at Night
Moulin Rouge at night
Hennesy Cognac Factory in Cognac, France
Old town Cognac with Nalelli
City Hall in Cognac, France
Sunset in La Rochelle
Out on the town in La Rochelle
Abbey ruins in Angouleme
Picnic in Angouleme
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Paris and Cognac
Waz up?! Sorry I haven't written for a while (I've had a few complaints so I'll try to update more regularly) I've actually been quite busy since I last dropped some lines so sorry I didn't fill everyone in.
Wednesday March 18th was another gorgeous day, so a group of us headed to a park for a french picnic (baguette sandwiches, quiche lorraine and a popsicle from the park vendor). I think everyone had the same idea as us because the park was crawling with little frenchy picnickers everywhere (it probably didn't help that nobody ever works on Wednesday afternoons and all the little kiddies are out of school by noon, so they all decided to congregate at the same park as us). We ate, read, sun bathed (I got superly sunburned) and gossiped for a few hours before I had to head back into town to meet dad at the train station. I ended up waiting at the train station for almost 2 hours because dad hadn't made the train I expected him to arrive on, so it was late by the time he arrived. We had some problems with the hotel I'd booked him to stay at, so after about an hour of arguing with a lady in french (at least I got to practice/show off my french skills to dad) we grabbed a taxi and headed to the tower that I live in. Dad ended up staying the entire time in the tower with us, instead of getting a hotel because one of our roommates was moving out and offered the room to dad (talk about good luck).
Thursday March 19th I had the morning off because one of my schools was on strike (like I said it's a national pasttime to strike here), so I took dad to the best boulangerie (bakery) in town to grab some breakfast (luckily the best boulangerie happens to only be a block away). After breakfast we walked into town and then to my school for my afternoon class. After I finished teaching we headed back in to town and I gave dad a brief tour of Angouleme. That evening we booked a hotel for our weekend in Paris.
Friday March 20th we woke up early and caught a train to Paris to spend a four day weekend there (I love only working 3 hours a week and only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, because it makes every weekend a four day weekend). I spent the day giving dad a tour of the western half of Paris including the Louvre, Champs Elysees, Arc de Triomphe, Grand Palais, Eiffel Tower, Hotel des Invalides and other notable areas in western Paris (like the Place de Concorde where Marie Antoinette lost her head). In the evening we went to visit the Louvre to have a look around (after 6pm I get in for free which is the only reason I went...I'm not a fan fo the Louvre), but dad found it about as interesting as I found it which is not at all (its ovecrowded with people and so much art and artifacts that its too overwhelming).
Saturday March 21st we were planning on visiting Versailles this day, but unfortunately we jumped onto the wrong RER train so by the time we arrived back in Paris (after illegally riding on two trains and having to jump some turning exit gates) it was too late in the day to attempt Versailles (Versailles is the palace of Marie Antoinette, Louis, Napoleon, ect). I'd been warned that it's so massive that it actually takes a couple of days to see it all. So instead I finished the tour of Paris by showing dad the eastern half of the city. We started by grabbing a baguette and some cheese and heading to Luxembourg Park for lunch. From there we visited the Pantheon (that's where all the famous dead authors are buried), the Sorbonne, Notre Dame Cathedral, Sacre Coeur, Moulin Rouge, ect.
Sunday March 22nd we finally made it to Versailles, but unfortunately Sunday is one of the worst days to visit because everyone and their dogs (literally) go there on Sundays (because everything else is closed). So the line to get tickets stretched on forever and two hours later we actually were able to enter the rooms that were the ancient halls of royalty. Versailles was stunningly huge and everything was covered in gold, frescoes, statues, ect. The Palace was enormous and extravagant (although its only possible to access one wing of it right now, because the rest is still going through restoration after being left abandoned for centuries), but the grounds were twenty times larger (infact they were so large you couldn't even see the boundaries of it even when standing in the middle). The grounds are covered in statues, finely trimmed bushes and trees (literally all of them were pruned to have a specific crazy design shapes) and enormous fountains (some the size of lakes, literally, people were actually out rowing around in them). There are three other smaller palaces on the grounds. One is where Napoleon and his wife lived because they didn't want to stay in the huge palace, one was Marie Antoinette's private get-away house that Louis gave to her and the other was the queen's house/get-away. All were way overly lavish (no wonder people chopped off their heads) but really fun to wander through. Visiting Versailles took the entire day and we still didn't get to see everything. By the time we arrived back in Paris it was getting dark and dad kept on bugging me about seeing Paris at night (granted he'd got the idea from me because Paris is known as the 'city of lights') so we left the hotel around 8pm. I took dad on an extremely long walking tour of Paris at night, hitting all the best spots. We made it back to the hotel a little before 2am.
Monday March 23rd was our last day in Paris. I wanted to make it back to Angouleme a little early because I had lesson plans I needed to prepare before my classes on Tuesday. So we took a metro to the "Bastille" (that's the old prison where Marie Antoinette was held before her date with the guillotine and the prison that was stormed by the citizens during the revolution, but now there is only a pillar as a monument to the infamous structure) and then made our way to Pere Lachaise Cemetary which is where the greats like Jim Morrison, Balzac and Oscar Wilde are buried.
Wednesday March 24th dad, Nalelli (one of my roommates) and I took a 45 minute train to Cognac to see the town. The town is rather small so it didn't take much time to explore every street of importance. Dad and I visited the Hennesy Cognac Distillery and went on a tour that included a tasting of a couple of Cognacs upon finishing. All in all a good day (even though I'm not really a fan of cognacs).
Friday March 26th we had a lot of visitors crashing at the tower for the weekend (Celine had two swiss friends in town, I had dad and Pamela had two british friends visiting so needless to say it was pretty crowded). Since we had so many visitors we decided to go out to a french restaurant for a huge dinner Friday evening (that and I don't think our little kitchen could have held that many people cooking in it). It was a fun evening (its always fun to try new restaurants and menu items).
Saturday March 27th I took dad to visit the ruins of an old Abbey in town. I had never been there (my roommates had told me about it) so I enjoyed it a lot. It was really beautiful. We stopped by a huge shopping mall on the way home to buy groceries for Sunday (remember nothing is open on Sundays so we have to do Sunday's shopping on Saturdays) and some wine and lots of cheese. In the evening we drank at the tower for a bit before heading out to the bars/clubs.
Sunday March 28th we had a huge wine and cheese party. Dad had mentioned since he'd arrived that he wanted to try a variety of cheeses and wines (since that's what France is famous for) so we'd bought some of the smelliest cheese (yes, apparently the smellier the tastier) we could find and a variety of wines and pineaus (some from this region and some from the Bordeaux region). So about 15 of us sat around all afternoon sampling different types of cheese and wine (we had to make several bread runs to our favorite boulangerie for all the cheese). All and all it was a complete success. I found a couple of new cheeses that I like and now know which ones to stay well clear of.
Monday March 29th dad left for Bordeaux to meet Anna at the airport. They are planning on travelling around France for two weeks and then coming back to spend easter weekend with me before they return to the states. After I dropped dad off I went to the local bookstore and grabbed some new books which I'm currently trying to trek my way through.
I've moved into a new room in the tower, because it's closer to the kitchen/common room floor (I moved from the 8th to the 5th floor. The common room is on the 3rd floor) which is handy since everyone is leaving at the end of April so I'll have two months of this huge tower all to myself. I'm not sure that I'm really looking forward to that however. I think its going to be awefully lonely. Other than that not much has happened this week. Spent the past couple of days researching jobs I could do for the summer (if you have any suggestions let me know), moving into my new room, reading and generally just being lazy. I received a care package from mom yesterday with the "Twilight" movie and movie snacks (popcorn and theater candy), so we're planning on having a movie night soon to indulge (nobody knew about twilight before I got here, but I introduced everyone to the book series and now they are addicted). TTYL. LoveYa.
Wednesday March 18th was another gorgeous day, so a group of us headed to a park for a french picnic (baguette sandwiches, quiche lorraine and a popsicle from the park vendor). I think everyone had the same idea as us because the park was crawling with little frenchy picnickers everywhere (it probably didn't help that nobody ever works on Wednesday afternoons and all the little kiddies are out of school by noon, so they all decided to congregate at the same park as us). We ate, read, sun bathed (I got superly sunburned) and gossiped for a few hours before I had to head back into town to meet dad at the train station. I ended up waiting at the train station for almost 2 hours because dad hadn't made the train I expected him to arrive on, so it was late by the time he arrived. We had some problems with the hotel I'd booked him to stay at, so after about an hour of arguing with a lady in french (at least I got to practice/show off my french skills to dad) we grabbed a taxi and headed to the tower that I live in. Dad ended up staying the entire time in the tower with us, instead of getting a hotel because one of our roommates was moving out and offered the room to dad (talk about good luck).
Thursday March 19th I had the morning off because one of my schools was on strike (like I said it's a national pasttime to strike here), so I took dad to the best boulangerie (bakery) in town to grab some breakfast (luckily the best boulangerie happens to only be a block away). After breakfast we walked into town and then to my school for my afternoon class. After I finished teaching we headed back in to town and I gave dad a brief tour of Angouleme. That evening we booked a hotel for our weekend in Paris.
Friday March 20th we woke up early and caught a train to Paris to spend a four day weekend there (I love only working 3 hours a week and only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, because it makes every weekend a four day weekend). I spent the day giving dad a tour of the western half of Paris including the Louvre, Champs Elysees, Arc de Triomphe, Grand Palais, Eiffel Tower, Hotel des Invalides and other notable areas in western Paris (like the Place de Concorde where Marie Antoinette lost her head). In the evening we went to visit the Louvre to have a look around (after 6pm I get in for free which is the only reason I went...I'm not a fan fo the Louvre), but dad found it about as interesting as I found it which is not at all (its ovecrowded with people and so much art and artifacts that its too overwhelming).
Saturday March 21st we were planning on visiting Versailles this day, but unfortunately we jumped onto the wrong RER train so by the time we arrived back in Paris (after illegally riding on two trains and having to jump some turning exit gates) it was too late in the day to attempt Versailles (Versailles is the palace of Marie Antoinette, Louis, Napoleon, ect). I'd been warned that it's so massive that it actually takes a couple of days to see it all. So instead I finished the tour of Paris by showing dad the eastern half of the city. We started by grabbing a baguette and some cheese and heading to Luxembourg Park for lunch. From there we visited the Pantheon (that's where all the famous dead authors are buried), the Sorbonne, Notre Dame Cathedral, Sacre Coeur, Moulin Rouge, ect.
Sunday March 22nd we finally made it to Versailles, but unfortunately Sunday is one of the worst days to visit because everyone and their dogs (literally) go there on Sundays (because everything else is closed). So the line to get tickets stretched on forever and two hours later we actually were able to enter the rooms that were the ancient halls of royalty. Versailles was stunningly huge and everything was covered in gold, frescoes, statues, ect. The Palace was enormous and extravagant (although its only possible to access one wing of it right now, because the rest is still going through restoration after being left abandoned for centuries), but the grounds were twenty times larger (infact they were so large you couldn't even see the boundaries of it even when standing in the middle). The grounds are covered in statues, finely trimmed bushes and trees (literally all of them were pruned to have a specific crazy design shapes) and enormous fountains (some the size of lakes, literally, people were actually out rowing around in them). There are three other smaller palaces on the grounds. One is where Napoleon and his wife lived because they didn't want to stay in the huge palace, one was Marie Antoinette's private get-away house that Louis gave to her and the other was the queen's house/get-away. All were way overly lavish (no wonder people chopped off their heads) but really fun to wander through. Visiting Versailles took the entire day and we still didn't get to see everything. By the time we arrived back in Paris it was getting dark and dad kept on bugging me about seeing Paris at night (granted he'd got the idea from me because Paris is known as the 'city of lights') so we left the hotel around 8pm. I took dad on an extremely long walking tour of Paris at night, hitting all the best spots. We made it back to the hotel a little before 2am.
Monday March 23rd was our last day in Paris. I wanted to make it back to Angouleme a little early because I had lesson plans I needed to prepare before my classes on Tuesday. So we took a metro to the "Bastille" (that's the old prison where Marie Antoinette was held before her date with the guillotine and the prison that was stormed by the citizens during the revolution, but now there is only a pillar as a monument to the infamous structure) and then made our way to Pere Lachaise Cemetary which is where the greats like Jim Morrison, Balzac and Oscar Wilde are buried.
Wednesday March 24th dad, Nalelli (one of my roommates) and I took a 45 minute train to Cognac to see the town. The town is rather small so it didn't take much time to explore every street of importance. Dad and I visited the Hennesy Cognac Distillery and went on a tour that included a tasting of a couple of Cognacs upon finishing. All in all a good day (even though I'm not really a fan of cognacs).
Friday March 26th we had a lot of visitors crashing at the tower for the weekend (Celine had two swiss friends in town, I had dad and Pamela had two british friends visiting so needless to say it was pretty crowded). Since we had so many visitors we decided to go out to a french restaurant for a huge dinner Friday evening (that and I don't think our little kitchen could have held that many people cooking in it). It was a fun evening (its always fun to try new restaurants and menu items).
Saturday March 27th I took dad to visit the ruins of an old Abbey in town. I had never been there (my roommates had told me about it) so I enjoyed it a lot. It was really beautiful. We stopped by a huge shopping mall on the way home to buy groceries for Sunday (remember nothing is open on Sundays so we have to do Sunday's shopping on Saturdays) and some wine and lots of cheese. In the evening we drank at the tower for a bit before heading out to the bars/clubs.
Sunday March 28th we had a huge wine and cheese party. Dad had mentioned since he'd arrived that he wanted to try a variety of cheeses and wines (since that's what France is famous for) so we'd bought some of the smelliest cheese (yes, apparently the smellier the tastier) we could find and a variety of wines and pineaus (some from this region and some from the Bordeaux region). So about 15 of us sat around all afternoon sampling different types of cheese and wine (we had to make several bread runs to our favorite boulangerie for all the cheese). All and all it was a complete success. I found a couple of new cheeses that I like and now know which ones to stay well clear of.
Monday March 29th dad left for Bordeaux to meet Anna at the airport. They are planning on travelling around France for two weeks and then coming back to spend easter weekend with me before they return to the states. After I dropped dad off I went to the local bookstore and grabbed some new books which I'm currently trying to trek my way through.
I've moved into a new room in the tower, because it's closer to the kitchen/common room floor (I moved from the 8th to the 5th floor. The common room is on the 3rd floor) which is handy since everyone is leaving at the end of April so I'll have two months of this huge tower all to myself. I'm not sure that I'm really looking forward to that however. I think its going to be awefully lonely. Other than that not much has happened this week. Spent the past couple of days researching jobs I could do for the summer (if you have any suggestions let me know), moving into my new room, reading and generally just being lazy. I received a care package from mom yesterday with the "Twilight" movie and movie snacks (popcorn and theater candy), so we're planning on having a movie night soon to indulge (nobody knew about twilight before I got here, but I introduced everyone to the book series and now they are addicted). TTYL. LoveYa.
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