Snow Day!

I will, undoubtedly, go back and finally write a post recounting the rest of my adventures in Dublin, and one on my beautiful day trip to Annecy, BUT I wanted to write a quick post about the wonderful surprise I had today.



Yesterday, as I was walking home from class it started to lightly snow. It took a while before it began to accumulate, just a powder sugar dusting on the still-green grass. The weather channel said it would snow an inch or so that night, so when I went to bed I eagerly waited to see what morning would look like.

When I woke up, I couldn't believe the amount of snow that had magically appeared outside of my window. It was easily more snow than Jonesboro receives in five winters combined. 

It was surreal walking to school. I had a feeling that I wouldn't have class when I finally trekked to my building. The roads were nearly impossible, and a beautiful strange silence lay alongside the freshly fallen snow.

I felt like I was walking in a strange winter wonderland which has previously only existed in the tv. I didn't have class-- turns out the public transportation was down, which meant that 75% of my class and my teacher weren't able to make it. After this pleasant surprise some friends and I headed out to walk around town, marveling over the quickly falling snow, before stopping for a much need warm coffee.

It was surprisingly busy out on the main street. Local schools seemed to be out and everyone was out as though the foot of snow piling up around them was no big deal. Almost every store was open; people were driving, or attempting to drive on the narrow, often times steep, now icy roads, which more times than not resulted in stalled cars halfway up a hill.

This afternoon the clouds lifted and the view from Michelle's window turned magical as the mountains appeared through the fog, carrying the most beautiful winter coat of bright snow.

St. Etienne isn't the most beautiful city in France, but it sure looks gorgeous when coated with freshly fallen snow.

Hopefully I'll be able to motivate myself sometime soon to talk about Dublin/10 other blog post ideas I have swirling around in my head.

Thanks for reading :)

Dublin: Day Two

Day two of Dublin found us trekking over to the Dublin Zoo. It was a long walk, but after another delicious breakfast at our favorite joint, Oscar's, we were ready.

But a side note on Oscar's...

Oscar's was a little restaurant next to our hostel. We went there every morning for breakfast-- not only were their scones/muffins to die for, the atmosphere was amazing. They had an eclectic mix of huge armchairs surrounding little tables.

After another delicious breakfast we walked to the zoo.

It was a slightly chilly, sunny day-- the zoo was sparsely populated with young families.

 

The zoo was a lovely medium sized zoo-- I really liked their Africa section; the giraffes were adorable. It was really cool to watch them dash across their enclosure. I can't imagine what it would have been like to be an European explorer seeing the African planes for the first time. The giraffes have such an awkwardly large body but they run with surprising grace. 

  

The light was just gorgeous in the wolf enclosure-- this photo is completely unedited, which is a rarity for me.

After the zoo, we stopped in a little pub for a quick lunch and plotted our afternoon. We wanted to see an old castle that was supposedly easy to reach. Our guide book didn't offer anything more than 'take bus 42 from city center'. I would just like to make a little side note to explain that the city center of Dublin is about the size of a good size town in Arkansas. I would also like to a take a second to rant about the impossible Dublin public transportation system. Even after asking for directions twice, it still took maybe an hour and half to find the bus stop for bus 42. Not that this 'stop' was labeled. Or had a map. Or any useful information. It was just a little yellow pole.

We got on the bus, telling the driver exactly what stop we were going to get off at-- in Dublin how far you are going dictates how much you pay-- and then settled down for a surprisingly stressful 30 min. There was no map on the bus to tell us how many stops were before our stop. None of the stops we stopped at were labeled. I also had very little coins on me-- and you have to pay exact fare-- so if we got lost it would be expensive to try and get back to the city. Eventually the houses gave way to trees and I feared our stop had been one of the many little yellow poles we had already paused at. I inched my way to the front and asked the driver when our stop was, he kindly said it was the next one. 

If he hadn't told us specifically, we would have never gotten off at the right stop. It was just a little yellow pole of the side of the road-- from the stop you couldn't see anything that suggested that a castle might be near. 

Regardless, we miraculously got off at the right stop, and meandered through the forested trails that led to the castle. 

It was cold and it had just started to rain when we turned a corner and saw the castle.

It was a cute little castle overlooking an impressive lawn. We quickly made our way to the ticket office, glad to get out off the cold rain. However, when we tried to buy tickets to see the castle we were informed that since it was Halloween the castle was closed, running only children's scary tours, which were completely booked. However, the gardens were still open. So, after a coffee break as we let the rain peter out, we walked through the gardens.

There wasn't much in bloom, seeing how it was the beginning of November, but the gardens were still interesting.

I never wanted to get on a Dublin bus again, so we followed the signs to a train station that was next to the castle. The only sign offering help at the train station was a piece of paper on the wall that had an arrow pointing to the right labeled DUBLIN. However, after several helpful people, we somehow managed to get on the train heading to Dublin. With free wifi on the train we both were quickly on the phone with friends/family back home; ah the miracles of technology.

And thus ends day 2! It didn't go exactly as planned, but neither did day 3 ;) stay tuned to see how the best laid plans of mice and men went!

Thanks for reading :)

Dublin: The Beginning

It was a warm summer day. Our coffees lay discarded on the table as we dreamily browsed through the travel books. 

'We should backpack through Europe.' I said, the words representing nothing more than a hazily defined dream. 

Diamond just laughed. We became friends when we met in jazz band in 8th grade, when Diamond decided that I, friendless and introverted, wasn't as weird as she had previously thought. But traveling through Europe? Our educational system had equipped us with just enough knowledge to point to a couple European countries on a map-- I dreamed of the excitement of foreign cultures and languages. However, we were just two girls from Arkansas-- all we were currently worried about was homework, and figuring out what college to apply to. Traveling through Europe, staying in hostels-- it was all just a far fetched dream, one that would, in all reality, probably never be realized. Concrete obstacles, such as time and money, stood firmly in the way of that crazy wish.

That is, until the stars aligned, and somehow Diamond and I found ourselves both studying abroad in Europe. Granted, we were almost the furthest away two people can be and still be in Europe-- me in France and her in Estonia. However, when I started planning my week long break, I remembered the dream we had had several years ago. Who knew when this opportunity would come up again, so we picked our dream location, Dublin, Ireland, and started working on achieving that dream.

On Tuesday, October 29th, we set off for Dublin. Diamond had a direct flight from the capital of Estonia. I wasn't as lucky-- it was almost a two hour trek to the nearest airport, with a tram and two trains-- flying first to Frankfort, where I had a long three hour layover before a flight to Dublin.

We met up in the baggage claim in Dublin--  I hadn't seen Diamond since she left for Estonia, so it was great to finally see her again.

Finding our hostel was...an adventure. We took a tour bus into the city, but missed our stop because we forgot to hit the button to ask to stop. We stumbled off on the next stop, pulling our maps out and trying to figure out what was what in the dark streets. It was cold and windy and we wandered around for maybe an hour, having no luck for finding the mysterious street where our hostel was on. Eventually we found the hostel-- turns out, we had walked right by it about ten minutes after getting off the bus but we had somehow missed the huge signs and bright lights.

The hostel was huge, with a cool bar/lounge area/mini-restaurant on the ground floor. It had a great atmosphere with the added benefit of me not feeling guilty when I hung out without buying a drink; it was our hostel, after all. Our room, a 8-bed mixed sex dormitory style, was on the second floor. For the first couple of days our roommates were reserved, and we didn't see much of them. It felt like someone was always asleep in the room so we didn't hang out much there. Aside from a little issue-- let's just say that the hostel got a bit too creative with their men/women bathroom symbols, apparently writing men/women is just too mainstream but we don't need to expound upon that-- the hostel was a fun, cheap housing option.

Our first full day in Dublin was spent exploring downtown in a search for the National Museum of Archaeology. The museum was as cool as the name sounds. But on our way to the museum we spotted a cool looking national library so we decided to check it out.

The library was surprising gorgeous and surprisingly functional-- we were the only people in this room who hadn't come there to read the books so we didn't stay long.

The National Museum of Archaeology was very interesting, packed full of cool artifacts and stories.

I don't have space to post all the cool things we saw, but they ranged from Ancient Egypt to Medieval Europe.



After the museum, we set off to find Christchurch Cathedral. Finding it wasn't that difficult, getting in, however, was. We walked in one of the doors only to see an 'exit only' sign. So, we circled the entire church for the next 15 minutes looking for any other entrance, and not finding anything. Eventually we returned to the first door and realized that the entrance was exactly opposite of the exit sign.

Um. Yeah.

The cathedral was enormous and beautiful. We hung out for maybe an hour, exploring the cathedral and the basement/underground area.

After the cathedral we headed to the Guinness Factory. Luckily for us, getting there was fairly straight forward, just a rather long walk.

The factory was interesting-- we learned the official way to drink Guinness and got a free pint. Diamond opted for a free Coke but I braved an entire pint of Guinness...suffice to say, it is not my favorite type of beer; it's far too bitter for me.

After the Guinness factory both Diamond and I were exhausted and we trekked back to our hostel and collapsed onto our beds.

And thus ends, day 1! Be sure to check back to hear more tales of my adventure in Dublin.

Thanks for reading :)

Aix-En-Provence

Last Friday a friend and I went to the opera. Carmen was playing and we had heard that they sold any empty seats for 5 euros fifteen minutes before the show.

Luckily for us the show wasn't sold out and we scored some awesome seats on the balcony for roughly 6.50 dollars. It was my first time at the opera and I loved every minute of it. I loved that there was a tiny screen hanging over the stage that displayed French subtitles, as the actors were speaking/singing a mixture of French and Italian. I understand a lot more thanks to the subtitles; though there were still some things that got lost in translation. Once I was so busy trying to read the subtitles that I missed the death of a character.

The next morning we woke up early and boarded a train for Aix-En-Provence, a French city a couple hours away from St. Etienne. Since we had class on Monday we weren't able to spend much time in this beautiful city. However, we had plenty of time to wander around the historic city center and people watch.

I believe there was a fountain at almost every single intersection.

Like any French city worth its salt, Aix was full of beautiful old cathedrals. The previous pope either visited this cathedral or this cathedral just really loved the previous pope...the signs and plaques weren't that clear.

One thing I love about France is that this is the city; this is where people live, work, eat, shop-- it isn't some museum or 'historic' sight. These beautiful old buildings are just another part of life.

We were searching for a quiet spot to eat our dinner when we ran into a wedding that was just finishing in a gorgeous cathedral. I loved the classic Bug.

The wedding was in this cathedral-- I tried my best not to gawk. This photo, by the way, was taken with my iPhone. I'm still impressed with its panoramic abilities.

Speaking of gorgeous cathedrals and iPhone photos, here's another cathedral we stumbled upon Sunday morning. Aix has this really cool market on Sunday mornings-- one side of their main street is covered in tents of local artisans and there's another market by Hotel de Ville full of fresh produce.

I was craving some tea Saturday night so I drug my friends to this cute tea shop I spotted-- the tea was delicious and it was a good place to relax and people watch.

 

I took, and edited, this photo on my iPhone-- I'm going to post a tutorial (eventually) on my favorite methods of photo editing on my phone. I liked taking photos on my phone because it's easily accessible. Also, I don't feel like a tourist, as much, when I use my phone as opposed to my huge camera. 

I wish we had had more time to spent exploring the city and making use of their museums. There's also a beautiful mountain not far outside the city-- we saw it when we arrived at the train station-- but we weren't sure how to get there without a car.

The main fountain at night :)

Sunday afternoon we said goodbye to Aix and hoped on a train back to St. Etienne where we finished out last week of classes before holidays.

And the holidays have arrived! We have an entire week off-- I've been enjoying the extra sleep. This Tuesday, however, I'm getting up far earlier than the sun to make my flight to Dublin.

Who needs sleep when you have Dublin and your best friend? I won't be bringing my computer to Dublin so I won't be able to post much while in Ireland. I'll try to post small updates from my phone so stay tuned!

Thanks for reading :)

I'm on a boat!

Je suis sur un bateau!...et autre choses...

A couple weekends ago, CILEC ((my French language program)) organized a small trip to a nearby river for a boat ride.

We arrived at the meeting spot, just in front of Hotel de Ville, joining a large crowd of students. I wasn't sure how we were all supposed to get to the river; there was a lot of us and we were in the middle of the city.

One bus turned a corner, parking by us. I scanned the group, then mentally scanned the size of the bus. It was just a normal city bus, certainly not big enough for the huge group of us that had signed up to go to the river.

By a feat of impossible physics we managed to fit five times the legal number of people onto the small bus. I was stuck in the aisle with scant to hold on to-- not a problem, thanks to the natural crush of people surrounding me. The bus driver seemed to make a game of how fast he could take a roundabout-- I unfortunately become very close to my neighbors.

Twenty five minutes of doing my best sardine impression later, we arrived at the river.

A little river snaked it's way through the hills; we shared the water with an assortment of wind surfers and kayaks.

The ride was slightly underwhelming-- we had seen some pictures of a gorgeous small castle, which was no where to be seen. Just as I thought the trip was over we made a sharp turn where I had thought the river ended.

The castle was really small, and sadly privately owned, but it was still pretty.

The boat ride wasn't that long, but it was short pretty ride on a river surprisingly close to St. Etienne.

I don't have any particularly good excuse as to why it took me this long to write a blog post. I finally had enough stuff I wanted to blog about pile up that I decided to write this blog, so I could write other blogs about my more recent adventures.

In other news, I went bowling with some friends a couple weeks ago. Bowling here is pretty popular-- we had to wait for a lane to open up, so we played some pool; not very popular. We got a lot of stares but it was hard to tell if it was because a) no one plays pool or b) we were a semi loud group of foreigners who really sucked at pool.

I went to Aix-En-Provence last weekend-- it was gorgeous and I can't wait to show you the pictures. Stay tuned to hear all about it!

Thanks for reading!

Lovely Lyon

Alliteration for the win!

A couple weekends ago (read, I'm just now posting about it because I'm lazy) some friends and I hopped on a train and went to Lyon, France. Lyon is a nearby town, maybe 30 miles away, and it's older (prettier) and bigger than my town of St. Etienne.

Yeah.

This gorgeous mountain of a cathedral greeted us as we started to explore the old part of Lyon. It rises like a giant overlooking a cobblestone square.

I wish that I had either the words or the photos in my arsenal to fully depict the breathtaking scale of the ancient cathedrals. Instead, I have grainy iPhone photos and wistful thinking.

Michelle laughed as I gushed how beautiful the cathedral was.

'Just wait till you see the basilica' she told me.

I've forgotten the name of this cathedral. Regardless even a brief visit leaves you amazed at the architectural skill of the men who built this hundreds of years ago. The soaring ceilings are impossibly high over your head, easily achieving their purpose of making you feel small amongst the presence of God.

After walking through the cathedral we searched for an authentic French restaurant to eat lunch; not a difficult task. Most restaurants posted a menu on the sidewalk and we quickly chose one and settled down at a table outside. Eating outside is something I really liked about French restaurants-- the weather was perfect and there was an awning which protected us from a brief spout of rain.

The lunch lasted around two hours-- a typical French restaurant offers these fixed meals; often three courses where you get to pick from a list what appetizer/main course/desert you want, ect. It's a lot of food, and they give you a lot of time to fully enjoy it.

After the delicious meal we headed up the vernicular-- this little tram like car that rides up a rail and travels at almost a 45 degree angle up the hillside-- to see the basilica.

It was every bit of impressive as the cathedral and then some. It was made of the same white-ish stone as the cathedral, causing them both to almost glow in the light.

The basilica was on top of the hill, and offered an amazing panoramic view of the city.

Thanks to Michelle for taking the photo!

After gawking at the beautiful view we headed inside to be greeted by an even more amazing view. I suddenly understood why Michelle had laughed when I found the cathedral beautiful.

The basilica was covered in shinning intricate mosaics; it's hard to explain how stunning the view is when you first step in, expecting just to see more stone.

Yeah. Talk about a beautiful ceiling.

After a quick stop to gaze at some ruins, we hopped back on the train for St. Etienne. 


Bon, c'est tout! We didn't have much time to spend in Lyon but it's really easy to get to, so we might go back soon to explore it more.

Stay tuned for my boating adventures on the Loire! ((which weren't as epic as that may lead you to believe...))

Thanks for reading :)

10 Things That Surprised Me About France

I love lists!

Since this is my fourth time in France (wow fourth sounds like such a huge number) I wasn’t expecting many surprises. Granted, I had never attended university in France but I had lived here for a month.

I knew that French milk only had to be refrigerated after opening. I knew that people walked everywhere. I knew to expect amazingly delicious food.

However, when I got over here and immersed myself in daily life, there were some things that I just hadn’t expected.

1.    My water

Before I studied abroad I attended a mandatory study abroad meeting which basically told me don’t piss off the natives and don’t drink the water.

I didn’t think that applied to a developed country like France so you can imagine my surprise when I filled up my cup with tap water and it looked like this:

Now, I mean, this isn’t a commentary of the state of tap water in France—I’m sure it’s drinkable. At first I thought it was the cup so I cleaned it obsessively-- then I realized that the hot water looked the same regardless of what cup I used.


2.    Zambonis 

The French love a clean supermarket and there’s a huge one not too far from where we live. To clean the floors, attendants ride around in this Zamboni-esque machine during working hours. It’s a sort of game to not get run over.

 
3.    Sundays
You think Chick-Fil-A being closed on Sunday is bad?
Try every single store. Now, if you search long enough you will find the odd boulongiere which is open Sunday morning but for the most part everything shuts down. It’s like being in the desert with the Israelites—if you don’t gather enough manna on Saturday you are just out of luck. It can be a problem if you forget and don’t stock up on food.


4.    Room Size
I thought Raney (dorm building at my home university) rooms were small. They’ve got nothing on rooms in La Cotonne (which I live). The room is unbelievably small. Unbelievable because it is just big enough to function. With one person. If Michelle is in my room it becomes a Tetris game just trying to move around.

My bathroom is about the size of an airplane bathroom—with a shower. I didn’t know you could make a bathroom that small. It works, don’t get me wrong, but it has its inconveniences. Like just washing your hands in the sink and accidentally backing into the shower faucet and turning on the shower.


5.    Classes

Two things surprised me about classes in France. To begin with, their intensity surprised. Every single morning at 8:30 I have class for three hours.

 Three straight hours of French.

It can be difficult to pay attention for the entire time. It also sucks getting up early every single morning. Two afternoons a week I have afternoon class—History of Art on Tuesdays and Survey of Contemporary France on Wednesdays.

Now, besides the fact I do have class every day this semester is kind of a vacation. I have nowhere near the amount of homework I normally have at Hendrix. It’s a very nice break.


6.    Class Time

The other thing that really surprised me about classes was the timing. You can’t be late, but no one is really on time. One morning, at exactly 8:30, there were exactly two students, including myself. No teacher. Granted, she probably arrived at 8:31 but the rest of the students took a little bit longer. I’m kind of obsessive about being on time so this is a hard concept for me to grasp.


7.    Price of Alcohol
I knew alcohol would be cheap over here, it just didn’t hit me how cheap until I wandered down the wine aisle in our local supermarket.

That bottle of wine was less than 3 euros. What’s funny is that every time I bring that up to a European they are always like ‘oh Spain has the cheapest wine, France isn’t that cheap!’ Then I tell them about the wine prices in the US.


8.    English
St. Etienne is not a tourist town. Which is a good thing, since I really wanted to immerse myself in French culture and language.

However, this also means that the locals aren’t used to hearing English. Or at least that’s my explanation for all the stares and weird looks we get when we speak English out and about.

That’s a good thing, though. Recently I was in Lyon with friends (blog post to follow!) and when the waiters heard us speaking English they automatically spoke English to us, which isn’t the best thing when you are trying to learn French.


9.    Weather
I’m loving this weather! It has been really bipolar. When I first got here it got really cold all of the sudden and we had a week or two where the high was in the low 60s. Now, suddenly, it’s warming up. Warming up meaning the high is in the 70s. Considering the heat I left at home in Arkansas, this was a nice surprise. And St. Etienne is supposed to get a lot of snow in the winter, which I am excited about!


10.    Language Barrier
I know, it sounds stupid, right? After all, how could I have not been prepared for a language barrier when I set off to live four months in a foreign country?

But I never thought it would be this big of a barrier. You see, if I’m back at Hendrix, sitting at my desk in French class filling out a worksheet I know that the subjunctive follows expressions of necessity. I can properly (for the most part) use direct and indirect objects. I can use pronouns in their proper place.

However, when someone rattles off a phrase in French and then stares at me wanting a response, everything I ever even thought I knew flies far away and I’m left there replying in broken French. It can be intimidating speaking in French even if theoretically I know how to respond.

If people speak slow and enunciate I'm good, but that's not how most people talk in everyday conversation.


Well there you go! 10 things that I did not expect in the wonderful country of France. Stay tuned to hear about my adventures in Lyon, France!

Thanks for reading!