La Fête Renaissance

alternative title: The Biggest Renaissance festival in all of France. Or so I was told.

Last weekend, CILEC ((the French program I'm studying at)) chartered a bus to a near by town called Puy-en-Velay to the biggest renaissance festival in France, called the King of the Bird (or the king and the bird....j'ai oublié)).

We arrived around 11 am. The main festival appeared to be centered in front of Hotel de Ville (the major's office basically) and there was a clustering of white tents and dressed up people.

I was surprised at the number of people who went full out-- lavish, expensive, period costumes. We began to meander through the festival, seeing the craftsmen, the recreated camping living quarters, the archery competition (which we couldn't figure out how to join) and then, after maybe four min, we ended up where we started.

We looked around, confused. Biggest renaissance fair in all of France and it took only four minutes to walk around all the tents? We walked around once more, and then started a vain search for turkey legs since we were all starving. Alas, apparently turkey legs are not standard fair at French renaissance parties so we left the fair and headed in search of food.

Or so I thought we left the fair. Turns out, the festival was spread out all over the city. It was really interesting to be at a renaissance fair in a city that probably saw the actual renaissance. It wasn't hard to imagine what life would have been like-- the buildings probably weren't much different.

I loved walking through the streets-- it was a beautifully ancient town.

In case you're curious my hometown, St. Etienne, does not look like this. St. Etienne started as an industrial town and lacks the medieval section of the city.

I hate taking my big camera out in St. Etienne because everybody already turns and stares (slight exaggeration, I admit) when they hear me speaking English. I don't want to look like even more of a tourist. At the renaissance fair, however, basically everyone was a tourist so I didn't feel weird lugging around my big camera.

We hiked through the city and up a huge hill, only to be rewarded by a massive cathedral that over looked the city.

The interior of the cathedral was, unsurprisingly, breathtaking.

After the church we hiked up a bit further.

 The church is the church I showed you pictures of-- after that we hiked up to the top of the statue.

Yup, the top. But my favorite area was actually the overlook at her feet.




The overlook, after some tiring hiking, was amazing :)

From the base of the statue we had panoramic views of the surrounding city and hills. It was most definitely worth the hike ;)

This isn't the best picture but there was this really amazing cathedral literally built on top of a narrow rock. It took my breath away when I first saw it as we were driving into town. I was sad we didn't have time to visit it, but it was really cool.

Well, that's about it! I apologize this post took so lonnggg to write, but hey, at least I finally wrote it! I'm going to try and write the rest of my posts today and post them soon.

So stayed tuned for my next post, 12 Things that Surprised me about France :)

Thanks for reading!

Ma Vie en France

I've thought about blogging a couple times now. I've even opened up the website with every intention of writing a post.

Then I thought 'nahh' and ate some French chocolate. And French bread. And crossiants. And pain chocolat. And French wine.

But! Here I am; finally writing another post from the wonderful country of France. I've started classes, opened a bank account, and explored my new home.

 Our first weekend, we headed to a local museum dedicated to the arts and industry of St. Etienne. St. Etienne was an industrial town and one of their major claims to fame was their ribbons.

The museum was interesting-- those intricate drawings in the video were created by these machines. Since the museum was completely in French, Michelle and I walked away still not entirely sure how the huge machines functioned, but it was still a cool place.

Talking about historic places...this is the view from the roof of a historic apartment complex. Last weekend was a special weekend in France-- no one particularly explained why it was special, just that almost all the museums in France were free and a lot of normally private historic sites were open to the public.





This apartment complex did not look like anything special from the outside-- just another, slightly outdated big building with an oddly bluish coat of paint. However! It was the famous (or you would think so how much my professor talked about it) maison sans escalier!

But what does that mean?? It means, house without a staircase. In lieu of a staircase, there was just a huge spiral ramp that ran along the inside with doors leading into the various apartments. It was interesting, and the view was nice.

Talking about views....(look at my transitions!)

This is the view from my window! Michelle's window overlooks the city but I take solace in the fact that I get the warm afternoon sun through my window, heating up my room. Since we're currently experiencing a cold spell and the heat doesn't seem to work, this comes in handy.

 I'm not entirely sure but I believe this is the view from the communal kitchen on our floor (5th floor). 

Yeah. The windows in my classroom over look those hills-- and I'm supposed to concentrate on French?

This is a small green spot in the lovely downtown St. Etienne. We had a school sponsored trip to the l'Hotel de Ville (city hall) and afterwards we followed a drum line/band thing through the streets, passing by this area. The drum line was cool-- just a passionate group of amateurs with makeshift drums marching through the streets.

So not only does France lack Netflix, it also lacks Starbucks. Luckily for us, we found an even better replacement. It's a cute little coffee shop right next to l'Hotel de Ville. We got these delicious, if a bit hard to drink, cups of coffee. :)

Whew! I don't even want to think how long it has been since I last posted. I don't have many photos from my good camera to put up. Mostly because I already feel like such a tourist (as Michelle and I speak English together) that I don't want to pull out a huge, official camera.

St. Etienne doesn't get many tourists-- so they are not accustomed to hearing English. I've seen people nearly do a 180 when they hear us speaking English. Perhaps because I can be really loud if I'm in the midst of a good story and someone exclaiming 'and then he did THIS!' in any language is guaranteed  to garner some attention.

This weekend is the largest Renaissance fair in France apparently and the school is sponsoring a trip to the nearby town where it's held.

Stay tuned to read about my adventures there! :)

As always, thanks for reading!

The Great Adventure

Alternative Title, Or how I ended up sitting on the cold tile of the Charles de Gaul train station with my chocolate moose and an assortment of  cutlery. 

On September 2nd I said goodbye to my parents and embarked on a long journey ending on the sunny pavement of St. Etienne. My journey lead me through three different airports in two different countries, two train rides-- one more nerve-wrecking than the other but more on that later-- in a long voyage that led from Arkansas to France.

The LR airport was no big deal-- I had been there before, and being alone didn't make a great difference. When I finally boarded my first plane the excitement began to sink it-- I was really traveling halfway across the world for a semester of college.  The beauty of the shorter flights is a lower cruising altitude. The day was slightly overcast, some lazy clouds clinging close to the ground with a hazy patchwork ceiling of grey swatches. The plane broke through the ceiling suddenly, the deep blue of the uncovered sky literally made my mouth drop open as we brushed up against the living cathedrals that contrasted the deep blue with their shinning white. This is what the Greeks saw when they dreamed up Olympus, this beauty fit to be a playground of the gods. I glanced around the cabin and much to surprise only found one person causally glancing out the window, the rest had closed their windows to the beauty.

The best time to view clouds is during take off and landing, as it is when you really interact with them. However, as electronic devices are forbidden during take off and landing, you will just have to take my word for how breath taking it was.

It didn't take long for us to reach Chicago and once there I found my gate without much difficulty. I had a couple hour layover but with Starbucks and free wifi, I couldn't complain. Once I finally boarded, we sat on the runway for an hour and a half due to a technical problem.

"Okay folks we're going take off soon, they seem to have fixed the problem" was the reassuring words that made me think that there was nothing wrong with a little longer delay, if it meant that they could fix the problem with more certainty.  Enter, the most miserable flight of my life. Let's not talk about that.

Seven-ish hours later, we pulled into Charles de Gaul in Paris, France! The technical delay meant that now I had two hours to go through customs, get my luggage, find the train station in the airport, and figure out where my train would be. I had never really taken a train, and especially by myself.

Time proved not to be an issue, as I reached the train station with plenty of time. There was a copious amount of people and only a few seating areas. After ascertaining that my gate would appear on the big screen fifteen minutes before it left, I did what others were doing and plopped down on the cool floor, my luggage scattered around me. I was exhausted, still sick, lonely, slightly confused, and irrationally annoyed with traveling. My phone was dying, but there were no outlets in sight. The only way I could charge it appeared to be a little station. Now if I were at Hendrix, lounging on a couch musing about technology, a station in an air port where you had to ride a stationary bike to charge your electronic device would sound like a cool, novel idea. Sprawled out on the floor, exhausted in the train station, it sounded like the stupidest idea I had ever heard of.

My train did appear on the screen and I made my way to the gate. I tried to double check the train number in the bright sun and it seemed to match my ticket. A train zoomed up beside me and I clambered on. After shoving my luggage in the over stuffed area for luggage I looked for my seat. After I had to kick someone out of my seat, and explain in poor French to the ladies behind me that it really was my seat, I sat down and tried to relax. Jaunting through the French countryside sounds wonderfully romantic but it was a bit lonely and intimidating. There was a group of kids my age to my left who refused to get up when some chick pointed out they were in her seats; the old people in my group didn't bother to look at me. About an hour into the trip it hit me that I had no way of knowing if I had gotten on the right train. They didn't check my ticket, and there was no screen that announced the destination. I could be speeding off to the middle of nowhere with no phone and no clue what to do. I was still pondering how I would ask for help in French when a voice announced that we were approaching Lyon. Thanking the good Lord that I was indeed on the right train, I manhandled my luggage off the train.

My train was much nicer-- brighter, less crowded, and there was a little screen that showed exactly what the next station was and when we would arrive. Graciously, the ISEP coordinator picked me up at the train station along with my friend Michelle who arrived on a different train from Paris.

Long, slightly stressful journey short, I made it. What did I learn? That while there are some people who love jetting off to foreign destinations by themselves, I am definitely not one of them.

When we arrived in St. Etienne the ISEP lady took us to our dorm. You get your own room and bathroom, and there is a small communal kitchen on each level.

My view!

My room is small, but nice. I was really happy to see that I had a microwave and mini fridge in my room. I can't really explain how small my bathroom is-- picture an air plane bathroom, and then add a shower. Without adding more room. And that's about the size of my bathroom.

It's pretty small, but it works.

So this is the second time writing this post, and the first attempt somehow did not save D: I will post later about discovering St. Etienne and the (hectic) start of school!

Thanks for reading :)

Travel Post #2: Packing

I've always been a light packer. I prefer to use just a backpack for short trips, often times bringing less luggage than any guys I'm traveling with.

Well, my friends, that whole mentality goes flying out the window whenever the trip I'm packing for is longer than a week. For my four month stay in the wonderful country of France, I resisted the urge to pack every item of clothing I have ever owned. Ever.

After all, I have to pack for two seasons! I arrive in September, which in Arkansas means shorts and dresses, but leave in December, which means scarves and sweaters. Luckily for me, St. Étienne is cooler than Arkansas so I was able to leave all my shorts and dresses at home. It's currently in the 70s this week in St. Etienne-- I will be glad to leave behind the high 90s!

The cool to cold climate I'm going does simplify the packing process...somewhat. I'm allowed one 50 lbs checked suitcase and while the suitcase I have is cool and pretty, it's also small. And sweaters take up a lot of space. 

Enter the magic of space saving bags. We've all seen the commercials. Pack away your bulkiest possessions, attach a vacuum cleaner and BAM! it shrinks down before your eyes. And while it seems too good to be true, they really do work magic in person!

What I packed:

Large Space Saver Bag:

4 pants

1 jacket
1 scarf
1 tank top
8 sweaters

Medium Space Saver Bag:

1 jacket
5 sweaters
3 scarfs

Medium Space Saver Bag:

2 shorts
2 skirts
7 shirts
3 tank tops
1 pair of gloves
1 beanie

Gracie wanted to help :) just kidding, she wants to coat all my clothing with her fur so that everyone in France knows that I own a cat

Medium Space Saver Bag

8 shirts

Loose

2 pairs of tights
1 belt
1 scarf
1 pair of tennis shoes

Backback
1 pair of boots
laptop/cords/case
nook/cords
phone/cords
camera cords

Did I overpack? Probably.

Do I care? Nope! My suitcase is still under the weight limit and everything fits. 

Of course, I can always buy things over in France but if I own a cute sweater already, I would rather take it with me as opposed to buying it over there. It's hard trying to gauge just how many sweaters you will wear in next month, how close the laundry mat will be, ect. I'm only bringing three pairs of shoes; I'm wearing my Chacos, and packing my tennis shoes and boots. I thought three was a reasonable number, but it was very difficult finding room for my bulky shoes.

It seems unreal than in five days I will be boarding a plane heading towards France! This weekend I'm heading down to Conway to hangout with some friends, since my flight leaves from Little Rock. It will be quite odd going back to Hendrix with everyone in school and not being involved in any of that.

I had a stressful morning when I went through a new packet of information from my school in France. As it turns out, I will be missing the orientation and the first day of classes-- though the coordinator assured me that it was no big deal. My ISEP paperwork lists a different starting day, which is why I'm flying over there when I am.

Oh well, c'est la vie. I'll find out when I get over there when I can take the placement test, if there is another orientation, and how much of my classes I have missed. So far it is looking pretty intense-- the first week I supposedly have class from 9-5 with a break for lunch. The program is called intensive language classes; I guess I shouldn't had skimmed over the intensive part.  ;)

Regardless, I will learn a lot-- like whether the indirect pronoun goes in front of the helping verb or the past participle, something I couldn't remember this afternoon.

But all that fun stuff will just have to wait!

Thankkksss for reading :)

DIY: Pants into Shorts

I've seen the picture on Pinterest countless times. Some cute chick with a fashionable pair of shorts-- that she made! From a pair of pants! In just a few easy steps! 

So, buoyed by this false sense of easiness I went to my local Goodwill in search of the perfect pair of pants. After all, this was the easy part, right? Just pick a pair of pants that fit, a couple well placed cuts, a little sewing later and BAM, I would have my own cute pair of shorts.

Right?

Well, as I found out, not exactly. You see, how quickly and how easily your pair of pants turns into a pair of shorts depends on two key factors.

First up, the fabric. My jeans were made out of a stretchy denim-- which you do not  want. It doesn't spell the end of your project but it can stretch (haha) an easy 30 min craft into a two-day ordeal. Sewing with elastic material is really difficult-- wrinkles just appear out of nowhere and the only way to get rid of them is to pull out your seam and start over.

Second up, is the cut. When I tried my jeans on, I liked the fit. They were snug against my hips and thighs before falling straight down. Overall, everyone was balanced out. Until I cut them into shorts. The snug fit around the thighs remained, but it wasn't balanced out anymore. Rather, my shorts were like skinny-shorts. If that is what you are going for, then make sure your jeans are snug and not extremely loose.

The line on the left was the cut I bought. The line on the right is the cut I should've bought. With the cut I bought, my shorts were unflatteringly close on my hips and thighs.

Once you have your jeans, it is relatively straight forward to transform them into shorts.

I laid a pair of my shorts on the jeans to get an idea of how short I should cut them. I used chalk to mark where I wanted to cut. Since I'm not a detail person, I cut each leg a slightly different length-- but I corrected that when I made my hem.

A couple snips later, my jeans were slightly rough shorts. Next up was the hem. You can do hems in a variety of ways. You could flip the jean up and sew the hem down for a rougher look. Since one leg needed to be hemmed about a inch more than the other leg, I didn't go for that option. Instead, I turned the jeans inside out, flipped up my jeans, and sewed a hem.

The hem was difficult, as my material was stretchy. Another problem when you go with a form fitting jean is that the material you flip up to sew a hem might be smaller-- or larger-- than the fabric you are sewing it on. Jeans naturally get smaller as you go down the thigh and sewing that smaller hem onto the larger fabric can be an issue.

Since my jeans were a bit too snug in the thighs I took out some of the side hem, and sewed the flaps of fabric down to give me a short of V cut on the side of the pants that allowed me more movement.

Et, volia! If you pick out the right pair of jeans, then turning them into shorts is as easy as a few cuts and a little sewing. I didn't really like how my shorts turned out-- they were too form fitting to be flattering. However, I thought maybe someone could learn from my mistakes and pick out the right pair of jeans for their next project :)

As always, thanks for reading!

Moving Pictures

Yes, I have jumped on the bandwagon.

But it is such a fun bandwagon! Artistic criticisms aside, I've always loved Instagram. Yeah, it's cheesy. Yeah, it's weird how popular retro filters have become.

Still, what I love is the functionality of Instagram. Whenever I am feeling lazy-- or don't have my DSLR on me-- Instagram is a fun way to jazz up my iPhone photos.

So when Instagram introduced videos, I was understandably excited. I love how you can compose your video of varying clips and I love the filters.

Today, I thought I would post a couple of my instagram videos. I took a lot of videos in St. Louis, capturing little details in the art museum, or beautiful views in the gardens. I think the videos are best viewed on silent-- I wasn't paying attention to the sound when I took the videos so it doesn't really add to the video.



The 15 seconds allows you a quick glimpse into my life. I can't wait to take tons of short videos in France. It's an easy way to convey cool little experiences.




Below is a short collection of my favorite section of the art museum-- impressionist landscapes. I could look at them all day, I just think they are so beautiful.




This was in the St. Louis botanical garden-- the statue is of Henry Shaw, as he was on his death bed. Always concerned with propriety, he wanted to be immortalized, thus the huge statue. He was also worried about his large feet and requested that cloth be draped over him so that 200 years later we wouldn't gawk at his feet.

You know, this is the first non-tutorial/craft/recipe post I have written in a little while! I didn't have room in my St. Louis post to show off my new videos, so I thought I would dedicate a small post to my new love of Instagram videos.

As far as my adventures in France go, I have a little more than two weeks before I leave! It's crazy how quickly it is approaching. I'm slowly checking things off my checklist-- from buying luggage to getting my ears (re)pierced. I'll talk soon about my troubles purchasing train tickets and how I am going to miraculously fit four months worth of clothing into one small piece of luggage! Stay tuned, it's going to be interesting.

Thanks for reading! What did you think about the videos?

The Saint Louis Adventure

City? St. Louis

Duration? 3 days, including travel

Number of photos taken? 421.

:) I will not show you guys alllll 421 of the beautiful photos that I took, but I wanted to show some to highlights the cool places we went to. The best part? Almost all of the things we saw were free ((and all of them would have been free, if we happened to be lucky enough to be residents of St. Louis)).

First up, the St. Louis art museum!

This gorgeous, huge building houses an amazing collection of works-- from the old masters to modern art. I much prefer the old masters-- I was constantly in awe of they way they used some paint on a canvas to richly depict life.

I loved the detailing of this-- it was a sketch for a process where you etched the picture onto a copper plate to make copies of it.

This was one of my favorite paintings-- it depicted Judith from the Old Testament killing some man. I loved just how beautiful all the details were, from her surprisingly muscular figure, to her expressive face.

So I'll be the first to admit it, I hate modern art. I know there are people who see value to a pile of rocks in an art museum, but I am most definitely not one of them. I was bored in the modern section, so I started shooting into the dark window to capture the reflections. If buttons glued onto a white canvas is art, then so are my photos!

Art Museum Recommendations: Plan out at least a couple of hours-- if not more. The museum is huge; we only spent around two hours in there and we could have easily spent more. We accidently caught the tail end of a tour-- definitely take the tour. The guide was able to tell us so much more about the paintings, details we would have never guessed. It really helped you understand the paintings better.

Next attraction we visited was the St. Louis botanical garden! The day was shockingly gorgeous-- not hot as one would expect in the dead of August.

There were a couple of glass sculptures scattered throughout the botanical garden by this artist. I loved this one-- there was an identical one facing it on the other side of the garden. They were labeled 'sunrise' and 'sunset' though they both just looked like 'midday sun' to me.

We paused in the Japanese garden to snap a few photos, taking advantage of the gorgeous greenery.

St. Louis Botanical Garden Recommendations: We spent most of our day here. They have a nice little cafe to eat lunch in and the food was good. There is just so much to see! We took the trolly ride first, which gives you a great broad overview of the entire garden. Then, after lunch, we took the walking tour. Now, the walking tour is not for the faint of heart. It depends on your guide, but our tour lasted over two hours. It was a great way to learn more about the gardens, but it was a bit tiring.

Next up was Grant's farm! Now, Grant's farm isn't a farm and it is owned by Budwiser, which makes it a bit confusing. They have Clydstale stables-- it was fun to see the massive horses. Basically it's a little animal sancutary. When you first enter the farm, you go on a trolly ride through the land-- where you get to see buffalo, deer, and cattle. Once you get off the trolly you can feed little goats, check out some gorgeous parrots, and generally enjoy the animals.

One of the perks of Grant's farm is the free beer! By the parrots they were giving out free samples of the new Budwiser product. In the food area you could get two free beers. There were more horses to look at, camels, and some pretty birds.

Grant's Farm Recommendations: This was definitely the busiest place we went to in St. Louis. The lines were pretty long-- it took us maybe 30 min of waiting before we could get into the park. However, the free beer and cute animals made the wait worth it. It costs one dollar to get some milk in a baby bottle to feed the goats and I recommend doing that. It's cheap and really fun. Though the enterprising goats tried to feed also on my jeans, camera bag, and hair.

Whew, that was a long post! If you are reading this then you deserve a gold star. Since I lack any gold stars to give out, you'll just have to take my thankfulness :)