Pip pip!

The title is my favorite "British" phrase. I spent last week in London, England; Edinburgh, Scotland and Dublin, Ireland. It was pretty great although I have never spent so much time on transportation before.

Thursday night (the 1st of March), we (me and 3 other Nebraska girls) took 2 trains and ended up in Grenoble, France. We then spent the night in the lovely Grenoble train station. I'd give it 2 stars. A little cold, but around 430am the waiting room opened up which is much warmer. So anyway, we then took a bus to the airport (45 mins away) and then a plane to London. During our first three days in London, I saw Big Ben, Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace and St. James Palace; went to the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, British Museum and rode the London Eye. Tuesday, we took a bus to Windsor, a very cute town, and saw Windsor Palace.

Then that night, we took an overnight coach (bus) to Edinburgh. We went to Edinburgh Palace, a tartan mill and the National Gallery of Scotland then went on a ghost tour that night (supposedly Edinburgh is the most haunted city in the world...). The next day we went to St. Giles' Cathedral, did a lot of shopping and then flew to Dublin. The first day, we saw FIVE sights which was quite good for us. We went to Christ Church Cathedral, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin Castle, Trinity College (it has the Book of Kells) and the National Gallery of Ireland. We had a nicer dinner than night and then went to a pub where I tried a Guinness since it's all the rage in Dublin... it was okay but beer's not really my thing.

We then flew back to Grenoble, took a bus back to the train station, and spent another night in the lovely train station. We got back to the dorms sometime after noon on Sunday. It was rather expensive as the British pound is worth nearly twice as much as the American dollar. We were relieved when we got back to the Euro in Dublin.

Now, I am back in school... not really enjoying it, just making it through. My tummy has not been so happy lately so that only makes it worse. Thankfully, only one more day of class! I hope those of you who are on spring break are enjoying it!

Much love,
Julianne

P.S. I posted my dorm address on the "about me" section of facebook and I hope to make a new facebook album of my vacay in the very near future.

:)

I feel like I should write something since it's been a while but nothing too eventful has happened. I am now in my third week of semester classes. They're okay, but they're classes. I don't have Friday classes but there's really not much to do on the weekends. However, we only have two more weeks of classes and then we get a week off! I'm not sure where I'll be going yet. Italy is a possibility or the UK. I'll keep you updated.

I have a tandem partner now. We spend half of our time speaking French and the other half speaking English. She is applying to some school and she has to write something in English and then defend it to a professor in English... a little scary.

Courtnee and I went to church yesterday morning. It was nice to be at a church and see families. Everyone was really nice and the pastor spoke slowly but I still got lost sometimes.

I am learning to do laundry in my sink. Not fun. I may check out a laundromat. It rains so much here that you inevitably get mud on your jeans and well, I'm not as good as a washing machine.

Hope your Valentine's Day was great!

Paris and more

A lot has happened since my last post. I no longer live with my host family which is kind of sad. I really liked them. The mom even gave me one of their hair dryers to borrow. I've already made use of it. JiYeon left today to travel around Europe. When she returns, the family is going to have me over for dinner one night before she goes back to South Korea.

Wednesday morning, we left for Paris and I got to experience the TGV for the first time. It is pretty nice. Evidently it goes up to 200 mph. Thus, it only takes 2.5 hours to get to Paris which is pretty nice. So anyway, I saw a LOT of sights in Paris. Wednesday, we visited the Jardin du Luxembourg. I'm sure it would be a lot prettier in the spring but they had a lot of cool statues and it was free. Next, we walked by the Panth éon and the Sorbonne and took pictures but didn't go in. The Panthéon was really impressive but I really don't know anything about it. Then we went to Notre Dame which was of course amazing. It was so beautiful and I just found out today that Napoleon was crowned Emperor there. That night, our whole group went to the Louvre for a guided tour. I discovered I'm not into those tours because we just hear about 10 or so works of art. I'd rather not hear a complete history and see more paintings. I saw the Mona Lisa... didn't think I'd be impressed and I wasn't.

Thursday I went to the Catacombes with some girls. One of the workers told one of us that there are 6 million people's bones there. I believe it because we only saw a small part of it and there were sooooo many bones stacked there. Then I went to Père Lachaise Cemetery. I guess that sounds weird but it was really interesting. We saw Jim Morrison's and Moli ère's graves. Chopin is also buried there but I didn't see his. Then me and two girls were late to the Mus ée d'Orsay (the RER can be confusing). If we had been any later, we probably would have missed the guided tour. But we made it and saw some Monet paintings, Manet, etc. Our tour guide did not even point out a famous Dégas painting which is just wrong but anyway. I also saw some Pisarro paintings and I like him so that was good. Then we went to two plays by Eugene Ionesco. "La Cantatrice chauve" was the first one; I didn't like it. "La leçon" was okay.

Friday I saw the Arc de Triomphe and went down the Champs-Élysées. I didn't buy anything but it was fun to see the designer stores and of course the affordable ones. Then some of us went back to the Louvre because it's free for students after 6p.m. on Fridays. I was with an art history major who spent a month in Paris last summer so she took me on a whirlwind tour. We saw Egyptian art, Vermeer, Ruebens, Rembrandt, Poussin and Napoleon's apartments which were really cool. Then our whole group ate at this fancy restaurant called Alcazar. Even a 50 euro meal doesn't buy you free refills but it does give you ice. I was happy with that plus our teacher let us have two Cokes if we wanted. The salad was really good, the lamb and eggplant was pretty good and the dessert was DIVINE. It was just this little thing of ice cream and then a little bit of warm "gooey chocolate cake." They were so good together.

Saturday we went to la Sainte-Chapelle, a cathedral which charges you to enter. I wasn't impressed with that. Notre Dame doesn't even do that. Then we went to Hôtel des Invalides and saw Napoleon's remains and a war museum. The cathedral there was also really pretty. Some people left Saturday but I stayed until Sunday. We had to find our own hotel (we reserved it Friday night) and so then we had to move our luggage. Then we went to the Eiffel Tower where I had my first French crêpe. I had it with chocolate and it was amazing. We went up the tower too which was really pretty. I love the ten minutes at the top of every hour where it sparkles. You have got to see it.

Sunday we went to Musée Rodin. He's the one who sculpted the Thinker in case you don't know (I forgot). It happened to be free that day which was good timing on our part. Then we went to Montmartre because I had not seen Sacré-Coeur and that is a must. It was really pretty. Then we did a little souvenir shopping. After that, we met up with the other people who were still in Paris and had a nice Italian dinner (one can only eat so many sandwiches). Then we had to get to our train. We did... with 7 minutes to spare. So we cut it a little close but we made it back to Besançon fine.

Then we had to move all of our stuff into our new dorm rooms. I am pretty satisfied with our rooms. They are rather small but I have a sink and a fridge which is great. You do have to bring your own toilet paper to the bathroom and there are no toilet seats on the toilets but I guess I'll learn to make do. There is also a small ice cube tray in the teeny freezer! What a happy surprise.

But I have to tell you, that stereotype about the rude French is not completely false. They certainly do not try as hard to please the customer. So be thankful everytime you have an amazing waitress or a drink that is colder than room temperature or a seat on your toilet... I know I am!

Shop Shop Shop

First of all, let me say that the date on the last post is incorrect and it's really bothering me. I started the post as a draft on that day but I didn't post it until after my Chamonix trip which was last weekend (January 13 & 14).

Anyway, there was a shopping outing to Troyes yesterday. Alas, I was a tad disappointed. It was nice to go somewhere but I wasn't incredibly impressed with the malls. The first one had some really nice stores like Burberry and Ralph Lauren but even with the sales, it still wasn't really affordable. Then there was Armani which was expensive and undesirable. There were stores at both with really cheap stuff but I nothing that I really wanted to buy. There were tennis shoes at Lacoste that I really liked but there were 40 euros and I didn't need them. My only purchase of the day was a lavendar Lacoste bag which I actually bought at Samsonite. The pictures at right are from the top down: me on the bus on my way to Troyes, my iPod also on the bus and the bag I bought.

I have discovered that when my family asks me if I want to go for a walk on Sunday afternoons, that we're not going to walk around the block or anything. We drive for about 45 minutes before we actually walk. This afternoon, we went to where some Gaulois lived way back in B.C. and then to the source of the Lison river so another pretty waterfall.

No other real news. I am still in class. I had to give a little presentation Thursday which went okay I guess. It was on Teach for America (teachforamerica.org) but unfortunately I used enseigner (to teach) when I should have been using apprendre (to learn) so my teacher was confused at first. It's not really a big deal though because this 3 week intensive course isn't graded. However, our teachers get to pick some of our classes so it's a good idea to put forth effort.

Ciao!

Chamonix

This weekend, I went skiing in the French Alps. As you can see, it was incredibly beautiful but it was also incredibly warm for winter. We all wore tons of clothes Saturday, anticipating extreme cold, but the high was around 60 degrees. Sunday was a little cooler but still pretty warm. However, we all wore less layers and so we were pretty comfortable. All in all, it was a good trip although I'm not much of a skiier so I was ready to be done when the trip was over. Sunday morning was the most fun because the slope we went on was easy but interesting. Sunday afternoon was not fun for me because they had us go down this hill that was way too steep for me.

This Saturday I get to go to Troyes to do some shopping as France is in the midst of their month long sales. Hopefully we can get some good deals.

When I talked about my host family in the last post, I failed to mention Ji Yeon. She is a Korean student at the same school and lives with the same family. We are in the same class now which is nice. She is really, really nice. Every one of you would like her, I'm sure.

Class is going well, I suppose. Five hours a day is a little long, but I can't say that's it's really arduous. Thursday, I have to give a little five minute speech on any subject that would interest the class... a little too general if you ask me but I will think of something.

~Julianne