Espana!

Saturday - Woke up late and finally got up at 10:30. Then, Liz and I went and had Dunkin Doughnuts for breakfast (since I hadn't had doughnuts in FOREVER!). After some yummy chocolate doughnuts and disgusting coffee, we wandered around and saw some pretty buildings. I can't remember the names of them but they were pretty cool. Then we walked up the main road and found the Hard Rock Cafe! That makes 4 HRC's that I have been to in Europe (Rome, Venice, London, and Madrid). After that we walked back to this one place and there was this huge strike going on! We watched for a little bit. It was pretty cool as you can see below:

 

 And the musicians were cool too:

Then we took the metro and went to this market which had some really cool stuff. Then we went to see this palace. The palace was pretty cool and had a cool fountain. There also was a neat church next door but we couldn't get in. Here's how big it was:

After we visited that we went and got some ice cream which was yummy. Then we had lunch at a restaurant called Nebraska. I thought the name was funny, but the calamari I had was good. After that we did a bit more sight seeing and stopped at some stores on the way back. We also went to the museum the  Reina Sofia which was neat. We saw works of Dali, Picasso and many others. Then, we got some pizza and went to the room. We had pizza for dinner with acorn alcohol which wasn't horrible and watched a movie on Liz's laptop. Then it was a little time to relax and bed. Overall I noticed that Spain was really similar to Italy and a good place to visit.

Sunday - Woke up around 11 again and got up and around slowly. We still had Dunkin Doughnuts for breakfast (yum) and went to see this huge park. It was alot of fun and really relaxing. We came to this huge lake with boats and saw some pretty interesting things including Darth Vader Santa, lol. After we left to go to the metro I almost got pick pocketed. We were crossing the road when I felt my purse being pulled slightly, I looked back and realized this woman was right behind me. Thinking nothing of it I turned around again. It happened again and I turned back around and she moved back some.  Then I realized my purse was open when I knew it was closed! I checked a dozen times and nothing was missing. Thank goodness Liz and I kept looking back! Anyways, we went back to Sol and ate paella for lunch which is rice and seafood and was pretty tasty. Then we did some sightseeing/shopping and got food and went back to watch two different movies.

 

Monday –Woke up and didn't have much time. We got around and left the hostel with all our luggage, ate at Dunkin Doughnuts, navigated the metro, and got to the airport. Then we separated and I was a little ways away from going to Lyon, but that's another story.

FFFFFRIDAY!

Started out by waking up super early in the morning (5am) and doing some last minute things before leaving. On Wednesday I learned that there were supposed to be problems with the trains on Friday due to a huge snow storm. This caused me to be super worried and check the train schedule periodically for any news of problems. After I checked my train, I finished packing, grabbed a banana for breakfast, and left. I left at ten to 6 and by the time I got to the station I still had 15 minutes before my train. I found the platform and got on without any troubles. The train ride was smoother than I expected given the fact that trains were supposed to be delayed which made me feel really relieved. 

A couple of interesting things happened during this ride.One, there was a lady across from me who was asleep with her headphones in. I didn’t think to wake her and she awoke as we were pulling away from her stop. I felt really bad for her and wished I could tell her how much I understand how it feels when travel plans go wrong, but I didn’t feel I could portray it very well in French. She got off at the next stop but had to wait over two hours for the next train. I hope she finally got to see her daughter ok. The second thing was really interesting, a man sitting across from me on the train ride. At first, I was like oh, a mid 40 year old man sitting across from me, whatever. But no less than a minute after he sits down does he bang his hands on his brief case and start tapping out the beat to whatever he was listening to on his ipod. He used his full body and I couldn’t help but smile. After a few seconds he seemed to realize he was not alone and stopped. This spontaneous burst of music madness was awesome and made me realize that everything is going to be ok and finally relax. 

We got to Lyon right on time and I dashed over to the shuttle to the airport. After buying a ticket and waiting 5 minutes, I was on the shuttle and on my way to the airport. Interestingly enough, another man (about 10 years younger than the other) sat across from me, and no sooner than we left did he start whistling a tune and tapping out the beat. Once again it made my day and was very entertaining. Anyways, finally got to the airport and raced to my gate. I got through security and realized I had over an hour before boarding. So I went to the bathroom and got some real breakfast/lunch because I was starved and sat down to eat. Finally, we got into the boarding room and I was excited because I hadn’t missed anything. Little did I know we would be standing in the boarding room for over an hour. At last, we get on the plane and I nap most of the way there (I don’t even remember take off because I was asleep!!). We touched down and no sooner did I get out of the main section did I see Liz!!

We took the metro and had to change three times until we finally got out and walked to our hostel. We got checked in with no problems and got into our room. The room is actually really nice. It’s pretty big with two decent beds (that squeak a lot!) and a decent bathroom. It also has a small balcony which I’m sure is nice in the summer. After we got settled in we left to go check out the town. We saw Plaza del Sol and went shopping at H&M on the Grande Via. After a while we got some dinner at Mickey D's and went back. We used the wifi in the lobby and I went to bed early for it had been a really long day.

"Exam" Week

Ok to be honest my "Exam" Week wasn't a true exam week because I only had two exams. However, most of my week consisted of the following: sleeping in, watching movies, relaxing, watching tv, hanging out with my host family, doing homework, and hanging out with friends. Monday was pretty boring except for getting my lunch money and seeing Tangled in French. Tangled was good but I can't wait to see it in English because Finn's character is played by the main character in my favorite series, Chuck. Tuesday was a little bit more crazy because I had to find these papers for my ICRP. They took forever to find because I had never been to the office where they were located before. But finally I found them, ate a quick lunch, and got to my last ICRP of the 2010 year. The second half of the week is when things really started happening:

Wednesday - Started off waking up early, getting around and walking to the train station. There I met up with the other Kalamazoo Students and our teacher because we were going to Vichy to take the TCF. The TCF is the Test du Connaissance du Francais (aka test of french understanding/level). So we went to Vichy, walked around in the cold until we found the university, was taken up to a small computer room, and were off. The test started with 25 minutes of listening comprehension followed by 108 minutes of grammar and reading comprehension. Overall it wasn't too horrible and I ended up doing ok on those parts. After that we went and ate a crappy but cheap lunch at the cafe. Then we went back for the oral portion. I don't know what it was, maybe the guy's accent, maybe the nervousness, maybe sleep deprivation, maybe my brain was strained too hard, maybe the fact that there were two tape recorders recording everything I was saying; but I felt like I did really bad. However, after we finally finished the test, we toured the town as we walked back to the train station. Then we went back, I walked the 20 minutes back to the apartment, slept for two hours. And got up in time to relax a bit before dinner. After dinner the family and I watched a really good couple of episodes of Mentalist.

Thursday – Slept in, did some shopping, ate lunch, went to school, tried to find the room for the exam, gave up and studied for exam w/ Lauren, printed off some stuff for travleing, found our room for our test (in a portable that I had never seen before), took the test (which actually wasn’t that bad), printed off airplane boarding passes, and went back home. When I got back I started getting ready for vacation! However I didn't have much time until I had to leave for the final party. Most of the students in our school were going to an overpriced gala but instead, the American students got together and decided to dress up and go to a nice restaurant. We were going to go to Mexican but couldn’t get in so we went to the Sicilian Restaurant. After a good dinner, we went to a café and I got a French Coffee (coffee with gin) was pretty good but strong. After a while it was finally time to say goodbye, Happy Holidays, and leave. When I got back I packed, and packed, and packed. Finally I was done enough and went to bed at 1:30 only to be awakened 3 and a half hours later by my alarm to start Christmas Vacation.

Last Week of Classes!

For the first part of the week I didn't do very much. I got my Library card so that I can work on my project for a class, helped the kids in my ICRP decorate the Christmas Tree, did homework, and celebrated my last few classes. Although I ended up missing one of them because I literally fell asleep for two hours while waiting for the shower...oops. However, I was super excited about last marketing class - thank god that class is over! Friday I didn't do very much except have class, talk to my teacher about a project and go back to the apartment.

Weekend –

Saturday – Got up and relaxed and studied for exam. Went to Marketing exam which wasn’t that bad – I understood everything but wasn’t sure how to explain my responses. Got done super early so I left and went back to my host family after getting a quick chocolate dessert. Then had lunch and later went over to Jenn’s house. Jenn had Lauren and I spend the night since her host mom was out of town and didn't want to leave Jenn alone. This also happened to be the night of the international student end of the semester party. So after all getting to Jenn's and chilling for a while we went to the restaurant for dinner with the international students. It was kind of annoying because the majority of the students were downstairs except for the last few who got there (which included us and we arrived 5 minutes early). However, we still had fun talking to everyone although the food wasn't super. After that we all went to a store to get some booze and then to a house party. It was a lot of fun and around 11:30 we went back and slept.

Sunday – Woke up late, got around, ate a good breakfast that Jenn cooked, and went back home. Not a lot of my family was home it was just my host dad, Eliana and I for lunch. Afterward I watched a movie with Eliana. We watched Forrest Gump because she had never seen it and I told her she had to because it's a great movie. I had to explain a lot of the culture in the movie but still enjoyed it. Later I hung out with Lauren. We were going to see a movie (Tangled) but it was too busy so we wandered around the Christmas Market, saw the church and went inside. Then we went to the hypermarket (aka French Walmart) which turned out to be closed but walked over to the ice rink to check out prices to go ice skating later. After that I went back and relaxed.

Fail Trip

Fail day, fail trip, worst Saturday of my life whatever you call it the 4th of December was quite an awful day.

Saturday started out by waking up at 5AM and leaving the apartment at 5:45. As I left the building I had a weird feeling that something was not going to go right that day, it turned out that I was right in the end. I got to the train station and got on the train with no problems. I ate some food that I had brought with me and relaxed and watched the sun come up. Then I got to Lyon and that's where everything started going downhill. I looked at the timetable to see if my train was up there even though I still had two hours until it left. It wasn't but I did notice something, over half of the trains were more than 20 minutes late. I was like oh crap. You see, in order to make my plane I had to take the first train and even then I only would arrive an hour before the door to my plane closed. It was then that I realized that I might not make my flight. The train station was freezing so I finally went to the Waiting Room because at least that closed with a door and read my book as I waited for my train to appear on the screens. When it finally appeared it said it was on time. I breathed a sigh of relief and went to the platform.

I got kind of nervous because usually the train gets there at least 5 minutes before the scheduled time but this time it arrived exactly when we were supposed to be pulling out of the station. I got on and sat down and we started moving and I thought, ok maybe I will make my flight. Just as soon as we pulled out of the station the train stopped. An announcement came on but I didn't understand it very well. We waited for 30 minutes. I was freaking out. Finally when we started moving I decided to relax, enjoy the train ride and figure stuff out when I got to Geneva since I couldn't do anything on the train. I watched the scenery, the Alps covered in snow is such a beautiful site. Funny side note, I was listening to my ipod and one of the songs that came up on random was Unbelievable, that's exactly what I thought those mountains and country side looked like. We stopped a couple more times for short periods of times and when they finally announced that we were approaching the last station, Geneva, we were 45 minutes late.

As soon as we got in I took off running. I found the train to the airport, waited a couple of minutes for it to come, got on, got to the airport, got off, ran and found my gate all the way at the other end of the airport and as soon as I arrived I realized that they had shut the gate 10 minutes ago. I went down and waited in line at the information desk to see if I could get on the other flight that was in a couple of hours. After waiting over an hour in that line I finally talked to a guy who told me that I couldn't get on it and my only option was to wait until the next day at 2PM. He started transferring my information to put it on there and told me it would be 86 Swiss Francs. For those of you who aren't familiar with that currency, it's pretty much the same as the US Dollar. Also 86 Swiss Francs was three times more than what I paid for my original ticket. Also both my ticket to and from Budapest were less than that. I suddenly had a big decision before me:

Choice 1) Pay 86 Francs, find a place to stay the night, explore Geneva, relax, take the plane at two the next day, see Ada, spend less than 24 hours in Budapest then go back OR

Choice 2) Pay alot less for tickets back to Clermont, sleep in my own bed, not have to pay for meals, get homework done, and do some work for my school projects.

Which would you choose?

I chose Choice 2. I told him that that was not going to work and after giving me a puzzled look and saying that I would lose my reservation (which in my opinion was already lost) I told him that was ok and left the airport.  I called Ada on my way to the train station and a guy over heard me and asked me if I was American. I told him I was and we had a short conversation. He was there searching for an apartment because he got a job in Geneva. He was originally from Atlanta which I thought was kind of funny because that's where my Aunt Erin lives. It was kind of nice to tell someone else my story and helped calm me down because after everything I was pretty distraught. Finally I told him he should visit Bern because it's a nice city to visit once he got settled in, he told me thanks and good luck and I left. When I got back to the train station, I got my tickets and made my way to Lyon.

The trip back wasn't anywhere near as fun. It was getting dark out and I decided I should at least do some homework. I got some work done but ended up staring out, wishing I could have made my flight and listening to my ipod. When I got to Lyon I once again had a two hour wait. I got a Coke but wasn't hungry even though I hadn't eaten much except a little bit of breakfast and a sandwich at the Geneva station. Finally my train came and I got to Clermont. On the way there I realized how tired I was and laid down on my backpack with my scarf over it to soften it. I got back to Clermont at 11 and was home before 11:30. As soon as I got back I decided to eat some Easy Mac to cheer me up and then go to bed.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

Tuesday - I woke up feeling really sick so I went to the bathroom and afterwords I felt like I could feint and my head hurt super bad from a sinus migraine. I skipped the first part of my first class but felt good enough to go to the second part. However, I still didn't feel good enough to go to my ICRP and I didn't want the kids catching what I got so I called and took it off. Then I ate lunch and did some homework. After that I had my last class, went back home and napped until dinner. After dinner I did a bit of work before going back to bed.

Wednesday - Woke up early again and after doing some work I went outside into the winter wonderland to go to school. I was running late and didn't have time to take a shower which worked out nicely because my hair didn't freeze as I made my way through the snow. This was the third day in a row that we had snow and throughout the day we got more than we had the past two days put together. Classes went ok and after lunch I had Marketing. During Marketing I did my FLE homework for the next day as well as some homework for my French Language class and on top of that, when we broke off into groups my group had me type the PowerPoint so I actually understood what was going on. Then I went to my last class which my brain was dead for so that didn't go too well. After class we went to a Conference presentation about classes to take in January since we have to take two intensive courses. I decided to take the Mafia course and a course about Gestalt (psychology FINALLY!!!). Then I went home, relaxed, ate dinner, did some homework, showered, and went to bed early.

Thursday - Woke up at 6 and felt really good, I guess I finally had gotten enough sleep. I did some homework then went to class. Both of my classes went well, then I had Kebabs with my friends and ran through the ice/snow to catch the tram. My ICRP was really good. I can tell the kids are getting really attached to me. When I help them they seem to really appreciate it and during recreation time one kid would not leave me alone. He came up and sat down by me during the beginning of recreation and I told him he had to sit next to the other kids. He wrapped his arms around mine and wouldn't go until I finally got up with him and we both sat with the other kids. It was really cute and sweet. It was fun seeing all the kids in the snow at recess. Then I went home, relaxed, had dinner and went to bed.

Friday - Woke up early to finish my reading for class. For breakfast I had toast with Nutella and banana which was super yummy. Then I went to class (which was difficult because there was an inch of fluffy snow over ice) which went really well. The book that we are now reading is really interesting and in my opinion the best we have read so far. During lunch I got my tickets for going to visit Ada this weekend and talked to my boyfriend since it's our 6 month Anniversary. Now I'm chilling and getting ready for my weekend, it should be good except I'm nervous about my travel because I only have an hour between my trains and flights! Wish me luck!

Weekend!!! (and Monday)

Friday - Started out by getting up, reading some for my class and then going to class. French Lit was good and then I went to lunch with my friends (we got Kebabs which are super yummy). After that I went back home, relaxed, took a 3 hour nap since I wasn't feeling so good, had dinner and then went to the Place de Jaude to go see the Harry Potter movie (in French this time). When I got there, I met up with Lauren, Jenn, Jake, Louise, and Joanne. We went, got our tickets (some people got popcorn but not me because I still had candy corn my mom had sent me), and got some decent seats. The movie was better the second time and alot more entertaining in French because A) I knew everything that was happening since I had seen it in English and B) They call a wand a Baguette. Anyways, after that I went home and went to bed since it was after midnight.

Saturday and Sunday - Was sick with a cold/flu so I slept over 10 hours each night and took a 3 hour nap each day. In addition, I watched Disney movies on youtube as well as the Harry Potter Musical (if you havn't checked it out and like Harry Potter I highly recommend it, its super funny). I also drank a crap load of water and no wine (which is weird since ordinarily I would drink wine with almost every dinner).

Monday - Woke up feeling better but I had to do alot of homework since I put almost everything off that weekend. I did work for several hours, took a shower, ate breakfast (not all in that order), then went to mail some postcards and meet Louise, Joanne and Lauren at the Christmas market. We had Truffade for lunch (supper yummy potatoes and cheese) which was super filling. Then we went to school and I tried to study for my Russian retake exam. Luckily, in place of Pepiniere we had a conference so I studied Russian during that. Then at the end of Russian we had our retake and I felt loads better about it after. Then I went home, chilled, ate dinner and went to bed.

Catching up...again

Tuesday - Woke up, went to school where classes went pretty well. My ICRP also went pretty well, I helped a different group and told the teacher that Thursday I would bring something special for Thanksgiving. Then I had another class which went ok and then I went home, did some homework, relaxed, and went to bed.

Wednesday - Woke up early to do some extra work, went to school where I got yelled at for writing my homework instead of emailing it. Then I had a decent lunch and did some more work. After that I had two boring classes, went back home, did some homework, chilled, and went to bed.

Thursday - Pretty much started out the same as Tuesday until my FLE class. During FLE I finished the work she was having us do so I drew a turkey for Thanksgiving. The teacher saw it and instead of yelling at me had me present to the other international students the tradition of Thanksgiving. I talked for 5 minutes and then didn't do any more drawing the rest of class. Then during lunch I rushed around to print out the coloring pages for Thanksgiving, eat lunch, and get on the tram to go to my ICRP. During class I once again presented the concept of Thanksgiving and some of the students colored a turkey. Then I went home, relaxed, talked to my family including aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, who I havn't talked to in ages!,until it was time to go to the restaurant.

At the restaurant we had "Thanksgiving dinner". It was not a true Thanksgiving dinner for several reasons in my mind which I will further describe later. It started out with talking to everyone (there was all 7 of us K students, our host parents, our teachers, and Louise who is from Kansas and studying at the ESC as well). Then we all sat down, I sat down next to Lauren, her host dad and Jake's host dad. It was alot of fun and the conversation was good. 

 

The first course was Turkey, some meat thing that I wasn't quite sure of but tasted ok, red current jelly (not cranberry - which I don't eat anyways),  green beans and potatoes. 

 

The second course was a plate of cheese (of course) and dinner was not pumpkin pie but a chocolate thing with cream inside it.

After over 2 hours we were done so I returned to my house to relax a bit before going to sleep. The reasons why this Thanksgiving dinner wasn't very satisfying are: 1) I wasn't overly stuffed, 2)No corn casserole, 3)We didn't go around the table and say what we are thankful for, 4) There was no parade, 5)There was no dog show 6)And the worst part was NO PUMPKIN PIE! :(
(However, number 6 was halfway remedied the next week...)