Bordeaux

Addie & I in the Vineyards of Saint-Emilion

Les jolies fleures

Le chateau

L'Arch

Les Macorons- Bordeaux is famous for macaroons, as well as wine,bien sûr!

Les peintures

Le carnival

This weekend I went with a group of friends to Bordeaux for the weekend. We spent the day shopping and visiting monuments around the city. It was super easy to get around the city because they have this awesome tram system that can take you anywhere. It's above ground so you can site-see as you ride it! That night we went to a fair that was right near the center of the town. There were all sorts of rollercoasters, fair games, and vendors. I wasn't feeling the rollercoasters after eatting a big dinner, so Laura and I braved the ferris wheel instead. :) The view from the top was incredible- you could see the entire city including the Garonne river.
The next day we took the train to a small village called Saint Emilion. It's just outside of the main bordeaux city, but still part of the Bordeaux wine region. Our hotel in Bordeaux was close to the train station so that made it easy to get around. My friend Addie has a book called "1000 Places to Visit before you die" and Saint Emilion was one of them. I can definitely see why- i've never seen anything like it. The entire town is surrounded by vineyards that go for miles and miles. We explored the village, tasted some wine, and explored the wine cellars at Clos de Minuts. They have tons of caves under the building with wines dating back to before I was born. They also had lots of wine barrels and different sizes of wine bottles, including the magnums. I've never been in a wine cellar like that before so it was a really cool experience for me!
This week all of the french students have a vacation, but we still have to go to class. Lame. I also don't have swim practice, which I'm sad about since I've made a lot of french friends through the swim team. I went to a dinner party last week with some kids from the swim team. They cooked us a three course meal and we all spoke a lot of french! I've been swimming for over a month now, but it definitely takes awhile for french people to let you into their circle of friends. Peter, Addie, and I (all the american kids who swim) are finally getting lots of invitations from the french swimmers to go out to dinner etc...

Toulouse, France

Fait attention aux volets (notice the window shutters)

la fleur de lis (the symbol of the french king/ monarchy)

La Garonne river

A farmers market in the middle of the square

The main square

This weekend my l'histoire de l'art class took a field trip to Toulouse. We met our professor, Bernard, there and he took us on a big tour around the city. He grew up in Toulouse, and still has family who live there so he knows the city very well. The architecture was incredible! Toulouse is called the rose city because all of the buildings are made of red/ rose colored bricks. We walked thorough the main square of the town and through "place capitol" where they was a huge outdoor market going on. The shopping was also incredible, although we didn't have much time for shopping. It's so close though that we might go back another weekend! Toulouse is a very large city. It is right along the river Garonne, and is like a less touristy Paris, with warmer weather! We walked along the river for awhile and then we stopped at a cafe to have a coffee (tea for me) and to speak french with our professor. We then continued to see a monastery, the church basilique Saint-Sernin, and then saw other Roman ruins. We just finished a big unit on roman art in our class, so it was really interesting to see the types of art that we have been studying. My favorite piece that we saw was a mosaic that was only partially preserved so you could see the sand that the tiles were placed in, between the scattered clusters of mosaic tiles.
Later on when we roamed around the city, we noticed that people speak much faster here than in Pau and with a different accent. It was definitely more of a challenge speaking with other people there because they slur a lot of their words together.

Pyrenees

Outside the beret factory in Nay

sporting our new berets

At the base of the mountain

Waterfalls at the top of the mountain

This weekend we hiked the Pyrenees! On the way there we stopped at one of the only two remaining French beret factories in a small village called Nay. We learned about how berets were made and the different berets that are worn in different regions. In sunnier regions they wear larger berets to keep the sun off of their faces. We also learned about when you wear the various colors of berets- black for work or military service, navy for political activites, and brown for celebrations. Also the reason that they have the little button on top is because traditionally you would hold it by that button and knit around it. They also used to stomp on them and soak them in water so that the fabric would tighten and they would become water resistant. Almost everyone bought traditional, real, berets at the beret factory. I had fun trying on all sorts of crazy hats!

After another short bus ride we arrived at the base of the Pyrenees and had a nice, filling lunch before starting our long hike. It was really warm for the entire hike, until we got to the cascade. The scenery was absolutely breathtaking- leaves in hues of orange, red, and yellow, and snow on the mountain peaks. It took us about 3 hours to get to the top and a little over 2 to get down. We hiked all the way up and when we got to the top we were surrounded by waterfalls running off the mountain tops. It was incredible! Going down was a little rough since it was really steep and there were lots of loose rocks, but I side stepped down the big peak like I was on skis. A couple of people wiped out, which was kind of funny, but wouldn't have been if they had seriously hurt themselves. I felt very accomplished after my 5+ hour hiking excursion! :)

Weekend in Pau

The view of the Pyrennes this weekend in Pau- notice the snow!

From left to right: Natalie, Paula, me.

This weekend I decided to stay in Pau. I have been traveling so much that I haven’t fully gotten to explore the city that I am living in!
On Friday the university provided all of the international students with a complimentary breakfast. Free food is always a plus, but I was more excited about the french students that I met there. I sat by 2 french girls who want to teach french abroad, in the U.S., Ireland, or England. One of the girls, Pauline, studied abroad in Ireland and hopes to teach there. The other girl, Neole, was undecided. A couple of friends and I are going to invite them to a Halloween party, which they were super excited about since they don’t really celebrate it here. All of the American students in the dorms are going to dress up anyway! They were also telling us about la fete de Noel in Bordeaux, which takes place the first weekend in December. It’s supposed to be one of the best Christmas celebrations in France- I might have to go! :)

Saturday my friends Natalie, Paula, and I went to the market at “Les Halles”. They have this every day, but a lot more vendors come on Saturdays. There were all sorts of vendors outside the building, kind of like farmers market at Cal Poly. This was just the start of it though- you walk inside this huge building where you can get all sorts of french cheeses, bread, meat, fruit, dried fruit, sweets, prepared meals……..anything you could imagine. I got some dried apricots and pineapples, le fromage de Pyrenees, homemade cherry jam, plums, and bananas. Between Natalie, Paula, and I we got 4 kinds of cheeses that we all shared bits of later. We took the bus home to put away all of our produce and then headed off downtown again. This time we decided to walk- it was a crisp chilly day, but nice and sunny. We went to the train station to buy tickets for Toulouse, which we’re going to with my Art history class in two weeks, and saw the most amazing view of the Pyrenees. It rained a couple of days last week, so the mountains were covered in snow! This was definitely the clearest that I have ever been able to see the Pyrenees. They were so beautiful!

After the train station we sauntered around downtown, got lunch, shopped a little and then went home. Later that night a group of us went to see a french movie- no subtitles. The french cinema was similar to an American cinema only in this one you had to wait in the lobby until your salle (theater room) number lit up on this board. It was kind of bizarre. Also, when we looked up movie times it said that the movie started at 10:00 pm, but that was actually the time that they let you out of the lobby and into the theater. The movie previews didn’t even start until 10:20pm. The french are always on their own time schedules, and are often late, so that’s probably why they say that the movie starts earlier than it actually does. The movie we saw was called “Entre les murs” which means “between the walls”. It’s about a school where a lot of juvenile delinquents go and tells the story of a new teacher there and his experiences with his class etc.. In typical french movie fashion, there are all sorts of bizarre side plots. There were no subtitles, obviously, but I was surprised by how much I could understand. There were a couple of scenes were all of these kids are all speaking at once in the classroom and yelling over each other. Those scenes were definitely hard to understand, but I still got the gist of it. Overall I really enjoyed my french cinema experience and my relaxing weekend in Pau!

We start the rest of our french classes this week and now will have 20 hours of french a week in addition to our other classes. It’s going to be a lot, but I can’t get enough of french right now so I’m excited to kick off the week!