Last week in Pau

The view from campus of Les Pyrénnés

All the building were blocked off two weeks ago because of the "grève". French students love to go on strike. When they're tired of school they just decide to take a vacation!

Funiculaire. This is free transportation down to the train station.

The funiculaire uses no energy because one goes up while the other goes down.

The train station in Pau

A popular going out spot

They've turned Place Clemenceau into a Winter Wonderland!

I love the constrast of the palm trees with the snowy christmas trees that they added for the Holidays.

Place Clemenceau

Place Royale

Laura, Peter, and I at my french swim meet. Peter and I are the only Americans who have ever competed- go us!

Prêts, vas!! (That's me on the left)

Me swimming the Quatre-nage (IM).

Outside of our dorm

Christmas picture in our dorm hallway. I can't get enough of those peach walls. haha

Bouche de Noël at the repas de Noël.

Putting presents under the christmas tree. Everyone was supposed to bring a small gift and then you were allowed to take one after the Christmas dinner.

USAC kids before le repas de Noël. (Except Mathise on the right, he's a french friend who lives in my dorm).

With our friend Nick (he's British) who decided to dress very festivly for le repas de Noël!

Hanging out with Bernard

USAC dinner at La Brasserie Royale

Alpha Love! Kelsey is an AOII from the University of Arkansas. There are AOIIs everywhere! :)

Un salade avec le fois gras

Saumon grillé

Le Dessert du Jour

I can’t believe that this has all gone by so fast. Even though I have been here for several months it feels like I was just getting off the plane in Paris, with so much ahead of me. I have met so many amazing people, and I am so glad that I got to share this experience with them. In retrospect, my whole abroad experience has flown by. As we go into our last week in France, half of which will be spent in Pau and the other half in Paris, the sentiment is definitely bitter-sweet. I am so excited to come home to see everyone, but I will definitely miss all of the incredible people whom I have met here, who share my love of the French language.

This past week was a whirlwind of excitement, but at the same time a little stressful. I had a finally exam for my french classes and then had a two-day-long exam for my Business French class. The test is given by the Chamber of Commerce and all of your test materials are sent to Paris to be graded. If I pass this test I will be certified by the Chamber of Commerce to work in France or Europe. The test was pretty brutal; we had a three hour section with Expression Écrite, Compréhension Écrite, and Compréhension Orale. Then we had to come back later in the day, at our designated time, for an entretien, or job interview, in French. The interviewer definitely asked some tough questions that would even be tough to answer in English. Then the next day we had to do an impromptu presentation in French. They sat us in a room, one at a time, and we each had 15 min to read an article about something political or cultural, which was chosen at random, and then had to do a 15 min presentation in front of a test proctor. My topic was the American food culture haha. I was the most nervous about this part, but I think that it ended up going the best!

I did have a lot of tests this past week, but also a lot of fun stuff! On Tuesday we had a repas de Noël at the Vague, an on campus restaurant, that one of my teacher’s organized for all of the international students. Evelyn, Laura, and I attempted to take a Christmas picture before, so we were dressed in very festive, Christmas colors at the repas de Noël. The food was incredible; we had confit de Canard avec des légumes (duck with vegetables), quiche (you all know what that is), et pour le dessert Bouche de Noël( a really famous French Christmas log cake). It was so good- I’m definitely going to miss eating duck all the time lol. To make the soirée more entertaining they had people sign up to perform talents. A lot of Americans sang and this girl from Venezuela in my french class danced the Salsa. It was definitely interesting seeing what everyone came up with. It was definitely a fun night!

The next day I had my french final in the morning and then my very last l’Histoire de l’Art class with Bernard. This was definitely one of my favorite classes, and most of the other students agreed since our entire class had a crush on our teacher, even my gay friend Patrick gets giggly in class! The only person that didn’t was my friend Peter, but he said that he still admires him haha. Anyway, after class Bernard had organized for us to go to prendre un verre after class to celebrate the end of the quarter. We went to a bar called Imparfait. He brought his 9 year old son and 14 year old daughter with him. At first it was just me, Natalie, Peter, and Addie and Bernard and his two kids. The kids speak perfect french, obviously, so Peter and I were having fun talking to his son about school, music, etc… About a half hour later more people arrived and we pulled up more tables and chairs. This is the same teacher that brought us to Toulouse and Lescar to go look at art and architecture. I was scared to take this class because I would have to learn a completely different subject taught in French, but it ended up being awesome!

On Thursday I had my Business French test and then that night we had our final USAC dinner at Brasserie Royale downtown by Place Royale. They served us a three course french meal; I started with Un salade complet (salade with fois gras), then I had Saumon grillé, and for dessert I had the Dessert du jour, which was some kind of tart with ice-cream. It was fabulous! Then our USAC directors gave us the group picture of us that was taken the first week in Pau. It was crazy to see how much people have changed in such a short time. Then Jean, the Masters student that helps out with USAC, came in dressed as Santa Clause handing out Bayonne chocolate. It was a really fun night and definitely a good way to end the week. A group of us walked home, which was definitely needed since I ate way too much, and took pictures of the Christmas lights. One thing that I have noticed is that the entire town of Pau is decorated with Christmas lights, but individual houses aren’t. Electricity is very expensive here and I that is a big factor in the lack of individual Christmas lights.

This weekend I get to start packing and clearing out my dorm room. It is going to be quite the endeavor! I only have two days of classes next week and since we’re done with finals we aren’t really doing anything. We are finishing watching a french movie on Monday with Mme Fraisse, and then on Tuesday, with my other teacher Isabelle, we are having a petit déjeuner with our class, and watching a movie also. My train leaves at 8 am on Thursday morning for Paris. We will be spending two nights there and then flying home on the afternoon of Saturday 20th. I am really excited to go back to Paris, especially to see the Avenue des Champs-Élysées lit up for Christmas and to go ice skating by Le Tour Eiffel.

I hope that you have all enjoyed reading my blog these past few months!! I can’t wait to see you all next week! À la prochain fois!

Je t’embrasse! Gros Bisous!