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!

Munich, Germany

The Cal Poly gang :)

The German Castle

Tracy and I sporting traditional German dresses!

The tent we went to at Oktoberfest

Inside the tent

The rides by the beer garden

So Germany, where do I begin? This was perhaps the best weekend ever. It was nice seeing familiar faces and meeting up with friends from school, it made me feel a little less far from home. I left right after class with only a small backpack, and flew to Paris and then connected there to my flight to Munich. I was a little nervous traveling by myself and not speaking a word of German, but I was relieved that almost everyone spoke English and that I fit in surprisingly well- everyone had blonde hair! In France people look at me weird wherever I go because they know that I am not from France, I think my lack of dark hair and eyes is a give away! So it was really bizarre to go to another country and not get any weird looks. People would come up to me and ask me questions, I’m assuming directions, in German, and were surprised that I didn’t speak German. It was difficult though to find my friend Tracy in the airport. In France I can pick out all of my American friends from a mile away because most of them have red, blonde, or light brown hair. Spotting someone among a sea of blonde girls in Germany is a bit of a challenge.

We finally met up and took the Sbahn train to the central station in Munich where were met up with our German friend, Mathise. He studied at Cal Poly for spring and summer quarter and was nice enough to let us stay with him this weekend! We went out on the town for awhile that night, and in the morning Mathise and his friends made us a traditional German breakfast. This consisted of white sausages and pretzels with sweet mustard. The sausages looks kind of gross and you had to peel the skin off of them which was difficult for first-timers, but they ended up tasting amazing! And I don’t know what it was about that sweet mustard, but it was so incredible! We ate a lot of pretzels and sweet mustard this weekend. After breakfast, Mathise and two of his other German friends took us on a tour of the city. We went to a nearby castle, the English garden, the opera house, Hofrauhouse, their war memorial, and even walked through the university where our German “tour guides” go to school. It was fun getting a feel for the city! We also went to a department store to try on the traditional German dresses. People were wearing them everywhere, not just at Oktoberfest- in the airport, downtown etc… So naturally we felt a little left out because we didn’t have one. I found the perfect German dress, but unfortunately it was 129 Euro, a little out of my budget, so I just took pictures instead. :)

The next day we went to Oktoberfest-and what an experience that was! We got there at 8am to make sure that we would get into a good tent. We went to Schutzen Festzelt, which is supposedly one of the best ones, and the least touristy. Again, it was nice knowing some locals to give us the inside scoop. We split into two groups because there were two lines to get in. There was one point where everyone started rushing towards the door and no one had actually opened it yet-so the stampede of people were shoved back and everyone almost fell over at once. That would not have been good! When the doors finally did open we all ran into to try to get one of the good tables that you can stay at all day. Even though we were some of the first people there we didn’t get the good tablesL. It ended up being alright though because we got a table in the section that you could only sit in until 1. And since it was only 9am at the time, which gave us plenty of time in the tent. After 1pm we went to the section with the good tables and made friends so that we could join their table. At 11am they started playing traditional German music and everyone got so excited, stood up on the tables, and started dancing. Mind you that everyone was wearing traditional German dresses and all the guys were wearing lederhosen. Later, when we moved to the other tables, they started playing all of this American music like Hey Jude, YMCA, etc… All of these German people knew the words too and were singing at the tops of their lungs!

We got tired of the tent after awhile so we went outside into the beer garden. There were tons of roller coasters, ferris wheels, and swings out there. They also had lots of food stands so we snacked on toasted almond, and surprise, surprise, PRETZELS! Except the pretzels at Oktoberfest were bigger than the size of my head-they were enormous!

Around 9pm. we went back to Mathise’s apartment for some R & R and then went out again to meet up with some of my besties from Cal Poly, Alex, David, Brandon, and Nate. It was great to see them!! Alex and David are studying in Copenhagen, Denmark and Brandon and Nate are studying in Barcelona, Spain. It was so chaotic at Oktoberfest that we weren’t able to meet up there so we had to meet up later. We were meeting them at a metro stop and all of a sudden a familiar voice screams my name, and I look over and it was Brandon- their whole group had been standing right next to me for almost five minutes. We all planned to meet up in Germany when we first decided to go abroad, so I’m so glad that everything worked out! Prost!

I definitely didn’t want to leave. It was my first time to Germany and I got a really good impression! This was the first weekend that I hadn’t traveled with my Pau friends, so I was excited to come “home” to see them!

This week we have placement exams for our french classes, ugh. I’m excited for my pilates class and swim practice this week though. I’m taking a pilates class taught in french and there are only four other American kids in the class. It’s pretty funny listening to her trying to explain the “neutral spine” in French- they have to use so many more words to explain the same thing. It was pretty easy last week though, so I hope it’s more challenging this week. I went to my first swim practice last week too. I was in a lane with all french kids who were really nice, and seemed impressed that I was joining the french swim team. They did have to help explain the sets to me though, but now I know all of the strokes etc, so I should be better prepared for this week. Just for your info-incase you ever join a french swim team- freestyle is “le crawl”, backstroke is “le dos”, butterfly is “le papillon”, and breaststroke is “la brase”.

Saint Jean de Luz, France

After San Sebastian we made our way back to France and spent half a day in Saint Jean de Luz, again, it was definitely not long enough! We went to the cutest farmers market that took place right along the harbor. The best part was the you were allowed to taste test everything! I tasted the most amazing cheese, wine, chocolate, and other desserts. The food was incredible! Since Saint Jean de Luz is near the spanish border there were lots of spanish influenced cuisine as well as french. The variety was sensational!

We made our way through the town, which also had a lot of white building with red shutters since it is also part of the basque region. We went to the beach, which was even warmer than san sebastian, I think because it was sheltered more from the wind. There is a long wall that lines the street, which runs above the beach. It was a beautiful day, but I still wondered why so many people were sitting on that wall. It was as if they were waiting for something. As we made our way through the town, we found out what they were waiting for. Apparently it was french heritage day, so there was an air show. These ridiculously fast jets soared across the sky leaving a trail of red, blue, and white smoke, in the shape of the french flag. We sat along the harbor and watched the show.

This was a really memorable weekend, definitely my favorite weekend so far! :)

San Sebastian, Spain

Tapas

I spent the rest of saturday and part of sunday in San Sebastian! It was one of the most beautiful cities that I have ever been to! We went on a walking tour right when we arrived, went to the beach, and then went to old town san sebastian and got tapas. There is an incredible night culture there with lots of street vendors selling jewelery and scarves. No one eats dinner before 9pm. and children and elderly people are still out really late at night. We got tapas around 7:30 and our eyes were definitely bigger than our stomachs because we ate way too many. :) We walked around and explored the city and then got dessert later. The tapas ended up being our dinner since we couldn't stop eatting them! Later we met a bunch of USAC students who are studying abroad in San Sebastian. It was really interesting hearing about their expeiences. I'm glad that I'm not studying abroad in a place like that or else I would never want to go to class!

The next day we went to the beach and did some shopping. It was so beautiful and warm and seriously the entire town was there! Also the fruit was incredible. I had the best nectarine that I have ever tasted. We left around 2pm. on sunday and I definitely did not want to leave. I could have spent at least another week there! :)