Rain, Rain, Go Away

Weather themed titles, as per usual. This week was cold and cloudy and rainy for the good part of the week. I was unaware April would be so dreary and I'm a little disappointed. Especially when Pittsburgh seems to have nicer weather than us (sometimes, it did snow and hail there recently, but it's going to be 80 in the upcoming week so...). Fingers crossed next week gets better, my vitamin D store is dropping low.

This week flew by. Monday we had off so I hung around, walked around, went to parks, the usual. The school week passed without incident nor excitement, save for my literature class.
We haven't read out loud in a while and for some reason I seem to have lost all ability to read out loud. I think I made a mistake on every single word and it is hard to be corrected every time you open your mouth and try to say something. After suffering through a horrible butchered reading of some Proust, the class did improve. I sulked for a few minutes and then enjoyed the class again. It's a great class and we all get along and spent most of the class laughing (and learning, of course). Yesterday I wandered around with my friends while they 'interviewed' tattoo parlors to see where they want to get their tattoos. Don't worry, no tattoos for me. Although if I did, I might just get 'il faut profiter', so lyrical sounding, right?
And Friday I had class during which I rocked a presentation with my friend, then sat in the cave being very silly with my friends, came home ate a whole hollow chocolate egg and watched three episodes of Glee. LIVING THE LIFE. Whatever, it was rainy.

As another week comes to a close, I get even more confused about my feelings about France. While in the cave today, someone mentioned we have something like 37 days left. Uh, what? Sorry, did no one inform time we just got here? No, but really I did. I swear. Time has flown. But here's the weird thing, I don't even remember being home. I haven't been home since December and to think about Pittsburgh and what it's like there, what things look like, where I hang out, how to drive places, all the English, all the people (like yinzers), is so weird. I realize that France isn't the place I 'belong', but at the same time it feels like I've always lived here. I know, it doesn't make much sense.
Same goes for the awesome people I've met here. I was slow to make friends, but now that I've made them, I feel like I've known them forever. We've known each other for two months and yet I can't remember hanging out without them. I haven't forgotten my friends from home and in fact I miss them a lot, but my friends here are my normal friends now. A lot of my friends live close by in the US, which is also weird. Because this whole time, we've been close to each other, but only met once we traveled miles across the world to France. These things are blowing my mind.

I have one week left, then spring break, then two weeks, and finals. I can't wrap my mind around how short that is. I might actually be sad and have a minor life crisis when I leave here. Sure, I still want to go home, but...
As my friends and I have decided, if we could just transport our people to France, it would be almost perfect.

Until next week's baffled end of week post, il faut profiter!

Here Come the Easter Bells!

Here in France we have Easter bells as well as an Easter bunny. Here's what happens:

The church bells in France (and Belgium so says the internet) traditionally don't sound from the Thursday to the Saturday before Easter. Well why on earth aren't they ringing? I'll tell you why. They flew to Rome. In Rome they collect candy from the Pope and wrap it up under their wings. Easter morning they fly back to France and open their wings and spread candy joy all over the lawns. Then they go and ring for Easter morning mass.

And you thought an Easter bunny was odd.

PS. Looks like the Easter Bonnie (haha, get it?!) was busy this year! My host family just gave me the Easter candy that my mom had entrusted to them to give me on Easter. I knew she had it in her suitcase when she got to France and I was wondering where it went. And when did she get a chance to give it to them? It's been a while since she's pulled a fast one on me. Tricky, tricky mom.

I'm going out to eat lunch with my extended host family, but when I get back... I'm going to eat ALL THE CANDY. French chocolate is delicious, but there's nothing like Hershey's, Reese's Pieces, Snickers, and a giant hollow chocolate bunny.

Look! Snickers!

 

April Showers Bring May Flowers?

Remember how last week was great and full of sun?
Yeah, well this week was full of clouds, rain, and cold. So naturally all of us Americans who are mostly used to nasty spring weather complained and complained all week long. Because we're in the south of France and we were promised sunshine. The fact that it even rains is a travesty. It was even humid one day. The horror.

This week passed without much special happening. I had some classes, did some internships, ate some chocolate, hung out in the cave, and went walking in the rain.

Wednesday though I got to go on a fun adventure called, "Go to Marseille for Your Medical Visit to Be Able to Stay in the Country". This has been hyped up for weeks. We knew we were going to have to go, all of us with the unfortunate luck to have turned in the OFII or just have gone to the Boston consulate for our visas. I turned in the OFII due to some confusing circumstances, but it's no big deal now. However, I find it very funny that after being in France for three months already they now schedule us to go to Marseille. If I had diseases, they'd be in your country already... Sorry about that. This visit has been talked about and made much more terrifying that it actually is. I'll admit, the thought of having to go to the doctor and speak in French and get an x-ray (oh no, not that!) is kind of scary. I mean, when was the last time you were taught medical jargon in a foreign language?

But to my surprise, everyone there was very nice and not scary government people at all. They even let me keep my x-ray!

Thumbs up for no tuberculosis!

Just kidding, everyone got to keep their x-rays, I'm not that special. The doctor and I did have a nice conversation about going to the beach though instead of sitting in Marseille on a rainy day. So thumbs up, France, you did well that day with the governmental regulations and such. I do wonder though if the fact that I could speak to them in almost entirely French gave me some brownie points. Oh well, il faut profiter, as the French say. Then we trekked home via subway and bus to return to Aix, go grocery shopping, then go home and crash.

REFLECTION TIME!
Guess what? I finally feel comfortable here.
"Finally, Catharine, it only took you three months."
I know, I know, but better late than never, eh? I was walking to school one day just minding my own business and being rather happy and comfortable and in my routine. I actually feel like this is my regular real life now. Then all of a sudden it hit me. This isn't my usual life, I'm going to go back to Pittsburgh and everything will be different. I won't have this time ever again and I need to embrace all of it. This kind of contrasts what I said a few posts ago, but hey, two weeks is a long time. I think it helps that I've made some awesome friends here, the weather is beautiful (normally), classes are going great, and French comes more naturally. I'm still not fluent, not by far, but it's not a struggle.

I spend most of my days hanging out in the sunshine and laughing with my friends. It's going to be so rough going back to CMU where everyone works themselves into the ground. I go to markets and buy fresh fruits and veggies. For dinner someone else cooks for me and feeds me good healthy food without fail. My friend and I were talking yesterday and realized that reverse culture shock might be harder than culture shock.
What do you mean you don't have a bakery on every corner? You don't have multiple markets everyday? It's not sunny without fail? I don't have time to sit in the park and nap? There's only ten kinds of cheese in the grocery store? Chocolate is over two dollars? Dollars?! What's a dollar?! There's less than four kinds of vegetables on my plate? Your date format is month/day/year?

I'm sure all will be fine, but in two weeks my outlook on all of this has completely changed. So my friends, wherever you are, il faut profiter!

PS. Check out my photography class blog, our new photos have been posted! 

Let the Sun Shine

It's been absolutely beautiful in Aix here this week and it makes it even harder to do my homework. (And by this week I actually mean the week of March 26.)

Sunday
I decided it was really quite necessary to leave my house since I spent Saturday doing my homework. So I went to the park with my friend and we had a lovely time reading and accidentally napping in the sunshine. I sure will miss this sunshine when I go home. And the lack of humidity here bumps Aix up quite a few points in my book.

Monday
I got another midterm grade back, woo hoo for As! At my internship I watched the older kids do french improv which was hilarious. And pretty much the same as American improv. 

Tuesday
Got that final A, I'm four for four, woop. Did some classes, some internships, some museums, the usual.

Thursday
I sat in TWO parks on Thursday. One I sat in for a few hours during lunch time with my friends and then one after class with another friend because it was too early and too sunny to go home. More parks than class on Thursday, that's how we do study abroad.

Friday
Today was day one of three days of excursions. I'm going to be exhausted...
Rendez-vous at 8h15 (ugh, so early) to board a bus to go on our way to a little vineyard near a town called Brignole, about 40 minutes away from Aix. We got a tour from two people who worked there who told us about the crops, the reaping, the pressing, the fermenting, all those fun things. When I first walked in the cave, the first thing that I noticed was that cave smelled like my childhood.

Barrels and barrels of aging wine.

"Wait," you might be saying to yourself, "Catharine, why does your childhood smell like a wine cave?"
Well dear reader, it's because my parents have towed me along to many wine tastings throughout my childhood. I didn't taste the wine of course, but the smell is so familiar.
Anyways. In the surrounding grounds there were some bunnies, flowers, gardens, trees, and of course the vineyard bit itself. And the little girl of the vineyard owners was there just hanging out. Um, how cool to grow up in a vineyard! We had a charming wine tasting and I spent a chunk of time playing peek a boo with the little girl from behind a door. I'm always mature, especially at wine tastings. (The wine cave will actually smell like her childhood.)

Pretty view of the vineyard

The actual grape bush/trees, but they're not quite blooming yet.

Then we went to an old Gregorian monastery which was also pretty darn cool. It's not so interesting to look at, but the acoustics in there are incredible. We had a man who is a professional singer and who restores Gregorian chants come sing to us in the church. It was an amazing experience. The way the cathedral was built makes it sound like a whole chorus is singing in perfect harmony when only one person is singing because of the way the echos work. Then we all got to sing with him which was also super cool. Then finally went home and slept.

Saturday
Spent the day in Avignon with my history class. First we saw the Palais des Papes and walked around learning about architecture and stuff. It's pretty empty inside the actual building, but it's still cool.

Inside the big cathedral

 Next we went to the Musée du Petit Palais, which had a bunch of pictures we had to study for our test, I shan't bore you with that. Finally we got to go to the Pont d'Avignon, or the bridge of Avignon.

Le Pont d'Avignon

 And I'm not sure if you know, but there's a song about this bridge that says people dance on it.
 Here's a creepy children's song version to show you: Le Pont d'Avignon

Thus, naturally, we danced on it.

View from the bridge

And here's a carousel of my childhood, or so I'm told.

Sunday
Final day of excursions. This days was with IAU and so all the students went. We loaded up on a bus at 9AM and drove our way to the Luberon! The Luberon is a fancy and rich area about an hour and a half away from Aix. Our first stop was the city of Lourmarin. There was a little chateau there we stopped to see and run around in. Then we saw Albert Camus' grave. With a lizard running on it. That's the important thing to take away from this.

Pretty view in Lourmarin

The cutest dog decided to pose for me

It's just too pretty. I may buy a summer chateau out here at some point.

Next up, we drove to Lacoste. Lacoste is a perched city, so we had to climb an incredible number of stairs to get up to the top to look out over the city below us. We also had one of Marquis de Sade's ruined castles right next to us. Our guide from IAU told us we could go soak in the atmosphere of Sade, err... thanks but no thanks.
We had a nice picnic and then wandered around some foresty area before heading back to down to hop on the bus again.

Just over looking the land. No big deal, right?

Our last stop was the magical land of Roussillon. It used to be a quarry to mine ocher (I think?) so it's bright and brilliant orangey red. We got to hike through there and see the beautiful green trees contrasted against the orange/red ground. Some of the tree trunks are even colored orange from being in that area. So cool.

Looking out over the land

Unreal. Orange everywhere.

After we finished hiking through we got some ice cream, of course. I had some delicious peanut, chocolate, caramel, vanilla, who knows what. It was magical. Happily we all loaded back up on the bus to go back to Aix. And then that night I got to study for my history test on Monday. :(

And that is all for last week! This week will come in a smaller installment. Sorry if I switch tenses all around on you, I started this entry last week and am just finishing it now... Whoops!

We Are Family

I'm back! And excuse the cheesy title. :)

(Psst, see that new link section on the right? It's a link to the blog for my photography class. There you can find my pictures and those of my classmates from each assignment. Updated every two weeks ish.)

Saturday the 10th (woah, long time ago) I finally found my mom and my aunt! After some more shenanigans involving TGV stations, poor communication, poor planning on my part, and my mom thinking the back of the station was the front of it, I finally managed to find them safe and sound in Aix-en-Provence. We spent that weekend hanging around, I showed them the markets and we bought food and sat and had a picnic: goat cheese, emmental, bread, chocolate, Orangina, and macarons. My kind of picnic.
Monday they were left to their own accord as I was busy all day and had to take a midterm. (But I just found out I got an A on that midterm!) They spent the day shopping and we met up for teatime and dinner after finally finding somewhere we all wanted to eat. Tuesday my mom had some meetings at school and I had classes so we all "worked" that day. Then met up for tea and dinner again.
Wednesday we went a-travelling! All three of us booked a trip through the office of tourism in Aix and that morning at 9 hopped in a car with our nice guide and were on our way. Wednesday's trip included a wine tasting in Châteauneuf-du-Pape (fancy!), the city of Avignon, the Pont du Gard (big Roman aqueduct / bridge) , and finally a stop at Tarascon (castle on the Rhône River). 

Modeling in some ruins near Avignon.

GIANT wine bottles at Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

My mommy, my aunt, and me with the Pont d'Avignon in the background

Pont du Gard

Aunt Kath and mom posing at Tarascon

 Thursday I skipped some more class and we went on some more voyages. We had the same guide but were joined by three more other women on our adventures. We went to Arles, Les Baux, Saint-Rémy, and Glanum. Wednesday was warm and sunny, but sadly Thursday was cold and foggy. But we saw the theater and amphitheater in Arles, the monuments in Glanum, sites where Van Gogh painted, and the view from Les Baux--once the fog lifted.

Looking out at Les Baux in the distance

Inside the amphitheater at Arles

Amphitheater in Arles

Mom and Aunt Kath looking majestic on a mountain overlooking Les Baux

Stick fighting outside the mental hospital Van Gogh stayed in

The theater in Arles

Oh yes, there was stick fighting too. Everyone was looking at us like we were a little crazy--including the other people on our tour and the mental hospital workers. Oops. Haters gonna hate, that's why I have my hater blockers. 
Friday was our sad day of departure. :( It was so nice having them here I was really sad to see them go. But we spent our time before that hunting down a new bag and jacket for me, since a wool jacket doesn't seem necessary here anymore. Then we all drove down to the TGV station for hugs, tears, and goodbyes. Sadly, the first train was full I found out later, but they took the later train and got into Paris with no problems for a smooth trip home on Saturday.

That weekend I hung out with my friends and moped around because I was all alone again. Studied for some midterms or something because this Monday started midterms week. Three midterms in one week, oh the horror. It's also been foolishly cold here. 65 is not acceptable with Pittsburgh is 80. Swap, please?

So this week, finally. I took three midterms: french conversation, film, and literature. I think they all went well and I'm not really in any danger of failing this semester. Nothing terribly interesting or of note happened this week. Our student teacher in french class told me I should go out more. I think she thought I was pretty lame because I spend my week nights reading and sleeping. Sometimes I go out on weekends, but I value my sleep, let's be real. Oh, I did book my spring break trip though! I'll be going to London with one of my friends!! (commence singing 'We Are Going to London', that song from Madeline. Does no one know that song but me....?) So I'm super pumped.

Wednesday I hit the two-month-until-home mark and boy am I glad. I've been away from Pittsburgh since the end of December and away from the US since the beginning of January, so my two month away mark was hit a while ago. 
Don't get me wrong, I like being here. It's great and I could never have any experience like this back in the states and I would regret it if I hadn't done it. I wouldn't quite say I'm counting down the days until I get home, but I will be glad when that day comes. I didn't realize how much I like being near my home, my friends, my family, and Pittsburgh. Some people handle being away from home well and this has taught me that I prefer being around familiar things. And that is just that. I've realized that besides people I miss the little things, like my own bed, Starbucks, drinking tea in the morning, my animals creating chaos, sitting in the Baker basement studying and napping, wasting time at the black chairs (holla, SnS), making the food I want for dinner, Gluuteny, oh and understanding everything around you because it's in English.
I have plenty more years in my life to change cities, to go places and whatnot, but for right now, I'll be happy to go home. Most people at school keep yelling at me, telling me not to remind them how little time they have left. And they're right, I need to enjoy the time I spend here. I'm sure I'll miss France once I'm back in the US, but as a French person would say, "Pittsburgh me manque". I've also realized I'll never be French, I'll never speak french like a French person and while I'm here I just have to do my best to adapt and be a non-culturally awkward American in France. And that my dear friends and family, is just that. I hope this update finds you all happy and warm (curse this weather in the south of France!) and I can't wait to see you all!

Don't Worry!

I'll be back soon!
Last week was a crazy busy and fun time with my mom and my aunt, so I obviously didn't take time to blog about it.
And this week is my busy midterms week, three tests in a row starting tomorrow. :( So I'll be back at the end of this week to tell you all about my exciting life.

I Got 99 Problems, All of Them About Travelling.

I write to you all in sadness that my mom and aunt STILL haven't arrived. They were supposed to be here yesterday afternoon. Happily, they're both in Paris now, searching for luggage. Fingers crossed they'll be here before tonight, or I might take a train up to Paris to find them. While we wait, let's review my week. 

I got an A on my film paper, one of four. Excuse me while I gloat a little. Then I found that they have a new tiny gluten free section in Monoprix so I treated myself to a loaf of bread! A LOAF OF BREAD I SAY. For me, this is revolutionary. Sadly though, I found out I can't eat the crêpes from Crêpes-a-Gogo. Their buckwheat crêpes are half buckwheat and half real wheat. Who does that? Come on now.
Then I found out that Daylight Saving Time doesn't start on Sunday in France. In fact... it doesn't start until the 25th. WHAT IS THIS MADNESS. So the time difference will be different for twoish weeks, I'll only be five hours ahead. (that's how that works, right?)

Otherwise, nothing much exciting. Did some homework, watched some Downton Abbey, did some laundry, ate some smelly cheese for lunch, had my horoscope read to me in French, watched Sarkozy argue on TV, and saw some weird weird modern dance.

Sadly, midterms are the next two weeks, so I'm gonna go study (or watch Downton Abbey) and fingers crossed they get here soon!