Saturday 24 September 2011

Peut-être une angine ?

There were more low-lights to this week than high-lights.

Low-lights

- I only managed to get to one class. Many trips to university were involved (and university is NOT close) and one time I even found myself (SOMEHOW) in a master's level sociology lecture where the lecturer opened with 'What is the question?' and people actually knew how to respond...I was lost, and perhaps too indiscreetly left.

- I had a bit of a week of 'what am I doing here?' and 'I just want to hang out with my friends....but I don't have many yet and I feel all alone!'

- My first day of actual class, my water bottle leaked in my backpack and sogged all paper stuffs inside. Book included.

- The T2 (the tram line that takes me to school...most of the way) was down, and so I walked for a long time to get there...that was the same day that I was somehow in the wrong class.

- I had a weigh in. It's official....the bread is catching up with my poor metabolism. I've gained 4 kilos. And in case you're wondering, I'm starting swimming again this week.

- ALL I wanted to do this week was watch a film...which shouldn't be complicated. Apparently it is. You can't rent films here (no culture of this), we have no films at our place, and I've seen everything on my hard drive... apart from that I have a Madeline dvd, but I've even seen that. I opted for 'Under the Tuscan Sun' and quoted every second line.

- I'm sick. I think it's tonsillitis again. I feel like Helamen's army have marched down my throat (for those of you who don't understand this, and thus don't get the joke...consult the book of Mormon)
In French, tonsillitis is 'angine', which I think - frankly sounds quite beautiful. There's a song called 'Peut-être une angine', which is where the title from this blog comes from, for those of you who are not quite so tuned into French language and culture.

High Lights

- I found REAL, non-sterilised milk (yes guys, it is TRUE....the land of cheese, the land of all beautiful things dairy only has long life milk for sale)! For those of you who don't know, I am not a big milk drinker. Wednesday was the day that this changed. Within 2 hours of arriving home with my one litre bottle, I'd downed half of it.

- I made a freaking AMAZING cake! Chocolate and raspberry. I made it for the 2 Australian girls that I met at my university who came for dinner. Look how pretty it was... (it tasted better than it looked)



Maybe I should start a food blog.....Alex, you would be so proud of my cake! I even followed a recipe!

- Chloé saved me from my misery and is now at my place. We're going to see a film tonight in an actual cinema in V.O (Version Original). This mean that it's not dubbed...it's in English with French subtitles. I'm pretty excited.

-I found the most amazing bakery, 5 minutes from my house! Where I had the best bread I have ever eaten (this might be dangerous)

- I have a pretty awesome timetable. No class Monday, no class Tuesday till 4pm and no class Friday.

- I booked flights to Denmark...and Budapest, Hungary! I'm so excited! I leave in less than a month.

- I decorated another part of my room, by my desk. Look.


Ok, dear ones, time to go to eat food and finally see a film. Miss you and I hope that next week will be better and far more interesting. Enjoy your sunny weather for me! 


Alice




Sunday 18 September 2011

Far Away From Dear Melbourne..

One of the best things about having a blog is that you have to give every post a title - which is something I actually get pretty excited about. When on the tram, the metro... or even walking home, I often think about what I'm going to call my next post. I've gone a bit blank today, so when I do end up naming this you should all get pretty excited.

I somehow managed to survive another crazy crazy week. Oral presentations that were somehow improvised and essays that were written late at night apparently had to do. Surprisingly my professor for my writing class told me that my French was at a higher level than my other classmates and I will thus be put in the highest level class - you can imagine how astounded I was considering I had no time to complete the assessment properly. That was a nice end to my hectic 10 days of linguistic classes.

Thursday brought with it its own adventure. First of all, I went to get my public transport card with another girl from Melbourne University who is studying at Lyon 2. We then made our way onto campus to join the horrendously long line of non-European students aka loud Americans who were trying to enrol. I waited about 2 hours and the whole process took around 3. Afterwards I had the option of going to the other campus (an hour away) to try and find my timetables (yeah, they aren't uploaded here), or going home and breathing. I opted for option A, even though it was growing late in the afternoon.

On arrival I was a little shocked about the physical appearance of the university's infrastructure. I'd seen plenty of pictures before and wasn't too bothered...but in real, it just looked like it needed a lot of work. A LOT OF WORK. I don't think anyone's touched it in 50 years and I had the impression that it may collapse at any second. Anyway, I told myself it was a cultural experience and went on through to find building 'K', which is the building for anthropology and sociology. All was fine - but then when I reached the secretary where I had to get the timetables, there was a long queue....story of my Thursday. I waited, the lady told me she was closing in 5 minutes...I waited. I waited until she told me that it was the office for Political Science and not for Anthropology. Fantastic. So she took me to the office for Anthro....which of course was shut. Tired and disappointed I decided to make the long trip home. First of all I needed to use the uh....amenities. The toilets at my university are on the ground. They are squat toilets. And the dirtiest I have ever seen...reminding you all that I have travelled quite a bit in Asia. For the purpose of this blog I wanted ever so much to take a photo....but then the prospect of being caught was too high. Needless to say I forced myself to 'hold'. I was feeling a VERY long way from the University of Melbourne at that moment.

Friday started off well with a pic-nic with a friend from church. We went to a park and we could sort of see some of the city across a lake. We possibly ate too much delicious food and discovered as 'country' as Lyon gets. The afternoon came and I went back to campus. I found some of my timetable! Slowly, slowly I am moving up in the academic world! I made a trip out to see Gladie and her family that night. We had a nice dinner together and I had a very comfortable sleep. Yesterday Gladie showed me round her town a little. Her house is from the middle ages...and her family have lived in it for over a good hundred years. They also own a hardware shop which is beneath their house. So cool to say the least. Her little town is simply gorgeous too. There's an old bridge...and well have a look.

View from Gladie's house

View from the bridge
Gladie with her family (minus her brother) outside her family's shop/house

       
The old bridge



















































Afterwards we went to Chambéry and looked inside the chateau there, as we could this weekend (it's a special time where you can enter certain buildings that you can't usually, so that was cool. There was a jazz band and all the usuals...like a HUGE queue outside. It rained in the morning, but by the afternoon the sun had come out, so we had a nice time walking around and enjoying the atmosphere.




 We went into Etam, a shop here that I love a LOT and we tried on hats. Gladie bought them for us.


Last night Gladie's mum made 'raclette' for dinner. It's a cheese that you melt (there's sort of a bbq-type thing placed in the middle of the table) and then each person has something that looks like a shovel that you put the racelette on...and then you melt it and then pour it over potatoes...Yes. It is far more amazing that it sounds. It's simply delicious. I said my goodbyes and headed back to Lyon...

Home is great. Everything's going very well - except for Mr. Whistle here who is continually getting on my nerves. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir has been on full blast the last day as an attempt to drown out his whistling. It's working thus far. Tonight I have a fire side in Écully, over the other side of town, and then Chloé is swinging by for the night...because she can! Well, and because she has some things to do on this side of town too. I'll let you know about classes soon and I hope things are well where you all are, wherever you are!

Love, Alice




Tuesday 13 September 2011

Stress? What? No! Never!

The last week has been full on. No, really - FULL. ON. Let's start with school...
At the moment I'm doing a French language emersion program for foreign students. I have some very interesting teachers who A. Think that they need to teach university students from schools like UCLA, my school and Penn State how to take notes in a lecture theatre and B. Are ridiculously French, full of gestures AND have no fear swearing in English in front of a class of American students. Intrigued? Well - to say the least, it has been an experience...

I have tackled papers in French about the political and economic standing of Australian women knowing little knowledge, I have battled to keep my eyes open in classes concerning the simple past tense and correct use of adjectives, done a speech in French with a German girl who can't speak the language AND warded off illness. Why? Because even though this year's going to be slightly challenging, I am determined to succeed in any way, shape and form possible.

In other news, I nicked off to Grenoble for the weekend to see Chloé (because seeing Chloé is much easier these days). In fact, it's fantastic....because I can simply think to myself  'I'd really love to see Chloé....OK! I'll get on a train and in an hour I'll see her'. Too easy (and yes, thoughts ARE in italics). We met up with some of Chloé's friends from Réunion, I saw Sabrina again (another friend from Réunion) and we went to the middle of town. I LOVE Grenoble (just so that you all know). It's so beautiful and I think it's the perfect size. Look look look!

Can you see the mountains behind?

This region has a funny thing with elephants...I should research it a little


















So appart from the 5 or so hours I spent on my back, moaning about stomach pains again (I know, I'm pathetic - stress makes me ill, and no I'm not too sure how life will be in the real world...) Grenoble was fantastic! What's better than a change of scene and escaping my SUPER STRANGE, SUPER ANNOYING house mate?

Which brings me to, I know that living in the world bla bla bla, you need to know how to work and put up with people that you don't particularly get along with. Well folks, try living with one (someone you don't get along with I mean)! Let me do a brief summary -

- He whistles. ALL THE TIME (toilet included)
- He believes that Coca Cola is more important than water (and fruit)
- He sings 'SALUUUUUUUUUUUUT' and waves madly at me from the living room when I arrive home from school in his ridiculous German accent
- Oh and he NEVER and I really mean NEVER NEVER cleans ANYTHING
- Eats ALL of the stuff that I will only eat (he eats everything, in brief)
- He buys PINK toilet paper.....PINK!
Ok, angst out - and he will never read this (Don't worry, I know this for a fact)

So, aside from my super busy school life (I have another essay to write today, test tomorrow, meetings tomorrow and I need to choose all my subjects tonight!) and my home 'situation' I'm looking forward to seeing Gladie this weekend, reading a good book and taking some time out.

Updates coming (proper ones) and things will hopefully be more enjoyable to read next time!

sunny, happy, floral thoughts

Alice

Tuesday 6 September 2011

Rendez-vous ?

After quickly preparing dinner, I went to Lyon's main station (La Part Dieu) to get Wendy (a good friend from JCH). Backpacks all over, she looked quite the little traveller. We were both so thrilled to see each other that the storm occurring round us didn't seem to matter so much. Although I really meant to go to sleep early as I was starting classes the next day... I already knew it was going to be a late night. We stayed up past midnight catching up and then the following morning I left home in the early hours of the morning. Yes. It was 7.30 am when I left my apartment. SO EARLY!

I found my university easily enough...as it's the campus right next to the Rhône river, near the centre of town. I then ended up waiting in line until 10 am to enrol for the language course I'm doing for the next couple of weeks. As it would occur, I didn't get the chance to enrol - as we were all whisked away to do a French exam. I couldn't think of a better way to spend my Thursday morning! The exam was actually OK. Surprisingly enough. I befriended a couple of Swedish law students sitting next to me and after the exam, we all went together to a particular agency to buy what's called an 'attestation responsabilité civile'. Finding it closed, we opted for a lunch break, got to know each other and then a few hours later I'd made some new friends, got the attestation, and enrolled. It was a painful, French bureaucratic experience.

The nice-looking campus - the one I won't be at later on
 I then ran off to the centre of town to find Wendy who had spent the day exploring, and we walked along a little then came home. We made a beautiful dinner (thank you mum for the tomatina spices!) and went to see Lyon by night. It's beautiful - Take a squiz!

Some of the city - at night



The Opera House
Some financial building in the centre of town

The cathedral
                

Wendy standing in Lyon's town square
 We only got a little wet, and had the best ice-cream we'd ever eaten. The following day I went to uni and Wendy went of exploring on her own. That night we hung out with some people she'd met in Italy and their friends which was really cool (in spite of inhaling cigarette smoke for several hours) they were awesome people and extremely interesting to talk to.

Saturday! Saturday we decided to get out of the city. Why? Because why not? So we headed East to Chambéry, a small town in the region of Savoie near Switzerland/Italy in the Alpes. Result = magnificent. We went to a small market and visited the cheese guy who let us taste lots of cheese and the olive lady who let us taste lots of olives. You can guess what we had for lunch...oh! And some good bread too of course ;-) We parked ourselves on a bench outside of the museum and bonded over how difficult it will be to eat in Australia now...yes. Wendy Allan and I have become cheese, bread AND olive snobs. Now that is a difficult pickyness to live with.






















And then, we saw Gladie! Gladie is an old friend from high school, who is French and lived in Australia for a year (thus she really is a friend from high school). It had been more than three years since we'd seen each other, so you can imagine what kind of greeting we had. It was just too awesome. Her mum and sister joined us and even took us out for ice-cream! We then were given a small tour of the town. It was so beautiful and medieval... cute, winding cobble-stone streets and on one street, even a small bridge between two houses that's goodness knows how many hundred years old.




Because my inner arts student went absolutely crazy when I saw in the tourist guide of Chambéry that Jean-Jacques Rousseau's old house was in Chambéry...and was a museum...we HAD to go. If you don't know who he is, you should feel ashamed and immediately do large amounts of philosophical research. Gladie ran into someone she knew from school working at the museum who gave us a personal guided tour. It was 'simple', the house - but beautiful and so historic! There was even some original furniture and all of the wallpaper too was original! Original means from at least the 1700s. Amazing.

Jean-Jaques Rousseau's bed!
                                                                                                  

It's not the Eiffel Tower, but it's Jean-Jaques Rousseau's house, COOLER! And Wendy and I are together in France!

Out the front of the house
Sunday morning I ran off to church and Wendy ran off to the other side of the country to continue her adventure. I was pleasantly surprised to find many more people at church on Sunday and even made some new friends. Monday was a long and tedious experience at the French consulate to activate my visa, but now it's done (thankfully I had no classes yesterday). I then spent the afternoon at a new friend's place (he made sushi!) with two other friends from church as well. It was so nice to just hang out and laugh and talk. We played a couple of fun games as well then went off to Family Home Evening at my church's centre for young adults.

The last 20 or so hours have been a bit ordinary. I'm really not feeling that great. It might be my brain exploding from talking in another language so quickly and so constantly or being physically exhausted as well - I don't know... but I had to leave class because I was dizzy and so tired that I was falling asleep...so today has been spent in bed, which I think is a wise move. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

But don't worry! I've got 'Le Petit Prince' to read (thanks to my friend Emmanuel) and a blue sky to stare at if I get tired of that - so all is OK.

Lots of lyonaise love,

Alice

Friday 2 September 2011

Nordic Home

The journey 'home' began at 10am on Saturday morning. I was planning to leave slightly later, but my mother told me it was better to be there with plenty of time..........(insert nervous motherly tones here). Of course I couldn't check-in until an hour before my flight, and subsequently spent 3 hours walking around...eating a raspberry tart (because there wasn't anywhere to sit)...and then cursing myself for eating another raspberry tart. Other than that, everything went smoothly...it was slightly embarrassing when I smiled sweetly at the guy at the departure gate in Zurich for Copenhagen, then my ticket made a negative noise when he scanned it. I was a bit eager apparently, as that was the flight before mine. With my tail between my legs I climbed the stairs again to the departure lounge, listened to some awesome music and counted down the 30 minutes till real boarding.

It was so fantastic to see Micha again - but three whole years had been three whole years too many. It's so strange that she has two children now. They're gorgeous, but because I didn't see her pregnant, it's almost as if I can't believe that they actually belong to her. We came home and spent some time with Micha and Søren (her husband) after the children went to sleep.

Sunday was my birthday. Asger (the 2 year old) came parading into my bedroom carrying a Danish flag. We had breakfast, got ourselves looking a bit more put together, and set off for Copenhagen. This is what we saw.



We had lunch at Ny Havn (which is where the first photo was taken), forced the children to go to sleep, and fought of the cold (it's been colder here than back in Victoria now). Afterwards, we got ice-cream. Asger was pretty happy about this, but he was also feeling the cold.





Toke (Micha's younger brother) came to stay on Sunday evening. We had a traditional Danish meal (which I really love) and then I got to spend some time catching up with Toke. He's about to finish up his masters degree and is hoping to sell an animated children's series with some class-mates next month. I was lucky enough to see the promo which was really cool. I can't see why it wouldn't sell. 

Monday was a walk in the park (literally! It wasn't an easy day..but we had some time for a few smilies in spite of the rain and a few off moments with the little ones). This is what we saw:




Asger had his arms around Johan. SO adorable.


On Tuesday we went to a little town, as Micha needed to do a few things. We returned home with a million pairs of shoes for Asger (as apparently now is the time to buy winter shoes etc). I think she enjoyed having the freedom to do a few chores while I looked after the baby. Afterwards we went to the church where the boys (and Micha) were christened. It was a sweet little church that only has room for 40 people or so. It had a cute little garden and a simple but elegant feel. 

 


That night we had Anja and David (and their two sons) over for dinner. I made another pavlova. If I learn anything this year it will be how to master the art of the pavlova. Seven weeks in Europe and I've made 5 odd pavlovas. They seemed to enjoy it. I taught Asger how to count in English. He's a very enthusiastic student. He's celebrating his second birthday today. I was disappointed that I had to go back to Lyon the day before. Yesterday we took some last photos and I made the difficult journey to the airport. I'll be back home soon - that's for sure. I'm not going to miss the Danish weather though. It was 10 degrees during the day while I was in Denmark! Tuesday I was so cold that my eyes and nose were watering! It became hard to remember the warmth of Lyon.

 

So I'm back in Lyon now. Last night I went to meet Wendy (a friend from JCH) at the station.  We were pretty excited to see each other! We spent last night catching up, and then this morning I started uni! It was mostly administrative things. We had to sit an exam (it was fine) and tomorrow I start actual classes. I'll write about it and my other Lyon adventures in the following days.

I miss you guys! I'll get around to more postcards soon and do the 'write' thing haha. Pun.
Until then, 

Alice