TGIF!!

Finally, Friday arrives. This has been such an exhausting week...that 8 page monster very nearly beat me. I've gotten very little sleep this week, mainly because my mind has been racing non-stop for the paper such that even when I did (finally) collapse into bed, it would take me another hour or two to actually fall asleep. This wouldn't have been such a problem, if it weren't for the fact that I was up working on the paper until 12.30 in the morning...on a good day! but it's done and handed in...certainly not my greatest work, but it's DONE.

it was amazing how relieving it was to hand it in. I left the classroom (after M Ligneureux (I can't spell or say his name to save my life) had joked about our "petites textes" - little papers. HAH) and all of a sudden, it literally felt as though a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. it's such a clichéd expression, but it was true -for everyone in the class, too! I had a chance to do things I haven't done for weeks - like clean my room, or...I don't know...sleep...

the blessing of the day on thursday, though, was grâce à (thanks to) facebook. I was sitting in the computer lab (4am before the final paper is due...cursing the world that I didn't start sooner and seeing the rest of my class there too! well not really but I couldn't resist the avenue q reference!) before class, putting the finishing touches on my paper. I had gotten environs (approximately) 4.5-5 hours of sleep...I hadn't showered since tuesday (gross, n'est pas? camp whitman this is not...not showering is even worse in France, where all the women are perfectly coiffed every morning. unless they have dreadlocks...but I digress), I didn't even bother with my contacts, let alone make-up - I was wearing sweats and a hoodie, for goodness sake! I was staring at the computer, exhausted and disgusted with myself that I was about to hand in such an awful paper when I decide to check facebook. waiting in my inbox was the following message:

"“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

I love you and I hope the end of your semester is not too stressful. You will survive, as will I."

Thank you, Girl Power Camp. 5 months later, Akeelah and Kristen are still giving me hope and strength to make it through until the next day. and yes, I just about started crying when I read it =D

speaking of Girl Power Camp...I had to laugh during Conversation Club this past week. We were talking about our jobs and I mentioned Camp Whitman...the girls I was talking to asked what kinds of things I did at camp. I mentioned the usual sailing camps, kayak camps, music camps...and then mentioned Girl Power camp. they both laughed and said "what, did you spend the week listening to a lot of Spice Girls?" ...even in France I get that reaction...

This weekend should be good...while I found out today that I still have 3 more papers to write (this time for the classes at the fac that I haven't had for three weeks and wont have until December 11th at the earliest), I'm not letting it get to me. Two of them are practically women's studies papers anyway! I'm going to go to the Marché de Noël tomorrow and enjoy myself and eat roasted chestnuts and drink hot wine and maybe even ride the carousel and then go out dancing at -where else - Havana Café in the evening.

and I plan on enjoying every minute of it, papers be hanged!

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24 days?

Not possible. simply not possible. my first semester is almost done...I'll be back on American soil in 24 days...

life has been relatively...insane, as always, here. I have an 8 page monster of a research paper due on thursday that's making this week a living cauchemar (nightmare). however...last week/weekend were fabulous.

Thanksgiving à la françias wasn't anything like Thanksgiving back home, but it was an enjoyable evening all the same! It gave us girls a chance to dress up, 'cause when the sign says "tenue élégant," you know we're all going to take it to heart. Besides, we all brought our "little black dresses" and needed an excuse to wear them! The repas (meal) wasn't "Thanksgiving" at all, but it was yummy - and the french chef's attempt at pumpkin pie was rather entertaining, to say the least! It was a little strange to share my thanskgiving meal with my history professor, though... but again, it was a very enjoyable evening.

Friday was the fun part...I went over to Brianna's house to make a "real" thanksgiving feast - as real as you can get with french ingredients, at any rate! We spent the afternoon cooking and laughing and just being fools...it was FANTASTIC. a little anachronistic to have a group of 20something women cooking together during the 21st century, but that made it all the better. and Brianna payed me a VERY high compliment - I'm not white anymore. we've become such good friends that color just doesn't even exist anymore. I'm so glad she's staying the whole year too...we're gonna go to Greece and Egypt together for spring break. at least...that's the plan right now =D

this past weekend I went to Rennes with Alyce...it was good to take a weekend to just chill and goof off...and eat bonbecs (=bonbon=candy) while watching SuperNanny (the french version! there are french brats too!!) and go exploring the city. the metro in Rennes is SO crazy high tech...it was impressive. I much prefer my above ground tram system, though...I get to see more of Nantes that way. heh not a lot more, but at least I see the streets on the way to the fac!

...speaking of the fac, the grèves continue. thus I could sit here and update my poor neglected blog. I'm almost starting to doubt that I'll ever have a class at the fac again this semester...

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Quand le ciel bas et lourd pèse comme un couvercle...

(When the low and heavy sky weighs down like a coffin...)

Welcome to the world of Baudelaire. It's the first line of one of his more famous poems "Spleen." I had to do an analysis of it last year for intro to francophone texts. It was not until today, however, that I truly understood what he was talking about.

Baudelaire must have spent his winters in Nantes.

The winters here are incredibly...déprimant (depressing). I woke up today to see sunshine and blue skies. by lunchtime, the weather was absolutely DISGUSTING. Grey skies, heavy clouds and miserable cold rain. It won't snow here, but it in the Bretagne region in sure does rain. A lot. the kind of rain where I want nothing more than to stay in bed with a good book and a mug of tea and read all day. Instead, I have to pretend to be productive when the weather puts me in an incredibly UNproductive kind of mood. I told my French Writers prof that the weather was disgusting and that it was making me grincheuse (grumpy) and he said "of course -you're suffering from the Spleen". I realized he's exactly right: now I can say I truly understand Baudelaire. of course, I'm not sure if that's a good thing...

in other news...the grèves continue. There's supposedly going to be lots of manifestations tomorrow...I'm gonna go take my camera and lots of extra batteries! Of course, since I won't have classes tomorrow at the fac (the president closed ALL the buildings at the fac until wednesday), I can get lots of work done. Fortunately; part of my work consists of reading a novel, so the morning is going to be spent in bed reading like I wanted to do today =D

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Americans = Prudes?

Well, en rapport à ( in facing ) my latest French experience, I can only conclude that Americans are body-shy prudes.

Let's backtrack, shall we? for my carte de sejour (a legal document I have to have to live here for a year) I had to have a rendez-vous chez le medcin (a doctor's appointment). I go to the doctors yesterday morning and the nurse does the usual heightweighteyecheckareyouhealthy? runthrough. I'm then sent to another room to wait for a bit...then I get to have pulmonary x-rays! oh boy! so I walk into the x-ray room and the x-ray technician tells me to go put my stuff in the little adjoining room and strip from the waist up and then come back out for the x-ray. I walk into the little room, expecting to find that nice paper shirt for modesty purposes...nope. nothing. the room was empty. I guess the french just aren't nearly as awkward about nudity when it comes to medical visits...I was just confused. I'm so used to the American manner of covering yourself when at the doctors as much as is possible by the nature of the visit. and then of course the technician (thank GOD it was a woman...) was just standing there talking to me when I came back out as I'm awkwardly trying to figure out whether I should just stand there as is...or attempt the glaringly obvious arms-crossed-over-my-chest-for-modesty pose. It was hilarious, in a slightly uncomfortable way! Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore...

encore des photos!

I uploaded a few more pictures...the albums entitled "Ma Vie en France" and "for the benefit of non-facebook peoples" have new photos =D

only in France...part 2,357,573,486

I've had some pretty bizarre things happen to me in the course of my schooling. There was the time in highschool that the whole school went into lockdown because of a turkey hunter...the time I saw my (male) math teacher wearing a dress...and then the time in college when the police were called just because we were playing in the snow...but I think my experience here in France might just top all of that.

I went to the fac today for my 8amclassfromhell a.k.a. La Princesse de Clèves after having nearly given myself a nervous breakdown yesterday trying to finish the paper for said class. I got to the fac, bought myself my 35centime tuesday morning cup of coffee (yes, I know - I don't like coffee, but it's the only thing that gets me through that class) and headed downstairs. I turn the corner and see...what looks like a REALLY bad senior prank. Every desk and chair has been removed from the classroom and piled up in the hallway, literally barracading the doors into the classrooms.

Why, you ask? Because France is a culture of grèves - strikes. Yes, the students are on strike. It sounds like a highschool freshman's dream come true...but in fact it's rather annoying. I stood around for a while, drinking my coffee and laughing at the sight in front of me. I was, of course, extremely irked that I had nearly killed myself to write that damn paper and I got up entirely too early for (apparently) no reason. That's right...class was cancelled! how often do you get to say class was cancelled because the students went on strike? The strike, by the way, is because the government is considering "privitizing" the university system...I put that in quotes only because I know that's not quite the right term for it, but it's the closest I could come. translation gets in the way. but at any rate...once again, I find myself shaking my head and saying...only in France!

in other news...Alex's visit this past weekend was fun! Granted, it made me realize that I don't know the tourist side of Nantes...I live here, after all, and it's not a "hotspot" on the tourist map. But we had a fun weekend...aside from the weird moment when the tram est tombé en panneau (had a breakdown) while we were halfway across the Loire...we decided that we shouldn't be allowed to be in Europe together - nothing goes right when we are! Oh and dinner on Saturday was absolutely hilarious...we went to a restaurant and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves with my Nantais girls...we were obnoxiously loud and completely American, laughing our heads off and enjoying life to the hilt. The snotty french boys at the next table over actually had the gall to shush us...and they were our age! so we ignored them and continued laughing and chatting as we had been - it was amazing, I haven't laughed like that in so long!

yesterday was a pretty rough day - a stage 2 day to the extreme where I just wanted to be at Wooster. Granted, it was all stupid facebook's fault - I was looking at Val's pictures of the Let's Dance! tango performance and I REALLY wanted to be there to participate. I still miss my dance group...the salsa and tango classes are fun here, but it's just not same. I just don't want to go back my senior year and find out that I don't fit in with Let's Dance! anymore...add to that my schoolwork stress and the stupid conference I had to go to on Vladimir Putin and it was a very very very bad day. but Alex made it better...she sent me the french translation for the word "angst" (we have a running joke about being angsty) and it was "angoisse existentialiste" - existential anguish! so while I was suffering yesterday from quite a bit of existential angst, I'm happy to report that it has since lessened.

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The Barcelona Saga

Thursday was the travel day. I left for Paris in the morning and then we got the bus to the airport in the evening. Once on the plane – only plane I’ve been on where seating was first come, first serve…I was amazed that Alex and I got seats next to each other! We found the plane entirely too amusing…they had the safety stuff posted on the seat in front of you…we somehow managed to keep ourselves amused for a good 20 minutes laughing at the pictures and making up our own explanations for what the pictures meant. I plead the fact that it was 11 at night…and the best part was a LOST moment. Alex and I were discussing what would happen if the plane split apart like in LOST…she said “Well, as long as we’re in the very front or the very back, we’ll be okay.” I look in front of me. I look behind me. I look at her and say “We’re smack dab in the middle.” “…crap!” It was really funny at the moment, anyway…

We got to the Girona Airport and had to get a shuttle to Barcelona…getting ON the damn bus was an experience in and of itself! Ever watched rugby? Ever seen a scrum? You know, where each team slams into each other to get the ball? Yeah, that’s what getting onto the bus felt like, though apparently the bus itself was the rugby ball. It was INSANE. There was one woman who was being pushed back and down so hard on my bag (which was slung across my chest) that it was putting insane amounts of stress onto a pressure point in my shoulder/neck…I couldn’t breathe at one point. Good times…but then I (literally) elbowed the guy next to me so that Alex and I could get onto the bus. She and I were both amazed that we had that kind of aggression in us! It was worth it, though, if for nothing but the view on the way to Barcelona. Not the view of the countryside, mind you. It was too dark to see any of that…but the stars were AMAZING. Whenever I leave my aparte before sunrise (which is thankfully less frequent thanks to daylight savings time) I look up to see Orion above my head. Not only did I see ALL of Orion from the bus window (head, body, belt, sword, even his bow!) but I also found Canus major/minor, the Gemini twins, and even the Pleiades! It might not mean anything to you all, but it was a fabulous way to start my sejour (stay) in Barcelone!

We finally made it to Barcelona…got in cab, since it was 2 in the morning, and gave the taxi driver the address of the Graffiti Hostel. He was a nice taxi driver…he not only waited to make sure we got inside safely, but he also got out of the cab to help us out when we couldn’t get into the hostel. We make our way upstairs to the reception desk…this half-asleep Spanish guy greets us and mumbles something (in so thick an accent that I wasn’t even sure it was English he was speaking) about being overbooked. He looks at us and informs us that, “we do have one bed left…[and this is said in the most pitiful half-asleep little-boy voice I’ve ever heard] but it’s my bed!” He disappears for about 10 minutes (Alex and I tell ourselves it’s to change the sheets…) and then takes us to his room. He apologizes profusely for the mess – it looks like the worst dorm room EVER! There’s stuff everywhere, but then again it’s technically where he lives. We look up at the top bunk (we’ll be sleeping on the bottom bunk) and realize there’s a random half-naked Spanish guy watching TV! We start giggling like middle school girls at the absolute awkwardness and sketchiness of the room, but we were beyond the point of caring, we were so exhausted. We collapsed into bed without even bothering to change into pjs (also there was the random male roommate…) and pass out. The funniest part was when we hear the door slam at 7 and another guy comes in and falls into the bed next to us and starts snoring in a way I didn’t think was humanly possible. Quite literally falls into bed, too–his legs were splayed out hanging off it! We decided he must have had to have been drunk to sleep like that! We ran into him later in the day and realized that he’s another employee at the hostel. He told us that Juan (the guy whose bed in which we slept) would “figure out where we were sleeping” when he got on duty later that night. He hardly sounded convincing, so we left to go explore Barcelona.

(Of course, being the mature young women that we are, we decided to make our already-sketchy story even sketchier – When in Barcelona, we slept in a random guy’s bed with a half-naked man on top of us! Sounds much worse than it really was, but we burst out laughing every time we said it!

Our first stop was Sagrada Familia, but the line was ridiculously long, so we went to Park Guell instead. It’s the famous park the artist/architect Gaudi designed…it was in one of the most fabulous French films, L’Auberge Espagnole! It was incredible…I’ve never seen anything like it! All of his work is modeled after the natural world, so everything looks like it’s growing out of the ground or something like that…and there was mosaic EVERYWHERE. I’ve decided I very much like mosaic designs! We headed next to Place d’Espanya to try to find some lunch. Unfortunately, all of the menus outside the restaurants were in Spanish. Duh, of course, we WERE in Spain after all – but I never realized how intimidating it is to be in a foreign country where I DON’T speak the language! We chickened out of trying to eat at a restaurant and finally found a boulangerie (bakery). We literally pointed at the sandwich we wanted and smiled. Iwas was PATHETIC. It makes me appreciate my French skills…and makes France seem SO easy in compairison! After our humiliating meal as Tourists (yes, with a Capital T) we walked to this castle/palace/bigfancybuilding and just laid in the grass next to a fountain for a while. It was so nice to just laze about and enjoy the Mediterranean sun and the laid-back lifestyle. I was only there two days, but I could tell day one that they take life at a slower, easier pace than France or the US. We then took the metro back to Sagrada Familia and got gelato (of course!) and then went into the cathedral. It was absolutely amazing…construction was started in 1882 and it’s STILL unfinished…designed again by Gaudi. It really is indescribable…a masterpiece not only of art but also of mathematics – there were all these signs describing the math behind the construction – I didn’t really understand it…but it was pretty to look at!! Afterwards we went to dinner with my Nantes girls (it seems like half of IES Nantes went to Barcelona!) and went to a bar to hang out for a while…the conversation turned morbid talking about death and funerals, but whatever! We headed back to the hostel shortly thereafter…Alex and I were absolutely exhausted. When we got to the hostel, we ran into none other than Erin – fellow Woosterite! We didn’t know that she was coming to Barcelona for her break, let alone that she and her friends were staying in the same hostel as us! …small world…

Grace à (thanks to) the overbooking, we once again got no beds – instead we had slept slumber-party style in the TV room on a fold out couch. Well…the cushions folded out into a sort of pseudo bed…even MY shins were dangling off the edge, it was that small! One of Erin’s friends slept on a beanbag, and the other on another too-small cushionbedthing. It wasn’t the most comfortable things by any stretch of the imagination, but by this point I was starting to get a headcold…I was so exhausted I slept like a rock anyway. Needless to say, I wasn’t terribly impressed by the Graffiti Hostel, but the overbooking wasn’t their fault. But at any rate, it was a safe place to sleep and it wasn’t terribly expensive – and it makes a great story!

Saturday, we started our day off by heading to the Gothic Quarter…the original Barcelona, if you will. The roads were more like alleys, they were so narrow, and the buildings were so old…it was beautiful. Alex and I found our future home - the Viceroy Palace. When you walk in, you find yourself in this huge, beautiful atrium. There are no windows, so it’s so airy and the walls are yellow, which makes it even brighter. It was so lovely…there were plants climbing around the ceilings which gave it such a fresh feeling. I’m ready to move in! Inside, there was an exhibit from the Archives of the Crown of Aragon, (sorry, Gerald, I couldn’t find your name. I blame the fact that they were all in Spanish and Catalonian!) Being the bibliophile that I am, I loved looking at these centuries-old books…they were SO pretty. There were all these intricate covers of leather, some of wood, others covered in jewels or precious stones…it really was amazing. After wandering around the Gothic Quarter for a bit longer, we went to find la plage –the beach! After all, we were on the Mediterranean –we couldn’t NOT go to the beach! We walked in the surf for a bit…and got SOAKED by one particularly sneaky wave. I tend to forget that je suis un peu plus petite que mes amies (I’m a little smaller than my friends) so the waves that get them wet just above their knees gets me up to my butt! It was COLD, but it was fun to play in the Mediterranean. We went to the mall for a while and then just sat on the boardwalk/dock for a bit, relaxing and enjoying the sun.

After a while, we headed to Las Ramblas, which is essentially the tourist road of Barcelona – tons of pavilion tents with knickknacks for sale and these REALLY neat statue people…you know, the ones that stand still as stone and actually look like statues! Well, some of the people were better than others, but there were some really creative ones. There was a demon/zombie that was entirely TOO good – he looked dead, except that his eyes would follow you as you walked by him…SI creepy. We then went to my FAVORITE part of Barcelona –the Magic Fountain of Montjuic. It’s a relatively unimpressive fountain by day (well, it’s dry, so that’s part of it) but at night…it really is magical. They play music and have lights on the fountain and it’s just…beautiful. I kind of felt like I was in the middle of the (first) Disney Fantasia…it was incredible. The mist from the fountain gave it an incredibly ephemeral look…add to that colored lights and it was even more amazing. I highly enjoyed it! Afterwards we went to dinner with Erin and her friends and got pizza and sangria – such a refined palate, I know – and chatted en francais. We figured in the middle of Las Ramblas it’d be better to speak en francais so as to not be *too* obviously American. The sangria, by the way, was quite good - Alex and I split one, since the "cups" they came in were huge - they were more like bowls!

We went back to the hostel and ended up in the TV room again. They only charged us a grand total of 22 euros for the three nights– we should have paid 66! Needless to say, I’m okay with the deal we got! Since Alex and I had to leave at 2.30ish in the morning to get our 3.45 shuttle back to Girona (6.50 in the morning flight = very bad idea) so we just sat around watching tv and dozing on and off for a couple hours. We ended up sleeping (well, I can’t speak for Alex, but I did!) on the bus…and then again on the plane…and then again on the bus back to Paris…and then I slept some more on the train back to Nantes…and yet I was STILL exhausted by the end of Sunday.

All in all, it was a pretty fantastic trip! I could have done without the sketchy sleeping arrangements, the getting sick thing, and the early-morning departures, but I’m so happy we went! And considering we did the whole thing (travel wise, not food/souvenir wise) for less than 200 euros, it was SO worth it.

Back in Nantes this past week…I’ve been SO tired. Trying to recover from the weekend in Spain, trying to recover from being sick, and trying to do work all at once – and all in French – is NOT so easy. But Alex is coming to Nantes tomorrow!! And I’m gonna take her to the Havana Café Saturday night, so that’ll be a good stress-reliever for me =D

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(your reward for reading the whole post...A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words and miscellaneous people photos!)

caught in a whirlwind?

Yes, I'm back from Barcelona.
Yes, I'm exhausted.
Yes, I'm working on writing up a huge entry/uploading pictures.

yes, life is chaotic as always and I don't know when anything will get done =D