i figure there's no better opportunity to take the time away from studying to procrastinate by telling you about the last five months that i've failed to mention before i created this blog.... be prepared for the longest post you will ever read!
where to start off... well i guess leaving for the airport was the most ridiculous moment of my life... i don't think i've ever been so happy and excited, yet miserably sad at the same time as when we pulled out of the driveway at my apartment and i said goodbye to everyone... and well, saying goodbye to the fam and emma and inferno at the airport was a whole 'nother level... i'm pretty sure by the time i actually made it on the plane i was so emotionally drained that i had no choice but to sleep the entire way, so sleep i did.
next thing i know i've landed in rejkyavik, iceland; and the adventure had begun! went and caught the bus i needed to get to downtown rejkyavik (which is by far the weirdest town i've seen.. its all just like volcanic tundra and barren land, i don't know how people live there!) once at the bus station i had the pleasure of killing three hours in an un-heated, practically outside building. after watching the sunrise in icelandic skies it was time for the blue lagoon hotsprings.
that place was incredible... mind you it would have been cool to have a friend instead of just floating around. note to you, if you ever do go here, do not put your hair in the water... my hair was a mess for a month afterwards, too many minerals and stuff goin' on in there! wow. but so beautiful. after three hours there i was so exhausted that i headed back to the airport until i had to catch my flight in a few hours. when the plane took off i got to watch the sunsetting
once i arrived in england i was reminded of just how retarded trying to communte with two suitcases that are both bigger than me was going to be.
trying to find my way onto the bus instead of just getting the metro like usual was near impossible! finally i managed and was off to the train station and up to rugby, where i got a cab onto misterton and was finally home.
my time in england was super chill, not a whole lot changes there so it's pretty casual when i go. but it's always nice to see the family and friends and catch up with everybody!
i think it was a good transition decision to go to england first though, because although its not home, its not some random country with a different language and nobody i know. it was definatly a wierd feeling though being there knowing i wasn't going to be home in a month or so like usual, and it took some serious getting used to! after the month though the fear wore off and i was itchin' to get to france and start the big adventure and see what it was all about!
saying goodbye to england was hard, but not as hard as usual. it was definatly a nice feeling knowing that they're not so far away this time. getting the train to to london and through the chunnel to paris was no problem (although going through the chunnel is nothing to write home about, and it's certainly not one of those things you should feel is neseccary to bother trying unless you need to) getting off the train in paris and realizing i had to figure out how to get to gare de lyon was a huge kick in the face. luckily, i somehow pulled it off just in time to catch my train to dijon. and once there it was a hunt to find mr. sanders. my awesome roomate, jeremy, was waiting for me holding a canadian flag and a sign with my name on it (you bet i felt important!) we walked back to chez anges, which is only about a 10 minute walk from la gare because our house is so central it hurts! chose my room and started to get settled in. i met anges and her boyfriend marc later on that evening, and then jessica arrived shortly after. jeremy took us out to a dijon soccer game that night which was a spectacle in itself
and then we were off to chez nous, a random hidden gem of a bar located conveniently enough, just behind my house. met a bunch of his friends and then it was definatly time to call it a night.
the weekend was pretty chill just trying to get my bearings straight and checkin out a movie. then there was the monstrosity of the entrance exam at school, which was interesting to say the least..... but after that we had a week to just hang out and meet a bunch of people in the same boat as us and do fun things like organized class trips and tours of beaune and dijon, it was ever so sweet!
(l: vineyard near beaune, r: the old hosptial in beaune)
luckily on the day of the entrance exam i met a bunch of really sweet people so life was pretty decent from the get go. it was amazing to see how good it felt to hear someone speaking your native tongue when you're in a country surrounded by frogs, so this made it super easy for people to get along and mingle.
naturally, the first friday after meeting everyone it would only be appropriate to help camilla throw a housewarming party for her new apartment. this was a horrible realization of how many different customs we're going to have to get used to, and fast, if we were ever to survive in this country. the night was hilarious and a total blast, even if about 4 million randoms showed up at the end and danielle almost fell off her chair screaming because some random dude tried beezbeez her hahaha golden. (bisous is when the french insist on kissing you on both cheeks, even if they have never met you before) from then on, it was like we'd been friends forever. camilla's place became the obvious hang out spot. next on the list was canadian thanksgiving, which was celebrated with cheap wine, turkey sandwiches, apple pie, and good company.
the next week or so was pretty much consumed with hitting the town and checkin' out la salsa and dancing on table tops, or partying it up with all my new pals... oh yeah, and of course school.
speaking of school, i got placed in neaveau 2 out of 5, which is just slightly above where they put the retards that struggle to say bonjour... so i felt like my placement was adequate to my abilities. my school schedule is great and i have class from 9-11 and 1-3 30 on mondays and wednesday, 11-1 and 2-4 on tuesdays, 11-1 thursdays and 9-11 fridays. when i'm at school my life consists of grammaire, comprehension orale, comprehension ecrites, expression ecrites, expression orale, and then of course, a little more grammaire. i've learned an insane amount since arriving at the start of october and find it hard to believe how far i've come... although i am still tres loins away from being fluent in any means... i'll keep dreaming!
on the weekend of october 24th we decided it was finally time to hit up paris. there's a sweet deal from dijon where if you take the first train in the morning and then last train home, its only
15€ for a return ticket! it turns out to be the longest day of your life though, but totally worth it in the end. having never been before we hit up all the typical tourist spots; the eiffel tower (which was too foggy to bother venturing up)
notre dame, musee d'orsay (from the outside at least), le louvre,
sacre coeur,
and who could forget, moulin rouge.
it was amazing to actually see it all in person, but really it just gave me the urge to want to see more, see further... and start exploring the countries around us. by this time we'd already caved and bought tickets with ryanair to fly to italy for 20
€ (or so it seems when you're hastily booking it, until you realize that the plane ticket will actually be the cheapest part of your trip.. but you live and you learn, and we we're stoked regardless.
however, before the travelling could commence, we still had to celebrate halloween! everybody knows that halloween is my absolute favorite holiday, so i gotta say i was totally bummed to find out that they don't celebrate it here. no costumes anywhere, no decorations up, rien. i made it my personal mission to find every shop window in dijon with a halloween display, and was over the moon when i found a pumpkin i could carve. of course a holiday as epic as this, means an equally epic party at camilla's. the night was insane and everyone dressed up. definatly one of the best parties to date still.
(i was a gumball machine)
then comes november, and what a month november was. i don't think i spent a single weekend actually in france this month, and it will be a month i will never forget. first i caught a ride up to brussels, belgium with a bunch of friends, and stopped in luxembourg on the way.
luxembourg was a really pretty city, but since il a pluet comme une vache qui pisse (one of my favorite new phrases francais - it's raining like a pissing cow) it was hard to appreciate it and enjoy it a lot. but nice none-the-less.
belgium was not long enough. i loved this city, it was so diverse and really cool. there were sweet art galleries everywhere and so many different cultures blended into one, it was great. and so much beer... and the waffles, oh my god.
how could you not love this place, especially when every chocolatiere in town offers you free samples when you walk in the door! my first hostel experience was about an hour outside of brussels in tournai, and it wasn't bad at all.
it had an incredible breakfast and the town was really quaint. we spent the next whole day touring around brussels and checking out all the sites and taking everything in.
(mannekin pis)
then that evening it was back to dijon we go! definatly on my list of places to see again!
the next weekend after belgium it was time to head to italy! we knew getting on the train to paris that this was going to be one hell of a trip. we had four days, four nights and four cities to get through... two of those nights with no where to sleep and planning on winging it and sleep en route through the night, or simply at the train station. we took off from dijon to paris mid afternoon on the 11th and had the fiasco of making our way from paris to "paris beauvais" airport, which is really about an hour's drive through the black forest and completely outside of paris. from there we fly to pisa, italy; and on the bus we jumped to take us on to florence. took us a while to actually find the hostel in florence and then took us even longer to wake up the owners of the hostel to actually let us in. by the time we went to bed i think it was almost 2 and we were up and at 'em no later than 8. having only a day in florence we hit it hard and made our way around what i would consider a pretty hefty portion of the city. saw so much there; the duamo (the 4th largest cathedral in europe),
pointe vecchio,
hiked up the 163 steps to make it to the top of piazzale michelangelo (twice! with a view that incredible we just had to go back one last time)
where met a lovely pervy old man who apparently tries to seduce all the young ladies at the top of piazzale michelangelo... but he did give us a good tip to check out the grave at the top where we could find the grave of
E. Cherubini, the author of pinocchio (which we actually couldn't find in the end, but it was the most incredible grave yard i've ever seen), checked out the chiesa di santa croce, ate one of the BEST meals i've ever had in my life at trattoria il contadino
(seriously, that food will live on in my dreams) and of course rubbed the snoz of the wild boar outside of the mercato nuovo to ensure that one day we will return to that beautiful city.
from there we had to walk to the other side of the city to catch some z's next to the homeless people at the train station in firenze (which is not indoors what-so-ever, and its bloody freezing in italy in mid-november!) eventually we boarded the train at around 2:30am and were off on our luxurious ride to venice, where we literally had to pull some serious yoga type moves so that we could all get SOME sleep. 5:30 came much sooner then expected and we all rolled off the train and into the gorgeous city of venice. even if we couldn't appreciate it at the time, we got to experience the streets all to ourselves before the city was even close to waking up. as the streets began to stir we stumbled upon san marco square just in time to watch the sunrise over the grand canal.
it was really neat to get to see san marco square actually flooded, made you realize that that town really is sinking... but it was also nice to have it all dry up and sort its self out as the sun came up. first stop was up to the top of the campanile (the bell tower) on the first ride up.
the view was utterly amazing! everyone says that the best thing to do while you're in venice is to just walk around and get lost, and appreciate the city on the way. i couldn't agree with anything more. every corner was breathtaking and there was constantly another canal to walk along or another bridge to cross. i loved it there. danielle and i were able to have some time in the afternoon to get out on our own together and we couldn't have been happier. we ate some delicious gelato and and a good old laugh when danielle decided to take a dip in the canal
(and take it like a champ considering how freezing it was!) i spent the majority of the rest of the day laughing my head off everytime the image replayed in my mind in slow motion hahaha danielle and i did our best to see the outer parts of the city as we wanted to see as much of it as we could, i think we did a pretty good job, but really we did a better job of getting lost. we met up with the other girls for dinner and then found a local italian bar where we got some drinks...
one thing lead to another, and next thing you know danielle and i are determined to find a rooftop to climb upon. after searching around the town, and thinking about if it would be better to fall off a rooftop into a canal or onto the street, we decided to settle for climbing out the window of our b&b onto the shanty scaffolding that was outside our building and climbing up to the top.
once we reached the peak and realized they were retiling the roof and it was slightly raining at this point we made the wise decision it would not be wise to go clambering along the rooftop.. but it was quite the adventure regardless. it must have been at least 2am by the time we made it to bed again, and after getting about 9 hours sleep in two days it seemed like it would be impossible to move the next day. but being determined to enjoy every second we were in italy we managed to crawl our asses out of bed and walk the half an hour back to san marco square in time for 6am sunrise...
which in the end it was far to cloudy to be able to even see... but since we're up, might as well enjoy the day! went and checked out the fisherman's market
and then walked as fast as our little legs could take us to the other end of the island to see chiesa della salute, and stand at what i like to consider the edge of the world.
i could have sat there forever... but instead we had to race back to the train station to catch our train home. after some delays and a bit of grief we finally made it back to the pisa airport just in time to catch our flight back to paris.... and sweet jesus, isn't that a whole 'nother story! knowing that we had to spend a night in paris before heading home to dijon and thinking it would be no problem, our brilliant plan for the night was to bunker down in gare de lyon and try and finally catch some sleep. this worked for about 45 minutes until around 1am when very scary french security guards with even scarier dogs came to tell us that the train station was closing and we had to get the f out. parfait. what do you do at 1am in paris when you have the whole night to kill and nowhere to go? this is a very good question. at first we attempted to go from hotel lobby to hotel lobby trying to get a little bit of sleep, but after getting kicked out of about the 3rd lobby we quickly gave up and started looking for a plan b. turns out plan b is find a bar thats open all night long and enjoy it as much as you can. being beyond broke and completely exhausted makes this quite difficult... but somehow 1 beer each and 5 hours later we were settling our bill at the bar and traipsing off to gare de bercy to pray to god it was open an we could sleep. seeing as the train station didn't open for an hour we decided to say sod it and sleep outside the doors, on the disgusting pavement in the freezing cold, until somebody felt sorry enough to let us in side. finally, after what seemed like an eternity, we were on the train heading home. i have never been so happy in my entire life to see my bed, and i'm pretty sure at that moment we became one. with 13 hours of sleep in 4 days it was hard to appreciate this trip at the time, but now it all seems like the perfect voyage. italy was amazing and its a definite must see place. if i could go back and do it all again, i wouldn't change a thing. many life lessons came out of this trip.
wow, longest post of life, if you are still reading this somehow i congratulate you... and would just like to say, this is the end of chapter one. i hope you're ready for chapter 2... so much more to come!
