25.1.11
Une année déjà?!
"A year ago today I landed in France to start my semester abroad. I can't believe that it's already over and an entire year has passed, but I realize how much I've changed in that year, largely in part to my time abroad. It's easy to be nostalgic for the city, people, and experiences that shaped the best semester of my life, but I also look forward to what the future holds for us ♥ Je vous aime, mes amis français!"
15.5.10
Dos Dias en Barcelona
So there we were, in a train station in Barcelona at 6 am with nothing to do, nowhere to go, and 8 hours of crappy sleep on a cramped, cold bus; the obvious thing to do? Have naptime in a corner of the station! Fortunately no one told us we had to leave (not like I would have understood what they were saying had someone told us that); this brings me to another important point: I speak about as much Spanish as we learned in a semester of high school, which I took 3 years ago. We made it through pretty well with what Spanish we did know, but unfortunately, we had been speaking French not 12 hours ago, so it was really easy to respond with a “merci” instead of a “gracias.” I’m pretty sure everyone we encountered in Spain thought we were loco. Anyway, we ate breakfast at the McDonald’s in the train station because it was the only place open (and had the “American breakfast combo”) and had managed to waste enough time to lock up our luggage at the train station and head to the Sagrada Familia. We were pretty close to the front of the line to get in and going that early ended up being a great decision, since it was pretty packed by the time we left, just an hour or so later. The cathedral itself is certainly impressive and amazingly detailed, though I do now understand why the world “gaudy” was influenced by “Gaudi.” We took the elevator up to the top, and since the sun had come out, the views of Barcelona were amazing. After the cathedral, we walked around in search of much-needed coffee. We found a place where we got coffee and ate lunch (tortilla for me and paella for my mom); we were near the beach, so we spent some time enjoying the sunshine and the Mediterranean for a while, which was absolutely glorious, especially since that’s the last time we saw the sun in Barcelona. There was a metro near our hotel, but from the train station it would have required multiple line changes, and we figured that walking with our bags would be easier than trying to maneuver them onto and off of trains; although that may have been true, I don’t think we realized quite how far it was to the hotel, so we were pretty tired (and tired of our luggage) by the time we got there. We took naps and recharged for a while in the hotel; by the time we had eaten dinner, the rain had started, and we got caught in a torrential downpour. We turned in pretty early after that, with plans to start anew the next morning. Unfortunately, the rain hadn’t left by morning, and it was way colder than expected, which always puts me in a bad mood. Our first plan of the day was Park Guell, so we took the metro near there and found a local diner-like place to eat breakfast (bocadillas con queso y café con leche). We eventually found the Park, after a little wandering/direction-asking (in Spanish), and even though I was still pretty grumpy for the first bit of it, it ended up being fun despite the rain and cold. The park was really cool (it would have been more so in the sunshine, but I’ll just have to go back I guess :D); again, some of Gaudi’s things would have been a little too much somewhere else or in larger quantities, but for the park they worked. After some more coffee, we headed back to the area where we had eaten lunch to find “the elephant” and see their Arch of Triumph (Arc de Triomf). We wandered around the park a little, and when we couldn’t find the elephant (I knew about it because 2 friends of mine have taken pictures with it when they were in Barca), decided to ask a passer-by. Which ended up being the highlight of my day. We said, in Spanish, excuse me. The guy replied, in French, that he wasn’t familiar with the area. So I asked, in French, if he had seen an elephant (It sounds way dumber now in English than it did in other languages haha). He then told us that he was Canadian (causing Stephanie to do an internal happy dance) so we concluded our conversation in English; it was just really cool to be able to speak, albeit not perfectly, in 3 different languages. We found the elephant, took our pictures, and wandered around the rest of the park before heading more into the city center; once there, we attempted to find the cathedral (talk about anticlimactic) and went to the FC Barcelona store to buy my brother a Thierry Henry jersey because we are an awesome mother/sister like that. We wandered down some small, residential streets off the main road, which made me think that maybe living in Barcelona for some time could be really cool. Guess we’ll see…we ate dinner at a café (owned by a Spanish-speaking Chinese lady) across the street from our hotel before heading to Chupitos, which came highly recommended from multiple people. All I’m going to say is that if there were a Chupitos near me and the drinking age weren’t retarded, I would spend so much time and money trying all of the 200 shots, and I would have every birthday party there for the rest of forever. However, since our time was limited to one night, my mom and I only tried 3 each; I had the Bob Marley, the Furby, and the Barça while my mom had the Carolina, the Boy Scout, and the Cherokee. Our flight to Milan was pretty early the next morning, so we couldn’t spend too much time out and had to turn in just as Chupitos was starting to get a crowd. Overall, Barcelona would have been a lot more enjoyable had it been warm and sunny and had we had more time there, but it was still a beautiful and fun city that I definitely want to go back to and spend more time in.
Ma Mère et Moi à Grenoble
My last week in Grenoble was pretty standard as far as move out weeks go; I said goodbye to some amazing people, which was tough, but it’s easier when we’ve already made plans to see each other again :) It was weird being the last one from API Intensive (at least not in the extended program) to leave, but luckily Maguy and Darrel and Zainab were still around so I didn’t go completely insane with boredom and loneliness haha I packed up everything and was all ready to move out Friday morning before meeting my mom at the train station in Grenoble. Marie came to help me move out and even dropped me off at a tram stop so I could get into town; unfortunately, France was still France, and the public transportation workers had gone on strike for the 4th or 5th time this semester. Normally, there were reduced trams/buses, but there was always something running; of course, they would go on a complete, debilitating strike the day I was carrying 3 months’ worth of belongings through town. I called Marie, and Sarah came and drove me into town; it ended up being a good thing though because I got to tell Sarah goodbye too. The person who got the shortest end of the stick with the strike was my mom; for the 2 days she was in Grenoble there was a strike and then a national holiday and therefore not a single bus or tram running while she was there, so she couldn’t see any of the things outside of city center that were out of walking distance (i.e my residence and school). Luckily we were staying in city center and could walk most places, even if it took a little longer than expected. I dropped my bags off at the hotel and ran some errands until close to time for my mom’s train to arrive. It was so good to see her again; I was so excited that she had finally gotten to Europe and couldn't wait to share my “home” with her. We got checked into the hotel and set out to wander around Grenoble; there aren’t a ton of touristy things to do in Grenoble, so 2 days was an adequate amount of time. I gave her a tour of what I knew to see, and we did the téléphérique up to the Bastille both days (it was cloudy the first, so we went the second in hopes that it would be sunnier. It wasn’t, but it was still amazing).
Overall, it was really nice to be able to let my mom experience at least a little bit of what I had for 3 months; my mom tried different French foods (croque monsieur, crêpes, Nutella coffees, paninis) and saw some of the cultural things I had talked about first-hand. It was also cool for me to keep using my French in regular conversation with people and to show my mom how much French I had learned. We got a lot done in such a short amount of time (even though, like I said, there isn’t that much to do in Grenoble), partly because my mom is a champion of jet lag; seriously, I don’t know how she did it, but I think it definitely made things easier for her not having to sleep instead of sight-seeing. Our bus left at 10 pm, but we weren’t sure what time our train to Lyon would be, so we got up to the train station with our bags around 5 (and so began the battle with our luggage). We bought our tickets (after a little confusion and some less-than-friendly workers) and ate dinner before our train left around 6:30. We got to Lyon about 30 minutes before our train was to leave, and even though we were really stressed about whether or not we would find the bus depot, we got work done and found it in no time. We got as settled as you can on a bus and slept on and off through the night (I think I slept better than my mom did) despite the bus driver’s decision to put The Wolfman on – loudly and in Spanish. We were awakened when we got to the Spanish border and had to get our passports checked by France and then Spain; we were about the only people who didn’t get questioned (ah, the power of a United States passport), which was just as well because we didn’t speak enough French to discuss border crossings and such and didn’t speak enough Spanish to do much of anything besides order in a restaurant. We made it to the Barcelona Nord train station around 6 am, but I'll continue with Barcelona in the next post :)
Overall, it was really nice to be able to let my mom experience at least a little bit of what I had for 3 months; my mom tried different French foods (croque monsieur, crêpes, Nutella coffees, paninis) and saw some of the cultural things I had talked about first-hand. It was also cool for me to keep using my French in regular conversation with people and to show my mom how much French I had learned. We got a lot done in such a short amount of time (even though, like I said, there isn’t that much to do in Grenoble), partly because my mom is a champion of jet lag; seriously, I don’t know how she did it, but I think it definitely made things easier for her not having to sleep instead of sight-seeing. Our bus left at 10 pm, but we weren’t sure what time our train to Lyon would be, so we got up to the train station with our bags around 5 (and so began the battle with our luggage). We bought our tickets (after a little confusion and some less-than-friendly workers) and ate dinner before our train left around 6:30. We got to Lyon about 30 minutes before our train was to leave, and even though we were really stressed about whether or not we would find the bus depot, we got work done and found it in no time. We got as settled as you can on a bus and slept on and off through the night (I think I slept better than my mom did) despite the bus driver’s decision to put The Wolfman on – loudly and in Spanish. We were awakened when we got to the Spanish border and had to get our passports checked by France and then Spain; we were about the only people who didn’t get questioned (ah, the power of a United States passport), which was just as well because we didn’t speak enough French to discuss border crossings and such and didn’t speak enough Spanish to do much of anything besides order in a restaurant. We made it to the Barcelona Nord train station around 6 am, but I'll continue with Barcelona in the next post :)
20.4.10
Belgium: waffles, fries, chocolate, and Bruges, which is NOT "a shithole"
Okay, let me just say, I love Belgium. Despite the gauntlet that it was getting there, it was a really great weekend. We started in Brussels, and even though our very first impression of the city was Shana getting pickpocketed on the metro, the weather (sunny, warm, PERFECT) and the city itself really helped keep us in good moods. The coolest thing, I think, about at least big cities in Belgium is that they mix so many languages; in Brussels, we spoke English and French, plus people spoke Dutch and German and Spanish, and usually one or more languages were mixed together on signs and stuff. We were able to walk from the train station to the hostel through the financial district, which later was cool to compare to the historical city center. We used "2 Go 4," which has multiple hostels in Brussels and throughout the major cities of Europe; overall, they were really helpful and professional and their hostel was clean and well-located, all for a reasonable price; I would recommend them to anyone. We had to wait for our keys since we were supposed to check in the night before, so we walked around the city some. The awesome thing about Brussels is that it's small enough that you can walk to most places in about 5 or 10 minutes. We walked to the "Bourse" (a.k.a Stock Exchange), which is the center of things, and ate lunch, which was delicious (but no fries yet). We then walked to "Grand Place," which is like the old square with 4 of the most beautiful, ornate buildings on each side. We had a map done by locals for "young travellers" that ended up being really helpful; it recommended getting a free view of the city from some random parking garage, which was so cool. Then we saw the Manneken Pis, which really was much smaller than expected, but still cool to see (I'm not a fan of them dressing it up though because it just looks ridiculous haha). We went back for our keys, used their internet to get back in touch with the world, and headed to our hostel, which ended up being right off of Grand Place in the best location I could have imagined. The room itself was so cool, and much nicer than expected for the price; Shana and I were exhausted, so we took naps before heading out to meet our new-found friends at Delirium, one of the really popular bars in Brussels. We were at the main part of the hostel when we met Josh and Ravi, both of whom were stuck in Brussels trying to get back to California and the UK, respectively. We ended up having a pretty fun night just talking and trying some of the 2,000-something beers at Delirium; we also went to another bar where I got somewhat peer pressured (okay, not really) into trying absinthe...which is legal in Europe and which also didn't do anything because it was just one shot haha the next morning, Shana and I headed back to the train station to go to Bruges; despite some confusion at the ticket counter with the "retour," we got everything worked out and to the train in time. We met this couple from the UK who were going to Bruges (as a lot of people seemed to be) on the way to get a ferry back to the UK, since flying wasn't an option for them at all and trains were all booked up. It only took an hour to get to Bruges, and once we got there, the owner of the bed and breakfast where we were staying came to pick us up from the train station. He and his wife own the B&B just as a hobby, and they were both such amazing people. I could rave all day about "Jaak and Rose" (Titanic anyone?). The house that we were staying in was really awesome too, and in a great location; we were staying there with a Finnish couple and a French couple, and it was nice to get to interact with them, however briefly. It was only noon, so we walked up to the main square of Bruges (the former market), and were immediately enamored with the city. Seriously, I love Bruges. We got some fries from a stand with some kind of sauce that I can't remember the name of but that tastes like curry and mayonnaise (a.k.a good). Then we climbed the 366 windy, skinny stairs to the top of the tower; it was pretty different from how it was depicted in the movie "In Bruges," but it was still a really nice view. After lunch, we walked back to the bike rental shop we had passed earlier and rented bikes for the afternoon/evening; there was supposedly a trail that would take us to the beach, and even though we ended up getting lost and not taking that trail, what we did see was absolutely enchanting. We were pretty tired after about 3 hours, having climbed the tower already, so we turned our bikes in, grabbed some food, and headed home. The coolest thing about Bruges was how quickly even I learned my way around; if you don't know, I'm really directionally challenged, but I learned our part of Bruges really quickly. Bruges doesn't have much of a nightlife so we spent the night in watching "In Bruges" (Shana's first time seeing it after I had been quoting it obnoxiously all day haha) and drinking the beers we had bought in Brussels (I bought cassis beer since cassis is my new favorite flavor...but not in beer haha). It was, once again, a great movie, and it was really cool to see places we had been; p.s the B&B we were in was where the film crew had stayed when they filmed it...holla! We were tired from the combination of tower-climbing, biking, and beer-drinking, so we went to bed after a quick chat with the Finnish couple (who were totally adorable and the girl looked like Marketa Irglova from "Once"). The next morning, Rose came and made breakfast for us (like a real, huge breakfast, not the French idea of breakfast), so we ate with the 2 couples (I'd like to reiterate that as much as I love Shana, we are NOT a couple. Though I don't know that everyone quite understood that haha) before we all went our separate ways. Shana and I still didn't know for sure when and how we were getting home, but the trains we had seen online were for around 4 pm from Brussels, so we had a couple of hours still in Bruges. We decided to do a boat tour through the canals, which ended up being a great idea; it was so beautiful and the weather was, once again, perfect. We were on the boat with French-speakers so opted to not be the only ones to ask for the tour in English (because that's so obnoxious and "American" when we understood in French anyway). We were reminded so many times this weekend how, even though we aren't fluent in French, we can understand the tours and information given to native French-speakers, so we should be pretty proud of our progress. We had to leave Bruges and the B&B much sooner than I would have liked (definitely going back there because it's so charming and small enough without being too small). Not a "shithole" like they say in the movie :) so my assessment of Belgium (or at least Brussels and Bruges) is that it's small but really diverse in the best way possible; we didn't try any waffles, but the fries are good and the chocolate is amazing, which might have swayed my love for it a little ;) I want to go back to Belgium and see more of Brussels and Bruges (since we only had one day in each), but also to see other cities and some of the countryside. Despite the hell that getting there and back was, Belgium was totally worth it, and I'm so glad we went!
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
By the end of the weekend, Shana and I had utilized every major mode of transportation (well, apart from planes, which was the problem in the first place): train, bus, car, bike, boat, trams, and on foot. I'm just going to comment on the "adventure" it was getting to and back from Belgium this weekend, and I'll save the next post for Brussels and Bruges :)
So our flight was to leave Lyon at 4 pm on Friday afternoon, which would have given us plenty of time to go to class in the morning and take the 1-hour bus ride from Grenoble to the Lyon airport. However, on Thursday night and Friday morning, we were hearing all about the volcano canceling flights, and even though we kept checking our flight status online (which always said "operating"), we wanted to go ahead and get to the airport so if it did get canceled we could get a train or something before everyone else on the same flight did. We skipped class and left Grenoble at 10 am Friday morning. Remember that time. We got to Lyon and immediately went to the EasyJet terminal to see what was up. We kept checking the boards and they all said that the other flights for Brussels (including one 5 minutes after ours) were canceled but that ours wasn't; weird, I know. So the guy told us it wasn't canceled but to come back in 2 hours (since that was our original check-in time) and see. So we went back up to the main part of the airport and had coffees and lunch and just killed time. When we got back to the EasyJet terminal, the boards still said our flight was operating, so we thought we were in the clear. Finally, 1 1/2 hours before we were to leave (after we had been checking it since 6 am the morning before, btw), they told us it was canceled. At this point, Shana and I decided we still wanted to try and go since we had already paid for the hostels and would be getting refunded for our flight. But in order to do so, we had to take a bus to the Lyon train station. We got there amid a huge mess of people and were able to get a train to Brussels through Paris leaving at 5 pm, arriving in Brussels by 11 pm. Now, may I remind you, that every train we arranged, negotiation we made, etc. was at least partly in French until the person switched to English if they spoke it. I don't mean to "toot my own horn," but I'm pretty freaking proud of myself for not only figuring out to get there and back, which you will see was way more complicated than necessary, but to do so in a foreign language. Anyway, we were feeling pretty good because the lady at the SNCF (train) counter was super nice and patient with our French, and we were feeling in the clear as far as getting there at a reasonable time. We got on the train and got to Paris, no problem, but our next train to Brussels required us to go from the Paris Nord station to Paris Gare de Lyon in only 45 minutes, but the nice lady at the ticket counter had assured us that was "suffisant"; luckily my mom had texted me that we just needed to take the RER, so we thought we would be totally fine. What we forgot was that France is in love with strikes. After buying our tickets and standing around for 15 minutes (we weren't the only ones though), we discovered that we weren't actually going to have an RER train to take us to the airport because they were too busy whining about some probably insignificant social matter (for example, in Grenoble they went on strike for pregnant women's rights; don't get me wrong, I think they deserve rights, but they already have the best in Europe if not the world in France. Strikes for them are unnecessary). We already knew we had missed our train but took a taxi from one gare (train station) to the other to see what our next move was; once we got to Paris Gare de Lyon, we looked at the board and saw that the next train to Brussels was at 6 am - 8 hours from then. We talked to the lady at the ticket counter, explaining that the strike (and France) screwed us over, but she was less than sympathetic ("what were you doing for an hour that made you miss your train?") and couldn't do anything but put us on a train in the morning and give us an unhelpful suggestion of where to stay for the night. At this point, Stephanie has yelled so many obscenities about France, trains, the world, volcanoes, etc. (not at anyone though) and simultaneously laughed/cried at the situation we were in. Shana too is upset, but has learned to handle her emotions better haha there were a million hotels by the train station, so we were just going to ask around and try to find a reasonable price (which, for Paris, we expected to be like $150/night). Luckily, we found one for 35/euros per person (about $100/night), that was owned and run by the cutest Frenchman (who thought we were Dutch?). It was a really frustrating situation, having already paid for the hostel for that night and having to pay for another place, but it was hard to be too angry when we were in Paris, which I dreamed of going to for 15 years, and we could see the spotlight from the Eiffel Tower :) the next morning, we got up early to catch our train at 8 after much-needed coffee and breakfast (pain au chocolat!). While huddling for warmth on a heater in the train station, we met some American ex-pats living and teaching in France who had driven back from Morocco; everyone we encountered throughout the weekend had it way worse than we did, so that helped put things into perspective. We were in first class on this train because with the student discount it was cheaper than second class, which didn't offer a student discount; first class? Oh darn ;) but that did mean that we got breakfast, and food is always something good to not have to pay for if you can put some bread or something in a napkin for later, which I did haha the train was only an hour and a half, putting us in the Brussels train station around 9:45 am, almost exactly 24 hours after we left Grenoble the day before. We knew how to get to our hostel from the Brussels Midi station, but we were in the Brussels Nord station, so we "just" needed to take the tram a couple of stops down. Shana and I both had limited amounts of change left, but we had just enough to get our tickets for the metro; unfortunately, we've gotten spoiled with Grenoble being so safe and had kind of gotten absent-minded about pickpockets. Some guy took Shana's wallet out of her bag, and we tried to follow him and get it back, but what can you do? Some (possibly crazy) Belgian lady was telling us to wait for the police so we could get it back, so we waited for like 15 minutes with no police. And then, the weirdest thing of all, the guy brought the wallet back; he had taken the cash, but left the credit cards. So weird. The lady was badgering us to call the cops, but I figured there was nothing they could do since he 1) gave it back and 2) looks like every man walking down the street. Shana needed to call her bank, which wasn't open because it was like 3 am West Coast time, but we still decided to go to the hostel and regroup/use their phone (because I can't call from mine outside of France and Shana's was 1) on low battery and 2) really expensive), however, we no longer had enough change to buy 2 tickets for the metro, and the machine wasn't taking my card or bills (and there are no change machines in Europe even though everything takes nothing but change). After having a little bit of a temper tantrum (this will be a common theme for me throughout the next days. I'm not proud of it, but whatever, I think I'm allowed to be a little upset), we were able to get change for my 5 euro bill (the last cash that I had) to buy our tickets. We got on the train, in such a fluster, and realized we were going the wrong direction. At this point, it was just funny. We got off and ran across the tracks (sorry mom) to the other side; an hour and a half after leaving the one train station, we got to the other haha luckily it was a beautiful day, but more on that later :)
The return trip was significantly less eventful, though it still took a lot of effort to negotiate each leg, and because we had already paid for tickets from Bruges back to Brussels and from Lyon back to Grenoble, we didn't want to pay for those twice, so we had to arrange the trip from Bruges to Grenoble in kind of a weird way. The problem on the way back was with money; Shana had been able to use her card in some places, but for the most part, I was paying for 2 people's tickets and things, plus the hostels, plus the $450 I had already paid for our plane tickets. Because people are assholes and want to make a profit off of others' bad situations, the prices for trains had been jacked up, so we ended up paying to get home what our round trip plane tickets had cost, after already paying more to get to Brussels. It was really stressful, and I still don't relish the thought of how much freaking money I spent this weekend, but I am still glad we went (more on that later too). We took the train from Bruges to Brussels and had to go from Brussels to Paris, again going from one station to the other with the RER. Once we got there, we found employee and made sure there wasn't a freaking strike ("Est-ce qu'il y a une grève aujourd'hui aussi?"), but she was really helpful in helping us go the right way. Once again, Shana had no cash because the ATMs weren't taking her card, and I had cash but no change for the ticket machine, (well, I had enough for one) so we both just ran through the turnstiles on my ticket; normally, I wouldn't condone it, but we had no change and no time to get any, so thank God no one saw us. We got on the RER (which isn't any more impressive when it IS running; that was the hottest, stinkiest public transportation I have ever been on). We did work, navigated the metro, and got to the other gare in plenty of time; once again, I'm proud of us because 3 months ago, I don't know that I could have done that as quickly and efficiently. Or in French. The train from Paris to Lyon was uneventful, but once again, we were at the Lyon train station and our bus tickets back to Grenoble left from the Lyon airport; that meant another ticket to buy and another bus to ride on. One cool thing though was that there were a couple of guys from Turkey (with no option but to rent a car and drive home. Holy crap) who didn't speak French, so I served as a translator between them and the bus driver. I have to say, even though it wasn't perfect, it was a really cool thing to be able to do that. We got back to the airport at 9:35, missing the 9:30 bus and having to wait for the 10:30. At this point, that was just par for the course, so instead of being angry, we took advantage of the airport being nearly empty (because it was shut down) to have a little singing session haha we FINALLY got back to Grenoble at 11:30, and by the time I walked to Victor Hugo, got a taxi, and got home, it was 12:30, meaning it took us 12 hours to get home; not the 24 it took to get there, but 36 hours of travel for a long weekend? Craziness. All in all, it was extremely frustrating and expensive, but I do think we learned a lot, and I am pretty proud of us and of myself for doing as well as we did. And I'm also glad we still decided to go because now we don't have to wonder what could have been :)
So our flight was to leave Lyon at 4 pm on Friday afternoon, which would have given us plenty of time to go to class in the morning and take the 1-hour bus ride from Grenoble to the Lyon airport. However, on Thursday night and Friday morning, we were hearing all about the volcano canceling flights, and even though we kept checking our flight status online (which always said "operating"), we wanted to go ahead and get to the airport so if it did get canceled we could get a train or something before everyone else on the same flight did. We skipped class and left Grenoble at 10 am Friday morning. Remember that time. We got to Lyon and immediately went to the EasyJet terminal to see what was up. We kept checking the boards and they all said that the other flights for Brussels (including one 5 minutes after ours) were canceled but that ours wasn't; weird, I know. So the guy told us it wasn't canceled but to come back in 2 hours (since that was our original check-in time) and see. So we went back up to the main part of the airport and had coffees and lunch and just killed time. When we got back to the EasyJet terminal, the boards still said our flight was operating, so we thought we were in the clear. Finally, 1 1/2 hours before we were to leave (after we had been checking it since 6 am the morning before, btw), they told us it was canceled. At this point, Shana and I decided we still wanted to try and go since we had already paid for the hostels and would be getting refunded for our flight. But in order to do so, we had to take a bus to the Lyon train station. We got there amid a huge mess of people and were able to get a train to Brussels through Paris leaving at 5 pm, arriving in Brussels by 11 pm. Now, may I remind you, that every train we arranged, negotiation we made, etc. was at least partly in French until the person switched to English if they spoke it. I don't mean to "toot my own horn," but I'm pretty freaking proud of myself for not only figuring out to get there and back, which you will see was way more complicated than necessary, but to do so in a foreign language. Anyway, we were feeling pretty good because the lady at the SNCF (train) counter was super nice and patient with our French, and we were feeling in the clear as far as getting there at a reasonable time. We got on the train and got to Paris, no problem, but our next train to Brussels required us to go from the Paris Nord station to Paris Gare de Lyon in only 45 minutes, but the nice lady at the ticket counter had assured us that was "suffisant"; luckily my mom had texted me that we just needed to take the RER, so we thought we would be totally fine. What we forgot was that France is in love with strikes. After buying our tickets and standing around for 15 minutes (we weren't the only ones though), we discovered that we weren't actually going to have an RER train to take us to the airport because they were too busy whining about some probably insignificant social matter (for example, in Grenoble they went on strike for pregnant women's rights; don't get me wrong, I think they deserve rights, but they already have the best in Europe if not the world in France. Strikes for them are unnecessary). We already knew we had missed our train but took a taxi from one gare (train station) to the other to see what our next move was; once we got to Paris Gare de Lyon, we looked at the board and saw that the next train to Brussels was at 6 am - 8 hours from then. We talked to the lady at the ticket counter, explaining that the strike (and France) screwed us over, but she was less than sympathetic ("what were you doing for an hour that made you miss your train?") and couldn't do anything but put us on a train in the morning and give us an unhelpful suggestion of where to stay for the night. At this point, Stephanie has yelled so many obscenities about France, trains, the world, volcanoes, etc. (not at anyone though) and simultaneously laughed/cried at the situation we were in. Shana too is upset, but has learned to handle her emotions better haha there were a million hotels by the train station, so we were just going to ask around and try to find a reasonable price (which, for Paris, we expected to be like $150/night). Luckily, we found one for 35/euros per person (about $100/night), that was owned and run by the cutest Frenchman (who thought we were Dutch?). It was a really frustrating situation, having already paid for the hostel for that night and having to pay for another place, but it was hard to be too angry when we were in Paris, which I dreamed of going to for 15 years, and we could see the spotlight from the Eiffel Tower :) the next morning, we got up early to catch our train at 8 after much-needed coffee and breakfast (pain au chocolat!). While huddling for warmth on a heater in the train station, we met some American ex-pats living and teaching in France who had driven back from Morocco; everyone we encountered throughout the weekend had it way worse than we did, so that helped put things into perspective. We were in first class on this train because with the student discount it was cheaper than second class, which didn't offer a student discount; first class? Oh darn ;) but that did mean that we got breakfast, and food is always something good to not have to pay for if you can put some bread or something in a napkin for later, which I did haha the train was only an hour and a half, putting us in the Brussels train station around 9:45 am, almost exactly 24 hours after we left Grenoble the day before. We knew how to get to our hostel from the Brussels Midi station, but we were in the Brussels Nord station, so we "just" needed to take the tram a couple of stops down. Shana and I both had limited amounts of change left, but we had just enough to get our tickets for the metro; unfortunately, we've gotten spoiled with Grenoble being so safe and had kind of gotten absent-minded about pickpockets. Some guy took Shana's wallet out of her bag, and we tried to follow him and get it back, but what can you do? Some (possibly crazy) Belgian lady was telling us to wait for the police so we could get it back, so we waited for like 15 minutes with no police. And then, the weirdest thing of all, the guy brought the wallet back; he had taken the cash, but left the credit cards. So weird. The lady was badgering us to call the cops, but I figured there was nothing they could do since he 1) gave it back and 2) looks like every man walking down the street. Shana needed to call her bank, which wasn't open because it was like 3 am West Coast time, but we still decided to go to the hostel and regroup/use their phone (because I can't call from mine outside of France and Shana's was 1) on low battery and 2) really expensive), however, we no longer had enough change to buy 2 tickets for the metro, and the machine wasn't taking my card or bills (and there are no change machines in Europe even though everything takes nothing but change). After having a little bit of a temper tantrum (this will be a common theme for me throughout the next days. I'm not proud of it, but whatever, I think I'm allowed to be a little upset), we were able to get change for my 5 euro bill (the last cash that I had) to buy our tickets. We got on the train, in such a fluster, and realized we were going the wrong direction. At this point, it was just funny. We got off and ran across the tracks (sorry mom) to the other side; an hour and a half after leaving the one train station, we got to the other haha luckily it was a beautiful day, but more on that later :)
The return trip was significantly less eventful, though it still took a lot of effort to negotiate each leg, and because we had already paid for tickets from Bruges back to Brussels and from Lyon back to Grenoble, we didn't want to pay for those twice, so we had to arrange the trip from Bruges to Grenoble in kind of a weird way. The problem on the way back was with money; Shana had been able to use her card in some places, but for the most part, I was paying for 2 people's tickets and things, plus the hostels, plus the $450 I had already paid for our plane tickets. Because people are assholes and want to make a profit off of others' bad situations, the prices for trains had been jacked up, so we ended up paying to get home what our round trip plane tickets had cost, after already paying more to get to Brussels. It was really stressful, and I still don't relish the thought of how much freaking money I spent this weekend, but I am still glad we went (more on that later too). We took the train from Bruges to Brussels and had to go from Brussels to Paris, again going from one station to the other with the RER. Once we got there, we found employee and made sure there wasn't a freaking strike ("Est-ce qu'il y a une grève aujourd'hui aussi?"), but she was really helpful in helping us go the right way. Once again, Shana had no cash because the ATMs weren't taking her card, and I had cash but no change for the ticket machine, (well, I had enough for one) so we both just ran through the turnstiles on my ticket; normally, I wouldn't condone it, but we had no change and no time to get any, so thank God no one saw us. We got on the RER (which isn't any more impressive when it IS running; that was the hottest, stinkiest public transportation I have ever been on). We did work, navigated the metro, and got to the other gare in plenty of time; once again, I'm proud of us because 3 months ago, I don't know that I could have done that as quickly and efficiently. Or in French. The train from Paris to Lyon was uneventful, but once again, we were at the Lyon train station and our bus tickets back to Grenoble left from the Lyon airport; that meant another ticket to buy and another bus to ride on. One cool thing though was that there were a couple of guys from Turkey (with no option but to rent a car and drive home. Holy crap) who didn't speak French, so I served as a translator between them and the bus driver. I have to say, even though it wasn't perfect, it was a really cool thing to be able to do that. We got back to the airport at 9:35, missing the 9:30 bus and having to wait for the 10:30. At this point, that was just par for the course, so instead of being angry, we took advantage of the airport being nearly empty (because it was shut down) to have a little singing session haha we FINALLY got back to Grenoble at 11:30, and by the time I walked to Victor Hugo, got a taxi, and got home, it was 12:30, meaning it took us 12 hours to get home; not the 24 it took to get there, but 36 hours of travel for a long weekend? Craziness. All in all, it was extremely frustrating and expensive, but I do think we learned a lot, and I am pretty proud of us and of myself for doing as well as we did. And I'm also glad we still decided to go because now we don't have to wonder what could have been :)
31.3.10
Planche à neige? No, just say "snowboarding" with a French accent.
Living in the Southeastern United States, there aren’t many good ski resorts nearby without going up to West Virginia or New England or all the way out West; I have actually only been skiing about 3 times but have enjoyed it every time, and I wanted to try on slopes that were better than the ones in North Carolina, which are usually icy. One of my goals this semester, since I’m living in the Alps, was to go skiing, though I have to say, I wish I hadn’t waited until this late in the semester to go. I was debating between skiing, which I know I like, and learning to snowboard, which I had never tried but always been curious about. Because I went with Shana, who is a pretty avid snowboarder, I decided to try snowboarding, and hey, it’s not a bad story to tell when asked, “When did you learn to snowboard?” We went on a Monday, skipping class, because it was the day in between months where the new students take the placement test, so for those of us continuing with the program, it’s pretty much a wasted day with little to no curriculum taught and no attendance taken. Shana and I met at the bus station around 7:30, with no idea about whether or not we would actually be able to get tickets for any of the buses to Les Deux Alpes (our first choice of ski resort). Luckily, there were plenty of buses and plenty of tickets (for only 3,80 each way too), making things far less complicated than I had anticipated. While we were waiting for the bus, we ran into Kelly, another member of our program, who was also going to Les Deux Alpes; we were actually planning to go with him the day before but just by coincidence neither of us went Sunday and instead skipped class to go Monday. 
The bus ride was longer than expected, 2 hours by the time we got there, and I would have tried to sleep but was too excited :) The town right around the resort is a cool little ski town with tons of ski shops and cafes and hotels; Shana and I weren’t really sure how to approach the rental thing, getting more discouraged after we went in the first place and couldn’t convey to them in either French or English that we wanted to rent snowboards. Luckily the second place we went into was more successful (probably because it was a Billabong store and therefore awesome haha), and we were able to rent our boards and boots for 17 euros for the day (I have no idea if that’s good or not). After somewhat awkwardly making conversation and putting on our boots (snowboard boots are not easy to be graceful in under the best circumstances), Shana and I were ready to go. We weren’t sure how to get to the bunny slopes, so we asked someone on the street; he was really nice, speaking in English and tolerating our French, and helped us get our lift tickets (which were only 31 euros with the student discount; much cheaper than expected) and telling us where to go. We found out he is from Biarritz in the southwestern part of France, and from how he talked about it, I would definitely like to go there; it sounds like a pretty cool surf town. Unfortunately, the language barrier somehow caused confusion about the fact that it was my first time touching a snowboard (even though I know I said multiple times “Aujourd’hui est mon premier fois” or “Je n’ai jamais fait du snowboarding”) so he took us up to literally the top of the mountain, where he said the runs were really long but “easy.” No, they were not; my first day I went on what ended up being a blue run so that was special. I was already nervous, and once I saw where we were, I was convinced that I was going to die.
"feet, i'd like you to meet a snowboard; snowboard, meet my feet"
First of all, because we were at the SUMMIT of a mountain, it was super windy, and the snow was stinging our faces and making it really hard to see. Immediately after the flat part where we strapped on our boards there was a pretty steep drop with certain death (i.e a cliff) on one side of the trail. Now, normally that wouldn’t be a problem except that I didn’t know how to 1) stand up 2) stop or 3) steer. Basically, I knew nothing. Eventually we got to a little flat part where I could even stand a chance at getting upright, but the whole day it was alternating little flat part with giant steep hill, so I spent a large part of the day walking or sliding down hills on my butt. It took us literally 4 hours to do the run, but it was absolutely beautiful and Shana has the patience of a saint, so I think we both ended up enjoying it, despite everything.
Once we got to some flatter parts, I did get the hang of standing up and later of how to stop without immediately resorting to falling on my butt; “Instructor Shana” seemed really pleased with my progress even though I felt like a failure walking down the slopes, so I guess it was a pretty successful first time. Unfortunately, even though sliding down the slopes on your butt is technically easier, it’s also significantly more exhausting, so between that and having to pick myself off the ground every time I got close to a steep hill and wanted to stop (i.e a lot), I was absolutely exhausted by noon. Since we were on one of the longest runs, we kept hoping the lodge would be over the next hill, and it was…about 5 hills later haha at this point in time, I’m absolutely exhausted (with my butt and wrists being the most sore), and I look a hot mess with my hair literally frozen in places, and face chapped-but for some reason, I was still in such a good mood, probably because I was so stubborn about wanting to learn to snowboard and actually did :D 
We ate lunch at the lodge, which consisted of the most expensive but also most delicious pizza I may have ever had. We were going to try another, more beginner run after lunch, but by the time we got up to the téléphérique (gondola thing) and rode it down to where the next run began, I realized that I was far too exhausted and that we were too cramped for time (since we didn’t know when the last bus left) for me to spend another 3 hours on a run haha I rode all the way down to the lodge, which ended up being really beautiful and scenic, and planned to wait for Shana at the bottom. It turned out that the run she had gotten off at required transversing another run or something and then going down a more difficult one to get to the lodge, so we just decided to call it a day. We turned in our gear and walked around for a few minutes before the bus left at 5 (I successfully made it into and out of both a Billabong and a Roxy store with buying anything…anyone who knows my obsession with surf brands will appreciate my struggle haha). On this bus ride home I slept with no trouble, still excited like I had been in the morning, but my exhaustion was dictating everything by this point. I would say that I am sufficiently hooked on snowboarding; I love skiing, but I want to get better at snowboarding, and think it’s more my thing :) I guess I’ll have to live somewhere where I can surf in the summer and snowboard in the winter! I’m so glad that we finally did it; the mountains were absolutely gorgeous, even more so than in Grenoble where I was already enamored with them, and I really did like the runs, just would have preferred those more geared towards my level. I’m so grateful that Shana was so patient and helpful with me; she says it’s not a big deal, but it really does mean a lot to me because I’m sure she could have had a much more enjoyable day of snowboarding without my slow self stopping all the time. I would love to go back if time permits, but I am so grateful I got to go once and that I finally learned how to snowboard :D I was sore all night and woke up the next morning more sore than I have ever been before, but that and the goofy goggle tan lines that I still have 2 days later were unquestionably worth it!
The bus ride was longer than expected, 2 hours by the time we got there, and I would have tried to sleep but was too excited :) The town right around the resort is a cool little ski town with tons of ski shops and cafes and hotels; Shana and I weren’t really sure how to approach the rental thing, getting more discouraged after we went in the first place and couldn’t convey to them in either French or English that we wanted to rent snowboards. Luckily the second place we went into was more successful (probably because it was a Billabong store and therefore awesome haha), and we were able to rent our boards and boots for 17 euros for the day (I have no idea if that’s good or not). After somewhat awkwardly making conversation and putting on our boots (snowboard boots are not easy to be graceful in under the best circumstances), Shana and I were ready to go. We weren’t sure how to get to the bunny slopes, so we asked someone on the street; he was really nice, speaking in English and tolerating our French, and helped us get our lift tickets (which were only 31 euros with the student discount; much cheaper than expected) and telling us where to go. We found out he is from Biarritz in the southwestern part of France, and from how he talked about it, I would definitely like to go there; it sounds like a pretty cool surf town. Unfortunately, the language barrier somehow caused confusion about the fact that it was my first time touching a snowboard (even though I know I said multiple times “Aujourd’hui est mon premier fois” or “Je n’ai jamais fait du snowboarding”) so he took us up to literally the top of the mountain, where he said the runs were really long but “easy.” No, they were not; my first day I went on what ended up being a blue run so that was special. I was already nervous, and once I saw where we were, I was convinced that I was going to die. 
"feet, i'd like you to meet a snowboard; snowboard, meet my feet"First of all, because we were at the SUMMIT of a mountain, it was super windy, and the snow was stinging our faces and making it really hard to see. Immediately after the flat part where we strapped on our boards there was a pretty steep drop with certain death (i.e a cliff) on one side of the trail. Now, normally that wouldn’t be a problem except that I didn’t know how to 1) stand up 2) stop or 3) steer. Basically, I knew nothing. Eventually we got to a little flat part where I could even stand a chance at getting upright, but the whole day it was alternating little flat part with giant steep hill, so I spent a large part of the day walking or sliding down hills on my butt. It took us literally 4 hours to do the run, but it was absolutely beautiful and Shana has the patience of a saint, so I think we both ended up enjoying it, despite everything.
Once we got to some flatter parts, I did get the hang of standing up and later of how to stop without immediately resorting to falling on my butt; “Instructor Shana” seemed really pleased with my progress even though I felt like a failure walking down the slopes, so I guess it was a pretty successful first time. Unfortunately, even though sliding down the slopes on your butt is technically easier, it’s also significantly more exhausting, so between that and having to pick myself off the ground every time I got close to a steep hill and wanted to stop (i.e a lot), I was absolutely exhausted by noon. Since we were on one of the longest runs, we kept hoping the lodge would be over the next hill, and it was…about 5 hills later haha at this point in time, I’m absolutely exhausted (with my butt and wrists being the most sore), and I look a hot mess with my hair literally frozen in places, and face chapped-but for some reason, I was still in such a good mood, probably because I was so stubborn about wanting to learn to snowboard and actually did :D 
We ate lunch at the lodge, which consisted of the most expensive but also most delicious pizza I may have ever had. We were going to try another, more beginner run after lunch, but by the time we got up to the téléphérique (gondola thing) and rode it down to where the next run began, I realized that I was far too exhausted and that we were too cramped for time (since we didn’t know when the last bus left) for me to spend another 3 hours on a run haha I rode all the way down to the lodge, which ended up being really beautiful and scenic, and planned to wait for Shana at the bottom. It turned out that the run she had gotten off at required transversing another run or something and then going down a more difficult one to get to the lodge, so we just decided to call it a day. We turned in our gear and walked around for a few minutes before the bus left at 5 (I successfully made it into and out of both a Billabong and a Roxy store with buying anything…anyone who knows my obsession with surf brands will appreciate my struggle haha). On this bus ride home I slept with no trouble, still excited like I had been in the morning, but my exhaustion was dictating everything by this point. I would say that I am sufficiently hooked on snowboarding; I love skiing, but I want to get better at snowboarding, and think it’s more my thing :) I guess I’ll have to live somewhere where I can surf in the summer and snowboard in the winter! I’m so glad that we finally did it; the mountains were absolutely gorgeous, even more so than in Grenoble where I was already enamored with them, and I really did like the runs, just would have preferred those more geared towards my level. I’m so grateful that Shana was so patient and helpful with me; she says it’s not a big deal, but it really does mean a lot to me because I’m sure she could have had a much more enjoyable day of snowboarding without my slow self stopping all the time. I would love to go back if time permits, but I am so grateful I got to go once and that I finally learned how to snowboard :D I was sore all night and woke up the next morning more sore than I have ever been before, but that and the goofy goggle tan lines that I still have 2 days later were unquestionably worth it!
28.3.10
Och Aye Land
(The title is a reference from the Georgia Nicolson series which you should read if you haven't because they're hilarious)
The fact that we went to Scotland is a bit of an odd thing because it was a “Plan B” (or even C probably) when our trip to Morocco didn’t work out, but it ended up being such an amazing trip and so many things fell into place without any doing on our part, that we think it was a little bit of destiny ;) The only flights that we could find for this weekend from Lyon (the largest city close to Grenoble) to Edinburgh left Thursday and returned on Tuesday, which meant we were missing 4 days of school; normally, I wouldn’t condone missing school, but considering my near-perfect attendance at USC, the fact that I’m not really receiving credit for these French courses, the fact that you don’t get to live in Europe and go to Scotland every day, and the fact that I’ve spent upwards of 10 hours in the language lab trying to compensate for missing said days, I figured it would be worth it. The first thing that fell into place for us was lodging; we looked around at hostels but were struggling to pick one because we were trying to be conscious of both money and safety (it’s hard to find a room for just 3 people without it costing way more than the 8 or 10-person dorms). Luckily, Shana has “relatives” (really close family friends of her grandma lol) in Edinburgh who very generously offered to let us stay with them and even fed us 2 out of 3 meals per day. You honestly can’t get a much better situation to be staying in a city, especially when the people having you are as amazing as Alan and Sheena are. The second lucky thing was the weather; normally, Scotland is rainy and cold (especially this winter when they’ve had 6 weeks of snow as opposed to the normal 2), but we had sunshine every single day we were there and only encountered a sprinkling of rain once or twice. The third lucky thing happened our first night in Scotland; we made it to Edinburgh around 4 pm (despite some punctual incompetence on my part that made me almost not get to Lyon in time for our flight) and met Sheena at the airport. On the way home, she mentioned that she would be gone for part of the night because she takes a Scottish Highland dance class which was meeting that night; of course that piqued our interest, and we asked if we could come along. Everyone was so welcoming and friendly from the second we walked in the door, something that’s a little different from French people who, in my experience, take a little more time to warm up. It was thoroughly enjoyable watching the dancing, which is a little like Irish step-dancing but more relaxed, and even though it looked easy, when they had us join for a couple of dances, it was not at all haha though I’d love to learn…the next morning Sheena drove us into town and took us to Edinburgh Castle; the views of and from the castle were beautiful, and the history of a building that old was really hard to grasp for me, especially since everything in America is so “young.” We toured the castle, saw the crowned jewels, toured the prison, and ate lunch in a café in the castle. We then spent a ton of time in gift shops laughing at all of the crazy souvenirs (coffee mugs shaped like kilts?) and looking for the “perfect” tartan pattern for our scarves; Shana and Cecilia both got one of the tartans for Shana’s clan (MacLean) while I got a blue/green/white pattern that apparently goes well with my eyes/hair/whatever and just happened to be the Gordon clan. We walked around the Royal Mile and were all in a state of infatuation with Edinburgh. When we got back to the house, Sheena and Alan’s grandsons, Callum and Ewan, were there, and we thoroughly enjoyed playing with them :) one thing that we noticed is how much more proper even children’s English is when it’s “British English” versus “American English,” even though both of the boys have especially impressive vocabularies for 7 and 4 year olds. The next morning began our 2-day Highland Tour, and throughout the first day we saw the William Wallace monument, which offered some nice views; Hamish the Highland Cow (“Hairy Coo”), my new favorite animal; drove by various historical markers and places, including the castle where Monty Python was filmed, the place where the Clan MacDonald was murdered; and saw the Highlands, which are absolutely beautiful. We were staying in the little town of Fort William, which basically consisted of a million bed and breakfasts/hotels, some restaurants, and a bar or two. Not somewhere that I’d like to stay extensively, but it was on a lake (loch?) and was perfect for one night The bed and breakfast was only 22 euros a night for each of us to have single rooms and breakfast, and the B&B itself was really clean and really nice (plus the most adorable old lady ran it); another good life decision by Cecilia, Stephanie, and Shana! We went to dinner at a hotel restaurant, and one thing that is definitely preferable in France is the relationship with food; although everything I ate was pretty good, I didn’t have any meals in Scotland that were particularly impressive after living in France for 2 months (with the exception of shortbread, of which I ate ridiculous quantities in 6 days). We went to the bar our tour guide recommended, but England and France were playing for the Six Nations Cup in rugby, so it was all guys and none of them were paying us any attention haha Shana and I got Irn Bru (which is Scotland’s national drink, after whisky of course) with vodka, which wasn’t anything spectacular, but was good nonetheless. We were all surprisingly tired from sitting on a bus all day and had an early morning, so we just watched BBC TV and hung out until we went to bed. Day two of the Highland Tour included the Castle of Eilean Donan (which is supposedly the most famous in Scotland), Loch Ness, and more beautiful Highlands and historical goodness; my only complaint was that we spent more time at Eilean Donan than I would have liked and not enough at Loch Ness, but at least we saw them at all. Overall, the tour was good; I think I was more impressed with what we saw than either the guide (especially his motion sickness-inducing driving and Negative Nancy stories) or the company itself, but I could still recommend using Timberbush Tours to someone else just because we did enjoy the tour itself so much. We were all pretty wiped out by the time we got back into Edinburgh, despite sleeping sporadically on the bus, so we took the bus and Alan picked us up from the stop. Although we never did make it into town for a pub crawl, we did have fun spending the evenings learning about Scottish and British culture talking with Alan and Sheena and watching “Coupling,” the British version of Friends (which is raunchier because they can get away with a lot more on British television). The next day was our last in Edinburgh, and since we had only seen the Castle, we had a lot that we wanted to do, starting with a driving tour by Sheena, who was really well-informed because her father used to do a lot with tourism of the city. We then went to Holyrood Palace, which was really beautiful and interesting and actually preferable to Versailles, which I find too ornate. One of the security workers in the palace overhead us speaking “Frenglish,” to avoid losing it after so much English for 6 days, and started talking to us about where we were from, studying in France, being in Scotland, etc.; it turns out that of the places we’re from (Shana from Seattle, Cecilia from Connecticut/New York, and me from South Carolina), he had only been to South Carolina (Hilton Head for golf), which definitely surprised me but made me a little prouder of my home state. After the palace, we ate lunch in their café, and then toured the Queen’s Gallery, which included pictures from Antarctica expeditions; it was interesting, but we didn’t have a lot of time, so I mostly looked at the nature photographs, which I prefer over the ones of the crew. We walked along the Royal Mile again in the beautiful, warm sunshine and decided that our next stop would be the Scottish Whisky Experience; now, I wasn’t a big fan of whisk(e)y and still am not, but when in Scotland, you do as the Scottish :) the tour was interesting since I know nothing about whisky, and it was fun tasting the different kinds (fun, but not necessarily tasty). Since it was about time to head home, we did some last-minute souvenir shopping, and again took the bus home (p.s Edinburgh buses are much preferable to Grenoble’s because they’re 1) plaid and 2) double decker). Our flight left early the next morning, so that was all that we got to do in Edinburgh, but I think we all plan to return both there and other places in Scotland someday because it was a pretty big hit with all 3 of us. It was really nice because it was a good mix between American culture and European culture; for example, whereas peanut butter is really expensive in France and Nutella is expensive in the States, you can get both reasonably priced in Scotland! Haha It was also really nice to learn some of the differences between Scottish culture and British culture; it’s easy to lump everything into “British,” but Scotland has so much identity and pride, especially with things like the Highland Dancing and the representation of their clans. I didn’t really know what to expect of Scotland and Edinburgh, which is perhaps why I wasn’t at all disappointed by either of them, but I definitely would like to live in Scotland at some point, at least for a little while.
The fact that we went to Scotland is a bit of an odd thing because it was a “Plan B” (or even C probably) when our trip to Morocco didn’t work out, but it ended up being such an amazing trip and so many things fell into place without any doing on our part, that we think it was a little bit of destiny ;) The only flights that we could find for this weekend from Lyon (the largest city close to Grenoble) to Edinburgh left Thursday and returned on Tuesday, which meant we were missing 4 days of school; normally, I wouldn’t condone missing school, but considering my near-perfect attendance at USC, the fact that I’m not really receiving credit for these French courses, the fact that you don’t get to live in Europe and go to Scotland every day, and the fact that I’ve spent upwards of 10 hours in the language lab trying to compensate for missing said days, I figured it would be worth it. The first thing that fell into place for us was lodging; we looked around at hostels but were struggling to pick one because we were trying to be conscious of both money and safety (it’s hard to find a room for just 3 people without it costing way more than the 8 or 10-person dorms). Luckily, Shana has “relatives” (really close family friends of her grandma lol) in Edinburgh who very generously offered to let us stay with them and even fed us 2 out of 3 meals per day. You honestly can’t get a much better situation to be staying in a city, especially when the people having you are as amazing as Alan and Sheena are. The second lucky thing was the weather; normally, Scotland is rainy and cold (especially this winter when they’ve had 6 weeks of snow as opposed to the normal 2), but we had sunshine every single day we were there and only encountered a sprinkling of rain once or twice. The third lucky thing happened our first night in Scotland; we made it to Edinburgh around 4 pm (despite some punctual incompetence on my part that made me almost not get to Lyon in time for our flight) and met Sheena at the airport. On the way home, she mentioned that she would be gone for part of the night because she takes a Scottish Highland dance class which was meeting that night; of course that piqued our interest, and we asked if we could come along. Everyone was so welcoming and friendly from the second we walked in the door, something that’s a little different from French people who, in my experience, take a little more time to warm up. It was thoroughly enjoyable watching the dancing, which is a little like Irish step-dancing but more relaxed, and even though it looked easy, when they had us join for a couple of dances, it was not at all haha though I’d love to learn…the next morning Sheena drove us into town and took us to Edinburgh Castle; the views of and from the castle were beautiful, and the history of a building that old was really hard to grasp for me, especially since everything in America is so “young.” We toured the castle, saw the crowned jewels, toured the prison, and ate lunch in a café in the castle. We then spent a ton of time in gift shops laughing at all of the crazy souvenirs (coffee mugs shaped like kilts?) and looking for the “perfect” tartan pattern for our scarves; Shana and Cecilia both got one of the tartans for Shana’s clan (MacLean) while I got a blue/green/white pattern that apparently goes well with my eyes/hair/whatever and just happened to be the Gordon clan. We walked around the Royal Mile and were all in a state of infatuation with Edinburgh. When we got back to the house, Sheena and Alan’s grandsons, Callum and Ewan, were there, and we thoroughly enjoyed playing with them :) one thing that we noticed is how much more proper even children’s English is when it’s “British English” versus “American English,” even though both of the boys have especially impressive vocabularies for 7 and 4 year olds. The next morning began our 2-day Highland Tour, and throughout the first day we saw the William Wallace monument, which offered some nice views; Hamish the Highland Cow (“Hairy Coo”), my new favorite animal; drove by various historical markers and places, including the castle where Monty Python was filmed, the place where the Clan MacDonald was murdered; and saw the Highlands, which are absolutely beautiful. We were staying in the little town of Fort William, which basically consisted of a million bed and breakfasts/hotels, some restaurants, and a bar or two. Not somewhere that I’d like to stay extensively, but it was on a lake (loch?) and was perfect for one night The bed and breakfast was only 22 euros a night for each of us to have single rooms and breakfast, and the B&B itself was really clean and really nice (plus the most adorable old lady ran it); another good life decision by Cecilia, Stephanie, and Shana! We went to dinner at a hotel restaurant, and one thing that is definitely preferable in France is the relationship with food; although everything I ate was pretty good, I didn’t have any meals in Scotland that were particularly impressive after living in France for 2 months (with the exception of shortbread, of which I ate ridiculous quantities in 6 days). We went to the bar our tour guide recommended, but England and France were playing for the Six Nations Cup in rugby, so it was all guys and none of them were paying us any attention haha Shana and I got Irn Bru (which is Scotland’s national drink, after whisky of course) with vodka, which wasn’t anything spectacular, but was good nonetheless. We were all surprisingly tired from sitting on a bus all day and had an early morning, so we just watched BBC TV and hung out until we went to bed. Day two of the Highland Tour included the Castle of Eilean Donan (which is supposedly the most famous in Scotland), Loch Ness, and more beautiful Highlands and historical goodness; my only complaint was that we spent more time at Eilean Donan than I would have liked and not enough at Loch Ness, but at least we saw them at all. Overall, the tour was good; I think I was more impressed with what we saw than either the guide (especially his motion sickness-inducing driving and Negative Nancy stories) or the company itself, but I could still recommend using Timberbush Tours to someone else just because we did enjoy the tour itself so much. We were all pretty wiped out by the time we got back into Edinburgh, despite sleeping sporadically on the bus, so we took the bus and Alan picked us up from the stop. Although we never did make it into town for a pub crawl, we did have fun spending the evenings learning about Scottish and British culture talking with Alan and Sheena and watching “Coupling,” the British version of Friends (which is raunchier because they can get away with a lot more on British television). The next day was our last in Edinburgh, and since we had only seen the Castle, we had a lot that we wanted to do, starting with a driving tour by Sheena, who was really well-informed because her father used to do a lot with tourism of the city. We then went to Holyrood Palace, which was really beautiful and interesting and actually preferable to Versailles, which I find too ornate. One of the security workers in the palace overhead us speaking “Frenglish,” to avoid losing it after so much English for 6 days, and started talking to us about where we were from, studying in France, being in Scotland, etc.; it turns out that of the places we’re from (Shana from Seattle, Cecilia from Connecticut/New York, and me from South Carolina), he had only been to South Carolina (Hilton Head for golf), which definitely surprised me but made me a little prouder of my home state. After the palace, we ate lunch in their café, and then toured the Queen’s Gallery, which included pictures from Antarctica expeditions; it was interesting, but we didn’t have a lot of time, so I mostly looked at the nature photographs, which I prefer over the ones of the crew. We walked along the Royal Mile again in the beautiful, warm sunshine and decided that our next stop would be the Scottish Whisky Experience; now, I wasn’t a big fan of whisk(e)y and still am not, but when in Scotland, you do as the Scottish :) the tour was interesting since I know nothing about whisky, and it was fun tasting the different kinds (fun, but not necessarily tasty). Since it was about time to head home, we did some last-minute souvenir shopping, and again took the bus home (p.s Edinburgh buses are much preferable to Grenoble’s because they’re 1) plaid and 2) double decker). Our flight left early the next morning, so that was all that we got to do in Edinburgh, but I think we all plan to return both there and other places in Scotland someday because it was a pretty big hit with all 3 of us. It was really nice because it was a good mix between American culture and European culture; for example, whereas peanut butter is really expensive in France and Nutella is expensive in the States, you can get both reasonably priced in Scotland! Haha It was also really nice to learn some of the differences between Scottish culture and British culture; it’s easy to lump everything into “British,” but Scotland has so much identity and pride, especially with things like the Highland Dancing and the representation of their clans. I didn’t really know what to expect of Scotland and Edinburgh, which is perhaps why I wasn’t at all disappointed by either of them, but I definitely would like to live in Scotland at some point, at least for a little while.
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