Well I can say that this has been the most interesting weekend I’ve had in France…it certainly wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t the best weekend either. Thursday night started out really fun because we went out for Cecilia’s birthday; after dinner and wine at Shana’s house, we made the usual rounds of London Pub, Le Couche-Tard (so sketch!), and then went to check out a Discotheque. Overall, it was a successful night, but we were out until 4 am, so I spent the night at Cecilia’s house and decided to forego class in 4 ½ hours. We had an API excursion Friday afternoon to the Chartreuse distillery, but even by 1 pm when we met with them, we were not in the best shape from the night before haha and we were going to go drink more alcohol in the form of Chartreuse samples. It still ending up being a good time though; the GEM kids were there too, so I got to catch up with Jack for the first time in a while, which was really nice. P.S Chartreuse is gross.
There were different kinds to try, the most popular being the more traditional green or the sweeter yellow; I started with yellow, which was tolerable but did not care for the green at all haha after the distillery, we drove to the monastery about 30 minutes away; even though the inside was closed, we hiked up a trail (in the weird, sporadic hail/snow) to see it from up on a hill. Most of the group literally climbed up a snowy, muddy hill to a cross up at the top to get a view; it was slow going and not the most graceful thing I’ve done, but the view was worth it! After Thursday night and Friday, we were all so tired that we opted to stay in Friday night instead of going back out to the bars, a decision which I think my body thanked me for. Saturday morning Shana was going to meet her friend in Paris, so Cecilia, Sarah, and I met up to look for somewhere to go for the day. We had planned on Valence, which is only about an hour from Grenoble, but Cecilia’s host mom suggested Roman instead, and since it was also both closer and cheaper, we bought tickets for Roman for the day. Since we had a couple of hours to kill before our train, we went in one of the museums in the center of Grenoble that had an exhibit about the first photographs taken of Grenoble; it was interesting, but somewhat disappointing, so at least entry was free (entrée gratuit). By the time we grabbed some lunch and got to the gare, it was just around time for our train to leave…except that it was delayed haha luckily we all can entertain ourselves with conversation for infinite amounts of time, so we were only concerned that we wouldn’t have sufficient time in Roman. Once we did get on the train, people had taken up twice as many seats as necessary, so we had nowhere to sit. We sat in the baggage area, which ended up being relatively comfortable, and Cecilia “got all New York on everybody’s asses” haha it was one thing that I have to say would have been different in the States, not necessarily because people would have been more considerate, but the train companies usually require people to make room for other passengers. Once we got to Roman (which, btw, is the shoe capital of France and also known for their ravioles), we wandered the almost-empty streets for a while until we stumbled upon their Carnaval celebration. Now, I would be a liar if I said that I didn’t think it was really weird but in retrospect, it was a lot cooler than at the time, probably because we were all in a weird state of mind. There were crazy costumes everywhere (more on the adults than the kids actually), and there were different booths selling crepes and beer and all kind of foods. The kicker, though, came when they had the “Key Ceremony,” and the mayor came out and gave the key to the city to…Satan. There were creepy fire carnies and crazy costumes and demon children with Silly String and firecrackers(!) and then a giant devil puppet…if anyone has seen the scene in Halloweentown right before Cal turns everything super evil, this literally felt just like that. It was terrifying.
After our search for ravioles at a restaurant ended unsuccessfully (everything freaking shuts down after lunch and before they eat dinner at like 9 pm), we wanted a little and grabbed some more food before our train home. With the train delay, we only had about 4 hours in Roman, which ended up being okay; it wasn’t that it was a bad city, it was just between where our moods were and between the unexpected Carnaval, we were just tired and kind of weirded out. Luckily on the train home we had seats, and Sarah and Cecilia slept while I thought about home; I’m not going to lie, Saturday was the first day I’ve wanted to be home, which probably contributed a lot to my weird mood. It was just because it was Upper Division Orientation, and I wanted to be there anyway, but especially when our day ended up being kind of disappointing. And then I felt bad for wanting to go home because I honestly don’t want to leave, but I don’t want to wish away a day here either; it’s just more of the constant emotional roller coaster than an experience like this is, and Saturday was just one of those days where the roller coaster was mostly going downhill. Once we got back to Grenoble, we parted ways for a bit to recharge, and then met back up to go see a movie; however, by the time I got into town with the bus/trams, it was kind of late, and we were all kind of hyper, so we opted instead to just walk around, which of course led to a bar, and this time it was O’Callaghan’s. I got my “usual” Irish Coffee, and we sat talking and watching the Olympics as we drank; we only had a little bit of time before the last buses to Sarah and my respective homes, but it was still a good night (and of course if any alcohol is involved, Cecilia and I have a good time bonding with each other). Sunday morning was a really early one because we were meeting the CUEF for snowshoeing (“racquetting”) at the train station at 8 am (which meant leaving the residence around 7 for me to wait for the bus). We didn’t actually start snowshoeing until around noon because of the time it took to drive up there, get equipment, and take time for some coffee and gaufres (waffles). It had started raining when we first got to the little town where we were leaving from, but luckily it stayed away for the rest of the day. Now, I’ll be honest, I totally underestimated snowshoeing because it looks SO EASY; let me tell you, it’s not. I’m more tired and sore from a day of snowshoeing than I have ever been from skiing. It probably didn’t help though that we walked all the way up a mountain and back down, and since you’re walking on giant planks and can’t climb straight up the face of a hill, it takes a lot longer to gradually weave up it. And here the honesty will continue: for a large part of the day, I was not the happiest camper; some part of my body was hurting me throughout the entire day, and there was sheer exhaustion and the potential for death (we climbed up to the summit on giant pieces of plastic staring a drop-off and certain death literally in the face), BUT the views on the way up and down and definitely at the summit were absolutely spectacular.
I think the biggest problem was just the lack of information given to us before we left (which is such a French mentality and the one cultural thing that really drives me crazy); Cecilia and I had gone to sign up for the excursion multiple times throughout the week, but never got to for one reason or another until Vincent (the guy who was heading it up) called us Friday afternoon and gave us the bare minimum of information on the phone. Everyone else had been given a slip of paper telling to bring like hiking boots and a picnic lunch, and no one relayed that information on on us; I will take some of the blame because we should have asked, but it just added to the frustration because if we had known to expect a full day of it, we would have been better prepared (like with food). Overall, it was one of those things that I’m glad I did, but honestly won’t be doing again for a while; we can laugh at it already, but by the end, it was so hard to keep going, especially since our guide didn’t seem to be very patient and understanding that Cecilia and I needed to go more slowly because of former knee dislocations and tumor surgeries, respectively, and wanted to go more slowly to really take in and enjoy the scenery. It just added insult to injury that we had to walk back down to the town instead of taking the bus, so by the time we turned our stuff in, I literally was about to the breaking point; my feet even now are in kind of weird condition, and any recovering my body did from Thursday night has been completely reversed haha overall, it was a pretty good weekend; like I said before, it wasn’t the best I’ve had here, but it was probably a combination of emotions, especially being at the one-month mark, the weather, which was cloudy all weekend, and frustrations with our planning.
There were different kinds to try, the most popular being the more traditional green or the sweeter yellow; I started with yellow, which was tolerable but did not care for the green at all haha after the distillery, we drove to the monastery about 30 minutes away; even though the inside was closed, we hiked up a trail (in the weird, sporadic hail/snow) to see it from up on a hill. Most of the group literally climbed up a snowy, muddy hill to a cross up at the top to get a view; it was slow going and not the most graceful thing I’ve done, but the view was worth it! After Thursday night and Friday, we were all so tired that we opted to stay in Friday night instead of going back out to the bars, a decision which I think my body thanked me for. Saturday morning Shana was going to meet her friend in Paris, so Cecilia, Sarah, and I met up to look for somewhere to go for the day. We had planned on Valence, which is only about an hour from Grenoble, but Cecilia’s host mom suggested Roman instead, and since it was also both closer and cheaper, we bought tickets for Roman for the day. Since we had a couple of hours to kill before our train, we went in one of the museums in the center of Grenoble that had an exhibit about the first photographs taken of Grenoble; it was interesting, but somewhat disappointing, so at least entry was free (entrée gratuit). By the time we grabbed some lunch and got to the gare, it was just around time for our train to leave…except that it was delayed haha luckily we all can entertain ourselves with conversation for infinite amounts of time, so we were only concerned that we wouldn’t have sufficient time in Roman. Once we did get on the train, people had taken up twice as many seats as necessary, so we had nowhere to sit. We sat in the baggage area, which ended up being relatively comfortable, and Cecilia “got all New York on everybody’s asses” haha it was one thing that I have to say would have been different in the States, not necessarily because people would have been more considerate, but the train companies usually require people to make room for other passengers. Once we got to Roman (which, btw, is the shoe capital of France and also known for their ravioles), we wandered the almost-empty streets for a while until we stumbled upon their Carnaval celebration. Now, I would be a liar if I said that I didn’t think it was really weird but in retrospect, it was a lot cooler than at the time, probably because we were all in a weird state of mind. There were crazy costumes everywhere (more on the adults than the kids actually), and there were different booths selling crepes and beer and all kind of foods. The kicker, though, came when they had the “Key Ceremony,” and the mayor came out and gave the key to the city to…Satan. There were creepy fire carnies and crazy costumes and demon children with Silly String and firecrackers(!) and then a giant devil puppet…if anyone has seen the scene in Halloweentown right before Cal turns everything super evil, this literally felt just like that. It was terrifying.
After our search for ravioles at a restaurant ended unsuccessfully (everything freaking shuts down after lunch and before they eat dinner at like 9 pm), we wanted a little and grabbed some more food before our train home. With the train delay, we only had about 4 hours in Roman, which ended up being okay; it wasn’t that it was a bad city, it was just between where our moods were and between the unexpected Carnaval, we were just tired and kind of weirded out. Luckily on the train home we had seats, and Sarah and Cecilia slept while I thought about home; I’m not going to lie, Saturday was the first day I’ve wanted to be home, which probably contributed a lot to my weird mood. It was just because it was Upper Division Orientation, and I wanted to be there anyway, but especially when our day ended up being kind of disappointing. And then I felt bad for wanting to go home because I honestly don’t want to leave, but I don’t want to wish away a day here either; it’s just more of the constant emotional roller coaster than an experience like this is, and Saturday was just one of those days where the roller coaster was mostly going downhill. Once we got back to Grenoble, we parted ways for a bit to recharge, and then met back up to go see a movie; however, by the time I got into town with the bus/trams, it was kind of late, and we were all kind of hyper, so we opted instead to just walk around, which of course led to a bar, and this time it was O’Callaghan’s. I got my “usual” Irish Coffee, and we sat talking and watching the Olympics as we drank; we only had a little bit of time before the last buses to Sarah and my respective homes, but it was still a good night (and of course if any alcohol is involved, Cecilia and I have a good time bonding with each other). Sunday morning was a really early one because we were meeting the CUEF for snowshoeing (“racquetting”) at the train station at 8 am (which meant leaving the residence around 7 for me to wait for the bus). We didn’t actually start snowshoeing until around noon because of the time it took to drive up there, get equipment, and take time for some coffee and gaufres (waffles). It had started raining when we first got to the little town where we were leaving from, but luckily it stayed away for the rest of the day. Now, I’ll be honest, I totally underestimated snowshoeing because it looks SO EASY; let me tell you, it’s not. I’m more tired and sore from a day of snowshoeing than I have ever been from skiing. It probably didn’t help though that we walked all the way up a mountain and back down, and since you’re walking on giant planks and can’t climb straight up the face of a hill, it takes a lot longer to gradually weave up it. And here the honesty will continue: for a large part of the day, I was not the happiest camper; some part of my body was hurting me throughout the entire day, and there was sheer exhaustion and the potential for death (we climbed up to the summit on giant pieces of plastic staring a drop-off and certain death literally in the face), BUT the views on the way up and down and definitely at the summit were absolutely spectacular. 
I think the biggest problem was just the lack of information given to us before we left (which is such a French mentality and the one cultural thing that really drives me crazy); Cecilia and I had gone to sign up for the excursion multiple times throughout the week, but never got to for one reason or another until Vincent (the guy who was heading it up) called us Friday afternoon and gave us the bare minimum of information on the phone. Everyone else had been given a slip of paper telling to bring like hiking boots and a picnic lunch, and no one relayed that information on on us; I will take some of the blame because we should have asked, but it just added to the frustration because if we had known to expect a full day of it, we would have been better prepared (like with food). Overall, it was one of those things that I’m glad I did, but honestly won’t be doing again for a while; we can laugh at it already, but by the end, it was so hard to keep going, especially since our guide didn’t seem to be very patient and understanding that Cecilia and I needed to go more slowly because of former knee dislocations and tumor surgeries, respectively, and wanted to go more slowly to really take in and enjoy the scenery. It just added insult to injury that we had to walk back down to the town instead of taking the bus, so by the time we turned our stuff in, I literally was about to the breaking point; my feet even now are in kind of weird condition, and any recovering my body did from Thursday night has been completely reversed haha overall, it was a pretty good weekend; like I said before, it wasn’t the best I’ve had here, but it was probably a combination of emotions, especially being at the one-month mark, the weather, which was cloudy all weekend, and frustrations with our planning.
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