J’ai déjà commencé ma valise

Its kind of sad when that I don’t leave for another 5 days, and I’ve already started packing my stuff up.  Okay, maybe not completely sad, but I think sometimes I try to be too organized.

Jon’s mom did a little bit of research after our UPS shipping price scare, and found that it shouldn’t be much more than $100-150 to ship our big suitcase back to the states so we don’t have to carry it and a whole bunch of stuff we don’t need with us.  I really hope it’s somewhere close to that price range, because though it’s a little expensive, its well worth the convenience of not having all that extra stuff with us.  We’re hoping to go to the post office sometime today, so lets hope what she found is true!

Other than that, it’s about time I write and send out my postcards too.  I bought a handful for a few people a couple of weeks ago, and kind of forgot about them.  I also should start thinking of little things I want to bring home to my family and a couple of friends, which brought me to the unsettling realization that there isn’t a very cool French Riviera souvenir.  So, to my few friends and family who get something from me and look at it and wonder “Well how is this French?”… it probably isn’t, I probably just saw it and thought of you.  The only real souvenir of this region of France is this silly little sachet things filled with dried flowers and such that smell pretty.  I think it’s a little lame.

That is about it really.  I powered through the rest of my online courses for USF, so I’m done with all that (thank goodness!).  Just dinner plans tonight with Ilona, and trying to come up with something worth while for the weekend.  We shall see.

Until then, I’ve uploaded a new picture for the top of my blog, if you didn’t already notice.  Jon took a bunch of pictures from Breil-sur-Roya and put this panorama together from the top of the mountain we hiked.  If you look very closely, you can find me laying in the picture, enjoying the beautiful French sunshine. :)

Jon voulait voir des montagnes, donc j’ai trouvé des montagnes.

So, as we were approaching our second to last weekend in Nice, Jon’s mom (and most of our other friends) asked us “So what are you going to do this weekend?”  Likely question, but we didn’t have a definitive answer.  Jon just wanted to see some mountains.  After asking a friend if he would help us with a good place to go, and if he would like to join us, he was only able to provide some help with the former; apparently a thesis was calling him, poor guy.  He did however, suggest Mercantour National Park.  Well, Jon did some research and couldn’t find anything to get us into the park, despite its rather great size.  So he went to bed suuuuuper late after doing some night photography (while I slept, because I thought he was crazy), which allowed me some time alone to do some research in the morning when I woke up a few hours before he did.  Before Nicolas’ screams had a chance to wake him up, I found us train times and a village to see in one of the valleys that feeds into the national park.  Sure, we weren’t actually going to be in the park, but they were mountains, and we figured that was good enough for us.  Since Jon got so little sleep, I decided (after consulting the unpredictable weather forecast) against waking him up and saying “Come on, lets go!” and told him when he was awaken by the screams that I had plans for us the next day.  I figured that might make waking up to a screaming 3-year-old a little less annoying.

Saturday went by with not much to say about it; just some homework, some eating, some screaming, and some reading.  I finally finished Julia Child’s My Life in France and I loved it.  I’ve now moved on to my list of classics that I never read as a child, and the first on the list was Lewis Caroll’s Alice’s Adventure’s in Wonderland.  It’s definitely interesting!

Our plan Sunday morning was to get up early and take the 7:30ish train into Breil-sur-Roya.  Well, apparently it took Jon 20 minutes to even get me awake (I didn’t sleep well the night before, probably because I knew I needed proper rest), and after getting ready and double checking the train schedule, I realized that the times I had remembered we backwards; the train that left Nice left at 7:21, and the train that left Breil left at 7:38.  So on top of being late, we lost 17 minutes in my mistaken planning.  Thankfully though (and I already knew this), there was a train that left at 9:05 and we considered this not much time lost.  The train into the village was fairly smooth, mountainous views all about, and my ears popping like crazy the entire way.

Once we got to Breil-sur-Roya, we were met by a very tiny, adorable little village.  It being Sunday, and the fact that its touristy season doesn’t start until its warm enough to enjoy any water sports (since theres a wide river that runs right by it), not much was open to get something to eat.  We found one place were we had the most amazing fries, and Jon ordered something called the Americain and I ordered a kebab.  The Americain is basically France’s interpretation of American food smacked between halves of a baguette; one or two burgers split in half, lettuce, tomato, some sort of sauce to your preference, and fries.  Yes, fries in the sandwich.  It was delicious, but he couldn’t finish it.  After finishing our food, we told our server that we were looking to do some hiking and asked if he knew of a good place to start and how to get there.  He beckoned another girl, and she rambled off directions in the fastest French I’ve heard yet.  Thankfully though, we caught enough words, and I was able to follow most of what she was saying through her hands, and we found ourselves a path.  And boy was it a path.

The original path we found came to a fork, and we opted for the one that looked significantly steeper.  The name of the path was the Boucle de la Cruella which translates to the curls of Cruella (DeVille? Hehe).  Given the nature of Cruella, this path was nasty.  Really steep, really narrow, parts of it were extremely loose, and I was not doing well.  Part of the problem is our inability to plan proper amounts of water.  We ran out of water about halfway up the mountain, and had to take frequent breaks to combat the rest.  Its the sort of hike that gets your heart rate going pretty hard, but then every time my foot would slip on the loose rocks, my heart would skip a few beats out of fear, which would send it into an uncontrollable heart rate.  Not fun in the slightest.  But when we made it up to the top where the old château and its ruins were, it was well worth the hike.  The view was fantastic.

One our way back down the path, we ran into a mysterious dog that scared the living daylights out of us, but ended up being totally adorable and unbelievably happy.  We also found his owners a few meters a way further back on the path.  Nothing like some doggy lovins to make you feel great!  As we continued to climb down, Jon insisted that instead of going back to the village (where there was nothing to do for a few hours before our train home, but there was water) we should take the other part of the path that forked off at the beginning and see where it takes us.  He always wins.

After some convincing, we headed that direction, and noticed that the river that the mountains surround was getting closer and closer to us.  Given our thirst, and how crystal clear the water looked, we decided to keep going until we could find a way to get down to the water.  We eventually did, and found the most peaceful place to spend about an hour and a half of our afternoon.  We filled up our water bottle, examined it thoroughly, smelt it, and then eventually took a sip.  It tasted wonderful; just like the water that originally filled the bottle.  Sure, in a survival situation I wouldn’t have done that without testing the water first, but we were thirsty, not lost, and not far from help.  So far, its proven to not be a bad choice, as neither of us have come down with mysterious symptoms out of no where.  Jon was wearing his FiveFinger shoes again, which are much better suited for water than my Nike tennis shoes, so he took of his shorts (don’t worry folks, he was wearing under armor underneath!) and got in the water to take some pictures of the little bitty water falls around us.  It was too cold for me, so I stuck my toes in ever few minutes too cool off.

Even more interesting though, was there were quite a few of these little purpley-blue butterflies everywhere that insisted on landing on us.  I don’t really know much about butterflies, but they were not shy like they usually are.  They landed on our feet, shoes, Jon’s socks, our hands, watches, hair, everything.  They were adorable and entertaining.  So while Jon was off mid-thigh high in ice cold water, I was being entertained by a bunch of adorable butterflies.  I thought that sort of thing only happened in Disney movies!

Once we started to feel a little too relaxed, we decided it was time to head back into town.  We figured we had just about enough time to stop at the first place we saw that had ice cream, have a little treat, and head to the train station to take the first train back.  Sure, it left Breil-sur-Roya about an hour earlier than we had intended on leaving, but we did a lot more in our 7 hours than we thought we would have, and did not regret our decision.  We were exhausted, and didn’t want to push ourselves so far that the last couple hours just wouldn’t be enjoyable.  Ice cream proved to be a wonderful idea, as I ordered possibly the best vanilla ice cream I have ever had in my entire life, with chocolate sauce and whipped cream on top!  It actually tasted like vanilla, something most vanillas lack.  With a Coke to wash it all down, which proved to be a good thing to order since it helped make Jon’s lemon sorbet and vodka a little easier to stomach when he mixed some in.  Definitely a good idea.

Our walk back to the train station seemed longer than we thought, since we’d had time to relax while we ate our ice cream, and were growing more tired by the minute.  The train ride home was the same as the one there, but with a lot more napping.  We got home and basically went into zombie mode; we didn’t even have dinner.  This was all made better by the absence of a screaming 3-year-old, since our host family is out of town until Friday or Saturday.  Yay for silence!

I’d say, good day accomplished.

Oh of course, les photos.

Breil-sur-Roya

Water and mountains? Yes please!

This is how the river is able to widen so much. Cheaters :P

Just an adorable alley.

My lunch.

Jon’s monster.

Before we started our hike.

The arch that marked the beginning of our trail.

Earth is so cool

Pretty stream

The view from the top!

See the little building pretty much centered in the picture? Thats where we started.

The castely thing.

The mystery puppy!

Jon can’t resist a puppy.

Did I mention how cool Earth is?

Trying to find our way down to the water.

I sat on the little bridge while Jon investigated.

Butterfly!

Butterfly on Jon’s shoe!

Butterfly tickling my toes!

Butterflies on my watch!

Butterflies on Jon’s icky sock!

Jon pouring really cold water on his head.

Butterfly on Jon’s camera!

The view from where we sat.

Our “new” bottle of Evian!

The best vanilla ice cream on the world.

Quelle est la différence entre une navette spatiale et une fusée?

Outside of class, not a whole lot has been going on.  Nice is still the same, with its brilliant blue skies, over priced skinny-girl shopping, delicious bakery items and poo filled side walks.  However in class, I’ve realized some things that I find to be very exciting.

The classes are set up so that the people taking the extensive course (5 days a week for 2.5 hours a day) and the people taking the intensive course (5 days/4 hours per day) start at the same time each morning, learn the task at hand, and at 11:30 the extensive course takers leave for the day and the ones remaining just further practice the skills all of us just learned.  I find it to be quite efficient.  Given the nature of the second half of the class, it leaves our time open for discussion on a variety of topics, be it related to what we’re working on or not.

For instance, today while trying to work through a worksheet, we got on a 25 minute tangent about parenting, and whats considered appropriate in our respective countries.  Given our experiences with our host family, we had a lot to say about how it differs from the way Jon and I were raised.  We had to explain that our definition of “discipline” isn’t just the act of spanking or beating your kids, but just making sure there are limits and rules to be followed.  The man from Canada asked me what my parents usually did in the unlikely situation that I got into any trouble, and I explained that usually it was a matter of time out, or being grounded for something serious, but with the addition of explanation as to why what I did was wrong, and what would have been a better thing to do in that situation.  Doesn’t hurt that having a dad in the military evoked a little bit of fear in six-year-old Caroline, but I definitely knew what was right, and what was wrong; something that seems completely absent in our host family.  We also learned that its illegal to even tap a kid on his hands as a way of getting his/her attention, and that kids can call some sort of hotline (111 is the number) to report if their parents do so.  My goodness!

Yesterday we learned the subjunctive tense, something that doesn’t exist in English but basically equates to “It is necessary that I do this.”  We happened to have a worksheet that had 6 pictures on it, the first being of a man clearly obese, trying to get up the stairs.  Our objective was to come up with phrases of what this man has to do in order to be healthier; this led to a discussion about the different definitions of obese, and how in the US its determined primarily by your BMI.  This led into a debate about whether its accurate, which spilled into a debate about health care systems in various countries, particularly the difficulty and expense of getting health insurance in the States.  This eventually led to a debate about medicine and antibiotics, and we concluded that the French are hypochondriacs, take medicine for the tiniest little things, and have a huge cabinet in every house fully stocked with all sorts of medicament.  30 minutes later, we moved on to picture number two.

Another day, after one of the extensive course members left saying she was going to be walking her dogs that afternoon, she brought the little pups in for us to see; this led to a 20 minute discussion about the sort of animals we like, whether we pick up after our dogs in our respective countries (this included a mini explanation about how it’s totally acceptable to scream at some who leaves their dog’s poo in the streets in the US, which is apparently try in England too), and if we consider dogs to be “friends.”

Another one of our tangents today has to be by far my favorite debate to date.  Our professor said something about transport in a particular region, which merely means the bus, train, tram or metro system.  I, jokingly since I knew its definition in French, asked about the transportation in said region.  Well, transportation in French isn’t just a longer way of saying the former, but refers to means of traveling into space.  This turned into Jon and I trying to explain the difference between a rocket (une fusée)  and a space shuttle (une navette spatiale).  Being from the Countdown County, home of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the both of us frequently said “Quand on habite en Floride, on connaît la différence entre une navette spatiale et une fusée très bien,” but it took a while for us to get our point across.  After a few trips to the board, some rather comical illustrations, and a confession from our professor that she’s the literary type, not the scientific type, she eventually understood that a space shuttle and a rocket aren’t the same, but for what reasons, I’m not sure she finally understood.  Almost 40 minutes later, there was only 10 minutes left in class, and we laughed about our inability to stay on topic, but applauded our attempts at real conversation.  It felt really natural, and I was excited by this.

So I guess while we’re not really seeing anything new at the moment, and are very much looking forward to our host family going on vacation for the next six days (hello silence!), I can’t say the past couple days hasn’t gone by without excitement.

Ce voyage n’est pas censé être stressant

So the past couple days have been a roller coaster.

The first major loop was learning that our information on the Schengen Zone and its rules were out of date.  We were under the impression that you could only stay in each country of the zone for a total of 90 days, but now you can only stay in the entire zone for 90 days.  When we leave France, it will be day 84, and all but our last farm is within the Schengen Zone.  So after going to see the United States Consulate here in Nice, and consulting with some people back home, we found out that we’ll actually more than likely be just fine; just travel quietly, be really nice, and worse comes to worse, play dumb.  Which means I’m going to be a rubber band ball of stress everytime we’re traveling.

That is, if I get to travel.

The second loop is that our continued research in finding train and plane tickets to all these places has proven to cost us more than we had originally budgeted for.  Which means with the amount of money I currently have left, I can’t afford to get from one country to the next and get home.  Getting home is pretty important… but so is this trip.  Considering all the time I spent emailing all these farms and organizing them, all the saving I did before the trip, and all the work I did throughout my college years so I can earn the scholarships I have to make this possible, it’s extremely important to me that I actually get to go through with our plan.  I don’t like the idea of Jon even considering forfeiting anything because I can’t, but I also don’t like that people seem to think that I’m merely a tag-a-long in this trip and that I didn’t have an active part in its planning from the very beginning.

Combine all this with a six hour time difference (which means my mom is working when I’m in need of someone to talk to), the fact that I emailed my dad two weeks ago just to say hi and I still haven’t heard from him (he’s been busy getting ready for a new job, which involves a lot of travel, but still), and the fact that my new Bank of America card is stuck somewhere in Nice’s postal service (that is a story unto itself, and I will be giving Bank of America an earful when I get back to the states) and you can imagine my state is probably pretty fragile.  Very fragile, really.

Okay, sorry for the sap story, but my absence had to be accounted for some how.  There you have it.

Parfois, tu dois faire ce que tu dois faire

There are a few advantages and disadvantages to packing your favorite clothes on a 6 month trip.  Advantage: obvious, you have all your favorite clothes with you.  Disadvantage: the realization that they may need to cut them up.

When I was packing for this trip in January, I wasn’t able to pack many shorts with me.  I hate shopping for shorts and haven’t done so in years, and given that they’re necessary 10 out of 12 months of the year in Florida, they were quite worn out.  So worn out that most of them were ripped and better suited for rags than clothing.  So I didn’t pack them, and only came armed with two pairs of Nike running shorts, thinking  “I’ll just buy some shorts as the weather warms up.”  Well, unfortunately I’m about 6 inches taller than the average French woman, which makes finding shorts, or pants of any sort, incredibly difficult.  After a few terrible moments in the dressing rooms of H&M, I realized I may have to do something a little different.

Right before we left, my favorite pair of jeans ripped, so I had to rush out to a mall and search for a new pair.  I ended up buying a pair that I wasn’t crazy about just because they kind of fit, since all the jeans else where either looked ridiculous (why do clothing companies have to rip up your jeans and stain them before you even get to?) or they were too short.  So my first thought was, “Okay, I’ll make those awful jeans I hardly wear into shorts,” and so Jon helped me with that, since I suck at cutting a straight line.

The next day, I decided it was time to turn my beloved grey Fossil corduroys into shorts too.  I love them, and they fit great, but somebody at home accidentally dried them a few months ago and I’ve been in denial about the fact they they’re just a tad too short.  Although, when considering this disadvantage of having to cut up my favorite pair of pants, Jon brought to my attention that I wasn’t “ruining” them like I felt I was, I was re-purposing them, and therefore could continue to wear them for probably at least another year.  That didn’t stop me from insisting he cut them right at that moment, before I talked myself out of it though.

So that being said, here’s my lesson: Keep an open mind when you run into clothing issues like these.  Especially you tall girls.  There will, after all, still be pants long enough for you when you get back to the states.

Je mange beaucoup de fruits en France

Seeing as we haven’t been doing anything terribly special during the past couple days, I’ve had some time to do some real thinking.  I’ve noticed a few changes in my daily habits and routine here, mostly in regards to food, and wanted to share my thoughts.

I eat a lot of fruit here.

I know that probably seems like a silly thing to comment on, but let me also say that my pants were falling off my butt while walking up our daily two flights of stairs.  I haven’t eaten this much fruit on a regular basis since I lived in (you guessed it) Europe.  Spain to be specific.  So as I was sitting there eating a banana during our coffee break in class, I said to Jon “I really hope I continue to eat this much fruit when we get back to the States.”  This turned into a debate about why we eat more fruit here than we do in the US.

First of all, fresh food markets are very prevalent here, and the fact that there’s one on the same block as our school probably helps with our daily fruit habit.  But every single day, at the start of our coffee break, we walk to the little market, pick out an orange, maybe a banana, sometimes an apple or a pear, pay less than 50 cents for it sometimes, and go back to class.  In the US, if I wanted to have just an apple, I’d have to get in my car, drive to Publix, and then just buy an apple.  But with all that effort, shouldn’t I do more shopping while I’m there?  That brought us to problem number two.

In the US, when I do my shopping, I usually do so once a week, maybe once every other week if pennies or tight or I’m going home soon.  So I buy some snacks that aren’t so good for me, and some fruit, and various other food items to use throughout the week.  But the snacks that aren’t as good for me are supposed to be a treat, that I split up throughout the week and enjoy in small quantities.  The problem arises when that never actually happens.  I usually end up eating the snacky foods first, and then by the time I remember that I bought fruit, they’ve gone bad.  Not good for my health, and definitely not good for my wallet.  So when I get home, I plan on changing my shopping habits so that this doesn’t happen.

It’s impossible to go on a low-carb diet in France.

Home of the baguette, the French usually cringe at the prospects of a meal sans pain.  Bread is as much a part of French culture as pasta is to Italian, or potatoes are to Irish.  Nevermind the fact that it’s incredibly inexpensive; 40 cents for half a baguette from the little bakery on our corner.  I was genuinely worried about this, given the minor success I had eliminating carbs from my diet state-side before we left, and thought that the moment I get to France, I would swell up like Violet from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (minus the blue face, of course).  But as mentioned before, my pants are falling off me.  I think the amount of bread I eat is outweighed by the amount of walking we do.  Obviously we don’t have a car, but even if we did, it would be completely impractical, and mad sometimes, to use it.  With a public transportation system like they have here, even if you do take  a bus some place, you still have plenty of time to walk off all those carb calories.  But I don’t think all the walking explains the general “thinness” of the French.

People seem a lot less stressed here than in the United States.

Any of my readers who know me quite well know that I am a bundle of stress almost every day, regardless of whether there is an important deadline approaching or not.  But after watching the French, and listening to our professor speak about the general way of life here, I think the French just don’t bother stressing about much, unless its something seriously worth losing sleep over.  Anyone who knows a few things about weight loss would also know that being stressed is one of the best ways to keep weight on.  Obviously not for everyone; some  people can hardly thing about food while the GRE is near, while others find themselves at the bottom of their second box of cookies.  Aside from different eating habits while stressed, the presence of stress puts your body into “fight or flight” mode, resulting in the excess energy, shifts in metabolism, blood flow, and the production of excess hormones.  One of these hormone in particular is the culprit for many cases of stress-related weight gain: cortisol.

Basically, when you’re stressed, your body feels as if it’s about to be harmed; hence “fight or flight” mode.  With this comes the overproduction of cortisol, a hormone that slows down your metabolism and triggers fat storage in the tummy region.  So even if you’re one of the lucky few that don’t eat or starve your emotions, you can still find yourself susceptible to weight gain.

Translated into the French lifestyle, the absence of stress leads to not only the absence of emotional eating, but also wards off the unwanted boost in cortisol levels.  The way of life here is incredibly laid back, with plenty of time to relax, and a meager 35 hour work week.  I know that doesn’t sound like that much of a difference, but consider this: you get up and get to work at 9 AM, you usually get a very short lunch break, and come home from work around 5 PM.  The French, on the other hand, get to work at 9 AM, leave work at 11 AM for their two-hour lunch break, return to work at 1 PM, then work until 6 PM.  Sure, they technically leave work later in the day, but they got a nice two-hour break at lunch time to eat a proper meal, relax, even take a nap.  The schedule in the US does not allow enough time to eat lunch, resulting in both poor eating habits and fatigue.  Fatigue affects the quality of work, and a lack of quality in work results in stress.  Voila!

So what am I going to change when I get home?

Well, that’s kind of a silly question, but obviously all of this.  When I go shopping, I’m going to buy fewer “bad” snacks, and more fruits and vegetables to snack on, keeping in mind the amount of time I have to eat them before they go bad.  I’m going to find new outlets to release stress other than my terrible mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups habit and my Oreo habit (these were standard around exam time).  Obviously, I can’t control my work day (well usually, unless I reach a point in my life where I can work for myself), but I can control what I eat during my lunch break.  And I won’t let myself get stressed over enjoying a little bit a bread every once in a while.

Add that to the fact that I’m starting a new running program in an effort to prepare for the Sister Run, an Ovarian Cancer Awareness 5K (the significance of this race is that my mother is a very lucky ovarian cancer survivor), and I foresee a much healthier Caroline within the next several months.  I think it’s a little weird that after 2 months and a few days in France, these are the things I’ve pulled away and plan to bring home with me.  Obviously among some other things, but these are the things I’m most excited about, and most relieved to have learned at my young age, before the stress and poor eating habits get the best of me.

Until next time: Mange une pomme!

Nous sommes malades, encore une fois.

So, I hope everyone else had a much more enjoyable weekend than we did.  Jon has been sick with a cold since Friday, which he has so wonderfully passed on to me.  This resulted in an extremely mediocre weekend.

Saturday morning started out nicely though.  We got up at a reasonable time and headed to the beach before the little brat could actually start screaming (yes!) and enjoyed a little over an hour in the sun.  Seeing as I have yet to purchase sunscreen, an hour was all I was willing to risk.  Fortunately no sunburn, unfortunately still no color.  We came home, made some lunch, and pretty much did nothing the rest of the day.  We’ve run out of things to do in Nice.

Sunday was definitely even worse.  I had a paper I had to write that I had been putting off forever because of the sheer stupidity of the assignment.  I’m going to vent for a moment: I am a Sociology major.  One of the core classes for my major is Research Methods, of which the objective is obvious.  Now, the class I am currently taking is a Sociology elective called Social Psychology.  Any professor who teaches a class for Sociology majors aught to know the requirements for the degree, therefore, they should go off assigning papers and assignments that meet the requirements of other classes.  This is exactly what happened.  Last semester I took Research Methods and completed an article deconstruction paper that teaches you how to properly read academic research articles, where to find these pieces of information and so on.  My Social Psychology professor assigned an identical paper; same questions, same objective.  Kind of a waste of my time, don’t you think?  Anyway, so given the fact that I knew it was a waste of my time, I didn’t work very efficiently on it.

While trying to avoid my paper I decided that, although I currently seriously detest running, I want to teach myself to enjoy it because its the easiest way you can work out and can be done almost anywhere you go.  So after looking at various running plans, picking a 5K for me to do when I get home (as a goal for myself so I don’t just blow it off), and enlisting the partnership of my sister, I decided that I would walk down to the Promenade des Anglais and see exactly what sort of running I am capable of.  Bad idea.  It being the beautiful Sunday it was, promenade was PACKED with people; stupid people too, you know, tourists. The kind that step right in front of a person thats running and then stops dead in their tracks.  I can’t count the amount of people I ran into, and nearly knocked over a few small children.  It was frustrating, and did not give my new running habit a good start.  And now that I woke up with Jon’s cold, it’ll be at least a few more days before I can find a better time to try and run in Nice.  Wish me luck!

I will however, say that I finally got my mother to Skype me.  I say that like she’s been able to the whole time and just hasn’t, but really she just hasn’t had a camera to do so.  Well I finally got to talk to her and it was nice.  I also had some much needed conversations with some friends back home, so at least I can say some parts of the weekend were enjoyable.

Today we started our third level of French.  We also moved to a smaller classroom, but ended up with pretty much just as many students.  I like this classroom better because its more intimate, but until the three fifteen year old girls from Italy leave after this week, it’ll be a little crowded.  Thats not to say they aren’t nice, just that they’re only staying for a week, along with a bunch of their other classmates scattered throughout our classes.  Must be Spring Break?

On a farm update, we have yet to hear anything definitive from Ireland.  Just a maybe should a Spanish couple fall through, but they have until April 15th to confirm.  Send good vibes!

Vous allez faire quoi pendant vos vacances?

Alright, enough about my Italian adventures.  I hope you enjoyed something a little out of our normal routine!

Since we got back from Torino, we got straight to seriously working on booking all of our farms for the second half of our trip.  We had been trying for weeks to just focus on Spain, but that was proving to be extremely difficult to plan.  While planning our first destination is obviously important, I felt it was equally as important to start looking in the other countries before they all book up too.  So I took over the emailing and started with the smallest countries with the fewest farms.  We had to change our plans slightly; originally we planned to see Switzerland, but after emailing all 3 possible farms, we decided to start looking at other countries too.  For the Switzerland slot I also emailed farms in Belgium (all 4 of them) and then several in Germany.  I also emailed all the possible farms in the Czech Republic and the Netherlands (3 and 5 respectively), and simply crossed my fingers that one of them would respond positively.  I had the support of my two friends at home, Jenna and Cristina, along the way, each of them insisting I keep my chin up, thoughts positive, and emails will come.  Believing them, I asked for good vibes, and went to bed feeling optimistic, several emails later.

The next morning we woke up to no replies, but given that we leave for class a little before nine o’clock, I decided this shouldn’t worry me.  When we got home from class though at one, we had 3 emails in our inbox.  One positive, two negative.  I was excited, we had officially booked our dates for the Netherlands!  Thankfully, this farm is only an hour away from Amsterdam, and the family has lived in the city for the majority of their lives.  Nothing like insider information on what to do and see!  That night, along side my homework, I continued to send emails to farms in Germany, and then started looking into Italy and Ireland.  After a long chat with my mom about my planning for the summer, planning for the fall semester, and getting updated on things at home, I went to bed feeling the same as I did the night before; optimistic.

The following morning went exactly the same as the previous.  Nothing when our alarm went off, but we had a positive reply from Germany (a farm between Berlin and Hamburg) waiting in our inbox when we got out of class!  Two farms officially confirmed, we were a third there.  Given that we hadn’t heard anything from the Czech Republic, and how badly Jon wanted to return, I insisted he call the farm there that looked the most promising, one just a little over an hour outside of Prague.  After buying the minimum amount of Skype credits allowed, and waiting 15 minutes for them to apply to his account, he nervously called the farm, fingers crossed that they spoke English well.  It was a quick conversation, but all positive.  She would send us an email confirming the dates, and we were booked.  All in a span of less than three full days, we had half of our farms booked.  Now thats what I call progress.

The next day we were able to confirm a farm just outside of Madrid in Spain, and today we finally confirmed a farm in the heart of Tuscany, Italy.  I am ecstatic that this has finally come together.  At this point, all the gaps are filled.  We still have Ireland to plan, but thats our last destination, and therefore doesn’t worry me as much.  Since we don’t have a ticket home to Florida yet, should Ireland prove to be impossible to book, we just go home early; not preferred of course, but definitely better than having a two week gap to try and fill on a limited budget.

Needless to say, I’m relieved.  At least I can stop stressing for now; you know, until I have to magically come up with all the money for this, despite the fact that the exchange rate from the USD to EUR has NOT been moving in our favor?

Okay, I’ll take the good as it comes, and worry about the rest when I need to.

Until next time, passer un bon week-end!

Hier, on a trouvé une chute d’eau

Yesterday proved to be one of those days where it pays to be a little adventurous.

First of all, let me start by saying that at the start of the day, I didn’t anticipate doing much more than napping.  The tickle in the back of my throat turned into an actual sore throat, and my glands were so swollen they made my entire head and neck ache.  Well when our professor asked us “Qu’est-ce que tu vas faire cet après-midi?” Jon replied (much to my surprise) “Peut-être, on va aller à Èze.” So much for a nap…

We invited Ilona to come with us, since she said she hadn’t been, and made plans to meet her near the bus station at 1:45 to make it to our 2:00 bus.  Unlike last time we went to Èze, when the weather was freezing and we welcomed the warm bus, the weather was gorgeous, which made the bus seem quite stuffy and warm.  Alas, for a single euro, I can manage a stuffy 30 minutes.

Once we got to Èze Village, Ilona realized that she had indeed been there before, and had fond memories of it.  I guess thats better than taking her some place that she hated.  We did pretty much the exact same thing we did before; a lot of uphill walking to the top of the exotic gardens.  A few of the cacti were of course, still covered, but the sunlight made everything much more beautiful.

As we were leaving Èze Village, instead of stopping some place for a bite to eat, we opted to take the path next to the hotel’s valet parking area that said something to the effect of “Èze-Sur-Mer 45 minutes.”  Èze-Sur-Mer is a relatively new little village at the bottom of the mountain that ancient Roman Èze Village sits on.  Jon, having remembered that a bus goes through the little village that could take us back to Nice, insisted we give the little path a try…

… This was no little path.  And just because it was downhill doesn’t automatically make it easy.  Though given that some of the poorly places steps were concrete, and there for not as old as the Roman village we left, it was still quite old, and not exactly well kept.  Regardless, knowing in the back of our minds that we wouldn’t have to trek all the way back up the path kept us going.  The sign was clearly written when watches ran slower though, because it definitely took us nearly an hour and a half to reach the bottom.  We did however, take a little detour.

About half-way down our little mountain trail, I kept insisting “I hear water, there’s water near by.”  Ilona was half convinced, but Jon wasn’t; figured it was just the wind rustling through the trees through the valley.  As we got closer to the source of the noise, we all agreed it was water, and that we should find it.  Jon thankfully spotted a very well hidden little path that went past a small, old ruined building, and just a little ways behind it was the waterfall.  It was beautiful.  They don’t exactly exist in Florida, so I haven’t seen one in quite a long time.  We got right up next to it too, could have showered in it if we’d wanted to.  We took a few needed pictures and after consulting our watches and our clothes, which were growing wetter with the mist, we proceeded back to the path.  Definitely a wonderful find.

That being said, the past after that seemed rather long.  Except for a few spots were the view opened up to something quite spectacular, there were no more waterfalls.  We could hear it for a while, and in one little turn of our path we could just barely see through the shrubbery to see it, but other than that, the rest was just a rather long, downhill mountain hike.  We slowly began to grow tired, and as the trees thinned and exposed us to the sun, we got warmer too.  Eventually through we noticed the path become more civilized, and a few meters later it was a paved path.  Unfortunately, if you’ve ever walked downhill something completely smooth, this part of the trip proved to be the most difficult.  Your feet and knees hurt from gravity pulling your body on them in weird ways, and you’re gate is in that awkward stage between feeling the need to walk, and the need to sprint; sprinting of course resulting in the typical snowball effect, minus the snow.  Once we made it down to flat ground, our knees and feet thanked us, and we sighed almost in unison “Oh thank goodness, flat ground.”

Now, since we decided to ignore our growling stomachs at the top of the mountain, they were particularly upset with us when we reached the bottom.  We were a little underwhelmed when we got there too, because there wasn’t much more than just some rather lavish and expensive houses, and a restaurant that doesn’t serve food in the evening (someone please tell me how that makes sense, France…).  We went searching for the beach and when we finally found a public entrance (something I’m not used to having to look for, being from Florida) we realized why Èze is known for their perfumes and not their wonderful beaches.  They weren’t really anything special, and they were inside a bay where the water didn’t move much, so it was dirty and smelly.  Either they found that they had wonderful ingredients to make perfumes and never bothered advertising for beaches, of their citizens needed something to make them smell better after swimming in the water.  Who knows?  Either way, we were ready to catch the bus home.

The bus ride home was probably the worst part of the whole day.  Once we saw a bus stop, I realized that it was the same windy bus route we took to Monaco that left me feeling a little ill.  I was not looking forward to this in the slightest, but I figured I would feel better just to have a place to sit.  Well, the bus was packed; instead of sitting and feeling every little turn, I had to stand, making me feel every turn ten fold.  I kept moving from one spot to another, probably annoying all the passengers around me, in search of a place where I could hold myself looking out the front of a bus.  Unfortunately I only found this a few stops away from ours, but needless to say, I was not hungry when we got off the bus.

I was however, starving just a few minutes after getting off the bus and on to the tram, and even more parched than before.  Jon and I agreed to get off the tram a little sooner and stop at the grocery store.  Normally in the beverage section, Jon will reach for a beer he hasn’t tried before, and I flip flop between Orangina, Fanta Orange, Fanta Citron, and a variety of other juices.  This time, all we wanted was Gatorade.  They didn’t have the same choices I’m used to in the states, but it didn’t really matter what it tasted like, it was gone before we even got out of the store (and we opened them after paying for them!).

Once we got home it was really hard not to fall right to sleep.  After dinner (which I was nearly too exhausted to eat), I took a really long shower, and proceeded to pass out just about when my head hit the pillow.  Oddly enough though, I didn’t sleep that well last night; I was moving around a lot more than normal, which would result in me waking Jon up, and then him waking me up to tell me I woke him up and that I needed to move over.  Lovely system.  All and all though, totally worth it.

Now readers, I may be absent for a few days, because tomorrow after class, we’re going to TORINO!  Finally.  I’m so excited.  I promise though, I’ll have quite the post for you when I return on Monday, so stay tuned!

Until then, the pictures:

The bridge over the valley to get to Èze

Èze Church

Random purple flowers in a bunch of daisies.

View from Èze Village on a much sunnier day.

Prickly Pears!

The crazy expensive hotel at Èze

Èze Hotel’s crazy huge granite chess board.

Uh, yes please?

Our path.

The waterfall!

So pretty and peaceful

Jon and I in front of the waterfall!

The waterfall again.

So pretty!

Halfway there!

So blue.

This is from the bottom looking up. We started somewhere past that big cliff.

Aujourd’hui j’ai acheté un miroir de poche

You know when you’re really hungry, and all your friends around you are talking about food?  Your mouth starts to water, you can hear your stomach growl louder and louder, and when you close your eyes you imagine your favorite foods dancing slightly out of reach in front of your eyes?  That was my experience in class today.  Almost all day too.

We’ve been talking a lot lately about food; how to order food, how to buy food, how to cook food, etc.  We today we spent the majority of the afternoon speaking about meal habits in our respective countries and how they compare to those of France.  This included things like “If you have a dinner planned at 8pm, what time do your guests arrive?”  In the United States, between five minutes early and on time is expected, and anything later than 10 after requires a phone call.  Well in France, if you show up five minutes early you may catch your host in the shower.  15 minutes late is normal in France.  We also talked about table manners, which was interesting, what you bring to a dinner you’ve been invited to (be it flowers, wine, chocolates, etc), and the amount of courses a normal and a formal meal has in each country.  A lot of food talk for a girl who’s been giving half of her breakfast away.  This is because the thought of a croissant or pain chocolat makes my stomach turn now, seeing as I’ve eaten it nearly every single day since I arrived.  Either way, considering the fact that I’m always a little hungry when we get out of class on a normal day, today I felt exceptionally hungry.

Jon and I decided to treat ourselves to a meal in Vieux Nice.  We walked around, reading the menus and consulting our wallets, and settled down at a table at a restaurant in the main square.  The name fails me, but thats okay, we won’t be going back.  First, one of the menu boards on the wall said “Menu 14,90€” where you could chose an entrée, plat et dessert from roughly four choices each.  We saw a few things that sounded appetizing, and thats why we picked it.  Unfortunately, though the sign said nothing about when you could order from it, we were not allowed to order from that menu.  In the US, I would have had no problem saying “Oh, sorry, we were under the impression that we could, and thats why we picked it, we’re going to find some place else.”  It wouldn’t have made them super happy, but its mildly acceptable in the States.  In France, its extremely rude, because they display their menus outside.  Essentially, you’re supposed to decide that you want to eat there, and essentially what you want before you bother wasting their time sitting at a table.  So, we found something on the menu that sounded okay, added some socca for us to split, and said “Oh well.”

I would have much rather been that “rude” American.  I ordered Poulet à la Caesar, something I’ve found to be surprisingly easy to mess up.  The chicken was really dry, and tasted like it was canned.  Given that it probably was, it was more grey in color than normal, and just generally unappetizing.  The croutons were stale and soft, the tomatoes were practically flavorless, and the lettuce seemed like its seen better days.  Jon ordered a calzone with tomatoes, cheese, mushrooms, ham and eggs, made it half way through when he noticed there was some sort of clear-ish liquid in it that seemed a tad unnatural.  Given that the yokes were runny, we both instantly thought “Uh oh, uncooked eggs” and he lost his appetite.  To make the whole thing worse, the socca wasn’t even that good, and I had been craving it for a few days.  Ugh.

After our dreadful meal, we went to the market close by.  We were expecting it to be all fruits, vegetables and flowers like we usually find it to be, but today it was a whole bunch of vendors selling all sorts of really neat things.  For instance, we spent a good twenty minutes at a table FULL of old (like, 1960s old in some cases) advertisements for nearly anything and everything.  The Coke ones were particularly fun to look at, and of course rather pricey for some.  We decided we had to go back when we had more money, because I could probably find a few really neat things for my friends, family and myself.  I did treat myself to a little mirror compact though.  I have been looking for one for a very long time, but one thats kind of nice.  The problem is, I always find the ones that are either cheap, plastic and have some brand name printed across it, or I find the super fancy and terribly gaudy ones with ugly rhinestone and gold plating designs.  This one is simple, perfectly round, and has a  mother-of-pearl design on the front.  After an entertaining conversation with the vendor, who knew instantly we spoke English and teased us by saying “We only speak French here”, only to later comment me on my ability to carry on the necessary conversation in French (score!), I had a wonderful new compact mirror, all for only 8€.  Kind of a silly purchase, but I really have been looking for one forever.

After looking through all the tables, I found a lot of neat things I would love to go back for if I had the money.  For instance, designer silk scarfs (only 80€), really awesome old festival and event posters from around France (anywhere from 200-400€), large sets of real silver table settings (of which I didn’t bother to consult the price), and whole bunch of old keys (only 1,50 €!).  It took up a good portion of our afternoon, and we saw some really cool things, so I’d say afternoon well spent.

Given that we still hadn’t had anything tasty to satisfy our taste buds, we got some sorbet from a place we hadn’t tried before, and decided to walk up to Chateau de Nice (the wonderful park with the great panorama views I’ve mentioned before).  Sorbet proved to be a wonderful idea.  Jon got apricot and I got pear.  Mine was incredible.  It seriously tasted like I was biting right into a really juicy pear.  Jon kept stealing bites and said with sarcastic frustration  “Damnit! Now we have to come here every single day to get some of this” all while making his oh-my-gosh-this-is-the-most-delicious-thing-I’ve-ever-eaten face.  After the long, dreadfully steep walk up the hill, Jon enjoyed playing on the rope play thing while it was kid-free.

We took a few detours going back down to sea level so we would know where all the paths were, and proceeded to go home.  But not without stopping at Zara to get Jon some new jeans.  Two pair, to be exact, since he’s managed to wear holes in one of the pairs he brought.  All and all, a very wonderful afternoon.  I hope the sun sticks around for a little bit longer, and that the tickle that popped up in the back of my throat isn’t the sign of a cold to come.  Especially since we hope to go to Torino this weekend.  And yes, for all my motherly readers, I’ve eating and drinking all the Vitamin C I can manage.  :)

Bonne journée!