Fete des Lumieres en Lyon

Some videos I took at the festival in Lyon:

Coucou

Salut tout le monde!
Not too much exciting news to share but I thought it was about time to keep you guys informed of the goings on. Last weekend me and two American friends toured the great town of Torino Italy. We couchsurfed chez Camilla and Giacomo and they were wonderful hosts with an amazing apartment, we really lucked out. Italy is great, the people are funny and interesting and they're culture is amazing. I really want to start learning Italian now, it's such a pretty language and I can already understand a little bit when my Italian friend Erica talks. The highlight of Torino for me was the National Film Museum. It's in an amazing looking building, the Mole Antonelliana, and the inside is just as gorgeous. There was a great exhibit on Roman Polanski while we were there with great photos of him directing and it's just a really nice museum. We also got to enjoy Bicerinos which are these amazing chocolaty, coffee drinks that were delicious. Torino is famous for it's chocolate so it was great to try that.

This weekend we got to enjoy the Fete des Lumieres in Lyon or the Light Festival. It was really great, with lots of cool light sculptures and light shows all over the city. There were also tons of street vendors and yummy food to eat, which is rare for the French since they're not big fans of walking and eating. Chambery has also gotten a lot more festive with Christmas lights on every street, piped in Christmas music and the Christmas market which is pretty freaking adorable.

I guess what I really wanted to share with you guys is a little about the French and they're crazy language. The other day I was telling my roommate, Laura, that my friend Fiona is coming in from Madrid next week and staying with us a couple of nights. I told her that she doesn't speak French, only English and Spanish and her response was a frank, "why doesn't she speak French?" I didn't know how to respond to that... but I think it kind of sums up the attitude that the French have, and the reason people have a negative view towards them. My friend's host mom in Bordeaux told me a joke, if you're trilingual you speak three languages, bilingual two and one language you're French. The French are notoriously bad at speaking English because they really don't have a need for it. They're country is big enough they can travel around and see everything they could want without leaving, and without practicing another language. I don't have a problem if a French person can only speak French, because well look at the US, but the French have a very strict opinion of their language, it's the best. France has a organization called the Academie Francaise that actually regulates the French language http://www.academie-francaise.fr/ (sorry no translation for english, hehe). They're two missions are translated literally "take care of their language and carry out acts of patronage", or give out literary prizes. I'm not sure if an organization exists like this anywhere else in the world but government documents and any public documents, I believe, must adhere to strict guidelines from the Academie. Ending a letter for example, can be very complicated, almost a paragraph in itself. The French citizens also take this very seriously and apparently the French are constantly correcting each other's grammar and speech. A friend told me in bathroom stall graffiti sometimes you can see someone has crossed out a sentence and rewritten it correctly. While this obviously isn't always the case with most college aged students, I find it very foreign and somewhat annoying for me. While the French language may not change as much as English, making one little grammatical mistake can make you look stupid. At the same time this is what makes the French well so French and it's somewhat fascinating. I tried to explain to my French professor that the US had no official language and she just couldn't grasp that concept "all government documents are written in English right?" "well yes, but it's not technically the official language," "well if they're all written in English then it is." For the French there's nothing comparable to their language, and that's definitely a trait unique to the French.

Les nouvelles

Salut tout le monde,
The past couple of weeks have been a lot of fun, last weekend I went to Paris with 10 friends, we took the overnight train on Friday night and arrived in Paris at 7am Saturday morning. It was actually a pretty nice way to go, the seats reclined and I slept pretty well, and when we woke up, Paris! It was a totally different experience from when I was there in high school, we spoke French the whole time and found the Persians to be quite nice. I also got to visit Montmatre this time, which is a really cool neighborhood, also ran into my friend Alex at the Moulin Rouge which was crazy random. She's in France studying but not in Paris and we just happened to be at the same place same time, small world this is. Paris is really an amazing place, but soo many tourists and it's not even tourist season. I don't know if I could stand it if I lived there (or afford to). We headed back Monday evening on the TGV, so much quicker than the other train.

This weekend was also fun and relaxing. Last night we (me and my italian friend Erica and my slovakian friend Martina) ate dinner at a French friend's apartment and they made raclette for us, yummy! It's definitely nice to hang out with French people too, I think my French skills improve tenfold that way. I'm starting to understand more and more when they talk but it's still difficult sometimes cause it's soo fast and I have to concentrate really hard to keep up, but it's good just to hear, it even if I can't understand everything. Today some friends and I took a hike in the mountains and it was tiring but really pretty. I have to remind myself sometimes what a gorgeous place Chambery is and how lucky I am to be here, and the hike today definitely proved that.

No big plans for this week or next weekend, but I want to venture into Italy soon so maybe end of November that will happen. Until next time, au revoir!
-Steph

OBAMA!!

Salut tout le monde,
Yay I'm soo proud of our country and I'm proud to be an American at this point in time. It's weird though that I'm not in the US to experience the real excitement of the election. The French are happy about it, but in my little town of Chambery it's hard to tell. The international day was yesterday and people kept asking me if I was happy with the results and of course I replied positively, but it's hard to express to them how extatic I really was. I'm not sure it's really gonna hit me the changes of our country until I get home, but hopefully I'll be able to see some changes all the way over here in Chambery.

So besides the amazing president everything here is going along nicely and I'm really starting to get settled down. Chambery is feeling more like home everyday, and not just some cute town where all my stuff is. I'm also interacting more with the french students and not being the shy little American wandering the halls. I think it'll take time, but hopefully I can come away with not only some great international friends but also some French ones. My roommates and I are also starting to get along better and while I think they think I'm kinda strange at times, they are nice and fun to be around. The other night I watched Holy Grail with them because Laura has to do an english presentation on it, but she doesn't think it's funny (now who's strange?!), but it was fun none the less.

So I'm off to Paris for this long weekend, we get monday and tuesay off so it should be a grand old time. Going Friday night with a couple friends and then meeting up with more people who are driving from Chambery Saturday morning. We found a cheap hotel and we're heading back Monday night. No real specific plans but it should be a good time and we'll be in Paris so that's what matters :). Until next time, bonne weekend et a tout!

the first week of school and other such stuff

Salut tout le monde!
Sorry I haven't written in awhile but things have been pretty busy. Spent a weekend in Geneve with my high school homestay family the Micallef's. Met up with Laure after she was done with work then we headed to her apartment and ate dinner and talked about politics, and other things with her and her friend Lauralee. Most young people don't seem to like Sarkozy, my roommate was angry because her housing aid for this year is very low, she's only getting like 85 euro a month. But I think the housing aid is great, no matter how much money I end up getting. The next day (sunday) we took the tram to the border of Switzerland and France and met up with Laure's dad, Serge and he took us to their country home in Nangy France. They have a very nice home there and we ate a delicious lunch of raclette with Laure's grandmother and uncle. French sunday lunches are quite the experience, first you have an apperitive, champagne was ours, then you move to the table for the entree which for us was the raclette. Raclette is a little like fondue but you have this grill thing that you put little plates with a piece of cheese on. The cheese then melts and you eat it with potatoes and deli meats. It's delish! After that was a little break than a pinapple snack, then coffee and then finally a cake desert. The whole lunch was around 3 hours. Laure's mother, Cathy, is a great cook though and it was a great day! They're a really nice family and were impressed with my language skills (luckily they have improved in four years). I hope to visit again soon!

Monday I started classes and so far it's been alright. I'm alone in a class with 10 other chinese students so it's kinda weird. They all speak chinese to each other and their french is not that great. Many of them have only been learning it for a year. I think it will get better soon though and my teachers have told me they can give me harder work. The chinese students are nice for the most part but it's hard to communicate with them because they're french is not that great and neither is their english. Hopefully they're fast learners and we'll be chatting more casually soon.

Yesterday my finnish friend, Iida, and my italien friend Erica, along with her parents, drove over to Voiron to check out the Chartreuse liquer cellers. They're the longest liquer cellers in the world and the Chartreuse was first made by a monks and are still doing it. Our couchsurfing friend told us about the cellars and it was a really cool tour. I even bought some of the digestive elixer, which you eat with a sugar cube :). This week should be pretty good, there's an international student party on Wednesday, so that should be fun, get to meet some more friends! And next weekend no plans yet but maybe a trip to Grenoble or somewhere else close by. I'll keep you all updated, but until then bonne journee et a tout a l'heure!

More exciting adventures from France!

Salut tout le monde!
So lots has happened since I last wrote about Lyon. Some friends and I took a day trip to Albertville last week and it was a perfect day in a nice little mountain town. Albertville was home to the 1992 winter Olympic games so we checked out the Olympic museum which was alright but prolly the best part of it was all the costumes they had from the opening ceremonies, crazy stuff. Then we hiked up to the little medieval village of Conflans where there were gorgeous views of the city and cute fountains and shops.

Last week I also got together with a girl from Cyprus named Didem and ate dinner at her little apartment just outside the town center. Her mom was staying with her for a little while so she made us turkish coffee and then read our fortunes with the coffee grounds, it was pretty cool. Her and her roommate are also studying at ESC and taking a int'l business program in English. It's so great to meet people from so many different cultures and backgrounds, who really have pride in their home country. It's seems that even in the US when you get to know someone from another country they mostly see themselves as an American, and I think with that mentality it's more comman to assimilate to an American lifestyle. But Europeans are all so different with customs and cultures. My french teacher was suprised when classmates where sharing info about their host country, and I knew what dishes and customs they were talking about, she asked if I've traveled a lot and how I know so much about these other places, and I think it's because Americans don't have a specific habits or a specific culture that we just latch on to everyone elses.

Anyways on Thursday I left for Bordeaux to visit a WSU friend Emily who's studying for a year as well. She's living with a host family so it was nice to have some home cooked food and to be able to try some Bordeaux specialities. Unfortunatley the family all had colds and then Emily got food poisoning Friday night so not the best weekend, but I had fun anyways. Bordeaux is full of beautiful cathedrals and is also right next to the Gorgonne river. Place de la Bourse, where the government buildings are, is gorgeous and looks right out onto the river. We checked out the museums on Sunday and the Musee d'Aquitaine (Aquitaine is the region Bordeaux is in) was really cool, with ancient arrowheads to cool medieval stained glass. We also got to meet up with former Erasmus students that went to WSU and it was interesting to hear their take on their study abroad experiance. It's nice to have someone to talk to that knows what you're going through and is a coug :). The family also appreciated my political views so offered to let me stay an extra night.

The next couple of days look busy, I'm prolly going to head for a day trip to Annecy tomorrow, then there's an int'l student meeting thingy in Lyon on Thursday and then this weekend I'm meeting up with my former host family (from my high school trip to France) in Geneva. I start my French program on Monday so I'm sure I'll have lots to share next week, if I find time to write. Bonne journee et a tout a l'heure!

Lyon Weekend

So I just got back from a wonderful weekend in Lyon with my friend Iida, and just posted some pictures, so check it out. Lyon is a great city (the 2nd largest in France) , and our host Arnaud as well as his girlfriend Sandrine were great. We met Arnaud in the city and then rode the metro back to his house in a neighborhood just outside of the city. He's a illustrator for video games and works at home so unfortunatly he had to work that day, so he gave us directions to the Parc de Tete d'Or and we wandered around there for the afternoon. A great park, and soo huge it took us all afternoon to see it. Then that night Sandrine made us some quiche and we ate dinner and watched a funny British sitcom IT Crowd. After dinner Arnaud took us on an awesome tour of Lyon at night. We wandered along the Rhone and saw the beautiful river as well as some drunk teenagers (well it was friday night). Then we went up towards the city center and saw the Opera House, Hotel de Ville and stopped for a quick drink at a bar. We then realized that we had missed the last Metro home so we decided to take the Velovs home.
So the Velovs are these bike stations all around Lyon that have about 20 or so spots for bikes and then a pay station. There are apparently 343 stations in Lyon, and it costs nothing if you return the bike to another station in 30 min or less and just one or 2 euro after that. They are so awesome and while some of the pay stations didn't like our cards, once we found one it was a great way to see the city and a fun alternative to walking. Everyone uses them, not just tourists and we even saw a repairman near the park checking out all the bikes at a station. Apparently Paris is also going to start doing this, and Lyon is kind of like the trial run.
Anyways the next day we woke up late after an exciting night and Iida and I found some lunch at a cute restaurant called 203. Lyon is also the food capital of France and there were restaurants everywhere. Unfortunatley the really good restaurants get full on a Saturday afternoon, but 203 was delicious and even Arnaud had been there and liked it. After lunch we wandered over to old Lyon and climbed the mountain of a hill to the Cathedrale de Fourviere. After that we wandered around the old town for a bit, checked out the Cathedrale de St. Jean and then headed back to Arnaud's.
I found the people of Lyon to be exceptionally friendly and kind, way more than in Chambery or Paris. At one point we were trying to decide where to eat and this guy comes up to us and asked if we needed help. Most French people don't naturally do things like that but the Lyonnais are very nice. We also had someone offer to take our picture, which is something that rarely even happens in Seattle.
That night was a fun party with some of Arnaud and Sandrine's friends including another Couchsurfing friend. We ate lots of wine and cheese and salami and was a very French evening. Unfortunately the next day we had to leave and head back to Chambery but I will definitely be back to Lyon as soon as possible!