Phrases that don't fit

Now, I'm not one to "Toot my own horn" or to "Put the cat out with the garbage" so to speak, but this weekend was the "Bee's knees"! In fact, I'd equate this latest Saturday's adventure with a "Bagging a peak" or "Eating a whole bag of Sour Patch Kids only to discover that they DO make you sick in large quantities" experience. You know the ones I'm talking about. Totally awesome. You look back and see no problem with the day simply because there was none. You might be of the minority of people who would disagree and argue that getting sick off candy is truly a poor experience. I pity those people. Because they are missing out on cool life experiences because they're afraid of getting sick. Alors, l'histoire. On y va.

This weekend's trip was a mass of mistakes, late arrivals, no arrivals, strikes, missing busses, cheating busses and amazing times. This is the story of my trip to Marseille and la calanque de Sugiton. The original plan for our day was not to be there, but rather in the charming city of Cassis and their pretty calanques. But, as can be anticipated, our voyage was not as we planned. First off, I was planning on meeting up with a friend from home in Marseille, but was denied the opportunity when he couldn't get tickets for his train at 6 in the morning. I don't blame him for not being able to figure it out. No one can truly function at that ungodly hour as it is, much less in a foreign country where you speak approximately 7 words of the language. Anyways, he missed the train and we did not meet up. That was disappointing, but understandable. The day marched on.

The group of 10 people or so (between which 8 languages were spoken) met up at le gare routiere (bus stop) at 10 am to take the bus to Marseille where we would meet the bus to Cassis. We ended up leaving 45 minutes late and arriving in Marseille after 11 in the morning. But that was not bad. What was bad was the third consecutive days of French people striking in retaliation to government plans to reform retirement and pension laws. I will post another whole entry to talk on that, because it truly is fascinating what is happening here. Anyways, the busses were not running. Our options were take 3 separate busses to Cassis or walk 3 hours. None of which appealed to ANY of us. So we walked. Into downtown Marseille. And caught a bus that our French friend/tour guide for the day told us to take. We blindly followed hoping he wasn't taking us somewhere weird and able to be likened to "The big black van with dark windows you KNOW holds unsavory people/memories". You know what I'm saying. So we ended up at a college and were told to walk down a path. I guess none of got the "van" vibes, cause we all just walked. Then this view unfolded and I realized I was in for an awesome time.

We kept on going and the excitement grew and grew until I was finally there...on the shores of the Mediterranean with my picnic lunch and swim trunks, sitting in one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. I was mentally and physically prepared for anything. And anything is exactly what we did. We were not the proverbial "Knob on the log" nor "Fly on the wall" nor the "Atticus Finch of the party". No, we were veritable Lewis and Clark's of adventure and fun, jumping off small cliffs and swimming around the island fortress providing the cliffs. It was amazing and now I can say that I swam and jumped off some cliffs in the Mediterranean. I enjoy being able to say that. After swimming and "Laying it on thick" we ran back up the hill, caught the next bus to Marseille. We got back to Aix that night, ate a couscous dinner and went out and enjoyed the local bar's dance music while chatting with our French homies. It was an amazing day/night, filled with fun and French and will be held fondly in my brain until the day I die. Much like the "surprise" child, this was my "surprise" day. And I can't complain one bit.

A little bit of jumping of cliffs into water never hurt no one.

Kinda like whoa.

Books, birthdays and baguettes

School has come into full swing now, there can be no doubt. I am nearing the end of week number two of class, and I have to say that I like my schedule. Not having any classes on Friday's while in Europe is one way of doing it I suppose. Also one way of doing it is traveling and buying ridiculously cheap flights to places all over Europe to see friends on those long weekends that I happen to have every week. So far the places I have flights to are London (for the Harry Potter premiere), Norway to visit a friend from home and Seville, Spain to visit my roommate from last year. Europe is the best. Save for one thing...

One of the most anticlimactic birthdays ever happened on October 9. Mine. Come on, a birthday is never anticlimactic, one might say. As an American citizen turning 21 in a foreign country where the drinking age is 16, I beg to differ. This does not make my big day bad, but rather the celebration seemed just a little bit less than exciting because I have been buying beer for over a month here. Not that my 21st, had it been in the US, would have been crazy, but there would be something special about going into the store or bar and ordering the drinks for the first time as a 21 year old. A special feeling that will have to wait and not be quite as awesome as it could have been. Oh well. Life is so rough because of that.

Baguettes are also becoming a mainstay in my diet. And by mainstay, I mean I eat a half a baguette daily for lunch, dinner or both. I have found the stereotype of French people eating baguettes to be very much true, and as a result of my attempts to assimilate into the culture, I have picked up the habit. Also included in the habit is the overwhelming rate of cheese consumption. That, too, I have adopted as my own. America best watch out when I return because I will be ravenously searching the bread and cheese sections of every store I see for the $.80 baguettes and $2 wheels of cheese. When I can make a dozen lunches out of 6 baguettes and most of a wheel of cheese here, I am banking on coming home and being able to do it just as cheaply. Here's to hoping the local IGA stocks up for us returning French study abroad kids who need to eat cheese with everything they put in their mouth.

For now, that is about all I have to say. Weather is good and the skies are blue again after two straight days of rain. Life on the Mediterranean (or at least very near it) has returned to normal.

Free pic of the week, from my birthday hike to the top of Mt St Victoire. As you may be able to tell, we did the hike with several Canadians and it was windy up top.

Going, going....gone. Kind of.

And, that is all. Summertime, vacation, break, time off. It's all about to end. Well, kind of. Classes begin tomorrow. Yes, that is correct. They start tomorrow, October 4th, 2010. I absolutely cannot complain whatsoever. I had a full five months of hanging, playing and enjoying life. Now I have to get back into school mode. But again, I feel like I should be saying school*, because I'm in southern France, in a warm, Mediterranean climate. In my 14 days here, we've had one day with a lot of clouds and an hour of rain. This is like California, but way better. I have loads of traveling at my fingertips for dirt cheap. What I'm doing can safely be written, Barry Bonds style, like this: school*.

Now, some thoughts, which I'm sure are fascinating to everyone who reads this.

One. The first week here was torturously slow, with no friends and no way to meet them because I had no classes and few to no connections. Now, a week later, I realize that I'm going to need a time-turner, Harry Potter style, to enjoy these next three and half, four months. Yes, I did just say that. There are just too many things to do, too many people to see and too many places to go to say, "oh yes, time will go by slowly and I'll feel like I was here a long time." Sorry, but it's just not going to happen. Last night, a friend I worked with this summer came and visited me for the night. It made me realize just how much I want to pack into this semester when we started planning another meeting. Before I know it, rather than swimming in the Mediterranean, I'll be sledding in snow covered wheat fields. A good thing? I can't really say.

Two. The world is tiny. Not only is there another Montanan in my school, but she's also in some of my classes. And, we know a lot of the same people. We had the privilege of bonding over our excitement of watching "Come Find Us", a Montana ski movie. New friend.

Three. Europeans love the weirdest American TV shows. How they ever got turned onto "Will and Grace" is beyond me, because all I've ever seen are the reruns and they're not that good. Also popular: Californication (never heard of it), all reality shows (Bachelor(ette), Survivor, Big Brother etc) and then older shows like Friends and that genre. I try to understand, but can't quite get my head around it. Just saying.

Fourth and final thought. Europe is made for small people. For example. I have walked through multiple doorways too short me. Every bed I've slept on, from hostel to homestay, has been far too short. Forced to sleep diagonally, when I change positions at night, I slide my pillow to the other side of the bed and move to the other diagonal. It's super great. Bathrooms are all tiny. I hit my head on the light in our kitchen AT LEAST twice a day. I could go on, but I think you get the idea. One thing I will appreciate about coming home is that, once again, I will fit comfortably into most things.

Now, some pictures!

The port city of Marseille. Beautiful eh?
Cliff overlooking Cassis, on the coast. The 'Mistral' was blowing, a strong wind from the north. My hair flows in the wind beautifully.
More of Marseille.

My friend Jan. We went for a hike. Circled the mountain rather than climbed it. Those logs were the most elevation he gained all day.

eye candies

my school! right in the heart of the old city center.
the mighty jungfrau.
these are the signs we followed up and down through the towns, cows and rivers and valleys. Very much felt like Sound of Music. Just sayin...
alps. kinda big.
james went to heaven.
blurry buut still kinda cool. that waterfall was right in town.

No Mediterranean Sea pictures from other day, but they'll arrive soon.

Slow down please!

So I arrived in Aix en Provence on Sunday afternoon, in time for dinner. It’s now Wednesday the 22^nd. I think overwhelming might describe my feelings the first day or two, and still a bit even now. Being surrounded by French people who speak at about the speak of sound can be challenging. To say the least. They speak to you and when you give them the blank “I have no clue what you just said except for one verb/I am still processing what you said” look they give that small little laugh and either speak in English for you (which is rare) or they speak super slow and treat you like a child. Needless to say I’ve been spoken to like a child this entire time.

5+ years of French does not prepare you for this. Not at all. But it’s alright cause there is only one way for this to go: up. I’m super excited to become good at French so I don’t have to translate everything, think of response, then think of how to say the response. The lags in some of my conversations are incredible; sometimes I forget what I’m trying to say midsentence because I’m concentrating so hard on thinking of the verb, how to conjugate it and whatnot.

Other than that, life is great. I can gladly accept wine with my cheese. Which is quite often, at least every night because instead of a cookie for dessert, there is cheese and bread for dessert. Good cheese and good bread. I definitely miss my mom’s cookies, but this is certainly an acceptable replacement. There are TWO big farmer’s market style sales in Aix downtown everyday, so I plan on imbibing fully every morning so I don’t need to spend $15 a day on lunch at a café around town. Pam, the Abroadco director onsite, told me that there are 200 cafés in Aix, which is an obscenely large number for the town’s size. And each plate costs around 11 to 15 euros, so costs could add up quick for a pauper like me.

For now that’s probably enough. My only other Abroadco student/buddy comes in on Thursday so that’ll be nice to have some company finally. Until then it’s all exploring on my own or with my extremely nice and active and helpful host Mme Blestel. She does everything from show me every park in Aix to point out and explain historical landmarks (most of the time spouting off paragraphs I only understand a sentence or two of) to walk around a sports complex asking everyone she sees how to get me signed up for the basketball and soccer leagues. She’s a pretty good person to have on my team. Til next time, when hopefully I can say I’m totally fluent in French and have integrated into their society fully. Keep your fingers crossed.

connor

Europe is a good teacher…

I’ve learned a few things in my first several days in Switzerland, especially up here in Lauterbrunnen in the heart of Swiss Alps. One. Hiking here is not hiking in Montana. In Montana you have trails in the forest, through the forest or you just bushwhack up a mountain or its face. Here, you hike through towns on cements paths, along railroad tracks with trams shooting by you every half hour or on your traditional trails through the woods. You crisscross properties and hike beside and with goats, sheep and a lot of cows, all of which are belled up and make pleasant little noises to hike with. Two. Old people with hiking gear are major posers. James and I hiked up probably 14 or 15 miles today, but every town we went to was heavily populated by older folks, mostly American, geared up ready to top the Jungfrau. You’d see them pour out of the trams and gondolas though and then you’d understand why so many old people were apparently hiking the same stuff we were. I felt a little bit like a local with my nose in the air but I felt good about earning the elevation. Three. They ID for beer purchases here too. Same rules still apply when you don’t have your ID on you. Four. Most of the Australians in the hostel with us seem like and dress like total bro’s. Nothing against them, but they look like total hipsters. Five. I wish I could speak German here. But this is, I can honestly say, the only time I’ve ever wished that. It was funny to see the change from obviously French side of Switzerland to obviously German side. The languages on the stores and in the streets were different and the people a little bit different as well. I want to go back to the French side so I can actually function halfway decently again. One more day here with James and then its on to Aix.

connor