Giving thanks.

Thanksgiving was initially going to be 'just another day' in Montpellier, but thanks to a friend, I learned of a Protestant church in town that was having a repas traditionel de Thanksgiving - with all those delicious American Thanksgiving foods we know and love! I went for a long, one-hour jog yesterday through some of Montpellier's countryside, so I was feeling particularly good about myself and decided that this was certainly a good day to be indulgent. Myself and four friends from my exchange program found our way there and enjoyed a wonderful taste of home, for free minus one donated canned good. Before the meal we got to enjoy a rather interesting presentation followed by a skit, both in French, on the history and meaning behind Thanksgiving in the States. Unusually, somewhere in the program Abraham Lincoln made an appearance and talked a bit about the Civil War...? But the weirdest thing was that he was speaking French with a terrible American accent - it took us a good five minutes to realize that the guy was actually French, and only doing a parody (and a pretty funny one!) of an American attempting to speak French. I felt much better after I was in on the joke, though at this point we were a little hungry and didn't listen much more to the story. The skits lasted about an hour, cut us some slack! Haven't we learned this since kindergarten anyway?

Afterward, there was turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, corn casserole, sweet potato casserole, and dressing made with French bread. The dressing was a little unusual, but overall the meal was delicious! It was a wonderfully spent evening, and we ladies put the French to shame with the small mountains of food we piled onto our reinforced paper plates. We came back way too stuffed and extremely satisfied. It wasn't like home, of course, but after some reflection I've decided that I don't want it to be like home because it will never be as good. I'm here for something different, and, in the spirit of the holiday, here are some things I love about Montpellier/France/studying abroad and that I'm very thankful for:

-The massive improvement in my French since I've been here
-My little studio with its little balcony
-The cheap produce and groceries
-Cheese!
-The bakeries and all the delicious pastries
-Bread products - baguette, croissant, pain au chocolat, etc...
-The food in general
-The weather - up until recently it's been mostly mild and beautiful
-The abundance of beautiful, scenic places you can jog to
-Deliberately taking wrong turns and ending up somewhere really cool
-Downtown's constant supply of live street music
-The rail network!
-Getting to go to my first pro soccer game
-Taking a chance to go to Marseille, by myself, for 4 days - and being infinitely glad I did!
- Fall break and Halloween in Barcelona
-Trying my hand at homemade soup. Success!
-Proximity to the Mediterranean
-Finally being able to confidently give directions in a city I'm getting to know
-Wine for as little as 3 euro a bottle
-Always having something fun to do during the weekends
-And maybe Monday and Tuesday as well =)
-And friends to do these fun things with!
-Improving my dance skills ;)
-The abundance of kebab restaurants!
-My courses being neither too easy nor too hard, for the most part
-Never being asked for ID!
-Being able to dress classy without feeling weird (this one goes to you, Bama)

-Not feeling like I constantly have to compete with others
-Being able to observe an opera rehearsal (this happened last week!)
-The lovely churches and cathedrals
-All the good times to come =)

I thought that this would be a good reminder that no matter the ups and downs, these are the things worth preserving. Coming up this week is getting down to business in preparation for exams, and squeezing in some fun along the way. Hopefully, ice skating! Until next time!

Sand sculpture from Barcelona =)

Here comes the holiday season.

Well, I've started to catch that familiar sensation...you know the one. There's the faint whiff of "holiday" in the air, or maybe it's just one of my moods. Even if it's only Thanksgiving and not even celebrated here, I'm still catching it. Montpellier has lit up its Christmas lights all over downtown, there's a giant tree at the Place de la Comédie, and it's definitely struck me that the saison de Noël is on its way. Family and friends are back home, and I am here. I waver in how I feel about that, but I came in with the anticipation that it'd be this way once the end of November rolled around. Even if it won't have the same kind of comforting happiness that holidays at home do, hopefully this "something different" will be just as good.

More another time, as I have quite a bit of laundry to do, but I have just one request. I have no idea if anybody besides my parents, brother, and maybe one or two others actually read this, so if you do, I'd love to hear from you. Especially if we haven't talked in a while, or maybe even ever? Who knows? Maybe I'll get no response, which is ok, I guess, because I would probably continue this even if just my mom and dad were following along. It's a good memory keeper. But still, if you'd care to, and you're by no means obligated, I've got an e-mail contact listed if you click on my profile. Or facebook works too. Until next time, Happy Almost Thanksgiving!

Halloween - five days before Thanksgiving?

Alright! I seem to have gotten my life back in order. Can't keep a soldier down long. I'll forget for the moment about the near-catastrophic mound of laundry waiting to be washed (you can still kiss my behind, expensive washing machines, I refuse to submit to your costly convenience) and give you a little more photographic fun.

But before I get there, a little side note. What have I learned this week? I have awesome hair. (You were expecting the answer to the meaning of life or something equally deep, weren't you? =P) I've been living without a hairbrush for the past week, and somehow it still looks and feels good. Considering that it's really starting to grow out and probably needs a cut and that I'm running low on hair conditioner...thank you, Mom's side of the family!

Okay, and for more important lessons, related to my last blog post, you don't always have to do everything by yourself. While there's much good to be said about being independent and self-reliant, it's important to realize where stubbornness and pride can factor in and result in unnecessary strain. Simply put, note to self: it's okay to rely on others every once in a while. Chances are, if you surround yourself with the right people they won't mind at all. In fact, they probably want to help. Even if there's not much that can be done, more often than not other people do a much better job of cheering you up than you can do yourself. So there you go!

Moving on, I realize that there's plenty of stuff from my Barcelona trip that I haven't chatted about here. So time to recommence, even if it's way out of order. Mainly, every inner child's favorite holiday, Halloween! Mine was spent in Barcelona in a rather nontraditional way. No candy or wild parties, but there was a parade! I found it quite illuminating.

 Yes! Kids skipping down the street with giant sparklers!

Accompanied by a bangin' drumline!

 And, the man on the left- the ringleader! This is immediately after about five of them lit their sparklers at once, in a big circle. It. Was. Awesome.

 And the parade moves on!

We followed for awhile, enjoying the music, 10-foot handheld fireworks (we really need some of these in the U.S., I've decided), and atmosphere of celebration. I didn't take very good pictures, and they totally don't do this justice! It was cool to see this fun Halloween tradition. Afterward, Perla and I decided we wanted to explore Barcelona by night. We strolled the Gothic Quarter, explored on foot, and eventually made our way up Mont Juic to see the city by night. On the way, a man started chasing us, but we weren't too scared:

I win!

 Our eventual reward was seeing the congressional palace, a lovely park with fountains and paths to wander, and a stunning night view of the city. We just sat for awhile and soaked it in, glad to be there.

My camera is dependable, but not good for night photos. Guess you'll have to take my word for it ^_^

Definitely a non-traditional Halloween, but altogether memorable and happy. Until next time, I really need to do grocery shopping...I'm down to pasta and cous cous. I wish I was joking! Guess I'll add that to my laundry list of things to do.

I would also like to apologize for the several bad puns to be found in this post. 

Keep on trucking.

Hey, everybody. I'm back from what was an excellent weekend in Germany. I visited a friend from Alabama in Mannheim, and together we went to Heidelberg, saw palaces, and went on a great brewery tour. No pictures, however...I've hit upon what will probably be my toughest time here. I've been trying to keep this blog upbeat and happy, but now there's just not much happy that I can write about. But this helps me keep it in perspective:

 

I'm not complaining about a house or a car, for sure, so it's not quite the same...but either way, when things get bad- or even really bad- for me, there's probably somebody out there without a house, or a job, or the same opportunities, that would still give anything to have what I do. And with Thanksgiving coming up, the first and hopefully only spent without family, I realize that in spite of my shortcomings, failures, and misfortunes, I've still got so much to be thankful for.

Now, time to just keep on trucking. One hour at a time, one day at a time. Until next time, guys.

Catalonian cooking lessons =)

2nd fun experience of the trip! This happened on Friday. Perla, being the observant gal she is, found information at our hostel for a free walking tour of the Barcelona's gothic quarter the next morning. Of course, we're both always down for economising, so up we got the next day and went! It was run by some very cool people who work for a traveler's bar in Barcelona. Had a good time, for sure, and through it we learned of another great opportunity: Spanish cooking class!

The day before, we had stumbled across a supermarket and cooked our own dinner (pasta carbonara with sausage, all made ourselves - cheap and SO SO good!), so we decided that this would be worth it! 19 euro for dinner and the entire experience, and completely worth it. Such a steal considering the fun we had. Observe:

These are tapas, the name for a collection of Spanish appetizers. As far as the history goes, tapas originated in the days when, in taverns/pubs/bars, people drinking their wine wouldn't want the flies to get to them. So they'd stick a plate on top of the glass to keep it covered (tapar in Spanish is "to cover.") Eventually, people decided to put a little snack on the plate- good idea!- and sooner or later once hygiene wasn't quite the problem it once was, these plates migrated to the tables where people could enjoy their drinks and snackeroos without having to worry about balance problems! Delicious, delicious. The most fun was the bread things you see up top. First, you rub a clove of garlic on the cruncy bread. After, you take the tomato and rub it on the bread as well. (You don't eat it? quelle choque). Then, you top it off with your choice of meat/cheese, and perhaps some paprika. Yum, yum, gone. Rinse and repeat! We also had tortillas, but not in the sense you'd think. They're actually kind of like an omelette with potato and onion, and they're on the right in the top picture. And to top it off, tons of fried potato chunks. Drool.

Afterward, we had our paella cooking demonstration. It's actually a highly involved process which you don't want to mess up, so I figure it's for the best that they didn't just let us go to town with some seafood and rice. It also involved a special enormous, 18-inch or so pan (paellera) and cooking apparatus with three rings of fire arranged in a circle. Yeah, a bit bad for a beginner! It was really cool, though, and I'm glad we chose this. All the seafood (prawns, calamari, mussels, and clams) was bought fresh in the market that day, and we got to learn what really goes into this dish from an adorable Argentinian waiter as he made paella for 10!

The paella, before the addition of the rice. Seafood delight =D

Adding the finishing touches, including lots of olive oil.

Before the above photo, we had to wait about 20 minutes for the rice to cook. So what did they offer us to amuse ourselves? Sangria making lessons! Fruit, cheapo wine, orange juice, fanta orange and fanta limon, and sugar. And brandy. Can't forget that! We got a demonstration first, and after that they let us loose on all the ingredients. I feel like Perla and I were quite excellent in our preparation and made a fine pitcher of sangria...I giggled when I noticed how heavy handed some of our new friends were with the brandy bottle. For 8 people, we ended up with 6 "good" pitchers, and one "bomb sangria" made with whatever ingredients were left. We finished 4 and a half, and the bomb pitcher never got touched...we left it at the corner of the table, quite sad and alone.

The ingredients. Bring it on.

Adding the coup de grace...Brandy!

Not bad...not bad at all!

But anyway, we had ourselves a roaring good time and learned a little something too. Came home stuffed and happy. Until next time!

Soccer! Barcelona! SOCCER!

Playing around in the FC Barcelona Megastore =) Bought myself the official team scarf! You'll see me with it later.

Hello, I'm back! Well, technically I've been "back" for a week now, but once again I get caught up with friends, school, etc, so I've neglected to tackle the immense task of blogging my vacation in Barcelona! Our school had its fall break from Thursday to Monday, and my friend Perla and I had been planning our vacation to Barcelona for weeks. We went by bus, leaving Thursday at noon and coming back Monday evening. It was seriously a dream vacation, with so much fun, exploration, touristy stops, and non-touristy adventures that it would be near impossible to record it all. So I've decided to, over the next few days, give you my favorite moments and experiences of the week.

So, why Barcelona, and not Rome, Paris, Belgium, etc? After all, Barcelona's pretty close. Well, this weekend happened to be oh-so-convenient to see my FIRST EVER PROFESSIONAL SOCCER GAME. Yesssss! And well, although I don't pretend to be an expert in every soccer team playing in the European leagues, I do have a thing for Barcelona. So, obviously, I was so there. The game was on Saturday at 10 PM. A bit bizarre, no? But it gave us plenty of time to explore the city all day, including the FC Barcelona museum, cook dinner, drink coffee, then come back for the coolest part of the trip. It's probably not a good thing that I went to this game as my first one; the others have a LOT to live up to!

Earlier that day we went to the FC Barcelona museum and stopped by the store as well. The museum was a soccer junkie's dream, and I think I may have spent waaaay too much time in there: but there were interactive touch screens with all kinds of history and clips, memorabilia, trophies, and giant screens spanning an entire hallway that played an amazing program of Barcelona's recent run. It was a lot of fun :)

Referee whistle from the good ol' days. Oh, how times have changed.

 The boots of one of the first ever Barcelona players. Smelly, I bet.

 All hail Messi! (Check out the Ballon d'Or on the left - he's the current holder, and he's only 23!)

I'll spare you more photos and get to the good stuff: the game! Huge stadium, one of the biggest in the world...Camp Nou hold 98,000 people (thank you, museum!), and it was honestly 90% full that night...if not more. It was Barca - Sevilla, and the final score was Barca 5, Sevilla 0. Easy game, but definitely not boring in the least! The stadium was packed, and everyone was really into the game. There were tons of cheers and chants (in Catalan, not Spanish!), and it was just an all around good time. I'm so happy I got to experience that. And, if I'm being honest, I was watching the referees just as much as the players. Ah, what can I say? They were quite stylish (and excellent). Definitely the experience of the weekend. Football fans have got it going on. At one point in the game we did the wave around the entire stadium - at least 4 or 5 times before it finally died down. Not to mention the craziness each time we scored (Messi scored twice - he's amazing!) or a fould was missed/didn't go our way. Listening to an older Spanish man behind us curse was super amusing.

Unoficcial cheerleaders. They were the coolest folks at the stadium, hands down! Nonstop fun, flags, drums, the wave...

Even I think this looks fake. But we was there! Promise! =)

Just before kickoff. Full house!

Modeling my scarf before the game. With more scarves. They were everywhere, and in endless varieties!

Until next time, hope you one day become good enough at what you do that guys in suits can come wipe your nose on-field.

Let's play catch up! Aix-en-Provence

Hey, guys! So guess where I spent the fall break? Barcelonaaaaa! I had an absolutely fabulous time, but I still have a little bit left from my Marseille trip last weekend so let me just say that you will hear all about it next time, and I'll keep this one pretty short.

So I'll take you back to last weekend, where I was free as a bird on my third day in Marseille. Word from the locals: buses depart to and from Aix-en-Provence every 5 minutes all day, for 10 euro round trip. So, before you could say "bust a move," away I went.

Then, I arrived. Realizing that I was at a bus station with little or no direction, I followed the signs that looked the most promising and made my way to the presumed center of town. There I found the tourist office, got myself a handy map, and all was well. I basically spent the day exploring the city's artsy side. I wandered in and out of tons of artisans' stores, had some good conversations, and eventually followed the indicators on the map to see what this place was about.

This photo captures the mood of Aix: Chill, creative, and utterly cool.

My favorite time of the day was linked, unsurprisingly, to the old church tucked away in the heart of town. It's called Saint Jean de Malte, and it was certainly pretty enough from the outside:

Once again, too big for the frame!

I heard some music when I wandered close, and I decided to go in and see. As it turned out, I had come in while the organ player was rehearsing for the mass the next day. The music was extraordinary, and I had to sit down and just listen for a few minutes (which turned into 15?). It really was a joy to listen to, and the chapel was exquisite as well as nearly empty. The occasion didn't call for many photos, but I did end up snapping a few for memories' sake.

That's quite an instrument you've got there, sir.

Great acoustics, and stunning stained glass!

Afterward, I noticed that there was a museum directly to the side of the chapel, so I searched on my map and it said it was the Musee Granet, and apparently it's pretty famous. I decided to give it a shot: as a student, I got in free, and I was absolutely STUNNED at the art there. Photo taking was forbidden (and very strictly enforced: there were guards in nearly every room, and even though I was the only person wandering through some, just moseying slowly and enjoying what was there, I was followed. Like a duck. It was a little ridiculous. One woman guard got so into her job that after she haunted me at every step, I turned around and finally gave her a frustrated look. That solved that problem, and eventually I found myself in the area of the museum with the cute security guards. The portraits were nice, too. =)


Okay, seriously. I wish I could share the museum with you all. It was amazing in spite of how unassuming it was, with fantastic sculptures, landscapes, and even portraits and scenes that were 7, 8 feet tall. I spent hours there, and eventually I left, got myself something to eat at a kebab stand (yum!) and found my way back to Marseille for the evening. There, I met some friends at the new hostel and chatted for awhile while I made dinner. Eventually we shared bread, cheese, and beer, but I declined going out on account of how pooped I was. The next day, I woke up late, went to mass, and the weekend ended well. I'm going to go back at some point. The weather and construction made me miss a couple things, but overall I love love loved the town. I'd highly recommend it to anyone...alone, or accompanied. Stay tuned for the account of my trip to Barcelona!!

Until next time!