Joyeux Fetes!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!

I wish you all a wonderful holiday and a Happy New Year!

Versailles!!!!!!

Bonjour a tout la monde!!

I hope you're all gearing up for an excellent holiday season, Christmas is in only two days!!!!!!!!!! Paris is looking pretty Christmasy. Lights everywhere and today saw what i guess would be described as a day care group that brought a huge group of 4-6 year olds up the eiffel tower wearing santa hats, it was great!

today was a good day in exploring paris. we got up relatively early. headed over to the eiffel tower. thankfully the lines were manageable and we got right up. it's a little freaky to be that high up sometimes but the view is always worth it! last time i went up in the dark so the view was completely different. after that we went and did a little souvenir shopping and then hopped back on the metro to head to Versailles! it should have been relatively simple but the combination of changing zones, branches in the lines, and a really persistent beggar on the made the whole trip a little more stressful than it needed to be. but we managed to get there okay and it was totally worth it. the palace was absolutely stunning. so much gold!!! i've got to get to bed at the moment but i'll post pictures tomorrow!!!!

Merry Christmas everybody!!!!!!

Wine Tasting in Dijon France... YUM

First off: HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!!!

Now on to some pictures from our wine tasting adventures in Dijon, France!

The Vineyards in Dijon, they stretched on for miles!

89 euro bottle of wine. SCORE. So good. Too bad I can't afford a bottle! But i did get to try it!!!!!

Pretty sure this sign says it all.

The second wine cellar had some super old wine bottles in it! it's either really good or vinegar!

Most expensive bottle i could find was 320 euros. Awesome.

Europe travels, Phase One

Hey All!

Sorry about the delay in writing, but things got a little hectic with the end of my program. sob. so sad that it's over. seriously never cried so much in such a short period of time. i think it started around 3 days before the end where i would just be doing something and i would tear up. the farewell dinner was a sob fest. when alex and i went to leave, and the hugs started, that's when the tears started flowing. it was bad. really really sad. but i'm doing better now, probably cause i've left grenoble so i'm not continually reminded that i'm still in france but none of my friends are.

on a more positive note, had a great last couple days with my host family. it was really fun introducing my mom to them and playing translator. it was so sad to leave them. more tears. but i'm now currently curled up under the covers in Dijon France! it's been a LONG trip getting here. we were going to rent a car but then they were just being car rental people and being stupid, so we decided to take the train to Chamonix, which was fine, expect for the fact that our second train was late so we missed our third train and had to hang out in an unheated train station for two hours. but we got there okay, and i was happy just to be inside a warm hotel and take a hot shower. Chamonix was gorgeous. the mountains are huge! it was however, like being thrust into winter. there was no snow in grenoble, there was around two feet in Chamonix. but it was gorgeous none the less. took lots of pictures of its prettiness. the real fun was this morning though when i stupidly got us on the wrong train. Whoops. instead of heading towards Chamonix and down the mountain, i got us on a train towards switzerland.... complete opposite direction of where we wanted to go. we then got off at the next stop like the conductor told us to but it wasn't the stop he wanted us to get off at, we got off at the optional stop and literally stood outside in the freezing cold for the next hour + waiting for the train. it was so cold and my feet felt like blocks of ice. but luckily the train came an hour later, same train actually, with the same conductor who was mortified that we had gotten off at the stop we had. but really i was just so grateful to be inside and out of the elements that i didn't even care that we had made a mistake. i spent the next 55 minute train ride pressing myself into the heater. after that, the rest of our voyage came fairly easily thank god. got into Dijon at 18:20, found our hotel with relative ease and then off to find some dinner!!! more later!

Winding down....

It is so sad for me to write this, but there's only a week and a half left in Grenoble! That's just the rest of this week in classes and then finals next week. SO SAD. I never want to leave, i love it here! and the people i've met and my family are amazing, i will be so sad to leave them! luckily for me, i get to extend my stay here for a little more than another month. because (drum roll....) MY MOM COMES NEXT WEDNESDAY!!!!!!! in case you can't tell i'm just a tad bit excited to see her. there will most definitely be tears and running towards each other movie moment except for it's me and my mother not me and some long lost love. but yes, next wednesday, i will be done with my finals and my mama rolls in! One word: AWESOME!

Finals should of course be super fun. Been writing papers all week. One for my french seminar class and one for my class on the european union. really feels like exam time now!

But (drum roll please) i have some exciting news for all of you.... i'm staying even longer over here! not for another semester unfortunately, (though i would LOVE to do that!) but i am staying until the 11th of january to travel around europe with alex!!! we'll see places such as florence, venice, croatia, Budapest, Prague, Poland, Berlin, and somewhere else. he's staying another semester so he's gonna travel even more once i head home but the two extra weeks i have to travel will be absolutely fantastic! i am beyond excited. can't wait to travel with my mom and then with alex! SO many adventures to be had!!

I am aware that this is the most random post ever and i'm kind of all over the place so i'm going to continue that theme and go off on another direction. Christmas. it's kind of an awesome holiday where ever you go, people tend to get really into it. France is no different. grenoble has this market called the marche du noel, and it's for pretty much all of December and these little booths have taken over all of victor hugo park, all of place grennette and they sell tons of sweet stuff! christmas shopping made easy pretty much. but they sell food too! crepes, sandwiches, candy, hot wine, so many options! and they have a dancing santa bear which really everyone needs in their life so mine is pretty much complete. if you're ever in grenoble around this time, definitely definitely hit up this market. you won't regret it!

Alrighty, i've gotta head, got to go to class now, LAST CLASS BABY! at 10:20am (my time) i will be done with my semester abroad (at least the classes part done...still got finals) ciao!

Thanksgiving in France

Hey everybody!!! So I know that thanksgiving has indeed passed but i thought i would take a second to tell you all about my thanksgiving in France. I had a thanksgiving dinner on the actual day of thanksgiving with my entire group here in France. it was really really good. the chef was actually from england and he did a pretty good job for not being an american. he made really good stuffing and cranberry sauce. and his pumpkin pie was killer. it was still a french meal, with a strange salad and wine and bread served too!

it was on saturday that the first thanksgiving that i have ever made on my own! my host family and two other girls host families are friends so on the first night that we were here, we all ate together. it was this early night in september that they informed us that in november we would get together again and cook them thanksgiving dinner. we didn't really give it much thought until november rolled around and we had to get serious and think about what we wanted to make. it was last saturday, november 26th that the magic went down. Deyla, Kelly, and I (alex came too but not his family) all convened at my house to cook some magic. despite our fears and the fact that it took over 6.5 hours to do all of the cooking, the meal turned out amazing. a little too sugary but literally, the turkey was so good and juicy and the stuffing was so good and the PIE! so yummy. here's some pictures from our cooking party. good times people. good times.

My darling Deyla with the turkey all ready to go in the oven!!! we lathered it in butter, honey, pineapple juice, spices, and plopped it in the oven. actually my host mama plopped it in but regardless, we did everything else!

Alex peeling potatoes like a man.

Our sweet potatoes and marshmallows. aka best most delicious thing ever. So good.

The Cooking ladies. Alex was already getting food. We ate soooooo much!!

The dinner crowd. Minus the kids and minus Sophie my host mama.

Paris Je T'Aime

Bonjour! Terribly sorry about the delay in writing, it's been a busy time here in Grenoble! I wanted to write and tell all of you about my recent visit to the capital of France, PARIS!! it was literally the best trip ever! i loved Paris. It was beautiful on so many levels. I managed to go to a fair amount of places in the four days we were there. it was a ton of walking and my feet hurt an unbelievable amount at the end of each day but it was totally worth it. one of my favorite things that we did whilst there was go to the theater and see Mamma Mia!!! it was in french of course but it was amazing none the less! all of the songs were in french, save some of the words which they didn't translate into french. but it made me really really want to go to Broadway and see it in english. I may or may not have had my computer on repeat afterwards playing Mamma Mia over and over and over again.... :) Here are some of the best pictures from my new favorite places in Paris. I have a ton more, literally like 500 more, so i'll put some up on flickr so you can see more!

Ici, c'est Notre Dame! aka our lady. It was absolutely beautiful. the stained glass in particular was amazing. you can see the circular stained glass window here in the photo but with the light shining through it was absolutely beautiful. we even got to climb up to the tower of the notre dame. it was amazing. such a good view! you could see all of paris's skyline which was just gorgeous. and it's where i got my first view of the eiffel tower which was just amazing. it was super exciting. plus the gargoyles on top of the notre dame were slightly hilarious. there was a pelican and a evil looking one that was sticking his tongue out.

It's the Mona Lisa!! the louvre was amazing. it was so gorgeous. there was so much to see! literally probably only saw around 1/8 of the entire museum. it was a little sad actually because there was so much to see and so little time! we managed to tour about the greek section and see some of the egyptian stuff which was wicked cool. there were some super HUGE paintings that literally took up massive sections of walls. i was impressed on so many levels. i am really excited that my mom is coming here in decemeber and we're going back to Paris because i definitely plan on taking her there and showing her everything and hopefully see some new things!

Kaitlyn, Kelly, Me, and Alex in front of the Louvre! really made me think of the DaVinvi Code because i am fairly certain this was a part of it. and it was also just super awesome. super super awesome. the entire courtyard was immense, so much space and so many people taking pictures of all of the beautiful buildings. it was so cool. there were even armed guards who i imagine that they were there to stop potential art thieves from even thinking about trying to steal anything...

Just a classic Eiffel tower shot.... not sure how the lighting got to be so cool. it was really just twilighty and it was nice. the eiffel tower is also lite up at night which is one of my favorite parts of paris now. it twinkles every hour for ten minutes which is absolutely gorgeous. i was so mad cause every time it was twinkling i was either eating dinner, on a train, in the elevator, on top of the tower, or going back down the tower. so i never got a picture of the beautifulness which makes me really really sad. but i'll be back. so i will make it my goal that i get a picture next time. the eiffel tower is so cool. if you ever go to paris. go there. it's worth it!

l'Arc de Triomphe shot. with sandwiches. super good sandwiches too. best i've had so far which was just so random cause it was this little sandwich shop by the arc. the arc was really cool. you can go underneath down under the street which is really cool and then you plop out onto the bottom part. and there's a monument and you can go up to the top, which we didn't do because we were kind of in a time crunch. but it was really cool. we went to la Defense after this too which was also really cool. enjoyed that a lot. very modern which was cool. different.

Overall i really really enjoyed Paris. it was a gorgeous city. i really really enjoyed visiting there and would definitely recommend it for anyone to visit. also, would like to give a nice shout out to everyone from america, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!!!!!!! we will be eating thanksgiving at a restaurant tonight, hopefully it will be super delicious! there's supposed to be pumpkin and apple pie which just makes me happy. i and three other students in the programs and our families will be coming to my house on saturday and we will be making our families a classic thanksgiving dinner. which is slightly stressful on a couple of levels. i'm not the strongest cook out there. but i hope that it turns out good cause i want to show them how good it can be! plus they've had students in the past who have done it and they know it can be good. hopefully i don't burn anything. so i hope you all have a wonderful holiday, and remember, you can start playing christmas carols tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!