Je déteste les rhumes!!!! or Bring on the drugs...

Ok, so I swear one of these days I'm going to get the hang of regular blog posting, but until then we'll just think of my sporadic posting as, shall we say, random outbreaks of textual diarrhea.

This past weekend, I was definitely the laziest person on the planet. I literally didn't leave my apt after we dropped Mira off at the train station in the morning. My weekend pretty much consisted of me either lying in bed or sitting at my desk and watching movies and/or south park (my new guilty pleasure). Although Mira's leaving was extremely sad and she is now probably frozen in some block of ice in the crazy Minnosotean (is that a word? well, if it wasn't it is now!) winter, thanks to her i now have a really kick-ass wall:



Oh, and check out my new lamp on my desk. 5 euro at Pier Imports! heck yes soldes. But that's all I'm going to say about Mira's leaving, because i don't need to be sad right now. I already have a sniffly nose and tearing up would make it worse.

So things are starting to get back into a normal pattern around Chambs (if our lives here could ever be considered normal). Class started back on Monday. Well, some classes that is. The management classes don't start for another 2 wks (i think) which means that right now I'm kicking myself for being a language student. So far, I have 5 translation classes (i know, right?) 4 of them are written and one is oral, an american cinema and society class* (quite ridiculous, yet HIGHLY entertaining), french grammar, old french, latin, italian, and a 20th century french lit class. It should be an fun semester.

*so this class was aimed at filling one of my gen ed requirements at UT, but after actually attending the class, I doubt that will happen. In the first class, we watched an episode of MacGyver. Yes, that's right. Make-a-nuclear-bomb-out-of-a-paperclip,-gum,-a-half-dollar,-an- peanut-butter MacGyver. Don't get me wrong. I love the show and actually, wednesday was the first time i had actually seen an episode, but the teacher dug further into MacGyver than anyone EVER should. We had to relate this particular episode of MacGyver to the typical American view of colonialism and she made references to Iraq, the native americans, the wild west, Robinson Crusoe and the Bible. Several of her points were valid, however i feel that for some of them, she might have stretched a little too far. Ooooo, and next week is Team America: World Police. Which she told the students on wed. was a depiction of america's foreign policy. should be good times. :-)

Anywho, this crazy Chambéry weather is wrecking havoc on me. I'm finally sick for the first time (well, excluding the unfortunate stomach whatever on the train, which we will no longer discuss. Luckily, this time, I think it's just a common cold. So that means I've been downing soup and hot tea like it's nobody's business, because i'm trying to avoid the suppository happy french pharmacists that Liz warned me about. So for now I will just settle for my quickly depleting supply of mouchoirs.

Well, I guess that about does it for now. It's time to get ready to go out. Today is Sandra's (german friend) birthday and she is making dinner for us. Apparently in Europe this is fairly common. I'm not gonna complain. YAY food!

ciao

Bonne année, bonne année, bonne-ne-ne-ne-ne année...

So here I am. Finally updating this blog that was intended to be done on a regular schedule, but with all of the goings on in the past month seems to have fallen through the cracks. Hopefully, now i am back with blogging fury and things will actually be posted.

Going back a little bit, I was recently in Paris for New Year's Eve. Yeah. After my amazingly awful trip back to France, Paris was a nice break. After arriving in Paris after midnight, i found out from Claire that our hotel had been upgraded. Originally we were supposed to be in Montmartre on the northside of Paris, but due to a booking conflict they moved us to another one of their hotels (beside the EIFFEL TOWER!!!)



So that's the view from our hotel window. My first night consisted of me passing out and waking up around 11 the next morning. Around 11, our canadian friend jessica came to the hotel and claire and i went out exploring. We saw all of the big sights, but didn't actually go in anywhere because i already had and claire didn't feel like waiting in line. I will say however that it is amazing that even though it's been 3 yrs since i was in Paris, there are still the same annoying men around the Eiffel Tower trying to sell the same annoying keychains. After sightseeing, claire and i were pretty much starving so we headed over to the latin quarter near notre dame to get some cheap dinner (def the cheapest place to eat in Paris). After dinner, we met back up with jess at the hotel to go grocery shopping for supplies for the night (really cheap sparkling wine, classy right?) In the process i realized that i left my pants i was planning on wearing out in the states, so of course that meant we had to go shopping. In case you're not familiar with french business hours, nothing is ever open, EVER. So it was a little difficult trying to find somewhere to buy decent jeans, but at last we succeeded and i highly recommend this store.

When we got back to the hotel we began the festivities, around 7ish. Let's just say that New Year's Eve is a time for excess. If you want to know more about the evenings activities just ask me, but i won't be going into details on here.

That being said, we slept in on New Year's Day and woke up around 2ish. We were all starving and didn't feel like walking anywhere, so i am ashamed to admit that we had lunch at the McDo's across the street from our luxurious 6 story hotel on the outskirts of Paris that didn't have an elevator and in which our room was on the top floor, not so cute. The rest of New Year's Day was spent in the hotel room with the lights off and curtains drawn watching movies and Will & Grace.

The next day we had to switch hotels again and met up with Jean. I really liked this hotel. It wasn't exceptionally nice, but it's location is what did it for me. This was directly across the street:


In case you don't know what this is, it's the Conservatoire Nationale Supérieure de Musique et de Danse de Paris. It just made me happy staying across the street from it. We were also across the street from the Cité de la Musique. This was where Jean, Claire and i had sushi. MMMM. It was the first time in more than a month and only the second time since i had been in France. Sad times i know.

Well, that pretty much gets us up to date with the Paris trip. I will have pics on facebook soon. As for now, I'm gonna try to get a little studying done, because I still have two more exams left, french linguistics on wed and italian on thurs.

ciao

Half-way around the world and back in 8 days...

So as you can tell from my last post, I'm back in France now. Surprisingly, I am very relieved to be back. After such a short time, it is amazing how accustomed you can grow to a place.

So here's a brief run down of the holiday events.

Dec. 22nd

• train from Chambéry to Geneva
• night in hostel with smelly Indian businessmen from London who talk (loudly) in their sleep

Dec. 23rd

• wake up at 04:00 (GMT +1:00)
• lug a 50 pound suitcase with no rollers to the train station and then to check-in at airport
• flight from Geneva, Switzerland to Frankfurt, Germany (1 1/2 hr delay)
• flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Charlotte, NC
• flight from Charlotte, NC to Nashville, TN
• dinner at Baja Fresh (Mexican food Tex-Mex doesn't exist in France Europe)

Dec. 24th

• Christmas at my sister's 9am
• Christmas at my dad's mom's noon
• Christmas at my mom's mom's 4pm
• Midnight (9pm) mass
• After-mass breakfast at my aunt's 10:30pm

Dec. 25th

• Christmas at my step-mom's mom's 10am
• Christmas at my mom's 4pm

Dec. 26th

• American TV!!!!

Dec. 27th

• shopping with my mom and sis (babysitting my niece and nephew)
• dinner out for my sis and stepdad's bdays
  

Dec. 28th

• HAIRCUT!!!!
• WALMART!!!!
  

Dec. 29th

• breakfast at Cracker Barrel
• flight from Nashville, TN to Philadelphia, PA
• 2 1/2 hr maintenance delay for flight to Munich, Germany
• 1 hr standing at the USAirways service counter readjusting flights to go to Geneva from Munich since I originally only had 45 min between flights
• cancel TGV ticket from Geneva to Paris, because I arrived in Geneva 1 min!!!! after my train left
• booked new ticket from Geneva to Paris for 122 CHF (appx. $108 US)
• didn't use my meal voucher, because i didn't realize i had it

Dec. 30th

• flight from Munich, Germany to Geneva, Switzerland
• train from Geneva, Switzerland to Paris, France!!!!
• on the 3 1/2 hr train ride we were informed that we were being redirected through Dijon, France (AN HOUR AND A HALF OUT OF THE WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!) ugh
• arrived in Paris, France around 00:30
• found out our hotel had changed, to right beside the Eiffel Tower!!
• metro ride to the hotel
• didn't have any euro and the metro ticket office was closed.
• thus, i bought a 1,50 euro metro ticket with my bank card with my account that had 1,53 euro in it
• arrived at the hotel around 01:30
• crashed

New Year's update and etc to come after my exam tomorrow. i promise it'll be more interesting :-)

à tout

Bonjour tous,
Yes. In case you're wondering, I DO realize that it's been more than a month since my last post and hopefully this horrible trend won't continue any longer. Unfortunately seeing as I have a translation exam in approximately 8 hours, this will be a brief post, mostly geared at trying to make me sleepy since my sleeping schedule is all f*d up right now due to hella traveling and to extreme stomach issues (more details to come in later posts, of the former not the latter(i mean come on, I'm not Ysabel ;-) ) ).

Ok, so this blog has one major point which is directly addressed at 3 of my probable 4 readers (sorry Mira). I'm working on planning/preparing for my junior/senior/whatever-you-want-to-call-it recital. Back in the fall, Liz came to visit and I was pretty sure that we had figured out a program, based on French bassoon music. However, I'm starting to debate one of the pieces on the program and need some advice. I'm having trouble deciding between two pieces, the Tansman Sonatine and the Tansman Suite. I had decided on the Sonatine and even got the music while i was home, but the past few days i have been listening to the Suite and am starting to like it more. Ugh, that's where you guys (Benhameen, Ys, and Liz) come in. If at all possible, could you try to listen to recordings of the two pieces and give me your opinion. I know Liz probably knows both pieces by heart and has the good CD. However, i don't think it would be too hard to find a recording or i could try to send you a copy. I know that the Sonatine is available on ITunes, but I'm not sure of the quality.

Anywho, any help would be GREATLY appreciated and now I'm gonna try to get a little sleep. Thank you all for taking the time to read this slightly boring post and i promise i will post again with many more interesting things on tuesday.

à tout!