Bruges Two: In Which I Really Just Want A Wal-mart

Tuesday morning, I got up slightly more quickly, and after breakfast headed over to the Belfry to see if the line was shorter. When I got there, I found out that it was actually my favourite: non-existent! The Brugges Museum ticket thing I had bought before also works for the Belfry, so I showed my ticket and went up. It was mostly a lot of brick; the stairs themselves were wooden, reinforced at points with brick, and incredibly narrow. It was really hard to pass anyone coming down; someone had to wedge themselves into a corner and wait for the other person to go by. There were a couple of stopping points along the way; at one of them you could see the giant drum that rings the Carillon bells, like a giant music box drum; unfortunately the bell system is undergoing a complete overhaul that won't be finished until June, so there were no bells, and lots of construction work. When I got to the top of the 366 steps, I took a bunch of pictures of the view, and then headed back down. To be honest, I was pretty disappointed; it felt like the only reason to go up was to see the view. Maybe I've just been spoiled by amazing Gothic cathedrals, but I like architecture that's fascinating and fun to see in and of itself; so the Belfry didn't impress me.

After the Belfry, I headed off in another direction, and found a cool little museum; however, right as I was taking pictures of the pretty outside, my camera decided to tell me that the battery was dying. As I hadn't brought an adapter that my camera charger could use, I decided to go ask the hotel if they had one. So I walked all the way back to the hotel, and went to talk to the concierge. It turned out they had one for Great Britain and for (what I think was) Asia. No North America. I asked her if she knew where I could find one, and she gave me a bunch of directions. I have come to the conclusion that I cannot navigate by verbal directions, because I had no idea where to find what she pointed me to, and wandered all over the place for a while. I found a random electronics store, and they didn't have any kind of universal adapter. So I wandered more, finally found the shopping street that I think she had meant to direct me to, and little store that matched her description but appeared to be closed until July. I went on, and found a little phones-and-accessories store, and when I asked there they directed me next door, to a larger electronic supplies store. The guy there was rather gruff, and more so when he found out I was American (in this situation I didn't feel like messing with French and went straight to English), but they had one model of universal adapter that was basically exactly what I needed. It was also over 20 Euro. *sigh* So I bought it, went back to my room and plugged it and my camera in, and sat on my bed in a sour mood for a while.

Eventually, after hanging out and talking to Tim on AIM for a while, I figured it was probably charged, and went out again. I got lunch at a little restaurant next to the museum I had found before, where they had a menu for 15 Euro. My entrée was basic potage (soup) of the day, made with whatever vegetables they get in that day. The main dish was fantastic, however; thick juicy steak with a mushroom sauce (which cost extra but was worth it), fries, and a little salad. The fries were also good; the salad was a little questionable, but okay. For dessert I had profiteroles, which were okay, but not as fantastic as I've had in the past. After lunch, I headed back to the museum, this time with a charged camera.

The museum turned out to be the "Gruuthuse," where a prominent rich noble family of Bruges used to live in the Middle Ages. The house was covered in the crest and symbols of the family; it was actually really cool. They had a bunch of exhibits, most of which were religious stuff. They didn't allow pictures, which was really dumb (especially since it was the house itself that I really liked the most), but I snuck some shots of the chapel. Apparently, since their house was right next to the Cathedral of Our Lady anyway, they got permission to build a little private viewing chapel into the wall, so they could participate in mass without leaving home! I thought it was pretty cool.

After the Gruuthuse, I wandered around a bit, and did a little shopping. I found a really cool little row of shops tucked away by the Burg, and wandered through them. I had stopped to look out at the canal at one point, when a random man dressed as a musketeer (feather in his hat and all!) came up to me, said hello, and kissed my hand. It was rather bizarre, but he seemed very friendly. I was talking to him in French, and so when he asked where I was from I told him I live in Tours. He had me follow him to his little shop, which was right behind me, where he had a little camera set-up that took my picture, and printed this calendar/picture thing, that had a map of old Bruges. It was obviously a ploy to get me to pay for it, but he seemed nice, so I went with it (and it didn't turn out to be expensive, so it was okay). He was chattering on the whole time, like he never gets to talk to anybody. He also sold me a little poster case for it, which I think will come in handy for my poster of Tours, too. As we were talking, I found out that he likes to get people to send him postcards from wherever their home town is; he gave me his card (his name is Erwin, apparently), so I thought I'd send him something from Tours and maybe from Bozeman. I did end up telling him that I was originally from the States, and so we talked half in French and then in English. After a while, I made a polite excuse for having to go, and he as much as admitted that he gets lonely in his little shop, tucked away. I ended up feeling pretty sorry for him; he was fun.

After that encounter, I walked back to my hotel and just decided to relax and not let the frustrations of the day get to me. I ended up deciding that I really just wasn't hungry for dinner (I swear I eat so much at each meal when I go out, I can hardly handle it), and that I would save money by not going out, so that was my day.

In Which I Wander And Find Cool Stuff

So this morning I woke up sort of slowly, and got ready and went over to the other part of the hotel for breakfast. I was one of the last people there, so it was kind of hard to find a table that didn't have dishes and stuff on it. I got a very good little bread roll with nutella, and some yoghurt and orange juice. Then I got a map from the lady at the desk (who I found out also speaks perfect French, in addition to her perfect Flemish and English and probably German. >.>)

When I headed out, I didn't really have too much of a plan. I was headed towards the Markt, where the Belfry is, and from there I thought I'd find the Burg, which is the town's administrative center. I headed down one of the streets and right ahead of me was the Belfry! I love when the major monument of a city is really obvious and easy to find! So I followed it, passing a pretty brick cathedral on the way, and came out in the Markt. There actually wasn't much to see; there's the Belfry itself, and some pretty Gothic-style buildings that I took pictures of, and the horse-drawn carriages go through pretty constantly. I wandered on through to the inside of the Belfry, but the line was really long to go up, so I decided I'll do it another day.

When I wandered back through and found the Burg, I didn't really know what was there besides the Town Hall. I ended up taking some pictures of a random building that turned out to be a church that turned out to be the Basilica of the Holy Blood! Who knew? I went inside, took pictures, and it turned out I was just in time for the Veneration of the Relic. So I stood in the line, and went up and touched it, as you do. (Or, well; I touched the glass they lay over the reliquary inside of which is the sealed bottle containing the piece of cloth supposedly soaked with Jesus' blood.) It was supposedly collected by Joseph of Arimethea when he washed Jesus' body for burial, and was given to a Flemish Count when he was on Crusade in the Holy Land. (Historians think it was actually probably looted from a Constantinian treasure house.) After I went through the line, I went around and took a few more pictures, then went out and into the tiny basilica museum, where they have various items relating to the relic. I will say; as helpful as the occasional translation into French and English is, I still feel like I miss half of the information in those places, since it's all in Flemish. I bought a little charm from the Basilica; I'm going to use it and the little labyrinth charm I got in Chartres and start a charm bracelet! Then I went into the downstairs part of the Basilica. That part is all made of brick, with vaulted ceilings, and is basically a little prayer room.

After the Basilica, I went into the building right next door, which is the Town Hall. They have a program in Bruges where you can pay for a 1-day, 3-day, or year-long pass, and visit 16 of the major Bruges Museum sites in the city. I went ahead and got the 3-day one, which was awesome since for me (being between the ages of 12 and 25) it was only 5 Euro. The Town Hall didn't have too much stuff; the major feature was the Hall Council room, which is beautifully carved and painted, with a huge fantastic fireplace, stained glass windows, and giant murals depicting important people and events in the city's past. It was a good thing I had the audio guide, though, or I wouldn't have had any idea what any of it was.

After the Town Hall, I wandered out and through a side street going away from the Burg, which led me to one of the canals. There was a stand selling tickets for the boat rides, which give you a brief tour of the city from the water. I'd wanted to take one, so I figured why not and bought a ticket (they ended up being over 6 Euro; one of the most expensive "attractions" in Bruges!). I was in a big line of people, but the boats apparently leave every few minutes and they pack people in pretty closely. I ended up wedged between some people speaking French, and an older couple that spoke Spanish, with an American couple across the way, and the back of the boat was filled with a big group speaking Flemish. I will say, Bruges has been one of the most intercultural and interlingual experiences of my whole life! The guy doing the tour was giving commentary in Flemish, French, and English, so when I didn't catch something in the French I could usually pick it out in the English, which was nice. He was kind of a young punk; he went really fast, talked faster, and kept making all kinds of uncouth comments and jokes. When he was helping some kids into the boat at the beginning, I don't think they spoke English, because he was muttering something about "Step careful, get in, fall in, I don't give a shit" and at one point we went under a bridge where some girls (admittedly dressed rather skank-ily) were standing, and he yelled at them to come back in summer and wear skirts. Despite him, the trip was at least helpful for getting more of an orientation on the centre of the city, and he did know the script for the various things to look at. I took a lot of pictures.

When I got out of the boat, I just continued along a random street, where there ended up being a lot of restaurants and some market stalls selling jewelry, random knick-knacks, and a guy who'd done really awesome paintings in a "hyper-realistic" style, so they looked like photographs. I ended up going back to the Burg for lunch, and had moules frites! I pride myself on being able to finish an entire pot of mussels and fries. :D

After lunch, I went back out, and wandered further through the market area. There were more stalls set up farther along the canal, so I went and looked through them. I found a stall where a guy was selling what he said were Roman and medieval artifacts that a friend of his finds with a metal detector, and he makes into jewelry. I went ahead and got a necklace that's supposedly a Roman pendant with Roman glass. I don't know if it's real, but at the least it's very pretty, and I like it. Then I wandered further along the canal, and found some cool random art in a garden, next to a couple of the art museums in Bruges. One of the pieces was a set of four men on horses, meant to be the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I went through and took pictures since they looked cool, and as I was walking away, some random group of, like, 30- and 40-year-olds went by and were laughing and exclaiming because the Horsemen had obvious penises. Because immaturity is not reserved for the young, lol. I wandered around, saw some more random stuff, and ended up heading back towards my room since my feet were hurting.

I hung out in my room for a while, not doing much, and around 1oish I went out to find some dinner. Unfortunately, apparently Bruges curls up and dies on Monday evenings, because nothing was open (and it was all really expensive anyway). After wandering around for way too long trying to find somewhere to go, I finally found a little pita place, and just got a pita with fries and a drink to go, and ate them back in the room, and just stayed in for the evening.

Chartres Day Two: Things Start To Wind Down

This morning I planned to wake up early so that I could get over to the cathedral by the time the North Clock-Tower was supposed to open. I'd brought my alarm clock along, but I had to reset it before I went to bed since I'd taken out the batteries for traveling.

I mention this, because I ended up accidentally setting it an hour early. I woke up unawares, got showered, worked on getting myself together... and then realised that it was an hour before I had to be anywhere near ready. So, I napped a bit, and then got up and got dressed. I went down for breakfast at the hotel (which, for future reference, the convenience is probably not worth the 7 Euro). I had a croissant with some honey and applesauce and orange juice, and headed back to the cathedral.

I wanted to wear my black slacks today, but I realised when I went to put them on that the basting stitch Gramma used to hem them to my short was coming loose, and the hem was flopping around. I saw a Singer store when I was out and about yesterday, so I decided to go looking for it first. I wandered a lot, and found the apparent shopping district of Chartres, but I couldn't find the store. I did see a beautiful flower market, though, and was really tempted to buy myself some tulips (they were only 5 Euro...) but I resisted the urge. I also saw an adorable little girl who looked to be around six, walking a big brindle dog that was about as tall as she was. :)

Eventually I just headed back in the direction of the cathedral, unknowingly passing right by the Singer store without noticing. >.> There wasn't anyone at the desk where you pay to go up in the Tower, so I kind of looked around trying to find someone, before finally a guy came over. I told him I'm a student, and he kind of looked at me, and asked where I'm from. I told him, quite truthfully, that I'm living in Tours, and that got me in for free (it's only supposed to be free for EU students, ages 18-25, but I *do* study in Tours, so I wasn't *technically* lying). ;P

The staircase up to the Tower was intense. It took ages to climb, and was very narrow and twisting. There were little arrow-slit style windows, so I took pictures as I went up. About halfway up the tower they let you out onto a little walkway just under the roof. I assume that's to help with traffic flow, since it'd be hard to pass by people, and also to give people a break from the climb. When you get up to the top, it lets out in two directions, and you can go all the way around. I took a billion pictures of gargoyles and carvings and other Gothic amazingness. The wind was really strong; a couple times I thought the whole tower was going to blow away, and me with it! My hair was a mess, but whatever; the view was fantastic! Apparently on a clear day you can see all the way to the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Unfortunately it's been really wet and rainy so it was cloudy, but it still seemed like you could see forever. Again, though, the passages were incredibly narrow. After a while I went back down; I looked at my phone when I headed down and figured out that it took over 5 minutes of straight descending to finally get to the bottom.

After the climb I was surprisingly drained and my legs were shaking; I checked out that the Crypt tour was at 11am, and went outside to eat a candy bar I had in my purse, then hung out in the nave until the guy showed up to take us on the tour. We went outside, since the Crypt is accessed from there, and down beneath the cathedral. Apparently the Chartres cathedral crypt is one of the biggest in the world, and runs a complete circuit beneath the church. We got to see the oldest part of it, where the walls and the foundations of the church date back to the Merovingian and Carolingian kings. There's also a well at one point whose foundations go back to the Celts; it's believed that the cathedral stands on the site of an ancient Druidic holy site that used to be the capital of the whole region and was mentioned in the diaries of Julius Cesar. Then we went into the Roman part of the crypt, which is covered with ancient frescoes. They tried to uncover and restore the frescoes, without much success, so there's not a lot to look at. We also got to see the reliquary containing the second existing portion of the Veil of the Virgin Mary; apparently it was split up into six pieces in the Middle Ages and divided between various lords. The two pieces in the cathedral are the only two to be recovered. They've been scientifically tested and positively identified as being from Palestine and about 2000 years old, so who knows? There's also a statue of the Virgin that is one of the few to show the transition between the Celtic religion and Christianity; it shows her seated, with her eyes closed and Jesus on her lap. A similar seated goddess with children and closed eyes was venerated by the Celts, which is one reason why the Virgin was used to smooth the introduction of early Christianity. Apparently the Cathedral in Chartres was one of the very first to ever be dedicated to Mary.

After the tour, the guide told us a little about the labyrinth (which I already knew about) and about "St. Jacques' Nail," which is apparently a big nail driven into the floor of the cathedral which corresponds to a pane of white glass in a nearby window. At noon on the summer solstice, the light comes through the glass and shines directly on the nail's head. Our guide said that scientifically it was probably a way to keep their calendars consistent. But there's also apparently some kind of festival that still goes on in the South that has to do with people carrying around torches for Saint Jacques; I didn't really understand the specifics, but he said that the nail might have something to do with that, too.

After I visited the Crypt, I decided to go find that Singer store and get myself some needles and thread. I felt dumb when I realised that I'd just passed right be it before, but I managed to get what I needed. I was also really tempted by some pretty yarn, but I managed to restrain myself. Then I went to find somewhere to eat lunch, and found a Moroccan restaurant, "Le Table au Sud". They had a meal (entrée + main dish) for 13 Euro, which was why I went in, but then the lady told me that it wasn't available on Saturdays. *sigh* I went ahead and just ordered what I had chosen off of the regular menu. My entrée was a "Délice Chevre," which was goat cheese wrapped in some pastry thing with sauces to eat with it. It was really good, although kind of difficult to eat. Then she brought out my Couscous Maison; and kept bringing out food until my eyes about fell out of my head in surprise. There was a heaping dish of couscous, a big bowl of vegetables in soup, another dish of chicken and sausage, and a little dish of chickpeas, white raisins, and some sort of spicy red sauce. They were all table dishes; you serve yourself from them. Even if I hadn't had an entrée I don't think I wouldve been able to get halfway through all the food... it was incredible. I ate until I felt like I would explode, then finally told the waitress I was done. I tottered back to my hotel room to lie down for a bit, hoping it would digest away some.

Train Fail

Saturday was my last day in London, so I got up early so that I could experience the one thing I had missed so far: Westminster Abbey. I managed to get down to the Westminster Tube station without any problems and got my ticket to go inside the Abbey. They don't allow photography, but I got an audio guide and wandered around (I was very surprised to hear Jeremy Irons introduce himself as the voice of the audio guide, but it was also pretty awesome). I also went up into the Shrine of King Edward the Confessor. It's not open to general tourism, but they let small groups inside for prayer sessions led by one of the priests. I mostly just wanted to see the shrine, so I pretended. The Abbey itself was beautiful, of course. My favourite part was the Poet's Corner, where they have tombs and memorials to various writers (including Shakespeare, Lewis Carrol, Robert Browning, and a dozen others, including my favourite: W.H. Auden). I did sneak a couple pictures (like one of Edmond Halley's memorial) before I left, and wound my way out through the ever-present souvenir shop. I figured I had left with just enough time to get back to Katie's house, finish throwing my stuff together, and come back in to the train station.

Unfortunately, it didn't prove to be that easy. When I got back to Totteridge & Whetstone, the only trains arriving were going on the wrong track (via Charing Cross rather than via Bank, which was what I needed). Without any other real choice, I got on the train anyway, and figured I'd get off and switch trains at some point. Unfortunately, no good opportunity presented itself until I got to Euston station, which is huge, and I switched to the Victoria line to get to King's Cross/St. Pancras. By the time I got there, I had basically figured that I would be late, but I ran through the station anyway, hoping. I managed to get there right as the train was departing, and felt like I was going to cry from running through stations, freaking out, and having it confirmed that my train had, indeed, already left.

The people at the Eurostar were fantastic, however. They took pity on me, and the first guy I talked to wrote on my ticket that I had showed up about five minutes earlier, to give me a little more leeway, and sent me to the ticket office. The guy there did some checking around and managed to get me a seat on the next train, when I explained that I hadn't known when I was supposed to be there and had been late. I kind of suspect that he thought I was younger than I am, judging from the way he spoke to me, but I wasn't about to complain. He told me that since I would miss my connection in Paris, I would have to talk to the SNCF people directly and try to get on the last train of the night. But to help me more, he put a "magic stamp" (his words) on the ticket that basically said that I missed my connection because of another train, not through my own fault. That wasn't technically true, but he gave me the stamp anyway to be nice.

Going through security went fairly quickly, and I got my second train-travel passport stamp. When I got to the Eurostar lobby, the train for Lille was boarding, so I sat down to wait. It was then that I experienced the most bizarre thing: while I was sitting there, they were reading announcements in both French and English. And when I heard the French, a huge wave of relief washed over me, and I felt almost weak. I hadn't realised until that point just how draining it was to constantly listen to British English. As much as I love the language and watch the BBC and was looking forward to London, the entire time I was there I felt somewhat distanced. In France, my accent might show me to be a foreigner, but I still feel included in the culture and language and am still accepted so long as I try to speak French. But in England, although American English was certainly suitable for communication, I still felt like and proved myself to be an outsider every time I opened my mouth.

Maybe it was just the exhaustion from running and stressing and the relief of being on a train - any train! - back to France, but my strange euphoria just increased every time I heard French, spoke French, and even when I used Euros to buy myself a simple dinner on the train. (The Eurostar has two "dining" cars; I got a BLT sandwich, a bag of chips, and an Orangina.) The seat next to me was empty, so I put up the arm rest and curled up across both seats to sleep for a good chunk of the trip, and also started organising my receipts and figuring out just how much my London adventure had cost me.

We got to the Paris Nord train station at the exact time the train I was supposed to take was leaving from Paris Austerlitz, so there was no hope of me catching it. So I took my time getting to the Métro and crossing Paris. I found myself loving almost everything I encountered: the ever-so-distinctive smell of Paris, the fact that the people I saw ignored me, that the Métro itself was dirty and the cars were old, the brief glimpse I saw of the Eiffel Tower all lit up for the night, and the little theme song that plays on constant loop in every SNCF train station. When I found the platforms at Austerlitz I went and talked to the man in the information booth. Without hardly looking at me he told me that it would be perfectly fine if I took the last train to Tours; I think the fact that I mentioned the stamp might have had something to do with it! I settled in on one of the seats in the station and prepared to wait the three hours until 10pm, when the train would leave. Fortunately, I had a book.

When the platform for the train was finally displayed on the board, I made my way over there. Unlike almost every other time I've taken the train in France, they had set up barriers and were actually checking people's tickets before they let them go on the train. The man glanced at my ticket, seeming confused for a moment, but when I explained briefly he nodded and let me through. By this point I was cold, exhausted, and wanting nothing more than a bed I could call mine. I kept myself awake by reading on the way to Tours, and finally arrived sometime between 12:30 and 1am. Then I dragged myself and my luggage back to the house, still kind of euphorically pleased by things as simple as French drivers' respect for pedestrians and the fact that I knew where I was going without thinking. I managed to find my keys after a panicked moment of not remembering where I'd put them, and unpacked just enough to be comfortable before I snuggled into my bed.

It's not quite home, but for that night, it was close enough.

Rain, Ravens, and A Round Theatre

This morning, I was planning on getting up very early and heading out so that I could be at the Tower of London right around when they opened. That... didn't so much happen. Grant was debating coming with me; his Mini U.N. stuff starts today, so he didn't know if he'd be busy; but he decided to sleep in instead. When I stepped outside, however, it was already starting to rain. I was very glad today that I had my umbrella to hand.

The Tube trip down to the Tower Hill stop also took a lot longer than I was hoping. They were having problems with various lines; there had been signaling problems on the Central line, and so Circle and District (the only two that service Tower Hill) were both suffering severe delays and I had a heck of a time figuring it out. Finally I got there, just after 10. Walking over to the Tower itself was like swimming with all the rain, so once I had bought my ticket I decided to eat something and dry out a bit before going into the Tower itself. There's a company I keep seeing around London called "Eat.", and they had a store in the little shopping complex just outside the Tower. I got a chicken, tomato, and pesto sandwich, which was really good. There were green lettuce-y type leaves and pine nuts and it was very well done. Then I went over and got in line to go in. The thing about being in London right now, though, is that everyone is on vacation from school, not just me. The entire place was swarming with people.

I went inside, and started with the walkway and the walls. I basically went in and out of several towers along the outside walls, and took lots of pictures. One tower had a replica of the king's bed (which made me feel right at home, after Chenonceau and Amboise!), one had various English monarch's crowns (with all the jewels removed, or with paste replicas), one had examples of weaponry the Tower Guards would've used and talked a little about when the peasants revolted and stormed the Tower (remarkably, the only time it had ever been breached). When I descended down into the inner courtyard, the first place I went was the House of Jewels, where the real Crown Jewels of England are kept. It was very tightly secured (as you can imagine). They don't allow photographs inside, but it was absolutely marvelous. Everything was sumptuous and brilliant (literally) and beautiful. I don't think I've even imagined of so many gems in one place at the same time. After I left there, I wandered around some more. I saw the place where Anne Bolyn and many others were beheaded. I saw the various graffiti on the walls where people had been kept prisoner. I had to search around a bit, but I eventually found the torture exhibit (ironically not in the Bloody Tower), which turned out to just be a Scavenger's Daughter, a Rack, and a set of Manacles. It was still pretty cool, though, and considering how many kids were around, I thought it was really tastefully done.

The thing that I got really excited about, though, and the thing I was not leaving the Tower without seeing, were the ravens. It is said that if the Tower Ravens ever leave the Tower, then England will fall. So, they keep the requisite six around, plus a seventh, just in case. They do clip the birds' wings, though, so there's no real chance of them just flying away. They also have a little caged enclosure where three of them were hanging out. I saw one sitting on a wall first, quite a bit away from the cages. He was watching people go by and talking to them and making noises and I took a bunch of pictures. Then I went over by the cages, where there were three enclosed and three more just walking around outside. I took a bunch more pictures; ravens are really very photogenic birds. When I counted later, I ended up with 25 pictures of just those seven birds.

I ended up spending over three hours in the Tower of London, and enjoyed every minute. Eventually, though, I did manage to see it all, and so I headed back to the Tube. It was raining really hard by then, and all the walking around meant that my feet and the bottoms of my pants were getting really wet. I had some more problems with the Tube when I tried to get to Mansion House, which the internet had told me was about a ten minute walk from Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. I found Mansion House alright, but then had more problems trying to figure out how to get to the Globe itself. There was construction in the middle of the roads, so I walked up and down and around and crossed the streets where there were no lights (a very dangerous thing in London). Every once in a while I came across a map that pointed the way to the river, and eventually I got to the bank.

From the bank, I could actually see the Globe, finally; and I could see the footbridge that would let me get to it. At that point, it was just a matter of getting to the bridge and crossing. I also passed St. Paul's Cathedral, which is on the opposite side of Millennium Bridge from the Globe, and I decided I'd have to take pictures after.

The Globe itself was pretty cool; I didn't know much about the actual building, so I learned a lot. I bought my ticket and just glanced briefly at the exhibits before my tour started. The guy took us inside the theatre itself, sat us in the seats, and talked to us for a while. I really got the impression from him that the only way to fully experience the Globe is to see a performance there. I was kind of sad, since by the time they're doing shows I'll be going back home, so even if I wanted to come back I wouldn't be able to. He told us that the Globe itself is a reconstruction, not built even on the exact site of the old one (which is now apparently covered by a pub). It's an educated guess of what the building would've looked like, based on what we know of the two sister theatres, the Rose and the Swan. It is also the third Globe; the first one was burned down in a fire during a performance, when they shot off a cannon (sans cannonball) and a piece of cloth from the explosion set the thatched roof on fire. Fortunately, no-one was hurt, and the worst casualty was a bottle of beer that a man used to douse his pants when they had caught on fire. It was rebuilt, and still very successful, until the Puritans took over London and it was shut down by Parliament. For all that it is mostly educated guesswork, they took great pains to make it as true to the spirit of the original as possible. It is the first fully wooden building with a thatched roof since the Great Fire of London, and was made using techniques and materials from Shakespeare's time. After the tour, I wandered through some more and saw the exhibits, which included live demonstrations of woodworking, stage combat, and Elizabethan costuming.

When I left the Globe, I went back across the Millennium Bridge to St. Paul's Cathedral. I didn't go inside, mostly because I didn't want to spend the money, but I did take a lot of pictures of the outside and some cool stuff around it. Then I realised that I didn't actually have pictures of Wyndham's Theatre, where I'd seen "An Inspector Calls," so I went back there, took the pictures, and headed home. It was about then (well on to 4 or 5 pm) that I realised I hadn't eaten all day apart from the sandwich at the Tower. So when I got to Totteridge and Whetstone (the Tube station closest to Katie's house) I decided to go to a grocery store and buy some dinner. I also stopped by a flower stall and got them a bunch of tulips as a thank-you for letting me stay this week.

When I left the grocery store, however, the fairly constant rain had turned into a veritable downpour. I fought my way through the flood to get back, and was very happy to change my wet shoes, socks, and pants and warm up again. Katie and Allan were there, so I talked with them for a while and then they went to dinner and I stayed and ate the one I had just bought. While they were gone, Grant called. He had accidentally left his passport in their scanner when he made copies for his hostel stay, and needed to come back out to grab it. Right when he got out here, Katie and Allan returned as well, so we talked for a while.

The rest of my evening has been spent relaxing and catching up on the internet, which I have not really had time to check the past couple of days. Now, I am off to bed once more. Tomorrow: Westminster, Buckingham Palace, and hopefully the Changing of the Guard!

Stones, Sheep, Splendid Sights

I didn't get a chance to recap yesterday, so I'll start with that! Grant and I woke up early in the morning, to try and go to Westminster Abbey when it opened. Unfortunately we were a little slower to get moving than we'd hoped (and I also had some trouble with the shower curtain rod; I didn't know where else to hang my towel to dry, but it fell down...) and took our time getting into town. We went along the Thames and by Parliament, and took bunches of pictures of Big Ben and stuff. By the time we got to the Abbey itself, we'd have only had an hour or so to look around before we'd have to leave, so we glanced at St. Margaret's Church nearby and took pictures, and then headed down Victoria to find the hotel where we were supposed to meet our tour bus to go to Stonehenge.

It turned out that Victoria is a *very* long street, full of shopping and restaurants and things to see. We made it down to Victoria Station, which is basically a giant mall as well as a Tube and bus station, and had to ask directions to finally find the Grosvenor Victoria Hotel. It's pronounced "GRAHV-ner," apparently; and people say French has too many silent letters! Once we knew where it was, we still had a while before we had to be there to meet the bus. We got some Subway for lunch in the Victoria mall thing, because it was decently inexpensive, then Grant and I split up to wander and do some shopping. I picked up a couple of pretty pashmina scarves and walked back up Victoria to find a little street market we'd passed before. The boots I bought in Tours are already starting to wear out from all the walking we do all the time, so I bought a new pair for when they completely fall apart.

At 12:30, Grant and I met up back at the Grosvenor Hotel. We were waiting for a while, and ended up talking to a couple of women from Connecticut who were also waiting for the tour. Finally the bus showed up, they checked our names and we got on, and we were off! It seemed to take forever to leave London, and then it was about an hour and a half's drive to get to Stonehenge. Grant and I both fell asleep, and it was really cold in the bus, so my nose was numb when we got there.

The first thing they kept pointing out were the barrow mounds that apparently are really common around that area. We saw lots of them before finally entering the site itself. Everyone tells you that Stonehenge is a lot smaller than they expected. Maybe because I've heard that so often, I wasn't actually surprised at all. It was a gorgeous day for photography, and I took countless pictures. I also took lots of general pictures of the English countryside, and the flocks of sheep that were right nearby. The crowds of tourists (of which I was obviously one) kind of ruined any mystery the site might have had, though. Also the audio guide didn't really tell me anything I hadn't heard before. Still, it was an experience just to walk around and see a monument that old and that puzzling, and I'm very glad I went. It also didn't hurt that what must have amounted to several murders of crows apparently lived there, and you could see them occasionally wheeling around and being ominous. On our way out we touched the blue stone and sarsen stone that they set up at the exit; the blue stone is supposed to be warm to the touch no matter the weather. I couldn't really tell too much of a difference, except that the sarsen seemed to leech away my body heat the way sitting on concrete does, and the blue stone didn't at all.

Then, we were back on the bus, and back to London. Grant and I hadn't officially planned anything after the 'henge, but we figured we might as well go around and see some more things, since we could. We went to Trafalgar Square and took pictures, and got some souvenir stuff. I, of course, as a self-respecting Neil Gaiman fan who adores the book "Neverwhere," had to find myself a "Mind the Gap" t-shirt. We also stopped by Piccadilly Circus and took more pictures, and then since we were there we decided to indulge our inner twelve-year-old. We took the Piccadilly Line all the way to Cockfosters at the end, took pictures, and rode back. When we got to King's Cross we realised there was another important sight to find: Platform 9 3/4! So we got off, and went to find it. Unfortunately it's kind of hidden away; they've put up a sign and installed a cart stuck halfway through the wall, but we had to ask one of the employees to point out the way. He was kind of funny; when we asked, he scoffed a little and said "Oh, you don't really want to see that, do you?" We kind of looked at each other, laughing, and said "Yeah!" Maybe you weren't eleven when the books came out, guy, but we were!

After our various photo ops, we finally got back on the Northern Line and came back to Katie and Allan's house. It ended up being almost midnight when we got there, so we paused long enough to check facebook and fell into bed.

Io Mi Chiamo Hallie; Sono Americana

Yay, I actually have all my classes now! Although getting there was a struggle. Basically there are four different Italian groups, three of which meet at the same time on Thursdays. Grant and I had tried one group, and the teacher told us it was full. He'd emailed the teacher for another group, and she'd said hers was full as well. He hadn't gotten a response from the third teacher, but then he found out that he didn't need Italian anyway, so he wasn't going to go. I decided to try that class anyway, and hopefully there would be room. When I talked to the teacher, however, she told me that the class with Madame Zapparatta was the one I should go to, and she took me over there and made sure it was okay. Basically I didn't end up in the class I expected, but it worked out eventually. The professor seems to be Italian, rather than French, which is cool. The only thing I didn't like is that she quickly found out that I was American and kept calling on me specifically for stuff and asking me if I understood what was going on (which I did; it really wasn't that hard and was mostly review of stuff I'd learned from attending the other two classes).

After class, I headed back to the house, and did a little bit of shopping up Rue Nationale on the way. The sales are almost over (they end tomorrow, I think) so everything is at its cheapest. This also, of course, means that most stuff is pretty picked over, so it can be hard to find the right size or exactly what you want. I ended up getting a pretty teal shirt, a cute gray button-up, and a black vest/overshirt thing. Having a limit on how much I could bring was really hard, and I constantly feel like I have nothing to wear, so yay, new clothes!

This morning I had to get up early, of course, to go to my Writing/Oral class. It was pretty interesting; we ended up talking about the nature vs. nurture debate, which seems to be a topic that Beatrix really likes. She also let us go an hour early, which was pretty awesome. I'm not sure if she did it on purpose or if she'd lost track of time, but nobody wanted to say anything. When I came back I was pretty tired, so I took a nap. When I woke up I found out that we were supposed to go to some exchange student party for the galette des rois; apparently Jacqueline wanted us to go and thought it would be fun. So I quickly got ready and we headed all the way to Les Halles, which this big shopping complex building thing across town. When we got there we found the room where it was supposed to be held, but we didn't recognise anyone there. We waited for a bit, and then Jacqueline and Mathias showed up and they didn't know anyone there either. We figured there must have been some mix-up, so we came back to the house and Jacqueline made dinner. We had our own galettes (for what's probably the eighth time). This time, Joel, Mathias, and I found the little favours, and they told me I should keep mine. We're all hanging out around the house, and we're getting up early tomorrow. Maybe we'll go to bed soon.

Daily Grind?

The past few days have gone by fairly quickly, mostly in a haze of classes and gradually getting well again. On Sunday morning, after I had taken the magic medicine Jacqueline gave me, my fever was gone and I just had a sore throat and cough to worry about. That day, I mostly just stayed in bed and willed the sick away.

Monday I was pretty productive. I don't have class until late, but before then I went to the train station and got tickets for my trip to London during break. I'm really excited! I get to stay with a friend of Aunt Roxy's who lives there now, and Grant's coming for part of the time. Grant and Valeria had come with me, and after we went to the station we got sandwiches and sat on a bench to eat them. We had time to kill, so we went into a Hallmark that we saw, kind of out of curiosity. We quickly discovered, thanks to the rack of sexual gag gift stuff right next to the door, that Hallmark in France is very different than in the US. It was pretty funny, actually. After spending a while in there, I realised I had to get to class, so I walked up Rue National to the Tanneurs building for Greek. While waiting for the classroom to open up, I started talking to a nice guy named Giovanni, who's from a tiny French-owned island near Madagascar (I never really caught the name). That class was actually pretty brutal; they move along really quickly in French classes, and you have to keep up or be lost. We were starting Greek declensions, which are really complicated and difficult, and I'm going to have to review a bunch before next week. Giovanni and I exchanged phone numbers after class, so I'm looking forward to having a friend in that class.

Tuesday is, again, my off day. So I slept, did some of the little homework I had, and didn't do much. I'm really starting to enjoy the relaxed atmosphere here.

Yesterday was Wednesday, when I make up for Tuesday. I had to get up early to go to my translation class. At one point, it was looking like everyone here except for Sierra was going to have to take that class, but the other two girls decided to wait and see, so they didn't come. Also, Grant was feeling sick, so Aaron and Joel and I were the only ones going. We finished the English-French article we were translating and started one for French-English, and the professor was really depending on the British and American students to help her. I'm a little worried, if we keep having class at this slow pace. After class, I bought a sandwich on Rue National, on my way to Actualités. We didn't do much in that class, either; we mostly just debated about the roles of women and men and something to do with soccer teams in Africa, and then read an article about CD copyright issues. My French Sciences class added a couple people- one of them from Colorado, which is cool. We talked a little bit about how to write a summary of a scientific article (the French have really strict rules about how to write specific things, so there's formatting and word choice and different stuff like that to learn). Then we learned some vocab in preparation for watching a video called "From Conception to Birth". It was basically the same video everyone watches in 7th grade sex ed classes, complete with the moment where they show the actual birth itself and everyone looks away in horror. I really didn't think it was necessary for my French education to have that experience in French, but oh, well. On the way back home after class, I went into the Simply (which is a grocery store by Rue Bordeaux) and got some snacks for my room, since I assumed that we would once again wait for everyone to get back from classes and choir before eating dinner. That turned out to be incorrect; those few of us who were here at 7:30 ate then, and the rest just ate when they got home. It was a delicious dinner, though; breaded calamari with roasted potatoes and some mayonnaise sauce with lemon in it. I was very pleased.

Last night I also started planning out my London trip, with all the stuff I want to go and see and do. I got as far as making a list, booking a tour of Stonehenge, and figuring out all the information on the Globe before I got bored, and went to bed. This morning I got up late and went down for breakfast. I don't have class until 2, but since it's my Italian class and still pretty up in the air, we'll see what happens.

Finally Accomplishing My Reason For Being Here

This week has been interesting; it's the first week since I got here that I have an actual (mostly) stable, normal class schedule. Monday morning I slept in, since I didn't have class until late evening. I went out with the others to buy sandwiches for a late lunch, and then we found a little art supply store where we found folders and paper for classes. The artistes (Valeria and Mamie) needed sketchbooks and pencils for their drawing class, so they found those and everyone went back. I, however, had class to go to.

My new Ancient Greek class goes from 5-7pm, so I made my way up to Rue des Tanneurs and found the classroom. I made sure to ask the professor what class it was, to verify that it was definitely for beginning beginners and not halfway through. I had missed the first class period, but it turned out that several other people had too, so at least I wasn't alone. He briefly went over what he'd talked about last time and gave us the book list, the Greek alphabet, and a couple of worksheets. I quickly discovered that he is extremely fond of photocopies; I left the class with 8 or 10 pages of worksheets and other random things. After getting briefly lost in the Tanneurs building (they apparently close stuff down by 7pm, and it was hard to figure out where to go) I headed back to Le Nonante. Since it was the first time I'd had to walk around the city at night by myself, I was a little paranoid. I ended up taking the longer way around down the larger streets, rather than going through the little tiny old ones.

When I got home, everyone was just finishing with dinner. Jacqueline had saved some for me, though, and I was ravenous. I had to hurry, since we had planned on going to the Café des Langues again. We went with Luzé and her friend Sarah again and managed to get there before it was crowded with people. The group basically got split in two, and our end became the "English" table. I talked to some nice Swedish and Danish girls, who were in Tours doing mission work, and some creepy French guys who seemed to be there to try and pick up Americans; one of them kept trying to say that he knew Sierra, when obviously he didn't. After a while we left and came back to the house.

On Tuesdays I don't have any classes at all, but everyone else does. So I slept in, relaxed, and did my Translation homework for Wednesday. It was really nice to have a chill, solo time. I did go out briefly for some shopping and to get a brioche, though. Yay, brioche! That evening, Mamie and Aaron found out from some German girls that there was an event planned for exchange students, so they went to check it out. Apparently we were all supposed to go; they had our named on lists along with our French buddies, and they had sign-up sheets for the various school events throughout the semester. We hadn't heard anything about it, which was a little frustrating, but we didn't really know if there was a reason why we were left out.

Wednesdays, in contrast, are my intense days. I had a meeting at 9am over at the Fromont building to sign up for my CUEFEE classes, so I hurried through breakfast and made the half-hour walk in record time. Kate and I both needed to sign up, so it was cool to see her. We finished early enough that I came back to the house before Translation and walked to class with the boys. It was a fun enough class; we mostly finished the article we were translating from French to English and have one going the opposite direction for next week. Pelletier talked to us after class about not going to the event Tuesday night; we explained that we hadn't heard about it and got that taken care of. Now we should hear about things when they happen!

Then Grant and I walked down Rue Nationale on our way to Fromont, for my first CUEFEE class, and got delicious "complete ham sandwiches" on our way (the complete part is the mayo, and tomatoes, and lettuce, and stuff). It turns out that the little sandwich stall is La Grignotine, the same business as on Rue Bordeaux. I like them a lot. The CUEFEE class was called "Actualités," which means Current Events. It seemed like it'd be a pretty easy class, although it'll require more work. Kate and her friend Christina are in the class, as well as a Swedish girl that Grant knows from choir, so we even have people to talk to! We had a brief discussion about the metric system and conversions, as well as how cold it gets at Concordia. Don't we Cobbers love our school; we complain about the location constantly! ;-P

After class, Grant had to hurry home to check his email (RA stuff, apparently. He had ants in his pants all class about it.) so I waited the half hour for my second CUEFEE class: French Sciences. I ran into Sierra, who had a different class at that time. The Sciences class turned out to have less than 10 students, and most of them were older. There was a British girl named Natasha there who's also in my Translation class, so we talked a bit. The topic of the period was global warming; apparently the first unit will focus on the environment. I kind of felt like I was back in 9th grade, it was so easy, but whatever. I'm really only taking it because it fits my schedule. We're also doing some work on constructing a scientifically well-composed written argument, so that should help me improve my writing skills. When I got back to the house after dinner everything was weirdly quiet; most everyone had either class or choir, so they were all gone. I was starving after all my day's walking, so dinnertime seemed to be forever away. In the future, I think I might have to buy snacks at the store and come up with things to do on Wednesday nights.

Today I was pretty tired, since I'd stayed up really late. That was okay, though, since I didn't have class until 2pm. I dragged myself out to Tanneurs for Italian, which we thought would be the actual class we would take. It turns out, however, that the session we wanted is also really full and there wasn't space. Grant and I stayed anyway, figuring that the extra exposure to the language would be good, especially if we're going to have to transfer to a different group. Now we have to email one professor to see if she has space, and if not there's one last group we can hope for. Still, that'll be next week's concern, and at least the different groups are at the same time so our schedule won't change, just the classroom. He and I went and took care of some other administrative stuff we still needed to do, and bought sandwiches on our way back to the house (ham pizza panini om nom nom!).

Dinner tonight was chicken and some cooked vegetables that were really delicious. It was a little awkward, though; Xavier decided that the topic for the dinner conversation would be gender equality, in his continuing efforts to get people to speak up in French. No-one wanted to say anything, though. Valeria and Luzé and I spoke some, but a lot of people didn't say anything. I'm not sure if it was the topic or Xavier's intimidating insistence that kept them quiet. After dinner and dishes we came back upstairs. Everyone else went out, since they don't have classes on Friday and their weekend is already started. Since I tested into a higher level on the CUEFEE test, though, my written and oral classes are bright and early at 9am over at Fromont. I'm not looking forward to it.

Bonne nuit, tout le monde. Dormez-vous bien!

It's All Greek To Me

The sushi we had on Sunday night was absolutely fantastic! The Dhommées also had their friend Daniel over, and he had brought homemade tiramisu for dessert, which was amazing. I was so incredibly happy with that dinner.

Yesterday I had my first class, which was "Reinforced initiation to Greek" at 1pm. I got up, got ready, and had breakfast, and then walked the 20 minutes or so to the building at Rue des Tanneurs. I found the class without a problem. There was another girl waiting, so I started talking to her a little and found out that her name was Corinne. She's a French student from Mauritania or something; it was some DOM-TOM (one of the French-run overseas territories). She was really nice, and was telling me about the class. They had apparently started last fall, and were already on Chapter 10, which kind of worried me, but she offered to give me photocopies of everything I'd missed for Wednesday and kind of help me with the class, so I was hopeful. The teacher came in several minutes late, and told us that there had been a mix-up in the administration and that we had been told the wrong classroom. There were only six of us, so we followed her to the other classroom and sat down. The first sign I had that this would be hard was when she started talking and I wasn't sure what she wanted us to do. Apparently we were to write our names, emails, and level on a piece of paper, in addition to how much Greek we had taken so far and what our expectations were for the class. Then she had us open our books (I didn't have one, obviously, but Corinne let me glance at hers) and start on that lesson. I became increasingly worried when she started writing on the board in Greek, doing various conjugations of something into various declensions, and I had no idea what she was talking about. After about 10 minutes of increasing terror and feeling absolutely lost, I raised my hand and said that I was probably in the wrong class, since I'd never taken Greek at all before and didn't even know the alphabet. She agreed with me, seeming surprised, and I said I would have to talk to Carine Berberi, the person who had signed me up for classes.

That was when I fled, and went back home. I felt awful, of course, since my first class had basically turned out to be an abject failure. Fortunately the others had planned on going out anyway, and I came with since I had a couple more postcards that I haven't quite gotten mailed out yet. I was also worried, since there seemed to be a very real possibility that my Italian class that evening would also be in the middle of the semester, in which case I would have to relive the morning's experience. We were all hungry after doing some errands, so we went to the Delhi café again, since we'd liked it and it was so cheap. This time we got to sit in the front, which was much nicer. I got a burger and a giant plateful of fries and a pile of lettuce. The burger was delicious (cooked pretty rare, which you can't usually get in restaurants, but which I actually prefer), although they put a little hashbrown round in it, which was kind of weird. The other thing that was funny was that in the US you would never think to eat a pile of just lettuce as a salad, but that's basically what it was.

After eating we came back to the house and bought more postcards on the way (I have a whole second round of people to send them to; I've just been slow since they're expensive when you add postage). Grant and I had to leave almost immediately once we'd gotten back, since our Italian class started at 6pm. We're taking it together and usually we're planning on going to the sessions on Thursday, since they're at the building on Rue des Tanneurs, which is closer. But this week we have the CUEFEE test on Thursday, so we would have missed the class. The Monday session is at Rue des Fromeurs (or something like that, I don't really remember the name). That's where the CUEFEE classes are all held, and is a half-hour walk from Le Nonante.

When we got there, a couple groups of people were standing around, and some of them seemed to speak English. We didn't really know where our class was, since the way Carine had written it on our sheet looked like FR ss (FR standing for Fromeurs, the site of the building). I ended up asking one of the people there, who turned out to also be an American, and she realised better than we did that it said FR 11; it was just that the handwriting made it look like a lowercase cursive s. So Grant and I found the classroom just fine after that, and went in and waited. We were worried, and so had decided to talk to the teacher before class started, to make sure that it was absolutely a class for beginners and not halfway through a longer class. She asked the students, and we were reassured that the class was for Débutants Débutants, absolute Beginning Beginners.

When the class actually started, it turned out to be a ridiculous amount of fun. The teacher kind of jumped around a lot; she ended up teaching us five different verbs with their present indicative conjugations, how to say "My name is," your nationality, and where you're from, and then towards the end she taught us the alphabet and the numbers from 0 to 10. Of course, it wasn't nearly in that order; like I say, she jumped around a lot. Grant and I were really excited after we left, and we spent the whole long walk back to Le Nonante repeating the letters and numbers and spelling out our names in Italian. I'm really looking forward to having that class again next week.

Grant and I had gotten back late for dinner, but Jacqueline had saved some for us. We had salad and hard-boiled eggs, then strips of roasted duck with a big pile of cooked vegetables, and applesauce for dessert. It was all really delicious, especially since we were so hungry after our long walk home. We hung out for a while, and a few people went to the café for ice cream. I didn't really want to keep spending money, so I stayed home and ended up playing some Dungeons & Dragons through AIM with a friend from back in the States. I have to keep in practice, after all, if I'm going to start up again when I come back!

This morning we all got up early-ish and headed to Rue des Tanneurs since we had a meeting with Carine to go over classes again. I had set up the meeting through email, since we still haven't figured out exactly how things are going to transfer back to Concordia when we go back. Dr. Rawson told us that we need 200 hours of classes this semester to equal four Concordia class' worth. But Martine and the people at the Université told us that we need 20 class credits, and whenever we say anything about class hours they just repeat that the French system doesn't work that way and tell us that class hours mean nothing. It's basically all a big mess, and nobody seems to know what we should do with it.

Since Mamie and Valeria still didn't have any classes set up and haven't heard anything about the art classes they wanted, they were going to come with me. And when Grant emailed Carine about meeting with her to pick some other classes himself, she told him to come with us too. So I was assuming the four of us were going to go. I was a little surprised when it turned out that all seven of us were going to go all together; apparently everyone had something they needed to talk to her about. We got there a little early and met with her. I managed to find a Greek class that is (like my Italian class) for absolute beginners, to replace the class that didn't work out so well. Half the group had missed breakfast, so they went to that same restaurant to eat lunch while I stayed with Valeria and Mamie while they discussed their issues. After they finished talking to her, the three of us girls went to talk to Caroline and got some paperwork we needed to figure out our Université email addresses. Since they were gone for lunch, we wandered around Old Tours for a while and went into Saint Martin's Basilica. We sat in the little crypt for a while, and it was nice and peaceful. We were able to get the paperwork we needed upon our return to Tanneurs, and that was cool.

For lunch, we three bought ham and a baguette at Monoprix, and made sandwiches at home. It was really good, and we had chips and pop with it. Now we're basically hanging out and napping before dinner, which will be another surprise!

Catching Up

So Tuesday we did not, in fact, get classes. We went to the Université for our meeting with Caroline, and she took us on a tour of the building on the Rue des Tanneurs, which is the Department of Letters and Languages. That's where most of us have most of our classes, theoretically, if we have classes yet. She also showed us books of classes related to various majors, which wasn't really helpful because we didn't know what we were looking for or how to find it. But she wrote down what we told her about what classes we wanted, and we were given the impression that she would figure them out for us and email us with her findings. That or we would just wait until our other meeting on Thursday. So we were all pretty upset that we had gotten almost nothing accomplished. On our way back to the house it was snowing pretty hard, and the cobblestones were really slick, and it was altogether miserable. We finally got back to the house, holed up, and were just glad to get off the streets. That night we had ravioli for dinner, which was really good. We didn't do much that evening besides hang out and worry about classes.

The next day, Wednesday, was absolutely gorgeous. We had thought about going to the Musée des Beaux Arts, which is an art museum that's really nearby the house. But by the time everyone was awake and ready to go, we had kind of lost the urge. We decided that since the Musée is free every first Sunday of the month, we'd just wait until February and visit the Musée then. The second we went outside, though, we saw that it was an absolutely gorgeous day. We took a bunch of pictures of how beautiful things were. There's a marché that sets up on the Boulevard Heurteloup a couple times a week, and it happened to be there that day. There were several stalls of flower-sellers, so we got Jacqueline a bouquet from all of us. Then we went up Rue Nationale, which is where most of the shopping is in Tours, and wandered in and out of stores. On our way back to the house, we went into a couple antique stores that we pass by fairly often. One of them had a lot of old books, and I found one called "Celebration of silence" (in French, of course). The beginning of it explains sort of the value of silence and how rare it is, and then the rest of the book is full of blank pages. I thought it was pretty cool, and it was only 3 Euro, so I bought it. Dinner that night was roasted chicken and green beans. Mathias sort of threw a tantrum in the middle of it, which was really awkward. Xavier had to talk to him about it, but they both seemed pretty upset. Then after dinner I asked Mathias if he was done with his water so I could take it to the kitchen, and Xavier gave me a short lecture about how I'm an adult, and I should treat Mathias like a child. It was weird. I also sliced my finger open on my razor when I reached into my showering basket in the bathroom. It bled a lot, but isn't anything serious. Now it's healing up just fine.

Yesterday was Thursday, and we finally had our meeting to (supposedly) sign up for our classes. I'll leave that to a whole post on its own, though, since it was pretty eventful and frustrating.

OMG New Phone!!

So yesterday morning we were supposed to get up early, since we had errands to accomplish and wanted to still be back by 2pm when Sierra's suitcase was supposed to be delivered. It was lost by her airline, so she's had to deal with being here without any clothes or most of the things she packed. We all woke up early to shower, but then her suitcase arrived anyway, so we didn't have to worry! We took our time eating breakfast, and headed out!

First we went down the Boulevard Heurteloup, which is one of the main arteries in Tours, and visited La Poste (the post office). We all had some immigration paperwork to mail in to the government, and then Valeria and I had post cards to mail as well. It was a lot cheaper than we thought, though; we were worried that it'd be a whole Euro to mail each post card and it was only about half that. Then we walked up the Rue Nationale to the Orange phone store.

Apparently Orange is the best company to go with in France, at least if you only want to do a pay-as-you-go temporary thing. The poor guy must've felt a little overwhelmed when 6 of us descended upon him, all wanting new phones. We explained what we wanted and got phones for fairly cheap; they were only 29 Euro. I was pretty ridiculously excited to get the phone; I finally will be able to tell the time when I'm out and about! We went home and spent a while exchanging our numbers and playing with the new toys, trying to figure them out. The one thing that is strange about doing pay-as-you-go in France is that they never give you your remaining phone time in minutes; they give it in Euros. I imagine that's because you can use that credit for surfing the web and sending texts as well as actual phone conversations, but it makes it really hard to know how much you have left.

After we spent a while playing, we got ready to go back outside to get lunch, shop and hang out. We ended up at Rue Bordeaux again; it's kind of becoming our default place to go. We got delicious panini sandwiches for lunch. Mine was tomato and mozzarella, and it was really good and hot! We then wandered around a bit. We went in Sephora, which is a perfume and make-up store that I'm pretty sure we have in the US. Sierra wanted to look at perfume, but she didn't end up finding anything she liked. The rest of us wandered around and tried all the testers. Then we went down the street farther, and into a little store called Dress Code's. They had clothes and shoes, and I found an adorable pair of boots that were on sale for 9 Euro! I was really excited; the only shoes I brought with me are ballet flats and my high-heel boots, which are cold and heels respectively. Now I have warmer feet! I also went to a tabac (which is a place where they sell drinks and cigarettes and lotto tickets and other little things- they're everywhere in France) and bought some more minutes for my phone.

After a brief stop at a little grocery store to get snacks to have back in our rooms, we went home again. I tried to figure out how to reload my phone, and I think I did it right. We hung out and tried to find classes on the Université website, which has proved to be almost impossible. Apparently you pretty much have to just email the head of the department and they can send you the classes you're interested in. Dinner last night was a little strange; first lentils in some kind of slightly acidic sauce with a bit of lettuce, and then endives wrapped in ham with hard-boiled eggs. It was okay, but strange; I couldn't identify a lot of it myself. For dessert we had chocolate pudding, which was good.

After dinner Luzé had said she would take us to a café in town where they have a sort of cultural exchange evening thing. Basically a lot of students (especially exchange students) will come, and people will speak lots of different languages at different tables. You're supposed to just go and join in a conversation somewhere, so you can meet new people and talk. It apparently fills up really quickly, though; we left the house at about 9pm and it was way too packed when we got there. We ended up having to sit downstairs since there wasn't any room, and so we mostly just talked to each other. It was fun though; I got the first actual Diabolo grenadine I've had since July 2006, and it made me ridiculously happy. (A Diabolo's basically a combination of limonade and grenadine syrup, kind of like a Shirley Temple. My host mother in the south introduced me to them, and they're fantastic.)

Luzé introduced us to her friend Sarah, who is on an exchange from a little school in New York. She'd been here since September, which was cool. We also met another friend of Luzé's named Charlotte, who is from Belgium. She had only been here for about a week, like we have. I think she kind of struggled with the fact that we were speaking English, but she seemed pretty nice. It was really fun to meet new people and just hang out for an evening. When we walked back I was really tired, and ended up falling asleep.

This morning Valeria, Mamie, and Sierra went out because they wanted to go shopping and find somewhere to get identification photos taken. In France you apparently need passport photos for practically every single piece of official paperwork you do. I brought a few extras with me (I have seven; that should last me at least the first couple weeks of school!) so I decided to sleep in instead of joining them. I didn't wake up until 10; it's one of the few times so far I've been able to actually sleep for more than 6 hours at a time. I took a shower and ate breakfast downstairs, and now I'm waiting until 2ish, when we're going to the Université again to figure out our classes finally. Wish me luck!

Pizza du Lapin

So unfortunately we did not get cell phones yesterday. We hung out for a while in the house, then headed out into town. There were a lot of people out, probably because of the sales. In France, stores can only have sales during specific times of the year as mandated by the government. This means that things can be really expensive most of the time, but usually the sales end up going as far as 70% by the end of the period that they're allowed, and it's a lot of fun to go shopping then. We lucked out; the sales started the day Valeria, Joel, and I arrived, and go through the first of February. But since it was a Saturday during sales, everything was packed. We decided to go back to the cell phone place on Monday, when hopefully it'll be less crowded. Then we walked down to the Rue Bordeaux, which is a cute little pedestrian street with lots of shops and bakeries, and we got sandwiches to eat on our way back home. I learned that "crudités" (which generally means raw vegetables) apparently includes eggs, since there were eggs on my chicken and crudités sandwich. But that was okay; it still tasted really good.

When we got back, we hung out upstairs some more (it really sounds like we have no life, but there's not much to do). Mathias came and we played with him some; he absolutely adores taking pictures of himself on Valeria's computer. At one point, though, he was chasing Mamie out into the hallway (she was the criminal escaping from jail and he was the warden) and he tripped over the lamp cord and smacked into the ground. It was really worrying when it happened, but ended up being really hilarious after we found out that he was fine. He was even laughing about it, and watched the video over and over again. After a while we got really tired, though, and pretty much everyone went to take a nap. Valeria woke me when Fabiola was ringing the dinner bell. Apparently Valeria found it really annoying; I was too asleep to notice.

For dinner we had paella (is what I've discovered it's called), which is a Spanish dish of rice and seafood. There was octopus, shrimp, and mussels in it, and I thought it was wonderful. Those people who didn't like seafood had a different opinion, but they're crazy. For dessert we had pistachio ice cream with a little bread/cookie thing and a slice of peach, topped with what I think were candied almonds. It was really delicious, although I was a little skeptical since I'd never tried pistachio ice cream.

Afterward we thought we were going to go out again and try to find a discothèque so we could go dancing. We stayed up trying to figure out what we wanted to do, but apparently French clubs don't open until, like, 2am. So you either go to bed really early and wake up early to go, or you just stay up all night and hang out in the bars beforehand. By the time we could've possibly gone to a bar or something we decided we were just tired, and stayed home instead. Unfortunately, a couple people decided to stay up until 4am drinking and being loud anyway, which meant that pretty much no-one could sleep. Also one person in particular decided to go outside for a smoke, and ended up locking himself out. So he rang the doorbell frantically to be let in, and woke up everyone who had managed to go to sleep.

Finally I got to sleep around 5am, and so today I just slept in until almost noon. Valeria and I assumed that brunch would be around the same time, but it wasn't until almost 1:30, by which time we were really hungry. Mathias had come up and was hanging around with us, and we thought he'd said that we were having rabbit pizza (pizza du lapin) for brunch. We thought that was a little bizarre, but when the bell rang we all ran down to eat. It turned out that we were having pizza for brunch, but it wasn't rabbit pizza. The rabbit was for dinner, and they were just cooking it all day.

After brunch, people hung around more. Mamie and Valeria and I sort of napped in our room for a while. Then everyone got ready to go out for shopping and stuff. I've been kind of homesick and spending every minute of every day with the group was starting to wear on me, so I stayed here to have some time to myself. I'm discovering more and more that I really do need my alone time. It was nice to just stretch out, listen to music, and not have to know that six other people were moving around and breathing and making noise everywhere around me.

When everyone did come back after a while, I was much better able to deal with them, and it was once again nice to sit and talk. It is never soon enough for dinner, though, and the rabbit was absolutely delicious! It was rich and juicy and they had these really yummy little potatoes with it too. The only thing that was strange was that it had all these tiny bones that you had to watch out for. It was kind of like chicken, except that it was only dark meat, and I think that was why I liked it. Jacqueline also had a friend over for dinner, a woman that she'd apparently met in college. She was really friendly, and asked us a lot of questions and tried to start conversations. Everyone's still having a really hard time speaking up, whether out of general timidness, unease with the language, or what, I don't know. It's kind of sad.

After dinner we helped clean up, as usual, and we actually sat in the salon and tried to find a game to play. After one round of Spoons, we moved on to the Dhommées' stash of boardgames, and played one called Brainstorm! Basically one person has a card with a topic and a list of things related to that topic, and your team has to try to guess as many of the things on the card as possible. It was an okay game, but we got bored with it pretty quickly and headed back upstairs to bed. Tomorrow should actually be fairly busy; we have to get things done in the morning.

To bed!

The First Weekend

This weekend feels kind of lame for a weekend, but only because we haven't done much this week to make sitting around be special.

Yesterday, we sat around for a while and eventually I finally warmed up. Then it was dinnertime, and we had ratatouille with baked egg on top, which was incredibly delicious. They seem to do casserole-type dishes pretty exclusively for dinner. I'm not sure if that's because it's easier for them since they have work and school all day, or just because it keeps the kitchen warmer if the stove's on. :P

That evening we all hung out more. Jacqueline and Xavier are going to think we hate them; we just sit in our rooms on our computers all day. Really it's just cold downstairs, and we have nothing to do. The boys kept talking about going out somewhere, but we didn't know what we'd do or where we'd go. Fortunately the French don't go out until really late, so by the time we decided to go it was fine. Aaron led the way, since he'd gone Google-searching earlier. We went to a couple bars and it was a lot of fun, and then we came back and had to be extremely quiet coming back up the stairs so we didn't wake up the rest of the house. I don't know how everyone else had the energy to stay up longer; I collapsed into bed and was dead to the world.

This morning I woke up early and took a shower. The showers aren't nearly as bad as I was expecting; our professor told us that they didn't have shower curtains and that it was impossible to shower without getting water everywhere. It's a little small, but there is a curtain and it's actually pretty comfortable. On weekends the Dhommées make us a larger brunch instead of breakfast, so everyone went downstairs to eat around 12:30. We had these kind of strange ham and cheese baked sandwiches with pineapple rings on top. They were good, but weird.

Today we have to get cell phones to use while we're here. Hopefully the store will be open; I don't know when we're going to leave, since pretty much everyone went back to sleep.

Finally Warming Up

I feel bad complaining about how cold it is, since it's really only, like, 20 degrees. But after walking around outside for 2 hours, my feet were so cold it was painful!

Anyway, recaps. Yesterday we didn't really do much of anything. We were waiting for Sierra and Aaron to show up, and they were supposed to get here around noonish. So we thought that once they came, we could go out and look for cell phones and see the town and stuff. After waiting most of the day, though, we got bored and went for a short walk. Then we came back... and waited even longer. By evening we thought to look up their flights, and it said they wouldn't be arriving until today. So it was quite a surprise when suddenly they were here that evening! Like our original trio, they showed up just in time for dinner and then we hung around a little and went to bed.

This morning, we had to get up early because we had a meeting. The people from the Université wanted us to come by to get paperwork in order, so we had breakfast and left around 10ish. I knew where we were going, after Jacqueline's mini-tour yesterday, so I led the way. When we got there (after having to ask for directions at one point) they took us to a little meeting room and we had to fill out some paperwork. We have another meeting next Tuesday at 3pm, and by then we need to have mostly decided what classes we want to take. We've received all kinds of different reports about when classes actually start; right now our understanding is that regular classes start the 18th of January and the classes for French learners start the 25th. Since we'll be taking both kinds of classes, we need to know both dates.

Caroline was the woman who was helping us, and after everything was filled out she took us on another tour of Tours. We saw mostly just the same stuff as on Jacqueline's tour, but Caroline pointed out some stuff that she knew about that's specifically helpful for students. She left us in front of the Cathedral, and then we went back to the Prefecture to take care of our immigration paperwork. The office didn't open until 1, though, leaving us 20 minutes to stand outside the closed gate. We got sandwiches at a nearby patisserie (where they apparently sell the largest pastries in Tours) while we waited, and then talked to the lady for two seconds. She basically just said we had to mail the papers in to the office.

By the time we got home, my feet were so cold they'd gone past being numb and had started hurting. So I got into bed and have been sitting here for a while warming up. Now I'm not sure what (if anything) is planned for the rest of the day; there's been talk of watching a movie tonight, and we might go out tomorrow night now that everyone's here.

I miss you all (Hello, homesickness. I wondered where you were.) and I hope things are going well back home. <3