Today I arrived in France. One
would think this trip would have me jumping up and down with excitement.
However, this wasn’t the case. When Liatrice’s dad dropped me off at Arlanda
airport at 9am this morning, I was officially on my own. Scared as I was, I
made it to my residence with minimal trouble. The only real problem I had was
when a bus station said that the certain bus I needed to take was out of
service. Without any other option, I called one of the directors of the French
program and she generously picked me up from where I was and brought me to my
residence. My building is located on top of a hill so having to walk home every
day will be such a workout!
Saint Etienne is a pretty nice town. It
doesn’t look like the cleanest, neither does it look like the safest, but it’s
nice. You can feel the French culture in the atmosphere right when you step
out.
I received my key, and unlocked
the door that would reveal to me a tiny bedroom, one that I will call home for
the next 30 days. The room is indeed tiny but suffices in that it has a
bathroom (one that is so small, the toilet practically invades the shower), a
fridge, a microwave, a desk, and of course, a bed. I unpacked all my belongings
and met a few other students from North America. We all chatted for some time,
but my stomach was urging me to go grocery shopping. There’s a mall down the
street that includes a French version of a Wal-Mart. After I paid, I walked
back, up the hill, up the stairs, one grocery bag in one hand, and one pack of water
bottles in the other, and rain pouring down.
I have to last this weekend
without the Internet because the building that deals with Wi-Fi connection is
closed until Monday. Two days without the online world. It’s harder than it
seems. I’ve been super homesick (for Canada) for the past few days, and coming
to place that deprives me of being able to speak to those I miss is almost
depressing.
Ps. Watt converter for my straightener over my French
dictionary. What is wrong with me?
July 21, 2012 – 11:57pm
My first night here was just as
uncomfortable as I expected. But that’s just me, having to adjust to sleeping
in a location that’s new to me. Though, I surprisingly fell asleep like a baby
at first. It was just the waking up every other hour that was rough. For
brunch, I filled my belly with some of the groceries I bought yesterday. A
problem I discovered today about the communal kitchen was that it is equipped
with nothing at all. Well, all it has is a sink, stove, and a table with
chairs. I thought it’d at least have some plates, a few pans, maybe even a
kettle? How naïve of me to think all residence kitchens are as well equipped as
the first one I stayed at in Paris.
I explored the area for a couple
of hours alone and managed to steal Wi-Fi from a nearby McDonalds. That feeling
of being able to contact the world outside of France - such a feeling of relief
and satisfaction. Later on, I met quite a few more people from Canada when I
got back to my residence. Many of them arrived today. AY suggested we go to dinner, to which I
invited two other girls to, who then invited 4 more people, etc., etc. The
result was 12 of us going to dinner. We took the bus to a square. The bus ride took
quite a while since we missed our stop lol. Dinner at 7 ended up being dinner
at 8:30. We at least sort of got a tour of the town. But the square was
beautiful as it had fountains with restaurants surrounding them with patios.
The only downfall to eating outdoors was that it was really chilly – something none of us were expecting. I packed my suitcase preparing for summer weather, and so
far, it’s been pretty cold and rainy. But another student said that this week
should be a lot warmer! We all got to know a bit about each other over a
delicious dinner at an Italian restaurant. My food quickly became cold so I
only managed to eat half of it. I think the most
memorable part about that dinner was when R paid for his meal
with only change.. It was a lot of
change.
Now I am finally back in my room,
tired and ready to get under my covers. Tomorrow, a little trip to Lyon awaits
me!
July 22, 2012 – 11:59pm
What a long and tiring day! And
when traveling, those are the best kinds. The ones enriched with site seeing,
photo taking, and memories to take with us forever. This morning, AY and I took
the train to Lyon and met up with three other girls who went earlier in the
day. We met at Vieux Lyon (Old Lyon), which was across a river from the main
part of the city and was absolutely beautiful - the river shimmering in the
sunlight and landscapes of beige buildings with red rooftops; streets covered
in cobblestones, old churches built centuries ago, and restaurants with classy
outdoor patio sets.
We first visited a cathedral called St. John the Baptist, then walked down streets looking for a place to get
drinks and bought a chocolate crêpe on the way. We found a corner restaurant,
which was just across the street from the river and had some beer. We continued
to stroll around, crossed bridges here and there, and decided to go uphill to
try to find a basilica that was visible on a mountain. We found some stairs,
decided to go up, and we soon realized that it would be a while before it would
end. There were so many stairs! I think we walked up for a good ten to fifteen
minutes, stopping to take quick breaks. We reached the top of the stairs, which
only lead us to a residential area. But as we kept walking, we found yet
another staircase and were ambitious enough to climb them. It took another long while
to get to the top, but we got there,
and alas, found the basilica!
By the basilica was a breath
taking view of Lyon. It was like a bed sheet of beige/yellow/off-white houses
with red rooftops, with tall buildings here and there, and mountains in the
background. Breath taking. The basilica had two places for mass. One was
through the main doors, and another was through a downhill staircase which gave
the impression that it must’ve been a secret/underground place for people to
have mass centuries ago. Indoors was very beautiful. We took a cable car back
down the mountain and ended up by the St. John the Baptist cathedral again.
Then we visited the ruins of another church just beside the cathedral; a church
that stood around 150 AD, and is known to be the ruins of the second oldest
Catholic Church in the world (next to the first, in Rome). It was amazing to
see and to imagine how that area we were standing in could have been almost
2000 years ago.
From the amount of walking and
climbing, we quickly got hungry. We spent fifteen minutes looking for a
restaurant, but they were either too pricey, had weird dishes on their menu, or
didn’t cater to vegetarians (AY, being a vegetarian). So we ended up just going
back to the same restaurant as where we bought drinks. There, I had delicious
pasta with salmon.
After dinner, we took a couple of
buses to the railway station to catch our train to return to Saint-Étienne.
However, when we got to the railway station, we only had about four to three
minutes to catch our train, so we sprinted all the way to our platform where we
safely made it on – all except one! AY was left behind and had to take the next
train (he thankfully made it back safely alone). When us ladies got to
Saint-Étienne, we took the tram, and then took a cab back to our residence.
Quite a few more Canadians
arrived today so we met them briefly when we got back. Now I’m finally back in
my room, freshly showered, and cannot wait to fall asleep. Tomorrow is the
first day of school and we meet at the university bright and early in the
morning. Alors, je dois dormir maintenant. Salut!
Ps. I. Need. Wi-Fi.
July 25, 2012 – 12:37pm
I initially
thought I’d be able to write a blog entry every single day during my stay here.
But turns out that although the days are long, I find myself always exhausted
by the end of the day, heading straight to bed after a nice shower. Not even
any time to sit down with a book to read.
After
class, a couple of directors from the program gave us a little tour of the
city, where we saw cute narrow roads of cobblestone passing through shops and
restaurants. Later on, a bunch of us went to the office that handles the rent
and Wi-Fi so that we can pay it off and finally use some Internet in our rooms.
Long story short, they told us we first need to buy living insurance for 40
euros and that we couldn’t get Wi-Fi because their system was down. If I’ve
learned one thing about traveling to a foreign country, it’s to lower
expectations. But anyway, after that we went grocery shopping for what felt
like a lifetime. We were in there for a while and suffered the consequences of
lugging heavy grocery bags up the hill to our building. We met up to eat dinner
outside our building and found a little meadow just beside it. We sat down on a
blanket, ate, had some wine, and had some good conversations and laughs, with
music playing in the background. T’was very nice. When it started getting dark
and the bugs started coming out, we decided to move our little get-together
indoors on one of the kitchen floors. A few of us girls did our homework while
many others had a mini party just above us.
Yesterday,
after class in the morning, we paid for our rent and Wi-Fi without the
insurance. I don’t know why the people at the office couldn’t have let us do
that yesterday. We went to the meadow again to eat lunch. It was so beautiful
and hot out. I attempted to take a nap after but failed. An hour later, a group
of us went to play laser tag! I’d forgotten how fun it was. We finished our
game and all came out sweating. Whew, what a workout! After that, some people
went to McDonalds for some ice cream (and some Wi-Fi), while I went to the
grocery store for some wine (which is incredibly cheap here). We all met up again
for dinner in the meadow and when that was over, we moved our “party” to the
common room, where we were accompanied by more students. We were playing
Ping-Pong and foosball, conversing over beer and wine, and overall enjoying
each other’s company.
Now this
morning, I’ve woken up with only 6 hours of sleep and found a nasty bruise on
my forearm. The only explanation I have for that was that intense foosball game
I played last night.
Ps. My days haven’t been this long since.. I don’t know
when.
July 27, 2012 – 7:40
Tonight,
there is a party to attend. I feel as if the days never end here.
Ps. Ring tans ftw.
No comments:
Post a Comment