Growing and Learning

Hi strangers! Sorry, it's been a while..I've been going through an "I don't feel like writing" stage. BUT too many things have happened to hold off any longer and I'm gonna burst if I don't get it all out soon. So..here comes the flood!

First off, I'd like to say that I have officially been in France for TWO MONTHS as of yesterday!

Moving on...I believe I left off with Oktoberfest Day 2. Quite frankly, I'm kinda over writing about Oktoberfest, but I'll give a quick rundown just so it's in writing. Day 3 passed fairly similar to Day 2. We went to a couple of the different beer tents, but nothing beat our night in Hofbrau. Day 4 was Saturday, the very last day of the festival, and it. was. packed. Apparently to even get into a tent you needed to have been there by 8 or 9 am! That was definitely not happening for us, so I decided early on in the day that I'd rather check out other parts of Munich than feel like a sardine for the day. So while Alex and Laura plunged into the crowds of Oktoberfest (Laura with her big, rolling-suitcase as we'd left the campsite that morning), I went off for a peaceful, leisurely tour of Munich with just me, myself, and my big backpack, which I'd planned to use for a weapon in case I was attacked. First stop was Olympia Park where I saw the BMW Welt. It was basically a big advertisement for BMW, but very cool all the same. Their newest and most advanced cars were on display, and they also had interactive games and things that showed you how cars run, how electric cars work, etc. I skipped the actual museum due to time restraints and money, and I'd heard it wasn't all that impressive. I then headed over to the university, which was absolutley beautiful, before walking over to the English Gardens. Unfortunately by that time it was starting to get dark, so I figured instead of wandering around a dark park with just me, myself, and my big backpack which wasn't looking so big and weapon-like anymore, I'd sit down at a little restaurant on the perimeter of the park, for what turned out to be one of the best sandwiches I've had in a long time. Apparently it was made with some traditional Bavarian cheese, but I didn't really catch the name. After I ate my yummy sandwich and took advantage of the free WC facilities, it was time to head back to the Oktoberfest subway station to meet Laura. However, Laura never showed up, for a reason I still don't really understand. A little frustrating, but we won't dwell on it. Anway, so after an hour of waiting, I decided to just head over to the train station until it was time to catch our 10:40 pm sleeper-train back to Paris. The train stations in Germany are huge and extravagent, so I had no issues entertaining myself. Alex and Laura finally showed up and we said our good-byes to Munich. On the train we met some New Zealanders, shared a car with some very pissy Parisian ladies who had apparently thought they'd booked first class, and cozied (warm!) in our little trains beds, enjoyed the best sleep we'd had the entire trip.

We got back to Aix on Sunday, the day before our real classes began. I was thrilled to find out that I'd been placed in the top level of Niveau IV! Which was the level I needed in order to take the classes that can be considered equivelant to classes I still need at SDSU. After two weeks of trying out classes, switching levels, and some flat-out confusion, we're all finally set in our classes and ready for the year. In Niveau IV we have 10 hours of language class every week in addition to 4 electives of our choice. I've decided on French Media (will transfer for my major), French Press (equivelant to a class I've already taken, but oh well), France and the 5th Republic (the modern French government), and English-French translation (will transfer for an upper-div GE that I still need to take). I'm really excited about all my classes so far, except maybe press, which seems a bit dull, but I can deal. Translation is gonna be great for my vocabulary, and the 5th Republic is by far the most interesting. My language classes are grotesquely boring, but necessary. It's definitely hard to understand the professors sometimes, and I get really frustrated, particularly on my "bad French-speaking days" (yes, there are good days and bad days for my French), but I can feel myself understanding just a little bit better each day.

Flash forward to present tense (teehee). I just returned from a hike up the mountain of Sainte Victoire. My friend Lindsay and I went about halfway last Saturday, but had to turn around to catch the bus back to Aix, which never actually showed, so we ended up hitching a ride back with a friendly couple. Today, we had issues GETTING there. Apparently, you need to inform the bus driver that you want to stop at Bimont (where our trail starts), otherwise he keeps going all the way to this teeny little town called Vauvenargues. Not where we'd planned to start our morning, but sure, why not. The bus driver told us that he waits about 30 minutes in Vauvenargues before going back down the mountain to Bimont. So we wandered around the town (more like the "street"), and wondered where all the people were. We did see one lady. Prolly in her 50's, she was out walking one of the expensive-looking dogs they all own here, wearing a short demin skirt, tights and thigh-high boots. We found this pretty amusing..but hey, more power to ya if you can pull that off at 50.

On the way up, Lindsay had mentioned that Picasso's chateau was up around this area. Well, turns out it's right here in our unplanned trip to Vauvenargues! We weren't allowed into the grounds, but took some pictures of the gorgeous maison from afar. Perched on the side of the hill, overgrown with green plants, it reminded me of something from Mary Shelley's, Frankentstein. Anyway, we walked back up the hill to the bus, where we saw boot lady again. She disappeared into a door, and literally a minute later, we saw her come out with another expensive-looking dog to walk. Gotta love the French :) Anyway, so we finally got back to our trail, and set off on the exhausting, very up-hill, yet rewarding hike (for the view AND my booty) to la Croix de Sainte Victoire (the cross of Saint Victoire). On the way up we stopped for a quick lunch and to take pictures of an eerie looking monastary from the 1700's. On the way back down we met a couple of guys who offered to give us a ride back to Aix. The next bus didn't come for another 2 hours, and it was starting to get chilly, so we accepted graciously.

Lindsay sneaking up on our favorite Dog-Walking Boot Lady:

And here I am! Resting my sour muscles (I would erase that, and replace it with "sore," but I still find my English incompetency too amusing to not share) and enjoying a dinner of ravioli, tomatoes, and avocodo. Since I've been here, I've grown to like tomatoes, learned how to cut an avocado properly, and even cook once and a while. Add this to hiking voluntarily (two times!), sleeping in a tent, and babysitting, and you wouldn't even know it's me! All jokes aside, though, I really do feel like I'm growing and learning a lot here. And it's only been two months!

Speaking of "growing and learning," I have chosen to spend my next break (in a week) working on a farm near a little town called Chauvigny. I'll be WWOOFing, a farmstay organization that my parents did with my bro and me in NZ back in '98, and something Mom says I swore I would "never do again." Psssh..that's bologna :) However, I'm definitely no farm girl, and it is quite possibly the most random decision I've ever made, but I'm broke and didn't want to sit at home the entire break, so figured, why not? I'm using my railpass to get there, and will have food and accomodation taken care of in exchange for a few hours a day of help on their farm. So basically it's a free little get-away to a completely different part of France! I'm really excited, and think it's gonna be a really fun experience. If I learn how to milk a cow, I'll be sure to take a picture to prove it actually happened.

My friend Lindsay is also doing a farmstay that week, and just three weeks after we return, we will be spending a weekend in London! (the result of another one of those random decisions I seem to be making a lot lately). We were checking out ryanair one night, and ended up finding roundtrip tickets from Marseille to London for just 20 euros! We just couldn't pass up the opportunity. We'd had a couple glasses of wine, as well, which might've also had something to do with it. But anyway, we'll be couch surfing (couchsurfing.org if you don't know what it is), in order to save money, and a friend from New Zealand is currently living about an hour from London, so I'm going to try and meet up with her, along with my roommates from San Diego who are studying in England for the semester. Whew..that was a long sentence. So farm, then London, and THEN (yes, there is more!) At the end of November, I will be visiting a friend who is studying in Berlin for the semester. I had originally planned to use my railpass for that, but discovered that a ryanair ticket to Berlin was cheaper than a train ticket to Chauvigny for my farmstay, so in order to do both, it was cheapest to just fly to Berlin. I'm still spending about 100 dollars on a roundtrip ticket to Berlin, but I already had my heart set on going, have a free place to stay, and I'm simply sacrficing my November "fun money" for the trip. In fact, in the past couple weeks of being financially challenged, I've discovered that it is possible to make it off 30 euros a week. About 20 euros on groceries for the week, followed by no movies, no restaurants, and the use my female advantage at the bars (hey...a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do). It's a little difficult every-now-and-then, but I can watch a movie in the States, I can't hop on a plane to London or Berlin.

In other news....all this growing and learning has made me a bit exhausted. And my brain is going haywire, so I believe I'll leave it at that for the night. I think I have more to say, but I'll say it later :)

Until next time!

-T-