thanksgiving and such.

the eaten post has been recovered!

by the way: happy birthday, mom!

so, last thursday was thanksgiving. the program had organized a dinner at a restaurant, but when you have a friend from portland who has personally served oysters to gus van sant on multiple occasions who wants to cook thanksgiving dinner at your place, you don't pass that up. nathaniel (whom rosie and i met at the sunset one thursday) ordered the bird from a butcher's shop ahead of time, and we shopped for groceries the day of at the market and both monoprixs. then we all got down to business. well, sort of.


hurricane nathaniel hits our kitchen as louis (a friend of nathaniel's who teaches english in marseille) looks on.


helen, nathaniel's english girlfriend, watches the spitting rain from the kitchen window. we have (or at least used to, when the fac was open!) provençal class together. she lobbied for a calamari thanksgiving, but nathaniel insisted upon cooking a traditional meal.


still life: the turkey (with sub-dermal butter implants!) and a can of 1664 (a french beer). everyone -- well, except rosie, i guess -- was pretty much drinking all day.


our feast, clockwise from the top left corner: mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes (roasted with brown sugar), homemade cranberry sauce, turkey, stuffing (made with a baguette), and brussels sprouts (which i ate and kind of enjoyed, actually).

sadly not pictured: the wonderful pumpkin pie nathaniel made from scratch. mmmmmm. it made a delicious breakfast the next day before going to expression écrite.


here we are, around the table, drinking wine and eating away.

that's pretty much the excitement. some friends had a french stereotype-themed party last saturday, and tomorrow night we're doing the honours of hosting champagne pong. [yes, i admit it: i played beer pong for the first time a few weeks ago. and i will never play it again. but champagne pong is different; it's classy and has a french twist to it.] other than that, i've been studying at home and staying out of trouble.

il neige!

points of interest for today:

(1) i have internet! in my room! i have defeated the evil windows vista monster (windows vista: ruining lives since 2007).

(2) it's snowing!




this is what it looks like from the kitchen window.

(3) the university is still closed. here's the situation:

very recently, a new law passed granting more autonomy to all french universities. among other things, this means that universities can individually raise their enrollment costs if they want to. this is a big deal because a university education in france costs 300 euros per year. the young communists and young socialists are particularly displeased. they began by barricading the entrances to one of the university buildings, and the situation grew into a student strike.

out of about 85 universities in france, around 30 are striking. three have been evacuated by the police: one in paris, one in nantes, and the université de provence aix-marseille 1 (which would be where i'm going). the university's president has decided that it could be potentially unsafe for anyone to try to enter the schuman center (which would be where i have classes), so the university is closed until further notice, while he meets with the student groups that are protesting.

so, now those of us in the program are required to keep academic journals describing what we're doing at home to keep up with our studies while the university is closed. fun.

however, the strike did enable rosie and me to go to lyon for a concert without missing any class. we got on the tgv (high-speed train) on sunday morning to see interpol and blonde redhead later that night.

the tgv station in aix is quite a ways out of town. because we were leaving on a sunday, we thought there were no buses running. so we took a 28-euro cab ride.

"this is what a tgv station looks like":


it's actually kind of pretty out here.







about an hour and forty minutes later (thanks to stops at avignon and valence), we arrived in lyon. luckily, the lyon tgv station is in town. rosie and i met up with dianna, a friend of mine from the barsuk mafia studying in lyon, and walked around in search of lunch.


look! it's me and the rhône. and i have a pink streak in my hair now. that rosie's a bad influence with her purple hair.






bellecour: where we finally found lunch. french fry sandwiches at a place called "american sandwich." mine involved a baguette, fries, two hamburger patties, a scrambled egg, orange-coloured melted plastic cheese, and ketchup.

that evening, we took the bus up to transbordeur, the venue. it's a nice place -- i'd compare it to the metro in chicago. i had my first alcoholic drink at a concert (a glass of good dry red wine). the show was pretty damn good, too! but no pictures. damn security.

the next day, rosie and i walked around a bit more (looking for lunch again).




the saône.


vieux lyon.



we ate near bellecour again, shopped a little (i managed to restrain myself and only buy a new bracelet), and headed back to dianna's before getting on the tgv that evening and heading back to aix.


barsuk mafia (temporarily-in-france division) at the lyon tgv. and yes, i am aware that i look completely ridiculous.

and i have a couple of old pictures i've been meaning to post, too:


we love the market.


halloween! as a cat (once again). the mask came from claire's (yes, we actually do have one in aix) and is obviously meant for little girls because my head is way too big for it. not that my head's big anyway.

so, i guess that about does it for now. updates should be much more frequent now that i have the internet chez moi!

nice! cake! mountain!

my desire and ability to get online lately have been crushed by class and sore legs... though those have gone away now. i'll get to that in a bit....

so. we went to nice a few weekends back. nice was niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice.



see? niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice.

as a group, we went to the chagall and matisse museums. yes, i understand the historical/cultural significance, but chagall and matisse don't do much for me. what does? modern and contemporary art. and nice has a nice museum of it. [will stop with nice puns now.]



no modern/contemporary art museum is complete without at least one of joseph cornell's boxes. granted, this one isn't as impressive as any of the ones at the art institute of chicago, but i still freaked out when i saw it.



fun with mirrors!



you can walk around the roof of the doughnut-shaped museum, and there are some works out there, but they're all overshadowed by the amazing panoramic view of nice you get from up there.





the next day, we had a get-together with our iu-neighbours across the street and our retired-american-professor-neighbours in the building next door. rosie baked a cake:



yes, she used nutella for the frosting. and it was amazing.

it seems to happen that when i'm in france, i do things i normally probably wouldn't. last time i was here, i went up in a three-seat plane. this is notable because flying scares the crap out of me and it goes over much better with an ativan. this time, i hiked up a mountain (la montagne saint-victoire) with some friends. [hence the sore legs that persisted for three or four days after the fact.] after doing this, i can personally testify to the fact that vans slip-ons are TERRIBLE to hike in.



we're not up very high here.



higher....



teresa, jennifer, and rosie: hiking buddies, drinking buddies, dinner buddies.



that pointy thing up there is a gigantic cross. and we hiked allllllll the way up to it.



i love getting aerial views without the airplane. yeah, there's google earth, but it just isn't the same.





finally, we arrived at the old monastery, which is a relatively short climb from the top. the day we went, the military high school from aix was having some sort of ceremony involving a lot of singing. i didn't take any pictures of that, but i know jennifer shot some video....



view from the top! we forgot to bring our ropes for rappelling.









me and the hiking shoes from hell. not pictured: celebratory "i got to the top of the mountain!" cigarette.



while waiting for the little van-bus to take us back to town after our descent, we discovered a dead-looking bush with empty snail shells stuck to it. either a bizarre phenomenon of nature, or a very odd art project.

other than that, life en france has consisted of going to class, doing homework, dyeing hair, going to the sunset every thursday night, and going out or relaxing at home on the weekend. my twenty-first birthday was on the fifteenth -- the saturday before, we had a party at our apartment. this was the evening after the mountain hike. needless to say, i was in no state to take pictures!

i also came down with french cold numéro deux sunday night. everyone in the program has the sickness -- my roommates included. i was doing such a good job holding out, too....

there will likely be halloween shenanigans on wednesday. i will try my best to take pictures... and to update more often.

à bientôt!

photographic explosion!

it's a gray wednesday in aix. but at least i have this to look forward to tomorrow night:



rosie and i are so there. question is, if american hipsters drink pbr, what do french hipsters drink? hopefully, an answer will be found tomorrow.

also tomorrow: medical exam for the carte de séjour in marseille. i'm not a big fan of marseille. i'm also not a big fan of waking up early (we have to be at the bus station in aix at 7:30 to make sure we get to the office in marseille by 9:30). but i am a big fan of looking out at the mediterranean, so hopefully i'll have time for that.

as promised, here are some pictures of aix (that don't involve the cité u or the interior of my apartment)...


this would be the outside of my apartment. we're the second row of windows up from the bottom. from left to right: my room (mostly obscured), the living room, and the kitchen.


the weird fountain by our apartment. aix is known for its fountains. i have now decided that it is my mission to take a picture of every single fountain in aix by the time i leave in june. every fountain i can walk to, at least.


le palais de justice! this is where you'd find my dad if he were french.


however, the fuzz français are much more low-key (and in shorter supply) than the american fuzz, so business might not be quite as booming.


not pictured: the canine restroom just next to this fountain.


restoration in progress.


le roi rené. you'll find him at one end of the cours mirabeau.


and this would be the cours mirabeau.


and this would be a fountain in the middle of the street that is the cours mirabeau, making a tiny sort of roundabout (rond-point).


this fountain (also on the cours mirabeau) is just in front of monoprix. think of it as a french target that's not open on sundays or past 9:00 p.m.


the other end of the cours mirabeau: la place du général de gaulle, a.k.a. la rotonde.


la fringale: home of the french fry sandwich. quite possibly the most delicious three euros and thirty centimes ever.


l'hôtel de ville.


l'hôtel de ville.


in the middle of the place de l'hôtel de ville, there is, believe it or not, a fountain.


la cathédrale saint-sauveur. i have yet to go inside, but it's on my list of things to do.

these pictures were taken on sunday afternoon. rosie and i hiked around and did the tourist-with-a-camera thing. then we headed north out of centre ville (downtown) and up a hill, where we learned:


1. that french fire hydrants are funny-looking, and


2. that the view from up here is UNBELIEVABLY BEAUTIFUL.

if after seeing these pictures, you feel compelled to jump on a plane and come to aix, we recently discovered that our living room couch can unfold into a double bed. and i don't mean one of those fold-out couches -- it's comfortable. and there's also the extra twin bed in my room....