ALPine adventure!

This has been a crazy week! On a whim, one of my flatmates Sarah and I decided that we wanted to get away from Paris for the weekend. We knew we wanted to go somewhere mountainous and beautiful, so on Friday morning we went to the train station and bought tickets to Grenoble, a small city in the French Alps near the borders of Switzerland and Italy. (For more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenoble). Our train left at 7:45 Saturday morning, so we got up around five, packed our bags, and headed off to the Gare du Lyon.

We took one of the high speed TGV trains so the ride was only about three hours and the scenery was gorgeous. We rolled into Grenoble and walked through town until we found the tourism office to get a map and the maison de la montagne to ask about hiking trails. Then we walked around Grenoble and found some great one euro (!!!) pizza and explored the town. We hadn't made any hotel reservations but we managed to find a nice, cheap place in the center of town.

The exploring continued as we started climbing the Bastille, an old fort up in the mountains. There is a museum in the fort devoted to Alpine soldiers and a restaurant and a gift shop at the top. We must have hiked and explored for about six hours, but since it was an impromptu trip I was wearing my Toms which were not a good choice! It was gloriously rainy and beautiful but the hike down was a little scary considering the lack of tread on my shoes. I managed to only slip down one flight of stairs! That evening we took the telepherique (crazy egg-shaped gondola) back to the top of the Bastille to check out the city at night, and then found an entire street completely dedicated to pizza! Everything was so cheap compared to Paris, it was fantastic.






The telepherique!




View from the top

The next morning we decided to take a bus up to one of the small mountain towns and do some more hiking. We bought bus tickets and headed for Chamrousse, altitude 1650 m, and home to both the 1968 winter olympics and the mountain stage of the 2001 tour de france! The bus dropped us off amid the snowy paradise of mountains and ski lifts. We were so excited to see snow and really be in the Alps! When we got off the bus, I asked the driver when the last bus left. He replied in french (of course) and said 5:35, repeating it several times. When we bought our tickets in Grenoble, they didn't tell us anything about the return so we assumed our tickets were two-way. After hiking the length of one chairlift and exploring the town for a while, we went into one of the tiny restaurants to get a coffee. It must have been near freezing, because it snowed while we were up there. I had to buy a hat because my ears were so cold! Neither Sarah nor I had a phone or any other sort of time telling device, so we were a little worried about missing the bus. We were sitting in the cafe at 5:15 when Sarah saw the bus drive by. We both started to freak out, immediately imagining that we would either have to hitchhike or walk the 30 km back to Grenoble. We found a sign by the bus stop that had times on it, and it also said 5:15. I couldn't believe I had misunderstood the bus driver and gotten us stranded! Then we realized that there were TWO buses that ran to Chamrousse, and we had seen the other one leave. We got on our bus at 5:35, but when we sat down the driver came and asked us for our tickets. We were the only two on the bus, and when we gave him the tickets we had purchased in Grenoble he told us we needed different tickets! Luckily, we were able to buy tickets from him and after a few scares we made it back to Grenoble!




Our train left at 6 am on monday so we got up early and headed back to Paris! Quite a whirlwind weekend. But the trip made me realize how it easy it is to leave the city and do some exploring! I'm already thinking about the next places I'd like to go.

On another note, today marks four weeks in France!! I can't believe I've already been here so long.

A trip to the Louvre!

Raft of the Medusa


Winged Victory


Oh what up giiirl?




La liberte guidant le peuple

"J'adore les champginons! Because they are the champignon of legumes!"

Well I made it through my first week of classes! I ended up placing into the second of the four levels, which I think is a good place for me to be! I have two hours of practical french every day from 2 to 4 and then an hour of phonetics at 4:30. The first day of class was tuesday, and then we had our first francophony lecture on thursday. I wasn't impressed with lecture, and since we have another lecture on french literature, I don't think I'll go to this one again. The lecture tomorrow is history of art which I'm excited for, and then french literature on Friday.

It's a nice short walk from my apartment to school, and I'm lucky because I have phonetics and practical in the same building. Some of the girls have a twenty minute walk and a metro ride to get from class to class.

There is only one other American girl in my class which makes for an interesting group! There are students from all over Europe and quite a few people from South America. Most people speak english but really our common language is french! Not a situation I've been in before.

It's actually been a pretty uneventful week with all the school stuff, so only one picture for this update. But we're headed to the Louvre today! I'm really excited to see some art and spend time with the whole group!



This is what happens to my life when I don't have a closet.

One week and one million sets of stairs later...

I can't believe I've been in Paris almost a week! It feels like it's been a month with the amount we've done, but at the same time I feel like I just left Seattle yesterday. Also, September 6th?! When did that happen?

It's been an action packed week to say the least. I still have one free day before classes start which I'm thankful for, but we took our placement test on Thursday. That beast was hard!! It was multiple choice, short answer, essay, and an interview. I'm really hoping I'll test into the intermediate level, but I'm not so sure after that test! But I did find out my class schedule! I'll have two hours of language class every day and an hour of phonetics, and then three hours of optional lectures per week. The lecture topics are history of art, francophony, and french literature. I'm stoked for all three!

I think I've eaten eight baguettes since I've been here. Seriously. But my apartment is on the fifth floor and the elevator is tiny and terrifying, so my roommates and I joke that we will have the calves of sculpted Roman statues by the time we leave Paris! Combined with the ridiculous number of stairs to and from the Metro, we'll be pros in no time.

Speaking of the Metro, we are all slowly becoming public transit masters! We usually take at least four metros a day, but the system is pretty easy to figure out. It will be hard to go back to buses when I return to Seattle! There are two Metro stops close to the apartment that can take us anywhere in the city with only a few transfers. Even though Paris is HUGE, it feels small because of the transit system.

But back to this week. Wednesday we met the whole group and explored the neighborhood of St. Michel. There are eleven of us in the group from all over the States. One of my roommates Sophia and I walked over to Notre Dame and visited the cathedral but didn't get a chance to climb it because the line was so long. More stairs to look forward to later!


Tourist!



Thursday we took the placement test and explored more of the city, including getting our first looks at campus!


Place de la Sorbonne!

Friday, my roommates and I headed to Cimetière Pere Lechaise where Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, and Edith Piaf are buried. We took a detour to parc des buttes chaumont which was gorgeous! There was a huge waterfall and a river that ran through the park. They were doing some sort of art exhibit in the river which was very cool.









Saturday the group had a picnic at the Eiffel Tower and then took a boat cruise on the Seine River. It feels so surreal to be sitting below the Eiffel Tower snacking on baguettes and brie!



Group photo!

Today we ventured out to yet another neighborhood, Montmartre, to see Sacre Coeur. The church is absolutely breath taking, especially on a beautiful day like today! We decided to go to mass here one day, because what better place to experience a service?



Tomorrow I think we're going to take a stroll along the Champs Elysee and climb the Arc de Triomph. I still can't believe I live among all these among these places! After only this short week, Paris is already beginning of feel like my home.