Our Film Festival

Over the festival, the Chapman interns thought that the festival poster was really funny. So at the end, in a moment of utter uncoolness, we decided to take photos of ourselves jumping and begged Preston (one of the interns) to photoshop a version of the poster with us in it. I don't think any of us thought it would happen, but behold, Preston came through. You have to check out Chapman, Cannes 2007 take on the Festival poster... it gave me a good laugh.




And now the original:

Berlin Picture

Heya, just found this picture from our Berlin walking tour. The tour was great, despite the terrible rain! You can see Emily and I on the left. Oh yeah, that's the Brandenburg Gate behind us.

Rick, Rick is that You?

...
I suddenly realize that this may in fact be THE Rick Steves, in person. I am so excited, I can't wait for Emily to come back to her seat. When she does I ask her if she knows what RIck Steves looks like, she says no and I tell her that I think it may be him! I debate for a few minutes to approach him and finally decide that if I don't, I will regret not knowing for sure. So I get up, walk into his car (he is the only one in there) and say, "umm, excuse me, are you Rick Steves?" I know, I know, not the greatest opening line ever, but still, I was NERVOUS and I could have just run up to him screaming, "Rick, Rick is that you?" (jk, mom). He said, yes that he was, and I told him I was a big fan of his. We talked about a bunch of stuff including, my trip, being robbed in Provence, mom and dad meeting him in Spain last year, and the rail strike in Germany. He was such an easy guy to talk to! I got my picture with him (it's a self portrait, I hope it turns out, because we have a regular film camera) and he was just really cool. At the end of the conversation he mentioned that when I graduate I should contact him and be one of his tour guides! How AWESOME is that? Afterwards, I was so excited, I sat with a grin on my face for the rest of the day. It's funny, I've met/seen much bigger celebrity (George CLooney, Brad Pitt) and I've never been so excited as I was to meet Rick...seriously, one of the coolest moments of my life. :)

More Berlin and BIG NEWS

I am now sitting in an internet cafe in Munich. Berlin was such a blast, we went on a walking tour of the city, went to the Allies museum, went up the Reichstag, and went to the concentration camp outside the city. We spent five nights in the city and honestly weren't ready to leave. Nonetheless, we headed off at 8 in the morning for Munich. We were quickly stopped however, because the German railway workers were on strike! I think this may be the first time in history that a German train wasn't efficient. We ended up getting a taxi from the U-Bahn station to the main train station and were lucky enough to have our train be one of the only ones not to be cancelled! We got on the train with a big relief and then about an hour in were stopped on the tracks for over an hour and a half. Apparently, the person who changed the tracks was on strike and we had to wait until 11 o´clock until the strike was over. geesh! WE just barely made our connection, and had to sprint to the next train...on which the BIG NEWS happened.

Our train was about to get in (in about 20 minutes) when I see some guy walk past to the bathroom. I look closer (I can´t see very well to begin with) and...I think I see...oh my God, is that RICK STEVES!? oh my, god, I think it IS Rick Steves.

....uh oh, run out of time. To be continued...

Ich bin ein Berliner (I am a donut)

First day down in the big ßerlin (yeah German keyboard!...and yes, I know that symbol stand for double s and therefore makes no sense to pronounce)

The Reedster and I are thinking we may never leave. Berlin is such a beautiful city and so welcoming, that we are having a blast. Today we slept in (comme d´habitude) and decided to just wander the city. We took the U-Bahn, S-Bahn to Alexanderplatz and walked our way back down the city center to Museum Island, the Reichstag, the Brandenburg Gate and some other sites. The main part of the city is really well planned out, what with all of the Museums in the same area and a long, wide boulevard with important monuments and buildings to see on it. Tomorrow are going to get up and take a walking tour of the town to get a feel for it. Then maybe some museum trips later on.

Berlin

So we are finally in Berlin. We took a flight from Barcelona yesterday, which was delayed by about 3 hours, so when we finally arrived it was much later than expected. Despite this, I think both Em and I are already in the love with our hostel and the city. To start, the hostel is incredible: the nicest people, the cleanest most well-equipped facilities. It is called the Jetpack City hostel and if you are ever in Berlin and in need of a hostel, go to this one. We are probably going to take one of the free walking tours to get acquainted with the city and then see what we want to tdo from there. More to come later, when there is time.

"Today, we celebrate our Independence Day"

In honor of the Fourth of July, we are wearing red, white and blue and going to have a big American dinner at Hard Rock cafe. It is also our last day with Emily Monaco, as she is heading off to Perpignan tomorrow and we are heading off to Berlin. Although I know we are all having a blast, I think traveling is starting to wear us out and seeing the sights is getting to be tiring. I'm glad that Reed and I are going to be spending so much time in Berlin, so that we can get a bit settled.

I have to say that almost every day of this trip, I have tried to represent myself and my country to people in a good light. It's hard out here, having to fight the stereotypes and the realities of American culture in the lives of others around the world. It's a an uphill battle that I will choose to continue to fight for as long as it takes. I think it's a battle that is important because of all the great things that American people and culture have to offer. We often get the short end of the stick when people around the world view our culture, but I still think it's an amazing country with more opportunity than one can imagine and when people don't see that potential, when they down on it, they make the stereotypes worse, they make the image even more tainted. So, I guess I'm glad to be here and I'm glad to go back, because for me, America is worth the fight.

Gaudí

Went to the Gaudí Cathedral today and boy was it impressive. It was a lot like the way you imagine old Cathedrals to have been. Except now our scope is bigger, so the building is bigger and more fantastic. There are more colors and movement to the design. It makes you realize what it must have been like to walk into a Cathedral during the Middle Ages and how you could see the power of God through the building, because it was so massive, there was so powerful of a presence.

That's the thing about Europe, the way you feel connected to the past here. They don't give up on some of the old things and the old ways of working. When you go to a city in Europe, the likeliness of finding a Cathedral is pretty good. What you realize when you hear the history, is that the building probably took several generations to see the completion of the Cathedral and the people who started it wouldn't live to see the day of its completion. That is how the Cathedral being built today is: Gaudí died in 1926 and still, people work towards finishing this incredible building. There is no end in sight, but when you see it and stand in its massive interior you understand why people are still building and still looking. Europeans aren't afraid of taking time and of going for the long haul. You realize when you are in these buildings that you are a part of history and not just separate from it. The choices you make now are historical, they are meaningful to the past and the future. You are connected to the people who were there before you just as much as the people who will come after you.

Barcelona

aka Barthalona. Those Spanish people love the their 'th' sound.

We took the overnight train to Barcelona and arrived a bit tired and hot to our hostel. Barcelona is our last city all three of us, so it's a little bit bittersweet to be here. Our next stop is Berlin, with just Emily Reed and I. I'm kinda much excited about it :)

We haven't had much of an opportunity to check out the city yet, but I'm hoping to do a bit of touristy stuff, like the Gaudí, Picasso (maybe), and just get to the city center. I'll write more about it later.

Just another thing on my mind: two weeks from now I will be back in the States (NYC, to be exact) I'm looking forward to it, but at the same time, it is sad to leave and see this experience coming to an end. Europe has definitely left an impression on me and I 'm interested to see how it will cross over the Atlantic...I guess that's the thing about life, you just dive in and see where you come up in the end.

España

Hola!
Today we made our way to San Sebastian, a cool beach town in the Basque region of Spain. We are staying at a hostel-type place where the owner speaks no English, but is very nice. It´s also very Spanish, as we arrived at around 1pm and had to wait for our rooms to be cleaned. The explanation: everyone slept in kind of late, so they didn´t have time to clean the rooms yet. So far, the town is really nice, we are probably going to go to the beach a lot and eat a lot of tapas. Should be fun.

The last bit of Bordeaux was nice, the wine tasting/class was very informative, although not our favorite wines ever. We learned about the appellation controlee and why the region produces different wines.

Once again it is Soldes seaon in France, which means everything is really cheap, hooray! It also means that I have been here a very long time, because we were in the midst of the Soldes when I arrived in February. Less than twenty days left, which seems like a long time, but is sure to pass by very quickly.

Long update

Sorry to have taken so long to update, we have had a crazy couple of days in rural France and are finally back in Bordeaux, which is a big city that actually has internet cafés--yay!
I think I left off at Antwerp. Antwerp is a nice city to be in, although Flemish is a strange language that looks a lot like a bunch of letters jumbled together to me! Our last night, we met a couple guys from Southern California and chatted them up a bit. It was interesting to hear some of their stories.

We left Antwerp and on our way to Normandy. The most obvious thing to do in Normandy is to see is the beaches, but alas, we never made it to them. Originally, we intended to stay in one of the bigger villages, such as Bayeux, but could not find accomodation to fit our budget. So after some internet research, we found a place that was in a neighboring village carhagne which was within our price range. It is very common in the French countryside for people to have inherited big farm houses that they renovate and rent rooms out of. This is what our place ended up being, which was a very welcome change from having to share a giant room with ten other people and one bathroom (yay hostel life!). The only kink in our otherwise genius plan was that the bus that we were relying on to take us into Bayeux didn't run on the day we were there. So, we ended up taking the day to recuperate in a nice, basically private house with free computer, tv, and adorable pets to play with. Later in the day, we took about an hour walk to the next town and bought a picnic dinner at the grocery store. We then decided to hit up the local bar (what else is there to do in a small town?) and ended up with the five older, local blue collar workers who spoke with thick Northern accents. It was incredibly funny and probably one of the most authentic experiences yet. We tried the local digestif, Calvados, and walked back home. Since the only bus into Bayeux was at 7 in the morning (no joke), we ended up spending the day walking around the town, trying the crepes (also a specialty of the region)and going to see the Bayeuw Tapestry. This is the tapestry illustrating the Norman invasion of Britain by William the Conqueror (he was actually known as William the Bastard before his big win, how unfortunate ;)). Monaco, who was a linguistics major at Toronto was especially excited to see the Tapestry, as this battle is one of the most important influences on the development of the English language. About 1/3 of English comes from French and a lot of that is thanks to old Willy, in 1066. And you thought history was dead... ;)

So, on we made our way to Mont St. Michel. The main attraction of this part of otherwise rural France is the Abby and town that is built on an exceptionally interesting terrain. It is basically a town built atop a big hill that, during certain parts of the year, completely floods around the entire base. As a result, you get a very quaint, compact town that has been well preserved because of it's safe location. That, and awesome view of the countryside.

We ended up staying at a B&B owned by a British couple. Our first night there, we made our up the hill to the next small town (about a kilometer) and had some delicious crepes. (Get ready everyone, this is where the craziness begins) After we finish our crepes, Emily Monaco asks us if she looks puffy. Emily has had an allergic reaction to some food before in which she went into aniphylaxis, but the allergist wasn't able to diagnose it, so she travels with an epi pen and taught us how to use it. Anyway... she looks fine to us and we don't think much of it, because she has wondered it aloud before. We decide to have a dessert crepe and then realize that Monaco isn't feeling well. We decide it is best to go down the hill to get her some benadryl, just in case. At this point, we think it is the Buckwheat in the crepes that she is allergic to (Buckwheat is only used in savory crepes, which are rare, except in the North of France, bingo! guess where we are...). on our way down the hill, she starts to have trouble breathing, at which point, I decided to sprint down the hill to get her medicine. By the time I run out of the B&B with the Benadryl and epi pen, there are Reed and Monaco, zooming down the hill, being driven by a French kid whose car they have comandeered and there is Monaco, in full fledged Aniphylactic shock. She epi pens herself, I feed her Benadryl and the kid calls the French equivalent of 911 and we zoom away to the fire station, which is the closest emergcy center around and we wait for the EMTs to arrive. In the end she is fine, and had to go to the hospital. It was pretty freakin' scary though. We all decided that we were glad we had been in France and not Antwerp, because we can all speak the language. We also realized the importance of knowing the emergency numbers in a foreign country. We were lucky that we found that kid to drive us, because we could just as easily been all alone.

The next day, we decided to take it easy because we were all pretty tired, especially Monaco, for obvious reasons. We rented some bikes from the B&B and searched for Monaco's things which had fallen off the car in the rush of things. We also went to a Pharmacy and had the B&B person drive us to a grocery store (this is a service they offer--pretty nice!).

The next day, we biked to the Mont and enjoyed the Abby and the little town. The ride there was about an hour and ok except for a few sprinkles. But on the ride back, right as we were leaving, a storm broke out and an hour and a half later, we arrived, drenched, back at the B&B. The only thing we wanted to do was have a hot shower and some dinner at the local pub/snack place up the hill. The pub was called the Oyster Catcher and was owned by a British man, with a sharp tongue. Right up our ally. We went there two nights in a row and again, got to know the local people, including our savior! The kid who helped us the day before! So that's what it's like to live in a small town...

Finally, we departed Mont St. Michel and made our way to Bordeaux, where we are now. It is a very nice, university town and we all decided right away that we liked it. Today, we looked around and got a sense of the city. We visited the Cathedral, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site and we visited the Aquitaine Museum, which wasn't much to write home about. This evening we went to a concert that was put on in the Cathedral with an organist and a saxophonist. It was nice to listen to the music and think. The Cathedral is expansive and pretty incredible, which is saying a lot, because there are a lot of Cathedrals in Europe. Tomorrow we are going to take a Bordeaux wine tasting class that the tourist information office suggests. Hopefully it will be good. It is the best we can do without a car to get us to the outer regions where the vineyards are.

So there is my ridiculously long update. We are in Bordeaux for a bit, then on to Spain. We are over halfway done and Spain is the last stop with Monaco. Where has the time gone?

Amsterdam, Antwerp and Normandy

Sorry to keep you all wauiting with baited breath :) Living out of a backpack tends to get a bit hectic, and on the off chance that I get to be on the computer, I'm generally tired and not in the mood to type.
Amsteradm was a cool, very different city. I find that I'm impressed by the way the Dutch have decided to handle the less desirable parts of life with a radical way of putting it out into the open. I don't know If I would want it for my own country, though. Our hostel was pretty cool and in the Red Light District. Don't worry mom and dad, there weren't any prostitutes hanging out the window on my stree :) It was actually a good place to be located-we were near the station and also in a big hub of an area. The weather hindered our ability to do a whole lot, and the streets are the most confusing city I think I've ever been in. We did get to go to the Van Gogh museum, which was cool considering Monaco and I just finished our Art History class. We not only knew who the painters Van Gogh was influenced by, but we could tell by looking at them who they were! cool! We also got to see our friend Josie two nights in a row. She lives in Haarlem, which is in the suburbs of the city, so it's a bit of a trek for her to come out. We went to a comedy show that she suggested and just generally had a good time catching up with her.

After Amsterdam, we got on a train to Antwerp. It's not far at all to Belgium, about two hours ride. Antwerp is a beautful city that is quaint and nice to walk around in. The main attraction is Ruben's house, which is the home of the famous artist. We took that tour, which was interesting to get insight on the type of person that he was and how his travels influenced what he had in his home. Much of the style was Italian Renaissance, to which he took a particular liking. I also made sure to eat a Belgian waffle and fries, both of wich were delicious. Our hostel was very interesting as well. The people that owned it were quite bizarre, but incredibly generous people who loved people and nature. It was sort of an old house that had been converted into a hostel.

...someone needs the computer, so must get off.

Toto, we're not in France anymore...

So today started out a bit rocky, but eventually turned out ok. We were planning on going to the countryside today on a tour to check out some of the other sights. The tour was to meet at 9am, so at 9am, we arrived, and no bus. Apparently, we have become quite accustomed to "French time" as Monaco likes to put it, which means that at around 9am ish, we are gonna go in about five minutes. Apparently to the rest of the world, 9am means 9am. Oh well. We sat around for about 45 minutes to see if we could catch the next tour, only to see that it was full. ok, pas grave. We'll make new plans. How about this walking tour? cool. let's go. Oh never mind, we missed that one, too. No kidding. So, a bit grudgingly, we went back to the tourism office and found a walking tour of the revolution of Ireland that was going to start in the bext 10 minutes. We made a dash for it, and ended up having a really cool walking tour of the city. I never really realized how recent the Independence was or how strongly it influences a lot of the cultural identities of the Irish people.
After that, we had lunch at a Hari Krshna restaurant called Govinda that was recommended in the guidebook as well as by a local we met here. The food was delicious and we managed to come out still with hair and jeans in tact. Tomorrow we set out for Amsterdam. sweet.

Church

We went to services this morning at St. Patrick's Cathedral. Since Monaco is Catholic, she mentioned going, so Reed and I said we were up to it and this morning we got all churched up. Turns out that St. Patrick's is an Anglican/Episcopalian church, but it was interesting to go to nonetheless. I particularly found the Sermon part of the service to be the most interesting, as the Priest related the Bible story to modern day situations and spoke about how we could help make our community better and help others. That seems to always be my favorite part of the Church anyway. After, we decided to walk around the city and get a feel for it; we had picnick lunch on the quays of the river. Tomorrow we will probably go to the Guiness Factory, should be fun.

Dublin

We have just arrived at our hostel in Dublin! Based on our first encounters here, the people have been incrediboly nice. Our taxi cab driver chattted us up quite a bit on the way--she wanted to know all about us and told us all about herself. I know that the Irish are notorious for their friendly nature and I can honestly say, I can feel it already. I can't even begin to describe how excited I was to get here--more so than my other roots, I feel most strongly connected to the Irish ones. I think I can already see where the Irish traits in me coming out. It's easy to be interested in people who are interested in you, n'est pas? Well, enough of all this hullabaloo, I must explore the city and see how it actually is, rather than just my impressions.

"Oh Flower of Scoland..."

Reed has been teaching Monaco and I the words to a Scottish song, I'm about two lines in, but I'm hopeful that I'll get them done by the end.

Scotland is a beautiful country and Edinburgh is a lovely city. We are staying at Reed's house and her parents have been incredibly generous to us. The other day, we visited Ediburgh Castle and listened to the audio guides (I generally recommend the audio guide whenever available-they really enrich the experience). Edinburgh Castle, which is still in use for events today, is home to the oldest building in the city as well as the Scottish crown jewels. The thing about the Scottish is that they are very proud of their heritage and still a bit grumbly about losing their sovereignty to the English. Don't make the mistake of calling a Scot an Englishman, or you may end up with a few bruises.
While in the castle, we had a very interesting discussion with Emily's mom about the purpose of the Monarch. It was as much a political discussion as it was an historical one. She pointed out that the Monarch can be seen as an unbiased figure who represents the people, rather than a political party; I quoted some Thomas Jefferson. All in all it was a good little discussion. The more I get to know the people that are my friends here, the more I see the similarities in their families and in the way they communicate and interact with each other. Lord knows there has been more than one discussion on politics in our house! Reed is going to be studying history at Durham next term, and it's no wonder why she has an interest in that.
The same day we went to the Castle, we also had the opportunity to go the the Scottish Parliament. Reed's dad is a judge, so he took us back and showed us his chambers, his robes, and even his wig! We got to sit in on one of his cases for a few minutes and see the law at work. We also got a tour of the building, which was the seat of the Scottish Parliament before joining the UK. It's in situations like these that you can see the difference in age between Britain and the US. There are a lot of situations where they are both equally modern, but to see the lawyers and the judges wearing their wigs, you can see that they are woking under a system that is respecting much older values and tradition than ours. This doesn't mean that one is better than the other, only that they function under a different background.
Besides all that excitment, there has been: a trip to the grocery store, Monaco's birthday take away curry night, chips and cheese (aka french fries with shredded cheese on top), and general lazing about, storing up energy for the big trip. We are going for a hike today, should be cool to see the view.

Last Day

Sorry that I haven't been blogging much, this last week after the festival has gone by so quickly that I've been running around trying to get everything in order before school ended. I'm now currently in Edinburgh, Scotland staying at Emily Reed's house here until Saturday.

The last day of school ended on Friday and my class, which has been together for all four months, had a petite fete with our Professor, Giselle. She is a lovely French woman who has two daughters, around 30 and 20 I think. She used to be an actress when she was younger and she is just one of those stylish, fun people who loves to chat and enjoy the joie de vivre. She is the one who took us to Mougin for a cafe. We gave her flowers and a picture frame as a goodbye gift. It was sad to see her go, but nice to have gotten to spend time with her. I hope that I will get to see her again in the future.

Later that day, Reed and I were able to drop off our extra baggage that we don't want to cart around at one of her family friend's basements. We are planning to come back to Cannes our last day and pick them up.

In the evening we had the Blue Moon Soiree and we dressed up and celebrated our last night at the College with cocktails and a saxaphone player.

At this point, it seems surreal that my time in Cannes has ended. As cliche as it sounds, I have changed. This experience has been so intense and so eye-opening that I can't imagine how someone could come here and not leave a bit different. The French way of living and the constant time for discussions at the college allow you to examine your life a lot and to try to figure out what the important stuff is all about. Also, being away from Southern California has really helped to get a perspective about the rest of the world and what is important. The celebrity stuff and the Hollywood-ness of being so close to LA has much smaller of an effect on the people around the world and I have thought more and more about the point of it all. I don't know at this point how that will effect what I do in the future, but often, it seems, thought leads to action, which is always a vehicle for change.

I'm looking forward to my travels ahead, but the more I am away, the more I look forward to coming home and seeing my family and friends; the poeple who are reading this right now. I'll try to keep everyone updated on where I am and I'll try to put up some of my thoughts about the festival soon.

Just Got a Hold of These...

mmmhhmmm, got these from the Ocean's junket

Super Exciting

Yesterday I saw (close up): George, Brad, and Matt. I don't think I need to give you last names either for you to figure out who I mean. Let's just say they're in a movie called Ocean's 13...it was really freakin' cool.

A Petit Pause

So far the festival has been relly interesting and definitely eye-opening. It gives me a new perspective on the way this industry is and I think that having lived in France before has affected the way that I view the importance of it all. More on that later...back to work.

Celebrity Sightings

So far I have seen a couple of celebrities here at the festival: Toni Collette (a la sixth sense, little miss sunshine), Jude Law (from from away) and Jake Gylenhaal (from very close up). Pretty cool. Must go, more details later.

Super News

I had my internship again today and not much exciting happened in terms of stuff accomplished. I did however get some very exciting news about what i will be doing. We received our badges and each badge has the name of either CNN, Prime Cut, or Entertainment Tonight. I was one of the two people who got the Entertainment Tonight badge and found out that I will be working directly with the Producer of Entertainment Tonight. Basically I got the best of the best in terms of the Chapman students and essentially will be having the most amazing opportunity. I'll start work with the Producer on Saturday (She's a woman, too--how cool!) and apparently students in the past havee gotten very involved so I should learn a lot.

PS. Happy Mother's Day yesterday to my momma, here's the only pic I have right now:

(We're a bit over exposed! But that's Disneyland in the background!)

Mougin and Grasse

Our classes consist of two parts. The first have of the class we work on grammar and the second half we have discussion to practice speaking. A big topics for us is the difference between French and American culture; generally Giselle (my prof) feels that the biggest difference is about the way we view life. Americans (and Anglo-Saxon cultures) have a strong desire to be efficient and useful, whereas the French much prefer to enjoy the petits plaisirs of life. So, after the pause in our class, Giselle suggested that we go on a little field trip to relax and life like the francaises. So we hopped in Giselle's car and she took us to Mougin for the day and bought us a coffee. It was one of those spur of the moment decisions and it ended up being incredible. The town is one of the cutest little villages I have seen and just sitting and relaxing was so very nice.

When we got back, we went to Grasse, where we took a tour of the Fragonard perfume museum and factory. It was interesting, but I didn't find anything that I really wanted.

Geil

I may possibly be in the midst of one of the best days yet. Let's just say, I had a field trip and it was awesome....more on that later. I'm off to Grasse (perfume capital of the world) in a few.

Quelques photos

Me, Emily and StephanieAngela, Phillipe and myself at our CEO themed party.

My Stage (my Internship)

Got some news about my internship the other day. Apparently the company I am interning for (Prime Cut Productions) will be working with E! Entertainment, Entertainment Tonight, CNN, and AMC this year. Sounds pretty freakin' awesome. Also, we had to vote on one person to be the leader of the group (there are 7 Chapman kids) and the secret ballot brought me out on top... so I guess I'll do that too. Not a lot of info yet, but I think I may be a walking zombie form lack of sleep for the festival. Good times.

Camera

Dearest Heather,
Since I have already gone through two digital cameras this year, I feel that it may be a sign that I'm not mature enough to have pictures up. That is why there are no pictures. That being said, I'll see what I can do.

And the Results are In!

The big presidential elections were last night and it's official: Nicholas Sarkozy will be the next president of the Fifth Republic. It's very strange the way election day in France is, because it is all the same time zone, the French know immediately who the President wil be. It's kind of like New Years's Eve, in fact, where there is a timer counting down until the polls close. Literally. So there is a countdown from fifteen and at the time the polls close, the face of the winner is put up on the screen--very dramatic.
It was mostly Americans who were watching the results (can we get a leetle credit for digging Democracy?) and when the results came in we booed. Not exactly supporters of Sarko are we? lol. Oh well. I guess only time can tell how it's gonna work out. The only thing we can do know is to do our part for voting and capaigning in our country--it's going to be a big one this time around. Hopefully a good candidate will be found)

Updates

Hi everyone. Sorry for the delays in posting, as usual, life is always happening at the collège and I have difficulty getting to a computer. The big news here is that it is COLD. It's been rainy and ugly out and no one knows what to do with themselves. We all thought the summer had come, so we're all here chattering away.

The French Presidential elections are on Sunday and there is an air of anticiptation amongst les françaises and les étudiants. There was an almost three hour debate the other day, of which I watched about an hour. In case you don't know, the two candidates are Ségolène Royal on the left and Nicholas Sarkozy on the right. The polls are showing that Sarkozy will likely win, although the general opinion at the collège is in favor of Sègolène (I guess that's just the type of crowd you draw to a female dominated, international language school). I'm really excited to see the results, I realized today that I know more about the French elections than the US elections, which is actually kind of cool. I want to watch the debates that just happened in the US, but I haven't gotten a chance to yet.

In other news, I bought my ticket to go to Scotland after the end of the program. I have decided to go backpacking with my two friends Emily and Emily and we are going to start by going to Scotland to stay at Emily's house for the week. Super cool. It will be nice to be able to stay somewhere without having to pay and also, just enjoy being at home. Although there is nothing quite like dorm-life fun, you have to admit that there is something awesome about not having to walk down the hall to the toilette. :/ After that, we are going to Amsterdam to visit our friend Josie, Northern France, Antwerp, Basque Country, and then either Berlin or Switzerland (Our friend here at the collège, Cyrril is from Luzerne). I can't believe it's going to be so soon. Where did the time go?

Spring Break part 1

For Spring Break, mom and dad came to visit me in France and we went to Cinque Terre in Italy and then drove around Provence.
One of the best parts about having them come to France was that they got to see where I live. There is nothing quite like the Collège, it's just one of those things that you have to see to believe. We really are right next to the Mediterranean, everyone is happy and having a good time, and we really are speaking and learning a lot of French.

Cinque terre is incredibly beautiful. We took a chance on our hotel, which got rave reviews, but was situated far away from the main town, wo we had to take a bus to get to it. Although the views were definitely to die for, I think if I had a choice I would have liked to have been more accessible in terms of my mobility. The thing about Cinque Terre is that it is a series of towns built in the side of the hill on the Mediterranean that are not easily accessible by car, so for the most part they are very quaint and well perserved. There are hikes along all five of the towns that overlook the sea and the views are amazing. While we were there, one of the hikes was closed, so we had to take an alternate route. Sometimes, unexpected roadblocks make for a richer, more fulfilling experience, and this was certainly one of those times. We ended up taking a more difficult hike that proved to be the best one of the day: extraordinary view and almost complete isolation. Very cool.

Another thing that I learned while in Italy as how dependent upon my French I am. I'm very used to being able to understand most everything around me here, and I forgot what it was like to be in a place where everything was completely foreign. I guess it means that I need to start working only next language ;)

More later on Spring Break, my weekend in Provence, and life in general. tout à l'heure.

Thoughts on a voleur

Once again, apologies on not writing in sooner. The most pertinent thing at this point is to give my point of view on the Spring Vacation. As some of you know and many of you don't, my parents and I were robbed on the last day of our drive through Provence. All of our baggage was stolen and the rental car window was broken apart as well. At this point, I have replaced everything that was of importance and believe that I can look on it with some sort of distance.

My first thought is that getting robbed sucks. It is also a very surreal experience. It's one of those moments where you feel like you should be in a movie and the music should start to get very dramatic and the shots get quicker, but in fact, all that really happens is that moment of silence where it dawns on you that yes, in fact you've been taken advantage of. You try to think of the right thing to do, how did this happen and what am I supposed to do now? The biggest problem is that no one quite knows what to do either. You call the police, but they've got more important things to worry about, they're not going to come to you, you have to go to them. So you find out where to go. Then half an hour later, you get there and wait and wait. Don't they understand? Everything I own is GONE. What do I do? So you go and file a report and that's it. You try to remember everything you had in your bag, you drive home and you try your best to get over it and start replacing stuff.

So what did I learn from this? That I'll be ok. That stuff is replacable. That in the end, we're still alive, able to recuperate from a bad experience. Do I look down on the French as a result? Certainly not. After all, there are depserate people everywhere and we all can only do our best in any given moment. Do I regret my naivete in thinking that our stuff would be ok, if only for a few hours? Sure, but I can learn from that.

I guess in the end, I'm also proud of my abilities to cope and my abilities to speak French. If I can get us through that, ordering a sandwich and having a chat en francais won't be so bad either.

Quick

Sorry for the delay tout le monde, I've just returned from Provence for the weekend with my group. Altough I have a lot of updating to do, I can't do it just yet, becaus I don't have the time as per usual. This weekend we went to Avignon, Arles, St Maries sur le mer, chateauneuf du pape, etc. mus go. will tell you about it soon.

Little Chats

I can hardly believe that it is almost Spring Break time. After we get back from vacation, we will be changing teachers, which is a real bummer, because my teacher now is so great. Yesterday, she went on and on about how much she liked our class and how great we were. She also said that she rarely gives out compliments, so it was pretty rad. Hopefully we will get this other professor, Sylvie who is supposed to be pretty good too.

My friends Jo (AKA Josie) and Andres are both leaving next weekend. I will be sad to see them go, I wish they could stay longer. I think some of my friends are going to Amsterdam in a couple of weeks and will visit Josie then. That's always the most difficult part of meeting new people: so often you have to say goodbye to them. As you get older, you have to deal more and more with the fact that you may not see them again, or it may be a very long time until you do. It's ok though, we you realize how you've changed or bettered yourself because you got to know them.
We were talking about the wat our views had changed since we've been here and met each other. It's funny the things that people never think about until they finally do. My friend Emily from Scotland, for example, told me that she never really thought about what a big deal it is for Americans to go to Europe. How much money it costs, the time, the planning that it takes for the average American to get to Europe, or outside of the country at all. I think once you get perspective about that, it makes it easier to understand shocking nuances of a culture, for example, how so many Americans don't even have a passport or how so few speak just one other language from their own. It doesn't excuse the culture ignorances by any means, but it does help to understand why things happen the way that they happen.

My friend Emily from New York is applying for transfer to the American University in Paris, and is waiting to here from them any day now. She wants to move to Europe and is very excited about being an Expat. I gotta say, I hope she gets in, because I know she'll really like it. I don't think I could do that--move away from the States to a foreign country to live there and take up the culture. It's just not in me to work that way. I think I'm just a little to American. That, and mom would not be down for it, lol.

Alright, enough for now, I'm finished rambling.

I Love Paris in the Spring Time...

So, on to Paris. I did a lot so first I will summarize:

Thursday:
7 am: Bus to Nice airport, flight to Paris
walked to ile de la cité and saw Notre dame and palais de justice
boat ride down the Seine
Cabaret the Musical in French

Friday
Walking Tour of Montmartre
lunch in Montmartre
walked past Moulin Rouge
Up Eiffel Tower
Louvre
delicieuse falafel for dinner in the Jewish Quarter


Saturday
Orangerie
Orsay
lunch in Latin Quarter
Façade of Notre Dame/inside Saint Chappelle
Rodin Museum
Angelina AKA the greatest hot chocolate ever
Strange dinner suggested by Rick

Sunday
Picasso Museum
Lunch
Flight from Paris to Nice, bus to Cannes
Home in time for dinner

Whew! Talk about packing it all in. I felt really good about everything we did, we managed to see everything we wanted to see and we didn't feel rushed by any of it. It helps that I've seen the big stuff already, so i could either bypass it or glance past it quickly if I wanted.

The Picasso Museum was a highlight--I never realized how prolifict of an artist he was. I found many of his more surrealist paintings to be rather inspiring.

Seeing Cabaret at les folies bergeres was exciting, especially since it was all in French and I understood what was going on! (it helped that I've seen the show in English, I must admit) The songs were great and the story inspiring.

My friend Emily and I went to Angelina, probably one of the most French places ever. They have renown hot chocolate that very much resembles a dark chocolate bar melted and called hot chocolate. It was incroyable, very very good. There was a line out the door, but the tables turned over quickly and the short wait was worth it. The decor was typically francaises, with tiny tables and pink and green aura that all these french places seem to have.

We went by the Jewish Quarter, La Marais, on Friday night (maybe not the brightest idea, seeing as how most things were closed) but nonethless stumbled upon a falafel stand that was awesome. It cost 4 Euro if you took away and 9 if you sat down. Suffice it to say, we ate our falafel on the side of the street. It was pretty fun.

That's not everything, but I m running out of time to write.

Hope life is good y'all. I hear it's warm in Sactown, I'm jealous, it's pretty freakin' cold here.

Quick Note

Hello all,
Had a fun time in Paris this weekend, will update about it in a day or two. Basically a fast-paced trip in which we crammed a lot of good stuff into a small amount of time. I really enjoyed!

Parentals: About Spring Break
Cinque Terre sounds good to me. We can do the South of France, too. I'm not really sure what, we might just take Rick's advice. Cannes is a one day place for sure, Monaco I think is one to pass up, Eze is cool, but only worthy of a couple of hours Aix might be worth a go. I don't know what you're really into either, we could also do more of Italy or Northern France. It will be chillier in Northern france though.

Also, we've had a bit of a cold spell, so if I were packing, I'd bring a little warmer weather stuff just in case. It is still a bit early for that though, so it may change.

Going to Paris

Demain, nous irons à Paris et puis j'espère qu'il serais très intèressant. (Tomorrow, we are going to Paris. I hope it will be very interesting). Did you know that the French don't have a word for exciting? At first it seems weird, but we've all pretty much decided that the French don't really get excited, so it isn't that difficult to not have a word for it. Moi, je suis amèricaine, puis je préfererais s'il y aura un mot qu'on peut utiliser (Me, I'm american so I would prefer to have a word that I could use for it.)

I can't remember what I have and haven't written about...so I'll just go for it. The wine tasting dinner was excellent: I had smoked salmon filet for appetizer, some other sort of delicious fish and vegetables for the main course, and rhum cake that wasn't my favorite, for dessert. For each course we learned about how to look at the wine, smell it and taste it. So watch out, y'all I'm a real sommelier now (haha).

I have my cours de cuisine class tonight and I think I recall him saying that we were going to learn how to arrange flowers with the floral arranging students. pas mal de tout. Should be informative.

Meeting about our Paris trip in a few minutes. Things we want to do: Saint Chappelle, Rodin Museum, Angelina's (best hot chocolate in the world, apparently), and general wandering/shopping. In addition, I believe we are also getting visits to the Louvre (mais, bien sur) and the Orsay.

Must go, running out of time. Hope home is loverly.

More photos

More random photos:

Here's Em and I in the Foyer of the collège with Tim who was a student here for about a month. The collège mostly caters to the younger crowd, but older 'real people' are here to. Tim is a really cool English guy who apparently is high powered and successful...cool. Note, Levant from Turkey is in the background.
Lis, me and Maryann

I just think this photo is funny. It's Kelly from utah (the first person I met on the trip) and Andrew from Minnesota who studied here a few years ago and met his girlfriend Elaina then. They are now taking time to study and work at the collège.

Not so sexy picture of me at the Carnaval. Enrique and Jon are in the background. They go to Chappy too.

Emily from Scotland, Andres from Ecuador

Photos

So I've been having difficulties with the photo uploading thing, hence no photos up on the blog. Instead I'm going to post some pictures that my friends got up, so you can have a bit of a look-see.


My friend Emily and I on a bridge in Firenze. Emily is from NYC, goes to school in Toronto and is applying for transfer to the Alerican University in Paris. She is also the best French speaker of the bunch, and by bunch I mean the whole collège.

My friend Maryann and I the second day we got to Cannes. They took us on a ride on the 'petit train' and this is us listening to it. Maryann goes to Hoard University in DC and is from New Jersey.

Our group on the steps of the Palais de Festival. We went to the Dance show there.

Some of the girls at the aquarium in Monaco

The girls in London. This was our second day there. The brunette on the far right is Lis from Reno, one of my good friends. Standing next to me is Fadila (aka D) who is from Ghana, but going to University in Conneticut.

Aix-en-Provence

Went to aix (pronounced 'aches') yesterday. It is a really cool French city known most specifically for being the hometown of Cezanne. We spent the day there yesterday and i really thought it was great. The city has a distinctly youthful feeling to it because of several schools and universities in its vicinity. There was also a great market where they were selling everything under the sun, including their specialty pesto, of which I bought two jars of after sampling. We spent most of the day wandering around, checking the city out. We stopped into a luseum and found that we had just missed the Cezanne exhibit by a few days. Quel dommage... Even so, we bought a café in the café that Cezanne used to frequent and it was all pretty cool. We go to Paris next week and I'm getting excited.

Scholarship Essay

So, I had the opportunity to apply for a little scholarship for my study abroad stuff. All I had to do was write a two page essay about why I was studying abroad and what I hoped to gain from the study abraod experience. Well kids I got the scholarship (yay!) and am going to post the paper below. Hope you find it interesting :)

I have seen children playing in the street, artists tuning their instruments on the roadside, mothers carrying their children home from a long day out. New York, Cambodia, Paris, Bangkok, or Mexico—I have seen these simple moments of truth everywhere. They are the moments when, despite our differences, our humanity shows through. It is the humanity in our everyday lives that help us to begin to see that we are members of the same planet Earth and our cultural differences are not wedges that divide, but rather enhancers that enrich our lives. We are as unique as the colors of a rainbow whose endless shades are not dulled by their sharply contrasting hues, but only made more beautiful by their intensity. It is this feeling, this indescribable change in the way that we see the world that is why I am going to study abroad and why the travel experience will always be a part of my life.

I have not yet found a traveler who was able to truly describe the ways that they had changed, but I have yet to meet a person who has said that they weren’t powerfully and immovably altered by the travel experience. Often the only way we can cope with the unique moments that we’ve had is through stories that we’ve accumulated from them, as if in this way, by sharing them, we can describe the morsels of our experiences. And by sharing these tidbits with one another, we are able to paint the canvas of our experience for others into a vibrant landscape.

I have often felt that our purpose as members of the community and as people is to contribute to making others lives better through pursuing our own passions. In essence, we must do what we love to help change the world in a positive way. With this belief I have chosen to study Broadcast Journalism and French. Through these focuses, I hope to either pursue travel journalism, or to work in Higher Education Administration in the Study Abroad field. Either way, I hope that I can help strengthen the ties of cultural understanding that are so desperately needed in today’s world through telling the stories of others and helping them find their own niche in the world. It is with these goals that I continue to live by a mantra: the more I understand the world, the more I understand myself. The sooner I see the ways in which my own country faults, the sooner I can help change it. The better I know the scenery of the land, the better I can teach it to others and they can begin their journey of making the world a better place.

While studying abroad, I will continue to hone my French language skills that have left me impassioned to explore many other cultures through the study of language. It is my goal that French will be just the first in a long list of languages I hope to learn.
My study abroad experience is going to help me on the way to becoming the person that I seek to be. As I indulge in the study abroad experience for myself, one day I will be able to help others find their own study abroad experience. As I continue to study Broadcast Journalism, I will be able to help others try to tell their travel experiences. I will be able to incite in others an inkling of interest to go to uncharted territory; it is my hope that I can let others know the life-changing effects of traveling.

After I finish my study abroad program, I will continue to travel throughout Europe for two months with a good friend of mine who is also studying abroad. We are excited to see new places and accumulate new stories. We will backpack throughout Europe and visit places that are the roots of our heritage. As we set out to discover the distant lands that so many have traversed before us, we will write our own stories, from our own experiences; and the places that others have traveled before us will hold a new meaning because we will have seen them through new eyes.

Beach Day

We officially had our first beach day this weekend. Nothing quite like lounging by the Mediterranean for a few hours. The best part is that it takes about 3 minutes to walk from school à la plage. The beaches are very nice, they are sand, not rock like in Nice. We also walked around the centre-ville later in the day which was very relaxing... Yesterday we started our seminars. I am taking an art history class en français bien sur and it's going to be pretty sweet because it will count both as a GE and as an upper division French credit. Cool! The professeur is cool, if a bit talkative, but that's ok. She showed us some slides of different styles of paintings and I'm excited to go see them for reals at the Musée d'orsay and the Louvre when we go to Paris next weekend!

Fancy wine tasting dinner tonight, Aix-en-Provence excursion this weekend.

Note: I am not a sweaty smelly American, the weather has gotten cooler again and I am indeed in the process of getting some other warm weather clothes. They will be very chic and francaises, comme moi. ;)

Ma Vie à Cannes

Happy March, friends. One month in and the fun continues. It's interesting, I can feel myself getting more and more comfortable in a different country, but at the same time there are definitely things that I miss about the US. Today I went shopping (the window kind, really) on the rue d'antibes, which is Cannes famous shopping boulevard, and found that my favorite store amongst them all was espirit. hmmm, not exactly stretching there when it comes to trying to be très françaises et très chic. oh well, they had my size and some really cool stuff. Apparently when I was packing, I was sure it was freezing here, so I packed about 3 warm weather shirts. I have found, it is not, in fact, freezing here and that, come summertime, I'm going to be warm and toasty. Oh well, ce n'est pas grave. In general, when you try to fit your life into one suitcase, you are bound to get tired of wearing the same stuff all the time. Pretty much everyone here feels that way at this point.

Went to the theatre again the other night. It was a really strange dance performance that was supposed to be an "around the world" theme, but was actually a lot of the same type of dancing in different costumes that were sort of "around the world-esque." Oh well, it was part of the program, so I didn't have to pay for it. That, and I managed to get in on the crepe soirée that was at the collège au meme temp, which was pretty sweet.

Buonojourno, Firenze

Salut tout le monde. Went to Florence this weekend with my group and had a splendid time. We got to visit all of the sites, including the Duomo which is always cool. We also made a pit-stop in Pisa and I got to take a touristy picture of myself holding up the leaning tower. I have to say, the Italians just seem to get this culture stuff right. They are all incredibly beatiful, wear great shoes, are nice, and eat good food. Gotta love it. We were lucky that the weather was nice for our full day in the city; it rained the next day, but we were only there in the morning, so it wasn't problem.

I climbed the Duomo and proved, once again, that I am in fact afraid of heights. However, I did get a cool pic at the top of it which I will post soon ( I feel like I keep saying that, but seriously, it's gonna happen and when it does, oh get excited.) We also went into another church (can't remember the name at the moment) and checked out its coolness. As part of the trip, we got admission into the Ufizzi Gallery and the Academia one (aka where the David is) and it was all cool and jazzy like that. Even though I've seen it before, I can't help but be amazed at how perfectly the David is, everymuscle is right on, it's really incredible. I was also amazed at how influential the Medici's were to the Golden Age of Florence. Obviously? you always know that kind of stuff, but to hear about it and see what a strong influence they had over the city (and, in effect the rest of the world) you are so impressed by it. Our tour guide told us that the last Medici was a woman who never had any children and before she died, she willed all of the Medici's possessions to the city, which is why it can be appreciated now. I really felt that that kind of giving is so profound; the way it alows you to keep giving even after you and your family are gone.

So yes, italy was great. I got a bit sick on the bus ride, but that basically is just another way of proving that I am, indeed, a Rose (was there ever really a need to question?).

Tomorrow we are going bowling. This is going to be exciting, who knew that the French bowled?

Theatre

We went to a play at the Palais de Festival the other night. The play was conducted entirely in French, and I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty hard to understand. But I got the gist and even laughed a couple of times, so all in all I think it was succesful. Just gotta keep listening to the stuff and speaking it as much as possible. We are going to another play in the beginning of March which is Danse (whoops, there's some random french spellings for ya) and music around the world. I think it will be easier to enjoy than a play that is 100% based on the dialogue (no set change, nothing visiual to help).

We are off to Florence tomorrow for the weekend and I think everyone is very excited! I can't believe we are already going on one of our excursions, time is just flying by so fast!

We had out second cooking class this week and it was delicieuse. I made crepes and now my hand is really tired form swirling the giant pan. I think it is going to be difficult not to get large and in charge here what with all the food, fortunately, we will be starting kickboxing at the college, taught by Elaina from Minnesota. Apparently she's makes the class really intense, so I'm excited. It is tonight in about45 minutes. yay.

I will try to download pictures, but it is really difficult with the computer access that I have available. Still, I want everyone to see where I live and who I'm with!

Carnaval de Nice

On Sunday we went to Nice for the Carnaval and had such a blast. First of all Nice est un très beau ville et la mèr est bleu comme je ne sais pas. (the city is beautiful and the sea is blue like I can't describe) Apparently the blueness of the water is because the beaches are rocky. There is no sand to muck it up. Anyway...the Carnaval was a ton of fun. There were so many people everywhere and everyone was in a really great mood. THe big event was the silly string--everyone was running around silly stringing each other. It didn't matter if you knew the person, or if you were young or old. You could be standing there with your can of silly string and suddenly get stringed by a random person. THere were silly string wars all over the place. We then found a stand that was doing free face painting and all got our faces painted. I just asked the woman to do whatever and she painted roses on my face! Quel suprise! Aussi, il y a 'Big Heads' in the parade and giant floats with people in costume. All in all very fun!
I don't have much time alors il faut que je partir.
Oh yeah, nothing is open on SUnday and Monday!
I'm going to the theatre tonight.

En général

Yes, the boots are flat, yes even old ladies wear them and yes, I am in fact, studying (a little). I have French class every morning for three hours, with my very French teacher, Annick. Annick doesn't really speak English and anyway, all of the classes are seulement en français. Because the collège is for international students, French is the only langue that everyone speaks, although it's true that most everyone speaks English as well. I am planning on taking an art history class en français as well.

We had our first cours de cuisine and it was some of the best food I've ever had. There was vegetable soup, salmon, chicken, tomatos proveçal, potatoes, tarte aux pommes, and because it was one of the girls bday, this amazing tower of profiterols that the class in the afternoon made. It was so amazing- if we had bought it, it probably would have cost as much as the whole class has!

On Sunday, we are going to the Carnaval de Nice, which should be really cool.

Les Soldes

En France during the winter and the summer there is one month of sales in the entire country. These are called les soldes and the purporse is to get rid of last seasons merchandise to make room for the new stuff. Some of the people in my group have been really enjoying les soldes, especially my friend Maryann, who has being buying clothes left and right. I have been saved by this for two reasons: 1. French people are much smaller than my large American self and 2. I am a cheap Rose. I did however purchase the coolest pair of boots to stick my jeans into. They were way en solde and cost me about 44 Euros. I will post pictures later. Everyone here wears their pants tucked into tall boots, so it's a must-have for the European look.

Monaco

Went to Monaco and Eze yesterday. Monaco was very nice, we went to the area of town where the palace is whiwh was very nice. Our guide, Aude said that whenever the flag above the palace is up, then the prince is in residence and sure enough, the prince was there! We didn't see him, bien sur, but the idea of royalty so close--how exciting. We also watched the changing of the guard in front of the royal palace which was pretty cool. Aude told us that there is almost no crime in Monaco and that there are cameras everywhere in the city. It's no surprise that everyone in Monaco looked nice and happy--they were all rich and safe!
We also went to the aquarium there whiwh was awesome. Then we went to Monte Carlo, ahich was just ok.
Then, we hopped on the bus to the city of eze which is built into the rock. Very coo, amazing views. must go, i'm running out of time in the internet café.

echange langue

I am at the medithèque right now. Essentially, it is a library that also has DVDs and videos. La seule diffèrence est que c'est dans un maison très grand et vieux (the only difference is that it's in a really old big building) once owed by Rothchild. Cool. We can use the internet for free here, so I imagine that I will get very used to the mediathèque. Last night we had the echange langue, which is a program that brings french students who are trying to learn english together with english speakers who are trying to learn french. I met a few cool french girls and a bunch of us are going to get together again. It was nice to be able to use the French like that-- I think I did ok, too! Tomorrow we are going to Monaco as part of the trip. So far, I would definitely give AIFS high marks on their programming--everything has been awesome and helpful. They are taking us to a french restaurant next week and then we are going to go to the Carnaval de Nice on the weekend.
On Wednesday I am going to have my first cooking class. Thus far it is the only thing that I will have to pay extra for, but I think it is going to be worth it. They took us to the school and we met the chef who is going to be teaching us. He was very nice. He made us hors d'ouvres whiwh we incredible! Alors, I have to go, my time is up.
à bientot!

Mon Anniversaire

Oh yeah, my 21st birthday is tomorrow. All gifts can be sent to:
AIFS c/o Katie Rose
1, rue du Dr. Pascale
06400 Cannes, France

PS. I'm just kidding

The Collège International de Cannes

This is our little group in front of the Palais de Cannes, where the film festival is held.

So I'm here at the collège and it's really nice. I didn't realize that it is a language school for foreigners, so everyone' common language is (or soon will be) French. This also means that the whole point of the school is to improve your French language skills, so everything is conducted en français. I had my language test yesterday and did fairly well. We are doing review today in our class and I got a little homework. All the profs are French and mine is no exception. She is very chic and speaks all in french, but slow enough so we can understand her quite well.

I have met a few people who are really cool: Jo (short for Josephine) from Holland, Andrew from Ecuador, Johnny from England and Emily from Scotland. They are all very cool and quite well travelled (no surprise there).

Right now I'm sitting in the "Cyberdrome" which is like an internet café at the school. En fait, I am sitting next to Preston and Emily, two of the people from my program who are from SoCal (Chappy) and New York (University of Toronto), respectively. There will be free internet access at the Mediatheque down the street which I'm sure I will start using once we get our cards and go there on Thursday.

Je Suis Ici!

Hi Guys! I am here in Cannes and on an international keyboard, so bear with me. : ) The collège is great and right on the Mediterranean. We've met some people who are young that work and study here from the US, England, holland and elsewhere. I am on the computer at the cyberdrome, which only allows me 10 hours of free access, but apparently there is a place with free access that I can use. A lot of people brought their laptops, but it seems like there is no place for them to get internet anyway, so I'm glad I didn't bring mine.

My roomate's name is Allie and she is an Alpha Chi Omega from Iowa. She seems pretty cool and hopefully we will just have a low maintenance living situation. I like my room-it is on the third floor (technically 4th by american standards) and I have to walk up the flights to get there. All I can say is, I better have great legs by the end of this! Allie and I went to town to the Monoprix and got some stuff that she needed and generally just looked around. The city is very fun and i think I'm going to like it here. It is a very liveable sort of place.

That's all for now, I don't want to spend all of my minutes right away. à bientot (where's the circomflex on this keyboard?)

katie

Tour of London

Still in London today, we had a tour of the city and got to see many of the sites. While I like London, it is not really a city that I love in the way that I love say, New York (or even Paris for that matter). After our little tour ended, we got dropped off at Covent Garden and were allowed the rest of the day free. a few of us grabbed a bite to eat at a pasty shop (meat and vegetable filled dough) and then headed over to Trafalgar Square. We looked around and stopped into the National museum, which had some cool stuff. We saw some impressionist work like Cezanne, Monet, and Van Gogh. While we were at Trafalgar Square, one of the girls got approach by a man I have dubbed "the Pigeon Whisperer" but also known as a bum who makes money off of getting the Pirgeons to sit on people. he didn't charge her, but it was a pretty funny site to see her squirm with all of the pigeons on her.

After that, we hopped on the Tube and went over to the Notting Hill area of town, which had a street market and was a really cool little area. We considered going to Abbey Road after that, but after asking some people where it was, decided that it was too far and not cool enough for the work to get there. So instead we went back to our area of town, South Kensington, and visited the Victoria and Albert Museum. There was a cool exhibit of clothing and fashion trends that was exciting. Also, there was a really impressive blown-glass chandelier in the main entrance that was way cool.

When we finished there, we accidently left the museum on the wrong side and ended up close to Harrods than the Natural History Mueseum, so we stopped into Harrods to look around. I bought a pastry that was delicious. After that, we went to H&M and then finally dragged ourselves back to the hotel. Suffice it to say, my feet are tired!

Cannes tomorrow. Good times.

I Made it!

Hi everyone! I am currently in an internet cafe in South Kensington! It's hard to believe that I'm still going at this point and that I'm finally here.

I feel like I have been going so long and so much stuff has happened that I can't fit it all here. But I guess I will try. So, my flight from Sac to Phoenix was delayed, which caused me to have to run from my terminal to catch my flight. I made it and ended up sitting between two guys who had been at a conference in Las Vegas and were heading home to NY. They were perfectly pleasant, but as you can imagine, it was still tight and uncomfortable. Oh well, I made it. So, I got to JFK and claimed my baggage, went to BA and got my tickets with American figure out. As I was doing this, I spotted a girl on my program (I saw her baggage tag) and met my first friend of the trip: Kelly. She is from Utah (not mormon) and is loud, but seems pretty cool. When we got to the terminal, we saw that there were several other people from the program waiting (a couple were from Chapman who I recognized) and we all decided to go have dinner in the airport. Everyone seems really laid back and cool and we enjoyed ourselves. Once we got on the plane, we got settled in for the long haul. My seat was better this time, but I never actually slept, which is kind of annoying, but pretty characteristic. Once we arrived, we were bused to the hotel, got settled (I'm rooming w a girl form Chapman who I know) and now are looking around/having lunch. The lunch portions are much smaller--like food for normal people! Anyway, must go. My time is running low and people are waiting for me. <3

All Packed Up

I have spent all day trying to fit everything into one bag and I have finally succeeded--or close enough. This whole baggage thing has been a pain in the arse, but I guess there isn't much I can do ab0ut it. I have checked into my flight to New York, so at 6am tomorrow, you can all set your alarms and imagine that you are with me on my flight. Even better, set your alarms for 4am when I will be getting up and you can feel as though you, too are having the full travel experience. Trust me, it will be exciting.

I really want to thank everyone who has helped me out, supported me, or just been really excited with me about this trip. No one can do a big thing alone and I certainly haven't either (No man is an island!! haha). So thank you. I'll be sure to take pictures and let everyone know how everything is going as soon as I can. It may be a couple of days, so let the anticipation build as you wait with baited breath to hear about my travels. ;)

Oh yeah, and a big shout-out to Uncle Dick for the comment. Uncle Dick: While the invitation is always open for the Oregon Schrupps, I think I am still trying to get over my jealous feelings that you are going to be lounging in the Caribbean while I'm freezing in France. Although if I had known you were willing to ride down on a motorcycle, I might have been willing to get over it, just to see you on the bike.

Bon Voyage/Happy 21st, Katie

"Boy in Bag"

Last night we had a 'Bon Voyage' party for me. It was really fun: we had French food, drinks and dessert and everyone was in a good mood. I forgot to take pictures until half way through, so there aren't as many as I would like. I will, however, show some of the highlights of the ones I do have:
Here is a photo of Sarah and I. I didn't resize this one, so it took about 10 minutes to upload. I think maybe I'll resize the next one...I'm kind of new at this.

Here are Karla and Katy! (left)

Mikey, Sarah and Brandon (below)

Ok, so this is the first time I have tried to post pictures with captions and such and in total it has taken me about a half an hour to put up the pictures that you see. Because of this I will conclude this post and, in the future, try to make it look better. These really are the best pictures though, so you're not really misssing out on anything :)

Annoyances

Hola, or should I say, Bonjour...
The one thing I really don't like about having this trip done by AIFS is that it is out of my hands and out of my control. Quite frankly, I feel like I could do a lot of this stuff better than these people, and I might just be right. I had some issues with getting my tickets from AIFS which really stressed me out. Essentially, they didn't send me my tickets because they said I didn't pay in full. The only problem is that they never told me I owed money and I never received an invoice from them. On top of that, no one ever contacted me and told me about this problem. So basically, they were just going to not send me my tickets. WHAT? I personally feel like that is ridiculous. And incredibly irritating. Fortunately, everything got figured out and I should be getting my tickets shortly. I'm trying to get all my stuff together and I'm kind of ready to just be there and not so worried about all this prep stuff...I think I just need to get some sleep and get myself all prepped tomorrow and this weekend...I need to have some positive affirmations.

Kara is in Cannes-Now I'm really nervous!

So I just heard back in detail from Kara about how Cannes is. She is actually doing the Paris program, but there is a two week language orientation at the College that I am staying at before they head over to Paris. It looks like she is having a really good time, but what with seeing the pictures of where I will be living, I am feeling a little nervous about it all! I think that it will be quite a transition, especially since I have such a strong network of people at Chapman that I am accustomed to relying on. I hope that it goes well--deep down I know that it will--but one can't help feeling nerves about such big changes.

I am starting to push it into high gear with getting all the stuff that I need. We just found out that, due to British Airway policy, our maximum luggage capacity will be 1 50lb (32kg) checked bag and one carry-on. Needless to say, it is going to be hard to pack for a six month stay with only 50lbs, so I guess I have my work cut out for me!

Only 10 days before the BIG TRIP begins and the really exciting stuff starts to happen! Let the countdown begin!

Cold

Before it's even time to start packing for a trip, I often find myself making a list in my mind about what I want to bring with me, what the weather will be like, how I will be able to wash clothes. This trip hasn't been much different in that I've tried to put myself in the mindset that it will be COLD. The average temp in Cannes is about 47*F in February and living in Southern California for the last three years, doesn't exactly prepare you for temperatures below 65*F. That being said, Mother Nature and Lady Luck have teamed up together to help me actlimate to colder weather. We have a cold front hitting us and the temperatures are FREEZING-- literally. The high was 50*, but the low is 20*, and I think it's closer to the low out there. This has all been compounded by the fact that our heater just broke last night. Yes folks, it's been a little chilly in the Rose residence today and it doesn't seem to be getting fixed quite soon enough (although, really, when it's this cold, you wanted the heater to be fixed yesterday). So now I'm getting a good sense of how it's going to be for at least the next month...

Les Quotes...

...that I aime:

"The World is a book and those who do not travel read only a page." St. Augustine

"Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own" Goethe

"Remember what Bilbo used to say: It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”--JRR Tolkein

"Experience, travel--These are as education in themselves" Euripides

“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” --Maya Angelou

“You lose sight of things... and when you travel, everything balances out.” --Daranna Gidel

“Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.”--Miriam Beard

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”--Mark Twain

"The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land."--G.K. Chesterton

A picture of me near the Statue of Liberty. I'm just testing out the picturing posting feature.

My First Post

Hello. I have decided to set up this blog for my travels abroad this semester. I will be living in Cannes, France for four months and then extending my stay and traveling around Europe with my fantastic friend, Kara. In all, I will be there for six months. That's a pretty long time. Hopefully by writing down my thoughts as I go, I will come out with not only a record of my experiences, but also perhaps a few insights that come with seeing new places.