Sorry in advanced for what I’m envisioning to be a less than stellar blog post as I am frantically trying to keep up to date!
Last week was my last week of what I’m calling my “jump start” with French classes (can I get a hallelujah?!)... While they weren’t terrrriiibbbllleeeee, why didn’t anyone fill me in on what a friggen hard language French is?! All the talk of moving here and submerging myself in the culture, you’ll be sure to pick it up quickly or my favorite laugh, someone guaranteeing me to be fluent in 3 months. Not the case people! While I have to give myself some credit to knowing a heck of a lot more than when I first got here, I feel like becoming “fluent” would take years! In any case, once I get back from vacationing in Rome, I’m going to have a private tutor twice a week to keep the ball rolling and similar to how I tell myself to go run everyday, I need to practice my french every day as well...we’ll see how that one goes :)
On Thursday, Leslie’s mom, dad, aunt, and uncle flew in to town so I met up with them after class and walked all around Paris, hitting up Notre Dame and the Latin Quarter. That night we went out around a street/area called Grand Ave. Since Leslie’s family rented a flat close the Eiffel Tower, I can’t tell you how nice it was to just cab back there for the night instead of having to figure out the night bus since we live right on the outskirts of Paris and the Metro stops running at 12:30 and doesn’t reopen until 5am. Once her family heads back to states we decided we’re just going to take over the flat and live there ;)
Friday morning we walked down the street to pick up some pastries and groceries then got ourselves ready to do some more cite seeing for the day. Leslie mentioned how funny it is that the only time we ourselves do most cite seeing is when we have someone else to show it to... I guess I am becoming sort of a local! Going through Notre Dame on Thursday was still great, but that shock factor and camera-happy feeling were definitely absent. But that was all short lived because on that Friday, we were going to Versailles which I had not been to yet (even though I live 10 minutes away). Versailles was a true treat and so amazing to see. I have this odd fascination with Marie Antoinette and seeing her old “stomping grounds” was nothing short of a shock factor and camera-happy feeling. Unfortunately, I had a train to catch at 7pm for Brittney to meet up with my host family so I was only able to walk around Versailles for a little bit. On the bright side, thanks to my Visa I get in for free so can go back any time I’d like :) So before heading off, I said goodbye to Leslie’s family who were so great and a true joy to be around and gave me a taste of home... It made me miss my family that much more though.
I made it to the train station right on time and took the 4 and half hour train ride with Sadia to Bretagne (“Brittney”), on the west coast of France, where my host family has a second home (soon to be 3rd as their in escrow with a flat in the Alps). Since we didn’t get in until almost midnight, there wasn’t much to do or see and once again, was exhausted from the night before.
Once I woke up on Saturday and was actually able to see in daylight where we were, I was blown away. Bretagne is like a town out of a movie... an old, quaint, country style town, right on the Atlantic Ocean. With miles of windy open roads, their house is an old farm house that they’ve completely redone on the inside (and are still working on with their few side “cottages”)... the place could be a bed and breakfast. That day was spent going out to lunch to a really cute creperie, hanging around the house, trampolining (the boys favorite), cooking dinner at home, then going out bowling where I kicked everyone’s butt :) The most interesting thing about the French coast is their high and low tides. Thom mentioned to me that morning that day’s high and low tide and I didn’t think much of it except him wanting to try to relate to me since I’m from California and that’s all we Californian’s do (you wouldn’t believe some of the stereotypes people here assume me for or ask about, but that’s another story). Little did I know the importance of these high and low tides. You’ll see in pictures below but when we went to lunch which was on the water, I noticed boats just sitting with the anchor in the sand. I thought to myself that’s not normal and then Thom explained to me “yes, this is low tide.” We came back to the same spot around 6pm to walk around the beach a bit and there were the same boats, anchored down, floating in the ocean. Apparently along this coast the low and high tides are so dramatic, you sometimes have to walk out almost a mile to touch water during low tide. And knowing the timing of these tides is imperative. Sadia told me a story of these old ladies a year ago strolling along the sand in rain boots that didn’t know high tide was about to hit and their boots got stuck and sucked to the bottom. You can imagine how that story ended. But getting back on track, this place was absolutely beautiful and I can see why so many people vacation there. I can’t wait to go back this summer when the weather is better!
As for now, we woke up at 4am this morning to head to Rome. Me and Josh (their 2 year old) are the only ones that haven’t been here before. We spent all day walking around and are now relaxing back at their HUGE rented apartment. I mean, isn’t it normal for me to have a bidet in my own personal bathroom? We’re here until Sunday and I can’t wait for everything we have planned to do this week! ... but I’ll save all those stories for the next one... but I will give you a teaser or two for now :)
Ciao!
VERSAILLES:
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| Entering into Palace of Versailles |
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| My woman |
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The Cathedral... cool fact: no room in the palace hasn't been redone at least 10 times.
Talk about some royal money |
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