Su-Pau-stitious

Soooo I had 13 posts and well I want there to be 14 for obvious reasons. SO here's a picture of Trixie.. It's via skype so the quality isn't great, but hey you get the idea that she's the cutest thing in the world.

More to come

Bisou 

Mari

The Time Has Come to Pau-rt

My french class!! 

So sorry for the long pause, things have just flown by, believe me it was not anticipated. I'm currently sitting here as all my USAC friends have already left for Paris, needless to say there isn't much to do around Pau. In the last weeks alot has happened, french classes ended, trips to Spain ensued, and friendships grew stronger. We've become a family here. I have made friends here that i know i'll keep in touch with forever. Sadly no one lives in the Chicagoland area, but I guess it means i'll have to start earning points on the airlines, and taking roadtrips. So where to begin...

Our last days of french classes ended with a huge lunch that everyone participated in. We were all told to bring food that represented our country. I made pigs in a blanket, it was either that or just bringing in a bucket of lard. It was a great time, we all became really close in our class and I even managed to get a good "worm" dance in.  It's not a party unless I have the opportunity to worm. So I had to bid adieu to my favorite teacher Madame Gely, and hopefully find her on facebook and poke her every once in awhile.  When one door closes another one ouverts...at 8:30am. Once my french classes ended my Themes of Francophone literature took off and changed to take place Monday thru Thursday at 8:30. Anyone who knows me knows that mornings are not my favorite thing. I managed to get my cul out of bed and get to class and successfully pass. Classes actually just ended for me on Tuesday the 19th, so I am officially on summer vacation. It definitely doesn't feel as good as it did when I had to study for finals until 5am for a week straight, but hey i'll take it. Plus i'm super hung up on the fact that i'm not going to see my friends. GAHHH!!! I'm the worlds worst person with change. Anyways, Wednesday we had our final lunch with are USAC group and our directors Ryan and Robina. It was beyond lovely. We had a wonderful meal, and it was beyond gorgeous outside. The weather has been great, i've been wearing capris, and shorts and even threw on a dress the other day.

My USAC family

Christine and Victor went to Paris this week so I was left alone for a couple days. I'm not a huge fan of being alone, some might say I like having people to talk to. Due to this fact I made Julie stay over one night and then Shay and Maddie another night. Basically my bodyguards incase any crazed blog reading fans decide to break into the apartment. What I can remember from Wednesday night is that I had an AMAZING last night with my USAC family, and i'm going to be the annoying one that coordinates a reunion in a couple years. Ok so on to my latest expeditions.



TOULOUSE & CARCASSONNE 

The weekend of April 4th our program went on a little trip. We started off in Toulouse on the warmest day of the year thusfar. We had an amazing lunch and then took a tour of the city. We visited Cathedrals, and monuments, and other structures of which the significance is not known by me because I tend to wander, and daze. All I know is that I love this city. It is populated with an insane amount of students, there are people our age walking around all the time. As much as I love seeing the adorable old couples in Pau, it's nice to see people my age. The city really is beautiful. After the tour me and my friends went to a park right on the canal and just sat, played frisbee, enjoyed legal alcohol and just took in the beautiful day. It was Dahna and Renee's 21st birthday so we swiftly returned to our hotel, yes a real hotel, not a hostel, and changed and got ready to explore the nightlife of Toulouse!

We went out to dinner at a nice Italian restaurant and toasted to my friends' 21 years. Chin, Chin. We then got coupons to go to a bar and get free sangria, which is never passed up, and we found the worlds coolest bar top ever. To all of you readers this may not seem very interesting, but to those who have experienced it, it's mind blowing. It changes colors when you touch it, there are bubbles that follow your hand movements... It is the perfect thing for an ADD kid. It will be missed. After that bar we wandered back to the canal and just talked with everyone for awhile. On the way back to the hotel the 12 or so of us came across a rotating wheel in the center of town. The only rational idea was to mount it and spin. So there it was, 8 American's spinning on a wheel while the rest of the group watched and laughed...in France. I mean, we had nothing Toulouse. This lasted for well over an hour, and really never got old.  Here are some pictures just to give you an idea.

Spectators!!

The next day we had lottts to talk about thats for sure. When we woke up we immediately hopped on the bus and went to Carcassonne. It's a beautiful town built in and around a castle. The weather changed and it was actually pretty cold and rainy. We got a long tour of the castle and grounds and had a delicious meal at one of the restaurants. We had some time to kill in Carcassonne so we went into the stores, I got in trouble for playing with wooden swords that I hadn't paid for, you know just the usual day in french magasins. We then got back on the bus after just 5 hours in Carcassonne and returned to Pau. We lost about 15 people on the way home because the lucky kids in the other  elective class had a whole week off and nearly all of them went on trips somewhere. Which brings me to my next essay

What do you do when nearly all your friends are off traveling but you still have class. 


Activities of course. Me, Julie and Fabrizio had a wonderful week of exploring Pau and the surrounding areas. It was well in the 70's and perfect for what we had planned. The first day we decided to go mini golfing. French minigolfing is a little different. The first thing is that an 80 year old mini golf pro man follows you around telling you how you are putting all wrong. And the second thing is that the course is made of cement. Thirdly, none of that mattered because I still won.
Then we went and got ice cream at the best glacier in Pau. The next day we went FISHING!! It was pretty difficult because we had to buy lots of things like hooks, worms, weights, string and other fishing things. I knew I shouldn't have left my tackle box back in Chicago. It was even hotter that day and we were out there waiting to feel a bite for over 3 hours. I caught nothing, Fabs caught nothing, but Julie caught something. It's ok we threw him back, he had the hook stuck in his mouth and we had to ribbit out of him. The day ended fish-less, and sunburned, so we decided to go back to Pau and eat hamburgers, because nothing cures the heartache of spending money and not catching anything like a good ole french hamburger with weird ketchup sauce.

I applied lots of aloe lotion and stayed indoors until the weekend, which once again brings me to my next dissertation paper.

Sangria, Surfing & San Sebastian, Espagne


Well that basically sums up my time in Spain. Myself, Andrea, and Molly met up with Maddie and Shay in San Sebastian for the weekend. Mad and Shay had been in Barcelona for the week due to their bodybuilding teacher who takes a week off of classes to cover himself in oil and fake tan and compete. We arrived in beautiful San Sebastian and found our adorable hostel located right in the heart of Old Town. We quickly put on our swim suits and hit the beach. We laid out for quite some time, chatted, quickly felt the water, and then returned to shower and get ready to explore. We went out and of course had tapas and sangria. The barcelona girls were a little burnt out from their "rough night" in the party capital of Spain, so we took it easy Friday night. I want to live in San Sebastian. It is beyond gorgeous, it may even beat Biarritz in my book. The next day we woke up, had to check to make sure a spring wasn't still stuck in my back seeing as the bed was so comfortable, and then headed back to the beach. I got surfing gear on the way there and suited up! So turns out surfing is not like riding a bike, and that waves are just as soft as my hostel bed. I had a bitttt of trouble getting up on the board between getting pummeled by HUGE waves, and managed to nail myself in the eye with my board and slice my hand open with the fins on the bottom of it. I kept on trucking for over 2 hours, but then I realized I was bleeding and didn't feel like becoming intimate with Jaws so I made my way back onto shore. Then I slept for the next few hours or so and got a nice tan. Andrea and Molly had to go back to Pau so the rest of the day and night was just me and my two besties. The wind on Saturday was worse than the city. At one point I thought we were all going to be blown all the way back to France. The three of us took a nice long walk around the city and enjoyed the scenery.

The girls in Spain!!

Maddie, Me, and Shay

Side note-- The ice cream in Spain was the most amazing thing i've ever had in my life. If you ever get a chance, make sure you hit up that venue. So after we walked around, we went out to this adorable restaurant right on the port and paid too much but had great Paella and great wine. Then we moved on to a bar recommended to us by our hostel girl and had great mojitos. The night life in SS is so much fun. The night continued on well into the morning, and we ended up sleeping pretty late Sunday and getting back to Pau in the late afternoon. This weekend was by far my favorite out of all my travels. I need to have a house here. Imperative.

Well that about covers everything up to now. I have lots of packing to do, possibly another suitcase to buy, and lots of tissues to hold on to. I get into Paris on Tuesday the 26th, so I have one more night with my friends which i'll make the best of. Hopefully I can store my luggage at CDG and the next day I can easily get my things and hop on the 8-9 hr flight back home. But lets be serious, nothing is ever cookie cutter when it comes to airports. I'll update on what happened once i'm back in the windy city. I'm excited to see my new puppy. The parents got a new little Golden Retreiver puppy named Trixie which is definitely going to make my transition back to real life a little easier. Thanks for following me these last 4 months. I hope i'll be able to keep up and remember my french! I've decided that once I graduate from Loyola i'm going to move back to France for at least a year and teach English like what my brother did. Having something to look forward to is making this a little less hard. but still #idontwanttosaygoodbye

Tout a l'heure

Mariel

Top Pau the mornin' to ya

Well it's official, I only have 1 month left, and I couldn't be more sad about it. To my loyal Chicago readers, I love you and miss you, but I just don't want to leave. I am predicting horrible reverse culture shock. I simply want to rester ici toujours. (Stay here forever). I will be making the most out of these last 4 weeks, and I am going to try and not think about leaving... It's going to be tough. But anyways, time to rewind. Ireland :

So we flew from Pau to London on Thursday and had to go through customs, then through security again and had to literally run as fast as we could through the airport to catch our plane. I need to get in shape. The troop consisted of myself, Maddie, and Dahna, and we met my friend Eric who decided to take his spring break in Europe. I met eric with a huge hug and non stop conversation to catch up on not seeing one another for over 2 months. So the journey started. We took off from London and arrived in Dublin about an hour and half later and managed to get on the right bus that took us within feet of our hostel. Once we arrived and put our stuff down we went out to look for a place to eat. We found a bar and asked if they had food, the bouncer said no then we asked him where to go and he told us a better bar to go to.. I think he wants a new job. The pub we went to was called O'Neils, naturally, and we all sat down to eat nearly 10 lbs each. The first thing we ordered-- Guinness. It was perfect. Cold and beautiful, just how i like my men. I had my guinness with a phenomenal plate of fish and chips and great company. We didn't want to stay out too long because we had to catch a bus at 8 in the morning so we went home and slept comfortably in our great hostel.

Day 2: After a lovely 4 and a half hour drive through the countryside of Ireland, we arrived in Cork. We once again dropped our things off at our hostel which was conveniently located on the biggest hill in town. This required us to walk nearly 90 degrees straight up with all of our junk, but it was worth it. Seriously if you need a workout regime just move to Ireland, it's hilly and you walk everywhere. After our stuff was put away we went to Blarney. Side note-- the most frequently used item on this trip, next to my credit card, was definitely my umbrella. It rained everyday, it would stop for a little bit and give you hope and then crush all that hope with giant drops of rain filled tears. Anyways, we get to Blarney and head to the castle!! It was just beautiful. The entire grounds was breathtakingly gorgeous, with the greenest grass i've ever seen. It looked like they were preparing for the PGA it was that green. We saw a random opening in the side of the castle that turned out to be a cave. Not my cup of whiskey filled tea, thats for sure. I do not like small crevices, and if i find myself inside a cave i tend to wake up. Nonetheless, i ventured into the claustrophobic cave just so I could write about it and say I did it. Well world, I did it...very quickly then I ran out. How anyone can be excited when hearing "oh hey guys I found an even smaller hole we can climb through and possibly be attacked by swarms of Irish bats.." I dont know. I just kept praying that I wasn't going to become the next chilean miner. Once we emerged from hates, we entered the castle and took the long winding journey up to the top to kiss the blarney stone! It was similar to a neverending stairwell. The trek to the top was filled with stops along the way. We saw where the 17th century kitchen was, the living room, the movie theater, and everything else that castle's have. We even saw a pigeon in a little nook who looked not so pleased to see us. We made it to the top and had a gorgeous view of the entire city. We were then dangled over the edge of the castle, only being held by the 70 year old Irish man who could have dropped us at any time. I kissed the stone and immediately became a leprechaun. The end. No no, i just immediately felt that I acquired herpes, tuberculosis, and the common cold all at once. I proceeded to purell myself.

In case you forgot where you were

After we all had our 7 minutes in heaven with the stone that no one even knows why it's good luck to kiss, we ventured toward to poison garden. Naturally. We saw lots of scary signs warning us not to eat the plants, which was obviously very hard to refrain from. We then walked through the grounds, had a photo shoot in a miniature castle, and trespassed on the Blarney house property. It was a great day. We returned to Cork and went to the English Market to get food to cook for dinner that night! We were all great chefs and even managed to have Eric iced which was the perfect infusion of America into Ireland. Being "Iced" for those of you who don't know, is when you purchase a Smirnoff Ice and hide it for someone to find, it has to be creative, and once they inadvertently come across the bottle they must kneel on the ground and drink it. It's all in good fun. After we finished dinner and met some interesting characters we hit the town and met up with my friend Julia Martens from high school. A fellow Oak Park-er! It was great to see her, and hear about her stories of Cork. I love being able to get into bars and not be carded, yet another reason why I am not looking forward to going home. So the night ended and the next morning we had to once again catch the 8 oclock bus back to Dublin. It was raining. I was glued to the window because every 5 minutes I would see baby sheep and goats roaming. Once back in Dublin we went to the Guinness factory, and I have to say, that is the coolest museum i have ever been too. Sorry Art Institute of Chicago, you lose.

At the museum we learned all about how to make the beer and everything that has to do with Arthur Guinness.. They're a little obsessed. At the end we got to learn how to pour our very own pint's of Guinness. They are very particular on how to do it, and now I am picky about how I get my Guinness. It is a 2 step process. You pour the beer about 3/4th of the way, then let it sit for no less that 19.5 seconds, and then you push the spout thing the other way and fill the cup (that HAS to be glass, dried, and have the emblem of Guinness on it) to the top and make it look like a pillow. It was beautiful, I didn't want to even mess up my perfect creation. We then got to drink our free pints. After we went to the Gravity bar at the top level of the museum, and no there was still gravity, we got to see an awesome view of all of Dublin. We made our way back to our hostel and ate at the lovely irish fast food restaurant next door. Highlight of the trip is when Maddie accidentally asked the owner how old he was instead of asking what time the place closes. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt because we've been in France for so long and forgot how to speak english. It was a great end to our Irish adventure. Summary: Irish accents are so hot, AND there really are a whole lot of gingers indigenous to these parts of the world.

The next morning we had to wake up at 3:45am and catch the shuttle to the airport. We made sure to be early this time, and I said goodbye to Eric, got on the plane and then an hour and a half later landed in Paris. I had to change airports, and there was about 4 hours inbetween so we wandered Paris. No big deal right? We went to a little cafe, went to the Arc de Triumph and le Tour Eiffel. It was the perfect way to end our trip. I hopped on the airplane and was greeted in Pau by Christine. Sadly I left my camera at the hostel in Dublin, but they have sent it and i'll be getting it shortly.. Oops!

This week was the last week of french classes, so i'll talk about that in the next post. Last week was also St. Patty's day, I went to the Irish bar in Pau and ordered a Guinness. I kid you not, it didn't compare to the ones I had in Ireland. It was even served in a plastic cup with a Kronenbourg emblem on it! Quel domage. Who would have thought Ireland would have made me picky!

Tout a l'heure

Mariel

Meet The Pau-rents

Wow so much has happened in the last 2 weeks!! I went to Ireland, and my parents came, so i guess i'll just start from the beginning.


When a man loves a woman very very much they... Maybe not that far back.


So my parents arrived on March 2nd and I got out of class about an hour early and went with Christine to pick them up from the aeroport. Immediately jumped into the arms of my loving parents and continued to get an overload of hugs and kisses from my mom every 5 minutes. The first day my parents arrived the weather in Pau was definitely not appealing, it was raining and cold and not the ideal conditions for convincing someone to move there. As the week went on the weather went from drab to fab. It was sunny and warm and just perfect.

Me and Christine at Carnivale 

The first night mom and dad came over and ate dinner at chez moi. My mom could barely keep her eyes open, while my dad was wide awake because he is like a kid in a candy shop when he's in France. The night ended and more hugs ensued. Thursday my parents went on a long walk/tour around Pau with Christine and Kitty and they explored my new favorite place in the world. Needless to say, they fell in love just as quickly as I did.  Thursday night was Ladies Night for Carnivale. Everyone went to this huge tent in Place Verdun decked out in as much pink as possible. The night started out by me overdoing it with pink and looking like a pink jelly bean.


There was lots of live music, and random line dancing that, after a couple glasses of free white wine sangria, me and my friends decided to partake in. As the night went on, my parents realized they were not 20 anymore and decided to go home. I stayed with all my friends until the wee hours of the night. Turns out in France, just because a bottle of wine is plastic does not mean it is cheap and bad. On the contrary, it was great. Where else can you just walk up to a bar, not get carded, and buy a plastic bottle of Jurancon? I guess anywhere in France, but thats not the point. 


As the night went on me and my group of USAC friends became tight with random french boys who continually risked their lives dancing on tables that clearly couldn't support their weight. I joined. I got home, and the next day was not my best. Thank god I only have 1 class on fridays. Immediately when I returned home I went out to lunch with my parents to a very gourmet restaurant. At this point the only thing that I wanted to eat was a double quarter pounder from McDonalds, NOT calamari soaked in its own ink. That being said, I left lunch early to eat something that wouldn't make my stomach hate me. Not long after lunch my parents, Christine, Kitty, and myself hopped into the car for an hour drive to the Musee Du Beret. (This day was filled with activities that were ideal for hangovers.. clearly). 

The Musee was awesome. We sat down and watched a video about the origin of the beret with french guys ranging from 10 to 85 years old, talking about how their beret is better and that if you wear it a certain way you're poor and if you wear it another way it means you're a member of the Bloods street gang. After the video we wandered around the 2 story, 950 sq ft museum and saw how the beret's were made via animatronic dummy's stolen 50 years ago from disney world's Epcott. Regardless, the museum was actually really cool and me and the rents ended up getting beret's that were made right in the south of France. We look like we're about to go perform with Donny Osmond. This is my limit for matching with my family members. Anyways, that night we went out to dinner at a fabulous restaurant called Au Gascon with Christine and Victor and had a wonderful time. I even managed to eat confit de canard (duck). I cried a little inside praying that my ducks that I hatched 7 years ago didn't manage to somehow fly across the ocean and get killed by french hunters and put on my plate. I slept great that night for obvious reasons.



The next day was saturday and we all took a trip to the mountains! We went to the Pic du Midi, which is the highest point of the Pyrenees. Before we went up the mountain we had a lovely lunch at the Station du Ski. My parents got this thing called a Raclette that basically is a giant piece of cheese with a heater on top of it, that melts the cheese so you can "rake" it off and put it on your plate. Awesome invention, I want one. Afterwards we took a gondola up to 9,500 ft that rocked back and forth so much that I thought I was going to be coming back to Chicago in a body cast. We got to the top, and froze our butts off. It was so much colder on the top! Good thing I was decked out in mismatching winter attire that had been collected over the years by my host mom. But on a serious note, this was one of the most amazing scenes i've ever seen. It was breathtaking. You could see for miles. Once I got over the fact that one wrong step and I was falling thousands of feet down the mountain, I took in the magnificence. 

View from the top

No big deal right?

Mom and I freaking out

We were so high up that I actually got a headache, it was wild. We stayed up there for a little over an hour and then made the trek back down on the gondola thing. We got back on the ground and ended our day with some crepes. It was a wonderful Saturday. 

On Sunday we did a 180 and went to Biarritz to take in the beauty of the ocean. This is why I love Pau. It is equidistant from the sea and the mountains! We walked around Biarritz for awhile, and went to a great seafood restaurant that took nearly an hour and a half to get our food at, but thankfully it was phenomenal. I had FRIED calamari, not taking the chance with ink, this time I asked the waiter to be sure. I followed it up with a plate of Ste Jacques (scallops) with spinach and the most amazing sauce i've ever had! After lunch I walked around my paradise in the beautiful sunshine and 60+ degree weather. Miraculously this time in Biarritz my favorite crepe place was open. Mari finally got her crepe. I can go home satisfied now. I waited 5 years to get my favorite crepe and it was just as I remembered. Perfection.

 

We ended the day with some macarons and sorbet and then returned to Pau. The next two days my parents looked at houses in Pau to buy. They found one that we all fell in love with, it's pretty expensive, so if you are reading this i'll be taking applications if you'd like to go in on this beautiful french farm with us. Credit scores will be reviewed. We went out to dinner for my parents last night in Pau. It was by far the best restaurant i've been to thus far. There were only 3 options on the menu, and we all got a different one, and they were all amazing. It was a great end to a great visit. Although I will see them in a month and a half, I am torn. Actually not really torn at all. All my homesickness is gone and I don't ever want to leave Pau/Europe. After my most recent trip to Ireland which i'll write about tomorrow, I have really come to realize how much i'm going to miss this place. I DON'T WANT TO LEAVE!! I'm going to have to be forced onto that plane. For now i'm not going to think about it, I have 40 days and i'm going to live them up. Thanks for reading this insanely long blog, I put lots of pictures in it incase you're like me and lose interest within 5 minutes and need a little pick me up with photos. 

A demain,

Mariel 

The Oscars

I'm taking a break from France talk and am just rambling about the Oscars and things that i care about. My apologies for the digression.

I'm just pointing out to the world just how much of a cinema fan I am. I will be staying up to watch the Oscar's live tonight. Oh yes, the red carpet and all. I will be gawking at Joan River's interviews while simultaneously making a weight loss regimen as I see Sandra Bullock, Scarlett Johansson and every other woman in entertainment enter the event. I plan on judging these women strictly on how they look tonight, and I will not feel bad about it. I don't have class until 3pm tomorrow so I am in luck. My predictions are as follows
Best Actor
Colin Firth

Best Actress
Natalie Portman (although I personally believe that Jennifer Lawrence should win, i doubt the hollywood foreign press will agree with me)

Best Film
Inception

My Philosophy:
I love the Oscars. BUT. I believe that actors make far too much money for merely entertaining others. There are people who work in hospitals in Africa fixing children's cleft pallets pro bono. Teachers barely make enough money to live on, and they are nearly 50% responsible for how a child will grow up and their chances at a future. Cameron Diaz makes on average 10 million dollars a movie. That is insane. My thoughts are relatively similar when it comes to professional athletes, but i will not get into the gender discrimination in athletics. Therefore I promise that if i ever become a famous actress, I will donate an enormous portion of my income to those who need it more than I do.  Thank you for listening to my rant, and I look forward to how many people get serenaded off stage by the pit band because they thanked God, Jesus, the disciples, and their publicists wife's cousin's sister for too long.

Goodnight and Goodluck

-Mari

Pau-rty Time

IT IS CARNIVALE TIME!!!! So today marked the first day of Carnivale, which is Pau's version of Mardi Gras.. Or maybe Mardi Gras is New Orleans' version of Carnivale.. I'm gonna go with that one. Well today I ventured out with my host mom as soon as I awoke and we bought "deguises" which are in fact disguises. The colors are red and yellow so I bought things accordingly. Everyone wears masks and dresses up for Carnivale, it's incredible. There is a guy who is the "king" and he heads the entire parade and also randomly grabs American girls and puts them on his chariot... After the initial thought of "i must be getting taken right now" wore off, it became quite fun. We chilled in the chariot and became part of the parade for a good 5 minutes which felt like an hour. These people are dressed up as the most random things. They also have some great stereotypes. There are french women dressed up as old fashioned amish-style women who are cleaning. I kid you not. There was a wash board, mops, brooms, and other cleaning utensils. I did not see how this had anything to do with Carnivale, but maybe they just hired maids to follow along in the parade to quicken the cleanup process. It looked as though people just threw on the first thing they found in a box in the attic from their grandma's closet. I hope that is specific enough. These people had the most ridiculous things attached to them. There was the infamous monsieur et madame bread-head who had wine, the chimney sweepers with wine, the amish women with, yep you guessed it, wine. Now you see why these people were acting so crazy. It was all in good fun, and the whole town came out to watch this parade that would have put Macy's to shame. Kidding. Everything in the parade would have been illegal in the United States, definitely lawsuits at hand. The biggest being that of the man accosting people with a fish. I guess its a tradition in Pau culture to throw fish, and to dangle fish on poles. REAL FISH. My friend got slapped with a fish, it was hilarious. Who came up with these traditions. How did someone possibly think "Wow this parade sucks, you know what it could use, some raw fish." Or maybe there was a paper epedemic and they ran out of confetti to throw so they had to resort to using fish guts. I think i just solved the mystery of the 10,000 fish that randomly died in Arkansas this past January....blame the french.

There are going to be Carnivale events all week, so i'm pretty excited. On Thursday there's going to be an event where everyone dresses in all pink and you basically just dance around and watch others do the same. I've bought a great get-up so i'll keep you pau-sted. Mom and Dad will be arriving here on Wednesday the 2nd, and will immediately be thrusted into the action of Carnivale, which will be great for their jetlag. I plan to take them to our local hangout and have a drink with my parents. That is so weird to say. Maybe i'll even make my mom bring it to me. I'll pretend to be the perfect student and the perfect host daughter and it'll be a fairy tale perfect visit. Who am I kidding, I am the perfect host daughter. I manage to keep things clean and tidy and I help out all the time. I love Christine so much that I had my parents order her the world's best gift. She's been collecting Swatch watches for years and has over 30 montres on her wall. As a result the Taren's have gotten her a Chicago themed Swatch. Best. Gift. Ever. She really deserves it, she's been an angel. Lets hope she doesn't take it as a sign that I think she's always late for things.

Welp classes started back up this week and that was fun. In between signing up for summer classes, looking for a job, and an internship, i had to go to real class. But don't be silly, that didn't stop me from staking out cubs.com for tickets to some games. That was the upside to the time difference, tickets went on sale at 5pm my time. Score.

Wow. I live in France. It's fun to be able to say that! I've been here for 2 months, and I only have 2 months left. It's bittersweet, because I love it here, but I do miss Chicago. The problem is that I don't know the next time i'll be able to go to Pau once i'm back in the US of A. I will definitely need to make it a habit to come back here, I have truly fallen in love. People actually stop here and let you cross the street, it is wild! Speaking of driving, Christine is teaching me and my 14 year old host brother how to drive stick shift within the next 2 weeks. We'll be going to a deserted parking lot.  Je suis tres content!!

I bought a little notebook and alphabetized the pages so that every time I learn a new word, no matter where I am, I can write it down and remember it. French is all about memorization, because half of the rules only work half of the time. I finally feel like my french is improving and i'm excited to see where i'll be in the next 2 months.

I have to go to bed, but i'll update the blog tres souvent because of the exciting events in the upcoming days!

Tchao (french version of Ciao)

Mars Bars

aPAUcalypse 2011

So sorry for the delay, i've been super busy lately, but alas i have returned to enlighten the minds of my fans. I mean readers. So last week nothing super exciting happened, I've been going to class intensely and planning my Italy trip with my friends. So far we're starting in Milan, taking a train straight to Venice, staying in Venice for a day or 2, then training it to Florence, staying there for a couple days and then going to a town about an hour from Milan and finishing up our trip there. The exact plans will be solidified this weekend. All i'm concerned about is finding the best gelato places in town. This planning is stressing me out a little bit. My mom and dad are arriving in Pau on March 2nd so me and Christine are brainstorming things to do to keep them occupied while i'm in class and she's at work. I'll strategically plan to be "in class" on the exact day and times that every cathedrale in the surrounding area is open for tours, but miraculously i'll be wide open during every wine tasting event.

So last week I got to have lunch with Christine and her mother and brother, we had a huge spread of food it was great. Roast chicken, these things called dauphins, they're not actual dolphin, they're similar to hush puppies. Regardless, THEY ARE AMAZING. We had wine and desserts and it was just perfect. The day before I went skiing so my whole body hurt. Muscles that I didn't even know I had hurt. Ok time to talk about the skiing. Pardon my french, but it scared la merde out of me. To put this to scale for you Wilmot Mountain would be like a baby jump on this mountain. We arrived at about 11, after having to wake up at 6 in the morning to get to the bus by 7:15. I was a little tired to say the least. We get off the bus, get our gear on and just went. I was with a couple of my british friends and some USAC people, and me being me, I decided to go down the bunny hill one time and then immediately move to the intermediate. Did I mention it had been about 3-4 years since I skied last. Needless to say I fell alot, but in my defense, if I didn't make myself crash I would have fallen about 8,000 ft off the mountain, so it was merely a strategic method. Weather conditions were very interesting. At least i think they were, I couldn't see anything. Visibility was about 5 inches, i'm suprised I could see my hand infront of my face. This had its upsides and downhills. Upside: I didn't know what was in front of me so I was less nervous because a bump could be right ahead of me and I wouldn't know until it was too late. Downside: I didn't know what was in front of me so a bump could be right ahead of me and I wouldn't know until it was too late. Thankfully I managed to stay on the mountain for the most part, and my previous skiing ability came back to me.  By the end of the day I successfully went down red "pistes" which are the hard ones, right before black diamonds, and I went all the way to the top of the mountain. 9,000ft up! The trek required 2 separate ski lifts, I got off one, then skied for about 3 minutes to another lift that took you higher. All the while not being able to see. Claustraphobia most certainly set in, especially because it takes longer than 4 minutes to get down a real mountain. This I was not aware about, due to my past experiences with skiing. These trails took anywhere from 15-30 minutes to get down. I did where a helmet which is good because I slammed my head on the ground while attempting to stop. Once the day was over, we piled back into the bus soaking wet and cold and journeyed for 2 hours back to Pau-land. I was exhausted, but I didn't sleep because being the hypocondriac that I am, and having friends who are instigators, i prefered not to slip into a coma due to a possible concussion. I'm writing this so good news, I did not have a concussion. I came home, Christine made me hot soup and I took a hot shower and woke up the next day nearly unable to walk. En lieu of my sore muscle situation Christine decided we should go to the spa!! I of course did not hesitate to jump into my suit and head over to Caliceo, the local watering hole. Literally, it has over 3 different pools all equipt with jets and 75 degree water. After swimming and being massaged by the jets, we went into the sauna and the hammam and ended our morning. We actually went back to the spa this past weekend as well, it's a new addiction. It was nearly 70 degrees this weekend and so I took advantage of it and even wore shorts! It might have been out of spite just because I was quite jealous of the Chicago blizzard of 2011 and the 20+ inches of snow that they recieved. OPRF closed. It never closed. In over 35 years the damn school never closed, and less than 4 years after I graduate the impossible happens. Oh well, Loyola ended up closing too, so I got to see everyones facebook status' about the snowpocalypse. But hey, I'm in France, so nothing can get me down!

I'm very excited because I get to see my friend Eric in exactly 1 month! He's coming to Europe for Spring break and it'll be nice to have a bit of my old home here in my new home. Lots of good things to look forwards to. Planning a trip to Ireland, hopefully going to Berlin at some point, definitely going to london for a weekend, and just taking in this wonderful opportunity. Speaking of home, i've hit a bit of a plateau. I'm a little homesick. Its more that I miss the people, but also a little bit of the Chicago atmosphere as well. Don't get me wrong, I love it here, and given the chance I would stay here for 6 more months, but theres a little part of me that's still stuck in Chicago. I'll get over it. Tomorrow is friday and all the french kids go on vacation so this weekend the bars will be jam packed with college aged frenchies, which is perfect because I have a goal of making as many french friends as I can so i'll always have a place to stay for free when I come visit in the future.

The other night I had this stuff called "Gü" pronounced "goo." It's hard to explain but it's basically ganosch(sp?) in a little pudding cup, pure chocolate that you eat a spoonful of then drink english cream. Definitely gained about 5 pounds in one sitting but boy was it worth it. I highly suggest gügleing it.

Well i've just been informed that it's time for an apparatif so I must go, but more blogs to come, and plus souvent je promise!

love love love
Mariel