Yesterday and Today

I don’t even know where to begin… I had tea at Deanna’s tonight so I’m not tired and my ears are ringing from this nasty head cold I’m suffering through, and it’s after 1:30am so I guess technically it’s already tomorrow.

Tomorrow (today) is Thursday, which means that it’s officially the weekend for me! I have been productive, in my caffeinated state, perfecting my class schedule so that I don’t have to take any cours fondamentaux and so that I only have class Monday through Wednesday. I attended two CF’s this week and it was the most frightening thing I’ve ever done! I thought my French was pretty good, and that after having aced upper division French classes at UCSB maybe classes here wouldn’t be so bad. But it is. Introduction à la Sociologie should be cake but since I can’t understand the professor it was the hardest class I’ve ever attended. That is, until I went to check out Droit Constitutionnel et Institutions Politiques (Constitutional Rights and Political Institutions) where the professor talked twice as fast as the Sociology professor! Both are subjects I would love to master but honestly don’t know if I have what it takes. I did, however, make a friend today who happens to be in both of those classes, and he was kind enough to let me take pictures of his notes with my digital camera after class. But the nice thing about being a UC senior, being done with all major requirements as well as general ed. requirements, and only truly needing 3 more classes to fulfill my French minor requirements (any class I take here will take care of that) is that I have the luxury of being able to construct my class schedule to my liking, and can take whatever I want so long as I have the equivalent of 20 UC units per semester, which is about 14 units per quarter (easy as pie). So instead of stressing myself out with those huge lectures with speed-talking professors, I am taking an easier route which will still be a challenge, but much less of one than if I was to stick with the CF’s. Anyways enough school stuff.

My friend’s name is Baptiste, “like John the Baptist,” he told me. He also told me that I “parle bien le français,” and asked me if it was my first language! I laughed at him and told him I don’t know what he’s talking about because my French is horrible. But he wasn’t convinced. So now even though we probably won’t have class together, I hope we see each other again so he can make me feel better about my horrible French speaking skills. He’s incredibly French… Short-ish with dirty blond hair in dreadlocks (all the guys here have dreads for some reason), wore a baggy black t-shirt, and asked me if I like having Arnold as our governor when he found out I came from California. A funny kid. Not my type though, so for all of you who are just waiting to hear about me falling head over heels for an adorable Frenchman, sorry to break it to you but I’m still looking. I live right next to a soccer field though and walking by there today I saw plenty of prospects. I promise to keep you all posted :-).

I moved into my apartment this weekend, for those of you who haven’t already heard about it. The stairs are killing me (I’m on the 5th floor, which means 6th floor to Americans, and there’s no elevator), but since I haven’t found a sport/activity that will fit into my schedule yet I keep reminding myself that it’s good for me. My apartment is a cute, home-y place and my room—aside from the peach/pink flowered wallpaper which I can do nothing about—is becoming very “me”. Whenever I walk in it smells like clean laundry and a mélange of my lotions. I love those smells! They make me happy :-) It just needs a few more touches before it’s totally comfy, but I’m hesitant to spend a lot of money on furnishings since I’m going to have to leave everything behind at the end of the year.

Bedtime break….

Thursday, September 23, 2004
Today has been fantastic! Aside from my homesickness, everything is going great. I woke up this morning at about 9:30 to my phone ringing. I didn’t answer it because it was my landlady and I just can’t do the French thing first thing in the morning. She left a message, though, which I listened to, and discovered that I had also missed a call from Emily. I was so excited to hear her voice and she left such a sweet message that I just couldn’t fall back asleep and decided to get up and start my day.

It’s my weekend, so I took my sweet time getting around this morning, and then I finally went grocery shopping. The grocery store is about a 10 minute walk from my apartment and I have neither car nor bicycle so I had to walk and not buy a whole lot. But it feels good to know that now I can eat when I’m hungry and not worry about dropping 10 euros on a huge dinner at some restaurant. I came home and organized my room then went to do some laundry. It’s been a productive day thus far and that makes me happy. But the coolest thing of all that happened today was when I got two text messages almost simultaneously from Megs and Sean! I was walking to the laundromat when I got them and I was so excited I almost walked right in front of a car… I need to learn how to pay attention to traffic, I know. I sent them both messages earlier this week, or maybe even last week and they are just now getting back to me so I guess it takes forever to send them from here. So now I have a permanent smile on my face and the fact that I’m going to Oktoberfest tomorrow is just making me glow even more! Our train leaves for the Lyon airport at about 8am tomorrow and then we fly into Munich and will be arriving at about 2pm. Just in time for a few beers before the night begins! Alors, all is well and good on this side of the globe :-)

I got a card today from my grandparents in Seattle. Another bit to be happy about! It’s always good to hear from family and friends back home. It makes me feel like they’re not really that far away, and it makes the homesickness hurt a little less. I’m happy here except that I still miss my friends in Santa Barbara, and I miss going to classes on campus (weird I know) and I miss hanging out at Starbucks—where everybody knows your name :-) Last night at Deanna’s, her roommate played Blonde on Blonde by Nada Surf and I had to run to call Emily because it’s a beezies song and she put it on a CD for me and now every time I hear it, it reminds me of her. I have such fond memories of that song and being at work, and hanging out with all the beezies, and working the morning rush on bar with David… Life in Santa Barbara was amazing and it makes me sad to realize that when I get back it won’t be the same. Everyone I know there will most likely be gone and things evolve. It’s amazing what can change in just one year. But it makes me happy that I lived it and loved it and that I will always have the memories.

Gotta run for now, but I’ll have lots to report when I get back from Munich! Love to all. –Liv

Sharing is Caring

I didn’t sleep at all last night. This cold has hit me full force. I’m talking puffy, watery eyes, sinuses that feel like they’re about to explode, a sore throat from trying to breathe through my mouth all night because my nose is no longer serving any purpose except to run like a faucet, and I feel like I’m partially deaf. I’m miserable and I don’t like it. So here I sit at Neptune, blowing my nose every 5 minutes and I’m wondering why there’s no one sitting next to me. Don’t they know that sharing is caring even when it comes to colds?

Between sniffs I can catch a slight whiff of the lovely coffee aroma that permeates this place and it makes me both happy and sad. Maybe the smell of this place is why I like it so much. It smells like coffee and coffee reminds me of my friends, which makes me happy. But at the same time no matter how much coffee I smell it won’t bring my friends halfway across the world to my doorstep, so I have to be satisfied with memory.

Last night I got home pretty late and finally met my 2nd roommate. Her name is Flore and we sat in the kitchen for a long while just chatting. Turns out she’s working on her PhD in a subject I couldn’t translate, and knows pretty good English, but doesn’t believe me when I tell her how good it is. She shocked me when she told me that I speak French well… Apparently my accent is good and I don’t screw up my verb conjugations too horribly. We didn’t talk about very much. Just a little bit about badminton (she had just come home from playing a match), and how hard it is for Francophones and Anglophones to mimic each others accents. It was late and time for bed, so we went our separate ways and that was that.

I finally got my notice in the mail today that my bank card is ready for me to go pick up so I think I’m going to try to do that right now. More later :-) -Liv

Le français me peine

It was an absolutely beautiful day today… Well maybe not absolutely but a couple of clouds never hurt anyone. The weather is changing here in Grenoble and everything green is now turning to a beautiful golden orange. The contrast between the blue sky and the orange leaves falling from the trees is absolutely amazing.

Today was my first day of class and I have finally realized that this year is going to be the hardest year of my life. Not only are my classes taught in French, but the professors talk faster than anyone I know. Mondays are going to be tough with class from 8am to about 4:30pm unless I drop one or two courses which is very likely because I think I have way too many right now. But it’s so complicated the way that units translate between here and the UC system I don’t know… As of right now I have 22.5 units and that’s not including my two required courses. Way too many if you ask me.

I moved into my new apartment yesterday! It’s awesome. I still only know one of my roommates. I met another one of them but she was on her way out and I haven’t seen her since. So it’s me and Penda until the other two get here (I have no idea when that will be), and Pendas friend who is staying with us until she can find an apartment. They’re both originally from Senegal and yesterday were going off in Senegalese. There’s a name for the language and she told it to me but I can’t remember it to save my life. It’s really cool though to be living in such an international apartment. It’s almost like the Auberge Espagnol! Penda has been really good so far about helping me with my French and she asked me if I would help her with her English because she has to make a presentation sometime during the year. I told her of course, of course, and we haven’t started working on it yet, but it should be both fun and amusing.

I woke up this morning feeling extremely fatigued from a night of tossing and turning. I didn’t sleep well at all in my new place, but that will get better as I get more used to living here. I think another thing contributing to my restless night was the fact that I found a bug in the sheets my landlady left out for me and was paranoid about it all night. Needless to say I did not use those sheets, but as I ripped them off the bed the bug disappeared somewhere and I have no clue where it went. I can only hope that it’s squished somewhere by now and that I never see it again. I was out to dinner with a bunch of people the other night and Christine—Chris’ noisy girlfriend I mentioned a long time ago who conveniently comes every weekend—was talking about her bedbug problem in her apartment in Paris, and I saw the bites on her arm. So seeing a bug in my bed totally freaked me out. But I got some fresh sheets and it shouldn’t be a problem anymore.

The only thing that really sucks about the weather changing is the nasty cold I get every year at about this time. My sinuses are completely dried out and swollen; my nose is stuffed and runny; I can’t breathe; I’m cranky; my throat is getting sore. This better disappear before Friday because that’s the day I leave for Munich and if I’m sick for Oktoberfest I’m going to be very very sad :( I have [almost] a whole week to get better so I think I’m going to sleep a lot and drink lots of orange juice.

Sorry my thoughts are so scattered. Being sick and overwhelmed does that to me. I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do about school, but I have to keep reminding myself that it’s been done before therefore it is possible, and that I have a running start on the rest of the people in my program. I don’t want to brag but when we took our language placement test guess who was the only one who placed in the advanced class with all the other Europeans and Canadians who have been learning French since they were in elementary school? That’s right :-) Me. I was so proud I almost peed my pants but now I’m realizing that in the real world placing in the advanced class doesn’t mean anything because I’m still nowhere close to par with the natives. I can’t even begin to describe to you how hard it was to sit through Intro to Sociology today. A subject that should be cake for me is twenty times harder because of the language barrier. And it doesn’t help, either, that class is three hours long. It may only be once a week, but I’m ready to go after an hour and a half. *sigh* Wish me luck.

There has been so much going on lately and I can’t think of anything to say… I went and got a student-only discount card for transportation and lift passes up to the Alps this winter. That’s cool especially if I can keep Fridays open on my class schedule. I also found out about a volleyball class once a week that I might be able to make work for me. I’ve been eating a ton of yummy pastries and drinking lots of amazing café crèmes (café au lait with very whole milk) and my pants still fit. Between those and eating nothing but pizza (because all they have here when you go out to eat is pizza – I keep forgetting that I’m just over the hill from Italy), I’m almost shocked that my pants are fitting better than ever. I imagine it won’t be that way for long though.

So many ideas come to me throughout the day and I kick myself for not being able to write them down as they happen because by the time I am able to sit down and write everything has slipped away and been replaced by well, stress, in today’s case. I was perfect before I went to class, aside from feeling like crap. Now all I can really think about is learning French as quickly as possible and Jason Mraz and Linda, because I’m listening to the Mraz mix she made me and it’s bringing back wonderful memories. Oh, and I’m thinking about demi-pêches because Garrett texted me with an invite for one and I haven’t heard back from him as to when and where. If you have a sweet tooth, like me, I highly recommend demi-pêche. It’s just about 33cl of Pelforth Blonde (I think) and peach syrup. Mmmm Mmmm delicious. Emily: as soon as you get here that’s what we’re having. I’m counting down the days until Emily gets here… I’m so excited (as if you couldn’t tell!)!

Ok, well I think I’m going to go because my brain is just a little bit exhausted from my 3 hours of not understanding a word of Introduction à la Sociologie and I can’t think of anything else to tell you all. Just know that I’m missing every one of you and hope I hear from you soon :-) -Liv

A little something to hold you over

Bonjour tout le monde!
I know I've been horrible about keeping up with this lately but it's getting down to crunch time and I have been so busy! I moved into my apartment yesterday, and I start classes today, so I don't have time to write much. But tonight I am dedicating as much time is necessary to give you all the most recent news. Expect to be hearing from me soon!
Love, Liv

Life is SWEET here in Grenoble

I only have 15 minutes to write before class so this one will be short and sweet. I got a couple of emails today from some very missed people and just wanted to say thanks for brightening my day Emily and Beth! Emily is coming on the 30th and you all won't hear me talking about much else until about a year after she leaves and I'm finally starting to get over my excitement that Emily came to France to see me :) I told her today that I needed to buy another package of huggies... For anyone who knows Emily you know what I'm talking about ;)

Classes start on Monday and I think I have my schedule pretty much figured out. The really cool thing about this place is that you take like, 4 classes per semester and they're about an hour to an hour and a half, one day a week. Sometimes once every two weeks. I'm going to sign up for the student discount card that gets me up to the top of the mountain here and I plan on spending every day I'm not in class up on the slopes or on a train going someplace exciting. The way I have it planned out right now is that I have class Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and my weekends are Thursday through Sunday. Life is SWEET.

I got to talk to my parents this morning and it made my day even brighter. I'm doing pretty good with the whole homesick thing, but it's always nice to hear their voices even if it does sound like we're using tin can telephones across the Atlantic. I stopped by my apartment and met another one of my roommates. I walked in and she has never seen me before so she gave me this look like, "who the hell are you?" So I introduced myself and she was on her way out so it was short and sweet, but in any case I'm moving in on Saturday. SO EXCITED to get out of the dorms! They haven't been so bad I guess... Now that I think about it my dorm experience has been rather pleasant. I might even be sad to leave :( But no worries because I'll be seeing all my CA friends twice a week in language class. Speaking of which, I need to go to that right now. Love to all! -Liv

September, Oktober

OK folks, I know it’s been a while. First of all I would like to apologize for my overly-enthusiastic entry about bathrooms. I have deleted it so that no one will ever have to read it again (thank you, Anonymous for opening my eyes to how crazy my bored state was making me). But good news! I’m going to Oktoberfest!

So about 3 days ago I was sitting at Neptune because I had absolutely nothing better to do. I was finished checking all my emails so I went to say hi to Morgen and Marie Claire. They were looking up fares for flights to Munich and I didn’t really plan on being able to go to Oktoberfest because all hotels and hostels are booked by now and I’m not really too excited about sleeping on the street or finding some random guy to put me up in his room for the night. So even though I wasn’t planning on being able to go I decided to help them look for fares, and MC turns and says to me that a friend of hers who lives in Munich offered to let her plus one friend stay at her apartment for the weekend. MC invited me as the “plus one friend” and in return for the favor I found us all 150 Euro round trip tickets from Lyon to Munich! With taxes they came out to 232, but still. You’d usually find that kind of price for a one way ticket. So needless to say, we’re all stoked and can’t wait for the 24th to roll around so we can get up and go! I was bummed when I thought I wasn’t going to be able to go, but knew that I had to find a way because I’m in Europe, dammit, and if I don’t go to Oktoberfest then what kind of girl am I? My dad will be so excited for me :-)

A lot has happened since then too and I can’t remember right now because I didn’t have time to write it all down when it happened. But that’s a good thing though, because “How vain is it to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live?” (Henry David Thoreau (Thanks Juliet)). Let’s see…

Friday night almost all of us got together at Katy, Megan and Morgen’s place for a little soirée. It was great to have the whole gang together, minus Ellen, Daniel and Julia because for some reason they don’t like us or something and refuse to hang out with us anymore. It makes me sad because I love all three of them but no matter how hard I try, or anyone else for that matter, they just won’t come visit. It sucks. But Friday night was fun nonetheless. We all just sat around and drank, listened to music, and our French friends came and joined us (yes I have French friends! How exciting, eh?) So it was good times. We stayed too late and missed the last tram home, so Henry and I walked all the way across town back to the dorms at about 1:30 in the morning. It’s quite a hike and I don’t know how kilometers work, but it was probably about a 3-4 mile walk back to where we are staying. It was nice though… It wasn’t too cold out and Henry likes to talk, and I like to listen, so we were home before we knew it. I think I slept until noon the next day, and don’t really remember what I did. But the next night we all got together again and went to an Irish pub called O’Callaghan’s. We had a few rounds and closed the place down, then all walked (in the rain) back to Deanna’s flat to hang out for a bit. I was wet and exhausted and too far from home to walk back by myself at 2 in the morning, so I went back to K, M, &M’s and crashed on the floor in Katy’s room. Luckily, I was so tired that the hardwood floor didn’t bother me until I tried to stand up the next morning and felt a sharp pain shoot from my hip to the center of my back. Needless to say I won’t be sleeping on the floor again. Ever.
Katy and I hit up the local flea market the next day, where I bought a pretty scarf for 50 centimes (about 75 cents). They call it a “marchée aux puces” here, and it was huge! Most of the booths were trying to sell old broken crap, and we walked by a couple that had piles and piles of old-school answering machines. I thought it odd that there were so many and find it hard to believe that people actually collect answering machines. I honestly don’t know where these people got so many answering machines from, and they all looked broken to me so I don’t know how they were planning on making any money off of them. Aside from that there was some cool stuff there. I found a book of Jim Morrison’s poetry; saw a few old record players... Lots of clothes and shoes… Just a lot of random stuff.

Last night we all met in a park close by and passed around a volleyball for a bit. It was so great to play for a while! François is Deanna’s roommate and he and his friends play a few times a week. I told him the other night to call me whenever they want to pick up a game because I would love to play. After volleyball we set out to find some food and ended up eating at this little Turkish place down the street from Garrett’s new place. Some of the best food I’ve tasted in a while! We stayed there talking until after the place closed and I’m surprised they didn’t kick us out sooner. People here are so nice… They don’t rush you through your meals and there’s never a wait at any restaurant you want to eat at. If one is full, the one right next door will have a table ready and waiting for you when you walk in. Anyways… I really do love it here.

Today was the first day of week of welcome for foreign students. There are about 4 different colleges within my university, and the one I’m at is really small. Out of 5,000 applicants they only accepted like, 200 students. Every year they send 140 students to study abroad and bring in the same number from places all over the world to fill their spots. So our orientation today was full of people from lots of different places. Katy and I sat next to a girl from Turkey, there were some Swedish girls sitting across form us, a couple of English guy sitting behind us, some Irish girls sitting next to Garrett, some Italians sitting directly in front or me…. (Lots of girls, very few guys). We got to meet a few people at the break, and tonight we’re having a huge rendez vous at a local bar, which should be awesome. They’ve got stuff planned for us all week, including a trip up to the Bastille, an outing to the city’s history museum, and a showing of L’Auberge Espagnol (a great movie about a French Erasmus student who moves into an apartment in Spain with about 4 or 5 other roommates, all of whom are from different countries). There are also rendez vous planned for every evening, which should definitely be cool.

More exciting news! Emily is coming on the 30th! I can hardly wait! I’m taking the train up to Paris to meet her and I’m taking her out on the town that night. It’s going to be amazing… She and I have so much fun together and we have so much to catch up on! That’s the weekend after Oktoberfest so we’ll have lots to talk about and lots of pictures to share. I’m more excited about these two events than I could possibly express right now so I’ll just leave it up to you to imagine the smile on my face :-)

I suppose that’s all for now… I know this is all summary but there has been so much to say and not enough time to say it. I’ll try to update this thing as often as possible but you know how it gets, especially once school starts. Love you all and miss you muchograndelatte! -Liv

No News Is Good News

I really don’t have much to say except that I finally got pictures up and promptly sent everyone in my address book the wrong link. I sent out a new email with the correct link but just in case you get to this first, here it is:

http://share.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=EeBMWzZu0bNnJw

The dorms are getting lonelier every day, and I’m going to be sad when we all finally go our separate ways. Other than that, all is well here in Grenoble, and I’ll be sure to post a new blog as soon as something eventful happens. -Liv

Thunder on the Mountain

Today seemed to go by in a second. I didn’t set an alarm this morning (no need to) and so I ended up sleeping until after 11am. It felt amazing to sleep until I woke up because I hardly ever get to. I think maybe this slower lifestyle will allow me to do it more often. I didn’t get to bed until about 2am though, because my neighbor’s noisy girlfriend spent the night again and there was no way I could listen to that again. The first time it was funny but the second time was just like, it’s 2 o’clock in the morning and I want to go to bed so tone it down just a bit! I hung out in the mini-kitchen down the hall until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer, put on some headphones and passed out.

So I’m sitting on my tiny bed in the dorms, looking out my window at a sky that is threatening to open up at any second. If I look past the trees just outside my window and over to the Alps I can see that it’s already pouring over there, and the thunder is literally at a consistent roll. It sounds kind of like my stomach on empty. It’s incredible. It’s been horribly hot and muggy out lately, but this afternoon storm is bringing a lovely breeze and a couple cool drops of rain. And the lightning is so close, with less than a minute between flashes so if it were already dark it would seem like it were still day. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a storm quite like this but its absolutely amazing. And it’s only going to get better :-) Something about thunder storms always puts a little extra adrenaline into my system.

We had our academic orientation meeting today… Basically they told us that even though we’ll probably come pretty close to failing on the French grading scale, there’s no need to worry because the way the grades translate our GPAs will probably go up rather than down. I’m a bit confused by this, but hey I guess I won’t complain. Basically there’s no way we, as foreign students, can be on par with the French students who know the language and they system. They do grades here not on an A-F basis, but on a scale of 20-1; 20 being top notch and 1 being beyond failing. They told us that professors never give 20s, and that you should be happy if you get a 12! And we, as foreign students, should expect to be receiving about a 10 or less. I don’t know how I’m going to deal with it, but I guess I just shouldn’t worry.

Everyone is moving out of the dorms this week, so I feel a bout of loneliness coming on. We were all so on top of our game in the apartment hunt that all but 2 in our group already have a place to live, and they’re all moving in this week. My lease doesn’t start until the 18th of this month, so I’ll be in the dorms with Henry and Garrett until then. I’m not complaining, they’re great guys and so much fun to hang out with! It’s going to be sad, though, to not see all my new friends every day. I can only imagine what it will be like when I do move into my new place where I don’t really know any of my roommates, and won’t know what they’re saying to me half of the time. It’s going to be tough but it’ll be an awesome experience. I just have to keep reminding myself of that :-) I’m really looking forward to being surrounded by only French, but a little anxious about it too. I’m not really looking forward to not being able to express myself because I’m not fluent and I’m worried about letting that get to me. I know how I am and I hope I can be strong enough to not withdraw, and to keep trying even though it’s going to be frustrating and difficult. My landlady said she was pretty sure that at least 2 of my roommates speak a little English, so maybe they can help me out just a little bit, but not too much. Know what I mean?

I miss all my friends back home, and I dream about being back with them every night. So I guess I’m in the homesick phase but it’s not exactly full force. Yet. During the day when I’m awake it’s easy to focus on other things and to remind myself of why I’m here and how lucky I am and how amazing this experience is. And it’s easy to be happy about it. But I feel like I’m literally being plagued by my dreams. I can’t control them and they remind me of things I’ve been trying not to think about. People, events, places… I’m anxious about so many things, some in a good way and some in a bad way. I look forward to the day when all of my bad anxieties go away and there’s nothing left but excitement. But anyone who knows me well knows that I don’t do well with big changes. It takes me a long time to get used to new situations and new things. I try to see the good in things and I’m very successful at it, but there’s always something nagging at the back of my mind saying, “this isn’t what you’re used to…” GRR. It’s frustrating. I wish I could just kick those thoughts out of my head and be done with them. But the only way to get through them is to recognize them and deal with it. I’m both very excited about everything that’s coming my way and very nostalgic I guess would be the word. I’m just going to take it day by day.

The thunder storm is pretty much over. I can still hear a rumble every few minutes, but the lightning is gone and I think it’s raining a little. I think I’m going to read a little and type up a few emails. Oh! And try to call Emily in wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen.

À bientôt. -Liv

Sunday Lovin'

I haven't started classes yet, so life in this town is starting to get pretty boring, and I haven't had much to report as of late. Today is Sunday, and Sundays here are officially "the day of rest" and there are only a select few places open to the public, and thus, nothing to really do. Even the movie theaters are closed! But Garrett, Deanna and I set out to find someplace that would serve us a nice cold beer on this hot and humid Sunday afternoon, and managed to find a cafe that would serve us a demi-peche (blonde beer with peach sirop = YUM). And luckily, Neptune is open. So here I am.

Last night after a long day of walking around town in the heat and spending way too much money on a pair of Pumas, Megan and I put on Castaway and started watching in my room. About half-way through it she pooped out and went to bed, but I was wide awake for some reason so I continued to watch. About 20 minutes after she left I started hearing noises coming from outside my window and it sounded like someone crying downstairs. I peeked out the window and didn't see anyone. The noises stopped so I continued my movie. Then all of a sudden as I'm watching Tom Hanks push his raft off of his little island, the noises start up again. Louder this time, and it's definitely not someone crying. Earlier in the evening one of the guys on my hall had introduced his girlfriend, who is visiting from Paris for the weekend. I heard giggling in the hallway so I poked my head out and M.C. and Henry are telling each other to shhhh! and are having a very difficult time of not cracking up. Turns out I wasn't the only one who could hear our friend and his girlfriend gettting it on in their room. I was very disturbed but couldn't help but laugh with M.C. and Henry. We joked about it for a good long while and once the noises stopped (they went on for about 40 minutes to an hour) we went to bed. Gotta love living in the dorms.

That's about all the news I have for today.. Except that tomorrow we get to choose our classes and find out when they start. Should be exciting. I'm looking forward to getting started because when I'm not busy all the time I get a little stir crazy and don't know what to do with myself. That's the American in me shining through. While doing absolutely nothing on a Sunday afternoon, and nearly every other afternoon at that, is wonderful, I can't help but be bored and itching for something to do. I've been trying to write but sometimes can't find the words. Writing is a huge releif for me though.. a kind of therapy if you will. But sometimes I just can't find the words.

I'll try to write again tomorrow. I miss you all! -Liv

Take a Vacation

Hey everyone!

I don’t have much to report because since I am no longer spending every minute of every day looking for an apartment I have absolutely nothing to do. I should be traveling and all that jazz because it’s so easy to do! But I’m still waiting for my carte de sejour because if I leave the country without it they won’t let me back in! I think next weekend, though, a few of us are going to the south of France to a town called Bierritz (I honestly don’t know if I spelled that right). I guess it’s a beautiful little ocean town on the coast very close to Spain. Should be exciting! I seriously can’t wait to start traveling though. There are so many places to go! One of my first priorities is Copenhagen to visit Emily and believe me it’s going to happen soon (EMILY CALL ME WHEN YOU GET BACK SO WE CAN ARRANGE IT!) Then I would love to see Switzerland and Italy since they’re so close, and Spain and Germany and Austria… The list goes on and on. I’m saving so much money on rent that I think I can afford to travel a lot more than I originally planned. This year is going to be AMAZING.

So nothing is really happening over here right now. I went to the bank today to set up an account and my rendez vous for that is on Tuesday. I have to register for the CAF (a student housing reimbursement sponsored by the government – awesome!) but I need my carte de sejour for that too and I have no clue when that’s going to happen. That’s pretty much it.. Mom and Dad called today and it was great to hear their voices. I miss them so much and it’s so hard to call because it’s so expensive. But I love email because that way we get to talk every day :-) It sounds like everything at home is going okay, except that people aren’t feeling well and it makes me sad. It happens though, I guess. It’s that end of summer bug that hits us all at about this time. Stress I’m telling you… People need to take a vacation once in a while :-) Grenoble is a perfect vacation spot. *hint hint*

Yesterday I was walking down my street to the copy shop to make a copy of my lease agreement for the CAF and there’s an elementary school down the block a little. I was walking by just as the teachers were taking all the kids across the street to this little playground there after school, and I had to just stop and watch for a few minutes. As parents were arriving to pick up their kids, I was noticing that playtime for the kids is just as much of a playtime for the parents! Instead of sweeping their kids up and taking straight off in their cars, the moms and dads just hung out to play with the kids and to chat with the other parents. I think it’s amazing that families here take the time to do that. I’ve never seen that in the US. Maybe it’s just the neighborhood I came from but I loved seeing that yesterday. I’ve noticed more than once that family values here are a lot stronger than they appear to be back home. Families do more things together, spend more time together… I think it’s great. It’s refreshing to me.
Ta-ta for now. Love you all. -Liv

Champagne & Heart Attacks

I almost had a heart attack today! Everything was going perfectly. I woke up at 8 this morning to a sweet text message from one of my best friends in the whole wide world, Brian, that said “Miss you.” The sun was shining through my window, there was not a cloud in the sky, and there was a smile on my face, so I decided to get my arse out of bed and start my day. I did the usual morning thing you know… showered, got dressed, brushed my teeth, put on some face… then headed out to the Institut d’Etudes Politiques with Katy and Megan to help them look for roommate ads on campus. They got a couple of numbers, and all the while I was trying to contain my excitement about finding a place of my own. Then we went to our director’s office to sign for our cartes de sejour, and headed into town for lunch. We met Katy’s family friend, Olivier, for coffee and a chat at L’Appollon, a little café on the corner by Place St. Claire. He’s very funny… and very French. Then I headed out for my daily dose of Neptune to check my emails and write to my family, and I also called my prospective landlady and couldn’t get through so I left a message. We left to get kebabs for lunch (basically a Gyro with French fries stuffed inside it), and I was headed back to the dorms when I got the phone call that nearly ended my life!

Penda, my prospective roommate called and was speaking in very hurried French, but I managed to piece together a few words: “Why haven’t you called the landlady? She’s bringing someone by the apartment right away to see it and they’re probably going to sign the lease!” I instantly started to panic, because this place is absolutely PERFECT, and there was no way I wanted to lose it! I told Penda that I had already called the landlady and had left her 2 messages, but had gotten no reply. She told me she’d call when the lady got there so that I could speak with her. Long story short, the lady told me that she was very sorry I wasn’t able to get a hold of her, but it turns out I had been calling her husband’s cell phone. She told me that the other girl who was interested was arriving shortly and she’d call me when she found out whether or not the girl was going to take it or not. I nearly started crying, but managed to survive the next four hours, 2 of which were spent in language class (it made it very hard to concentrate). We were walking to the cafeteria and the landlady called me back and told me the girl didn’t want the room! My heart started beating again and I had to do a little happy dance in the street (haha). So I’m signing the lease at 9am tomorrow, and the lady is cool with me being a foreigner, and I only have to put down 1 month’s security deposit, which is awesome. I was worried she’d want like, the whole year’s rent up front because that’s basically what everyone else is having to do. The champagne is going to happen tonight :-)

Other than that today was sweet. I got to relax for the better part of the day (until the phone call), and just take it easy. I sat out in the sun for a good long time, and so my shoulders are a little bit burnt but the sunshine makes me happy so it was totally worth it. We watched an episode of 24 with Henry… It’s an awesome show and I’m definitely hooked. We went to the cafeteria at the supermarket for dinner—I know you’re thinking, “eew, narsty” but it’s actually decent food and they give 25% off to students because they know we’re broke and starving—and now I’m sitting in my room waiting for MC to get back so we can watch another episode of 24 and crack open this bottle of champagne that is staring me down from the edge of my desk. Oh I almost forgot! On the way home from dinner Henry Deanna and I made a couple of English friends. They were walking just ahead of us back onto campus and the three of us were just having a regular old conversation when one of them turns around and says, “Hey are you Americans?” We were like, “yeah how could you tell?” fully knowing that the obnoxious volume of our voices and our yankee accent gives us away every time. They turned out to be really cool and though I can’t remember their names to save my life, we exchanged phone numbers and were promised that they would be “texting” us soon. Yay for English speaking friends :-)

I’m still working on getting pictures to everyone, and it turns out that there’s a place on campus that has free wireless. Apparently it’s pretty fast too so I should be able to send them off tout de suite :-)

Time for champagne! Later. -Liv