baby it's cold outside

Hi everyone,

As finals approach and each day gets a little more stressful, I’m finding I’m having less and less time to sit down and write. And when I do get the time, my mind is too occupied by other things to figure out what there is to write about. But this weekend allowed for a little relaxation and introspectiveness, which was a welcome pause before what is about to become a hectic week.

About 2 weeks ago, the city lit up all of the Christmas lights in town, I think I mentioned that before. But Friday night was the first night I had been out and about in below 0° Celsius weather. Me, Marie Claire and Phil bundled ourselves up after a long afternoon of studying in my kitchen for our European Union final, and set off for Deanna’s house to get our fill of a little Christmas cheer. Just walking through town is enough to make me smile… white lights in the shapes of shooting stars and angels hover over all the main streets, Place Grenette is filled with festively decorated little wooden shacks where you can buy and taste spice cakes, goodies, and other kinds of crafts. There are people selling hot chestnuts, or marrons chauds, on every corner, and there are even a few little Christmas trees scattered throughout the center of town. So just getting out of my apartment was enough to open my eyes to the fact that Christmas is literally just around the corner.

We get to Deanna’s to find a tiny little Christmas tree set up in her living room, complete with home-made yogurt-box-and-tin-foil star crowning the top. I offered everyone a bit of the chocolate that I had brought over, and we sat down to watch Elf… A great Christmas movie for those of you who just can’t get enough of Will Ferrel like me :- ) It was good to be surrounded by Christmas.. It’s bizarre how easy the holiday spirit escapes you when you are so far away from home. This is my favorite time of year, but what makes it so special to me is having my family to spend it with. Since they’re not here/I’m not there, it hasn’t felt like Christmas at all. Uh oh, I feel myself getting homesick again….

Yesterday, though, Marie Claire and I went to the Marché de Nöel in the park at Victor Hugo and got another taste of Christmas. More spice cake, more candies, more cookies, lots of vin chaud (hot wine) and jus de pomme avec cannelle et autres épices de Nöel (hot apple cider). Lots of families with their children, lots of fun stuff to see, and even a little merry-go-round for the little ones. I took pictures… you can click on the title of the blog to see them.

So this week is going to be the last hill before winter break. I have a final tomorrow night for my French class, then two finals on Thursday (back to back!) for European Union and Sociology. Megs gets here on Sunday, I have my History final on Monday, and then we’re home free! Tuesday we’re going snowboarding, then Wednesday we’re off on our grand holiday adventure. I can’t wait to see her… I had a dream last night that she was here already and I’m so anxious for finals to be over… I’m getting to that point again where I just need to get away for a bit. And it’s Christmas… I can’t help feeling like something is missing. Megs will help fill that gap.

Well it's time to start studying a little. Happy Holidays :)

Oh the possibilities...

I just got home from the internet café and realized that I didn’t finish that last entry. Sorry about that. Just goes to show how scatter-brained I’ve been lately.

I wrote an email to Brian earlier this week and mentioned to him how this whole experience has sort of allowed me to take a step back and start to feel like I’m actually a part of this world I’m living in. Back home I always felt as if I was on the outside looking in at what everyone else was doing, a passive observer of life flying past me. But being here has opened my eyes to so many different points of view, so many interests, so many ways to be educated and involved in the world around me. In Santa Barbara I felt trapped and lost, and even though I loved my experience there, I can’t help feeling like I was being suffocated by the superficiality of the way of life… Where the most important thing to many people is how much you weigh, how many times a day you work out, how short your skirt is, whether or not you have a Louis Vitton purse… I feel like I was being smothered. I am realizing here how much I love life, and how much this world has to offer to those who are willing and able to get out and experience it. And life is so much more than that tiny bubble we call Isla Vista, overflowing with giggly blond sorority-types and guys who won’t even give you the time of day if they don’t think they could bench press you with one arm. It’s amazing how lonely you can be when you’re surrounded by so many people if you have absolutely nothing in common with them.
Lately I’ve been feeling like my whole life has been spent searching for someplace where I fit in, someplace I can be comfortable and start being myself without having to worry about what other people think. Here I actually have time to think for myself and figure out the way I feel about things… I hate to sound so cliché, but it’s like I’m discovering who I am for the first time in my life. And I guess where I was going with the end of that last entry was to say that I’m not sure that I can just go home and pick up where I left off after all this. I don’t want to get trapped again. I can see myself coming back to France and continuing this new way of life. Who knows if it will happen, but I think right now it’s definitely a possibility. Only the future can tell. And there’s still a lot of time that will pass, and many more changes that will take place before that time comes. All I’m saying for now, though, is that it’s possible. Anything is possible.

The latest news

December 7, 2004
I haven’t had much to write about lately… Things must be calming down a little for me here, or else they’re just beginning to wind up. It’s hard to tell. Finals are coming, and so is Megs. I have much to be excited about! I spent most of this weekend making travel plans and lodging reservations for when she gets here, and yesterday finally put the finishing touches on our trip. After all that, I think I figured out what I don’t want to be when I grow up: A travel agent. Nevertheless, our trip will be full of adventure and excitement. We’re staying in the heart of Amsterdam for Christmas… That in itself should be enough excitement to last me through the entire new year. But I can’t wait :)

These last two weekends in a row I have taken my new snowboard out for a few test runs. I am extremely rusty and needless to say extremely sore but I think as long as I stay with it I should be golden by the time I get back to the states. MC and I went up to 2Alpes (the closest ski station) on Saturday and between runs I took a few moments to just sit and look around me. 2 Alpes is right on the top of one of the mountains in the middle of the French Alps. It had been snowing all week but Saturday was beautiful, sunny and clear, so I had a perfect view of all the surrounding mountains covered in snow. Everything is blue and white, there are no trees up that high, and I wish I had my camera with me so you could all see what I’m talking about. The next time I go up I will definitely remember to bring it. Even though you’re surrounded by people while you’re there, it’s easy to just look out at the mountains and pretend you’re alone and that all that beauty is there just for you. My introspectiveness seems to run wild in places like that. It seems like I spent the entire day admiring my surroundings and letting a million different thoughts run across my mind, but now that I’m back down here on Earth I can’t remember even one of them.

December 8, 2004
Another thing lately is that I haven’t had time to just sit and think and write. I started writing this entry yesterday and had to set it aside. Finals are coming up and even though I’m not stressing out too much about them I am having a hard time thinking about anything else. I suppose that’s a good thing, given that over the past three years I have had a job that demanded I work at least 20 hours a week, and even more than that during finals. So this year I plan on taking advantage of my free time and honestly putting some effort into my exams. I have never done that before. We’ll see where it leads me.

I got a notice in the mail yesterday that a package is waiting for me at the post office! It’s like Christmas is starting early :- ) My goal was to get up early today to go pick it up before class but we all know that didn’t happen. Haha… So now I get to sit for 2 hours in my last lecture of fall semester not paying attention, because I’ll be wondering what it is and who sent it. Today should be a great day though. After I pick up my surprise, I’m going to the grocery store to pick up some ingredients for Christmas goodies. I plan on baking my way through finals and all the way up until Megs gets here. What better way to procrastinate, right? My first efforts at pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving didn’t look very promising at first (refer to pictures in last blog), but my roommates enjoyed it, so I left it out on our balcony (as cold as a refrigerator outside right now) so they could pick at it as they liked. I was getting ready to throw it away after about a week of it sitting outside, half eaten, and decided to just give it one last try. Turns out it was some of the best pumpkin pie I’ve ever tasted, and I ended up eating the last two pieces of it right then and there!! Who knew that week-old pumpkin pie could ever taste so good? I’m making another one today and inviting the California kids over for a slice after French class tonight. Or maybe I should wait a week… ;)

On another happy note, my French listening and writing skills are improving exponentially. I still don’t speak enough of it even though I live with 3 native speakers, but every time an assignment is handed back to me I am seeing fewer and fewer red marks. The French grading system is like nothing I’ve ever imagined. They grade you on a scale from zero to twenty, where zero to eight is a miserable failure, nine is failing as well but the professor will usually give you a chance to make up for it somehow, ten is barely passing - to be expected by foreign students, eleven and twelve are like a C, thirteen and fourteen are a B, fifteen and sixteen are an A, seventeen is an A+, and anything above seventeen is unachievable. I don’t understand it. But oh well. The important thing is that I got a 15 on the last paper I wrote! Haha… YAY! I was shocked. Truth is, a lot of us have been doing much better than expected here. Phil got a 17 on a presentation he did in class, Deanna says she hasn’t gotten anything below a 12 on anything she’s turned in… Before we came they told us not to be surprised if we don’t get above a 10 on anything. I think they were setting us up to be proud of ourselves though, and good thing. There’s nothing like doing better than you thought you would do to boost your confidence and inspire you to keep reaching higher. At least, that’s the way I see it.

Gotta run to class. More later :- )

After class today I went to the post office to get my package. It was a box full of sweaters, warm socks and my favorite coat that I have been waiting 12 weeks for! I couldn’t have been happier. I think it made my day. On top of that, after I got home, I figured out the perfect mocha recipe… Tastes just like a Starbucks mocha but better. For those of you who know my obsession with Starbucks (I worked there for 4 years so it’s all I know and love!) you can imagine just how happy it made me. The chocolate here is to die for. So I’m sitting here sipping on my perfect mocha, waiting for the time to pass until my next class. Not very much has been going on lately.. Just preparing for finals and for the holidays. I got a couple of emails from Ems and Brian this week, they made me happy too. They each wrote me 3-4 page long emails… I loved it :- ) Nothing makes me happier than hearing from my favorite people.

I was sitting in my last class of the semester this morning, daydreaming per usual, when I came to realize that something I always thought of as a fanciful notion is becoming a reality. Before I came here I was so anxious to get out of the states that I thought I might never leave once I got over here. But never really thought I would never leave. After all, California is, always has been, and always will be home to me. But as I was sitting in Sociology this morning, taking perfect notes, understanding perfectly everything the professor was saying, and recalling the conversation I had this morning with my roommates boyfriend in which he told me that I speak French very well, I realized that I can honestly see myself staying here after my year at the University is over. Talking to my parents this afternoon (early morning for them) only reinforced the idea…

December 1st: A little outdated, sorry

Thanksgiving came and went so quickly… I can’t believe it’s already December and that the school year is halfway over. I’ll be graduating soon and I’m not quite sure how to feel about that.

Today is the first of December and Christmas is definitely all around here in Grenoble. The city has finally lit all the festive lights that hang year round from every balcony. There are little wooden vendor shacks all over the main squares in town that will no doubt soon be filled with all kinds of goodies and trinkets to buy. There are chestnuts roasting on an open fire - or just over a hotplate - on several street corners, and most importantly, all the snow that melted off the mountains over the past two weeks has returned. I went grocery shopping today and heard a mother talking to her ~3 year old son about “Père Noël” (Father Christmas/Santa Claus). I was enjoying the moment and reminiscing about the anticipation that used to consume me every December when I was little. The moment was ruined when I heard Britney Spears singing on the supermarket radio about what a good girl she’s been this year... Yeah right Britney.

I went snowboarding last weekend and it actually hasn’t snowed much up until yesterday, so I was basically trying to snowboard on snow that had melted and re-frozen = ice, and wasn’t doing too well. My tailbone is bruised and I’ve got some pretty bad whiplash. It’s nothing that won’t heal in time for this coming weekend though. It’s supposed to snow more on Friday, so Saturday and Sunday should be much better than last weekend. Can’t wait :).

More than snowboarding though, I’m excited for December 20th, which is the last day of finals, and Megs will be coming just after that! I spent most of my afternoon researching airfares, train tickets and itineraries, and planning our travels. Looks like Christmas might be spent in Amsterdam rather than Vienna, then a train to Berlin, a train to Prague, a train to Vienna, and a plane to London for New Years. We’ll see though. It’s hard to plan all this without her and I’m realizing that it might be nicer to just pick a place or two and stay there rather than try to do all this traveling in 10 days. We have to save some energy for the New Year celebration!

I realize I haven’t devoted much time to this thing lately. Maybe it’s because I’ve been busy, or maybe it’s just because I have been settling into life here more and more and haven’t felt the need to write about every little thing that happens anymore. But I still want to share everything with you faithful readers so let me trace back a bit to Thanksgiving (to see pictures click the title of this blog). I wrote a little bit, but didn’t give you all the details. Actually, what I wrote about before was the real Thanksgiving, but the next night the University of California prepared a dinner for us and invited the Californians who are studying in Lyon to come and join us. The dinner itself was disappointing, but I didn’t expect much else from a culture that just doesn’t understand that Thanksgiving is all about overdoing and overeating. After dinner we Grenoble kids took some of the Lyon kids out for a night on the town. We started out at a bar called Bukana where we talked, had a few drinks, and caught up on what’s been going on since we all went our separate ways - this is the same group of people we spent orientation week with in Paris. The bar closed at 1, I think, and we walked across the river to a disco, which we closed down at 5am! It was good times dancing, laughing, etc. It was a good opportunity for all of us to get to know each other better, even us here in Grenoble. It was the first time we had ever all really been out together, and it was great! I didn’t get home until after 7am and slept until 2pm. I think the Lyon kids need to come visit more often.

That’s about all the news I have for now… I had 2 finals on Monday and three more coming up in 2 weeks. Then I’m free! Still working on getting internet set up in my apartment… Don’t know when that’s going to happen. Haven’t met any future husbands… but I’m still looking :) More later. -Liv