Lourdes

This morning was another early one. We woke up at six in the morning in order to take a taxi to the train station and catch the early train to Lourdes. Unfortunately, we missed the first train, so we walked to a cafe. It ended up being great because we drank some coffee/ hot chocolate and ate crescents while watching the sunrise over the Pyrenees. A guy came up to us after hearing us speak English and asked if we wanted to take his graduate level Thanksgiving quiz. It was amusing and we did pretty well on it. (Especially the ones about modern day Thanksgiving customs :P)

After that we caught our train and upon entering found out that it had compartments, just like in Harry Potter. I liked having the privacy of it; we could be our loud American selves without shame. haha

When we arrived, the first thing we did was buy some bottles into which we could put the healing water. Then we walked to the basilica which was built over the spot where Saint Bernadette saw Mary and dug the spring. It is huge and beautiful. At the front there is a spot which contains the many crosses that pilgrims have brought from all over the world.

The church is like three churches built on top of each other. Inside the first there are beautiful mosaics of all the stations of the cross. The second story has the crypt/ chapel and the third is another church. Also, the walls on all the floors are covered in bricks that have inscriptions on them, all thanking Marie and Bernadette for the blessings of Lourdes.

Next we walked to the area where they have prayer candles. They have HUGE wax candles and smaller ones as well. I bought one to light for some prayer requests.

Then to the best part! The cave where Mary appeared to Bernadette and the spot where the spring originated.

This is where Mary appeared!

The original spot where she dug is now covered by glass, but the springs have been tapped into faucets so that more people can access it more efficiently. You can bath in the very cold mountain water as well for healing, but in the summer months you will wait on average of four hours to do it.

Next we went to the underground church where they hold the international masses. The building is just plain cement, but it can fit 15,000 people in it! It kind of reminds me of a large parking garage, only a church... As we headed back to the train station we stopped at a Boulangerie so that Sheridan could try a baguette while she was in France and then we stopped in to see the church where Bernadette was baptized. It was pretty, but they had a mass or service of some type going on, so we didn't wander around.

The Pyrenees!

On Saturday morning Jess, Sheridan and I woke up bright and early to head out on a hike with the hiking club to the Pyrenees. We bundled up lots with some boots and coats that Jessica's host family kindly lent us. It lasted a little under seven hours including lunch. The first part of the hike brought us past some super fat mountain horses which will eventually be killed for meat. So, cute but sad!

The ascent took about three hours. It was a difficult climb, especially once we got to the parts with thick powder because then we were not only going uphill, but trudging through snow up to our knees. We all agreed that the view when we got to the top was worth it. I won't lie, half of the time I was climbing, I was singing in my head "The Climb" by Miley Cyrus. haha. I am pretty proud to be able to say I climbed a mountain, or a least a piece of one. :]

Once at the top we stopped for a lunch break. It was lightly snowing and the view was incredible! Simply breathtaking! I didn't know which way to look because in each direction there was something else amazing. 

The way down was more sliding then walking and we were all very wet and cold, but we all made it safely! It was definitely the most physically exhausting thing I've done since I've been here, but it was very much worth it!

See me, yeah that's me :]

An International Thanksgiving!

I find it extremely ironic that although I was France for Thanksgiving, I somehow managed to have 3 Thanksgivings, more than I would have had if I had been in the States! Also, I have explained the story of thanksgiving probably about six times now in the past week. :]

Thanksgiving number one:
My French class decided to do an international Thanksgiving feast where everyone brought something traditional from their country. To sum it up it was very nontraditional and delicious. We had food from Japan, China, Korea, Spain, Bolivia, Russia, Britain and of course the U.S.!

I decided to go for the thing that Americans are stereotyped to make the best even though it's not really Thanksgivingy, chocolate chip cookies. It was quite an adventure to make them here though. First I had to get the recipe and translate the ingredients since things like baking soda aren't in my french vocab yet. Then after a bit of searching in the store I had everything I needed. Also, chocolate chips are ridiculously expensive here, so I bought bars of chocolate and crushed them all into chunks by hand. The next thing I had to do was convert all the units from cups to liters; somehow an error was made and I had way less sugar than needed, so the first batch kind of flattened into a thin layer of cookie cake which then proceeded to burn, BUT the situation was salvaged and batch two was a success :] Just like home.

So, I brought the cookies as promised and everyone loved them and many people asked for the recipe! We had a nice dinner and we even went around the table saying all the things that we were thankful for. It's a little more stressful to do it in French and needless to say, things got a little emotional as everyone was thankful for all the amazing experiences and the people they've meet during their stay. We do spend 20 hours a week together as a class after all.

My favorite moment of the meal was when Nadya started singing the song "All By Myself" and everyone joined in, INCLUDING my teacher who never ever speaks English to us. Everyone was laughing and it felt so much like a family dinner :] 

They made us fresh sushi on the spot!

After our meal we played pictionary and taboo in french which was fun. My favorite pictionary moment was when Andy was supposed to draw "les toilettes" and the first thing he thought to draw was the man and woman stick figure signs, rather than just to draw a toilet.

Thanksgiving number two:

After school on Friday I went over to Jessicas where she and Sheridan had cooked a Thanksgiving meal from scratch! It was amazing: turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, rolls, pumpkin pie, apple pie, gravy, green beans, chocolate and wine (We are still in France of course!) 

Cutting up the turkey

They had drawn hand turkeys which they put our names on and put on our plates. Then Jessica's host dad put on a cd of famous American music... Grease! So we celebrated Thanksgiving with the sounds of John Travolta in the background. 

Thanksgiving number three:

Danielle had a huge Thanksgiving party in which 17 people attended! It was a huge feast! The food was great and it was fun because it was a mixture of French and Americans. I practiced lots of French, drank some warm apple cider and just enjoyed myself. Ironically all the frenchmen were studying computer science, so I felt a little like I was back at Michigan Tech and enjoyed talking about math in French for a little while :]

So in conclusion: although I missed my family and didn't really want to go to school no Thanksgiving, it was still a successful holiday for which I am very thankful.

Wonderful Things

Instead of making a list of all the odd things I've discovered here, this time I decided to make a list of all the things that I love about living here. After three months, I feel like I am taking some it for granted and I still have a month left to appreciate everything fully!

Outdoor cafes. I love just going to a cafe sitting in the sunshine, drinking an Orangina and talking for a couple hours and NOT feeling like I have to leave as soon as I finish eating.

NOT eating on the go. It's so nice to use meal times as an actual break from the day.

Speaking French of course! It is so nice to be at the level where I can make a joke and actually make a French person laugh :]

No late fees when returning things to the library, which also has dvds of popular tv shows- including Friends!

French wine, even the cheap stuff is delicious here!

Going to the store and buying a 40 cent baguette!

French style. Everyone looks so darn cute here! I absolutely love the classiness of the way that people dress.

No snow? This is something that's nice for now, although I wouldn't want a life completely without snow!

The Pyrenees. When I walk to school in the morning, I get to see the beautiful view of the mountains on my right and a magnificently colored sky in front.

The diversity of the people in my class. In my French classes, there are Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, Bolivians, Spaniards, Australians, Russians and British people. It is absolutely AMAZING to learn about so many different cultures.

I don't like McDonalds in the States, but I actually like it here. Bizarre I know. I actually only went there because it was suggested by some French people and the whole time I was there, I felt like I was fulfilling the American stereotype! haha. Anyways, they had this very odd deal there where if you bought a certain meal, you got a pass to go bowling down the street for free. So that's what we did :]

Tisanne. I have grown to love drinking tisanne with my host family each night. Tisanne is an herbal infusion that a lot of French people drink at night to help them to sleep. It's delicious! It's also nice to sit and catch up with my host parents each night, super good conversation practice!

British accents... :]]

The history of this continent. From the big cities to the littlest, each has so much history in it whether it be monuments or caves or ruins! I absolutely adore that!

There is more of course! But that's it for now!

Oh, but I will say. I won't miss paying to use public bathrooms!

St. Bertrand de Comminges

We had our last USAC excursion today. It was more low key than the others, but I enjoyed it. We went to the small town of St. Bertrand de Comminges (Population 200!) It was a very petite and looked like it could still be stuck in the Middle Ages. There was a forge, a grand cathedral, some crêperies and of course lots of farms! haha

So we started off the day by visiting the Cathedral. The Cathedral sits on top of the hill and is quite large. Everything is very old, but the styles were so very mixed inside that one could see where the additions were over the years. We saw the treasury room which had some old things from the church back in the day, including these sweet clothe shoes for the bishop and the old bishops ring and staff. The inside of the church had huge wooden walls so it was like a box inside a box. Inside of the wooden part was the altar. There is also a very impressive looking organ!

Wooden wall, also doubles as chairs

Wish I could have heard it!

Altar

In the cloisters

After the Cathedral, we headed down the hill to see the old Roman bath ruins. The Romans were the first to make thermal baths. They achieved this by running heat in the floor beneath. They had slaves who would stay all day in the "basement" putting wood into the fire to heat them. The baths had three different segments, rooms for sweating, rooms for warming up and for cooling down. Not much was left, but it was still interesting.

Me in front of the ruins with the Cathedral in the background

After seeing the ruins, we went and had a five course meal on a farm. They make all of the food there, so it's completely natural and fresh. It was all quite delicious! We had vegetable soup, salad, potatoes, chicken off the rotisserie, cheese and cake.

Last stop was to see the caves of Gargas. These caves are famous for housing hundreds of stenciled paintings of hands. It was my first time in real caves! It was a little creepy at first because there is a door leading to it with a key, so when our tour guide closed and locked it, well it was a little scary. haha But it was well lit and it was very open. Even without the paintings the caves themselves were awesome! The rocks looked like frozen waterfalls. There wasn't a smooth surface to be seen. These caves are so old and well preserved that they limit the amount of visitors per day and there is no photography inside. (The following pictures, I found online) We weren't even allowed to touch the walls! 

It was really cool to see the "pouchoirs" or the hand stencils because I studied them in my art history class. They were created by mixing oils and water, putting it into their mouths and blowing it through a pipe onto the wall. Most of them are in black and red, but there are a few in yellow and white. 

The mystery of these hands are that they have short fingers. Sometimes it will be all of them that are short, or sometimes just one, but the thumb is always present. The most recent theory is that the hands were a form of communication and the different positioning of fingers represented different things. These hand paintings are found in many different caves all over the world!

There were also a couple of paintings and carvings of animals such as goats and bison in the caves. We think that these were carved in places that were considered sacred to the people and they were often made in more obscure places. I can't imagine navigating those caves in such little light, none-the-less making paintings! There was also a little nook that was considered the fertility nook. They had painted the inside red with a hole in the center representing a vagina. 

We finished the tour with an interactive museum where we could make our own pouchoirs and see the paintings up closer. It was also a beautiful sunny day and the scenery in the area was gorgeous!

Donkey, a lot bigger than represented in Shrek...

Normandy

After our London adventures we took an overnight ferry to Normandy. The chairs had armrests inbetween them that wouldn't move and we wanted to lay down so we tried the floor which turned out to be freezing and hardwood. Not the most successful night for sleeping, but we made it safely!

After that we had to wait a couple hours for the next train to Caen and then transfer to another train to take us to Bayeux which was the train station closest to Omaha beach. Once at the train station we learned that the buses didn't run on Sundays so we had to take a very very expensive taxi to get to the little piece of American land in France. Once there, we had to go through security to enter the American museum. It was nice to have all the inscriptions and videos in English. We were able to keep our bags behind the main desk (This was good since we had all our stuff from London with us) The museum had videos on different people who gave their lives during the battle, different displays of weapons and tools, timelines of the war and lots of historical information in general.

After looking around the museum we went out into the area with the cemetery and the monuments. At the end of the cemetery there are two statues: one which represents France and one which represents the US. At the other end is the main monument built in honor of all those who died. It is surrounded by a wall which has names written all along it.

In the center of the cemetery is a chapel. Other than that it is all green grass, white crosses and american flags. It was a beautifully sad thing to see.

Next we walked down to the beach. Omaha beach is absolutely beautiful! It doesn't look like a place of such death and destruction. 

We walked along the beach to a small town nearby to eat some dinner. We had just finished when we realized that it was five o'clock and the museum was closing and our stuff was still inside. We BOLTED down the beach and through the marshes up to the museum. When we got there, there was still a guard inside and we waved at him and were lucky enough to get our stuff back. I wish I would have had more time there to explore the area. Everything was so green and beautiful!

After Normandy it was another night train home. I arrived at my house in Pau at 7:30 and had an exam at 11. I still haven't quite recovered!

London (Day Three)

Day three began with a journey to the Tower of London. The Tower of London is actually a large castle with 13 different towers. There is a lot of history inside. We had an awesome yeoman guide. He explained to us that when they made the moat for the castle, they made it too deep so that the sewage wasn't being swept away by the water and that the place stunk! haha What engineering! The castle contains White Palace, which is the original palace of the King and Queen. It also holds the place where private beheading took place, including the famous wife of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn. The chapel inside has 1,500 bodies buried underneath. We also saw carvings from all the prisoners awaiting their executions.

One of the coolest towers inside is the one that houses the crown jewels! I got to see the largest diamond in the world on one of the scepters. Also, I saw the golden spoon for the royalty. It brings new meaning to the expression, "Born with a silver spoon in his mouth." The jewels on most of the crowns were so big that they looked fake. For the room with all of the crowns, the floor was a conveyor belt which moved you along, so you couldn't stay and stare. Needless to say, I road it multiple times... No pictures inside, but I took a picture of the outside- definitely not as cool!

We also went into the tower called Fit for Kings and saw tons and tons of old armor, shield and swords. That was pretty neat to see since I love that era. The odd thing was to see suits made for little princes around age eight. Why in the world would they have to wear armor at that age? I also enjoyed the huge decorative swords that are so large they couldn't possibly be used and the hand gun they had on display that was made by Tiffanys.

Biggest and smallest armor

There is a rumor about the Tower of London. They have always kept falcons there. The story says that if the falcons leave, then London will fall into ruin. They almost got rid of them once, but the King was a superstitious person, so they stayed and have remained there since. Right now there are seven of them. They have cages, but they fly around as they please.

They had some actors hanging around in the castle. I got to watch them play the oldest board game in the world, of which I still don't know the name, but it was like a mash of tic-tac-toe and checkers. I want to find it and buy it! Apparently, the Germans play it very well!

From the caslte we had a great view of the very grand and impressive tower bridge. It's very blue. Also, I'm noticing how creative the English are with their titles. London Tower, Tower Bridge, Clock Tower, London Bridge...

Next we crossed London Bridge (I had to try and resist the urge to sing "London bridge is falling down..." while we walked) and went to Shakespeare's Globe. This is a theater which is designed after the theaters of Shakespeare's time. It has no roof so as to utilize the natural light. The marble pillars are really painted trees. The theater is the only building in London to have a thatched roof still. They had to receive special permission since the law that passed after the great fire of London (another creative name). We took a tour of the theater. There were some people rehearsing inside, for the plays here they don't use very detailed costumes or props. In it's time, the best seats were actually the seats behind the stage because Shakespeare's plays were made to be heard, not watched. Also, if they came late, everyone would see them and see their "high status" as they would interrupt to enter.

We also hopped over to the Tate Modern Art museum next door just simply to see the Andy Warhol room. Let's just say it was colorful as expected. Also his self portrait is a man choking?

Our last sight in London was Saint Pauls Cathedral. When I saw it, I kind of felt like I was transported by to Rome... haha Unfortunately we didn't get to go inside since the churches close at night here.

A couple random things to add:

London is super confusing to navigate. The metro is the oldest in Europe! Certain lines were down for maintenance so, we had to walk a lot. BUT I did take a double decker red bus!

One random moment I enjoyed, was when we were leaving a building, a guy that I had heard speaking French opened the door for me, so I said, "Merci." In response he said "merci? MERCI? Vous êtes français?" I love surprising people :)

London (Days One and Two)

London.

I flew there on Ryan Air with my travel buddy Courtney. Once in the area, we got some money out of the ATM, in pounds of course! They all have pictures of royalty on them and are very different looking. Evonne explained to me that the bills and coins are all very different in size so that blind people will be able to use it by touch. You can reach in your pocket and know exactly what coins are there without taking them out! We bought Burger King (One of our only options, I swear!) which we had to eat on the go in order to catch our bus into town.

Once in London we found our hostel, called the Green Man and went off to explore the town. We walked along Oxford Street and Piccadilly Circus (The shopping districts) and saw that they were already decked out with beautiful Christmas lights everywhere! My favorite window display included mannequins of Barbie and Ken.

But our real goal was not shopping. It was to find the premier of the seventh Harry Potter. After much searching, we heard the indistinguishable cheers of a very large crowd.

People had been camping out in Leicester Square since the night before and the red carpet was all set up. We couldn't really see the stars since we came late, but we watched all the interviews on the screen and took in the ambiance of it all. I was in the same square as Hermione, JK Rowling, Draco, Lucius, Dobby, The Weasley Twins, Mrs. Weasley, Voldemort, Neville, Bellatrix, Luna and others!!!

Once all the stars were in the theater, we decided to continue our Harry Potter theme and visit Platform 9 and 3/4 at Kings Cross.

On our walk home we ran into a London broadway theater ticket vender. We were curious to see what they had for prices and we ended up buying tickets to the Lion King for the next day. The funny thing was that his first client was a frenchman and they were talking in french. I must have been looking really intently as I was listening to them talk because he apologized for the french when he thought we couldn't understand. It was fun to surprise him when we said we could. The french are always surprised to find a small town girl from Michigan who can speak the language! Then we talked in French the rest of the time to buy our tickets and such.

The next day we woke up early and decided to start out our day with a birds eye view of the city on the London Eye. The London Eye is a big ferris wheel located on the Thames. We shared a cabin we a family of Alaskans! They were very friendly.

In all honesty, it felt a little bit like Navy Pier. But it was cool to see Big Ben, Parliament and the rest of the city from above.

Big Ben... Not so big now!

After the London Eye, we made our way to Hyde Park Corner to go on a free tour that our hostel suggested. We had a Canadian tour guide who was pretty funny. It was a walking tour and it was nice to know what we were seeing and learn some English history along the way. 

On the tour we saw the Green Garden. This garden has a funny story behind it because one of the Kings used to walk through it each morning on the way to visit his mistresses. Each mistress was represented by a flower and he would pick the corresponding flower each day and present it to the mistress of his choice. The queen obviously didn't like this and so she had all the flowers removed from the park and made it forbidden for flowers to be planted there! haha

We walked to Buckingham Palace and saw the statue of Queen Victoria. Unfortunately we didn't see the changing of the guard because it was cancelled that day for unknown reasons. I did see lots of the guards with their bearskin hats though. They were wearing gray since their winter coats are gray, not red. Buckingham Palace really doesn't look that impressive from the outside, but the inside is supposed to be magnificent. Unfortunately there are no tours during the winter season. Our tour guide said that the palace has been broken into three times. The first time they were Germans who wanted to camp in Saint James Park and got lost and thought that the palace gardens were the park and then they proceeded to climb the fence and managed to spend the night there! Another was a man who landed on the top with a hand glider to prove he could overcome air security and the third was a drunk guy who set off so many alarms that the guards thought the system was down and shut it down. He actually made it to the Queens rooms and her alarm didn't work. She was clever though and got out of the situation.

We also saw the house of Prince Harry and Prince William, unfortunately none of the royalty was home. We continued walking to Trafalgar Square which is the heart of London. At the center is a war monument for Nelson which is "guarded" by four lions. But the lions are bizarre lions because they have their mouths open. Lions only open their mouths when they are roaring or eating, but these lions are doing neither. Instead they are the dead stuffed heads of lions put on the bodies of dogs. Don't ask me why, but it's true!

Upon exiting Trafalgar square there are these huge arches that show damage from WWII and on the inside of one of the arches there is a nose. This fake nose covering is supposed to contain the real nose of General Nelson. Again don't ask me why. haha

The next big thing that we saw was Westminster Abbey. We didn't go inside, but the outside is gorgeous!!! It's like an improved Notre Dame I think! It's just so overwhelmingly present if that makes sense. Pictures don't do it justice, I just love the detail on everything!

Just one chunk, it doesn't all fit on one lens!

Sadly outside the church there were thousands of little crosses with names and poppies on them in remembrance of Armistice day. It was a tragically beautiful sight.

We finished the tour at Big Ben/ Parliament. We learned about Guy Fawkes day. Guy Fawkes was a revolutionary who tried to blow up parliament. He was caught in the act and tortured into naming his conspirators. After that he was hanged, drawn and quartered. He wanted to assassinate King James I to replace him with a Catholic King. There is a national holiday in Britain for it on the 5th of November where his effigy is burned on a bonfire and then there are fireworks follow.

Also, a little piece of trivia on Big Ben. Big Ben is actually the name of the clock, not the tower. The tower is called Clock Tower. The guy who designed the bell was a larger guy named Ben. When they published the article with a photo of him and the bell it said that the picture showed Big Ben but they weren't sure which one it was.

Next we walked to the British Museums which are amazingly FREE! And on the way, we had to take the classic picture with the red telephone booths!

We couldn't stay too long at the British Museums because of time limitations, but I saw lots of mummies since we spent most of our time in the Egyptian quarters. The coolest thing that I saw was the mummy of Cleopatra, although I also liked the mummified cats sitting next to the mummified fish and the statue called "The Colossal Foot"! It's terrible, but I feel like I'm starting to get museumed out. In the words of Courtney, "I can only see so many statues of naked Greek men before they all start to look the same."

After that we stopped at a Starbucks. We just couldn't resist that little piece of home. The funny thing is they didn't have either of our normal drinks there, but luckily they were able to improvise. Mine tasted pretty much the same only with a smoother texture. After that it was time to go see THE LION KING ON BROADWAY. I haven't made my bucket list in life yet, but the one thing that I always knew would be on there when I made it was to see a broadway show. What better place is there to do this than London? We were in the third tire, so we were really high up, but I could see and hear everything really well.

One thing I really like about the show is that it really showed the African culture. The cast was almost 100% African and there were some lines in African with the legit popping noise they make. The costumes were really cool although different than I expected. I wish I could have taken pictures, at the same time it was nice to just sit and enjoy. It followed the movie pretty closely with the same music and a lot of the same lines, but they did add some songs too including a cool song about remembering the pride. My favorite scene in the play was actually the scene between Simba and Mufasa (sp?) under the stars. For me it so paralleled my relationship with God, it was awesome! My favorite songs were definitely the opening and closing because that was when everyone was singing and all the animals were on stage! Courtney and I decided our favorite actress was the woman who played Rafiki (sp?), yes, it was a woman, but she was amazing! It totally fit! And Zazu was pretty awesome too!

The last stop of the night was Fleet Street in honor of Sweeney Todd. We saw the place where there is a pastry shop right next to a hair salon. I won't be eating there...

All in all, that day I was going back and forth singing songs from the Lion King and Sweeney Todd! haha