French Visa

Well, it's a little over one month before I return to the States and I have finally finished my visa process! The student visa process for visa's in France are ridiculous! I think they are making their revenge for the difficult process the U.S. has for them to come there!

Step One: Get your passport of course!

Step Two: Fill out the online paperwork with the consulate general of France online. Send them a money order of $60 for the use of their website- it's pretty basic information that they ask for, but they set it up in a very complicated manor. Wait for them to send you a confirmation.

Step Three: Set up an appointment with the consulate general of France in Chicago (That's the closest for us Michiganders) For the appointment you need:
-money
-two different sets of paperwork
-passport
-bank statements proving you have the money to live there
-birth certificate
-driver's license
-letter showing acceptance into the program
-proof of insurance while abroad
-prepaid, pre-addressed envelope to your address for them to return your passport to you with it's Visa. You can only use the U.S. post office for this, they won't accept others!

Step Four: Make a voyage to Chicago for the appointment! Bring copies of everything and don't forget anything! The appointment takes about ten minutes if that. You get your picture taken, your fingerprints fingerprinted and you give them all of your paperwork. Then you take the day to enjoy Chicago :]

Step Five: You wait, in anticipation. Will you be rejected?

Step Six: Receive passport with visa inside in the mail along with another piece of paper that you must not lose!! You are overjoyed because you think the process is over.

Step Seven: You come to France and receive the first stamp in your passport and your last for a while because you learn that once in Europe they don't stamp in between countries, but they see your the first part of your visa and they let you in.

Step Eight: You find out that you must do more things now that you are in France. You have to fill out more paperwork with your current address and send them back the piece of paper that you received in step six along with copies of your passport.

Step Nine: Wait again. You will receive two separate envelopes. The first really has no importance, the second has another list of things to do along with the date of your scheduled medical examination that you must go to!

Step Ten: Buy 55 Euro stamp to bring to the doctor's appointment. Get some more passport photos taken, also for the doctor's appointment. Have your host parents fill out your attestation saying that you are in fact living with them and photocopy their identity card.

Step Eleven: Go to the doctors with the stamp, photo, passport, letters from the mail, attestation and the identity card photocopies. This appointment includes a chest x-ray to check for tuberculosis which for us females involves getting naked on top. The lady takes your x-ray and leaves you sitting there half naked for a few minutes. Then you are sent to the doctor (with your shirt on once more) where you take an eye exam, get weighed (in Kilos), find out your height (in Meters), get your blood pressure taken and all the usual things like what operations have you had, what diseases run in your family, etc. I will say that the doctors were really nice and the language barrier wasn't too bad since medical terms are pretty similar in between languages. Then FINALLY after all that, the secretary inserts the second part of the visa and you are legally living in France!

And there was much rejoicing. :D

French Music!

Here are the songs that I have been listening to here! There's a wide variety of styles in my selection. It's funny because the French radios stations are required to play 1/4 french music to keep the industry alive, but I hear so much american music, it is ridiculous! I'll try and put up some translations later!

Peut-Etre Une Angine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeFn2W4oAdU

Prendre Un Enfant Par La Main

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiI8f8yKwlA

Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3Kvu6Kgp88

Parle Pas Americano

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIN3qhYoEJc

Barbara

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfQOH6VGvTQ

Belgium

After visitng Amsterdam, the next stop was to Brussels! We got there at night and had a little trouble finding an ATM to check into our hostel, but we got everything settled eventually and started exploring the city by seeing the Grand Place. It is so beautiful all lit up at night. It is a huge square with some very ornate, imposing, yet beautiful buildings. One thing that was funny was the road on the way to the Grand Place reminded me so much of a type street in Chicago. Among the business there I saw Pizza Hut, McDonalds, Subway, Mariott, Burger King and others. What was strange was how happy we all were to hear French. It was like music to our ears compared to the Dutch. We were so happy to understand what was going on around us once more!

After that we decided it was necessary to do some chocolate tasting. I had some chocolate fondue and tasted an assortment of delicious chocolate by going from store to store :)

After the chocolate tasting we got some dinner and then had to try the famous Belgium beer. I don't like beer normally, but I knew I couldn't go to Belgium without trying it. Amazingly I found the first beer that I have ever liked! It was called framboise belle vue, so it was basically very fruity and sugary! :)

After that we went to a new club that had just opened in Belgium since they gave us free coupons to enter. It was a pretty cool place, but the workers were the most impolite people I have ever met. At one point they literally asked me, "What do you want?" It was cool because it was full of people from all across the world. I had some conversations with people from Germany and Italy. The Germans were freakishly tall and they said it was because they had been drinking beer since they were two. haha

The next day we walked around the city to see it in the daylight. Then we walked and saw the famous statue called Manneken-Pis, which is basically a tiny statue of a boy peeing. Apparently they dress him in different clothing throughout the year.

Before leaving the city there was one thing that we absolutely had to do: eat some Belgium waffles. They were delicious, but very very sweet.

Next stop was a town called Brugge. It is a really old city where all of the buildings were made out of brick! On the train there we met some Canadians, an Irishman and a Swiss man with whom we discussed travel and politics the whole way! Unfortunately once we got there, it was rained most of the day, but we still walked around enjoying the scenery. We climbed the famous bell tower from the movie that was filmed there and saw the pretty view. The stairs we climbed were quite steep and small and windy. We also were able to see a lollipop being made in a local candy shop and try some of the famous hot chocolate!

  

Town center

bell tower

look at all that brick!

After that it was time to take the train home. We had a long wait in the Paris train station, so we bought some dinner and stayed at the restaurant for about three hours. The Paris train station had solders patrolling the whole time. At one point a guard came by yelling at the others and they all went running. We saw a bunch of them gathered, but really had no idea what was going on. Anyhow, we made it safely on our train and had a long ride home. I arrived at my house at 8:30 in the morning and had class at 11, so it was a little rough. Now I'm just trying to catch up and recover for London on thursday!

Amsterdam

Just getting to Amsterdam was an adventure! Jess and I were supposed to meet at Liz's house so that we could all split the price of the taxi since the buses weren't running that early in the morning. This required that I left the house before five in the morning! Once we were there we went to call a taxi and they weren't running yet either. It turns out that we should have called the night before. So what we ended up doing was running to the nearest bike rental stop and then biking as fast as we could across town. Once we reached downtown we returned the bikes and ran the rest of the way to the train station. The funicular wasn't running yet so we had to run zig zag down a huge hill. When we made it to the last stretch we were running like we were finishing a race and we made it with five minutes to spare! After that, sitting on a train for hours was very nice. Then when we reached the Paris train station for our connection we had only a half an hour to switch to the other train station! There was a huge line for metro tickets so we went to front and gave the guy money to buy ours in addition to his. Then we literally ran through the metro station, found the correct line and sat out of breath panting on the metro, impatient to arrive. And to our amazement we actually made our train! So after much running, biking and swimming (okay not swimming, but it'd complete the triathlon!) we made it to Amsterdam on time! We found our hostel which was called the Flying Pig. It was by far the best hostel that I have stayed in this whole trip! There were cats lounging about, they had a sweet DJ and it was all so youthful and fun!

Once we were settled in we walked around the city a bit. The very first thing that I saw there was a miniature statue of liberty, which I found ironic. The architecture is different than anything I've ever seen and I absolutely adored it! The city is formed around canals in a half circle. The houses don't have yards, but look at them!

We tried some fries and passed through the red light district. What a culture shock! There were women standing there in lingerie (the chambers actually have red lights) and children would just walk pass it like it was no big deal. The roads smelled pretty badly of weed since it is legal in Amsterdam. But outside of that district, the town is so charming and old fashioned that I loved it! We went to cafe called The Bulldog which is the most famous there and played some Jinga.

The next day we walked around the town a bit to start out the morning. It was beautiful with all the fall leaves floating in the river.

Our first touristic stop was to see Anne Franks House. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos inside. Also all the furniture was removed when they were discovered and Otto Frank decided he did not want it to be remade, so it was really just empty rooms, but the history was alive in them. In Anne Frank's room all of the photos and magazine clippings that she had glued to the wall were there. It was wonderful and sad in these circumstances to have a story that I had read brought the life. It was a pretty decently sized space- until one accounts for the amount of people and the fact that they couldn't open the windows or leave the house. At the end of the tour I was able to see the original journal and other notebooks of hers as well. I did sneak one photo in the museum of the moving bookcase which always fascinated me.

From the outside

Next we went to the VanGogh museum where I got to follow the progression of his life through his paintings. Starting with his influences and then watching and he progressed into his own style. It was very cool to see how his style was effected by the things in his life. I snuck a couple photos again.

We all went out to lunch after that and I tried some Dutch pancakes. It was very good, but a lot thinner than I had thought!

Next we saw the Amsterdam equivalent of the Hollywood sign and had a miniature photo-shoot!

(I amsterdam)

I am at the top of the m with Sheridan

Next we did our tourist shopping looking for postcards and such and then it started to rain so we had to take cover by stopping for some hot chocolate :) After that we had a girls nice by going to the House of Bols. It is this sweet interactive museum where you taste and smell different things and try to guess the scent/ flavor. Then at the end you chose a mixed drink based on what you liked and they make it right in front of you! They had a dance room, a book of secret recipes, a lounging room, a colored hallway of scents, a room for juggling bottles and other such fun things. Also it turns out that Bols was friends with Rembrandt who would pay off his alcohol debt with his paintings, so there were a few of those inside.

The room of scents

Look at those freshly made beauties :D

Girls night (Look at those beautiful blonds!)

The next day we finished off our stay in Amsterdam with a private canal tour on an old antique boat. Our tour guide was from Chicago ironically. On the tour we saw the smallest house in Amsterdam which is so tiny and narrow that they have to pull down the stairs to the second floor like an attic staircase, but there were people inside! We also saw a house with 6 statues of heads outside. Legend has it that six burglars tried to enter and the nanny chopped off all of their heads. Then the Dad put them on stakes outside the house to warn off others. We also saw an animal shelter for cats that is a boat. They just chill, floating on the river all day :) The tour really was a perfect way to finished off the city.

Student Life

In Pau, most of the students go out on Thursday nights because a lot of them go home for the weekends on Friday. Normally the study abroad students go to a bar called the Galway or the Garage. I don't really like beer, but my first time there I did try beer with strawberry syrup. It's popular to the French. I still don't think the syrup hides the grossness of the taste of beer :P

Getting ready for a night out

Last weekend, me and three other girls went to Lescar to visit a hippie commune which has what is basically a huge thrift shop. We bought Halloween costumes there for our trip to Paris. I bought a white dress and shoes to be a snow queen. Jessica bought an egyptian outfit, Ariana a barmaid outfit and Summer a sailor outfit. I also got this really cool tapestry thing from Africa- it has sweet hippos on it! We got a little lost trying to get the commune and we ended up asking two old women who drove by for directions. They said they would bring us partway; so this was how I ended up hitchhiking for the first time in my life! We figured we were pretty safe since it was just two old women and there were four of us. We saw them on the way back too, but it turns out they had bought some furniture from the thrift shop and so we no longer fit.

After that we decided to have a girls night at Summer's house. We listened to a lot of French music, ate some pizza and cake and talked so much that we never ended up watching a movie which was the original plan. I found out that summer is friends with my cousin Katrina. I know the saying is cliché, but it really IS a small world!

Pub Quiz

The English department at the University of Pau (This would be for french students who are learning English) put on a quiz at a pub called the Garage. (The garage reminds me of Applebees or Hudsons with all kinds of random stuff on the wall!) The quiz was all Halloween based questions. For example: Which horror film has had the most sequels? They also incorporated some questions on Halloween music and photos of celebrities dressed in Halloween costumes. It was really fun. The pub was packed and we got join teams with a group of french students. We didn't win, but our team did pretty well anyways. The winners did receive a huge bag of candy and some free champagne. Quite a few people dressed up and of course there was candy! It's fun to see Halloween growing in popularity here!

Our team (both sides of the table)

La Grève

As many of you know France has been on a strike the last few weeks. What does the strike entail you might ask? Well, the high school students don't go to class, instead they wait outside the university playing guitars around a bonfire. They also stacked all the dumpsters in front of the gateway so no one can get in. At the university it's the same thing except that they stacked desks and chairs in front of the doorways and some of them are sleeping in the school.

Luckily, they leave one side door open for study abroad students which we have to knock on before they will let us in. I do feel bad walking through their strike to go to my class and I always get some weird looks. Other industries that are on strike in my region are the buses, trains, garbage men (yup, there are stacks of garbage lining the streets) and gas stations.

As far as the political reasons for the strike, the main purpose of the strike to resist the government bill to change the retirement age. Here is a good article that explains everything in easy terms:

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/10/21/france.pension.strikes/index.html

Also, if you'd like to watch one of the protests here is a quick look into what it's like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXtxXlo5t6Y&feature=related