Joyeuse Pâques

For Easter weekend I went to Aix-en-Provence.  Unfortunately the Easter bunny didn't find me there because I woke up without an Easter basket.  Maybe next year.  First of all the trip was ridic.. remind me not to travel on holiday weekends here anymore.  When I got on the train to go there, there was a girl sitting in my seat.  She apparently mixed up the car numbers, so me, being such a nice person, offered to take her seat since she was already settled in.  Well no good deed goes unpunished.  Long story short, I ended up sitting next to a French couple, and the girl was sitting on the guys lap and they were making out for like 2 hours.  Cute.  and not awkward for me or anything.  Then there was a bomb threat on the train line, so we had an hour delay.  Damn you terrorists! 

Once I got to Aix, I met up with my friend Katie, who I was staying with.  We lived in Avignon together and she is doing the assistantship this year too.  We went out to a traditional Provençal dinner and I met all of her friends.  They were all so nice!  That night we went out, and I was amazed at how many young people live there, and Americans too.  In Colmar you don't see people in the streets outside of bars, so this was a very exciting experience for me.    

On Saturday we walked around the town since I haven't been there in a few years.  It was funny to see the places I had been there.. I even remembered the restaurant that I ate at with my Mom, Ernie, Charlie, Matt and Shannon a few years ago.  We went shopping a little bit, walked through the flower markets, and most importantly, she took me to the genuine mexican-american burrito restaurant.  We don't get burritos in Alsace.  After that we went to her friends place who was having a cooking party, and I continued to eat the entire day.  That night we went out again with some of her friends.  

Easter Sunday we had the ultimate French experience : a Marseille soccer game.  Marseille is known for having crazy fans, and their team is really good.  So we went with some of Katie's friends and her roommates to experience it for ourselves.  Unfortunately the weather wasn't great, but the game was interesting anyways.  They won against Grenoble 4-1.  The fans were going crazyy.. they have these chants that each side of the stadium do back and forth to each other.  We definitely picked a good game to go to! 

Well I think that's all for now.  One thing I definitely realized during this weekend is that I am so happy I chose to live in the North.  I don't think I could handle the southern way of life!  I definitely prefer the people, the architecture, the climate, the cleanliness, etc., up here better. 

Creepy statue with a lady wearing a building as a hat..

Saturday Flower Markets
During the cooking party.. love the apron haha
Heading into the stadium in Marseille

This guy definitely felt really confident about his outfit.. Do you think it's maybe a little snug?

Pinch me.

Pinch me.  All I have to say about the weekend.  It can't be real!  On Thursday I went to meet up with my grandpa and Heidi in Switzerland for the weekend.  They took a 2 week cruise from Fort Lauderdale to come meet up with me here.  They are now on their way back to the States via the Queen Mary II.  Crazy trip.  

On Thursday night I got into Interlaken later (it's about 2 1/2 hrs from me) so we took some time to catch up.  On Friday Heidi and I got up early and headed to Grindelwald and Männlichen for a day of skiing!  Here is a map of the area so you can get an idea. The nicest ski resorts in Switzerland are only about a half hour away from Interlaken, so we of course had to take advantage.  We got on the slopes around 10:30.  First of all, there was NO ONE there.  We literally had the alps to ourselves.  Second of all, the weather was sooo beautiful.  There was nothing but blue skies and alps in our view!  I took a million pictures but honestly it just doesn't turn out the way that it really looks.  We skied for a few hours, and then took a quick break to shed about 5 of our layers off.  I missed the memo that you can pretty much go skiing in the Spring wearing a t-shirt. I think maybe being naked would have even been more comfortable.  I also missed the memo to wear sunscreen.  Since my pale body hasn't seen sunlight for about 6 months, my face got fried as usual.  It's also super cool because I was wearing a headband on half of my forehead, so I have a really cute line going across it now. It's a good thing I have some bangs that I can cover that up with. 

After an amazing day of skiing, we went back to poor Poppy, who we had left at the hotel all day.  We went out to dinner for our "après-ski" and found a cute authentic Swiss restaurant right next to our hotel.  This is where I discovered "rosti" which is shredded potatoes with bacon and cheese.  It tastes like notso fries from Yours Truly, only 100 times better.  

On Saturday we took a train ride back up the Alps, to two towns called Lauterbrunnen and Mürren. Once again, perfect weather and beautiful scenery!  We took a train to Lauterbrunnen, a gondola up the mountain and then a train across to Mürren.  They are just little ski towns with cute little Swiss chalets!  Looking at these towns I seriously feel like I am at Disney World.. it can't be real!  

Saturday night Megan (friend from Zurich) came and met up with us in Interlaken.  We walked around the town, and had yet another Rosti dinner at the same restaurant.  It was so good I had to go back for more.  We also celebrated my "birthday" on this night (thank you Poppy for being a great liar) and got some free dessert.   

On Sunday, we took a scenic train ride called the "Golden Pass" through Switzerland, heading south towards Geneva.  We spent like 3 hours on a train, went to Lucerne, stayed for an hour, and headed back towards France.  Lots of trains! We were all kinda crabby on this day.  Now, we got back to Colmar, all ready to go home/to their hotel, go our separate ways and have some time to ourselves.  Well we get off the train, and who do we see?  Heidi's uncle and aunt from Germany.  They drove all the way to Colmar and somehow found us at the train station!  We still haven't figured out how they knew where to find us, but it worked out perfectly.  So we went to dinner, I went home, and it was back to work yesterday!  I am exhausted.  Yeah yeah I know, all I do is travel.  But seriously it is exhausting!  Also, yesterday, Poppy and Heidi came to school with me for a little bit.  They met one of my classes, and Poppy obviously explained to my students that he was John Wayne's brother.  Haha.  They were a little confused I think.  

Ok that's all for now!  Next weekend onto Aix-en-Provence for Easter....

Une Journée à Paris

Sup yo y'all.  So just got back from Paris, no big deal.  Since Fridays are yet another day that I have off, I decided to take a little day trip to Paris!  The high speed trains go from Colmar to Paris in 2 1/2 hours, so I woke up at 6 this morning and I was in Paris by 9:30.  Seriously, how is this the first time I have done this so far?  

First of all let me just say that I was soo lucky with the weather.  It was 50's and nothing but blue skies all day.  The misery that is winter has finally ceased. When I arrived I headed straight for the area where Notre Dame cathedral and the Sainte Chappelle are.  I have been to Notre Dame before, but it is something that never gets old.  The stained glass in there is so beautiful!   Then I saw Sainte Chappelle for the first time ever.  This is a chapel that was built during the 13th century, it's purpose was to hold important relics, including the crown of thorns.  This thing was built in SIX years.  Just for a comparison, I think the Notre Dame took over 200 years to build.  Sainte Chappelle is mainly stained glass, and I seriously cannot imagine how it was built in that short of a time period.  But anyways, there was a group of school children getting a guided tour, so I kinda eavesdropped and learned about all the stories from the bible that the stained glass tell, and how the glass was made, etc.  Since he was explaining it to a group of 5th graders it was right at my comprehension level.  So here's what it looks like inside: 

And here is some of the stained glass from Notre Dame: 

Next I walked down to the Luxembourg Gardens, but not until after I found a LEGIT AMERICAN DINER called "Happy Days." Oh, happy day is right.  So for the past 3 weeks, about 5 times a day, all I say to my friends is "I want a milkshake."  I don't know why, I just really wanted a damn milkshake, and France doesn't have them.  Except for McDonald's, which doesn't count.  So I got myself a genuine Oreo milkshake and I was on my way.  I walked around these gardens which were packed.  It was a beautiful day and all of the french university students were out!  This is something that I unfortunately don't see in Colmar, which is seriously lacking the student scene.  

Next stop.. my favorite of the day.  I went to le Musée de l'Orangerie.  I was just saying to my mom when she was here how I knew that there was a museum somewhere that had 2 rooms full of Monet's water lilies.  Well I was reading through my book on Paris, and came across this.  You walk into the oval shaped rooms, and each wall is covered with HUGE canvases of water lilies, and each one is different.  I sat in the rooms for over an hour just staring at these paintings.  I wasn't quite awake yet when I left my apt this morning so I forgot my camera, but below is a picture of just one of the canvases (ya and I stole the rest of the pics off the net too).  Each room had 4 of them total that cover almost all of the wall space.  You can't even really tell from the picture how big the painting actually is!  It was definitely my favorite stop of the day.  

Now finally the last stop of the day, you can't go to Paris without doing a little bit of shopping.  Well, actually you can.  I went to Galeries Lafayette, which is a 10 story apartment store.  There were so many people there I was seriously overwhelmed.  I think it was better off that way, because most of this store is extremely overpriced.  Here's a pic of the inside of the store.. and in the U.S. we think that Saks is fancy.. this place makes Saks look like the Family Dollar. 

yep, thats the inside of a department store..

The Land of Drugs and Hookers..

Yep those are actual hookers where the red lights are..

Amsterdam!  Now I didn't experience first hand any drugs or hookers but I hear that's what this city is all about.  During my last vacation I spent about 6 days in Amsterdam, a city I have wanted to visit for a long time.  The first couple of days there were spent with two of my friends who I also was in Cologne with.  When we were planning our trip we were having some trouble finding a decently priced hotel or hostel, and the only thing we could find were 10 room dorms with bunk beds.  I like to stay at hostels to save money, but I really didn't feel like staying with 8 people that I don't know.  So we were looking online and came across a houseboat in one of the canals, where we could have our own room, and it was the same price as the dorm rooms we found.  Sounds cute and different, right?  Hmm that's what I thought too.  So the first day I get to the hostel (I was by myself because I took a different train) and when I got to the houseboat, I was seriously at a loss of words.  I'm sure most of you know that this is not something that happens very often, but literally.. speechless.  The room was so small that it was pretty much impossible to have 2 people standing in it at one time.  And the bunk beds were pretty much the exact length of my body.  Oh, and did I mention that it actually was built in 1913??  It got to a point where I was just laughing.. it was literally something that would have happened in a National Lampoons vacation movie.  Not in real life.  Well on the bright side, the people that owned it were super nice.  And I did hastily find a new place to stay the following night, which was about 10x worse.  Thank god my mom was on her way and we could stay in nice hotels from that point on!

The first couple of days my friends and I wandered around the city, saw the beautiful canals, did some shopping, ate lots of french fries, and even some Argentina steaks, which is apparently a "specialty" in Amsterdam according to the number of restaurants there.  The thing that I noticed there almost right away is the CRAZy amount of bikes everywhere.  People there seriously do not own cars, and there are special roads just for bikes.  You have two toddlers to put on your bike with you? No problem,  lets not even put helmets on them.  Ask a girl out on a date?  She hops on the back of your bike.  People carry their heavy groceries on the handlebars like they're not even there.  I mean I have problems even balancing myself on a bike... these people have some serious skills, for reals.  

On the third day.. my MOM came to visit :)  Little Carol Ann came made it all the way over to Amsterdam all by herself.  We are so proud.  I met her at the airport in the morning, showed her my NASTY hotel room, and we ventured out to do some sight seeing.  My favorite thing that we did was the Van Gogh museum.  There was a special exhibition going on so we got to see his most famous paintings, including Starry Night.  It was cool to see a painting in person that is so well-known. We also did a tour of the canals, and learned a lot about the city.  And most importantly, we ate lots of good food!  The first night we had dinner with my two friends that were still there, and the second night we had swiss fondu.  

After hanging out in Amsterdam for a few days we decided we wanted to try to see something new.  We went to the tourist office and they made some suggestions for other cities we could go to in Holland.  We ended up spending the day in a town called Delft, which is a little town about an hour train ride away from Amsterdam.  It was so cute!  Just like a smaller version of Amsterdam, but a lot calmer with very few tourists.  We walked around the canals, saw the new and old church, the market place, a windmill, and did some shopping.  I even bought a pair of genuine wooden shoes!  They don't fit very well, but they'll make a nice souvenir anyways.  I was very happy with my trip in Amsterdam overall, and I would highly recommend for anyone to go there!  Don't let the bad reputation turn you away.  If you really do want to hang out in the red light district, I'm sure you can get into trouble.  But besides that the city really is beautiful :)   

Delft, Holland 

OOps.

Ok, ok.  I really suck at this blog thing.  I swear I am going to try to get better.  Hmm where did we leave off.. Ok, so I got back from Berlin, and it turns out, after that week, I happened to have 2 weeks of vacation time.  Seriously, France knows what's up.  A normal person would probably be tuckered out after (barely) sleeping in a bus for 12 hours, but as the french say "il faut profiter!"  So, I slept most of the day on Saturday, and on Sunday morning I got up and drove up to Cologne, Germany with some of my Frenchy friends.   So just the same as we celebrate Mardi Gras in the states in New Orleans, there are a bunch of cities here in Europe that celebrate Carnival.  Cologne is one of the biggest celebrations that there is.  Clearly, the goal of this trip wasn't exactly for sightseeing, it was more to go and have fun for a couple of days.  

The first day we wandered around the city, saw some parades, drank some brews, etc.  Later that day, our 2 american friends, Kara and Debbie met up with us.  We went out that night, which happened to be a Sunday, and you would have thought that it was a Saturday night.  This town was like one big party.  All I know is that we spent way too much time at a club called "Diamonds" towards the end of the night/early morning.  I think we'll leave it at that.  Monday is the day of the big parade.  We got up, put on some "costumes," which were basically just a random assortment of accessories, and headed to the parade.  Lucky for us, my friend Debbie has some German friends, so we actually spent some time watching the parade from a balcony which was cool.  After seeing Mardi Gras in New Orleans last year, this was a pretty calm celebration.  There were a lot of people but nothing ever got out of hand and the crowds were bearable.  Leave it to Germany to have an orderly drinking fest.  Point for the Germans.  

The only thing I really could have gone without during this festival was definitely the traditional music.  German people are crazy.  I love them, but they're crazy.  This song happened to be the theme of the trip, it's called "Viva Colonia."   I still can't get that song out of my head.  I put the link there so I can spread the torture to others, I wouldn't recommend actually listening.  I don't know why but sometimes I just really can't take the language seriously when there are people constantly yelling "WUNDERBAR!" which actually sounds like VUNDERBAR! (it means wonderful, in case you didn't know.)  

Also one of my favorite things about this little trip is the fact that I got to eat German cuisine for 4 days.  A diet of schnitzel and french fries is definitely my cup of tea.  That's fat free, right? I really enjoy the fact that in Germany it is perfectly acceptable to use mayonnaise as a dipping sauce.  I no longer put mayo on my sandwiches because it is so bad for you, yet I think it's ok to use it as a dipping sauce for my french fries.  Healthy, I know.  

Well that's all for now.. next it was onto Brussels, Amsterdam and Heidelberg.  To be continued..

Where do I begin..

Well I have pretty much been on vacation for 3 weeks, so I guess I will start at the beginning.  A few weeks ago, I got a phone call from the school, explaining that one of the teachers took a leave of absence, and the school was desperately searching for someone to chaperone a school trip to Berlin.  Umm a free trip to Berlin and no work for a week?  Sure.  So me and 3 other teachers took a group of 44 seniors to Berlin for about 5 days.  Oh yeah, and we took a bus.  If you look at a map, Berlin isn't exactly right around the corner, it is about 12-ish hours away from here!  It was a long night sleeping in a bus, but it wasn't as bad as I thought.  When we were there we saw Checkpoint Charlie, lots of Holocaust memorials and the museum, the Sans Souci palace in Potsdam, and umm I forget what else?  All I know is it ended up being really fun!  Of course the students wanted to go out, and since they are French, the other teachers didn't seem concerned that they wanted to go out drinking.  We compromised and took them bowling for 2 nights, and then let them go out on the town one night.  The result only ended with ONE barfing girl!  Good job kids, way to hold your alcohol.  No but the trip was really fun, and I got to know a lot of the students a lot better.  They were so cute, they always included me in everything that they did during the trip.  I am so lucky to have such nice students :) 

Checkpoint Charlie

I think this was a church
The entrance to Babylon that they moved to a museum... sorry its facing the wrong way
This was built some year in the BC's...
The whole gang!

Yet Another Skiing Adventure!

Since I don't work on Wednesdays (yes I know, rough life) and my host dad (from when I first moved here) is retired, we decided to go skiing for the day.  There are a ton of skiing areas near my school, so we went to one called Schnepfenried.  I know what you're thinking, the name sounds very French.  So anyways, my friend Kara came along and we went for the day.  The ski resort is really small, so they were nice enough to only have the butt-pull lifts instead of the chairs.  I am seriously a PRO now.  It was smooth sailing..... at first.  This time about halfway through the day, I got a little bit too comfortable.  Never a good thing.  I was going up, not paying any attention, and all of a sudden fell off the butt pull.  My friend Kara was behind me, and since she was not paying any attention, she fell off of hers, on top of me.  It was a tangled mess of skis and poles, and instead of trying to move like a normal person would do, I just sat there laughing for 5 minutes.  Once again, French people think Americans are crazy.  The skiing was pretty decent though, and it only cost 12 euro for a whole day of skiing!  Not bad at all.  

the infamous butt pulls..

Kara and Gérard in the background

Making people jealous of my ski skills

The Munster Valley