Ca fait longtemps ...

So, we must be tired of reading about Thanksgiving...and my god has it really been since Thanksgiving that I've written anything? Gosh.

Well, this is just a quick message to say that that will change! This semester is going amazingly well and I just got my grades from last semester and managed to pass all my classes with decent grades (13-14/20 in everything, which is pretty much equivalent to Bs). And best of all, now I have so much to write about!

This semester I've made it a much stronger goal to do my work ahead of time and also really get to experience the city itself a lot more and it's been going very successfully! I try and do something nice at least every week and I've been planning on making a post at least each week documenting them. I've visited famous churches, went to Disney Land, ate traditional French food out, ... been having way too much fun!

So now, I am trying as hard as I can to get as much work out of the way before I head to Holland for Spring Break on Friday morning. Not much traveling but definitely a nice time with Dane and we'll do some day trips to Amsterdam and Bruges in Belgium, I can't wait! But in the coming days I will try and update my blog with a series to catch me up with my fun times so I can stick to it for the last half of the semester!

I love it here too much and I can't wait to get home! A bientot !

Dana

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey Everyone!!! I hope you all had a wonderful wonderful Thanksgiving!

Mine consisted of dealing with the French bureaucracy (going to the Police Prefecture to try and sort out my residency permit -- got nowhere), working all day on term papers while watching the Macy's Parade on the internet, then eating a feast of vegetable stirfry while I watched the Thanksgiving episode of Modern Family. At least it was a little festive! Missed home a lot though. Last night I actually celebrated Thanksgiving itself with friends though, we had a big Thanksgiving meal. It was with mostly Americans then a few Australians and Brits.

I had an Amazing day yesterday, I went to the American grocery store to buy some cranberries and whatnot then I came home and I listened to Christmas music while I prepared and cooked for the dinner. I asked Mom-mom the recipe for her stuffing which is among my Thanksgiving favorites and something I'll definitely never be getting around here. Although it didn't quite turn out exactly the same, I could certainly taste at least the similarity and everyone was amazed how delicious it was! I would have to say that it was the tastiest thing there :P Here is a photo of the finished product!

So needless to say, I was very proud :-) Other than that with dinner, we had duck (how French) and chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, asparagus, salad, different appetizers like artichoke dip, uhhh....then for dessert, apple cobbler and pumpkin pie. So all in all we pulled together a pretty good meal. Not as delicious as home, BUT by far the heartiest meal I've had in well...maybe the semester haha, and great fun with friends :D

Now is the last week of classes and I've got several term papers and presentations due so I am crazy busy. Hope all's going well and it's so great to now be in the holiday season! Paris is SO BEAUTIFUL with all the lights out now. Honestly I think it's significantly prettier and more charming. So a great time for my family to come visit :) I will try and take pictures maybe next weekend if I can have the time to walk around and enjoy them! Take care!

Dana

vacances de l'automne

Salut tout le monde !

I'm very sorry that I have not written in so long! I have been very busy blahblahblah and we had the internet changed in my flat and the internet in my room has simply been not working for a week so yeah it's been tough. And now I am going away for fall break for a couple weeks so I will still not post. But for just a quick peep of contact and to let you know how it's going here, I just wanted to tell you my itinerary! It's for this organization I am in called AEGEE, European Students' Forum, and it is having its Europe-wide forum next week in Macedonia so that's where I will go and Dane and I are making a nice trip out of it. Sorry I am not being so detailed but yes very quickly!

I am in Delft right now with Dane, I just arrived by bus last night so tomorrow morning bright and early we will begin our adventure!

We will take the train south to Brussels and hang out and see the city as a nice little half day trip. Then our flight leaves Brussels Charleroi at 6pm. So voilà....

10/22 Flight from Brussels to Belgrade, Serbia.
We have booked a little apartment in Serbia for two nights and we will have about two days to discover the city a bit our selves and to go shopping (I'm in dire need of real shoes and we figured Eastern Europe's shopping would be a bit cheaper...)

10/24-10/27 "Pre-Event"
We are spending a few days in Belgrade with AEGEE-Belgrade who is hosting an event for three days before the Agora so there will be about 40 or so other AEGEE members from across Europe who will also be there for it. We'll stay in a hostel and we have a JAM PACKED schedule of sightseeing and even a lot of really nice authentic things like we will have a kolo dancing workshop ;) Apparently Belgrade is the European capital of nightlife so that will be interesting as well. They have already sent us a handful of songs that we have to study and learn as homework before we arrive.

10/27 Departure for Agora on the "Crazy Bus"
So basically dozens more Europeans will fly into Belgrade and come along with us for the Crazy bus to the agora so a nice party on the whole bus ride there and we will stop in a town called Laskovic which is apparently the barbecue capital of the world. Should be really nice if I can keep my eyes open ;)

Then we'll arrive in Struga, Macedonia for the AGORA!
10/27-10/31 AGORA
More details to come later I don't really know...:P

10/31 Crazy bus back to Belgrade (hopefully stopping in Skopje on the way)
10/31 Night train from Belgrade to Budapest

11/1 - 11/3 Budapest!!
Dane and I will spend a couple days in Budapest :D Unbelievably excited for this one! Uncle Alex especially if you have any suggestions, please send me an email and let me know!

11/3 Flight home from Budapest to Eindhoven, NL.

Then I'll just spend a few days in Delft then take the bus back to Paris on November 6th! Then well I will have to post some albums and whatnot! I hope everything is going well! I'm over half way done the first semester...:(

x Dana

Vélib!!!

Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't posted in a while. But here is the post I've been super excited to write for quite a while now: The Vélib!

Now the Vélib is the public bike system here. There are 2,000 some odd stations across the city and you can pick up a bike and ride it for 30 minutes (well 45 for me since I'm a student) without charge and just park it in another station. Well obviously it's not completely free, but I think 1,70eur for one day of full access etc and 29, eur for the year! So it's just not wise to not buy it, even if you don't plan on biking too often, it's just too convenient! So since I haven't got my metro pass yet (being France it's extremely complicated to obtain and the last thing I needed was the code of my bank account which I just got last Thursday and so now I can send in all my info and wait another few weeks to get the card) I use the bike as much as I possibly can. I ride to and from school everyday so since the weather has been SO beautiful this past week, I took some pictures for you to see a bit of what my commute to school looks like ... it's not too bad.

So there are several Vélib stations around me, four within a two block radius and of course beyond that a lot more. The one I typically use is right across the street and a block down, right on the river.

That's how they look and what a regular station looks. And lucky for me, this one is always pretty chock full of bikes for me to choose in the morning. Then I pull out and ride straight to the river and go left. I ride parallel to the river the whole way to school. Here are a few pics I took on the way down the river.

Well...that would be the Notre Dame pretty much as soon as I turn left on the river. No big deal or anything...It's just as beautiful every time I see it! I always make sure to admire it as I go by, not just let it fade to just...there, what I see every day etc. Absolutely Beautiful! Except I can't look at it too much because early in the morning on such beautiful days, there are heaps and heaps of tourists also looking at in awe and not understanding the traffic/paying attention. Sidenote: Yes I already bitch and whine about tourists here and there. :P

Just waiting at an intersection. So luckily on this road on the river, there is a bike lane almost the entire ride. That is very rare in Paris and EXTREMELY nice! Typically the bike shares a lane of traffic with the buses, emergency vehicles, and taxis. So it's rather aggressive and you really need to be careful and stay very close to the curb. It's much scarier sounding than it really is though. You get used to it quickly and I've found comfort deciding that the busdrivers, taxis, and other drivers want to hit me just as much as I want them to hit me. I've seen many close calls with other bikers typically when they keep going straight at a green light and a car in the right lane turns right without looking. But yeah you just have to be smart like anything else. It's really not too scary! I hope that everyone that will make it out to Paris can try it ;)

 This is Place St. Michel. I'm not really sure what it is but a beautiful fountain on the end of a building but it's definitely quite famous and always crowded.

I'm also not sure what this is but it looks very pretty and like a big deal. It's one of my favorite landmarks on my way to school...plus it means I'm almost there :P

So then a couple blocks past that last building I turn left onto Rue des Saints-Peres. There are a couple Sciences Po buildings on it and the first Vélib stop near ScPo is there. One of my favorite parts is straight ahead in the distance is the Tour Montparnasse over the horizon of the buildings. You can see it practically everywhere. I hear the view from the top of the Tour is the most beautiful in all of Paris. I can't wait to actually get on top of it! But for now I've just frequented a club at the bottom of it as well as many of the shops on this very long shopping road that leads up to it.

Then finally, I cross the Boulevard St. Germain again and here I am, at my usual Vélib stop! (If I get to class early enough and all the spots aren't taken). Very nice ride right?!

I meant to take some pictures on my way home. I pass some more beautiful things on the Boulevard St. Germain like the church of St. Germain de Pres which is from the 6th century as well as the museum Cluny which has an ancient Roman dig right there and behind that a medieval castle preserved where the medieval museum is. I will make a Vélib article part deux! Because I also have a lot more to say about it. So...to be continued....

Je m'appelle Dana

"Hey bonjour tu t'appelles comment toi?" 

"Salut! Je m'appelle Dana"

"Deena?"

"Dana"

"Diana, enchanté!"

"non non non c'est Day-na"

That is every single first conversation with everyone I meet. Well not always French I'm just acting exotic because yes I believed the French may find it difficult but even all the international students I meet -- no one understands or can say my name! It's very difficult for them. Except when I'm with Dane since then they can connect the two and realize it's just an "uh" at the end of his name. 

But I regret to inform you all that I am now Dana as in...Dah-nah, or maybe more accurately when speaking French, D'nah. The beautiful name my mother has given me has been butchered here haha. It really just makes a lot of confusion for everyone! So now I say Dahnah and everyone gets it right away. I don't get what is so difficult about Day-nah but these people don't get it.

Also there is another American named Dena (who studies at Penn! but is from Kentucky) and people mix us up all the time. "Oh yeah yeah Dena we just met the other night I remember you!" No obviously you don't because you met Dena obviously not Dana you just can't pronounce my name. Ayayaye.

La haute cuisine

So as you can imagine on my glamorous student budget, I am really getting a taste of the food that makes Paris so famous. Or I mean getting a taste of the discounted discount brand of the cheapest supermarket in the city! I've been making out pretty well so far, been here three weeks and have spent just about 100 euros so far on groceries (and that includes all my toiletries and cleaning stuff when I first arrived). I've fallen victim to these hamburger packs -- 8 hamburgers for 4,50 euros and typically potatoes and vegetables. Every night I like to calculate my dinner in my head and it's usually under two euros, sometimes even under one ;) I'm doing pretty well. And I figured from the beginning I am only trying all the Carrefour Discount products to see if they're nice because if they're nice enough then I'm not paying three times the price for the name brand stuff. Well let's just hope that what I'm eating just has nutrition to it but according to the nutrition facts they seem to! Pretty unbelievable! Here's a photo of a typical dinner of mine ...

Oh whoa! Adding pictures is so easy! Okay well I'll make sure to do that from now on! And okay the cookies and chips and chocolate in the background have nothing to do with my classy meal, but a salad, hamburger, mashed potatoes, asparagus...and wine! So okay add the wine this meal was probably 3euros. So it CAN be done!

And other than dinners I also eat very cheaply. I usually have cereal or oatmeal and a fruit in the morning. sometimes toast and eggs if I have the time and need the energy. And for lunch I usually eat salami and cheese sandwiches and an apple. So everything I buy is 1) the Carrefour Discount brand and 2) lasts at least a week or so. Now as I know it's possible to eat well pretty cheaply I just need to branch out hopefully in the same price range because I don't want to be sick of all the great cheap food within a month...




PS. On the subject of eating here, I just wanted to confirm that the stereotypes of the French and their baguettes, wine, and cheese are 100% true. I am really becoming French I hardly never leave the house in the evenings to meet up with friends without a bottle of wine and a demi-baguette in my purse (perfect sized purse for everything). You see people ALL the time walking down the street with fresh baguettes and a lot of the time just people sitting eating plain baguette. I think I'm learning what heaven is like.

In France, a Bastion of Privilege No More - NYTimes.com

In case no one's read this yet:

In France, a Bastion of Privilege No More - NYTimes.com:

Fantastic right? I like how Descoing was criticized in the beginning for Americanizing Sciences Po, forcing 'politically correct' 'failed' diversification methods and encouraging students to participate in the arts. Well it seems to be working out! I guess it's yesterday now that Sciences Po released the official 10 year report to show the effects of the new policies and whatnot but I haven't looked into them yet. Just thought it would be an interesting read for anyone and show you more about my school! Ah =)