I have to say I told you so. I told you I fail at keeping journals and thus am also failing at updating this blog AND I bet it's just going to get worse as the semester wears on. Either way, here I am again backtracking on the last week or more.
I spent most of last week settling in to life in Grenoble after all the random travelling thus far. Grocery shopping, getting internet at home, doing laundry and catching up on the things I hadn't accomplished during the first week which Jess and I spent in Spain instead. We also had more orientation sessions to attend and had to get our supplies for school. Unfortunately I learned that France does not like to use regular, lined, looseleaf paper. Nope. Instead, they use some weird graph paper type thing and their paper sizes and binders are all longer than ours in Canada. I accepted this eventually and went searching for a clipboard to carry notes back and forth to school. Nope. Couldn't find one of those either. An agenda with a monthly calendar also? Nope. And yes, randomly, peanut butter? Nope again.
Anyways, it was clearly a discovering week, discovering all the things France doesn't have that made me miss Canada just a little bit more. In the end the week was not a bust as we spent Wednesday (Sept 15) on a team building adventure where we hiked up the the Bastille on the mountain and got to play a variety of sports, eat baguettes and pain au chocolat, explore tunnels and just enjoy the 26 degrees it was that afternoon.
Let me tell you that the French like to party. It all started Wednesday evening. Yes, school was in session for some people but there was a party in one of the residences for the Mexican Independence Day from 9pm til oh, 5am...however, I decided to be lame and hit the hay that night since the sun at the team building event about drained my energy. Probably the best plan since you couldn't move within the room and I heard the police ended up at the residence to break it up anyways.
Then came Thursday. Jess and I decided we needed to integrate ourselves more with all the other students at GEM so we signed up for the Bureau des Estudiants' (BDE - Student Union type thing) Integration Weekend or Week End de Integration (WEI) as the French would say. We were to leave for an unknown location in the south of France, on the Mediterranean, on Friday at 1:30am in the morning. Well I figured I'd sleep til then, get up and catch the bus and fall asleep again til we got there in the morning. Boy was I wrong. We soon found out we were supposed to meet at 7:30 for dinner and then at 10:30pm for the pre-bus party at someone's apartment. Let's just say everyone was pretty drunk by the time it was 1:30 and time for us to board the bus. Did the party stop? Hell no, this is France. And it continued all the way until 6am, about an hour before we arrived and the point when everyone decided it was finally time to put down the microphones and sleep for a bit.
I eventually found out we ended up in Canet du Plage, France which was very near to the border of Spain. Needless to say the weekend was awesome even though it proceeded to rain most of the time. Some of the activities included hanging at the beach, paintball, bumper cars, human slingshot, mini rodeo, foam party, random drink parties, inflatable slip n slide, etc. Some sleep was had and also a lot of fun. The 6 hour drive took us home Sunday afternoon and I prepared to start classes for the semester on Monday morning! Yup...that's the boring part of this all. Haha.
The only thing about Integration Weekend that I would mention to future students of GEM is that it seemed to be mostly French students who went. As a result, not much "integration" actually happens unless you are willing walk up to a random stranger and strike up a conversation in French. They do appreciate the effort though but sometimes the conversations are short-lived.
So...I'm headed off to Switzerland tomorrow with Jess to meet up with a friend and head to Oktoberfest but when I get back I'll share a bit of my first week of school experiences as well as some of this upcoming trip.
PS- I just sucked it up and bought a replacement camera today so there should be more pictures to come on Facebook. And one of these days I'll add some to the blog so your eyes don't start to cross from all the reading.
A la prochaine (no I can't figure out accents either on here for the French words)!
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
First Week
First? Yes, I'm about through my first full week in Grenoble since Jess and I returned from Spain last Wednesday. I'm going to try and catch up with this blog so I can be up-to-date on the information I post for you and the events will actually be current.
Well, once we got back from our Spanish gallivanting I really felt the need to relax, get established and start feeling settled in my apartment and in Grenoble. I still didn't know where anything was or feel confident in taking the tram so I had a definite need to discover such things before school started. At this point I can say I have been mostly successful and school still doesn't start until next Monday (Sept 20th).
First things first was food. I had gotten so sick of consistently eating out at restaurants and trying to find something that was decent priced, which proved to be more challenging than expected. Let me tell you that it is NOT a good plan to shop for all your apartment basics plus a full fridge of food all at once. Yes, I did think it was a task I could conquor and was later proven wrong. Friday afternoon Jess and I ventured out to Casino Geant (kind of like a Superstore). I later discovered this was prob
ably the most expensive place to buy groceries but it was nice to be able to get everything at once and not have to search through numerous stores. Needless to say I piled my full shopping cart of groceries into 3 of those enviro-savvy bags (since they don't give you plastic ones). When you have laundry detergent, milk, dish soap, glass jars plus a jumbo pack of toilet paper this becomes a bigger load than you might think. Finally we waddled outside with our bags and realized it was pouring rain. Getting soaked was really not my concern since I was more worried about how I was going to carry my bags from the tram to my house (5 min walk). In the end two French, 19 year olds actually took pity on me, when I had only managed to walk 1/2 block in 5 min, and helped me all the way to my apartment and up the 4 flights of stairs. Thank you humanity! I have some faith in you again.
Over the course of the next few days I attended orientation presentations for school for a couple hours each day. Since I decided to relax a bit and not skip town for the second weekend in a row I ended up with a lot more free time. Some of that was spent doing more errands and some spent trying to get rid of a sore throat but I had a definite highlight. Saturday (Sept 11) the Bureau des Sports (Sports Club at school) had free tickets to see the FC Grenoble rugby team play right in town! I LOVE that they speak of rugby as casually and as often as we do in Canada about hockey or football. Tickets are cheap and games are easy to find. One of the presenters today even used a rugby analogy in class....that NEVER happens at the U of A. I am a happy camper.
Other than that I discovered that some movie theatres in Grenoble have smaller screens than there are in some Edmontonians houses and there is very little leg room while only 30 people or so fit in the theatre.
In a sense I'm anxious for school to start but I guess thats mostly to know when my exams and assignments are due so I can get planning my weekend trips. The task right now is to try and find accomadation in Munich for Oktoberfest. Kind of had to wait until I had my school schedule just to make sure I could manage the trip but now everything is booked or $200 a night or more.
Note: If you notice a lack of photos posted on my Facebook it's because my waterbottled flipped and opened in my purse on my way to the rugby game...and my camera did not survive. I can turn it on and have access to my images and can take a few but many of the functions don't work properly. I'm hoping to find a way to fix it or else I'll have to suck it up and buy another (even though they're more expensive here than in Canada) because I won't last another 14 weeks without one.
Hope you all are enjoying at least some of my ramblings!
Well, once we got back from our Spanish gallivanting I really felt the need to relax, get established and start feeling settled in my apartment and in Grenoble. I still didn't know where anything was or feel confident in taking the tram so I had a definite need to discover such things before school started. At this point I can say I have been mostly successful and school still doesn't start until next Monday (Sept 20th).
First things first was food. I had gotten so sick of consistently eating out at restaurants and trying to find something that was decent priced, which proved to be more challenging than expected. Let me tell you that it is NOT a good plan to shop for all your apartment basics plus a full fridge of food all at once. Yes, I did think it was a task I could conquor and was later proven wrong. Friday afternoon Jess and I ventured out to Casino Geant (kind of like a Superstore). I later discovered this was prob
ably the most expensive place to buy groceries but it was nice to be able to get everything at once and not have to search through numerous stores. Needless to say I piled my full shopping cart of groceries into 3 of those enviro-savvy bags (since they don't give you plastic ones). When you have laundry detergent, milk, dish soap, glass jars plus a jumbo pack of toilet paper this becomes a bigger load than you might think. Finally we waddled outside with our bags and realized it was pouring rain. Getting soaked was really not my concern since I was more worried about how I was going to carry my bags from the tram to my house (5 min walk). In the end two French, 19 year olds actually took pity on me, when I had only managed to walk 1/2 block in 5 min, and helped me all the way to my apartment and up the 4 flights of stairs. Thank you humanity! I have some faith in you again.Over the course of the next few days I attended orientation presentations for school for a couple hours each day. Since I decided to relax a bit and not skip town for the second weekend in a row I ended up with a lot more free time. Some of that was spent doing more errands and some spent trying to get rid of a sore throat but I had a definite highlight. Saturday (Sept 11) the Bureau des Sports (Sports Club at school) had free tickets to see the FC Grenoble rugby team play right in town! I LOVE that they speak of rugby as casually and as often as we do in Canada about hockey or football. Tickets are cheap and games are easy to find. One of the presenters today even used a rugby analogy in class....that NEVER happens at the U of A. I am a happy camper.
Other than that I discovered that some movie theatres in Grenoble have smaller screens than there are in some Edmontonians houses and there is very little leg room while only 30 people or so fit in the theatre.
In a sense I'm anxious for school to start but I guess thats mostly to know when my exams and assignments are due so I can get planning my weekend trips. The task right now is to try and find accomadation in Munich for Oktoberfest. Kind of had to wait until I had my school schedule just to make sure I could manage the trip but now everything is booked or $200 a night or more.
Note: If you notice a lack of photos posted on my Facebook it's because my waterbottled flipped and opened in my purse on my way to the rugby game...and my camera did not survive. I can turn it on and have access to my images and can take a few but many of the functions don't work properly. I'm hoping to find a way to fix it or else I'll have to suck it up and buy another (even though they're more expensive here than in Canada) because I won't last another 14 weeks without one.
Hope you all are enjoying at least some of my ramblings!
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Holy Toledo!
Ok ok, so I'll admit that I'm about 3 glasses of wine in at this point in my postings but the wine is just so good and so cheap here!
Anyways...to the point. As I did not finish my stories about Spain in the last post I am back again to continue. Jess and I decided we were going to take the night train from Barcelona to Madrid in order to save some cash (since this time, train was cheaper than flying). Well, turns out that 2 days in advance is just not good enough to buy a train ticket and many other people already had the same idea. So, we ended up being forced to buy 1st class (Preferente) tickets on the train. I was briefly excited at the though of being in 1st class until I realized that this is the night train, an old train, and it only costs us 17 Euro more than a regular ticket so it might not mean much. Truth be told, that was exaclty the case. 1st class train tickets meant we ended up with reclining (economy class airpline-like) seats for the 9 hour train ride to Madrid which normally only takes 2 hours. Needless to say it was another night very much lacking in sleep.
Madrid was neat to see and I was pleased that the language had changed from Catalan (one I don't understand) to actual Spanish, however I have decided that I much prefer Barcelona. Madrid is lacking the beaches and is much more versed in the area of business, museums, and government rather than shopping, beach and food (yes, I have my priorities straight,
haha). We still enjoyed Madrid and got to see the palace of the Royal family (Palacio Real) as well as the famous Museo del Prado with works by Gaudi, etc. However, after the first day, and day 5 of our trip, we were about done with the touristy stuff and decided to take of to the random little town of Toledo, only an hour south of Madrid.
Toldeo was a neat city with much history and Roman architecture. We only spent half a day roaming around but the city was filled with cathedrals, synagogues and mosques...pretty Holy I've gotta say....plus I was amused getting to say "Holy Toledo" whenever I wanted without Jess getting irritated, haha! We also discovered some amazing stuffed baked potatoes filled with deer meet, cheese, salsa, veggies, etc. Fun times thats for sure.
Well our trip was almost over but the excitement sure wasn't. We got home to our hostel that night only to discover that the French transit workers were on strike and that almost all flights into France had been cancelled, including ours that was scheduled to fly out the next afternoon. Needless to say, Jess and I weren't pleased but we had seen that the strikes were only scheduled for 24 hours so we decided to wait until the morning and see what happened, and choose then if we should panic or not.
Luckily, after a restless sleep, we found out our flights had been rescheduled and we were still set to arrive back in Grenoble on Wednesday night (Sept 8) ready to start school orientation the next morning.
Mon dieu, what a week!
Anyways...to the point. As I did not finish my stories about Spain in the last post I am back again to continue. Jess and I decided we were going to take the night train from Barcelona to Madrid in order to save some cash (since this time, train was cheaper than flying). Well, turns out that 2 days in advance is just not good enough to buy a train ticket and many other people already had the same idea. So, we ended up being forced to buy 1st class (Preferente) tickets on the train. I was briefly excited at the though of being in 1st class until I realized that this is the night train, an old train, and it only costs us 17 Euro more than a regular ticket so it might not mean much. Truth be told, that was exaclty the case. 1st class train tickets meant we ended up with reclining (economy class airpline-like) seats for the 9 hour train ride to Madrid which normally only takes 2 hours. Needless to say it was another night very much lacking in sleep.
Madrid was neat to see and I was pleased that the language had changed from Catalan (one I don't understand) to actual Spanish, however I have decided that I much prefer Barcelona. Madrid is lacking the beaches and is much more versed in the area of business, museums, and government rather than shopping, beach and food (yes, I have my priorities straight,
haha). We still enjoyed Madrid and got to see the palace of the Royal family (Palacio Real) as well as the famous Museo del Prado with works by Gaudi, etc. However, after the first day, and day 5 of our trip, we were about done with the touristy stuff and decided to take of to the random little town of Toledo, only an hour south of Madrid.Toldeo was a neat city with much history and Roman architecture. We only spent half a day roaming around but the city was filled with cathedrals, synagogues and mosques...pretty Holy I've gotta say....plus I was amused getting to say "Holy Toledo" whenever I wanted without Jess getting irritated, haha! We also discovered some amazing stuffed baked potatoes filled with deer meet, cheese, salsa, veggies, etc. Fun times thats for sure.
Well our trip was almost over but the excitement sure wasn't. We got home to our hostel that night only to discover that the French transit workers were on strike and that almost all flights into France had been cancelled, including ours that was scheduled to fly out the next afternoon. Needless to say, Jess and I weren't pleased but we had seen that the strikes were only scheduled for 24 hours so we decided to wait until the morning and see what happened, and choose then if we should panic or not.
Luckily, after a restless sleep, we found out our flights had been rescheduled and we were still set to arrive back in Grenoble on Wednesday night (Sept 8) ready to start school orientation the next morning.
Mon dieu, what a week!
Viaje
Yes...as I am delayed in writing these blogs as of late it has been 4 days since I arrived home from my vacation in Spain or "viaje en Espana" as the Spanish would say. However, I am still determined to write about the trip it will just be less of a detailed/play-by-play account and more of a summary of the highlights.
As many of you know, I am the type who likes to plan things out and know what I'm getting into before I get into it. This was not really that sort of a trip, although I did my best to make it be.
Like I said in my previous post, Jess and I spent the Wednesday (Sept 1) planning our trip to Spain, since Egypt was now out of the question). We were dealing with crappy internet connection at school so it was really challenging to book hostels and check flights. In the end, by 8pm, we managed to sort it all out and had to get straight on packing since we were to leave at 6:45am the next morning!
We arrived in Barcelona first and it was awesome! After staying for 3 nights, and 4 full days, here are some of the highlights:
La Rambla
A street running from Plaza Catalunya to the marina that is full of buskers (sometimes doing strange things), restaurants, and souvenir shops. Needless to say it is a tourist trap but an interesting promenade none the less.
Tapas
A typical Spanish event, I say event because it can start as late as 10 or 11pm and last for hours. You go to a restaurant and pick all different types of dishes to try (more of an assortment of appetizers) along with your sangria, beer or wine. Jess and I opted to try this experience and although it led to a hefty bill, it was a lot of fun as we especially enjoyed the sangria and extra long (3 foot) straws that accompanied.
The Beach
We clearly cou
ld not go to Barcelona and not spend at least a couple afternoons at the beach on the Mediterranean Sea. Much to my surprise the beach was not like those in Nice, France where the "sand" is actually all pebbles. I was quite pleased that is was real sand and not a painful experience to get into the water as it was in Nice. We enjoyed the sun immensely (although it drained our energy) and I have to say our homemade glasses for the 1L cartons of sangria we purchased were the highlight of our trips to the Beach.
Passeig de Gracia
The main avenue running down the centre of Barcelona. It reminded me much of Les Champs d'Elysees in France with the boutiques, restaurants and stores like Hugo Boss, Burberry, Chanel, Yves St.Laurent, etc. It was always bustling with people and activity with some hidden architectural gems along the way. Personally, I was entralled by all of the colonial architechture in Barcelona. The only frustration was that although I can speak some Spanish, Barcelona was a city in the Catalunya region and most people spoke Catalan rather than Spanish.
Familia Sagrada
Considered the 3rd cathedral of Barcelona and a symbolic landmark, la Familia Sagrada started construction in 1882 and isn't supposed to be completed until 2025. It is one of Gaudi's most recognized, and admired, pieces of architecture, and it was amazing to see the inspiration he drew from the shapes, movement and characteristics of nature. It really was incredible and would certainly stand out among one of the top cathedrals I've seen from around the world.
Well, I guess I should space these out a bit so you guys get a break from my rambling so I'll share some stories from Madrid in the next post.
As many of you know, I am the type who likes to plan things out and know what I'm getting into before I get into it. This was not really that sort of a trip, although I did my best to make it be.
Like I said in my previous post, Jess and I spent the Wednesday (Sept 1) planning our trip to Spain, since Egypt was now out of the question). We were dealing with crappy internet connection at school so it was really challenging to book hostels and check flights. In the end, by 8pm, we managed to sort it all out and had to get straight on packing since we were to leave at 6:45am the next morning!
We arrived in Barcelona first and it was awesome! After staying for 3 nights, and 4 full days, here are some of the highlights:
La Rambla
A street running from Plaza Catalunya to the marina that is full of buskers (sometimes doing strange things), restaurants, and souvenir shops. Needless to say it is a tourist trap but an interesting promenade none the less.
Tapas
A typical Spanish event, I say event because it can start as late as 10 or 11pm and last for hours. You go to a restaurant and pick all different types of dishes to try (more of an assortment of appetizers) along with your sangria, beer or wine. Jess and I opted to try this experience and although it led to a hefty bill, it was a lot of fun as we especially enjoyed the sangria and extra long (3 foot) straws that accompanied.
The Beach
We clearly cou
ld not go to Barcelona and not spend at least a couple afternoons at the beach on the Mediterranean Sea. Much to my surprise the beach was not like those in Nice, France where the "sand" is actually all pebbles. I was quite pleased that is was real sand and not a painful experience to get into the water as it was in Nice. We enjoyed the sun immensely (although it drained our energy) and I have to say our homemade glasses for the 1L cartons of sangria we purchased were the highlight of our trips to the Beach.Passeig de Gracia
The main avenue running down the centre of Barcelona. It reminded me much of Les Champs d'Elysees in France with the boutiques, restaurants and stores like Hugo Boss, Burberry, Chanel, Yves St.Laurent, etc. It was always bustling with people and activity with some hidden architectural gems along the way. Personally, I was entralled by all of the colonial architechture in Barcelona. The only frustration was that although I can speak some Spanish, Barcelona was a city in the Catalunya region and most people spoke Catalan rather than Spanish.
Familia Sagrada
Considered the 3rd cathedral of Barcelona and a symbolic landmark, la Familia Sagrada started construction in 1882 and isn't supposed to be completed until 2025. It is one of Gaudi's most recognized, and admired, pieces of architecture, and it was amazing to see the inspiration he drew from the shapes, movement and characteristics of nature. It really was incredible and would certainly stand out among one of the top cathedrals I've seen from around the world.
Well, I guess I should space these out a bit so you guys get a break from my rambling so I'll share some stories from Madrid in the next post.
Ciao amigos!
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Plans
Well, I said I love to travel so yes, that's right...I was fully aware it was day three (Sept 1) of our adventure in France but Jess and I met at the school to use internet, since ours were not set up, and to plan a vacation! We had a week until we had to be back for orientation and were no longer able to head to Egypt, as explained in my previous post, so where were we to go?!
SPAIN/ESPANA/ESPAGNE!
That pretty much summarizes our day of dealing with crappy internet connections, deciding where in Spain we could visit in 7 days and searching for flights and hostel accomodation.
Bedtime soon became midnight and Thursday (Sept 2) at 5AM Jess and I were awake and ready to catch the hour bus ride (Rhone-Alps for 27.50 Euros round trip) to the Lyon airport.
I'll keep this post short and tell more about our trip over the next few blogs. Some pictures are to come but you can also check out my Facebook "France albums for the complete photo collection.
SPAIN/ESPANA/ESPAGNE!
That pretty much summarizes our day of dealing with crappy internet connections, deciding where in Spain we could visit in 7 days and searching for flights and hostel accomodation.
Bedtime soon became midnight and Thursday (Sept 2) at 5AM Jess and I were awake and ready to catch the hour bus ride (Rhone-Alps for 27.50 Euros round trip) to the Lyon airport.
I'll keep this post short and tell more about our trip over the next few blogs. Some pictures are to come but you can also check out my Facebook "France albums for the complete photo collection.
EE-KAY-UH
And I'm back. Yes, I might be posting one after another today and tomorrow just to catch you all up. Don't worry, you'll have less and less to read as time goes on.
My second day in Grenoble started with an early morning wake up to meet my landlord at the school and sign my lease (yes, it was in French, and yes, I understood almost all of it). He took me and my luggage to MY apartment** to get settled in but realized he had left his key at his house, up a mountain. Jess and Kathi (another student from Germany) met up with me as I waited for my landlord and we managed to stumble across a patisserie for lunch. Once I got my luggage inside we decided to head downtown to “centre-ville” to take care of some things and look into heading to Egypt for the next week (since international orientation doesn’t start until September 9).
**In actuality I am living in Fontaine, France. Its basically right across one of the rivers that runs through Grenoble and feels just like a different neighborhood rather than a different town. Really it's so close that it still only takes me 15 mintues to walk to Grenoble Ecole de Management/school/GEM.
Once downtown, the girls and I started with getting cell phones, so we could be connected to the real world again, and stopped at the bank (LCL) to confirm my housing insurance (1 Euro per year for students) by providing my new address. Might I add this was the second time we had been to the bank since they all close, and at random times, for lunch. This isn’t just banks but stores and restaurants as well. Jess and I were disappointed to find out from the travel agents that tours to Egypt only leave Lyon (the main airport for us that is actually situated almost an hour away) on Sundays and Mondays which would mean we wouldn’t get back in time for school orientation. Thus, Egypt became a NO GO and I was thoroughly dissapointed.
After buying a few things from a drug store (Schlekers) we hopped on a tram to IKEA, which I discovered is pronounced EE-KAY-UH and if you don’t say it that way then the French will have no idea what you are talking about. We got a ride from the metro to IKEA by some random lady we had asked for directions whose motivation seemed to be that maybe we would then believe that “the French are sympatic (ie. the French are nice people)." The IKEA trip left us with heavy bags of dishes, pillows, sheets and floor mats and a sad Dania who discovered that they only serve Swedish meatballs for dinner on Thursdays and Fridays. This has been noted for next time we make a trip to IKEA.
Well, after IKEA we were hungry so of course we decided it was a good idea to stop at the Géant Casino(a superstore/Wal-Mart type thing) for some food for dinner…WITH our IKEA bags. We were wrong. This trip was followed by much complaining, hunger and impatience as we worked out our shoulders and biceps like never before whilst carrying our massive and heavy bags all the way home. In the end Jess and I arrived at my new apartment and enjoyed a meal of Swedish meatballs, salad, fruit and a fresh baguette.
My second day in Grenoble started with an early morning wake up to meet my landlord at the school and sign my lease (yes, it was in French, and yes, I understood almost all of it). He took me and my luggage to MY apartment** to get settled in but realized he had left his key at his house, up a mountain. Jess and Kathi (another student from Germany) met up with me as I waited for my landlord and we managed to stumble across a patisserie for lunch. Once I got my luggage inside we decided to head downtown to “centre-ville” to take care of some things and look into heading to Egypt for the next week (since international orientation doesn’t start until September 9).
**In actuality I am living in Fontaine, France. Its basically right across one of the rivers that runs through Grenoble and feels just like a different neighborhood rather than a different town. Really it's so close that it still only takes me 15 mintues to walk to Grenoble Ecole de Management/school/GEM.
Once downtown, the girls and I started with getting cell phones, so we could be connected to the real world again, and stopped at the bank (LCL) to confirm my housing insurance (1 Euro per year for students) by providing my new address. Might I add this was the second time we had been to the bank since they all close, and at random times, for lunch. This isn’t just banks but stores and restaurants as well. Jess and I were disappointed to find out from the travel agents that tours to Egypt only leave Lyon (the main airport for us that is actually situated almost an hour away) on Sundays and Mondays which would mean we wouldn’t get back in time for school orientation. Thus, Egypt became a NO GO and I was thoroughly dissapointed.
After buying a few things from a drug store (Schlekers) we hopped on a tram to IKEA, which I discovered is pronounced EE-KAY-UH and if you don’t say it that way then the French will have no idea what you are talking about. We got a ride from the metro to IKEA by some random lady we had asked for directions whose motivation seemed to be that maybe we would then believe that “the French are sympatic (ie. the French are nice people)." The IKEA trip left us with heavy bags of dishes, pillows, sheets and floor mats and a sad Dania who discovered that they only serve Swedish meatballs for dinner on Thursdays and Fridays. This has been noted for next time we make a trip to IKEA.
Well, after IKEA we were hungry so of course we decided it was a good idea to stop at the Géant Casino(a superstore/Wal-Mart type thing) for some food for dinner…WITH our IKEA bags. We were wrong. This trip was followed by much complaining, hunger and impatience as we worked out our shoulders and biceps like never before whilst carrying our massive and heavy bags all the way home. In the end Jess and I arrived at my new apartment and enjoyed a meal of Swedish meatballs, salad, fruit and a fresh baguette.
Arrival
Alright so I have now stopped to breathe long enough so write a blog post after arrival. Because I said I would love future exchange students to be able to take advantage of my blog before they head to Grenoble, I will make the next few posts pretty detailed (with sometimes boring information) that would be useful for others who visit/come to live in this town. As well, I will be posting for the past week so there will be some back-tracking involved.
It has been a ridiculous first week in France so far. Many of you have been updated by my Facebook statuses or have emailed me so thank you for that. It's always nice to stay in touch with eveyrthing going on in your lives as well.
For future reference, if I haven't already mentioned, I am flying to Grenoble with Jessica Steingard, another student from the U of A Faculty of Business. We have spent a lot of time together preparing for the trip and will be traveling together in Europe I'm sure. You can check out her blog as well if you're interested.
My trip to Grenoble, France began with a 3AM wakeup call on Sunday (August 29) morning after only heading to bed at midnight. The flights were fine and there was of course a lack of sleep, some of which was made up for with my 2 hour nap, on the floor of the Toronto airport, in the middle of the afternoon. The craziness began when our flight from Toronto to Frankfurt landed a little bit late and then they didn’t let people off the plane for a good 20 minutes. This would have been fine except for the fact that we really only had an hour and a half layover, which was now reduced to one hour. Luckily we already knew that we didn’t have to collect our bag and they were going straight to Lyon but that didn’t stop the insanity. We followed all the people to the “connecting flight” area which then became a “passport control” area…ie. customs. The line up was ridiculous so I knew from immediately we weren’t going to make our flight if we waited through the whole thing. I asked one security person for advice and they pointed me to the info booth who then pointed me to the customs officer who then pointed me to the customs officer in the different line up who then said it was up to me to ask the people in the front of the line if we could get in front of them. Well, luckily at least one person could understand some English, and passed the message onto the others who let us through. Home free…we thought.
Well then we scrambled along and arrived at security and then proceeded through a similar process as there was of course, another long line. Jess and I then found out we were in the wrong terminal. Well in the Edmonton airport this is not a big deal, however, Frankfurt was a different story and we hauled our butts down some stairs, through the terminals, up an elevator and made it to the gate aft
er everyone had already boarded. Luckily we still made it our flight and landed in Lyon on Monday (August 30) morning like planned.
We had some difficulty finding the school once we arrived as the roads turn unexpectedly and the train station seemed a little convoluted for us who are not used to taking the trains on a regular basis. After ditching our luggage in a room at the school we met the ALOHA team (welcome desk for international students). They helped me set up a bank account, get housing insurance and then started helping me search for an apartment. I could barely keep my eyes open and hadn’t had much to eat but I made it through the day. By the end of my first day I had looked at 4 apartments/studios and already informed my landlord that I wanted to sign a contract for his place, although this couldn’t get done until the Tuesday morning. I’m happy I had pre-arranged temporary housing with a student from ALOHA for that night b
ut they weren’t very organized in that aspect and I didn't know where I was sleeping until 10PM. In the end it worked out and I finally got a warm shower and a pretty decent sleep…after a 4 Cheese Gnocchi dish and half a bottle of red wine. There was so much rich cheese on that dish that I may have to recuperate and go sans-fromage for the next few days. I really never thought I could say there might be too much cheese in a dish.
Whew, what a trip and that was only the FIRST DAY!
It has been a ridiculous first week in France so far. Many of you have been updated by my Facebook statuses or have emailed me so thank you for that. It's always nice to stay in touch with eveyrthing going on in your lives as well.
For future reference, if I haven't already mentioned, I am flying to Grenoble with Jessica Steingard, another student from the U of A Faculty of Business. We have spent a lot of time together preparing for the trip and will be traveling together in Europe I'm sure. You can check out her blog as well if you're interested.
My trip to Grenoble, France began with a 3AM wakeup call on Sunday (August 29) morning after only heading to bed at midnight. The flights were fine and there was of course a lack of sleep, some of which was made up for with my 2 hour nap, on the floor of the Toronto airport, in the middle of the afternoon. The craziness began when our flight from Toronto to Frankfurt landed a little bit late and then they didn’t let people off the plane for a good 20 minutes. This would have been fine except for the fact that we really only had an hour and a half layover, which was now reduced to one hour. Luckily we already knew that we didn’t have to collect our bag and they were going straight to Lyon but that didn’t stop the insanity. We followed all the people to the “connecting flight” area which then became a “passport control” area…ie. customs. The line up was ridiculous so I knew from immediately we weren’t going to make our flight if we waited through the whole thing. I asked one security person for advice and they pointed me to the info booth who then pointed me to the customs officer who then pointed me to the customs officer in the different line up who then said it was up to me to ask the people in the front of the line if we could get in front of them. Well, luckily at least one person could understand some English, and passed the message onto the others who let us through. Home free…we thought.
Well then we scrambled along and arrived at security and then proceeded through a similar process as there was of course, another long line. Jess and I then found out we were in the wrong terminal. Well in the Edmonton airport this is not a big deal, however, Frankfurt was a different story and we hauled our butts down some stairs, through the terminals, up an elevator and made it to the gate aft
er everyone had already boarded. Luckily we still made it our flight and landed in Lyon on Monday (August 30) morning like planned.We had some difficulty finding the school once we arrived as the roads turn unexpectedly and the train station seemed a little convoluted for us who are not used to taking the trains on a regular basis. After ditching our luggage in a room at the school we met the ALOHA team (welcome desk for international students). They helped me set up a bank account, get housing insurance and then started helping me search for an apartment. I could barely keep my eyes open and hadn’t had much to eat but I made it through the day. By the end of my first day I had looked at 4 apartments/studios and already informed my landlord that I wanted to sign a contract for his place, although this couldn’t get done until the Tuesday morning. I’m happy I had pre-arranged temporary housing with a student from ALOHA for that night b
ut they weren’t very organized in that aspect and I didn't know where I was sleeping until 10PM. In the end it worked out and I finally got a warm shower and a pretty decent sleep…after a 4 Cheese Gnocchi dish and half a bottle of red wine. There was so much rich cheese on that dish that I may have to recuperate and go sans-fromage for the next few days. I really never thought I could say there might be too much cheese in a dish.Whew, what a trip and that was only the FIRST DAY!
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