Canadaland

To be honest, as soon as I arrived in Canada I forgot about my blog. It seems that the busyness of my life before I left was just put on hold and ready to bombard me as soon as I got home again. But it has been fun too.

In the end, Jess and I never made it to Marrakech which was (more than) thoroughly dissapointing for me. I was soooo excited to check out the "riads", maybe go to a spa, go 4x4ing, take a camel ride and be in a warm climate before heading back to frigid Canada. We left Grenoble, France at 5am on Friday December 17, 2010 after an evening of celebrating. Unfortunately, we missed our flight at 7am due to circumstances that were out of our control but also due to the lack of organization and communication on the part of the airport storage staff. We then decided to shell out the extra 200 euro to pay for a new flight to Morocco later that evening. We waited around the airport in Lyon all day and evening because our flight was delayed and eventually cancelled and not because of the weather (like many other flights) but because there was no crew to fly our plane. This left us a bit in despair seeing as all the hotels around the airport were now booked and no taxis were willing to drive into town because of the "horrific weather" (a little snow) that they were experiencing.Luckily Jess and I were able to book a hotel in Lyon on an airport computer and caught the last Rhone Express train to town. We had to stay at a hotel for 3 nights, basically waiting until our flight home to Canada was to depart on Tuesday December 21, 2010. We decided just to relax, watch movies, re-packing, eat macaroons and pain au chocolat and try to dissolve our bitterness over Morocco.

The weather was not letting up and we had read on Facebook that many of our other classmates were stuck in Lyon or in other parts of Europe during their attempts to get home for the holidays. London Heathrow and Paris Charles de Gaulle were essentially closed due to large snowfall and the airports unpreparedness for handling this type of weather. The other regional airports such as Frankfurt and Lyon were having issues flying since the snow would fall, melt (because weather sat around zero degrees) and then would freeze again and all the runways could not be cleared or it was not safe to fly. Needless to say, Jess and I started getting concerned about making it to Frankfurt on Tuesday (the first leg of our flight home). In the end we switched that flight to Monday and spend a solid 22 hours in the Frankfurt airport, overnight, until our flight to Calgary left the next afternoon.

If you look close this picture is of the departure monitors in Frankfurt and you can see that over 90% of the flights the day we left Europe were cancelled.

Either way both us and our luggage made it home to Canada, eventually, and after some stressing and large amounts of frustration. I've got to say though that when I took my first breath as I walked off the plane in Canada, the air was so cold I started coughing because my lungs couldn't take it. Not a pleasant welcome.

Best part about being home was that I got to see my friends and family and that I was home for Christmas, especially when I knew there were so many people that were still stuck in airports and didn't make it home for the holidays.

Venezia!

Somehow I manage to stay a month behind in my posts but I promise you I will be caught up by the end of this coming weekend.

And so the story continues. After returning from Monaco I spent only 10 days swamped in midterms and group presentations/reports before Jess and I whisked ourselves away to Venice, Italy on Thursday November 4, 2010. We had both visited Italy on previous trips to Europe but my cities travelled were limited to Rome, Pisa, Florence, Naples, Sorrento and Capri so Venice was one I wasn't going to miss out on a second time around. Not only that but we managed to get our flight tickets for only 100 euro round trip and a hotel reservation for a hostel price of 20 euro a night! We definitely scored a deal. However, we spent the whole week leading up to this trip not only anxious about our school work but anxious about another French strike. Seemingly, Air France (our airline of choice) was planning a strike of their airport staff for the day we were planning to leave as well as the day after. To top it off, French transport unions had decided to strike the 3 days after which included the day of our flight home to Grenoble. Well weren't Jess and I just soooo pleased.

In the end things worked out fine and although there was only one Air France rep working the counter at the airport, it wasn't very busy anyways so we made it through and the planes still flew the skies. Luckily, the French transport unions actually shortened, or limited, their strike the following days so we were able to make it home (barely) but that's another story for later.

Jess and I quite enjoyed our 5 day weekend in Venice. It was a bit warmer than in Grenoble (12 degrees) but the sun was nowhere to be found. I heard later on that intense fog is pretty typical of Venice for that time of year but it did add a mysterious feel to the city on water. We voted against doing the super touristy things so Jess and I spent lots of our time just wandering around, shopping, and eating gelato and pizza. Of course we visited the Piazza San Marco and the Ponte Rialto but our favourite turned out to be the island of Murano or the "glass island." It was so easy to spend a whole day there just admiring the hand blown glass art and far to easy to spend our money on unique glass jewelery.

We had a project to submit online while we were in Venice so it was the first time we took our laptops on a trip and I would never do it again. Travelling on weekends has acted as our relaxation time and escape from the craziness that school brings and bringing our laptops and having access to email just didn't provide us with that same freedom. However, homework did NOT stop us from enjoying wine in our hotel room and picking up a delicious pizza (flat crust with roasted red peppers, eggplant, zucchini and cheese) to-go from the local Restaurante Palladio up the road...YUM, YUM!

We managed to avoid rain all weekend except it caught up to us our last night there. We were quite a sight running around the main island with our shoes soaked and broken umbrella in hand trying to find our way and duck into stores whenever possible to stay some kind of dry. After a tasty meal we decided to check out a live show about Venezia at the Teatro San Gallo. It was actually very interesting to learn all about the history of the city and how they became known for the strange masks and stories, although it would have been better had we seen it at the start of the weekend and knew more about the things we saw along the way. Either way, our last night was a good one and we tried to head to bed by 10pm since we had to get up at 4am the next morning to head to the airport....early morning flights were only our choice because we still had class to attend that day.

The airport story (long story short): Jess and I were informed only a day before our flight that there were no busses that actually ran to the airport early enough to get us there for our flight at 630am (since we were staying in Malcontenta which is outside of Venice). Thus, we had to figure something else out and were advised that the best idea would be to bus to one of the train stations and catch a taxi from there to the airport, which was still going to cost us 30 euro. We weren't happy about that but we were informed that there would be taxis at the train station at that hour and they were more reliable then hoping the busses would run on time. Boy was THAT a wrong assumption! We made it to the train station on time only to find out there were no taxis. After some waiting, panicking, then imagining of the worst case scenario and the amount of cash we might have had to dish out to get home for classes, a taxi waiting for a reservation at a hotel across the street called in another taxi for us. By this point we were running out of time and had about 45 mintues before our flight was going to leave. I feared for my life as we flew down the dark, slippery roads at 110 km/hr in a 70 zone but the amazing driver got us to the airport in 7 minutes (a supposed 15 minute drive). We made it through check-in in time but boarding had started and finished while we waited through the security line up. We heard "Spillett and Steingard" paged not one but three times before we cut in line and sprinted to our gate, panting and getting a dirty look from the gate attendant.

Of course we made it home safe and sound and off to class that afternoon but boy were we already worn out from the day by the time 7am rolled around and we had classes until 8pm that night. No....we didn't end up making it and skipped the last hour and a half of marketing. You try paying attention to a class you've already taken after that kind of day!

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.

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 after 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 but 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!