Archive for February 2008
696 pages later…
So I knew it. The book ends with a fiery bus crash in which all the ridiculous characters die horrible, painful (and ridiculous) deaths.
Not quite, but close enough.
Today I finished writing my very first exposée for my compared literature class on the most random and depressing book I have ever read (see photo, left). 8 pages of not knowing what I was doing. It was absolutely brilliant! Of course, Marxer smiled and corrected my grammar, and then told me how fabulous it was. So hopefully, only good will come of this :)
The weather here in Stras continues BEAUTIFUL, which is a fabulous change from Syracuse (sorry people). It feels like spring, and it’s still only February. God bless warm(er) climates.
Last night I ate Reeses peanut butter cups in my room for dinner while I wrote my paper. Irène had, as always, made a beautiful meal with salad and appetizers and steamed vegetables and… sausage made of blood.
I ate most of the blood sausage, but I think she guessed it wasn’t my favoritest thing ever in the whole wide world, because halfway through dinner when I was still eating my vegetables very slowly, she bust out laughing and said she would eat my sausage.
I’ll do the snails. Not so big on the congealed blood thing tho… :P
Not much more to report. Still recovering from Nice, and preparing for the visit of Robert!!! (9 days and counting :D)
Hope everyone’s doing well at home…
Love and Misses,
Martha
Nice is Nice, but the Bourg is Better
I remember reading those classic novels when I was younger, where all the posh English people would hop on their yachts and scoot on over to the South of France for a winter holiday, and I always thought to myself: Wowwwwwww. That’s SO COOL. I wish I could be that cool…
And now I am.
Actually, the deal is that winter break in France is not covered by the SUA Strasbourg program fees, meaning all of the SU students had to “git” when the 14th of February rolled around. My friend Lindsay and I decided it would be more fun (and less expensive) to stay in France, rather than jet off to Eastern Europe or something like that, so we scouted around a bit and settled on Nice.
Nice is really a very nice, medium sized city right on the coast of the Mediterranean. Complete with cathedrals, promenades, gardens, harbor views, and a really amazing tram system, it seems to have been the perfect choice. The city itself is situated very close to lots of other points of interest, allowing for some nice day-trips.
Now the weeks is drawing to a close, and everyone’s getting ready to head back to Stras. Time here just flew by!
Day 1. Leave Strasbourg via the SNCF (or) Why you should never ride siege in France
As it turned out, Lindsay and I weren’t the only ones with the bright idea of going someplace warm for break. Two other girls we know; Tina and Agatha, also decided to come by Nice for a few days, as did Miles, Silvia and Roshni. By coincidence, we all ended up catching the same train, the only difference being, everyone else in our group was intelligent and went for the couchette opetion (a bed) whereas the woman who sold us our tickets said couchette was more expensive than siege (a chair). Lindsay and I got siege.
A word to the wise: NEVER get siege. EVER.
The 13 hour train ride was not spent in an uncomfortable cramped chair trying to sleep. Oh no. It was spent in an uncomfortable cramped chair wide awake due to the fact that these two elderly Alsacian women spent the entire night a) yelling at eachother in Alsacian when they were awake, and b) when they did manage to drift off for about 5 minutes at a time, snore louder than you have ever heard someone snore before. Really, only as one can snore in a public train full of people trying to catch a few winks.
Then, of course at 2 .m. there were the two drunken Spaniards that came on telling, and the proceded to harass the Alsacians and throw beercans around the cabin. Fun times.
Day 2. Nice (or) Cereal and hot running water are the best inventions since sliced bread
In the end, the seven of us arrived safe and sound, if a bit sore, in Nice at around 9h30 the next morning. One perk of taking the train on the cost is you can see the sea from the rail. It was the most gorgeous thing I have ever woken up to…
The hostel we had chosen was the Villa St.Exupery. Absolutely amazing! 16euros a night got us linens, showers, bunks and, best of all, a free breakfast. All that, and they come down to the tram to pick you up. We rolled into the villa just as they were finishing serving breakfast so we unloaded and made a beeline for the cold cereals and fresh homemade bread.
After filling up, showers and a nap were next in line. I did make it down to the shore laster in the afternoon, which was nice just as the sun was setting. To get there from the hostel, it’s about a 10 minute walk down the hill, and then a 15 minute tram ride to the city center. Not bad location-wise.
Day 3. Villefranche (or) Where’s the sun?
The next day, we were up early. Lindsay and I decided to walk around a little, so the hostel owners suggested we bus over to Villefranche, the next town west on the coastline, to look at the view. The town was lovely, but the view left something to be desired as the clouds and fog kept us from seeing more than 100m in any direction.
It was a nice hike though, and even considering that we got inextricably lost and couldn’t find the path the owners had suggested, it was a good day.
That night, Lindsay and I met up with Ag and Teens (or do you prefer Tins, Tina?), aaaand: their three new australian friends, Mark, Paul and Matilda. We had dinner and then all went to a Carnival parade, after which we made our way to Wayne’s; a famed tourist bar here in Nice where we danced on the tables. Needless to say, a good time was had by all.
Day 4. Sunday (or) I’m gonna sit around and do nothing cause I’m on vacation
Sunday was recovery day from the past three days of constant GOGOGO!!! I stayed at the villa and got some reading done– a good thing too, as I have a 700page book to read and a 10page report to write by this coming Thursday (all in French too. Whee!)
Day 5. Monday (or) The day after Sunday
Walked around Old Nice, took pictures of the buildings to prove I had actually been here. And read a LOT.
Day 6. Eze Village and Monaco (or) Haven’t we already been here?
Lindsay and I decided to do the Eze Village-Monaco day trip on Tuesday. It was absolutely beautiful, blue skies, lots of sun, and above all, it was warm! We hopped the bus in Nice, and rode it to Eze Village, a small town to the west of Villefranche, where we had been before. The main attraction there is a very well preserved/restored medieval village at the top of a hill, which we walked up to take advantage of the view.
On the way back down, we stopped off at the bus stop to check the schedule before going to the Casino (small grocery store, not the gambling place) and a perfume store. Back at theus stop we bumped into 3 other hostel-ers: Aaron (Australian), Adrian (Canadian), and Michele (American) and we all went to Monaco together.
Cannes was gorgeous. Every where you looked was picture-postcard-perfect… No wonder it’s the “playground of the rich and famous.” While Aaron went to check out the antique car museum, us girls walked around and found the other cultural highlights like the Opera and the Palace. We also popped inside Monte Carlo, though there wasn’t much to see for OUR kind of people ;) It was a 10 euro fee to enter the gambling rooms, and we prefered to save our money for things like…. food. That and I’m not sure our ratty jeans and sweaty t-shirts would have been all that accepted at MC. Ah well… We did make sure to oggle the cars parked outside. Aston Martins, Mercedes, and the like, just there as if to say “Oh yes, I have obscene amounts of money, but come Dah’lin, let’s go back to our yacht…” (or something similar ;)
That night, back at the villa, we decided to go to the parade again. Just to get the full experience. You know.
Day 7. Sick (or) Ew
Wednesday, I woke up with a raging fever, drenched in sweat and glands the size of basketballs. Needless to say, I spent most of the day in bed listening to the jackhammers outside my bedroom window. It was absolutely lovely.
I did manage to drag myself out of bed and get out and about that afternoon though. I made my way to the Matisse Museum, a monestary and some Roman ruins. I hobbled back to the hostel after I had seen it all, and went back to bed.
Day 8. Cannes and Antibes (or) Haha, I saw drunken French men getting arrested today
My group had done the whole Cannes-Antibes trip while I was sick, but I was determined not to miss out. I hopped a train that morning and spendt the day exploring. It was actually a lot of fun– Antibes was pretty (this is to the East of Nice) with the obligatory Cathedral and Chateau, but Cannes was (except for the old town) just… Cannes! I suppose to get the full effect you have to be there for the festival…
Day 9. The French Alps (or) My life totally feels like Audrey Hepburn’s in Charades minus all the yucky blood and dead husbands
Yes. Yes, we went skiing in the Alps today. Didn’t you?
It was fabulous! We got up at the crack of dawn and all piled into a bus. It ended up being about 4 hours total of travel time, but after we had gotten fitted and suited up, and found ourselves in Auron at the top of a mountain, it was completely worth it. Auron, France is a beautiful little resort village nestled in the French alps (Hahaha… every time I think of the alps, I can’t help remembering the Groucho Marx quote: The lord ‘alps those that ‘alp themselves… hehehe). The trails were beautiful, and with the sun and the warm weather, it was a perfect day for skiing. The snow was powdery soft, and the runs went on for miles. We didn’t get to spend nearly as much time there as we would have liked, but we had to catch the bus back to Nice (the last one was at 4h30) in order to get back to the villa that night.
Most of the people in our little group (Lindsay, Ag, Teens, Kevin–an Irish guy we met in the hostel–and me) had a fairly good grip on the whole skiing (us girls)/ snowboarding (Kevin) thing. All except for Lindsay. She had never skied before! Ag and Tina and I gave here a few pointers thogh, and by the end of the say she was a pro :) I still remember my first time… I spent the entire day on my butt.
We were back at the hostel by 7 (for some reason, the bus BACK to Nice totally knew what it was doing… unlike the one on the say to Auron, sigh). The hots showers never felt so good!
And that catches us up to today! As I said, we leave tomorrow, so I’m cramming in the last 200 pages of Aurelien, so I can write my paper when I get back. It’s been a great trip, but I do miss Strasbourg. It’ll be nice to be “home.”
I hope everyone’s doing well! Drop a line when you can…
Love,
Martha
P.S. Pictures to come soon :)
Classes &etc., Spring ’08
After dropping M. Maillard’s poetry class, I feel much better about my spring schedule.
Last night my host sister-in-law confided that when she was at school, M. Maillard scared her so much that she never said a word in class. (“He was just so intellectual. I was afraid I would say something stupid.”)
Mondays: Poetry of LaForgue (10-11h)
Tuesdays: The Autobiography (9-10h), French Comedy: Corneille and Molière (16-18h)
Wednesdays: Compared Literature: The Plays of Goldoni and Wilde (9-10h), Youth Literature (15-17h)
Thursdays: Literature: Aurélien (12h30-14h), The French Revolution (14-16h30)
Fridays: Poetry of Mallarmé (8-10h)
In between time is spent doing laundry at the laundromat, grocery shopping at the Monoprix, checking my mailbox at the SU center, riding on the tram, taking the bus, biking, walking through the Orangerie, holing up in the library of Battiment5 and trying to understand my readings, and eating nutella.
Chop Chop
Dear everyone,
For those of you who have yet to see it, this is my haircut. Apparently Ms. Friend desired photographic proof.
It is shorter than it was before.
The weather is warm today, lots of sunshine*.
Hope you’re all doing well!
Lots of love,
Martha
*Sunshine is that yellow stuff that exists everywhere but Central NY.
Martha Swann Photography 