Greetings from the Other Side of the Wardrobe

Two more days.

The rest of this week is just anxious packing and getting ready to go, the town cleared out, classes are all but done, and now we just wait. My shuttle is leaving Saturday morning at 5AM for my 7:30 flight (God help me) but at least I won't be alone. It will be kind of funny coming back to San Francisco with the same people I came with. I imagine it sort of like, oh hey. Sorry, I just blinked for a second and had the craziest dream I was in France for four months and did all this crazy shit and made friends with all these people and took all this French and it was really fun and hard and everything... What a ridiculous dream. I remember it being hot on the day I left. I have no idea if it was or not. That would be especially weird, I think, to come back on what feels like the same day. It reminds me of stories like Narnia or basically any story that involves people getting sucked into a portal to have an adventure for what feels like weeks, and then once they finally fulfill their mission, it's time for them to go home, and they realize they've only been gone an hour and the housekeeper is still looking for them! Yet they'll always have their amazing ridiculous experience in Narnia (or Wonderland/Neverland/Oz), where they can always go back if they need to. Where they have truly established a part of themselves. They can tell their stories to people at home, who may or may not believe them because talking lions! Preposterous! (And then there's like that one adult that winks at them and knows it really happened.) This whole experience was my getting sucked into a wardrobe, and I'll come back ultimately having learned important lessons about loyalty/family/home/duties, sometimes wistful for how sick it was in Narnia, but also happy to be home where we don't have to fight bloody epic life-or-death battles against evil ice witches. The entire Narnia thing is really something important that happens to them personally, individually, catering to their characters, and it's okay if the people in the real world don't understand as much as you might think (or in the way you might think) because the experience really wasn't for them. It was for you.

There is always a point in the story where time is up, and the characters have to go back home. And Aslan, or the Wizard, or whoever, is like, you have to go back! You've done what you needed to do here, established part of who you are here, and that will never go away. You'll always be the kings and queens of Narnia, you'll always have saved Oz. Wardrobe stories have a time limit. When your quest is complete, you have to go back, you're needed in the other world. You've kept the housekeeper waiting!

In all those stories, while they're in the Wardrobe world, the characters miss home and they miss their families and lives, even as they experience the magic and wonder of the magical world they got sucked into. There is a glory about both worlds, one that is always concrete and real, maybe not always as exciting, per say, but very much more real and rewarding in other ways, and the one that is always a ridiculous adventure, concrete in time but strange in retrospect, like a dream. I've won the battle against the White Witch, and all is right in Narnia again, the coronation happens, Glinda appears, Peter Pan takes the pirate ship back to London. I'm old now, but I'm about to fall back through the wardrobe, back where I was, but with this fantastic experience within me. There will be a shock of it, and perhaps wistful longing sometimes when things get boring or hard in the real world, but for the most part, it's going to be really wonderful to fall back out, into my own clothes and my own family and my own friends, back to the real world, where my character, enhanced by my experience in Narnia, is going to continue the adventure.


And truthfully, who knows? You never know when you might fall into a wardrobe again.

Cannes Film Festival: Part 2

One of my bosses, who has been doing the Festival for like 20 years described Cannes to me as "a marathon" and to pace myself. Back in the day, he said, he used to stay out all night for the first 3 nights and then want to kill himself on the 4th day, and that I should take a lesson from this, which I did. Cannes is a marathon, and it is very fun and glamorous but it also goes on for 12 days, which is a really long time.

Around the 3rd or 4th day it started to rain. Like rain hard, all day, all night, which made it very easy to pace myself, because coming home feeling like a wet cat makes it very straightforward to stay inside and keep yourself warm. While this was going on though, I worked. I worked hard all through the Festival and had a really enjoyable time doing it, even though I unfortunately did not get to go to any red carpet screenings. To do that you have to get all dressed up and then wait or try to beg for tickets, and as I usually got off when the red carpet began, that was not possible. Truthfully though I didn't have high hopes for that happening, and I did get to see a free screening of "Dr. No" at Cinema de la Plage one night when it wasn't raining, which is a part of the festival that does free screenings on the beach every night.

Fireworks: Legitimately the only thing that could make James Bond more epic.

Unfortunately though they did confiscate our bottle of wine, which we may have been brandishing proudly after removing the cork with a room key and therefore may have been partly to blame. There aren't open container laws in France, but they're "concerned about litter" on the beach (which probably means the Cinema de la Plage ushers are going to have a giant rager later with all their stolen booze). As an act of retribution, Karnig stole one of the fleece blankets they give you, which probably were ours to take anyway.

Haters gonna hate.

My internship was fantastic, I genuinely really enjoyed working with my bosses, who were sweet and funny and down to earth. They taught me a lot, and by the end I legitimately felt as though I was part of the company. The goal of the internship if you're a Film Production student (which focuses almost entirely on the creative and not the practical aspects of filmmaking) is to teach you how distribution companies work, how the market works, and what happens to your movie after you make it. What I learned primarily was regarding making films that have a universal message so that it will appeal to foreign markets (which was my company's focus), for example, teenagers in Italy don't get the "slacker movie" thing that was so big in the 90's because they weren't facing the same kind of apathy and issues. This is why horror movies sell so well overseas--sexy teenagers getting brutally killed one by one by a serial killer is scary everywhere. On the other side of that, action-adventures like The Avengers do well too, because no matter where you live or what language you speak, really attractive people kicking ass and saving the world is enjoyable. Samuel L. Jackson with an eyepatch and a bazooka is a universal symbol everyone understands, like bathroom signs or shaking your head yes or no.

Working at the Carlton was absolutely amazing. Being there just sort of makes you feel like a big deal, even if what you're doing there is being a secretary and making yourself coffee drinks all day and listening in on meetings and giving people their 3D glasses for our one 3D trailer on the 3D TV (which we showed to people who didn't even want the movie because we were just proud of that). The ambiance of the Festival is truly invigorating and electrifying, and even when it was raining or I was tired, it was really exciting to be in Cannes. I think I read an article once describing the festival as "The world turns its eyes to Cannes for 12 days in the spring..."And it really feels like that. After the first few nights, we got used to the whole red carpet thing too, which was funny. Eventually you're like, ugh whatever, Kristen Stewart, that's cool, I'm sure your movie sucks, GOD can you people move I'M TRYING TO GET TO THE BUS. Which isn't to say it still isn't exciting, it just because amusingly normal, like oh yeah, doesn't the Croisette get blocked off every day with like a thousand people trying to catch a glimpse of celebrities? It's amazing, and it was all I could have hoped for it to be and more.

 I also received a visitor the last weekend of the Festival, as my internship ended last Thursday, who perhaps you might be familiar with, by the name of Evan Revak. Being done with his finals he decided to come to Cannes for the weekend about three days prior (this is generally the method by which Evan and I decide to undertake relatively large travel endeavors--about a week in advance).

The exploration of Ile St. Marguerite continues. We're buying a timeshare and a boat.

 His visit was incredibly fun, and it was blessedly warm and sunny so we did Ile St. Marguerite, St. Paul-de-Vence (that was actually straight up rain but we made it for a good long while!) which is a medieval village that my Art History class visited on a field trip that I couldn't go on because I was too sick. It was terribly picturesque, and we had fun walking around and exploring and taking pictures of hallways.

St. Paul de Vence

Evan left yesterday, but before that we went to the beach and undertook more exploration of Cannes and got very sunburned and it was lovely. The rest of this week is just anxious packing and getting ready to go, the town cleared out, classes are all but done, and now we just wait! Ahhhh...

Greetings from St. Paul-de-Vence!

Read my next post for my musings upon the end of our time here...I started to write it out in this entry but it got too long and irrelevant, so read on for further thoughts!

Cannes Film Festival: Part 1

IT BEGINS.

Today marked the opening of the 65th Festival de Cannes. And shit. Got. Real.

So to give you a little bit of an update, I'm interning for a company called Imagination Worldwide, which is a distributor of terrible horror films and depressing Lifetime movies. Their library boasts an array of such well-known titles as "Stripped Naked" (tagline: CASSIE'S DONE STRIPPING, AND NOW SHE HAS A GUN) and "Punishment" (review on the poster: "FINALLY! SOMETHING DONE WITH A HAMMER I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO SEE!") and of course, how could I forget the classic, "Wake Up and Die" (The plotline of that one, I believe, is that a girl gets murdered and dies every night but then wakes up in the morning and gets murdered again in a different way. And she's naked the entire time.)

My place of business for the next two weeks.

I work out of the famous and world-reknowned Carlton Hotel, which is probably the most classy thing in Cannes. Rooms there cost 1000E a night or more, and the spires are said to be modeled after some actress' boobs (I read that in an actual newspaper) so I guess that's like a fantastic honor...The other companies that work out of the Carlton are like, Paramount and Warner Brothers and they have these big giant suites with living rooms, but ours is just two regular connecting hotel rooms with the furniture taken out and temporary walls for the gory posters that hang in my "office."

The facade of the Carlton has apparently been bought by Sacha Baron Cohen and his people, and today, while I was cooped up working, he, as "The Dictator"did a press conference outside, in character, and then proceeded to ride a camel (I'm dead serious) down the Croisette, stop traffic, amass a huge crowd, and then FALL OFF THE CAMEL, and then retreated back into the hotel. I don't know what happened to the camel, and unfortunately I didn't actually see any of it (but my friends did and I read about it/saw pictures online) but HOW. LEGIT. IS THAT. Apparently one of my roommates physically crashed into him, and I am so unbelievably jealous. Like I would really be okay for celebrity sightings in Cannes if I physically touched Sacha Baron Cohen, and in character at that. I probably would have fallen at his feet and been like, "Take me with you back to wherever magical land of talent you come from and teach me your ways and let me work on your movies, whisk me away on your camel and I shall forever be your servant..." and it would have been BEAUTIFUL. I hope I do get to see him, because after that I could probably die happy. I saw online later that he spent the rest of the day on a yacht with some supermodel where the "paparazzi" was taking pictures of them, and they organized a stunt where they were frolicking and then he "killed" her and dumped her body bag in the ocean.

Sacha Baron Cohen, you are a perfect human being.

While I wasn't staring out the window fantasizing about meeting famous character actors, I spent today at my desk being a secretary and taking business cards and playing trailers and drinking coffee and doodling and writing poetry. Tomorrow I need to bring my computer. After work I got to go walk down the Croisette and join the madness outside the Palais des Festivals (the main theater) while the red carpet started for Moonrise Kingdom, the Wes Anderson film that's opening the festival this year.

That's Ewan McGregor on the JumboTron. I died.

What this basically involved was standing on my tiptoes jumping up and down to see the JumboTron, because of course I was standing behind The World's Two Tallest Men and Tourist Lady in a Giant Hat Standing on the Fence, BUT I got to see Chris Pine and the jury (including EWAN MCGREGOR BE STILL MY HEART) and Tilda Swinton and Bill Murray and Wes Anderson...mostly just on the screen but if I craned my neck enough I could see them very tiny and from the back on the steps.

Once everyone one the crowd died down and I returned to the College. Some people are going back into to town to try and brave the later showings, but tonight I need to just go back and chill...got two weeks to brave the madness! An exciting day and an epic start, and I have to say, Cannes is a truly magnificent creature during the Festival. This is glorious, and can't wait to tell you more soon!

Ile St. Marguerite and the Gorges de Verdon

This weekend, we went on two adventure excursions, epic outings, if you will, to wrap up our set of trips with AIFS. Aude frankly outdid herself, and on Friday we went to Ile St. Marguerite, which is a little island off the coast of Cannes. This was one of the places I’d been before when I was here 5 years ago, and surprisingly once we got there I remembered it the most vividly of all. It was blissfully sweltering hot Friday, and we took the boat to the island and walked around to the museum, which is basically a set of 3 jails cells, on of which housed the Man in the Iron Mask (theoretically). In my French class we discussed how there are so many questions about that, such as: Did that even happen? and Was the mask actually made of iron? Because that seems like really unnecessary...
Alas, we wandered around and took pictures in the courtyard, because THAT SHIT WAS PICTURESQUE, and then wandered the trails in an attempt to find the famously clear blue water on the other side of the island. So beautiful. We think a lot of summer camps stay on the island, because it’s really just a perfect place to be when it’s hot and lovely like that. Okay, so eventually, because we are masters of orienteering and only got lost like twice, we found the water.

Now here is where the story gets interesting. 

The shoreline of the island was made up of a substance not unlike wood shavings, and we have absolutely no idea what it was, except maybe a weird foreign invading kind of seaweed that dies all at once and dries washed ashore. To get to the sandbar, where the water is as clear as a pool and you can see fish around your feet, you have to climb through the wood-shaving stuff, which is probably about 4 feet deep, and underwater, so it’s kind of like quicksand. Karnig, A’brielle and I did not bring swimsuits, because we were both imagining this being like a beach beach where there’s sand you can sit on or just go in up to your legs. It became immediately evident that the only solution to this problem was to go in in our clothes.

It was totally worth it, even if walking through the muck was probably the grossest thing I’ve ever done in my life. We played around in the water with everyone for a while and then struggled our way back to shore, and I just have to tell you it was a really special experience, the kind of thing where you know that it could only happen here, on this island off the south of France, playing in clear blue water while old leathery people on their anchored small yachts stare and laugh at you. Also, importantly, on the way back I Kylie and I got ice cream, and I had a Magnum bar for the first time, which is an important European experience. I just need to say, America and Dove bars, get your shit together. In Europe they have caramel between the chocolate and the ice cream, and you need to figure that out. It was a life-changing experience.

That night I went to a Japanese restaurant with Jenn, Kylie, Hailie, and their roommate Ali, which was bound to be interesting. We make valiant efforts at these Asian or “Tex-Mex” restaurants in France that are just so close to being actually good but are also obscenely overpriced, because you know, tacos are a rare delicacy. I just want to go to Sumos on State Street and get like an uncomfortable amount of food for 12 bucks. We were the only people at this restaurant, and at some point during the meal, two of the chefs got into a fight, which we could see, and it was a serious fight, with punches and throwing bowls and screaming and the other waiters/other chefs trying to pull them apart.. Awkward. This went on for the majority of our meal, which sadly we still had to pay full price for. One of the girls I was with posted a status later that said, “had a real authentic Japanese meal in France, complete with a samurai fight!” So that’s definitely one way to put it.

The next day we left the College early on another beautifully hot and sunny day for a long bus ride to the Gorges de Verdon, also known as the French Grand Canyon.  It’s truly a stunning thing to see, and almost vertigo-inducing. After driving around the top of it, we went down to this huge man-made lake at the edge of the canyon, where the water was an unbelievable turquoise. We rented kayaks, and what follows is very high up there with the coolest things I’ve ever done.

Karnig and I decided to go into the Gorge, down the stream there, and like...imagine this, with two huge cliffs on either side and greenery and small waterfalls..we didn’t have a camera, but I’m determined to find someone who did so I can show you this. It felt like we were straight up in Jurassic Park, and that any moment a pterodactyl would swoop across. To quote Karnig, “A friendly pterodactyl, like one you could ride.” It was an adventure, in the truest sense of the word, like we were Indiana Jones or just something, anything to express how absolutely cool this was.

Also, I discovered that I am a lot better at kayaking than originally thought, which is great, because kayaking/rowing/windsurfing/sailing small craft are necessary skills in my family, and I have been taught from a young age how to do it. When you’re on your own sometimes you realize that you were a lot more competent than you thought you were. You rise the occasion and all your latent knowledge and strength that you never have to use comes into play, and it’s very empowering. We were going against the wind, hard, on the way back and made it out alive without crashing into the rocks, and on time. HOLLA.

 We all sat around in the sun for a long time, and then Aude managed to herd all of us back to the bus and we visited our last, but not least, medieval village, which was also unbelievably pretty, settled between the cliffs, with waterfalls, and a star hanging above the town. If you ever find yourself in the south of France, go to the Gorges de Verdon. It’s probably one of the most amazing things you can do here, and was a perfect wrap up of our AIFS excursions.

COMING SOON...the Cannes Film Festival!

Prague and Adventures

Two Tuesdays ago I saw the Avengers, in at the English cinema in Cannes. Jenn and I were basically on the edge of our seats the entire time, cheering and gasping, and when it ended we were the only ones clapping and whistling, and Jenn yelled “AMERICAAA!!” Occasionally you are allowed to have some moments as an obnoxious American when you’re in Europe, and seeing the Avengers is a really appropriate time to holler in a movie theater about how badass and obnoxious you are and proud to have Chris Evans and his fine self kicking ass dressed like a flag. America is an obnoxious country. But sometimes it’s in a really awesome way. And if you’re gonna be in France and spend all your time trying to fit in and repress your innate obnoxious American-ness, you may as well scream “AMERICAAAA!!!” at the end of a fucking kick-ass movie.

Later that afternoon, Mel arrived in Cannes, and I took her back and showed her around the magnificent splendor that is the College. Over the next few days I took her around Cannes, including to Morrison’s, which is the local pub (which truthfully I’ve probably been to all of one time prior to this), because Stephen and Nick were playing at open mic and we all made a grand field trip to go see them perform. The irony of this of course is that Mel came all the way to France to hear two kids from Chapman sing Irish folk songs in a British pub. So it goes.

On Friday we left Cannes to go to Prague for the weekend, which was really beautiful. Prague is an interesting city, because the city center is very “old world Europe” and picturesque, but the rest of it is like, straight-up Soviet block and really ugly. There is very little Czech culture that you can tell of just visiting, and it’s incredibly touristy, but, like I said, it’s very very beautiful.

A weekend was probably enough time to be there, but we walked around and saw the city and all of it’s stunning old buildings, and SYNAGOGUES! This was probably one of the coolest things about Prague for me. Everywhere you travel in Europe you find these beautiful beautiful cathedrals, and you walk around and them and you’re impressed and stunned, but you also think, wow...this would be even more amazing if I were a part of this. Prague has old synagogues. At least two that are old and special enough to merit visiting, which as a very interesting experience for me. The fact that Prague has any Jewish culture at all is really cool and different from almost everywhere else I’ve been, and there were quite a few groups of old Orthodox Jews getting tours. All of a sudden my culture and history was relevant to what I was seeing, and like I said, it was a very interesting experience. I would love to visit more places in Europe with more Jewish history.

The only thing that rained on our parade in Prague was quite literally the rain, which started at the beginning of each evening only to descend into heavy thunderstorms throughout the night, so Prague was mostly a daytime thing for us. It was a really lovely, laidback time and I ate very well (including one evening in our hotel where we wandered into a huge buffet dinner for an Italian tour group, which the maitre-d assumed we were a part of and we accidentally had dinner for free.) All in all a very pretty city and a lovely and chill experience, and ALSO, perhaps most importantly for you to know, we flew Swiss Air and they give you chocolate. So now you know THAT, and it’s crazy to think that the next time I’m going to be on a plane, it will be the first leg of my trip home. Nice to London Heathrow, London Heathrow to San Francisco. How insane! Further entries and updates to come soon on this past weekend’s excursions--to nature!!

Elections!

So, something pretty exciting happened in France yesterday. Francois Hollande was voted to be the next President of France! He's the first Socialist (Liberal) President in 17 years. We've been following the election in my classes, so I actually knew what was going on, and it was terribly exciting. I lost a lot of bets. This is really really awesome though.

I was in Prague during the actual announcement, but I watched the news on the French channel during his acceptance speech and the mob crazy parties in the Bastille. What an amazing thing to be a part of and to understand and appreciate. I made sure to get newspapers today so one day I can show my children, who won't care at all, that I was there when this was happening! Hooray for progressive social reforms and liberal leadership!! VIVA LA FRANCE!

Les Baux de Provence

photo by Jennifer Ayo-Akinyemi

Why Am I in France?

Today in my French class we had a really interesting discussion about the future that turned into discussions about language and culture and assimilation. It came up in conversation that I was a huge fan of music in Spanish (iTunes Latino ALL DAY ERRY DAY). My teacher asked if I spoke Spanish, and I explained that I had studied it for four years but had been speaking it for almost my entire life. "Pour quoi tu es en France?!" "Pour le Festival." "Ah, d'accord. C'est une question stupide."

Much more than her asking me a stupid question, I had given her a stupid answer. I didn't mean to give that answer. It's not correct. I chose France because of the Festival. I am in France for a whole lot more than that.

A lot of people and our teachers think the sole reason anyone comes to Cannes is to work at the Festival, and for nothing more. Like we clap our hands over our ears and go "LALALALALA NOT ABSORBING ANYTHING ABOUT FRANCE LALALA" for 3 months until the Festival starts. Obviously this is not the case, and it's very sad to be thought of that way, and it is from my frustration and wish that I had expressed myself better in class today that I write this blog post. I hope it serves as a better explanation for why I'm here than my idiotic 9AM durrrrr-for-the-festival?-response.

I chose to study abroad because I wanted to have an adventure, to go somewhere where they didn't speak English, where it would be a challenge, where it would be beautiful and fun. Why I chose Cannes over, say, Madrid or Barcelona or somewhere in South America WAS because of the Festival, because obviously it held an opportunity far more relevant to my area of study than anywhere else. Also I love Europe, and I'd been to Cannes before and knew it was a place I enjoyed. I knew it was beautiful and safe there and on the sea, warm and remote and restful. I have difficulty with large cities for an extended period of time, I find it very overwhelming, thus Cannes was an obvious choice.

That is why I came to Cannes. It fit my needs for a study abroad location perfectly. Why not learn French? Almost all of my close friends at home speak it, I used to take French lessons and was good at pronunciation, it was something I wanted to do. French is beautiful and romantic! And I'm smart enough to learn another language. Why not? I'll never be as good as some of my friends, but I'm pretty good at it. I worked at it hard to be able to come here and I continue to work at it hard. When I came here I balked at the amount of time we spent learning French, but now it's just part of the routine. Practicing, always, 3 hours a day. You come to the College to learn French and that is what you have to do to live in Cannes. I enjoy it now. I enjoy French. I enjoy the challenge. I enjoy this skill that I've acquired and can continue to use as my life progresses, if for nothing else than to stimulate my mind.

It is true that I have no desire to permanently live in France, but that in no way means I don't care about it or feel a connection to it or appreciate it. A girl in my class brought up the notion of how working in the cinema leads to a life of traveling, and that she liked the idea of living somewhere new for 3 months out of every year. I agree with that wholeheartedly. That is a life I would be content with. Having a home base, somewhere permanent to go back to, preferably in California, which in my opinion is one of the best damn places on Earth to live, but then also traveling extensively with your productions. Maybe even to France! Where you can use all that French you learned at the College! Obviously I'll be back. Especially when my films are opening the Festival in a few years and winning the Palm d'Or. Just kidding. Not really.


The moral of this story is, I didn't just come to France to work at the Festival. That was a supremely wonderful added bonus to this location. I came abroad to have an adventure. I chose Cannes out of all the other places to have adventures because of the Festival and it's location and climate. The adventure includes learning another language, visiting places, having fun, making new friends, new connections, the challenge of survival alone in a foreign culture. That is why I came here, why I chose here, and what I'm getting out of being here. I hope no one for a second thinks that I don't appreciate being here or don't realize the opportunity I've been given. I came to France to study abroad in France, which I did, and am doing, and it has been a marvelous hot mess of an experience.

I couldn't ask for anything more.

Weekend in Provence!

Hey all you beautiful people! Wanna hear about the best excursion we've had since we've been here? Then sit back, relax, and enjoy the tale of AIFS IN PROVENCE!!

After a three hour bus ride from Cannes, we arrived in Arles. Arles is famous because it has a lot of Roman ruins, and also Van Gogh lived there and painted it extensively. We just learned about it in Art History, so that was exciting and relevant. I am now strongly of the opinion that you should take Art History before you go to Europe. Things are more special and exciting and you just appreciate it all more. Shoutout to Trisha who had just finished AP Art History at Los Altos before Eurotour and was my tour guide and explained why everything was special...I get it now. :) 

"All Night Cafe at Arles," anyone??

The first stop was a "typical Provencal market" which was amazing. We just walked through and drooled over all the food and spices and fake purses and jewelry. I bought a very lovely pendant, and there was some debate as to whether or not it would make sense to buy this goat a lady was selling. (We also ran into another group from AIFS that is studying in Grenoble, who we met up with in Paris and went on the dinner cruise with and tried to go out with and awkwardly failed. One of the girls from their group (who was in a walking boot) drunkenly wandered into A'brielle's room in Paris and fell asleep and they found her there in the morning. This is one of our AIFS in Cannes Classic Tales. So it was cool to seem but but also kind of awkward, is what I'm trying to say.) 

We continued on to the ruins of an ampitheater, which had lots and lots of places to take stupid photos. It of course reminded us of a place where they would go on America's Next Top Model to do a photoshoot and have to portray various goddesses, but of course they would have to be stupid goddesses that Tyra made up, like "the Goddess of Fierceness." Obviously we had to do our own photoshoot. 

A'brielle and I lounging and being goddesses of fierceness.

Following the ampitheater we visited a bullfighting ring (where they don't actually kill bulls anymore, but some places still do, which I didn't realized and is super fucked up) which is a terribly well-preserved Roman coliseum (not THE Coliseum, but one of them). We stayed there for about 10 minutes before managing to get lost in Arles trying to find the All Night Cafe that Van Gogh painted. Obviously we did, eventually (see photo above) but succeeded in making us all late to the next place by come back 20 minutes late. Woooo!! Next stop: the aquaduct.

How sick is this??

It had been very hot and sunny in Arles, to the point where we were lamenting bringing only warm clothes. We drove for about an hour and a half, at which point the weather began to take a turn for the worse. We got to the aquaduct and started walking around. It's huge and really amazing and beautiful, and I hope from the picture you get a sense of how immense and impressive it is. It had at this point begun to rain a little, and the wind picked up, starting a little sandstorm on the path. Not ones to resist an opportunity to look ridiculous, here is a picture of how Karnig and I handled this turn of events.

WORRKKKKK.

It began to rain harder as we explored the aquaduct and the surrounding area, but it was a beautiful walk and the rain smelled so good, with all the trees...here is the view from the bridge across the river:

Following our adventures at the aquaduct, we were shuttled onto the Chateuneuf du Pape, which is an incredibly famous winery, where we had a fancy wine tasting!! Ooh la la. (Apparently people in Paris actually do say "ooh la la" which I had been wondering about since being here. No one wears berets, but everyone does carry around baguettes. Just clearing up some stereotypes here.)

The wine-tasting was a thoroughly entertaining experience. The guy who was leading it and explaining it was a very tall, heavy, and SASSY man, who was hysterical and taught us how to do legitimate wine tasting and how to, you know, actually appreciate wine. I learned to hold it by the stem to keep the wine cool, and how to stare at it to see if it was shiny or not and how to turn the glass to see the "tears" or how much alcohol and sugar is in it. I learned that you are to take the first sniff for 3 seconds, appreciate it, then swirl it around for a while to "open the bouquet" smell it again, and then "smell it with your mouth" where you take a little sip and basically gargle it...and then of course you just drink it. Or spit it out. But we're college students and one does not just spit out wine. Especially really good, expensive wine, which is quite a novelty to us, "Oh wow, it's so smooth, it doesn't burn going down like the 1€ wine from Leader Price!!" Needless to say, everyone really appreciated the experience. The only funny part about it though is where you say what you think it smells like. You can say anything you want, because it's your olfactory senses that determine it, and your sense memory, but there are kind of things you're supposed to smell. However when asked to name more than like 3 things and shout them out (wood? chocolate?), Karnig and I were rather taken with our newfound wine connoisseur noses.

Hmmm yes, quite, scents of chocolate and baby powder and Chanel No.5...

After we finished up at the winery and the winery's little museum, we got on the bus and headed for our final destination of the day: Avignon.

Avignon's City Hall

Our hotel in Avignon had these wonderfully huge rooms, which we were quite taken with. However we only had a few minutes to change and get back downstairs for dinner, because we were going out to a restaurant!! Hooray!! AIFS sometimes takes us out to this big fancy 3-course meals, and this was no exception of wonderfulness. It's just exciting to get to eat cuisine when you've been eating chicken paninis at the College every night.

I don't think we had enough wine.

Later that night, after we had digested and appropriately spent time in the room listening to music loudly and getting ready aka laying on the giant beds, Jenn, Karnig, A'brielle, Kylie, Hailie, and myself made an attempt to go out. We found a club online that was close, and around 11:45 we made our way down to the lobby to leave. The concierge stopped us however, and informed us that he was about to lock the doors, and they would be locked until 7AM. "But we can just ring the bell and you'll let us in, right?" we asked, and he was like, "No, I'm leaving. You won't be able to get back in if you don't come back in the next 20 minutes." Our initial moment of disappointment of having our evening plans ruined was quickly replaced by panic and concern...people from our group were already out! And they didn't know! And they wouldn't be able to get back in until 7AM and they'd have to sleep on the stoop or something! So we asked the guy if we could run and try to find people to tell them, and he said sure. We went to the bar next door and no one was there, and in despair we called Aude, who is one of our RD's, whom I have told you stories about. Sandrine is the brains and Aude is the brawn of the operation, she's younger, and she is wonderful and badass and chain-smokes and has this great gravelly voice and accent. Kylie called Aude, and explained our predicament. When Kylie hung up, she started laughing informed us that Aude was going to call down and "speak with" that man. Fast forward 10 minutes, Aude calls Kylie back and just says, "He is a very stupid man. You will be able to come back in. Whenever you want to. And if you can't, you will call me, and I will speak with him. I told him I would tell his boss and Sandrine was very angry at him...he will let you in." What I wouldn't have given to see that conversation go down. 

We ended up not going to the club because it cost 10 euros and no one was there. You know what you can spend 10 euros on instead? KEBABS. Once we came back, we were in fact let in, and we smiled at the guy as we came back in a manner of smiling that's like flipping someone off.  HOPE YOU HAVE FUN GETTING FIRED, BITCH. His boss had told Sandrine when we checked in that we'd be able to come and go 24/7 and it wasn't a problem so long as we were quiet. Aude told us later he was stupid and mean and selfish and trying to scare us, and Aude Does Not Take That Shit. We lament that when we get back to America we won't be able to call Aude and have her bitch out whoever's giving us trouble. My impression of her voice is getting very good, "Kahhrneeeg, quel homme!!" Aude is also probably the only teacher figure that will ever offer your friend a cigarette and light it for them. So much love.

 

In the morning we walked over to the Palais des Papes, which is the former Pope Palace (I guess there also used to be two popes and this is where one of them lived? I don't know. I'm sorry this isn't more historically accurate. FORGIVE ME.)

We went on a tour that basically descended into us exploring on our own the vast medievalness that is the Palais des Papes. It contained lots of frescos and some paintings, and many statues of dead cardinals. But mostly it was huge and open with lots of white stone.

The kind of statues one finds within the Palais des Papes.

After we concluded our visit at the Palais, we left Avignon for "les Baux de Provence" which is a medieval village, stopping however, to see the "Carrieres de lumieres."

It used to be a quarry, but now it's just amazingness.

I cannot really explain to you the nature of the "Carrieres de lumieres," other than that it's probably one of the coolest places/things you'll ever see in your entire life. What it is technically is images projected on the walls of this quarry-cave set to music, but it is truly an experience. We were all grumbling before we went but after leaving it was easily everyone's favorite part. You can't really explain it, other than pure...wow.

This picture doesn't even nearly sort-of do it justice,
but other people took better ones which I will find.

The village of les Baux de Provence is situated in an unbelievably gorgeous area, as everything is all limestone and little trees.

The village itself is up on a hill, with ruins of a castle on top and many little shops and restaurants along the way. They have trebuchets, and apparently sort of a Ren Faire thing at certain times of year. The view is absolutely breathtaking too.

You can kind of see the catapult off to the right.

The stunning view from the top of the hills.

On the way back down we stopped for crepes and paninis and ice cream (I doubt anyone left the village without having at least two of any given one.) and touristy shopping before rushing to meet the bus and begin our 3 hour journey home. Kylie, Jenn, and I made a friend though.

We named her Carmel Freckles.

Provence was just a blast, and being in the countryside was just the calm and relaxing and beautiful thing everyone here has seemed to be needing as of late. Everything I could have hoped for and more. Much love. <3

Tales from Cannes

It's been so long since I have regaled you guys with stories from my French class and tales of my everyday Cannes life, which for the most part is actually really unexciting, but sometimes ridiculous stuff happens, and that's why you get this blog today! I know you're probably like, but Michaela, you went to Provence over the weekend! Maybe you should write about that or something else exciting! And my answer to you is -- NO. YOU GET TO HEAR STORIES ABOUT MY BORING LIFE TODAY.

Unfortunately, no longer having the teacher I had at the beginning, Claude (I'm now on my third one) no one has been yelling at us or making fun of us with nearly as much gusto as he could muster. My current teacher, Anique, whose name I have probably misspelled (desolée), however, is much like the girl form of Claude, and was recently explaining to us about Marseilles, and all the reasons it's stupid. Obviously. As with all places and groups, there are stereotypes, and she took it upon ourselves to impart the following knowledge, ACCORDING TO HER:

- People in Marseilles have a stupid accent* and sound like idiots. They also exaggerate everything, such as the size of a fish they have caught, or, it is implied, other things as well, and hate everyone who isn't from Marseilles. But everyone hates them back. So it's whatever.  (*If you speak some French I shall explain it thusly, instead of "pain" or "bain" they pronounce it "paigne" or "baigne"and also pronounce the "e" hard at the end of words such as "jaune")


- The stereotype of people in Nice/Cannes is that nobody works and all they do is play bocci ball all day and drink pastis. Also that it is full of slutty younger girls that border on prostitutes and dirty old men who stare and sit around whistling at them. I will not negate any of these claims.


"Valeria, je m'endors! Où est-ce l'énergie mexicaine??" (Valeria, I'm falling asleep. Where's some of that Mexican energy??) #ShitFrenchTeachersSay

IN OTHER NEWS:

- You know that tumblr Accidental Chinese Hipsters? I'm going to start one called "Accidental French Steampunks" because truly...it's a thing. Especially in the south of France. Everyone here always looks a hot mess.  Today I saw a woman wearing a black under-bust corset over her purple blouse and bloomers tucked into her black boots covered in buckles. And a big coat.

Now for a Story from Room 100:

Last night, Jenn, Molly, and I all decided to go to bed on the early side, when what should we hear but a KNOCK at our window/door to the balcony! Now. This wouldn't be weird if we didn't have, oh I don't know, THE ONLY BALCONY AT THE COLLEGE AND ALSO ARE A WHOLE STORY UP? Jenn and Molly opened the door, only to find two drunk Mexican teenage girls from the high school that's on a trip here. How did they get onto the balcony? No one knows. We asked what they were doing and they said, "To make new friends! We knew you were awake. We were watching you. You were on your laptop and you were talking." Molly says, "Aren't you cold?" They reply, "No, WE'VE BEEN DRINKING!! HAHAHA!! It helps with the cold!" And Jenn was like, "Yeah, clearly, well we're trying to go to bed, so I guess we'll see you later." And they shut the window and came back inside. The girls were still on our balcony.

Now, something that must be understood is that Jenn is on a crusade against the Mexican teenage boys that are currently living next door to us. They have somehow managed to get some serious speakers and like, a bass, and BLAST music at all times of day or night. They're just in there raging 24/7. You can hear it clear as day and loudly in our room. It also must be understood that they only listen to Drake. Also, one of them is learning to play guitar, and all he does all day is sing the same three lines of "Wonderwall" very badly, at the top of his lungs. We've gotten them in trouble a few times, and also these girls that were screaming in the stairwell after quiet hours. We've turned into crotchety old people, and these young'uns are making too much damn noise! Everyone just sleeps all day at the College...you can't be blasting Drake and screaming all the time! Get your shit together.

So as soon as Jenn and Molly come inside and close the door, they put on their shoes and gleefully run down to the reception to get the girls in trouble, because HOW FUCKING CREEPY WAS THAT? Especially because we were sure they came out of Drake's Number 1 Fan's window. I am still in bed pretending to be asleep because I was Not In The Mood For This Shit. They come back in with one of the men that works for the College, who goes outside to catch the girls. They weren't there, so he BARGES INTO DRAKE'S ROOM and bitches them out. He told us the girls and the boys were there, and that he sat them down and said, "I'm not bullshitting you, if you pull this stuff again we will take your cards and kick you out of the College. Onto the street into the middle of the night. I'm not bullshitting you. This is the third time we've been called up to deal with you and this is not acceptable." (Have I mentioned how glorious it is sometimes that France has no notion of political correctness?) After he told us the story, we thanked him profusely and said goodbye, and then we went to bed.

The End.

Spring Break in Strasbourg.

In case you were wondering how that went.

Barcelona and Lisbon - Spring Break 2012

Alright, ladies and gentlemen. Time for the long awaited majesty that is STORIES FROM MY SPRING BREAK. As I may have told you, I spent the first half of Spring Break with my dear friend/roommate/non-romantic-life-partner Melanie Ward (her blog is here) in Barcelona and Lisbon, and then wrapped up the week in Strasbourg (which is in the Alsace region of France on the German border) with my true love Evan Revak. As usual, shenanigans will ensue.

Part One - Barcelona and Lisbon

By some grace of God, Mel and I managed to find each other at the Barcelona Airport. Which in case you were curious is like the biggest fucking airport in history. By a second grace of God, we got to our hotel, using public transportation. We were directed to take a train to one place, only to discover we were misguided, took the train back to the airport, and then took a bus.

Thankfully we had these things called "Barcelona Cards" where, essentially, you pay 10 euros a day for free unlimited public transportation. A lot of the big cities in Europe have them, and if you ever find yourself touristing there, I highly recommend it.We managed to get to our hotel, which was a Marriott (HALLELUJAH! Because you know what I am so over it's not even funny? Hostels.) and wasn't even that much more expensive.

It was a beautiful hotel, actually, with beautiful rooms and, I kid you not, a COMPLIMENTARY MINI BAR. What is this madness??? The bathroom too was beautiful and covered in mirrors (we don't have a mirror at the College where you can see anything below your shoulders UNLESS you stand on a chair). Which, as Mel pointed out, is pretty awkward if you're trying to take a shower and then you have to watch yourself bathe. Which it is. The first night we went to a fancy mall/shopping center thing near the hotel for dinner and rested for our EXCITING EARLY DAY OF EXPLORING SPAIN!! WOOO!!

Our subway adventures took us to the Placa Catalunya which is basically the center of Barcelona. It was hot and very sunny and gorgeous. As Barcelona is a gigantic fucking city, and one we knew very little about at that, we decided to do a bus tour. I've said this before and I'll say it again, I'm a huge proponent of bus tours if you don't have a car to explore a city. They take you to the things it's important to see, you can get off and explore, and they take you to the next thing it's important to see. Voila. This advice though sort of depends on what you're doing. It's not the "local" experience, but if you have 2 full days to see all of Barcelona and just want to see all the art and sights and landmarks, it's great. Highlights included:

La Sagrada Familia

Gaudi was an architect, that, to the best of my understanding, built Barcelona. He started this cathedral (now declared a basilica) like 150 years ago, and they're still working on it. The result is a weird combination of old and modern architecture that was really interesting.

Park Guell

This was probably my favorite place we visited in Barcelona. So beautiful and rich...somewhere I would definitely like to go back to.

"The World of Color Palace" aka Placa Espana

Our concierge told us that there was a fountain show with music and lights, "like in Las Vegas." Of course Mel and I were playing it all cool and then got into the elevator and were like THE WORLD IS A CAROUSEL OF COLORRRR!!! WONDERFUL WONDERFUL COLOORRR!! A RAINBOW OF IMAGINATION...#disneylandproblems #melandmichaelaproblems

Barcelona is part of a region of Spain called Catalonia (Catalunya) where they speak, officially, both Spanish and Catalan. I was not aware of this prior to our visit, and needless to say was really confused at the number of people not speaking Spanish. HOWEVER, turns out Catalan is really easy to understand, because it's basically Spanish and French mixed together. It is, on the other hand, impossible to figure out how to speak.

We enjoyed ourselves greatly, and in the evening decided to go out to dinner and then to IceBarcelona, which is an ice bar.

If you've never heard of ice bars before (and I had not) they are basically rooms made entirely of ice, with ice furniture and sculptures and glasses. They give you a warm coat and gloves, and you pay 12 euros to go in and have a drink and take stupid touristy pictures of yourself. WORTH IT.

We went to bed exhausted and watched some quality Spanish reality shows where they make children gamble on trivia questions, "That kid is gonna lose all his regalos!" But then as we fell asleep, there were all kinds of sirens and shit that sounded like they were coming really close to us. I get really uncomfortable and on edge when I hear sirens, and they kept coming and sounded like they were right underneath us, so I jumped out of bed and went to the window and looked outside. In my mind it was like a robbery or a fight the cops were trying to break up, because I heard what sounded like gunshots. This is how the following conversation went:

Me: Holy. Shit.

Mel: What is it?

Me: There's like...a giant fire.

Mel: WHAT?

Mel jumped out bed and joined me and we stared out the window for a long time, until finally whatever was on fire next door was out and the firetrucks left. I've never seen flames that big in real life, and I had no idea what it was. We thought the building next door had burned down or something. I had so much adrenaline I kept jerking awake as I tried to fall asleep. The next morning we went outside only to discover what, in fact, was actually on fire.

Turns out this car had caught fire and then caught the tree next to it on fire. Thank God it was only that.

We went on another bus tour (on a different route) this day for a while, which took us up to Mont Juif (Mountain of the Jews..) where the views are spectacular and the Olympic Stadium is. The Olympic Stadium itself was huge and gorgeous, but had literally THE SKETCHEST BATHROOMS EVER (I don't know how else to explain it.) The whole courtyard thing too was breathtaking and very peaceful, and we stayed there for a while taking pictures.

That evening we went to La Rambla for dinner, which is the main "happenin'" street in Barcelona. La Rambla is very energetic but also very overwhelming. It's an exciting place to be, and definitely a place to go again.

The next morning we went to the beach for a little bit, mainly just to say we'd gone, and then took the bus back to La Rambla for lunch and further exploration. I finally had from-Spain-sangria, which was a main goal of my Spain experience, and it was fabulous.

We then took the bus back to the Barcelona Airport where we had all of the excitement of getting delayed 3 hours (hooray for the air traffic controller strikes!) before we went to Lisbon. The only remarkable thing about this many hours in the airport experience was 1) A fantastically epic game of hangman. 2) Babies from various countries making friends in line. It was straight up like out of a Huggies commericial...adorable multi-ethnic babies cooing and whacking at each other. How cuuuute. Our flight to Lisbon was quick, and then we arrived at the Lisbon airport (blessedly smaller than Barcelona's) and were taken by a taxi driver to our hotel. We hit 100 kmh on this ride. I watched the speedometer. It was crazy, and he was blastic techno, and I felt like I was in a video game. It only cost 6 euros. Fuck yes.

Despite their cheap taxis, Lisbon was a more expensive city than Barcelona, but still quite pretty. In the morning we did a long tour that took us to various landmarks, including the tower, the Coach Museum, the big church (look at me remembering what all these things were called!), the old town, and the city square.

We learned that Lisbon is famous for stuff made out of cork, port wine, and for looking like San Francisco. They have cable cars (but they're yellow) and a bridge that looks strikingly similar to the Golden Gate, although much smaller. One of our taxi drivers was quite taken with the fact that I was actually from San Francisco and wanted to know how similar it was. Frankly not super similar, but the bridge was very cool to see. Lisbon is very dignified and quiet and picturesque, and a very interesting place to visit.

Ponte 25 de Abril (Portugal's take on the Golden Gate)

The Coach Museum

City Center square

However, most importantly something very very life-changing happened while we were there. Drumroll please...I SAW THE HUNGER GAMES!! IN ENGLISH!! Portugal shows all their films in the original form with Portuguese subtitles (which I guess makes sense, because dubbing in Portuguese seems like kind of a niche market) and that was really really exciting. I really enjoyed it, as a separate entity from the book. It was really concise and well done and interesting, and yes..quite. Very exciting, not overly emotional, just well done. It did make me want to read the books again though, especially Catching Fire. It better be the best movie ever made or I'm going to kill someone. With a bow and arrow. So it's fucking relevant.

The next morning, after enjoying reasonably-priced room service and figure skating on TV (where Mel determined that my future career as a figure-skating competition commentator is in the bag), we parted ways at the Lisbon airport, she to go back to Glasgow and then to head to Italy and me on the first of my flights/trains to Strasbourg.

To be continued!