Vienne, France.

Yesterday Katie, Drea and I took a quick day trip to a small town called "Vienne." It is an ancient Roman town about 40 minutes (on train) outside of Lyon. It was really cute! Quaint and historic; I loved it.

This is me in front of le temple romain d'auguste et livie:



It was literally in the middle of a bunch of stores and restaurants. I guess they just built around it.

This little kid climbed in and was walking around freely enjoying himself.. He got up on the temple platform and I was SO stinking mad because I wanted to do that! But there was an Access Forbidden sign so I was too scared... but, dont worry.. I climbed in ;)





There were two other sites, some ruins and an old Roman theatre, where they still hold concerts!! Here is a picture of Katie, Drea and I at the ruins.





I absolutely love that I can just train it over to an awesome acient city like this. Unbelieveable. I am so blessed.

Franglais.

I love when I see French translations into English. haha.

So I often go to this store called "Monoprix." I think it is a semi-equivalent to Target, but obviously not as awesome as Target. The floorplan of the store is actually very bizzare. The bottom floor is a grocery store, the next floor is a mix of lingerie, woman's clothes and make-up, the floor above that is a cafe and then the last floor at the top is pharmacie items, a bookstore, men's clothes and anything else that you can think of. Haha. I love it because you first walk into the woman's level but as you ascend, you get a mixed smell of groceries and woman's perfume.

Anyway, the highlight of my trip to monoprix the other day was finding a section of shirts, totes and misc. items with English phrases on them. Read these and if you have an opinion on what they mean, let me know, because I am quite confused:

1) Let it Dream
2) Peace Process Needs You
3) Im a Love Result (haha, really?)
4) Trust in Peace
5) Wake up, the World is Burning. (Raising awarness for global warning? I am not sure. lol.)

S0, let us make it clear that I am not making fun because God knows that I suck at French and I probably say things that the French think "Woa, what the heck is this girl saying!?" haha but I thought that it would be fun to share these phrases with all those English speakers who read my blogs.

I hope you enjoyed reading. ;)

Leather jackets? Le dernier cri?

Hello friends,

So I have not confirmed to myself just yet that I am sick, but I have had a terrible stomach ache all day today and I pray that I do not get sick when I am in a different country.. ugghh.. Everyone keeps talking about la grippe (the flu) and I don't want it!

Also, can everyone keep their eyes open for a super trendy black leather jacket that is not too expensive? I'm on the lookout and I promise you that I will be buying one when I am here, but all the ones I have seen are like 109-140 euros and Ms. Mallory does not have that kind of money to spend on a jacket. But I tell you... black leather jackets are le dernier cri. ;)

Okay thanks!!
Loves,
Mallory

jeudi le 17 septembre

Hey!

I know that it has been a few days since I have written a post, so sorry about that. This week just has not been the greatest. I have pretty much been late to class everyday, which is obviously not good and on top of that everyday has been pretty much a fail at school.

Yesterday was the worst day ever. I dont want to give you a play by play, but I will tell you a few of the tragedies. I dropped my iPhone from two flights of stairs, which is now permanently broken. I went to a soccer game for Lyon which was so awesome, but we were an hour late. At least we won. And the best part, I lost my wallet. When I got home I had an email from one of the ladies that I met on Sunday at the bike marathon and she had said that this guy called her telling her that he found my wallet. I had left her phone number in my wallet so when the guy found it he searched it and called her number. Seriously, thank God for that one, because what a blessing to have my wallet found by an honest person. Today I called the guy and picked it up. Everything was in it, and I know my mom is freaking out as she is reading this right now, but mom, I promise that everything is good! haha I went to the guys apartment with one of my friends (a guy) and the man who found my wallet was very nice. lol Dont worry.

Now, everything seems to be back in order. Tomorrow is vendredi =] yay (Friday) and hopefully it will be great!

A plus tard.
bonne journee.

VMA Awards 2009

So, being in France, I haven't seen the VMA awards, but I have read everyone's facebook status's about Kanye West stealing Taylor Swift's limelight. I agree that Kanye is a jerk and that he seriously think's that he is God's gift. He has done so many stupid things on television in these past years which is really unfortunate because he does create some good music.

But aside from his jerkiness. I would like to argue with Kanye and tell him that Beyonce's "Single Ladies" song is THE NUMBER ONE MOST ANNOYING SONG I HAVE EVER HEARD.

I cannot stand that song. And I am so happy that she didn't win.

wow.

HA.

Beaucoup de choses à partager.

Bonjour mes amis!

So I have quite a bit to share with you because the last few days were filled with great adventures!! I have a few pictures so with the help of these, hopefully I can keep this post as short and to the point as possible (No one wants to read a novel on these things).

Alors.

Two nights ago (Friday 11 September):

I already shared with you this day, it was the day I bought that awesome outfit with the torn pants, but this is a photo from that night. Nothing too exciting other than I like it because it is a cute picture of me and Katie. We are on the bus and really excited about it!




Last night. (Saturday 12 September)

I went to this concert in a park, which was free, and it was so much fun!
This band was awesome! They had so much energy and they sang in English, which was a plus! They were a good band to dance to! =] It was super funny because their lyrics were RIDICULOUS and I doubt that over half of the people at the concert didn't even know what they were saying because most everyone doesn't speak English here. haha good times.



This band, Madame Olga, was insane. haha French rock is classic. This guy's name is Sof. I dug him. lol Check them out on myspace to see what I am talking about. They had some crazy cool sound effects with their performance which made ir pretty epic.



Today, my friend Mike and I volunteered to help with the Lyon Bicycle Marathon. We got up extremely early and helped set up a food pit stop for all the contestants. We were there from about 7AM-3PM helping passing out food and drinks. I had a really good time. It was a great opporunity to network, meet some really great people from Lyon and of course practice my french!! =]

Here are some of the bikers.



This is Soginal (?) I can't spell her name.. But we became good friends throughout the day. She was one funny lady. =] I like her. "Voulez-vous du chocolat fondu?!" "Je vais faire un petit sandwich du chocolat!!" Haha There were chocolate bars for the particapants, but the sun melted them, so she was yelling out to everyone if they wanted "Chocolate Fondu." haha



After the marathon, a few of our new friends (Soginal, Pierre and Louisette) took Mike and me to look around the Hotel de Ville area. We went to this flee market where I bought 4 Disney movies in french, Harry Potter 1, 4 and 5 in french and a Babar book in french of course ALL for only 7.50 Euro. Such an awesome deal/day! Then they took us to probably one of the coolest cafe's that I have been to. The interior was just really chic and the ambiance was way chill. I liked it a lot.

Well that was pretty much the end of my fantastic day.. I mean, there were other really exciting things, but too small to add to the blog. I hope that you all had a fantastic day today as well! And until my next post,

Bonne Journée! (which I learned the true significance today!! woop woop!)

autographed,
-Mallory Venema

Comme une mère française

So my host mom, Zoe, Maria and Odille all went out of town this weekend (Not all together, but separate plans.). I am home alone, and it is not so bad. Today, I have been very productive and not even half of the day is out yet. I am calling myself today a "French housemom." =]

So my friend Katie stayed the night last night and when we woke up, I made breakfast for the two of us! I don't know if I have told you some of my favorite things about France yet, but I absolutely love that we sit at the table every time we eat and I also love that water is served in bottles. Anyway, of course, when I made breakfast, we sat at the table with our toast, jelly and coffee. It was the cutest thing and I loved it. After we ate breakfast, I cleaned my room to look pristine and then I have been doing laundry all day. I just got back from the grocery store, which let me tell you, I handled like a french pro! =] When the lady told me the total, "Dix-sept euros dix-huit," I was like "oui, voila. Vignt euros dix-huit. Merci! Bonne journée" So great! =] Now I am eating a delicious salad for lunch at the table with my carafe of water. I wanted to travel into town today to find a nice flee market or farmers market, but I didn't get the chance to.

Yesterday, I bought the greatest outfit at H&M. I don't have a picture to put up of the outfit yet, but just imagine this, black spandex that have horizontal tears running up the leg. YES! haha If any of you watched this last season of SYTYCD, you know what I am talking about when I say that they are like the hot pink pants that Melissa wore for Sonya's contemporary dance. LOVE IT. If I get a picture soon, its going up on this same post, so look out!! =]

I hope you all have a wonderful day today!!
Passez un bon week-end alll of you! =]
-Mallory

Tôt le matin blog

Bonjour! Bon matin!

So, this is an early morning blog. It cannot be long, because really, I need to get ready for school, but what I have to say deserved it's own post.

So recently I was put into a situation that is a little bit out of my control.

A: Because only God is in control and who am I to think I can control anything?
and
B. There is no B.

Haha, anyway. I don't want to go too much in detail, or in detail at all about this, but I will say in short that I feel like I'm in high school right now. So there is this guy that I think is cute and I don't know him that well yet, but from what I do know about him, he is a really good guy. He actually does not know that I feel about him in this way, because to be honest, we haven't really known each other for that long. But I'm a little worried because I think that one of my friends might like him too. (So high school, right?) haha

So that is short. I would like to tell more, but I have to get ready for school and also, I don't think it is smart to post this all over my blog. But I did want all my "followers" to know how I am doing in my "love life" (haha) since I am in France, yanno. ;)

I would like to ask for prayer for this situation, please, so I do not handle it in the wrong way and also that God's will will be done. If you have advice, please comment.

Thank you for you time and cares. =]

avec l'amour,
Mallory

Conjugasion

I am assuming that the majority of you know what it means to "conjugate" verbs. For those who do not, when learning a language the meat of the class is learning verbs and how to use them in different tenses (ie: present tense, past tense, future tense, imperative etc...). Well right now in class we are reviewing past tense congugations, which should be simple because it is review, but now that I am progressing further into the language, the verbs are getting more difficult to conjugate because there are more verbs to learn and a lot of them are what we call "irregular". I went to a bookstore today to search for a good grammar and conjugation book, but I didn't want to spend any money, so I didn't buy one. Plus it is hard to find a book for English students learning French because of course, we are in France, so all the books are for French students to learn other languages. Thank goodness I waited though, because when I got home, I talked to Maria (the Brazilian student) about finding a conjugation book and she told me that she had one here that she didn't need to use anymore so she let me borrow it. So sweet, right?! =] So yay for smart decisions on not spending money!

Speaking of not spending money. I said that I would update you a few days ago on how well I would budget myself this week.. and I am proud to tell you that I did not spend over 4 euros each day this week!!! Maybe even less!! This is great news! Better than the first week here when I was spending 40 here 50 there. I am going to try to keep spending less than 4 each day.. but I know that tomorrow in Karaoke night so maybe I will spend a little more, but lets hope not.

I'm sorry that I do not have too many exciting things to share with you today. I didn't do much, but it was a pretty productive day as far as homework goes. Perhaps tomorrow will come pictures and karaoke stories! =]

until then, have a great day!
-Mallory

Deuxieme blog pour le jour

Sorry, I know that I already posted today, but as you all know today's date is 09/09/09 and this deserves some celebration.

Now, on 9/9/99 (10 years ago), Britney Spears had her first live performance on the MTV Video Music Awards. Britney has a special place in my heart, ESPECIALLY Brit from the 90's, so I wanted to post the performance to celebrate her past 10 years of fame! GO BRITNEY! =]

Qu'est-ce que vous pensez?

So, what do you think?
Should I cut bangs or leave them to grow?
Please give your opinion. I will be looking for comments. Thanks.

Now that that business is taken care of.

BONJOUR! =]

Things went better today than I thought. I was scared to have the "future talk" with the officials, but it went well. The only future we talked about was the ideas that we have for our research project. I told Chris, the "official" lol, that I was interested in researching the history of the architecture in Lyon, and from that he told me some other good ideas that would direct my research into something more fun and interesting. He told me that Lyon started a movement called "mettre en valeur" (I believe) and it was to perserve the historical architecture and other sites here in Lyon. Apparently people invested money into this project that pursued renovation to the historical city. I don't know much about it yet, of course, but I think that this would be something interesting to look into. I find it great that Lyon recognizes the importance of the art in the city and wants to keep preserve it as it is the story of their city. I also find that beauty is a lot more important here than in the United States. And I don't mean physical beauty, I am talking about the beauty in art and the enviornment. So, we will see how that goes. The only difficult part is going to be doing the research IN FRENCH and writing the paper IN FRENCH. eek.

One last thing... I swore off of Nutella. haha Quick huh? I threw up last night and I think it is because I ate like half a jar of that stuff. ICK!

Okay.. well have a beautiful day! And don't forget to advise me on cutting my bangs or not!

Thanks! Ciao!
Mallory

Nutella

Bonjour!

My obsession at the moment: Nutella.



Most of your probably know what Nutella is, but for those who do not, it is a chocolate/hazelnut spread that is very popular in France. Often times people put it on bread or crepes, but I just like to spoon it! Haha Below is a picture of my friends (Katie and Geo) and me with Nutella mustaches. ;)

This is how much we love it. I think it is best seen on my white face.





Today our class had a meeting with our program advisors/directors and they told us that beginging tomorrow, we are going to have to discuss our future plans in life and ideas for our research project. Now anyone who knows me knows that "future plans" does not settle well in my stomache.. ugh.. I hate talking "future." For the research project, I am a bit nervous, but I think that it is pretty open to any ideas so naturally I am going to go towards art in Lyon, right? So, I have mentioned a bit about the beautiful buildings in Lyon and I think I want to research the evolution/adaption of style for the different monumental buildings in Lyon. This city has so much history to unveil and I think it might be fun to research it, of course, through the art! =] How ironic that I am an Art History major.

One other thing. I am not sure if I mentioned it before, but there is another female student that lives here. She was in Spain for the last week and a half, so I had not met her yet, but tonight she came home. Her name is Maria. She is very nice. She speaks better French than I do, and she doesn't speak any English at all. I think that this is going to be difficult for me to communicate with her, but I pray pray pray that it WONT be lol and that hopefully I can use this opportunity to speak more French more frequently. (Because God knows that I speak English to my friends in the program... not good, I know, not good.)

Okay, well I have homework and sleep to catch up on. Have a good night! And watch out for that Nutella!!

A demain,
Mallory

Disney chansons

Salut!

Today was filled with Disney songs!!

In class, my friends (Geo and Katie) and I were trying to remember the words to great Disney songs. We were especially working on "Colors of the Wind," which we got through most of it, but of course I had to YouTube it when I got home.

Donc, regardez:

Court et Gentil

Short and sweet.

I have eaten too much ice cream/tarts/chocolate/bread and cheese. This must stop.

Tomorrow I am going swimming/tanning at the pool by the river.

I will not spend any money for two days. (I'll let you know how that goes ;) ..) At least over 10 Euros.

Wanna see some pictures?

Flies are ginormous here.



Pretty view.



Katie and I get this excited when we see eachother!



Ice cream and a playground at midnight! YES!! =]

Après une semaine

Allô tous!

So I have been in France for a complete week now. It has been filled with baguettes, lots of cheese, delicious tarts, new friends and of course, French. I am really enjoying it, as you can read in my past blogs, but the only thing that is making me sad is that I am not yet fluent. Not even close. Now, I know that you are all thinking, "You have only been there one week! Of course you are not going to be fluent yet," but I tell you that it is still very hard for me to understand when I am spoken to in French and when I try (try) to speak it. I am getting really frustrated. =[ I just want to be able to convey everything I am thinking and feeling without taking minutes just to think of what vocabulary word I know best, or without having to say half of my sentence in English. =[ I feel really bad for Anne, my house mom, because she will say something to me and I wont understand her at first and she will have to repeat it a couple times and say it slow. I feel like I am mentally challenged or something. (I'm really sorry Anne, you might be reading this, but it is my chance to tell you that I feel really bad and I hope hope hope that I will be able to communicate with you in French much easier in the future! =[ ) I also feel bad for my "little sister" Zoe. I want to talk to her a lot and learn about her, but again, it is not easy for me because of the language barrier.

Okay, I'm done with my complaints...

So today some friends and I bought some food and took in to the park with the zoo and had a picnic! It was a lot of fun, and very filling (you know, baguettes and cheese) The cheeses we had were absolutely amazing!! There was brie, ash cheese (?), pepper cheese and this sweet raisin cheese. The names should probably be much classier than that haha but seriously, they were the best cheeses I have ever had in my life. haha. Here is a picture of some of us at the picnic, minus one because she was taking the picture:



In the picture from the left is Alexandria, Me, David and Etta. Behind the camera is Veronica.

Tonight I think that a bunch of us are either going to someone's birthday party that is in the Immersion program at Lyon or explore some more in Vieux Lyon, I don't know. I just really enjoy hanging out with my new friends lol.

Some FABULOUS news apart from my times in France is that my baby girl (dog) Sadie has given birth successfully to 5 pups!!! =] YAY!!! I am so happy for her! From what I have heard, the process went well and they are all healthy! Gosh, I am so sad I missed it. =[

OK... well, I must go now.
Until then, Au Revoir!

Mallory

Hier soir et aujourd'hui

Désolée Désolée. (Sorry Sorry)

I didn't write yesterday because I was out too late, but I am getting complaints! haha (mom, aunt Lisa?) I will fill you all in, don't worry.

2 Septembre 2009

After school we spent most of the day in Bellecour, running errands and such. My new friend Katie and I, who shares a lot in common with me, went into H&M and of course were dying because we wanted to buy everything haha. There was this one dress that stood out to me, I loved it and wanted it so bad. It wasn't that much money and since we had planned to "go out" that night, so I bought it for the occasion. Katie found the same dress in a different color and bought that one haha we were twins. But we liked it.




We went out to dinner in Vieux Lyon at this super cute restaurant that had seating outside on the cobblestone streets. So French, right? I love it. =] After dinner, more friends met up with us and we hung out really late, too late in Vieux Lyon. But here are some pictures from that.

This was at dinner.



This picture was taken from my seat at dinner. I just wanted to take a picture of the angles of the street and buildings. The guy leaning against the wall is smoking. I thought he added a nice touch to the photo!



I know that this picture is a bit blurry, but you can tell we are having fun =] This is me, Drea, and Katie in fron of the cathredral in Vieux Lyon.

I posed with this guy because he and a bunch of friends had "Free Hugs" signs.



From left to right: Andrew, Mike, Drea, Katie and Me. Again blurry. But we are having fun =] Look at mine and Katie's dresses! haha love her.



3 Septembre 2009

I did not do much today. We had class of course early in the morning, which I had to rush for! Not fun. I napped. I ate dinner. And then I wrote this blog, so that is about it. The weather was really great today! =] Overcast, just the right temperature. Not too warm, not cold. Similar to San Francisco weather in the Fall. My favorite =]

We have end of the week exams for class and tomorrow is my first one. I am so nervous. =[ The hardest thing for me with the French language right now is understanding the native speakers, and I am pretty sure we have to listen to native speakers and write down what they say. AHH!! Its almost impossible for me =[ Ils parelent trop vite. (They speak too fast.) Anyway, wish me luck. I will let you know how it goes.

À bientôt,

Mademoiselle Mallory.

Comble de la joie

I am overcome with joy, my friends!

All I really have to say for today is that school was very long, our professor was pretty cute for an older man ;) and it is raining.. hard. Thundering and lightening. I love it =] I have my window open and I think that I am going to sleep with it open!

Beacoup de choses excitant pour le futur! (Many exciting things for the future):

1. New Moon premieire is a possibility in Europe.. if not though, it comes out Nov 18 in France, 2 days before the USA, so I will see it before all of you! MwAhahahahaaaaa. =]

2. Robert Pattinson made the cover of a French magazine called "Premiere" for the september issue. =] He looks good, as always.

3. Coeur de Pirate, an excellent young singer whom I adore is on tour in France during October. My friend Katie and I are going to see her! woo!!! I am going to see a French music sensation in France!! C'est incroyable! Love it love it! P.S - You should check out her music (www.myspace.com/coeurdepirate)

and

4. I am on my way to fluency! maybe... haha

Okay.. that is all. Bonne nuit, au revoir, A demain! =]

-Mallory