Des problèmes.

Hey!

So between yesterday and today, there have been a few obstacles, but things are coming together slowly lol.

It began with trying to find Meagan at the airport. I went to the airport at 2:00Pm, expecting to see her at 2:20 just after her flight came in, however, I didn't know which gate she was coming in from and so I ran around the airport for about an hour and a half trying to find her. I started to freak out because I didn't know if I would ever find her and I didn't know if she remembered to take my cell phone number with her so she could contact me, so I pretty much just prayed that somehow she would call me.. and thank God, she did =] After I found Meg, I learned that the airport had lost her baggage, and boy has that created a huge bump in our road =[ It is really frustrating because the airport told her that they would get the bags to her last night, but here we are the next day at noon and we still don't know where her bags are. Thank goodness that we actually didn't leave for Italy today because she would have not had ANYthing, one pair of everything she was wearing and that was it.

Other than the continuing problem with the baggage, we have had problems with our traveling plans as well. As hinted above, we were supposed to leave for Florence, italy today, but we waited till last minute to reserve a seat on the train and it was impossible to book due to the France holiday "Tous Saintes" right now.. ugh!! So we looked for trains on Sunday as well, but it still was impossible. Today we woke up really early and went to the train station to be able to ride up to Paris today and then maybe Monday leave from Paris to Italy, but that didn't work either, thanks to the holiday. The very very nice man at the train station, however was such a great help, I excercised my french ;) and he gave us all our travel options. We ended up booking a train to Florence Monday night, arriving there Tuesday morning, so this is very good!!! Now the only problem is that we are still trying to find a way to Paris (just so meg can see the city while she is here) but we cant do ANYTHING until her stupid luggage gets here! I am so iritated with the airport because she has called them like 5 times and they can't give her any information other than "its coming".... but when AIRfrance when!?! You are holding us up!

lol.. sorry I'm irritated. I hope nonr of you ever have to experience an airport losing your bags.

Well, wish us luck to our potential destinations! =] If we are stuck in Lyon til Monday, that is not bad because it means we save money and Meg gets to explore Lyon, HOWEVER, I want to see Paris and Italy!! lol

Until next time, Ciao...
Mallory

[Dommage.] mais une semaine en Italy.

I just realized that after next week, I am going to be completely broke.

hmm...

Despite that.. I shall enjoy every bit of my Italy trip with Meagan. =] This is a dream come true for me =] Pray for us that we will be safe and have the most successful trip!

Until November 2 =]

LOVE, MALLORY. (its in color hehehe)

Vous voyez.. En Europe..

I think that one of my favorite things about being in France is that other AMAZING countries are right next door! =]

You see, in Europe, it is still expensive to travel, but extremely less expensive from the states and extremely quicker! I love it! =] So I am taking advantage of my wonderful stay in France and travel to the following places in the last two months I have here:

Italy (Florence and Rome): Next week.
Paris: Next Week, and hopefully again before Im outta here.
Chamonix/Mont Blanc/Geneva: Weekend of Nov 20. (tentative)
London/Oxford: Nov 26-30 =]

Amazing, right? I would love to go to Amsterdam, but that is just a bit more expensive than I was hoping for.. but its okay, because look at those other amazing places Im going!! Yippee!! =]

Stay tuned for pictures from the previously mentioned cities!

And I would like to welcome my lovely friend Meagan to France in less than 2 days! =D

Les Raclettes et les amis.

Hey everyone!

After 8 weeks or so of being in France, I have finally made some French friends!! woo! haha And thanks to my friend Sam! So Mathea, one of my new friends, met Sam in Berkeley when she was studying there this past year, but she lives in Lyon now and she contacted him when she heard that he was studying in Lyon. She invited me and Sam over for dinner and I met 4 other really nice girls also! It was so much fun and of course I had the benefit of practicing my french! Always a plus.

So Mathea made us something called "raclettes," which is like a French speciality or something and it goes a little something like this:

You melt a lot cheese and pour it on potatoes and meats (like salami, ham ect "charcuterie").

Amazing right?! haha It was seriously so tasty!

So anyway, I have been planning to go to London ever since I got here and these girls want to come with for the trip!! I am really excited cause they are really fun!

Un week-end à Lyon - l'art et amis.

Hey friends,

I stayed in Lyon this weekend and it was pretty exciting! I had the opportunity of doing a couple things that I haven't done yet so that is really good.

Katie's family (aunt, uncle and cousin) came to visit her this week, so after school on friday we had lunch with them and then took a walk up to the Fourviere to show them the gorgeous view of Lyon. If I haven't talked about the Fourviere before, it is a 19th century cathedral located up on the hill "fourviere," and you can pretty much spot it from any point in the city. Here is a picture of it off the internet.



I had never been inside the cathedral, but this time around I got the chance and it was great! It is so beautiful inside! There are these two gold and colored mosaics on each side of the walls inside and they were so angelical. The ceiling vaults were so elaborate; I was speeechless. However, when I see then sistine chapel next week in Rome, I am reeeeaaally going to be speechless. I have to prepare myself, I might have a heart attack. lol Here is a picture of the inside of the cathedral.


Saturday I hung out with my friend Sam most of the day. We went to the Musee des Beaux-Arts, which made me really really happy! I had been wanting to go every weekend since I have been here and I am so happy I finally got someone to go with me that enjoys art too! =] There is an awesome exposition there right now featuring major artists from the 20th century! Picasso, Matisse, Bacon, Dufy AKA: movements such as Cubism and Fauvism and other avant-garde and post-world war II depictions. The exposition is amazing! They have over 180 works or something like that! I saw this one painting by Maria Helent Viera da Silva, called "Le Desastre" that I fell in love with. I found this picture of it online, so its hard to see and hard to appreciate. It is a war painting. And the lines that she created are so powerful. From a distance (my friend sam pointed this out) it looks like a shattered glass, and he is right!! You can just feel the sharp lines jabbing you and almost hear the cries from the crowd. LOOK:



Anyway.. I loved it. I need to go back though because we didn't have enough time to really look at the entire exhibit, let alone the whole museum. We then met Katie's family again at a "match au foot" - soccer game - but Lyon lost, so that was a bummer. I saw Clint Eastwood though. Apparetly he is into French football.

Today, Sunday, I hung out with Sam again and we went his friend Mathea's house and watched the UCLA/CAL football game on the internet. It was an unfortunate game for UCLA, but Sam goes to CAL and Mathea once went to Berekly as well, so it was a good game for them.

So tomorrow begins another week of school, but I am really excited because this Friday Meagan is coming!! It is so nice to have someone from home visit! I wish my family could!

Classe au Musée Gallo-Romaines

Allô!

Thursday was my first day in Art History class here in Lyon. We all met at Place Bellecour and took the funiculaire up the hill to the Musee Gallo-Romain for a little tour and education. =]

In the B.C years and a bit after, the Romans took over this area in France and there are still ruins left in Lyon since then (so awesome right!!!!! eeh =]) This museum is dedicated to roman excavations found here in Lyon. There are columns, mosaics, sarcophogi, peices from the ampitheatres and collesium ect. Located next to the museum are two ampitheatres (one smaller than the other, called an "odean") Here are pictures of them:



This is a picture from the top of the theatre looking down. The flat wood platform is where they would perform plays and the broken columns behind used to extend all the way up with a backdrop, forming a wall, but over the thousands of years, they have been broken.



This is a side picture of the seats of the theatre.


Here is our class sitting on the steps of the theatre. Our professor is in the red coat. She is a pretty hip lady. lol. I like her.

We are so stinkin' lucky to be sitting on these steps. It is amazing to come to a country that has seen so much more history than ours in the states. I can't believe this has been here since 15 B.C. It is absolutely unreal. I love it! =]

Le Lac des Cygnes

Swan Lake ballet in France. =]

I bought tickets today. Katie, Veronica and I are going November 30. It is going to be amazing! I can't wait!

P.s-
Lyon is freezing right now. Winds at like 15 mph .. ice cold winds. I don't like it.

Cluses, France.

Bonjour a tous!

Sorry I havent written in a really long time. I get lazy with this thing. So this past weekend was really great and very eventful. Katie and I traveled to a small town called Cluses. It is on the border of Switzerland and France. Very pretty because it is in the mountains and the elevation was so high the the mountains cut through the clouds and it was beautiful! =] We had an interesting weekend but it was awesome so let me try to recap for you:

We left for Cluses on a train, not knowing where we were going to sleep. haha We like to take risks as such in France. We had written down addresses for some places just in case, so we pretty much trusted that we would find a place. Well, we did. As soon as we exited the train station there was a small hotel across the street and we stayed there. Lol. The place has placed such an awesome memory in our minds. I wish I could describe this place. So the owner, or at least I think he was the owner, was a little overweight, he wore tight pants, had the most sassy strut, had an eyebrow ring with pink neon balls on it and his name was David. Not David how we Americans pronounce it, but like the French... "Daaawwwwwveed." ;) haha this guy. Anywho, with David's strut was also techno music in the background as David showed us to our room, it was unforgettable.

The next day we didnt know what to do because Cluses is so dang small with nothing to do, so we took a random train to whatever city. This led us to Annemasse. Ehh... Annemasse was not impressive. We walked the city and ended up at H&M haha something we do in Lyon everyday. After Annemasse, our home train stopped in a place called La Roche sur Foro and we had to stay there for 2 hours. So to pass the time.. we walked around. But fortunately, this place was very cute!! The buildings were adorable, the view of the mountains was gorgeous, there was this church with cool looking stained glass windows ect.. so we enjoyed the time there. The ride on the train was so pleasant. Seeing the French border was just really pretty and serene. Very different from Lyon where it is very "city-like." Yea, Lyon still has its ancient ruins and has it's historic and quaint aspects, but it is still very urban compared to the countryside towns.

So that night was the concert for Coeur de Pirate - the whole reason we went to Cluses in the first place. We enjoyed a jar of Jalopenos before the concert for dinner ;) and then got a free ride to the concert by this really nice lady. The concert was absolutely amazing. Beatrice, the singer/pianist for the band is so talented and she is the cutest little thing ever! Katie and I reallllly enjoyed ourselves! =] We loved it! After the show, we met Beatrice and we talked to her. Apparently she is coming to SF in the spring, which is a huge deal because she is French/Canadian and never tours in the US, but this will be her first time there! So we are going to be friends with her and show her around lol. I know that the trip might have not sounded as interesting as I would have liked for it to sound, but lets just say that I left our details about the game perfect match, free rides, sugar daddies and underaged french boys. haha

Here are some pictures from the weekend.

Pretty church. As we walked by we could hear the organ inside. =]

Mountains in La Roche sur Foro

Before the concert with the jalopenos.

Beatrice busting out her talents.

Beatrice singing her cute little heart away.



This last picture is of all the cool things we got in Cluses. Like peanut butter!!!!! You dont understand how rare it is in France! It was a miracle that we found it! Jalopenos... a free Coeur de Pirate poster, her autograph on our tickets, free ice cream from David, tortilla chips and nasty guacomole haha. We loved it.

Un cri pour l'aide

Salut ma famille et mes amis.

Here we are again, becoming sad because I still suck at French. I don't know, I guess because I have already been here for 6 weeks and I only have about 10 more weeks to go, my lack of progress in the language is worrying me. I just wish that it wasn't so hard for me. Let me tell you, my kids will be put through a second language at a very young age. Actually, I hope that I will be able to speak french and english to my kids so they will learn both and maybe learn a third language early. It is probably one of the most frustrating things in my life to not be able to communicate with someone because of a language barrier. I feel like after a year and a half of learning french I should be awesome, but I am not even close. I often find myself saying english phrases incorrectly in my mind with a horrible accent to try to understand the trouble that I put the French people through when I try to speak french to them. =[

p.s. Katie is back from Munich!! =] yay! Let the fun begin again! haha
p.s.s. Her trip was absolutely crazy! Poor girl had to sleep on a horse race track with an airplane blanket in 30 degree weather! =[
p.s.s.s. hahaha since I am writing all these "p.s's" it is reminding me of a movie I saw the other day called "Mary and Max." If it is playing in the U.S I suggest you see it!! It is really good!

D'accord.. Bonne journee!
-Mallory

4 Octobre, 2009

Salut tout la mode...

I had my worst day in Lyon thus far. Yesterday was a really sad and depressing day. It all started in the morning when I went to wash my bedsheets. We arent supposed to use the dryer here because it doesnt take out moisture or something like that so we hang dry everything. Well when the sheets were done in the washing machine, I went to grab a rack for drying and it was fine until like 20 seconds later. I heard a crash and saw that the ironing board, which was behind the rack, fell and hit the washing machine door and broke the door right off the hinge. My host family was out of town for the day and so I had to wait until night until I could tell my host-mom what had really happened. So while this was on my mind all day, I just hung out in Lyon, which wasn't very fun. My friends, well Katie, went out of town this weekend to Munich for Oktoberfest, so I was all alone.

I really hope that today goes better. I have just a few hours until class and once class starts, the day goes by quickly...

P.S- I miss my sister a lot.. I haven't even talked to here, like on the phone, since I left in August. Its really sad.

-Mallory

Trop "faire du shopping" aujourd'hui.

Bonjour friends and family!

So I know I don't write as often now, but I think that it is because I don't do anything that new and exciting everyday so it isn't worth documenting, you know? However, today was an extreme shopping day. I had planned to not spend over 10 Euros...it turned into a mess.. But very necessary!

First, today I was supposed to buy a ticket to London because Drea and I were going to leave for London tomorrow after school and return Monday night.. It turns out that the awesome price of just 74 euros is only if you book the seat like two weeks in advance =[ so the day before was going to be 133 euros... NO MERCI =] Anyway, we found a roundtrip ticket in november to London for just 55 euros.. AMAZING.. GENIAL!!! So I think we were going to go then..

So in saddness of not being able to go to London =`( I placed this energy into shopping.. Oh la la. But like I said, it was very necessary and I got some awesome practical wear for Lyon winters and fancy days! =] I bought the jacket. "THE" jacket.. the leather jacket that I said I would buy! I don't know what Lyon is trying to do to me, but all these super cute stores have been having like 40-50% off everything! ahh.. So I found an awesome leather jacket (a bit fake, but I wasnt picky) for just 29 euro!! YAY!!! The best price ever! All the others I have found have been anywhere from 90-200 euros.. Also, I bought 3 pairs of the cutest shoes (boots) ever and two sweaters, a hat, glasses and some cool rings. I know it sounds like a lot.. And it is.. lol. BUT it was all for a good price considering the amount I bought. AND its very very important that I look stylish and french in this tres chic city! ;)

All my friends are going to Munich for Oktober fest this weekend =[ so Im sad, but I really dont care about beer and festivals as such so I wasn't okay with paying the money for the trip. I hope they all have the time of there lives though! I will find something to do here in Lyon! =]

OH! And how could I forget!!! So we all have been dying because it has been over a month since we have had mexican food. We went on an extreme search for Mexican food in Lyon, but it was No WHERE to be found. However, we did find a place called "El Sombrero." It was such a special evening indeed. The food was not like authentic California taco truck haha but considering it was France and it had been so long since my last burrito, it was awesome!!
LOOK! My first chip in such a long time! It was heavenly!



The burrito..



It was so cute.. the waitress gave us sombreros to feel "at home" I suppose.



Too much fun.

Until next time,
Mallory