Home, Sweet, Home!

Home

Sweet

Home

After 3 weeks out of the country, it felt pretty darn good to step off the plane in Minnesota. My flights back from Paris were all on time & went smoothly. Even my 7 hour layover in Iceland went pretty fast. When I arrived in Minneapolis, I had been up for 23 hours straight. By the time I got home, it was about 7 pm... I walked into my condo to find that it was 86 degrees... I hadn't ran my a/c while I was gone, so it had gotten mighty steamy... To make matters worse, I had left an onion in my cupboard, which under normal circumstances would have been fine, but when it was sitting in the heatbox that was my condo, it was not a good environment for a perishable good... I think next time I leave the country for an extended period of time, I'll be handing my keys over to someone & asking them to turn the a/c on a day or 2 before I get home... and then they would have had to dealy w/ the rotten onion situation.

So given the smell and temperature of my condo, I left immediately & went to my 'happy place'... aka Chipotle. It tasted amazingly good. I had some awesome food in France, but there is no replacement for Chipotle (in my opinion).

I've been back for about just over 72 hours, and the jet lag just started to set in this a.m. Hasn't been too bad, though, so I consider myself pretty lucky. It's been pretty easy to get back into the swing of things and it's actually nice to be back at work.

Since I left France I've had time to reflect back on the trip... It was an amazing time and I am so lucky that I was able to spend that much time over there. At the same time, I am very thankful to be back home. I used to sort of fantasize about having some really cool job that required me to live in Europe... well, after spending 3 weeks over there, I can tell you that it would not be my cup of tea. I love traveling & learning about new cultures, but I have realized that I am an American thru-and-thru & am not quite as 'flexible' as most 27 year olds might be? So I think this officially means that my roots are firmly planted in the US, and most likely are planted right here in the MSP area. So that will probably make mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, and all the other relatives that live in the area & read this pretty happy....

So, as part of my final entry of this blog, I am going to summarize what I will & won't miss about my time in France... here goes...

What I Will Miss...

• Pain au Chocolat
• Crepes w/ Nutella & Bananas
• Living with Adrianne & having Elsa just down the hall
• Feeling like I had been transported back to my college years
• Sandwiches on crusty baguettes.

What I Won't Miss

• Multiplying everything by 1.6 to calculate the price in dollars...
• The smell of urine that you find around subway stations & any sort of sheltered area
• The whole money system in general. People hated when I used bills... then on my 2nd to last day, I paid for my 3.5 Euro purchase w/ a 20 Euro note (they actually let me) and the chick gave me 16 Euro's worth of coins. Seriously? Seriously.
• Only understanding about 10% of what people said to me... and feeling of isolation that resulted from the language barrier
• The French Culture's respect for time... or lack there of actually. If a prof shows up for class 15 minutes late, students enact the '15 minute rule' and leave. In France, if you aren't 10-15 minutes late, you are probably not French (the only teacher that was on time was the teacher who was from Austria)

And that concludes the France blog. I had a blast doing this blog, and as a result I will be doing another blog. Details will be forthcoming, but the central theme will probably be book reviews. I tend to read about a book a week so figure I might as well write up a little review and help readers out there know what books to check out & what to avoid. This will require enlisting the help of my creative friend, Brooke. Once I've capitalized on her talents, I'll send out my next blog address.

Until then, au revoir!

Almost home...

I took a bus from Paris to the CDG airport so I could catch a shuttle from the airport to the hotel I am staying at tonight. My flight departs at 8 am tomorrow morning so I wanted to be close to the airport. The bus ride went fine, but I was once again reminded how much I overpacked for this trip. I can almost read people's minds when they see me wrestling my 2 suitcases. One is actually very small - carry on size actually. The other is actually a suitcase I inherited from Brooke when she upgraded her luggage. I think this is the last journey it will make as the handle broke yesterday, so picking it up is pretty challenging... luckily there is a handle on the side, though. So it will make it back to MSP, but will probably RIP after it gets emptied out... This trip has kind of had that effect on more than just my suitcase - I also wore out 2 pairs of shoes, both of which I had recently purchased, so that goes to show how much walking I did!

I got to my hotel and was pleasantly surprised by it. The room is large & it comes with an electric water heater & some packets of hot chocolate. Doesn't seem like a big deal, but it's little touches like this that I enjoy after the paired down accomodations I've been staying in! The coolest thing about the room is displayed in the picture to the left. Ok, maybe not the coolest thing, but the smartest thing! The 2 boxes to the left are light switches & then you have to put your card in the slot in order to get the lights to work. It's good for the hotel in that you can't have lights on while you are gone so will waste less energy.... and it's good for people like me who have a knack for loosing things like keys! I've never seen this before, but I think that more hotels should move to this system!

So now I am blogging away in the lobby. I just overheard a family of Americans that were asking where the pool was... The front desk guy kindly explained that there is no pool and that no hotels around here have pools. I'm guessing that these Americans are just starting their trip. They are in for a 'treat' if they expect swimming pools in their accomodations... It's times like this where I am thankful that I am somewhat well-traveled and know what to expect when overseas....

Tonight will be a quiet night for me - will probably try to burn up the rest of my phone card minutes and get to bed early. Tomorrow will be a long day. I fly to Iceland at 8 am, and then have a 7 hour layover there... :( Still undecided on whether I'll venture into the city.... Then I have my flight home from Iceland which departs at 4:30 Iceland time & arrives in Minneapolis at 6 pm CST. Which will feel like 1 am. I am going to try not to sleep on the flight so that I can get home, go straight to bed, and hopefully sleep thru until Tuesday a.m. when I get up and have to go back to work!

So this is my final blog entry. I will probably do one last one when I get home, but it will probably be a 'this is what I will/won't miss'. So thanks to you all you faithful blog followers out there! It's been fun recording my time in France, and hopefully you've enjoyed virtually joining me on my adventures! I've had a wonderful time here, but am very, very excited to get back to the good 'ol US of A. Everytime I leave the country, I am reminded of how good we have it back home; this trip is no exception. I will probably dream of Mt Dew, Chipotle, and currency-friendly shop keepers tonight! ;)

So au revoir - I hope to see all of you soon!

Final weekend in Paris

My final weekend in Paris was alot of fun! Was nice to be back in a familiar area. I had already checked in when I wrote my last post, but had basically dropped my bags & left immediately so I could get the tickets & get ahold of Anna. When I came back to get ready for the evening, I had more time to check out the room.... and the lovely view! (see photo on the left) I wish I had a picture of my last room at L'Ouest as it was like night & day. This one was about 1/2 the size, and I could not see anything besides other buildings when I looked out my window. Not a big deal as I was just staying here for a night. I am glad that my 4 nights when I arrived in Paris were spent in the bigger room with the better view!

After getting ready for the evening, I met up with Anna in the Notre Dame/Saint Chapelle area. It was just a short walk to Saint Chapelle where we attended a concert. I had posted pics of Saint Chapelle from my time in Paris before - it's a gorgeous church with all of these amazing stained glass windows. Absolutely gorgeous and a very neat place to take in a concert. This will probably go down in history as the coolest venue for a concert. It was really intimate - I think I counted about 10-15 rows of chairs, with 12 chairs in each row. So a very small audience. The musicians played a Mozart piece & then a Beethoven piece. Both were beautiful!

After the concert, Anna and I walked thru the area around Saint Chapelle and found a street that was lined with restaurants on either side. We had a hard time choosing a restaurant since all the fixed menus looked good & most had menus that were in the 10-12 Euro range which is pretty good considering the fact that you get an appetizer, entree, and dessert! We settled upon a place that we both thought looked good. I started off with some delicious French Onion Soup. The cheese on it was probably the star of the dish - much better than the cheese you usually see on French Onion soup back home. Anna had mussels which also looked fantastic. After seeing them, I am craving them so may need to hit up this restaurant in Maple Grove that has the best mussels (in my opinion).

Next came the main course - we both had pork in a mustard sauce. It was a huge portion & was delicious! The mustard sauce was wonderful & I was pleasantly surprised to find that the meal included mashed potatoes which a total comfort food for me. They tasted like they were made with Yukon Gold potatoes. I would have probably eaten it all had I not know that dessert came with it.

Next came dessert which was a wonderful chocolate mousse. A perfect way to cap off a wonderful evening. I've had wonderful mousse over here, which Anna assures me is very easy to make! We'll see... might need to get my mom's help on perfecting that. A few people from my department at work are going on overseas trips to places such as China, Russia, and Italy. This fall when we finish our budget season, we are going to have a little 'multi-cultural' diversity event & we will each make a dish from the region we visited... so hopefully I can master a mousse recipe by then! ;)

Anna and I both went home to our respective places and decided to meet up the following morning to attend Mass at Notre Dame. We attended the 10 a.m. Mass which featured the Gregorian chant. I enjoyed Mass here more than when I attended at Sacre Couer, but it still wasn't as great as I had imagined to be. Part of the reason for that might be that visitors are constantly wandering around the perimeter of the church, taking photos. So hearing them shuffling around & seeing the flash of cameras is pretty distracting.... but I know everyone wants to see Notre Dame. It's just too bad that they don't close the church to visitors during Mass. After Mass I lit a candle for Heidi since she has a big job interview this week (everyone, pray that Heidi gets this school social work job she's interviewing for!!!). Then we headed out and walked along the Seine from the Notre Dame all the way to the start of the Champs Elysees. It's much cooler in Paris than it was in Lyon, so I was enjoying the breeze that came off of the water.

Since Anna had some along to a Catholic Mass for me, she took me to an area of Paris that is inhabited by many Russians. She took me to a beautiful Russian Orthodox Church. I went inside briefly - couldn't take pictures but it was gorgeous. There were many people in there praying and I noticed alot of people making the sign of the cross, so there must be some similarities between Catholicism and Russian Orthodox?

After grabbing some lunch, Anna and I parted ways so I could find my way to my hotel room near the airport. I had a wonderful time with Anna - it was great having some company on the final leg of my journey. Helps to stave off the homesickness I always feel at the end of the trip. Hopefully I will see her again - perhaps when I return to Paris or maybe in Russia some day as I'd love to come to Russia with my co-worker, Yulia, and see the country she speaks so fondly of..... Time will tell!

Back in Paris

After 2 weeks in Lyon, I am back in Paris! Even though I spent more time in Lyon, coming back to Paris was almost like coming back to the familiar - almost like coming home in a way. Perhaps because I found my way around the city pretty easily? Not sure. I am staying in the same hotel that I stayed in last time I was here, so there is a feeling of familiarity. The reception woman actually remembered me which was pretty cool.

Getting to the Hotel was a challenge in itself, though. I did NOT pack lightly for this trip, so am not super 'mobile'. I didn't want to navigate countless sets of stairs/escalators, so set my mind on splurging and getting a taxi. I really hate the approach to taxi's in France. I am really glad that we can just hail them back in the US... it's just a pain, to be quite honest. I found a taxi queue pretty quickly, but then found myself in the middle of what I describe as 'policeman pandemonium'. I do not know what was going on, but there were police everywhere. I started to count, and there were 14 police vans in this intersection. No idea what was going on, but policemen were running all over the place - many with very large guns & wearing those 'turtle' outfits... so pretty much any cabbie in his right mind was avoiding the area, so I gave up & went bck to the train station & decided to just take the metro. I wasn't sure what line to take, but I must have looked lost as this Frenchman approached me. I must do the 'I have no idea where I'm going' look mastered as this is not the first time I've been approached to see if I need help. And it's usually by a 'suave' French man.

I'm going to take time now to discuss how incredibly different French men are. They are direct. And full of 'lines'. They love to take your hand & kiss it. It's what you see in movies when French men are portrayed, and I thought it was probably an exaggeration. It's not. After telling me which line I needed to take to get to where I wanted to go, the gentleman, let's call him Frenchy, asked if I knew 'what the source of my elegance' was. I was like - excuse moi? I was wearing a comfy travel outfit, had no make up on, had flip flops on, and my hair was in a messy up-do. Not exactly the stuff of elegance. He then proceeded to tell me that the drama of my eyes was the source of my elegance. Right, Frenchy. As I have done the other times I've been sort of 'approached' by French men, I made up a boyfriend back home... which I've learned isn't the most effective way to scare them off, as they start saying things like, 'and how could your American boyfriend let you come over here alone?' etc, etc. So yah, French men are pretty confident & persistent. Maybe since they can't really get anywhere by being enthusiastic at work, given the rigidity of their employment system, they have to have an outlet for it....


Anyways, so after getting to my hotel buying tickets for tonight's concert at St Chapelle, I figured I earned myself some dessert. So I stopped at my favorite little bakery near my hotel & had this delicious little tart. Sort of like a cheesecake with a different sort of crust - almost pie crust-like, but more firm. Was delicious and a nice way to treat myself.




Tonight I am meeting up with Anna, Yulia's friend. We are going to a concert at St Chapelle, the church w/ all the stained glass windows that I saw on the first lag of my trip. I believe the musician being featured is Beethoven. After the concert, we are going to have dinner in the area. St Chapelle is located on the same island as Notre Dame; it's a really cute area with lots of little restaurants. I am planning on playing it safe tonight with my meal - actually am really hoping to find some roasted chicken. The French have allegedly mastered this, and I have yet to have that dish since I arrived so hopefully we find a restaurant that serves it! It's nice to know I'll have my own personal translator, Anna, to help me navigate the menu!

Au Revoir for now...

How does one go about eating bone marrow?

Friday night was the last night that Adrianne, Elsa, and I would all be in Lyon together, so we went out for one last meal together. Elsa's fiance, whose name is also Adrianne, flew in that day so the 4 of us went out for a traditional French meal.

We walked from our hotel to the Old Town area, which is our favorite part of Lyon. We were all a little sad that we didn't have more of a chance to enjoy Lyon while we were here, but that's the way it goes when you cram 4 credits into 2 weeks.

We wandered thru the Old Town area until we came upon a grouping of restaurants. After checking out the menu, we decided on this one since it had alot of 'French' dishes. I believe the name of the restaurant translates to "Beef Master" or perhaps "Teacher of Beef"? Not sure, but the menu looked interesting, so we sat down.

As has been the case in many restaurants, the waiter didn't speak much English. We tried to get by with our phrase book & the little French we knew between the 4 of us, but that only got us so far. So eventually, the waiter grabbed the phrase book & tried to find the French words he was saying. Then we find out that his first language is actually Italian; Elsa's fiance is from Malta (island near Italy) and is fluent in Italy, so for the rest of the evening, Adrianne served as our tranlator which worked like a charm!!

Since this was probably going to be my last nice meal in France, I decided to be a little bit adventurous with what I was going to order. We all did the fixed menu which came w/ an appetizer, entree, and dessert. I had a tough time deciding on an appetizer... and a tough time translating the menu (no English translation was provided). I figured out that one of the choices featured the bone marrow of a cow... not something I'd ever venture to eat back home, but I figured - heck, I am in France, might as well give it a shot. Plus, I had read about the use of bone marrow in cooking in the book "Julie & Julia"; the author had raved about how good it was, so I thought - why not give it a try. When I ordered it, I never imagined that it would actually come in an actual BONE though!!! I can't really describe what it tasted like. The top was kind of crusted over, but once you got thru that, it was pretty soft. Wasn't the most delicious thing I've eaten, but was definitely 'interesting'. I am glad I tried it, though.

After dinner, I went to find the restrooms, and came to realize how far this restaurant took their "beef" theme. I walked down these spiral steps into the basement of the restuarant where the bathrooms are located & came face to face with a life-size replica of a cow!!! Not something I was expecting to see. It was so odd & hilarious. The 4th wall of the restroom was a glass wall so that you'd have a lovely view of the cow while going to the bathroom. Just odd & not something you'd see in the US (unless you were in some sort of theme restaurant). Inside the restaurant, one of the walls was covered in cow hide, as were the booths. Also, they had a gigantic cylindrical container that appeared to be full of Rose (popular wine in this region) with a fish swimming in it.... how that fits in w/ the cow theme is beyond me....

We headed back to the hotel after dinner since we were all pretty tired out. Was probably one of my most interesting meals since I have been here, so a good way to finish off our time in Lyon.

On Saturday I will take a train to Paris and will stay there until my flight leaves early Monday morning. I have enjoyed my time in France but am definitely looking forward to returning to the states!

An evening of celebrating!

The program concludes at noon on Friday, so most of our group got together last night (Thursday) to go out to dinner. Finding a restaurant that could seat 26 on such short notice was a challenge, but luckily one of the French students in our class found a place that was willing to take us on. The weather FINALLY cooled down so I was able to wear trousers and a long-sleeved shirt! Was wonderful! The restaurant we went to was more German than French actually. Had a good time - food was so-so, but it was more about the people than the food.

The girls in the picture above & to the left are Elsa & Adrianne, the 2 girls I became closest to. Adrianne & I were only one door down from Elsa, so that worked out really well. We spent quite a bit of time together, working on homework & complaining about homework!

Melinda, (on the right) one of my group members, ordered a seafood dish... which came w/ a huge serving of sauer kraut in the middle. Sort of random!! She doesn't like sauer kraut so we happy to let us all try it - it wasn't very good so I am glad I stayed away from that part of the menu!





All in all, it was a very fun evening - we hadn't had much of a chance to sit back, relax, and enjoy each other's company, so I am glad we all got together one last time before everyone goes their separate ways.

Being chased down by a floor cleaner....

So last night, I went to grab dinner with 2 other girls so we'd have a proper break from all the studying. We've all had it with the grumpy convenience store guy on the way to school, so decided to buy some soda to have in our room (caffeine is a must when you have about 8 hours of class a day!!).

The grocery store closes at 8:30, so we got there no later than 8:15. Closing time is definitely different in France compared to the US. In the US we definitely do a few things to prepare for a closing, but I don't think any store actually thinks they'll lock the doors & leave at 8:30. Well, in France, things are a little different. Possibly becasue of their 35 hour work week? So maybe they don't pay their employees past the 8:30 closing time? That's my educated guess. When we walked in, the guy at the till was counting cash & doing some cleaning around his station, so we knew they were starting the closing routine. Well, when we got to the back of the store where the coca cola is located, we encounter the floor cleaning guy. He had a big machine, sort of similar to a street cleaner. We thought he'd see us consumers in the soda lane & pick another route. Not the case. He came forging ahead right at us. I actually sort of squeeled & jumped out of the way.

It kind or reminded me of when I was a child - for some reason, I was really afraid of the vacuum cleaner, so sometimes when my sister Emily would vacuum, she'd come towards me & I would jump out of the way due to a strange sense of fear/danger. Well, this was apparently a repressed fear that resurfaced when I came head to head with this floor cleaner guy. It was like playing chicken with oncoming traffic - who was going to move out of the way first?

So that was our interesting experience for the evening! I got quite a bit of teasing from Elsa & Adrianne - they thought it was funny how fast I moved & sort of 'hid' from the floor cleaning guy in another aisle.

After the grocery store experience, we stopped off for some savory crepes at a place down the road. The one I had was DELICIOUS. Had steak, ratatouille, and gruyere cheese. Was the perfect way to cap off what was a sort of long day. Actually, when I ordered the steak one, it actually said 'Steak Hache' on the menu. With my limited French, I thought this meant the 'hash' dish mom makes back home with leftover steak quite a bit since it's one of my dad's favorites (basically finely chopped meat w/ potatoes & onions - a delicacy in the eyes of my father). I was ordering it to sort of feel 'close' to my dad since it's something he absolutely loves. I was wrong on the translation - Steak Hache actually means ground beef. Was still wonderfully delicious.

The challenges of getting change

Alright, so I have been in the country for about 2 weeks as of tomorrow. And I am a bit befuddled by their relationship to money here. Namely, their inflexibility when it comes to making change. Example - this morning I stopped off at a convenience store to buy a coke & a water. The total of my purchase was 3 Euro. I never seem to have the 1 and 2 Euro coins, so I had to pay with a 5 Euro bill. In the US, paying for a $3 purchase with a $5 bill is just fine. In fact, paying for a $3 purchase with a $20 bill is not a big deal at all. Um, not the case here. The guy looks at me w/ the most pained look and asks if I have coins. I physically show him that I have none since it was too early for me to translate "I don't have any coins" into French (I'm running on less than 5 hours of sleep). So he painstakingly took my bill and gave me my change. This is not an isolated incident. The same thing has happened to me multiple times, and has happened to my roommate & others I have gotten to know over here.

So what's the deal Europe? I understand that alot of these convenience stores & "Tabacs" are ran by small business owners, but I still think it's a bit odd to throw such a stink about giving someone 2 Euro change out of 5 Euro bill! Plus,this has happened to me in large grocery stores & other chain stores. To add to this frustration, when you withdraw 100 Euro from an ATM, regardless of the bank of the ATM, you always get a 50 Euro bill, 2 20's, and a 10. What is a girl to do with a 50 Euro bill? I'm on a bit of a budget, so I am not exactly wracking up 48 Euro tabs. So I have found that McDonalds is the only place that will make change for me. I made a personal goal to not go to McDonalds while over here, but given my need for smaller change, it's become imparative for me to go & get an ice cream cone every time I withdraw cash from an ATM so the friendly McDonalds employee will give me change for my 50 Euro bill.

Alright, that's my rant for the day! I seriously have encountered very little rudeness here, but this money-change situation has gotten a bit old. I would just resort to using a credit card, but it's more economically beneficial for me to take out 100 Euro at a time & eat the fee, rather than pay 3% on every foreign transaction.

Perhaps I should write to the major banks of France & ask them to please revise their ATM distribution policy & only distribute 5 Euro bills. Or actually, I am envisioning a 'Chucky Cheese' coin distribution system where on every corner or major street, they have a change machine so you can turn your 50 Euro bill into 25-50 coins. Pretty practical and it would be nice to avoid these uncomfortable exchanges.

Alright, this is my one & only rant for the day. Like I said, I'm low on sleep, have written 2 papers, have 2 left to write, and 2 presentations to do tomorrow. I expected a heavy workload, but the disorganization of the French approach to school has started to get to this type-A, anal retentive American. :) And yes, I have confirmed that the disorganization that we are experiencing is the norm and most certainly NOT an isolated experience.

Alright, rant finished! Hope everyone's week is off to a great start!