Don't forget to Remember!!!

What. A. Phenomenal. Day.

But I'll get to that in a bit.

I'm having one of those days where I really don't want to forget what it feels like for things to go well.

This shouldn't insinuate, by any means, that things aren't going well but today was an example of things that went SO well!

A lot of what I've been working on lately has been lots of preparation for a single, short event. Looking back, it's hard to believe how much effort, planning and stress went into planning something that would last an hour. There have been meetings, detailed email correspondences, practices, rehearsals, safety waivers, arts and crafts, (but no tears), loss of sleep and definitely sweat that have gone into an hour and a half long event today.

And I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

There are few things that I find as satisfying as things going well, and few things give me that over-the-top happy feeling in my stomach when I can see other people enjoying something about as much as I am. Finding others who get excited and enthusiastic about all the goofy things that I do really keeps me motivated to keep foraging ahead and doing bigger and better things.

So this was our Quidditch team and Stanford after our Match.

I am soooo grateful for the whole team, how enthusiastic the staff and faculty of my school was, to all the Parents, families and students that hung out cheered on our team and for Stanford's team for being gracious, patient and FUN!

We played a Quidditch match.

And then it was done!! And we gathered up our brooms, quaffles, bludgers and hoops, shared a meal and sent them on their way. 

And it all happened before 1 PM.

I'm totally on cloud nine (and very VERY sleepy) but, as I spoke with Sydney about the other day (on Facebook chat) I'm so excited to be at the point I am in my life! I'm learning so much, having so much fun and just incredibly happy to be here!!!

Miss you girls so much, but I really do hope you're having incredibly adventures!!!

Sydney || How to Properly Eat a French Pastry

This week, we were each challenged by our professor to take buses around the city instead of just the metro. 

I would like to say that I love this challenge.

It makes me happy inside.

The metro is fun, but it gets old. Sometimes it is hot, and smelly, and squishy, and not all that pleasant. But only sometimes.

The bus is great because you can sit and look o u t s i d e. My professor and I were talking and he was saying, "Anyone can know the metro. That's not much of an accomplishment. But to know the city...now that's what we should all aim for."

So I took him up on it. 

Today I am spending the day writing papers. Exciting, no? For my art history class. (It's actually very exciting. Yesterday I spent about an hour in the Louvre, looking at the pieces I am using in my paper IN REAL LIFE. Who does that?!). So...I wasn't being sarcastic about the paper being exciting.

Anyway. I'm writing this paper. And I decided that I didn't want to just sit in my house to write it. So I got up, skyped with my daddy for about an hour, and then I packed up my things and got on a bus to go to Dr H's apartment. His wife and I are both doing work together. 

But when I went to get on the bus...turns out I had missed it by 2 minutes. 

And I said, "Zut," a French phrase which here means, "Darn." 

So what was I supposed to do while I waited 10 minutes for the next bus?

Find a good pastry shop. Duh.

So I found one. And I was quite pleased.

Enjoy the attached photo of me, eating my pastry properly :)

This week has been fantastic!!

Last Friday, I volunteered at the American Church of Paris where a few friends and I were able to serve lunch to the homeless. It was such a neat experience. A lot of times, I am wary of the homeless here. There are the people who beg for money, check their watches, and take a coffee break at McDonald's (which is much more high class here than in the states). Then there are the people who are genuinely hungry. Who genuinely are in need of help. They pull at my heart strings. Like the little old man who sits in the metro station and tries to sell worn out maps of Paris. And he always has a bow-tie on, but you can just tell that he needs help. So when I was given the opportunity to serve this lunch, I jumped on it. It was such an amazing opportunity to work with good people and give back to people who really truly need it. The lunch was a three course meal. None of that lunch-line-slop, this food was prepared by chefs who went to culinary school. With a cheese course and a salad and dessert and coffee. It was really wonderful. And so many people thanked us. There was one man, who when my friend Sage tried to clear his paper napkin, said, "Oh, I'd like to keep that. I need to shine my shoes later." It just got to us. I'm definitely going back. 

On Saturday night, it was La Nuit Blanche, which is the annual all-night art festival! It was super cool. People were out all night long, and there were art exhibits at most of the major museums and monuments around Paris. I LOVED it. We didn't see many of the art exhibits (bad planning on our part, we didn't really know what we were getting ourselves into), but I loved seeing Paris alive at night. I'll be posting more about that on my other blog, if you'd like to read about it it more detail!

The rest of the week has been fairly low-key...just a lot of prep for mid-terms! Whoo! Sometimes I forget that I'm here for school. Oops. But it's okay, the classes are designed to let me do that every once in a while :)

Love you all, hope you're doing well! Chloe, give my love to the valley. I miss the fall colors. Every single day. Sasha, will you go to a mass at la Basilisque Notre Dame La Fourviere? I miss that place, too.

xoxo,

Syd

Sydney || I'm back!

Hello family and friends!

So...I forgot to blog last week. I'll admit. I just completely forgot. Last Thursday, my study abroad group took a 3 day trip to Normandy and we had a really early start. I wanted to make sure I got in bed on time (and did that happen? no...) and I just completely forgot. I'm so sorry!

But I'm here to make up for it :)

If you want to read about my Normandy trip, go to this page :

http://sydneyvoitlemonde.blogspot.fr/2012/10/normandie-normandy.html

This is the blog I have been using as a class project. We're required to journal about significant experiences, group travel, and the walks we take for our Paris Walks class. It's all pretty detailed, so I understand if you don't want to read all the details. Ha. But it is there, nonetheless!

Now, on to other exciting things.

This week for the BYU students in Paris is FRENCH CHALLENGE WEEK. This means that (with very few exceptions - blogging being one of them) we are only allowed to speak in French. Oh la la la la la la, it is hard. But - and here's the cool part - I can tell that I am actually improving. You see, starting Sunday morning, I really haven't spoken that much English. Only to a few people back home, on my blog, and sometimes around the city if someone starts a conversation in English. Other than that, it's been in French! I carry my French-English dictionary around with me like it is my Bible. That thing has saved my life so many times. But I have found that despite how frustrated and confused I have gotten, I am actually better able to speak. I have more confidence and I am able to tell people in audible tones what I want to say. Hahaha. Oh, and a big plus, each day we complete the challenge, we get a macaron! Now THAT is incentive.

On Tuesday a group of my friends and I went on one of our walks around Montmartre. We got to wander around the neighborhood, stop into one of the best chocolate shops in Paris, and we ended it with a long tour of le Jardin du Luxembourg. I love that garden. The last time I was there, it was spring. Everything was green. Now it's fall. While I loved the garden in the spring, I think I might love it more in fall. There are still flowers everywhere, but all the trees are changing color. Seriously, they're all orange and yellow. It was gorgeous.

Today we went to Saint Denis, the oldest Gothic church in France. This cathedral really started the Gothic movement in all of Europe, actually. The neighborhood outside the cathedral is a little sketchy...and I wasn't expecting to love the chapel as much as I did. When I got inside, I fell in love. Les vitraux (stained glass windows) were amazing. I loved the crypte, too. I'm pretty sure that was my favorite part. As creepy as it sounds, it was way cool to see Marie Antoinette's grave, Louis XVIII's heart, and the slightly gruesome carvings on some of the stones. And we had audio guides of the whole thing (for those of you who don't know...I LOVE audio guides with my whole heart).

I may or may not have taken a 2 hour nap today, as well.

I guess I needed it. Just as much as I need to blog! (It's funny saying "I HAVE to blog...but it's true! It's for school! Ha!)

Tomorrow my friends Annie, Sage, and Alicia, and I are going to volunteer at the American Cathedral of Paris. We are going to be serving lunch to the homeless and we're all super excited about it. It's going to be such a great experience.

I love you all, I hope you're doing well! Paris is treating me very well, I think France suits me. It makes me so happy. :)

Plein de bisous,

Syd

Alicia and me at Giverny

Sage, Annie, Alicia, and me at Gold Beach

American Cemetery at Normandy

Annie, Nate, Carine, and me at the beach! It was just as cold as the beaches at home. Haha.

macarons!

Sage, Alicia, Annie, Nate, Noah, and me.

The cutest photo ever - Alicia, Annie, Sage, and me in le Jardin du Luxembourg!

Home says hi!

I'm happy to report that: 

home is doing just fine :)

But back to the beginning!

This week was exciting! We had our first round of interviews (which was SO exciting and fun for me). They're group interviews that allow us to get to know everyone a bit better and laugh a fair amount.

I AM ALSO SO PROUD TO ANNOUNCE THAT THE PACIFIC QUIDDITCH TEAM IS PLAYING STANFORD THIS SATURDAY.

I'm so excited I could die. It will be spectacular.

Classes are going very well also! Copious amounts of group projects, creating websites and discussions but it's so much fun and I'm getting really excited about figuring out ways to apply what I'm doing to Grown Up Life.

I went home this weekend and the valley is looking beautiful. The vines are about to start to turn colors, but the trees are all green and yellow and it smells like the woods and misses you very much!! (So does Jean - I stopped  by to say hi and she sends her love)

Hopefully I'll be able to dump a whole bunch of quidditch pictures this time next week.

Happy week to you all!!

la fille qui parle avec ses mains

This week has been very different from the others that I have spent here in Lyon. I really feel like I am getting settled here and I'm getting into a routine of all things normal (well, life here is the least bit normal, but normal is relative- so my normal at the moment is just saying 'yes' to everything and seeing what happens...) And I just got off the phone with my mom after a much needed catch up session! Feeling happy.

Here is how my week went:

Tuesday:
My first SLM (suivi langue et methologique) class.... the teacher was an hour and a half late (out of a FOUR HOUR CLASS, yes, four hours.... today I had the full four hours and it was tedious...) and he was very strange and used hand gestures to 'talk' to us. Today he made me place my hands on the table while I spoke (I use my hands to talk. a lot.) and started calling me 'the girl who talks with her hands': la fille qui parle avec ses mains.... endearing? haven't quite figured that one out yet.
Then I had my geographie class- favorite class of the week!

Wednesday:
6 hours of back to back lectures: History of Photography, Art History and then Linguistics Française. A very sweet french student sent me lecture notes for both the photography and art class! yay for new French friends!

Thursday:
Day 1 of my four day weekend. *BOTH FISTS IN THE AIR, rocky style* Lounged around, slept a lot, listened to french radio in the kitchen and just enjoyed the day. I love my friends here and love being with them, but it was nice to have a day where I literally didn't have to interact with ANYONE. hit the reset button for sure.

Friday: 
Met up with Charley and Kristy to meet with Sophia for Pho at a really, really good Vietnamese restaurant. Sophia is our new Austrailian friend. We met her in Monoprix. True story. Last week Kristy, Charley and I were debating whether or not to try the pre-made sushi in Monoprix (in the end we didn't...) and Sophia chips in and tells us about a good sushi place down the block. She has been here since April and has scoped out a bunch of good restaurants and after discussing our search for good Asian food, we decide to meet up for Vietnamese. It was delicious and indeed a great find.

Sophia then took us to her favorite cafe- a cupcake and tea salon. IT WAS SO GOOD. amazing cupcakes. I mean amazing- moist and not too sweet. plus they serve one of my favorite tea brands: Kusmi tea. I have declared that salon our new hang out spot (already have plans to hang out there this Thursday!)
After lunch C, K and I met up with Monica and Phoebe to go thrifting at Bric-a-Brac. It's basically a huge salvation army type place with really good stuff. I found a great leather tote/school bag (for 5 euros!) and a few other fun things.... a red wallet and some little jars.
Friday night rolled around and we sort of forgot all our plans that we made for the week (later when we realized we were kicking ourselves for it!) but we ended up going to see Savages. Terrible movie (too much violence and not a strong story line), but it was kind of hilarious (bad writing! "they don't call it a high jinx for nothing..." or "CAN I JUST HAVE A SALAD FOR ONCE" *declared by hostage....* too funny) so we did enjoy ourselves in the end. Finished the night up with crepes in Vieux Lyon (Kristy got a rhum crepe, but the guy forgot/didn't burn the rhum off- we tried to later, but it was a lost cause....)

Saturday:
Our program organized a day trip to Beaujolais, located an hour north of Lyon. Beaujolais is in Burgundy and know for its wine. We had a lovely day in the country at a family owned winery where we had a wine tasting in the morning followed by a 2 and 1/2 hour lunch. The main porc dish had been slow cooked for 10 hours!!! Delicious French cooking! Plus later we got a tour of the farm and were given fresh bread out of their stone oven! The family was so nice and sweet- and so happy!
We all got to romp around and play in the vineyards- felt sort of like coming home for a short visit, but of course it was all new and very different. and it was so nice to spend time in the country! It was a beautiful, beautiful day. A few of us finished up the night with dinner and watching Hocus Pocus at a friends' (beautiful!!!) apartment. Overall, it was a great day- I wish I could just have a million and one of those days, where everything is just fun and wonderful.

Sunday/Monday/Tuesday: (I confess I am a day late for posting!)
Charley and I got together on Sunday to plan our Toussaint- our week and 1/2 trip in October. (I'll write more about that another time- next week?) But over the last few days I have bought tickets for Madrid, Luxembourg, Paris, Geneva.... and sorted out most of my traveling this semester. I'll be doing a lot of traveling- which makes me exhausted just thinking about it- but then I get really, really, excited and I rationalize that I am here to also learn about the world and see as much as I can.

On the flip side, school has really kicked in- I'm getting more and more worried for the amount of homework I have to do- in French! yikes, but I am mainly here to learn French so I know that the more I have to do the better I will be in the long run.

Also, yesterday I bought myself an orchid. It's sort of my symbol for feeling settled and at home, making my new room more my home. It's beautiful and I love it!

Anyway, that's about it. 'Till next week!
Cheers,
Sasha

Better late than never...

THIS WEEK IS OVER!!!

It was inevitable. I should have seen it coming. But it was still such a pleasant surprise when it actually happened.

This was one of THE BUSIEST, CRAZIEST weeks of my life.

I have:
simulated growth and business population land grow based on land area
written a paper on the ethics of Nokia falsely advertising things that didn't exist
accepted 29 applications for ambassadors!!! :)
attended a staff meeting
put on two recruitment sessions
put on another, different recruitment session
went to a (sort of) quidditch practice
went to ALL of my classes
made a pretty dang good dinner
saw a production of Grease put on by the Stockton community

I'm pretty pleased with myself, and have been working the most on keeping myself on track today. (I tend to do the everything thing, and it can be very dangerous).

Lots of thoughts lately have been on the future, and as scary and far away as it seems, I also can't wait to see what happens. I really like work, really like elements of what I'm doing in school, and am so excited to find something that allows me to combine the two ways of thinking and really make a lifestyle of it.

I also think of my beloved friends, off having adventures and wonder what they'll do as well!!!

I'm off to watch Zoolander - living it up on a Saturday night!

Nice was nice!

My apologies for being a little late- it's Tuesday morning here in France.... I was (am still) super sick yesterday and came home and just crashed. There has been a lot going on in my life and this "rhume" (in my case- a REALLY bad cold, possibly flu-ish...) is a manifestation of my stress and a way for my body to say- whoa let's just take a break (but of course I can't because university has just started!)

On that note: University has finally started, I'm excited but at the same time I love just hanging out and enjoying being in France- I'm also terrified about lectures, as at this moment I only understand a small percentage of what is being said.... but I like my classes, so that's good. First of all, I'm taking two manitory classes- one called French Society (Societe Française) that is only five weeks long and the other is the SLM- Suivi Language et Methologie class- both of these combined are essentially a continuation of the Intensive Language Program that we had for two weeks. And they will both net me a credit for taking a mandatory class that I need for my French minor. But it is really frustrating because we were not told very much information about these classes (what levels we were in, that there was a meeting we needed to attend to sign up....) and as a result it was sort of a mess last week- very disorganized and just stressful.
My favorite class this semester I think will be my Geographie: Landscape class.... (Okay don't judge me, but it's in English, but if it were taught in French it still would be my favorite class...) It's Tuesday evening at the Bron campus (gag me...) which is 45 minutes by tram outside of Lyon. On the first day- my friends and I were sitting in the front row of the class- the prof. started his intro (in French) then said he was switching to English- we were really confused- really, really confused- until the other students produced their emploi du temps that had a completely different title for this class (have I mentioned the lack of organization here is just ridiculous???). Anyway, we loved the Professor (he is a specialist in U.S. State Capitals- didn't know that was a thing....) and the class is very interesting. We decided that it would be nice to have a class taught in English- and to make up for the two hours of not listening to French we can just watch an extra French movie... haha. That's how it works right?
My other classes are taught in French and will be a lot more rigorous: I'm taking two art history classes that are basically the same class (same prof., same assignments....) but one is   Photographie and the other is about paintings (again we were told they were both photography classes that had different focuses, structures... I wonder sometimes how things get done here...) Then I have a French linguistics class, (even though I really don't enjoy linguistics at all, hopefully it will help with my pronunciation and listening, plus since I have already taken ling. it seems more manageable...) My schedule is really nice too- my society french class ends after October, so I won't have classes on Mondays starting in November, Tuesday and Wednesday I have six hours of class each day (that's icky, but I don't start until 12 and 2.... so it's sort of doable...) then I don't have class on Thursdays or Fridays... Four day weekend! whoohoo! One or two of those days will be homework days, but it is nice to be able to have a good option for traveling a bit on the weekends :)

Speaking of traveling, I just went to Nice this last weekend.
The rumors are true everyone- Nice is nice.
haha.
 But in all seriousness- I did have a nice time. I went with my friends Monica, Kristy and Charley and just had a blast! We left super, super early in the morning on Saturday (we originally were planning to leave Friday mid-morning, but we had that meeting we had to go to....). The train ride was about 4.5 hours- we mostly slept because we were so tired. When we got to Nice, we had one hour to find our hostel and get back on another train to go to Grasse for the day. We didn't remember the name or location of the hostel (even though it was slightly a disaster, it was a great learning lesson: never travel without knowing were you are going to be staying- the name of the place and how to get there...) we ended up finding a wifi place, finding the name in the conformation email and grabbing a taxi because we didn't know where the street was- turns out it was just a five minute walk from the train station- but again we didn't know which direction, the street name, etc.

We made it back to the station right on time to hop a train to Grasse- the perfumerie capital of France.
Kristy had gone once before and loved it and wanted to go again- it was a great place and I thank you Kristy for wanting to go again! We got to have a little tour of the Fragonard factory and see how they make perfumes- and they told us about the Noses- the highly, highly trained and gifted people who sit at the "organ" of scents and create new combinations of perfumes. We spent more than an hour in the gift shop sampling the different perfumes. We strolled around the small streets of Grasse in the afternoon and decided to take the train back to Nice for dinner. However we missed the 6:38 train and didn't want to wait for another hour (we took a bus down to the train station and we didn't want to hang out there with nothing to do or see) so we continued on the bus to Cannes. I love that we were able to just roll with what was in front of us and not have solid plans to get back to- plus being flexible in general. It was so nice to see the little towns and the countryside from the bus. Once we got to Cannes we walked around for a bit and found a cute little restaurant- the waitress looked like a movie star! After dinner we went back to the beach and grabbed some crepes and ate on the sand over looking the Mediterranean and the fancy sailboats in the cove. Cannes was beautiful, but it was definitely for a much older, wealthier clientele and the fancy vibe was a little intimidating- it felt sort of like a France version of Beverly Hills.
Later that night we hopped a train back to Nice- and we decided to go out and explore the city a little bit. The weather was great and it was lovely just to sit on the Quai overlooking the ocean.
The next morning we woke up on the early side and headed over to Vieux Nice, where Kristy's host mom told us about a huge flower market that happens everyday- it was Amazing. Boothe's and Boothe's of flowers, dried fruit, fresh fruits and vegetables. After seeing the flowers, we walked over to the stony beach- which actually was quite comfortable and it was nice not having sand everywhere when the wind picked up. The only thing I didn't like about the rocks was it made getting in an out of the water very difficult and painful (we saw many people were Crocs- so next time I will grab a pair just to project my feet!). I loved swimming in the water though- so clear and had a nice gray teal color. Beautiful. And it was warm too! We spent the day going back and forth from the water to our towels for sunbathing. It was a glorious way to spend Sunday afternoon if you ask me.
In the afternoon we packed up our sunbathing camp and grabbed some crepes before walking through the town to catch our train back to Lyon.
Nice was beautiful- many of the buildings were brightly painted (terracotta with teal shutters for example!), the whole city looked exotic and different from what I have seen before. Overall I had a great weekend and love to spend it in a beautiful place with great friends!
Now, back to reality- I have school in an hour!

Beacoup de bisous!
Sasha