for those of you who are interested, i'll bring you up to speed on what i've been up to lately. i haven't been keeping a journal (i probably should be) so this is a good way for me to record everything that has been happening. but alas, someone is waiting to use this computer (there's only one computer for the entire residence) so i will have to continue this later. ooooo suspense!! i think a bunch of us from edmonton will be staying up really late tonight to watch the game. it's kinda of funny because there's a big group of people from edmonton here and then there's a big group of people from north carolina here and those are the two cities going head-to-head in the game tonight. oh. what a small world. anyways, i'll definitely try and update tomorrow. salut!!
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it's currently 3.57 in the morning and i'm with a bunch of gals from edmonton and we have the hockey game on a laptop and we're cheering the team on but it doesn't sound like they're doing so well. anyways, starting from last tuesday... after school we went out for dinner with our tutor group to and it was incredibly delicious and wonderful and we spoke french the entire time!! and we tried this beverage called kir which is black currant liqueur and then white wine... it's incredibly delicious. then it started to rain and i walked home in the rain which made me so giddy for some reason because i realized i wouldn't want to be walking home in the rain anywhere other than in france. wednesday we traveled into belgium to visit the city of bruges. it poured the whole day which kind of womped because i discovered that my jacket wasn't waterproof but the city was quite beautiful and it reminded me of amsterdam due to its canals and bridges. and they had a tintin store where i went a bit crazy with things to buy. thursday during the day i finally finished reading da vinci code so that evening i went to see the movie en français. it was quite good but i think i prefer the book version. friday i got ready to depart for luxembourg!! a group of 5 people (3 from north carolina, one from pennsylvania and myself) left around 5 in the evening and transferred in brussels. in brussels we couldn't find our train listed on the main board so we were confused but couldn't find anyone to ask so we just found the platform that we thought was right... which fortunately ended up being the right one. however, near the end of our train ride (which was full of clever card games) we discovered that our part of the train wasn't going to luxembourg so we had to change train cars. it was all very interesting. we finally arrived in the city of luxembourg in the country of luxembourg around 9 in the evening after which we checked into our hotel. now, we got a steal of a deal for our hotel. we each had to only pay 40 euros for 2 nights in this incredibly huge hotel room and amazing breakfast. i am tired and this hockey game is too intense. i will finish later. salut!!
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well the oilers game was quite a letdown but we stayed up until just after 5 in the morning, eating microwave popcorn listening to the radio via the internet. anyways, continuing on from luxembourg...we arrived friday night to the greatest hotel ever called le chatelet. to get to our room we had to first climb 2 normal spiral staircases and then a tiny tiny tiny spiral staircase in which you had to use your hands to climb up. it was a very interesting procedure but we had the whole top floor to ourselves and it was quite lovely. the first night (friday) we walked around the city of luxembourg and saw a ton of old buildings and beautiful bridges and many, many new cars. after a good night's sleep, we woke up and ate the greatest breakfast ever. considering that in france everyday we get bread with jam and pseudo-nutella, having fresh meat and orange juice and cherry tomatoes and cheese and crepes was a real treat. we then walked to the tourist office and figured out where we could go and how to get there. we also purchased this luxembourgcard that only cost us 6.40 euros each and gave us free entrance to all the musems and all the transportation (train and bus) throughout the entire country. what a steal!!! we first traveled by bus to village of echternach and saw a really lovely church and went around the main square. then to get to another village (vianden) we had to transfer to another village called ettelbruck. in this village we walked across a bridge into germany for about 15 minutes. what a thrill!! then we finally got to go to vianden. this village was awesome. we hiked around and finally made it up to this huge castle on a hill and we toured inside and it was amawing. and then we hiked back down to the village and took a chairlift over the river and up a huge hill. there were certain moments where i was scared for my life but we made it and got some amazing views of the area. we then took the bus back from vianden to luxembourg with a bunch of tweens and it was very interesting to see them interacting. oh tweens. that evening we went out to an italian pizzeria for dinner. i had the biggest pizza on the face of this planet and it had tuna and onions and cheese and tomatoes. so delicious. while we we're there, the italy vs. usa world cup football game was on. and seeing as i was with a group of americans and as there were many italians in the restaurant it made for quite a funny time. after dinner we walked around the city again and everywhere you went there was some sort of television being displayed and people congregating around it to watch a football game. it felt very community-like. we woke up a bit later on sunday, had the glorious breakfast again and then just walked around the city of luxembourg. we went the casemates which are these kinda cave-like tunnels that used to be a really old fortress. it was nice and cool, temperature wise and it was also quite nifty. it felt...historic. we then went to luxembourg's philharmonic concert hall. the design of the building was incredibly nifty. for the rest of the day we just walked around and took it easy. we caught the train back to brussels around 4 and then made it back to lille at around 9. i would highly recommend visiting luxembourg. there's definitely a lot that we didn't get the chance to see so i will be going back sometime in the future. monday was classes per usual. in the evening i made a spontaneous decision to go see marie antoinette because it is french related and it seemed proper to see it while in france. although i am neither a kirsten dunst nor a sophia coppola fan (although i do enjoy her movies) it was an interesting movie with amazing costumes and food arrangements. the music was also quite excellent. after getting home we got the laptop set up and listened to the game. sadly we did not win and those from north carolina reminded us of this fact the next day. tuesday we slept in as french class was in the evening. after french class i went shoe shopping but i could not find any shoes in my size. it was somewhat frustrating. tuesday night we went to pirates of the caribbean bar and had the most fun ever. i shared a fishbowl with 3 other people. the fishbowl is a drink with a fruity taste with gummies inside and the drink is in an actual fishbowl. and i also tried a peach kir. also very yummy. it was really fun and then everyone on the french program was in this room in the back and we were all dancing. party time. wednesday (yesterday) was another fieldtrip day. in the morning we voyaged into belgium to ypres and we visited the flanders field museum. it was quite moving and very intense. we then went back into france to dunkerque where we first went to a suburb of dunkerque called saint-malo where we went to the beach and put our feet into the sea. we then went into the actual city of dunkerque and did some browsing around. yesterday was la fete de la musique throughout france. this is a festival/party where everyone who wants to play music comes out in the evening and plays their chosen instruments on the streets and in the square throughout the city in several cities throughout france. there were so so so many people out all over lille and everyone was having a great time, listening to different genres of music and dancing along. everything is going quite well here. french courses are getting a little intense and our final is this upcoming tuesday. this weekend i'm off to a small town called le touquet situated on the english channel and i plan to do some hardcore studying there. hope all is well!! salut!!

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