So the month of December in Clermont has been a lot of fun I've been hanging out with a lot of friends and just enjoying life. This past Thursday the school hosted a big night out which started with a school show with awards and skits from the students and the teachers and followed with a dinner at big hall. Following the dinner we all hopped into buses to go to a club where we partied the night off until about 6 am. It was a blast and it was one of the first times that I partied with all of my friends both American and international! It really was a lot of fun.
After sleeping most of the day on Friday I got up in time to go to the Clermont-Ferrand -- Toulouse Rugby Match which was in Clermont Friday night. It is one of the biggest matches in France and it was a really cool game to watch, not to mention the stadium is pretty nice too! Clermont won 21-17 and really should have blown out Toulouse.
Saturday morning the 22nd, I got up fairly early to start my 3 week vacation! We hopped on a train to paris the at 830 in the morning and then headed to the apartment that I had rented. The apartment is really really nice and I will post pictures of everything upon my return from paris.
Saturday in Paris we were pretty tired so we just went down and walked the Champs-Elysee and saw the Arc de Triomphe. Sunday we did a little bit more and saw St. Eustache, Centre Pompidou, Les Halles, Opera and Galleries Lafayette!
Today, Christmas Eve we went and saw Notre Dame, Hotel Dieu, Palais de Justice, Pantheon, and La Sorbonne - the famous Parisian University.
I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and I will keep you as updated as possible on my travels as I can!
Merry Christmas to all!!
Love,
Jon
Monday, December 24, 2007
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Christmas in Clermont
So yesterday here in Clermont marked the first day of the christmas season! They finally turned on all the lights and decorations that they had been setting up for almost a 2 or 3 weeks. It was also the first day for the Christmas market up by the cathedral. We decided it would be pretty cool to take a stroll and check out all the lights and sights and such around clermont!
Here is that album. I also have some other pictures that of course you can look at if you go to my photos link over on the side of this entry!
Here is that album. I also have some other pictures that of course you can look at if you go to my photos link over on the side of this entry!
Saturday, December 1, 2007
A long awaited update!
So it’s been almost a month since I last posted anything so I figured I should take some time and let you all know what has been going on since we got back from vacation. The first couple weeks after vacation were pretty “banal” as the French would say, meaning that not a whole lot happened we just basically had class, dealt with even more strikes than I’ve seen in my life time and well that’s about it. I think I should take the time to mention the strikes in this lovely country.
Since we have been in France, a little over 3 months, the train company SNCF that handles all train traffic in France has been on strike two different times (once for 3 days and another for 10) during this time only about 10% of the trains in the country were running and in France train travel is almost like plane travel in the US there are people who take a train every day just to get to work. This needless to say crippled a lot of the countries employees and it is all for an interesting reason. In france, the employees of SNCF get to retire at an earlier age than basically all other workers in France. They can retire at 50 if they have enough years of service. In addition, normal workers pension amounts are calculated as an average of their last 20 years of employment while the SNCF workers are only the last 6 months. So you can see that not only are they retiring earlier but they are also getting more money while they are in retirement. President Sarkozy wants to change the retirement plans for the SNCF employees to better match that of the others. Obviously this has caused a lot of SNCF employees to get very upset even if they are being really selfish. In addition with SNCF striking, other people joined them in the strike for a day here and there to show their solidarity with the SNCF employees. One day the energy company EDF went on strike for a day and just simply turned off power in most areas. Its really something that I’ve never really seen before, and the protests are another whole thing. They’ve had two major protests during this strike the second of which was a march with about 50,000 people that blocked the Tram and Busses for more than an hour as they walked through all the main streets in town.
SNCF isn’t the only group of people that have been on strike. In paris, judges and lawyers have been striking for a long time because of the possible closure of a court house there. The real interesting strike is the College Students. Yes I said that college students are on strike in france and well the high school students have joined in the cause for solidarity amongst students. No our school has not been on strike but that’s only because we are a private school. President Sarkozy wants to privatize the funding of colleges much like its done in the US. The students do not want this to happen because they feel it will make the schools unequal, as of today all the public colleges receive the same amount of funding for things like building improvements and employees etc… So for approximately 3 weeks now students have blocked the entrances to schools and have protested by not going to class and not letting anyone into the schools as well. This has been something amazing to watch because at times the police have gotten involved and tried to pry the students away from the building to let the people who want to go to class into the building. In Clermont, high schoolers were protesting Thursday in the streets and it was definitely a sight to see. I have some photos and a video that I took that you guys can look at.
Ok, enough about strikes. This month we have done a few fun things other than class. The first was Beaujolais Nouveau. The Beaujolais is a wine region very close to Clermont and it’s a wine that you drink very young. The 3rd Thursday of November is the first time every year that anyone can get the wine and drink it. Monsieur Faure (our director) organized a wine night where we all got together and had some Beaujolais. It was a pretty good wine for being less than 4 months old although it really ended up being a hard night to sleep. Because it is such a young wine, you are never sure how its going to taste or how it will affect different people. After drinking a fair amount of wine and returning back to the house I couldn’t fall asleep. I was hot and then extremely cold, I was tossing and turning all night long and it was just not a good night. The next day I found out that 80% of us had the same thing happen to them when they tried to go to sleep. We all asked Monsieur Faure if this was normal and he said, “O yes, you are just not used to drinking wine at night. It’s not good for you Americans!” haha. It was a fun night though and one of the first times we have been out all together since the beginning.
The Thursday after Beaujolais as most of you know was Thanksgiving in the US. Now the French do not celebrate thanksgiving obviously since it is a truly American Holiday. Nonetheless, Monsieur Faure made reservations for all of us and our host families to go to a restaurant and have a thanksgiving dinner. We all ended up sitting with our host families and speaking a lot of French last night and as for the meal well it wasn’t too bad. For an appetizer, we had raw salmon with some lettuce, pickles and a cream sauce. Definitely not American, but extremely French as salmon is a common appetizer at important meals. After that was the main course which was a piece of turkey with a very sweet and tangy cranberry sauce, green beans and puree. Puree is the French version of mashed potatoes but it is amazing its like they take all the air and fluffiness out of the potatoes while they mix everything up. For dessert we had Tarte aux Potirons and Mousse au Chocolat. I assume that most of you can figure out what Mousse au Chocolat is but I must tell you that it was amazing! The Tarte aux Potirons is a pumpkin tarte and it was supposed to be similar to pumpkin pie. It actually wasn’t bad and it was made with real pumpkin. It didn’t have as much spice and flavor as the wonderful American version but it was still really good. For the most part, our host families did not like the pumpkin tarte and couldn’t understand why we loved it so much! Finishing off the night I got to talk to most of my family on the phone which was a nice touch to the night especially since it was my first thanksgiving not spent at home. I think most of us were a little sad to not be at home with our families for thanksgiving but we made the best of the night.
This past week, I have had a lot of fun. I finally started hanging out more with the other international students and my French friends than just doing the same old same old with the K crowd. It has resulted in an extremely fun week. Friday night we went out to this Australian Pub downtown with some of my german friends that I had met a few weeks prior. We ended up trying to find this fall festival but much to our avail we could not find it so we just went back to the Australian pub! It was a fun night and started the trend of doing new things. Saturday night was the birthday of another one of my german friends Beate (pronounced Bay-A-Teh). Again a common occurance we went to a pub for the night with about 25 international students and it was a really really good time. We had Mexicans, Spanish, Scottish, French, German, American, Russian, Finnish, Swedish, and Panamanian nationalities represented with us. We were speaking a mix of French and English and sometimes we would try to speak languages that we don’t speak. I’m trying to learn german phrases but up to this moment I only know how to swear and say basic things haha. Wednesday night was Ana’s birthday (a lot of birthdays last week) so we went out to eat at this Lebanese restaurant where I was the only American that decided to go! Nonetheless we had 11 countries represented at the table: Mexico, US, Panama, Peru, Russia, France, Germany, Finland, Sweeden, Scotland, Slovenia. It ended up being again a really fun night and we stayed at the restaurant for about 3 hours talking and just having a good time.
Thursday night was Brazilian night at the Australian pub and so of course I went there. At first it was just me and Tessa (a girl from K) but then slowly other people showed up and we had about 7 of us at the table and had a pretty good time. They had a live Brazilian band and free appetizers so all in all it was a good night. But the cool part of the night was when we first got there it was pretty full even though we got there pretty early in the night. Since I stick out like a sore thumb in this country, they waiter that we had the night before that I had talked to remembered me and told me he’d find a table. Sure enough, he told a few people to move and grabbed some extra chairs from the back and voila we had a table to sit at for the live music, right in front of the band. Sometimes being the odd one out works to your advantages!
I think that about gets you all up to speed to today. Today should be a fun day, we are going to take a little stroll around Clermont because being December 1st it is the first day that they light up all of the Christmas decorations that they have put up throughout the city including the giant Christmas tree downtown in addition to the Ferris wheel. Also, they have a Christmas market that is opening up in one of the town squares so we are going to go take a look at that as well. I will take plenty of pictures and have them posted for you all tomorrow! I think that about does it for this entry. The blog is now approaching 20,000 words as I have slowed down tremendously from the beginning pace. I will be writing a lot during Christmas break as I plan to do quite a bit of travelling! Here are the finalized travel plans:
Paris, Chartres, Normandie, Rouen, Versailles, Strasbourg, Rennes, Amsterdam, Rome, Geneva, Chamonix.
It’s quite the plan for 22 days of travelling and I should have a ton of photos from the trip to be able to share with you all!
Love to all,
Jon
Since we have been in France, a little over 3 months, the train company SNCF that handles all train traffic in France has been on strike two different times (once for 3 days and another for 10) during this time only about 10% of the trains in the country were running and in France train travel is almost like plane travel in the US there are people who take a train every day just to get to work. This needless to say crippled a lot of the countries employees and it is all for an interesting reason. In france, the employees of SNCF get to retire at an earlier age than basically all other workers in France. They can retire at 50 if they have enough years of service. In addition, normal workers pension amounts are calculated as an average of their last 20 years of employment while the SNCF workers are only the last 6 months. So you can see that not only are they retiring earlier but they are also getting more money while they are in retirement. President Sarkozy wants to change the retirement plans for the SNCF employees to better match that of the others. Obviously this has caused a lot of SNCF employees to get very upset even if they are being really selfish. In addition with SNCF striking, other people joined them in the strike for a day here and there to show their solidarity with the SNCF employees. One day the energy company EDF went on strike for a day and just simply turned off power in most areas. Its really something that I’ve never really seen before, and the protests are another whole thing. They’ve had two major protests during this strike the second of which was a march with about 50,000 people that blocked the Tram and Busses for more than an hour as they walked through all the main streets in town.
SNCF isn’t the only group of people that have been on strike. In paris, judges and lawyers have been striking for a long time because of the possible closure of a court house there. The real interesting strike is the College Students. Yes I said that college students are on strike in france and well the high school students have joined in the cause for solidarity amongst students. No our school has not been on strike but that’s only because we are a private school. President Sarkozy wants to privatize the funding of colleges much like its done in the US. The students do not want this to happen because they feel it will make the schools unequal, as of today all the public colleges receive the same amount of funding for things like building improvements and employees etc… So for approximately 3 weeks now students have blocked the entrances to schools and have protested by not going to class and not letting anyone into the schools as well. This has been something amazing to watch because at times the police have gotten involved and tried to pry the students away from the building to let the people who want to go to class into the building. In Clermont, high schoolers were protesting Thursday in the streets and it was definitely a sight to see. I have some photos and a video that I took that you guys can look at.
Ok, enough about strikes. This month we have done a few fun things other than class. The first was Beaujolais Nouveau. The Beaujolais is a wine region very close to Clermont and it’s a wine that you drink very young. The 3rd Thursday of November is the first time every year that anyone can get the wine and drink it. Monsieur Faure (our director) organized a wine night where we all got together and had some Beaujolais. It was a pretty good wine for being less than 4 months old although it really ended up being a hard night to sleep. Because it is such a young wine, you are never sure how its going to taste or how it will affect different people. After drinking a fair amount of wine and returning back to the house I couldn’t fall asleep. I was hot and then extremely cold, I was tossing and turning all night long and it was just not a good night. The next day I found out that 80% of us had the same thing happen to them when they tried to go to sleep. We all asked Monsieur Faure if this was normal and he said, “O yes, you are just not used to drinking wine at night. It’s not good for you Americans!” haha. It was a fun night though and one of the first times we have been out all together since the beginning.
The Thursday after Beaujolais as most of you know was Thanksgiving in the US. Now the French do not celebrate thanksgiving obviously since it is a truly American Holiday. Nonetheless, Monsieur Faure made reservations for all of us and our host families to go to a restaurant and have a thanksgiving dinner. We all ended up sitting with our host families and speaking a lot of French last night and as for the meal well it wasn’t too bad. For an appetizer, we had raw salmon with some lettuce, pickles and a cream sauce. Definitely not American, but extremely French as salmon is a common appetizer at important meals. After that was the main course which was a piece of turkey with a very sweet and tangy cranberry sauce, green beans and puree. Puree is the French version of mashed potatoes but it is amazing its like they take all the air and fluffiness out of the potatoes while they mix everything up. For dessert we had Tarte aux Potirons and Mousse au Chocolat. I assume that most of you can figure out what Mousse au Chocolat is but I must tell you that it was amazing! The Tarte aux Potirons is a pumpkin tarte and it was supposed to be similar to pumpkin pie. It actually wasn’t bad and it was made with real pumpkin. It didn’t have as much spice and flavor as the wonderful American version but it was still really good. For the most part, our host families did not like the pumpkin tarte and couldn’t understand why we loved it so much! Finishing off the night I got to talk to most of my family on the phone which was a nice touch to the night especially since it was my first thanksgiving not spent at home. I think most of us were a little sad to not be at home with our families for thanksgiving but we made the best of the night.
This past week, I have had a lot of fun. I finally started hanging out more with the other international students and my French friends than just doing the same old same old with the K crowd. It has resulted in an extremely fun week. Friday night we went out to this Australian Pub downtown with some of my german friends that I had met a few weeks prior. We ended up trying to find this fall festival but much to our avail we could not find it so we just went back to the Australian pub! It was a fun night and started the trend of doing new things. Saturday night was the birthday of another one of my german friends Beate (pronounced Bay-A-Teh). Again a common occurance we went to a pub for the night with about 25 international students and it was a really really good time. We had Mexicans, Spanish, Scottish, French, German, American, Russian, Finnish, Swedish, and Panamanian nationalities represented with us. We were speaking a mix of French and English and sometimes we would try to speak languages that we don’t speak. I’m trying to learn german phrases but up to this moment I only know how to swear and say basic things haha. Wednesday night was Ana’s birthday (a lot of birthdays last week) so we went out to eat at this Lebanese restaurant where I was the only American that decided to go! Nonetheless we had 11 countries represented at the table: Mexico, US, Panama, Peru, Russia, France, Germany, Finland, Sweeden, Scotland, Slovenia. It ended up being again a really fun night and we stayed at the restaurant for about 3 hours talking and just having a good time.
Thursday night was Brazilian night at the Australian pub and so of course I went there. At first it was just me and Tessa (a girl from K) but then slowly other people showed up and we had about 7 of us at the table and had a pretty good time. They had a live Brazilian band and free appetizers so all in all it was a good night. But the cool part of the night was when we first got there it was pretty full even though we got there pretty early in the night. Since I stick out like a sore thumb in this country, they waiter that we had the night before that I had talked to remembered me and told me he’d find a table. Sure enough, he told a few people to move and grabbed some extra chairs from the back and voila we had a table to sit at for the live music, right in front of the band. Sometimes being the odd one out works to your advantages!
I think that about gets you all up to speed to today. Today should be a fun day, we are going to take a little stroll around Clermont because being December 1st it is the first day that they light up all of the Christmas decorations that they have put up throughout the city including the giant Christmas tree downtown in addition to the Ferris wheel. Also, they have a Christmas market that is opening up in one of the town squares so we are going to go take a look at that as well. I will take plenty of pictures and have them posted for you all tomorrow! I think that about does it for this entry. The blog is now approaching 20,000 words as I have slowed down tremendously from the beginning pace. I will be writing a lot during Christmas break as I plan to do quite a bit of travelling! Here are the finalized travel plans:
Paris, Chartres, Normandie, Rouen, Versailles, Strasbourg, Rennes, Amsterdam, Rome, Geneva, Chamonix.
It’s quite the plan for 22 days of travelling and I should have a ton of photos from the trip to be able to share with you all!
Love to all,
Jon
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
All Saints Vacation - Prague and Budapest
Friday October 26th
Being that most of Europe is a very Catholic continent, they celebrate All Saints Day much more than Americans do. In the US it’s basically just a catholic holiday where we go to mass and well that’s about it. However, here in France it is a different story. In France, much like most of Europe, we get a week long vacation in honor of All Saints Day. In addition there is no politically correct bull**** that forces us to rename the vacation to some non-religious term. (Most schools do not call it Christmas break but rather Winter break, and Spring Vacation instead of Easter Break). So because of this wonderful week of vacation I decided to do a little bit of travelling. Along with 3 of my friends, Juli, Tessa and Carolyn, we parted Clermont for Paris on Friday October 26th. We all have our “cartes douze vingt-cinq” (literally 12 to 25 card) which gives us up to 50% off of train travel in France. Because of this little card, a 1st class ticket to Paris ended up being the same price as 2nd class, therefore us being the intelligent college students that we are we obviously chose to travel first class to Paris. We boarded the extremely long train (there were almost 20 cars in the train) and headed to Paris. First class trains in France are extremely nice, super big leather chairs with automatic reclining and because we reserved 4 seats we had a table in between us so it was 2 people facing the other two. It made the trip a lot faster to Paris because we played euchre and then napped as we pulled into the station. Upon our arrival into Paris we had to take a taxi to our hotel for the night since our flight to Prague didn’t leave until very early Saturday morning. Our taxi driver was very cool and being the male of the group I sat up front with him on our way to the hotel, we had a decent conversation and I am convinced that he gave us a lower fare because of our friendly conversation! Either way, after driving around and getting a little lost on the way to the hotel we arrived at our destination, or so we thought. We had reserved our room online for a Holiday Inn in the “hotel district” of Paris. Our taxi driver took us to the Holiday Inn in the “Hotel District” of Paris, however when we walked into the door we immediately realized that we couldn’t of been in the right hotel. It was a super nice 3 or 4 star hotel that was way more expensive than the price we had paid online. Nonetheless we went to the front desk and told them we had a reservation at the hotel. The hostess informed us that yes in deed we were at the wrong hotel and our hotel was down the street about 50 meters. So we left the wonderful hotel wondering what kind of hotel we were actually going to be staying in. The hotel ended up being really nice and even had shuttles to take us to the airport in the morning which was definitely a convenience we hadn’t really expected. Just one more note about the hotel; Tessa was the one who reserved the hotel and upon entering the room the TV was on and it said, “Dear Sir, Madam Tessa Haviland.” It was amusing at the time that it said Sir, Madame because Tessa is definitely only a woman.
Saturday October 27th
We woke up at 4 am on Saturday morning got ready and checked out then loaded up on the shuttle that was going to take us to the airport. We got to the airport about 2 hours before our flight was leaving, what I thought was more than enough time to get checked in and board our plane. Well I guess when you fly Smart Wings airlines it takes longer because they only had two lines open for check in and there was about 45 people in each line. We got in line thinking it would go pretty fast but no, the lines were moving extremely slow. As we were waiting there I noticed another attendant preparing a third line for Smart Wings. I left our spot in line and headed over there, but the girls did not have faith in what I was doing and chose not to follow. As I was standing there waiting to see if in fact she was opening or if she was doing administrative work (upon asking her if she was opening she just told me to wait a minute) I was giving hand signals to Juli, Tessa and Carolyn. They were asking me if it was opening and I was saying I don’t know and then signaling to wait a minute. As soon as I put up the international “wait a minute” sign, everyone in the other lines stopped creeping forward, then at the moment when I realized she was in fact opening I gave the international “come on, it’s open” sign and then everyone decided to get in line behind me. Tessa, Juli and Carolyn were left in their spots in line, I checked in and then proceeded to get some breakfast. I waited another 20 minutes or so for them to check in and then we headed over to customs. At this point we had about 45 minutes until our plane was scheduled to take off. We get to customs and the line is long enough to extend out past the set of weaves that they had set up. At this point I thought for sure we were going to miss our flight and be stuck in Paris another night, but eventually when they realized that 60% of the people waiting in the customs line were waiting to get on the flight to Prague they brought some more customs officers in and started doing rapid passport checks, only controlling random people. We got through with no problem and boarded the plane with about 15 minutes to spare.
The flight was fairly short and we arrived into Prague around 10:30. We went to the bus line information after exchanging some Euros and getting Czech Kroners. The exchange rate was about 20 Kroners to the dollar. We bought bus passes for the 4 days we would be there and then headed to wait for our bus to take us to the hotel. We ended up being on complete opposite sides of Prague from our hotel and had to take Bus 100 to Metro line A to Metro line C to bus 151. It was about a 40 minute transport to our hotel and upon arriving we walked into Top Hotel Praha. I had reserved this room online and reserved it with Top Hotel Praha. Upon entering the hotel I immediately realized that we were in the wrong hotel again so I asked the security guard if this was in fact the right place, he assured me that I was in the right place so I went to the desk and went to check in. The guy at the desk looked at my online registration and tried to find me in the computer… no such luck. Then he looked at the reservation again and told me that yes I had reserved the hotel through Top Hotel Praha but actually our room was in Top Hotel Garni which is connected to Top Hotel Praha. We walked through the parking lot and checked into our room. The rooms were basically just one big room with 4 beds although it did have a shower and a bathroom. In addition the beds were terrible, 3 individual mattresses ( I would call them more like couch cushions from the 60’s) and a sheet on top with a blanket and a crappy pillow. The only bonus to the hotel was that we got to eat breakfast at the 4 star resort which was Top Hotel Praha. Since we had gotten up so early we decided to take a nap before heading downtown to start our trip in Prague.
We took the metro downtown to see Prague and ended up coming up right in front of the National Museum which is an absolutely gorgeous building. In addition we were at the top of Wenceslas Square and had a great view down the square. We walked down the hill and walked around a little bit and ended up seeing the famous old clock tower, the powder tower and old square before we settled down at this little restaurant to get a bite to eat. They had an English menu and I ordered the Old Czech Plate which is basically 4 types of meat (Pork, Duck, Veal and Chicken) along with red and white cabbage in addition to bread and potato dumplings. Dumplings are made much different in Prague than what I was used to in the United States. It was more like a loaf of dumpling that they sliced into pieces and then served. Along with the meal we had beer which is basically the cheapest drink that you can have. Pilsner beer is brewed about 55 miles outside of Prague and a half liter glass was about $1.25. A coke cost about $3. After dinner we all got dessert and I ordered the home made apple strudel. It was probably the best tasting apple strudel that I have ever had in my life (sorry mom). After dinner we decided to head back and get a good nights rest before a long day of sight seeing.
Sunday October 28th
Before talking about our day on Sunday I figured I’d mention a little bit about Prague in general. The weather was pretty cold, colder than it is in France at the time, along with very gloomy and foggy throughout most of the day. With daylight savings it was completely dark by about 5pm. Ok that’s all I wanted to mention.
After eating breakfast at the hotel we headed off for downtown Prague and a day of sight seeing. Using our Top 10 book (which practically everyone had in almost every language imaginable) we decided that we would visit the Jewish Quarter of Prague. It was a pretty cool area and I’ve never learned so much about Judaism in my life. In all we saw 4 synagogues, a ceremonial hall, and a very old Jewish Cemetery. The synagogues were all very cool but the one that stood out in my eyes was the Spanish Synagogue, unfortunately in most of these areas we weren’t allowed to take pictures thus the lack of photos from this first day of sight seeing. The ones from the cemetery that I took weren’t even supposed to be taken but I snuck a few in. While heading over to the Spanish synagogue we came across the festivities for the Prague Independence Day. It was quite the sight I must say, the army’s band was there playing and marching to some music and we stuck around to watch that for a while but then as the band was leaving and so was I, the rifle squad came in and did a show. I took some videos of the rifle squad although it was from the side and not the front which would have been the ultimate viewing angle. They fired off a few blanks and also had a soldier doing the river dance all to very cliché American music. It was a pretty cool thing and afterwards we had lunch at a stand in the square which was a bratwurst with sauerkraut (yes mom, I do like sauerkraut now!) for about $1.50.
After eating our lunch we toured the Spanish synagogue which ended our tour of the Jewish Quarter. We decided to walk around a bit more exploring and ended up walking throughout most of the Old Village. Prague is a very cool city with tons of beautiful architecture. After touring around a bit more we settled down for dinner and I ordered the Mix Grill – Pork, Chicken and Duck along with French fries. For dessert I had the pancakes with fruit (which was more like a crepe instead of pancakes, but it is a very traditionally Czech plate) and they were very good. At this point it was getting late and very dark (due to daylight savings time which happens a week earlier in Europe) we headed back to the hotel to get up earlier on Monday so that we could use more daylight.
Monday October 29th
Monday we decided to get up earlier and leave the hotel by 9:15 so that we could use some more daylight than we did on Sunday. After looking at our guidebook again, we decided that the chateau and cathedral area would be the region for the day. We took the metro across the river up to the area where the chateau and cathedral were. From the metro station we weren’t really sure which way to go and then after reading the street signs and trying to decipher the Czech language we decided on a path to take. While walking down this street we came across various embassies for many different foreign countries but unfortunately we did not come across the US Embassy. In hind sight we probably should have at least had the number to the embassy just in case anything had happened, thankfully nothing did and we did not need the services or safety of the embassy. Anyways, after walking a bit further down the street we came across a little path that led off of the street, being the curious students we are we took the path and it lead us to the entrance of the royal gardens. The royal gardens are no ordinary garden. They are situated on a very steep hill and there’s 6 different gardens all connected by steps, lots and lots of steps. We decided to pay for the entrance to the garden only because it told us that we could exit to the castle after walking through the gardens. Being that it was the end of October the gardens weren’t much to be spoken for other than well manicured grass and some prune trees. We did get a pretty good view of Prague from the gardens so that was pretty cool. After making our way through the maze of gardens and exiting we found the entrance to the castle, although it was guarded by two soldiers and we didn’t believe it to be the touristy entrance to the castle so we decided to walk around the walls of this huge castle to the other side where we did get inside but couldn’t really figure out where the “castle” was. After we left we realized that the castle was no ordinary castle and it was actually mostly made up of fairly modern looking buildings instead of big stone walls with arrow holes (at least that’s what I think of when I think of the word “castle”). Either way we entered the castle and headed to the cathedral. The Cathedral was absolutely amazing and I think is the most beautiful cathedral that I have seen to this day. It is impossible to describe the cathedral in words but its just HUGE and extremely gothic in formation although parts of it were finished in a baroque style because it was destroyed and at the time it was rebuilt they were building baroque style churches. The inside is absolutely amazing and there is a tomb of Saint-Jean of (I forget the city).
After touring the cathedral for a while we decided to walk around the inside of the castle a little bit more. We wanted to go see this torture wall that was supposed to be a memorial of the people who were beaten by the police in Prague but we couldn’t find it so we turned around and headed back by the cathedral. At this point we were all very hungry so we grabbed a bite to eat by the cathedral at this hot dog stand… it was not very good at all nor the least bit filling. After our quick snack we descended a stair case that had hundreds of stairs and went along the castle walls. After the stairs we were on our way to the Pont Charles which is a very old and very cool bridge that spans the river in Prague when we came across the oldest pub in Prague. It opened in 1423 as a pub and still operates as one to this day. We just had to stop and have a pilsner or two at the pub along with some real lunch which was grilled bratwurst and fries. Speaking of food in the Czech Republic, our guidebook had one good point when talking about the food here. It stated: When talking about food in the Czech Republic it is best not to think about cholesterol. And I don’t think anything that the book said could be any truer than that fact right there.
On our way to Pont Charles, I noticed on the map in our guidebook that there was another church on our way that seemed to be pretty cool, the Eglise Saint Nicolas. The church was baroque in style and was absolutely stunning on the inside. It was much smaller than the cathedral but every bit as beautiful on the inside. (Saint Nicolas is the white church with lots of gold and statues). We left the church and headed to Pont Charles. It was a very cool bridge with some awesome statues along the way. Of course there was also plenty of street vendors and musicians trying to earn some money from all the tourists that take a stroll across the bridge every day. Walking across the bridge allowed me to take some awesome panoramic photos of the river and Prague. I will upload my panoramic photos here in a few days. After Pont Charles, Carolyn was dying to go to the Museum of Communism, so we did. It turned out to be pretty cool, they had some very cool things from communism and you learned a lot about the life under communism. The museum did have a funny side to it as the whole time it was kind of trying to poke fun at communism and make fun of the faults of communism. All in all it was a pretty cool museum. After the museum we headed to the Old Square for dinner. I got the goulash soup along with goulash. Czech goulash is pretty good I must say, but the Hungarian counterpart that I had in Budapest was amazing! After a very long day we headed back to the hotel to get a good night’s rest for our last day in Prague.
Tuesday October 30th
Tuesday ended up being a fairly short day. We were all really tired from our long days of sight seeing and well we had seen almost everything we had wanted to see. We did get up and go to the National Museum. I will say only one thing about the museum… They have a lot and I mean a lot of rocks but they don’t have a Petoskey stone and they also have a lot of stuffed animals but they don’t have a normal squirrel. The museum ended up being something different than what I expected and barely talked about Czech history or about the Czech Republic. After the museum, we finished our tour of the old village and then headed back to the hotel for a nap and then dinner at the 4 star hotel next door. We went to sleep pretty early since we had to be up at 5am to catch our bus to Budapest.
Wednesday October 31st
We woke up very early on Halloween to board our bus to Budapest. I must say, I wasn’t looking forward to an 7 hour bus ride but I was pleasantly surprised at the service we received on our bus. Student Agency was the bus company and the seats were roomy, plenty of room for storage and also had movies en route (in English too!). We also had a bus attendant who about every hour and a half would ask you if you wanted anything hot to drink like a hot chocolate, cappuccino or coffee. I sat next to a fellow American who was on his way to Romania to work. He seemed like the type of guy who just backpacks all over the place and picks up odd jobs while he is there, he was a pretty cool guy to talk to and pretty laid back. Our bus from Prague to Budapest took us through Slovakia. At the border of Slovakia the customs agent just boarded the bus and looked at people’s passport not really checking too seriously for anyone’s information. As we took off, the bus attendant came rushing to the back of the bus and started yelling at this couple. She was yelling in English so I understood. I didn’t even realize it but the couple had gone into the bathroom on the bus just before arriving at customs and stayed there until we had exited the customs area. They didn’t have a passport and were afraid of getting kicked off the bus, but the fact of the matter is that the bus company is held responsible in that situation since they are basically smuggling an immigrant into the country. After that little incident it was smooth sailing all the way to the Hungarian border were we met customs once again. This time he was collecting a few passports and mine was one of them that he took. I found something interesting out about border controls at this moment in time. The customs agent simply took my passport amongst the stack of others that he had grabbed and headed to his little office, without any of the people whose passports he took. When he was done checking the passports he just handed the whole stack back to the bus attendant and then the bus took off. The attendant then walked down the aisle and handed the passports back to the people who they belonged to. I thought that this was interesting since everyone always tells you not to let your passport leave your sight when you are travelling especially at the border because without the passport we wouldn’t be able to enter back into France or leave Hungary for that matter.
We ended up getting into Budapest about an hour and a half late because of a really bad traffic jam that we ran into upon entering the city of Budapest. Danielle (a friend of ours) met us at the bus station and took us to the hotel that we would be staying at. When we went to the hotel we took the metro and well it just so happened that as we got off of our first metro and we were in the process of changing lines, a couple so much in love was walking hand in hand and then realized someone was heading in between them. Instead of just letting go of their hands they decided to raise their arms and well they clothes lined this very old woman, right in front of me!!! I was completely stunned for a second and wasn’t sure what had just happened but it was true they had definitely just clothes lined her! What a way to show up in Budapest! Anyways the hotel we were staying at just so happened to be in the same building as their apartment/hotel that they were staying in. We dropped our stuff off and headed downtown to get dinner. I was really excited to eat some authentic Hungarian food and when we got to the restaurant we ate at I was really happen to learn that they had goulash soup and chicken paprikash. (by the way chicken paprikash is not just chicken paprikash in Hungarian it has a different word but I did not write it down ) The meal was excellent even though it was prepared very differently from what I have in the US. After dinner, we headed out to a bar for a little bit then returned to the hotel so that we could catch up on sleep that we had lost, since I definitely could not sleep on the bus.
Thursday November 1st
On All Saints Day we quickly realized that most everything was closed, rightfully so being that it was a national holiday and all. We ended up making most of the day and went to Hereo’s Square and the outside of the Opera House. After this we headed to Marguerite Island which is located in the middle of the Danube. We ended up renting a 5 person bike car and riding around the island for an hour seeing all the sights on the island. The fall colors were amazing on the island and it was a pleasant bike ride. We went home early since we were all going to be dressing up fancy for dinner since it was Juli’s 21st birthday and we were going out to dinner. We went to this Japanese Sushi/ Stir Fry place which had the food on tiny plates on a conveyor belt that went around the restaurant. It was an alright meal, I’d of rather ate at a more traditional Hungarian place but it was Juli’s birthday so I went along. Either way it was an early night because some of us weren’t feeling too well so we just went back and went to bed.
Friday November 2nd
Our last day in Budapest. We woke up and went to the House of Terror which is located on 60 Andrassy Ut. It was the home to the Soviet and German Secret Police during the communist reign in Budapest. In the building they tortured people and kept them imprisoned for weeks or months at a time. Today, the building is a museum and memorial to all the things that happened there and it was a very well done museum. I bought a book explaining the entire period along with pictures of the museum for you all to see when I return home. After the House of Terror we headed to the national museum where we got a great view at the history of Hungary and the traditions of the country. The museum was extremely well done and it was very cool to see the history of the country where my family comes from. After the museum it was already getting dark so we headed to see parliament. The parliament building was modeled after the London parliament and is located directly on the Danube River. We saw parliament from both sides of the river, thus the Buda and the Pest side. The Buda side is much more beautiful as you see the building just towering over the river, and in addition you can see the chain bridge off to the right. The pictures that were taking at night were taking from the Buda side of the river. After taking many photos we headed to eat at a restaurant that served mostly Hungarian food. I ordered some fried cheese and the spicy veal medallions. The veal medallions were extremely good and they were stuffed inside a crepe type pancake which made it even better. For dessert, the owner served us a big plate of bishop bread but instead of being made with nuts it was made with fruit in the middle and it was amazing.
Saturday November 3rd
Saturday morning Juli, Tessa and Danielle wanted to go to the mineral baths. Carolyn and myself decided that we had not done enough sight seeing so we took off to walk across the chain bridge and take a stroll around Pest. I am thankful we did go to the bridge because we saw an amazing view of both sides of the river and the parliament building. Our sight seeing trip was short lived though as we had to get back and head to the airport. We decided to get there a little earlier this time so that we could make sure we made it on the plane. We got there in plenty of time and boarded our plan back to Paris. Our flight actually flew in the Paris Beauvais airport which is about an hour’s long train ride from the actual city of Paris. We knew this ahead of time, and had already booked a train ticket to Paris. Upon our arrival in Beauvais, we flagged a taxi and took it to the train station. It is amazing how comforting it is to be back in a country where we can communicate openly with the people and understand what is being said! We got to the train station and took our hour long train to Paris Gare du Nord upon which we took another taxi and headed to Gare du Lyon. We then got on the train all the way to Clermont and at about 11:30 at night we arrived in Clermont. At this time the busses are not running and its about a 50 minute walk home from the train station, so we decided we would try to catch the last tram back home. After getting lost for a few minutes we found our way to the station and got on the tram and went home…
Reflections
All in all it was a very good vacation and I think we made pretty good use of our time. I was a little disappointed with how much we didn’t see in Budapest but with the holiday and other constraints we saw what we could see in the time given. I hope to make it back to Budapest before I go home so that I can see more of the city and make it to the Harley Davidson Dealership in Budapest. Eastern Europe is very different from where we are in Clermont but it is so awesome that I hope to travel more through Eastern Europe in the time to come!!
If you want to look at pictures, since I took over 650 of them on this vacation instead of putting my usual slideshows I am going to simply repost the link to my photos which you can find at www.picasaweb.com/jonrsmart or you can get there by clicking on the study abroad pictures link on the left side of this blog!!
Comment away and I would love to hear from all of you – but don’t forget to tell me who you are!!
Love to all.
Jon
Being that most of Europe is a very Catholic continent, they celebrate All Saints Day much more than Americans do. In the US it’s basically just a catholic holiday where we go to mass and well that’s about it. However, here in France it is a different story. In France, much like most of Europe, we get a week long vacation in honor of All Saints Day. In addition there is no politically correct bull**** that forces us to rename the vacation to some non-religious term. (Most schools do not call it Christmas break but rather Winter break, and Spring Vacation instead of Easter Break). So because of this wonderful week of vacation I decided to do a little bit of travelling. Along with 3 of my friends, Juli, Tessa and Carolyn, we parted Clermont for Paris on Friday October 26th. We all have our “cartes douze vingt-cinq” (literally 12 to 25 card) which gives us up to 50% off of train travel in France. Because of this little card, a 1st class ticket to Paris ended up being the same price as 2nd class, therefore us being the intelligent college students that we are we obviously chose to travel first class to Paris. We boarded the extremely long train (there were almost 20 cars in the train) and headed to Paris. First class trains in France are extremely nice, super big leather chairs with automatic reclining and because we reserved 4 seats we had a table in between us so it was 2 people facing the other two. It made the trip a lot faster to Paris because we played euchre and then napped as we pulled into the station. Upon our arrival into Paris we had to take a taxi to our hotel for the night since our flight to Prague didn’t leave until very early Saturday morning. Our taxi driver was very cool and being the male of the group I sat up front with him on our way to the hotel, we had a decent conversation and I am convinced that he gave us a lower fare because of our friendly conversation! Either way, after driving around and getting a little lost on the way to the hotel we arrived at our destination, or so we thought. We had reserved our room online for a Holiday Inn in the “hotel district” of Paris. Our taxi driver took us to the Holiday Inn in the “Hotel District” of Paris, however when we walked into the door we immediately realized that we couldn’t of been in the right hotel. It was a super nice 3 or 4 star hotel that was way more expensive than the price we had paid online. Nonetheless we went to the front desk and told them we had a reservation at the hotel. The hostess informed us that yes in deed we were at the wrong hotel and our hotel was down the street about 50 meters. So we left the wonderful hotel wondering what kind of hotel we were actually going to be staying in. The hotel ended up being really nice and even had shuttles to take us to the airport in the morning which was definitely a convenience we hadn’t really expected. Just one more note about the hotel; Tessa was the one who reserved the hotel and upon entering the room the TV was on and it said, “Dear Sir, Madam Tessa Haviland.” It was amusing at the time that it said Sir, Madame because Tessa is definitely only a woman.
Saturday October 27th
We woke up at 4 am on Saturday morning got ready and checked out then loaded up on the shuttle that was going to take us to the airport. We got to the airport about 2 hours before our flight was leaving, what I thought was more than enough time to get checked in and board our plane. Well I guess when you fly Smart Wings airlines it takes longer because they only had two lines open for check in and there was about 45 people in each line. We got in line thinking it would go pretty fast but no, the lines were moving extremely slow. As we were waiting there I noticed another attendant preparing a third line for Smart Wings. I left our spot in line and headed over there, but the girls did not have faith in what I was doing and chose not to follow. As I was standing there waiting to see if in fact she was opening or if she was doing administrative work (upon asking her if she was opening she just told me to wait a minute) I was giving hand signals to Juli, Tessa and Carolyn. They were asking me if it was opening and I was saying I don’t know and then signaling to wait a minute. As soon as I put up the international “wait a minute” sign, everyone in the other lines stopped creeping forward, then at the moment when I realized she was in fact opening I gave the international “come on, it’s open” sign and then everyone decided to get in line behind me. Tessa, Juli and Carolyn were left in their spots in line, I checked in and then proceeded to get some breakfast. I waited another 20 minutes or so for them to check in and then we headed over to customs. At this point we had about 45 minutes until our plane was scheduled to take off. We get to customs and the line is long enough to extend out past the set of weaves that they had set up. At this point I thought for sure we were going to miss our flight and be stuck in Paris another night, but eventually when they realized that 60% of the people waiting in the customs line were waiting to get on the flight to Prague they brought some more customs officers in and started doing rapid passport checks, only controlling random people. We got through with no problem and boarded the plane with about 15 minutes to spare.
The flight was fairly short and we arrived into Prague around 10:30. We went to the bus line information after exchanging some Euros and getting Czech Kroners. The exchange rate was about 20 Kroners to the dollar. We bought bus passes for the 4 days we would be there and then headed to wait for our bus to take us to the hotel. We ended up being on complete opposite sides of Prague from our hotel and had to take Bus 100 to Metro line A to Metro line C to bus 151. It was about a 40 minute transport to our hotel and upon arriving we walked into Top Hotel Praha. I had reserved this room online and reserved it with Top Hotel Praha. Upon entering the hotel I immediately realized that we were in the wrong hotel again so I asked the security guard if this was in fact the right place, he assured me that I was in the right place so I went to the desk and went to check in. The guy at the desk looked at my online registration and tried to find me in the computer… no such luck. Then he looked at the reservation again and told me that yes I had reserved the hotel through Top Hotel Praha but actually our room was in Top Hotel Garni which is connected to Top Hotel Praha. We walked through the parking lot and checked into our room. The rooms were basically just one big room with 4 beds although it did have a shower and a bathroom. In addition the beds were terrible, 3 individual mattresses ( I would call them more like couch cushions from the 60’s) and a sheet on top with a blanket and a crappy pillow. The only bonus to the hotel was that we got to eat breakfast at the 4 star resort which was Top Hotel Praha. Since we had gotten up so early we decided to take a nap before heading downtown to start our trip in Prague.
We took the metro downtown to see Prague and ended up coming up right in front of the National Museum which is an absolutely gorgeous building. In addition we were at the top of Wenceslas Square and had a great view down the square. We walked down the hill and walked around a little bit and ended up seeing the famous old clock tower, the powder tower and old square before we settled down at this little restaurant to get a bite to eat. They had an English menu and I ordered the Old Czech Plate which is basically 4 types of meat (Pork, Duck, Veal and Chicken) along with red and white cabbage in addition to bread and potato dumplings. Dumplings are made much different in Prague than what I was used to in the United States. It was more like a loaf of dumpling that they sliced into pieces and then served. Along with the meal we had beer which is basically the cheapest drink that you can have. Pilsner beer is brewed about 55 miles outside of Prague and a half liter glass was about $1.25. A coke cost about $3. After dinner we all got dessert and I ordered the home made apple strudel. It was probably the best tasting apple strudel that I have ever had in my life (sorry mom). After dinner we decided to head back and get a good nights rest before a long day of sight seeing.
Sunday October 28th
Before talking about our day on Sunday I figured I’d mention a little bit about Prague in general. The weather was pretty cold, colder than it is in France at the time, along with very gloomy and foggy throughout most of the day. With daylight savings it was completely dark by about 5pm. Ok that’s all I wanted to mention.
After eating breakfast at the hotel we headed off for downtown Prague and a day of sight seeing. Using our Top 10 book (which practically everyone had in almost every language imaginable) we decided that we would visit the Jewish Quarter of Prague. It was a pretty cool area and I’ve never learned so much about Judaism in my life. In all we saw 4 synagogues, a ceremonial hall, and a very old Jewish Cemetery. The synagogues were all very cool but the one that stood out in my eyes was the Spanish Synagogue, unfortunately in most of these areas we weren’t allowed to take pictures thus the lack of photos from this first day of sight seeing. The ones from the cemetery that I took weren’t even supposed to be taken but I snuck a few in. While heading over to the Spanish synagogue we came across the festivities for the Prague Independence Day. It was quite the sight I must say, the army’s band was there playing and marching to some music and we stuck around to watch that for a while but then as the band was leaving and so was I, the rifle squad came in and did a show. I took some videos of the rifle squad although it was from the side and not the front which would have been the ultimate viewing angle. They fired off a few blanks and also had a soldier doing the river dance all to very cliché American music. It was a pretty cool thing and afterwards we had lunch at a stand in the square which was a bratwurst with sauerkraut (yes mom, I do like sauerkraut now!) for about $1.50.
After eating our lunch we toured the Spanish synagogue which ended our tour of the Jewish Quarter. We decided to walk around a bit more exploring and ended up walking throughout most of the Old Village. Prague is a very cool city with tons of beautiful architecture. After touring around a bit more we settled down for dinner and I ordered the Mix Grill – Pork, Chicken and Duck along with French fries. For dessert I had the pancakes with fruit (which was more like a crepe instead of pancakes, but it is a very traditionally Czech plate) and they were very good. At this point it was getting late and very dark (due to daylight savings time which happens a week earlier in Europe) we headed back to the hotel to get up earlier on Monday so that we could use more daylight.
Monday October 29th
Monday we decided to get up earlier and leave the hotel by 9:15 so that we could use some more daylight than we did on Sunday. After looking at our guidebook again, we decided that the chateau and cathedral area would be the region for the day. We took the metro across the river up to the area where the chateau and cathedral were. From the metro station we weren’t really sure which way to go and then after reading the street signs and trying to decipher the Czech language we decided on a path to take. While walking down this street we came across various embassies for many different foreign countries but unfortunately we did not come across the US Embassy. In hind sight we probably should have at least had the number to the embassy just in case anything had happened, thankfully nothing did and we did not need the services or safety of the embassy. Anyways, after walking a bit further down the street we came across a little path that led off of the street, being the curious students we are we took the path and it lead us to the entrance of the royal gardens. The royal gardens are no ordinary garden. They are situated on a very steep hill and there’s 6 different gardens all connected by steps, lots and lots of steps. We decided to pay for the entrance to the garden only because it told us that we could exit to the castle after walking through the gardens. Being that it was the end of October the gardens weren’t much to be spoken for other than well manicured grass and some prune trees. We did get a pretty good view of Prague from the gardens so that was pretty cool. After making our way through the maze of gardens and exiting we found the entrance to the castle, although it was guarded by two soldiers and we didn’t believe it to be the touristy entrance to the castle so we decided to walk around the walls of this huge castle to the other side where we did get inside but couldn’t really figure out where the “castle” was. After we left we realized that the castle was no ordinary castle and it was actually mostly made up of fairly modern looking buildings instead of big stone walls with arrow holes (at least that’s what I think of when I think of the word “castle”). Either way we entered the castle and headed to the cathedral. The Cathedral was absolutely amazing and I think is the most beautiful cathedral that I have seen to this day. It is impossible to describe the cathedral in words but its just HUGE and extremely gothic in formation although parts of it were finished in a baroque style because it was destroyed and at the time it was rebuilt they were building baroque style churches. The inside is absolutely amazing and there is a tomb of Saint-Jean of (I forget the city).
After touring the cathedral for a while we decided to walk around the inside of the castle a little bit more. We wanted to go see this torture wall that was supposed to be a memorial of the people who were beaten by the police in Prague but we couldn’t find it so we turned around and headed back by the cathedral. At this point we were all very hungry so we grabbed a bite to eat by the cathedral at this hot dog stand… it was not very good at all nor the least bit filling. After our quick snack we descended a stair case that had hundreds of stairs and went along the castle walls. After the stairs we were on our way to the Pont Charles which is a very old and very cool bridge that spans the river in Prague when we came across the oldest pub in Prague. It opened in 1423 as a pub and still operates as one to this day. We just had to stop and have a pilsner or two at the pub along with some real lunch which was grilled bratwurst and fries. Speaking of food in the Czech Republic, our guidebook had one good point when talking about the food here. It stated: When talking about food in the Czech Republic it is best not to think about cholesterol. And I don’t think anything that the book said could be any truer than that fact right there.
On our way to Pont Charles, I noticed on the map in our guidebook that there was another church on our way that seemed to be pretty cool, the Eglise Saint Nicolas. The church was baroque in style and was absolutely stunning on the inside. It was much smaller than the cathedral but every bit as beautiful on the inside. (Saint Nicolas is the white church with lots of gold and statues). We left the church and headed to Pont Charles. It was a very cool bridge with some awesome statues along the way. Of course there was also plenty of street vendors and musicians trying to earn some money from all the tourists that take a stroll across the bridge every day. Walking across the bridge allowed me to take some awesome panoramic photos of the river and Prague. I will upload my panoramic photos here in a few days. After Pont Charles, Carolyn was dying to go to the Museum of Communism, so we did. It turned out to be pretty cool, they had some very cool things from communism and you learned a lot about the life under communism. The museum did have a funny side to it as the whole time it was kind of trying to poke fun at communism and make fun of the faults of communism. All in all it was a pretty cool museum. After the museum we headed to the Old Square for dinner. I got the goulash soup along with goulash. Czech goulash is pretty good I must say, but the Hungarian counterpart that I had in Budapest was amazing! After a very long day we headed back to the hotel to get a good night’s rest for our last day in Prague.
Tuesday October 30th
Tuesday ended up being a fairly short day. We were all really tired from our long days of sight seeing and well we had seen almost everything we had wanted to see. We did get up and go to the National Museum. I will say only one thing about the museum… They have a lot and I mean a lot of rocks but they don’t have a Petoskey stone and they also have a lot of stuffed animals but they don’t have a normal squirrel. The museum ended up being something different than what I expected and barely talked about Czech history or about the Czech Republic. After the museum, we finished our tour of the old village and then headed back to the hotel for a nap and then dinner at the 4 star hotel next door. We went to sleep pretty early since we had to be up at 5am to catch our bus to Budapest.
Wednesday October 31st
We woke up very early on Halloween to board our bus to Budapest. I must say, I wasn’t looking forward to an 7 hour bus ride but I was pleasantly surprised at the service we received on our bus. Student Agency was the bus company and the seats were roomy, plenty of room for storage and also had movies en route (in English too!). We also had a bus attendant who about every hour and a half would ask you if you wanted anything hot to drink like a hot chocolate, cappuccino or coffee. I sat next to a fellow American who was on his way to Romania to work. He seemed like the type of guy who just backpacks all over the place and picks up odd jobs while he is there, he was a pretty cool guy to talk to and pretty laid back. Our bus from Prague to Budapest took us through Slovakia. At the border of Slovakia the customs agent just boarded the bus and looked at people’s passport not really checking too seriously for anyone’s information. As we took off, the bus attendant came rushing to the back of the bus and started yelling at this couple. She was yelling in English so I understood. I didn’t even realize it but the couple had gone into the bathroom on the bus just before arriving at customs and stayed there until we had exited the customs area. They didn’t have a passport and were afraid of getting kicked off the bus, but the fact of the matter is that the bus company is held responsible in that situation since they are basically smuggling an immigrant into the country. After that little incident it was smooth sailing all the way to the Hungarian border were we met customs once again. This time he was collecting a few passports and mine was one of them that he took. I found something interesting out about border controls at this moment in time. The customs agent simply took my passport amongst the stack of others that he had grabbed and headed to his little office, without any of the people whose passports he took. When he was done checking the passports he just handed the whole stack back to the bus attendant and then the bus took off. The attendant then walked down the aisle and handed the passports back to the people who they belonged to. I thought that this was interesting since everyone always tells you not to let your passport leave your sight when you are travelling especially at the border because without the passport we wouldn’t be able to enter back into France or leave Hungary for that matter.
We ended up getting into Budapest about an hour and a half late because of a really bad traffic jam that we ran into upon entering the city of Budapest. Danielle (a friend of ours) met us at the bus station and took us to the hotel that we would be staying at. When we went to the hotel we took the metro and well it just so happened that as we got off of our first metro and we were in the process of changing lines, a couple so much in love was walking hand in hand and then realized someone was heading in between them. Instead of just letting go of their hands they decided to raise their arms and well they clothes lined this very old woman, right in front of me!!! I was completely stunned for a second and wasn’t sure what had just happened but it was true they had definitely just clothes lined her! What a way to show up in Budapest! Anyways the hotel we were staying at just so happened to be in the same building as their apartment/hotel that they were staying in. We dropped our stuff off and headed downtown to get dinner. I was really excited to eat some authentic Hungarian food and when we got to the restaurant we ate at I was really happen to learn that they had goulash soup and chicken paprikash. (by the way chicken paprikash is not just chicken paprikash in Hungarian it has a different word but I did not write it down ) The meal was excellent even though it was prepared very differently from what I have in the US. After dinner, we headed out to a bar for a little bit then returned to the hotel so that we could catch up on sleep that we had lost, since I definitely could not sleep on the bus.
Thursday November 1st
On All Saints Day we quickly realized that most everything was closed, rightfully so being that it was a national holiday and all. We ended up making most of the day and went to Hereo’s Square and the outside of the Opera House. After this we headed to Marguerite Island which is located in the middle of the Danube. We ended up renting a 5 person bike car and riding around the island for an hour seeing all the sights on the island. The fall colors were amazing on the island and it was a pleasant bike ride. We went home early since we were all going to be dressing up fancy for dinner since it was Juli’s 21st birthday and we were going out to dinner. We went to this Japanese Sushi/ Stir Fry place which had the food on tiny plates on a conveyor belt that went around the restaurant. It was an alright meal, I’d of rather ate at a more traditional Hungarian place but it was Juli’s birthday so I went along. Either way it was an early night because some of us weren’t feeling too well so we just went back and went to bed.
Friday November 2nd
Our last day in Budapest. We woke up and went to the House of Terror which is located on 60 Andrassy Ut. It was the home to the Soviet and German Secret Police during the communist reign in Budapest. In the building they tortured people and kept them imprisoned for weeks or months at a time. Today, the building is a museum and memorial to all the things that happened there and it was a very well done museum. I bought a book explaining the entire period along with pictures of the museum for you all to see when I return home. After the House of Terror we headed to the national museum where we got a great view at the history of Hungary and the traditions of the country. The museum was extremely well done and it was very cool to see the history of the country where my family comes from. After the museum it was already getting dark so we headed to see parliament. The parliament building was modeled after the London parliament and is located directly on the Danube River. We saw parliament from both sides of the river, thus the Buda and the Pest side. The Buda side is much more beautiful as you see the building just towering over the river, and in addition you can see the chain bridge off to the right. The pictures that were taking at night were taking from the Buda side of the river. After taking many photos we headed to eat at a restaurant that served mostly Hungarian food. I ordered some fried cheese and the spicy veal medallions. The veal medallions were extremely good and they were stuffed inside a crepe type pancake which made it even better. For dessert, the owner served us a big plate of bishop bread but instead of being made with nuts it was made with fruit in the middle and it was amazing.
Saturday November 3rd
Saturday morning Juli, Tessa and Danielle wanted to go to the mineral baths. Carolyn and myself decided that we had not done enough sight seeing so we took off to walk across the chain bridge and take a stroll around Pest. I am thankful we did go to the bridge because we saw an amazing view of both sides of the river and the parliament building. Our sight seeing trip was short lived though as we had to get back and head to the airport. We decided to get there a little earlier this time so that we could make sure we made it on the plane. We got there in plenty of time and boarded our plan back to Paris. Our flight actually flew in the Paris Beauvais airport which is about an hour’s long train ride from the actual city of Paris. We knew this ahead of time, and had already booked a train ticket to Paris. Upon our arrival in Beauvais, we flagged a taxi and took it to the train station. It is amazing how comforting it is to be back in a country where we can communicate openly with the people and understand what is being said! We got to the train station and took our hour long train to Paris Gare du Nord upon which we took another taxi and headed to Gare du Lyon. We then got on the train all the way to Clermont and at about 11:30 at night we arrived in Clermont. At this time the busses are not running and its about a 50 minute walk home from the train station, so we decided we would try to catch the last tram back home. After getting lost for a few minutes we found our way to the station and got on the tram and went home…
Reflections
All in all it was a very good vacation and I think we made pretty good use of our time. I was a little disappointed with how much we didn’t see in Budapest but with the holiday and other constraints we saw what we could see in the time given. I hope to make it back to Budapest before I go home so that I can see more of the city and make it to the Harley Davidson Dealership in Budapest. Eastern Europe is very different from where we are in Clermont but it is so awesome that I hope to travel more through Eastern Europe in the time to come!!
If you want to look at pictures, since I took over 650 of them on this vacation instead of putting my usual slideshows I am going to simply repost the link to my photos which you can find at www.picasaweb.com/jonrsmart or you can get there by clicking on the study abroad pictures link on the left side of this blog!!
Comment away and I would love to hear from all of you – but don’t forget to tell me who you are!!
Love to all.
Jon
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Vacation
Just wanted to let all you trustworthy readers of my blog that we have arrived via bus from Prague to Budapest through Slovakia. It was quite an interesting bus ride and I have taken hundreds of photos in Prague and plan to take hundreds more in Budapest.
I have been taking notes of my travels and will update with a very lengthy entry after I return to France on Sunday.
Love to all,
Jon
I have been taking notes of my travels and will update with a very lengthy entry after I return to France on Sunday.
Love to all,
Jon
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Excursion on K's Bill
This past weekend we were all treated with a little gift from K. We left Friday morning for a weekend long excursion on K’s bill, actually it was just us spending our own money that we could never recuperate otherwise but still, no money came out of our pockets so it seemed “free.” Friday morning we showed up at the school at 7:20ish to board the bus and head south for the weekend. We ended up leaving a little late because a couple of people in our group forgot to set alarms… so we ended up leaving at 8:15. Because of the late start we had to skip our first stop on the excursion which was Orange, France where we would have seen a roman coliseum and a theater that has been there for a really, really long time. Instead we headed straight to Avignon, France. The ride there was quite a scenic route, our director decided to skip the freeway and take the route through the mountains (or hills as some called them) all the way to Avignon. This resulted in a really windy and jerky ride but it also gave us some of the most beautiful sights that we could have seen on our way down. I managed to take a couple of photos during the bus ride but they didn’t turn out as nice as I wanted them to. You can find them in the Avignon photos that I will put a little lower in this post. On the way to Avignon we stopped at a Casino Cafeteria to eat lunch. Casino Cafeterias are basically the French version of Old Country Buffet but minus the all you can eat part. You pick your salads, plates, cheese, bread, drinks, etc… and then pay for what you took. It was a little bit on the pricy side although it was fairly good. In any case, when we got off the bus some of us in our group experienced the Mystral for the first time. The Mystral is a seasonal wind that comes in southern France and once it arrives it doesn’t stop being extremely windy until it is gone; it usually lasts a few days to week or so. If you can imagine Grand Haven Kite Festival Winds plus 50 ish degrees weather and overcast you get what we had all weekend.
After our lunch we headed to Avignon. We parked the bus and all got off at our first stop in Avignon which was the Pont d’Avignon. The Pont is a bridge that was built a really long time ago and is very famous in France, half of the bridge has collapsed over the years so you get this dramatic half bridge extending over the river. We all took our audio guides (in French of course!) and took the tour of the bridge which didn’t take too long. After leaving the bridge we headed to what I was really excited for and that was the Papal Palace. Around the years 1300 the Pope moved His residence to Avignon cause to political and other troubles in Italy. The Pope’s residence stayed in Avignon for approximately 70 years and 7 Popes called Avignon home. We got to tour the entire Palace, including the Pope’s Bedroom but in a lot of areas we were not allowed to take photos so unfortunately I don’t have photos of the whole thing although I did purchase post cards to take the photos that I couldn’t take. It was an incredible Palace and took us a few hours just to take a fairly rapid tour throughout. It was extremely well protected in case of any attack on the Palace and all of the arrow holes in the Palace walls were in the shape of a Cross. After finishing our tour of the palace a little early (we had to get to our next location) we all loaded back up on the bus and headed to Nimes, France.
Nimes is in the south of France as well and it was where our hotel was located. We got to the hotel at 7 o’clock at night and had 30 minutes to get to our rooms, freshen up and get down for dinner. No problem for me. But I would like to remind you that I am here with 16 girls. Haha in all honesty I was a little surprised that everyone was down on time for dinner! We all walked to the restaurant which was only a few hundred meters from the restaurant. The restaurant was a grill and everything was actually grilled. Boy have I missed grilled food. Being that it was K who was paying, we ordered off the 17 euro menu which included 3 courses and drank some really good wine with the meal. My first course, the entrée, was thinly sliced raw salmon with a salad. I know I said I would never eat anything raw again but the salmon was extremely tender and tasty. It went very well with the wine that we were drinking. After the entrée, came the main dish which was a steak, potatoes, and vegetables. It was actually a grilled steak that was cooked perfectly and it was phenomenal. The desserts were equally amazing although I can’t remember which one I ordered at the time.
After dinner we were all pretty tired from a long day sight seeing and travelling so most of us just went to bed for the night. Saturday was going to be a long day as well. We woke up Saturday and had breakfast in the hotel; coffee with bread and jam. After a quick breakfast we all loaded up the bus and headed to our first of three stops on the day. Our first stop was Aigues-Mortes, France. Aigues-Mortes is a city that is entirely walled. It became the first main shipping point in the south of France and therefore was extremely well fortified in addition to the fact that there was a lot of man made canals. We had 2 things that we had to do while we were there. The first consisted of climbing up the tower that was used as a focal point of defense because from the top you could see juts about anywhere. The second consisted of walking all the way around on top of the walls that enclosed the city. It only took about 45 minutes to talk around the exterior of the city so you can imagine it wasn’t very big. We were very lucky this day though because there was a running of the bulls in the city that day. In the south of France specifically in the region we were in, bulls are a celebrated animal and bull fighting is a very popular sport in the area. We were lucky enough to be there for the running of the bulls into the arena and eventually into the trailer where they would be taken to be held on to until the fighting was to start. They had horse wranglers who ran the bulls through the city and into the arena where they would run them into the gates and onto the truck. We were lucky enough to be on top of the walls when they started doing this so we stayed there and had a great vantage point for the festival. I have a video below of them running some bulls.
Another point about Aigues-Mortes. The city is the salt capital of France and it produces about 90% of all the table salt in France. The salt in the region is pretty much solely sea salt which is probably the best salt that you can use on your food. When we were up on the wall we could see the mountains of salt on the other side of the river and in addition, the salt for whatever reason is partly pink in color and the delta by the wall was a magnificent red in color. After hanging out on the walls for a while we got down and toured the interior of the city. The inside of the city was pretty cool and was very small but quaint. Because of the running of bulls there was a concert in the square in the center of the city and people were having a lot of fun. Unfortunately for us, we couldn’t stay too much longer as we had to get going to our next stop…
The next stop on our journey was Saint Marie de la Mer. This is a city on the Mediterranean Sea where you can find the church dedicated to the patron Saint of the Gypsies. The church was gorgeous and we actually got to climb to the top and sit on the roof of the church which gave us an incredible view of the city. However this was also a fairly short stop and we didn’t stay very long in Saint Marie de la Mer.
We continued on to our final destination of the day which was Arles, France. In Arles we took a quick walking tour of the city where we saw another Coliseum and Van Gogh’s Apartment. Below are some pictures:
The highlight of the evening was dinner. Monsieur Faure took us out to a really nice restaurant where the dinner was 30 euros per person (about $45 per person) not counting the wine. We had all ordered in advance and I decided on the escargot for an appetizer, a leg of lamb for my meal and a plate of cheese would be my dessert! Monsieur Faure let me try his Veal Liver and his wife insisted that I try the Duck. It was a fantastic combination of food.
Sunday was another long day in the bus and we started the day by seeing the roman coliseum in Nimes
and after that we made a stop at Pont du Gard. The Pont du Gard is a roman Aqueduct which was finished in A.D. 52. It is pretty cool and I took a lot of really good pictures.
Other than that it was a pretty touristy trip and I hope you enjoy all of the pictures that I took!
Comment away!
Love to all.
Jon Smart
After our lunch we headed to Avignon. We parked the bus and all got off at our first stop in Avignon which was the Pont d’Avignon. The Pont is a bridge that was built a really long time ago and is very famous in France, half of the bridge has collapsed over the years so you get this dramatic half bridge extending over the river. We all took our audio guides (in French of course!) and took the tour of the bridge which didn’t take too long. After leaving the bridge we headed to what I was really excited for and that was the Papal Palace. Around the years 1300 the Pope moved His residence to Avignon cause to political and other troubles in Italy. The Pope’s residence stayed in Avignon for approximately 70 years and 7 Popes called Avignon home. We got to tour the entire Palace, including the Pope’s Bedroom but in a lot of areas we were not allowed to take photos so unfortunately I don’t have photos of the whole thing although I did purchase post cards to take the photos that I couldn’t take. It was an incredible Palace and took us a few hours just to take a fairly rapid tour throughout. It was extremely well protected in case of any attack on the Palace and all of the arrow holes in the Palace walls were in the shape of a Cross. After finishing our tour of the palace a little early (we had to get to our next location) we all loaded back up on the bus and headed to Nimes, France.
Nimes is in the south of France as well and it was where our hotel was located. We got to the hotel at 7 o’clock at night and had 30 minutes to get to our rooms, freshen up and get down for dinner. No problem for me. But I would like to remind you that I am here with 16 girls. Haha in all honesty I was a little surprised that everyone was down on time for dinner! We all walked to the restaurant which was only a few hundred meters from the restaurant. The restaurant was a grill and everything was actually grilled. Boy have I missed grilled food. Being that it was K who was paying, we ordered off the 17 euro menu which included 3 courses and drank some really good wine with the meal. My first course, the entrée, was thinly sliced raw salmon with a salad. I know I said I would never eat anything raw again but the salmon was extremely tender and tasty. It went very well with the wine that we were drinking. After the entrée, came the main dish which was a steak, potatoes, and vegetables. It was actually a grilled steak that was cooked perfectly and it was phenomenal. The desserts were equally amazing although I can’t remember which one I ordered at the time.
After dinner we were all pretty tired from a long day sight seeing and travelling so most of us just went to bed for the night. Saturday was going to be a long day as well. We woke up Saturday and had breakfast in the hotel; coffee with bread and jam. After a quick breakfast we all loaded up the bus and headed to our first of three stops on the day. Our first stop was Aigues-Mortes, France. Aigues-Mortes is a city that is entirely walled. It became the first main shipping point in the south of France and therefore was extremely well fortified in addition to the fact that there was a lot of man made canals. We had 2 things that we had to do while we were there. The first consisted of climbing up the tower that was used as a focal point of defense because from the top you could see juts about anywhere. The second consisted of walking all the way around on top of the walls that enclosed the city. It only took about 45 minutes to talk around the exterior of the city so you can imagine it wasn’t very big. We were very lucky this day though because there was a running of the bulls in the city that day. In the south of France specifically in the region we were in, bulls are a celebrated animal and bull fighting is a very popular sport in the area. We were lucky enough to be there for the running of the bulls into the arena and eventually into the trailer where they would be taken to be held on to until the fighting was to start. They had horse wranglers who ran the bulls through the city and into the arena where they would run them into the gates and onto the truck. We were lucky enough to be on top of the walls when they started doing this so we stayed there and had a great vantage point for the festival. I have a video below of them running some bulls.
Another point about Aigues-Mortes. The city is the salt capital of France and it produces about 90% of all the table salt in France. The salt in the region is pretty much solely sea salt which is probably the best salt that you can use on your food. When we were up on the wall we could see the mountains of salt on the other side of the river and in addition, the salt for whatever reason is partly pink in color and the delta by the wall was a magnificent red in color. After hanging out on the walls for a while we got down and toured the interior of the city. The inside of the city was pretty cool and was very small but quaint. Because of the running of bulls there was a concert in the square in the center of the city and people were having a lot of fun. Unfortunately for us, we couldn’t stay too much longer as we had to get going to our next stop…
The next stop on our journey was Saint Marie de la Mer. This is a city on the Mediterranean Sea where you can find the church dedicated to the patron Saint of the Gypsies. The church was gorgeous and we actually got to climb to the top and sit on the roof of the church which gave us an incredible view of the city. However this was also a fairly short stop and we didn’t stay very long in Saint Marie de la Mer.
We continued on to our final destination of the day which was Arles, France. In Arles we took a quick walking tour of the city where we saw another Coliseum and Van Gogh’s Apartment. Below are some pictures:
The highlight of the evening was dinner. Monsieur Faure took us out to a really nice restaurant where the dinner was 30 euros per person (about $45 per person) not counting the wine. We had all ordered in advance and I decided on the escargot for an appetizer, a leg of lamb for my meal and a plate of cheese would be my dessert! Monsieur Faure let me try his Veal Liver and his wife insisted that I try the Duck. It was a fantastic combination of food.
Sunday was another long day in the bus and we started the day by seeing the roman coliseum in Nimes
and after that we made a stop at Pont du Gard. The Pont du Gard is a roman Aqueduct which was finished in A.D. 52. It is pretty cool and I took a lot of really good pictures.
Other than that it was a pretty touristy trip and I hope you enjoy all of the pictures that I took!
Comment away!
Love to all.
Jon Smart
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
CC News
So, I just found out that CC just had the first Military Fly Over at a high school football game.
Here is the video.
Pretty cool...
Here is the video.
Pretty cool...
Sunday, October 7, 2007
All Blacks Who?
This week was a fairly low key week. I didn’t really go out at all until Friday so the week basically consisted of class and a little bit of “Bernard Time” which is always a joy. Friday was a fun night we just went out with some of our French friends and hung out for a little bit at the place jaude. The big night of the weekend was last night. France played New Zealand in the Rugby World Cup Quarter Finals. New Zealand is considered as the best team in the world and the last time that France played New Zealand, they lost 62-20 and have only beat them 6 or 7 times out of approximately 30. Needless to say they were large underdogs in the contest. New Zealand got out to a very quick 10-0 lead and the score at halftime was 13-3. In the second half France took advantage of some costly New Zealand Mistakes and took the lead eventually for good and they won 20-18. Now we just didn’t sit in our apartment and watch the match… were in the town square and we were with about 7,000 other fans watching the match on a gigantic screen that they put up just for this match. It was quite an ambiance for the match and the place went crazy after it ended. The last 4 minutes were about as tense as a sporting event could get as any kick or try by New Zealand would have resulted in France losing the match.
On a side note, every football team in the US needs to start doing this:
In any case here are some pictures from the night.. not too many as my camera died.
Also here is where I live!
I also know that this is not a very lengthy entry but my laptop is about to die and I need to get home for dinner…
Love to all and hope to talk to some of you soon.
Jon
On a side note, every football team in the US needs to start doing this:
In any case here are some pictures from the night.. not too many as my camera died.
Also here is where I live!
I also know that this is not a very lengthy entry but my laptop is about to die and I need to get home for dinner…
Love to all and hope to talk to some of you soon.
Jon
Monday, October 1, 2007
6 or 9.
Well the question is back into debate. I started my economics course today, and to say the least it is a beginner course. I took the same course fall quarter of my freshman year and therefore unless I take more challenging courses I think that I will be returning home in 6 months instead of 9 so that I can continue my classes in economics.
We shall see in the coming weeks which path I take and as always I will keep you all updated!
We shall see in the coming weeks which path I take and as always I will keep you all updated!
Pompiers, Francois, Busses
So this Saturday, being the 29th of September, the school had planned for all of us international students a little “voyage” around the Auvergne region. (In case I haven’t mentioned it Auvergne is the region in France that Clermont-Fd is located.) This was a trip for all the international students so finally a time for us “K” students to integrate and talk with other people who are doing almost the same thing we are. Most of the other international students follow the program here that is all in English. They don’t have the deal with taking classes in French, although there are a good number of international students who are doing the same thing that we are and know the difficulties that we are having.
With that said we boarded the bus at 9 am and headed out to discover the region to which we all now call home. The bus ride was always quite interesting because since this was an international student trip at any given time there could be five different languages being spoken: Polish, German, Spanish, French, and English. After a 30 minute bus ride we arrived at our first stop, the cathedral of Orcival which is a 12th century Romanesque cathedral, built before they started building the gothic cathedrals that everyone knows of today (Notre Dame). The church wasn’t all that impressive in my eyes but it was kind of cool to think that it was built in the 1100’s more than 800 or 900 years ago. While we were there we did stop at the boulangerie in town and got some very fresh brioch, which is bread that takes days to make and is basically like a pillow of bread. It was a wonderful breakfast to have before we loaded the bus and headed to our next destination.
After Orcival we were on our way to the Castle of Murol which again is a very old castle that some of which as already collapsed. We started our tour with the theater in the castle and found a really cool jousting dummy that they used in shows [picture here] . After this we walked up to the top of the castle where we shot some cool pictures of the landscape around us. However, the best part of our trip to the castle was when I met François who is the castle donkey. François and I had a special connection and we became friends right away. It seemed as though I could talk to him and he even posed for a couple of pictures with me On top of meeting François, upon heading back down the hill to the bus, a baby goat who was quite a ways away from us just felt the urge to run over to us and then to me where we I think the goat wanted to get a photo like François but unfortunately one as cool as François’ did not happen. It was all quite funny everyone took got a good laugh from the whole time.
After the castle we took a group photo and then headed to a restaurant where we ate a traditional auvergnate meal. Now what is a traditional auvergnate meal? I will tell you. It started with a salad but this wasn’t just any salad it was “une salade d’Auvergne,” which consists of the following: lettuce (of course), lardon (a bacon type meat), bleu d’Auvergne (blue cheese), eggs, and crutons with a vinagerette dressing. It was a phenomenal salad and everyone ate more than they should have. We also had red wine accompanying our meal and it was a fairly sweet red wine, not very dry but it was good. After the salads came the main course, truffade et jambon sec. Truffade is basically a mash of cheese, potatoes and cream and it is served with jambon sec which is basically dried ham. They brought it out still in the pans and there was enough in each pan for about 10-12 people but it was definitely only for 6. It was an excellent meal but the truffade is so heavy that you can’t help but feel absolutely stuffed after eating it. It didn’t stop with the truffade et jambon sec though. We continued with dessert which was a tarte with raspberry and blueberry. I wish I would have taken a picture because it honestly looked fake, it looked like it was porcelain. Again it was an unbelievable dessert. After eating this food everyone was feeling stuffed, tired and just wanted to take a nap. However after a coffee from the restaurant it gave most of us the needed kick to continue our day.
We loaded back onto the bus to head on to our final destination of the day. This was the St Nectaire Cheese Farm. This is the farm where they make all of the St. Nectaire cheese in France. It was a pretty cool thing to see we got to go into the caves where they cure the cheese and even watched a movie about a priest who back during 1700’s (I think) when Catholicism was outlawed in France took homage in the exact cave that we were sitting, with a relic and a broken leg for more than a week until his brother/hunter found him and took him home. The caves were pretty cool and when they were first dug they only had one entrance and that was through the top of the cave. You had to climb down the walls of this tunnel using the holes that they had dug into the sides of the column. After checking out the caves we headed down to the farm where they milk the cows and make the cheese. The cows were not as friendly to me as the donkey and goat, every time I tried to pet them they seemed to get a little angry… so needless to say I began to leave the cows alone. We bought some cheese right from the farm that was 5 weeks old, and it was a great tasting batch of cheese. We plan on having it tonight when we head over to Olivier’s after the rugby matches for some dinner.
After the cheese farm, we loaded the bus and headed back to school where we would part ways for a few hours but the night wouldn’t end there. As we were waiting for the bus to come, we began to talk about our plans for the night. We found out that last night in Clermont there was a party for the pompiers (firefighters) in town at the place de jaude. We all decided that we had to check it out so we planned on meeting at 9pm downtown. As I left the apartment to get on the bus and head downtown, I quickly realized that it was raining outside. I was kind of disappointed because I knew there wouldn’t be as many people downtown if it was raining. Nonetheless, we headed out downtown figuring that we were going to whether the weather. We sat down at Garden Ice Café where I got some quick dinner since I had not eaten since the meal at the restaurant earlier that day, and we waited for other people to show up. After hearing that there was supposed to be fireworks at ten we got really excited but then questioned whether or not they were going to light the fireworks if it was still raining. Like that, at 10:00 the rain stopped and we all started getting excited for a fireworks show. At about a quarter after 10 it started and man was it an awesome fireworks show. They shot them off from on top of the mall downtown and it was a good 35 minute show. There were about 8 mini grand finales and then the real grand finale was something that words I don’t think could describe. It lit up the entire sky with fireworks shooting not only straight up but forwards and sideways to basically cover the entire crowd with explosions, it was definitely something worth seeing and probably one of the best fireworks shows that I have ever seen. To add to this wonderful day/night there was also a concert that started after the fireworks. It was basically a French cover band, but they played a little bit of everything. They had a drummer, pianist, saxophonist, trumpet player, backup singers, backup dancers and a few different lead singers. It was quite impressive even if they did butcher some more classic American songs. After listening to a little bit of music we went to Café Magma where we met up with some of our other friends, we hung out there for a little bit and then around midnight we were going to head home but as we were walking by the concert that was still going on we heard some Pink Floyd playing. The lead singer this time wasn’t bad and the lead guitarist was actually really good and had an awesome solo. We stuck around for a little bit longer listening to music, and just hanging out before we took off for the night.
All in all it was one of the most fun days start to finish that we have had here in Clermont. Below you will find the slideshow of pictures from the tour of the region; I didn’t bring my camera out last night because it was raining. I found out today that Bernard has 2 tickets to the quarter final rugby match in Cardiff. If I can find cheap transportation I just might go especially since they are 250 euro tickets that his friend is giving away, and not to mention that it is New Zealand vs. either France or Argentina.
Classes are going well I added another class that I’m going to take this semester so that way next semester I don’t have to take as many classes and can have more free time. The other class I added is marketing.
Heres the pictures from Saturday.
I think that is it for this entry, Until next time and hope all is well!
Comment or email me: jonrsmart@gmail.com
Love to all,
Jon
With that said we boarded the bus at 9 am and headed out to discover the region to which we all now call home. The bus ride was always quite interesting because since this was an international student trip at any given time there could be five different languages being spoken: Polish, German, Spanish, French, and English. After a 30 minute bus ride we arrived at our first stop, the cathedral of Orcival which is a 12th century Romanesque cathedral, built before they started building the gothic cathedrals that everyone knows of today (Notre Dame). The church wasn’t all that impressive in my eyes but it was kind of cool to think that it was built in the 1100’s more than 800 or 900 years ago. While we were there we did stop at the boulangerie in town and got some very fresh brioch, which is bread that takes days to make and is basically like a pillow of bread. It was a wonderful breakfast to have before we loaded the bus and headed to our next destination.
After Orcival we were on our way to the Castle of Murol which again is a very old castle that some of which as already collapsed. We started our tour with the theater in the castle and found a really cool jousting dummy that they used in shows [picture here] . After this we walked up to the top of the castle where we shot some cool pictures of the landscape around us. However, the best part of our trip to the castle was when I met François who is the castle donkey. François and I had a special connection and we became friends right away. It seemed as though I could talk to him and he even posed for a couple of pictures with me On top of meeting François, upon heading back down the hill to the bus, a baby goat who was quite a ways away from us just felt the urge to run over to us and then to me where we I think the goat wanted to get a photo like François but unfortunately one as cool as François’ did not happen. It was all quite funny everyone took got a good laugh from the whole time.
After the castle we took a group photo and then headed to a restaurant where we ate a traditional auvergnate meal. Now what is a traditional auvergnate meal? I will tell you. It started with a salad but this wasn’t just any salad it was “une salade d’Auvergne,” which consists of the following: lettuce (of course), lardon (a bacon type meat), bleu d’Auvergne (blue cheese), eggs, and crutons with a vinagerette dressing. It was a phenomenal salad and everyone ate more than they should have. We also had red wine accompanying our meal and it was a fairly sweet red wine, not very dry but it was good. After the salads came the main course, truffade et jambon sec. Truffade is basically a mash of cheese, potatoes and cream and it is served with jambon sec which is basically dried ham. They brought it out still in the pans and there was enough in each pan for about 10-12 people but it was definitely only for 6. It was an excellent meal but the truffade is so heavy that you can’t help but feel absolutely stuffed after eating it. It didn’t stop with the truffade et jambon sec though. We continued with dessert which was a tarte with raspberry and blueberry. I wish I would have taken a picture because it honestly looked fake, it looked like it was porcelain. Again it was an unbelievable dessert. After eating this food everyone was feeling stuffed, tired and just wanted to take a nap. However after a coffee from the restaurant it gave most of us the needed kick to continue our day.
We loaded back onto the bus to head on to our final destination of the day. This was the St Nectaire Cheese Farm. This is the farm where they make all of the St. Nectaire cheese in France. It was a pretty cool thing to see we got to go into the caves where they cure the cheese and even watched a movie about a priest who back during 1700’s (I think) when Catholicism was outlawed in France took homage in the exact cave that we were sitting, with a relic and a broken leg for more than a week until his brother/hunter found him and took him home. The caves were pretty cool and when they were first dug they only had one entrance and that was through the top of the cave. You had to climb down the walls of this tunnel using the holes that they had dug into the sides of the column. After checking out the caves we headed down to the farm where they milk the cows and make the cheese. The cows were not as friendly to me as the donkey and goat, every time I tried to pet them they seemed to get a little angry… so needless to say I began to leave the cows alone. We bought some cheese right from the farm that was 5 weeks old, and it was a great tasting batch of cheese. We plan on having it tonight when we head over to Olivier’s after the rugby matches for some dinner.
After the cheese farm, we loaded the bus and headed back to school where we would part ways for a few hours but the night wouldn’t end there. As we were waiting for the bus to come, we began to talk about our plans for the night. We found out that last night in Clermont there was a party for the pompiers (firefighters) in town at the place de jaude. We all decided that we had to check it out so we planned on meeting at 9pm downtown. As I left the apartment to get on the bus and head downtown, I quickly realized that it was raining outside. I was kind of disappointed because I knew there wouldn’t be as many people downtown if it was raining. Nonetheless, we headed out downtown figuring that we were going to whether the weather. We sat down at Garden Ice Café where I got some quick dinner since I had not eaten since the meal at the restaurant earlier that day, and we waited for other people to show up. After hearing that there was supposed to be fireworks at ten we got really excited but then questioned whether or not they were going to light the fireworks if it was still raining. Like that, at 10:00 the rain stopped and we all started getting excited for a fireworks show. At about a quarter after 10 it started and man was it an awesome fireworks show. They shot them off from on top of the mall downtown and it was a good 35 minute show. There were about 8 mini grand finales and then the real grand finale was something that words I don’t think could describe. It lit up the entire sky with fireworks shooting not only straight up but forwards and sideways to basically cover the entire crowd with explosions, it was definitely something worth seeing and probably one of the best fireworks shows that I have ever seen. To add to this wonderful day/night there was also a concert that started after the fireworks. It was basically a French cover band, but they played a little bit of everything. They had a drummer, pianist, saxophonist, trumpet player, backup singers, backup dancers and a few different lead singers. It was quite impressive even if they did butcher some more classic American songs. After listening to a little bit of music we went to Café Magma where we met up with some of our other friends, we hung out there for a little bit and then around midnight we were going to head home but as we were walking by the concert that was still going on we heard some Pink Floyd playing. The lead singer this time wasn’t bad and the lead guitarist was actually really good and had an awesome solo. We stuck around for a little bit longer listening to music, and just hanging out before we took off for the night.
All in all it was one of the most fun days start to finish that we have had here in Clermont. Below you will find the slideshow of pictures from the tour of the region; I didn’t bring my camera out last night because it was raining. I found out today that Bernard has 2 tickets to the quarter final rugby match in Cardiff. If I can find cheap transportation I just might go especially since they are 250 euro tickets that his friend is giving away, and not to mention that it is New Zealand vs. either France or Argentina.
Classes are going well I added another class that I’m going to take this semester so that way next semester I don’t have to take as many classes and can have more free time. The other class I added is marketing.
Heres the pictures from Saturday.
I think that is it for this entry, Until next time and hope all is well!
Comment or email me: jonrsmart@gmail.com
Love to all,
Jon
Thursday, September 27, 2007
I finally did it.
I finally did it. I made the mistake of ordering something that I wasn’t entirely sure what it was. I went to a match in the Rugby World Cup last night with some of Bernard’s friends. The match was awesome it was the USA vs. Samoa. The US played terrible in the first half and was 22-3 at halftime. They came back in the second half but couldn’t come back all the way and lost 25-21.
Here are some pictures:
This now means that the US has not won a single game in the World Cup and their last match is against South Africa who has a very good team. Anyways, after the match we went out to get a bite to eat and I wasn’t really sure what I wanted so I ordered un tartare de boeuf. Now I wasn’t sure what a tartare was but boeuf is beef and one of the other guys I was with ordered it so I figured it must be good. In addition, une tarte is a dessert type pie thing so I figured it would be some beef in like a crust with seasoning.
I was completely wrong.
I received a ball of raw ground beef, with a raw egg in the middle of this mound of e-coli and mad cow disease. There was some seasoning on the sides. I had no idea what I was going to do. I couldn’t refuse the plate but then again was I really going to eat this ball of raw meat? Well I did, after dousing it with Tabasco sauce and Ketchup. The only bonus to the meal was the good wine and fries and salad that came with my tartare.
Other than that the night was awesome and all 5 guys that I went with were a blast. We didn’t get back until 3 o’clock in the morning so I was thankful that I didn’t have anything to do until noon today.
Short entry for now, I will write more later on when I have more time.
Love to all,
Jon Smart
Here are some pictures:
This now means that the US has not won a single game in the World Cup and their last match is against South Africa who has a very good team. Anyways, after the match we went out to get a bite to eat and I wasn’t really sure what I wanted so I ordered un tartare de boeuf. Now I wasn’t sure what a tartare was but boeuf is beef and one of the other guys I was with ordered it so I figured it must be good. In addition, une tarte is a dessert type pie thing so I figured it would be some beef in like a crust with seasoning.
I was completely wrong.
I received a ball of raw ground beef, with a raw egg in the middle of this mound of e-coli and mad cow disease. There was some seasoning on the sides. I had no idea what I was going to do. I couldn’t refuse the plate but then again was I really going to eat this ball of raw meat? Well I did, after dousing it with Tabasco sauce and Ketchup. The only bonus to the meal was the good wine and fries and salad that came with my tartare.
Other than that the night was awesome and all 5 guys that I went with were a blast. We didn’t get back until 3 o’clock in the morning so I was thankful that I didn’t have anything to do until noon today.
Short entry for now, I will write more later on when I have more time.
Love to all,
Jon Smart
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Comments
So I guess some people have been having trouble posting comments on my blog. I think I have fixed the problem and you should only have to do the following. just click on the link below the post that says 0 comments or 1 comment.. write what you want and then for identity choose anonymous and click post. then it should work.
Decisions, Decisions
It is official. Well almost official, after much deliberation and talking with Bernard and the director of the program here in Clermont I have decided that I am going to try and stay the whole year here in France. This means that I wont be coming home until the end of May. That almost doubles my time here in France and who knows by the time I leave here I just might be fluent. This means that I’ll also get two more vacations while I’m here and more time to see all of Europe. It also means that its going to cost more… but I think I’ll have enough money to last me while I am here and if not, well that’s what parents are for right? (just kidding mom and dad!)
In any sense, I’m excited about my decision to stay. Its going to allow me to take some more classes, finish the Pepiniere project, which I think I am the only one who is actually somewhat interested in the project and also allow me to possibly do SIP research while I am here in France. Other than that there isn’t really a whole lot of new news to add to this entry, simply letting everyone know I wont be back for a little while longer.
As a side note, this blog has quickly reached almost 10,000 words (I write my entries in Microsoft Word and then copy and paste them, no I didn’t count each word) which is quite impressive. If I keep up this rate I’ll have almost 90,000 words by the time its all said and done… I could make it a book! I might actually do that.. turn it into a book so that I could keep it with me.
O, one other thing! Today I am going to be going to see the USA play Samoa in the Rugby World Cup. I wasn’t planning on going because I couldn’t find a hotel room for the night but one of Bernard’s friends is going so he is going to take me in his car and drive back afterwards so there is no need for a hotel. I’m pretty pumped about going especially since it’s the Rugby World Cup.
Email me if you still can’t figure out the comments. jonrsmart@gmail.com
And also, if you would like to call me the number is +0336 42 07 06 98 all of my incoming calls are free so spend a little money and say hi!
Lastly, if you’d like to send a card or something in the mail. My address is listed below. Checks can be made to Jon Smart or Fund My Trip Abroad! Haha
Love to all and hope to hear from some of you soon.
Jon
In any sense, I’m excited about my decision to stay. Its going to allow me to take some more classes, finish the Pepiniere project, which I think I am the only one who is actually somewhat interested in the project and also allow me to possibly do SIP research while I am here in France. Other than that there isn’t really a whole lot of new news to add to this entry, simply letting everyone know I wont be back for a little while longer.
As a side note, this blog has quickly reached almost 10,000 words (I write my entries in Microsoft Word and then copy and paste them, no I didn’t count each word) which is quite impressive. If I keep up this rate I’ll have almost 90,000 words by the time its all said and done… I could make it a book! I might actually do that.. turn it into a book so that I could keep it with me.
O, one other thing! Today I am going to be going to see the USA play Samoa in the Rugby World Cup. I wasn’t planning on going because I couldn’t find a hotel room for the night but one of Bernard’s friends is going so he is going to take me in his car and drive back afterwards so there is no need for a hotel. I’m pretty pumped about going especially since it’s the Rugby World Cup.
Email me if you still can’t figure out the comments. jonrsmart@gmail.com
And also, if you would like to call me the number is +0336 42 07 06 98 all of my incoming calls are free so spend a little money and say hi!
Lastly, if you’d like to send a card or something in the mail. My address is listed below. Checks can be made to Jon Smart or Fund My Trip Abroad! Haha
Love to all and hope to hear from some of you soon.
Jon
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Where does the sun rise?
So Saturday, as I was sitting in the café posting my last entry the weather outside began to look a little crappy… dark skies, a brisk wind, the temperature started to fall and you could just smell rain. So the group of us that had accumulated as usual at Café Cozy decided to head out. Juli, Tessa, Caroline and myself headed to Champion (French Kroger’s) to pick up some stuff for dinner last night. Since Bernard was at a party with his girlfriend and told me he wasn’t coming home I decided to invite a few friends over for a meal and to watch rugby. It ended up being the four of us plus Olivier, who’s an actual French person who we are friends with, who ended up having dinner. We made some killer crêpes starting off with some ham, cheese and egg crepes, followed by some dessert crepes with Nutella. We also bought some munchies and Olivier brought a couple bottles of cider which just made the crepes that much better. After cooking up a storm we settled down to watch the rugby match which ended up being quite the blow out. Either way, it was a lot of fun and we enjoyed ourselves. After the match was over we watched French music videos for a while then everyone went their ways.
I’ve really started to give some thought to staying for 9 months, but the more I think about it the more I realize that it just would not be a good idea as far as my “K” career would go. If I stayed 9 months than I would most certainly have to overload one of the quarters my senior year which would end up having to be senior year spring… something that I want to try and avoid at all costs, if senioritis in college is half as bad as it was in high school I’m going to want the lightest class load that I can possible have. As much as I think I would like to stay for the year and possibly into the summer I think I’m going to have to go home for spring quarter and who knows maybe come back for the summer with an internship or something.
I watched 300 today for like the 20th time or something but its just such a good movie and being that it was crappy today it was a movie day for sure. Here’s a few quotes that I enjoy:
(Leonidas and his 300 are marching when they run into the Arcadians who are numbering much more than 300)
Daxos: We heard Sparta was on the warpath and we were eager to join forces.
Leonidas: If it is blood you seek, you are welcome to join us.
D: But you bring only this handful of soldiers, against Xerxes? I see I was wrong to expect Sparta’s commitment to at least much our own.
L: Doesn’t it? You. What is your job?
Arcadian Soldier: I’m a potter…sir.
L: And you, Arcadian. What’s your profession?
AS: Sculptor, sir.
L: Sculptor… And you?
AS: Blacksmith.
L: Spartans! What is your profession?
Spartan Soldiers: A ou A ou A ou
L : You see, old friend. I brought more soldiers than you did.
Xerxes: Consider the fate of your women.
Leonidas: Clearly you don’t know our women, I might as well have marched them up here judging on what I’ve seen so far.
Xerxes: Your Athenian rivals will kneel at your feet…if you will but kneel at mine.
Leonidas: You are generous…as you are divine…O king of kings. Such an offer only a madman would refuse. But the uh… idea of kneeling.. well its… You see slaughtering all those men of yours has uh, well its left a nasty cramp in my leg..so kneeling will be hard for me.
Leonidas: Men ready your breakfast, and eat hearty for tonight… we dine in hell.
That is all for today.. Much love and miss you all
Jon
I’ve really started to give some thought to staying for 9 months, but the more I think about it the more I realize that it just would not be a good idea as far as my “K” career would go. If I stayed 9 months than I would most certainly have to overload one of the quarters my senior year which would end up having to be senior year spring… something that I want to try and avoid at all costs, if senioritis in college is half as bad as it was in high school I’m going to want the lightest class load that I can possible have. As much as I think I would like to stay for the year and possibly into the summer I think I’m going to have to go home for spring quarter and who knows maybe come back for the summer with an internship or something.
I watched 300 today for like the 20th time or something but its just such a good movie and being that it was crappy today it was a movie day for sure. Here’s a few quotes that I enjoy:
(Leonidas and his 300 are marching when they run into the Arcadians who are numbering much more than 300)
Daxos: We heard Sparta was on the warpath and we were eager to join forces.
Leonidas: If it is blood you seek, you are welcome to join us.
D: But you bring only this handful of soldiers, against Xerxes? I see I was wrong to expect Sparta’s commitment to at least much our own.
L: Doesn’t it? You. What is your job?
Arcadian Soldier: I’m a potter…sir.
L: And you, Arcadian. What’s your profession?
AS: Sculptor, sir.
L: Sculptor… And you?
AS: Blacksmith.
L: Spartans! What is your profession?
Spartan Soldiers: A ou A ou A ou
L : You see, old friend. I brought more soldiers than you did.
Xerxes: Consider the fate of your women.
Leonidas: Clearly you don’t know our women, I might as well have marched them up here judging on what I’ve seen so far.
Xerxes: Your Athenian rivals will kneel at your feet…if you will but kneel at mine.
Leonidas: You are generous…as you are divine…O king of kings. Such an offer only a madman would refuse. But the uh… idea of kneeling.. well its… You see slaughtering all those men of yours has uh, well its left a nasty cramp in my leg..so kneeling will be hard for me.
Leonidas: Men ready your breakfast, and eat hearty for tonight… we dine in hell.
That is all for today.. Much love and miss you all
Jon
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Football (US Style), Rugby, Fun
So this week was a short week for school since our long weekend ended Tuesday we only had to be there Wednesday through Friday. Not only was this week a short week but it was a fairly easy week as far as class goes. Wednesday I didn’t have class until 5:15 although I did go out to lunch with the English professor and a few students to talk about the English conversation class. Thursday I didn’t have any class until 2 and Friday I only had class from 10-noon. It wasn’t a bad week at all a nice catch up week after a long weekend and right before we really get into the swing of things on
Monday. My schedule for this year isn’t too terrible, it goes as follows:
Monday: Class – 8:30-12; 3:15-5:45; 6:15-8:30
Tuesday: ICRP – 7:30-9:30pm
Wednesday: Class – 5:15-6:45
Thursday: Class – 12-1:30; 2-4 (Alternating w/ Friday); 5:15-6:45. ICRP – 7:30-9:30
Friday: Class – 10-12; 2-4 (Alternating with Thursday)
Thursday night was my first experience with my ICRP and to say the least it was an interesting time. I got out of class at 7 and practice started at 7:30. I didn’t know where the field was just a remote idea of the general area, and the street that it was on but however I had no address so I had no idea which way to go on the street. After looking at the bus map and deciding between what lines to take I headed to the bus stop and hopped on the bus. I took it to Jean Moulin, which I thought was the street I was getting off on but little to my knowledge this bus just happens to have two Jean Moulin stops… The first of which is 10 minutes from the second one and nowhere near where I needed to be. So after following the bus to the second stop I found Avenue Jean Moulin and then proceeded to attempt and find Rue Claude Guichard which is the street that the field was on. When I got to Jean Moulin I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was quite like the US, there was a 6 lane road with cars flying by, grocery stores and hardware stores and even a freeway in the near distance that went over the road I was walking on. This “US” like view stopped very quickly when I got on the rue Claude Guichard. I got to the street and ended up being directly in the middle of the road, and of course I couldn’t see the field from where I was standing. So my only chance was to take a complete guess and go left or right and walk the length of the road. I decided to go left… bad idea. As I’m walking down the street I realize that its not such a good area; rusted down cars on the road, garbage everywhere and just all in all run down. I end up walking past this one “apartment” building to find out that its an HLM like building. There are no apartments here just rooms with people living in them. This one room was on the ground level and their door was open so of course as I walked by I couldn’t help but see inside as I’m walking by. It was a single room no bigger than 12 x 20 that had 3 beds and a counter which appeared to be a sink… that was it. I kept walking on and ended up getting to the end of the street, no field. So, now I turned around and headed back in the same directed from whence I came. I did find the field after another 15 minute walk or so. I walk into the parking lot and get to see the most familiar scene I have come to know in my 20 years of life. A bunch of guys on a field with shorts and t-shirts playing catch with a football.
I asked the first guy I see where I could find the head coach and finally get to meet him. His name is Thomas Charcurcian. He is not only the head coach but also a player on the team. He explains to me that a lot of their players are first timers and since this is France, not too many of them are very good. He continued to tell me that they have two teams. An under 20 team and a team for everyone else. We talked for a few minutes about who I was and why I was here etc… and then practice had to start so they went off to do their warm-ups. I stayed back with 2 of the assistant coaches/players. We talked some more about what it was like to play football in a football state and how many guys were on the teams. And then we got to how many years I had played. I told them 11 years and they almost dropped to the floor… “You’re 20 years old and you’ve played 11 years of football?? I’m 31 and I’ve only played 3.”
After the warm-up the team came over and I was introduced to the team that I would be helping coach, the under-20 team. I assumed that I would be having someone with me on the first day to help me out with the language difficulty (I don’t know too many of the terms in French for coaching football) and especially since I had just shown up I didn’t expect to do a whole lot. There again, that’s what I get for assuming something. The team broke up into groups and quickly I found myself with 7 French kids and myself, most of whom have never strapped on shoulder pads before and I need to teach them how to be an offensive lineman. Thankfully it was only 45 minutes of individual work and it didn’t go too terribly, I know I made a ton of mistakes when I was speaking and probably sounded like a child but I got my points across and that’s all that really matters. This ICRP is really going to help me work on my verbal skills as I’m going to have to be speaking a lot of French all the time.
At the end of practice, Thomas addressed the team and was talking about things that they need to do and things like that. Then he started talking about how he wants to start a referee association because they don’t have any referees in the area to ref the games. They needed 10 people to volunteer and start the association; it was a 2 day class on a Saturday and Sunday. They quickly got 9 people and then no one else seemed like they could do it, everyone looked at me… I knew all the rules already I just had to learn them in French. So I agreed to become an official football referee in France.. maybe something that I can take back to the US with me. I ended up getting a ride back to my apartment because at 10:15 when practice was over the busses in the area are all stopped so now I think I only have to worry about getting there with the bus and then someone will take me home in their car.
Friday night was a fun night. France was playing another match in the Rugby World Cup so we decided to go out and watch the game. We went out to get a bite to eat before the match at our frequented café/bar Café Magma. We got their early and got a good seat right in front of the big screen that they put out on the patio just for the match. It was a great dinner with so-so wine but also a great dessert. The match was very cool and they place was completely full, in fact there was people standing in the square behind the patio just trying to watch the game. France won 24-3 which now means that they have a pretty good chance of finishing first in their pool. After the game we met up with Olivier and M.A. M.A. is a K student who was on study abroad last year when she met Olivier her current boyfriend. She decided to take a trip back to France to see Olivier and also to talk with us newcomers some of the ins and outs of study abroad. Last night was her last day here in France so after the match we went out to one of their favorite bars, called Les Frères Bretôgnes. It is a really cool bar that has an awesome feel. The tables inside are these big old wooden ones, like the kind you’d find in a tavern or something and in addition they tried to make the inside look like the outside, there is a “roof” over the bar and fake plants all sorts of cool things that make it a cool place to go. We stayed there for an hour or so and then decided to head back.
Here is some pictures from the weekend:
Today is going to be a relaxing day I believe dinner should be here in about 40 minutes or so and then I’ll probably head downtown to put this lengthy entry on the web. I also have some more pictures to put up so be sure to click on the pictures link on the right had side and check them out…
Also don’t forget to comment my blog!!!
Bonne Santé à Toute et à Tous !
Love to all,
Jon
Monday. My schedule for this year isn’t too terrible, it goes as follows:
Monday: Class – 8:30-12; 3:15-5:45; 6:15-8:30
Tuesday: ICRP – 7:30-9:30pm
Wednesday: Class – 5:15-6:45
Thursday: Class – 12-1:30; 2-4 (Alternating w/ Friday); 5:15-6:45. ICRP – 7:30-9:30
Friday: Class – 10-12; 2-4 (Alternating with Thursday)
Thursday night was my first experience with my ICRP and to say the least it was an interesting time. I got out of class at 7 and practice started at 7:30. I didn’t know where the field was just a remote idea of the general area, and the street that it was on but however I had no address so I had no idea which way to go on the street. After looking at the bus map and deciding between what lines to take I headed to the bus stop and hopped on the bus. I took it to Jean Moulin, which I thought was the street I was getting off on but little to my knowledge this bus just happens to have two Jean Moulin stops… The first of which is 10 minutes from the second one and nowhere near where I needed to be. So after following the bus to the second stop I found Avenue Jean Moulin and then proceeded to attempt and find Rue Claude Guichard which is the street that the field was on. When I got to Jean Moulin I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was quite like the US, there was a 6 lane road with cars flying by, grocery stores and hardware stores and even a freeway in the near distance that went over the road I was walking on. This “US” like view stopped very quickly when I got on the rue Claude Guichard. I got to the street and ended up being directly in the middle of the road, and of course I couldn’t see the field from where I was standing. So my only chance was to take a complete guess and go left or right and walk the length of the road. I decided to go left… bad idea. As I’m walking down the street I realize that its not such a good area; rusted down cars on the road, garbage everywhere and just all in all run down. I end up walking past this one “apartment” building to find out that its an HLM like building. There are no apartments here just rooms with people living in them. This one room was on the ground level and their door was open so of course as I walked by I couldn’t help but see inside as I’m walking by. It was a single room no bigger than 12 x 20 that had 3 beds and a counter which appeared to be a sink… that was it. I kept walking on and ended up getting to the end of the street, no field. So, now I turned around and headed back in the same directed from whence I came. I did find the field after another 15 minute walk or so. I walk into the parking lot and get to see the most familiar scene I have come to know in my 20 years of life. A bunch of guys on a field with shorts and t-shirts playing catch with a football.
I asked the first guy I see where I could find the head coach and finally get to meet him. His name is Thomas Charcurcian. He is not only the head coach but also a player on the team. He explains to me that a lot of their players are first timers and since this is France, not too many of them are very good. He continued to tell me that they have two teams. An under 20 team and a team for everyone else. We talked for a few minutes about who I was and why I was here etc… and then practice had to start so they went off to do their warm-ups. I stayed back with 2 of the assistant coaches/players. We talked some more about what it was like to play football in a football state and how many guys were on the teams. And then we got to how many years I had played. I told them 11 years and they almost dropped to the floor… “You’re 20 years old and you’ve played 11 years of football?? I’m 31 and I’ve only played 3.”
After the warm-up the team came over and I was introduced to the team that I would be helping coach, the under-20 team. I assumed that I would be having someone with me on the first day to help me out with the language difficulty (I don’t know too many of the terms in French for coaching football) and especially since I had just shown up I didn’t expect to do a whole lot. There again, that’s what I get for assuming something. The team broke up into groups and quickly I found myself with 7 French kids and myself, most of whom have never strapped on shoulder pads before and I need to teach them how to be an offensive lineman. Thankfully it was only 45 minutes of individual work and it didn’t go too terribly, I know I made a ton of mistakes when I was speaking and probably sounded like a child but I got my points across and that’s all that really matters. This ICRP is really going to help me work on my verbal skills as I’m going to have to be speaking a lot of French all the time.
At the end of practice, Thomas addressed the team and was talking about things that they need to do and things like that. Then he started talking about how he wants to start a referee association because they don’t have any referees in the area to ref the games. They needed 10 people to volunteer and start the association; it was a 2 day class on a Saturday and Sunday. They quickly got 9 people and then no one else seemed like they could do it, everyone looked at me… I knew all the rules already I just had to learn them in French. So I agreed to become an official football referee in France.. maybe something that I can take back to the US with me. I ended up getting a ride back to my apartment because at 10:15 when practice was over the busses in the area are all stopped so now I think I only have to worry about getting there with the bus and then someone will take me home in their car.
Friday night was a fun night. France was playing another match in the Rugby World Cup so we decided to go out and watch the game. We went out to get a bite to eat before the match at our frequented café/bar Café Magma. We got their early and got a good seat right in front of the big screen that they put out on the patio just for the match. It was a great dinner with so-so wine but also a great dessert. The match was very cool and they place was completely full, in fact there was people standing in the square behind the patio just trying to watch the game. France won 24-3 which now means that they have a pretty good chance of finishing first in their pool. After the game we met up with Olivier and M.A. M.A. is a K student who was on study abroad last year when she met Olivier her current boyfriend. She decided to take a trip back to France to see Olivier and also to talk with us newcomers some of the ins and outs of study abroad. Last night was her last day here in France so after the match we went out to one of their favorite bars, called Les Frères Bretôgnes. It is a really cool bar that has an awesome feel. The tables inside are these big old wooden ones, like the kind you’d find in a tavern or something and in addition they tried to make the inside look like the outside, there is a “roof” over the bar and fake plants all sorts of cool things that make it a cool place to go. We stayed there for an hour or so and then decided to head back.
Here is some pictures from the weekend:
Today is going to be a relaxing day I believe dinner should be here in about 40 minutes or so and then I’ll probably head downtown to put this lengthy entry on the web. I also have some more pictures to put up so be sure to click on the pictures link on the right had side and check them out…
Also don’t forget to comment my blog!!!
Bonne Santé à Toute et à Tous !
Love to all,
Jon
Friday, September 21, 2007
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Pictures!!
Pictures are finally up!!! Follow the link at the left or the one below...
http://picasaweb.google.com/jonrsmart
http://picasaweb.google.com/jonrsmart
Updates
So it's been well over a week since my last entry and well to say the least things have been a little crazy. School was nuts last week as we were in class approximately 8-10 hours a day each day last week. On top of that, normal classes are beginning to start so we have to meet with groups of real French people and do some real work, needless to say I haven't had a whole lot of time to write, however tonight, I have found some free time and plan on making this a fairly lengthy entry.
So onto the happenings of Clermont-Ferrand, like I said, last week was a busy week with lots of class and meetings. We finally were assigned our Pepiniere groups, which is the groups in which we will be working on a real life economics research project. There are 13 different topics of which we have to choose and then we have to research the feasibility of this project in the areas that the business person wants the project to be launched. The topic that we would really like to work on is a man who wants to start building environmentally friendly houses in the Clermont region. We all talked and felt like not only does our group have some background knowledge on the topic but it's the project that is the most feasible in the region. We won't find out until next week which project we have to work on but hopefully we will receive the one that we want.
As a side note, in the past week or so there has been a couple of us Americans who have had a bit of difficulty in dealing with the French students. A couple of the girls were basically exiled out of their groups for simply being American. In addition we tend to get heckled a bit at bars if we are speaking English around people who seem to be a bit younger than us. This is a rare occurrence however and like I said only seems to be a problem with those who seem to be a bit immature. The more apparent problem is in the classroom where we have to work in groups and if people are being exiled on the first day we can only imagine what it is going to be like in another month or so for some of us Americans. I can almost see where the French are coming from though. This business school is a select school for the French, it is a private school that families pay for, in addition, this pepiniere project is probably one of the biggest projects that they undertake at the school and it is a competition. So if I were French, and had an American who was not an economics student in Michigan and who didn't speak French all that well I might be a little upset if they were in my group. However, at the same token I would try to make them feel welcome and could go about the situation in a much nicer manner than some of the French people did last week.
Ok so enough of the rant on that, the rest of the week was pretty monotonous although we were all definitely starting to drag a little bit with the 10 hour days at school and all. Our professors took note of this and kindly let us out early both and Thursday and Friday. This was extremely nice and extremely needed and most of us just went home to relax.
Friday was an interesting day at the apartment. Bernard had some friends from New Zealand over and who planned on spending the weekend at his apartment. If I haven't said this before Bernard's apartment is small. There are 5 rooms in the apartment, two small bedrooms, a small living room, small dining room and a bathroom/closet. So, with having 4 New Zealenders over on top of his son Pierre, things were a bit crammed. I was extremely happy though, that being from New Zealand, they spoke English and I got to play the role of translator. Bernard and Pierre both speak very very good English but even still there are words that they don't understand or French phrases that they can't really translate into English. That is where I came in and I had to be the middle man in the conversation clearing up any miscues or anything like that. We had a great conversation and I found out that they are travelling Europe while attending every single All Blacks Rugby match in the world cup except for one. This is pretty amazing and pretty expensive because while they are at it they are going to do the whole sight seeing thing as well. I kind of wish I could have tagged along because they are going or have already gone to basically everywhere that I want to go. Anyways, while watching the rugby match I found out that New Zealand is actually a great place to go if you are looking for a job, especially for laborers. They are importing laborers from all over the world and are paying as much as they do if not more than what people get paid in the US. On top of that the cost of living is extremely low, even if you are on the other side of the world. I think I might try and land an internship with one of Bernard's friends over there who is the President of this conglomerate corporation in New Zealand.
So Friday night was spent with the New Zealanders watching rugby and talking and then about 11 oclock that night it was time to start packing. Saturday morning, bright and early at 5am, I took off for Toulouse, France. Toulouse is located in the south west of France about an hour from the Mediterranean and 2 hours from Spain. It was a 6 hour train ride to Toulouse where we met up with Cathy's friend's sister who lives there. (Cathy is from Kalamazoo). Her name was Lorenne and her along with her boyfriend Tony picked us up from the train station and took us to their apartment. They were awesome hosts and took us out to lunch after we got there and then showed us around downtown Toulouse. Toulouse is a beautiful city but is very different than Clermont. We noticed right away that it was definitely a more modern city and the houses and buildings look accordingly. Saturday was spent mostly sight seeing in Toulouse and then was followed by a wonderful dinner and conversation back at the apartment. Sunday we did more sightseeing in the morning and then Sunday night was pretty cool. That night, France was playing Namibia in a world cup match, in Toulouse. Now we did not have tickets; but what we did have was a big screen TV on the banks of the Garonne River. There must have been 8,000 people sitting on the side of this river watching the match on this giant TV. The bars in the area set up tents and there were vendors all over the place, it was absolutely amazing to see and be at. France won, and won big so everyone was very happy as we left.
Monday was an extremely cool day. Lorenne took us to Carcassonne which is about 45 minutes away by car. Carcassonne is an old medieval town which is still in tact and it was a very cool place to go. We walked around the castle and took a tour of the Basilique there. While I was there I also took a tour of the museum of torture which was an oddly cool thing to go to. The creativity and reasoning behind some of the torture methods is wild… I did take some pictures of some of the instruments they had there. Monday night was again basically a great dinner and conversation night especially because it started pouring rain on our way home from Carcassonne. Tuesday was spent packing up and getting to the train station at noon for our 6 hour ride back to Clermont. All in all it was a really great weekend and I look forward to possibly heading back to Toulouse for another trip before all is said and done.
Another thing that I have finally set in stone is what my ICRP is going to be. Joelle Carroll, one of the professors here at the ESC found me a position with this sports association, the head of which just so happens to the coach of the American Football team here in Clermont. So Thursday night I plan on going to practice to find out exactly what I am going to be doing while here.
Tomorrow starts regular school and here are the classes that I am going to be taking:
European Civilization
French Langauge and Culture
Economics
Pepiniere
English Conversation (I am going to be a Teaching Assistant for the class)
ICRP (Inter-Cultural Research Project) – American Football
Italian (Yes I am going to take Italian, which is taught in French)
I think that is enough for this entry, and I believe I have caught everyone up to speed. I am going to upload pictures tomorrow and hopefully have everything operational tomorrow evening!
Love to all,
Jon
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Updates...
So it's been a couple of days since I last wrote and well there isn't a ton to say. Thursday night we didn't do a whole lot in fact I was asleep by 9 o'clock… but it worked out nice because I got a really good night's rest. Friday, we didn't really have class during the day but we did still have to head to the school. We watched a presentation on the École de la deuxième chance or in English the second chance school. Which as most of you can probably already decipher it's a program for kids that dropped out of school and want to receive their diploma, kind of like GED programs in the states. That was an interesting presentation and it might be something that I'll get involved with while I am here. After that we had about a 4 hour break where we went downtown and bough our discount train cards so that we can get at least 25 and up to 50% off all of our train fairs.
Then came a short movie on the history of the roman cathedrals that are in the area, why they built them in the shapes they did and how they did so… it was kind of cool to see especially since there are two really beautiful cathedrals in Clermont that I'll post some pictures of soon. It's tough to get on the computer and go online because Bernard doesn't have an internet connection at his apartment and well we really haven't had a ton of time at night to do much of anything.
Last night was a lot of fun though. One of our professors reserved a big table at this bar for 20 of us and we went there to watch the opening match of the Rugby World Cup, France played Argentina. France lost, 17-12 but it was a really good match. Bernard told me this morning that the referees were terrible and obviously said that France should have won. (Sounds like a lot of us after a game…) After the game at the bar we went to this Australian Pub where we met a fellow group of Americans who are here studying from Oklahoma. I think we are going to try and maybe hang out as a group tonight, I am not sure.
The group of people that came here to Clermont is really good and it's starting to seem like we are splitting up into somewhat smaller groups more easily, this is definitely a good thing because we could never go out in a group of 17 and expect to find a seat anywhere. Today I plan on going downtown to use the internet and also go to the mall a buy a couple of rugby jerseys, next weekend we are going to try and find tickets to watch the All Blacks play in Lyon, which would be just awesome!!!
I think that is about all for today. I will try and keep everyone updated and make sure you leave a line on my blog and say hi!!
If you guys want to be more updated on my travels, I do have a blog that I'm keeping a more or less daily update on what's going on here in Clermont. The address is www.jonstripabroad.info
Love to all,
Jon
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
9-5-07
Bon. The first week of class is halfway through and things are still going well. We are all starting to figure out the best ways to get around town and feeling a little bit more comfortable with what we are doing. But, it is still tough these first couple of weeks because we are in class for so long that we don’t have a ton of time to do much. It’s rude if we don’t come home for dinner around 7ish and since we’ve been getting out of class around 6, that doesn’t leave a whole lot of time. Things will change once we get into regular classes because we will be on the same schedule as the rest of the school. My French is definitely improving already and I’m finding myself just speaking it more freely and that could be half of the cause but who knows, I’m learning new words every day and each day is an adventure of its own.
I’m a little tired today so I don’t know how much I’ll write but I think we do plan on going out for a little bit tonight so I think I will take a small nap after dinner. Other than that there isn’t really a whole lot to report, I mean right now we go to class and come home and that’s about it… unless we go out at night but then it makes for a long day the next day. However, tomorrow we are going to the Michelin museum and then on Friday we are all going to a bar as a class to watch the opening match of the rugby world cup, when France plays Argentina. That should be an interesting night.
Ok I’m done for tonight, I will write again tomorrow and who knows maybe something super interesting will happen.
Love to all
Jon
I’m a little tired today so I don’t know how much I’ll write but I think we do plan on going out for a little bit tonight so I think I will take a small nap after dinner. Other than that there isn’t really a whole lot to report, I mean right now we go to class and come home and that’s about it… unless we go out at night but then it makes for a long day the next day. However, tomorrow we are going to the Michelin museum and then on Friday we are all going to a bar as a class to watch the opening match of the rugby world cup, when France plays Argentina. That should be an interesting night.
Ok I’m done for tonight, I will write again tomorrow and who knows maybe something super interesting will happen.
Love to all
Jon
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