This one time I went to Paris and got to speak French

I've gotten to a point now where I am in France but no longer feel like a tourist. AND IT'S WEIRD. This weekend I went to Paris and met up with some of my best friends from Berkeley, and walking around the most beautiful city in the world felt strangely normal...I recognized the food (even the weird organs!), could listen to people's conversations and know what they were talking about, and was able to ask for directions and have people respond to me in French. I even got a library card to the STUNNINGLY AMAZING Bibliothèque St. Genviève at the Place de Panthéon. This may all seem mundane but for me it was absolutely blissful! These were all things that I took for granted in California, but the minute I landed in France I realized that I would no longer be surrounded by all the comforts of home, which definitely includes knowing what I'm eating, what people are saying around me, and knowing where I am going. A highlight of the weekend was going to an Irish pub with Bryanna on St Patricks day, where a mec tellement bourré (man dutifully celebrating the drinking holiday) held his pint up to my face and yelled "santé!" (cheers!)....however, I heard "sentez!" (smell this!!). You can probably imagine the confusion that ensued. In sum, I spent a weekend in a completely foreign city without feeling totally like a foreigner...which leaves me with a bit of an identity crisis but I am willing to go with it for the next couple of months!

Back in Bordeaux things couldn't be better (well, actually if someone wanted to send me a vegetarian burrito from oscars I would be ETERNALLY GRATEFUL). The weather is getting warmer and sunnier everyday, I am doing relatively well in my classes (french grades don't really equal american grades though so I'm not terribly stressed), and the time spent with my friends (american and French) and host family continue to be lovely and lots of fun. I have been on the phone lots with my mom and dad planning our respective vacations and I am willing to say that my study abroad cup is definitely half-full: I am literally giddy (en francais: passionée!) thinking about all of the traveling and eating and exploring yet to come!

I officially like escargots

I can check out books here!!

This big tower thing kept on getting in the way of our pictures

I left my heart in San Sebastian

Cailin, me, Laurel in front of Playa de la Concha

atop Mount Urgull

poor little guy...

This weekend, I fell in love... It's a pretty serious affair, we spent all weekend together and I never once got bored. In fact, as the days passed I found myself falling deeper and deeper in love! Oh mon amour, thy name is San Sebastian, Spain. Early Friday morning Laurel and Cailin and I lugged our backpacks stuffed with gummy candy, peanuts (because they didn't have peanut butter in the exotic food section of Auchan!!!! quelle horreur), and a tasty meat snack (dried sausage mmm) to Bordeaux St Jean train station. We took the TGV train to Hendaye, a cute little border town, and then the Eusko Tren from Hendaye to San Sebastian. What we quickly realized is that, even though it's only 2 hours from Bordeaux, San Sebastian might as well be a whooole different planet. It's located in the Basque region of northern Spain (Donostia is the Basque name for the city), which means that the culture and language is very specific (and very unlike Spanish and French). Plus, instead of the gray skies of Bordeaux, San Sebastian looks like a little cove of sunshine-y paradise, complete with sparkling blue water, golden sand, gorgeous views, and old beautiful boulevards. We made our way to the hostel easily (because SS is so small that you could probably walk across the whole city in a half hour), and were smitten to find that our fellow hostel-mates were a group of Europeans/Americans also studying at University of Bordeaux. Quelle chance! 

We spent our first day picnic-ing on Playa Zurriola, which is the surfing beach. Although we were a little optimistic in wearing bikinis and shorts (the weather was warmer than Bordeaux but it wasn't THAT much warmer...), we got a kick out of the old man sitting next to us who was completely nude except for his swimcap. After a stroll around the old city and dinner of tapas and sangria, we met our new hostel friends for a night out on the town. The next morning we awoke, still sandy and full of calamari, and met our friend Jason (another berkeley student studying in Bordeaux). We took a funicular up to Mount Igueldo where we saw an AMAZING view of the entire cove paradise that is San Seb. This place is seriously breathtaking! We spent the rest of the afternoon lounging on La Playa de la Concha (the biggest of the 3 beaches) soaking up the sunshine and "profiter"-ing from the gorgeous weather. Our last day in San Sebastian started with being being waken up at 9 am by a strange horn parade in the streets. But we took advantage of the early start and set out to climb Mount Urgull on the other side of the city from Mount Igueldo and complete with a giant Jesus statue on top. Again, we were just blown away by the natural beauty of San Sebastian. It felt like all of the colors of the world were intensified: the water, the sand, the sky, the greenery, the clouds, just magical! We climbed down the mountain and decided to have our last meal of Seafood Paella, and I'll just say that if I had any vegetarian-bone left in my body it no longer exists... Something about ripping a crustacean apart with your bare hands just makes you feel like a bona-fide carnivore. We left San Sebastian sleepy, a little bit sunburnt (HOORAY), but 100 percent satisfied. This vacation was absolutely one to remember, and if anyone feels like going to Donostia anytime soon I would be more than happy to play tour guide :)

Here comes the sun (le soleil arrive, enfin!)

After what has seemed like an eternity, spring has finally sprung in Aquitaine! The camellia bushes in my garden are blooming, and Minette (the cat)'s favorite activity has changed from sleeping on the couch to sleeping underneath them. The sunny weather is a nice break from the rain and 1 degree mornings we were used to for all of January, and although it's a far cry from California weather, it's still an excuse to go to Jardin Public and take an afternoon nap instead of shlepping to the library and attempting to read Proust (which usually just ends up in frustration and/or sleepiness). In the past couple of weeks I have also started exploring many of Bordeaux's open air markets like Marché St Michel, which is every Saturday morning in the courtyard of l'Eglise (chuch) St Michel. St Michel is the perfect one-stop-shop for everything I think I'll ever need- vintage scarfs, delicious baguettes, 10 euro shoes, home-made honey, dried fruit, Moroccan spices, and much much more. Saturday morning I went to St Michel with friends where we picked up un poulet roti (rotisserie chicken), des pommes (apples), du pain (bread), du fromage (cheeeeese), et une bouteille de champagne (self-explanatory), and then had an amazing picnic on the steps in front of Place de la Bourse, overlooking the quai (river front). Place de la Bourse is one of the prettiest sites in Bordeaux and is also a fun place to people-watch... apparently the French are REALLY into rollerblading. It's something we can't quite figure out. This weekend was also the first weekend of Bordeaux's Carnivale, which sounds much more exciting than it actually is: basically some weird floats (think high school homecoming, minus the crêpe paper), scary tilt-a-whirl rides (I just don't trust roller coasters that can be put together and taken down in the course of one day..), and lots and LOTS of cotton candy (in french- barbe à papa or dad's beard). Still, it seemed that the whole city came out to celebrate because all of downtown was completely packed! Luckily I am escaping it all tomorrow and taking a train to San Sebastian with Cailin and Laurel ..we have 24 hours to learn both Basque and Catalan but we're not really worried...hopefully "where's the beach?" is a universal phrase!