A weekend in southern France!

I know I’ve been absolutely terrible at keeping up with this blog and letting everyone know what’s been going on with my life! My apologies! I’ve been busy (yes, traveling a little!) AND my internet here at home is the worst! My connection is usually only steady for maybe half an hour before it dies on me and flickers on and off. Yes, you should feel sorry for me.. it takes twice as long to do things that usually don’t take that long to do! But anyhow, I’ll try and catch up on some of the things I’ve been up to these past couple of weeks!

Maybe I should work backwards… hooray, the weekend is almost here again! It’s been a somewhat stressful week so far. Yesterday (Thursday), I had my first midterm ever and it was absolutely TERRIBLE. The midterm was for my class Political Economy of the EU, and the format of the exam was multiple choice + one short essay question. I am definitely not good at taking multiple choice tests, and I had heard previously from many people, including alumni from last year, that the exams are not that difficult… boy were they wrong! There were random, very detailed questions on things that our professor briefly skimmed over in class.. but anyway, I guess everyone I talked to thought it was difficult, so hopefully the curve will be low! The day before yesterday, I also had to give a presentation for my France/French Politics in the EU class, which was worth 40% of my grade! For this class, I’m only graded on this presentation and a final grant proposal, yikes!

I spent the most wonderful weekend ever in the south of France. A couple of friends and I hopped on a train after class last Thursday for Marseille, where we spent our weekend bathing in the sun and enjoying life. Southern France is truly a completely different world from Paris– not only is the temperature warmer, but so are the people. People on the streets aren’t as preoccupied and cold; they actually smile and laugh.

My favorite part of the weekend was hiking on Friday out to la Calanque de Sugiton, a fjord located in a small ville in Marseille, right next to the Mediterranean Sea. Guided by our friend, a native of Marseille (also a student at Sciences Po and in our program), we hiked forty minutes down to this calanque, where we swam in the beautiful, blue Mediterranean Ocean and picnicked on sandwich au jambon et fromage (ham & cheese). We spent most of the day there, swimming and exploring “Mont Grand Nez” (Mount big nose), a nearby miniature “island” that we climbed onto. The sea was honestly so, SO beautiful.. I have never enjoyed swimming in the sea more than I did that day. I kept diving and dumping back into the Mediterranean, hoping that I would somehow turn into a fish so that I wouldn’t have to leave. In the evening, we attended a music festival of Marsatac where we heard F

ranz Ferdinand and General Elektriks. Who wouldn’t want to be in a crowded room full of French rocking out to “mix of vintage funk, hip hop beats, noir riffs, cinematic arrangements, pop melodies and digital twinkle”?! It was a pretty neat experience, though a tad bit pricey for the poor, Parisian student I am! :(

Hiking to la Calanque de Sugiton!

a view of the Calanque Sugiton from above!

The Mediterranean Sea

The water was gorgeous.

Franz Ferdinand!

The next day, Saturday, I explored the city Marseille with my Northwestern friends, Ashley and Ryan. Our friend and guide, Richard, was quite sick, so we decided to spend the day discovering the city on our own. It was definitely nice to walk around Marseille—it definitely has a city feel to it (I think it’s actually the second largest city in France after Paris), but it’s not as cold and brutal as Paris. We walked by an open market, which was pretty neat, walked around the old part of the city, and found a popular spot for cheap lunches—one slice of delicious, goat cheese pizza for 1.5 Euros! That was probably one of the tastiest and most satisfying lunches I’ve had in France so far. Afterwards, we continued exploring the city and found a lively part of the city where there were lots of shops to shop, and I even found a French blouse! That evening, we had dinner with Richard in Aix-en-Provence, a city about half an hour away, at a nice restaurant—my first real meal at a restaurant in France! I had this delicious salmon salad—there were three layers of salmon cooked in three different ways.. mmm!

a view of Marseille from the sea

Macaroons! mmm, colorful & delicious!

The older part of the city of Marseille

On Sunday, we went to another beach! In the morning, we set out for Toulons, a small town about a half hour away west of Marseille. Richard’s grandparents live in Toulon, their house is literally a five minute walk away from the beach! The day before was one of Richard’s uncle’s birthday, so a lot of his family was already there in Toulons. We met just about the entire family—there were uncles, aunts, cousins, parents, grandparents, Richard’s siblings, and family friends there!—and we got to spend some quality time with his some of his family members when we played with a beach volleyball in the Mediterranean Sea. Afterwards, we shared a delicious, true French meal for lunch! :) There had to have been between 20 and 30 people (including all the little kids!) and there was so much food to eat! Richard’s parents & grandparents helped prepare the lunch—we had duck steak! potatoes, bread, goat cheese, vegetables, nectarines, amazingly sweet grapes, 3 different kinds of cake! (there was apple tart, pineapple cake, and raisin & sugar cake) as well as homemade lemon-flavored sorbet, and three different kinds of ice cream, as well as some biscuits/cookies! I was definitely very, very full after the meal! We played a popular French game after lunch, and split up into two teams—it was me and Richard against Ashley & Ryan. I’d like to say that Richard and I won since we won the last time we played—it was technically a tie since Ryan & Ashley won the first time, and Richard and I wont the second time :) But anyway, the game we played was a very traditional, old French game in southern France (you can read up on it on this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pétanque). After playing two round of Pétanque we said our goodbyes to Richard’s kind, hospitable family and returned to Marseille where we packed up our things, had dinner, and hopped on a train back to Paris.

a view of Marseille in the morning from Richard's home

the view on the way to Toulons

Richard's grandparents' house.

Lunchtime! yumyumyum!

Playing Pétanque! Go team!

After spending a fleeting three days in the south, I had to drag myself to come back to the busy Parisian life.. there are so many songs and references to Paris, but oh my, the south! Now, that is something worth writing songs about.

(continuation of weekend trip..)

Following a fun day of visiting Caens and many historical sites, we finally retired for the evening and went to our hotel. I roomed with two other girls and was lucky enough to get a room with a balcony!


my room mates for the weekend :)

After settling into our rooms, we all left to go exploring/find dinner, and ended up at a nice crepe restaurant. The food was delicious, though on the pricier side of things. I got a crepe with ham and eggs, and I think it cost 4.5 Euros-- the cheapest crepe there! I ended up sharing a dessert crepe with someone else to save money.. it was sure delicious!

mmm, delicious!

The next day, we went to Honfleur and Deauville! In Honfleur, we had a couple of hours to ourselves to go exploring. I hung out with a pretty big crowd that included some of the French students and I got to meet some of them!




During our four hours of exploring, we mostly walked about the flea market and wandered around. We saw a beautiful, wooden church and smelled delicious odors from street vendors. Throughout our wandering, we made our way to the composer Erik Satie house!!


Erik Satie house!

The house Erik Satie grew up in was turned into a museum, so we got a chance to go inside and see the house and the exhibit that had been created.



We didn't do much else in Honfleur afterwards except eat lunch before heading off to Deauville.


mmm, goat cheese!

After lunch, we all got back on the bus and headed off to Deauville, near the English Chanel. There was actually an American film festival going on in Deauville the weekend we were there, and Harrison Ford, Johnny Depp, and Gwyneth Paltrow were supposed to be there!


American film festival

We unfortunately missed Harrison Ford by a day-- he was supposed to arrive the next day!-- so instead, we hung out on the English Chanel where some sunbathed, went in the water, or just enjoyed being outside :) We also decided to take a walk in the ritzy city paraded by Prada, Louis Vuitton, and Hermes. Our weekend journey ended here and we returned home on a three hour bus ride back.

I've finally decided to start blogging about my experience in Paris! While sitting in one of the the Sciences Po cafes yesterday, I figured I should probably start writing up this blog since so many people have asked me how I'm doing.

I arrived in Paris last Tuesday, September 1st in the afternoon, after taking three different flights-- from LA to St. Paul, Minnesota to Amsterdam to Paris! After waiting around forever for the shuttle to come pick me up (it was an hour late.. an HOUR!), I finally was taken to my home stay family's apartment in the 3e arrondisement, in the heart of Paris. My family lives on the 6th floor of the apartment and owns the entire floor-- I think they have 7 rooms! My host mom, Marie, has 5 kids-- 4 daughters and 1 son-- but only 3 of the daughters are living at home right now: Josephine, Sophie, and Clementine.

The first couple of days abroad were tougher than I thought it would be. It took me a couple of days to get over jetlag, and consequently, I felt really tired and overwhelmed. Additionally, after not speaking French for so long, my French was very rusty and I felt scared to even try speaking French. I felt like I was disabled or mute since I couldn't really communicate in French, plus, everyone here speaks French SO fast!

On my second day in Paris, Wednesday, I had to go exploring and find an adapter because the one I had brought wasn't a round adapter (I brought a rectangular one). I ended up finding a place called Darty's and getting a universal adapter for 29 Euros- that's about $46 USD! I will definitely be using this adapter when I'm in Morocco in February. Later in the afternoon, we had an orientation for our study abroad program. I knew some of the people in the program from previous classes, but I wasn't close friends with them, so it was a little awkward trying to mingle with each other, since no one really knew anyone else. I was pretty tired during orientation, so I went straight home afterward and took a long nap until dinner. Dinner is at 8pm. At Northwestern, I sometimes eat dinner at 4:30pm. Luckily, I think adjusting to the different meal times in France hasn't been too hard for me. In fact, adjusting to eating barely anything all day hasn't been that hard. I mean, I still feel hungry occasionally during the days, but it's not too bad.. well, more on that later!

The following day, Thursday, we had a French placement exam in the morning, and our first class later in the afternoon. The class was on the Political Economy of the European Union, and our professor, Francesco Saraceno, is an Italian who has lived in France for a while now, but he lectures the class in English! I'm pretty impressed, his English is quite fluid, and fast, and his lecture was pretty interesting. I didn't feel too tired after class, but I decided to go home. I made an effort to talk to my host mom when I got back since I saw that she was in the kitchen and I told her how my classes were. I mentioned that I didn't feel so tired and perhaps I was getting over jetlag. My host mom wasn't able to stay around for long- she had to go back to work- so I headed back to my room and went online for a bit. Since I still had an hour before dinner, I thought I might take a nap since there really was nothing else to do. I ended up waking up at 1 AM!! When I woke up, I was kind of confused and slowly realized I had slept for 6 hours AND skipped dinner! I felt soo embarrassed since I had told my host mom that I was getting over jetlag! I decided to go back to sleep since I needed to wake up early the next day, but I wasn't able to get any more good sleep.


The next morning, Friday, our program and the Public Health program (also a Northwestern program) left early in the morning for Normandy! We met at a 7AM and took a charter bus to Caen, the northwest region of France. I got to know some people on the bus ride over to Caen, which made the whole trip a lot more fun! We spent the day visiting the D Day Museum, the American cemetery in Normandy, Omaha beach, where American troops landed 65 years ago, and seeing the German cemetery.

















D Day Museum



American Cemetery in Normandie




D Day beaches



German cemetery in Caens