Christmas is coming

Christmas is coming. I don’t know whether or not the goose is getting fat and I haven’t put a penny in the old man’s hat. Maybe I’ll do that on my way home today. I’ve got the perfect old man picked out. He stands right outside the door to my apartment all day everyday and has never once asked me for money. He only says hello and wishes me a good day. Clermont-Ferrand is really outdoing itself on the Christmas decorations. Over the course of the past two weeks, they’ve strung every street and square with lights, decorated a giant dilapidated tree, assembled a Christmas market composed of many tiny shanties, and constructed a giant Christmas Ferris Wheel in the center of the large square. The stores are packed, people are everywhere, and I actually ate chestnuts that were roasted on an open-fire. For the record, I didn’t like them very much. Christmas is coming.

My life lately hasn’t really been that exciting. I’ll try and recount only the good stuff. Three weekends ago, three friends and I took the train to Avignon so that we could sing and dance on the bridge. The train took 6 hours, which I was actually very happy about. The sights along the way were beautiful; the train followed the Rhone River all the way down. Avignon is adorable. We visited the pope’s palace, which was only mediocre after having explored the Vatican and St. Peter’s. My audio guide broke halfway through our visit, and the others I traveled with were having trouble concentrating while listening to their own, so Kelly and I started making up our own stories for each room, which were definitely a little livelier and sometimes scandalous in comparison. We shopped, ate the provincial specialties, and smelled the lovely lavender, which isn’t growing right now, but is everywhere in one form or another. The highlight for me was definitely the bridge. Ever since I was four and first learned the song with Madame Henderson in kindergarten, I’ve always thought about what it would be like to actually be “sur le pont d’Avignon” and dance, “toute en ronde”. We danced and sang the song – there are photos and videos to prove it. It was so satisfying.

In other news, my foot still hurts. I finally worked up the courage to go get an x-ray, where the doctor told me there was nothing wrong with my foot other than the fact that I have an extremely high arch and my ligaments are just tired. Thank you genetics. Now I have to get an insert made that is specially formed to my foot. Fun. Seeing as I’ve been trying to rest my foot, I’ve spent a lot of time sitting around watching TV. Unfortunately this has led to a very strong addiction to Grey’s Anatomy, which I’d never seen until recently. What an amazing show.

School is terrible – I don’t like that place, and I don’t care much for the people. Classes are boring and there’s not a lot of work to do. The work that we do have (Pépinière stuff) is absolutely unbearable. I’m trying to change my attitude but it’s so incredibly hard to do. According to “the W curve” in our Study Abroad Handbook, we’re in the “crisis phase” of our study abroad experience. I believe it. I’ve been in crisis for about a month now I’m finally trying to figure out how to get out. Watching TV and being depressed aren’t getting me very far. I’ve been trying to spend more time with my host family lately. I’ve also decided to start traveling more. Last weekend I went to Lyon to see the Festival of Lights with Sarah and Arnaud. It was a lot of fun – I’ll be sure to write about it later.

I’m definitely not the only one of the group feeling this way. In an effort to try and cheer ourselves up a little, the other K girls and I decided to take advantage of Lauren’s host family being gone two weekends ago (they told her she could have friends over) and have a little retreat. The six of us spent last Saturday afternoon baking sugar cookies and making tacos. We did the best we could without having baking soda, taco seasoning, or taco worthy cheese. Someone had the bright idea of using yeast in the cookies in place of baking soda. Didn’t exactly work, but we ate them nonetheless. The vegetarian convinced the meat eating grocery shoppers that they didn’t need to buy taco seasoning because it was too expensive. This resulted in me throwing together as many “taco-smelling spices” as I could. Surprisingly, I didn’t do a bad job. As for cheese, we used shredded Swiss cheese. Interesting, but not bad either. All in all it was a success.

Well, like I said before, nothing too exciting going on. I hope everything at home is going well. Okay, take care!

Vanessa