Mountains, My 21st Birthday, and Thanksgiving!

This week has definitely been a packed one.
I got a little homesick with everything happening.
My birthday and Thanksgiving were both in the same week- and it made me miss spending it with family and friends from back home. Despite the fact that I'm now 21 and can legally drink in the United States, (which it finally hit me yesterday as I was sitting at our American Thanksgiving dinner with friends), and this year means nothing here!

The mountain trip last weekend was a blast. Hiking, yummy vin chaud, huge party that lasted into the wee hours of the morn, and when you integrate different cultures together, you find out just how much fun it can be. I learned some new games, played cards, and really had a good time!!

Which fell over onto my birthday on Monday. I wasn't really feeling it. It was a dreary day, I had 3 classes, an expose to present, plus my theatre group that night (which I left early) because some friends threw a little soiree for me before we headed out to meet a huge group of friends at a pub. I sure did celebrate my "21st" though, way too much (although I heard it's never too much on your birthday)!!!



Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and if I were home, I wouldn't have had class at 8:30am this morning, and I would be eating delicious leftovers!
Thankfully, a whole bunch of us American's, a few Canadian's, an Aussie, a Japanese and a french got together to celebrate a good American style Thanksgiving lunch/dinner (where the common language was English!- although we did have a lot of french spoken throughout). We didn't have turkey- all we could get our hands on was rotisserie chicken, but we did have mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, rice, mac and cheese, sweet potato casserole, bread and some cinnamon apples and banana bread for dessert. Overall- I only missed having cranberry sauce and fried turkey. (I'm making myself really hungry right now).
Was going to go dancing last night, but by the time I got to that point, I had been out with some friends for about 2 hours already and I was cold and I swear, I can't get rid of this darn sickness. My throat has been killing me, again, but I refuse to go to the doctor again. If I go again, I'm telling them to take my tonsils out. So I just came back and went to sleep.
Tomorrow- first day of snowboarding!! Woot. Can't wait. I hope my knee holds up!

Finally Time!

It's finally come to that time. Mountains here I come- you better have snow!
It's the weekend before my birthday. I'm not out partying tonight because I am a procrastinator and haven't finished my expose (due Monday- my birthday- FML!). And since I'm going to be gone the next two days, hopefully having a blast, I had to stay in tonight and start/finish it. Yet, as I sit here writing this, I'm doing another bit of procrastinating. There's really only SO much you can say about how France was influenced by immigration! Maybe I should put somewhere in there of the "festivities" by the Algerians Thursday night? Although I'm not sure if anyone would get offended, especially when I call them uncivilized and barbaric. I knew Europeans were crazy over soccer (aka- football or, "le foot" (en francais)), but when I'm trying to have a nice dinner with friends and they are outside banging on the restaurant window, screaming, cars racing by honking their horns the whole way, knocking over trash bins and even setting them on fire, I'm not really sure if I care if anyone gets offended; you're putting a bad name for yourselves by doing things like that. And yes, I saw this all with my own eyes. All because Algeria is now in the world cup! hummm...
I heard last night consisted of riot patrol as well, but that was because it was the Wine Festival and people were drunk. Not that it matters either way. I stayed in, being a good girl and was going to start my expose, which didn't happen. I played guitar all night instead, went to bed early hoping to get up and work on it today. Negative. I woke up and my eye was beat red.
DOCTOR- oww la la. What an experience. I really should learn french medical terms. Good lordy how difficult it was to try to explain what the heck was going on. I had to keep apologizing for my lack of french vocabulary and terms of description for my "problem." How do you say, "The redness is falling onto my iris" in french." They finally understood after many attempts that my eye was dry, the redness like this occurred 2 weeks earlier but went away, and now it had "revenue." And I'm worried there is something wrong with it.
I was sent to an eye specialist, which became even more complicated, but finally got a prescription to clear it up. So I returned to the pharmacy, where the ladies should know me by name now (went in yesterday for more cold medicine), to get my prescription filled and found that all these times I had been getting medicine, if I had only gone to SMERRA first to get my "carte de fidélité" or something like that, I wouldn't have had to pay for any of this. Thanks FRANCE for all your red-tape.

I feel like a hermit. Sitting here alone on a Friday night, doing school work, while everyone else is out having fun. It's my own fault, I guess. Maybe this weekend will pay off, for more than one thing. ;)

Who knows how hiking will be tomorrow with this rhume, my bum knee, a sore ass, and a messed up eye. Did I mention that I'm not supposed to wear my contacts for 10 days...

I could go for a nice pint right about now. You know, in 3 days this would be legal for me back in the states- here, however, they don't give a rat's.. and that's what I love about this place!

A bientot!

It's Mid November deja!?

It's November 14th. I'm just now realizing that I'm in another country for a year. I've been here 2 months now and I hate how fast time flies by, especially when you're having fun!
This last week has been filled with FUN, not doing school work and lack of motivation to do so. I should really reevaluate some things lol.. maybe.
My birthday is in 9 days, and as normally I would be super syked for it... I haven't found that to be the case this year. I guess it may be a sign that I'm getting older, or that I've been going out so much since I've been here, I feel like it will just be another night out with friends and nothing special. We'll see I guess.
Plans for my life the next Month or so:
This weekend- Fun
Next week- Hell
Next weekend- Mountains
Next Monday- My Birthday! Plus a wonderful Expose I have to do (fml)
Following weekend- SNOWBOARDING!
December 8th- Lyon for the Festival of Lights! Snowboarding that weekend or possibly Germany?!!
December 12th weekend- Toulouse?
December 19th weekend- Netherlands?

Christmas- Probably Alone :( But I really want to rent a little Chalet on the mountains and curl up by a fire, with hot chocolate, a good book and snow falling outside. I've always wanted a truly white Christmas. Somewhere near some slopes where I can go snowboarding during the day, but enjoy the peacefulness of the night.
Whether I'm by myself, or with someone, I still want a Christmas just like this.

New Years- Paris?
Morocco- sometime in January

All subject to change apart from my birthday- can't really change that one even if I wanted. ;)

My thoughts have been puzzled lately. I've had a lot of things running through my head, my heart. It's like wind blowing through the trees in autumn, grabbing leaves as it swirls through. And then it stops, dropping the leaves to the ground for people to admire, or walk on. It's warm and I see the snow melting from the mountains, much like things melting from my mind. I smile thinking about how good it feels to have things finally doing that, after all this time, I feel free.



I continue to sit on my desk, window open, breeze filling my lungs, just looking out, taking in the quiet Saturday. It's overcast, but one of the most beautiful days I think we've had so far. The colors, the feeling. I just watched a cat prance for something under a bush, and it made me laugh. Today, I feel so at peace.
It was just until that moment when I thought about all the school work that I had to do- the peacefulness went away.



I'm not really sure that's possible with this view...
I love nature. I love the beauty you can find in nature. The beauty you can find in life. God is truly amazing.

Grenoble has captured me. I think I will stay here.

Right around the Corner

I woke up this morning to light shining through my window, wondering what that horrible noisy was. It was 6:45am and I forgot to turn off my phone alarm before going to sleep last night. Maybe that was due to being exhausted from the great soiree last night and having to give drunk people piggy back rides home? I fell back asleep, thankfully, since it had only been about 4.5 hours that I'd actually been asleep.
To my surprise when I looked out the window after waking up the second time, the mountains greeted me with beautiful scenery and complete snow covered tops. I realized that all the rain we'd been getting here lately, was all very much worth it.
Here I am now, writing this blog, drinking a cup of tea, and being completely mesmerized by the sight of such beauty.
It's true- winter is just a mountain top away here.
It's been about a week since I've been back from my Eastern European travels. Fortunately I got all my work done on time, I'm still not sure how.
I've enjoyed another Fondue night, a Salsa dancing night and a soiree with many friends in the last week. Not to mention the constant thought of snowboarding that's been on my mind! I bought a new pair of boots and pants the other day and in about two weeks the slopes should be open!
Classes are classes and I still dread waking up at 7:30 every morning, long Mondays and boring lectures.
I need to start thinking about what I'm going to do for Christmas, and avoid the fact that I won't be with my family this year. At least it's likely that I'll have a white Christmas!
My birthday is just 2 weeks away now, and I still have no idea what I'm going to do for it. It's not a far stretch to say that people will go out with me on a Monday here (that's what I love about Grenoble), but whether or not I want to torture myself having to wake up early the next morning is the question.
I guess I'll see where my tree takes me.