My City Grenoble

This past weekend I stayed in Grenoble. It is kind of hard to do that when you have all these countries so close to you, you kind of want to go visit them. But I stayed in my quant little city of Grenoble. It's hard to feel a strong love for Grenoble since she tortures me so with her hot weather and the fact that I have school within her borders. (Anywhere you have school is not going to be your favorite place in the world, it's just a fact).
It's really hard to be alone here but not really alone. On Saturday I had nothing planned but my friends did so I had two choices: hang out with my host family while they cooked themselves a live next to their pool or go out and be by myself. I chose the latter of the two. (Baking next to the pool is not ideal for my skin)(Also have you met my sister Sarah? She would murder me for that).
So I did what I would've done in America, I saw an independent film. No, not in French because I don't really like to put myself in situations that are going to give me anxiety after realizing how little French I actually know. I saw a 2014 Sundance film called Indefinitely Polar Bear but the French decided to rename it Cool Daddy for some reason I am not aware of.  The movie was great! The feelings I had after, were not. It made me really homesick to do things I do at home in a different place. After the movie I went and read in the park where a brass band was playing. Things like a brass band playing in the park really puts things in perspective. I told myself to suck it up and enjoy the fact that I was in France, even if I felt lonely, I was still in GOD DAMN FRANCE! So I ate a very fresh calzone and I made myself stop being a stupid baby.
My friends and I found a great little bar in a park that serves sangria and has a cool old van in the midst of the bar. I can't remember the name because all French named things are very difficult to remember. On my way to this favorite bar I got hit on by a Ukrainian man. He didn't speak English and he proceeded to tell me about 13 times that he spoke 7 languages but he could never learn English. I told him I speak very little French. Did he care? No, he still decided to converse to me. Things that I picked up from our conversation: he was going to a Brazilian dance club, he had a daughter that was 19, he couldn't believe that I was 24, he really liked my shoes and dress, he thought I was pretty, he asked me about my tattoos, then he left. Although the whole conversation was very uncomfortable did you noticed how much I comprehended in French? That's kind of amazing.
On sunday I went to a magical place in the mountains of Vercors.
We first stopped in a small little town. I have come to realize that small little towns are sort of the very best thing in the world. We ate at this tiny little restaurant that an Italian lady owned and an Englishmen cooked for. I had the best fish and chips of my entire life. I was losing my mind over it. I am not a fan of tartar sauce but I am a fan of the tartar sauce that I had there. It was the absolute best.

Here is a picture of the cutest little street in the cutest little town.

After we almost died 70 times due to plunging to our deaths whilst driving up the tiniest of roads that happened to be extremely curvilicious, we arrived to the Grotte de Choranche aka the coolest cave ever.

First of all the cave was probably 40 degrees. I almost cried in happiness to feel how cold it was. I haven't felt coldness in awhile and I just wanted to hunker down in that cave and wait out this impossible heat wave. 

Second of all this cave is wondrous. It's absolutely breathtaking. I have never been so influenced to become a writer of sci-fi in my life,  so I could have this cave as my setting. 

Borrowed this pic from my good Dal-Pal.

Earth! You astound me! I am really sad that we don't treat you as you should. Maybe if people realized you were magical and had things like this beautiful cave we would care for you more. Sorry dear! 

Needless to say it was a magical time with amazing people who I am going to miss seeing every day. EVERYTHING IS GOING TOO FAST NOW! I have 3 more weeks here. That's just nuts. Here's to more adventures.

Flamenco For My Love

Spain, I am in love with you. I want to be inside you more often. I went to Barcelona this weekend and I had the time of my life. 

I learned something weird about myself. Hearing Spanish is very comforting for me. I think it is because it is the second most heard language where I am from. 

The apartment we stayed in was amazing. It technically was not in Barcelona but a suburb of Barcelona. IT WAS GREAT! We were on the 17th floor and had a view of the Mediterranean sea. Sailboats were just sailing away. Beach goers were just being beach goers but more topless than I am used to. Not to mention we got a great breeze coming into our apartment. 

Night 1: It was a shit show to be honest. We were trying to go see a Flamenco show but things got complicated and stupid and we didn’t think we had tickets. Then we waited around the house for too long and we didn’t end up leaving until 1130pm. But we were in the European mind set thinking that it was no problem because things don’t even start to happen until 2 am anyways. Wrong. The train station was closed. Taxi’s? Nope. Not where we were. We called 3 times (at 20 cents a minute…) no Taxis were to be had. We met these musiciens who claimed there was a night bus. We were all for it because we were very ill prepared in the food department and all hungry like ravenous wolves. So yes, night buses. Or just buses in general in Spain are nuts. They drive crazy and don’t announce stops at all. There is no blinking light that says “next stop (insert name here).” We had no idea what was happening or where we were at all. I guess people just memorize that stuff in Spain? Anyways we did not get to where we wanted to go and we did not get food. We missed our returning stop and had to ask the bus driver to inform us when our stop was coming up. It was not quite the night we were hoping for. 

Day/Night 2: We beached all day long. Here’s what I learned: Spanish people love being topless way more than French people. Or it seems that way. I’m not an expert on the subject. There were definitely more topless women that topped. I mean it’s cool I guess. No body shaming goes on out here in Europe because people don’t give a shit what you are thinking about them, they just want to relax and be naked for fuck’s sake. If you were wondering, yes, I have seen probably every size shape and form of breast in the entire world. Most topless people have weird boobs. I think maybe all boobs are just weird to me except for my own. Who knows? (I feel like nipples would be easily sunburned, which is something I don’t think anyone in Europe cares about). Anyways beaches are great. 

New love life motto: FLAMENCO FOR MY LOVE. 

I think I need to find a Flamenco dancer and marry the shit out of them. That was by far the sexiest thing I have seen a man do. Their sweat was flying off their bodies and I wouldn’t have minded if it landed on me. I probably would’ve been stoked about it. And the women, they are bad asses. So much passion and attitude. I think Flamenco dancers are made to be Flamenco dancers. I don’t think that’s something you can just be trained on. I can’t explain it, it’s just amazing. (If I can’t marry a Flamenco dancer I will take a Flamenco guitarist. Dayum, that flamenco guitarist could PLAY. He even had a long thumbnail for strumming and I was all about that.) Also the food I ate was ridiculously amazing. I can’t even tell you what I ate but I ate it all and loved every single bite of it. 

After the Flamenco was the bar hopping/disco-tech. There’s this very touristy street called Les Ramblas and we were like “Hey we are tourists lets go there.” There were mostly annoying club promoters and weird people trying to sell us devices that made you sound like an annoying dog toy. Who the hell buys that? Idiots, that’s who. We followed these weird dudes who were loud/fun but they were old and lead us nowhere. So we did what we needed to. Went to an Irish pub and had Sangria and then went to a British pub and had MORE Sangria. It was delicious and we were ready to dance. So because Spain is a European country it was very European and the dance club we arrived at that was named Les Enfants (which means the children, weird name for a club). We were pretty much the only attendees and it was 1230am. But being in Europe we did what the Europeans do and Gave no Fucks and danced our asses off. We danced for a stupid long time. (Drank A LOT of drinks and got down to some Spanish tunes). We got sweaty. We got drunk. We had THE BEST TIME! People kissed. People twirled their dresses like a Flamenco dancer. Guess what time we went home. 5 am. The sun was coming up when I went to bed. I’ve never done that in my life. It was AWESOME. I also ate salt and vinegar chips with Nutella and it was amazing, I suggest everyone drink a lot of Sangria and try it. Some lucky jerks made out on the beach as the sun rose, it wasn’t me, or was it? I will never tell. 

SPAIN! LET’S MAKE BABIES TOGETHER!   

Marseille

I have been a really bad blogger. Just terrible. I just am trying to keep busy at all time. It may or may not have to do with the fact that I am living with strangers that I can’t really talk to without feeling like a big dumb idiot. It's really hard. I like to eat dinner with my host mother and then peace out for bed and FaceTime with my family. If anything I am doing them a favor. Who wants to hang out with an awkward American? I think nobody. 

So last weekend I went to a little big city called Marseille. Very cool place. Very crazy drivers. Like just absolutely nuts. Motorcycles and scooters are allowed to weave in and out of traffic. How is everyone not dead there? I don’t get it. And buses. Those things are just crazy. We got in a traffic jam made out of three busses and a weird tourist train. They are truly problem solvers over here. 

Marseille was great because it wasn’t Grenoble. Not that Grenoble is bad, but I explained before why it’s hard for me to really thrive there. We stayed at this crazy cool apartment that had about 6 little cockroach friends. It was a little frightening but we had a dude who stepped on those motherfuckers and killed half the population dead.

So in Marseille, a bunch of people live in these buildings made of cement and in the middle is kind of like the courtyard. It’s hard to explain. So just pretend you understand. The moral of the story: it is very echo-y. It was night. Me and my two best buds were discussing something half heartedly as we were halfway asleep and we hear this noise. We all hushed our voices, thinking maybe it was a person calling for help, but how wrong we were. It was the noise of a “petite mort” which means “little death” which is an orgasm. And this French woman was having the time of her life. She was a very happy camper. She orgasmed like an Ox. It was INSANE. And we heard it 4 more times throughout our stay. It was nuts! Just nuts. 

Honestly, we just needed Marseille so we didn’t go insane. We didn’t do anything truly spectacular except became better friends and met some Irish weirdos who told us we didn’t need school to learn French and then did a perverted tongue flick aka he was telling us that to learn French you need to do some oral sex? Wish it was that easy. 

Une Semaine

I don't know if you have heard but there is a RIDICULOUS heat wave in Europe. Like sure, Utah is hot but try having it be 100 degrees and 50% humidity, not only that but add in the fact that mostly nowhere has air conditioning. I found a weird mall that has air conditioning that a bum sleeps outside of and I just sometimes go in there and stand for a minute.

Here's a fact: It is really super fucking hard to be in a tiny classroom with 25 people when it is a million degrees and try to learn French. LIKE REALLY HARD. I almost pass out every day. I don't know if I am passing out or falling asleep, a little of both probably. I am really grateful that this first week I had an amazing professor. Yes, she makes fun of us in French and most of us don't realize it, but man, she is amazing. Her name is Roselyn and she is the cutest French woman who wore the same white pants every day to class. I can't really explain how awesome she is. I want to abduct her and bring her to America.

So CUEF (The school I go to (I think it might be just a program, I honestly don't really know)), it's an interesting place. The first day we didn't have power. The toilets on our level don't have seat covers. (Don't worry we found a good bathroom, you get your own little room, it's also unisex which is really awkward). Half of CUEF is actually pretty nice and not a million degrees, but is our class located in that part? No. No we are not. We are located in the ghetto part. But next week starts our first real week of school so maybe it will change.

So it's been super hard these first couple days. I can barely act normal in front of strangers in English, and I am way worse in French. My host mom kissed me on both cheeks like how the French do, and I was not good at it and it became really awkward. We connected with Shania Twain that was playing on the radio. I think she was listening to the American radio for me, which is really sweet. Then I met her cats, Pitu and something that sounds like Cheveux but I am pretty sure it's not Cheveux because that means hair. They are adorable and nice and today Pitu caught a mouse and brought it in the house, it was cute and gross. I have been having a really hard time with connecting with my host family because they talk really fast but they are really trying to slow it down. Tonight was a good night. We were teaching each other our languages and they really adored my Utah book I gave them. I think it might've helped that we had wine. Terry helps me say things correctly and at first I was really offended by it but I really want to be able to communicate so now I appreciate it. Slowly but surely we are starting to get comfortable with each other.

Other things? I have eaten a lot of things that are bad for me but for some reason I think in my brain that they can't be worse than American food. Pan du Chocolat is my JAM! It's chocolate wrapped in bread. It is amazing and I ate 2 today.

Weird thing: There are like a billion homeless people or people who dress like they are homeless but they kind of look like hippies and they have like 3 dogs each and they are all over the city of Grenoble. It's strange. I want to touch their dogs but then I might have to give them money. And I don't want that.

Things are getting better. I am slowly getting used to odd things that happen here. I am really getting better at speaking French every day.