I am not a writer.

So for almost 3 months of study abroad... I have 5 posts. I have to face the facts. I am not a writer. I want to be a writer. I long to be a writer. However, you can't always get what you want. I guess I am stuck reading the wonderful works of other people.

So what have I done since we last talked, blogspot?

Well I went to Strasbourg, France! Strasbourg has a very famous Christmas market or Le Marché de Noël. Basically the entire city is covered in little booths, like a fair but way classier and more festive. It was a very, very beautiful city. It was full of canals and woodwork houses. I honestly wished that I was studying there instead of Dijon (don't get me wrong, Dijon is wonderful... but Strasbourg... WOW!).

So I adventured with a friend for the whole day and we got vin chaud (hot wine with yummy Christmasy spices in it) and pretzels because those are the specialities in Strasbourg. Interestingly, Strasbourg is in the region of France called Alsace, which has traded hands between France and Germany over the years. This means that although this is currently a French city, there is a LOT of German influence. They speak a dialect of German there, Alsatian, but they all know French as well.

It was a very lovely day that I will not go into because it honestly was long enough ago that I don't remember it all well enough to recount in detail right now because it is midnight and I am tired.

Currently, I am on Christmas break in Dijon. Christmas is in ONE DAY! However, I am just not feeling spirited. It's mostly because I don't get to be home with family for Christmas, but there are other reasons. Literally everyone I hang out with and know in Dijon travelled somewhere for the past week or so, leaving me in Dijon, lonely. I don't blame them; if I had had the money I would have gone somewhere as well. So basically I have not seen a single person I know since Saturday... and it is Friday night... I have been walking aimlessly around the city. I went to a museum today, got some lunch (chocolate pasta with alfredo sauce, yep), visited Dijon's tiny version of a Christmas market (about 7 booths) and now I am in my dorm on the internet. I have been on the internet a lot this week.

Oh well.

Some friends return to Dijon tomorrow, so hopefully my lonesomeness is over. My friend's parents are visiting and they are going to cook us Christmas dinner, so all is not lost! I just really wish I could be at home right now. :(

Anyways, I really, truly wish you all a merry Christmas and happy New Year!

Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année!

Allison

Champagne and Jesus

This weekend has been a great one friends!

On Saturday I went to Reims, France, which is in the Champagne region, where they make... you guessed it, champagne!

We left our dorm at 6:30 am which was a bit obnoxious, but we got to sleep on the bus. When we finally got to the city we immediately got to tour the champagne caves/cellars at a company called Pommery which has been around since the 1800s. Psycho, right? It was very cool. It was almost like walking through catacombs of wine.

Apparently the founder of the company, Louise Pommery, always liked art, so they still to this day hold art shows down there. There was an art show of contemporary art there at the moment. It was very awesome to have the mixture of the old champagnery with the new age art all around it. Some of it was creepy! There was one spot where they had lined up a bunch of rubber boots down a hall way. It looks like it's just a display of what people used to wear to work or something... until when you pass them they start MARCHING. It was awesome, but freaky.

The other one which was my favorite wasn't even visible. There was a small room which was barred with a gate, which was just part of the structure of the cave. You could not see into it. It was like a darkened jail cell and when you walked past it, it startled growling and snarling like there was some sort of creature held in there. Even though you KNOW there isn't anything there, you just feel like you shouldn't go near it. I stopped and watched people's reactions as they walked past and it was hilarious. Many jumped, some screamed. So great.

At the end of the tour, we got a champagne tasting. I had never had it before, and it was really good! I like it much better than wine. I now get to say that I had my first champagne in Champagne!

We spent the rest of the day exploring Reims and it was beautiful! We saw the cathedral Notre Dame de Reims there. I think that's what it was called. IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL. Even more than Notre Dame de Paris. No joke. There were 2,300 statues on the outside of the building. Crazy! There were flying buttresses everywhere and ugh, so beautiful. Inside there was magnificent stained glass all over. I love stained glass. It was so great.

I made a new friend during our tour of the city and she told me she went to a church in Dijon. I was very excited because I have wanted to go to church since being here, but I didn't know where to go and I didn't want to go alone.

So this morning I went to my first French church service! I love it! It is a tiny little church and it was packed to the brim. I am so happy to have found a church in France, you can't even understand. I was feeling kind of not myself lately what without church and reallife and real life friends. I am so excited to become a part of this church.

The service was great. We stared out with singing and it was such fun to sing worship in French. I liked the tunes and it was gratifying when I usually understood all the lyrics. I could sing along like a champ. I loved it.

I got a little taste of home when the speaker started his talk with the words to the preamble of the Declaration of the United States! It turns out he was going to be talking about being happy and whether it comes along with Christianity as an assured gift. So what with the whole American "pursuit of happiness" schtick, we began. I could understand most of what was said and it helped to follow along in my English Bible. We studied Matthew 5, which says:

¹ Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, ² and he began to teach them.

The Beatitudes

He said:

³ “Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
⁴ Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
⁵ Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
⁶ Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
⁷ Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
⁸ Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
⁹ Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
¹⁰ Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

¹¹ “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

I thought it was interesting that in the French version where we say "blessed" it says "heureux" which means "happy". I love translations in everything, I find them so interesting.

After church was over I stood around awkwardly while I was introduced to a few people. That was fun. Apparently they like to give you "la bise" which is that two cheek kiss thing and say their name as they do it. My friend warned me of this and I still messed it up. The first girl I met, "bise"d me and said what sounded like "ça va?" to me, which means "How are you?" I responded with "ça va." as well, which can also mean "Fine" as a response. However, I instantly figured out that she actually said "Sarah" meaning her name was Sarah. I felt like an idiot. Oh well, she didn't seem like she thought I was some sort of social leper or anything.

We talked to a guy named Julien who told us about their group for university students who meet on Mondays (after "bise"ing me, I succeeded this time). I hope I can muster up the courage to go to these. It seems a little bit intimidating to me, but all in all, I miss Bible studies and this will also really help my French.

I am so pumped to meet some French people with some common interests with me, so I hopefully will go.

Anyways, this was long, so if you read it... thank you! Je t'aime!

I'm really bad at blogging.

So if any of you actually care, I am sorry I haven't posted in forever. It's not that I don't have time, it's just that sitting down and typing out what I have done never sounds appealing to me. But here we go.

I have been in France for ever a month! That is craziness. I am 1/4 way through my trip. We have gotten into a routine when it comes to the weeks. We have classes Mon-Fri and sometimes we'll go do something fun during the weeknights, but most of our fun happens on the weekends.

Specifically, A few weeks ago we took a day trip to Geneva, Switzerland with our program. This was the first of our 3 excursions. On the way to Geneva, we stopped in Jura France and had a cheese tasting. It was comte cheese and we tried two different varieties. I liked one, but the other tasted absolutely awful in my opinion. Anyway, it was cool because this kind of cheese only comes from a certain kind of cow, so it is rare and special. Oooo aaaaaah....

When we finally got to Geneva, we had a walking tour with one of our professors, Stephane, and then we were set loose to get our lunch/dinner. My friends and I stopped at a little restaurant and got some cheese fondue and pizza to split between us. You honestly cannot go wrong with melted cheese on bread, right? SO good!

After this we headed over to get some gelato and coffee. I just had gelato, and I got cassis flavored which was glorious. Cassis is their thing in this region, it is currants. Then we went on a search to find Swiss chocolate and came out victorious with a few candy bars each. I even still have one left, somehow with the help of the heavens I have not eaten it yet.

After this, our time had come to a close and we had to meet back up with our group to head home. Most of us slept on the bus home. It was a long day!

This past weekend, some friends and I traveled to Paris! It was like a dream come true. I have been learning about Paris since I was basically 8 years old and to finally get there was great. We left Dijon at 6:50 am on a train, that was a fun time. After arriving in Paris, we had to maneuver the subway to get to the Bastille district where our hostel/hotel was. Our hostel only cost us each 30 euro a night, which was so low that we were a little worried about its condition, but guys, it was BEAUTIFUL! I have never been to a nicer, better decorated hotel. We grabbed some lunch and coffee (crepes for me) and then we headed out to central Paris! First we went to the Eiffel Tower and spent a very long time taking very touristy pictures. We decided that we were going to unabashedly show that we were American and have no shame about it.

Next we took a walk to find the Champs Elysees and the Arc de Triomphe. Here's a funny story! So to get to the little area where the Arc is, you go under the street and back up again on the other side. In the tunnel, we saw a long line formed and we were very confused because we never knew that you had to wait to get there. Then we saw a sign that you had to PAY 10 euros to go up there!!! WHAT? Then we saw a second set of stairs with people coming back down.... As we got closer, we saw a sign on those stairs that said "monter interdit" which means "going up is prohibited". Well, let's just say that we acted like we couldn't read French and scooted ourselves on up that way. There was even a POLICE OFFICER right behind us and he said NOTHING. I think he just didn't care. So we got to go take pictures and admire the artwork at a five-finger discount.... ooops. :)

After this we walked down the Cahmps Elysees (the ritzy shopping section of Paris) in order to find dinner an hopefully Starbucks (since we don't have it in Dijon). After a long walk we found one and I got a caramel frappaccino, but let me tell you Parisians, Starbucks is ripping you off. I didn't get nearly as much as at home and it cost about twice as much, but it was worth it!

After this we found a little restaurant on a street right off the main road called Chateaubriand and they had a full course meal special for 19 euros. It was so great! You got an appetizer, wine, entree, bread, dessert, and coffee for that. I had a glass of red wine, then ESCARGOTS! That's right, I ate snails. They were pretty good too, except I think it's all in the garlic butter sauce, without that they wouldn't be so great. We were brought out bread and then our meals came. I had steak and fries and it was very good. :) I haven't had steak since being here, so it was a treat. After this we ordered our desserts. I had chocolate mousse and MMMMMMmmmmm was it great. Then we were all served coffee and a little piece of chocolate to go with it. I love Paris. I hadn't been that full since getting to France.

After this we made our way back to the hostel. Some of us went out to a club that night, but I stayed home because I was feeling exhausted and my feet hurt. I do not regret this decision at all. I slept very well in the hotel and woke up early with my friend who also didn't go out the night before to go to Notre Dame cathedral. We started our morning by finding out that it was daylight savings and we had gotten an extra hour to do stuff that day and we were very happy about that! So we set off on yet another subway adventure. I have been on so many subways at this point that I am pretty pro at it. We got to Notre Dame and it was still early enough that not too many tourists were there yet. It was also a treat because mass was happening inside, so I got to experience Sunday morning mass in Notre Dame de Paris!!! Such a blessing. :) It was so incredibly beautiful and I found myself just feeling more connected to God than I have since being here. I haven't been able to find a church to go to while I am here, so even just being there was nice.

Afterwards, we didn't know what else to do and my friend thought of the Jardin des plants, which means plant garden, so we headed there. It was a very pretty and very large garden/park place. We split up and I walked around a little bit and then just sat down and read some of the book I am reading because it just seemed like the prettiest place to read a book ever. I loved it.

After the park we headed off to get lunch before we had to catch our 2 pm train home. We found a verrrrry small Chinese food place and I had curry chicken and we were off to Gare de Lyon to head home.

This Monday was Halloween. They don't really do it here, but it is growing. So naturally, us Americans and our Canadian friends decided we were dressing up anyways. We all dressed up as jungle cats and I was a leopard. We went out dancing and it was a fun time. More people were dressed up than I expected, so that was good.

Anyways, now I have class later today, so I am going to go. Have a good day!

Le week-end

This weekend has been great! We have just been adventuring around Dijon and eating good food and seeing cool things.

On Saturday I woke up late and that afternoon we went to the Musee des Beaux Arts in Dijon's city center. It was much larger than I thought it would be and I really enjoyed it. I didn't even get through it all because we got there with only 1 1/2 hours til closing. I very much liked the religious them through out the whole place. Obviously, France has a very catholic heritage, so there were Jesus statues and paintings everywhere. It does make me sad that people here look at them like artistic depictions of an old fairy tale. I got pretty emotional looking at this AMAZING diorama of the Passion of the Christ. It was so beautifully done and it portrayed Jesus carrying his cross, the crucifixion, His mourners, and His burial. It was quite beautiful and I imagine it took someone hundreds of years ago QUITE some time to make. I just stared at it for like 5 minutes. It didn't feel long enough.

After the museum, we had dinner at a little Italian restaurant and let me tell you, it was amazing. I had taglioni a la creme blanche and tiramisu. The tiramisu was so much better than any I have ever had in America. So amazing.

After dinner, we all came back and hung out in one room and watched "An American Horror Story" on the internet. Why I agreed to this, I have no idea because I was terrified last night. However, I want to keep watching it just because the plot is so good. We tried to order pizza at 10:30 pm but apparently that isn't French because no one was open. Boo.

This morning we went to the market because they were having a special even called "Bienvenue a la ferme" (Welcome to the Farm). It was fun, but we didn't spend a lot of time there because it was pretty crowded. There was a very spirited little instrumental band playing. They played "The Battle Hymn of the Republic", we were confused.

For lunch we went to another little cafe and we got PIZZA because we were still craving it from the night before. On our way home we ran across a little flea market in the streets and let me tell you, French flea markets are WAY better. They didn't have junk, they had cool things! I bought an old poster for my walls of an old perfume advertisement. It's really pretty.

We continued home and then ran into a candy shop. We stood outside of it for awhile deciding whether it was an awful idea to go in or not. It probably was, but we did it anyway. Now I have this amazing sucker to show for it. I swear it is an everlasting gobstopper. I have been sucking on this sucker for over and hour and it hasn't shrunk any. At all. I think they have Willy Wonka locked up there.

Anyways, now I am in my dorm for the day. I need to do laundry and homework. I guess life happens even when you are in France.

So school begins...

So we began classes yesterday. It's terrifying how easy my class is. Yesterday we worked on introducing our neighbors and we learned how to say things like "What is your name?" "Where are you from" and the like. Gosh, really??? Realllly? Today we learned the rooms of a house. A FREAKING HOUSE. My homework is to label the rooms in a house. I did this in ELEMENTARY school. There has to have been some sort of mistake. I really don't know how I ended up in this level.

I talked to my two professors today (along with another OSU student and 2 Canadian girls) about moving the next level, but honestly I think I would have to move 2 levels to really feel like I am in the right place. This sucks. My prof is going to read something I wrote and consider moving me. Pray that he will because if I am in this the whole time, I really don't feel like it is even worth it to be here. Ugh.

First week in Dijon!

Alright folks, I have been in France for one FULL week already! Wow! Time really does fly. I am going to do a rundown what we did everyday:

Sunday Oct 2:

We arrived in Paris at about 7 am and we had QUITE the trip to get to Dijon from there. First we had to take a airport shuttle-train-thing from our terminal to the last one. From there we had to figure out how to get train tickets to Dijon. We got those and we got on the Paris subway system, which let me tell you was not fun with about 90 lbs of luggage… We had to do one subway line switch when we arrived in Gare de Lyon (the train station). Then we had to figure out how to get from the subway area to the actual station, which was way harder than it sounds. Then we got on our train to Dijon, after more confusion because it said it was going to Belfast… That day, chaos reigned. After we were on the train we had a relaxing quick trip to Dijon and when we got off (after thinking we had lost our friend Gretchen) we were greeted by man holding a sign that said our program name on it. I have never been more happy to see another human being (that’s probably not true, but we were really happy). He took us to lunch in the city and then we got on a bus to our dorms.

Our dorms are pretty nice (aside from it’s GHASTLY internet connection). We each have a single room with a bed, a desk, a shelf, closet, mini refrigerator, and a bathroom with a sink, toilet, and shower. Let me tell you about our bathroom. Stand one way and you an touch both walls with your hands, stand the other way and you can touch both walls with your ELBOWS. Oh my gosh. The bathroom on the plane was bigger. However, I am just extremely thankful that we have our own bathrooms.

Monday Oct 3:

We had a placement test the next day at 9 am. Guess no recovering from the flight for us. It wasn’t too difficult, or so I thought at the time… more later. After our test we went to lunch down the street where I had a croque monsieur, because I am stereotypical.

After our 2 HOUR lunch (they like their relaxation here) we had a presentation about the city of Dijon, which was interesting, but a bit long.

Later we went back to our dorm for dinner and some rest.

Tuesday Oct 4:

This was a fun day! We had a group excursion to Beaune, France. This city is fampus for its wine and we got to see a lot of vineyards and some beautiful castles and architecture. We toured an old hospital from the 1400s called Hotel Dieu. It was very interesting and very beautiful. After our tour we had lunch and some wine! It was a very good day. I have pictures on facebook if you want to see some!

Wednesday Oct 5:

This was our day to tour Dijon. We went out with our instructor and he basically stopped at every single building in the city center and told us something about it. We also got to see Notre Dame de Dijon. It was very, very beautiful and has a ton of history! During the French Revolution, people smashed off all the religious carvings on the outside of the façade, so those are lost to history. However, there is a little carving (about 6 inches) of an owl (la chouette) on the side. It is tradition here to rub this owl with your left hand and to make a wish or prayer and it will be answered. Because of this tradition, there are owls EVERYWHERE here, which is fun because I like owls.

We also traveled to Carrefour this day. Carrefour is a GIANT supermarket similar to Walmart or Target in America. This place is crazy. Some of the workers get around on rollerblades. Insane. After we explored awhile and finally found were we were going and it is a great place to shop (we did get lost on the way there and ended up walking about a mile in the wrong direction, more to this story if you want to hear it).

Honestly, some of my days are starting to blur together, so I am sorry if I tell you something on the wrong day, but I think we went to the center for some wine this night, so that was fun. We also got to meet some of the other international students. There are people here from places like Canada, Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Japan, China, Korea, and the list just goes on and on. It is very interesting to meet all these new people!

Thursday Oct 6:

This day we didn’t have anything to do early in the morning, so we kind of just got some things done that we needed to. You know, just errands and the like.

That night we also went out with some international friends and got to really get to know them, so that was fun.

Friday Oct 7:

We found out our placements that day… I got put in level 2 out of 5, too low for my liking. I am going to try to see if I can get into 3 at least… I am very frustrated by this, so I am would not like to talk about it more.

We went to Carrefour again Friday because we don’t get fed on the weekend, so we needed to get some groceries to eat in our dorm over the weekend.

This night was the most fun of all. A local club was having a party for the new international students in town, so went out to a local favorite bar of the students first for some kir (a white wine with crème de cassis ((a berry flavoring)) in it, Dijon’s specialty) and then we headed over the club. It was very fun dancing with our new friends.

Saturday Oct 8:

We slept in and afterwards we went to Toison d’Or, which is a huge shopping mall here. It was crazy busy and we don’t know if that is normal for Saturdays or what, but it was nuts.

We all got some article of clothing that we seemed to have forgotten when we were packing and even got to see a fashion show that was going on. We pretty much shopped til we dropped. We are all very tired from all the walking we have been doing.

We stayed in Saturday night and just hung out a bit. We all needed a little rest and repose.

Today is Sunday and so far all we have done is continued our quest for good internet to a second McDonald’s only to discover that their wifi doesn’t work for half of us. This internet thing is getting very frustrating. Skype is blocked at out dorm along with a few other video chat services and we can’t seem to find a good place on campus to do it, so we don’t know if we will be able to see our friends and families for awhile. It is very annoying. We start our classes tomorrow, which we are all kind of worried about. I think it will be okay though. We got this.

Please keep praying for me as I continue my trip. I know God will get me through everything well and that He is watching over me. So there is always tha