"quoi de neuf?" = what's new?
Coming back after Christmas has been a neat experience, because while nothing here in Valence is particularly new for me, the fact that I'm still here is. When I studied abroad 2 years ago, we dove in, soaked it up, and did our very best to get situated for 4 months, and then finally, once we had our feet on the ground, we packed up our bags, said au revoir and got on the planes home. Now, here I am after Christmas, all settled in, continuing to live my live in Valence and deepen my friendships and my experiences. That, in and of itself, is a cool, new thing.
Last week, Cloé, Nicole, and I became heroes. How to become a hero? Save something. What did we save? Doggies. You may remember that I concluded my last blog with a little blurb about how we were afraid that our upstairs neighbor had abandoned his dogs in the apartment. None of us was too keen on just sitting around and waiting for the barking to stop, but when you call the police, or the rental agency, or whoever and complain about dogs, no one really jumps to attention. After several days of such frustrating phone calls, Cloé had an idea. She called the firemen and told them that she was concerned about our neighbor (I mean, no one had seen him in weeks, right?). 5 minutes later, 7 firemen showed up at our apartment. We explained what we knew about the situation, and we before we knew it they were all sitting in our kitchen, visiting, drinking coffee, and waiting for The Big Truck to arrive so they could break into the apartment upstairs. 2 hours, 7 firemen, 3 policeman, a giant truck, a closed street, and 1 animal protection services van later, the doggies were rescued from upstairs!
They had indeed been left tied up in the apartment for several weeks with limited food and water. Lucky for them, 3 tender-hearted girls who hang around the apartment a lot live downstairs.
We had phenomenal weather last week, so over the weekend, some of my girlfriends and I embarked on an 18 kilometer hike across the crest of the mountain that over looks Valence! We began by hiking up to Chateau Crussol, then we followed along the ridge, went down on the other side, and continued along some country roads until we reached the little village of Tournaud. This is not exactly where we intended to go, but it was a nice place to finally sit down and eat our sandwiches. After a quick break, we turned around and hiked back, trying to beat the sun before it went down! It was so nice outside that I wore shorts! You can't ever really predict the weather here. We did in fact beat the sun back to the start, but our bus did not. We stood in the dark at the bus stop for 40 minutes waiting for it to take us back over the river to Valence (it was not warm anymore). Still, it was a great day and a great way to get some exercise after the delicious traditional German dinner prepared for us by our German friends on Friday night!
This past week, Claire and I discovered that the one and only Usher was performing a concert in Lyon and that tickets were still available! I rushed to FNAC (the coolest French store ever! a dvd/cd/computer/office/bookstore, mixed with a ticketmaster and photo center) and got us 2 of the remaining tickets. After a full day of work on Tuesday, we darted home at 5:30 and got our stuff to hop on the train to Lyon! We made it to Halle Tony Garnier just in time to get an awesome spot on the floor to watch Usher perform all of his greatest songs (and more importantly his famous dance moves) on the OMG Tour 2011. To see the music video for his hip-hoppiest new song and the namesake of the tour, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD9Trx8D-8U&feature=fvst.
We stayed the night with one of Claire's friends in the center of town, and the next day, I went and met up with my friend Halley Anne for a beautiful day of shopping in Lyon! Or more appropriately, "lèche-vitrine," the french expression for window-shopping. (Literally translated, window licking. How appropriate). The "soldes" are an annual tradition of extreme sales that happen in France all during the month of January, and they are a great excuse to wander around the shopping hub of Lyon. To make the day even more enjoyable, Halley Anne took me to this place: http://www.bestbagels.fr/manger_des_bagels_a_lyon.html, where we ate delicious bagel sandwiches for lunch! They also sell rare American products such as Betty Crocker brownie mix, Heinz 57 sauce, Dr. Pepper, Carmex, Ben and Jerry's, and a whole plethora of other little delicacies that we may or may not have realized we were missing. It was so nice to catch up with such a sweet friend, and a great way to spend my day off!
At work this week, Nicole and I have been helping Rosine throw Anglo-German breakfasts for middle and elementary school kids, and it's been a nice change of pace. It's also been a fun weekend, but more on that later!
No comments:
Post a Comment