Amboise

Friday we had a test in my Paris Cinema class. The instructions in there entirety are translated and reproduced for you here: "Write some words about the movies we've seen." That's all. We watched 5 movies so I just started writing (in French) about each of them. I have NO idea what the teacher was really looking for. Some of the movies we only watched 5 minutes of (we only watch excerpts of the films), so I kind of forgot the whole point of them. And another, we watched about half of, and I didn't know if he wanted us to talk about everything we had seen or just one scene or what. I just wrote until the time ran out and what's done is done and I don't really care haha. After that, we started another movie called "Les Ripoux," which my teacher said there is an American remake of but we couldn't find any evidence of such a thing online when we got home. I was confused by the title of the film because it wasn't in my dictionary or anything, and it turns out, it's a product of a French word game called Verlan which is not unlike Pig Latin. Basically, you take the syllables of a word and flip them. Even the title is switched. It's from L'anvers (the inverse), so you swap it and say "verlan." Being the extreme nerd I am, I was SUPER excited because I had heard about this game in my Ling class in session A! So once he started talking about it I was like "OMG JE LE CONNAIS!" (omg I know what that is). For those of you who care, "ripoux" would be "pourri" in actual French, which means "rotten," and the movie is called that because it's a cop movie and one of them is kind of dishonest. Moving on....

After class, I went over to Mado and Michal's because we were all planning on going out for dinner at some point and I didn't want to go all the way home just to go out again. It ended up being just me and Mado and Lara for dinner, and we went to this amazing sandwich place called Cosi pretty close to school so that's awesome. I had a tomato mozzarella sandwich and the bread was to die for. After, we met up with Sergei and Oday and got some wine and went down to the Seine and drank it on the bank of the river across from the Louvre. It's amazing we can just do that (well, technically I think it's illegal, but no one cares). It was freezing, though, and I couldn't feel my hands. Next purchase: gloves. We didn't stay too late because we had to be at the train station at 7am the next morning for our excursion.

Saturday morning, I woke up at 5:30 to get ready to leave for the train station. I had to take three different Métro lines to get there, which was kind of annoying. And I thought I was going to be late, so I was like running through the stations which I'm sure was entertaining. It was so early and freezing cold and still dark. I have to admit I was impressed that everyone made it to the train on time haha. It was about a 2 hour train ride to Amboise, and it wasn't that bad. We got to see the sunrise over the country which was cool. We got there around 9:30, and it was FREEZING and soooo windy. I shoved my hands in my pockets and buried my face in my scarf and started power walking to our destination. We crossed 2 bridges to get to the main town, and found a cute little cafe called Café Bigot ("bee-GOH"). We stayed there for a while and then headed up to the chateau. On the way, we passed a store selling swords, and yup, you guessed it, suits of armor. I was like wow thank GOD I found this I've been in the market for a new one. I crack myself up sometimes. Actually, most of the time, and usually I'm the only one laughing, but whatevs. At the chateau, we got these little self-guided tour pamphlets, which were awesome. You could read all the cool facts and go at your own pace it was great. You're supposed to be quiet in there, I was talking quietly with one of my friends and I laughed like one small chuckle and the security guy like stared me down and gave me the evil eye. I was like whoa sorry calm it down buddy haha. Anyway, the castle started being built in the 11th century, and was expanded many times. Now, only 1/5 of all the construction still exists, and it's a combo of Gothic and Renaissance architecture. A number of kings and French rulers lived there over time, and it was really cool to just walk around and see the Loire Valley below. The gardens there were amazing, too.

 

After that, we all got lunch at a cute restaurant in town. Tawna let us splurge a little bit and we got the first prix fixe menu. My meal started with a salad with roasted chicken and a raspberry vinaigrette, then I had a type of whitefish called hoki with mushroom risotto with an olive oil sauce, then we had a cheese course, and then dessert. The dessert was called "mini-vague du lait" which translates to "mini wave of milk" and none of us were really sure what it would be. Turns out it was a little cake shaped like a wave kind of. And it was amazing. We were at lunch for probably two hours, and we could hardly move after, but it was great. When we finally got out of there, we went to Clos Lucé, which was where da Vinci lived and worked. Apparently it's attached via an underground tunnel to the chateau (he was a good friend of the king). At this point it started raining. We walked through his house pretty quickly. His bedroom and office were under renovation so that kind of sucked, but it was still pretty cool I guess. There were mini replications of his inventions all through his house, and it's crazy how much stuff he invented. He came up with the most innovative technology for everything! It amazes me how someone can think of and create something that doesn't exist. Even though it was raining, I wanted to see the grounds because I thought, "I'm never coming back here so I might as well." I was walking around with a girl in our group and she didn't have an umbrella so I let her share mine. She said she could hold it since she's taller, which makes sense, but then she proceeded to hold it over herself and about 1/3 of me. I was soaked by the end of the walk. We met up with everyone in the café and everyone was like what happened didn't you have an umbrella? Yeah.... No big deal though, it's just water. I was just kind of cold and my backpack was soaked. We walked back into town and hung out there for a little bit longer before crossing back over the bridge to the train station. Then, because of the strike, it turned out our train back was canceled, so we had to wait 2 hours until the next one. A few of us headed back towards town to try and find a bar or something. Literally this must be the most boring town in the entire world. Nothing was open anywhere and there were about 3 other people in the whole place. We had to walk forever to find a place to go, it was ridiculous. We finally found one and stayed there until we had to go back to the station. It was warm and had a clean bathroom so I wasn't about to go searching for anything else to do. Not that there would be anything haha. I can't imagine what the people who live there are like. Anyway, I didn't get anything to drink because I didn't want to have to pee on the train. I started cleaning out my backpack and saw one of my pens had exploded so there was blue ink everywhere, so I dealt with that situation lol. We got back to the station in plenty of time (no way were we missing that train) and started our return journey. It seemed to take 12 times longer than the trip there. Probably because we were all freezing and soaked (my Uggs were soaked through and my feet were SO cold). I played Bejeweled on my phone pretty much the whole time, and I'm now on level 29...I'm starting to wonder how many levels there are.

I took the Métro home, which is a decision I regret, even though I wouldn't have made a different choice if it was warm out and my feet weren't about to fall off. Somewhere between Gare Austerlitz and Porte D'Orleans, my wallet was either stolen or somehow fell out of my backpack. I got on the 3rd train and someone was like oh your backpack is open. Freaking out then commenced. I called Tawna in a panic, and mainly just in a stupor that it had actually happened. Thankfully I only had 40 euro in there, and I keep most of my money and my passport at home, but I had my Métro pass in there ($80/month) and it was a new wallet. Also my bank cards and my license were in there. I care about the money, but I'm more just so mad at myself. When we got here Tawna was like "every semester someone gets pickpocketed so be careful" and I was like wow no way that's going to be me I'm not an idiot. And there ya go. At least I'm the statistic for this semester and no one else in our group will get pickpocketed.... We even watched a movie called Pickpocket in my film class and I just kept thinking how stupid those people are. I guess it's my fault for having it in my bottom backpack pocket, but I thought I was paying attention. I stand against the walls on the Métro and when this shady guy got on the escalator behind us I was watching him. At least I thought I was. Lesson learned I guess. After I got of the Métro I was really upset and angry and just wanted to get home and wash this day off me. It usually takes me about 15-20 minutes to walk home from the Métro stop, but I was so ready to be home I sprinted. The entire way. I felt really rude when I got home because Olivier's parents were here and I was like "sorry enchanté I need to go upstairs now before I have a mental breakdown."I called my mom and had my moment of hysteria, and then I took a shower which kind of helped. Turns out she couldn't get ahold of my dad to cancel my cards, so I called to take care of that. They hadn't used them yet, so that was good. It was such a pain because I had to change my address so the new ones get mailed here, and I had to talk to three different departments for some reason. Also, I was calling from Google phone because I can't call the US from my cell phone here, and the guy in the credit card department was like "Um, we can't talk to you when you're on speaker phone" and I was like sorry what do you want me to do about that? Everything got canceled though and is in the process of being mailed here. I guess new boots will have to wait until my cards get here because I'm not about to spend my euros before I can take more money out of the bank. All in all, kind of a good day. Would have been a pretty good day without this unfortunate event. Even though Amboise was cold and rainy I had a pretty decent time there and a great time with everyone in the program. But then we came back from the town were I'm sure the crime rate is around .01%.

Today I felt a little better, but not much. I did my homework and everything, and then had lunch with the family. I'm understanding still better every day, which is exciting. And they say I'm speaking better and better. Also the baby is here so that makes everything better. He got so big already! He was here just two weeks ago and now he's huge! He also has started to make more sounds and he's pretty much the cutest thing ever. It's hilarious how one little baby can captivate four adults (all the grandparents are here and fight over who gets to hold him). Not looking forward to my six hours of class tomorrow, and potential walk to and from school without my Métro pass. Yay. Thank god next week is vacation. I think I'm going to go to Belgium. It's impossible get anyone to finalize any plans, so I think I'm going to end up going by myself, and I'm kind of excited about that. I realized I need someone to buy my tickets for me though, since I no longer have a debit card. Hopefully it all works out. And then Mara comes and after that most of the weekends are booked and then I'm home!