this is the part where...

i tell you what I'm eating!

It's a LIVE BLOGGING session of me telling you what i'm eating RIGHT NOW.

who's excited!?

fruit salad
of an unusual variety:
kiwi, banana, raisins, fitness fruit & fiber cereal (guess who's random!), walnuts

soooooooo good

that's all!

p.s.
open mike
Red Sky
9:30 tonight
come rock out
i hope people throw their underroos at me

Sing-a-ling

So Monday night I went to Red Sky for the open mike with, I swear, no plans to play. But then the (super cute!) guy was singing and had a band backing him up and everything adn I was, essentially, itching to get up there and play/sing. So...

I did. And it was awesome. And my peeps were there and we all sang songs that had us throwback to the olden days of Natalie Imbruglia, Alanis Morrissette and the Four Non Blondes, comme d'hab. The best part of it? Besides the fact that the whole place was singing along and swaying at the appropriate moments and, in general, just looking really happy? The best part after all that was that I played with a drummer. and a bassist. and a guy who sang backup harmonies. For three songs... I was in a band. And it sounded so good!

So exciting!

And also, the bartender at Red Sky is great and, when I ordered my friend's beer (nope, not for me!) he was dancing like a maniac (on the dancefloor) and it put me in a really good mood. I decided on Monday night that we should be bffs.
So in the SIX HOURS that I spent sitting outside Red Sky today, I made multiple trips inside, natch. Def not for beer every time (hi, I had like 18 liters of water... I had to, you know, go) but one time I did go in for beer (again! for a friend!) and I came out with a free one!

Mais, comment, Emilie!?

He was playing Faith Hill (hi, literally in seven months I have not heard a single Faith Hill song) and I decided to sing along. Again, natch. So I hammed it up with him after I ordered the demi blanche and sang to him (lounge cantoring, anyone?*) and he had me follow him up the step to his turn table. Oh MAN he's a DJ, too? Then he handed me a mike, turned the song to the beginning, and had me personally karaoke him that song "You'll Be" (i think that's what it's called?)

can you say rrrrrrrrrandom!
And then these various mecs were like "bravo!" and I think one of them wanted to bise me (yup, that means give me the bises on the cheek, nothing more!) and I was awkward because I didn't realize and so I ducked out and Monsieur le Bartender gave me my beer, free of charge.

HOLLAH!
And he's like "woohoo! see you on Monday night! you're going to sing again, girl with the pretty voice!"

That was an awesomely random part of my day.

*inside church joke!

So the South is BEAUTIFUL

Hi, everyone.

Today I went to Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, the Fontaine de Vaucluse, and the Abbaye de Senanque. I would like to share my favorite pictures of the day with you. So that you will all fall in love with the beauty that is this place and... come over!

Our first stop of the day: Isle-sur-la-Sorgue
In the car on the way to destination two
Fontaine de Vaucluse!Gordes!
Abbaye de Senanque

Today is a "Vive la France" kind of day.

a run-down of the past two days would show how I have been home for approximately two seconds each day except for the whole sleeping thing. On Monday I went straight to Emilie's after school to help her with her homework (all of a sudden I feel like I'm in "saved by the bell" or something) and then got asked to give her sister English lessons each Monday (to which I said yes, despite the fact that I can barely move after Monday's teaching) and then went to Red Sky, sang some more (woohoo! Four Non Blondes, Alanis, Natalie Imbruglia - crowd PLEASERS), and then to O'Neill's for some parler-ing in French.
Tuesday was more school and then straight to Emily's because I couldn't fathom gyming it up and then out to Cubanito's to watch mes amis dance (wow, they have MOVES) and then home. to bed. because I am an old lady.

In short, I've actually been busy for the past two days!? And today I am going on a road trip!? Whoa! Hopefully pictures to come

no need for a title because...

I'm currently downloading Leona Lewis's "Bleeding Love." I am SO excited.

Monday Monday

So Fenouil is closed until May 7th.

WHY oh WHY!?

Y'day was ridiculous. Called in sick in the morning so I could round out seventeen and a half hours curled up in the fetal position in my bed. Went in to work for the afternoon and then over to a co-worker's house to help her daughter with English. It was there that I ended up agreeing to help the other daughter with her English every Monday after school. Am I CRAZY!? On Mondays I'm usually dead by three p.m. Way to go, Emily. Oh well, I think this'll be cool - they have a GIANT t.v. ecran and, since I haven't seen real tv in like seven months, methinks they'll let me stick around to watch the news! In French!

Post-English lesson I returned chez moi to reunite and dine with Robyn and my colocatrice, Darija (omg Darija leaves in like two weeks. I tot cannot handle that). Robyn and I bounced to Red Sky to hear some open mike-ing and I ended up singing and getting the crowd all crazy like! I do believe that Celine and Katie and Emily and I will all be sharing a stage in the very near future singing everything from Jason Mraz to Lisa Loeb to Girlyman to Joshua Radin. Should be a VERY good time. Meanwhile, I had me some awkward moments with a French guy who fell in love with me one time but that's a whole other story.

Then we went to Melting Potes and it was like "oh hi, hello WORLD" because everyone plus their mom and their mom's mom was there. So many new anglophones. I forgot that Erasmus continues throughout the year even though last season's batch went home so now every week there are more people to meet. I also forget that on Mondays I should at least attempt a teeny bit to look good because I spent from 9 onwards meeting new people, bise-ing, singing/talking/etc and it is no good if I look like crud.

So yeah, Mondays are my busiest and most exhausting days and now they just got a lil' more hectic. Let's get this party started, y'all.

In other news, I just applied for the World's Most Random Job. Will keep you posted.
In other other news, only eleven more weeks of me being here, I do believe.

Things that make me happy: cinnamon and raisins in my cereal in the morning.
Being greeted by my little kids yesterday and jumpin' some rope with them.
Water

mais tu n'es pas venue ce matin?

This morning I called in sick because I had to spend seventeen and a half hours in bed due to monstrous stomach ache (whoops! cooked with oil! and by "cooked with oil" i mean that I tried to make homemade tortilla chips so was frying them and thena te one before it was fully cooked so it was like I just up and licked the pan. NOT a bonne idee, I tell you what). But I said I'd come in for the afternoon so I'd get to see at least a few of my kiddies.

I get there at the end of lunch and am swarmed by little kids

"AHHHHHHH EMILIE WHERE WERE YOUUUUUUUUUU?" was the general question I was getting asked when I stepped out to watch the kids at recreation.

Oh man... THAT is why I made my teachers let me make up my hours on Thursday.

they say it's yo' burfday

HAPPY HALF-BIRTHDAY, HEATHER!

lots o' love,
emily

Berlin, 2008. Day three. Part deux

So we left off at Hitler's bunker and we walked to the Luftwaffe HQ. But we, of course, had to take note of these crazy giant pumps coming out of the ground. It looked like those connect-y sticks we play with when we're kids. And they're so pretty! Pink and purple! What, praytell, is in those giant pipes? Well, the city's sewage, of course!
Yup, Berlin's built on a swamp so if the city wants to do any work underground (hi, they also have an AWESOME metro), they use the giant pumps to pump that sh*t out, literally.

To the Luftwaffe HQ! The Air Force Headquarters! This urgly building was built for Nazi Luftwaffe and is now the home of... Germany's IRS! Ah yes, this most hated building (former Nazi Air Force HQ-turned GDR center-turned IRS) is now the place where Germans file their taxes. It is also the site of a tribute to...

June 17, 1953.

Praytell, what is the importance of that!? (why do I keep putting the words pray and tell together? )

It's the worker's uprising of 1953! East Germans were mad as WHOA that the government decided to screw them over. I mean, the GDR in 1953 wanted to revamp their system and so they increased production quotas, increase hours in the work week, and did nothing for the workers themselves. So on June 17, Germans went out onto the street in an organized protest of the thousands saying "um, what, this isn't fair." What does the GDR do? You know, they call MotherRussia and hae the Soviets bring in their tanks and the Soviets use force to bring the protest down. It's the first and last organized protest by East Germans agains the GDR until 1989. Interressant. This tribute is set at the Luftwaffe HQ and there is still a mural depicting the awesomeness of communism in the GDR on the wall of the building. (picture on the left is a picture of East Germans protesting. Picture on the right is the mural, obvi)

We followed the ENORMOUS Luftwaffe HQ to the

Berlin Wall.

Holycrow, I have seen the Berlin Wall. For those of you who know how I roll, you know that I'm a HistoryGeek and a Cold War HistoryGeek for SURE. So for me, little ol' Emily, to see the Berlin wall after fanatically studying this time period/society/etc for so long was like history heaven for me, I kid you not.

The wall still stands there. Behind the Wall is the former SS headquarters. I mean, dang.

Aaaaand then we went to Checkpoint Charlie which is the infamous stop in the wall between East and West, between the American sector of Berlin and the East (remember how Berlin was divided into four parts originally!? crazy!) This is, as George told us, sort of the "Disneyland" of Berlin because it's a complete reconstruction of Checkpoint Charlie. A picture of a real US soldier faces to the East and a picture of a Soviet soldier faces West. It was weird as WHAT to see this checkpoint... Weird is the only word I have for that right now... I'll try to come up with something later.

Then we walked through the former Red Light District and Gendarmenmarkt (supposedly the most beautiful plaza in the world).
And we got to Bebelplatz.

I'm freakin' out. I mean Bebelplatz! Ahhhhh! Over 20,000 books were burned here by Nazi students and teachers alike. Now there is a quiet memorial in the center of the Platz... in the ground there's a piece of glass and looking into it, you see empty bookshelves. Across the street is the University and outside of the University there is a book sale (I think) every day. This book sale is a way of commemorating the book burning and a way of giving back, I do believe.

Theeeeeen we get to Neue Wache which is a memorial to war. It is a very simple memorial - a class dome in the ceiling lets light shine down on to a sculpture of a mother holding her child. When it's sunny, the sun shines on it. When it snows, the snow covers the dome, keeping the memorial dark. And when it rains, it looks as if the mother is crying. Powerful.

Just beyond the Neue Wache is the TV Tower that the GDR had built in order to prove their technological strength. Turns out they didn't build it properly so they had Swedes come in and finish the job. Whoops.

We ended our tour on Museum Island.
That's it, folks! No more history lesson for the day!
George finale-d with the fall of the wall, David Hasselhoff, and the crowd cheering in 1989. We clapped and cheered for George, tipped the man, and then bounced OUT because we three (me, EmTrav, and Katie) had a rendez-vous for swing dancing!

Best. Tour. Ever.
Turns out I knew prob like 87% of the information given but I am SO GLAD I went on it. They also have the Third Reich Tour, the Cold War Tour, and a tour of the concentration camp right outside of Berlin. If I get back to Berlin (which I hope I do) I'm going to do one of them because that. Will be awesome.

Berlin, 2008. Day three.

Hey dudes again.
So I'm going to write about Berlin, day Three today because it is going to be about our walking tour and I want to write about that before I forget any of the history/pictures/order that things happened/la dee dah.

On Day Three in Berlin, we decided to take a free walking tour of the city. Goodness! A free walking tour!? Yes, a FREE walking tour because I am a baller on a budget. dang, i totally just said that.

There's this company called Sandeman's Free Walking Tours, which operates in Berlin, Munich, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, London, Paris and... another place... can't remember where. This German-based company gives free tours in English with the idea that every traveler should be able to go to one of these cities and experience its history/architecture/art/monuments/etc for free in one afternoon because, well, no one should be deprived of that based on budget. Instead of paying up front for the tour, you tip the tour guide at the end. I think it is a fabulous idea and it was one of the best ideas we had all vacation because it was SO worth it.

Our tour was lead by George from Missouri. George From Missouri is 28, decided to move to Berlin for three years because "that seemed like long enough to... live in Berlin" (for real, that was his reasoning) and, prior to Sandeman's Walking Tours, was working as a server at his sister's restaurant just outside of St. Louis and at a video game store. Don't know what school he went to, don't know what he did before all of that, but now he's in Berlin (since September) walking around the city every day for at least 4 hours giving the same spiel on the history of Berlin. Tall, skinny, personable, and sort of a va! va! voom! jazz hands! kind of guy - kept our attention, made us laugh, knew a lot of stuff, and did a good job.

So what the heck did we see on the tour!? EVERYTHING. George started with a three-minute section that gave us 800 years of Berlin history because we really wanted to start our tour in the 20th-century, no? Yes.

We started at Pariser Platz. A Platz named after a city in France? In Germany's capitol? WTJ? (what the junk!?) Yup. We started there. Because Pariser Platz has the Brandenburg Tor (Brandenburg Gate) on it and the Hotel Adler on it. What's so cool about the Brandenburg Gate? Not much except it has been there FOREVER and has survived multiple wars and occupations and has seen the city through the Industrial Revolution, Hitler's ascension to power, the Cold War, Hannah Montana, and Michael Jackson's baby-hanging extravaganaza.
What!? Michael Jackson's baby-hanging extravaganza!?
yes, that's right, folks: It was from the balcony on the third floor of the Hotel Adler that Mr. Jackson held his kid out the window for all the world to see and woops! nearly dropped him! Yes, that's right - that hotel right therrrrre. Oh and other famous peeps stay there all the time, too.

So we walked through the Tor and we're told to look to our right and BAM it's The Reichstag, capital T, capital R. At this point my heart's pounding and I'm freaking out because helloooooo the Reichstag is only one of the most important buildings/events in history in the twentieth century and the HistoryGeek in me is just flippin. For real. (Reichstag: German Parliament. Although the Kaiser was always in charge so "Parliament" was really a word for "guys who came to this building to do whatever the junk they felt like doing. Maybe they played ping pong. Maybe they played go fish. But leading the country? Doing what the people asked them to do? Not so high on their list of priorities) (Reichstag: 1933. After Hitler gains power through his election (remember! not voted in with a majority! Only 37% of the vote!) he gets even MORE power after the Reichstag "mysteriously burns to the ground" one night. Blames this on a (legally insane) Dutchman. Uses this to go to the Kaiser and say "hey, what up, I think I should have all the power in the land" and, thus, becomes Supreme Chancellor of the Third Reich). Aaaaaand that is why the Reichstag is important.
Today the Reichstag has a glass dome at the top up on which anyone can go walking. The idea is that Germans can go to the top and look down on their Parliament to make sure they're doing what they've voted them in to do. And then those in Parliament can always look up to that glass ceiling and see the people for whom they are working. I think it's a beautiful idea, spurred by an ugly history.

Taking a left, we walk a little ways following oh, I don't know, the bleeping BERLIN WALL to the new Holocaust Memorial, officially called the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The memorial is right off the main street in Berlin (just steps away from Brandenburg Tor and the Reichstag is just further down the street) and it is made up of concrete slabs of different sizes on sloping land. Whoops, I don't think that description was any good. The land slopes, the concrete slabs follow the shape of the land and are of different heights so you walk through a maze of grey from one end of the Memorial to the other. The slabs start out small and gradually get larger so that, when you're in the center of the Memorial, you are lost in a sea of grey. It is disorienting, just as it's meant to be. The land slants and slopes as does the concrete so every step is a little more unfocused and every time you turn your head you can get lost a little more. It's a powerful thing to see from the street (as in, on a regular day going to the office, you pass a memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe) and it's a powerful thing to walk through.

Once we walked through the Memorial, we crossed the street and went a little ways to a parking lot. A parking lot surrounded by some uuuuugly apartments. What's the big deal about the apartments and the parking lot? Oh yeah. Hitler's bunker was here.
That is correct - Hitler spent his last few months (January-April, 1945) hiding out and going insane underground here at this parking lot. (ooh here's something I didn't know! He was hiding out with his lovah Eva Braun and his dog and Goebbels (and Goebbels' fam) and his doctor and his doctor was giving him cocaine droplets in his eyeballs. WHOA) From 1945-1989, this apartments around said parking lot were priiiiime real estate because these apartments were the closest housing to West Berlin anyone could get and only the most loyal and high-up East Germans could live there. Interesting fact!: world-famous skater, Katerina Witt (always one of my faves) was offered an apartment there. I'm pretty sure she said no thanks.
Nowadays the apartments continue to be ugly and Hitler's bunker is a parking lot where majllions of people every year bring their dogs to do their thang. There is a solitary poster just off of the lot giving the history of the area - not bringing too much attention to it but making sure people know.

Bleep. This post is hella long. I'm going to cut it into two for your viewing pleasah.

it was just a dinner but...

Hey dudes.
I know this is weird, but I have to devote a blog entry to the meal I ate last night because, uh, yes, it was fanTAStic!
So here goes.

This is the part where I tell you what I ate!
(ooh - we went to The Grand Cafe* here in Avignon which is attached to the Utopia theater and v. classy)


Entree:
ragout with artichokes
I was thinking: "artichokes? Really!?" And yes, really. I would like to say that my taste buds were DANCING to the artichokes in the tomato sauce.
Plat:
duck with a honey sauce and mashed potatoes.
Here's my review: the mashed potatoes were underwhelming but the duck HOLYCROW SO DELICIOUS. Who knew I'd like duck? Heck, who knew I'd EAT duck!? Yup. And now that I live here I'm all obssede (accent aigu) with honey so it all marches and it was deliciousness on a plate. Although there were a few times when I thought about feeding the ducks at the Potter Park Zoo but I let those thoughts pass and I enjoyed.
Dessert:
Apple crumble in a light cream sauce.
I know, I know. "light. cream. sauce?" Yup. It was creamy but light! I learned how to say "fluffy/easygoing" in German last week and I think it's "lookah." Or something. (EmTrav, help me out here). So that's how I would describe the cream sauce. Fluffy and easygoing.

SO GOOD. Ahhhhhhh my stomach is STILL celebrating


*warning: Mom, Dad, I might try to convince us to come here!!!!

pictures!

Lisa has saved the day! I have pictures from Dachau and Salzburg now stashed away on my computer and I'm putting 'em up. Look for edited Dachau and Salzburg posts (I wrote 'em yesterday, and putting up the pics today).

Enjoy!

the tea party continued!

So remember how we did the Amis de Violette tea party soiree for the language exchangers? And we ate provencal food and sang songs and I got all choked up when I looked at Darija because hi, my roommate of 7 months is leaving and that makes me really sad? OK well I have a new picture of that soiree and I'm going to post it here. I apologize for my giant forehead and the scariness that is that guitr picture. but everyone else is really nice!

So now I present you... les Amis de Violette

Munich, 2008!

On Thursday, Lisa and I got our very own tour of Munich by Chaka Khan. There's nothing quite like exploring a new city with the local and it was GREAT.

First things first: Schloss Nympehnburg. Unfortunately, my pictures of this are on my other memory card so I can't show you it. But trust me, it's cool. I'll give you what my Let's Go Europe! book has to say about it:

After a decade spent trying for an heir, Ludwig I celebraetd the birth of his son in 1662 by erecting an elaborate summer playground northwest of the city. Today, the swans of Schloss nympenburg have bome camera fodder for the hundreds of tourists flocking for the perfect shot.

True, I got some good shots of the swans. Too bad you can't see 'em!

After that we went to Marienplatz to check out the Glockenspiel! I'll admit, I was excited to be there just so I could say glockenspiel a bunch of times. Tourists were everywhere (obvi) and we watched jousting knights and dancing coopers up in the tower when the clock struck twelve. (Frak! This is an aerial view of the Marienplatz and the Mariensaule (1683 monument ot the Virgin mary, commemorating hte city's surivval of the Thirty Years' War) Why Frak? Because I don't have my pictures of the Glockenspiel after all because they are on the faulty memory card! Ahhhhh!)

Post jousting knights and toursity pictures Chaka took us to the Viktualian Markt, the giant market that is filled with the beeeeest food. Chaka took us to her italian friend's stand who hooked us up with delicious paninis (in Germany we ate Italian? No prob!) and drank fruit juices and got energized for our...

Climb up the Alter Peter (St. Peter) church. DANG. 306 steps. And because I was going with Chaka the Athlete, I felt like I sprinted up it. Getting up to the top gave us a great view of Munich and the Alps in the distance. It also gave us a hot sec of exercise and a new way to view the city. (Oooh guidbeook says it's the 12-th century Peterskirche which is the city's oldest parish church. fyi.) (check out the Alps in the background!)

I like to put myself in tiny places so I did that.

We continued with our personalized walking tour around Munich, dipping into Dalmyr, Munich's super ritzy AMAZING department store. We also searched the city for a decent pair of jeans for me. The current problem is that my jeans are a little too big, as are my belts, so things just kinda slide off and show a little too much a little too often. Thus the hunt for jeans. Couldn't find any (affordable) jeans so I started wearing to pairs of jeans for the rest of my time in Germany. Turns out that when it's cold, that's a really good thing!

Um after the jeans tour we went back to Chaka's and I got dressed. In leder hosen. YAYYYYYY. I seriously looked like a lil' German boy. So here's a pic or two:

Thank you. Thankyouverymuch.

Post-tour of Munich we went to Hofbrauhaus, aka the full Biergarten experience. As the guidebook says, It's as "jolly, as festive, and as loud as it gets." Yes, yes, and yes. Jolly, yummy food, giant beers, live music (with tubas and everything!) and a great great great atmosphere. It was so touristy but so much fun. We sat next to some Italians and some Brits had a good time.

Ooh! I learned some of a German drinking song! It's written in my lil' book and I'll try to write it down accurately:
"Heil prosit, heil prosit
der germutlichkeit
heil prosit, heil prosit
der gemuuutlichkeit

oins, zwei, drei - gsuffa!"

Ok, I'm pretty sure that NONE of that was right - I forgot that I'm reading the German writing of a doctor! Of course I can't read it! Haha, but you get the point and we sang that a bunch of times throughout our night.

That was Munich! An amazing time! Hopefully I'll get up more pictures soon, y'all!

Salzburg and Munich, 2008!

So that was Dachau! And my first night in Munich!
On Wednesday Lisa and I made it out to a whole other country... Austria.

The hills were SO alive because we went to Salzburg.
We solved a problem like Maria.
We tea-ed, a drink with jam and bread.
And we eidelweissed.

So great.

Well, first off, I have to blame my host, Chaka Khan, for getting me RIDICULOUSLY even further addicted to caffeine in the few short days I had at her house. It's just that DANG that espresso machine was so shiny and sleek and so of course I had to use it a bunch of times. A BUNCH of times. I now definitely cannot sleep past 8:00 and must have espresso immediatement. oh well.

Lisa and I made it to Salzburg for a lunch at the Heart of Joy Cafe - a vegetarian/vegan bagel/breakfast place.

This is the part where I tell you what I ate!
A seitan bagel with lettuce, tomato, adn mustard. A mango yogurt drink. Deliciousness!
I thought seitan was mushroom? Nope, turns out it's fake meat. So when she brings me this awesome-looking bagel with friggin' ham on it i'm like you gotta be KIDDING me! and I don't know how to say ANYthing in German! So I just pointed and said "meat? seitan?" to which she replied, yup it's fake meat. Ahh, thanks for the clarification. I have a long way to go learning about veganism, apparently

Then Lisa and I decided to do our very own Sound of Music Tour. I'd done some research earlier and the two tours offered in Salzburg are 35 euros, 4 hours each, and on TripAdvisor.com, they didn't get the greatest reviews. So LIsa and I went cheap-o and made our own! Meaning we ran around the city pointing at things and saying "I think this is where they marched across the square! This is defnitely it! No wait, THIS is it! Let's sing!"

Seriously we frolicked and the one song that was in my head teh whole time was "I have confidence." Freaking sweet.

We walked up to the abbey - you know, where "when G-d closes the door, somewhere he opens a window." And we saw the Alps which are beautiful and they're so stunning they lookkinda fake.

We also saw Mozart-y stuff! I mean, the guy did live there. We saw his birth place, his residence, a museum, a giant statue, Mozartplatz... I got in on a French tour of Mozart-ia and I understood what the guide was saying! I couldn't believe it. That was great.

Salzburg is beautiful! The flowers were GORGEOUS. I felt like I was channeling Julie Andrews for REAL and now, of course, I have to see SOM as soon as possible.

Back to Munich for the night - Chaka took us to Chinese food and we had a nighttime tour of Munich via her Jeep. Very cool

Dachau and Munich, 2008

(Thank you to Lisa for providing me with these pictures)

Dachau.
What can I say about Dachau? It was opened in 1933, one of the first camps opened. 1933 was an important year, why? Burning of the Reichstag (German parliament) = Hitler was able to say to the Kaiser "yo, give me all the power and make me Supreme Chancellor." The Nazi Party rose to power with only 37% of the vote. not. even. a. majority. Hitler becomes Supreme Chancellor and opens up Dachau and a few other camps as work camps. These are for political prisoners... death camps like Auschwitz aren't in full swing yet. The most important thing at the time was to get the political dissidents out of the way and working for the war machine.

Lisa and I went to Dachau straight from the train station. For any of you planning on going, I highly recommend the audio guide! So informative and it's cheap and just SO worth it.
It was really really cold in Dachau. Really really cold. And one of the things I remember from the first books I read on the Holocaust (you know, like Night and some others) is always talking about the cold. So to have a freezing cold day in Dachau just as a visitor... it was chilling in more than one way, you know?

We saw a short film the museum puts on.
We walked through barracks. We learned about medical experiments. We learned that Dachau was a work camp for men and a brothel was created at the far end of the camp to bring in women from another camp for the workers who 'earned' a visit to the women. We learned about roll call. We saw the gas chambers. We saw the showers.
It was stunning. I walked around in silence. I couldn't help but feel dark and heavy the whole time, despite the blue skies.
Lisa, thanks for going with me. It was good to be able to hold your hand while walking around!

After approx 3 hours in Dachau we were ready to head back to Munich.

I'm just going to put it out there that Lisa and I had an awesome time with our host in Munich. She's smart and funny, has GREAT taste in music, is probably the most generous person I've ever met, owner of an awesome espresso machine, and is a vegetarian! Oh MAN. I will dub her Chaka. For Chaka Khan for absolutely no reason at all. (this picture shows the stairs to Chaka's apartment. there were a LOT of stairs. a LOT).

So Chaka picked up Lisa and I from a coffeeshop and drove us to her amazing apartment that she has decorated herself. It's beautiful and SO how I would love to have an apartment for myself, should I ever be able to live successfully (affordably) without roommates. Chaka whipped us up a dinner of spicy mushroom pasta and introduced me to prosecco. We listened to Brandi Carlisle, we built a fire, we had grappa (whoa, how do you spell that?). We sat around talking about evvvverything eating delicious noodles and getting to know each other. Great first night in Munich!

Lisa's visit!

Hello, everyone!
I got back yesterday from my Germany Tour '08. It was AMAZING and I can't wait to share it all with you. But before I do that, I'm going to tell you about Lisa's visit to Avignon which rocked.

Unfortunately, Lisa had a difficult time getting here to the 'non. Lots of stuff with plane complications and trains and cell phones and all of that but, in end, Lisa made it here safe and sound and only approximately 18 hours behind schedule. Woohoo!

Lisa arrived on Saturday afternoon. First thing we did? PASTRY. What was the first one she had in my town? A sancristain. Those ones are freaking out of this world. Then we giddily headed back home to settle down to lunch and exhaustion.

Lisa's a little surprised that 1) I dont' really eat cheese and 2) I don't have a bottle of wine sitting at my house all the time. Ahh! For a hot sec there I was vegan and so cheese is just something I don't buy anymore and I don't buy wine except for when I'm going to someone else's house. I like to drink soymilk. So I'm not really French? Nope. But we got Boursin and some Cotes du Rhone to have a Frenchified lunch.

We walked around town and went to the palace and it was beautiful. Went to the MakeOutCenter of the City because that's what French people here do. The amours walk to the otp of the Jardins de Papes and go and make babies. Makes for an interesting walk for families and little kids. We saw the city, waved to the Pont d'Avignon, and headed to Robyn's for the amazing soiree she had organized.

A night of chaos ensued with Lisa, me, Robyn, Nicole, Emily, and Amy. Robyn made an AWESOME dinner with an aperitif, a main meal, dessert, wine, AND cheese and it was awesome. Hours and hours of talking and eating and laughing and everything. I am SO GLAD that my friends here have met my sisters and that my sisters have met my friends. The joining of the two worlds, you might say. And I think it has gone splendidly!

On Sunday Lisa and I did a list of things that are awesome to do on Sundays here because they are FREE! WOOHOO. We went on the Pont d'Avignon and sang the eponymous song, freaked out some tourists. We went to l'Ile de la Bartelesse and checked out the city and the palace, and, yeah, we took the little tourist train around the town.

Then Lisa and I went to her birthday dinner at a nice (unfortunately, tourist-y) restaurant right by Place Pie.

This is the part where I tell you what we ate!
Lisa had duck with a honey glaze, pureed carrots, and red wine. I had chicken in a tomato sauce, mixed salad, and french fries (random to have french fries on my classy plate, but whatevs)

Then we met up with my peeps at Lalogene and Amy convinced us to do... karaoke! It was at karaoke where I finally got up the courage to pledge my undying love to the DJ. We started out with a rocky relationship but something akin to amour has grown between us... he has the voice of a freakin' French ANGEL and he can slow down time with his rendition of "The Show Must go On." We have an agreement - we speak with our eyes when I request "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" and we bring the house down with whatever song we do harmonies on. Ahhhh, Mr. DJ, I do not know your name, but I know that we are connected.

On Monday Lisa and I had a lazy day. We went to the Palace because we had free tickets (something for free in France!? You gotta be kidding me!) and so we wandered around and went "ooh la la" at all of the old stuff. K, then we passed out for a supah long nap. Woke up for dinner and Melting Potes! Oh man, Melting Potes is getting better and better. I have to remember that going to it means that 1) I speak french 2) I see my friends 3) I meet new people.

Ok, Lisa and I were leaving for Munich on Tuesday morning with a flight at 7:00 from Marseille. Ladies and gentlemen, this is IMPOSSIBLE to do unless you are very very close to Marseille. And I am not. So Lisa and I arranged with my friend, Emilie (hear that!? I have a French friend named Emilie!) who comes to Melting Potes now with her friends. Woohoo! more opportunities to speak French and hang out with cool French girls. Then Emilie took Lisa and I to her awesome apartment in marseille (arriving at 2:00 am) to get up at 4:30am to get to the airport! How amazingly nice is this girl? She chauffeured us, had her stay at her apartment, AND took us to the airport. Incredible!

Then Lisa and I set off for a whirlwind tour of Germany. The memory card that has my pictures of Dachau and Salzburg is acting whacky and might be broken. This is making me SO SAD. As in, I might not have any pictures from those two places and ahhhhhh that stinks so much.

Am going to work on the posts of everything else from the past week. It's been PACKED and it has been AMAZING and I am all smiles right now.

yay

A Tea Party!

Last night I went to a tea party thrown for some of the assistants by Les Amis de Violette. Who are Les Amis de Violette? They're a group of Avignonnais who meet every week with Micaela to learn English from her. They range in age from 40 to 80, and they range in skill level, too. They threw us (Darija, me, Robyn, Marius, Ciaran, Renee) a tea party because we have all been to their English lass, invited by Micaela, to introduce ourselves and talk about our respective countries (United States: Darija, me, Robyn; Taiwan: Marius; Ireland: Ciaran; Jamaica: Renee) and to hear our different accents as we all speak English. When I went we ended up talking about French and American politics (!!!) which was pretty difficult for me because... um... I'm not the greatest, at the moment, at keeping up with current events. Ew, I hate admitting that. I also ended up singing a cappella for them because, when they asked me "what do you REALLY want to do in your life?" and I responded with "I'd like to be a singer/songwriter" they were all like "ooh la la! sing! sing!" and so I did.

ANYway, they threw us this tea party chez Micaela and it was great because it was like Auberge Espagnole again but with old people. We all sat around speaking in English and French, practicing, stumbling over our words and tenses, piecing together sentences, etc. Micaela invited me to sing a few songs for them, since I'd already done it and they wanted to hear the songs in English again. This time I wrote out the lyrics for them beforehand so they could 'etudier' and follow along. I sang "For You" (they wanted to hear stuff I'd written myself) and the one phrase they didn't understand and kept asking about was "I am standing on my lover's leap." I had fun explaining my attempts at poetry for them.

I also sang "Leaving on a Jet Plane" because I wanted to sing a song about departures and I took one look at Darija (my roommate) and I got hella choked up and... well, crud. 2/3 of the people I know here are leaving and I haven't taken too much time yet to think about that and I started last night when I sang the song and... I'm going to miss everyone.

Then, of course, there was food and we all stuffed ourselves on olive tampanade (whoa, how do you spell that?), chocolates, cakes, cookies (little navettes which are all provencale-y and stuff), Taiwanese tea thanks to Marius, champagne, wine, quiche, and other goodness. Awesome. Gotta remember to taste everything native to Provence before I go home.

It was so nice to have this tea party because: Les Amis de Violette are really nice, it gave me a chance to see the other assistants again before they leave (AHHHHH), and I love being around the good ol' melange of languages. I am so impressed by these Amis because they're all learning English at an older age and I think that's brave and fabulous. Makes me braver, en fait, knowing that there are people, young and old, going out and practicing, making mistakes, stumbling over things, to communicate. And it also reminded me that I'm not actually awful at French and I'm grateful for that reminder.
pictured: Robyn, Renee, Ciaran, Marius, Darija, me

Woohoo! I'm off to start the day and holycrow LISA WILL BE HERE TOMORROW.

Some positives

Tonight Avignon was really beautiful. The smell of freshly fallen rain combined with the beauty of the darkened city with street lamps lighting the palace walls... reminded me of my first nights here. It sort of helped me fall in love with this city again and that was a nice feeling.

Today, one teacher in my school told me that I've improved a lot since I first got here. This was earth-shattering news to me and VERY welcome, indeed. She supported this fact by saying that the kids used not to like English but now they all bounce for joy whenever we have it which is a great thing. Their enthusiasm increases my enthusiasm which increases their enthusiasm and it's... a great cycle. So I feel really great about that.

In other news, it's April 1st. That means I have exactly three weeks and one week left here on this side of the ocean. Weirrrrrrd.