Clermont-Ferrand--C'est la vie

I'm back...so, it has been 2 1/2 weeks since my first post...well, what sucks is not having internet at the apartment. Life has been great so far here. Been doing alot alot of walking within the town and exploring new sites around and about as well as meeting some great people. Clermont is definitely a university town so we have been meeting several other students at other universities nearby. As you can see in one picture, we met some random French at a local bar just because they were so happy to see Americans. The pose is what one guy called, "champs magnetique" ...some would find this similar to the Shocker haha...basically, our French friend said it was because we will stick together (French and American friends).

The weather has been simply amazing here with temps in the 50s most days!! Amazed by the views from our apartment building and the weather being nice, Andy, Phillipe and I decided to adventure out to the park on top of the hill (Parc du Montjuzat) we could see from the window. It was about a 20 min walk from the apartment to the top of the hill so not far at all. As you can see from the pictures, there is no complaining here...simply peaceful, and beautiful!






















So, the other day here we are sitting in class trying to focus on writing a CV in French and all of a sudden we hear all this noise outside...our first experience of watching a strike or as they call it in France, a grève. This is the first time I have so many people in Clermont-Ferrand. Definitely, something interesting to watch.

Finally, we were able to find the one tex-mex restaurant here which is well known in the area, Fiesta Grande...it has less than 10 tables and reservations need to be made in advance. It was one of the best meals I have had...food was very fresh and homemade mexican. We ate every bit of our food...I mean, when you pay 12 euros ($18) for a burrito you better. Oh, and a pitcher of margarita was 25 euros ($38)...but it was all worth it...good food with good company!! Oh and Philippe our Texan can vouch that the food was excellent!

As I said, the weather has been rather nice and we have been wanting to go skiing ever since we arrived. Well, we finally decided to go and see how it was anyways. We headed out on a 6:30am train, Saturday morning, to Le Lioran about a 2 hr journey southwest toward Toulouse. It was a beautiful ski village though not much snow...lots of ice! The day of skiing was cut short when our dear friend, Philippe, took a bit of a fall on the slopes (see his blog for more details about his story). Now, I have only skiied twice myself so I tried going down a couple times but driving in ice is bad enough so imagine skiing in it. Anyways, we ended up hanging out with Philippe who was at the medical station. I am happy to say he is just fine now. Hopefully, it will snow at some point here for us to go out again.

Here is a quick glimpse at the French terms I have been exposed to all the time:

Donc (French version of ummm, uhhh...now I see how people find those words annoying), les crottes (dog crap...talk about not keeping the roads clean...its EVERYWHERE you walk), galette des rois (famous pie that is eaten where whoever finds the little figure, la fève, becomes king and gets to choose their queen)...there are tons of other words but I'll list more later.

That was a quick recap of the last couple weeks...now that I am more settled in, I plan to update my blog at least once a week. Until next time...au revoir mes amis!!

Btw, I have put a link (Pictures from my semester abroad) at the top of my blog page which leads to many more of my pictures...I will continue to keep this updated as well.

Arrival into Clermont-Ferrand, France

January 3rd, 2008 marked the arrival into Clermont-Ferrand, France. Kelly and I took the Eurostar from London to Paris very, very early in the morning with our 7 pieces of luggage. That was definitely an adventure lugging those up and down stairs and escalators. It was a smooth journey and within 2hrs 15min we had arrived in Paris...didn't even realize when we went through the English Channel. We arrived at Gare du Nord and took a taxi to Gare de Lyon where we met Philippe, Andrew, Emily and Cat. We camped out in the middle of the station definitely looking like exchange students with over 20 bags. We boarded our train and getting the bags all organized onto the train was interesting. There was this little French girl who was standing in the middle of where all the bags go and refused to move. We started storing our bags around her...eventually, she moved and we were able to properly organize everything. It was a 3hrs 30min journey through small towns and nothing but scenery...definitely a journey away from civilzation but really amazing views of the countryside. Cat slept the entire journey occassionally popping up to see if we were there or if we mentioned that we were passing by a castle (which we weren't). As we arrived to Clermont-Ferrand, Professor David Marker and his daughter were there to pick us up...not realizing how many bags we had. He made two trips in his mini-van to take us where we were staying. While waiting, his daughter told us that she and others in France can tell we were the Americans from our loud noise, North Face jackets, and non-tight jeans. That was a good laugh! We arrived at our residences and that was definitely an interesting experience. Long story short, it was our first experience (well some of us have lived in France before and have experienced it) to the French culture and way things are handled....slow process...but hey its part of the experience. I ended up in a rather nice 2 person studio apartment. As you can see from the pics, the views from the apartment are amazing.