Obviously I've been neglecting my blog. I ran out of time in the final week in Nicaragua. Then I was only home for 3 days, all of which I was sick for. Now I am still slightly sick, but at least I'm in France! I've been here for about nine busy days so far. I always knew that Spanish, English, and French were similar but I am constantly shocked at how many words are the same or closely related. I've never studied French but I can actually read some things occasionally. So far, my time in France has been just as busy as Nicaragua, but without the stress. My friend, Alvina, and I have been to several cities, met tons of people, and eaten lots of bread. There are so many great pictures, but I only have time to post a few.
A few days after I got to France, Alvina took me camping with some of her friends and a foreign exchange student from New York. It was awkward at first since I don't speak French, but it ended up being a ton of fun! We camped in a small town in the county called Arc et Senans. The town has a beautiful place built in the 1700s to make salt. It was a huge area that was supposed to kind of be a utopia. These first two pictures are what we saw walking to the town from the campsite. The people in the first one are some of the campers.
Before we went, we got bread in town for lunch and bought meat at the store. We ate next to the old mill pictured below. I thought it was a castle at first.
There were several buildings where the salt was created (I don't know exactly what they did to it), but we were all more impressed with the gardens. There were all sorts of games and activities right in the garden. We played a giant game of Sorry but there was also chess and checkers. Here we are on the Sorry board.
A few days ago, Alvina and I went to Dijon and spent time with a friend of hers. We tried all sorts of fabulous mustards, and some that weren't so great. My favorite was Coriander. Most of the others were too strong. We became very familiar with town hall because we made circles around it to see the other sights. We finally went inside it and climbed 315 steps to look at the town. Here is one picture of the view from the top.
We also went into several churches. This first one is the Roman style and the second is Gothic.
A tradition for all those who visit Dijon is to touch the owl on one of the buildings, look at the stone salamander under the window, and make a wish. Here I am touching the owl.
We also walked around the university in Dijon. Outside the library, the students spend lots of time smoking. One thing I have definitely discovered here is that the French love their cigarettes. Here is where the students throw their cigarettes after their smoke break from studying.
The whole day was marked by Alvina and her 100 Euros. She was out of money when we got to the train station in the morning to leave for Dijon, so her grandmother gave her a 100 Euro bill. The whole day, Alvina tried to find a store that would give her change for it. No one would so we decided to title that day "The 100 Euros That Couldn't."
Today we are in Besançon which is the bigger city where Alvina goes to school and her brother, Côme, lives. Luckily, someone finally gave Alvina change for her 100 Euro bill!!! To celebrate Alvina's great test scores, we went to McDonald's and wore crazy hats. Apparently, our hats were not popular because we were laughed at and cursed at for wearing them. This has been a common trend recently since we have been wearing the hats a lot in the past few days. I can't understand them anyway, but Alvina tells me what they say. Its almost like a joke that people are reacting to them so badly. They're not even that ornate. We also discovered something great about McDonalds today. French McDonalds sell beer as a drink! Here is a picture of us in our hats (me with my happy meal). Notice the beer on the tray.
Hopefully, I will be able to continue posting about my travels, but limited internet access has made it difficult. More adventures await us as we leave for London on Sunday and Italy shortly after.
