Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Post 11: First day of Classes

So yesterday, Monday, the french speaking girls took placement tests to see what level we would start in at the Alliance Francaise. Morgan, Jordan and I managed to place in the same class and Hallie and Carolyn are in another class. We got the rest of the day free whereas the 3 girls who speak 0 French, and I mean 0 (Allison, Micchelle and MacKenzie) had 4 hours of total immersion french class!
Today when we went to class, we were very nervous that we wouldn't understand alot of things when the reality was that we had already learned the topic of the day 2 years ago. I wouldn't call this a bad thing though because I'm sure tomorrow we won't know something so I'm glad and satisfied with where we are now!
After class we are going to go shopping in Nice at the market and in the big square near where we usually meet up for the night outings for exploration and usually ice cream :) Then we are all going out for dinner!!! Mr Newman found a lovely restaurant that looks out over the yachts. We are all going to get dressed up and show off our "sun" that we got from our outdoor tour and attempt to enjoy the ROCK beach haha :)
Until next time (and hopefully not this late again...its 12 here)

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Post 10: 5 of 10 are here in Nice (at 11:30 pm)

While eating a delicious meal that Mme Ledeuil prepared for me and the British lady staying here and watching/studying Invictus in FRENCH I managed to get in touch with Carolyn and Hallie who dropped off MacKenzie successfully and then Michelle and Mr. Matanes! The fourth and final tier of Pace knights are flooding Centre Nice :) And they should make it to their houses before 12 unless their luggage managed to wander off. tsk tsk tsk...
But hey on the bright side I have learned how to navigate Nice from my bedroom, speak french 5x better (just from today) and I have improved my secretary skills while using almost all my alotted time on firstclass (pace's email server)!
What a full day, but I'm sorry to report that Mme Ledeuil has gotten 2 rounds of headaches today :(
J'espere qu'Allison arriver avant minuit :)! I need a roomie, 12 hours later...!!

Post 9: Entrance to Nice.. started with a BANG!

Hello!!!

So I feel that I am all "France-d" out, but hopefully once the girls finally arrive that will change!
The Dillon clan left me here in Nice with Mme Ledeuil, a Belgian student (who hadn't left yet) and another lady who is apparently staying in her house as well!
Lazara, the Belgian 20 year old young woman, actually was a HUGE help to me the first 20 hours I was here! She spoke pretty solid english/franglais (english and french combined) so we were able to communicate in the same "language."
Mme Ledeuil is VERY sweet, she gave me a hug and a kiss when I got emotional as my family left and I have been her puppy ever since. She leads me around Nice showing me how the trams work and where everything is, my phone now works because of her!
So today at about 10:30 we got a call saying that the rest of the girls were stuck in Rome and missed their flight because of a million different mistakes and lost luggage that wasnt actullay lost. So I was very upset to hear this...no americans!?!
BUT WAIT! Hallie Cross! of course, she took a flight from Charlotte, NC to Frankfurt to Nice! and she was on time-but since my phone hadn't been working I couldn't reach her! My Mom was able to call me and give me updates that saved my nerves! Phew!
Hallie was in a more uncomfortable situation though, she had flown solo the whole way and arrived in 2 different countries! and took a taxi to her house. The taxi driver of course, rips her off and drops her off at the wrong street! So poor lonely Hallie was wandering around with 2 suitcases and then of course when she arrived to her house...her Madame was not home!
So Claire and Mme Ledeuil to the rescue!!! but when we got to her she was fine and unpacking in her room, phew!
Hallie wanted to go out and explore so when we were walking to La Vielle-Ville we saw Lazara! Lazara was very upset and crying because her new family had already "ousted" her! "La salle de bain est inderdit, la cuisine est inderdit, le salon est interdit!" So what this means is that her family told her that she could not go into the Living Room, the Kitchen, or the bathroom during certain points of the day. ouchhhh!
Lazara is nothing but nice, and has helped me a ton! (she even told me, during one of our exchanges, that I had solid french and it was improving and that I should be fine without her). Her new family has not been very accepting of her or her vice of smoking (just like everyone else in this country)!
But she is fine now. And all is well, I got back from exploring with Hallie and Mme Ledeuil's uncle is over and is the typical french man with the raspy cute voice asking silly questions ask jokes :)

Carolyn, Morgan and MacKenzie have now arrived in Nice!! but they now must make the nerve-wracking call to their families to let them know that they are here! And poor MacKenzie is without her french speaking roommate, Jordan, so I hope she will survive!
Hallie, Ms Anderson (our dean back home) and I have been holding this up since about 10:30 this morning and for Ms Anderson, since 4:30 am her time/your time!

Michelle, Jordan, Allison, Mr Matanes (our French Teacher) and Mr Newman (our math teacher) are in Munich right now! and will be in Nice at 10:30 pm BUT they won't get to their houses till around MIDNIGHT!

Sorry for rambling but I wanna remember all the mayhem coming into Nice to compare it to the exit, which hopefully will be better for EVERYONE!

PLEASE email me or call me or post a comment! I'd love to hear from someone across the atlantic :)
Also please pray for all the traveling! It's pretty scary to travel alone in a foreign country without a guardian!

But no worries we will all be fine tomorrow!

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Sorry! More Posts coming soon!

So sorry! We haven't had any wi-fi since Paris :( and the only reason why I have it now is because I'm sitting in a Mcado/Mcdonalds next to a geant Casino (their equivalent to a Publix). And the rumors are true, a quarterpounder is a "royalecheese" ha! But once the clan leaves me behind... I will hopefully have wi-fi for the rest of the trip in Nice :)

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Post 7: Olivia's Opinion




When most people think of Paris they think of expensive stores, fancy restaurants, and apartments. That's what I thought too. But, I was wrong! It is even more than that! If you are walking around stores you see a ton of real diamonds that are worth thousands of Euros!

Coming here was so much fun to think about and once we got here in this appt. I knew that we could call this place our own home away from home. Even the Boulanger employees know me! I am so glad that my sisters and I speak French. (Unlike my poor dad who doesn’t know anything and just smiles and nods his head when a French person tries to speak to him) But when my mom and dad have maps they are the ones who know their way around and you shouldn't tell them they are wrong.

It was usually day 1 we are doing this, day 2 we are doing that. And it was fun but imp not gonna lie after a while it got pretty much on the low side for me. And just when I needed to be lifted up I heard we where going to a market on the streets of Paris! After riding the Metro we finally got there and starting looking around for things to bring back to America! Each of us Dillon girls got something or things. I got this blue cotton dress that I adore, one white pair of sandals, one pink pair on sandals, and each of us got three hand made leather bracelets! Tess got African masks to put in her room and Claire also got a hand made side bag! Shopping was so much fun!

Versailles is this HUGE castle or chateau that Louis XIV built when he got tired of staying in the middle of Paris. When I first saw this place I thought "oh my gosh! Marie Antoinette LIVED HERE!!" I am obsessed with Marie Antoinette because I thought she was like a really good queen and was really pretty and rich. All of the history and cool facts about Versailles made me want to just drop all of the headset tours and look at every single little detail! I kept saying in my head " Marie Antoinette walked on this hallway! and sat in this chair! and slept in this tiny but very decorated bed! After learning REALLY interesting things inside the castle my family and I went out to the gardens! The gardens where like two neighborhoods and more put together! We all walked all over and sat on the grass and had some pasta and Paninis! We kept on walking until we reached Marie Antoinette’s other house! (Marie lived in that house because she wanted to be alone and away from everybody including her children and her own husband Louis the XVI) we walked in her own garden too! she even had a little village made for her so that she could go there and pretend to be a peasant and play because she never was an ordinary person she was either a princess or a queen. Doing this was so much fun and I loved it so much that when I get back I'm going to be telling most of you all the cool facts that I know about Versailles.

Just the other day my family and I where coming back from the coolest museum in the world (Le Louvre-we spent too much time there)! We ate at this amazing restaurant that only served salade, fries and steak! It was delicious-all my favorite foods in one place! We hopped on a metro to go back to the apartment! All of us girls sat in a four seater and my dad sat alone nest to this guy up front. Claire Tess mom and I where so busy playing red hands that we just noticed our station to get off! (Now those French substation doors only stay open for 15 seconds!!!) So we where all trying to get off and without hurting anyone. The doors started to beep (which means its about to close) and Claire got off on one door and didn’t see us coming off so got back on and then saw dad and I get off and mom follow close behind! So she jumped off. Tess was slowly coming off behind mom, and saw the doors closing slowly and the doors where squeezing her in the door way and the expression on her face was a confused, worried, embarrassed face. Now my face was only worried and I wanted to just pull her out of there! And Claire was laughing and then Tess started to laugh and my dad got mad at Claire and my mom was about to jump on the train. I sat down and started tearing up. Only because I started to really worry that we were never gonna see her again. My mom hopped on the next train and started after her hoping that she got off at the next stop. Later on after it was completely quiet, my mom called my dad saying she found her and they both had tears of joy! And I just smiled the whole time after that.We just finished our fantastic lunch and winding down! Until next time!

Friday, June 11, 2010

Post 6: Tess's Turn!!!!

howdyyyy from paris!!
The past few days have been somewhat of a blur...in total i have slept ten hours over 4 days now...but im not even tired!! I think I have the worst jet-lag out of the five of us!
Yesterday we visited Le Tour d'Eiffel and walked along the Quai. The tower was immense and so were the lines to climb it so we chose to come back on a monday morning when it would hopefully be more quiet!
Then, visited the Sacre-Coeur in Montmatre. I'm not even going to get into the sordid details of the hike up to the village from the Metro but I will say this: TRAIN DAILY FOR THIS COMMUTE!!
When we got to Montmartre, we walked through all of the artists. French artists love blue eyes!! Artists would call me over and say "Speak English?" I nod. "Portrait for fifty euro, but for you 25!" Why me? "blue eye, tres jolie. you sit here. give me 20 minutes. find me you maman."
whaaaatttt?
I recited my script that i reserve for aggressive salespeople, "that sounds great! and your work is wonderful i'll go find my mom," except semi en francais! This seems to please the woman so i continue on my way and get flagged down by another artist who will lower the rate for my blue eyes (are they really THAT great....?) and another and another.
I finally met up with the rest of my family where they were standing beyond any of the artists view so that we couldn't get harrassed by them. (haha) To my disbelief, my parents actually wanted to have our portraits done but the question was which artist? They had their top three favorite artists narrowed down but who would end up getting the job? The one does acurately detailed sketches in sepia? The one who make the eyes the main show? Or the very friendly, older version of Claire whose main focus was getting the hair right?
Mom and Dad just couldn't chose so we decided to have each girl do a different artist. I had the detail oriented sepia artist who captured all of my little whispies coming out of my ballerina bun perfectly but tried and failed to make conversation with me while sketching (I was too focused on sitting still!), Claire had the older version of herself who was extremely nice and friendly and captured her curly locks perfectly, and Olivia had the unfriendly artist who got irritated when she coughed but captured Olivia's bright blue eyes perfectly! In the end we were all so happy with our portaits!!
While walking towards what we thought was the sacre coeur, I was stopped by un petit homme choise who begged to cut out my profile on black paper. I said I couldnt but when he offered to do it for free, I couldnt refuse! I could have posed all day...NOT! my face was litterally shaking by the time he was finished! The good news is that he did a really good job although i thought my nose was bigger than the way he portayed it! (haha)
Finally, we went into a midsize chapel type thing and after diliberating we realized that maybe this isnt the sacre coeur....!!
When we finally made it up to the famed cathedral we were astounded by its beauty and we went inside to enjoy the hymns that were being sung by the nuns. We wanted to visit the crypt but it costed money so that was out!
Back at the appartement hier soir, masses of people gathered at the pubs, cafes and clubs below us to watch the world cup (world cup is to europeans as superbowl is to americans). They cheered and they sang. They chanted and they danced. They prayed and they wished. But sadly, France only came out with a tie :( better luck next time!!
A Bientot!

Post 5: Notre Apartement


Allo!
I have taken some pictures of our petit apartement.
Olivia and Tess discovered a bird's nest which now has 2 eggs, Olivia witness one of the eggs being laid... tres interessante!
The blue room is our parents, the couch Tess is sleeping on in the picture is actually a pull out (we are rotating...)
If you can tell, the sitting area (salon) is the largest place-lots of entertaining for the French, but the kitchen (cuisine) is the smallest area, with the smallest fridge in the world :)

*The photo importer does not really like how big the photo files are....sooo I am uploading the most important picture, a picture of Olivia's Pigeon friend's nest.
Looking out the windows has been Olivia's favorite pastime. on Day 2 she was watching the schoolkids come home and chant about someone's birthday repeatedly. Olivia's response: "Shut up!" Haha-of course this was after she insisted upon not visiting the Moulin Rouge with me, tess and Dad but ultimately she and mom got lost in Paris with out a Baedeker (Guidebook). They walked around Montmartre and ended up at the Moulin Rouge :), then they took the same 18 stop metro route that we took. But hey, we all got home safely!
Tess: "Moulin Rouge sucked, better in the movie. Hey where's the elephant?"

Post 4: "Day" 1


Salut!
Wednesday became Thursday for us Amuricans way too quickly after the flight. We all crashed after unpacking for about 4 hours, which was just enough charge to keep us going till 12:30 pm (24h30)!
We ate at our local neighborhood cafe which has seating facing outwards to the street for the ultimate people-watching experience. Mom and Dad decided they wanted to see how stress kitten Claire, optimistic Tess and cautious Olivia would do by themselves in a supermarche. We were fine and benefited from the experience (yummm french candy!)
We walked around our quatrier and over to Notre-Dame for a quick viewing. It happens to be very close to us!
After Notre-Dame, we walked to l'Hotel de ville and caught the metro, which is now our new bff!
We took the metro to L'etoile (Champs-Elysees & L'arc de triomphe) for a nighttime viewing of the amazing city around us! The lights were gleaming and cameras were flashing, which added to our slight vertigo.
To get the full experience we walked a ways down Le Champs-Elysees and walked into the biggest Sephora...tres fragrant! The metro carried us home to our local creperie where we had our first crepe of the vacation
(btws, in France they only use bananas-no other fruit!) (also instead of saying oui like we do in class "wee", you say it like "whay" (with phlegm, as Daddy says))
The Dillons passed out at around 1-ish am(7pm Atlanta time) but I'd say we got accustomed to Paris time relatively quick for first time European travelers!

Day 1 was probably the longest day of our lives but definitely a memorable and exciting one as well!

Post 3: Flightplan


Hey! So it took a while for the wi-fi to be set up and working in our little appartement so I am just now creating the first post across the pond!

The airport and flight experience was lovely... It started with a lovely cab driver who passed around a handout of the world's largest suspension bridge, which happens to be here in France!
When we got to the airport with our 7 huge bags plus carry-ons, we realized Tess had packed all of her toiletries in her carry-on so a speedy reorganization was necessary. Security went smoothly until a carry-on bag that was meant to be a checked bag was home to my toiletries... Oh well, bye bye Pantene Pro-V!

Mom became a heroine for me and Tess when she went back out from security to get little bottles for our larger fragrant products :)

Tess and Mom sat together and had zero sleep while sitting in front of "Turban Man." Tess believed that Turban Man was to be trusted.

I sat in a cozy little row with Olivia and Dad. We made friends with a cute French family and their baggage... Behind us there were some dedicated readers (Twilight Saga Fans) who couldn't seem to figure out how to use the folding trays that were attached to the back of our seats. The trays became a bit loud and rambunctious.

The individual TVs provided us with some interesting personal entertainment:
Tess: Amadeus, Alice in Wonderland, Serenity and Balance (taught her how to breathe peacefully) and a failed attempt to watch Wolfman.. "just a little too intense" [No sleep on the plane]
Olivia: Valentine's Day, NCIS, 2012, New Moon, Grey's Anatomy (never fully completing any of the shows or movies) and then she tried to enjoy some slow loading video games. [about 20 minutes of sleep]
Claire: It's Complicated, Love Actually & NCIS--I watched the movies and show from start to finish and was still able to be the only Dillon to sleep for about 2 hours on Olivia's arm and Dad's arm rest. [2-ish hrs of sleep on the plane]
Dad: Tried to avoid watching TV and attempted to sleep with his head on the tray in front of him... after that did not work he schemed to sleep on the floor, which also failed. After avoiding the selections he went through each genre repeatedly. Le Mans...he can't remember which shows that he obviously did not enjoy them [30-40 min of sporatic sleep]
Mom: The Ghost Writer, Amadeus and was forced to watch Serenity and Balance (by Tessala) [No sleep on the plane]

After an overall lovely experience on the plane, we exited the baggage claim expecting to find "Dominique" who would drive us to our apartement...we Dominique was a no-show but Stefan, his employee arrived with a town car for the 5 of us with our 7 suitcases (no such thing as traveling light). We ended up ditching the trimmed and clean Stefan for a more friendly and streetsmart Stefan with a decent size van! An excellent trade off, we all agree!

The ride from the airport seemed never-ending (probably like this post... :)) but Stefan was our hero who listened to Harry Conick Jr. and gave us recommendations for our rental van for next week. Merci beaucoup Stefan!!

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Post 2: Departure Day!

So... It's been a while, but in less than an hour we will be in a minivan cab on the way to Hartsfield Jackson International Airport!!!
Packing has been a week long process, but I am VERY thankful that we were urged to start so early. Although... my mom's bag is still open and there are some items that need to be jammed in there. My bag was so heavy that, well a division of weight was needed-so I now have 2 bags; one weighing 42 lbs. and the other about 23 lbs. (hehe).
Last minute things are happening, memory cards are being emptied, dishes being done, dog beds being cleaned... the dogs and cat can sense that we are abandoning them indeterminably while they watch us scurrying around the house with bags.
Good bye ATL! See ya later southern heat!
The next post will be a (accent grave?) Paris!
Au revoir les etats-unis! Bonjour la france!

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Post 1: Packing Week...


To start off my blog of my trips and experiences in France, I have decided to commence recording this fine week of packing and preparation in Atlanta, Georgia.
Packing seems to be a very important part of the experience, and nowadays jetsetters have narrowed their views on what to bring and how much to bring with them on their escapes.
Well my mom scavenged the internet for packing lists for Europe...it's true minimalism is the way to go. For me, knowing that I will be in France for a month, that is much easier said than done.
So here I sit, a huge suitcase staring me down with nothing but shoes inside of it.
I need to get to work.