Aunt Ann and Nora!!!

The last couple of weeks are going insane.  Right now, I should be working on my huge essays or studying for my finals next week but instead I am blogging.  I have a half hour before class and then classes for the rest of the afternoon/evening so my mind needs a break!  Plus, there’s been so much happening in my life!

Autrans last weekend was filled with work.  At any given moment, there was a person from our group in the lobby of our hotel working on the dreadful “dossiers” (essays).  Our group took over the lobby.  As for my work, in the next two weeks I have to write 18 pages of French – aka 3 essays that need to be fully researched and take 5 finals.  Let the fun begin.  It actually would be fun if I had more time because I really like everything I’m learning.  As for the essays, I’m writing an analytical essay of a story tale (Cinderella), an analysis of the law in France that decrees it unconstitutional to wear a full face niquab or full body coverage of a burqa, and an essay on the educational system in France.  I honestly don’t know how it’s going to all get done.  I sure do miss reading period from Bowoin!  Classes end tomorrow (Friday), I am going to Paris for the weekend immediately after my first exam, and then I return to take finals all week. I can’t believe I leave the following Monday! I’m hoping to go skiing in the Alps next weekend with one of my friends from class.  It kills me to see the snow in the mountains and not have already gone skiing!

Monday, Aunt Ann and Nora arrived to visit Grenoble.  It’s been incredible to have them here.  It feels so good to know my way around and be able to lead them around the city.  It’s also neat to be the only person who can speak French.  I am definitely at the lowest level of all the people in my program so usually when we go as a group together somewhere; I don’t talk as much.  With Aunt Ann and Nora, I’m the only person who knows French so it’s been neat to see how much I actually do know! 

Sunday, I met them right outside the hotel.  After some room difficulties, we finally dropped our stuff off and went to meet Emma, Elita, and Molly in town for dinner.  We went to a delicious creperie.  Being there was bittersweet.  It was the first real moment where I really connected with the fact that I am leaving these people.  As I was sitting across from Emma I couldn’t help but wonder when I will get to see her again.  She is from New Jersey and goes to school in Minnesotta.  In our time here, we really connected and it makes me sad to think about how we won’t be spending time together in the future.  Besides a few silent episodes of sadness, the dinner was great.  Emma and I shared all our food.  For dessert, we got a banana-nutella crepe and a maple syrup, ice cream, and almond crepe.  SO GOOD.  I love the fact that Ann and Nora got to know my friends here.  After that dinner and the time they spent in Grenoble I really feel like they can fully understand my experience abroad.  It’s great to share that connection.  I’m just so happy they came!

The next morning we met at the hotel in the morning and then headed out for a long, full day of adventures.  It was raining but luckily I had an umbrella and they both had heavy-duty raincoats so we didn’t let it get us down.  We ended up walking a lot that day – we wandered around the river and found the Musée de Grenoble but unfortunately it was closed.  So, we decided to take a trip up to the Bastille to check out the fort.  The view was breathtaking as we could see the snow on the tops of the mountains.  So beautiful.  We went to a museum about soldiers in the Alps which I really enjoyed because there was so much skiing!  It made me want to ski soooo badly.  Then, we had drinks at the restaurant at the top of the mountain and headed back down in “Les Bulles”.  Those are the clear glass balls that bring us down to have a beautiful view of Grenoble.  They really liked them.

note the snow!!!

 After, we walked around the Christmas market and then searched around for a late lunch (almost 3!).  We had a traditional meal of tartiflette and diots as well as a platter of meat, which was kind of disgusting.  Then we walked back to the Christmas market.  We did a little shopping and I forced them to try some yummy treats – hot wine, macaroons, hot chocolate. 

diots and tartiflette - YUM

After, we headed back to the hotel and I explained to them how to get to my house because my host mom invited them over for dinner.  It was my cooking class and we had the most cliché French meal I could think of – French onion soup, tomates farcée, quiche with leeks, and “buche du Noel” aka the Christmas cake.  It was really funny for my friends and me to act as translators.  We sometimes got confused and accidentally tried to explain in French the conversation to my aunts.  It was pretty challenging to switch back and forth between French and English. 

Nicole, Elliot, and Ele about to enjoy my French Onion Soup

Emma with her delicious Quiche with Leeks

Elliot's Tomates Farcees

Nicole's Buche du Noel

me, Nora, and Aunt Ann

 The next day, we decided to visit the Musée de Grenoble and then went to the Café de la Table Ronde for lunch.  This café is the second oldest café in all of Europe!  I decided to be brave and try frog legs.  They weren’t bad but it freaked me out to actually move the legs.  It was just so much like an actual frog.  Aunt Ann and I both got glasses of wine.  It’s going to be rough to return to the states and not be able to have wine with meals!  After, we decided to go to the Musée de la Résistance et de la Déportation de l’Isère which was on the history of WWII in the Grenoble region.  WWII is such a disturbing time period.  The museum was graphic – displaying torture tools the Nazis used as well as the actual walls of torture chambers where people had carved their names and a chart of how many days they stayed there.  I had a hard time being there.

frog legs

La Cafe de la Table Ronde

outside of it - so wet

Musee de Grenoble

After the second museum, we decided to go to my favorite pastry place to get some hot drinks and pastries.  It unfortunately rained for the whole 2 days that Ann and Nora were here so it felt especially nice to relax in the warm café.  After, we picked up some wine, cheese, and a baguette at a grocery store and had a low key evening.  I rushed off around 8 to go over to Molly’s host family to have fondu.  After a tram mishap and phone mishap, I got to her apartment late and then wandered around inside not being able to find the right door.  I couldn’t remember the name of her host family or her apartment number and I didn’t have any more minutes on my phone so after coming that close, I had to go home.  So close but yet so far.