day #118 - guess who's back

OOPS I did that thing where I didn't post for a month (ha ha ha, hee hee hee, ho ho ho)
Do not blame me; simply blame the magic of Christmas/exam season/the unnecessarily unorganised nature of the French education system. Here is a photo of me in a festive hat from this festive season so that you are all fully aware that I am not lying:

of course i'm joking, haha. this is me in 2012.

However, as I have not posted since December 4th, I'm sure there's a couple of things I can update you on: (This is a long post, I'm afraid)

1. La Fête des Lumières
My two favourite things in life (after Gilmore Girls, fresh bed sheets and, you know, family and friends) are sparkly lights and alcoholic drinks. Therefore Lyon from the 5th December to the 8th (that's somewhere around day #90ish, if I remember rightly) was a kind of Josie dreamland where there are literally lights everywhere and plenty of makeshift stalls hawking mulled wine and lots of people wearing light-up headbands.

According to Wikipedia, "the Fête des Lumières is a time when France expresses gratitude toward Mary, mother of Jesus on December 8 of each year. This uniquely Lyonnaise tradition dictates that every house place candles along the outsides of all the windows to produce a spectacular effect throughout the streets. With over 4 million tourists coming to Lyon for this event, the festival is probably one of the three biggest festive gatherings in the world in terms of attendance (after the Rio Carnival and Oktoberfest in Munich)."

I headed down on a TGV (the French high-speed train service. Well, it was suppose to be high-speed. It ended up being 4 hours later than intended) to Lyon, and got given a complementary lunch by SNCF, the train operator, because the train was late and they clearly felt guilty. When I finally arrived, I got to spend the entire weekend with my pals Nel and Kate, who are both studying French with me up in Edinburgh and who are both now scattered across France too! The whole weekend was cracking and involved plenty of alcohol and complaining about the bitter cold and wandering around Lyon at night.
Lyon is lovely, by the way, you should visit.

still not clear whether this animatronic dragon featuring two men in white jumpsuits on its back playing guitar and synth was part of the festival or not

2. The terrible French assessment season.
Imagine that you are a student who has, through no fault of their own, been forced into taking 6 subjects. Imagine that each of these subjects takes up a minimum of 2 hours a week, but most of them take up 3 hours. Then imagine that all of these subjects require you to do three pieces of assessment in the months of November and December. Mm, doesn't that make you feel cosy?
Then imagine that they also have January exams to put the cherry on top of a wonderful academic semester. Then imagine that they don't release the exam dates until after everyone has left to go back to their own home countries, and that there are 4 exams scheduled for the same time.
These are all things which have happened to me over the past few months. I'm *this* close to banging my head solidly against my lovely French wooden flooring.

3. I bought a space heater.
€14 off amazon.fr. I would just continue to use the space heater from the bathroom, but I think my housemates have noticed and if I don't put it back soon, I'll never be able to put it back.

4. My housemate's cat stopped loving me over the Christmas break.
Pretty self-explanatory. She's called Desperado (yes, after the beer) and we call her Desper or Despet or something - it's one of those French words that I'm not 100% sure on so I tend to mumble the last bit on purpose.

5. I went on a little jaunt to Paris.
I almost forgot this one! Just before the Christmas break, it was my good friend Fede's birthday, so I headed out into Paris a day earlier than I would have done for my flight home and we spent a day stomping around the capital city, seeking out tourist attractions. Unfortunately, l'Orangerie was closed, but we found Galeries Lafayette in all its Christmassy glory, saw the Eiffel Tower from a distance and spotted that bridge with all the padlocks that has had to be boarded up because it's so heavy the council think it's going to fall into the Seine.

the christmas ceiling at galeries lafayette, a huge shopping centre in paris

 

 

the padlocks have spread down the sides of the river now

It's the first chance I've had to see the kind of tourist version of Paris that most people have seen; whenever I've visited in the past, we have seen maybe one or two monuments and then driven (yes! Driven!) away. This time, I had to buy a carnet of tickets for the Metro and use my actual legs to get places.

jardin des tuileries shot, feat. fede's head

The day was rounded off nicely because I stayed overnight with my friend from Edinburgh, Meg, where we stayed up late nattering as we are wont to do (however, note to self: staying up drinking until 3am is not a good idea when you have to get up at 8.30am for your flight). Not only that, but my old flatmate from Edinburgh was also in town! We had grand plans to get a nice meal, ended up missing all the restaurant hours, and ordered slightly drunk kebabs in Frenglish instead. What can I say? You can take the girls out of the UK...

This has been quite an Edinburgh-centric post, really, but it is so wonderful meeting up with old friends in new places. One of my new year's resolutions is to visit as many people as I can in as many wonderful places as I can; me and Eleri sat down yesterday and wrote a list of Things To Do Before We Go.

can you spot the eiffel tower?

There's plenty of things left to cram in to the next 4-and-a-bit months: Strasbourg, Montpellier, Omaha beach, Le Havre, more Paris, my 21st birthday, Toulouse, Grenoble, Giverny, Versailles, possibly trips abroad to Belgium, Italy, Germany and Scandinavia, maybe Bordeaux and Champagne too! Thank you to the ERSAMUS gods for your generous grants. We salute you!

Anyway, before all of that, I have to pass my January exams, which isn't looking likely, so, wish me luck and tell me to stop procrastinating!

Gros bis,
Josie
x