La Voyage à l'ouest

So tomorrow Chelsea and I will go on our "reading break" holiday to western France! We have a week break before we start our "control continu" which is like midterms. So of course, I'm spending it traveling! We will be going to Tours, La Rochelle, Carnac, Lorient, St. Malo and Mont St Michel. We will return back to Strasbourg the night of Wed Oct 31...Halloween! So I'll be spending Halloween at my house recovering from travel (I know, hard life!). I think I might buy some candy and just pretend that I participated in Halloween. So unfortunately no posts for a while, but when I return there will be pictures and stories! Until then...

I do have friends!

Here are some long awaited pictures of people I have met :)







Every Thursday and Friday there is a fresh market and here is some cheese!













Bertrand, Will and Reni












Chelsea and I













Baptiste, Will and Reni













Me, Taryn and Cornelia














Reni and Chelsea











Reni, Taryn and Graeme















Me and Joanna my new French friend

The Quest for Internet

First I want to say sorry for not posting as often as I should! I do not have internet in my room yet, so it is quite the adventure searching for places with WiFi. I can access it at the University (but that is at the other end of the city), at the downtown McDonalds, and at the Irish Pub just down the road. So...those are my options! I will be getting internet in about a week, so expect some more posts and emails coming.

So back to Rugby...France was kicked out by England and then France lost the 3rd place title to Argentina. Last night England played South Africa for the World Cup Championship and...South Africa won. We watched the game in the Irish Pub again (I think we've become regulars becuase the bartender knows our names...good or bad I'm not sure!).

The weather has changed. It is now winter. Biking to school is now becoming not so fun when the winter wind is blowing in your face. I've bought a nice scarf to keep me warm but the next on the list is a nice warm toque (not a beanie as the Americans and Australians say!). I cannot wait until it snows here! As some of you know, winter is my favorite season and Strasbourg will be beautiful covered in snow! At the end of November there is an amazing Christmas market and I'm looking forward to browsing through it (although I hear it's filled packed with tourists...and no I do not consider myself a tourist anymore thank you very much! I figure if you live in a place for more than a month then you are considered a local!)

And France Wins...

So I've officially been in Strasbourg for 4 weeks! Time passes so slowly, yet fast at the same time. It seems like it's been forever since I got on the plane in Vancouver, but at the same time I can't believe it's already almost mid-October.
This last week has been a rugby frenzy...there was a huge game between France (les Bleus) and New Zealand (the All Blacks). One of the friends I've met here is from New Zealand and so obviously we were cheering for New Zealand! We watched it again in the little Irish Pub downtown and one of the bartenders is from New Zealand as well so he got us really good seats! It was kind of scary though to be sitting in the front of the Pub and to look behind you with a mob of Frenchman yelling furiously! (but it was fun...no real threat, don't worry mom!). So as you can tell by the title of this post...France won. You'd think since I was in France and studying French that I'd be cheering for France, but nope...I've now moved on to cheering for either Argentina or South Africa. Not sure which I want to win now. All I know is just not the French!
At the end of October we have a one week "study" break. And as you know how those go...there will not be much studying happening! Chelsea (NZ), Taryn (Australia) and I will be traveling around southern and western France! We plan to go to Nice and Monaco in the south/east then maybe to Avignon, La Rochelle, Carnac, Caen and then to Paris and back to Strasbourg. It should be fun!
I still need to post pictures of everyone...I'll get on that sometime :) For now it's off to do some homework!