Sing Along, Où est la neige?, Skiing, Who I Am, BBMak, and The Prince

So I (again) have not been in the mood and/or have not had time to blog this week. I feel like keeping up this blog is going to be one of the greatest struggles I face here in France. Which, after saying it like that, doesn’t sound too bad. :) Remembering to write down my life is going to be the hardest thing? Yes please. :)

Last weekend was literally amazing! For our Week-end Ski à Praloup, we left on Friday night and came back Sunday night. We were all supposed to meet at 6 at La Rotunde, in front of the statue of Paul Cezanne. After meeting there we stood around and waited for our bus for about 20-30 minutes. Then we got on the bus and waited about a half hour to find out that we had to wait for another bus before we could head to Praloup because somehow, this bus had some of our luggage (still not clear on how that happened).  Finally, around 8:30 or 9, we started on our way through the French countryside to the ski resort.

On the bus there were mainly just college students. One such group was a group of French fraternity boys and they sure did make the bus ride interesting at the very least. About ten minutes into our trip, they handed out songbooks to everyone which had classic French drinking songs in them. And thus began (for them) the drunken sing along time. I will not recount here what the songs were about; needless to say, they were not very polite. They also handed around laffy taffy for the bus and at one point, even blew up a blow up doll and passed her around (by that I mean they just passed her from one guy to another, nothing inappropriate happened). Also on our ride to Praloup, we stopped at a highway rest stop so that anyone who wanted to could pee. Megan, Michelle, Brae, Jerrica, and I all had to go so we got in line and waited. A French lady came up to us and asked if we had toilet paper (because there apparently was none in the restroom) and kindly gave us some because we didn’t have any. Unbeknownst to any of us (until we got into the restrooms of course), the “toilets” were actually just holes in the floor. Apparently this is very common at all French highway rest stops. And while we all braved the elements and survived, never again will I (or I think any of them) stop to use the restroom along the highway.

Once we got to the resort at about 12:30 PM, it was a relief to get off the bus, partly because of the partying French boys but also because the bus had been driving through the winding mountain roads in a quick, darting way that gave me motion sickness. :( Anyway, we retrieved our bags from the bus and huddled in a group because it was so cold. We waited and waited for our room keys, just to find out that apparently we had arrived too late in the day and they had to wake up the concierge to get our keys. By the time we got our keys and headed to our rooms, we were all really tired, cold, and grumpy. But when I walked in to our lodgings, I got so very excited. :) It was amazing! We had a Murphy bed (on which Brae and I slept), a couch (on which Jerrica slept), a pull out (no one slept there), and bunk beds (where Megan and Michelle slept). 

Our Lodge :)

Jerrica on our Balcony

The Murphy bed where Brae and I slept

Our Living Room and the couch where Jerrica slept

Jerrica in the Kitchen 

Our Bathroom

We had a dining room table, a TV, a balcony, a towel warmer, and a full kitchen equipped with oven, stove, plates, bowls, glasses, silverware, refrigerator, dishwasher, etc. I guess I had expected the worst of the worst so having all of these things seemed like a luxury for me. On my excitement high, I unfortunately didn’t get to bed until about 2 AM. 

The next morning my phone woke me around 8:30 because we were going skiing at ten. However I did not actually get up until about 9:15 but I still managed to get ready in time. By the time we got our skis, shoes, and poles and got up the mountain, it was about 11:45 or so. Megan and Sophie (one of our adult chaperones) taught me how to ski slowly by keeping my skis in a pizza shape (with the backs of my skis opened wide) and to cross the slope back and forth. On my first run down the easy slope at the top of the mountain, I panicked and fell twice (which still hurts by the way). After that I made a mental note to never fall again and I followed their advice diligently so as to not fall. After my second and third runs down the easy slope, I was feeling exhausted and battered. I let Sophie and Megan go do more exciting things because I could tell I was boring them. I managed my way to an outdoor cafe halfway up the mountain and got hot chocolate and fries. Which after everything I’d been through, tasted extremely delicious. :)

Sophie came back shortly after I was done and mentioned that a group of us were getting together at the base of the mountain to eat lunch. I followed her down the mountain but didn’t eat anything because I’d already had the fries. In our group of skiers were three Haitian guys (Moyley, Ben, and Stevens) and this was their first time skiing. So after lunch all four of us went to the very beginner hill at the base of the mountain and skiied together for awhile. At around 4 or 4:30 though, I was completely exhausted. I went off to find Jerrica and Brae (who decided not to ski at all during the weekend) at a cafe. Not long after I found them, Michelle, Simon (Michelle’s boyfriend), Megan, and Jasper showed up and we all hung out for awhile. We all decided on a whim to take a shot of tequila (my first shot of tequila) and it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it might be. :) Then we went and got groceries to make dinner together and headed back to our lodge. 

Jasper, Brae, and Megan at the cafe

Thumbs up after the tequila shot! :)

Dinner was pasta with pesto sauce and tomato sauce, chicken, salad, and baguettes. While it was being made, we all took a shot of whiskey which was much much worse than the tequila by far. Dinner was delicious and afterward some of us went to the French fraternity party upstairs, while Jerrica, Jasper and I watched a movie called City of God. It was pretty violent and gory but the cinematography and plot were very interesting. After the movie I sank into a deep sleep.

Sunday morning we started out a little earlier. Megan and I got on the bus at 9:30 but it wasn’t until we got almost all the way to the slopes that I realized I had forgotten my ski card. So I rode the bus back and managed to run into Sophie. Once Sophie and I got back to the slopes, I was about to say goodbye when she asked what I wanted to do. She said that she was here to help us learn how to ski or do whatever our hearts desired, so she wanted to stick with me. We went down the very very beginner hill a few times and she filmed me. And then, bolstered in confidence by the easiness of the beginner hill, we headed up the mountain to try something a little harder. We went back to the easy slope I had skied on the first day and I skied the run confidently without falling. She filmed me a few times here and then we decided to ski down the entire mountain on a ski route that was a little harder. However after the first section of the route, I realized it was going to be way too hard for me so I headed back up the mountain to take the gondola down.

Beautiful views from on the Mountain

More beautiful views

Me in "une cabine" heading down the mountain

Me after skiing on the mountain :)

At around 1 or 1:30, I got down the mountain and met Jerrica and Brae for lunch. I had gnocchi carbonara and it was one of the most delicious things I’ve eaten here in France. :) I also had a vin chaud which is similar to mulled wine, however I did not find it tasty at all. We waited around for Megan and Jasper to be done skiing and then we went to return my skis, boots, and poles. Then we all decided to get postcards and/or souvenirs. I got postcards for loved ones back home and I also managed to find something I’d been wanting since Paris last spring. It’s a grocery list of sorts. It has a whole bunch of grocery items on it (in French) and if you need that specific item, you switch the arrow from red to white (or vice versa). I had been wanting one desperately since I first found them in Paris and now I’m so happy I finally have one! :)

My Grocery List Thing

The ones with white arrows are the things I need :)

After shopping for awhile, we all headed back to the room to clean up and pack. A few people decided to go swimming until they found out that you have to have swim caps to swim in public pools here in France. Interesting to me that they are totally fine with peeing in a hole but god forbid they not wear swim caps in a pool. :) At around 6:30 or so, we got on the bus to head back to Aix-en-Provence.

As we were winding through the small towns that dot the countryside, I started to listen to my ipod. Almost immediately I feel asleep. When I woke up, the next song that came on my ipod was Who I Am by Jessica Andrews. To give everyone an idea of what I was hearing, here’s the youtube video.

When I heard this song, which was one of my favorites a million years ago, I started to think of everyone back home that I love, especially my family. I thought of my Grandma Souder, my living grandparents, my mom, my dad. I thought of how I grew up in little ol’ Rushville, Indiana and yet, here I am in Aix-en-Provence, France. How did this happen? It made me wonder about all of the choices that led me here and how when I was listening to this song at the age of 13 and 14, I would someday hear it in France without even knowing it. 

The next song that came on was BBMak’s song, Back Here. 

I have always loved this song even though it’s kind of corny (suits me perfectly). And when it came on, I started crying because it made me miss my girl. :( Feeling so emotional about missing my family plus missing her just made me tear up a bit. As I watched the lights of the French countryside, I thought of how I’d left her back home and how she must feel about that. The song also made me think of how serious I am about us and how much I do love her. I swore to myself that when I got home, I’d show her that every single day and never leave her again.

About an hour or so from Aix, Ben (one of the guys from Haiti) who was sitting next to me asked if he could read on my kindle. I said sure but that I only had books in English. He said that was fine and asked me to read the titles to him and explain what they were. He chose to read The Prince by Nicolas Machiavelli, and as he started reading, I thought again of how strange, fascinating and amazing my life is. A girl from a small town in Indiana, sitting next to a boy from Haiti, letting him reading The Prince on her Kindle, in France. :)