Chartreuse and Chilly Lake

On Saturday I took a big hike along with other people from the University up the Chartreuse Mountain range. There were about 25 of us total and it was an international crowd. I met a friendly girl from Estonia and proclaimed that she will become a famous actress some day. I'm not sure about the experience but she's got all the potential she needs, her presence had a certain magic to it.

The hike itself was foggy, windy, a little snowy yet overall well worth it. We hiked for around 9 hours with various breaks for water, food and such. The fog was a bummer because I imagine that the view would have been absolutely breathtaking. There was a big monastery located on the lower side of the mountains. It looked like it could hold a few hundred people, rumor has it that there are 15 dudes there. I also met some Finnish girls but they seemed a little aloof, I'll probably run into them again at some other point and maybe have a better chance to connect.

Today I went to the Lac with a roommate and I thought it was going to be really nice. The sun was great but the wind was too chilly to really enjoy the lake. We wound up huddling next to a build to be shielded from the wind. I let her listen to some of my music selection, which she enjoyed and I continued to learn some more Chinese.

Overall, learning Chinese is going pretty slow, mostly because it is pretty unstructured and I have no visuals for help. It is all call, response, and confusion. Eventually I think I will be able to get some basics down. I think sentence formation is relatively easy, just the sounds are really hard to produce and remember.

Next week the Vancances de Toussaint commence. The current plan is myself and my American comrade to visit the coast of southern France and northern Spain. Tomorrow I have to figure out what we are actually doing so we can see if it is even plausible. I also have a potential option to going to Paris and the nearby region.