Craziness

Tuesday was a crazy day. In class that day we had a big celebration where everyone brought something for breakfast. It was great because there were all sorts of options and I even got to have some sushi and bi bim bob that was just amazing. It was my Korean amie's birthday. We sang rounds of happy birthday in French, English, Chinese, and Korean. Russian or Japanese versions were either too hard or the song was non-existent.

During lunch I got a message from my American right hand man, it said that he was going to miss his flight back home for Christmas due to the train to Paris having issues. He wanted to see if I could help figure out what could be done. He managed to get it all worked out and now (I hope) he has made it back to the states.

That evening practically the entire class went out to Charley's for a huge birthday bash. There was much drinking and singing and generally silliness. Massive amounts of pictures were taken because nearly everyone had brought their camera. Overall it was one of the most unique yet awesome birthday parties I have ever been to. It was filled with priceless memories.

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Yesterday I watched "Lord of the Flies" on campus. What a weird movie that was. Yet at least everyone agreed that it was tres bizarre. Afterwards while walking back from the movie two strange things happened. The first is that my roommate decided to punch me in the face for some reason. She can get too rambunctious at times and has a habit of punching that I'm still trying to figure out how to tone it down because it is just odd. Anyway this was completely boring compared to what happened a few seconds later...

We were walking on campus and there was a dark figure, all in black, super-tall standing on stilts. He turned our direction and revealed that he was wearing a mask, the kind that psychotic killers like to wear. He busted out 2 massive machetes from his cloak and proceeded to walk towards us, while threatening us with with his meat cleavers. At one point he broke into a jog as we wisely retreated into the other direction. I never realized that people on stilts could jog maybe only the ones brandishing stiletto have that ability. Eventually our mighty Russian was able to somehow convince the guy to retreat. We took the opportunity to take a less menacing route back home.

I'm sure if he was really dangerous we were probably not be around to tell the story. Who knows if the guy could sprint on stilts. I just hope that I don't have to run into him again. France is more strange then you could ever imagine at times.

Le Week-end

Last Night I was hanging out at one of the local pubs with some friends. It was night to just hang back ad enjoy the music with people. The DJ there was pretty chill and played certain reggae and reggae-eque beats. Eventually there was some dancing. It was just bound to happen.

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Today my roomy ad I were supposed to go cross-country skiing. The problem was that we couldn't find the bus. Since it was Sunday it was pretty mush impossible to get and information about the bus as well. Instead we decided to hang out at a cafe for awhile. It was pretty amusing because after the cafe were returned home and sat at the table in the kitchen. It was basically an outing that we could have just experienced at home, oh well.

Tonight I bade a friend farewell as it was her last night in Chambery. It is somewhat sad to see her go because she has such a great presence. I hope that she continues to have great adventures in wherever her life takes her.

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I thought I would add a random side note. I have recently determined that lentils are probably my favorite food. They are super cheap, and super healthy. The downside is that they aren't super fast to cook yet it doesn't require any effort to cook them. Overall I'd say lentils are always a good choice when I have no idea what to eat.

Goodnight

China

After a lot of time of thinking it over and picking through all the cons I have figured out my goal for next year. My plan for next year sometime after I finish my studies in France is to move to China. I think that Chinese would make the ideal 3rd language for me to focus on. It is challenging in one way but in other ways its actually pretty simple. For those of you who know anything about studying foreign languages, the best way to earn it is to dive yourself right in and be surrounded by it all the time.

Chinese is the language in the world spoken by more people that any other language. Albeit they are mostly in China that could change over the next few decades. China's economy is continuously bringing more money into the country and definitely holds a huge role in the role of the future of our world.

I worked out the options of have I'm going to fund this and determined that I can teach English since the language is on huge demand. I will have to further hone in on my English skills since sometimes grammar can be killer, yet with purpose the drive is there to get it done. As being a teacher there one can get housing and a salary. The salary won't be huge, yet it will be definitely livable with housing already covered.

It seems like the perfect challenge in the next stage of my life. As I continuously strive to see what I can do to help further improve myself and the world around me this option is the one that my heart pulls me towards. It is funny that amount of things that can change in a year. Last year at this time is when I came down to knowing that I would be going to France. Now I know I'm going to China. I can hardly imagine how many daily adventures will occur there. Right now I'm just trying to put together everything that I need to make this work. Anyone that has any insights feel free to let me know. Thanks!

This Week So Far

I have been increasingly trying to study more Chinese. I need to figure out a better system then the one that I'm using right now for time management because recently I have felt that I could definitely be getting more things done. This week has been hard to find a priority and stick with it kind of week. I think it is just a bit of near farewell sickness, well not sickness but something like that. My American comrade is going to be taking off back for the states next week and then he will only be back for a brief period before leaving again. It is strange to think that this semester is almost over.

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The other day in class was quite amusing. We had a game of scrabble, perhaps the most amusing game of scrabble that I have ever played. Of course all the words were French words and it was just hilarious trying to make it work out. The two highlights of the game are as folows:

1) There was a very nice opening to create a word with the letter c right next to a triple word square as well as a double letter square. If the girl before me wasn't using that spot I was going for it for sure. So she decided to perfectly bypass these point scoring opportunities with a 3 letter word. Without hesitation, she eagerly spelled the word "ici" (here) in the spot and racked up 2 points.

2)The second highlight was the play that caused me to win the game. I capitalized on changing the word age to ages and creating the word ski as well on a double word box, I racked up (k is worth 10 points in French) 29 points that boosted me to take the lead. It was funny because the Asians were impressed and my American friend was upset for loosing the lead. All in all an amusing round of Scrabble.

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Last night was some more salsa dancing. It was fun as usual yet not the usual night of salsa dancing. Watching my roommate learn from the instructor guy was pretty funny. We we wondering how long it would take the guy to realize that she doesn't speak French that well. My Canadian friend was really fun to dance with. She couldn't stop laughing while we dance. I think it was my sexy dance moves that caused all her amusement. At one point she was dancing alone on the dance floor and then did the splits. That cause a very high level of interest among the guys at the bar. Everyone was cheering. We were pretty tired so we decided to roll out a little earlier than originally planed.

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Hike? Yes, that is what I did today. It has been rainy over the past few days but today it was really nice. As an American duo we set off towards the mountains. Our original goal was to try to reach a summit that we have not reached before. Yet the snow was was causing the hike to go much slower than expected so we made it to the Col and decided to turn back. Besides being tiring the hike was absolutely beautiful. We walked our way through a winter wonderland. The trees were all frosted with a heavy coat of snow and the overall felling of the forest was fairy-tale-like. No one had yet blazed a trail in the direction we were going so we trudged our way through the snow. It was snowy, serene, and spectacular. We made our way back to town just in time for night to arrive. Each hike I go on always has something different to offer. It is always a great experience.

Fête des Lumières

I spent Thursday and Friday evening practicing a lot of Chinese with my roommate. It was jam packed full of laughs. I have to say that one of the best parts about learning a languages is that it turns you into a kid again. You have a billion questions, you ask a billion questions and you repeat this process a billion times.

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Last night I was at Lyon to whiteness the festival of lights. It is a big celebration in Lyon where they decorate the entire city with a more lights than you count. It is like taking Christmas decorations to a whole new level.

We arrived to Lyon by bus and all 100+ of us piled out of two buses. We walked to the train station decided to take the metro to the center of town. The train station in Lyon is pretty big and it is perhaps easier to get lost train the train station than the city itself.

Finally we made are way to the metro and I would have to say with perfect timing any later and we would not have fit into the metro. The transportation strikes miht be still lingering but the metro was absolutely nuts. Luckily we were the first stop on the line so the entire crowd tried to back itself inside the metro but not everyone could fit. Imagine that this is just the first stop.

So there we were, packed in there, on our way to the center of town. The first stop, packed with people, was not pleased to see the condition of the metro. Eventually our stop had arrived and we had to plow our way out the metro. I was wondering if body surfing would have been easier.

We arrived out side of the station and there was absolute darkness outside. It was so dark that I was wondering where we were... Aaawww just kidding. There were lights, and people everywhere. It was really neat to because it was like turning the city into a big Christmas village. Right in the center of town there was a huge ferris wheel. The statue in the center square was in cased in a huge snowglobe. Music and merriment and lights were the themes of the night.

Every direction you looked there was something interesting going on. It is really hard to manage a group of big people but eventually we made our way around and found some more people. People were hungry so we stopped to get some food. Eventually the group started walking around and made it towards the western side of the city. American crowd wanted to hang out in a smoky pub for awhile. I decided to take of with my Japanese and Korean amies and we just started wondering. Our first choice of a direction to go was a bust. Basically it was so crowded that the walking street was making zero progress towards reaching anywhere. We turned around and headed the other direction.

Eventually we hit the same problem going the other way as well but found the source of the problem, the line to the metro. It spilled out into the street and took up the entire street, halting most movement. We made our way around the crowd and just decided to shoot up the hill to get a look of the city.

Eventual we made our way to Fourvière Cathedral. The view of the city was really neat at night with seeing the streets with all the lights and seeing the ferris wheel. We spent some time on the top of the hill, enjoyed the view, and then made our way back down the hill. We enjoyed some hot wine from one of the many dealer that were spread throughout the city. It was like hot cider but even better!

We found a little area with music playing and afterwards an area and enjoyed watching the kids on the fast-swinging-spinning-ride. We walked around a bit more and enjoyed some more lights. We got to eat some really good chocolate that was just amazing. Wow, that chocolate was good.

Eventually we managed to wander our way back towards the bus. A long the way we ran into a street performance which was just weird. Many people wearing lampshades and lights. Some of them were playing music, others where howling, others were singing and dancing. Overall it was pretty strange to say the least. After we had or fill of weirdness we continued walking.

Finally we were back on the bus and rock out to some of my music on our ride back home. It was really fun night.

Goals

Recently I have been trying to get all of my goals laid out. It is going slower than I have wanted but I am more serious about goal setting than I have ever been in the past now so this time it working. I've researched some online about goal setting techniques and there is some good advice out there. Some of the best advice that I can remember is that all the goals, even though they are future in completion must be present goals. For example if you had a goal to make a million dollars you would would right that as you goal but rather be creative and think what you could do this very moment to step closer to that goal. Setting the goal as a process rather than a destination makes it more effective.

Anyway that has been one of the mini themes of my life for the past few days. Tonight was movie night on campus and I watched a bunch of Cannes Film Festival shorts. The theme behind all the movies was "at the cinema" or something close to that. The movies ranged from bizarre to all out hilarious. There was definitely a lot of creativity put into these movies.

Christmas Season Commences

On Saturday evening just after I finished dinner I was invited to another dinner by my roommate. I decided to go. I helped with some of the preparation for dinner. This involved various things like pinching raviolis or tearing up bits of cabbage. To begin with everyone else there was Chinese but afterwards some of their French friends showed up. The dinner was absolutely excellent.

All the food was just fantastic and actually had that good homemade feel to it. I ate more than enough and then some more. I eventually had to just refuse more food because I had way too much. It was not easy eating two dinners back to back.

After dinner well hung at and talked for awhile. I got invited to go on a hike the next day. None of the Chinese folks were interested in going but I sure was. So that's what I did, went on another hike.

The next day I met up and we had to pound on the door for about ten minutes to get our other friend to wake up. Eventually we were on our way towards the mountains. The hike was another brilliant day. There was a lot of ice and mud going up the trail but all around it was really beautiful.

At one point we saw a Chamoix, a mountain antelope that frequently hangs out in the Alps. By the time we made it to the top it was pretty cold and winding. A perfect place for lunch! So that's where we ate lunch. On top of the world.

Afterwards we slid our way down the mountain and made it mack to the car. On the ride home we stopped by a castle. The castle itself was pretty neat looking for the outside but we were unable to go inside. At least it was cool to know that there is a castle just 30km from Chambery. For the rest of the ride home I slept and drooled all over my sweatshirt. I guess I was pretty tired.

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Yesterday I did a whole lot of laundry. I basically washed most of the clothes that I have. This involved me wearing my huge hiking backpack filled with laundry as well as my suitcase. For those of you that think laundry is expensive you have not lived in France. When I do laundry I never dry my clothes because it costs dollar for every 5-10 minutes. Or something like that, I don't remember exactly besides deciding that it was way to expensive.

Just to wash my clothes I forked over the equivalent to $16, I'd say I would have to triple this price if I paid for the driers as well. So I packed the heavy wet clothes back into my luggage and headed towards my destination, the cave.

That evening I spent some time with my super awesome Japanese friend we walked around the Chambery Christmas market that started this weekend. They basically set up a mini Christmas village right in the Center of town were you can shop for Christmas gifts. You can even visit Santa, or as the the French like to call him, Christmas Daddy.

Night at Chartreuse

On Thursday morning we all woke up after a makeshift sleep over that occurred the night before. It was the standard crew of another crazy American, the witty Russian and myself. We had some breakfast than entered the swiss-mobile to get taken up to where the hike would begin. Our Swiss friend was cool enough to agree to drive us there and then pick us up the next day, with out him the trip could not have occurred, Thanks again!

The drive to the mountain was ominous. It was super cloudy with a mix of threatening snow. The thermometer said it was 3 below freezing and that gave us a good laugh. After getting slightly lost trying to find the trail we had to ask for directions but soon we were back on the right track. By the time we were dropped off the clouds looked way more promising.

We started our way up the mountain and it was a workout from the very beginning. Carry a lot of gear up a mountain makes it a lot more challenging. By the time we hit snow we had to stop and consider where exactly we were going because it gets a lot harder to stay on trail once all the snow is gone. Yet eventually we made it all the way up to the Petit Som. The view from the top was absolutely amazing.

At this point we were far above the clouds and had a 360 degree view of the countryside. The clouds made it seem as if there could have been an ocean below us. It was really beautiful to see the Snow topped mountains in the distance along with the greener hills below. For a moment it was it seemed like everything just seemed to be floating on top of the clouds.

We had some dejeuner at the summit and then went down to find our home for the evening. Our home was a little shack at near the trail for the Grand Som. When we arrived it had a lock on the door, after a short pause in our heartbeats, it turned out that it was unlocked. We scoped it out and set up our tent inside it. This was going to be our home for the night.

It had a place for a campfire inside the cabin but there was no chimney. We were going to try it out. The next step was to find some fire-wood in the nearby forest. After a few hours of wood collecting we had a nice pile going. Enough to have several hours of fire.

We decided to scope out the trail for the Grand Som. After a bit of recon we determine that it would be doable but at the same time it was really steep so we would have to be extremely careful.

The evening was spent to watch the sunset. At one point while watching the sunset there was a strange noise that was coming down the hill. After expecting to discover some sort of mountain yeti it turned out to a person. It is amazing how well footsteps echo when you are in the mountains. The silence is just...silent; nothing can really describe the sound of nothing.

The sunset was really great to see leaving a golden glow on everything as the last light was peering over the horizon. After the sun was down the cold soon followed. It was time to get that fire going and eat dinner.

The fire wasn't easy to start. The wood was pretty damp so for a fair amount of time I spent just finding dry grass and bring it back to the fire. Eventually we got the thing going and had a nice little fire in our cabin. The problem was that event though there was some air holes for the smoke to go through we wound up smoking out the entire cabin.

Eventually we had to move the fire outside because there was no way to spend any long amount of time it the cabin. Another round of collecting grass occurred and eventually the fire outside was on its way as well. After awhile the smoked cleared from inside the cabin and it was soon bedtime.

We went to bed and the plan was to wake up between 3:30 and 4 to make it to the summit to watch the sunrise. Later that night it became colder and colder. A combination of wind and cloud-cover that rolled in told us that it would be way too dangerous to try the climb to see the sunrise. After throwing on a lot more clothing I was warm again and was able to sleep for a bit.

The next morning we woke up and had some breakfast and a fire going. It was really cloudy and foggy that morning and was mildly snowing off and on. The entire summit was wrapped in a cloud. I was disappointed because I thought that the chances for a good view were gone.

I was wrong.

Eventually some of the clouds lifted and the fog started disappearing. We packed all of our stuff up and brought along just what we thought we would need to make it to the summit. We started our hike up towards the misty cloud and once we broke through the ridge a vast vista of clear skies was showing its way through.

Hiking to the summit was just amazing. We roped ourselves together incase anyone slipped on the snow and marched our way towards the Grand Som. The clouds kept on clearing as we continued to make our way towards the top. Finally we arrived at the summit and it was just fantastic. The view of Mount Blanc was superb and overall it was a great sense of accomplishment.

We made it.

The climb down was quite rapid. It is always fun to see that you can cover the same distance going down a hill three to five times faster than going up it. In about no time at all we were back at the rendezvous point and took the time to just lie back and reflect on our adventure. What a great adventure it was.