Meribel Mottaret

I have decided that La Felcaz is no longer interesting. The reason...I discovered Meribel Mottaret! This is a ski area that is a part of Les 3 Vallees, which make up the largest ski area in the world. The entire resort being more massive than any ski area I have ever seen. The cost was great to, actually bordering ridiculous. It costs 15 euros for a the lift ticket and round trip bus ride. This is a deal provided through the University and an tremendous opportunity for the college crowd.

I spent the day with two of my Japanese amies. They were both snow boarders and pretty decent as it as well. We spent the entire day on blues, reds (like hard blues) and blacks. Actually I never saw I green run the entire time and I didn't see too many run signs in general. The crowd there was mostly average to advanced skiers and I didn't see a single pizza wedge all day.

The first run started off with a gondola ride that last for what seemed like a half hour but was maybe more like 15 minutes. It just kept on going and going. It had two get-off points but we stayed on until the very top. The view from the top was fatastibo! aka fantastic in Japanese or how I liked to think of it: fantasti-beau(fantastic-beatiful).

We had a lot of fun to say the least. It was the best groomed slopes that I have ever skied on in my life. For lunch we had a picnic at the top and I was even offered a Japanese sandwich: a rice ball wrapped in seaweed, oyshi (sp? tasty!). The day also included an improve snowball fight of US vs Japan. Of course the US won. I account it for their finesse and pure might in snowball-launching capabilities.

There was a break from skiing to sit back and enjoy some hot wine; something that has been growing on me each time I try it. By the time the day was done we were pretty tired and took some time to look around in the village at the base. Tonight I should sleep well with many dreams of skiing. Good Night!

B-Day Bowling Bash

Yesterday we celebrated the birthday of one of my Russian friends, well my only Russian friend perhaps I have mentioned him before... Anyway it was a really fun time the first round I rocked the game with 119 points, awesome! One thing that was funny about the bowling alley was that the lanes were smaller that what Americans have come to thing of a standard distance of a bowling lane. At least the shoes were just as sexy as one can find in the US. I even wore the socks that I wore my last night in the US. It was my friend Brian's birthday and we all went bowling then. I think the lucking bowling socks helped me out.

We also played some pool on mini pool tables and later played some mini-foosball . All the while enjoying beer from mini beer glasses! I guess the French aren't familiar of the 'proper' size for things, heh. Actually I was really easy to get used to, maybe I just grew since I've been here so things just seem smaller. Overall it was a really great time. There was much laughing, dancing, and victory poses as the night continued. It was a great way to celebrate a birthday of a great friend.

Hike!

On Sunday I noticed that there was an odd increase in air traffic over Chambery. I'm not sure if it is just that I haven't noticed it before or what, yet there were many planes flying in. I took a mini hike on Sunday to catch up on my hiking. It was a really nice day so the hike was great, good enough to want to go hiking the next day.

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Yesterday I went hiking with my Japanese friend. It is actually a pretty funny story. I arranged for us to go hiking the night before but we really didn't know where yet. That morning I asked her where she wanted to go. Her response: "I want to go to the Cross!!" So I I told her that we would have to leave right away, I met up with her at her place. We took the bus to the Carrefour stop and bought some supplies need for the hike. The next stop was, well the cross, sort of. She asked me where we were going next and I replied, "the cross". She mildly freaked out by the distance and asked me if there was a bus. I said no and told her that she said she "wanted to hike to the cross" so that's what we were doing.

After having a good laugh at looking at what was ahead of us we had to make a choice. She is a real trooper so we decided to still go for it. It is funny the things that crash through with the language barrier at times and the best thing to do is just laugh. So we laughed our way along for a little while and eventually she became more and more tired. Yet she really enjoyed everything that she saw along the way. It is a really nice view of Chambery and the day seemed like it was more like april or may than January. I asked her how many times she has hiked. She said two times...in her life. Ha ha, so this made it round number three.

She has a very strong amount of energy in her so she wasn't completely backing down from the adventure. She tackled that mountain with the best of spirit a Tokyo girl could offer. We took a little break for a picnic at Lovettaz. The picnic was a great meal that consisted of bread, cheese, and chocolate! We were pretty hungry by then so it was all really good.

Eventually we pushed our way to make it to the waterfall. The waterfall was at its best due to the hot day and a lot of snow melt. It was a good enough destination to make the trip worth it and she was quite pleased with the journey, yet all around exhausted.

We made our way down the mountain to watch an amazing sunset to and amazingly beautiful day. We took the bust back from Carrefour and I said goodbye. After 6 hours of hiking she was ready to sleep and I was ready to eat a meal or two. It was a really nice day.

Semester Finished

Wednesday night was a friend of mine birthday party. My crazy-fun(ny) roomy and myself when over to enjoy some fantastic and flavorful food. The birthday boy cooked pretty much all of the food but I guess since he is looking to become a chef it was too unusual. One of the best parts is when we sung happy birthday. Everyone sang in their mother tongue so it was a big mix of words with emphasis in Chinese.

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Yesterday I was skiing at La Felcaz for a great day of skiing with mes deux amis. It was a perfect day filled with powder and and trees and speed and jumps. A good mix of skiing and some awesome back trail adventures. We met up with some French peeps and they showed up a secret way to get a back-country experience while still remaining in the ski area. It was fresh powder all the way to the bottom and just plain spectacular. I wanted to go down a few more times but we were out of time and had to get back on the bus.

It was a near perfect day of skiing.

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Today was a little sad because it was the last day of the semester. I had to say many goodbye and had to say goodbye to my close friend the night before; he's heading back for the States to finish his studies. There was a farewell party and I was able to eat some really good food. I tried some quiche that Mme P made and it was absolutely amazing. I'm not a huge quiche fan but this was just incredible. Afterwards I eventually made it make home and took a long nap. This week I went skiing 4 times, stayed up late, and still have been waking up before 7 each morning. This pretty much meant that I was exhausted and need more sleep. I look forward to have sleeping tonight.

I finally have my external hard drive so now I have room for pictures. I'll be adding a lot tonight.

Ciao.

Finals...Finished!

Finals are finally finished. The test themselves were the most challenging out of any of the test that we have had so far. It makes sense considering that they were the last tests of the semester. Next week I'll find out how I did. The way they do tests here is always weird. We just came back from Christmas break and take exams the first week back. Next week we have a last week of classes. After that, two weeks of vacation. I was in the mode to start learning some more French and surprise, two more weeks of vacation. Anyway, I think I'm taking a little trip with a little Russian friend of mine. Haha, he's not little at all but right now there is a little wait to get his visa re-instated.

Oh yea, I forgot to mention, My American bud is back again but he takes off again next week which will be sad. It was really good to have him back in Chambery. Yesterday a bunch of us went skiing. The weather in town was not that great so that meant that not too many people were in the mood for leaving to go skiing. That meant there were no crowds whatsoever on the mountain.

The snow was great. We were able to ski on 20cm or so of fresh powder and it overall a lot of fun for everyone. Since it was so powdery it didn't hurt whenever anyone fell. At the end of the day we were that last few on the chairlift. The clouds were finally starting to part and we watched an amazing first catches of sunset. It was a great view.

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Last night I watched a movie with my groovy roomy. It was a funny film that poked fun about nightlife in LA. It touched subjects of partying, drinking, dating, drugging and other various other wild behaviors. It was pretty amusing all around yet sad in away because it showed so truths of some of the downsides of big city American nightlife. Well anyway, today the weather looks amazing so I must go out and do something.

Skiing and Studying

I went skiing a few days ago with my Russian compatriot, well that makes no sense but anyway we went skiing. We went the La Feclaz, which is a local little ski hill. It costs 14,5 euros for a round trip bus ticket and lift ticket. Not too bad. It was his first time ever skiing so he decided to try out snowboarding. He has had some practice with skateboarding so he wanted to try his luck with a snowboard.

Getting on the lift the first time it was a bit iffy but afterwards he rapidly started to get better and better. Overall considering that it was he first time he did pretty well. On one run he beat be to the bottom because I was too busy getting lost in the woods.

The day itself was absolutely marvelous; a perfectly sunny day and not too many people for most of the day. It was kind of a slow day skiing-wise, yet I still had fun. I'm used to now skiing better than most of my friends and always look back on the times I skied with Richard because we would both find the runs that we took fun and challenging. I'll have some more ski stories to come once there is more skiing.

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One thing that is 'funny' about house is that we all try to avoid Mme J as much as possible. Her presence is overbearing much of the time and I think none of us are usually in the mood for such. On the other hand it is fun to get a good laugh when you are only a passive witness to her reproaches. I'm not really afraid of Mme J like I used to be it is just that hearing complaints in one form or another is never pleasant. I've also discovered that laughing is a fun option but then she just asks me why I'm laughing. I'm not sure how to say: "Your French-like dissatisfaction in many things makes me giggle."

The other day I made a odd observation that within about 10 minutes of Mme J leaving the house everyone was in the kitchen. I ran a quick poll to see if everyone was on the same page. We were all waiting in our rooms for Mme J to leave. Thankfully I was getting some studying done but my other roommates seemed to be fasting until it was safe to go into the kitchen. Anyway it is pretty funny at times.

Today I tried to get out of the kitchen before she arrived but was unsuccessful. The result was me helping her fiddle around with trying to fix the faucet and getting nowhere in the process. The faucet semi-broke over Christmas brake and ever since it has two streams of water. The main flow as well as a mini geyser that sprays you in the face every time you turn on the water. It is like have a squirt gun battle every time you do the dishes. Fun! It seems to get me every time.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone! I a took a break from my blog for awhile but now I am back. Christmas was really nice because I was able to visit my grandparents. I had to take a few buses and trains to get there but I made it. The day I left the weather in Lyon was not that great and there were many delays. As a result I wound up missing my connecting flight to Helsinki. Yet on the way to Frankfurt I saw a very beautiful sunset. The plane was flying right next to the alps and all the mountains were snow white dressed in a gown of purple lighting. It was an amazing perspective of a sunset. Upon arriving at Frankfurt I was able to be put on a later flight to Finland but I wound up arriving at 2am in the morning.

I spent spent a lot of time at the airport just waiting for the bus to come. The sad thing is due to bad timing, my sleepiness, and not knowing that my watch was 7 minutes slow I arrived to the bus stop , I'd guess 30 seconds too late. The bus left at 3:40 am and when I got to the stop the clock on at the stop said 3:40. Overall I was pretty frustrated and was hoping that the bus was late. After standing in the cold for 20 minutes I decided to go back inside and wait for the next bus.

Eventually I made it to my grandparents and were very glad to see them. My night of sleeping was not exactly that great so I took some more time to sleep at their place. Afterwards there was much talking, laughing, and plenty of food eating. The weather itself was rainy. One would think that for being in Finland it would be snowing but it actually rained for most of the time that I was there.

We a a really big Christmas dinner on both Christmas eve and Christmas. One thing that I thought was really neat was that I was able to see some pictures that I have never seen before. They were pictures of the family and I was able to see some pictures of my great grandparents as well as my grandparents when they were kids. I also found it amusing to see some pictures of my dad when he was a kid.

Eventually it was time to part which was sad because I was only there for a few days. I left on the bus and headed back towards the airport. The during most of the plane rides back I just spent most of my time sleeping. It was another odd schedule where I had schedule where I need to leave early the next morning so a basically wound up pulling an all-nighter. Sleep was the only option. I made it back to Chambery and shared some stories with my roommate of my trip.

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I have been spending most of my time while I have been back with my roommate. Over the break a few things in the house broke; we used each others support so we wouldn't crack under that "wrath" of Mme J. She can be a bit wild at times but she is always very caring at heart. Other friends have been out of town so I have spent the time with her. We have been having a really good time together and our communication ability with her is vastly improving. Her French is improving slowly as well but one problem is that I actually understand her now most people that speak French can't understand her because her grammar is terrible and she speaks Franglish more than actual French with outbursts of Chinese. I should really start correcting her more because it is rare to actually hear a proper sentence.

For example:
Key: English French Chinese

She parler avec me and others pas comprendre nàgè quand elle parler, language...quelquefoisfānù!

Keep in mind that even if there are two or three consecutive words that are the same language it might be following Chinese grammar rules so you still have to do some thinking. Her sentences are getting better but sometimes it's a little rough. Overall it is always amusing.

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For New Year's Eve we had dinner at our place there were guests over as well so we totaled six people at our place. It was a French-Moroccan-American-Chinese kind of crowd. Madame J pretty much supplied most of the food but there was also some Finnish cake a chocolate to be enjoyed. The meal included and appetizer, a main dish, and about five rounds of desert. An excellent dinner to put it modestly. Perhaps exquisite would be a better term.

Our original plans for the evening went out the window due but the alternative wasn't too bad either. For the past few days there have been some general stomach troubles that have been going around the house. So midnight was almost spent in the bathroom, yet my roommate and I made it to the Chateau just as midnight arrived. There was a celebration song played in the bell tower. I was really surprised to see that there weren't that many people out. I'd say that maybe twenty people or so at the Chateau. It was a quaint little gathering yet it included a mini fireworks show as well as singing and dancing.

We later checked out what was going on at Les Elephants (THE meeting place in Chambery) and it was mostly drunk highschool kids getting wild with fireworks and dancing. We wanted to go scope out the clubs but neither of our stomachs were up for dancing. We decided to just return home and spent some time discussing the spirit(s) that live in the house. Apparently everyone in the house senses some sort of supernatural presence but we all agree that it isn't a bad one. It was neat because we shared some of the weird things that happen in the house which is something I have never discussed with anyone before. I guess it is actually a common topic in Chinese culture.

Now I ready for this new year. Undoubtedly it will be filled with many memories.