je suis coincee!!

there are no words to describe how much i love grenoble. suffice to say, if i spend as much time there as i hope to (annnd love that it's ust 15E RT to visit), it might surpass paris as my first love in france. i mean, it has mountains. and guiliana.



mandy and i embarked on our first weekend excursion, taking the bus up to grenoble on sat morning. there was a crying kid in front of us, and the bus was basically a sauna, but it was worth it: we had the whole weekend to wander around and hang out with guiliana!! it was windy and chilly all week in valence, but the sun loved grenoble this weekend and it was warm to boot.
why i loved this weekend: we chilllllled out. lunch took at least 2 hours. primarily because the waiter was a jerkface and never brought our check, but hey! we had chosen to sit outside, so we basked in the sun and didnt worry on it because we had no real itinerary for the day. manuela, another italian assistant from Vieron, joined us, too. mmm crepes with eggplant and feta. yumm. we ambled around Place Victor Hugo and the shops there, wishing that we had money to splurge on boots and purses, but we restrained ourselves and resolved to come back at christmas time for shopping and snowy mountains. there are a TON of bulk tea stores. heaven. you can see teh mountains everywhere you turn. incredible. there was a cocker spaniel that jumped into a fountain bc he was thirsty. adorable. guiliana called us japanese girls bc we took photos every 5 minutes. whatevs, so worth it!

why i love this job: there are 200+ assistants in l'Academie de Grenoble, and we saw most of them at the stage the first week. On any given day wandering Valence, I run into one or two other assistants (and theyre fantastic) - and in grenoble it was the same. we ran into some german assistants at the Orange store when Manuela went to recharge her phone minutes and some spanish assistants were hanging out in front of Promod when we were shopping. i like our little 'yay language studies!' community.

what we were reeeally there for: the France-England rugby match (world cup quater finals). i dont know much about any sports, im not going to lie, but i know zip about rugby. (nerd that i am, i totally read up on it last week so id have an inkling of what was going on) soo will, an assistant in Romans (town just 10 min from Valence par train), and his two french neighbors, Yannick and Damien, drove up to meet us and watch the match. fantastic - we met for drinks around 19h, then guiliana and manuela went to grab warmer clothes (we were planning on watching the game outside. there we several screens being set up outside at Place St Andre). they promised to be back in an hour so we could grab dinner before the game,which started at 21h. riiiight. one hour in italian translates in 2 1/2 hours....needless to say, mandy and i set out with the boys to find something to eat without the others. kebab. mmm meat i cant eat! but it was fun, we chilled on a little street crowded with arabic shops and smelling of cumin. i ate figs. and was quite happy. then it was on to the couche tard (pub) for happy hours drinks (they do it right over here, happy hour is from 19h to 21h) and lessons in french-english cussing and commentary on how american-english sounds like we're speaking with marbles in our mouths. buut, the boys admitted that we three americans spoke french pretty well, so no worries. love it. rugby started (still pas d'italiennes), the bar burst out with la marseillaise and shouts of "allez les bleus!!" and we fell in love with rugby.

guiliana and manuela eventually returned, we left with them to eat some dinner (fries from the kebab stand), and then they left us for another bar, sans rugby, where we were to meet them later. back to the boys, and the game. it was just the best thing ever to watch the match outside with everyone going insane. especially because france led the entire time. until. the last. like, 5 minutes. seriously. then poopy england took over, and won. aieeeee, c'etait pas juste. oh zut! tears.

and then onto the Loco Mosquito, with guili and some other grenoble-based assistants. we for sure got lost about 10 times on the way there (ooh, yah, it's super close, they said....super close means 30+ minutes on foot, on some little back road. ooph), but at least the frenchy boys were outgoing and determined (they liked our little italian girls. oui, c'est comme ca) and asked for directions...omg. it was a madhouse. cute cute bar, super tiny, awesome music (lotsa reggaton and american pop), and PACKED. super hardcore. i was coinceed entre yannick et will pendant toute la nuit. so we danced until the bar closed, then the guys gave us a lift back to the hostel before they headed home. mmm long day, but awesome.

sunday we slept...ummm...not as late as we would have liked to (bfast was until 9h30 and checkout at 10)...then mandy and i wandered around a market by l'eglise St Bruno until guili was up and ready for the world. which is to say that we were ready to take the bulles (gondola) up to the bastille, overlooking the city. the weather was a little hazy, but we could still see for miles out. wonderful. photos/descend/lunch/balade en ville/petit cafe sur la terrasse/train station - where we ran into Sophie, british assistant from valence, who'd come up to visit a friend from her university and was taking the same train home. at the valence tgv stop, the guy sitting behind us passed me a "youre cute" letter. hysterical giggles...and that was the weekend!