I've changed blog sites...
All my blogs from here on out will be posted at
http://web.mac.com/jenaekimberly
thanks
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Before i begin i would like to explain why its been so long since i have updated my blog. Before Christmas I was actually working on a blog when my computer suddenly malfunctioned. I just recently got it back and am determined to be more regular with this thing. I can not believe i have been here for 5 months, it seems unreal. I have just started my second semester marking the halfway mark. A lot has happened since my last blog. Upon returning to France, from Ireland, i kept in touch with one of the friends i had made in Dublin. Through email conversations i was invited to return and spend christmas with him and his family. I can honestly say the intention of this trip was strictly platonic. After returning to this wonderful place it was decided we kind of REALLY liked each other. It might even be amusing to you that i stayed longer than just Christmas, in fact i spent my entire break being swept away by this Irish Charmer experiencing first hand how not to compete with the Irish and the amount of Alcohol they are possible of consuming. It was after leaving for the second time that i was stumped and confused as to why i picked a place like France to study. You might find it funny that i am now officially an American girl, doing a long distance relationship with an Irish boy and living in France. Yes i think i've gone mad! Its actually quite cool and loads of fun for I am getting to learn about two very different cultures while trying to find a place in both.
France, i have decided, is very much a love/ hate relationship. There are days when i hate it, absolutely would love to punch a few frenchies in the face, and then there are times when i am so lost in the beauty and uniqueness of the culture that i don't ever want to leave. I feel like i am learning how to balance and enjoy life a little more. One thing i have come to envy is the sense of carefree attitude the french have. They know how to indulge into one glass of wine, a piece of chocolate or a cigaret guilt free. There is no need to gorge a whole platter of treats down when one piece will ultimately satisfy. Self discipline in a way that it is not a diet nor a chore, its just something they do. You will not see these people jogging down the streets after work or early in the morning; yet the women have almost near to perfect figures. And not only do they have the perfect bodies, they look fabulous no matter what time a day it is. There is a reason Paris is home to the world's top fashion industry. In the south it is a bit more relaxed, but when you step outside the door, you are still expected to fit in with the beauty that is around you. This doesn't mean wearing low V neck shirts where your boobs are hanging out or short skirts and lots of makeup. These women will have a turtleneck and jeans on but they will look stunning because the clothes are picked carefully to insinuate every curve and inspire the natural beauty each posses. It is considered a little disrespectful to ignore this rule and thus why many tourists receive nasty looks when wearing their shorts, tank top and flip flops. Everyone plays a part in making this place beautiful, and dressing to play the part is essential. This rule really hit me one night when i decided to jog to volleyball practice. It is a good 25 minutes outside the city and most of it up hill. I thought great i will get a fantastic workout! I was on my way, enjoying the burning sensation in my legs when i saw a few girls from my team. I stopped to walk with them and noticed they were wearing street clothes. On previous nights i have observed that most of the girls show up in these clothes and then change back into them for the walk home. In my broken french i asked my friends about this. They simply responded that they don't want to walk through the city wearing their gym clothes. It was as if it was obvious and for a second i felt kind of stupid. It is through experiences like these that i can both appreciate this foreign culture while longing for my own.
Below are some pictures of Christmas, I hope that you enjoy them. My next blog will be about my trip to Austria and the infamous Sound of Music tour.
The first picture is of the food we had on Christmas. The traditional christmas meal is similar to our Thanksgiving feast. The main course is turkey with mashed potatoes, vegtables, and a very yummy soup. They eat this around lunch time then relax. The evening is spent at one of the realitives drinking mulled wine and eating turkey sandwhices. I am happy to say that I contributed with some delicious, homemade eggnog, which was quite a hit.
I have no pictures from Christmas eve because it was spent in the town's pub. Everyone in this pub was related, no joke! Did I mention i stayed in a very small town, called Offaly. In fact, his parents are neighbors with his grandparents and his aunt and uncles. It's much different than anything i've ever expereinced,but so much fun. There is a picture of his grandparents below. It is funny because you would think being in an english speaking country you would be able to communicate. Well, the Irish speak with a heavy accent where the enitre sentance is mumbled into one long word,. I serioulsy needed a translator when speaking to his Grandpa, it was quite hysterical.
I added some pictures of the two of us, (mostly for you mom and Dori of course :) The last photo was taken at Anthony's roomates parents house a few days after Christmas. Eoin is Anthony's roomate and one of 9 brothers and sisters (i thought i had a big family) Anyways we were invited over for an after christmas dinner. It was a lot of fun. I really like Dublin a lot. The people are great and the atmosphere was wonderful! I can't wait to return.
France, i have decided, is very much a love/ hate relationship. There are days when i hate it, absolutely would love to punch a few frenchies in the face, and then there are times when i am so lost in the beauty and uniqueness of the culture that i don't ever want to leave. I feel like i am learning how to balance and enjoy life a little more. One thing i have come to envy is the sense of carefree attitude the french have. They know how to indulge into one glass of wine, a piece of chocolate or a cigaret guilt free. There is no need to gorge a whole platter of treats down when one piece will ultimately satisfy. Self discipline in a way that it is not a diet nor a chore, its just something they do. You will not see these people jogging down the streets after work or early in the morning; yet the women have almost near to perfect figures. And not only do they have the perfect bodies, they look fabulous no matter what time a day it is. There is a reason Paris is home to the world's top fashion industry. In the south it is a bit more relaxed, but when you step outside the door, you are still expected to fit in with the beauty that is around you. This doesn't mean wearing low V neck shirts where your boobs are hanging out or short skirts and lots of makeup. These women will have a turtleneck and jeans on but they will look stunning because the clothes are picked carefully to insinuate every curve and inspire the natural beauty each posses. It is considered a little disrespectful to ignore this rule and thus why many tourists receive nasty looks when wearing their shorts, tank top and flip flops. Everyone plays a part in making this place beautiful, and dressing to play the part is essential. This rule really hit me one night when i decided to jog to volleyball practice. It is a good 25 minutes outside the city and most of it up hill. I thought great i will get a fantastic workout! I was on my way, enjoying the burning sensation in my legs when i saw a few girls from my team. I stopped to walk with them and noticed they were wearing street clothes. On previous nights i have observed that most of the girls show up in these clothes and then change back into them for the walk home. In my broken french i asked my friends about this. They simply responded that they don't want to walk through the city wearing their gym clothes. It was as if it was obvious and for a second i felt kind of stupid. It is through experiences like these that i can both appreciate this foreign culture while longing for my own.
Below are some pictures of Christmas, I hope that you enjoy them. My next blog will be about my trip to Austria and the infamous Sound of Music tour.
The first picture is of the food we had on Christmas. The traditional christmas meal is similar to our Thanksgiving feast. The main course is turkey with mashed potatoes, vegtables, and a very yummy soup. They eat this around lunch time then relax. The evening is spent at one of the realitives drinking mulled wine and eating turkey sandwhices. I am happy to say that I contributed with some delicious, homemade eggnog, which was quite a hit.
I have no pictures from Christmas eve because it was spent in the town's pub. Everyone in this pub was related, no joke! Did I mention i stayed in a very small town, called Offaly. In fact, his parents are neighbors with his grandparents and his aunt and uncles. It's much different than anything i've ever expereinced,but so much fun. There is a picture of his grandparents below. It is funny because you would think being in an english speaking country you would be able to communicate. Well, the Irish speak with a heavy accent where the enitre sentance is mumbled into one long word,. I serioulsy needed a translator when speaking to his Grandpa, it was quite hysterical.
I added some pictures of the two of us, (mostly for you mom and Dori of course :) The last photo was taken at Anthony's roomates parents house a few days after Christmas. Eoin is Anthony's roomate and one of 9 brothers and sisters (i thought i had a big family) Anyways we were invited over for an after christmas dinner. It was a lot of fun. I really like Dublin a lot. The people are great and the atmosphere was wonderful! I can't wait to return.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Ireland Part 2
My apologies for taking forever to complete the rest of my Ireland trip. I really have no excuse other than ive been taking more trips and have thousands of more pictures and many more stories to share. --> Off the subject for a moment, if you look at the bottom of the screen you will notice a link area. Those links are of my friends blogs here in Aix so if your ever bored feel free to check them out, they are quite interesting. <--
Anyways back to Ireland. After renting the car we headed south, our destination being Cork for the big Jazz festival. It's funny that our intial plan was to do all of Ireland, including the north, in 4 days. Let me just say, no matter how small Ireland looks, the roads make is difficult to travel efficiently. They are being improved but they definitly slow you down and Ireland is really not that small :)
The most exciting part of our first day on the road was our stop at Cashel Castle. This is where St. Pattrick babtized the King of Munster. I personally found this very interesting especially after having read "The Princes of ireland", a book i would highly recommend. Below our some pictures from this castle.
Arriving in Cork, with anticipation of partaking in the Jazz festival, we were highly dissapointed. After driving around for an hour we finally found a place to park and we were starved. We ended up spending too much money on some food that was just not that great and couldn't really find where the festival was. We decided to call it an early night, you would be surprised how much driving takes out of you. You would all be jealous, we had the most beautiful place to sleep. Right on the edge of the water with a view out the window that was to die for. In fact this wonderful place was our Ford Focus. Yup that is right, sleeping in the car! Here are some pictures from our hotel room :)
Our next destination entailed a journey through the Ring of Kerry. It was during this 4 hour drive that i was able to take in the essence of Ireland. The few pictures I have of this beautiful scenery do not even begin to capture the incredible colors, moslty green, that radiate from the ground, slowly pulling you into a trance. I spent most of that day in a world of my own. One moment freaking out becasue i was in Ireland, and the next in a dream that i did not want to wake up from. Here is a slideshow from the Ring of Kerry!
The next part of our voyage consisted of the Cliffs of Moher. "They are located in the parish of Liscannor at the south-western edge of The Burren area near Doolin." They are spectcular! There is a slideshow of them below. These cliffs are also interesting because the O'Brian watchtower is locate there. (There is a photo of it below)
"The O'Brien's Tower is a round stone tower at the approximate midpoint of the cliffs. It was built by Sir Cornellius O'Brien, a descendant of Ireland's High King Brian Boru, in 1835, as an observation tower for the hundreds of tourists that frequented the cliffs even at that date. From atop that watchtower, one can view the Aran Islands and Galway Bay, the Maum Turk Mountains and the Twelve Pins to the north in Connemara, and Loop Head to the south."
There is another tower that was built during the time of Napolean but i dont have any pictures of it.
One of our last nights was spent in Galway. This was a really cool place, probably one of my favorite cities in Ireland. We went to a bar, where i enjoyed my first Irish Coffee and listened to traditional Irish music. It was a blast and we met some really cool people. In fact, we ended up going to eat with one of the guys in the band.
The conculision of our trip was spent touring the Birr Castle which is actually one of the few castles left in Ireland where the family still resides. It was beautiful, they even had a mot :) Also connecting to the castle is a world renown Garden. It is huge and beautiful. It also contains the world's largest telescope.
Anyways back to Ireland. After renting the car we headed south, our destination being Cork for the big Jazz festival. It's funny that our intial plan was to do all of Ireland, including the north, in 4 days. Let me just say, no matter how small Ireland looks, the roads make is difficult to travel efficiently. They are being improved but they definitly slow you down and Ireland is really not that small :)
The most exciting part of our first day on the road was our stop at Cashel Castle. This is where St. Pattrick babtized the King of Munster. I personally found this very interesting especially after having read "The Princes of ireland", a book i would highly recommend. Below our some pictures from this castle.
Arriving in Cork, with anticipation of partaking in the Jazz festival, we were highly dissapointed. After driving around for an hour we finally found a place to park and we were starved. We ended up spending too much money on some food that was just not that great and couldn't really find where the festival was. We decided to call it an early night, you would be surprised how much driving takes out of you. You would all be jealous, we had the most beautiful place to sleep. Right on the edge of the water with a view out the window that was to die for. In fact this wonderful place was our Ford Focus. Yup that is right, sleeping in the car! Here are some pictures from our hotel room :)
Our next destination entailed a journey through the Ring of Kerry. It was during this 4 hour drive that i was able to take in the essence of Ireland. The few pictures I have of this beautiful scenery do not even begin to capture the incredible colors, moslty green, that radiate from the ground, slowly pulling you into a trance. I spent most of that day in a world of my own. One moment freaking out becasue i was in Ireland, and the next in a dream that i did not want to wake up from. Here is a slideshow from the Ring of Kerry!
The next part of our voyage consisted of the Cliffs of Moher. "They are located in the parish of Liscannor at the south-western edge of The Burren area near Doolin." They are spectcular! There is a slideshow of them below. These cliffs are also interesting because the O'Brian watchtower is locate there. (There is a photo of it below)
"The O'Brien's Tower is a round stone tower at the approximate midpoint of the cliffs. It was built by Sir Cornellius O'Brien, a descendant of Ireland's High King Brian Boru, in 1835, as an observation tower for the hundreds of tourists that frequented the cliffs even at that date. From atop that watchtower, one can view the Aran Islands and Galway Bay, the Maum Turk Mountains and the Twelve Pins to the north in Connemara, and Loop Head to the south."
There is another tower that was built during the time of Napolean but i dont have any pictures of it.
One of our last nights was spent in Galway. This was a really cool place, probably one of my favorite cities in Ireland. We went to a bar, where i enjoyed my first Irish Coffee and listened to traditional Irish music. It was a blast and we met some really cool people. In fact, we ended up going to eat with one of the guys in the band.
The conculision of our trip was spent touring the Birr Castle which is actually one of the few castles left in Ireland where the family still resides. It was beautiful, they even had a mot :) Also connecting to the castle is a world renown Garden. It is huge and beautiful. It also contains the world's largest telescope.
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Ireland...Oh Ireland
My roommate, one of our friends, and Myself decided we should rent a car and drive through Ireland, a place i have always dreamed of going. So we booked our flights, packed our bags and left. Our plans were that we wanted an advenure and we would go with the flow. No real itenerary, just a car, three girls, and peanut butter!
This is the perfect time to explain couch surfing. It's a website where people all over the world make profiles in which they either offer up their couch for a night or two, offer to meet for a coffee when you are visiting their hometown, or even offer to even show you around. My roommates and i all have accounts and have actually had people stay with us. It's a great idea especially when you are a poor college student trying to travel te world.
We arrived in Dublin on Friday and walked around the city in which we took a tram and ate lunch at Temple Bar (a popular square where everyone visits) We did get to see Croke park which is popular for Galeic Football (an interesting sport) and we did see Trinity college though i did not take any pictures of it. But the highlight of our day was the Guinness Factory. It is absoulety huge! i dont remember how many acers it is, but it was a lot. It took us 20 minutes of walking around it to actually find the Storehouse. The Storehouse is 6 floors plus the top gravity bar & sky bar where you can see a beautiful view of Dublin and get a complimentary drink. Walking through we learned how Guinness was made. The four major ingrediants being Barley, Hops, Water, and yeast! Yup doesn't it sound delicious.
After the Storehouse expereince we went and met up with a potential couch surfer. His name was Rory and he is called "Dublinguy"becasue he has hosted hundreds of people from all over the world in his home. It turned out that he had 8 people staying with him that night so he offered a place with one of his friends. The cool thing about couch surfing is that it is community orriented. All the couch surfers know each other and usually monthly or weekly get together. So anyways after meeting some cool people from Scotland, Israel, Greece, and Italy we headed off to Anthony's house. When we ot there, there were about 10 people circled around a dinner table waiting for us. 2 girls from Australlia, a girl from Portuagal, two from france, a guy from Brazil, and 3 from Ireland. It was such a neat expereince to eat dnner with so many people from all over the world. This was one of the highlights of my trip. Anyways after dinner we met up with all the couch surfers and went to a fun Pub. The general energy of the pub was really cool. People were having a good time, some even dressed up. We left the next day and rented the car. The first time driving on the LEft side. IT was quite and expereince!!! Here are some pictures of Dublin!
This is the perfect time to explain couch surfing. It's a website where people all over the world make profiles in which they either offer up their couch for a night or two, offer to meet for a coffee when you are visiting their hometown, or even offer to even show you around. My roommates and i all have accounts and have actually had people stay with us. It's a great idea especially when you are a poor college student trying to travel te world.
We arrived in Dublin on Friday and walked around the city in which we took a tram and ate lunch at Temple Bar (a popular square where everyone visits) We did get to see Croke park which is popular for Galeic Football (an interesting sport) and we did see Trinity college though i did not take any pictures of it. But the highlight of our day was the Guinness Factory. It is absoulety huge! i dont remember how many acers it is, but it was a lot. It took us 20 minutes of walking around it to actually find the Storehouse. The Storehouse is 6 floors plus the top gravity bar & sky bar where you can see a beautiful view of Dublin and get a complimentary drink. Walking through we learned how Guinness was made. The four major ingrediants being Barley, Hops, Water, and yeast! Yup doesn't it sound delicious.
After the Storehouse expereince we went and met up with a potential couch surfer. His name was Rory and he is called "Dublinguy"becasue he has hosted hundreds of people from all over the world in his home. It turned out that he had 8 people staying with him that night so he offered a place with one of his friends. The cool thing about couch surfing is that it is community orriented. All the couch surfers know each other and usually monthly or weekly get together. So anyways after meeting some cool people from Scotland, Israel, Greece, and Italy we headed off to Anthony's house. When we ot there, there were about 10 people circled around a dinner table waiting for us. 2 girls from Australlia, a girl from Portuagal, two from france, a guy from Brazil, and 3 from Ireland. It was such a neat expereince to eat dnner with so many people from all over the world. This was one of the highlights of my trip. Anyways after dinner we met up with all the couch surfers and went to a fun Pub. The general energy of the pub was really cool. People were having a good time, some even dressed up. We left the next day and rented the car. The first time driving on the LEft side. IT was quite and expereince!!! Here are some pictures of Dublin!
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Marsielles, Avignon, Port Du Gard and Danny and Kat's visit!
Danny and Kat came to visit me for four days and we had a blast. It's the first time that i have actually ate amazing, expensive cheese. I mean the kind that just melts in your mouth. All weekend we ate cheese, bread and wine. Yes i know so cliche!!! I really wish that i had words to explain it, but i don't. It was just that good! The first day we took them to Marseilles and walked around. That night we went to this wine bar that was fantastic. I had the best wine i have ever had with cheese and this absolutely terrific salmon dish.
The next day we went to Avignon and the Port du Gard bridge. Avignon is one of the most visited areas in France. It is where the Pope lived after he was kicked out of Italy. The first picture below is the palace that he and 5 popes proceeding him lived. It was so cold that day because the winds were really harsh, but the town was very hip and it was a lot of fun. After we went to the Port du Gard bridge which was built by the Romans. It was kind of creepy because we sat on the very edge and ate granola. It was such a surreal feeling standing on something so old.
The last day they were here we went hiking on Mount Saint Victoire. It was a 30 minute bus ride though the countryside and it was gorgeous, but freezing! We hiked up and ate some bread and cheese at the top. We actually were going to drink wine too, but we forgott a bottle oppener. So anyways here are some fun pictures from their visit. hope you enjoy.
The next day we went to Avignon and the Port du Gard bridge. Avignon is one of the most visited areas in France. It is where the Pope lived after he was kicked out of Italy. The first picture below is the palace that he and 5 popes proceeding him lived. It was so cold that day because the winds were really harsh, but the town was very hip and it was a lot of fun. After we went to the Port du Gard bridge which was built by the Romans. It was kind of creepy because we sat on the very edge and ate granola. It was such a surreal feeling standing on something so old.
The last day they were here we went hiking on Mount Saint Victoire. It was a 30 minute bus ride though the countryside and it was gorgeous, but freezing! We hiked up and ate some bread and cheese at the top. We actually were going to drink wine too, but we forgott a bottle oppener. So anyways here are some fun pictures from their visit. hope you enjoy.
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