Il reste une semaine avant Noel

Goodness, it’s been a while. It’s been a while in so many ways..yet mainly in that I have not kept you, highly esteemed readers, in the know about my adventures in France. Truth be told, the main thing I’ve been doing is that which you already know: studying and..partying! Both of which deserve the merit of mentioning nonetheless. I should be doing a dissertation right now, but just cannot find myself motivated enough to complete it. That is, I’ve done 90% of it and so only need to put the dots on the “i” as the Dutch would say, or would badly translate.

Everything in Besançon is slowly coming to an end and I find myself pining over this. It’s been absolutely awesome, I can honestly say. Ever since that first night out, I just knew I’d be right at home and I’ve not been proven the contrary. I feel that I’m going to miss it incredibly..although I still have a few days till Christmas and two weeks after it. But the thing is, by then a lot of my buddies won’t be here anymore and that just plainly blows. Anyway, enough of this sentimental bickering.

I’ve been doing stuff here as I was going to mention. In my last blog entry I mentioned meeting French people. One of whom, Clémence, has become one of greatest people I’ve yet met. We started talking in one of our law classes a while back after which she offered me her class notes so I could copy them. This was sort of necessary since I couldn’t always keep up writing and listening during classes, although not per se in that respective order. Then she invited me to come to a birthday party of one of her friends and the rest is, as they say, history.
There’s a part in me thinking why this can only last for a semester, a semester is just enough time to get to know people really well. And afterwards, you simply have to say goodbye. Cruel. Makes you want to invent a machine that would make distance travelling faster and cheaper. And yes, I am in fact aware of the concept of planes and trains..yet let’s be honest; not the same thing. But anyway, I’m drifting off again. I think I’ll just tell you about the other highlights of late.

- I’ve had one law exam already, for which I had to study 90 pages of written out notes. I can’t believe I pulled it off in 5 days and got a 15/20. Yes, I know, bragging isn’t a virtue but in this case very much justified and it makes me happy :)

- We went out a while back at this reggae bar and I got proposed to. Unfortunately I had to cordially decline. Yet always ego flattering if one is asked. And yes, it was a man.

A couple of weeks ago it was the birthday of my dear friend Tom, here in Besançon. It was organised by the group I most hang out with and the theme was: dress up as a famous (movie) character. My original idea, since I love to shock, was the little mermaid, then King Henry 8 and finally Simba from the Lion King. None of these have actually been realised since I couldn’t find proper accessories. Nonetheless I managed to whip up something reasonable. Although I don’t know what or who I was supposed to be till this day, I agree to it being Shikan from Jungle Book. See pictures for clarity :)

- I went to Paris last week! It was to meet my dear Stefan from Maastricht who resides in gorgeous Montmartre on his Erasmus exchange. It was quite difficult to find a suitable date, since we both have lives. But we pulled it off and it was a really nice visit. For me personally the highlight of the sojourn was the non-Paris aspect, in the form of beautifully preserved Versailles. I don’t know where these obsessions of mine come from, yet I find myself intrigued with the French Revolution, the monarchy and its downfall and especially France’s last queen: Marie-Antoinette. It was cool to see how the French royals lived back then and I loved the Petit Trianon, which was Marie’s private property where she could relax and get away from court protocol. I could very much imagine her walking there.
Of course we also went to see the bigger attractions like the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre etc. As for the latterly mentioned, I also saw the famous Mona Lisa. Personally I don’t understand what’s so fascinating about the painting. Of course you have the mysterious smirk on her face, which can be seen as intriguing I suppose. Yet, it’s not something I’m particularly drawn to. But of course I had to take a picture. After all, I am tourist and I embrace the accompanied cliché. And although it says everywhere in the Louvre (I think) that you can’t use a flash when taking a picture, the which rule I understand and yield to, my camera flash mode switched itself back on and I ended up taking a flash picture of the most famous and celebrated painting in the world. I thought I was going to be apprehended and dealt with. Oh, the irony.

Last but not least, and I know that other events worth mentioning have occurred but this blog is going on too long and I have to leave; there was last night. The last possible big night out with the entire original group present. It was the Fete de Noel on campus! Secret Santa, punch, music, people and sheer intoxication. It was awesome and will go down in history as a grant last blow-out.

I have one more week before going back to the Netherlands for Christmas and it’s going to be a busy one. I have another exam, classes, a lot of private Dutch tutoring and of course saying goodbye at the numerous goodbye parties. I leave by car with my dear friend Jelle, who comes from near Antwerp. He’ll drop me off at Antwerp station, where I shall be picked up by my dear brother Michel. Michel, I hereby confirm that you’re picking me up, ok? Oh, gotta go.

You know you love me,

XOXO

Venturing into Nantua

I might want to take advantage of this one last day of so-called freedom to write an entry before the weekend starts which will in turn give birth to a manic Monday. Recent events are also more present in my mind than they would be in for example a couple of days.

Sweet readers, I’ve come back from Nantua!

And it was shortly put, awesome. Nantua as I mentioned above is situated between Lyon and Geneva (Switzerland) which makes it a perfect location to visit the before mentioned cities, although not per se in that respective order. But before I engage into what I and my Erasmus possy did there, let me first tell you about the house. I don’t really know who told me that we were going to reside in an actual chateau (castle), yet it was mentioned to me a couple of times and I just sort of assumed it were true. As it turned out it was more of a chalet, a big house. It was a huge (see pictures) with two living rooms, two kitchens, two bathrooms (with a bath), balcony, luxury bedrooms for litterly everyone and last but not least there were fire places for atmosphere. You might think that paying for these refined lodgings would compel me to put my non existing house up for a second mortgage. I won’t go into financial details, yet surprisingly I paid very little. We arrived, some by car some by train in the late afternoon last Saturday. After having started off the week with some champagne we decided on who was going to sleep in what room and just made your basic necessary agreements. That night we played some board games and cooked in the very nice cozy kitchen. The next day it was Sunday and since there wasn’t really anything to do we decided to go for a walk in beautiful unspoiled Nantua. We went to Nantua Lake which is really huge and gorgeous and just hung out there for a while, being mellow and having relaxed conversations..it was after all a very relaxed Sunday. Coming back we resorted to board games again..this time Monopoly. I had not played this game since my fourth year on Earth, so I couldn’t really remember how it was played. Yet I was surprisingly good at it as it turned out, owning everyone the first hour and half..but then it sort of went downhill as the silent guy (Primoz), owning nothing in the beginning, emerged by buying everything and finishing off the rest. Later that evening we of course did some drinking games…hey, how often is one on Erasmus? That’s right.

We didn’t make it too late, since the next day we had to get up at 6 in order to catch the bus to the train station to catch the train that would bring us to Geneva! Geneva is beautiful and surprisingly clean. There’s a huge beautiful lake; Lake Geneva. As most of you probably know it is Geneva where the United Nations convene and of course we went there to have a look. Since we didn't have enough time to do a guided tour we just walked about a bit (see pictures). I also wanted to go to the Musée des Beaux Arts et Histoire with my Italian friend Letizia, yet once arrived we saw the sign that it was closed on a Monday…typical. Next to that we visited a very beautiful church and just walked around the city. It’s quite sad how little you can do if you want to cover an entire considerably sized city in a few hours…we after all had to catch the train and bus back to the hamlet of Nantua.

Next day it was Lyon on the program! Of course we had to get up early again. The previous morning I had been an absolute wreck having to restrain throwing a tantrum when I didn’t find my instant coffee and looking vicious if someone were in my way. I was however forgiven, yet I surprised myself…I might want to lay off the black gold more.

Lyon was pretty and très très French..I believe it’s called the Paris of the South and the French are proud of their Lyon. As they should, it's very beautiful. Especially when you look at the city from the top of a big hill. Lyon has a huge shopping area, the which I didn’t mind and there was also a…Starbucks! My friend Fatima had taken a picture of me holding a soy cappuccino, yet for some reason I looked like I had just died in the picture. So just take my word for it when I say I was in there. We didn’t really do that much in Lyon which makes us sound like we’re lazy. This may be true to a certain extent, yet as I said earlier in this considerably big blog, we had to get back in time (4).

The evening of the Lyon daytrip was epic in the sense that we played yet another drinking game. Not just a drinking game, no. It is called 'Ring of Fire' and it is played with a deck of cards each of which signify an amount of alcohol to be consumed or an amount to be distributed, the sole purpose of the game being sheer intoxication.

Wednesday was what you can call a lazy Sunday, misplaced in the week. It wasn’t really about anything other than sitting on your behind and eating. Until someone had the idea to go jumping into Nantua lake. Yes, this idea is as crazy as it sounds, if not ten times as insane. The fact that I joined in even surprised me…yet I did it and it was not to mention in the evening. Me, my friends Matt, Irina and Jelle simultaneously jumped into the water. As I hit the water a huge shock came over me…it was so incredibly cold! So was the water with the 2 subsequent dives. Yet surprisingly enough this ‘dipping’ into very low temperature water is good for you and I actually felt rejuvenated afterwards!

The following evening was of course as the previous one, epic. It was a great week and we're thinking about returing. When? I really don't know..

Bisous