La Grippe

It has been an eternity since I have taken the time to sit down and write and there has definitely been a lot going on since my last post. I’ve been hit with a case of the stomach flu for the last few days and it’s been pretty difficult to deal with especially in a foreign country, but I’m getting better, slowly. I was supposed to head down to Paris for the weekend to meet with one of my friends from Santa Clara, but unfortunately I couldn’t leave my room because I was pretty ill (Sorry Carrillo).

What has made my recovery process a little longer than expected is the food. Usually when I’m sick I know what to drink, eat, what agrees with my stomach and what doesn’t. Here, however, it’s a lot different. I can’t find canned soup, or any processed soup for that matter. I had to settle for a box of vegetable broth and make my own soup. What was even more difficult, however, was finding some sort of sports drink to replace all the electrolytes that I lost. I know that Gatorade doesn’t exist in France because it’s a Pepsi product (Coke has a monopoly on the beverages here in France), so I had set out to search for the next best thing: PowerAde. I’ve seen PowerAde all over but I couldn’t find it in any market. My search ended somewhere I didn’t think I would to go: a gas station. While the PowerAde definitely helped out, my illness still made my weekend pretty limited. The highlight of my weekend was going to the movies, which isn’t the most exciting thing in the world, but for me it was. I went out to see the new Wall Street movie, which just came out this weekend in France. I’ve actually been excited to see in for the past few months and I was lucky enough to find a theater playing both the French version and English version (with subtitles). I enjoyed the movie, it really motivated to read more business books and such, so today I picked up one of the books that I brought with me to France, “When Genius Failed.” I won’t bore you with the details but it’s a good read.

Camden Market

Since my last post I’ve been to three amazing places: London, Paris and Loire Valley. Each trip was simply amazing. In London, it was really good to just see people from Santa Clara, which was kind of overwhelming at first because there were over 60 people. In comparison to all the places I’ve been to in Europe, London was the place that I had to adjust to the most, ironically. When I first got I, the language was kind of shocking. In my head I was still thinking in French and it took me awhile to get me out of that mindset. Secondly, the sheer magnitude and pace of the city was hectic. With so many people walking with a purpose, it was like I had never been to a big city in my life. The only place where Lille can match London in people per capita is the market at Wazemmes on Sunday, and even then it’s pushing it. Although I didn’t get to see all the tourist attractions in London, I feel like I have a good grasp of life in London though, from the upscale neighborhood of South Kensington to the eccentric stores in Camden. When I was in London, however, everything was mayhem because my visit coincided with that of the pope. Unfortunately, I did not get to see him, but I was really close to where he was doing a service. All in all, it was a good trip, thanks to Alyssa for housing me for a couple of nights.

Tiësto

My next trip was to Paris, but just for a night to see Tiësto in concert at the Queen Club on the Champs Élysées. Just thinking about that sentence is crazy: the world’s most famous DJ playing on one of the most famous streets in the world. The concert was phenomenal just because it’s Tiësto, but because of everything that occurred before the concert. We had booked our train tickets to Paris, but a mere 24 hours before we were set to leave something occurred where I wouldn’t be able to go to Paris. I’ll give you a few guesses as to what happened considering that this is France. Give up? Well a one-day strike to protest Nicolas Sarkozy’s plans to change the retirement age from 60 to 62. Let me repeat, 60 to 62. With this being the first strike that directly had an effect on me, I was obviously perturbed because I already paid for my train ticket and my concert ticket. When I first heard it, I thought all the trains were cancelled and the country would be utter chaos without their transportation system. Little did I know, though, that the country still runs like a well-oiled machine during a transportation strike. I went to the train station to find that my train was cancelled, however, I had two options. The first was to get my money back or to take any other train to Paris that was still running. I decided to take the latter as there were still about 15 trains to choose from. In the end, I was a winner as I got to take any train and still got to Paris for the concert. While I thought that was the only problem I would encounter, it was actually the smallest problem. The biggest problem occurred at the club when we couldn’t get in. We had the confirmation number of our tickets, but we didn’t know that we were supposed to go to a super market or electronics store to print out our tickets. After a little bit of panicking and making friends with people, we found our way into the concert.

Château de Chenonceau

Château de Cheverny

Château de Chambord

The last trip was one that I’ve been waiting to do for a long time, and luckily the members of Oh My Globe! planned an amazing for the international students to Loire Valley. Loire Valley is famous for two things: castles and wine. On our trip we visited arguably three of the most famous castles. We started off Château de Chambord then ventured off to Château de Cheverny and ended at Château de Chenonceau. Needless to say, these were some of the most spectacular works of architecture that I’ve ever seen. In my head I have my favorite parts of each castle and will be implementing them on my own chateau in a few years. I think Château de Cheverny was my favorite of the three. Even though Chambord has the sheer magnitude and Chenonceau has the amazing landscaping and is literally built on water, Cheverny had the combination of everything: acres and acres of land, an amazing garden that is wonderfully landscaped and the actually castle has a nice symmetry to it.

While I’ve been actually been doing a fair amount of traveling, school is actually starting to be school. I’m starting to have presentations, quizzes, and midterms. Nonetheless, life is still good in Europe.

Next adventure: This weekend in Switzerland, Bungee jumping at Verzasca Dam (007 Jump)...

...220 meters, yeah that's high.