Bad Bad Bad Blogger

And with that title, I of course am referring to myself. I don't finish my stories, I don't update...I started with a couple posts and just dissappeared.  Apologies, my dears...it has been a busy past month. I have started classes and I am finally realizing that I actually signed up for SCHOOL!  Classes, exams, quizzes, lectures, deadlines...the works.  Everyone says that this first term will be the toughest in terms of adjusting, getting back into academia and they might just be right.  I guess thats why orientation month was so fun and booze-filled :) they were trying to ease us ito it and then hit us with a bang.  I'll survive though, and I won't bore you any longer with gory details of school.  Here are pictures (that are not already on facebook, and Miss V with ppl this time :)) that might better help sum up the last few weeks, enjoy!

Dinner menu:  Belgian zucchini soup (amazingly tasty and delish!), followed by Indian chicken briyani and Belgian chocolate mousse for dessert.  

Me and the girls at Integration w/end...the american contingent minus 1

more integration w/end

At the jardin de luxembourg...central park what?

Heading out for dinner and salsa in paris...unaware of all the molestation we would receive

After dinner with a classmate's visiting parents

Cute! the little statues at a gelato (italian ice cream) store in saint germain

Mummy came to visit!

On the champs elysees with Chiamaka

...

Posing in front of the Notre Dame cathedral

Right before attempting to scale the fence :)

Integration Weekend wrap up

We got back from La Rochelle last Monday, La Rochelle was the not so secret destination for our integration weekend.  Not so secret because I guess someone had leaked the name of the city a few days before but we all were not sure if it was true or not.  So when we eventually found out where we were headed the surprise factor was gone.  Anyway we had to depart Cergy at the butt crack of dawn on Saturday (try 5:20am!).  Of course there was a little drama, one student managed to get lost and another missed the train...but it all worked out in the end and they made it to La Rochelle eventually.  La Rochelle is a beautiful port city in the south-west region of France, and it was the perfect destination for this weekend.  We caught the train to La Rochelle and then had to get on a chartered bus to Vende where we stayed for the weekend.  Prior to the weekend, we had been given a list of requirements to bring with us which included things like sleeping bags, torchlight, speedos for men (YEAH, that was quite clear too...no shorts/trunks!), and also alcoholic beverages from our country.   Just so you know how much business these people meant, immediately we boarded the train bottles of vodka, rum etc. started opening all over the train car.  I thought I had been de-sensitized earlier to the level of alcohol consumption when on our first orientation day they actually served wine with lunch...but that was obviously nothing!  When I say it was a drinking fest on that train ride, I definitely mean it. It was just complete madness during the entire ride.  A few ppl had walked around in the beginning making sure that every single person had a shot of one drink or the other.  We arrived our destination before noon and a lot of people were definitely shit-faced by then.  

The kicker though, is when we arrived the 'camp-ground' we would actually be staying in for the weekend. It was an old farm that was restored to a kind of vacation site with individual family units - what they called bungalows...however, you guys in the states would understand them better as trailers.  Yeah men, I came to France and got my first trailer park experience :).  But what was even more interesting was that for us each of the 'bungalows' were co-ed. In my bungalow, there were three of each sex, and two bedrooms, so me and one girl slept in one room with a double bed, the third girl had to sleep in the other bedroom with one guy but thankfully it had two single beds and the last two boys slept in the livingroom. I think one bungalow even had only one girl in it. I'm just like whoa!  You give us lots of alcohol, you take us to a lovely destination, and you mix up the genders in a small space...there will really be lots of integrating going on!  

So Day 1 - we visited a local market in Vende immediately upon arrival, then went to settle into our homes for a little while, had lunch and then set out again to visit a vineyard. We had to listen to the whole winery presentation (blah) after which they served us their wines -  white, red, rose and we also had some excellent brioche (yeah!).  At this point I started to feel really bad, I had a headache, felt really woozy and felt a slight nausea.  We headed back to our campground  and played some more team games...team work is definitely a big thing here at IMHI.   One of the games we played involved each team trying to form the longest line with articles of items off our bodies and being as creative as possible.   In the first round we pretty much used clothes, shoes, etc. and then we laid down on the floor to use ourselves to elongate the lines as much as possible.  We thought this was as radical as you can get, but tell me why in the second round, they all started stripping to their underwear.  Like the guys were down to their briefs (u know boxers are really an american thing) lol!  Even this one older lady had stripped down to her panties.  It was hilarious!  And here I will mention again the notion of France being REALLY liberal...no qualms whatsoever in taking off clothes at the drop off a hat.  Later, when we remarked to the lady, who must be in her 30s or 40s (she's french btw), about how brave she was to take off her clothes in public like that, she simply just dismissed it saying "whats the big deal? it's just underwear, just like it could have been my swimsuit". Its totally not the same thing for me but I guess different strokes for different folks right?

Anyway, fun and games continued on but by dinner time I was feeling absolutely horrible. I couldn't eat or stand being close to food, I went back to my room and got sick for the first time in like forever.  Sorry to be giving you gory details but, you have to take the good with the bad please.  Anyway, I decided to rest for a while and I felt better especially after throwing up...so in true Dami fashion, what do I do?  I decide to head back out to join the party.  It was great, they had a dj booth set up in the multi-purpose hall where we had dinner so it was our own little club right there. After shaking my tail-feather for a little while and getting a healthy dose of alcohol in my system, I decide to head back to rest up for the rest of the weekend.  Most of my classmates shared the same consensus especially considering the fact that they had started the madness pretty early in the day, so it was an early night for most of us.  

Day 2 - I wake up to news that one of my 'bungalow' mates had gotten sick in the toilet in our bungalow...thankfully someone else discovered it so I didn't have to deal with anymore vomit.  I was feeling much better that day so it started out great.  The activities that morning were either soccer or aquagym, and I wasn't interested in either. So I just laid down on the sidelines of the soccer field where a group of us were watching the players and knocked out on the grass.  Sun burning on my face, dewy grass underneath...it was glorious...

*pardon-moi, mais the rest of the weekend and more on what's happened so far this week will be continued in next posts, its past 3:30am now and my bed has my name all over it right now*

Intro to French Men 101 - Part deux

So to continue where I left off about the french guy, It Ain't seemed quite interested.  I mentioned that I lost my itunes library when I changed computers and he invited me over to get some of his music.  Dude had a ton of music!  He's a real music lover, had really great music in his library and a wide range too so that really got my attention.  He also gave me a ton of stuff to help furnish my room, you know just being an over-all gentleman so when he asked me out to dinner that friday I definitely had no hesitations.  

He didn't tell me where we were going to go, just that it was in Paris and that I should dress 'fancy' so I was even more excited.  The week continued with phone calls, text mesages, random visits and all that silly flirty stuff that in my mind made me build up the date even more. At the most I guessed we would probably do dinner and visit a really nice hotel because earlier we had a conversation about boutique hotels.  I just got this feeling that he spent a good deal of effort trying to plan a nice time for us...boy was I right!  So friday morning I got a really sweet text message from him in which he also mentioned that he got a car for the evening so he could pick me up from school whenever I was done and bring me back home before we head out to Paris.  Ok I'm digging this :)  

But then unfortunately things took a turn in the wrong direction after this point...you just have to keep reading.  So I had to stay late in school that day, working on a group project and I didn't make it back home till about 11pm, the whole time he was texting me to ask where I was and when I would be done and I was feeling bad about messing up plans especially since I had gotten kinda tired and wasn't feeling up to going out anymore.  When we were done, I got a ride back home, and headed to his room first to break it to him that I didn't want to go out anymore ( I thought this would be nicer in person than over the phone), and he's like yeah we missed the dinner reservation and its too late for dinner now, but we could still go out for drinks and stuff...and here's the kicker - he tells me that it was supposed to be a surprise, but that I should pack an overnight bag because he got a hotel room in paris for me!!!  With my slow self, I'm still like hmmm...a hotel room...I head to my room and on the way back it hits me like, wait does he realize what that means?  I call D who has lived in France before and is more knowledgeable about the culture so maybe I was just over-reacting but she pretty much felt the same way.  So I call him back to decline this rather 'tempting' invitation, he actually didn't sound surprised, he apologized and explained why he thought a hotel was a good idea - he wanted to maximize the time in paris, didn't want me to worry about getting back home really late, etc.  But I'm thinking what was the car for then, and if he meant well why won't he have asked me in advance if I was ok with getting a hotel room.  Lets just say I dodged a big one there by being a dilligent student and working late with my group because otherwise I would have been out with him and probably after dinner, he would have told me about this bright idea of his and it would not have been pleasant.   Thank God, is all I can say.

The next day I got a text from him inviting me to go tour chateau de versailles but I was in class and didn't respond until later in the evening and in the response I mentioned that D and M would want to come too.  Well that def didn't get me a response until about later in the night so he maybe he had some plans at versailles too. Who knows, the whole thing was just a little weird, not sure how to anaylze it all so I'm just taking it as a good story to tell.  

Anyway thats the framework of my experience with french men so far...they come on really strong.  But we'll see what happens next.  Tomorrow we're all going away for our integration weekend...so fun!  It was organized by the student association of the program who are students in their 2nd year and so a few 2nd year students will be coming.   I am excited to go away, we don't know where we're going, just that its another region in France. Everyone is hoping its the south, for nicer weather but I'll just be glad to discover a new place.  And of course I'll let you know all the interesting occurrences. LOL.