la transformation

my brain cannot assimilate the fact that i went to a party last monday night... when i had a full schedule on tuesday (read: economie, monetaire et financiere internationale, and strategic accounting), and that i had the gall to repeat the process last night (wednesday).

what in god's name is happening to me?

Normandy pix

dinner time!
united cultures: our welcome team
trenches in normandy!
omaha beach!!! (uncle fester, are you getting this?)
la cambe: german military cemetery

international students in deauville
flags at half-mast: american cemetery in normandy
american military cemetery


d-day landing site

a day in the life of an asian girl in france

07h30: alarm clock rings
07h30: irritably shuts off alarm clock
07h45: 2nd alarm clock rings
07h45: irritably shuts off 2nd alarm clock
08h00: reluctantly rise from the bed
08h05: shower
08h20: finish shower
08h25: make breakfast: oatmeal, milk and cerelac
08h40: get dressed and stuff
08h45: wash mug
09h00: check sched for the day
09h15: go out with aims, cher and lissy
13h30: lunch wherever... in a preferably cheap place
16h30: internet in school
19h00: start cooking whatever's in the ref, cupboard
20h00: finish cooking
20h00: start eating
21h00: clean up
21h30: go down to the game room, play billiards and practice french with dorm mates
22h30: reluctantly stop playing billiards and go up to room
23h00: decide whether to watch movie or practice french
23h00: decide to watch movie
01h00: sleep

i lead a very exciting life, can't you tell?

seriously, this would change once essca finalizes my class schedules. as for the moment, i fill my days with grocery shopping (we finally found the market... green leafy vegetables here we come), cooking, cleaning, internet, books (thank you, lakanal, for having english literature!), billiards, and dubious socializing.

i'm looking forward to our trip to normandy. beaches, ww2, d-day!!! uncle fester would love this, i bet!

have wifi, will post pictures (part un)

paris... from a taxi's pov

place de lorraine
place de st. croix

angers city center : place de ralliement


my home away from home for the next 4 months

have wifi, will post pictures (part deux)

have wifi, will post pictures (part trois)

my room!!!

glorious view of the cathedrale de st. maurice
3 asian girls in france... the 4th is still a boy bakal

chateau d'angers

i love the streets
cathedrale de st. maurice from a distance

accroche coeur: entertainment for the french

2nd misadventure in france

my 2nd misadventure in france*

my first week in angers has been relatively uneventful. we've been going around, trying out the local cuisine, exploring their supermarkets, and appreciating all types of wonderful architecture from the churches to the quaint little houses. we've made friends, from our french dorm mates, to the other chinese students who are also studying in essca, and to our fellow exchange students- be they austrian, russian, hungarian, german, et al.

the first day of our orientation was tiring. they all spoke in french, but i'm proud to say that i didn't need a dictionary to understand the gist of what they're saying. we also had to pick our classes. i'll post my class list as soon as i finalize it with my essca tutor; but i did choose classes tackling pretty interesting stuff like international trade, and management and change. i can say that, as usual, i'm overloading once again. the average number of ECTS that they want us to take is 30, but mine is around 35. i had to trim it down from the original 57 that i was determined to take. heh.

the misadventure started after the orientation. there's a french celebration going on right now called the accroche coeur. it's a lively street party full of various activities in the different areas of the city. (i'll post pictures as soon as i get wifi, promise!) anyway, we started off by meeting up with people in the place de ralliement and then we watched a slapstick comedy show. after the hilarious antics of the 2 guys, we watched this french dude perform with a chinese yoyo. then, the group wanted to go get a drink in the pub, before we go to another pub (where they'll chug more drinks... these people can drink!). cher was all for it but her new boots were killing her so we decided to go home. unfortunately, we didn't realize that the celebration fucked up the city's bus system. we waited for a couple of hours for a bus that would never pass by that stop that night! some kind/freaky soul tried to help us, but we ended up in the wrong stop as well. (ugh, even the angevins don't know what the fuck's up with the buses.) finally cher's friend was able to meet up with us and we ended up going to dublin's (the pub) because they really wanted to go there. ugh, and by pub, i do mean the heavy inuman and loud music type of irish pub. definitely not my element. i ended up sitting on the sidewalk with lizzy, contemplating the merits of rolling down the road to avoid the smoke, loud dance music and what-have-yous that are pretty common here. we ended up finding a bus in the place de ralliement.

*i consider the life-threatening ordeals of the journey from manila to angers the first extended misadventure.

an asian girl in france (part2)

bonjour!!!

i hope everyone's doing ok... because i'm having a blast here...:D

i'm starting to feel how it is to be truly away from home and semi-independent. semi because i'm still getting the monthly stipends and parental scholarship.

the weather is crazy in angers. i expected cooler weather, but no!!! it's as hot as manila, if not hotter on certain hours of the day! mon dieu! thank god i brought a lot of spag straps and t-shirts because i certainly won't survive in a bulky wool pullover... it's starting to get cooler though- on certain days, i need to wear jackets. :)

the first month is uber expensive (actually, it's more like the first days) because i had to pay for rent, insurance, deposits, bus cards, carte de reduction, and other stuff. we also do a lot of grocery runs here because we need to stock up on water, food, vegetables, and other essentials. it's not the same as our grocery runs, anj, but it's also fun and frustrating in its own way. living in the province and outside the city center has its perks in the sense that it's way cheaper, and people are more willing to help you figure things out.

cher, aimee and i managed to do a lot of exploring in the 6 days that we're here. we now know how to use the bus system to our advantage- although cher is still bemoaning the fact that the night buses stop functioning at around 12 mn. we've gone to angers city center many times to shop, eat and just explore. we have a favorite bakery already near the cathedrale de saint maurice which serves fantastic meals for only EUR 2,70. we also befriended a chinese woman who has her own restaurant near the aforementioned bakery. we met her last sunday because EVERYTHING was closed, except for that chinese restaurant. she actually thought we were americans or singaporeans because we were speaking in english. :D her french was practically flawless...

oh, speaking of the cathedrale de saint maurice, i heard my first mass in france there last sunday. needless to say, it was in french. needless to say also, god did not strike me dead for daring to enter his house after a long hiatus (if he did, it would definitely be a shame because it was such a pretty cathedral). the architecture was incredible and the details were fantastic. i could actually understand what the priest was saying. the entire celebration was very grand actually... most of the people were really wearing their sunday best, and most of the women were wearing skirts or dresses.

i opened a bank account with credit lyonnais today. it went ok, i guess. they even gave us a usb flash drive as a sort-of thank you gift for choosing credit over other banks such as societe generale, bnp et al. hehe, so good thing i didn't get the usb drive i was telling you about, zo.

if you guys wanna send me snail mail, my address is:
Residence Universitaire LAKANAL
25, rue LAMARCK, chambre 430
49045, ANGERS CEDEX
FRANCE

i also got a french number for text messages and calls:
+33676889652

oh, and the number that's on international roaming is:
+639178002388

that's it so far, i'll be posting pictures soon... keep in touch!

je suis en france... finalement

hello everyone!

as promised, i am now updating my blog, so that you'll know i'm alive and well after my, admittedly, hectic start. first, some realizations that i have about france, myself and other stuff:

1. i can actually type without looking at the keyboard before, because right now, i do not know how the fuck to type on a european keyboard!!! i am reverting back to my two-fingered typing regimen and looking at the stupid keyboard so as not to misspell the word! (kadiri peeps, i KNOW you are laughing your asses off right now...)

2. all those french classes paid off... i was the sort of spokesperson of the group... mon dieu! and people can actually understand my atrocious accent! yipee! but it is still a long way from actually understanding everything they say at the speed they say it...

3. parisien/ne/s are not the evil dog-eating people we were led to believe. a LOT of people helped us on the way to angers! merci beaucoup et grace à dieu à ils!

4. photocopying is free in essca... i think ( we all know what that means >:) ) printing is also free... >:D

5. my dorm room is small, fully functional and extremely spartan... i love it! i have my own bathroom, my own refrigerator, there's gonna be internet in october (i'm using the school's comp), the room is near the kitchen (again, we all know what that means), and the room is on the fourth floor- with no elevator to speak of... (if i'm not damned skinny by the time january rolls around, it means i've been scarfing down way too many croissants (they are way fantastic, btw))

6. the tgv is everything we talked about and more...

7. french people are nice :) so far... quite a number of them greeted us and helped us with our, count them, 7 luggages (i'm not kidding! it was a minor miracle that we were able to go from manila to angers with all the things we were carrying), not including handbags and laptops... girls do pack more, i realize that now... (sorry for all the times i mocked you, anya :)) but then again, i AM the girl with the big bag always.

8. i'm not yet homesick... this is because i'm just so tired from the trip and from all the bruises i have because of my damned luggages... and i didn't even bring any novels!!!!

9. i finally saw la tour eiffel (from a distance. no, it did not bring tears to my eyes, sorry anj; but it did make me forget all the stress, stratospheric expenses and crappiness that occured before, and it made me remember why i chose european studies in the first place). i also saw an honest-to-goodness chateau!!! it was très belle!!!

and,

10. i am currently at the grubbiest point in my life... i need a shower (DESPERATELY) after i buy gallons of water from the supermarket. incidentally, water here is not so expensive... you just have to know which brand to buy... grace à dieu encore!

i'm too tired now to elaborate but essca is quite a nice place to study. it's in the middle of nowhere, as cher has charmingly put it, but it's fine by me because it is so conducive for studying. angers is such a picturesque town. it looks like a place right out of a globe trekker account. but i just recently learned that a lot of pedophilia goes around... :( transnational crimes and ambassador manalo suddenly popped into my head.

finally, i have places to envision when i'm thinking about les gares in our french conversations. the train system is simply amazing, and the people there were sooo efficient!

we are now looking at the series of activities that the ESSCA welcome team has prepared for us, and it is full of trips, parties and other stuff... i'm starting to wonder how this will affect my studies, but what the hell, as they say- when in rome (in angers, in this case)... don't be surprised if i come back a different person... hahaha! (like that will happen). i'm looking forward to the trip to normandy... i'm not looking forward to how much it'll cost, though...

fyi, school commences on the 13th so i still have some time on my hands to talk, email, post, and whatnot. our orsem (hehe) is on the 7th until 9th.

i just got word from aims that i might be able to use my ym via e-messenger... checking this one out for sure...:D

i'll update soon... i hope! miss everyone!!!