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Year: Junior
Major: Studio Art and French double major
Career Aspirations: Event planning/coordinating
Favorite Campus Activities: Chi Omega, working in Admissions
Favorite Campus Hangouts: The Bowl or The Caf'
Favorite Campus Events: Major Madness
Favorite School Tradition: Spring Parties and Graduation in the Bowl |
April 4, 2007
I've been in France for over two months and it's so hard to believe that I have less than 2 months left before I head back to the states! I love this place and I will miss it when I go! Sometimes I feel like I've stepped right into the movie Under the Tuscan Sun with Diane Lane (except in France instead of Italy). The way of life, the food, the culture, it's all be absolutely fantastic. And I feel like I've learned so much, not only about myself but about the world around me and the country that I'm in.
I think the hardest thing has been the difficulty of keeping in touch with loved ones at home, not only because of outrageous phone rates but also because of the 7 hour time difference. However, we somehow manage to make it work and things like email and facebook make correspondance a lot easier.
It's funny to think that I'm doing so many incredible things that many people dream of doing their whole lives and never accomplish, yet I'm only 21 and I'm doing what many people will never have the guts, or the opportunity, to do.
Where to start in terms of travel? My gosh I've seen so much! I've been to Barcelona, Cannes, Nice, Monte Carlo, different parts of Provence (the province of France that I'm living in), and I just got back from Paris, which is a dream come true. If you ever go to Paris, visit the Rodin Museum and go see the Eiffel Tower at night. I also hightly recommend the Musee d'Orsay, which contains some of the most beautiful pieces of artwork that I've ever seen, and ever will see, in my life. Paintings by Monet, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Morisot, Manet, Delacroix, Degas, and thousands more are there and I found myself almost unable to breathe as I sat in a room full of Cezanne paintings. Maybe I'm a nerd but when you finally get to see the things you've been studying for so long in real life it's impossible not to become emotional (plus writing an Honors Thesis on Cezanne gives you a whole new perspective as well). Sometimes it's hard to process that I'm actually here and not in a dream.
My parents are coming to visit for a week, my boyfriend and his mother came to see what I'm experiencing and there are others who would've loved to have been able to come, but obviously it's difficult. Sometimes I wonder if I was just an excuse to come to France! :)
After that I'll head to Italy for 10 days of Spring Break in Rome, Florence, and Turin. I think I might pass out in the Sistine Chapel! What a dream come true to see that and sculptures like The Pieta and the David!! I can't wait, nor can I wait for Italian food! Gelatto here I come!
My host family is exceptional and I couldn't have asked for a better one! I'm constantly laughing, joking, being picked on, if it were in english it'd be similar to home. Margaux, my little French sister, is planning to come visit the states this summer and I feel that this is going to continue to be a life long correspondance. They've taught me so much and they've been so loving and accepting of the American girl who invaded their home!
I have only to seize these last 2 months! I plan on going to Tours in the Loire Valley to visit Shay Steckler (a Millsaps alumnus who's teaching there) and stay with her for awhile, then hopefully I'll be able to head to Bretagne to see the menhirs (kind of like Stonehenge), Normandy, and I'll go out with a bang my last 5 or 6 days in Paris where my flight will leave the 24th of May.
This has been the adventure of a lifetime, I regret nothing, and though I can't wait to be home to tell everyone that I love all about it in person, a little part of me will forever remain in this city of Aix-en-Provence. I highly recommend study abroad to anyone, and everyone, and I will see everyone back in the States next semester!
- Alyce
December 22, 2006
Well this is it ... I have less than a month until I leave for France for a WHOLE SEMESTER!! I can't believe it. To think that in less than a month (the 19th of January to be exact), I will have an ocean between myself, my family, my friends, my school, and my hometown (Baton Rouge).
It's weird because this is something that I never dreamed I could pull off. I've always thought about it, and hoped for it, but now I'm actually doing it. Sometimes I think I must have lost my mind completely, but I haven't really had an opportunity to think about that until recently, once I finally got pretty much everything pulled together.
Between signatures, applications, trying to get classes to transfer (which they all did...one more reason you should come to Millsaps), trying to figure out how I'm going to plug my hairdryer and computer in a European outlet, and who only knows what else, I haven't had time to really let the fact that I'm going to be in another country for another semester sink in. It's been hard work but I have no doubt that it'll be worth it.
I had a little, well actually a HUGE, bump in the road the other day when I realized that I have to go all the way to Houston to get my visa (a very important part of long term travel). New Orleans doesn't issue visas anymore after the hurricane and the fact that they had so few applications for them. As if Houston isn't inconvenient enough (a 4 1/2 hour drive) the woman on the phone in New Orleans told me it takes 6-8 weeks to process a visa ... uhh freak out time? I think so ...
Anyway it worked out because apparently since they require your presence when applying for a visa, you usually get it in the same day. Even if I don't get it, I can travel in France for up to 3 months as a visitor without a visa, so it can be mailed to me and I'll be ok.
Officially, I'll be studying in Aix-en-Provence ("Aix" to the French) in southern Provence. Aix is about 18 miles or so from Marseilles on the coast of the Mediterranean. Now you would think that I'd be on the beach the whole time, but unfortunately this little Louisiana girl is going to come back to the States in an ice block because a huge wind called the Mistral goes through Provence from about January to March or April. I do expect, however, to spend some quality time with salty water toward the end of my time there, and who said you can't swim in the cold?
I'll be studying French and art because I'm double-majoring in the two. I'm going through a program called Institute for American Universities and I will be staying with a host family while I'm there. I'll move out of their house on the 12th of May to backpack for 2 weeks until I come home on the 24th.
People ask me what I'm looking forward to the most. LA CUISINE!!!! That's what the French are known for, right? That and the art, the beach, the completely different lifestyle ... and even bundling up in the cold (just a little bit).
But right now, all I'm worried about is getting a visa and getting my computer to work ... baby steps ...
More later when I'm actually there!
- Alyce
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