First day of school!

I've survived my first day of winter quarter, in France! Courtney and I ran a few miles before class, and then made the 1.5- 2 mile walk to the University's Business School. We had a nice breakfast as a group and it seems that all the student's are having great experiences with their host families so far!

We had two classes today followed by a walking tour of the city. The first class was a survival french course, and I can now say Je m'appelle Rachel and spell the letters of my first and last name in French. I probably need to brush up on a few more phrases before shopping or eating in many more locations around the city though! The second class was on cross-cultural management, and although it was a 3 hour lecture, our very cultured, Iranian  and French professor made the time fly by. It was fascinating to hear her stories about her life around the world and her perspective on American and French cultural differences and similarities.

We had kebabs from a small store for lunch, which is very popular around Toulouse and then proceeded with an interesting walking tour lead by an English woman. The tour featured a lot of history of the city and took us to some churches and parts of town that I want to further explore on my own this weekend. The national French sales start in 2 days, so Courtney and I are hoping to get some new clothes this weekend! I think my budget allows for a few nice European pieces to return to the States with!

La Garonne River, which runs through Toulouse!

Living with a host family in France has been an awesome experience so far. I feel like I am living a life here, and not just visiting or being a tourist. I have a bed to call my own, and I'm learning my way around our part of town slowly but surely. Last night we enjoyed a delicious three course meal of pumpkin soup, which was excellent, cheese and ham quiche, and several French cheeses with bread and red wine. It was an amazing meal! Bernard, our host, outdoes any American cook I know! After dinner we were able to learn more about our host family and watch the Terminator in French with them. It was a relaxing night where we all got to know each other and laugh at Arnold's acting! Bernard is a retired high school French teacher, but spent several years teaching French at the University of Nebraska in the 1960s. He has an incredible love for America, and he even had the opportunity to work closely in Robert Kennedy's campaign. I love learning more about the French way of life and his family. It's something I will always remember and value from this experience.

A warm welcome to Toulouse!

I finally got to meet my host family today! Bernard and Christiane are so welcoming! They have a charming, historic house with plenty of room for Courtney and me. Our bedrooms are on the second floor, and we even have our own restroom, microwave, and TV! Bernard prepared a delicious meal of chicken and pasta for us with some red wine. It may have been one of my favorite meals of the week! We could not have asked for a kinder, more generous family!

Last night our group finally reunited in France and had dinner together at Cafe Baggio. It was a very nice restaurant, and after we were told the university was covering the bill, we all ordered three delicious courses. I tried foie gras, a delicacy here, which is actually baked liver I was told. I was feeling adventurous and tried some on crackers with salt, and loved it! We finished the evening with many french desserts, including profiteroles, pictured below! We had so much food that we were almost to the point of getting sick. Mallory ordered a pizza and salad, not realizing she had ordered 2 very large entrees. Mike challenged her to a "Mal vs Food" competition, and she downed the pizza is less than 10 minutes on a very full stomach! It was amazing! Our group dynamics are great so far, and everyone is enjoying hearing about each other's travels before Toulouse and getting to know more about each other!

Delicious dessert on Saturday in Toulouse!

After the group dinner, we all ventured out together and found a few small bars where we enjoyed a few European beers. Kronenberg was my favorite choice of the evening. The second bar we stopped into was actually playing THE BENGALS GAME! It was unreal to be half way across the world watching my hometown football team play in the playoffs. Our group stayed for most of the game, but then got frustrated in the fourth quarter and left. Colton and Alex got some greek food on our walk home, which turned into an adventure of asking for directions and navigating city maps again... reoccuring theme of my travels so far! But we arrived home at a decent hour and enjoyed some sound sleep in our luxurious hotel. I felt like I was living in a castle after hostel living for the 3 previous nights!

This morning I ran along the canal and La Garonne river, so at least I am still getting my runs in even if I am indulging in delicious food all day long! The city has a lot of runners (and dogs) unlike Italy. There are many running paths, so I am planning on running before classes each day with Courtney! We don't have a long walk to class, so that will also be nice excercise each day.

So far, I am loving France! It was a relief to be able to unpack my bags and know that I am in good hands with my host family for two weeks! I don't think I have ever spent more than a week in any city besides Cincinnati, so I am excited to get to know Toulouse well! Classes start bright and early at 8:30 tomorrow morning, which may change how much time I have for fun adventures each day, but I'm looking forward to the international business lectures!



Goodbye Rome, Hello France!

I finished my Roman trip with a run to the Colloseum on my last morning in Italy. I was sad to leave the city, but cannot wait to return again very soon!

Our journey on the cheap airline, EasyJet, was very painless! We were expecting problems with our luggage weight or number of carry-ons, but I'm glad we had no major problems.

We arrived in our hotel in Toulouse a few hours ago, and my group from Italy explored the town a little. It is very quaint and quiet, unlike Rome. It's refreshing to see cheap supermarkets on the street corner instead of street vendors selling knock off handbags. The switch in languages is fairly difficult. I want to say "gratzie" to everyone I buy something from, but then I switch to "merci". There are also many more people who do not speak any English here, so I will have to learn some survival French fast!

Our group is meeting for dinner before we meet our host families tomorrow. The irony is that they chose an Italian restaurant... ha. As if I have not had enough pasta and pizza this week!

I'm very excited to meet my family tomorrow! Study abroad officially starts now!

Day 3 of Rome

I LOVE ITALY! I am so glad I tossed my coin into the Trevi fountain, because I must return here very soon! The entire country is gorgeous, and the food is delicious! What more could a girl want from life?

Today we got a little bit of a late start, but headed to the Colosseum after our hostel breakfast again. The Colosseum was SO NEAT! It was my second favorite site, behind the Vatican. It was built in 7 years in 80 AD by 15,000 slaves... woah! I wish I could have seen it in its glory days, because the 38% remaining after an earthquake and 2000 years later was awesome still! We paid for a tour guide and once again were very impressed with the wealth of information they offered on the history and architecture.

Our tour also included a guide for Palentine Hill and the Roman forums. We spent several hours there wandering around the remains of the emperor's palace. After the tour, we ate at a small ristorante and I enjoyed my first dish of pasta here. It was a spinach ravioli dish and I of course needed nutella gelato to top it off! I wish I could eat like this every day! Dinner later consisted of a tuna fish and onion pizza by the way.... and I was impressed. I ate the entire thing! Italy has made my stomach very happy.

Our group tried to see the Pantheon this afternoon, but it was closed due to the holiday- the Epiphany. The entire city was chaotic because of the holiday! Streets were closed. People crowded the streets. We ended up walking for hours, and eventually getting lost so resorted to a metro to return home. That turned into a situation when the masses of Italian people overcrowded the station and literally people started piling up at the bottom of escalators!!! It was very frightening for a few minutes as police ran to the scene and Italians screamed to each other. There were announcements made in Italian, but that did not explain anything to us. For a split second, I thought maybe I was walking into a terrorist attack or something as frightening! I was relieved to find it was just an overcrowded metro stop and we quietly waited until we could find a train with room for us. It was the best euro we spent all day, as we walked for over 7 hours and our legs were killing us! At least the walking is making up for all the Italian pizza and gelato I am indulging in!

I blew through my entire first set of euros from the ATM, which was a few hundred dollars. Slightly alarming, but I think I will be able to budget better in France when I am with a host family and going to class instead of site seeing all day.

I am really excited for France and to meet my host family! It's going to be nice to have a normal life with a routine for class and a family that will show us around town. Courtney and I cannot wait to meet them!

I could not have asked for a better trip to Roma! 3 days was the perfect amount of time to see everything and enjoy the culture. I might have gotten seriously fat or poor if I was here any longer! But I must return soon, hopefully in a summer season to experience the town when it's a little warmer :)

It's almost midnight here and I am determined to run off some of my tuna fish pizza before we depart for our flight! Stories from France to come soon!

Roma!!!!

It's been a little more than 24 hours since I landed in Rome, and I'm in heaven! Every second has been amazing so far.

The jet lag was a little tiring yesterday, but our group enjoyed a nice Italian lunch of white wine, pastas, and salads at a ristorante near our Hostel Alessandro and gained enough energy to sight see all night! We created our own walking tour (to save 15 euros after a taxi driver completely ripped us off and charged us 150 euros for a ride from the airport.... yes, that's equivalent to a $200 cab ride!) and saw the Trevi Fountain and Spanish steps! They were breathtaking! I immediately thought of the Lizzi McGuire movie (blast from the past!) We are staying near Termini Station, the main train station, so we are fairly central to everything. Colton and Courtney were excellent with the map, and we barely got lost! We did stop for directions a few times and met some people that tried with broken English to direct us. The worst part of the evening was my poor shoe choice. I trusted it would not rain heavily and wore flats, which were completely soaked after 5 minutes. You live and learn! We finished the evening with 2 thinly sliced pizzas from a local store and large 22 ounce beers! It was a delightful first evening of bonding in our tiny, but cozy hostel room!

Thursday morning started off just as wonderful! Courtney and I woke up at 6:30 Italy time to go running. I was a little afraid of getting lost on a run, considering how much effort it took to find things last night with a map. We went exploring though, and it paid off! We ended up taking an hour and 15 minute run (mostly because we got very turned around with directions), but we randomly ran to the Colosseum! Yes, that's right. We just found the Colosseum by chance. It was so exciting and surreal. Just a normal Wednesday run, right?

Following our run and a cheap hostel breakfast, we visited the Vatican. We paid for a tour, and it was well worth the money. We had no lines and great explanations of the Vatican Museum, Raphael Rooms, the old papal apartments (including the room Pope Alexander died in), and the Sistine Chapel. Our visit to St. Peter's was indescribable. I actually was almost brought to tears by the beauty of the Church. It was surreal to be in a place with so much history and beauty, especially being a Catholic and seeing images of the Popes and our Church's history my whole life.

We wrapped up the afternoon with a panini from a small store outside the Vatican and nutella gelato with whipped cream from Old Bridge. The lunch was spectacular and well worth every calorie. It's a good thing I decided not to pack a scale, because I'm surely getting fat in Rome. But, they say "do as the Romans do", so I am just living as a Roman for a few days :) My diet can resume in February!

Tonight we are going to try to find some good nightlife for college kids. There are many offers on the streets for pub crawls, but all the promoters are sketchy, so we are going to explore on our own! It's obvious we stand out as Americans everywhere we go, because we are always the ones they try to ploy into their restaurants with discounts! We try to play it smart and knock down the prices on souvenirs from the vendors. I've already spent an outrageous amount of money in 24 hours, but the budget and diet are on hold for now!

More updates to come, but I am having an absolute blast! It is such a beautiful city with breathtaking sites and to-die-for food! I cannot wait to see Ancient Rome tomorrow! Until then, arrivederci!

It's here!

Today is the day! I am 99% packed, and yes, the suitcase currently does zip up and meets my 44 lb. limit. Shocking!

Besides the temporary anxiety attack I had this afternoon (when I realized I had a 6-8 page paper due at 9:45 a.m. that I was not aware of), I am remaining fairly calm. My family and friends all met for dinner at one of my favorite hometown restaurants, LaRosa's. It was really nice to have everyone together before I departed on the big journey ahead! There is irony in the fact that we went to a Cincinnati Italian restaurant, and in a few hours, I'll have 3 full days of amazing, authentic Italian cuisine!

I have a pre-departure meeting with my class at 9:45, then I'm headed to the airport at 3:00. My flight from CVG to Paris leaves at 5:40.... this is all too real now!

I am full of so much excitement, anticipation, and nerves that I will probably not sleep much tonight. But, I've packed plenty of Benadryl for the flight!

17 hours to go!

Europe, here I come!!

Is this really happening?

48 hours to go. Is this real life? I am in disbelief that I will be boarding a plane in exactly 48 hours on a flight to Rome... oh. my. gosh!

The packing is going okay.... I am still determined to fit half my closet in an average sized suitcase, but I am sure I can make sacrifices and ensure it closes by Tuesday!

At this point, I realized I was over-packing!

Besides the last minute tasks I need to take care of, I am actually quite sad to leave my friends for four weeks. I never anticipated that it would be so difficult to leave Cincinnati for a month. But, then I remember where I'll be instead and I feel a little better :)