Name: Angie
Aliases: Marenth, Misato, An-chan
Age: 23
Birthday: Feb 15, 1980
Hometown: Chicago, IL, USA
Location: Angers, FRANCE
Occupation: Full-time Student
Anime: not much at the moment.
Favorite Artists: Brian Froud, Reiji Matsumoto
Manga: RoV in FRENCH XD
Books: just finished "Balzac et le Petite Tailleuse chinoise" by Dai Sijie and will probably read Napoleon next (forget the author)
Food: spinach pizza, ice cream, and keeki!
Email: misato_kat-AT-yahoo.com

angsty pirates
Biru
Davie
Eva
Evelyn
Gregly
Hank
Jen-chan夜叉
Juri
K1-Ed
Kourin
Kristi
maron
Mona
Priya
Shannon
Steph*buddy
Tamatama
Teka
Tommy
xiola

Past France Entries

Harro from Strasbourg!!

I know I know I am so bad about updating this thing. I get involved doing other things basically and dont have time to do it! its sad :( But here I am now!!

How is everyone doing? I have been so homesick, I miss you all!! Jenny and mom got in well thankfully even though there was a lot of confusion with the strike in France (they were stuck in Paris for some time til they finally just got on a train; the best solution even without a ticket- since there is so much SNCF staff on strike its not like they are checking tickets). We also had to deal with another diversion going to Nice because apparently they are especially bitchy in the Southeast. Our train stopped and we had to get out at the stop before Nice since there were demonstrations in Nice. Seemed kinda scary to me o_o But we eventually got there safe, I guess the police kicked the asses of the protestors and got us in ok. XD

At Nice, thankfully, we got our rent-a-car and we were all relieved and thought that was the end of our stupid train problems. Which is true; it was the end of our TRAIN problems but a whole bunch of new problems arose like paying ohsoexpensive tolls and figuring where the hell we were going. I guess the only kind of expressway in France or Europe in general is a tollway.. they have highways but they have traffic lights and traffic circles (the funnest things of all!!). We drove to Aix-En-Provence in the south, went to the beach and hung out, and then drove to the Alps with a short stop in Avignon. The town we stayed in in the Alps, Annecy, was very cute! Me and Jenny hung out our last night there and had fondue, the local specialty. It was sooo yummy. And the town was CUTE to boot! Just a half hour from Geneva, Switzerland so there was a lot of Swiss influence. ^_^

Yesterday we drove to Strasbourg from Annecy. That was an adventure. After paying 30 euros at the border and getting lost in Geneva we finally found the right path and were able to go straight to Strasbourg. But not before stopping and buying some good Swiss chocolate!! We made an appointement we made with Jenny's friend here in Strasbourg (he stayed with us in the US when she had her exchange thingie). We also got to see the cathedral in Strasbourg which is just gorgeous. Today we are gonna go to the Black Forest in Germany (its very very close to Strasbourg- so weird being so close to a whole different country!). Tonight we have another rendez-vous with the guy that Jenny stayed with in Strasbourg when she came. That should be fun.

Strasbourg is really nice from what I can see, and it has a LOT of German influence. I think it looks more like Germany than France actually. And the majority of the restaurants here are German food.. and they have those little colorful houses that are really close together. Its very cute though all in all. XD

Anyways I should stop here Ive been rambling. I hope everyone is doing wonderful!! I cant wait to see you all again in a few weeks!! I love you all! *wuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuubbles!!!*

Fun times, busy times

Wow this week has been soo busy and fun! Last Saturday we went to Normandy, which was amazing. It was basically World War 2 day, which is fine with me, especially since we are learning about WW2 in my history class now. I love Normandy though, it's a very pretty area, known for its apple trees, camembert (cheese), pastures and pastures of cows, and of course, its war monuments. ;) Most of what we visited were war memorials and the like, so keep this in mind. Firstly we went to the Caen Memorial, which is in Caen (obviously hehe), and it was VERY cool. I've never been to such a cool museum.. it's entirely dedicated to WW2. It has a lot of memoriabilia from the war, and I got to see a video on the Battle of Normandy (D-Day) that was very well done, and with no dialog even. It was all real footage too. Next we went to the American cemetary, which was also really neat since it's American soil. :D The guide that went with us was so funny, he was like "We are entering the United States now! Wow it looks a lot like Normandy.." well.. I thought it was funny... I guess you had to be there. I was so happy to see the American Flag flying everywhere (alone that is.. not with a billion other flags). All the white crosses and stars of David too were very pretty. It's a very well-kept cemetary, and it was nice to visit. It's also located pretty close to the ocean too, so you can see a very pretty view from it. After the cemetary we stopped by Omaha Beach, which is the beach that is the closest to the cemetary. It was one of the beaches actually landed on by the Americans during D-Day. Actually that brings a question that has been bugging me to mind... does anyone know what the "D" in D-day actually stands for? Because the translation in French is "Jour J", which makes me wonder, is it just like a code word or something because the word "day" starts with a D? Because that's basically what I would assume from the French translation... Someone email me and let me know or something I guess. ^_^;; Ok back on subject, after the beach we went to the Pointe du Hoc Federal Monument, another American monument. This is basically a bunch of battle-scarred land that was handed over to the American governement. They put up the monument on the cliff and kept the land basically the same way it was on June 8th, 1944 - when the battle took place there. It was pretty cool to see all the holes in the ground from where a grenade likely went off.. and all the German bunkers were still in place and stuff (well, the remains of them at least). I got a bunch of pictures there, I thought it was so cool. :) After that, we went to the German cemetary, which was a harsh contrast to the American one. Very interesting to compare the two. The German cemetary all had black headstones (as opposed to the white ones in the American one), and in the middle was a really big mass grave holding over 200 people, most of which are unknown. I didn't know it was a mass grave at first and I went up the stairs to take a look at the cemetary (they had stairs for Pete's sake!!). I felt really bad after that.. tho I guess it can't be helped walking on graves in a cemetary.. but still ^^;;; it was kinda weird. That is so strange, mass graves.. it's really hard to imagine how many people died and how someone actually had the responsiblity to put all these people together in the cemetaries and stuff after the battles. There is much relocation, even years after the people are already dead! =P

Ok enough morbid stuffs. That was my Normandy trip in a nutshell basically. I really had a great time, and I think it'd be great if I could go there with my mom and Jen-chan when they come. Okay, anyways, the next day, on Sunday, I watched this Japanese movie by the same director that does "Battle Royale" called "Dolls". It was pretty good. I am really gonna miss this little theatre that shows foreign films when I go back to the states.. I hope I can find something similar .. tho I doubt I can. Okay, on Monday I made Rice Krispie treats with a couple of my American friends. We did it for "International Day" at my school, which is basically a day where all the different countries represented at our school have the opportunity to have a booth and have food and stuff from there country at the booths. At the end of the day there is a "soiree" which is like a show by all the different nationalities. I loooved this.. it was so much fun. I got to eat Onigiri from the Japanese booth! And won-tons from the Chinese booth! And something I dont know the name but man it was good from the Korean booth! Our booth, the Americans, had my wonderful Rice Krispie Treats (that lasted about 5 minutes ^^;), Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches, Vegan chocolate cake (long story.. there is a girl that is vegan that basically made them), and my friend Lori made Grits (she's from Alabama). That was actually the first time I ever had grits, and man are they disgusting. ^^; The mexican booth had awesome guacamole dip mmmmm too.. ^_^ Of course there were other things from food too like the China booth had a big theme of "Travel to China" and they jacked a bunch of travel brochures from travel agencies and had them at their booth. And they were doing calligraphy and writing people's names in Chinese too. :) (of course that didn't come until later which leads me to believe they probably jacked the idea from the Japanese booth, which had it all along, but hey I'm not complaining..^_^). I also got to hang out a lot with my friends, which I think was the most fun part of the entire day (tho the free food makes a close second! ^_-). I was so camera-happy that day... I had to go home for an hour to recharge my battery before the soiree! ^^; I got lots of good pics tho ^_^ Next week I think I will have to bring my camera to my classes and take pictures since it's our last week! ;_;

That leads me to today, Wednesday, where nothing much really happened. Wednesdays are pretty filled with classes for me, so they aren't usually funfilled happy days. Course I do have History, which always makes me happy. I really like history I decided ^^ Of course I hated that class when we were learning about France in the 1800s. That was a pretty crappy century for France.. it makes me very happy they have finally made up their mind (and believe me, in comparison, they have) about a governement. ^^;

Friday I think I will get to see the Matrix in English! There is a theatre that is actually showing it in original version ^_^ I cant wait~ I miss the US so much ;_;

So I think I will sign off here! I love you all and miss you tons! wubbbbbbbbles!!

French protesting

Oh my gosh I am so tired of all the people amassing in the street. It happens far too often. Anyways today was the planned strike all around France because they were pushing back the retirement age. The public transportation system was totally screwed.. but at least I still had busses (so I got to go to school, yay!). But they were mostly blocked by the masses of people in the street, so there were some big time delays. *sigh*

Anyways, for the past week or so I haven't really felt up to doing much. I've been pretty sick.. started out as a cold and is now my asthma hanging on to the last reminents of any sort of sickness. Anything to make me miserable. :P Last weekend I was PLANNING on visiting Lyon with my friend Misha but ended up seeing nothing of it and just going home, since I almost had an asthma attack in the incredibly stuffy and humid hotel room we got (it was cheap so I guess I shouldn't have expected much). So I spent the weekend in Angers, with my host family. I got somewhat better then. Yesterday I went to a doctor. He, as I thought, found that I was in the "green zone", and that I was getting better! yay, I could've told him that for $0. He put me on some meds. Hopefully they will work. Really what I want to do now is just finish school and go hoooome. :(

I have been contemplating what my mom told me which was that it's mostly the stress and that I make myself sick by getting worked up about school. It is rather uncanny that I always get sick right around finals week (which is this week for ISU). But I dont know.. it's probably a combination of that and the fact that it's spring, that wonderful time of the year when the flowers spread their seeds everywhere to make little flowers pop up during the summer (i.e. pollen). And me having a particular allergy to this, probably doesn't help matters. The girl sitting next to me in my Langue class with the sniffly nose and the cough a couple weeks back probably didn't help either...

Anyways, all that aside, I can't wait for this month to end. June will be fun-filled and action-packed! My mom and my sister are officially coming for sure to see me on June 7th, and we are going travelling all around France and the UK! I actually can't wait.. it'll be nice to put school behind me. Bring on the exams!

*hughugs* Hope you all have had a better week than I have.

Hi everyone!

Time for the long-awaited, highly-anticipated next Angie blog entry! This one will be longer dont worry... I'm writing it offline hehe ;)

Just this past weekend as some of you know I visited Paris for a day and London for 2 days.. although it didn't quite work out that way since I missed my flights to London so I spent the majority of it actually waiting in an airport. Really got to know Terminal 3 of Charles de Gaulle Airport and Luton Airport by London pretty well. Ok let's see.. I made it to Paris and the first thing I did when I got there was go to the hostel I reserved a room with, but big shocker, they didn't get the reservation and were booked up for the night. stupidheads. So I went to another one I knew of that wasn't far (I made a back-up list of other hostels in the area), and they were almost full, but had a space for me at least. I was happy about that.. cuz I could just leave my stuff there and go out (which is what you do at a hostel anyways.. it's just for sleeping). I went to the Sacre Coeur first, which is a really big pretty white church in Montmartre (where my hostel was). It was totally crowded at the church, seeing as it was Good Friday. Well, I hung out around there, there is a really cute little town around the church, and I stumbled upon a movie being filmed! I thought that was totally cool! I watched that for a while, but it got boring since they basically were doing the same take over and over again and it wasn't really an ACTION take, they were just filming a guy punching into the camera. I wonder what movie that was.. it seemed interesting, like it took place in the 20s or something. I got pictures of it. Next I went to the Orsay Museum, which is an art museum with a lot of impressionistic works. I took my obligatory picture of the little ballerina sculpture by Degas for Jen-chan cuz I know she loves that so much. :) I also thought Starry Night by Van Gogh was there, which is one of my fave paintings, and I did find a painting called Starry Night and that was by Van Gogh.. but it wasn't the same thing.. tho it's a pretty painting too, but just not the same coolness as the real Starry Night. Lessee... after the museum, I hung out in the Tuilleries park kinda near the Louvre, where the "Jeu de Paume" building is located (now it's some art exhibition center). I also saw Place de la Concorde again.. I really just can't get over how the french put a freaking Egyptian relic in the place where the guillotine was, and where many important FRENCH history things happened. Note how I say FRENCH and not EGYPTIAN :P After hanging out around there I took the metro to the Eiffle Tower and hung out there til it got dark (basically for 3-4 hours, since it doesn't get dark til like freaking 10pm). I think it's really cool to see it as it gets darker and darker, and it's all lit up. Not only that but it's a great place for people watching.. you got people from all over the world there... it's such a global attraction. I must've heard at least 10 different languages. And everyone is just having fun.. they are out on vacation and enjoying themselves (and taking pictures.. tons of pictures). :) After that, I basically found my way back up to Montmartre, found "Le Chat Noir" for Tsu-chan, which ended up being not too far from my hostel, ate some McDonalds (I know.. but I was HUNGRY, it was cheap and close), and went back to sleep in my hostel. I had random roommates there, but I never met them, since one was out when I got back and one was sleeping, and the other got back when I was asleep already.. and then I had to leave early that morning to catch the flight I ended up missing anyways, so oh well didn't meet them. =D

Ok now on to London. The next morning I woke up with what I felt was enough time to get to CDG airport. Little did I know the airline that I was flying with closes their check-in 40 minutes before the plane leaves due to hightened security. SOO I had to transfer onto the next flight, which wasn't for like another 4 hours. So joy, I got to hang out in the airport. I called Hank (it was relieving to hear his voice and listened to some french radio to pass the time. FINALLY I got to London.. or so I thought. Little did I know (yet again.. I have to research better my stuff I think), the airport I flew into was like an hour by train out of London! so I had to fork over 10｣, in addition to the 1｣60 to get a subway pass, to get to my hostel in London. And that was just one way. I don't think I'll fly with these guys to go from Paris to London ever again. =P I'll stick to the Eurostar, which at least gets you to London proper. Anyhoo, my hostel in London was very nice, the guy that runs it was great, actually my mom talked with him a little on the phone too, trying to pay for my room. The people there were very nice too. I actually met my random roommates this time around :) And to boot.. the hostel was like right across the street from the concert venue where Paul McCartney was playing (my entire purpose for going to London). :D I got into my hostel at about 4pm, got some KFC (they dont have those in France, but in England they do it seems.. and Burger King too! hahaha), bought a phone card and called home, hung out with my new roommates a little bit getting to know them, and then headed over to the concert.

I cannot even describe to you the awesomeness that this concert was. I was crying with joy. I got a program for it.. already read it 3 times. Anyways tho, the set list was basically the same as the Back in the US tour, except he has one extra song, and changed like 4 of the songs, making him have more Beatles songs in the lineup. Basically.. Angie was in bliss. I wanna buy the Back in the World CD now...

I pretty much crashed after the concert.. I was SOOO tired from all the crappy travelling. I slept til like 10:00 too!! I didn't expect that, usually I dont sleep well in beds that aren't what I'm used to. Unfortunately though, I was too late I guess to meet my friends at the hostel I was going to. So I just wandered around on my own. I went and saw Buckingham Palace and Big Ben. it wasn't much, I didn't enter in any of them (well of coures not Buckingham Palace..). The rest of the day was spent just relaxing at the park or in an internet cafe trying to get a hold of my friends. Finally I headed back to the hostel, got some Burger King, and watched the Simpsons with the other people in the hostel. =D Then I went to sleep, and travelled back to France the next day.

I ended up missing my flight YET AGAIN the next day, so I had to wait in LONDON'S airport for like 4 hours this time. Then I missed my train to Angers since my flight was later than I thought it'd be. So i had to change that too. *sigh* But I finally made it to Angers, boy was I happy. And at my door was chocolate eggs waiting for me, and they all wished me a happy Easter ^^ The eggs are like soo good.. they have praline in the center, and some of them are made with white chocolate *_*

Today I got my package from my family at home! So I have chocolate chip cookie makings now! This weekend I will make cookies for my host family, they are so looking foreward to it. :D Me too.. I really miss my mom's cookies.. I hope I can make them as good as her ;) They also sent me Peeps! I'm so happy.. I get my Peeps, and I can eat cookies this weekend.. *_* My mom is the coolest!

Anyways I hope everyone's Easter was good.. I am doing ok now, just totally taking it easy this week. I saw Spirited Away yesterday in the theatre here.. now I've seen it in the theatre 3 times, once in Japan, once in Chicago, and once in France! all of them in different languages too :) I love that movie :D so happy it won the Academy Award, it totally deserved it. Ok that's all I'm gonna write for now. Love you guys! *wubbles!* byeee! <3

Pictures from Paris/London Thanks to Bill for putting them up as thumbnails for me! :D This way it's a lot easier.

New pics!

Ok I have a test tomorrow so I dont have much time to write the entry to go along with them but if you like, the new pics are up on my page. they are in the Paris directory (that was this past weekend) and the saumur directory which was the weekend before.

Paris

Saumur

Erica's visit and Audrey's birthday

Yay new layout!!!

Lookie the perty new layout my lovely sis made for me XD Its so pretty. Very much with my France theme too. Yay! WUBBLES to my great sis, who has a really cool haircut now I'm jealous!!

Ok a little update now since I havent written in a while. Things are ok here. Dont worry, anti-Americanism isnt really a big thing in Angers. Next weekend I'm going to Paris with a friend of mine that I met here. We are going to speak only french in any public area. Dont wanna attract the wrong kind of attention. Last weekend we went to Saumur, a small city nearby Angers. I almost broke my camera :( I have decided to pick up a camera case and a strap to put it around my neck. Saumur is cool tho, its got the national school for equistery (horsemanship). I'll put up the pics I got later on when I get the chance and talk more about it.

I got to visit my host mother's mother's house, which is really neat since she lives on a farm in the country basically. So I'm getting to know a lot of the Anjou region of France. I'm very happy about that, because Angers, while it is nice being in a big city with a lot of international people, lacks character and french culture. Something really gets lost when an area becomes big and urban. They have wine caves, vineyards are really big here, its just like corn in Illinois! You are driving on a highway in the country, look to one side vineyards for as far as the eye can see, and the other side is the same thing. They sell a hell of a lot of wine here. And its reaaaaaaaaally good wine too ^^ I am getting biased, I know ;)

Anyways I better get going, I promise to blog soon with my new pictures and more descriptions! Ciao! *kiss*kiss*