ma vie est une blague

oh yeah, thought i should probably mention les examens for those of you who care (aka mum and dad)
the expression oral exam was a little tricky, mostly because we had ten minutes to prepare a dialogue on a topic we were unaware of beforehand. and naturally, i was partnered with a timid little korean girl who decided she was just going to throw in random questions that had nothing to do in relation to the topic we were talking about or the script we had originally planned. so that was sweet. but i still think it went okay, and i didn't manage to brutalize the language too, too much.
the comprehension ecrite was a little more difficult than expected, but managed to get through that as well.
then the comprehension oral, and expression ecrite were pretty much a breeze!

but i realized that the whole marking system in this country really is a complete and utter joke when i went to school today to check my mark. no numbers, no letters, nothing. we were simply marked with "pasable"/"assez bien"/"bien"/"tres bien". like are you serious? basically "meh, you're not good, but we'll pass you anyway because we feel bad"/"eh, you're pretty decent"/"oh yeah, you're good" and "oh wow, you clearly spoke french before you even came here, so thats great".
i am proud to say i was placed in "bien", placed only below the italien girl in my class who i'm certain could speak fluent french beforehand, she just wanted to kill an easy semster in niveau deux.

now i'm just chillin' on my two and a half week vacation until i go back to class on the 15th. not having school during the week and not being gone away is really strange, you really have nothing you HAVE to do, no responsibilites. so if you just want to sit around and do nothing all day, you can. i'm not really the biggest fan of this, so i've spent the last few days making all the finishing touches on my prague and budapest trip. can't wait to take off on wednesday!

be back on the 10th to tell you all about it! gros bisous! x je vous aime

un autre pétard, un autre blog

dijon is strange when all your pals aren't around. with danielle leaving me and everyone heading off on vacation the city seems quite empty. although my new housemate phoebe arrived on friday, so for once i've had the chance to walk around the city as the some-what guide, without having to feel completely lost; which is a great feeling i must say.
surely we couldn't send danielle off to reunion island without the most extreme going away party known to man, so that is exactly how we celebrated on friday night. everybody showed up and it was a great send off, and possibly the best party a chez camilla to date. we somehow managed to cram 42 people into her tiny apartment and as the booze started flowing, and everyone was mingelin' it finally started to dawn on me that in a few hours danielle would actually be leaving me. i miraculously manged to stick to my two promises of not getting my usual drunk and not crying, i was impressed with myself to say the least.

the night ended with a mere 3 hours of sleep, followed by strong burgers, and farewell cryin a la gare. fantastique. i spent the rest of the afternoon helping camilla clean her apartment and getting so high we could forget how to cry, and trying to pick out chips.
c: "we should get the cheese one"
z: "or we could get THESE ones"
c: "you want to get tomato flavoured?"
z: "or we could get THESE ones"
c: "yeah, or we could get CHEESE"
z: "no, these aren't cheese, these are épicé"
then it was off to chez nous for even more goodbyes with markus. this weekend was trop triste. however, i believe i've officially become a "regular" at chez nous, since last night when the bartender saw me he bizbized me. life is complete.

the week leading to danielle's departure was spent crossing things off of our bucket list of things to do in dijon.
walk far enough out of dijon that we got lost - check
eat the strongest burgers in town - check
tour around lac kir - check
rent the rent-a-bikes in dijon - sadly, no check
climb a "mountain" - check
ski in the alps - check
my wok it - check
climb the dijon tower to enjoy to view - no check, yet.
watch where the wild things are - check
chez nous it, one last time - check

like woah

wow, so i really don't think i'm ready for tomorrow to come... and even less prepared for saturday to follow

je sera trop triste.... putain merde. :(

simply for your amusement

here are two videos i'm sure you will all enjoy:

first, me dropping in on my friends to say hey in the french alps



and second, only the most french display of love



and why not finish it off with an ever-so-accurate description of the french man:

"The men of France - known internationally as God's gag gift to women - are legendary for their amorous nature. However, they are often compared to French soldiers: Both come on strong, make a few quick mistakes, regret getting involved, lose all interest, and ultimately give up, but still have the temerity to brag about their conquest to their allies for years."

with that being said, how have i not tombé amoureux already?

cuzy, the hottest new tourist destination

this weekend has been incredible! we finished off first semester with a day of games on thursday, followed by a picnic with the other neaveau deux class on friday.

after the grandest photoshoot of life it was time to head back to centre-ville, scoff down some food and meet up with antoine and katherine to hit the road to annecy.
after about a 3 hour drive we arrived at antoines amazing house in cuzy, surrounded by winding roads and gigantic mountains. it was marvelous! we headed out into the city of annecy to check out lac d'annecy (the second biggest lake in france)

and old annecy city. this is where the reality of the fact that we were actually surrounded by the alpine mountains finally set in. the lake was gorgeous and i can only imagine what it looks like in the summer time. back to antoine's place to have dinner avec sa famille. eventually it was time for bed in preperation for the early rise in the morning. woke up and geared up and were on the road by 9 heading to margériaz mountain to faire du ski pour le jour.

skiing is fucking sooooooo much fun! holy hell, i now understand what all you boys out in whistler are going on about (expect a visit next winter)

by the time our ski pass expired i'm pretty sure my body and soul had expired also and i'm still not sure how i managed to hobble along back to the car! but i did gain a free pair of ski boots from the day as the rental place forgot to give me a slip for renting them and we just casually walked away.... sweet, one less piece of equipment to rent next time! when we made it back to cuzy we prepared a sweet traditional dish - tartiflette (dish with potatoes, onions, lardon and beaucoup - and i mean beaucoup - de fromage) for dinner. as always, there were lots of apertifs flowing and of course more wine with dinner, which lead to an essential game of fooseball where my skills (or complete lack there of) were sadly displayed. the next morning we went out and met the horses and helped antoine feed them

(seriously mum, you would love their house. if you ever make it to france you must visit the nicot's, because it would be your heaven) and then we got spoiled with even more cheese (as if my body thought that was physically possible) when we had proper fondu for lunch. real fondu is nothing like the excuse for fondu we eat in canada and the glorious taste of three delightful cheese melted together with wine and oil can't even be described. after lunch it was back in the car for another 3 hours of winding up and down and in and out as we drove out of the mountains and back to dijon.
and now, here i am seven minutes after midnight, with an exam tomorrow that i have yet to really, truely study for. but somehow i don't really care. it's oral, and what comes more naturally to me than talking? if i know it, i know it and if i don't... well i'm pretty sure i can still do better than my crazy timid korean partner that i'm up against. c'est la vie.

a la prochaine fois bitches,
bisous xx

puff the magic dragon

well after drunkenly stating that "i would love to buy 60 euros worth of weed" on friday night, bruno decided to be ever so nice and get me the hook up... only to realize that if i actually buy 60 euros of weed it means i can not eat for the next month.... time for some problem solving
so after having made all of my money back in less than 24 hours and still having the 2 grams i originally wanted for myself left over... i've decided that the ideal job for me here in france is to be a weed dealer. its easy, its something i'm passionate about, and living in a town with this many canadian students craving the grass they can not find, it just seems perfect.
i will have to chat up bruno tomorrow and see how we can go about establishing my empire
god it would be so nice to have some money... and weed on the regular, holy life would be better!

(post script for the fam, don't worry i'm obviously not actually going to sell weed... but everything sounds like a great idea when you're stoned.)

trou de mémoire

well i would love to be able to tell you about last night... if i could possibly remember any of it

par usual jeremie et moi faired les betises and had a bunch of people over to pre-drink a chez anges

where camilla, jeremy and i polished off a fair amount of vodka and i stuck to my promise i made jeremy of getting blackout drunk with him
apres the pre-drinking we headed off to the bar to meet up with everyone for the birthday celebrations for regina and hyo where we then sang kareokee (i told you i was hammered) ... unfortunatly my memories of being at the bar do not exist at all, but from what i'm told i was the star of the entertainment.... fantastic!

my night was short lived when danielle made the executive decision that it was time to carry my drunk ass home.. i'm really not sure how i'm going to survive in this town once that girl leaves me

since being in france i've realized that my tolerance levels for everything have gone down significantly.... i'm gonna get my ass kicked when i come home.. literally a bottle of cheap polish vodka and i'm wrote off for the night and if i smoke a pinner to myself i'm flyin' high for hours... its amazing hahaha at least i've managed to become that cheap drunk i always wished to be!
luckily i am starting to come around a bit now, although this morning i had une gueule de bois from fucking hell.. holy shit. and thankfully my room is starting to smell less and less like a homeless man took a shit in it... as i so politely stated to jeremy this morning hahahaha
i should probably start studying for my civilisation exam on tuesday... but i really don't think today's the day... looks like tomorrow will have to do

until the next time! bisous!