Adventures in Grenoble

Just as we’re getting used to how things are, it’s all going to change next week. Only 2 groups from the United States were at CUEF this week doing some review practice French. Our Professor says that the U insists we do 5 weeks instead of 4 because 4 is not enough time, so we get this extra week at the beginning. Starting next week hundreds of students start the program that we’re doing. So instead of there being like less than 50 of us that all speak English there will be a lot more and the only common language will be French. This will be interesting! The heat is still utterly outrageous! But now I have a ventilateur! It doesn’t really help though! Just blows the hot air around.

I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to the Musée dauphinois! You ride the tram into the old part of town and walk across a bridge that dates back to Louis XIV which has Roman dates as well. This is how everything is here. It goes back to Louis XIV and has Roman foundations. Crazy cool! So yeah you cross and bridge and you hike a bajillion and a half stairs and the whole time it’s absolutely picturesque but you’re also out of breath and lagging behind everyone else! The musée is built into the side of the mountain and you can walk out onto these gardened terraces that give you a view of the entire city! It’s so peaceful and quiet and you can hear the birds. I enjoyed the view so much I didn’t even check out all the other exhibits. After we went to lunch at La Tartelline. You eat in a brightly lit cave-like room. It was nice and cool for once. I tried my very first quiche I guess it was. It had chicken, lemon, and mustard. I love mustard but this had too much. I also had freshly pressed apple and peach juice, which was super delicious. I still struggle with getting enough water on a daily basis and it drives me absolutely bananas that the French don’t believe in cold drinks! Especially since every drink I have at home is full of ice first then some drink. I want an icy ice cold drink so bad!  

What an adventure last night was! I rode in the iconic bubbles of Grenoble up to the Bastille. The bubbles are A LOT smaller than I thought they would be. I thought it would be more like riding the London Eye but these bubbles hold 6 people and that’s really all the space there is. You fold down this tiny little bench and sit down while it moves slowly then everyone gets to know each other really well and you ride up the mountain. And yes it’s a little nerve-racking for someone who’s afraid of heights. I just said if you’re going to drop me then please drop me in the river so I can die cold and not sweating hot! Please! But we all make it up there alive, just a little more sweaty (if that’s possible) from being confined in a bubble. The view is amazing! The restaurant and bar were closed so we just ended up watching the city fade into the night. Even though I purchased a trip down in a bubble I got talked into hiking down the mountain. It was quite the adventure, hiking an unknown trail down the entire mountain in the dark! But I made a great friend and we talked the whole way down! The trail was a bunch of switchbacks but then sometimes we would enter a tunnel and walk down stairs. By the time we made it to the bottom I had only stumbled once but I was dying of thirst! The trams don’t run as often at night and I had to make 3 transfers to get home. So I waited 20 mins for 1 tram got on and went down a couple stops, waited 20 mins for the next one and then down a couple stops, waited 20 more mins and then rode all the way home and then walked 10 mins home. Probably took me more like 20 mins to get home because I was dragging my feet and dying of thirst. But it was a great adventure! Tomorrow is another adventure! I leave for Annecy in the morning by train and I stay in my very first hostel!