mega update: London & moving to Saint Etienne

merde, it's been a while since I updated! While it's been excellent in every other aspect, Saint Etienne has obviously not been good for blogging (or running, for that matter). All of a sudden I have people to talk to, wonderfully horrible French TV to watch, and interwebs to consult in the evenings instead of withering away in communication-less Feurs. For all that I may have been hesitant about it earlier, in retrospect moving here was definitely the right choice.

The process of moving here was actually a truly miserable experience, but now that I'm here with all my worldly possessions lugged across two towns (in the rain) and up four flights of stairs, I couldn't be happier to be where I am. I'm living with a bunch of really cool people in the very center of town, so anywhere I need to go is at most a 20 minute walk away. My morning commute is somewhat painful, but with only two days a week of waking up at 5:00 and one day of a slightly more reasonable 6:00, it's worth sleeping in the other days and living in civilization, even if it is a civilization with indubitably the highest amount of dog poop on the street in all of France :)

Backing up a bit... last weekend I went to London with some French friends, who were all about hitting the sales. Being more than slightly appalled by the euro to pound (and especially dollar to pound) conversion rate, I was more enthusiastic about the free museums and just exploring the city. Two days out of three were sunny if chilly, which for London I'll take as exceptionally good weather! A brief visual tour of where I went:

Tower Bridge

Trafalgar Square

Piccadilly Circus

I spent more time walking around and deliberately getting lost than anything else, but I did duck into the National Gallery one day, which was conveniently timed to get me out of a sudden rain shower. Apparently I wasn't the only one who had this idea, as the gallery quickly filled up with waterlogged tourists (and Londerners as well, perhaps, unless they know of a better escape from the rain). It had been a long day of walking around the shopping streets, Westminster Abbey, Parliament, and Buckingham Palace, so I only took a swing through the Impressionists section before heading back to our giant monster of a hostel.

Boasting 800 beds and hot showers (the last part most definitely not being entirely accurate), the hostel was indeed a monster, if a pretty well-run one. Our room wasn't dirty, though it also had nowhere to sit down, since the bunk beds were so low you couldn't sit on the lower bunk without banging your head. You can't really ask for more than that for £20 a night, though. All the more reason to get out of the hostel and drink in the city, I suppose! And I do mean that literally as well as figuratively, since I tasted a couple very tasty ciders and learned that scrumpy is a type of cider -- not a brand -- with no water, sugar, or preservatives added (Brooke, I guess that's the reason JK's Scrumpy is so good!). I'll have to remember The Marquis of Cornwallis pub for if I stay in the area next time, since it had such a wonderful selection of ciders as well as really great, reasonably priced food (mushroom, spinach, and chestnut risotto for £7? why yes).

I do really hope there is a next time. A weekend wasn't enough to experience this city. I'd also love to see Scotland and Ireland, but who knows when/if that will happen! As far as future travel plans, there doesn't seem to be much of anything on the horizon, especially thanks to my school's bureaucratic silliness and my own recalcitrance to pay ahead on my rent when I really should have. But in my defense, they didn't give me an invoice for October until the end of November, and the one for November came in mid-December. I'd heard that two years ago the school didn't bother charging the assistants rent, so I guess I was hoping I could get away with it too.

So now I'm paying rent in two places at once, and the school has suddenly switched from not caring when I pay to breathing down my neck about it so they can close out their 2010 finances (why they did not think of this earlier, I couldn't say). That's understandable on their end, but it puts me in a tough spot for the time being! I was hoping to go to Amsterdam over the Winter Break in early March with some friends, but since I'm not able to buy tickets now I think they'll have gone up too much by the end of the month when I get paid again. There's always the chance I can join my friends for the Provence leg of the trip, since domestic train tickets are easier to buy later than an international plane ticket, or I can always venture out on day trips to nearby places.

I guess that's it for now! After the whirlwind of travel through Rome and Florence, moving to Saint Etienne, and then a weekend in London, it's nice to just take it easy for a few days.

à bientôt! (that is, if I'm not such a lazy blogger in the near future :)