2022 was the most influential year of my life to say the least. I finished the US portion of my degree, spent 2.5 unforgettable weeks here in France on a university trip, got a dream summer job back home in Denver, and then moved to France in the fall for the second half of my degree. It's been a while since I have written a blog post, it's been a busy couple months! The last time I checked in, I went through an overview of my academics here in Besançon (see: Les académiques à Besançon) Since we're in a new semester, I have all new classes, which I'll update on once we get a little further into the semester.

Since my last update I have traveled quite a bit. In October my dad and sister were doing college tours in the Netherlands and I joined them for a weekend in Delft and Amsterdam. During my fall break over Halloween, I took a trip to visit my aunt and uncle, Andy and Allison, in Vienna, Austria, which is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever been to. I absolutely loved Vienna. We took a day trip to Bratislava, Slovakia, which I also loved, and I took a day trip to Budapest, Hungary, which I think is one of my favorite cities I've been to, ever.
Budapest (top left), Bratislava (top right), Vienna (bottom left), and Amsterdam (bottom right)
In mid November, my host family and I took a day trip to Freiburg, Germany, which was an absolutely adorable town. Right after the semester finished, I took an overnight trip to Lausanne, Switzerland. It was very last minute planned, like the day before, and the first time I had ever traveled 100% alone. I walked around the beautiful city a lot, ate fondue, and it was during Christmas market season, so I got churros, vin chaud and roasted chestnuts. In the morning I saw probably one of the coolest museums I've ever been to, the Olympic museum, and if you know me, you know how big of an olympics fan I am, so needless to say, I loved it.
Yusra Mardini's suit (refugee Olympic team, watch The Swimmers on Netflix!), the first Olympic flag, The olympic flame, and Lake Geneva from Lausanne.
One of the most memorable trips for me, though I didn't go very far, was having my mom come visit, her first trip to Europe. She flew in just before new years, and we spent new years eve in Paris. We saw my favorite view in Paris (possibly the world) from the top of the Arc de Triomphe that morning, ate at the oldest restaurant in Paris (À la petite chaise, Paris 7e), grabbed drinks with my French professor at UNI and her husband who were also in Paris at the time, then my mom and I rang in the new year on the champs de Mars right underneath the Eiffel tower as the clock struck midnight into 2023. Which marks that 10th year since falling in love with France as I first visited France in 2013. This experience was definitely one of the coolest things I've ever done. On the first we went to Besançon for a few days, my mom met my host family, we went to my favorite café and walked along my favorite spot by the river. Then on the 4th we returned to Paris and did as much sightseeing as we could possibly fit in before she left on the 7th and I went back home to Besançon. We went to Musée d'Orsay, the Louvre, Musée de l'Orangerie, Musée Carnavalet (History of Paris!), so many other things, and finished the trip with a sunset boat tour along the seine that finished with the Eiffel tower sparkling, just like the exact moment that made me fall in love with France. It was really special to get to finally show my mom (my favorite person on the whole planet, my mom is my best friend and nothing could possibly change that) the place I love so much.
Picking my mom up at the airport, Place des Vosges, running into my professor near the Louvre, Napoleon Apartments at the Louvre, at the Eiffel tower, at la grande mosquée de Paris, my favorite picture to take in Paris at Palais Royale, family dinner at my apartment, Oysters at the marché de Bastille, Metro ticket T-shirts, Musée de l'Orangerie, Notre Dame, and Café La favorite.
In December I went through a lot of lifestyle changes. I did spend Christmas alone this year, which was a little bit difficult, but it was my choice to stay here instead of go home, and it was nice to have a few days of calm to myself. I watched Christmas movies, made a nice dinner, and FaceTime'd home. At the beginning of December, I turned 21, which wasn't as big of a deal as it would've been in the US, turning 21 here changes absolutely nothing, though I celebrated it like it was a big deal anyways (the day before). On my 21st birthday, I went to my first rehearsal with Orchestre d'Harmonie La Concorde de Saint-Ferjeux, one of the local orchestras. I had been looking into some activities I could join, and was invited to join on clarinet as they were looking for some and that was my instrument in middle and high school. This summer I'd wanted to get back into it, but couldn't justify buying reeds just to mess around a few times, and actually looked into renting a flute around September, so having this opportunity come right to me was like destiny. I borrowed one from the orchestra for a couple weeks, to figure out shipping or family bringing me mine (my mom brought me mine, because shipping is crazy expensive and I have to pay a tax when receiving packages from outside the EU), and had a performance with them in mid-December. We played some Christmas music, Music of the Night from Phantom of the Opera, and a 1984 movies hits arrangement. At the moment we're playing some pretty difficult stuff, Hungarian March by Berlioz (not to be confused with Hungarian Dance by Brahms), Music for Royal Fireworks by Handel, and a piece written for our group called Les aventures d'Harry Colvert (Harry Colvert is our band mascot, he's a duck, he causes chaos, also his name... pronounced like Haricot vert, or the French word for Green Bean). I've had a lot of fun outside of rehearsals playing my own stuff too, at the moment I'm working on Pavane pour une infante défunte by Ravel, which is one of my favorite classical pieces of all time.

On December 15th, I moved into my first apartment, which is a crazy thought, my first ever apartment is in France! I still don't believe it either, though if we're being honest, I'm still in denial that I've been in France for almost 6 months. I have a cute little 32 sq m studio (344 sq ft in American, yes, I'm a metric girlie now) right next to a tram stop, across the street from an amazing boulangerie and around the corner from a little grocery store. About 10 minutes away on the tram is centre-ville and 10 minutes in the other direction is a grocery store I have recently discovered that's honestly quite similar to Walmart. I love my cute little apartment, I've been decorating it with some of my favorite things like my LED lights, I have a wall of fake vines, along my bed I have a giant Starry Night tapestry, behind my TV a photo wall with photos of all my favorite people and places surrounding an LED Eiffel tower, and scattered around my apartment are several wine bottles as vases with fake flowers in them. I also have a futon (in French it's called a clic-clac and I think that's the cutest thing ever), which has come in clutch several times already. Though one of my favorite aspects is the kitchen, I'm a huge foodie and I've had so much fun cooking. It's not a fully equipped, perfect kitchen by any means, but it's good enough for me. The apartment came with two gas burners and a decently sized fridge and freezer (not a mini fridge, but not a standard American size either). I bought a microwave, convection oven and grill combo, which has been a nightmare to learn to use as the manual is in German, Dutch, French, Spanish or Italian. I'm starting to get the hang of it, but microwave terminology was not a vocab unit I had in French class, so it's been a slow learning process. I also have never had an appliance like this, so I didn't quite understand fully what it did beforehand. And in the end, having a slightly non-traditional kitchen will make me understand cooking and food more, and make me a better cook. As long as the food turns out most of the time (which it does), I'm happy! Though one of my favorite things in my apartment, and this is going to show peak adulting at its finest, is my washing machine. I didn't think I was going to have one, and I'm so happy I don't have to walk a kilometre just to do laundry. I remember taking a video in my apartment the day I got the keys showing off my apartment, but also freaking out that my landlord surprised me with a washing machine. It's the little things. Also my landlord is amazing, not many people can say that, so I will.
My first raclette night in my apartment, butter chicken (I love Indian food), my not so Christmasy Christmas photo, my cute little bed corner, and my cute little photo wall with all my fav people, places, and things ft. Rick Steves and Notre Dame.
2023 has been off to a busy start. My semester started on January 9th, the first week was a bit difficult, I started to get grades back from last semester, which weren't quite as good as I had hoped. I wasn't expecting straight A's by any means, but I was quite disappointed with the results. I'm in the process of making some academic adjustments at the moment, so I can have some more success for the remainder of the program. I'm planning on doing another academics post when I'm more settled into the semester, so stay tuned for that.
I'm not someone who is huge into new years resolutions. I remember in 2017 to 2018 deliberately saying that I wasn't going to have any new years resolutions that year, and then on the first day of the semester, going into French III to my French teacher introducing a new years resolution project and me, being the dramatic person I am, was quite upset. And while I don't specifically remember what those 3 resolutions we made in French and put on pretty little posters were, I do remember completing them all, which is besides the point, but since then I have refused to make new years resolutions. And it's technically not a resolution but I have a new little challenge. In France there is a phrase that you can go a whole year and eat a different type of cheese everyday. It started as an insane idea I had, which I posted to Facebook in mid-November basically saying I needed to be talked out of this idea. Well, I actually got lots of comments and messages saying that it's actually not crazy if I can execute it. And thus, is the birth of Emily à la Fromagerie. It's not been as successful so far as I had hoped, I know I won't get to 365 cheese types or cheese dishes in 2023, I'll be happy if I get to 100 let's be honest. So the current goal is to just get as many cheeses as I can by the end of 2023, or when I graduate. Seems fair, right? I have tried about 8 different cheeses at the moment. Which out of 30 days, not as great as it could be. But I'm learning every step of the way! And when things start to get a bit more normal I'll pick up the speed. I am documenting this adventure on Instagram and Facebook both under @emilyalafromagerie, and I created a new tab here on my blog. There are so many things I want to do with this cheese adventure, I want to educate on types of cheeses and different regions and history, but baby steps.

Outside of cheese eating, weekly symphony rehearsals and classes, I'm continuing my "serial hobbyist" tendencies. At the moment I'm back into painting and digital art, last week I was into Animal crossing again. I've been making a bunch of TikTok's, just for fun, and I had yet another one go sorta viral for my standards, it was a photo slideshow following a trending model on my French journey and my achievements and just the fact that it did well makes me happy. I don't care when they flop, most of them do, but the fact that one that's about something so important to me did well just makes me happy. I am newly obsessed with yoga, too. Most evenings I pull out my mat and there's a couple YouTube people I've been following that I love. It's not as good as in person class, but those are expensive, and doing it in French just sounds like it defeats the purpose, I need my english time, and this is calm english time. I've also been working on my poetry/essay book a lot lately, too.
I adopted a little fish friend. His name is Jean Valjean, he's a beautiful whiteish pinkish half moon Betta, and he's got character. I've had a couple Bettas, so I know their personalities pretty well, and Jean is the most energetic, acrobatic, entertaining little guy I've ever had. I have an Eiffel tower that he likes to swim underneath, and an ancient roman style clay pot he swims in and out of, and some plants he swims around, its adorable. I've never had a Betta interact with his environment as much as he does.

I have two new friends that I've been spending lots of time with the past month. Emily and Lydia, both studying at the CLA here in Besançon this semester from Michigan. I met them through my host family as Emily is staying with them this semester. A few weeks ago we went out clubbing, we've done a taco night, a few movie nights, we go out to French restaurants, and a few weeks ago Lydia and I went to Dijon for a day. We are always looking at places to travel together during breaks, we have huge lists of everywhere we want to go, only problem is deciding where (and doing it on as low of a budget as possible)! I've been hanging out with my new French friend Celea quite a bit too, last weekend I went to her place and we played MarioKart and ate kebab.

The past few weeks have had their challenges. I am more homesick than I have been since my arrival. I miss my family, my dogs, Mexican food, lots of other little things. Having family come visit can make the homesickness a bit more challenging (though I wouldn't take back having my mom here in an instant), and being on my own in a new apartment is contributing too. But the past 10 or so days I've also been pretty sick. Not quite emergency room sick, but it's more urgent than a get an appointment in a week or so sick, and urgent care isn't really a thing here. We're getting it worked out, but it's been an adventure. I have learned a lot about the French healthcare system in this process and I'm planning on doing a post on this whole experience as it's been quite the cultural comparison and I'd love to put these differences into words. But having to navigate these differences, while I'm not feeling well has contributed to that homesickness. Battling homesickness is extremely normal when living abroad, especially a few months in, when the honeymoon phase is starting to fade, but you aren't fully comfortable yet. And that's okay, this phase of this experience will better prepare me for challenges in the future and teach me more about myself, what I really value in life and teach me to have a different appreciation for living abroad.

I'm starting to think more and more about what I want to do after I graduate, as it'll be here before we know it. I'm slightly thinking about grad school, the past few months have been a little academically discouraging, as I'm not sure I am cut out for grad school, but it is something that I really would love to do. I love school and learning, I really want to do a huge research project on some French language thing, and having another degree does set you apart in the professional world. Or if I want to go into teaching, which I still have reservations on, I have to find a teaching certification course. And then there's always my ultimate goal of finding something that will sponsor a visa to stay in France, whether that's a year of TAPIF or a job or who know's what. I have researched the citizenship process, and I can apply for after 5 years of residency, which I think counts starting 6 months ago, but it may count after I get a carte/titre de séjour (which I am eligible to and will apply for in June as opposed to another visa). So I mean after this program I'll be clocking in at a year or 2 years. But whatever it is I end up doing, as long as I'm happy and can support the life I want to live, it doesn't matter that much. Though I would prefer not to just graduate and have nothing lined up for me, as I know me and know that's just not how my brain is wired. I like to have some idea of what I'm doing next, and going home a year and a half from now with no plan, doesn't sound like a great idea. I don't need a whole detailed plan, but at least some ideas and steps to take next, even if it's just setting up some interviews or taking teaching certification courses. A few weeks ago I was given the idea to look into finding a career advisor, or get more seriously into some networking in the field. I know I'm best when I'm busy, but like say, as long as I'm happy or moving in a direction of happiness, it's all good.
So that is all that I have for this update that is a little all over the place. I can't believe I'm approaching 6 months in France in less than a month here. And everyone knows how I commemorate milestones for literally everything, so you can expect something on some sort of social media or this blog when that date comes (February 26th). I already have some blog drafts started for some interesting cultural stuff I'm looking forward to posting soon. I love France more and more everyday, even the hard days. And as I always say, perfection is boring. I'm so happy in this beautiful little city, and while I know I don't blend in like a local, I'm starting to have people I run into frequently, like the woman at my favorite café, and the bank, and the grocery store, just all these little local interactions, that are mundane unless you know how to look at them differently.
Bisous ! À une 2023 magnifique !

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