How I Spent Day One of Lonely Holidays

Today was my first day in Grenoble without any of my friends, and only one of my three roommates remaining. I wrote a long, sad post when I woke up this morning, which you can check out here. Since that post however I have made some great progress and thought I would share what I consider to have been a rather successful day.

My super-trendy Kleenex box purchased after I realized my illness this morning. May also be necessary after romance marathon.

Unfortunately, I am sick AGAIN. I have had a cold once a month since I’ve been here. I know it’s from lack of sleep and too much wine, but it’s still very frustrating, especially when, except for a few weekends (which occur about once a month), I have been taking very good care of myself. This means that I haven’t been able to run for the past few days, which is a bit of a bummer. However, in lieu of exercising I have made sure to eat as healthy as possible in hopes I will be better in time for my dad’s arrival on Tuesday. I therefore started the day with a big glass of orange juice along with a healthy breakfast of kroast, The Laughing Cow cheese, tomatoes, and cucumber.

Healthy, simple, and delicious. A pretty typical breakfast for me.

Since I knew I needed to take it easy today, I decided to stick around the apartment. My other roommate and I had exams all last week and the kitchen had kind of become a shared study space (read: disgusting mess) that was more or less totally unmanageable. To make things worse, me and two friends cooked a HUGE stir-fry last night to celebrate being finished exams, which I hadn’t really gotten around to cleaning up before I went to bed last night. Needless to say, I spent this morning scrubbing, mopping, and doing laundry. I’m ashamed to say it was almost too much physical activity for me in my stuffy-nosed state, but I can breathe a lot easier knowing I can now cook without having to face a stinking stack of dishes or a table covered in crumbs.

We got a little out-of-control with the stir-fry portions.

I rewarded my cleaning with what I consider to be a typical French lunch that I find myself eating at least a couple times a week. The stereotypes are true – baguettes are the national symbol, so I feel the need to eat them regularly.  Today I had about a quarter of a baguette, a few slices of comté cheese, and a couple of baby pickles. I also ate the baguette with some chicken and duck pâté (that’s what’s in the little can on the side in the picture). I learned this combination from my French roommate, who can be found eating pâté and pickles for lunch all the time.

Mmm....Frenchness.

Lunch was followed by a long conversation with my only female roommate who I hardly ever see due to our different schedules. I forgot what it was like living with just a girl…without the guys here we could sit and talk about boyfriends, and makeup, and how sad we are to be missing Christmas with our families. It was really quite enjoyable, and when she discovered that I will have nothing to do for the next few days she asked if I wanted to look at “a few” French movies she has. Little did I know she has about a hundred DVDs stacked in her room. I sorted through them all, and without realizing it, chose all the corny romance movies she owns. Though my original plan had been to watch a Christmas movie while attempting to start an essay I have due in January, I think that my plans for tonight just changed. Nothing better than my favourite French chocolate (crème brulée flavour, literally nothing better), French Cosmo, and Gone With the Wind en Français.

How my day went from essay-ing to sappy romance/Cosmo-ing.

I’m Back!

It occurred to me today that I have more or less neglected this blog since I relocated to France four months ago. The lack of posts has a lot to do with the fact that during those first few months, I was not exactly living a healthy lifestyle and therefore was not really inspired to get on here and write about all of the great life decisions I had been making. Also, I was putting all of my blogging energy into my newest project, Being Foreign. It is the blog I created to document my experience in France, and should be sufficient to clarify just where the heck I’ve been these few months. You can check it out here.

After three months of adventuring, meeting new people, and learning a second language, I gave myself November to really work on myself. I did a lot of sleeping (travelling is hard work!), got back to running every day, and set a goal of reading a book a week. I think that even in the relatively short amount of time I’ve been here, I’ve learned a lot about myself. I have been feeling a lot more self-assured and happy. I often find myself laughing so hard I snort, a phenomenon that doesn’t occur when I’m feeling down. To reflect how different I’ve been feeling about myself, I thought I ought to make a major change in my appearance. I debated some kind of facial piercing for a while, but settled on something slightly more drastic but far less painful. I more or less spontaneously waltzed into the hairdresser’s about a month ago and, in French, asked her to cut off all my hair.

My hair in the first few days after I cut it. It is now a little shorter and dark again, but regardless this is the idea!

I have been rocking a pixie cut for the past few weeks and absolutely love it! I can’t believe I waited so long. I’ve been told so many times that it really suits me, and one of my best friends said that even after so many years of knowing me she now finds it strange to think of me with my typical long blonde hair. I feel far more confident and am really enjoying experimenting with earrings, headbands, and more interesting makeup. As my mother always tells me, change is good! Overall, I would say that European Julia is quite different from the person I was before I left. I am far less stressed out all the time. That could be because I am living in a country that regards food as a religion and sees the need for a long weekend at least twice a month, but I’m not complaining. I also am far more appreciative of my world back in Canada. It is easy to forget about how good you have it during the craziness of everyday life. Sometimes it takes being removed from your “normal” and looking at it from afar to realize just how great all the people and places in your life are.

I've made a point to eat as much fresh (read: not genetically modified) fruit and veg as possible.

Example of an attempted French meal: rabbit in a cream, wine, and blue cheese sauce. Let's just say I didn't exactly get the proper balance of those three main ingredients this time...better luck next time!

Of course, I have most certainly not lost my love of all things fitness/health related. If anything, the surplus of time I have here due to a lack of demanding coursework (less class and less homework, just HUGE exams) has made me focus more on my physical well-being. As I mentioned earlier, I have been running almost every day. I have also been trying some new forms of exercise, including orienteering and rockclimbing. I’ve found it a little harder here to try out recipes from all of my favourite health magazines back home,  as they often require very North-American ingredients. Mais c’est pas grave (“no biggie”), for it has given me an excuse to enter the surprisingly simple world of French food. Before I go off on another travelling binge in January, you can expect lots of info on food, how I’m managing to stay in shape in a country where yoga classes and gym memberships are scarce, and my ever-changing outlook on life. À très bientôt!

P.S. Another major change: I invested in my first D-SLR before I left for Europe. Hopefully my picture quality is now a little more tolerable.

A "lovely" piece of cheesecake prepared by my Ukrainian roommate. Nice to live with someone who shares my love of food!