This is your body on travel

I wanted to write a little about health, feeling good, and what goes wrong while traveling. Clearly it's different for everyone, but I haven't even slowed down enough to consider how I've been feeling really ... so I wanted to take note of what's different and what's the same about how I feel while traveling for an extended period.

Several people in our group of OSU students took ill right after we got here, but not in the way I'd expected. I figured someone would get traveler's diarrhea or something, but no, I haven't heard any complaints about that. And all of us drink out of the faucet. No, two of the students have severe colds with a really bad cough. Both of them are my good friends, Hillary and Reddy, but I haven't gotten anything like it from them. Several of us also have severe allergy problems. I've taken an allergy pill almost every single day because sometimes it's hard to catch a breath and I'm always stuffy or sneezing. It's not a big deal overall. What's funny is when my friend Reddy went to the pharmacie here to get something for his cough: we discovered that most drugs are sold over the counter. He asked for something to help his cough and they gave him a cough syrup WITH CODEINE in it. He has it with him at all times now, and says in his Indian accent, "I love eet." Anyway, maybe it's the mold from all of the rain here in Dijon, but many of us cough, sneeze, and hack every day.

Just a few days ago, another few people got bad stomach cramps, which I think was from some food they ate. But overall, no one's been sick enough to stay home from school or miss out on anything due to stomach problems. Today was the first day that I felt nauseous and had to lay down, and we're already two weeks into the program. I already feel much better.

Overall, I've eaten a lot less since I arrived. Mostly it's due to the fact that the free meals are not terrific. I eat them, but I'm not excited about it. Right now, I can tell that I'm a bit hungry but I'm in no rush to go find something to eat. The foods are pretty bland. I eat a few sweet rolls with butter in the morning with some coffee, and then a vegetable and rice with some sort of meat or entree at lunch, and then a nice dinner or nothing. The free food that we can access if we don't use our meal cards at lunch is pretty much the worst thing ever: there were actual FEATHERS on the chicken pieces we got, and it's extremely dingy. So, I only ate there once. We've had some nice dinners, though: I loved eating at the creperie. I miss the following foods: potatoes, chips and salsa, guacamole, cheddar cheese, big breakfasts from First Watch and chicken. Nothing here has chicken in it. I've eaten jambon, or ham, at meals where I have meat. At any rate, I go hungry, but I don't really notice.

Due to the fact that I'm around 20 college students all the time, there is alcohol around constantly. Last night, I wanted to start working on my presentation, but my other partner and someone else had broken open some wine. Thus, I started drinking instead. It's very difficult to get through a day without imbibing whatsoever. Which leads me to dehydration. I've been dehydrated since I left Tulsa. To be perfectly gross, there hasn't been a single time I've peed since I got here that it hasn't been intensely yellow. We sweat all the time, because we're always walking or in the heat, we're always on the go and have to pay for water, and we just can't keep up with how much water our bodies need. I try to drink as much as I can, but it's not even near enough. However, dehydration comes in handy becasue you have to pay for a lot of touristy-area bathrooms. I may go to the bathroom twice a day. Just writing about this reminds me of how thirsty I am. But there are no water fountains ANYWHERE, and I'm at school with no hope of getting some more water until I get home, a 10 block walk.

My two main problems have been sleep deprivation and foot problems. Sleep deprivation for obvious reasons: I'm always on the go and can't say no to doing anything. I love to have fun with everyone and want to see everything and do everything, so I'm always exhausted. I got 45 minutes of sleep on the train home from Venice last Sunday night, then got up, went to school, and went all day long and hung out at night until 1 a.m. By Wednesday, I finally broke down and took a two-hour nap.

My feet are an issue becasue they are my main mode of transport. Now that I have to walk everywhere, I'm very tuned in to their behavior and moods. They are grumpy a lot of the time. After our trip to Switzerland, I had some severe cramps in my feet, which caused shooting pains every time I stepped down. By the time I'd walked to school and back, I'd have tears in my eyes. And I was very upset because I needed to get around and wanted to sightsee but my feet were just torn up. All of our feet are ugly to behold. They have blisters, they are black on the bottoms, and they are rough. But they are well-used. My feet were constantly swollen while we were in Venice, and are better now but not the best.

I've been a lot less anxious than I thought I would be. I've taken a few Xanax, such as for the night train, but overall, less than I thought I'd need. I've been so busy, I don't have time to be nervous ... and even when I do feel some anxiety coming on, I'm usually distracted by someone or something enough for it to pass. I like it this way.

Well, it's getting late and I don't know where anyone else is right now ... we're getting ready to part ways for the weekend. Lyon & Normandy here we come!

Love,
Jennie

Since you've probably forgotten what I look like ...

I thought I'd refresh your memory! Yesterday we took a long, windy, but still beatufiul and entertaining, bus ride to the Abbey de Fontenay and to Auxois-en-Semur. Which meant only one thing: Scenario Pictures! My new BFF LOL Jen and I shouted phrases and made faces into my camera for at least 30 minutes ... here are some of the amusing results. Or at least amusing to us. :)



Before we left the school. All appears normal.



Decided to do the first thing that came to mind when we said various TV show names. This is titled, "Salute Your Shorts."



"American Idol"



I don't recall what this was all about. Try to think of something funny in which this picture would fit.



And, finally, what I feel was my finest acting moment: "Bad Hair Day." It was actually hard to get my hair back in order after that, but one must suffer for their art.

At any rate, we have a lot of fun. I will post more serious traveling pictures soon.

Love,
Jennie

Ridin' the Rails: Part Deux

So, we had a great time partying it up - 8 people squashed together in one tiny couchette (that's what they're offically called). However, as two a.m. rolled around, we really needed to try to get some sleep since we had class at 9 that morning (our train left Sunday evening at 8 p.m. and arrived in Dijon at 5:30 a.m., and then class started at 9 a.m.). So, we started pulling down the bunks and getting arranged. But then two of my college classmates decided to literally SHARE a tiny bunk - not even the size of a normal twin bed - which was maybe 3 feet away from me. Shenanigans ensued, which featured nausea-inducing slurp noises and such like. Also, the Italian man who spoke no English promptly fell into a sleep in which he frequently called out in either Italian or French random things. All of a sudden he'd turn violently and shout "Oh la la!" or some such. And he was in the bunk directly above me. I took to walking from car to car, as the train swayed dramatically. It was also going very fast, so the wind was whistling and rattling the cabin windows. Also, going between the coupled cars was an adventure, as they were shaking and getting the doors open and closed was difficult in the dark. But I couldn't sleep. I even went into the one of the bathrooms and sat on the toilet seat, writing in my journal for a little while until someone padded out in the night to use it. Here's some of what I wrote:

"Right now I'm sitting in the bathroom because Person A and Person B are sharing a bunk and being disgustingly loud. I've been so homesick today. I'm locked in a toilet in a dirty night train. It's so weird. Dr. Miller (our professor here in Dijon) said that oftentimes students on the study abroad program have a great first week, are up and at 'em every day, but then by the second week become massively depressed and homesick, and then sort of come out of it by the third week. I don't want that to be me. And I don't feel like actually going home; I just have a vague empty feeling that nags at me sometimes at night. It's stupid because I'm having a great time and I love everything I'm seeing and doing and all of my new friends ..."

Later, when I was back in my bunk and the shenanigans in the nearby bunk had subsided, I wrote some more by this weird blue light that are in all the couchettes. I suppose it's some sort of night light, and maybe they think that blue is the least disturbing, but frankly it makes everything look eerie and surreal. And there's no way to turn it off - we tried several times. Here's what I wrote by the eerie blue light:

"Still on the night train and can't sleep as the weird Italian man keeps calling out and moving or groaning. So. Night trains are first of all noisy: the creaking of the rails, a steely high-pitched whine and the howling wind. Earlier, when I was walking the narrow, slightly spooky halls, the windows were shuddering and teh steel floor boards fluttered from the wind. Then there's the sound of the snoring ... a pretty funny symphony of sleep, which between the Aussie husband and the Italian, is a chorus of bad sleep by itself. As for the smells - well, these bunks are clearly unsanitary, made of the same plastic-y material they use for airplane seats, but scratchier and older. They smell of world-weary travel - the bad kind. In my coach, it also smells of stale alcohol, spilled Fanta and the Aussie wife's fading perfume. Little bottles of grappa and Bailey's are rolling down the hallways because of our room's little party earlier tonight ..."

So, that was as far as I got before I fell asleep on my book. Only to be awakened a few minutes later by more French phrases and coughing. I'd look up once in a while and the Aussie wife, Sana, and I would just shake our heads at each other as if to say, What can you do?

I'm planning on taking a nap today and then doing some laundry. The laundry here is expensive. Must go eat lunch ... love everyone and miss everyone muchly. :)

A Beaune to pick

We went to the Burgundy region last week on a little bus excursion for class. We saw the small neighboring town of Beaune, a lot of vineyards, as well as one little family-owned vineyard, owned by the family of our own tour guide, the awesomely funny Claude. And believe you me, a funny Frenchman, a truly funny one, is very rare indeed. Here are the pics of the Burgundy region ...



The small town of Beaune ... Claude told us that the conservative townspeople didn't want the railroad coming through their city ... so instead, Dijon got the train and subsequently became much more modern and populized (a word?). Now Beaune is just this little antiquated city on the outskirts. Some people think it's good that way, some think it's bad.



A large vineyard we stopped at on the way ... it was a Clos du something (don't remember?). A Clos is very different from a Chateau, and one cannot just call themselves these specific names. There are definite reasons for both, which I do not recall at this moment ... I shall consult Wikipedia in the near future. :)



I took this while on a hill overlooking the Burgundy region near a beautiful old castle ... we walked through the remnants of where the moat used to be.



We visited an old "hopital" in Beaune ... not in use anymore, clearly, but it's still set up so that you can see how they used to run things. This was a large room lined with red-colored beds. The beds are all too short, because they thought it was a bad idea for sick people to lay down - they thought they would die, so they made them sit up in short beds.



Scenario picture! We were making the first face that came to mind when we said, "Someone just left this winery to you in their will!" Jen and I on the bus. I look a bit worse for wear, but oh well. That's travel. :)



Claude the tour guide's winery! Or at least his family's. He lives in the village nearby. We got to see all the workings of a tiny, 5-acre winery ... including the wine cellar underground. We also had a wine tasting - it was a bit dry for my taste but I still drank it all!



The wine cellar ... it was very dank and moldy and cold down there. Also, the ceilings were extremely low, and covered with a fine black mold and smelled strongly of alcohol. I liked it, but some people really felt claustrophobic down there.



And one more installment in the Strange Signs Across Europe Series ... a few little posters for some kind of who knows what, hanging in the doorway to an ancient wine press. Out of place much?

Ridin' the rails

and smelling like a hobo to boot! Last night we came home from Venice via another night train ... I was a little more anxious about this trip because my first experience was not that hot (the croupy little baby, the exhausted coach mates). However, last night played out more like I imagined: like a trip on the Hogwarts Express only with vodka and Fanta mixers, a randy, foul-mouthed Australian couple, and a lecherous Italian man who bought at least a dozen tiny Bailey's and Grappa bottles to get the girls in his coach more drunk ... at any rate, it was fun. There were some of my American cohorts and the aforementioned foreigners as well as a Romanian girl named Cornelia. We were extremely loud and mostly drunk which helped pass the time until about two in the morning which is when things got sketchy ... and this will have to be a two-parter because the lobby of the business school is flooding with black suited French students and it's almost time for lunch in the cafeteria, so time to see what kind of interesting food is being served today. It was ratatouille and couscous the other day ... not bad.

Pigeon blood and other unforeseen adventures ...

I'm in Venice right now. Just stopped into an Internet cafe because we had some extra time before dinner in San Marco Piazza. I still feel like I'm swaying back and forth from the water taxis that you take down the Grand Canal to get around the city ... but it's a nice feeling. We arrived in Venice yesterday morning, all bleary-eyed from the night train. If you're ever considering a night train somewhere, RETHINK the idea. Unless you know everyone else in your little coach, and even then, it's a pretty bizarre and icky experience. In a tiny coach, they fit SIX beds, three bunked on each side, with maybe a 1x3 foot extra space in the middle. It's really tight quarters, and a few of my friends and I were stuck with a sick family with a small infant who was also sick. We stayed in the "lounge car" for as long as we could stand up. It was like a violently swaying snack bar - a gross one. But we met other French people heading to Italy, and other Americans from different colleges. Overall, it was interesting ... but a bumpy ride and difficult to sleep.

At any rate, we got into Venice, checked into our hotel, and then went right to Venice. We rode in a water taxi all the way down the Grand Canal, a snake-like canal that goes all the way through the middle of the city. We got off at San Marco Piazza, where there's a famous basilica, and thousands and thousands of pigeons. You can feed them and they just jump into your hands. So, of course I was game to do that - but one of the guys in our group decided it would be a really fun idea to take off his shirt, lay down in the middle of the piazza, and have us pour bird seed all over him. It was a sight to behold and we laughed like crazy. However, after that some of us noticed that because the pigeons are fighting each other for the food we give them, they are bleeding in places. A few pigeons flew into my hands and got blood all over my arm! That was one of the weirdest substances I've ever had on my body ... I paid a euro to use a bathroom to clean off.

The pay-bathroom in San Marco Square was another experience in and of itself ... we saw that it cost a euro to get in, so we paid it to a man standing right outside. However, once we walked up the stairs to the bathroom, we saw that you had to pay THERE, to an actual official attendant ... so the guy outside taking our money was a total con artist. My friend and I RAN back down the stairs and found him just about to leave, and we got our euro back. Not so for some of the other tourists though. I thought it was extremely funny, though, as I'd never come into contact with such a con artist before.

Also, the food here is better than it was in France. I was losing a lot of weight in France because I didn't really like much of the food there - it's very fatty or just bland or the bread was really hard. But here, everyone makes cappuccinos all the time and it's just amazing. Also, the gelato is delicious, and the paninis are to die for ... I could get very fat staying here much longer. It's like my appetite's finally come back - I haven't seen it for awhile!

Today is a national holiday in Italy, so we're hoping for something interesting to happen in the square tonight ... we'll probably be here late after dinner. A gondola ride is planned for tomorrow ... so romantic, so beautiful, so ancient.

Time to go find some gelato, eat something cheesy and delicious and pasta-y ... and wait to see Venice at night.

Grazie - Bonjourno - Prego!

Jennie

Night train to Venice ...

We're leaving on the night train tonight at 11 pm and will arrive in Venice first thing in the morning. I don't have a lot of time to update but wanted to keep you posted on the travel plans! I will try to write again today, but if it doesn't happen, I'll try to write a big post when I get back with pictures too!

Jennie