Ça doit être dur, non?

Il y a une question bizarre que les Français aiment demander: Ça doit être dur, non, de rester loin de ta famille?

Et comment est-ce que je suis censée répondre? Ah bien sûr, c'est dur, je pleure tous les soirs parce que ma famille me manque trop. Ou sinon, Non, non, pas du tout, et comme ça j'aurais l'air de quelqu'un de trop froid qui n'a pas d'émotions.

Je crois bien que c'est une des questions qu'on peut classer sous la catégorie des questions stupides.

Donc finalement, qu'est-ce que je réponds dans cette situation? Je dis que je suis habituée. C'est plus facile...comme ça j'ai pas besoin d'élaborer.

About temperature and "boyprens"

Okay, now for lighter stuff. You know, it's 7°C outside right now. (it's 8.30pm) And earlier in the afternoon it was 9°C. Just this morning (and last night) it was around freezing temperature! (literally, I mean) What’s going on?

Not that I'm complaining...I've had enough of cold weather in Prague, I don't think the temperature there was ever above freezing point all the while I was there! (good thing the hotel room was very well heated...we could even say too well heated)

To continue from the earlier post, here are two more videos:

Boypren
The characters are Christine, her parents, her aunt, and her cousin Minnie (yes, all played by the same person) And there's Minnie's boypren, of course ;)



Speechless
Well, Minnie wants to meet her boypren, but her mother doesn't want her to...

Assumptions

[intro] A rant. I'm not angry, just pretty irritated when this happens. It's just a "sort-of" response to some remarks made to me that I find out of place.

[start]
Please don't think that all Facebook users are the same.

What, just because I'm on Facebook pretty often doesn't mean that I'm on it 24/7, doesn't mean that I don't have time to do anything else, doesn't mean anything! You're not there, how would you know what I do with my time? And why would you care anyway?

Just because you know a few things about me, it doesn't mean that you know more than that. So stop making assumptions, 'cos it makes me mad!

Don't think you can read into hidden meanings, what do you know anyway?

Sometimes I say something and some people think that they understand what I "really mean". So they reply as if I had said that thing that they thought I "really meant". But guess what? You're wrong! So if you don't know what I mean, just don't assume anything! In short, just don't assume anything, period.
[end]

[sources] Based on real events.

Anyway, I find it strange that some people don't know pretty "basic" stuff about me. But these same people would make those assumptions as if they knew me very well and could read into my mind. And well, they end up making the wrong assumptions.

Quand on ne sait pas, on laisse libre son imagination. Et qui sait où elle emmènera? Peut-être conduirait-elle vers la vérité, mais plus souvent vers l'erreur.

Youtubing

Here are a few pretty entertaining videos:

First, one about stupid questions. This guy is so funny, you can check out his other videos here.



And when he doesn't post a video in a while, his fan club (KFC) goes to check what's wrong...(hilarious!)



And here's a funny Christmas jingle by HappySlip.

Prague trip

I’m back from my trip to Prague!

Frankly, it didn’t start off very well. I was supposed to fly from Lyon to Munich, then from Munich to Prague. The original plan was to leave at 12.55pm and to reach Prague at 4.40pm. But upon checking in, I was told that my flight was half an hour late. However, they assured me that I would have enough time to catch my connecting flight, since I had (originally) a little more than an hour (1 hour and 5 minutes to be exact) between the two flights.

So I went through security and waited for my flight...and then they told us that it had been cancelled :/ At first they weren’t even sure, they were telephoning around for information. It turned out that the weather was too bad in Lyon (I did notice when I arrived at the airport that it was terribly misty) and that the plane had landed in Geneva instead. They told us that we could take a bus to Geneva and there, they would put us on other flights to get to our destination.

But in the end (I have no idea why) it didn’t turn out that way; we had to get our luggage and queue up at the Lufthansa (that’s the company I was using) counter to check our options. Since Prague was my final destination, and not Munich, they offered me a direct flight to Prague with Air France, which was leaving at 3.25pm and would arrive in Prague at 5pm. So I ended up arriving only about 20 minutes later than planned.
(The weird thing is that when I checked in with Air France, they told me that I was on the waiting list – what, it isn’t confirmed?! – and that they would let me know at about 3pm. Good thing I did get a seat in the end.)

There are six of us who went on this trip to Prague; two arrived in the morning, and the three others arrived in the afternoon, a few hours earlier than me. Upon reaching Prague, I found that the three of them were waiting for me to arrive before leaving for town. By that time, it was already dark, so we didn’t have much plans for sightseeing that night. So we went to the hotel (one of them had booked it in advance) to leave our stuff and then went out for dinner. We went searching for a Czech restaurant (recommended by the hotel receptionist) but we couldn’t find it and ended up going into another restaurant we came across. (serving Czech food as well)

After dinner we walked a bit and stumbled upon the old town square (Staromestske Namesti). Not knowing where we were, we just took a few photos anyway, since the square was well lighted up (though all the stalls were closed; it was close to midnight) We even passed by the astronomical clock (on the left) but it was too dark to even look at it properly, let alone take a photo. (well, for me, at least :P) We went there again in the daytime, so here are two photos for you to compare:

At the back is Tyn Church

Personally, I find that Tyn Church looks better at night. In the daytime it’s just another building. And here’s a closer view of the astronomical clock:


The next day we went to Wenceslas Square, which is probably the biggest square in Prague (it spans two metro stations!) There are also a lot of shops on either side of the square (it's a "long" square, not a "square" square ;P) At the bottom of the square there is the Christmas market:

See the giant “rolled” pastry on either side? There are stalls selling it all over Prague. They roll the dough on a metal cylinder and slide it off after cooking it. (so yeah, it’s empty inside) The outside is slightly crispy and they roll it in sugar. It is sooo delicious, I still want some! There were also a type of crispy wafer and a sort of pizza (it was the same thing as the fried bread I tried in Hungary, but here there was no translation), but nothing compares! (to the rolled pastry, I mean)

Edit: you can see a picture of the pastry on Yieng's blog, or directly here.

This is the top of Wenceslas Square, looking towards the bottom of the square.

And turning around, we see the national museum and the St Wenceslas statue.

As you can see, we went to the bottom of the square in the daytime, but to the top at night. We didn’t spend the whole day there, though! We went walking along Charles Bridge before returning to the square (not that we knew it was the same square, at first...:P)

Prague Castle and Charles Bridge by night; I took a lot of photos but most of them are rather blurred :/

towards the start of the bridge (on the old town side)

towards the end of the bridge (on the castle side)

The next day (Christmas Day) we walked around a lot, hunting down monuments and taking photos. There were a lot of locals (as well as tourists) walking around as well, and visiting the Christmas market. I didn’t find many of the monuments very interesting or pretty, though, so I’ll pass on the photos.

Here’s another square that we visited both by day and by night. It’s the Republic Square (Namesti Republiky) I think it looks nicer at night simply because it’s Christmas...


You can see the tram lines beside the square...we only used the metro in the beginning, but later we "discovered" the trams and it was a lot better (to me) 'cos we could see where we were going. Once when we were waiting at a tram station, we even had a couple of tourists ask us how to get to their hotel. We didn't know the hotel, but they knew at which stop they needed to get off, and it so happened that I had seen the name of the stop while checking for our destination, so we (I, hehe, since I was the one "in charge of" tram planning) could tell them where to go.

We went to the Prague Castle as well, but I won’t be posting any “close-up” photos, ‘cos I think that the best photos of the castle are from a distance.

On the last day we took the funicular up Petrin Hill, and when we came back down and were looking for a restaurant for lunch, we saw a church and went in. It turns out that it was the church where the Infant Jesus of Prague is kept (the site where I got this information says that it’s world famous; does anyone know about this? ‘Cos I’ve never heard of it before...)

And finally, let’s talk food. Our hotel room came with breakfast included, so every morning we had a buffet breakfast.
There were essentially sausages, ham, eggs and cheese. There was also bread, and of course, stuff like jam and butter. And corn flakes...and I was surprised to see that they had thick yoghurt (or cream cheese, I'm not sure) to go with it, instead of milk. But it was pretty good (I had to add sugar to make it taste nice :P) So we were pretty full after breakfast each day, making us take pretty late lunches.

Here are the dishes from the first night's Czech restaurant:
The Chinese food in Prague is quite cheap (compared to other foods), so we went twice to a Chinese restaurant. Here's the first one...

In fact, we had difficulty finding an open restaurant on the night of the 24th, and this was the one we found after seeing several closed ones. So we just went in as quickly as we could before it could close! It seems that a lot of restaurants close early on Christmas Eve.

We had heard that a lot of the shops in Prague are closed on Christmas Eve and Christmas, so we went to a supermarket to buy food (bread and stuff) for the 25th. It turns out that we should have eaten that on the 24th (right after buying it) because more restaurants were open on the 25th!

Anyway, here are a couple of other dishes from another restaurant we went to:

roast rabbit

beef goulash

The white slices are bread dumplings, supposedly a Czech specialty. But it tastes like "mantou"... :P (which means pretty good, especially with all that sauce!) There were also potato dumplings from the earlier Czech meal; it looks about the same but more yellowish, I find it heavier, so I like it less. Another type of dumpling is the one you can see in the leftmost picture, also from the first Czech restaurant; that one is more like a dumpling and less like a "mantou" :P I believe that it's called Bohemian dumplings. (but I can't really remember the names of the dishes from the first restaurant)

Well, there you go, all in all, it was a good trip, if we forget about the first flight problem. The only small drawback is that it was very cold!! Half the time, our fingers and toes were frozen...which was why we went to McDonalds quite often for coffee! (or hot chocolate for me)

(click on the photos for bigger versions!)

A word riddle

Hey, I think it's been some time since I posted a riddle.

You start out with a clue word. Your job is to fill in the
blanks with a 4-letter word that matches the clue already
given. This 4-letter word must complete the 7-letter word
next to it.

1. Therefore = ? = V_ _ TI _ _
2. Whirl = ? = A _ _ IR _ _
3. Demeanour = ? = A _ B _ _ _ T
4. Shoestring = ? = G _ _ _ I _ R

I didn't understand it at first...I thought the second word had the same meaning as the first, and had another meaning shared with the third. But turns out that the four letters just fill in the blanks to form a new word.

I got the 2nd and 4th...try and see!










Answers:
1. Therefore = ergo => V e r T I g o
2. Whirl = spin => A s p I R i n
3. Demeanour = mien => A m B i e n T
4. Shoestring = lace => G l a c I e R

That clinches it!

I'm a fan! I believe that I have already posted a few videos of The Feeling, and here's a new song: I Thought It Was Over



I especially like the beginning. ;)

Malaysian fast food

Okay, I'm tired of this. I tried to upload the photo but couldn't. I don't know whether it's my connection or that the photo is simply too big. Anyway, here's what I wanted to share:


(click on it to enlarge)

It's from this blog.

I wish the French had this kind of system. It would be so great to be able to try a whole lot of different French dishes at a time... each time we go to a restaurant we have to just choose one dish. And we can't go there ten times to try ten dishes, can we? :/
(okay, so ten is exaggerated... :P )

Will be going to Prague during the holidays. Stay tuned for photos ;)

Empty lecture hall

There are 108 people in my batch. But guess how many people came to today’s lecture? 28. That’s a quarter of us, which means one group (we’re divided into 4 groups for tutorials) All that because there’s a report to hand up tomorrow.

(and don't think that there were a little more than a quarter of us; there are exchange students with us who aren't in the 108!)

Of hypocrisy

So...(fluff)Friends again.

Earlier, this application told us to send invites only to friends who would really be interested in adopting a pet (in this case, a fluffy friend) They even charged us 5 munny (their currency) to send an invite, and we'd receive 30 munny if that person adopts a fluff-friend. They said it was to discourage us from sending invited to everyone we know. Admirable, huh?

But guess what? Now they've decided to give us 2 munny for inviting a friend, and then if that friend accepts, we'd receive 5 munny. And what's more, there are bonus gifts (mini fluff-friends) when we invite 15 friends, 30 friends, ... What better way to make us start sending invites to every single person we know?

Well, so I guess I'm a little sore about this. Especially that there were a few limited edition mini-fluffs that were pretty cute. I don't care about the other mini-fluffs since we can buy them ourselves, and since I stopped gambling too much on fluff-races, I'm not broke (hahaha) and I can buy quite a lot of things.

Oh well, whatever. I'm not gonna start spamming my friends for this hypocrite of an application. I'd even leave it if I didn't love my Squirrle so much :P

Anyway for those who read French, here's something for you: Fumer des tomates?

World's highest tennis court

Do you know where is the world's highest tennis court? It's in Dubai! Here's a video of Roger Federer and Andre Agassi playing (for fun, not a match) there. (okay, maybe not exactly for fun...I suppose they were invited ;) )

Tennis
Uploaded by reelgood0008

From here.

Run

This is Run by Snow Patrol.
I didn’t find this song special at first, but the more I listen to it, the more I like it. But I wonder...is it about that motorcycle??
Whatever. Enjoy!

Spanish people are like us!

So it is cultural...

In my Spanish class yesterday, my teacher talked about how in Spain they would say hi to someone if they were in "something" together. And that's what I meant! And she said that the French don't do that... so I guess that answers my question...in a way. It still doesn't explain people who are friendly one minute and complete strangers the next.

Anyway, here's just something that amused me, it was in an INSA newsletter. There is a student association in INSA that "takes care" of student welfare, and here they are reporting on the washing machines in the different hostels in INSA. Bâtiment means building, or in this case, block. And what I found funny was that they spelt it correctly the first 3 lines, but not in the last three! (and another weird thing is that Firefox tells me that "spelt" doesn't exist :/ )

Bâtiment A/B : c'est parfait
Bâtiment G/J : Un lave-linge qui marche, on attend des devis pour les deux autres, il y en aura surement un à changer.
Bâtiment H : les deux lave-linge marchent, le sèche-linge a toujours son problème de porte mais la réparation va bientot arriver et il marche couci couça en attendant.
Batiement E : Un lave-linge qui marche, l'autre lave-linge et le sèche-linge sont à racheter, ça arrive ...
Bâtiement I : c'est parfait
Bâtiement F : les deux lave-linges marchent, le sèche linge est en cours de rachat.
(yeah, there are a lot of hostel blocks in INSA)

And these few days the temperature was around 10°C...it even went up to 14°C! So hopefully it'll be that high tomorrow! (tennis , remember? ;) )

Amy Macdonald

Lately, I'm hearing this song called This Is The Life very often. And when I searched for the video, I stumbled upon a gold mine: Amy Macdonald. I had already heard all these songs before, but never took much notice. They're all really nice songs, so here you go!

This Is The Life
It's a short clip (I couldn't find the whole video), if you want to hear the whole song you can see this video. The "video" is actually just a picture of Amy Macdonald, and there are two songs (I don't know what the 2nd one is)


Then there is L.A. which is supposedly about Jake Gyllenhaal...


Mr. Rock & Roll


Poison Prince, her first single

Repas de classe

One of my classmates decided to organise a class dinner. It wasn't very easy to get replies from everyone saying who was interested, but we finally managed it yesterday (Thursday). There are 26 of us, and 14 of us ended up going, plus 2 exchange students who join our class for certain subjects. Not that great...I think there were more people who came for our class dinner in my first year.

So, you can guess it, photos coming up!

far left, the organiser ;)

1st, 2nd and 3rd

I'm talking about the prizes for Lyon's table-tennis competitions. For those who don't know about it, I have been in a table-tennis association in INSA since last year, and we play in competitions several times during the year. Last week we played doubles. There were only two teams of girls (and both from INSA) and my team came in first. So we got a medal and a t-shirt each (better than the last t-shirt) Then this week we played singles. There were only three girls, two from INSA. I came in second, after the girl from another uni. (This year I am "generally" better than the other unranked girls from INSA) So I got a mini-flashlight. The girl who came in first got the exact same things I got last week, so the loss didn't hurt so much (it was a pretty close game)

And what about 3rd? Well, I came in 3rd once last year, and I got a mini-pen (they love mini stuff :P) And the prizes haven't changed at all, so I now have the whole array of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prizes. Here are photos:

the medal (it isn't very big, I told you they liked mini-stuff)

the back of the medal (champion d'académie 2008)

the top left corner of the t-shirt, where you usually have the pocket for collared t-shirts (it's the only thing printed on the t-shirt) On yeah, and this isn't mini, it's L-sized!

2nd prize: mini-flashlight (they gave an AAA battery as well)

3rd prize: mini-pen (it just ran out of ink recently)