Room 435

Welcome to GabbySpace! There have been some requests for pictures of my room so here it is. 

This is my bed where I have spent most of my time so far. It is very comfortable and is great for sleeping, reading, and playing UNO with floor mates. The leopard finally has a name -- Pochi which is the standard Japanese name for dogs. My friend Sherry named him. 

This is my desk. Coffee maker is mostly for tea until we get some coffee. On the left is June's desk and on the right is the bookshelf with all of my French dictionaries and pretty dishes.

I-House Retreat

This weekend was the first I-House retreat at Valley of the Moon camp in Sonoma and it was so much fun! Campfire, smores, sparklers, glow sticks, a ropes course, great people all put together for a super good fun spectacular time. 

Good morning International House/Berkeley!

3:05am-- what? It's only 3am? I must be absorbing everyone else's jet lag...zzzzzz
6:42am-- ok I guess I can get up now. Why is it so dark?
7:05am-- how do I turn on the shower?
7:25am-- I'm kinda hungry... Grapefruit, potatoes, mint tea great!
8:02am-- now what?

^^^^^^^my morning thus far.

Can I just say I love the international house? I could care less about the size of the room; I some how managed to fit all my stuff in here (although attn mom: I did come up with a bunch of stuff I don't want. And the microwave is really awkward and I'm forgetting about trying to fit a mini fridge in here). But it's such an amazing building I feel like I'm in Hogwarts (sort of) and yes I did say that out loud yesterday while navigating dead end staircases. Maybe the Winchester house is more appropriate. But most of all the people are so amazing. I've only met a handful so far but everyone is really nice. My next door neighbor and I have already shared hand trucks and scissors. I ate breakfast with a girl from France, rode the elevator with a boy and girl from Italy, and my roommate hasn't even arrived yet. I'm getting more and more thrilled to be here by he second but I also have no idea what to do with myself. I think I'll go exploring in a bit. That always seems to be the best way to pass time anywhere.

To New Beginnings

One year, two months, and 15 days ago marked the end of my aupairship in France. A lot has happened since then. Sort of. I decided to go to Tulane... and then I didn't go. So then I ended up jumping back into my not-so-intresting life between city college and nothing. It was a bit of a rut for sure. I took really basic classes like intro to public speaking and us history and I hated myself every second as I tried and tried to figure my way out of this cowtown. In November I applied to "real colleges" again. This time just 3-- UCD as backup, UCLA as first choice, and Berkeley as long shot. Then I waited. And while I was waiting I took classes that actually interested me (linguistics, geography) and classes that challenged me (botany, Spanish) and I had my first internship with AmeriCorps NCCC (which was totally amazing!). In May, I graduated from Sac City with my AA in Social Sciences. To make a long story about the grueling UC admissions process short, I got into Berkeley   and I'm moving TOMORROW. I also turned 21, got glasses and had my first dentist appointment in 3 years with no new cavities, you know really important stuff.

Amazingly enough I think I'm more nervous for Berkeley than I was for France and I can't really explain why. I think maybe I feel like I'm under more pressure to do well and especially after France I think I expect myself to just be a stronger better more capable person than I was then but I don't know if that is even possible.

I suppose just like everything else in thus far in life I will just have to take everything in stride, shine as bright as I can and hope for the best.

The Goodbye Party

It has been a week of goodbyes for me, but I realize that for most au pairs (and Saint Tropez in general) it is a week of hellos. Les gens, ils arrivent! It's still not officially summer here, but every day it seems like there are more and more people in the streets and the traffic gets worse and worse. But I don't have to deal with that anymore because I'm done!

TOMORROW Ricky is arriving and the day after the kids will leave. Then Ricky and I will have a couple days to ourselves here before we head off to Paris and then to visit Kathy in Austria and then back to Nice before we fly home. I am very excited, I've missed him so much.

But this weekend was my goodbye party. I had a bunch of the girls over (Luisa, Eva, Nathalia and Alexandra). And we had a cookout in the apartment while Tom was in town watching some football game. Nathalia prepared some amazing Brazillian food and caipirinhas.

Then we went out in Saint Tropez and met up with some other au pairs. Annika and Freida came because it was their last weekend too. We also met some new au pairs and overall just enjoyed each others company. Like every weekend, I intended to stay out all night but by 4am I was exhausted and getting cranky. So we headed back to the house and called it a night.

I feel like a bit of a poop for cutting it short, because I wish this part of my time here would never end. Well sort of. I can already tell I'm getting sick again (comme d'habitude). But I'm so glad the rest of it is over. Hopefully the next few days won't be too bad and I can enjoy some beach time with Luisa or something like that.

I'll miss everyone I met here so much. Isabelle, Luisa, Nathalia, Tom, Kathy, and yes I might even miss the boys. You just get so used to one way of living it seems like it will be impossible to go back to the states and jump back into my old routine. I guess that is part of growing up though. The more things change the more they stay the same? Maybe that's the wrong cliche.

I'm not really excited to go home. I think because I'm constantly waiting for a new adventure. That's how it's always been. I'm not one to let myself sit around and be bored. I will jump at every opportunity I get even if it ends in complete catastrophe. Going home seems like the anti-adventure thing to do right now because I have no idea what's next. Will I just sink back into city college and never leave Sacramento again? Or will I get the guts to fly to New Orleans for Tulane? Or will I purposely miss my flight and just stay here forever and get a job at Lacoste or something (LOL)? Whatever I decide to do, I know I will make the most out of it, always look on the bright side and find a way to make it into the greatest adventure of my life.

But before I do that, I do have some legit adventuring to do. Paris, Austria, JE VIENS!

just keep swimming

With the last Wednesday down, I'm finally into the home stretch. Less than a week to go! Five days until Ricky gets here and six until the kids are off to Africa. I can't believe it's almost over, and I can't believe that I've made it this far. Compared to the past few days though, yesterday was a piece of cake. I really think that it's just one of those things where the kids act up in front of the parents to get attention, but nonetheless, it hurts! Yesterday morning, Thomas was being a total brat again, completely ignoring me when I asked him what kind of yogurt he wanted, etc. The second Christine walks out the door he's my best friend and oh "Gabrielle, look at me". I took them to sports, then to McDonalds. Christine met us there and then we all went to the swimming pool in Saint Tropez with Christine's best friend. It is a nice pool and I kind of wish that I had actually been going regularly since Christine pointed it out to me but it is way too hot and I wouldn't be able to swim laps in it anyways. I prefer the sea as it is. The kids had a swimming lesson with this really old guy. He was good with them and I could tell he's had a lot of experience (I mean come on the guy is like 50 and he's teaching swim lessons). But after they were finished with him I took over. I got Matthew to jump in without any flotation devices (I caught him of course) and I took him to the bottom a couple of times. Thomas is actually a really good swimmer although his kicks could use some work.

I wrote in my au pair letter that I would be willing to give swim lessons to the kids. I've talked about it with Christine and Nigel a couple times but they never followed up on it and Nigel doesn't want to turn on the pool heater or something. But after seeing me with the kids yesterday, Christine got really excited about it and wants me to give them a swim lesson on Saturday morning. She also wants me to perform a Synchronized Swimming routine on Sunday. Maybe as her Fete des Meres present? The pool is rather small for a synchro routine but I might try and put something together in the next couple days. I'm also working on making friendship bracelets for the kids and my friends and putting together the photo album for Christine and Nigel. I hope the pictures get here in time. Last time it took three weeks, but that is because I used the wrong address.

This week seems to be dragging by. All the hard things seem to be piling on top of each other and pulling me down. But despite feeling like the weight of Christine's world is on my shoulders (which I am sure is about 10 times heavier than the weight of my world with how much trash they produce every week), I just have to keep going like a wind up toy. When push comes to shove, I know I'll get through this. I just gotta keep swimming on through.

Randonee

Tom and I had been wanting to do this hike for quite a while. Basically just follow the back road all the way until you reach a small town called La Mole. According to Google Maps, it's 8.8km one direction and takes around an hour and 50 minutes to complete. What Google Maps doesn't tell you is that it's all uphill, and that when it is 30 degrees celcius with  hardly any wind and the trees are separated because the path is a long a ridge, it is very very tiring. However, Google Maps also doesn't tell you about the amazing view of the Gulf of Saint Tropez that you can see from that ridge. So it's all worth it. We actually didn't get to La Mole. We made it to about 8km, sat down on a rock and ate our lunch (sandwiches, crisps, apples, and snickers) and then turned around and went back and kicked it in the apartment until the football game started. I hung around for a bit after that and tried to pay attention, but I can't stand sport radio so I ended up coming back to the house a minute too late since Christine had just ordered the Chinese (which is actually Thai food). My dinner consisted of too-mushy white rice, strawberries, and 1/3 a baguette.

slimy, yet satisfying ;)