Cold Snow & Hot Cheese-Day 12- January 20th, 2018

Today was the first BU planned trip for my group in Grenoble. We would be snowshoeing in the Alps near the town of Autrans, France. I woke up around 7:15 and made sure I had all my cold weather gear. I had brought a lot of warm clothes to France in anticipation of doing stuff like this and skiing. I took the tram to Place de Verdun where I met the other students to wait for the coach bus.

While waiting in the park a group of soldiers carrying heavy automatic weapons walked by. This is apparently more common in France after recent terror attacks. My inner Call of Duty fan found it cool to see their Famas and AUG guns, something you don’t see in the US.

Here’s a picture from google of what the soldiers look like.

Our two program directors came and we all boarded the bus. This coach bus was super nice and had a coffee station, tables, and tons of leg room. After taking so many greyhounds this past year, this bus was like luxury.

Look at this legroom!

We also met the two other students from Colby College who were joining the BU program, though as French studies majors. Their names were Sebastian and Alex and I talked to them a bunch today. They’re really cool guys and I like them a lot.

After driving through super windy roads in the alps for a while, we started seeing snow everywhere. We eventually arrived in the small mountain town and met our two guides. They gave us our snow shoes and told us some history about the area and the mountains. The part we were was known as the vercors and were some of the oldest mountains in the Alps. This town was also where all the biathlon events were held in the 1968 Grenoble winter Olympics. For those who are unfamiliar with the biathlon, its an sporting event that combines cross country skiing and rifle shooting. We saw a bunch of people practicing this here and it was super interesting.
Grenoble reminds me a lot of Lake Placid in NY. This is because they both hosted a single Winter Olympics in the last century and will never let you forget this.

Our guides led us into the woods and we began our journey. Along the way they would tell us more facts about the area and point out different animal prints in the snow.

Here’s some photos from the town and hike.

The hike was fun and full of beautiful views. After about an hour of hiking, we were all pretty tired and ready for a break. Luckily, we came across some road and our guides led us over to a big cabin/lodge.

This is when I saw this badboy. How cool

Also, one of the best parts of studying abroad in Europe is how often BU provides us alcohol. When we walked over to the cabin, there was a giant pot and a bunch of glasses. They were serving us all hot spiced wine. Talk about a treat after a cold hike. I really felt like I was in Game of Thrones drinking the hot mulled wine in Winterfell.

Here’s what the wine looked like.

The wine was a bit too spiced for my liking but the warmth was great. We relaxed for a bit outside drinking our wine as it began to snow. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, we headed up stairs for lunch.

There was a super long table for our group with lit candles, wine, and pans over a flame. We would be having raclette, which was the melted cheese I had on my birthday. The raclette I had a few days ago was delicious and the prospect of eating more made me super excited.

The table setup. Lighting was poor in here but you can get the idea. You can see the server hanging up pots full of cooked potatoes from the ceiling in the 3rd pic.

In a similar fashion to the raclette I had the other night, the melted cheese was poured over the potatoes and various sausages, ham, salami and prosciutto. It was amazing and nearly all of us ate to the point of feeling sick. And that was before the fruit cobbler and ice cream.

This hike and meal was honestly so beautiful and well-executed, that I felt like I was on a fancy date on an episode of the Bachelorette. If the show hasn’t gone to the French Alps yet, this is the perfect place for it. Unfortunately, I did not get a rose today.

After eating, we went to hike back to the parking lot. Before we started hiking, we took advantage of the recent snowfall to throw snowballs, take pictures and build a snowman. This was phenomenal packing snow and was great for making snowballs. It snowed about three inches while we were in there. Grenoble was low enough in elevation that they only got rain today.

Here’s some pics

Also shoutout to Ivy for editing this one for my instagram

Our snowman didn’t last for very long though. My new friend Sebastian plays football for Colby and we somehow convinced him it would be a good idea to tackle the snowman. Using perfect form, Sebastian destroyed the snowman in a single tackle. Unfortunately, I do not have a video of this hilarious moment.

Just kidding! Here it is:

After a bit more shenanigans, we made it back to the bus and parking lot. We thanked our guides and all promptly fell asleep after boarding the bus. Later when I woke up, I made plans with some of my classmates to go skiing tomorrow. I initially wanted to snowboard but people told me it would be super difficult in the alps due to the narrow trails.

Once we arrived in Grenoble, some of us headed to a ski shop since the rentals would be about 15 euros cheaper than at the resort. I figured this saved money would be worth having to carry my skis and boots to the bus. Before the ski shop, we stopped in this very large supermarket called Geant Casino. I had seen small Casino shops that were like convenience stores, but this place was gigantic. It was pretty much a French Costco. I found this intriguing because I did not expect to find any large American-style stores in France. We all bought granola bars and snacks for skiing.

Here’s a picture inside the supermarket.

We headed to the ski shop nearby afterwards. I was able to rent skis, boots, a helmet, and poles with insurance for only 22 euros. It cost close to 40 euros at the resort. This deal was great, but carrying all my stuff through the rain and tram to get home was slightly more difficult. I was able to manage and the 18 euros I saved was worth the inconvenience.

When I got home, A-M let me store my skis and stuff in a closet by the front door. I also learned that my home had a basement while doing this. I stripped off all my wet clothes and took a much needed shower. It was now time for my wonderful microwave dinner.

Words can’t really explain a meal, so here’s a picture

You could probably guess this, but this was disgusting. I had to force every forkful down with water. Definitely do not buy the Monoprix sausage and mashed potatoes microwavable meal. 1/10. At least lunch was delicious to balance out this terrible meal.

That concludes my microwavable meal review portion of this blog.

After eating my dinner/avoiding throwing all my food up, I did some much needed blog writing. If you haven’t noticed, I upgraded to a wordpress plan so they’re will be less advertising now and my new domain is willdoesntspeakfrench.com.

Fancy stuff.

Also I forgot to include this earlier but here’s a picture of my Grenoble group from today. This can give you an idea of the size of our group. It is 19 BU students and two Colby students.

I am tall.

Tune in for tomorrow’s blog: Will goes skiing for the first time in decade during a blizzard.