Tour Through My City (part 1)

Because it's been a month since my last post and I'm on vacation AND I will be leaving fairly soon (two months left), I'm going to take you on a tour through my city. Some of my favorite spots, a few fond or funny memories, and our "landmark" buildings. The picture above is Cognin, the suburb of Chambery where I actually live. My house is just about 5 minutes from where I took this picture, maybe less.

Here are my house and my garden, respectively. Bear in mind that these were taken the day I moved in, in late January, and that the garden is actually beautiful and green and flowery now. We also have a couple tables so that we can eat in the garden when it's sunny; those pictures will be on my Facebook or Photobucket later.

Salon d'amis (living room / where friends can stay on the futon, which you can't see), bathroom, and kitchen. It's bigger than it looks from the pictures, but I didn't want to post eight million pictures.

Here's "la Mairie" of Cognin. It's where you go for administrative issues, I guess? Kind of like a county courthouse, if I understand correctly. In any case, it's a really pretty spot to sit down and chill for a bit.

These two pictures are the church in Cognin. In terms of French churches it's nothing special, but I find it impressive for some reason.

This is a view from "le Vieux Pont," the old bridge, near Cognin. It's another spot that is hidden from the city of Chambery but that I'm glad I get to see so often.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is where I lived before I moved into my house. The picture isn't great, but as you can see the building is under construction. When I walked into this "foyer," thinking that it would be a dorm much like those at OU, imagine how shocked I was to find myself in a shit building with no ceiling tiles, an internet connection that consisted of one broadband cord hanging from the ceiling that worked about 1/8 of the time, and most other residents being the exact opposite of students. Had Jennifer not found me a way out of there I would have already been back in the States for a couple months at this point, I'd imagine.

Brace yourselves for the next picture, Americans.

Yeah, they have ALDI's in France. And it was like ten feet from where I lived, and quite often the only place I could get to without taking several buses, so I came here pretty frequently. I wish I could take pictures of the inside, it's like a bizarro-world version of our ALDI, if you've ever been.

Now, on to the Univeristy, Jacob campus.

 Random field by the campus. I always want to run through it for some reason, but laziness always wins out over wanting to be 7 years old again.

 A view of the city from the campus. Kind of beautiful. Missing from this picture is the random bike gang of 9 year old kids who nearly ran me down as they peeled down the hill.

 The building where I used to steal the university's internet. Good times. If not for that high-speed connection I would have had to sit in cafes and fast food places for HOURS to get my Glee and SNL episodes to download to my iTunes.

It only seemed fitting to get a picture of myself in the building, considering that I may as well have been a student here. Thanks for the good times, Universite de Savoie.