Annecy

I really didn't have much planned for the easter weekend, but on my way back from climbing good friday I ran into team Language Assistant.  They were planning a trip to Annecy the day after and asked if I wanted to join them, and so I did.

Snowmelt and rain makes for a lot of water..

Annecy is apparently known as "the Venice of the Alpes" (they've got three channels) and is situated next to Lac d'Annecy about an hour  north-east of Grenoble.

Me and one of the channels

Three channels doesn't sound like that much and to be honest, the old city us pretty small, but it was super cute! With the mountains and the lake I reckon it's a pretty nice place to visit during the summer. And judging from all the ice-cream shops it's a pretty popular place to visit as well.

Nyssa and I in front of Le Palais de l'Isle

It was a rainy day but that didn't stop us from having an awesome time. One of the highlights being lunch where various french specialities were on the menu. We tried Raclette, fondue, tartiflette, cruziflette,  the common denominator being cheese :)

Marya trying out the Raclette

We also found this knife shop with a slightly skewed door...

it's the door not us :)

Most of the day was spent like this, strolling around town looking at cute little canals and picturesque houses.

By the way, this is what I want for easter next year :)

 À Bientôt!

Easter

If you've read my earlier posts you'll know that I've had a little mix up with my ski equipment. Namely having brought with me skies and boots that doesn't go together. But my aunt has now sent me my other boots, and with them, påskemarsipan!!! TUSEN TAKK !

They didn't last very long though...
One of them is already opened :P

As påskemarsipan is a safe sign that spring is approaching I have gone to the step of buying new summer shoes. The last ones got tossed around the Tous Saints vacation..

They smell like cherries! It's cool, but kind of weird ...

And with all my footwear problems sorted I decided to finally take a day off to go and see Vicky in Les Deux Alpes! Which also goes well with the norvegian easter traditions ;)

Me in front of the underground téléferico that brings you up on the glacier.
Nice if you're to lazy to get the T-bar, or if it's just windy...

At the top of the glacier the view is pretty awesome so we had a tourist moment...

I'd say that's profile picture material...

Then me, a bit further down the mountain:)

alpes...

I can really recommend a midweek ski trip at the end of the season. The snow was great and from time to time we almost had the impression of having the whole place to our selves.

Lunch, 2 x croziflette.  Yummy!

After lunch we kept on skiing for a couple of hours before heading down to the valley just in time for a crêpe before getting on the bus. Vicky went for lemon&sugar and I had a crème de marron. One buss and a train ride later I was back in Valance ready for one day of work followed by a long weekend. Can't complain!

À Bientôt!

Catching up

The Polygone during The Challenge

I've really been horrible at this lately! So there's a bit of catching up to do! Not sure if I'll get it all in one post though.... But anyway, let's start with the weekend of the Challenge.  The challenge being a competition between the students of Valence. Each school has to choose a theme and construct a bar and a float (for the parade).  Our theme was batman!!

Me and all the Esisariens spent the weekend dressed as Batman :D

Don't seem to have gotten a good photo of our bar... But it was inspired by the bat-cave and the Wayne manor. And had all the fancy stuff you would expect engineering students to come up with

Flashing lights is a must, also in france

The weekend really kicked off Saturday morning when the flats were paraded through town.  Funnily enough I'm also lacking photos of the float....

Centre ville...

Photo opportunity at champs de mars  

Me and my team mates from the Projet Industiel
Yes, we had one Robin

After the parade I had my first encounter with a dish the french call taco. It is as far from norwegian tacos as I imagine the norwegian tacos is from the Mexican one. But it was still quite enjoyable :)

Not really sure what is in there....

I hope you've noticed the purple glasses that people are carrying with them at all times. This seem to be a common thing at festivals here, buy a glass and drink for "free".  The rest of the weekend was then spent watching sports and games, and drinking punch of variable quality...  All good stories have a happy ending and I am proud to let you know that late sunday night it was announced that ESISAR had won the 28 challenge d'étudiants!! This was lucky for me because if the school hasn't won the challenge once during your studies there, you haven't really graduated...  Well that's it for now, I'll see if I can get out some more updates asap, I'm lagging a bit...

À Bientôt!

It's Spring!!

My bike, Valence in the background, and behind that, the snow covered  peaks of the Vercors massif

So another good week is finished. Big News! We've upgraded to Matlab 2014b on the computers we're working on for the Projet Industriel (PI) :D Woop woop! This makes my life a lot easier and I'm so happy! Less geeky news: The bike season has started!

The shorts season has also started!

This years first off-road bike trip was awesome! I was kind of nervous that I'd forgotten how to do it, but all is well. It must be true that you never forget how to ride a bike! Automatic pedals on the other hand... But I only had to fall over once to remember that you have to clip out, so not too bad :)

Yes, shorts AND t-shirt!

This was the first nice and warm sunday here this season so there was people everywhere. (Cleverly not showing in the photos.) Some nice scenic photos to prove this:

Ardèche is turning green again

Another one:

Vineyard - spring style 

You are by now probably asking yourself "Has Inger forgotten about the Alpes and the snow?". No, of course not!  I went skiing on Saturday :)

Les Deux Alpes

This time with some friends from uni. It seems a bit weird complaining about having to get to uni for 8.15 every morning when during the weekends we have no issues about leaving Valence at 6.15 to get to the slopes on time. Most people try to get a lay inn Saturday morning, but not us. On the other hand, it's totally worth it!

Lunch time!

But it's not free this lift based skiing, so we try to save a couple of euros on bringing a packed lunch.  Money later spent on hot chocolate (beneath the mountain of whipped cream) and cookies.

A mountain of cream with the Alpes in the background.

The snow conditions wasn't ideal for off-piste to day, so the afternoon was spent in the park. No (serious) injuries,  pride and dignity a bit bruised though :p

you can't see the kicker, it's too small...
But it was fun!

Heading down from the mountain was however pretty sweet! The sun had been shining all day and produced nice slushy "påskesnø"!

water on the lens, otherwise pretty nice!

I'm pretty happy about my weekend, the next won't be quite as sporty and scenic I'm afraid. There's   a thing going on called "Le Challenge"... I'll come back to that next week :)

À Bientôt!

Over skyene er himmelen alltid blå*

* above the clouds, there is always a blue sky

Alper...

I've been quite active lately. A friend from uni has joined the same gym as me. This has basically led to us going to the gym almost every day! At the same time I'm trying to get a bit of climbing/skiing/social life in there, so today I'm feeling a bit knackered. So this won't be a long post, but I do need to share some of the skiing pics!

But first: Gumbo-nigth!

mmm... Gumbo

It might not look like much, but I'm "frelst"! It is so good! And as it turns out, it goes overwhelmingly well along with croissants. It's quite rich though, and probably not something you should eat every day... But when you're going skiing the next day you can!

above the clouds in Les 7 Laux

Yeah, I was pretty happy. 

Motlysbilde!

Then time for some lunch...

There is a baguette behind that beer

But things are not as perfect as they might seem...

buuu...

I broke one of my poles :/ I landed on it after trying to balance on the tips of my skis... Luckily I had my first-aid kit with me and managed to tape them up pretty good :) Apparently there is also a three years, no questions asked warranty on these things, so we'll see... I might get a more permanent repair :)  

That's all folks, it's bedtime! More exciting news next week! 

À Bientôt!

 

Winter Holiday - but not for me

So before I start on France things I've found some photos from the holidays that I've forgotten about...

    

I know it's a bit late, or early, only eight months left till they start selling christmas-marsipan in Norway :D

But over to something slightly different. Last week most of Valence was on winter-holiday. But not 4A at ESISAR, that's me. Because we've got a project to finish! But as the profs and the most of the people in the companies we're cooperating with are all gone on vacation, the  week has been pretty chill. Wednesday we had a raclette during lunch break for all the students in the PI that was interested. It was super nice, but you feel more like sleeping than continuing work afterwards...

raclette at ESISAR

I've also finally managed to go skiing, it it turned out a bit more complicated than expected. Mostly because of this little mis match:

....

So my advise is not to pack ski equipment in august.  Thus I ended up spending quite a bit of time getting to and from the ski-rental and  standing behind a seemingly endless line of german tourists needing boots, poles, helmets, skis and who knows what!! when all I needed was a pair of skis! By the way, thank you Vicky for showing me to the ski-rental!

But when I finally got out, it was pretty much amazing! Les Deux Alpes was showing it's best side with bluebird and a bit of pow pow I couldn't complain! Not until I realised that the guy who adjusted my bindings hadn't listened when I told him my weight. I realised this while I  was flying through the air after having lost both my skis. Luckily the snow was of the white fluffy type ;)

Finally good to go!

Because of the delayed start, there was no time for breaks. Thereby no pictures lavish lunches with wine and cheese. But a foreseeing buddy had brought something to make the walk back to the bus so much better.

all is well that ends well :)

At least I've learnt the importance of checking your equipment before going anywhere. I hope to be better prepared next time!!

À Bientôt!

Back in business

So, after a "short" break in my blogging activity I'm back! January was pretty full-on with reports to write and exams to study for, and that was only for the fifth year subjects. At the same time the Industrial Project  was starting up for the 4th year students. This project is what will keep me busy this semester, that by the way lasts till the beginning of july! Which means that my summer holiday this year is seriously shortened!  But I'm sure the spring/beginning of summer in Valence will be pretty nice, and as my courses didn't start until mid-september last year I can't really complain. ( But I will miss VEKO!)

Winter in Valence: Not enough snow to stop to give me a day off...

The new year has also brought some new experiences. Amon others seeing palm trees with snow on :) The first snow fall also came with an e-mail from the university administration explaining how much snow is needed before you can stay at home with a clean conscience! (If the busses aren't going, the schools are closed) I was super excited by the prospect of getting a day off because of a little snow. But as it turned out they're not completely unprepared and I never got that extra day off...

galette des rois

This is a tradition i can like, it seems to be connected to the epiphany (helligetrekongersdag/trettendedagen) but they are sold throughout january. Inside, at least the in the bigger ones, there is a fève, a little figurine  made of porcelain. And whoever gets the figure also gets to wear the crown that comes with the cake.

Hipanema chillin and keeping me company

It's also the time for winter holiday, because of the project we didn't have one, but everybody else has a week or two in february. As my flatmates were going away I agreed to look after the cat. It went surprisingly well. Even though she woke me up at 6.30 everyday because she wanted to be fed. The same week I ended up getting the flu, or something like it, and it was quite nice to have some company.

My biggest weakness

I've picked up the bad habit of eating nutella with a spoon.... And I don't know how to stop! In an effort to limit my intake of this chocolaty substance I only buy the smallest jars available. But you can get nutella everywhere! And as there seems to be an endless supply of crêpes and nutella at every organised social event, it's not and easy addiction to kick. However, I've started climbing again and as the days gets longer the opportunities for things like skiing and biking are increasing. So apart from the obvious fact that there are definitively healthier food options out there i might continue eating my neutella without bigger consequences than feeling a bit sick :)

I'll try and get out a new post within a week, but no promises!

À Bientôt!