Skiing In Switzerland

"Don't ever come back." are my mother's words of advice today. She is, of course, discussing my France trip. And I do mean trip. While I will be working, I plan on visiting every country, city, region, etc that I have the desire to go to. My mother says I should capitalize on this, I will probably never have this opportunity again ("no nagging husband, no weird children, no bills... ah the life"). So, I am. One of my first trips will be to Switzerland, to ski, of course.

Today I discussed my French excursion/internship with my lovely, wonderful contact at Michelin. I now have, in my possession, details about my apartment, stipend, transportation, and start and end dates. It is quite wonderfully exhilarating and terrifying.

Now, the real question is, who all wants to come live with me in a one bedroom apartment in the mid-south of France for 6 months? Lord knows I cannot live alone.

Being Assigned

Well, I have finally been assigned not only a city but a factory/plant. I will be working in Clermont-Ferrand, the capital of banking and tires in France. This is where Michelin's international headquarters are located, and several plants, if I remember correctly. I will be working in Combaude, with rechapage, which means re-tread. I don't know what type of tires they make at the facility, but the email said "Poids Lourd", which means heavy weight in English. The plant has about 500 people in it.

My "mission" is to study and combine posts to gain effectiveness. I will be doing other "missions" in parallel to this one, but what I do not understand. The problem is that even though I have already worked with Michelin, I was not shown all the parts of the administrative process and therefore have small ideas as to what other plants do and use in their respective plants. Although it is the same company, the French & American plants are run differently, use different softwares, etc. They use the same acronyms, so I can come in already ready to tackle other things and not just the knowledge of how do you make a tire, etc.

I'm a bit scared, and I believe I have every right to be so. I'm moving to a different country and I still have no idea where I'm living, when I'm leaving, and when I'm returning... I am ready to know all this information so I can plan. I live to plan. So does my mother, I believe I get it from her.

Some cool information about Clermont-Ferrand:

• The same guy who created the Statue of Liberty created a statue of Vercingetorix, a French hero, that sits in a public square
• recently started to use a Guided Light Transit, of which I am sure I will discover more when I get over there....
• hosts one of the world's leading international short film festivals... 
• it was the home of Pascal, a famous scientist
• held the French Grand Prix 4 times
• home of Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the president of France from 1974-1981

Pretty cool, right?

Football & Friends

Wow... A TON has happened. I feel like I'm never quite at one set place to be able to sit down and blog.

So I'll just fast-forward to last week...

Wednesday, I had my interview/phone conversation with a French recruiter from work. Needless to say, I was freaking out and extremely nervous. The conversation didn't help either... He spoke faar too quickly. Even in English I can't understand people who speak that fast! He didn't seem quite enthused and I know him not being able to hear me was a problem. Ever since I dropped my phone in the toilet in March it's had horrible service.... After chapter, some of my sorority sisters & I decided to go out to a bar for a few hours!

I love these girls!

After my lovely interview, Thursday was spent going to class, work, turning in homework, and writing my French paper on a movie named "La Reine Margot" or "Queen Margaret". The movie was quite raunchy, I watched it instead of going to the Auburn v. Florida Atlantic game the Saturday before. I finally made J set up a Skype account so we could chat via the internet... And then I packed my bags for Columbia!

Our tailgate spot

Friday: OH THANK GOSH IT WAS FRIDAY. Class, work, packed my car, went to lunch, picked up Sydney... and drove.
The drive was miserable. We left at 1:30 CT to try to bypass Atlanta 5 pm traffic, which we did... but getting on to I-20 was the most ridiculous thing ever. I do not like to break traffic or break the lines in traffic, so I sat and waited my turn FOR THIRTY MINUTES trying to get on the interstate. It was ridiculous.

When we FINALLY got onto I-20, we ran into construction. WHO makes a four-lane highway into a 2-lane highway? (soo, both sides had 1 lane to drive in). We found a detour and made our way around the construction.... stopped for dinner in Augusta (what a horrible place that is too. woof) and then FINALLY made it to Columbia and our hotel.

I haven't seen my best friend Kayla since June, when I met her in Orlando for the weekend. So basically, when we saw each other we both cried. I've known her since I was 14 & we're basically soulmates.... Anyways, after Kay got to the hotel, the 3 of us went out to find someplace to buy some alcoholic beverages for the tailgate. We ended up at some super sketchy Walmart at 10:30 pm... There was a fiiine assortment of people out that evening. Got back home, drank a bottle of wine, and went to bed.

SATURDAY!!!! GAMEDAY!!!
Like any good, red-blooded SEC college girl, I love gameday. A day to wear my school colors (I actually wore orange this week) and to eat food and cheer on my fellow students who happen to be athletes. The University of South Carolina is strangely situated in the middle of downtown Columbia. Which sounds cool, until you get to gamedays... There's NO WAY to get near the stadium unless you want to wait hours on end, trying to find the right traffic flow and find a tailgate spot. So, we hired a shuttle and were dropped off and walked. And walked. And walked. AND WALKED.

Until we found it!

The game:

It was 9-6 for almost the entire game... I walked around because I was bored, hot, sunburned, and dehydrated from all the walking. Good. GOSH.
I was sitting in row A3, (3rd row from the ground) with the player's families and such, and then some of them moved because the seats did not have a good vantage point, which I agreed with. However, what I did not agree with, was South Carolina fans sitting in their seats after they left. I can understand, I really can, however, when you know those are not your seats, and you see that there are families with jerseys on... You need to go somewhere else with that ish & not yell about South Carolina this and Auburn sucks that. I was probably being mean because I was so hungry, but I asked the security guards to escort them away from the row and to their own seats. However, another ticket guy placed OTHER USC fans in front of me, who promptly decided to stand on the benches in front of me. In the Auburn student section, this doesn't really matter... But I had been yelled at that afternoon for standing on the benches as to allow the people behind me to see... which I can understand. However, these USC fans were not asked to sit down. In fact, they were encouraged to stand on the benches. I was not pleased.

But that's ok.

The Final Score

Both teams basically played subpar... I was not impressed, and I did not think that we would come away from the game as the winner... But as my mother always says "Oh, ye of little faith."

 

After the game

Gene being all happy & such

As we were walking back to the tailgate, Syd & I were taunted and yelled at by USC fans. The original plan was to go out after we rested up, but seeing the personalities and overall morale of the USC fans, we decided we should stay in. Angry drinking people are no fun at all.


All in all, the weekend went by too quickly, and I'm back to procrastinating for the two tests I have Tuesday...