Last day before classes

So let's see, what have I done since the last post?

I had tea and macaroons with the author of "Capitan Corelli's Mandolin" - he is a friend of my host mother's.

I had a picnic lunch underneath the Eiffel Tower - it was beautiful, because it sparkles every night on the hour. We made chevre, tomato, avocado, olive oil, and pepper baguette sandwiches. Then we made another batch and replaced the chevre (goat cheese, my favorite...) with camembert. Both were delicious. We also packed grapes, peaches, and some wine. One of the other girls at the picnic brought tiramasu chocolate (delicious!!) and cookies. After dinner, we laid on the grass for a while, then there was a "big band" band - bizarrely dressed in silver flowing costumes with high-collars trimmed with pink fur..!! - playing music underneath the Eiffel Tower. They played "With or without you" - I love those times, when you hear French people singing songs whose lyrics they don't necessarily always understand but which mean something to them anyway (oh, culture) - and a French song "Emmenez-moi" along with some other songs, one of which sounded like it was from Gladiator. It was really fun though, with people dancing and singing... I loved it.

I ate "bifteck hache" which is supposed to be like hamburger, except not as ground. My host father cooked it, and he cooked it really rare - I think that's the European way - and I didn't like it, but out of good manners I forced myself to eat it. Even worse, we ate it with this ketchup that was wayyyy too sugary (according to the ingredient list, like half sugar and half tomatoes). After that, we had delicious Irish cheese that tasted like really good sharp cheddar, and I couldn't help but lament the fact that the hamburger probably would have tasted a million times better with that cheese melted on top (and with a significantly longer time in the oven).

I ate falafel in the Marais, which used to be the Jewish ghetto but is now home to really hip people, orthodox jews, and lots of gay men. I want to go back because it looked like there were so many good Jewish bakeries!!!!!

I had a bagel sandwich, and it was acceptable - but not as delicious as MUG's granola bagels (toasted with honey) or Panera's cinnamon crunch bagels... Oh....

I also ate milkshakes at McDonalds on the Champs-Elysees for some comfort food one night... they were so cheap (compared to everything else here!!!). It was realllly nice. And the food here at McD's is different - gourmet salads (chevre, corn, sliced tomatoes, etc.)

more updates soon : )

I have finally arrived in Paris.

Thursday night – our last night in Tours – Sara and I met a few of the other students down at the Loire, where everyone was drinking cheap wine and there was a collection of French hippies playing guitars and smoking.

Some French boys (I think boys? They looked like they were 17 or 18) came up to us and ask us for a light (it’s the universal pick-up line). Of course, none of us smoke, so we always say no. Some of us have bad accents though, so when we respond they know we’re foreign right away. “Are you English?” they asked us in French. “Are you French?” I asked them in English. They were really confused. One of the guys laughed and said, “Yes, yes, I live in French.” Then we were nice to them and told them that yes, we were English, from England.

Then we went to one of the cafes in the old quarter to get tea. We went to a tea salon called “La Casbah” and the man heated up our mint tea (which is normally delicious, had been absolutely delicious at a Hookah bar a few nights before) in the microwave. Not only did I not appreciate that he poured it from a pot into a cup to be microwaved, but I also didn’t like the fact that the cup was plastic. It was only one euro, so I guess (in French terms, where nothing is free), you get what you pay for.

So right now I am with my family. I live on the 7th floor of a gorgeous building, where when you walk out you have a view of the Eiffel tower. It seems to me exactly where Woody Allen would live if he was transported from New York to Paris; large rooms, lots of books, old-fashioned but very east coast big-city apartment-ish. If that makes any sense. They have three kids: Raphäelle, Mathilde, and Juliette; they are adorable and have been really nice to me. All three of them speak English, except that Juliette understands rather than speaks very often; last night, in fact, we watched “” together in English (with English subtitles). Madame Noiville (that is the mother), told me that she loves English, and actually lived in Georgetown for 9 months once when her husband (M. Hirsch) had an internship/short job as a lobbyist there.

Madame Noiville is a journalist, in charge of the culture/literary section of Le Monde, which, if you don’t know, is pretty much the French newspaper. She also speaks English and travels all of the time (for example, next week she will be in New Zealand for 11 days, during which her mother will come to stay with us).

M. Hirsch is the President of Emmäus Europe, which is a non-profit which fights poverty, homelessness, etc. He’s written some books and stuff and is a fellow at several organizations in DC (I found this out from google). He came to pick us up last night from the Alliance Française, but other than that I’m not sure if I’ll see him too much. Both of the parents seem very busy; Madame Noiville even had an interview with a Polish woman last night – an author, I think? – which she forgot about until the last minute.

My room, like I said, necessitates some stair climbing, but otherwise it seems fine. I have my own shower, sink, bed, shelves etc. for clothes, and a window out onto the street. I’m not sure how much time I will actually spend up there (particularly since I haven’t succeeded in getting wireless yet, and there is no TV, so I have no connection to the outside world), but I am living next to some really interesting people. The girl who lives next to me is Chinese, and her boyfriend is her in France with her. She has a TV (which is important). On the other side, there are two people: a Swiss guy and a German girl, both of whom speak French. They have the same entrance, but I think different rooms. The only thing that is kind of irritating is the bathroom, which is communal and necessitates me living my room, but that’s okay – at least it’s not far at all.

Today, when I woke up, no one was in the house. One of the daughters had school in the morning (she just got back) and Juliette, the youngest, has a broken arm (they went mountain climbing this summer and one of her sisters fell on her), so she just got back from the radiologist, which she went to all alone.

As for me, I’m typing this in the kitchen. I just finished a breakfast of muslei cereal, cocoa puff-like things, and yogurt and sugar. I'm going to finish "The Parent Trap" with my host sister and her dad, who just got home.

CROWS!!

I had to write this post because what happened is too funny to forget. Sara and I were making the 20-minute walk back to the Institute in Tours when a car of guys drove by and one of them CROWED at us. It was hilarious. It wasn't "cock-a-doodle-do" but it was some French version of it. Both of us were so confused/frightened/overwhelmed by the urge to laugh that we just kept walking until I asked Sara, "Did that just happen?"

In other news, today was my last lunch at Goutez chez Sam, the most delicious Indian/Sri Lankan restaurant with cheap sandwiches with lots of salad inside cheese-filled nan.

Yesterday, I visited a place where they make silk by hand, and I was really sick - I almost fainted and I had to go sit with a professor outside. She was so nice to me though - told me about how much she wanted to visit the US (her daughter studies English). She also made me feel much better because she was so motherly to me (I was kind of scared, I felt so lightheaded). She also asked me if my parents were French or if I spoke at home, (we were speaking French together) - which kind of made my afternoon.

Last night, we went out with some of the professors to get drinks, and it was really fun.

I am really sad to leave my family, but I am looking forward to our last dinner. We are going to buy them flowers on the way home and make chocolate chip cookies.

Tomorrow I'm going to Paris - I'll be in the 16th arrondissement, which is right by the Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysee, and Tour Eiffel. It's the wealthiest district in Paris, which is exciting, but I hope the family isn't too bourgeois. The father is Martin Hirch (I wikepediaed him) and the mother is a journalist for Le Monde. I'm excited - I'll let you know how everything is tomorrow.

Be online tomorrow afternoon, because I'll be in Paris and I'll probably use someone else's wireless in my building to talk!!!!

bisous!

Last week in Tours

So this is my last week in Tours, and I'm already kind of sad to leave my host family. I am especially going to miss their kids, including Amandine.

Sunday was the birthday of one of the girls in the program, Maddy. We went out to lunch and had some type of bruschetta sandwich/pizza called 'brousquettes', then we went to a patisserie and I had an absolutely delicious pastry called a 'nid d'abeille' (honeycomb, maybe?). We took our pastries to a cafe, where we sat outside and ordered drinks. It was really bizarre though; one of the girls at the table whom I really don't know well didn't want to order anything, and the waitress insisted that she order or leave. It was already late in the afternoon, so she decided to just go home, but it was really bizarre - especially if everyone else at the table orders something, I don't think it's very common in America to make someone leave if they don't order anything (especially initially-couldn't she have maybe ordered later? i don't know..)

Anyway, it returns to a theme that keeps appearing here: nothing, nothing is free. Not public bathrooms (20 to 50 centimes), not water (except for a small glass pitcher of tap water when you actually sit down to eat in a restaurant), not phone calls (usually), etc. And everything you do buy is often expensive, such as a can of soda for 1 euro or sometimes 2 (which is even more than $1 since the euro is stronger than the dollar), and cell phones (!!).

This is kind of interesting - the French do not always eat ridiculously healthfully - although I have eaten more salads and whole grains here than ever before. But, the other night (after I ate that pastry and just wanted a salad!), we had crepes. Apparently, normally when you have crepes for dinner, you just have crepes (aka, with nutella, sugar, jam, etc. inside). Thank god at least we had some type of breton crepe before that had eggs, lettuce, tomatoes, ham, etc. inside.

Yesterday I had a meeting with the housing director, and I'm really excited about my (potential), housing in Paris. When I explained my interests to her, she had suggested a family right away - they live in the 16th arrondissement (Paris is divided into arrondissements), and the mother is a journalist for 'Le Monde' (the big French newspaper) and the father is the President of Emmaus Europe (an organization that works to fight homelessness, poverty). He actually was just in DC (I googled him) for meetings, and I guess he was inducted as a fellow somewhere. They have three girls, about ages 8, 10, and 13 or so. I would live in a chambre de bonne (a maid's room) that is not attached to the house (it's on the 7th floor), but I would have a key to the house so I could enter when desired, and I would eat meals with them. A chambre de bonne is really small, but it would be nice to have my own entrance/exit. What's even nicer is that the 7th floor, where I'll be, will have other international students, who will also be staying in other families' 'chambres de bonne.'

Today, I went on a boat ride on the Loire. I'd like to say I enjoyed it - and it was really beautiful - but it was ridiculously hot (in the nineties) and I still have a sore throat from last week. The woman who gave running commentary during the ride spoke as if she had given the speech a million times, so her intonations were odd (think about someone giving a tour they've given a millioin times) and she slurred her words together so she was really difficult to understand. I almost fell asleep several times - you know that awkward head partially falling before you catch yourself thing - but I managed to stay awake (plus, where would I have laid?). For lunch I had quiche, and I have officially decided that when it is this hot you are only allowed to drink water and juice and eat salad or else you feel awful. Best of all, I trudged around in shoes that I bought over the weekend - white, leather sandals (multi-season!) that got so slippery from walking all over in the heat that I had to take them over and walk down the street barefoot.

Tonight, I'm looking forward to reading and going to bed!! Tomorrow, I'm going to see a movie called "je vais bien, ne t'en fais pas" (I'm fine, don't worry about me). Then, we have a party to say goodbye to our host families. Then, I have one last atelier where I go visit an old-fashioned silk loom place.

Last night, I was signed up to go to an atelier about a newspaper here. My family dinner didn't end until late, and I was waiting for a phone call, and I had to write a paper. I didn't go, since I had signed up for more than necessary anyway. Then this morning, the director of the institute knocked on my classroom door and demanded to talk to me - I'm not kidding! - and demanded to know where I was. It was like preschool! It reminded me of the instance in my Cultural Misunderstandings book - which has proven immensely helpful (if just to put you in the mindset of understanding the French from within their own complex logic and cultural expecations) - when the director of a university student "dorm" (which is really peculiar in Paris, only a very very few exist) went through the students rooms while they were gone. It wasn't particularly intended to be insulting; instead, the French students listened nonchalantaly while she ranted and raved at a dorm meeting. In this way, she was fulfilling the role of "director" and what would be expected of her - god, so similar to the French conception of parenthood! (but more on that later) - and the students understood that it was but her role, so it really didn't bother them. To the American girl staying in the dorm, however, it was so offensive that she left (I would understand!). Anyway, so I just kind of took it in stride when I was scolded publicly (in class!! ha) for not coming to an (otherwise optional) atelier. When they say the French are very into bureaucracy, I think it's very true - particularly in the sense that everyone needs to do what is demanded of them in the public sphere, while the private sphere (which is sharply divided from the public) allows for a lot more personality and freedom.

Great story - my French host mother told me that she once tried to mail books and a card from the post office. She brought her (pre-purchased) package up to the counter, and when asked said she wanted to mail two books and a card in the package to another part of France.

"You're not allowed," the woman behind the counter told her. Nathalie didn't understand. "You can only mail BOOKS in the package," the woman told her firmly.

So Nathalie went to the back of the line, put the card inside of the book and put the books and card in the package, went back up to the counter and told the woman she was mailing only books - and the woman didn't ask any questions. Did the woman know? Probably. But you just have to say what is necessary - what you're supposed to - and then everything can be smooth sailing.

Anyway, in final news, I also bought bandaids today for almost 5 euros at the pharmacy (you have to go to different places here to get what you want, unless maybe the supermarket would have been less expensive? they have so little though...) The pharmacist specifically recommended them (after recommending one that cost 6 euros, ha), and I didn't realize how expensive they were. So funny that she wouldn't recommended the 3 euro box, eh? You have to be quick, I guess.

I'm going to walk home - barefoot or not - and read.

bisous ; )

Frasinettes!!

Right now I'm sitting in the courtyard of the Institute in Tours where I've been taking French classes. I'm here until next weekend (the ~8th we leave). My classes have been good - conversation and expression (grammar) everyday, cultural activities in the afternoon: a visit to a patisserie (when my housemate Sara fainted), visit to the Cathedral of Tours (with a history professor, it was fascinating!), and tonight a concert.

At the patisserie, the pastry chef who gave us a presentation irritated me a bit. He kept praising his method - where he avoided at almost all costs, or at least provided for alternative methods to, modernization. "You can't find that where you come from," he kept saying. Then, when he would ask us to confirm his view of the US where "all you want to do is modernize," the people standing closest to him (we were a big group) didn't say anything - probably because they didn't know how to convey respectful disagreement and explain the presence of artisans, etc. And the Amish? Hmm.

In class this week I gave an expose - I volunteered to change days so it was a bit last minute - and it went fine. I talked about the movie "La science des reves" ("The Science of Dreams) which was really interesting. It's directed/written by Michel Gondry, who also did "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," which I prefer. Basically, the movie is a mix of dreams and daydreams and internal reality and external reality and how they all mess each other up in the worst of situations. I recommend it just because there are some really sad moments (I cried - the opening credits are even really touching) and some hilarious moments - and the movie is 70% English, 30% French, so you have to pretty much be fluent in English to get a lot of the jokes.

My family has been good. The other night, Francois and Nathalie told us that Nathalie and the kids were going to psychiatrists to deal with what happened while they were in Lebanon. That was kind of important that they told us that, I think, because mainstream French culture doesn't look to fondly on psychologists/psychiatrists (at least according to anthropologist Raymonde Carroll's book that I had to read for the program). It was particularly appropriate that they told us, however, since we had been talking a lot about people we had recently lost and the distance we create between death and ourselves in the modern world. It turns out that my housemate's mother had recently died, which I had no idea about. Also, the other night, Thibault (11 yrs old) had accidentally kicked a box on the floor during dinner, and Nathalie screamed because the sound was so similar to that of bombs (which she apparently heard a lot of while in Lebanon).

We've gone out a few times - just to cafes, bars, etc. All I really want to do is go dancing, which we haven't done yet, but I have discovered that I do like sugary white wine (which I'm sure makes me a connoisseur). We drink it often at dinner. Francois also has "rosé" which is really dry and I don't like. Oh, and I almost forgot, the other night we had some pasta dish that strangely resembled skyline chili!

Anyway, last night, we did go to an Irish pub, and while I was waiting in the bathroom - which by the way, is co-ed, with two separate stalls with actual wall-to-ceiling doors that lock - I said something about the sink to a guy in French, and then we realized we both spoke English, it was too weird - he had an Irish accent and we were at an Irish pub but everyone was speaking French.

Today, we had class in the morning, but we didn't have an atelier this afternoon so a group of girls and I - I've met some really nice people here, including some people from Georgetown - went to a Lebanese restaurant that was *delicious*. I split a vegetarian plate that included hummus, a spinach-filled filo dough thing, salad, rice, and falafel, and of course pita bread. It was probably the best lunch I've had since I've been here. Then, I grabbed a diet coke (a can for 1euro30!!!!!!!) and 50 grams (I've learned to economize) of frasinettes, these squishy strawberry candies that were a nice snack.

Now I'm just working on lining up stuff for second semester and figuring out what classes I'm going to take in Paris!

I am really excited about my classes at Paris 7 (Denis-Diderot) and Sweet Briar. At Sweet Briar, I'm taking a class on North African writers and the body (I'm so excited about this one, I actually met one of the authors when she came to Georgetown because I asked her a question at a reception after a presentation that she gave, I was brave) and a class called "Atelier d'ecriture" which basically focuses really intensely on writing and grammar - which is exactly what I'd like, just to iron out my French. At Paris 7, I'm going to go to about 6 classes at the beginning - Sociology and Anthropology - and decide which ones I like the best. One of them that I am really excited about discusses specifically the sociology of gender. The only problem is that I'd rather not return to France in January to take exams, so I have to get professors' permission to have the exams sent to Georgetown, where I would have to go take them. Otherwise, I'd have to fly back to France in January, just to take a handful of exams, which could be expensive (of course) and really irritating. This is simply a Georgetown policy though - all of the other students work through Sweet Briar and don't have to approach the professors themselves. Georgetown just has a policy that we have to take the exams, unless the professors themselves make special arrangements with us. It's really irritating.

Tonight, I'm going to a concert of classic French music, which will be fun. I haven't slept enough this week, so I'd also like to go to relax and go to bed at a decent time. Tomorrow, I'm supposed to go to a Chateaux visit, but I'm also supposed to go see my friend Coline - who lived at Georgetown with me last year when she was an exchange student. She lives in Tours and just got back from visiting her boyfriend in DC, and I'd reallllly like to see her and meet her family. I would almost miss the Castle visit itself just to go to her house and hang out with her (!!), but hopefully we'll be able to work something out.