Italy:
So before talking about my trip to Italy at the beginning of November (8-11th), I can’t forget my trip to Blere to visit my roommate from last year, Coline, and her family. Coline was on vacation, so she invited Ali (the same girl who traveled to Ireland with me and who lived in my suite last year with Coline and I) and me to come stay with her family. We came on Friday afternoon and left Sunday afternoon, and really had the most wonderful time.
Getting there was a bit of a pain for me, however. Friday morning, I got up early and went to the Robert Doisneau exhibition, which was wonderful – his photos are extremely candid and often hilarious, always thought-provoking. Some of my favorites included a portrait of a naked woman in the side of a store-front window; Doisneau took pictures of passer-bys who paused to peer into the right side of the window to see what exactly the portrait was, and their expressions were hilarious. Afterwards, we could find nowhere to go for a quick lunch, so – I am embarrassed to say - we went to MacDonalds (but JUST for the fries and ice cream!! And I had an avocado sandwich.) I then jumped onto the metro to take it to my train station, arriving just in time. I had purchased my train ticket online, and had opted to print my tickets off at home in order to not have to wait in line at the train station. I had sent the email to my host sister, which she had kindly printed off for me, so I thought everything was in order. In the States, you normally just receive an email which includes your tickets, right? You print off the email itself and that IS your ticket (you have to check in at the airport, but the train website told me I didn’t have to). I thus attempted to board the train with about 7 minutes left and asked a conductor if I could sit anywhere I wanted, as the seat space was not indicated on the form. “What is this!?” he asked me rudely. “I can’t do anything with this! This isn’t a ticket!” I explained to him that it was the online ticket, it was what had been sent to me, and I, as requested, had printed it off. “I can’t do anything with this!! You need to go to the ticket counter, but it will be too late. You’ll miss the train,” he told me. I was shocked. “But this is what they sent me,” I told him. “Well that’s not a ticket,” he said. Then, as I was afraid I would cry in front of him, I told him, “Sir, it is clear that I purchased the ticket. Could you not check to verify, and allow me to use this email which clearly states that I paid?” “No,” he replied, irritated. Then, as I was frantically trying to hold back tears, he chose to demonstrate his extensive English language capabilities and told me quite coherently, “Wiizzout teecket.” How helpful – he could tell me I didn’t have a ticket! I was extremely impressed.
As I was going to miss my train, I ran to the end of the platform and asked a woman who might be more helpful. She was very kind and sympathetic, and we tried to withdraw my ticket from a machine where you insert your credit card to verify your reservation; unfortunately, since I don’t have a French credit card – and so I don’t have the ‘pouce’ that is necessary – it didn’t work. She took me to speak with one of the conductors. I tried to tell her that I had already spoken to one, but she still went directly to the “wiizout teecket” man. He told her, angrily, “I have already spoken with this young girl!!” (young girl!??) “She knows she cannot get on!” The woman tried to speak with him, telling him that it was clear that I had a ticket. Then I said, “Monsieur-” and he looked at me and snarled, “I AM SPEAKING” - (like parents do to naughty children who interrupt.) I was so surprised and upset - since I was obviously going to miss my train - that I could tell that I was about to cry, so I thanked the woman who had been kind to me and walked away, wiping away tears out of anger and hurt (why would any man speak to someone else like that? Would he have spoken to me that way if I were a boy of my age?) I then waited in line at the ticket counter and, still embarrassedly wiping away tears, explained my situation to the woman behind the counter, who could do nothing to help me. I had to buy a new ticket, and I left late that afternoon with my friend Ali from another train station – which was fine, since we got to sit together and she bought me chocolate as consolation for my missed train.
In Bléré, I met Coline’s family, and it was really like I was staying with relatives – they were so kind to us, and even though they spoke good English (had both been Engilsh teachers), they spoke to us in French (which doesn’t always happen!). We had amazing meals, and dessert at each one (which is typical French but doesn’t always happen at my house, for sure!!). Friday night we all went together to a bar where we had ice cream (huge!) and delicious cocktails; Saturday day we visited Bléré, walked around the town, saw the stone bridge over the river where Coline used to hang out as a child, and visit the Clos Lucé (where Leonardo da Vinci lived just before his death), which was amazing. I bought a small present there that I can’t forget to give!! The Close Luce is kind of a popular spot for Da Vinci Code aficionados, also - so you may have heard of it. For dinner, we went back to the Roux’s and had the most delicious meal, including some type of apple tarte and ice cream. That night, we went to Coline’s friend’s house for a party he was having (he had previously lived in America and his family had some rather vulgar comics in their bathroom which I'm not really sure they understood). It was really fun to speak to French people, and we spoke about politics for a while – everywhere I go, I am surprised to find that people don’t harbor any hatred or dislike towards “Americans”, just towards “American policy” (think the letter that was opened at the UN today from the Iranian president) particularly George Bush (and unsurprisingly – has George Bush ever studied a foreign language…other than Spanish, which apparently he speaks poorly).
In fact, one girl at the party came up and grabbed both of my hands and said, “Laura, tell me – parties in America are so much better than this!” I told her no, they are the same. Then she said, “But you know, America is different! It is the dream for us, you know!” (C’est le rêve pour nous!!) I told her that Americans equally think that France is wonderful and even that everyone idealizes everyone else’s country, but that I did miss home and that I found a lot of thing to be great in the States but there were still lots of good things in France. She was insistent, though: “It really is the dream for us, you know. America is the place where things happen.”
Sunday, Ali and I took the train back in the morning, unfortunately missing the big Sunday brunch at the Roux's since we had to leave at noon. I’m hoping to maybe go back to the Roux’s for Easter though, because (fingers crossed) I should be in Luxembourg then. In fact, just after I got back, and the evening before I left for Italy, I received a huge packet of security clearance forms in the mail – which would take me days to complete, but that story is for next time. Also, if you didn’t know, I found out that I got an internship in Jan-Feb. at a research center for American scholars in Tunis, Tunisia – The Center of Maghrebi (North Africa) Studies in Tunis (Le Centre d’études maghrébines à Tunis). So I will hopefully be doing interesting things second semester!!
More on my security clearance form filling out and my Italy trip, coming soon…
Thursday, November 30, 2006
An update: Arabic class and Ireland
So, what else have I been up to lately?
Well, Arabic class has been very so-so. Last week, a few funny things happened; first, my professor kept correcting this older man who is kind of obnoxious – bangs his hand on the table and is kind of loud when he speaks in class – because he couldn’t pronounce the “th” sound. (Think of all the French people who say “zee” instead of “the” in English.) He just couldn’t do it!! And guess who can…. (thanks to English). The professor even had me demonstrate!
In another class, the professor went through homework we had handed in and invidually criticized everyone – he told me that my handwriting was bad and asked me if I had had a professor who knew how to write, hah. He’s a bit rude, or at least, very forward, though I feel like criticism in front of others in more acceptable in France; in fact, very young children are prepared to respond to criticism and consistently asked to verbally justify what they say/do. I have to say I was very surprised when this professor also suggested to an older man in my class (everyone is a working adult, not students) that he needed to move down a level to Intermediate I – in front of everyone else. It was particularly weird because he is just as bad as everyone else, and everyone in general is unspectacular because the method of the course is useless – it has no direction, just each time we read a story. The last story that we read was about a lucky rooster – I’m sure the vocabulary learned there will be very useful.
I need to update on a few things, so here we go:
First, IRELAND:
Was amazing. We took a really cheap flight to get there (RYANAIR, I recommend it to anyone flying within Europe): about 20 euros each way. We did however have to take a 13 euro bus to and from the Paris Beauvais airport (1.5 hours away), but oh well. As for the fear I had of bringing liquids onto the plane (I didn’t want to throw away my favorite face wash or my contacts), it was completely unnecessary; my friend brought on a can of pop and yogurt and my other friend a huge container of hair gel and makeup. Anyway, in Dublin we stayed about a 10-minute bus ride outside of the city center, and it was wonderful. We stayed in the AB & C bed and breakfast, owned by a man from Eastern Europe who was really nice and served a good breakfast. Our room was really nice and cheap (only about 30 euros a night per person!), and the first we went to a restaurant across the street to have a student special – hamburger or vegetable soup, and the vegetable soup proved to be the best I’ve ever tasted, and it came with really delicious thick brown bread. The first day, we did a lot of sightseeing right away, including visiting a castle that is currently used for official functions and which was beautiful on the inside. We followed a guide – after a curious incident buying tickets in which an older female employee collapsed laughing/making uncomfortable breathing sounds in the back room, causing the ticket boy to blush and say, ‘Excuse me JUST a moment….’, even though she insisted she was just fine to the line of 15 touristy people waiting curiously to buy tickets/see what all of the ‘excitement’ was about. The guide was wonderful, and she gave us a really good idea of Irish history through what she told us about particular decorations or portraits in the castle. We also visited the Town Hall where an exposition on plays in Dublin featured one which, no joke, while I was listening mentioned an Irish girl who had moved to CINCINNATI. I couldn’t believe it! I took a picture by it, but of course the picture is worthless because I am just standing next to a TV screen in town hall.
While walking around, we also stopped to get cafés au lait, mochas, etc., and we were pleasantly surprised to see that the Irish, as opposed to (some of) the French, understand that a 3 euro mocha needs to be in a cup larger than an espresso cup (that is why they are not called espressos, but mochas, lattes, etc.) The Irish in general were also really amiable, asking us about why we were there, etc Perhaps this is because Ireland is on their way up economically (while the French are debating the mandatory 35-hour work week law to keep as many people employed as possible) or because they spoke English (and so do we!), but in general the Irish seemed to be much more interested in us than the French… well…. ever have : p (this of course excludes random obscenities yelled at us which the young French men responsible probably did not understand…. or so we hope). Friday night for dinner we ate a Russian-esque (we believe this because the inside was painted in red and there seemed to be Stalinist slogans on the wall…) place which was the only place we could find that had the food we wanted… It was a good choice, though, because my friend Alex (who is usually responsible for this) asked the guys sitting next to us if the tip was included (and this was honestly a question, because in France the tip is included 99% of the time, anywhere you go – taxis included), and then they just wouldn’t stop talking to us. We hung out with these guys for the rest of the night, and ended up going to another local bar which had a lot of people of all ages in what used to be an old church. It was really lively, with people dancing and hanging out, some eating dinner, etc. I talked to this guy who was 24 and told me that he had just bought a BMW for himself and a new car for his mother, since he had been working as an investment banker in Dublin for about a year and a half. Unfortunately, he was a little incoherent at the end so I couldn’t quite understand what he was talking about - the Irish really do love to drink - despite the fact that he was talking VERY loudly. Alex, Sara, Ali, and I ended up having to leave to catch a taxi back to the B&B, which, like on Halloween night here in Paris (which yes, I did celebrate) proved much more difficult than you might imagine. (You’d think we were asking them to drive us for free – that’s how difficult it was to find anyone willing to take us home -- which is why Halloween night, I trudged across Paris for 1.5 hours in the cold AND in my Halloween costume after a Sciences-Po dance/costume party next to the Louvre).
On Saturday, we got up and had a delicious “Irish breakfast” at our B&B, which included poached eggs, bacon, sausage, etc., and beans, along with lots of coffee. After much debate, a man working at the train station recommended to us that we take one of the trains to a small ocean-side town since we wanted to see a bit of the countryside. He had recently been to Ohio, as he had family there, so he asked me lots of questions; apparently (and this is really nice), he and his family came to surprise his sister (who lives in Ohio) on her birthday. They got a little lost, however, and so asked a police officer directions to the restaurant where they were meeting her – and the police officers just offered to drive them. The small town was really ocean-side, and it took only about 45 minutes to get there. When we arrived, we got fish and chips (delicious!!) and sat on a large rock walkway next to the water and tried to eat – it was so windy that we eventually gave up and moved to sit behind the wall, looking into the harbor. Then we took a long walk around the town, climbing up to a lighthouse-like structure, onto cliffs, etc, etc. We took lots of beautiful pictures, including one in tall grass with distant mountains and the ocean outlines behind us.
That night, we went back to our b&b, showered, and packed (since we were leaving early the next morning). We finally went to a small restaurant downtown and had some soup (some vegetable and some Irish stew, which tastes exactly like beef stew and is delicious!!). Then we were walking around trying to figure out what to do…we were planning to just stay up all night since our flight was so early – we had to leave at 5 AM – that it practically wasn’t worth going to bed. We were so lucky in that, after walking around the streets for ages, we finally found a dance club that was letting women in for free. We were scared of being rejected (people are rejected so often, it’s unbelievable… I can’t imagine having a job where you are obligated to choose which people to turn away..), so we prepared our most self-confident faces and filed in two-by-two… and it was fine (whew!). The club was amazing – we really were so lucky – the music was great (hip-hop, old 80s/90s songs that everyone loves, and even contemporary pop/punk songs like “he was a skater boy…”) and we didn’t buy a thing (not even a drink!!) and had the best time. We finally went back to our b&b around 3 AM and got up at 5 to get to the airport.
Unfortunately, I fell asleep on the airplane back and my Ipod must have slipped out of my hands. In any case, when I woke up when we landed, the guys sitting in back of me looked at me weirdly for too long and then left, and then when I got off I realized I didn’t have my ipod anymore… so it was most likely stolen. I spent the rest of that day calling the airport and Rayanair (which we flied) to see if anyone had found it. To this day, I’ve still called to check, and it still hasn’t appeared. That was the one downside of the trip – in addition to the fact that, when we got back, Sara and I had lunch together in a park near La Defense, which included a man yelling at me (as I left the grocery and didn’t give the children collecting for the blind) something like, “You don’t give a shit about blind people do you, lady!??” and then a schizophrenic man cornering Sara and I in the park, telling us about his children and his American friends and then, as we walked away, trying to hug us (“No, No Monsieur!” we yelled, walking quickly away. “We have an appointment, now! We’re in a hurry!”)
That is the end of our Ireland trip. Coming soon: trip to Italy, stay in a luxury hotel; trip to London, being tricked by a ‘booker’; and general life in Paris.
PS – My food situation has not improved but I did have Thanksgiving dinner in the Eiffel tower and my host father was recently featured in Elle magazine and tons of French magazines we’ve never heard of Plus my host sister got the best grade in her class on an English paper I helped her with, so all in all my situation is not too bad. : p
(I can’t wait to come home for Xmas food though!!!!!!!!!)
Well, Arabic class has been very so-so. Last week, a few funny things happened; first, my professor kept correcting this older man who is kind of obnoxious – bangs his hand on the table and is kind of loud when he speaks in class – because he couldn’t pronounce the “th” sound. (Think of all the French people who say “zee” instead of “the” in English.) He just couldn’t do it!! And guess who can…. (thanks to English). The professor even had me demonstrate!
In another class, the professor went through homework we had handed in and invidually criticized everyone – he told me that my handwriting was bad and asked me if I had had a professor who knew how to write, hah. He’s a bit rude, or at least, very forward, though I feel like criticism in front of others in more acceptable in France; in fact, very young children are prepared to respond to criticism and consistently asked to verbally justify what they say/do. I have to say I was very surprised when this professor also suggested to an older man in my class (everyone is a working adult, not students) that he needed to move down a level to Intermediate I – in front of everyone else. It was particularly weird because he is just as bad as everyone else, and everyone in general is unspectacular because the method of the course is useless – it has no direction, just each time we read a story. The last story that we read was about a lucky rooster – I’m sure the vocabulary learned there will be very useful.
I need to update on a few things, so here we go:
First, IRELAND:
Was amazing. We took a really cheap flight to get there (RYANAIR, I recommend it to anyone flying within Europe): about 20 euros each way. We did however have to take a 13 euro bus to and from the Paris Beauvais airport (1.5 hours away), but oh well. As for the fear I had of bringing liquids onto the plane (I didn’t want to throw away my favorite face wash or my contacts), it was completely unnecessary; my friend brought on a can of pop and yogurt and my other friend a huge container of hair gel and makeup. Anyway, in Dublin we stayed about a 10-minute bus ride outside of the city center, and it was wonderful. We stayed in the AB & C bed and breakfast, owned by a man from Eastern Europe who was really nice and served a good breakfast. Our room was really nice and cheap (only about 30 euros a night per person!), and the first we went to a restaurant across the street to have a student special – hamburger or vegetable soup, and the vegetable soup proved to be the best I’ve ever tasted, and it came with really delicious thick brown bread. The first day, we did a lot of sightseeing right away, including visiting a castle that is currently used for official functions and which was beautiful on the inside. We followed a guide – after a curious incident buying tickets in which an older female employee collapsed laughing/making uncomfortable breathing sounds in the back room, causing the ticket boy to blush and say, ‘Excuse me JUST a moment….’, even though she insisted she was just fine to the line of 15 touristy people waiting curiously to buy tickets/see what all of the ‘excitement’ was about. The guide was wonderful, and she gave us a really good idea of Irish history through what she told us about particular decorations or portraits in the castle. We also visited the Town Hall where an exposition on plays in Dublin featured one which, no joke, while I was listening mentioned an Irish girl who had moved to CINCINNATI. I couldn’t believe it! I took a picture by it, but of course the picture is worthless because I am just standing next to a TV screen in town hall.
While walking around, we also stopped to get cafés au lait, mochas, etc., and we were pleasantly surprised to see that the Irish, as opposed to (some of) the French, understand that a 3 euro mocha needs to be in a cup larger than an espresso cup (that is why they are not called espressos, but mochas, lattes, etc.) The Irish in general were also really amiable, asking us about why we were there, etc Perhaps this is because Ireland is on their way up economically (while the French are debating the mandatory 35-hour work week law to keep as many people employed as possible) or because they spoke English (and so do we!), but in general the Irish seemed to be much more interested in us than the French… well…. ever have : p (this of course excludes random obscenities yelled at us which the young French men responsible probably did not understand…. or so we hope). Friday night for dinner we ate a Russian-esque (we believe this because the inside was painted in red and there seemed to be Stalinist slogans on the wall…) place which was the only place we could find that had the food we wanted… It was a good choice, though, because my friend Alex (who is usually responsible for this) asked the guys sitting next to us if the tip was included (and this was honestly a question, because in France the tip is included 99% of the time, anywhere you go – taxis included), and then they just wouldn’t stop talking to us. We hung out with these guys for the rest of the night, and ended up going to another local bar which had a lot of people of all ages in what used to be an old church. It was really lively, with people dancing and hanging out, some eating dinner, etc. I talked to this guy who was 24 and told me that he had just bought a BMW for himself and a new car for his mother, since he had been working as an investment banker in Dublin for about a year and a half. Unfortunately, he was a little incoherent at the end so I couldn’t quite understand what he was talking about - the Irish really do love to drink - despite the fact that he was talking VERY loudly. Alex, Sara, Ali, and I ended up having to leave to catch a taxi back to the B&B, which, like on Halloween night here in Paris (which yes, I did celebrate) proved much more difficult than you might imagine. (You’d think we were asking them to drive us for free – that’s how difficult it was to find anyone willing to take us home -- which is why Halloween night, I trudged across Paris for 1.5 hours in the cold AND in my Halloween costume after a Sciences-Po dance/costume party next to the Louvre).
On Saturday, we got up and had a delicious “Irish breakfast” at our B&B, which included poached eggs, bacon, sausage, etc., and beans, along with lots of coffee. After much debate, a man working at the train station recommended to us that we take one of the trains to a small ocean-side town since we wanted to see a bit of the countryside. He had recently been to Ohio, as he had family there, so he asked me lots of questions; apparently (and this is really nice), he and his family came to surprise his sister (who lives in Ohio) on her birthday. They got a little lost, however, and so asked a police officer directions to the restaurant where they were meeting her – and the police officers just offered to drive them. The small town was really ocean-side, and it took only about 45 minutes to get there. When we arrived, we got fish and chips (delicious!!) and sat on a large rock walkway next to the water and tried to eat – it was so windy that we eventually gave up and moved to sit behind the wall, looking into the harbor. Then we took a long walk around the town, climbing up to a lighthouse-like structure, onto cliffs, etc, etc. We took lots of beautiful pictures, including one in tall grass with distant mountains and the ocean outlines behind us.
That night, we went back to our b&b, showered, and packed (since we were leaving early the next morning). We finally went to a small restaurant downtown and had some soup (some vegetable and some Irish stew, which tastes exactly like beef stew and is delicious!!). Then we were walking around trying to figure out what to do…we were planning to just stay up all night since our flight was so early – we had to leave at 5 AM – that it practically wasn’t worth going to bed. We were so lucky in that, after walking around the streets for ages, we finally found a dance club that was letting women in for free. We were scared of being rejected (people are rejected so often, it’s unbelievable… I can’t imagine having a job where you are obligated to choose which people to turn away..), so we prepared our most self-confident faces and filed in two-by-two… and it was fine (whew!). The club was amazing – we really were so lucky – the music was great (hip-hop, old 80s/90s songs that everyone loves, and even contemporary pop/punk songs like “he was a skater boy…”) and we didn’t buy a thing (not even a drink!!) and had the best time. We finally went back to our b&b around 3 AM and got up at 5 to get to the airport.
Unfortunately, I fell asleep on the airplane back and my Ipod must have slipped out of my hands. In any case, when I woke up when we landed, the guys sitting in back of me looked at me weirdly for too long and then left, and then when I got off I realized I didn’t have my ipod anymore… so it was most likely stolen. I spent the rest of that day calling the airport and Rayanair (which we flied) to see if anyone had found it. To this day, I’ve still called to check, and it still hasn’t appeared. That was the one downside of the trip – in addition to the fact that, when we got back, Sara and I had lunch together in a park near La Defense, which included a man yelling at me (as I left the grocery and didn’t give the children collecting for the blind) something like, “You don’t give a shit about blind people do you, lady!??” and then a schizophrenic man cornering Sara and I in the park, telling us about his children and his American friends and then, as we walked away, trying to hug us (“No, No Monsieur!” we yelled, walking quickly away. “We have an appointment, now! We’re in a hurry!”)
That is the end of our Ireland trip. Coming soon: trip to Italy, stay in a luxury hotel; trip to London, being tricked by a ‘booker’; and general life in Paris.
PS – My food situation has not improved but I did have Thanksgiving dinner in the Eiffel tower and my host father was recently featured in Elle magazine and tons of French magazines we’ve never heard of Plus my host sister got the best grade in her class on an English paper I helped her with, so all in all my situation is not too bad. : p
(I can’t wait to come home for Xmas food though!!!!!!!!!)
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