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!!!!!!!!!)