A Few Minor Differences, but the Spice Girls Say It All

This past week has been chock-full of cultural experiences for me. Of course, if I wasn't in a French Cultural studies class, I would be far less aware of their cultural significance and much more aware of the fun I'm having during them. Regardless, the culture here is incredibly different, and it's actually government-regulated--there are laws that enforce French TV shows, the government produces French films, and 40% of all music that is played on the radio must be French. They're serious about not being overtaken by the dominating American/English culture, which I totally admire. The hardest battle is to be yourself in a world that is trying is hardest to turn you into everyone else!

On Wednesday I met my new conversation partner, A, and her boyfriend, other A. I had sent her an email introducing myself and asking for her help in learning French. She responded with her phone number and "je serai ravie de t'aider pour ton français"--basically, I would absolutely love to. She invited me to a "soirée" that night at the Fac (Faculté des Lettres=School of Humanities). I brought a friend with me, for moral support as well as physical (:P), and we ended up in a giant courtyard full of drunk freshmen. Apparently, other A is an "RA" of sorts and this was their "freshman hazing...." It was really calm comparatively; just a lot of camera flashes in the dark, some free beer, and games like "Spin Around Really Fast 10 Times, Then Run to One Corner of the Courtyard and Take a Shot Without Falling" and "Who Can Eat the Yogurt the Fastest Without Using Their Hands?" We had a fantastic time and ended up meeting a ton of French people, most of whom were really excited to meet Americans. It never fails to surprise me--we're met with either contempt or absolute adoration wherever we go, and contrary to most stereotypes, it's usually the latter!

After the soirée we trekked over to the Hoegaarden for karaoke again--every Wednesday, baby! We had missed the most entertaining part of the evening and the night was pretty much winding down, but we still had a great time! The French are pretty serious about their karaoke, which I love--people who can actually sing come to karaoke to actually sing, instead of just drunk friends getting up and doing invariably godawful renditions of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." The best part about the latter, though is that they're drunk, so they sing badly, and they're French, so they speak English with an impossible-to-ignore accent, so it's still a lot of fun :) Granted, it's fun at their expense, but they don't seem to mind!

On Thursday night (yes, I went out four nights in one week--I'm in France, therefore, I am entitled :) ) a few of my friends met our new French amies for "les apéros," or after-dinner drinks and whatnot. We walked to C's apartment and I absolutely fell in love with it--it's just a one-room thing, tiny by all definitions, but she'd crammed about a dozen people into it! They were sitting on the bed, the floor, the couch, some even had to stand. She's into theatre, so there were fun posters and photos all over the place...including a life-size printout of Chad Michael Murray :) 

Apparently one of C's traditions is that, at every party she has, ever, she makes pancakes! So we got some good ole American pancakes (I told her that we put bananas in ours and one of my American friends contested me, saying that only Jack Johnson does that. No, Jackie Jay, I'm fairly certain you stole that idea from my MOM!) We ate them with Nutella (heaven) and spent the rest of the night imbibing, drawing body parts on the etch-a-sketch, dancing to Spice Girls, lip-synching to Shania Twain, and swapping cuss words. Some things never change :) 

On Friday (another very early morning following another very late night!) we went to the collège (read: junior high) where my friend's host mum works. It was about a half an hour outside of Pau, near Soumoulou, and the drive there was gorgeous--as we got closer, the Pyrenees got clearer and clearer and we could see tiny mountain towns nestled in the crevices between peaks. It was absolutely gorgeous! The school was tiny--it's a private Catholic school, but despite the marriage between church and state, there was very little religious influence in the school itself, just the occasional crucifix in the teacher's lounge. I think school was more designed for a different curriculum, not necessarily a religious one. 

Regardless, it was the Jour Des Langues Étrangères d'Europe, or the European Day of Foreign Languages, so we came into their classes and spoke in slow, measured English about our lives back home, our schools, our favorite music and movies, our families, our cars, our customs, our culture, etc. It was a great experience :) They begged us to teach them how to line dance; they admired our perfect pronunciation of all the English phrases they get wrong (like "this or that, which is which?" It always comes out, "zis or zat, weesh ees weesh?"); and at the end they asked us for our autographs. So cute :) We ate lunch with the professors (quiche, cake, and red wine) and spent gym period with the students out on the lawn speaking "franglais," or Frenglish. There was also a Venezuelan girl who came for the Day of Foreign Languages and taught a salsa dance class in Spanish, which was a ton of fun! I was shocked at how much Spanish I understood, how few boys danced, and how badly the room smelled when all the French girls took off their flats. Some things never change :) 

Craziness

I thought it would be in order to spell out in gritty detail for you some of the ridiculous situations that have befallen  me. If you know me at all, you know that a lot of things happen to me that could only happen to me--"cela n'arrive qu'à moi!" Mostly, this post is for a friend to send to his dad--he gets a real kick out of seeing me deal with what comes my way and thought his dad would, too, so here goes :) I'll try to start from the beginning.

At La Défense in Paris, my three girlfriends and I were approached by an old gentleman with an umbrella. His first phrase to us in French contained the word underwear, and he called himself Rumplestilskin. He led us around the New City for three hours, explaining the history and backdrops for every modern- and fine-art exhibit there in le Musée de Plein Ciel (the open-sky museum). At the end of the day, he tipped his umbrella to us and calmly exited our lives via escalator--we still had no idea if he was a real Parisian, what he did for a living, why he targeted us for his whirlwind and fascinating tour, if he expected payment or anything. Bizarre. 

On my way to the gym one day with a friend we saw a little boy (about 10) and his older friends chasing a rabbit in a field with sticks. As we got closer, they chased the rabbit straight into traffic, and it got hit broadside by a van. I have never seen anything die, much less in traffic with little boys and sticks and tufts of fur everywhere. I kept walking, shocked, and when I came back in half an hour the little boy had pushed the rabbit onto a piece of fluorescent yellow posterboard that had been stapled to a telephone pole. He came up to me, begging "Excusez-moi, s'il vous plaît, avez-vous quelque chose pour mon lapin reallyfastFrench." I thought he was asking for money to, I dunno, bury "his" rabbit, so we told him we watched him chase it into traffic, and he looked slightly deflated. Turns out he really just wanted us to get our hands dirty pushing this dead rabbit onto the posterboard for him. Bizarre. 

In a taxi on the way home from my cooking class downtown one night I got sexually harassed by an old man. There were four of us in the taxi, so I had to sit up front. I live really close to downtown, so it would have made far more sense for him to take me home first, but he dropped the others at the université, then drove around in circles for awhile, racked the cost up to 30euro, and when I told him I didn't have that kind of money, he stopped the taxi, put his hand on my knee and told me I could pay in other ways. He kept begging me for a kiss, but I got out, slammed the door, and walked the rest of the way home. That was the night my key wouldn't unlock the door (apparently, you have to turn and push, but the push has to be one fluid movement, so if you let up at all, you have to start over :\ ) That was the night I slept in the garage. The next day, though, I wrote a letter to the taxi company and he has since been fired. Bizarre. 

The following week I was at karaoke with some friends of mine. One of my friends knocked over a beer and a vodka tonic, spilling it all over my skirt. I wasn't too hung up about it, it would dry, but the old man sitting in front of me thought it was his duty to hold up my skirt and mop my upper thigh with his hand. Bizarre. 

Before leaving for San Sebastián I spent the night in a friend's dorm room so that my commute to campus would be drastically shorter and, thus, I could sleep a little longer. She left in the wee hours of the morning to Skype with her boyfriend and left me there to sleep, but she took the key--normally not a big deal. However, the dorm rooms lock both from the inside and from the outside, and there is no deadbolt--just a keyhole. I was, by all accounts, locked IN a room. I finally got out half an hour later and they hadn't left for Spain without me--had they, it would have been the longest weekend of my life. Bizarre. 

In San Sebastián, on the way back home from an open mic night at an underground bar I played at, I encountered a really drunk old man who berated me for not wearing shoes. I pretended I only spoke French, and started lecturing him about how none of the French wear shoes. He got really flustered, especially after trying to pronounce "chaussures" and invited me back to his apartment, but I just walked briskly, shoeless, in the other direction. Bizarre. 

Shockingly enough, I think that's all. I'll be posting more as they happen to me. Sean, I hope your dad enjoys this dedication :) 

Cultural Differences, Things I've Noticed, and a Marriage Proposal

So I'm sitting at the Faculté des Lettres, surrounded by French speakers, trying to figure out how to work the American keyboard again--all the keys are in different spots, and I've gotten so used to my host family's computer that I can't figure this one out!

Last week we had a really awkward "blind date" with a bunch of French students. USAC set it up, and we showed up, and they showed up, and there were snacks and nervous mingling...but we all walked away with phone numbers and email addresses and new friends :) I met two English majors, Flavie and Charlotte, who invited me and a couple of my friends to their apartment for "les apéros," or drinks, games, music, and friends, tomorrow night. I think it will be really beneficial to hang out with French teenagers, especially those who speak English, so we can learn French and learn exactly what the different slang terms mean. I just read an article for my Cultural Studies class, though, that says that French slang is not a social or class identifier like it is in the US, but more of a language of familiarity: Sarkozy uses slang when he talks in intimate settings, as do petty criminals and my host mum. It's a strange concept, that slang is for everyone, but it also helps to keep foreigners out--the obsession the French have with protecting their culture extends to their language, too, and thus, learning all the French slang that's out there is absolutely impossible! That doesn't mean I've stopped trying, though :) I've even started writing in my diary in French--it helps incredibly.

Last Wednesday we went to karaoke--what a fun time :) It didn't start until 11 (after the football game, of course!) but when it did get started, it was incredible! There were some serious singers there, people who got up time and time again to sing songs in French and in English. It was a great way to meet more French people--that's like our mantra for every day. "Today I will meet French people!"

My friend's host mum gave me a bike to ride, so it's been taking me only 15 minutes to get to school instead of almost 45. That means I can sleep later! Haha :) I still haven't mastered the roundabout on bike--I always get off and push it across the crosswalks--but I'm getting used to riding my bike in traffic. On bigger roads, there's even a bike lane! I've seen some postcards parodying the French denotation of road lanes--there's one for cars, one for bikes, one for handicapped people who wheel themselves, one for handicapped people who are pushed by other people, one for walkers, one for pregnant women, and one for porcupines on leashes. It's pretty clever, but it's a great system: and it's nice knowing that cars are aware of your presence!

A couple days ago I received an email from one of our exchange students that we've kept in touch with. She emailed me train times, prices, and hostels where we can stay in the town that's directly between my school and hers. It was so great hearing from her, and the town we're visiting is right on the beach. I'm so glad that she went to all that effort just to see me again--the French are so intent on keeping friendships alive. I'm finally getting used to giving "bisous," cheek-kisses, so I'll be able to greet her properly :)

I'm about to go eat lunch (though it's only 5 in the morning back home--what can I say, I'm an early bird!) Our cafeteria is called "La Vague" (the wave) because it's got a cascading metal roof that does look just like a giant metallic wave. Lunch every day is only 2E85 and you can get a meat and two veggies, a salad, or a burger (bunless, as is the French norm :P) and fries. There's also a briocherie off to the side where you can buy sandwiches of all kinds, quiches, and even baguettes smothered in Nutella [drool]. I would marry Nutella if it weren't an inanimate object that I would rather consume. Oh, Nutella. <3

I hope that all is well in the states and that no one's bank has collapsed or house has been foreclosed--now is a great time to be out of the country, but in three months, it's going to be a terrible time to come back in! I just hope that the dollar stays relatively steady against the Euro....a student's budget is nothing in the States, and it's 0.68-nothing in Europe. Here's to hoping I'm not too broke to make it back! 

A September weekend at the beach? Really?!

So I went to Spain this weekend :) the trip started off very strangely--I spent the night in the dorms with a friend so that I could be closer to campus and not have to wake up so early or walk so far. I slept on the floor (it was freezing and made of concrete) and she left at 630 in the morning to go to campus and chat on the internet with her boyfriend, She just left me in the room so I could sleep for a little longer since we didn't have to meet at the school until 830. Except, she forgot that the door has to be unlocked with a key, even from the inside, and she didn't leave the key with me!! I gave her about 20 minutes, then 10 minutes until we were supposed to leave I called the program director and told him I was locked in a room and that, if he saw Allison, to tell her to come let me out! Finally she did (she had totally forgotten about me) and I made it to the bus only about 20 minutes late. It's a good thing I called Ryan, though, because otherwise they would have left without me and I would have been stuck in that room all weekend! :P Great way to start off a trip...

Our first stop on the way to San Sebastiàn was Bayonne. It's a cute little town at the delta of two rivers, and we toured the Roman ruins (of course I opted for the tour guided in French--every little bit helps :) ) including an ancient cave that is hidden below a parking garage! It felt like somewhere you could easily get murdered--but no one did, so I suppose that's good :) The day started out overcast but it ended up being a really nice day, so all our pictures of the really interesting cathedral had pretty blue skies in the background. I thought the cathedral was so interesting because the first 3/4 of it were built in the 14th-or-so century, and the rest of it not finished until the end of the 16th. Thus, it's composed of wo completely different styles of architecture and made from two different types of stone, making it two different colors. Pretty cool :)

We had lunch at the tiny Victor Hugo Café and then wandered around the town; it's famous for its chocolate, especially a frothy drink that's just melted chocolate in a cup, so of course we went in search of the chocolateries! We found one, Atelier de Chocolat, which sold 'bouquets' of chocolate. They had all different kinds--hazelnut, coconut, canded orange, even chocolate with pepper in it (another famous product from Bayonne)! Of course I bought some :)

After Bayonne we made our way south to San Sebastiàn in Spain. The day was perfect--blue, cloudless, and warm. Our hotel was right down the street from the beach, so after our much-needed siesta, we dropped our things and headed straight for the ocean. We toured through the Old City, caught sight of the oldest apartments in the city (from the days when the church was first built in the 13th or 14th century), and scouted out tapas restaurants. The whole standin-to-eat, trusting-to-pay, grab-your-own-everything concept was a little foreign to us, but we ended up mastering it and getting some kickass tapas. We found a paella restaurant, too, and I was SO ready for some black rice paella (rice and seafood cooked in rice flavored with squid ink), but I was the only hungry one (and no one was really keen on the squid ink) so instead we looked for some entertainment. We found what we were looking for in the basement of a bar called the Leize Gorria (the 'a' at the end of 'Gorria' is actually an anarchy star, if that tells you anything about the rebellious, underground feel of this pub). They were having an open mic night, so of course I Jumped up on stage, and everyone loved it because my friends had never heard me sing or platy guitar, and the locals had never heard anyone perform an American song in fluent English! We jammed for a couple hours, well past midnight, and headed home.

The next day we left after breakfast at the hotel to go to the Aquarium across the bay. It had a hands-on tank with a giant octopus in it, and a glass tunnel where sharks swam right over you! Plus, everything was in Spanish and the Basque language, which is a strange mélange of X's, T's, and Z's...I can't make any sense of it. We spent the rest of the day lounging on the beach. It was perfect--the water was just cold enough to wake us up, and we swam out to the edge of the swimming area to a platform with diving boards and slides.

We ate a late-for-us-early-for-theSpanish (they usually eat lunch around 2) at a fun little bayside outdoor café, then left San Sebastiàn in midafternoon to head to St. Jean de Luz. It, too, was a beachside town, but it was far smaller, and our very first impression of it was a giant streetside market with cheese, sausage, homemade wine and beer, fish, jams, meats, honey, bread-- basically every organic and delicious thing you could every imagine at this sprawling seaside market. It was great :) We bought ice cream (a staple for beaching) and found a spot on the sand and spent the whoel day people watching. Just around the time we were going to leave, a squadron of fighter jets whipped across the sky with big wakes of red, white, and blue powder, presumably for tomorrow's nation-wide Journée de Patrimoine, which celebrates France's historical legacy. They did acrobatics for a good while, and then it was time to get back on the bus. All in all, a great adventure in Spain. If you'd like to see the pictures I've posted on facebook, follow this link. You can also see all my photos of the city of Pau by following this one. Enjoy!!

à Pau, enfin...

Our Paris trip ended with visits to three separate castles, which were absolutely incredible. The drive to Pau from Azay-le-Rideau, a whopping 9 hours, was a great time to recup...except I was so ecited that I just spent the whole time journaling instead :) When we finally arrived at the dorms at l'Universtié de Pau, all our host parents were waiting for us. My host mum H came to pick me up and then took me to the store with her so we could buy yogurt for a yogurt cake. Mmmmmm, yogurt cake :) I got settled into my new room after she gave me a tour, and she started cooking dinner. We ate outside because the day was gorgeous--probably 72˚--and we had bread and foie gras, avocadoes with balsamic vinegar, Spanish sausages, and a pork loin sautéed with bacon and sundried tomatoes. It was pretty spectacular. 

The next day we started orientation. H drove me to school, dropped me off, and told me I'd have to find my way home--probably a good thing since that'll be my most trusted form of transportation. Orientation started, we met the students who didn't go to Paris with us, we ate in the cafeteria in a big conglomerate of Americanism, and then we toured Pau. We took the bus--one of only a few public bus experiences I've had--into downtown, which is really close to my host family's house. The town is so cute--it's really old, with cobbled streets and boulangeries and patisseries everywhere. There is a château that was built in 1450! And you can see the Pyrenees Mountains from downtown. There are palm trees everywhere, and the weather is really balmy and beautiful. I'm so thrilled to be here :) 

I live with H and her two children (a third lives in the Alps) in a darling Spanish-tiled house (you know how I love Spanish tiles!) near downtown Pau. She's an interior decorator, so they house is gorgeous and charming. The weather is beautiful, the mountains and Spain and the beach are so near--it's Utopia! The language barrier, too, hasn't been too much of a barrier--more of a suggestion of difficulty. I'm having the time of my life :) 

Our elective classes started today. I'm taking French Culture, which sounds like it's going to be a really non-traditional discussion/argument class. I'm pretty thrilled about it. Then, in October we'll have our language placement exams and we'll begin our intensive French classes (past students have called them "French boot camp") and our electives will only take place once a week. The schedule takes a bit of getting used to (as does the bus system :|), but I know I'll learn to love it here.

aujourd'hui, je suis à Paris...

Aujourd'hui je suis à Paris! We arrived at charles de Gaulle airport at 7 a.m.--midnight home time. Even though we were jet-lagged like you wouldn't believe, we decided to stay awake for the whole French day, then go to bed when we would normally go to bed to minimize our vertigo. Aftger checking into our hotel, we went on a short walking tour of the Latin Quarter, Jardin du Luxembourg, Boulevard St. Michel, and La Sorbonne. Though the day started out rainy, it cleared up by the time we started the tour, making for some great pictures :) In the Jardin du Luxembourg, we saw the original Statue of Liberty, which was recast, cut into 54 pieces, and sent to America as a condolence for the oppressive British government. See, the French are nice people! 

Right across the street from us is a pedestrian street, Rue Daguerre, where we ate lunch the first day. I shared some fresh paella with a girl from UNLV, and for dinner we ate at Café Daguerre and shared a bottle of wine. The second day we visited (deep breath) Notre-Dame, its Roman ruins, Ste. Chapelle, Pont Neuf, l'Opéra Garnier, Champs Elysées, Place Vendôme, Place de la Concorde, l'Arce de Triomphe, and La Défense. Phew. At our very first métro stop I ran into my friend Tarik from the last time I was in Paris! Luckily he had nothing but work planned for the day, so he went to all the museums with us and helped us out with our French all day. 

On the third day we visited la Tour Eiffel (though it was rainy, so our view from the top was just grey), Les Inval

ides (Napoleon's tomb), Musée Rodin (at which my camera battery died), and Tour Montparnasse (Tarik's idea--it has the best 360˚ view in Paris!) We also rode on a Bâteau-Mouche, a typical tourist-y thing to do, but by that time (again!) the rain had dried up and the sun came out, and we got to watch the sunset over the Seine behind Notre-Dame. It was pretty incredible. We took the Métro to Montmartre at night to see the city lit up from afar, which was awesome, but all our camera batteries had died! We did, however, get to see the Eiffel Tower light up, which is always great, and at every hour it glitters for 10 minutes! Also, since French is the temporary president of the EU, they've redone the tower to light up in blue lights only and have rigged a circle of yellow stars on it to represent the EU flag. It was absolutely breathtaking. 

Today, we went to la Bastille (well, what's left of it), le Quartier du Marais, Victor Hugo's house, Places des Vosges, the Jewish quarter, the Catacombs (which I've wanted to see for years! They were even more awesome than I expected, and far more heartbreaking), and then we took the Métro into the heart of Paris to explore. Tonight we're going out for a group dinner--one last HURRAH! before we leave for Versailles. After that, I'll be at school! Classes don't start until the 11th, though, which gives me plenty of time to adjust to my new family. I'm having a great time, and I'm really really excited about the rest of the semester! Bon soir, et à bientôt! 

T-minus 5....4....3....

This is a little something I found from my last trip to Paris. I thought I'd post it (disregard the narration to my sister) partly to get myself psyched about BEING IN PARIS TOMORROW and partly to share with all of you the spectacular electricity of the City of Lights! I don't have a video camera like I did last time, too, so this will be the only video I can dredge up from France. No worries, though, the photo slideshows will be more than enough :)

A couple of nights ago I was a flurry of arms and clothes and power cords because I was actually in the mood to pack--you know that doesn't come around often, so of course you drop what you're doing and indulge it! I was so harried, though, that at one point I actually wondered, "Why am I putting all this stuff in a bag? ..........OH! I'm moving to France!" Talk about a brain fart :P I took that as a sign to go to bed and resume packing in the morning--it takes the fun out of it if you don't remember why you're doing it :) 

Today I got everything squared away--packing, last minute purchases, absentee ballot notifications (just because I'm a temporary expatriate doesn't mean I'm not going to exercise my suffrage!), etc. I'm now perched on the edge of my bed, passport in hand, counting. 

T-minus 20 hours until showtime :)