I've made it through an actual full week of all classes. This means that the history department is in gear, I've dropped the class on Palestine fully, and I signed a paper with Julie, our academic dean/registrar.
I dropped the class on Les Miserables mostly because I don't want to read a book that heavy and I also don't want to start it in the middle (the class starts in the fourth "book" of the first "part"). Also, Danielle doesn't want me to be sad for the whole semester, and if there's a class that's going to make me sad, it's going to be the one where I'll be studying wholly the Fantine bits of Les Miserables. I'm sticking with the ballet classes at the university because it's a ballet class where the teacher gives me good corrections and I ultimately paid 15€ for the whole semester--for a weekly ballet class, that's not half bad. This past Monday I also managed to find the class on Arabic Civilization, which promises to delve into colonization, fights over oil, and a little bit on Israel's presence in the area; so, business as usual. I'm happy that I'll get to have my Palestine class after all, essentially, and the syllabus sounds incredibly interesting.
Tuesday, I spent a while searching for a class on the Ostrogoths before giving up and having a café créme. As far as I can tell, that's a café au lait but with steamed milk? I just googled that and apparently it's different based on where you are in France (and completely different if you're in Switzerland). After sipping that, I did manage to find the course on medieval art history, which is also interesting because it's not just art; it's also the influence of the Church on culture and life at the time, which is always fascinating to me. Later in the afternoon, I had the second session of theatre class, which started with a massage (always good), required me to be poked in the ribs (not good), and also provided me with a chance to use some Russian vocabulary (unexpected). Tuesday finished with the conversation club, a meeting of IES students and local university students. In my group, I met a geography masters student who was at La Pérverie at the same time as I was during high school. We spoke French for 45 minutes and then switched to English, which was definitely a case of linguistic whiplash and was also a little surreal because I hadn't really heard the other IES students speak English.
Wednesday morning I got to the 8:30am politics class early and then spent three hours learning the exact dates of when countries submitted their proposals of candidacy to be part of the EU to the EU and the exact dates of when the EU acknowledged the proposals of candidacy and the exact dates of when negotiations were opened and then when treaties were signed and when the treaties were ratified, and then of course when the countries became part of the EU. It was a long class. In the afternoon, I accompanied Danielle to her daughter's house and talked with Victoire, a friend of Danielle's granddaughter who was at the conservatory and, to the best of my knowledge, seems to have professional aspirations for ballet (and the skill level to get there, definitely). Victoire then took me to La Péverie to talk with the ballet teacher there, where he told me that my form and placement were not great, but that he could fix that. I find this terribly exciting: I am not sure exactly what attitude French ballet teachers have; I think it must be somewhere between Russians and Americans, but I need someone who's going to whip me into shape here.
On Thursday I made it to two history classes, one on Sub-Saharan Africa and one on Latin America. I'm mostly especially excited for Latin America because I have literally never studied that area and I didn't have any intention to, and so that should be good. I'm also a little apprehensive about the course because the professor was ten minutes late and then dismissed us an hour early. We'll see how that goes.
And today I had no classes. Sydney texted me, asking if I wanted to grab lunch, and so I did. Lunch then turned into checking the FNAC for USB chargers, which turned into browsing CDs at the FNAC, which turned into searching Monoprix for a thermos and cooing over tiny espresso mugs, which then became wandering all over the general area of Place Graslin. We finally stopped at Aux Merveilleux de Fred, a chic-looking bakery selling merveilleux. As we had no idea what those were, we obviously had to buy some. They turned out to be meringues slathered in whipped cream, rolled in chocolate flakes--we had made a good decision (as I type this, the rest of mine is sitting in the freezer; too much sugar to eat in one sitting). We also stopped in La Librarie Franklin, a very small bookstore crammed with very old books, among which was a 1958 edition of the French equivalent of "American Daily Life for Dummies" and a book on Nantais slang/vocab/names, which I really want, but is a little too pricey.
When it comes to the ballet class on Friday evenings, I've come to the conclusion that a seven o'clock class in a tiny wood floor studio with a busted up CD player for music is not worth paying the equivalent of a dollar and a half more than a class on mylar with a live pianist at Pacific Northwest Ballet. Also last time I went to that class, I got followed halfway home by a sketchy dude, so I'm just not doing that again.
It was a fantastic week, especially since the factor of where are my classes in this disorganized and unlabeled campus is solved.
Friday, September 26, 2014
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Le weekend: Un Séjour à Saint-Malo et Mont Saint Michel
So on Friday, we had a scavenger hunt. Quite frankly, I had no intention of participating, but then again, I also had literally no other plans, so I ended up going, and I also ended up going an hour early to have lunch with Sydney. After a good couple minutes wandering around, looking for a bakery that wasn't Paul, we finally settled for little savory tarts. Mine was tomato, which translates just to a flaky crust full of tomato puree. It wasn't terrible, but next time I'll find something else. I also got a tiny chocolate mousse square and have decided that I need to get more of those things. Not to say that cakes are underrated, but I could definitely use a couple more of them in my life.
The scavenger hunt sent us all over Nantes, buying baguettes and post cards and finding the old names of monuments and searching for dates of events. My team got most everything done, even though a few of the required things on the list didn't exist, even after we asked staff members. We were sent to the Fnac to get a "cultural agenda" and I had to ask three different employees, none of whom knew what the heck that was.
After the scavenger hunt, several of us ended up at the Tabl'o Gourmand, a cafe that provides something called a "quatre-heure," or a gouter. We were told that it consisted of some bread, some jam, and a hot drink. It did indeed include a hot drink, but the bread was brought to us in baskets and there were about a dozen different jams and butters, from crunchy chocolate Nutella-style spread to cookie butters to milk jam to green tomato preserves. All of it was delicious and I essentially ate bread and sweet spreads for dinner. In fact, I spent so much time there that I unfortunately missed ballet class and could only eat about a cup of broccoli for my actual dinner.
Yesterday, I woke up with a terribly sore throat at 3am and slipped in and out of sleep until 6am, when I dragged myself out of bed and to the bus stop so I could get to IES by 7:45. We all stood there in the middle of the totally empty street, the whole IES group, before we were packed up in a large tour bus and headed off to Mont Saint-Michel and Saint Malo. I've seen Mont Saint Michel before, with Meije and Jean-Philippe, although not as in depth as yesterday. Mont Saint-Michel is gorgeous; the abbey there is awe-inspiring and free yesterday, thanks to the journées du patrimoine and we (Sydney, Miel, and I) spent a good amount of time standing at the abbey courtyard, looking off towards the sea. The views are incredible and the novelty of the location itself is awesome in every sense of the word, but the food and food service was not very good (Sydney ordered vegetable soup that ended up apparently tasting like rotten vegetables/Windex) and there are tourists everywhere (all signs are in French, English, German, and Japanese). I noticed a lot of French tourists brought their own little picnics to eat at the gardens, and if I ever come back I would definitely do the same and I would recommend others do the same.
While I'd seen Mont Saint-Michel before, the only thing I knew of Saint Malo was from a line in Santiano, and therefore all I knew was that it probably had a connection to trade and sailing. It definitely does; the beach and port are right there and there's a close relationship to Quebec and its trade lines. I did find Saint Malo a little more interesting than Mont Saint-Michel; at least, to me. It belongs to the genre of town that I call "cute French towns that are surrounded by walls because once they were juicy targets for attacks." It's a bit of a mouthful, but Saint Malo is indeed adorable and indeed surrounded by battlements. After spending a while circling the town and looking out at the sea, we got ice cream (my dinner) and then spent some time in a bookstore, where we found an amazing amount of locally published mystery thriller books centered around cities in Bretagne and Normandie that had titles like Barbeque Mortel à Saint-Malo. I did not end up buying any, but I did take pictures.
I searched for a cute mug for several minutes in five different stores before it was time to head back to Nantes, and while I didn't find what I was looking for, I can probably find something here in the city.
The scavenger hunt sent us all over Nantes, buying baguettes and post cards and finding the old names of monuments and searching for dates of events. My team got most everything done, even though a few of the required things on the list didn't exist, even after we asked staff members. We were sent to the Fnac to get a "cultural agenda" and I had to ask three different employees, none of whom knew what the heck that was.
After the scavenger hunt, several of us ended up at the Tabl'o Gourmand, a cafe that provides something called a "quatre-heure," or a gouter. We were told that it consisted of some bread, some jam, and a hot drink. It did indeed include a hot drink, but the bread was brought to us in baskets and there were about a dozen different jams and butters, from crunchy chocolate Nutella-style spread to cookie butters to milk jam to green tomato preserves. All of it was delicious and I essentially ate bread and sweet spreads for dinner. In fact, I spent so much time there that I unfortunately missed ballet class and could only eat about a cup of broccoli for my actual dinner.
Yesterday, I woke up with a terribly sore throat at 3am and slipped in and out of sleep until 6am, when I dragged myself out of bed and to the bus stop so I could get to IES by 7:45. We all stood there in the middle of the totally empty street, the whole IES group, before we were packed up in a large tour bus and headed off to Mont Saint-Michel and Saint Malo. I've seen Mont Saint Michel before, with Meije and Jean-Philippe, although not as in depth as yesterday. Mont Saint-Michel is gorgeous; the abbey there is awe-inspiring and free yesterday, thanks to the journées du patrimoine and we (Sydney, Miel, and I) spent a good amount of time standing at the abbey courtyard, looking off towards the sea. The views are incredible and the novelty of the location itself is awesome in every sense of the word, but the food and food service was not very good (Sydney ordered vegetable soup that ended up apparently tasting like rotten vegetables/Windex) and there are tourists everywhere (all signs are in French, English, German, and Japanese). I noticed a lot of French tourists brought their own little picnics to eat at the gardens, and if I ever come back I would definitely do the same and I would recommend others do the same.
While I'd seen Mont Saint-Michel before, the only thing I knew of Saint Malo was from a line in Santiano, and therefore all I knew was that it probably had a connection to trade and sailing. It definitely does; the beach and port are right there and there's a close relationship to Quebec and its trade lines. I did find Saint Malo a little more interesting than Mont Saint-Michel; at least, to me. It belongs to the genre of town that I call "cute French towns that are surrounded by walls because once they were juicy targets for attacks." It's a bit of a mouthful, but Saint Malo is indeed adorable and indeed surrounded by battlements. After spending a while circling the town and looking out at the sea, we got ice cream (my dinner) and then spent some time in a bookstore, where we found an amazing amount of locally published mystery thriller books centered around cities in Bretagne and Normandie that had titles like Barbeque Mortel à Saint-Malo. I did not end up buying any, but I did take pictures.
I searched for a cute mug for several minutes in five different stores before it was time to head back to Nantes, and while I didn't find what I was looking for, I can probably find something here in the city.
La deuxieme semaine
I made it through the first week of classes and came out just barely unscathed--as I sit here typing this post, I am battling a cold with the help of green tea and self-pity. I've mostly solved the mystery of my weekly schedule, which means now the work really begins. Classes in France meet only once a week, for the most part, which is bizarre to me. Even small-group literature classes that meet for an hour and a half only meet once a week, while stateside that would probably be a three-times-a-week deal. My host mother seems to think it's a downside of the French university system, and I might agree, but it's also great for abroad students.
Monday, I have literature, studying Les Miserables. It was a terribly difficult ordeal to find a copy of the book--especially for such a classic book and such a common print version, but I eventually found one. The class is a TD--a sort of smaller, discussion session based class and I'm already terrified, but I would really like to follow a literature class. After literature I go to ballet; an actual weekly university class, which is excellent, although my Balanchine arms are apparently too stiff here, and the teacher tells me to loosen up and enjoy myself almost every other minute. In the evening, I have Arab Civilizations, which I have not yet been to, but I will find tomorrow.
Last Tuesday, I searched for an Arabic translation class, which apparently doesn't exist, and so the only class I have is theater class through IES. That's a totally awesome course, involving improv, which I find more difficult in French (although it's difficult in English too), and yet a lot more freeing. Somehow, it's easier to be dramatic and make things up for me when I have to use French, from "red light, green light" to that improv exercise where you can't say "no." I'm happy there, so far.
Wednesday is the day I have the 8:30am European Union law class with the IES director that lasts for two and a half hours. This past session was mostly a review of my International Organizations class last semester at GW, but I think it will get more specific as it goes on. Bonus, there's no class on the Wednesday before my vacation weekend, so instead of a Thursday-Sunday vacation, I get a Wednesday-Sunday vacation so I'll have more time to go to Paris/go to Rennes/bother Jess and Leah in London. Last week, I also headed back over to La Perverie, the high school where I was studying when I stayed with Meije and took a ballet class before going to Danielle's daughter's house, where I met Danielle's granddaughters and their friends. This is another instance where I feel ballet benefits me immensely in a different country, because even though the girls I spent time with are French and ten to four years younger than me, we spent almost half an hour discussing and demonstrating the differences between the Paris Opera Ballet School's technique and my own Balanchine technique. Ballet is universal but not too universal--you can still find a lot to discuss between schools and countries.
Thursday I went to campus in search of my African history course only to find that history classes start next week, so I hopped back on the tram and did some shopping at H&M because some of my clothes are literally falling off of my body and that kind of stuff doesn't fly in France. The afternoon saw me in a course on "Palestine since 1945" that consisted of biblical history and an in-depth discussion of American presidents and their inauguration years and immense disappointment on the part of the teacher that no one knew when Lyndon B. Johnson was elected. I have since dropped that course and will instead be looking into the Latin American history class.
Still hemming and hawing on whether or not I want to do the internship for teaching. It would require me to not take my African and Latin American history courses, but it would also be a good experience, but I also don't like teaching, so we're sort of at an impasse. If I don't like the history classes, I'll do the internship, I suppose.
Fridays are free. Long weekends, here I come! This past Friday, IES organized a scavenger hunt around Nantes that really deserves to be part of the "weekend post" that I'm planning, just so you don't have to read immensely long posts.
Monday, I have literature, studying Les Miserables. It was a terribly difficult ordeal to find a copy of the book--especially for such a classic book and such a common print version, but I eventually found one. The class is a TD--a sort of smaller, discussion session based class and I'm already terrified, but I would really like to follow a literature class. After literature I go to ballet; an actual weekly university class, which is excellent, although my Balanchine arms are apparently too stiff here, and the teacher tells me to loosen up and enjoy myself almost every other minute. In the evening, I have Arab Civilizations, which I have not yet been to, but I will find tomorrow.
Last Tuesday, I searched for an Arabic translation class, which apparently doesn't exist, and so the only class I have is theater class through IES. That's a totally awesome course, involving improv, which I find more difficult in French (although it's difficult in English too), and yet a lot more freeing. Somehow, it's easier to be dramatic and make things up for me when I have to use French, from "red light, green light" to that improv exercise where you can't say "no." I'm happy there, so far.
Wednesday is the day I have the 8:30am European Union law class with the IES director that lasts for two and a half hours. This past session was mostly a review of my International Organizations class last semester at GW, but I think it will get more specific as it goes on. Bonus, there's no class on the Wednesday before my vacation weekend, so instead of a Thursday-Sunday vacation, I get a Wednesday-Sunday vacation so I'll have more time to go to Paris/go to Rennes/bother Jess and Leah in London. Last week, I also headed back over to La Perverie, the high school where I was studying when I stayed with Meije and took a ballet class before going to Danielle's daughter's house, where I met Danielle's granddaughters and their friends. This is another instance where I feel ballet benefits me immensely in a different country, because even though the girls I spent time with are French and ten to four years younger than me, we spent almost half an hour discussing and demonstrating the differences between the Paris Opera Ballet School's technique and my own Balanchine technique. Ballet is universal but not too universal--you can still find a lot to discuss between schools and countries.
Thursday I went to campus in search of my African history course only to find that history classes start next week, so I hopped back on the tram and did some shopping at H&M because some of my clothes are literally falling off of my body and that kind of stuff doesn't fly in France. The afternoon saw me in a course on "Palestine since 1945" that consisted of biblical history and an in-depth discussion of American presidents and their inauguration years and immense disappointment on the part of the teacher that no one knew when Lyndon B. Johnson was elected. I have since dropped that course and will instead be looking into the Latin American history class.
Still hemming and hawing on whether or not I want to do the internship for teaching. It would require me to not take my African and Latin American history courses, but it would also be a good experience, but I also don't like teaching, so we're sort of at an impasse. If I don't like the history classes, I'll do the internship, I suppose.
Fridays are free. Long weekends, here I come! This past Friday, IES organized a scavenger hunt around Nantes that really deserves to be part of the "weekend post" that I'm planning, just so you don't have to read immensely long posts.
Saturday, September 13, 2014
La prémiere semaine
First week in Nantes is complete and it has been busy and exhilarating.
On Monday afternoon, I was called into Julie's office. As far as I can tell, Julie is essentially the dean of students here. Or maybe the academic dean. In any case, she's the IES Nantes staffer who deals with both our registration at university as well as emotional stability. She informed me that every semester, the staff chooses one student to make a short speech at the mairie (city hall?) when the mayor of Nantes greets the American students.
And this semester they chose me.
I have terrible stage fright. I'm not sure where it came from or when it started or why it only seems to apply to speaking and not to acting; I've done drama before, and I had to memorize pages and pages of dialogue and at city hall I only had to speak for a minute and I had the speech written out on a paper in my hand, but my heart nearly exploded. However, Wednesday rolled around and I did survive and several French host families came up to me after and told me that I spoke French very well, which is all I want to hear when I'm in France.
On Thursday we went out as a group to something called La Cantine, which is located on an island in Nantes. I can best describe it as a combination of a restaurant, a nightclub, a beach, and an airport. It's a restaurant because you can order food, it's a nightclub because there's thumping music and alcohol and a lot of good looking young people, and it's an airport because there are locations like "North Exit" and "Bar B2" versus "Bar B1" and signs with arrows and little symbols of exits and taxis and everything is in English and French. After loitering awkwardly with our backpacks (we hadn't been told it was such a "hip" location; the advertisement said we'd be tasting local foods) and watching the rest of our group down mojitos and Belgian beer, my friend Emily and I each ordered a glass of rosé wine and drank that on an empty stomach.
We soon found out that both of us are lightweights.
Dinner was a salad, tough steak, tasty potatoes, and a drink. I chose a tiny carafe of red wine, which likely wasn't the best idea, but Emily and I shared a fromage blanc with jam and a chocolate mousse for desserts and made it home safely. I take this to mean that I know the bus system here pretty well.
Friday meant registration (finally) and I found, to my delight that I had placed out of obligatory French courses and could essentially take any classes I wanted. Therefore, this semester will take the form of Les Miserables, an in-depth look on the EU, theatre class, history of Africa, a discussion of Palestine, and an Arabic translation course. All of these classes will be taught in French, including my Arabic course. While I am a little worried about the whole English to French to Arabic adventure, I'm also very excited.
Friday afternoon I had my first ballet class in Nantes. The studio has one, slick wooden floored room and a coed dressing room and I had to circle a building to find the little entrance. After sitting awkwardly in the foyer for half an hour, I finally approached a girl my age and after stumbling around my initial introduction of "excuse me, hello, can you help me, I am an American student and I would like to take a class here," I got a friendly smile, a gentle vocab correction, and the assurance that I could definitely take the class to try it out. I ended up being the only person in class wearing tights and a leotard with my hair in a bun and felt a little too formal, but I also picked up the combinations fairly quickly and laughed and talked with the other girls and had a good time, so I think I'll be going back weekly if possible.
Not a bad week, all in all.
On Monday afternoon, I was called into Julie's office. As far as I can tell, Julie is essentially the dean of students here. Or maybe the academic dean. In any case, she's the IES Nantes staffer who deals with both our registration at university as well as emotional stability. She informed me that every semester, the staff chooses one student to make a short speech at the mairie (city hall?) when the mayor of Nantes greets the American students.
And this semester they chose me.
I have terrible stage fright. I'm not sure where it came from or when it started or why it only seems to apply to speaking and not to acting; I've done drama before, and I had to memorize pages and pages of dialogue and at city hall I only had to speak for a minute and I had the speech written out on a paper in my hand, but my heart nearly exploded. However, Wednesday rolled around and I did survive and several French host families came up to me after and told me that I spoke French very well, which is all I want to hear when I'm in France.
On Thursday we went out as a group to something called La Cantine, which is located on an island in Nantes. I can best describe it as a combination of a restaurant, a nightclub, a beach, and an airport. It's a restaurant because you can order food, it's a nightclub because there's thumping music and alcohol and a lot of good looking young people, and it's an airport because there are locations like "North Exit" and "Bar B2" versus "Bar B1" and signs with arrows and little symbols of exits and taxis and everything is in English and French. After loitering awkwardly with our backpacks (we hadn't been told it was such a "hip" location; the advertisement said we'd be tasting local foods) and watching the rest of our group down mojitos and Belgian beer, my friend Emily and I each ordered a glass of rosé wine and drank that on an empty stomach.
We soon found out that both of us are lightweights.
Dinner was a salad, tough steak, tasty potatoes, and a drink. I chose a tiny carafe of red wine, which likely wasn't the best idea, but Emily and I shared a fromage blanc with jam and a chocolate mousse for desserts and made it home safely. I take this to mean that I know the bus system here pretty well.
Friday meant registration (finally) and I found, to my delight that I had placed out of obligatory French courses and could essentially take any classes I wanted. Therefore, this semester will take the form of Les Miserables, an in-depth look on the EU, theatre class, history of Africa, a discussion of Palestine, and an Arabic translation course. All of these classes will be taught in French, including my Arabic course. While I am a little worried about the whole English to French to Arabic adventure, I'm also very excited.
Friday afternoon I had my first ballet class in Nantes. The studio has one, slick wooden floored room and a coed dressing room and I had to circle a building to find the little entrance. After sitting awkwardly in the foyer for half an hour, I finally approached a girl my age and after stumbling around my initial introduction of "excuse me, hello, can you help me, I am an American student and I would like to take a class here," I got a friendly smile, a gentle vocab correction, and the assurance that I could definitely take the class to try it out. I ended up being the only person in class wearing tights and a leotard with my hair in a bun and felt a little too formal, but I also picked up the combinations fairly quickly and laughed and talked with the other girls and had a good time, so I think I'll be going back weekly if possible.
Not a bad week, all in all.
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
L'arrivée
I've been here in Nantes for about six days now, which have all consisted of orientation and vacation. Touching down in the airport felt almost akin to coming home, and while that seems stupid when I say it, since I was last here for a week two years ago and my three month stay was nearly two years earlier; I still feel comfortable here. It's not all familiar; two paper stores have closed and the Sephora moved across town, but it's still Nantes.
The orientation in Vannes was almost stupidly French; they gave us picnics and bikes and told us to explore a tiny island and a town encircled by an ancient fortress, after which they served us proper three course dinners with red and white wines to try. It's a little shocking to have the program provide alcohol; not because I'm stuffy and disapprove of liquor, but because my previous experience abroad was in the Muslim country of Morocco and there wasn't a drop of alcohol to be found where we were, and here in France the director of the program is circling the table, pouring us glasses of Merlot.
Here IES has had no issues communicating exactly who is living in the house, while in Rabat they failed to mention the two brothers and tiny granddaughter in addition to the listed couple and two daughters, here they indicated a couple with grown children, but for the most part it is just me and Danielle. She's supportive of my language progression and enthusiastic about my stay here and helpful with my search for ballet classes and an excellent cook, so I really lucked out. She still seems to like me even though I temporarily knocked out the power with my obnoxious American power strip. That thing is going right back in my suitcase.
The last time I was here, I either took the tram to school or I biked, if the weather was nice and Meije was available to guide me on my bike through the streets. Here, I take the bus, which terrified me initially. I have hardly ever taken a bus; growing up in Sammamish, where you have to take a ten minute car ride to see anything that isn't a house or a tree, did not prepare me for city living, and even in DC, I don't take the bus simply because I don't know how and I am scared to ask people.
But here, Danielle accompanied me to school the first day, told me which bus to take home, and gave me a few tickets. There was no choice but to learn fast, and I feel as though I have. I bought my billet mensuel, which allows me to ride any bus and any tram at any time as many times as I want for the month of September for about 34 euros ($44). Even considering that September has already started, since one ticket for a one way trip is 1.50 euro, it's a pretty good arrangement, especially because now my socially anxious self can't use the price of a bus ticket as an excuse to stay home.
It's orientation week now, which means a lot of PowerPoints and handouts and little French classes that are a little too disorganized--by which I mean we were just playing hangman for about an hour with the most complicated French words we knew. Other activities include finding places to eat lunch, leaving the room when other students speak English, and texting my mother stupid pictures.
We've received our student ID cards, and mine has the super smug picture of me that I've been using for all of these study abroad adventures. Tomorrow we'll get to use them at the university and I'll get to see where I'll (hopefully) be taking most of my classes!
The orientation in Vannes was almost stupidly French; they gave us picnics and bikes and told us to explore a tiny island and a town encircled by an ancient fortress, after which they served us proper three course dinners with red and white wines to try. It's a little shocking to have the program provide alcohol; not because I'm stuffy and disapprove of liquor, but because my previous experience abroad was in the Muslim country of Morocco and there wasn't a drop of alcohol to be found where we were, and here in France the director of the program is circling the table, pouring us glasses of Merlot.
Here IES has had no issues communicating exactly who is living in the house, while in Rabat they failed to mention the two brothers and tiny granddaughter in addition to the listed couple and two daughters, here they indicated a couple with grown children, but for the most part it is just me and Danielle. She's supportive of my language progression and enthusiastic about my stay here and helpful with my search for ballet classes and an excellent cook, so I really lucked out. She still seems to like me even though I temporarily knocked out the power with my obnoxious American power strip. That thing is going right back in my suitcase.
The last time I was here, I either took the tram to school or I biked, if the weather was nice and Meije was available to guide me on my bike through the streets. Here, I take the bus, which terrified me initially. I have hardly ever taken a bus; growing up in Sammamish, where you have to take a ten minute car ride to see anything that isn't a house or a tree, did not prepare me for city living, and even in DC, I don't take the bus simply because I don't know how and I am scared to ask people.
But here, Danielle accompanied me to school the first day, told me which bus to take home, and gave me a few tickets. There was no choice but to learn fast, and I feel as though I have. I bought my billet mensuel, which allows me to ride any bus and any tram at any time as many times as I want for the month of September for about 34 euros ($44). Even considering that September has already started, since one ticket for a one way trip is 1.50 euro, it's a pretty good arrangement, especially because now my socially anxious self can't use the price of a bus ticket as an excuse to stay home.
It's orientation week now, which means a lot of PowerPoints and handouts and little French classes that are a little too disorganized--by which I mean we were just playing hangman for about an hour with the most complicated French words we knew. Other activities include finding places to eat lunch, leaving the room when other students speak English, and texting my mother stupid pictures.
We've received our student ID cards, and mine has the super smug picture of me that I've been using for all of these study abroad adventures. Tomorrow we'll get to use them at the university and I'll get to see where I'll (hopefully) be taking most of my classes!
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