Franglish and first day of classes

First the fun, then the frustrating.

Last night (Sunday night) I went to a Franglish "speed-dating" event with two of my AU friends. It isn't actually speed dating, but you spend 14 minutes each with a bunch of people, 7 minutes in English and 7 in French.  On one side of the table is a native French speaker and on the other is a native English speaker. It was actually quite interesting even though it was nerve-wracking. I'm glad I went and will probably go to another. Then I went to bed because the next day was the day I'd been dreading: the first day of classes.

The day of reckoning had arrived. First day of classes. To explain in the most brief way possible, there are three years in French undergrad, and I can take any of them (L1, L2, or L3). Obviously the L3 is going to be difficult despite the fact that at home I'm in my third year of college because the classes are not in my native language. So I decided to try out L1s and L2s. This week we foreign students are essentially showing up to any classes we might want to take to see if we're comfortable with the language level, material level, etc. By February 10th we have to decide on a final schedule.

So today I had planned to go to an L1 class (2 hours long) with a 2 hour break and then an L2 class (3 hours long). Let me tell you, I did not attend the latter. I realized after understanding almost none of the L1 class that I was most likely not cut out for L2, especially for the difficult one that afternoon. It was very disheartening.

Luckily there was another foreign exchange student from Germany in that class and thanks to orientation I already knew her! We talked to some very very nice French students who are going to send us the notes and we talked to the professor who recommended a book, which he explained the class follows very closely. Later the other foreign student and I went to a book store to try to find the book and realized we hadn't been given an author. After a while of searching and trying to find something similar, we came up with 3 maybes and I'm going to email the professor if I can find his email address to see if it's one of those. Everything today was frustrating and exhausting.

Please tell me "Histoire des institutions jusqu'à 1099" is one of these three options

So tonight I have to try to figure out how many credits I can get for each class and I have an email in to my advisor at American University to make sure it's okay that I'm possibly taking two medieval history classes, because if AU gives me credit by assigning it to the most similar AU class, it will assign both as the ONE medieval history class AU offers, which I have already taken. So there's that! Honestly I'm just tired and need to go to bed early and try not to worry so much. Tomorrow the foreign exchange students taking history are meeting with that department head, there's a luncheon for us foreigners, and a bunch of classes I want to sit in on. But if they're anything like today I'll probably fall asleep out of frustration and ask for the notes from another student. Ughhhh.

Bisous,
La vache espagnole

Catho and going out

Quick summary of my last few days because I'm feeling guilty for not writing. On Wednesday I went to Musée D'Orsay again with a friend from MICEFA and what's cool about that museum is that despite having spent a while there the other day with another group of people, I saw completely different things the next time I was there. And the museum is smaller and more manageable than the Louvre. Then we crossed the Seine and popped into the Jardin des Tuileries to try to find Rodin's The Thinker but couldn't find it. This post doesn't really do it justice but it was a really fun afternoon!

On Thursday was my first day of orientation at Institut Catholique de Paris, which from here on in will be referred to as "Catho" (pronounced Cat-o) like the French do. I met a lot of international students from all over the world. The second day of orientation on Friday we toured the neighborhood around Catho. We saw two very old churches (Saint-Sulpice and Saint-Germain-des-Prés which was originally built in the 6th century) and the Luxembourg Gardens, which are beautiful.

Luxembourg Gardens

Luxembourg Gardens

That night a bunch of us Catho kids went out. It was the most successful barhopping night yet! It was also fascinating to be out with people of so many different nationalities. There was me: the American, and my other American friend who brought along her German friend and a British friend. Then there was another German girl, a Korean girl, two Brazilian girls, and a Quebecois Canadian girl. French people in bars were pretty hilarious and can't seem to handle alcohol very well. But everyone was very nice and willing to talk to the foreigners! The downside was that everything was insanely expensive, so I decided not to go out tonight which might have been a good thing because there's a storm.

I also had my first absinthe, which was delicious. As I explained to several people, absinthe is not at all dangerous and does not make you hallucinate. There was a smear campaign around the turn of the century designed by beer and wine producers. They took wormwood, which was in old absinthe formulas, and concentrated it. They gave the concentrated wormwood to rats, who died. But of course they died at the crazy high concentrations they were given! In addition, lots of cheap "absinthe" was on sale for poor alcoholics that was not absinthe and was poisonous. Often it was dyed green with poison. Real absinthe is just a liqueur that tastes like anise. You are supposed to slowly pour water onto a sugar cube on a slotted spoon perched over the drink until the sugar is dissolved and enough water is added. It should be a light, cloudy green, almost a mint shade. Then you sip it. There is an Eastern European version of absinthe that is dyed green and is taken as a shot, often flaming. This is not absinthe, according to purists.

I saw some plaques that I'd like to share as well:

Wall of plaques

"From 1914 to 1919 in the old buildings of the seminary of Saint-Sulpice, the war relief housed thousands of refugees and French and Belgian soldiers on leave"

"For those that died in the military service of France in Indochina [Vietnam] and in North Africa between 1945 and 1962 at for the civil victims of all the conflicts"

"Homage to the inhabitants of the 6th arrondissement who died for France in North Africa between 1952 and 1962"

"To the citizens of the 21st arrondissement who fell before the execution squads on the barricades and on the field of battle during the fight against Nazi Germany during the years 1939-40-41-42-43-44-45

That the memory of their sacrifice is close in our memories similar to the Glorious Elders of the War 1914-1918"

Some of these plaques seemed harmless, like the World War plaques. But it seems to me the ones about North Africa and Indochina/Vietnam would be controversial. France's role in all of that is a bit of a dark spot in their history.

To end this on a lighter note, look how ridiculously expensive bagels are here!

NEARLY 10€ PER BAGEL?

Bisous,

La vache espagnole

Bad French, La Comédie Française, etc.

This is gonna be another ramble-y post, guys, so I apologize in advance. First off, I was told I should share something I put on my Facebook but didn't make it onto this blog. The other day I made an egregious grammar error in my intensive French course and my professor laughingly told me that French people might vomit (hurler) if they heard me say that, while miming vomiting. Guess that means I'm improving! I imagine it must have been like hearing someone say "I now will go have to store" in English. Whenever I speak bad French, which is 99% of the time, I hear the mistake about a minute or so after I make it and think about how much of a travesty it would have sounded like in English. The other day I was trying to ask if I should turn off the light but I couldn't remember how to use the conditional ("should I") and I didn't know how to say turn off, so I ended up saying something like "I do this? Close the light?" in French and poking the light switch. The person I was talking to kindly laughed at me and told me I could turn it off. I'm constantly getting the gender of words wrong, I have lost the ability to do the French "r" correctly, and I think my verb tenses are actually getting worse! I'm hoping it's a dip before improvement and I have a theory about why it's happening. In school I got to sit and think before I spoke and now I have to get it out there as fast as I can so as not to annoy native speakers. So whatever comes out, comes out! And they aren't correcting me as often as a professor might so I get in the habit of saying the most incorrect things so long as I can be understood. Here's to hoping that one gets better!

Ok, next topic is food again. I had a weird sandwich today that I feel the need to share. I can't tell what they are in the school cafeteria when I order and they aren't labeled so I always just hope for the best. Today's was a salami sandwich with pickles and BUTTER. I swear to goodness I thought it was cheese because it was so thickly spread but it was butter! It was weird but actually really good. I realized I never confirmed everyone's burning question: do French people really wander the streets of Paris holding baguettes. And the answer is yes they actually do! Because a single Frenchman (or woman) could probably eat an entire baguette his- or herself but restrain themselves to one per reasonable sized family per day, they buy their baguette fresh daily and it is consumed at dinner and the rest for breakfast or something. So on the way home from work or something they'll just grab a baguette and carry it in its little paper sleeve home!

They also mostly shop in a very small radius around their house. I live within a 5 minute walking distance of: a pharmacy, an ATM, wedding shops, a baker, several cafés (one with to-go crêpe stand attached), a butcher, a grocery store, a photography store, some general stores, a professional hairdresser store, bars, and a tabac which is often a café-tabacco shop-phone store-everything-you-could-ever-need store. Pharmacies here are literally just pharmacies with medicine and the like, although they are great because pharmacists here are basically doctors. But they aren't like CVS or something, a tabac is more like CVS.

Side note: I want to add that I initially spelled pharmacy as pharmacie (which is how you spell it in French) and had to correct myself. I only noticed because my browser kindly underlines everything I spell incorrectly.

On to what I've done! Last night my program had an outing to see Dom Juan by Molière at La Comédie Française theater and it was lovely. For those of you that don't know who Molière is, the most simple comparison I can make is that he's the French Shakespeare. But Molière mainly did comedies and Shakespeare did a lot of tragedies. They're from a similar time period and are very famous and excellent playwrights, okay? So anyway, we had read some excerpts in class (and I read an English translation to prepare myself) and it was funny and interesting and lovely. Of course, I sat in a weird spot, but I was 100% okay with that.

La Comédie Française

The view from my seat. Front row in the corner! My eyes barely could see over the stage because I am a tiny person.

On the way home I saw some graffiti I'd like to share with the world.

"Dad would like me to be a lawyer. Me, [I want to be] a painter."

So anyway that's all for now. Tomorrow is my last day of the intensive French course, and then I have 2 days of orientation at Institut Catholique de Paris and after that I start classes on Monday!

Bisous,
La vache espagnole

Musée D'Orsay, Oberkampf, the Seine, and random stream-of-consciousness observations

Hello again. I keep forgetting what I wanted to talk about so let's see what comes out in stream of consciousness. I went to Musée D'Orsay with my friends today. It is a really cool museum mostly of impressionists and post-impressionists. It's in an old (retired) train station and it is beautiful! We weren't allowed to take pictures inside but I took this of the outside.

Token "outside of the museum" photo

When we got out of the museum there was a cute little crêpe stand that I HAD to take a picture of, and of course I took some of the Seine because it was lovely.

Crêpe stand. Too cute.

The Seine with that Ferris Wheel near the Jardin des Tuileries in the background.

The Seine. Bye boat!

Candid.

Not candid, minus Allie who didn't get the memo.

We walked around for a bit and found a nice area to grab crêpes and then all went home. We're going out in a bit but I dunno where.

Area where we got crêpes. How very French.

Side note: French people apparently love Earth, Wind, and Fire because I heard September two separate times today played by two different people. And my home stay family is now playing Nina Simone because they have seriously amazing taste. The other day they were playing Cat Stevens and the son played Formidable by my favorite person ever, Stromae! So suffice to say I dig French taste in music.

Yesterday we checked out rue Oberkampf in the 11th arrondissement, which is known as a hip place (as in hipsters). It was cool but we were too tired to go out to a bar after the café because it was pretty late and I am an old person. I can barely deal with Anglophone hipsters when I'm tired, much less Francophone ones. But we're going out tonight! So we're not lame! Right? Right.

So on my way home last night on the métro a REALLY drunk dude stumbled in and nearly fell on the girl sitting near the door. He then proceeded to sit down in an empty seat and, while taking swigs from a bottle, yelled about "le marriage pour tous" (marriage equality). He kept saying things like "women and women and men with men: this is France today!" It was very strange.

Another random observation (stream of consciousness, remember?): all the stores up one street near me are wedding shops. They aren't big or fancy or anything and I have no idea why they are all in one spot but they all sell wedding dresses or dresses for women who aren't the bride to wear to a wedding. It's really weird. And a lot of them are muslim-themed. There's one called "Beirut Mode" (Beirut fashion). Strange.

Another thing: I keep seeing these spigot things in the métro and have no idea what it's for. Is it for washing your feet? Free water for the homeless/travellers? I have no idea. This guy and his friends don't seem to know either.

Someone explaaaaaain!

Anyway that's all for now because I have to feed myself. Tchao!

Bisous,

La vache espagnole

School stuff, internet, Chinese food, and the Moulin Rouge

Hello friends. I don't want to do my homework for my Intensive French MICEFA course right now so I'm going to blather on this blog!

As you may (or may not) know, I am in a program called MICEFA which allows you to choose one of the schools it is partnered with. I am now 99% sure that I have chosen my school: Institut Catholique de Paris! I handed in my application today. This means I have to UN-enroll in Paris 3 Sorbonne-Nouvelle, which took a lot of time and effort to do. But they don't have anything at my level in my major so I can't do it. I need to take classes pertaining to Europe, and they had a "European Studies" major so I thought I was all set, but then I found out they only have L3 classes! (L3 is the third and last year of French university, so we were advised not to take these classes because we are foreign and they're super hard). Catholique, as it's called for short, is a beautiful campus with nuns and priests wandering through it. They have a great office for international students and the employees are super friendly. I debated whether going there was making my life too easy, i.e. skipping out on the French "do-it-yourself" attitude, but I decided that since the orientation was all in French it wasn't too much of a cop-out. And why make myself miserable for no reason? So I'm pretty sure I'm going there and I can take European history all in French but still have the support of the university. And did I mention 2 of my 3 friends here are going there as well? So I think I have made the right decision!

Next subject: French school supplies. I went to buy some supplies the other day at the only office supplies store my friends and I could find and was APPALLED at the prices. I saw one of the pens I buy in multi-packs at home for less than $3 was 2€. FOR ONE PEN. And everything was that expensive: pens, glue, tape, folders, paper, notebooks, etc. I drastically cut down my list of things I wanted for school when I saw THAT. They don't seem to use the same folders we use in the United States, they mostly use binders or accordion folders. They also use different paper, which I was informed I would have to buy because French professors only accept assignments written on that type of paper in pen. Oh, and French schools usually want assignments written out and not typed because they're afraid kids will copy/paste their assignments otherwise.

Accordion folder

So on hearing all this I went to this nifty bookstore called Gibert Jeune near Notre Dame on the recommendation of my French professor. I recommend it to anyone who happens to be in the area! I got a mini French-English dictionary because I'm tired of only being able to translate words I don't know when I'm in my room and the internet is actually working (more on that in a minute). I also got the special paper and a cool book called "1000 Years of Annoying the French" by Stephen Clarke that looks very entertaining. I am finding it is nice to be able to relax by reading something in English before bed. Especially because the internet here is awful.

SPEAKING OF THE AWFUL INTERNET I must warn you that if you ever want to Skype me it probably won't work even if you want to try. I also may not see your messages for forever, or maybe I won't respond even thought it says I'm online. Trust me, when that's happening I am resisting banging my head on the wall trying to get the internet to work. Some days the internet is amazing, like the night before last, and other days it's awful, like most of the time including today. It's especially frustrating because it's my only way to communicate with people at home, but it also makes it hard to do my homework or watch TV or movies or get new music or do anything. Hence the book purchase.

Side story: today my friends and I got lunch after class before splitting off and going our separate ways. We found something under 10€ that wasn't a panini or a crêpe! Chinese food! It was only 6€ for 2 dumplings/spring rolls, rice or noodles, a meat dish, and a drink. That is crazy cheap. And it was good! It was pretty close to the Moulin Rouge if anyone is ever there and looking for cheap food (unlikely).

Speaking of the Moulin Rouge, it was pretty lame. I didn't really know what it was other than a movie to be honest. Possibly about strippers or something. I know my friends from AU will make fun of me for my (usual) hilarious ignorance when I say this, but I thought that movie was set it Louisiana for some reason. Whatever. It was unimpressive and not pretty, so I thought I'd post a picture of it because I like bursting people's bubbles about tourist attractions. Yayy!

*yawn*

Anyway, I should actually do some homework now. Until next time!

Bisous,

La vache espagnole

Going out, Louvre, Latin Quarter/Mouffetard!

I dunno what day it is since I've been here and I am going to stop labeling them as such because I just cannot write every day!

Friday our other friend finally got here. Yay! We went to a MICEFA event in the morning, then went to advising, and then went out in the evening. We had a nice dinner and some wine without paying too too much. But then after that we went to this weird salsa event that other MICEFA kids were going to. We were the first ones there and it was SO LAME. First of all, no one knew how to salsa dance (including me). It was mostly people a little older than us. Also we had to buy a crappy drink and check our coats to even get in, so it cost a bunch of money. So we warned the others off coming and met them somewhere else, which took forever to get there. Once we got there it was super fun, though! I'm glad we're finally hanging out with other MICEFA kids.

The next day we went to the Louvre. It was nice and relaxed. Then we went outside because we were tired and got café crème from a Paul stand and walked outside where it was a bit cooler in the Jardin des Tuileries. Side note: we should definitely get Paul in the United States. It's basically a chain pâtisserie and coffee shop. In Paris it's not that amazing because there are a ton of amazing local pâtisseries, but in the states it would be ah-mazing. But anyway, while the Jardin des Tuileries was pretty, especially in the setting sun; it is going to be beautiful when everything is green again. We walked from there along the Champs-Elysées to the Arc de triomphe again so our friend could take a picture in front of it, and also because it was pretty outside.

 Louvre courtyard

Painting of the Saint Bartholemew's Day Massacre, which was the reason my ancestors left France. I thought it was powerful (if a bit melodramatic). Notice the three intertwined hands: the killer is holding the father in place, the son is trying to hold back the killer with one hand but is holding his father's with the other, and the father is pushing the son back, sacrificing himself to save his son. And his face is completely unafraid and accusatory.

Wow this ceiling!

Eiffel Tower in the distance

Louvre courtyard 

  Jardin des Tuileries

  Jardin des Tuileries

 Jardin des Tuileries

 Jardin des Tuileries

 Jardin des Tuileries

Not sure why but I thought this was hilarious. It was a Lamborghini.

Arc de triomphe

After that we headed back to the Latin Quarter for cheaper food and to show our friend our favorite street: Rue Mouffetard! It's a cool street lined with tons of bars and restaurants and to-go foods like crêpes and gyros. Basically it's very fun and cute and happening. We got another nice (and not TOO expensive) dinner with wine and walked around Rue Mouffetard for crêpes and gelato. But we didn't get back too late, which was nice after last night! I don't have any amusing or snarky observations for today, but I'm sure I'll be back to doing that when I start being around French people more again instead of being in such tourist-y areas.

Tomorrow one friend and I plan to picnic under the Eiffel Tower while the other two walk up the stairs of the Eiffel Tower. Then who knows what the day will bring! Monday I have to go to Paris 3 (Sorbonne Nouvelle) for a tour and placement test that will take all day. Bring it on.

Bisous,
La vache espagnole

Day 6

I will only write a tiny bit today because it's late and I have to get up early. Today I went to a MICEFA thing in the afternoon and realized they sell cheaper food near universities. After that I checked out the sales. Apparently after Three Kings Day (the end of the Christmas season) there are sales. It was compared to Black Friday but I don't see many similarities. Crazy hordes of people were not shoving people around them. They just had a lot of sales. I got a hat and 2 scarves: my first French clothing/accessory purchases! After that I was invited to my friend's home stay for a dinner party. Everyone was very nice and one woman even complimented my French! I was honored. There was cheese and wine and foie gras  and la bise and everything a French dinner party is supposed to be. It was a lovely and informative evening. To finish up (I'm really exhausted, guys), I'd just like to say more people thought I was French today. I think it's a combination of posture, facial expression, clothes, and that I stopped straightening my hair (the French wear it more au naturel). And it's becoming easier to not smile at everyone; it's actually quite liberating! It isn't rude to not smile and you don't have to go through the effort and awkwardness of eye contact and smiling and the timing of all of that when you walk down the street. You save your smiles for when you really mean it with your friends. I saw a ton of smiles at the dinner party, for instance. Anyway I'm gonna sleep now. Byee!

Bisous,
La vache espagnole