Ben, oui!

So, some more notes from Paris. Mostly in the past week or two I’ve been running around being touristy: I went to Rouen and Giverny last week; Rouen to see the famous Cathedral, the place Joan of Arc was burned, which is now marked by a very nice tall cross and a church that feels like the inside of a ship. But a nice, light, airy, colorful ship, and Giverny to see Monet’s house and gardens. Let me tell you, the guy had it good. I would definitely live in that house—it made me want to buy a summer house in France, actually, and the gardens are full of all kinds of beautiful flowers. Thankfully we were there in the sunshine.

Then this weekend, after a few days of orientation at the Institut Catholique, we decided to take a break before classes started and head to the beach. So we caught at TGV to Nice Thursday morning and came back late last night. Nice is very sunny and slightly touristy in areas, but I loved the Mediterranean feel of Vieux Nice and I especially want a house with a red tile roof. The beaches are nice too, even though they’re rocky and I didn’t have a bathing suit with me (too cold for swimming, anyway). The middle of Nice looks very futuristic, the place has checkered tiles and there’s a tram that runs through it. You know when you look at the designs of buildings and things and they’ve drawn in plants and people and colored it all in? That’s what it looked like. The hostel we stayed at (my first hostel experience, guys!) was Petit-Prince themed, which brought back nice memories of high school French, but was run for the most part by Australians, so I was immersed in English for the weekend.

Yesterday I took a day trip to Eze village, a medieval castle about 20 minutes outside of Nice and way up the hill. It was gorgeous, especially from the top of the hill, where the ruins are set into an “Exotic Garden” with cacti and goddess sculptures. But the French Riviera is amazing, guys, and the water is very very blue. I then started a hike down the hill but had to come hiking back up when I realized I no longer had my camera. Which I never found. RIP.

On another note, I started classes today (after a horrific registration process that took two days, countless trips to the boards to look up schedules, and appointments made with the secretary—you people in the US university system, thank your various deities), and it looks like I’m going to vaguely enjoy at least one of them. I am taking Geography of the EU (which I had today), Introduction to Linguistics, Comparative Literature, Language and Expression (focusing on a novel by Balzac), and History of Political Ideas in Europe. All of which I am quite looking forward to, except the four hours of Comparative Lit. in a row.

Other random things:

In the train station, there’s a waiting room with a bathroom (which they charged you 50 centimes to use), and while I was waiting an hour for my train yesterday, I’m pretty sure the lady cleaned the floor three times. Life must get boring if all you do is take people’s money so they can pee before a long train ride.

The title of this entry is my favorite French phrase, I think. Pronounced (for you Anglophones) bah, we!, it is used all the time in daily conversation. More than just a “well, yes”, which is what it means literally, the French manage to add a connotation of, “well that’s obvious” (there’s also “ben, non”, which can invoke a sense of, “obviously not, what were you thinking, idiot?). But the real reason I love this phrase so much is that even the little kids use it. The two-year old I baby-sit cracked me up one day when she showed me a drawing and responded, when I noted that it was pretty and asked whether she did it herself, “ben, oui!”

My internet is finally fixed!!! After a month of struggle. And I have put up pictures.

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2119715&l=7cb7b&id=7412579

Chiche!

So when I left you last, I was enjoying free bread on the terrace of an idyllic café. Well, I’m still there.
Just kidding. Instead, I’ve discovered the marvel that is the university restaurant. Let me tell you, the French know how to do food right (something that may not come as a surprise to many of you). For 2.85 (Euros, naturally, so about $4.25 with the exchange rate the way it is), you get a main dish (meat, vegetable, and a grain), an appetizer or yogurt or fruit, and a small dessert. Or a main dish and a large dessert. Plus the ubiquitous free bread and water. It is perhaps not haute cuisine, but let me tell you, TDR has some things to learn about cafeteria food. Furthermore, we have spent long hours of conversation discussing why the amazing packaged mousse (made by such commonplace companies as Dannon and Yoplait) does not exist in the US. Epic fail.
My food rave temporarily over, except to tell you that surely heaven has crêperies and patisseries on every corner, I can now move on to a short explanation of my life here and what I will be doing for the next few months.
The past week and a half I have devoted three hours a day to an “intensive” French course, where we review basic grammar and French culture. It has not been particularly challenging, but I have learned a few things. For example, the title of this post, “chiche,” means basically “go on, I dare you” (i.e. as a response to something along the lines of “I can eat this entire cake in the next ten minutes”). We have also done some neat cultural activities, such as visiting a cabaret (no girls doing the can-can, sorry guys, just people sitting around singing old French songs, but fun nonetheless) and a guided tour of the Louvre. In any case, we have one more week of that, after which we head to our universities, which we (or at least I) have now chosen. I will shortly be enrolled in the Institut Catholique de Paris, a small(ish—it’s about the size of AU) private school with a beautiful campus in the middle of Paris. There’s a week of orientation starting the 22nd, and then classes start the 29th.
It may be worthwhile to take a minute to say that the whole process has been extremely disorganized and explain a little bit why. The French university system is very different from the American one. First off, it is state sponsored, and everyone who passes their baccalauréat at the end of high school may enroll. Costs of enrollment are under 500 euros a year. Secondly, the French enroll as part of a strict degree program, where the course is basically planned out for them with very few electives (they also get the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree in 3 years). So they basically get told what classes to take when and so they show up. We American exchange students get to pick really any classes we want, but they don’t have the same mechanism to deal with that kind of choice, so it’s a rather frustrating administrative mess. Long story short: I don’t yet know what classes I’ll be taking.
Finally, in addition to hopefully traveling the continent, I will be doing some babysitting on the side to earn some pocket money.
Other updates/random trivia:
I still have no internet at my homestay. And now my battery charger has decided not to work. Technology is the bane of my existence.
My dad came to visit this weekend and we walked and walked and walked. Paris is enormous. Also, Sunday is a very interesting day because at least half, perhaps three quarters, of the stores are closed. Walk to the next corner to get your baguette, you lazy bum. (Oh and the Parisians walk a lot a lot. And there are stairs EVERYwhere).
Notes on French domestics: the washers are smaller and there are no dryers. Europeans sleep not between two sheets under a comforter or blanket like most Americans, but on top of one sheet and under a kind of comforter that has a washable cover that you change like you change sheets. Oh and the pillows are square.
Everything is super efficient. My family has a thing that hangs on the wall that dispenses not only paper towels, but also tinfoil and saran wrap. And there are jump seats in the metro (you pull them down to sit on them) to save space and allow for more standing room in crowded situations. Again, why do we not have these things in the US?
I’m still having a great time, still missing everybody lots. Hope everything is going well at home despite bank failures.
A bientôt!

Ca commence...

I'm here! And it's crazy!
I got here Friday morning and made my way to the housing center by metro, which is a lot like the DC one, except it's like 3 times the size. Oh and you have to push a button to get the doors to open, apparently to save energy. And they have vending machines on the platforms.
I've mainly been doing the touristy things with a couple other people in my program: walking up the Champs-elysees, checking out Notre Dame, having a pique-nique at the Eiffel tower, walking, walking, walking. We've found a large ethnic neighborhood where everything is really cheap
I'm in a host family in the 10eme arrondissement, in the Northeast corner of Paris. It's pretty amazing, I have a host brother and sister at home in addition to my host parents. My room has a window that opens onto a beautiful courtyard, and although my window doesn't have flowers, most of those in the courtyard do, and my host father has a veritable jungle on one of his balconies. I've been talking to my family a lot. For example, the other night I explained the electoral college, which seemed to confuse the heck out of them. We also had a conversation yesterday at lunch about Crocs, which seem to have had a several year delay and are now coming over to Europe (one of the only things that was trendy in the US first--everybody here is very chic). My host mom thought they looked really comfortable, but her daughter was telling her they weren't classy. Her response was that she didn't need class for her shoes, she was a classy person whatever she wore.
As for the whole studying part, I took a language placement test this morning, have an oral interview tomorrow, and start my intensive French class on Wednesday. So more updates on that later, because we haven't been placed at our universities yet.

A few other things that have really struck me: they give you baskets of free bread at meals. I. Love. Bread.
I am an idiot, and though I know that the French 1st floor is our 2nd floor, the first two days I instinctively hit the 1 button on the elevator instead of the 0.
There are ads for English language lessons everywhere. And most people have at least a rudimentary command of English.
I need a lesson in French slang. They have this weird thing where they invert parts of words. So "American" becomes "ricain" and also "cainri"

More updates to come. Hopefully I'll figure out how to get my wireless to work at my host family's house and be a little more reachable. But continue to send me emails! I love hearing about what's going on at home!

Take a Deep Breath...and Jump

So... This is my travel blog...
I have exactly seven days until my flight takes off for Paris, and I am kind of freaking out (mostly in a good way).
I have, true to form, already finished my summer reading, photocopied my necessary documents, purchased travel guides, and packed almost everything.
What's scary is the uncertainty when I get to Paris. When I land, I have to find my way to the housing center, where they will (finally) tell me who my host family is. The next few days are devoted to language proficiency tests used (along with our preferences) to place us at a Parisian University. So right now not only do I not know what classes I am taking, I don't even know where I'll be living or studying.
But I have done as much as I can and all that's left is to mentally prepare, get all my documents in order, charge my camera batteries, dream of crepes, and look up useful French words (think level one words you've never used again, along the lines of "closet" or "toothbrush").
It seems like the worrying and organizing have taken over my life, but I am really really excited. This is going to be awesome.

PS. Keep me updated on happenings back in the US! I look forward to plenty of emails! ( jenelle (dot) thomas (at) american (dot) edu )

PPS. There is a box at the bottom of this screen allowing blog authors to add labels for their posts. I find it quite hilarious that their examples include fall, vacation, and scooters. All very common blog topics. (scooters? really?)