Weekend #2

I have spoken probably 50 words of French this weekend. This depresses me. It's way too easy to hang out with Americans all weekend and not speak much French at all.

It's been a mildly action-packed weekend, which is great. But it's also been extremely cold which has made all of this being out-and-about mildly unpleasant. For some reason the cold here really gets to me, partly because buildings are never properly heated here, so I never feel like I properly warm back up after being out in the cold.

Friday afternoon IES organized a walking tour of the historical sights in downtown Nantes for us. It was grand because the IES center is in a different part of downtown, so I haven't seen much of the historical bits, but I was way too cold to pay attention to most of the history the tour guide was telling us. There was way too much standing around during the two hour tour. Also the tour guide had one of those ridiculous tour guide voices, and spoke extremely slow so we could understand, and I just kind of wanted to giggle all the time because he sounded so bizarre. Ex: La VILLE de Naaaaant-uhhhs. He liked to unnecessarily elongate words and stress other ones. It was nice seeing the inside of the cathedral and the courtyard of the castle though. Anyhoo, I ducked out early and went home for a bit.

In the evening IES had organized dinner at a creperie for us. We have a social coordinator, a graduate student at the university, and her sole job is to organize fun, cheap activities for us to do in Nantes. It's awesome. Unfortunately, the dinner cost 15 euros, which is far from cheap of course, but it was well worth it. I had a four cheese crepe, and then a caramel crepe, accompanied with cider (the carbonated alcoholic kind). DELICIOUS.

Afterwards I went to a bar with Elise, the social coordinator, some of her French friends that had gone to the creperie as well, and two other Americans, Stewart and Jessie. Cider and spending lots of time out in the cold on Friday made me very sleepy, but it was fun just sitting there drinking delicious German beer and listening to Elise be crazy. She's a funny lady in the best way possible, and very animated all the time. I had a good time listening to all the French conversation around me and asking questions about French questions every once in a while.

Saturday I tried to find people do stuff with, but most people seemed to be busy. Which was actually fine. It was a lovely sunny day, so I walked downtown and took pictures. I walked to the Jardin des Plantes, which I'm sure will be a fantastic place in the spring. I found the school where I'll be doing my teaching internship, bought a used Agatha Christie book in Spanish for 1.80, got an espresso and apple tart at a cafe, and looked around the soldes (sales) that are everywhere. I also bought credit for my phone for the first time, which was a bit of a debacle. I figured I could figure out how to do it myself, so I bought the recharge card and then went into a bookstore to put the credit on my phone. Even though I would say I can understand French very well, I had no idea what the automated lady was saying. At all. I tried about 5 times to work my way through the menus to where I could enter in the recharge code, but I really had no idea what I was doing. So I had to go back to the store and ask the man that sold me the credit to do it for me. I think he found me silly.

After spending allll day by my lonesome, I met up with Cori, Sarah, Katie and Stewart for dinner, then went to a different Katie's house to watch The Road, a horribly depressing movie with good ol Viggo Mortensen. Katie has a cat, which made me quite happy. Getting home kind of sucked though, because trams run very infrequently at night, and Katie lives nowhere near me.

Today I went on a run then got coffee downtown with some people. I haven't seen my host mom since Friday afternoon, and it's been a little weird being home alone so much. She worked during the day yesterday, wasn't home last night or this morning (I'm assuming she spent the night at her boyfriends house?) and is working this evening.

I need to stop making such massive posts. Gaaaahhhh. After this week I'll talk more about classes and such. Last week was just a test run, and by friday I should have my schedule actually figured out.

La Langue Francaise

As mummy dearest suggested, I am going to start doing some thematic blog posts in an attempt to cut down on the length of posts. And this is a topic that has some relevance to today, because I found out my results from the IES French test we took during orientation. (Albeit inadvertently. I overheard Madame Rouchet, one of our program directors, talking to the phonetics professor about how all of us Americans tend to stand around speaking in awkward French to one another. I laughed, and Madame Rouchet and I started talking about my French comprehension. And she asked me if I wanted to see my test scores).

Not to toot my own horn, but out of all 60 students that took the test, I scored the 4th highest. And I got the highest listening comprehension score out of everybody. My grammar score was fairly average, which didn't really surprise me, since it's been a looonggg time since I've thought much about grammar.

Considering that I haven't spent much time in a French speaking country before, I was rather pleased to find that from the first day I arrived I could understand things fairly well. I can understand everything that they tell us at IES, I can understand everything my host parents say to me (except when there's some obscure vocab word thrown in) and I can understand the news on TV. Understanding French children, any movie or TV show and slang-y French is much more of an issue, although I can generally get the main idea. I plan to watch lotsss and lotsss of French TV to work on this.

My speaking ability seems to depend on the day largely. Some days are just peachy, others not so much. I can communicate everything I need to, but my accent largely depends on the day and who I am speaking to as well (better around French people of course).

Overall I'm very pleased to be in living in a country where I actually speak the language decently, unlike my previous experiences. It's made the transition into life here pretty easy. Although it's notoriously hard to make French friends, I'm sure speaking French already will help enormously. And I'm having a grand time with my host family because we can actually have decent conversations about a multitude of topics.

Speaking French is really quite fun, it is.

Une Semaine a Nantes

Yesterday was officially a week that I have been living in Nantes (I'm not going to count the first night I was here, because that was all a blur anyways). It's been a week with very little downtime so far, but that's really how I like my life so I suppose it was alright.

Last sunday we returned from Orientation in Tours, and returned to our respective host family's houses. After dinner at 8 (dinner at my house is always at 8, which is sort of painfully late for me) I watched a movie on TV while my host parentals did other various things in the living room. This has sort of become a bit of a ritual over the last week. After dinner, which ends somewhere from 9-9:30, I usually watch TV until 11ish in an attempt to be social with my parents. Also, it's really good for my French. I can understand the news okay, and basically everything my host parents say, but TV shows and movies are a different story, since they speak much faster and use alot more slang of course.

I suppose I haven't really talked much about who I'm living with. My host mummy is Corinne, who is 54 (at least I think that's what she told me) and works at a car or an insurance call center (not really sure which). She works semi-irregular hours (one evening a week and most weekends) so she's not always around. Her boyfriend, Michel, also basically lives with us, although he has a small house in the country near Nantes somewhere. His grandpappies were lettuce farmers on the land near his house, which I think is just precious.

Aaaand orientation in Nantes was boring and not worth commenting on really. It mostly made for me being very exhausted this weekend. I did some shopping with mes amies on saturday, saw Somewhere (the newest Sofia Coppola movie) and went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant to celebrate my friend's birthday. It was oodles of fun but too expensive. Et voila.

La Premiere Semaine

I do apologize that it's taken me so long to update. The last week has been ridiculously busy and I've had very little free time. It's been one of the longest weeks I've had in a very long time.

So last Thursday (January 13th I do believe) we all returned to the IES center to depart for our off-site orientation in Tours. It was a 2 1/2 hour bus ride, which I was not pleased about. I spent most of last week sitting. In Tours I roomed with Sarah who goes to Georgetown. I don't even remember what we had for dinner the first night at the hotel restaurant, but every single meal we had there over the course of the next three and a half days was three courses (soup or salad, entree and dessert plus bread) which all got to be a bit much after awhile. And they decided not to serve red meat or pork to better accommodate everyone, so we ate ALOT of fish.

The first night was a bit of a welcome to the program, and group introductions from all 60 of us. But the main reason we were in Tours was to see the Chateaux de la Loire, all them famous castles of France. The first one we saw on Friday morning was Loche, which was the oldest but also the least impressive probably. The most remarkable part of it was the dungeon, which was used for political prisoners for a very long time. But since it's so old its mostly just ruins at this point. There was a lovely view of the cutesy little town of Loche though.

In the afternoon we went to Chenonceau, which is one of the most famous chateau of France. It's built basically in the Loire, which is pretty ridiculous, and has some very lovely gardens. Chateaus are very cold in winter, because they're basically big uninsulated stone buildings, which I didn't exactly appreciate, but they are also alot less crowded which was cool.

In the evening, after our return to Tours, I walked around the city with three other girls. It's kind of unfortunate that we didn't have a day in Tours, because there's alot of cool stuff to see in Tours itself. It's pretty lively at night, because it's a university town, but we were a little unsure how bars work in France, so we decided to just walk around. When we got back, one of the girls I was with, Dana, was locked out of room so we watched TV, which was horribly depressing. We watched a show about dysfunctional, mildly abusive couples who have relationship interventions. Not any better than trashy American TV.

The next day was chock full of more castles. First we went to Blois, which was cool because it's actually in a fairly decent sized town, which is not all that common for castles, from what I can tell. My favorite part of Blois was the stained glass porcupines (porc-epic!) which were in windows throughout the castle. I also very much liked the fleur-de-lis which were painted in gold all over the ceiling of the big hall ( I can't really think of the appropriate word for it). I think because all of our tours were in French all the historical information hasn't stuck with me super well. I understood the tours just fine, but things are much easier to tune out in French.

Possibly my favorite part of orientation was lunch on Saturday, which was simply epic. We went to this little hotel/restaurant in the countryside right next to the Loire. From where I was sitting at lunch, I could see swans across the river in the Loire. It was just so typically lovely and French. Most remarkably, it was probably the most expensive meal I've ever had, since it was five amazing courses. I had a vegetarian meal (there was a bit of confusion since people with allergies or special diets got blue cards at every meal, to let the servers know, but most people just assumed that I was vegetarian, and didn't ask about allergies, which was fine). First we had a sort of puff pastry egg roll, filled with a mixture of vegetables. Next was one of the prettiest salads I have ever eaten. The non vegetarians got a plate filled with various meat items, and I tried somebody's pate (gross) and foie gras (not as gross) just for funsies. After that was the main course, which for me was mashed potatoes with a little puff pastry boat filled with mushrooms in cream sauce on top. Soooo goooood. Then came the cheese plate (amazing chevre and some sort of muenster) and then dessert. Dessert came on full main-course sized plates because it was HUGE. There was a creme brulee, a fluffy chocolate cake with fruit sauce and a scoop of raspberry sorbet. So basically three desserts. Everything was amazing, and I was obscenely full afterwards. I wish I would have taken pictures of every course because they were all beautiful.

After that we went to Chambord, which is also one of the best known French castles. I was probably the most impressed with Chambord, because it's very striking and HUGE. I got lost multiple times, and separated from the people I was attempting to walk around with. It's got all these awesome towers, and a double helix staircase in the center. It was Francois 1er, who had a huge nose. That was really the most remarkable thing about him to me. And his official crest was a fire-breathing salamander, which I enjoyed. There was an overwhelming amount of stuff to see in Chambord, so after seeing the main rooms and the balcony, I went outside and played frisbee instead. We were there fairly late in the day, so the sun started setting and the castle turned all pink and orange. It was just fantastic.

After our return to Tours, I was too tired to do much of anything, so I just played Set with some people. One of the most exhausting parts of orientation, aside from getting up early every day, was just meeting so many new people. It was like summer camp or freshman orientation. 60 new people is just an awful lot. But after knowing them for about a week now, it's much better. Just keeping track of all those names is overwhelming at first.

Sunday, after three hours of French exams, for placement in our French grammar classes(French grammar?! What?! I haven't thought about grammar in years), we returned to Nantes. After two intense days of tourist-ing, I was fairly glad to be back.

That was alot more in-depth than I intended. So. I guess I'll finish writing about orientation in Nantes later, because it's saturday and I have things to do.

Je Suis La!

I'm hanging out in my precious little room in Nantes, waiting for my host mummy to get home from work to make crepes for lunch. It's been a crazy 24 hours or so.

When I got to my gate in Chicago, I sat by a bunch of people who looked to be about my age, assuming that they were probably also studying abroad in Nantes, or at least France. And correct I was. They were all from Illinois Wesleyan, and mostly going to Nantes. The flight was incredibly uneventful, except that I actually managed to sleep a bit. I was on the aisle in the middle section, and there was a open seat between me and the other guy, which helped ALOT. Upon arriving in Paris, I got my huge suitcase and got my passport stamped and then was off to the train station in the airport. Apparently they don't really do customs in CDG, because they literally just stamped my passport and didn't even ask me any questions about what I was doing there. It was ridiculously easy.

There was a three hour wait or so in the train station, but since I was with a bunch of other people, it was okay (our numbers just kept amassing as the day went on, and by the time we got off the train in Nantes there was probably about 20 of us). I managed to buy a train ticket in French, and order a baguette sandwich and a coffee. I didn't exactly anticipate problems, but it was rather reassuring that I am intelligible in French. I rather wanted to stay awake during the train ride, to see the picturesque scenery and whatnot, but I mostly failed. It actually wasn't a particularly pretty ride, since it's rather dreary in France right now, but there were a few cute little villages. When we arrived at the train station in Nantes, the large group of us went to the exit, where we expected to be met by an IES person, as we were promised in the information we had received. No such luck. So we were all standing around like lost children, which was highly unproductive. If I had been by myself, I would have just gone to get a taxi, since that's what we were supposed to do anyways. But I didn't want to leave the whole group, so me and another girl convinced everyone that we were indeed supposed to get taxis and go to the IES center. It was a little frustrating.

So we arrived, got all our luggage upstairs by means of a tiny little elevator, then I chatted with people for about 45 minutes until my host mom arrived. The IES center is in an old building downtown, and seems like it should be a good place to hang out and such. I didn't really get to thoroughly explore, since I wasn't there for all that long.

My house is about 20 minutes or so from downtown, not really within walking distance. It's really cute and well-decorated and not really what I expected. It's probably a newer house, but by nature of it being European seems much classier than a newish American house would be. Another thing I noticed right away was that all the houses on my street are white. How dull. There's a small kitchen, living room and a sunporch thinger downstairs, and four bedrooms upstairs with two bathrooms (one is just a bathtub and a sink).

For dinner, for which Corinne's boyfriend Michel was also in attendance, we had a cheese omelette, some baked veggies and a salad. After came the cheese (my host mom tells me she likes cheese alot, so I do hope we shall be eating lots), and then la galette des rois, which you can read about here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_cake. It's traditional for the festival of the Epiphany. Of course, I got the "feve", the trinket inside the cake, which is now sitting on my desk. It was also super delicious. I told my host mom that I enjoy cooking, which she is quite excited about. She's hosted quite a few students before me, and she said that I'm the first one who knows how to cook. I'm not really sure what to cook though... She also told me that she doesn't really eat a lot of meat, mostly fish and veggies, which is awesome.

I've spoken the most French in the past 24 hours than other day in my life, and it's nice to know that I can get by just fine. I watched the news for a bit yesterday and could understand basically everything. Corinne said my French is quite good, which is reassuring.

I didn't have a chance to post this before orientation, so I'll do that now, then write about orientation.

Just trying out the picture posting thing... Chou Chou as a baby kitten with her friend echidna.

bienvenue

Here be the inaugural post for my blog. I'm leaving for Nantes, France a week from today. I'm ridiculously excited to get out of the Wisconsin cold, as much as I'll miss dear Bruisy and Mummy. Also, I literally haven't had anything to do during the past two weeks, aside from outings with friends, and I'm not good at not being busy. Not that I've been completely bored, just all this free time is a new concept. Not only am I looking forward to France, but learning again will also be lovely. Anyways, since I have yet to pack or do anything related to getting ready for France (aside from raiding the bathroom for toiletries) I really have very little to say. I do intend to post again before I leave though. Ballyhoo!