Random rant fest

Okay, so I really just can't take this anymore and I need to let it out, so this medium is just gonna have to do. I don't know when this fad became so popular, but WHY is everyone suddenly freaking out about the misuse of the word "literally"??? Why is this suddenly a big deal? Why are people so offended by this particular word evolving a new usage? I don't think these same people wander around bitchslapping strangers for using hopefully in sentences like "hopefully she'll be here on Thursday", so why is "literally" so different? Are these Literally Nazis saying things like "From where are you?" to avoid ending sentences with prepositions? Are they using whom and who correctly? I'm sure a few of them are...but the vast majority have just gotten swept up in this truly weird fad that I cannot comprehend.

And then here's the other thing that really gets me: after some asshat crusader calls someone out on their misuse of "literally", the accused always seems to say "oh yeah, I know I use that word wrongly sometimes, it's a bad habit, hehehe". No one stands up to these pricks and says "hey, I'm sorry that you're a conceited bitch, but DEAL WITH IT". And frankly, that's what pisses me off the most. Because if you dare to correct someone's who/whom mistakes, you get "omg calm down no one cares about that stuff!" Well listen up, newest stupid fad to sweep the nation: NO ONE CARES ABOUT THAT STUFF. Unless it *literally* makes you incapable of understanding my sentence (see: mistakes likes 'eats, shoots and leaves'), GET OVER YOURSELF.

I feel better now.

Back in Atlanta

Things that I have thought in the past week that are not true:

1) It's the weekend. In fact, it's Sunday. No store is going to be open.
2) Not only is it Sunday, it's a national holiday. No store is going to be open.
3) Sales don't happen except twice a year, thus there are no sales right now.
4) It's almost noon. I shouldn't go anywhere for two hours in case they close for lunch.
5) The price that is listed on the tag or menu is the price I'm going to pay, because tax is included.

Clearly, I have not left France entirely behind.

If you don't love the French countryside, you don't have a soul

So, I traipsed off to the French countryside again from Monday until Thursday last week. I was near a town called Albi, which is basically in the midst of this region that's something like Tuscany, but in France. To give you an idea of how gorgeous this place is, I give you a street in Cordes-sur-ciel, which translates to "Cordes above heaven", thus named because when it's cloudy the town (which is on a hill, obvi) is above the clouds.


This town is one of the most beautiful towns in France. I don't know who decided that, but it's a widely known fact. It's also 20 minutes from where I was staying. Which was also 15 minutes on foot from a vineyard. The countryside looks, in general, like this:


Clearly, pictures can't do this place justice. For the second time in the past month, I was living in a dream in the French countryside. I don't know how anyone can leave this.

Oh, I am also one of the champions of the university division of my first beach tourney. Don't ask how many teams were our competition, the number would only blow you away.

What's wrong with starting a lemonade stand business in France?

So, I just made lemonade from scratch here. This was born from a conversation I had two days ago with a guy on my frisbee team:

Me: Man, I'd really like some lemonade right now.
Cédric: What? Why?
Me: Well, it's such a summer drink.
Cédric: Yeah, it's cool, it's refreshing, it's carbonated...
Me: It's carbonated?! What?
Cédric: Uhhh...duh. Wait...it's not carbonated in the US?

Thus we discovered that "limonade" and lemonade are not in fact the same drink. And so we bought some limonade so that I could understand what this weird (clear) bubbly French drink was, and then we made lemonade from scratch. This is why I love my life here.

Let's get rich and buy our parents homes in the south of France

I spent the weekend in the French countryside, celebrating the 25th birthday of a guy on the frisbee team. It was a dream: it was sunny and hot, there was a little river we went to and threw discs in, and even though there were a lot of houses around there weren't that many people. Well, excluding the partiers, anyway...there were 30 of us. The party went from Friday night to Sunday afternoon, and I know at least a few people stayed up past 7am both days. I sang, I danced, I did a tequila shot with 30 year olds (my favorite thing ever is drinking with people who party like they're in their 20s but are actually 33). I dressed up as a Care Bear (Bedtime Bear, which in French is "Gros Dodo"). I ate burgers and sausages to my heart's content. I played a game that I need to find in the States so that I can take it to college...it's the ultimate college game. I watched card games that I didn't understand in the slightest.

I could spend every weekend out there and never get tired of it. Oh, and now I eat cherries. And drink coffee. And drink beer (which I feel is maybe not the accomplishment I'm the most proud of on this trip). 3 1/2 weeks is not enough time to spend here with these people.

Watched La Petite Sirene in French. Yes, that means "win" in English.

Clearly I haven't checked in for a while, mainly because life here was mad hectic for about a month. I am currently in an interesting mental state, mainly because most of the Georgetown students I know here either have already left or will be leaving soon. And I'm currently trying to figure out how to be here at least until my visa expires. Meanwhile, I've never been out of the states this long...in fact, the beginning of May marks four full months spent in France, aka double the time I spent in Japan. And yet, I'm nowhere near ready to leave. If I were leaving in less than a week, like many of my friends are doing, I would be horrifically distressed. But still, there are some things that I miss...for example:

Ethnic food. I went to a Mexican restaurant here for the first time a couple weeks ago. Never making that mistake again.

Not having a deathly fear of people talking to me. Considering that I'm in France and everyone here speaks French...I feel like this one is pretty self explanatory.

Having a college social life. This one has slightly improved in the last month or so, but my social life here is not my social life at Georgetown. This is, in general, rather annoying.

Television. When I have access to it, my favorite shows are 1) seasons behind and 2) in French.

Normal classes/exams. Though I'm done with both of those...can we just talk about how easy French university would be if French were my native language? I can't wait to go back to a scenario where writing papers doesn't cause me to have a hernia.

My kitchen. With my ramen and my microwavable meals. And an endless supply of SKIM MILK and VITAMIN WATER.

I lied when I said I do things with my life other than play ultimate

So, the previous post mentioned how I have burst on to the ultimate scene in France. Considering that all that happened between that post and this one was a nasty stomach virus, a lot of school work, and another ultimate weekend, I think I'm gonna stick with just talking mostly about my ultimate experience. Unless you really want to hear about what it feels like to celebrate St. Patrick's Day in your room writing a paper and praying that dinner stays in your body...yeah, thought not.

Actually, though, there were some things of note: HARRIS came to visit, which was extremely fun (even though I was in the midst of stomach virus love). We made dinner for my host fam, and wandered around Lyon aimlessly, and generally kicked ass just by existing in the same place at the same time. Also had a small world experience when we ran into a guy who is in my French culture class who went to GHP with Harris back in the day. SMALL WORLD!

Also, I finally had my medical visit for my carte de sejour. This consisted of being asked to strip completely above the waist and getting forced against an X-ray machine in a weird Lady Gaga pose to make sure that I don't have TB. Really, France? Couldn't have picked a better way to do this? Also: found out that the above mentioned stomach flu made me lose 4 kilos (I think...I'm having trouble figuring out what my weight has been since I got here, so maybe the weight loss wasn't that dramatic). The accidental bulimia diet works like a charm, folks.

But then I made it through all these trials safe and sound and somehow ended up in a car on my way to Nimes Saturday morning, after a variety of am I going? I'm not going...yes I'm going! fake outs. As I spent most of the weekend either watching or participating in games, I did not see much of Nimes, which was too bad. Fun shout out, though: on the way home from the bar where the tourney hangout thingy was Saturday night, we drove past the colosseum place where I'm 90% sure I got lost when I was in 8th grade. Good times!

Back to the tourney, though. I must admit, I had a fabulous time. The ultimate culture that I'm getting to see here in France is really different from what I'm used to in the States; maybe that's because I don't play club ultimate back home, or maybe it's just how it is here. There's so many French traditions that I really like, particularly the circle that both teams get in after the game. You mix up so that you're between players from different teams, and the team captains thank everyone for a good game and talk about what happened to make the game turn out the way it did. It's also an opportunity for players to mention things that made them uncomfortable during the game, like contact/fouling, and discuss the rules again if there were any disagreements to make sure everyone's on the same page. And then there's the obligatory game playing afterward. I'm pretty sure part of the reason this doesn't happen in the States as much is because we tend to have tighter tourney schedules, and we do cheer the other teams...but still. I'm gonna try to bring it back with me as much as possible, I think.

I loved playing with my new team. It's hard because I've been out of the game for so long and I'm still not totally back in the groove; I had a couple moments where it all got clicking again, both on O and on D, but I wish I could have been more together for the whole weekend. Still, I love them, and I feel like I'm starting to make friends, even with the ones I can barely talk to because I still have some comprehension/speaking issues.

There were Americans there, too! Lots of them! On a team from Aix-en-Provence. Turns out that two of them know Alisha, Jon, and Jennie (and have played with them). Then there were another two who were linguists! One is currently studying Irish (linguistically, I mean), and invited me to come see the lab where she works/crash at her place. I love ultimate players!

Highlight of the weekend: when the Irish linguist and I were trading info, two of the boys from my team started yelling, "Hey, she plays for us...no stealing!" I def got a case of the warm and fuzzies.

Highlights from a weekend of Ultimate

I spent this weekend with the Ultimate Frisbee team that I found here in Lyon, which was basically their "team building" weekend or something like that. Essentially, we went to this community center, played all day long, had a party, slept there, then played for most of Sunday against a Swiss team. Most of my highlights come from the party, which was not ridiculous so much as silly beyond belief. Here's a list of what I think were the standout moments of the weekend:

In general:

• Made real French friends, as well as some international friends.
• It snowed. We played in the snow. It was awesome.
• Learned some interesting new tactics for frisbee.
• Got to watch part of the Lion King in French (as well as witness a large number of French adults absolutely glued to the screen behind the 3-year-old girl for whom the movie was intended)

At the party:

• Sang along to Bohemian Rhapsody in a circle with a bunch of French people. They know a surprising number of the lyrics.
• At one point found myself pretending to row a rowboat with 5 guys while a techno remix of the Pirates of the Caribbean theme song played.
• Danced like I was in that scene in the Breakfast Club. Apparently French dancing consists of bouncing around and waving your arms wildly. It was awesome.
• Participated in a dance-off. Several, actually.
• Traded shirts with a guy. My sweater was worn by at least three guys. I traded again and ended up in another girl's shirt. Apparently this is a team tradition.
• Got serenaded in French while doing a semi-cha cha to a French song.
  
• Saw some guy-on-guy dancing. It's not an Ultimate party without it.
  
• At about 5am when there were only six people left, had a weird Mr. Scott-like dance experience which involved a rocking circle, a chain of people, and lots of spinning. Later witnessed more Mr. Scott-ish modern dance between two people who each appeared to be trying to fully encompass the other person with their body.
  
• At about 6am, realized the sun was rising.
• 7am: still dancing
• 7:30am: finally went to bed, slept for less than an hour.

Basically, as happens any time I do anything frisbee related, I am now wishing my life could consist of an endless steam of Ultimate during the day and hanging out with Ultimate players at night. Alas, this is not the case. But I'm really glad that I decided to go on this little excursion, even though I went to my first (and only) practice last Tuesday, so I was essentially with a bunch of strangers. Once more, another reason for me to consider the Ultimate community worldwide as some of the friendliest, most welcoming and accepting people ever.

Going on VA-CAY! Part III...the final chapter

And so, the end of my trip. The train ride to Reims was uneventful; I spent most of it either asleep or staring out the windows at the lovely French countryside. More on that aspect later. Once I got in to Reims, I had some amount of trouble finding my hostel, mostly because the office of tourism, where I assumed I had to go to get a map of Reims (I didn't even bother at the train station because most of them don't have maps of the city) was nowhere near the train station. That wasn't really a problem, considering that Reims is TINY (kid you not...I walked diagonally from one end of the city map to the other in less than an hour. Including a few brief stops for things like ATMs). But it was a bit annoying, and then of course I had to navigate to the hostel, and it took me a while to get oriented on the map, so that was fun. Another weird thing was that they were installing a tram line while I was there. Which meant that several streets had these huge multicolored fences down the middle, making crossing streets occasionally difficult (and I don't envy the drivers).

In any case, I found the hostel and got settled in. Because I was in Reims, the capital of the Champagne region of France, right before the "on season" for the champagne cellars, there was NO ONE there. I'm pretty sure the city was on vacation (aka the students), and the hostel was not very busy (minus a huge group of British students who left the second day I was there). This meant that I had a "shared" room for three people all to myself...including the private bathroom! This was definitely the highlight of the trip.

After putting my stuff down in the hostel, I went out and saw a few of the sights. This mainly means the cathedral, which is HUGE and absolutely gorgeous. They're in the middle of renovating it and so there were some panels up explaining how they were doing the new sculptures, which was interesting. I also went into their Musée de Beaux Arts, which was rather small and seemed to be partly an exhibition of budding modern artists in Reims. Weird. I saw some other things, too, like memorials to the dead (the French are huge on those) and a weird Roman gate. It's really pretty there, even in winter. One thing that really threw me off was that whenever I went into a museum or something, people kept asking me what nationality I was. I never learned to expect the answer, and thus always looked very confused and had to have the question repeated to me multiple times. It was just for their records, but man it was annoying.

The next day I went to another part of the city I hadn't been in the day before. Which meant seeing a really pretty basilica, an old school for kiddies who want to grow up to be Jesuits (I think), and les caves! Les caves are the wine cellars, which most places do guided tours through. Of course, as it was the off season, most places required a reservation beforehand, which I considered too much trouble. One of the larger cellars, Pommery, holds regular tours in a variety of languages, though, so I hit them up and took a tour in French. This was more ego massage for me, because I was capable of understanding what was going on and the women at reception told me that I was better than most of the Americans that come through there. Which made me a little upset about the image of the typical American; this wasn't a stereotype, this was workers who deal with Americans all the time. I can at least pray that even if they aren't able to speak French they're at least polite. In any case, this part of the day came complete with an art exhibition in the tunnels (I walked on the same red carpet from Cannes! And saw a French flag that had waved on the Arc de Triomphe! And the equation that Einstein did to get E=mc^2!) and champagne tasting at the end! It was EXTREMELY interested (and the champagne was delicious), so if you want to get some high quality champagne I recommend Pommery. I also highly recommend doing wine cellar tours...they are immensely interesting.

Later that day I decided to continue my trend of seeing movies that I'd started in Tours and went to see Sherlock Holmes in theaters. Little did I know it was dubbed in French...which made for me not quite getting all of the finer elements of the plot and for some sadness, as I love RDJ and was distressed at not getting to hear his vocal performance. (This experience was somewhat repeated Monday night when I watched Pride and Prejudice in French with my host family. Mr. Darcy's voice = not as cool in French.) But still, I had a good time.

Sunday morning I briefly visited mass in the cathedral, just to spectate. I was a little surprised by how few people were attending, but the fifteen minutes or so of the service that I saw were interesting. I then proceeded over to the train station for a train to back to Lyon, by way of Dijon. Because I got cheap tickets, this leg of the journey lasted about 6 hours. But as promised, I really need to say something about the French countryside...
It's SO PRETTY. Even in winter, with nothing blooming and no crops in the fields, it's straight out of a fairy tale. So many of the houses/towns that we went by look like they're still living in antiquity, which makes for a really picturesque trip. I mean, I'm sure that there's absolutely nothing to do in those little towns, but just looking at them it's easy to imagine Cinderella happening there or something. I also adore train stations, and getting to watch friends and family wave goodbye to people departing on trains made me happy; I feel like I haven't seen that sort of thing in a long, long time. And so I made it home sain et sauf, as they say, and semi wishing I had grown up a small town in the French countryside (but really not cause I'm sure the amenities there are nonexistent and sister needs her showers).

And now I'm back at school, facing the realities of papers and oral presentations and fun things like that. You know, keeping it real.

Going on VA-CAY! Part II

Part two of my epic journey through France saw me in Tours, the city where Viviana studied last summer, situated in the Loire Valley (aka the hot spot for chateaux). This part of my trip started off really well. And by that, I mean that they had technical difficulties on the Paris Metro and I missed my train. However, an extremely friendly worker in the train station (SURPRISE! They DO exist!) informed me that my train ticket was valuable for several days as long as I got on a "blue" train, the next one of which was leaving in an hour. Thus, tragedy turned into a discovery on how to get half off train tickets in France. Let me also take this moment to say that I LOVE it when French people say "je vous en prie" to me. Maybe it's just the people I've talked to, but they always sound so happy when they say it. It's like that time that I realized in Japan that "I'm sorry" sounds horrible in comparison with "sumimasen".

Next came my train journey, which was surprisingly pleasant...the second class on Intercité trains in France (at least the ones I took) are those compartment things rather than just aisles with chairs, so I felt like I was on the Hogwarts Express. I then arrived in the beautiful Tours train station and met Marie, my guide for the next two days. Marie had met Viviana when she was there last summer, and offered to show me around/let me stay at her place while I was in the area. She is, without a doubt, the most competent and friendly 19-year-old I have ever met. We chatted quite a bit, mostly about differences between French and American schooling, because she is applying to 13 (THIRTEEN!!) American universities as a transfer student to do her last two years of higher education. This all happened in French, though considering that she went to a bilingual school, I'm 99.9% sure that her English is miles better than my French. But it was still kind of an ego massage that we never needed to switch over, so I guess that was alright.

After showing me around Tours a little bit, we went to her father's house for the night. We made a lovely dinner of spaghetti and a cake, as Marie evidently loves making desserts. We then trundled off to see a French movie with her mom, who's hilarious and wonderful. I did not understand everything that happened in the movie, but it was a good time nonetheless. And that was that for Wednesday.

Thursday started off great, with my first real experience thus far with French tv. I watched part of a show that seemed to be about high schoolers at a boarding school who wanted to be in a band, then switched over to the Olympics and watched some skiing! They were just switching to speed skating when Marie's mom came over and took us to her house for a little R&R, including a quiche lunch and another French movie called OSS 117 (it's a James Bond spoof, and a pretty good one at that...reminded me of the old Pink Panther movies a little bit).

We then set off for my first chateau viewing, a place called Chenonceau that is literally in the middle of a river. It's gorgeous, and apparently would be even more so in the summer, as none of the flowers were blooming. Still, it was a nice day and it was fun to check out the castle, with me and Marie clustered around Marie's mom listening to her reading to us from the visitor's guide. Regardless of the fact that Marie and her family have to do this every time someone comes to visit them, they certainly acted as if they were having a good time, and I personally enjoyed the hell out of myself. Regardless of how cold/icky chateaux were back in the day, I still want to live in one, damn it!

We then returned home to Marie's dad's house, where we chilled and watched a little more of the Olympics before going out to dinner. For the first time since I came to France, I couldn't finish what was on my plate (ravioli, mmmmmmmm). Then we went back to the house and Marie showed me French comedy routines on DVD; one was a woman, Florence Foresti, doing stand-up, and the other was something called Un Gars/Une Fille, which centered around the world travels of a fictitious couple (but fictitious in the way that Job and whatever Amy Phoeler's character were fictitiously together on Arrested Development...they're really a couple in real life). I think this about says it all for Florence Foresti: http://www.florenceforesti.com/
In short: she's hilarious, at least what I understood of what she did. Un Gars/Une Fille was kind of like watching a French Michael Scott and his female counterpart touring the world...aka pretty funny. And on this note of French humor, part two of my journey came to a close.

Going on VA-CAY! Part I

Last week was “winter” break for all Lyon students, meaning that I picked up and cleared out for a Tour de France in the northern-ish parts of France, aka Paris, Tours, and Reims. And because I was (mostly) without internet access for this little adventure, I have not told anyone anything about it, so here comes an in-depth explanation of my life for the past week.

I started out bright and early Saturday morning headed for Paris. The TGV ride was good, except for that part where I was sitting at a four person table thingy with three people who knew each other and that part where the little girl across the aisle started puking. Thus, I spent most of the ride either asleep or feigning sleep.
Upon arriving in Paris, I struck out for the humble abode of my dear high school friend, Miss Caroline King. Caroline has been in Paris since last fall, and has thus had many France adventures that I had not heard about, so after getting to her place, we spent a good deal of time catching up. I met her friend, who was also living with the same host family, and we went to see the dress rehearsal of A Little Night Music at the Chatelier theater, which is where they have their internships. This was AMAZING, partly because it was in English and thus I was able to understand/appreciate it, partly because it had the woman from Gigi and An American in Paris in it (who Caroline had met a few nights before), and partly because the theater is GORGEOUS. It made me really miss doing theater for one of the first times since I left Woodward.

The next day was remarkably uneventful. We slept in and then went to a late brunch at a restaurant called Breakfast in America, where all of the wait staff was American as far as I could tell and where I ordered a meal in English for the first time in a month and a half. The food was amazing as well…overall a good experience. We then drifted back to Caroline’s, where we went out and got an insane amount of cheap (and delicious!) sangria and proceeded to celebrate Valentine’s Day in style. Thus, the first two days in Paris were spent mostly indoors.
Monday was a different story. Caroline had class/work for most of the day, and I took the world’s longest walk. I started out near the Jardin de Luxembourg, which is near the hotel I had stayed at the last time I was in France and features prominently in most of my memories of Paris. I then walked to Notre Dame, and then from there walked past the Louvre, through the Jardin de Tuilleries, and down the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. I didn’t want to spend money on an expensive restaurant, and thus had the wonderful experience of discovering a Monoprix on the Champs Elysees (yay for bargain pricing on the most expensive street ever!) and buying a sandwich there. Exhausted but desiring to stop sightseeing and start sight going-into-places, I took the metro over to Pere Lachaise, a cemetery known for all the famous people buried there. Of course, there are a number of normal people buried there as well; in fact, my host mom just told me that she’s pretty sure her family has a plot there. This makes me eternally jealous. Anyway, the place is huge, and if you ever want to find anyone famous you have to use the labeled maps, which can be tricky. As it was, I got there kind of late and didn’t plan my trajectories very well, so I never found the graves of Proust or Rimbaud (frowny face!). However, I did succeed in finding Oscar Wilde (go Anglophones!), Eluard (this was the reason I wanted to find Rimbaud…and it makes me sad that they’re not buried side by side, which would probably have made me tear up. At least they’re in the same cemetery), Edith Piaf, Sarah Bernhart, La Fontaine, and Moliere. I also took pictures of just about every other grave I saw because they are all SO COOL. And, I saw a movie being filmed. Don’t know which one, though. I also fell in love briefly with this gorgeous guy I found who was sitting alone on a bench in an abandoned part of the cemetery, looking pensive and eating Nutella straight out of the bottle. The highlight was probably when I followed two Italians who were being shown a grave by a man who works at the cemetery. As the man was walking away, he noticed me, and here lies a transcription of our following conversation (translated to English by yours truly):
Man: You’re looking for Moliere and La Fontaine?
Caitlin: Yes.
M: Haha, it’s always the same! Hey…do you speak French?
C: Yes.
M: Do you know [garbled]?
C: …yes?
M: Follow me! You clearly have a French culture. These Italians, they wouldn’t know about him, haha! But if you’re, say, Belgian…? (inquisitive look)
C: Actually, I’m American.
M: Oh well. But you have a French culture!
C: Haha…yes?
We then arrived at a grave of someone I’ve never heard of, but I exclaimed over it and took pictures, so apparently I managed to convince another French person that I’m far more cultured than I actually am. At that point it was getting late, so I returned to Caroline’s, where we watched Baby Mama with her roommate. Oh, la culture francaise!

The next day was looooong, as I left early and stayed out for about twelve hours. I started out at the Musee d’Orsay, which I had visited before but had only seen one floor of. Sadly, they’re in the middle of reservations right now and so my favorite painting was not out. However, I did see a bunch of really cool paintings, statues, and furniture, and took a stalker picture of two teenage boys who were drawing a statue. From there, I found a falafel shop that SB recommended to me, where an extremely friendly man took my order outside the shop (I say “friendly” because he started to English me and then when I spoke in French he switched back). Then, while I was talking to the man who was making my falafel, he started using Spanish with me. This recalled the time that I ordered a ticket for a party at the university and a guy started joking in Italian with me. Apparently, I do not come off as American, which is good I suppose…but where are these other nationalities coming from??? Italian? Belgian? Spanish?? I need to ask my host family what my accent sounds like so I can puzzle this out.

After falafel, I went over to Montmartre and Sacre Coeur, where I spent most of the later afternoon. It’s really a gorgeous area, and it wasn’t too cold so it was nice to sit and watch street performers while admiring Paris. I then had the great surprise of running into Sindbad, another guy from Georgetown at Lyon 3. We chatted for a little before I went to meet India, an Australian from Lyon 2 who I’d met during orientation, for dinner at a Basque restaurant that SB had also recommended. It was a great restaurant, very popular, and so it was a good thing that I followed SB’s advice and got there early. India and I, unwilling to go home right away but unsure of what to do, ended up in a McDonald’s eating mcflurries (which the French apparently missed the “flurry” memo on. It’s not blended…the toppings just sit on top. Gooooooooo France!), where two extremely sketchy Moroccan men started hitting on us. After the offer to be shown around Paris at night, complete with French kisses from the middle aged man with two kids, India and I politely (but swiftly) fled. And so ended the first leg of my journey.

I'm too lazy to add photos...sorry!

WHERE IN THE WORLD IS CAITLIN??

Topic number 2: my classes/life at the university

French universities are very different from American ones. Big lectures for classes meet once a week (or less often), sometimes with a smaller discussion section another time during the week. The big lectures are pretty crazy; they’re essentially a two hour long marathon of note taking. One of the things that shocked me the most was that in some lectures, there is essentially a constant stream of chatter from the students going on in the background. While I find this horribly distracting and disrespectful, I’ve seen professors just yell over the noise for the two hours. Of course, then there are other ones where everyone is dead silent, and if they talk the professors call them out on it. In fact, I watched one of my favorite professors separate a group of chatty students in the middle of a class yesterday. The grade is mostly based off of the final exam, though the foreign students sometimes get a break and get to just turn in a dossier. Oh, and by “discussion section”, I mean that the students have to sign up to give a 20-25 minute oral presentation on a subject related to the course material. Fortunately, the teachers seem to think that such a presentation from foreign students would be about as helpful to the French students as it would be enjoyable to us, so we get to turn in papers on similar subjects.

The biggest difference is probably my Japanese classes. I have three classes: grammar, theme, and version. “Theme” and “version” are translation classes; in one, you take a French text and translate it into Japanese, and it’s the reverse in the other. Surprisingly, my grammar class is not much different, in that she gives us Japanese texts and asks us to translate them into French, explaining grammar points on the way and asking for explanations about how Japanese grammar is different from French grammar. Shockingly, electronic dictionaries and allowed and in fact encouraged on the exam, because there doesn’t seem to be any vocab quizzes or anything; you’re expected to be able to look things up and still understand the text. Obviously, this approach to teaching a language is completely foreign to me. I was going to take a class called “practique orale” because I assumed it would be a class working on speaking in Japanese. PSYCH, it was actually listening to a conversation, transcribing it word for word, translating that into French, and then answering a couple questions. That’s definitely off the agenda for me, especially because there is this wonderful thing called the “Maison des Langues” where they have both educational tapes with exercises as well as commercial films in tons of different languages.

The good news about said Japanese class is that my fellow students are great. It’s a small bunch; besides me and a Taiwanese girl who is from a Japanese university but whose French isn’t so great, there’s probably about eight or nine French students (apparently, there are a LOT of students abroad right now; like, at least ten). About six of these make up the core group, and they’re remarkably friendly. As they’ve been taking pretty much all of their courses together for the last two and a half years, they obviously spotted the outsiders right away. One of them, Mehdi, immediately introduced himself to us foreigners and proceeded to invite us to have a between-class coffee break with the group. They’ve since continued this welcoming attitude, and I even went shopping with one of them on Thursday in a long break between our classes. This one, Sophie, is quite unusual because she’s 32 (though she definitely doesn’t look it). Then again, the better bulk of this group is fairly old, with another guy being 26 and many of the other ones in their mid-twenties as well. Apparently, most of them worked before going to college, though this is not typical in France. In any case, they’re very sweet and understanding of the fact that I’m a foreigner and don’t have the same base for all this translation that they have. They’ve offered to photocopy papers for me and explain nuances in translations to me. Also, these Japanese classes are very much about someone putting their translation up on the board and then the teacher and everyone else in the class fixing it. At first this really put me off; I’m one of those types who needs to have the right answer to everything before putting it in front of other people. The idea of putting up something that I know is mostly wrong (as my translations are sure to be) in front of a bunch of native French speakers was at first terrifying. However, I’ve come to realize that these students have essentially spent two and a half years of their lives having their work publicly ripped to shreds in front of their eyes, and they seem to get that I have issues with the nuances. Thus, I think these classes are going to be as much an exercise in French as they will be one in Japanese, and I think it’s really going to improve my grip of the French language. I’d have to say that I’m very much looking forward to the experience. That being said, when I start crying about how difficult everything is in two weeks, just go with it and please refrain from rubbing this in my face.

Current class schedule:
Tuesday: Japanese grammar, Psychosociology of communication, FLE (the French version of ESL, which stands for Français Langue Etrangère), and Cognitive Linguistics
Wednesday: French culture, History of Modern Art (and by “modern”, think Renaissance…I kid you not), discussion section for Art
Thursday: Japanese Theme, Japanese Version, and the discussion sections for my two literature classes
Friday: every other week alternates between French Literature of the Middle Ages and French Literature of the Seventeenth Century.

Shout out to Woodward Theater: in my Middle Ages lit class, we’re studying Aucassin and Nicolette. Yes, I only have the faintest clue what’s going on because I saw Festival, what, 8 years ago?

Requests being answered

So, I’ve gotten requests recently for blog topics, so I’ll try to tackle two, but since it's long I'm breaking it into two posts. Hope this isn't completely offensive to anyone.

First, I’ve been requested to talk more about my host family. They’re a lively bunch, as one would expect with four (mostly) teenaged children. I say mostly because chère Apolline is still only 9. Surprisingly, I have quite interesting conversations with her sometimes because my host family has had host students pretty much every year since she was a baby, so she’s really used to speaking very clearly to foreigners. Next up is Solène, who is 13, aspires to be an actress, and enjoys singing like her life is an opera. She does the Abigail Breslin dance from Little Miss Sunshine with a great deal of talent. I also learned this week that she is literally half my weight. I don’t really remember very well, but I’m fairly sure that I weighed more than 32 kilos when I was in middle school. Seriously? These kids need to eat more at dinner.

Moving up the line, there’s Ferréol, the only boy in the bunch. Apparently he’s named after a saint who helped bring Christianity/Catholicism to this region in France or something like that, and it’s a rare name even for the French. Personally, I love it, and if I ever feel like torturing one of my children I might give him this name. Ferréol is 15, plays soccer, and texts at the dinner table. He spends a solid portion of his life joining groups and becoming a fan of things on facebook. In addition, he apparently desperately wants to be American but is the biggest French stereotype I’ve ever met. Finally, there is Sigolène, the oldest at 17. She dances (ballet), is in her last year in high school, and seems utterly stressed about her future life. I don’t blame her; I wasn’t much better at her age. She makes our salad dressing (she’s the “expert”) and the other night made some very masterful crepes for our dessert. She is also the only child who hasn’t thrown a temper tantrum at the dinner table thus far (we’ve been locked in the kitchen twice by Apolline, and the others aren’t much better).

My parents are lovely. My dad is quite the character and very intelligent; we’ve had quite a few quiz nights at dinner where he grills his kids on things like world capitals, French history, and what vegetables are in the same family. My mom is wonderful but generally stressed right now, as her elections are coming up and apparently the most recent polls weren’t so good. Don’t ask me what she’s running for; it’s some position in the regional government but I haven’t managed to figure out exactly what yet. She is an excellent driver, loves chatting to everyone she runs into on the streets, and is not at dinner very often because she’s gone at political meetings.

There's a dog, too: Zoé. She is very VERY peppy and generally lives like a queen. Sigolène made the observation that when she begs you for food she looks like Puss in Boots from Shrek 2.

The picture they sent to me of them (trust me, nothing I take would look better than this):

Am I going to have to root for Tsonga now? Really?

I keep meaning to update this and then completely forgetting/refusing to take my laptop with me to cafes, because that would be so not Lyon of me, and thus completely forgetting what I meant to say. I suppose I'll just take a few highlights from the past week and call it a day.

1) Went skiing for the first time on Saturday. In the Alps. That's right, the ALPS. Also, received a ski lesson (courtesy of Georgetown) from a French ski instructor, entirely in French. At what my host family keeps referring to as the most expensive ski resort in the world. I dare anyone to walk up to my host siblings and tell them you went skiing at Courchevel. The resulting teasing is priceless.

2) Went out and saw a French movie called Complices on Sunday. Minus the embarrassment of forgetting the movie title when it came time to order my ticket, this venture (also courtesy of Georgetown) was very much a success. I also have plans to see two other French movies that will be opening soon: a terrible looking buddy cop movie that looks like a cross between The Pink Panther and Miami Vice, and a Holocaust movie. Yes, those are on opposite ends of a spectrum.

3) Discovered Cotes-du-Rhone wine: local, cheap, and the only red wine I've been able to drink without wincing. Scratch that, all French red wines are drinkable; this one's just the cheapest.

4) Discovered Pomme de Pain, a sandwich chain. Honestly, I don't think anything I could say would do its delicious crusty bread and potato wedges justice.

5) Had a legitimate conversation with my oldest host sister at dinner. Talking to her is often a step up from talking to Ferreol, who pronounced tonight that he was born on the same day as his birthday. Yes, the dinner table conversation is truly the definition of wit.

No plans for the weekend yet, but I think I'm going to look into taking a quick day trip to Geneva on Sunday. If the prices aren't too high. If they are, screw it, I'll just go to Marseille.

How typical of me, to completely forget I have a blog

Yes, I have in fact managed to completely forget that I'm supposed to be blogging right now. Shame on me. Especially considering that the weather outside this whole week has been pretty rainy and miserable, minus a few nicer moments. And of course, now that it looks beautiful and sunny outside, I decide to hole up in my room and write to my faithful readers (har har har).

France is lovely. I've slowly gotten used to the city, though I'm pretty sure that not all of it quite looks like the part I'm in (I seem to be living in the Georgetown of Lyon). Of course, living in my area does have its downsides, such as the pocketbook taking quite a few blows, but I'm bravely struggling on nonetheless. And by "struggling", I mean finding set menu meals at restaurants where I can eat fabulous goat cheese salads, delicious chicken entrees, and UNBELIEVABLE chocolate flan deserts. It is well worth the damage I'm doing to my finances. And I think I'm damaging my finances so much because I've recently learned of all the money that 1) Georgetown and 2) the French government are going to give me. Gotta love study abroad!

There are other downsides, obviously, the most glaring one being everyone's general issue with the French higher education system. One day they might stumble upon a way to do their class registration logically; until then, I suppose we'll all just have to brave the system that has been in place since the Renaissance. I kid, I kid...sorta.

Classes start Monday. Of course, I don't have class until Tuesday. But I will be going to my university, mainly to demand explanations from people in various departments as to why their class times are so difficult to find, but also to meet my language exchange partner! The joys of being completely unintelligible to French people will have no end, it seems.

Here. Alive. Safe.

That's really all there is to say at the moment...tomorrow there's an information session at my soon-to-be school where I will presumably meet the other foreign exchange students here this semester. I'm not sure that all the people from Georgetown are gonna be there, though, as Georgetown was a bit fuzzy on getting us all the information about this and I had to trek it out to the campus today to find out when/where it was gonna take place. And everyone at my university seemed completely mystified by the fact that I have to go to an orientation at the other university, but now that I look again perhaps I was just explaining myself poorly. A feat to be repeated many times, I'm sure.

My host family is lovely! It's big and loud and cute and generally awesome. I'm getting a tour of the city tomorrow from my host brother, which promises to be interesting, especially since he's sorta in love with America and likes "to speak Franglais"...I can't wait to see how his Franglais compares to mine. Somehow I think we have different concepts of the word...