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.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
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!
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!
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Saturday, February 6, 2010
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?
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):
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