Jours Quarante et un – Quarante sept.

Jours Quarante et un – Quarante sept. 11/10/10 – 17/10/10.

I’d like to preface this by explaining to everyone that as more time passes, I become more and more lazy. It’s getting progressively more difficult to sit down and churn out an entry, whereas it’d be so fun and fulfilling early on in my semester. I’m not always busy, no, mais si je suis chez moi, I’m probably wrapped up in blankets in my bed, doing nothing of any importance and yet thinking about how I should really be studying, doing homework, planning my future, planning trips, writing letters and postcards home to people who deserve them, etc, etc. So again, my apologies.

Firstly, some belated photos from Vikki's 21st birthday:

(BAKED POTATO RESTAURANT.)

(I think I have more photos with Christine than anyone ever.)

(Charlotte and Sarah)

(Gaz and Christine!)

(Sarah :D)

(Gaz, me, Brian, Christine, and Theo)

And nextly, I'm going to turn over a new leaf and try to recap some events and things, rather than day by day progressions:

School is going just fine, really. I can’t think of any noteworthy accomplishments or failures academically. As far as funny stories go… I was in my Histoire de la Langue Française class last Tuesday, minding my own business, of course, when I glanced over at the notebook of the girl next to me. What did I spy with my little eye? English. There. She was taking half her notes in English! I was flabbergasted, having been 98% sure that I’d met all the Anglophones in Lille 3. At the break, she asked me a question about my course packet in French, and I replied, before immediately asking if she was a foreign student. As soon as she said “oui”, I told her I saw English written in her notebook when I was looking around. Turns out, Eliza lived in Scotland for a while but goes to school in London. She and a friend of hers directly enrolled into the French university, and receive no special status as Erasmus/foreign students, so she’s a bit overwhelmed and floundering about everything going on. And even more, she knew Georgie, Laura, and Katie. I’ll hopefully see her again this week.

Babysitting has been interesting, to say the least. Simon is 2 and a half years old and super adorable. Really, I almost want to pinch his cheeks when I see him. I’d been with him Tuesday for the first time, while his dad ran out to do errands and things. He was perfectly well behaved. I arrived on Thursday to pick him up from school in a complete panic about where exactly I was supposed to get him, and of course, my phone has been having some problems, so I couldn’t get through to either parent. After a few minutes of near hysteria on my part (What? I’m a bit of an anxious person…), Simon’s mother arrived, introduced me to his teacher, and we walked home. Something was up, though, for dear Simon simply did not want to walk home. He walked really slowly, kept stopping and staring at things, dragged his bookbag along the sidewalk. When we made it back to the house, he immediately went to his toys and wanted to play. His mother kept trying to get his attention, but it wouldn’t work. She left to run errands and was sure to tell me that if he doesn’t want to listen to me, he’s just testing me, and to be firm, and that he needs to eat his snack before he plays, and she’d be home within an hour. Operation Snacktime: All systems go. Only not really, because Simon refused to stop playing with his toy, even after 5-10 minutes of me asking him to please come eat, at least a few bites, and so on. Frustrated, I decided to turn off his toy. He turned it back on. I turned it off. He turned it back on. I turned it off and kept it out of his reach. He screamed. Absolutely screaaaaaaaaaaaamed at me. I expressed that he needed to eat something, and then we could play. He suddenly started sobbing and kept calling out for his pacifier and his little weird puppet things. After holding them and crying for five more minutes, he finally nodded and agreed to eat something. (Mindboggling.)The rest of the time went along without much of a hitch, just Simon constantly telling me, “ne touches PAS!” even when I wasn’t touching anything.. The following day did go better, no outbursts.

It appears that my fall break plans may finally be solidifying. I’ll be going to Rouen, Le Havre, Chartres and possibly Paris with Sarah from Mississippi and Laura from “near Hull”, in England. The other girl from UIowa on an ISEP exchange happens to be placed at Le Havre, and has generously offered us her apartment as a place to stay, cheapening our trip by not having to stay in hostels as well as the knowledge of 2 euro bus routes to Rouen and Caen and other places from Le Havre and making it feel a bit more relaxed and homey. The definite haven’t been sorted yet, but we’re planning to leave on Thursday, October 21^st and to return by Thursday, October 29^th. Perhaps I’ll get a general itinerary up before we’re off on Thursday. Stay tuned.

Thursday night of this past week was the Soirée Internationale. Association Ulysse rented out a bar/club called Duke’s Club (I think?) and they had paella, and some other things. We arrived promptly because we are good people, and missed out on all the desserts and soup and other food items they’d put out later on in the evening.. Right, well, everyone looked fancy, had a meal, chatted a bit, and then it turned into a dance party. Not my kind of scene. After a bit of moping in the corner and watching everyone else dance, I felt guilty enough to go at least stand around at everyone. Commendable effort by Christine and Sarah and Gaz and just about everyone else to try and get me on stage to dance, but it was an attempt failed nonetheless. I grabbed the last metro home with Christiane, Taynà, some other Portuguese speakers that I didn’t know, Théo, Lauren, Jeremiah.. It was fun overall, I do suppose.

(My relationship with Gaz is clearly a good one.)

(Sarah and Laura, my travel buddies starting later this week!)

(Vikki!)

(I really wasn't so excited, this photo is a trick.)

Friday night, I journaled for my Tandem course, and then went up to Christine’s room to watch Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Christine supplied two bottles of wine, some realllly yummy strawberry cookies, and I brought two éclairs that we had to split to feed the four of us (Christine, Saskia, Sarah, and myself.) It was a nice girls’ evening, and Gaz showed up with his giant rollerblades just as the movie was finishing to show us really (not) funny videos involving (creepy) ventriloquists.

Saturday night was the celebration for Brian’s birthday (which doesn’t actually take place until next week, but oh well!) A bunch of us headed out to Carrefour to pick up some absolutely fabulous looking cakes (chocolate and strawberry, mmmmmm) and then walked over to his host family’s house. Turns out, he’d actually gone to the metro to pick us up (oops!) but he soon made it back and there was much rejoicing. Brian cooked everyone really interesting and delicious hamburgers (complete with onion, cheese, ham, egg, and ketchup?) and there was plenty of alcohol to go around. There were probably 20ish people there in total, which is much more my type of party. You can have conversations, mingle, and eat. Beauteous, and a very good time.

(No idea what is happening here..)

(Mom gave me asian eyes.)

(So sometimes I make my eyes smaller on purpose)

(Australian Mark and I are super attractive.)

(But maybe only when we actually try and look nice.)

(Laurennnn :) )

(Irish Tom's head and me very excited to be in a photo. Check out my tights + shorts combo. I'm obvs integrating well into French fashion..)

(Christine :) )

Tomorrow, I have to go to another suburb of Lille called Marcq-en-Bareoul (or something like that) for my OFII (Office Français de l’Immigration et d’Intégration) appointment. Turns out, they’re going to weigh me, measure my height, take an x-ray, ask if I smoke or am pregnant, some other random questions, take my 55 euro stamp, and then give me a little thing in my passport that will allow me to do basically whatever I want and fully authorizes my visa until July 2011. It’ll feel good to finally have that nonsense done. I still need to try and get a youth card for the metro here, and apply for this sort of housing reimbursement through the French government. I’m going to attempt to get it all done before I leave on Thursday, but we’ll see if that can actually happen…

Overall, everything is great here really. Strikes haven’t affected my life very much which is certainly nice. My friends here are wonderful, I like to eat baguette. Classes are going fine, even if doing homework is difficult, simply due to a lack of motivation. I’m getting to go places and do things.

Content.

Jours Trente Cinq, Trente Six, Trente Sept, Trente Huit, Trente Neuf, et Quarante

Jours Trente Cinq, Trente Six, Trente Sept, Trente Huit, Trente Neuf, et Quarante.
5/10/10-10/10/10.


video update. too lazy to type. behind in schoolwork a bit. tired. choppy sentences.

Photos of Paris.

(With Valetine, an Italian girl from our French class, and the first girl I spoke to in the class!)


(WHATCHU DOIN' WIF DAT CAMERA?)
(Clearly excited, on our way there..)
(Stade de France)




(Haaaaaayyyyyyyyy, here I am at the Eiffel Tower!)
(Haaaay, here I am with Raashnie!!)
(... lol.)






(Place de la Concorde)
(The Seine)
(Notre Dame)




(Louvre)






(Place de la Concorde)


(Assemblee Nationale)
(Academie Nationale de Musique)

(Grand Palais)
(Place de la concorde)
(I've no idea, but this is AWESOME.)



(Moulin Rouge)
(View of Paris from Sacre Coeur)
(Sacre Coeur)



The rest of the photos (there are about 150) can be found on my facebook. :)

Jours Trente, Trente-et-un, Trente Deux, Trente Trois, et Trente Quatre.

Jours trente, trente-et-un, trente deux, trente trois, et trente quatre. 30/9/10, 1/10/10, 2/10/10, 3/10/10, 4/10/10.


“Salut! Ça va? “
“Ça va. Et toi?”
“Ça va.”
I hear those phrases constantly. I say them constantly. The same as English, I suppose:
“Hey! How are you?”
“Good. You?”
“Good.”
(Or, if you prefer…)
“Yo, sup?”
“Nothin’ man, you?”
“Nothin’.”

Oh yeaaaaaaah, flex those colloquial skillllllsssssssss.

Righto, continuing a quick summation de ma semaine:
Thursday, I ran into Valeria on my way to the meeting about TANDEM. Spoke quickly, hopefully she’ll have internet soon so we can get in touch better. Then I met Katie and we spent a good 20(?) minutes searching for the room where our meeting was being held… We were split randomly into partners, and mine is a nice French girl named Marie-Charlotte. She strikes me as very, very shy, but very sweet. We happen to have our translation courses together. :] We made vague plans to get together on Fridays, and then I headed back to Triolo (ma résidence universitaire), did my laundry, and sat around in my room, I believe. Friday, Christine, Sarah and I went to the school in order to sort out our schedules and sign up for the Language Resource Center. On our way out, we ran into Christine’s friend “Julien” (In fact, his name is Théo, but… :)) Some side information: The French do this thing called “faire la bise”, I believe, if we want to give it a term. Really, it’s just kissing each cheek as a greeting. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about, and if not, you’d recognize it. Right so, Théo does this to Christine sans problème, and then Sarah sans problème, and then he gets to me. I think it goes off without a hitch, but then Théo stares at me for a moment before simply remarking, “Tu n’es pas française.” You aren’t French. Awesome. He could tell just by kissing my cheeks? What, are they too big to be French cheeks? In all actuality, I’m sure my eyes probably bugged out and my face went read and I hesitated on which side to go to first in the cheek-kissing and that must’ve tipped him off. Anyway, kept talking, Christine hugged him and he looked scared to death and was as still as a statue, which was kind of hilarious. The French just don’t hug, apparently. We were ending our conversation, and in saying goodbye had to faire la bise once more. Théo does this to Christine sans problème, and then Sarah sans problème, and then he gets to me. The whole time I’ve been telling myself, “Yeah, I’m going to be assertive and confident. I will show him what is UP and I will prove I can be French!” Instead, I found him wrapping his arms around me in this big bear hug. I couldn’t stop laughing. It was really, really sweet of him to hug me when he’d noticed how uncomfortable the kissing makes me, so it really made my day. Also made me extremely embarrassed and awkward, and I’m sure I turned bright red again. I really can’t hold my own against French boys. It’s just not working out.

After saying goodbye to Théo, Sarah, Christine, and I went to Leclerc (like Auchan, but much smaller and happier) to grab some food for lunch at Laura-Georgie-Katie house. We had a great time seeing them and having lunch, and then I went home and did laundry. So that means I didn’t do laundry on Thursday. I went shopping Thursday, sorry to have lied to you all. Friday night, Sarah, Christine, and I packed onto Christine’s bed, watched Sex and the City, drank a bottle of wine, and ate chocolate. Although Sex and the City wasn’t quite my cup of tea (or glass of wine, eh? Eh?) I did enjoy time spent relaxing and joking with one another. And chocolate. (I was also really classy, drinking wine out of my UIowa STAT cup. Yeahhhh.) Went to bed early to prepare for Paris. Yep. Paris.
Woke up at the early hour of 5:30am, rolled out of bed, and met Sarah and Christine in the lobby to walk over to Pont de Bois metro in order to meet the autobus. Just nearly fell asleep on the ride to Paris, and instead talked with Christine a bit. Upon arrival, we drove through parts of the city and made our first stop at La Tour Eiffel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower). It’s huge. No really, it’s gigantic. It reminded me of Rome, and the Coliseum. You see it in pictures, you see it in videos/movies, you study it, but you can never fully grasp the size and impact until you are there next to it. We walked up to le Palais de Chaillot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palais_de_Chaillot) to take some more pictures. I think my favorite part of that area was actually a ton of national flags, but all in black and white. There are photos, I assure you.
We hopped back onto the bus, having avoided many, many vendors for tiny Eiffel Tower key chains (I didn’t buy any, it bothered me too much to have them thrust at me every 2 minutes), we set off towards la Notre Dame (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notre_Dame_de_Paris). One of the most awesome cathedrals ever, basically. Sadly, we were only given an hour and a half to explore the area, and thus didn’t enter. (Return trip? Yes.) Instead, Rosalind, Raashnie and I went over to the Quasimodo Café for sandwiches and fries with ketchup and mayonnaise (miammiammmm). Four ladies entered and sat at the table next to us. After one of them asked us where the quiche was on the menu, we got to talking. They were happy to hear Raashnie and I were from Pennsylvania, as they were all from New Jersey and on a tour group trip all over France. I grabbed some post cards and other sketches as souvenirs on our way back to the tour bus, and we were off again!
We arrived at Place de la Concorde (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Place_De_La_Concorde) around 2 in the afternoon. There are two fountains and a huge obelisk, with really beautiful gold features on them all. Once you get to the center of the plaza, you can go down one path to le Louvre, or the opposite path to l’Arc de Triomphe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_de_Triomphe). We wandered through the Jardin des Tuileries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jardin_des_Tuileries), which happened to be hosting a modeling/fashionshowing/thingy with scarily thin models in just as scary shoes, all the way up to the Louvre. We were stopped by a man from Cameroon who roped us into buying far too expensive bracelets. He told us “A sexy price for sexy ladies..” (5€ is not a sexy price in my books, but at least he was trying?). He also kept asking us if we knew about the “chicky chicky boom boom”. I was sure to tell him I absolutely knew it, for sure. Anyway, Sarah, Christine and I now have matching bracelets, and it’s a good memory to keep, in any case. It was difficult for me to really look at the Louvre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louvre) , as well. It was a palace. People lived there for a very long time. I can’t even fathom buildings like that regularly, let alone as a place of residence. Awesome, in any case. We headed back to the Place de la Concorde and up the Champs-Elysées (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champs-%C3%89lys%C3%A9es), inspiration for my most favorite French song ever (link will appear at the end of the post). We passed by the Grand Palais (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Palais) which has an… impressive statue of Charles de Gaulle in the front of the building.
Final stop? Montmartre. We were also very, very short on time here, so we scrambled to find the Sacré-Cœur (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilique_du_Sacr%C3%A9-C%C5%93ur,_Paris). I don’t know why we had problems finding it, because it’s the highest point in Paris and we were clearly going uphill… (The stairs were brutal, I will admit.) Making it up there was entirely, completely worth it though. Awe-struck. We didn’t get very close, and we only stayed a few minutes, to take some quick pictures, but let me tell you, the pictures do not do it justice, and neither do my words. I suggest you go visit it now. Immediately.

The five of us (Raashnie, Sarah, Rosalind, Christine, and I) made our way back down the steps to find a restaurant. We found one. I forget it’s name. It was small, service was slow, and we ended up receiving our main course 4 minutes before we had to meet at the bus to go home. Definitely were a lovely representation of the American people, shoving food down our throats as fast as possible, stuffing things in napkins, and running out the door. Bus trip home was uneventful, I think I fell asleep for a while, and we were home by 11?

Overall, the trip was good for a first time. Paris is huge and overwhelming with so much to see and do, I’m very sure had I gone by myself for my first trip there, I wouldn’t have a clue what to do. It was busy, a little stressful, and mainly a “hey, I went to this monument!” trip, but still a good foundation. Plus, it was spent with my friends, and we took loads of pictures and had a great time together, so it was definitely worth the 33€ fee, and the 30€ or so I spent on meals and souvenirs. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to go meet Ludovic or to see Rosie because of the time constraints. Fortunately, I’ll be going back to Paris at some point and will be forcing Ludo to be my guide, and I am almost ready to confirm my ticket purchase to go to London (and maybe Oxford and Farnham) in November, where I can see Rosie. :]

I slept in on Sunday, did some homework, spoke to my parents via skype, had dinner with a really nice French girl named Matilda, and dreaded going to school today. My DEFI class seemed worse than usual, complete with labo time to make me feel entirely inadequate and incompetent. I did, however, manage to see Katie, Georgie, Laura, and Stephanie for the first time in what felt like ages. I came home, exercised, showered, made some potatoes and topped it with a mushroom sauce I came across last week. I turned in my schedule to the International Relations office before going to Farsi. I believe I wrote about having an extra 12 people show up to the class last week. This week, we were back down to 6 total. I don’t understand… The class isn’t too hard, but I should probably actually commit the vocabulary we’ve learned to memory at some point.. Arabic, however, was just as difficult as it has been, and some French girl wanted to copy my notes from the previous class period. She had about 50 questions because my handwriting in Arabic and my note-taking in French are clearly sub-par, so it was a bit frustrating. I wanted to be nice though. Sarah has decided not to continue on with level 2 Arabic, so I’m all alone. He had us do a translation of our text from Arabic to French today. Hello, panic! I was sure to ask if I could pleaaaase do it from Arabic to English (which really wasn’t much better…), and he was completely okay with it. After class, I walked home in some really nice weather, the absolute perfect temperature. I made an egg with cheese and a slice of chicken, telling Khalid about the American economy and average incomes and military spending. (Can you blame the man for wanting to know?)

I briefly mentioned the nanny-opportunity on here before, I believe, so as an update, I am in fact going to the house of the couple to meet them, talk out some specifics about finances, travel, duties, expectations, etc, etc. Malheureusement, this will be happening immediately after my translation courses tomorrow, so it’ll be a long, stressful day.

This update feels rushed and not as involved as the previous ones, and I apologize. It has been rushed. I haven’t really felt emotionally connected to most of it. More apologies. This post also has no pictures. I am far too lazy to go add them in, and there are far too many to sort through them. I’ll try and update tomorrow with pictures of Paris, so I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed you. I’m such a guilty person, apologizing all over the place.

Joe Dassin will cheer you up for me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAMuNfs89yE