Tours

The next train to Tours was in about two hours. We decided to get the tickets then just lunch somewhere for a while. Kay was the first to get her ticket, but I couldn't hear what the woman told her. Then Dee, and I heard then man say 'seize'. I thought 16€ roundtrip, that's not bad at all. Finally I go up. I had the same woman as Kay, so I used the cop out of 'le meme billet pour moi, s'il voud plait'. She replies with a smile and a little laugh, 'Oui bien sur. Quatre euro.' I fumble. 'Quatre euro?' 'Oui.' 'Uhh...d'accord.' I give her the money, she gives me the change and my ticket. I go over to Kay and Dee thinking, 'I fucked that up'. But no. The 'seize' I had heard was francs. We allpaid 4€ for a roundtrip to Tours. Let's think about this...Amazing! We were psyched. It turns out that during the Journée de Patrimoine you can go anywhere in the same region for only 2€. While practically jumping with joy we thought we'd hit up Quick. It's a fast food place, whose symbol is the same Q as Quizno's. Kay got a 'long chicken', me: chicken dips, and Dee: yoaurt and fries. Apparently even French fast food restaurants are better. I paid; and the woman put my soda on my tray. So I stood there, waiting for my food. After a few moments she must have realized I was not French, so she told le that I could go, and she would be the one to bring me my food when it was ready. Shit, they serve you in fast food restaurants? Sure enough after a few minutes she came over with my chicken dips and fries. The French have it made.

Finally it was time to board our train. And it had compartments like on the Hogwarts Express! That made me quite excited, even though we had to share with a guy who would try to look like he wasn't watching us while listening to something with headphones and occasionally laughing out loud. We taught Dee how to play Go Fish (or 'aller à la peche' as she likes to say). About an hour later we heard 'Tours' and got off. We looked around the station but didn't see a map, so we headed out to find Le Musée Des Beaux Arts. The town was dead. We followed signs for Centre Ville and ended up walking in a huge square. After stopping at a little patisserie, we decided to go back to the train station to see if we might've left on the wrong side. We asked a woman where the Musée was. 'A Tours?' 'Oui.' 'Vous n'etes pas à Tours.' Alrighty then. Dee and I went back to Kay. (We can't find the Musée or any of the streets we're on because we're not in Tours.' Where the hell are we?

As it turns out we had to take a navette (connecting train) from the main (1st) train to the real Tours. We managed to realize this approximately one minute before the next one left, and we ran up to the platform about five seconds before it started moving. So we got to wait another twenty minutes in non-Tours. This is why some of my photos have captions like 'fake Tours' and 'real Tours'.

Soon after getting on the navette three other people came into the car. We looked at eachother, then them, eachother, and said 'Americans!' Well, two of them were, and they were talking to a Brazilian guy. But the Americans were an older couple, grandparents actually, who were doing a bike trip around France. They were from Michigan, just like the guy Lichigan in our residence.

The navette was only twenty minutes or so and this time when we walked out of the gare, it looked like a city, and we could find the streets on Kay's map. Like Orléans, and let's admit it, most of France, Tours is a beautiful city. It was slightly better than Orléans in that you didn't smell piss or shit every ten minutes, and there was less dog shit in the streets. Le Musée de Beaux Arts is inside a lovely building next to a cathedrale. The paintings ranged from long ago, at least 17th century possibly earlier, to the the 20th century. I loved it. I also took over 60 photos, including some nice shots of the cathedrale from inside the musée. Because of the Jounrée de Patrimoine it was only 2€ a person, and it wasn't packed inside either.

After exhausting ourselves we took a little repose in a park and finished off the loaf of chocolate chip bread-type thing we had bought in non-Tours. But not for too long a rest, ever the youthful and adventurous three we said 'on y va!' A quick stop in the cathedrale then on towards the downtown section. We got to walk along Rue Colbert, so of course I took pics of the street sign as well as the 'Grill Colbert' and two other Colbert places. Those of you who know The Colbert Report might be able to guess my intentions.

We walked ourselves into quite a hungry state, but didn't find the stained glass museum we were half looking for. Instead we decided to have a nice dinner in a very busy place (in French a place is like a square, not like...place in English). Unfortunately we experienced one of the most disheartening things for a language student in a foreign country: we spoke to the waiter in French, and he responded in English. We decided we would just continue with French though. Dinner was good and I took my first sip of beer, Stella I believe it was. Although I didn't really like it in the way I like rum and coke I'd drink it over wine. After dinner the reasoning of our tongues overcame the reasoning of our wallets (but it did only cost 4euro to get there!) and we got dessert. Pour moi: a nice big glass of chocolate mousse with real whipped cream on top. Mmm! It's also nice not being rushed out of a restaurant.

Another funny quote came from this day. We heard a baby crying in a very strange way, and a few moments later Kay came out with, "What do they do to their kids here to make it sound like Jurassic Park?" I happened to be chewing at that moment and burst out laughing which prompted the second quote: "You're lucky I have teeth 'cause that peice of chicken almost flew right at you."

After dinner we leisurely amde our way back to the gare. Once there we found out we had about one and a half hours to kill, so we browsed a little in the bookstore, and I actually found a book I needed for one of my classes. Then we spotted them: a group of guys (about 15) break dancing. We found an empty bench right behind them and enjoyed the free entertainment until our navette train arrived. I know some people might not like break dancing, but you have to admit, it takes some strength, if not skill as well. It made for a great end to our visit of Tours.

Unfortunately, after the navette we had to wait quite a bit because the train was delayed for over half an hour. Once back in Orleans we saved a tram trip and walked home, despite it being around 11pm. The city is gorgeous at night as well. I got a great shot of the Pont George V, the bridge the tram goes over when we go to school. Later I showed it to my French friend who said that after four years of being in Orleans he hadn't realized how beautiful that bridge was. I'll take that as a compliment to my photography skills, thank you.

We made it to our rooms around 11:30pm, just in time to end the great weekend by finishing some homework and not going to bed as early as I wanted to. But who cares? I'm in France!

Journée de Patrimoine

12 - 16 septembre

This has been a strange, but overall awesome weekend. But let's start with Wednesday night. The three of us went out to meet Dee's host-sister. We went to a bar with her friend who wanted to practice his English. After a round of drinks it got cold, so we went to another bar to be inside. Two more guys joined us for another round of drinks. After a few minutes one left to meet one of his friends. So a little while later the six of us went to a rhumerie to meet up with him and three or four other people. Finally around 1am we convinced everyone that we had to leave (just the three of us) because we had class at 9am.

The next night, Thursday, Dee and I met up with two of the guys from the night before, and we were going to go to a club for a soirée d'integration for our university. Before we got them we played Kings and managed to kill a bottle of champagne between the two of us. We brought them over for another game of kings...and then another...until we decided that it was too late to go to the club.

Friday night the three of us went out with those two guys and Dee's host-sister. They love bar-hopping here. After 2 (our group had grown to about 10) everyone wanted to go to the discothèque. But alas, my loser-self came back and I went home to sleep instead.

Ok. The weekend finally. This weekend was the journée de patrimoine, not just in France, but I guess all over Europe. This means that museums and parks and the mikes are either free or very cheap. you'd think we'd go to Paris, but since every thing's free we knew there would be horrible lines everywhere. So we decided to stay closer.

Saturday we started out around noon, and walked up towards the centre commercial. First we went to the Maison de Jean d'Arc. Not really her house, but where she stayed while she was in Orléans. In one room they had models of key events and an audio track to tell the story, plus corny fanfare music. It was nice.

Our next adventure was to find the Musée des Sciences Naturals. We went were we thought if should be, and didn't see it or any signs. Then, in a moment of pure intellectualism, I saw a building with letters on top that read 'Museum'. Halfway there Kay made the realization the 'Museum' is English...in French it's 'musée'. But we found it.

So we walk in, which is kind of awkward because there's a desk with people there where you would normally go to pay, but it was free. At the desk I saw 'spiky hair', a guy that lives on my floor.

The museum has three floors. Well as you walk into the room on the bottom level, you are faced with an ass, standing in a box, staring at you. It's not alive, but it definitely was at some point. Next to it is a once-alive sheep, peeing. I believe the first thought for all three of us was, 'what the fuck is this'. Next to each animal is a post, and at the top is a ? on a piece of rubber. You lift it up and it gives a French idiom involving the animal and whatever the animal is doing. Then it explains it. For example, there's a baby elephant walking on porcelein plates and dishes. The idiom is 'comme un éléphant dans un magasin de porcelein.' I believe we have something similar in English to mean clumsy. I have pictures of my favorite ones.

The first floor had insects, amphibians, snakes and fish. There were a lot of alive things on this floor, and some once-alives. There was a huge lobster that was almost as tall as me. Above that on the wall was a really big crab-like thing that scared the crap out of me, and then I in turn scared Kay and Dee. They also had the grossest looking frogs I have ever seen. They're white and look bloated and we thought they were dead at first but then one moved a little. They just floated like they were suspended in gel. The fish were fun. I kinda felt like a little kid, and I took a lot of pics.

The second floor was mammals. Taxidermied mammals to be exact. We didn't get to spend too much time there because they were closing.

The next day we had planned to take a bike ride around the paths on the island in the middle of the Loire. So we got up early, packed a picnic bag, and headed towards the nearest bike station. I think there are about 20 in Orléans, and each station has 10-15 bikes that you can rent for a little while, a week, or a month, or possibly longer. When we got there we found out that you have to subscribe to it and pay a 150€ deposit. It was Sunday though, so even if we had wanted to subscribe we couldn't. Back to the residence. We all changed out of our scrub clothes, ate something quick and decided to go to the train station. How about Tours? Sound good? Pourquoi pas. Off to the train station, and this is how it went:

Les Cours

Guess who decided to skip class the second day? Moi! But not without reason. But let's start on the first day shall we? Ok. My first class here was la grammaire. First subject: punctuation. First lesson: punctuation in poems. I like poetry, some of it, I do. I hate it in class. I was also late, but it didn't matter because le professeur had pushed back class by half an hour. She also informed us that our classes with her the first two weeks would be changed. Not really a big deal je suppose. So grammaire wasn't that bad. Then I had a lunch break, where I was reminded why I tell people I don't seafood. Then writing. There is actually a facebook group called "I survived class with Mme Puech". That's my first writing teacher. It wasn't too bad I guess. Then français écrit and cinema, with the same prof. She shows clips of movies without sound, and then we write about it. She said DSF students don't necessarily have to take that class, so I'm thinking I won't. After that was supposed to be the optional cinema class, but it was let out early because they couldn't get the projector to work. Tuesday I had more writing, with a different prof. I'm not sure I'll like it or not because I had to leave halfway through for un rendez-vous at the bank. This took much longer than they expected, and I didn't get back to the fac until 11h20. My next class was 10h30 - 12h... Well, less than hour left? I decided not to go and instead sat outside writing out this post. It's nice when the sun comes out, and not too bad when it doesn't. I have no idea if people just sit outside here like they do at my university, but I have gotten a few strange looks.

Anyways, I now have a French bank account. I only had to sign about 20 things. I don't actually have the bank card yet, I get to wait some more for that. I also have to figure out how to transfer the money from my account at home to this one. Unfortunately one euro is about $1.45, so although I think I have a lot of money right now, it won't be that much after the transfer.

The rest of mes cours... I think I will like all of my teachers. One is a bit crazy and likes to go off on etymological tangents for ten minutes, but I think I can stand it. My history and geography teacher I think will be hilarious, if I can stay awake in his class. Since I'm in the highest level we're pretty much choosing what we want to learn about in his class. Side note: it is so funny to hear French people try to pronounce Connecticut. I think it's because we don't pronounce the c in the middle, and they do. Overall my classes are pretty much like my classes in the states, except it's all in French and about French. Homework doesn't seem to be too bad either, and so far I only have to buy two books, one for 4,50€ and the other for 15€. I just have to not go out at night during the week. Fridays are more fun anyways.

Completely unrelated: I finally opened up my bag of ogre-sized peanut butter m&ms that I brought, and they are just as good in France. I wish I had brought more instead of leaving the rest at home.

This week I got to take the tram by myself a few times. It makes me feel more French. I also found at that 7h45 is rush hour on the tram. There were so many people that for about five stops I couldn't even hold onto a bar. I was so afraid of falling into the guy behind me. Luckily my public transportation balancing skills are quite good from having to stand on the shuttle at my university (people who have done this know how challenging it can be, especially with the crazy drivers). I managed to lose my tram ticket Friday morning, it still had six trips left on it. Merde. So Friday afternoon I used my back-up. It's a 10-trip ticket that says I have three trips left, but no longer works. I just dodged the controllers too. At the station they were on the other side checking people as they got off, then they got on a tram going the other direction. Then the tram got really full so I wasn't worried they'd get on. Controllers are who work for the tram and bus system. They randomly get on trams to check people's tickets, or they wait at a station and check you before you can get off. When you first get on the tram you have to put your ticket through a little machine that stamps it with the date and time.

When I have to go to school alone I put on my ipod, speed walk to the station (good exercise), and then try not to stare at people on the tram. It's not bad though. I'm glad my classes don't run really late though. On Mondays I have cinema until 20h (8pm), but Kay and Dee are taking it too, so we're not going back online in the dark.

Et ça c'est tout pour maintenant.