1 octobre 2007
Sitting in my window the other day, I had the pleasure of hearing some one's radio. The Grease medley came on and I almost fell out laughing. I didn't know it was such a big hit here.
Last week was friggin' cold, and now it's the first of October. Everyday last week was overcast or rainy, and never over 55°F. Fortunately I only got caught in the rain once, Friday while walking home from the tram. but a little while later I went out and bought a parapluie.
I've had a couple of requests to describe my daily life and routine, so here you go people. I get up a different time each day, depending on when my first class is, and whether or not I'm going to wash my hair. This means I wake up between 7h and 9h30, unless it's the weekend. For breakfast each morning I eat two or three pieces of toast (toasted right on the burner), and either a croissant or a pain au chocolat. I leave 45 minutes before my first class. Once or twice a week I will go with Dee and Kay. When I do we talk and laugh and such on the way. I really don't mind when I have o go alone though. It gives me thinking time, and time with my music. Although I don't walk through the streets singing, the world is a different place with a soundtrack. So then I get on the tram and stay on for about 20 minutes, then there's a quick walk to the fac de lettres. After my first class I go to lunch, almost always at Le Forum, which is a university restaurant (cafeteria). Half the time I eat with Kay and Dee, the other times I eat with some of the girls from my class. Thursday I go to the computer lab because I've yet to break my internet addiction. But I also email people and type up these posts for you wonderful people. Mondays I also go to the computer lab, so if you want to email me, know that I can respond Monday and Thursday afternoons, or mornings in the states. (After note: I've found a way to go to the computer lab practically every weekday.)
On Monday I'm also on food duty. Dee and Kay have class 1h30 - 3h30, then 3h30 - 5h, and we all have cinema from 5 - 8. But I only have class from 1h30 - 3h. Then I go to the computer lab until it closes at 4h20. Then I go down to the scrumdidliuptious Fournil d'Or (aka Le cafè) and buy us some food so we don't die of hunger during our three hours of cinema. After classes each day...I go home! Not really very exciting. I do, however, have to actually make something for dinner each night. Sometimes Kay or Dee will feed me, sometimes I feed them. But I'm trying to get into the habit of making a full meal each night. My first week I pretty much had single subject meals. For example, pasta, or rice, or a cordon bleu. I'm determined to learn how to cook while I'm here. Although it's cheaper to eat crap in the states. I'm also getting very good at washing dishes while making dinner, and right after I finish. I try to spend some time each night doing homework and cleaning a little. Having a small apartment makes that easier. If I'm not hanging out with Kay, Dee, or JP I try to listen to the French news radio station, or read a newspaper or book in French.
So that's my life. Oh yeah, I do spend quite some time sitting in my window, listening to music, singing, or doing homework or writing. And of course watching people. Weekends vary greatly so I won't describe them generally. I will describe this past weekend.
Friday night we were sick of cooking and feeling adventurous. So for dinner we went to Le Madras; a cozy little Indian restaurant. It was fun, and pretty good. I didn't really like my second dish (poulet massala), but everything else I did (samosa, pakora, and rice), which kind of surprised me. For dessert Dee got Halva, which tastes a lot like cornbread, but it's orange and comes with 'feuille d'argent', which the waitress said was good for your circulation. Feuille d'argent is silver leaf. As in...there was waht appeared to be aluminum foil on top of her halva. We questioned it for a few minutes, then when she came by Dee asked if she was supposed to eat it. She told us...like I said before, it's feuille d'argent, and it's good for your circulation. Don't worry, it's not aluminum.
So Dee made herself a grill with it, and Kay and I both ate a little bit to get our blood running. We laughed for about five minutes straight.
Friday night was an early night though...Samedi we were going on a free trip, thanks to the SRI.
09 October 2007
08 October 2007
Le Festival de La Loire
This year was the third Festival, and it happens every other year. I heard that this year it was huge. Supposedly the last one was only during the weekend, and did not have as many shows and booths and such. I also heard that it might have been so big this year because someone is up for reelection...I don't follow local politics so I have no idea if that's true or not. This year it ran from Wednesday the 19th to Sunday the 23rd.
La Loire, as you might remember, is the big river that runs through Orléans, that also happens to be the largest, and about two minutes from my apartment. I'll try to be a little historic here and explain why it's a big deal. In the olden days, meaning I believe the 18th century, the Loire was a hopping place. However the bottom is shallow and rocky in many places, and therefore hard to travel with your average boat. To get around this they made flat-bottomed boats. Me, myself, personally, I don't find the technical reasoning interesting, but they are quite proud to have all these boats here. The part that interested me was everything else. Both sides of the Quai were lined with tents. They went for about..ok I don't know distances. But speed walking probably five minutes without anyone blocking your path. When it's packed and you're looking at everything and everyone... 15 - 20 minutes to walk the length. The tents had different vendors: cheese, meat, jams, crepes, gauffres, fish, cheese, jams. They also had four or five cafes setup, and a pub. A couple of organizations and local artisans also had tents. Then they had a few different stages with performances throughout the festival. I only saw a couple. I caught the end of a drumming group, and we watched a flame thrower for a few minutes. They also had a group of people kind of like Cirque de Soleil. They were on ropes and did acrobatic-like things. People who have seen Cirque will know what I mean. The other group was a musical group. I have no idea what instruments they were playing, but there were two guys. Their instruments stood about as tall as them, and they were electric. They made some of the weirdest music I've ever heard. I was smart enough to take a video, and eventually I'll try to get that up on facebook and photobucket...hopefully.
Unfortunately I didn't get to spend as much time there as I wanted. But I did buy a très bon crepe, and Saturday night we went and saw the 20 minute firework show.
I believe in my last post I was describing the wonderful cold that I had rattraped. That was the main reason I didn't go down to the Loire. Friday night I recuperated slightly and Kay and Dee convinced me I felt well enough to go out. Dee met a Polish guy at school and we went with him to the club. it was fun, bien sur. I realized that French girls dance like it's '92. And Poland could not dance to save his life. I also found out that drinking and staying up do not help a cold...At all...
Saturday I slept a lot, but Kay came up for dinner. Prepare yourselves people. We made an amazing dinner. Fiesta chicken, it was my idea. We made rice and corn, flavored with a little bit of texmex spices. Fried some red pepper and added some to the rice and corn. Then we put the rest with the chicken, which was also spiced. It was, as I said, amazing. It looked great too...I took pictures.
Later that night my friend JP came over for the fireworks. Both Kay and Dee had gotten in tiffs with people over the phone, so they decided we needed to cheer up. We accomplished this with rum, wine and two games of Kings. So Sunday was another recovery day...sleeping...eating...being slow and doing homework.
And that was how I ended Le Festival de la Loire
La Loire, as you might remember, is the big river that runs through Orléans, that also happens to be the largest, and about two minutes from my apartment. I'll try to be a little historic here and explain why it's a big deal. In the olden days, meaning I believe the 18th century, the Loire was a hopping place. However the bottom is shallow and rocky in many places, and therefore hard to travel with your average boat. To get around this they made flat-bottomed boats. Me, myself, personally, I don't find the technical reasoning interesting, but they are quite proud to have all these boats here. The part that interested me was everything else. Both sides of the Quai were lined with tents. They went for about..ok I don't know distances. But speed walking probably five minutes without anyone blocking your path. When it's packed and you're looking at everything and everyone... 15 - 20 minutes to walk the length. The tents had different vendors: cheese, meat, jams, crepes, gauffres, fish, cheese, jams. They also had four or five cafes setup, and a pub. A couple of organizations and local artisans also had tents. Then they had a few different stages with performances throughout the festival. I only saw a couple. I caught the end of a drumming group, and we watched a flame thrower for a few minutes. They also had a group of people kind of like Cirque de Soleil. They were on ropes and did acrobatic-like things. People who have seen Cirque will know what I mean. The other group was a musical group. I have no idea what instruments they were playing, but there were two guys. Their instruments stood about as tall as them, and they were electric. They made some of the weirdest music I've ever heard. I was smart enough to take a video, and eventually I'll try to get that up on facebook and photobucket...hopefully.
Unfortunately I didn't get to spend as much time there as I wanted. But I did buy a très bon crepe, and Saturday night we went and saw the 20 minute firework show.
I believe in my last post I was describing the wonderful cold that I had rattraped. That was the main reason I didn't go down to the Loire. Friday night I recuperated slightly and Kay and Dee convinced me I felt well enough to go out. Dee met a Polish guy at school and we went with him to the club. it was fun, bien sur. I realized that French girls dance like it's '92. And Poland could not dance to save his life. I also found out that drinking and staying up do not help a cold...At all...
Saturday I slept a lot, but Kay came up for dinner. Prepare yourselves people. We made an amazing dinner. Fiesta chicken, it was my idea. We made rice and corn, flavored with a little bit of texmex spices. Fried some red pepper and added some to the rice and corn. Then we put the rest with the chicken, which was also spiced. It was, as I said, amazing. It looked great too...I took pictures.
Later that night my friend JP came over for the fireworks. Both Kay and Dee had gotten in tiffs with people over the phone, so they decided we needed to cheer up. We accomplished this with rum, wine and two games of Kings. So Sunday was another recovery day...sleeping...eating...being slow and doing homework.
And that was how I ended Le Festival de la Loire
07 October 2007
La Deuxieme Semaine
17th - 19th septembre
Well, well, well. Already two weeks into the semester, and I'm getting my schedule down. Tuesday I finally my student ID card, which means I could then do three things : 1) get my student-discounted month tram ticket, 2) access my new school email account, and 3) use the computers (and the internet!) in my fac.
By now I've attended at least one session of each of my classes, although I had to leave one early for an appointment, and missed the last three of the week. Grammar is still my least favorite, and hardest course. I was also frustrated three times this week by teachers glazing over what I was trying to say to them...Let me explain...or bitch...whatever you want to call it.
1) Writing. We played a game about wild animals, don't ask me what this has to do with writing, I don't know. One of the animals was a moose. I tried to describe it, and the prof told us the name. When she saw the picture she realized that she had told us the wrong animal, and said it was a caribou. I asked if it was the same word in English, because in English there is an animal called a caribou, and it is not a moose. I looked up the word for moose (orignal) and she asked me to explain the difference. Well I couldn't because I didn't remember exactly what a caribou is. She replied that since they have neither in France, the French just categorize them all into caribou. Well fine then, don't accept the fact that I know more about North American wild animals than you.
2) Francophonie. We were talking about countries that speak French. The teacher didn't list Madagascar under the countries whose official languages were French and something else. I pointed this out. As I was trying to explain that French is the second language and quite a few people speak it, she said that there might be a few people who speak and moved on. Now, my facts might be wrong, I'll admit that (Adam you might able to help me with those facts) but don't just ignore me and cut me off.
3) Pratique orale. We had to listen to a clip and write down the details, then she asked us in groups of three to tell her what info we had gathered. I had one thing to say after the other two girls went; that an American engineer decided to put the arobase (@) in keyboards in 1972. I got about halfway there and she stopped me to say that no, it was invented in the 19th century. Ummm, not what I was saying at all. Then she left. I heard another girl say the same thing I had been trying to say and the prof's response? 'Tres bien' Alright, no more talking for a while.
Anyways, aside from those things the first part of my week wasn't bad. My French friend (JP), who speaks English pretty well, as well as Spanish, has been helping me with French a bit and giving me other useful info. Thanks to a lack of communication I had no idea whether or not I could apply for aid from the French government. The people at my residence said that I had to. The people at SRI said that because I'm only here for one semester that I couldn't. JP said he knew a girl that lived here last year, for only one semester and she got money. So I applied, I'm not sure I'll get anything, but I used their little calculator to estimate if I would, and it said I could get up to 150 euros a month. That would be amazing. And you have to love the fact that I'm more likely to get financial aid from a foreign country than I am from my own. Yay for socialism! JP told me that he pays about 800euro a year to go the university. That's full cost, no scholarships.
French universities are similar to American ones in at least one big way: when someone gets sick, a lot of people get sick. That's right folks, I've got a French cold. I had been sniffly since Sunday, though I couldn't tell if it was the cold or my allergies. Thursday morning I knew that even if it was my allergies as well, I had gotten whatever was going around. Apparently so did some of my other classmates who didn't show up. First I had two and a half hours of pratique orale. I felt like shit. Then I got lunch with JP at Le cafe, and who would've guessed that their jambon buerre sandwichs made on a baguette would be completely banging as well. The whole time I was contemplating whether or not I could make it through two hours of grammar. I decided to use a computer in the meantime. Little did I know that the time on said computer was half an hour behind. So ten minutes before I thought class was starting I went downstairs. I didn't know which room it was because it was a make-up class from Wednesday. Wait a few moments...no one... Go to the bathroom...no one... Finally I check the time on my ipod and see that class had started 40 minutes earlier. Well shit. I was still not feeling great, so I went home. I didn't feel too bad the rest of the day and managed to do laundry and clean. I told myself to go to bed by 11 so I could get a full eight hours of sleep. At 10:30 I was quite sniffly and passed out next to my homework. I woke up around 5am with dry lips from breathing through my mouth, and two hives forming...one above each eyebrow. My alarm went off at seven. Snooze. 7:10. Snooze. 7:20. With a nose full of snot and my left eye slightly closed from the hive, I contemplated if I should attempt class. A glass of juice told me no. At 7:40 I called Kay to ask her if she could sign me up for the trip to some castles for the next weekend, then went back to bed. Around 8:15 she came up to get my student ID card and I asked her to tell my two profs I was sick. Then I took a benadryl because having an itchy forehead is a horrible feeling, and went back to sleep. Around 11:30 I finally got up and ate some breakfast. By then I was looking decidedly like Quasimodo with a swollen forehead and my left eye forced 2/3 closed thanks to the hive. Oh and don't forget the sniffles, dry mouth, and slightly painful throat.
By 12:45 I was asleep again next to the French magazine I had been reading. Finally a little after 2 I woke up and decided to try to be human by taking a shower and eating again, and trying not to see my reflection.
Well, well, well. Already two weeks into the semester, and I'm getting my schedule down. Tuesday I finally my student ID card, which means I could then do three things : 1) get my student-discounted month tram ticket, 2) access my new school email account, and 3) use the computers (and the internet!) in my fac.
By now I've attended at least one session of each of my classes, although I had to leave one early for an appointment, and missed the last three of the week. Grammar is still my least favorite, and hardest course. I was also frustrated three times this week by teachers glazing over what I was trying to say to them...Let me explain...or bitch...whatever you want to call it.
1) Writing. We played a game about wild animals, don't ask me what this has to do with writing, I don't know. One of the animals was a moose. I tried to describe it, and the prof told us the name. When she saw the picture she realized that she had told us the wrong animal, and said it was a caribou. I asked if it was the same word in English, because in English there is an animal called a caribou, and it is not a moose. I looked up the word for moose (orignal) and she asked me to explain the difference. Well I couldn't because I didn't remember exactly what a caribou is. She replied that since they have neither in France, the French just categorize them all into caribou. Well fine then, don't accept the fact that I know more about North American wild animals than you.
2) Francophonie. We were talking about countries that speak French. The teacher didn't list Madagascar under the countries whose official languages were French and something else. I pointed this out. As I was trying to explain that French is the second language and quite a few people speak it, she said that there might be a few people who speak and moved on. Now, my facts might be wrong, I'll admit that (Adam you might able to help me with those facts) but don't just ignore me and cut me off.
3) Pratique orale. We had to listen to a clip and write down the details, then she asked us in groups of three to tell her what info we had gathered. I had one thing to say after the other two girls went; that an American engineer decided to put the arobase (@) in keyboards in 1972. I got about halfway there and she stopped me to say that no, it was invented in the 19th century. Ummm, not what I was saying at all. Then she left. I heard another girl say the same thing I had been trying to say and the prof's response? 'Tres bien' Alright, no more talking for a while.
Anyways, aside from those things the first part of my week wasn't bad. My French friend (JP), who speaks English pretty well, as well as Spanish, has been helping me with French a bit and giving me other useful info. Thanks to a lack of communication I had no idea whether or not I could apply for aid from the French government. The people at my residence said that I had to. The people at SRI said that because I'm only here for one semester that I couldn't. JP said he knew a girl that lived here last year, for only one semester and she got money. So I applied, I'm not sure I'll get anything, but I used their little calculator to estimate if I would, and it said I could get up to 150 euros a month. That would be amazing. And you have to love the fact that I'm more likely to get financial aid from a foreign country than I am from my own. Yay for socialism! JP told me that he pays about 800euro a year to go the university. That's full cost, no scholarships.
French universities are similar to American ones in at least one big way: when someone gets sick, a lot of people get sick. That's right folks, I've got a French cold. I had been sniffly since Sunday, though I couldn't tell if it was the cold or my allergies. Thursday morning I knew that even if it was my allergies as well, I had gotten whatever was going around. Apparently so did some of my other classmates who didn't show up. First I had two and a half hours of pratique orale. I felt like shit. Then I got lunch with JP at Le cafe, and who would've guessed that their jambon buerre sandwichs made on a baguette would be completely banging as well. The whole time I was contemplating whether or not I could make it through two hours of grammar. I decided to use a computer in the meantime. Little did I know that the time on said computer was half an hour behind. So ten minutes before I thought class was starting I went downstairs. I didn't know which room it was because it was a make-up class from Wednesday. Wait a few moments...no one... Go to the bathroom...no one... Finally I check the time on my ipod and see that class had started 40 minutes earlier. Well shit. I was still not feeling great, so I went home. I didn't feel too bad the rest of the day and managed to do laundry and clean. I told myself to go to bed by 11 so I could get a full eight hours of sleep. At 10:30 I was quite sniffly and passed out next to my homework. I woke up around 5am with dry lips from breathing through my mouth, and two hives forming...one above each eyebrow. My alarm went off at seven. Snooze. 7:10. Snooze. 7:20. With a nose full of snot and my left eye slightly closed from the hive, I contemplated if I should attempt class. A glass of juice told me no. At 7:40 I called Kay to ask her if she could sign me up for the trip to some castles for the next weekend, then went back to bed. Around 8:15 she came up to get my student ID card and I asked her to tell my two profs I was sick. Then I took a benadryl because having an itchy forehead is a horrible feeling, and went back to sleep. Around 11:30 I finally got up and ate some breakfast. By then I was looking decidedly like Quasimodo with a swollen forehead and my left eye forced 2/3 closed thanks to the hive. Oh and don't forget the sniffles, dry mouth, and slightly painful throat.
By 12:45 I was asleep again next to the French magazine I had been reading. Finally a little after 2 I woke up and decided to try to be human by taking a shower and eating again, and trying not to see my reflection.
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