This week has been interesting; it's the first week since I got here that I have an actual (mostly) stable, normal class schedule. Monday morning I slept in, since I didn't have class until late evening. I went out with the others to buy sandwiches for a late lunch, and then we found a little art supply store where we found folders and paper for classes. The artistes (Valeria and Mamie) needed sketchbooks and pencils for their drawing class, so they found those and everyone went back. I, however, had class to go to.
My new Ancient Greek class goes from 5-7pm, so I made my way up to Rue des Tanneurs and found the classroom. I made sure to ask the professor what class it was, to verify that it was definitely for beginning beginners and not halfway through. I had missed the first class period, but it turned out that several other people had too, so at least I wasn't alone. He briefly went over what he'd talked about last time and gave us the book list, the Greek alphabet, and a couple of worksheets. I quickly discovered that he is extremely fond of photocopies; I left the class with 8 or 10 pages of worksheets and other random things. After getting briefly lost in the Tanneurs building (they apparently close stuff down by 7pm, and it was hard to figure out where to go) I headed back to Le Nonante. Since it was the first time I'd had to walk around the city at night by myself, I was a little paranoid. I ended up taking the longer way around down the larger streets, rather than going through the little tiny old ones.
When I got home, everyone was just finishing with dinner. Jacqueline had saved some for me, though, and I was ravenous. I had to hurry, since we had planned on going to the Café des Langues again. We went with Luzé and her friend Sarah again and managed to get there before it was crowded with people. The group basically got split in two, and our end became the "English" table. I talked to some nice Swedish and Danish girls, who were in Tours doing mission work, and some creepy French guys who seemed to be there to try and pick up Americans; one of them kept trying to say that he knew Sierra, when obviously he didn't. After a while we left and came back to the house.
On Tuesdays I don't have any classes at all, but everyone else does. So I slept in, relaxed, and did my Translation homework for Wednesday. It was really nice to have a chill, solo time. I did go out briefly for some shopping and to get a brioche, though. Yay, brioche! That evening, Mamie and Aaron found out from some German girls that there was an event planned for exchange students, so they went to check it out. Apparently we were all supposed to go; they had our named on lists along with our French buddies, and they had sign-up sheets for the various school events throughout the semester. We hadn't heard anything about it, which was a little frustrating, but we didn't really know if there was a reason why we were left out.
Wednesdays, in contrast, are my intense days. I had a meeting at 9am over at the Fromont building to sign up for my CUEFEE classes, so I hurried through breakfast and made the half-hour walk in record time. Kate and I both needed to sign up, so it was cool to see her. We finished early enough that I came back to the house before Translation and walked to class with the boys. It was a fun enough class; we mostly finished the article we were translating from French to English and have one going the opposite direction for next week. Pelletier talked to us after class about not going to the event Tuesday night; we explained that we hadn't heard about it and got that taken care of. Now we should hear about things when they happen!
Then Grant and I walked down Rue Nationale on our way to Fromont, for my first CUEFEE class, and got delicious "complete ham sandwiches" on our way (the complete part is the mayo, and tomatoes, and lettuce, and stuff). It turns out that the little sandwich stall is La Grignotine, the same business as on Rue Bordeaux. I like them a lot. The CUEFEE class was called "Actualités," which means Current Events. It seemed like it'd be a pretty easy class, although it'll require more work. Kate and her friend Christina are in the class, as well as a Swedish girl that Grant knows from choir, so we even have people to talk to! We had a brief discussion about the metric system and conversions, as well as how cold it gets at Concordia. Don't we Cobbers love our school; we complain about the location constantly! ;-P
After class, Grant had to hurry home to check his email (RA stuff, apparently. He had ants in his pants all class about it.) so I waited the half hour for my second CUEFEE class: French Sciences. I ran into Sierra, who had a different class at that time. The Sciences class turned out to have less than 10 students, and most of them were older. There was a British girl named Natasha there who's also in my Translation class, so we talked a bit. The topic of the period was global warming; apparently the first unit will focus on the environment. I kind of felt like I was back in 9th grade, it was so easy, but whatever. I'm really only taking it because it fits my schedule. We're also doing some work on constructing a scientifically well-composed written argument, so that should help me improve my writing skills. When I got back to the house after dinner everything was weirdly quiet; most everyone had either class or choir, so they were all gone. I was starving after all my day's walking, so dinnertime seemed to be forever away. In the future, I think I might have to buy snacks at the store and come up with things to do on Wednesday nights.
Today I was pretty tired, since I'd stayed up really late. That was okay, though, since I didn't have class until 2pm. I dragged myself out to Tanneurs for Italian, which we thought would be the actual class we would take. It turns out, however, that the session we wanted is also really full and there wasn't space. Grant and I stayed anyway, figuring that the extra exposure to the language would be good, especially if we're going to have to transfer to a different group. Now we have to email one professor to see if she has space, and if not there's one last group we can hope for. Still, that'll be next week's concern, and at least the different groups are at the same time so our schedule won't change, just the classroom. He and I went and took care of some other administrative stuff we still needed to do, and bought sandwiches on our way back to the house (ham pizza panini om nom nom!).
Dinner tonight was chicken and some cooked vegetables that were really delicious. It was a little awkward, though; Xavier decided that the topic for the dinner conversation would be gender equality, in his continuing efforts to get people to speak up in French. No-one wanted to say anything, though. Valeria and Luzé and I spoke some, but a lot of people didn't say anything. I'm not sure if it was the topic or Xavier's intimidating insistence that kept them quiet. After dinner and dishes we came back upstairs. Everyone else went out, since they don't have classes on Friday and their weekend is already started. Since I tested into a higher level on the CUEFEE test, though, my written and oral classes are bright and early at 9am over at Fromont. I'm not looking forward to it.
Bonne nuit, tout le monde. Dormez-vous bien!
Showing posts with label cuefee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cuefee. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
New Places, New People
Thursday night was cool; we did end up going out and met up with Kate, who's another American girl from the CUEFEE, and with Romain and Alban and their friends. The other girls left first; Sierra and Mamie have now gone out with their two boys a few times, so they were planning on finding them. Aaron and Joel and I met up with them at our favourite bar: Le Puits Sait Tous (The Well Knows All). We didn't stay very long, though, before coming home.
Friday we pretty much just hung around the house, since none of us had anything planned. By the evening we had decided that we should go somewhere this weekend, so we made plans to go to the Château d'Amboise, which is just a brief train ride away.
We woke up early and managed to get out of the house by 10:25, on our way to the train station. In addition to buying my ticket, I went ahead and bought a "Carte 12-25," which is basically a train card you can get if you're between 12 and 25 years old. If you have one, you get huge discounts on most train tickets. With the card, I only paid 4 Euro for the tickets to Amboise, which would otherwise cost 7 Euro. On larger trips, like to Paris, you can save almost half the cost of a ticket.
After about 20 minutes on the train, we got to Amboise. It's a larger town, so we had to work our way through it to find the castle. We had planned to find somewhere to eat, since the castle is closed over lunch. When we crossed the bridge we found a little pizzeria called "Le Salamandre" (which is the emblem of the King François I). We all split little pizzas; mine had artichokes and green peppers and little sausages and was really good. Then for dessert I had strawberry ice cream. We kind of had a hard time figuring out how to pay, since we couldn't get the attention of the waitress, but we finally just put the money on the table and left.
When we crossed the other side of the bridge, we realised that we didn't really know how to get to the castle. It's basically just stuck in the middle of the city, with houses literally crowded up and around it. Fortunately it's France, so there were handy-dandy signs pointing out "Château" and we just followed those. We were walking along through the beautiful little streets and came to an open space where there were lots of little tourist-trap shops selling souvenir stuff. Then we looked to our left, and lo and behold, a château! There was a big long ramp leading up to a gate, but it looked closed, so we walked around the walls trying to find the entrance. We also found a bathroom, which was good for Mamie and I who hadn't gone at the restaurant. It was kind of sketch, though, and several of the stalls didn't have any toilet paper. Finally, we came across a sign that said "Entrance" and was pointing back the way we had come. We, obviously, felt brilliant.
We went back and went up the steps to the gate, but it was still closed. The sign said we had 20 minutes before they opened again, so we hung out and waited. Valeria had brought a huge blue umbrella in case it rained the way it did at Chenonceau, but it was just grey, not raining. So we took a bunch of pictures throughout the day with the umbrella, in order to not have wasted the effort. Eventually, they came back and opened the gate, so we could go in and buy our tickets.
The first thing we did was walk over to the wall overlooking the city and take lots of pictures. We went over to the little chapel, which is where Leonardo di Vinci is buried, and took more pictures there. It was really pretty, both inside and outside, and I became enamoured with the gargoyles. Then we went over to a little lookout point and ran into a couple of girls (we thought they were Italian) who took some group pictures for us. Finally we went over to the actual castle part, which is actually the royal apartments. It was really beautiful, and had a lot of cool stuff inside. I once again was a complete heraldry geek, so the room where *everything* was covered with fleur-de-lis and ermines made me very happy. We also got to go up the tower and see the entire city from on high. Then we went out and walked through the beautiful gardens and took even more pictures. We ran into the "Italian" girls again, and they took a couple more pictures of our group. It turns out that they're from Argentina; we talked to them a little bit. Then we finished wandering through the rest of the castle (I found more gargoyles) and the gift shop, where everything was super expensive.
After we left, we still had a couple hours before our train would leave. We wandered around looking for a little coffee shop or boulangerie where we could hang out for a bit, and ended up going into a bar. Unfortunately they weren't serving food anymore, since it was the afternoon, so we just got Cokes and Oranginas and stayed there for a while. Mamie told us a scary story about a girl who went missing in Mexico and then later her friends saw her sitting in the back of a car and called the police. It turns out she'd been killed and they were trying to use her body to transport drugs across the border. We were all really freaked out, and we've resolved never to let anyone go missing ever (not that we would have anyway, but still). Finally we headed back to the train station and waited a bit longer for our train, and came back to Tours.
That night we had some kind of beef wrapped in something else for dinner, with little potatoes and rice. I don't really know what it was, but it was delicious. Xavier's friend Daniel came to dinner again, and they talked politics for a while. None of us knew what they were talking about, which was a little awkward. After dinner, we girls decided to go out again. Romain and Alban were bringing some friends, so there would be more people to talk to and Valeria and I wouldn't be left out. Sierra did my eyeshadow and Valeria did my hair, so it looked completely different and really cute. We went to a couple bars but they were really crowded, and finally we found a spot in the back of one, called L'épée royale (The Royal Sword). We hung out for a bit, waiting for the boys, and finally when the bar closed we waited in Place Plumereau. Finally they showed up, and I met Aurélien and Théodore (who goes by Ted). We went to a bar where there's a dancing floor in the back and had a really good time. We didn't come back until 5:30am, and were unfortunately really loud outside before we came back in. Jacqueline poked her head out to tell us to come inside, and we were ridiculously embarrassed. We thought about not going to brunch, since we were so worried about what she'd say.
This morning I slept like a rock; Valeria woke me up when she came in to ask if I was coming to brunch, so I had to hurry and put on clothes and brush my hair. We had some kind of baked egg thing, which was kind of strangely spiced but good. Sierra, Aaron, and Grant went to Chenonceau since they'd missed it, and the rest of us just basically lounged around and talked to Luzé for a while. I'm super hungry, so now we're just waiting for dinner. I hope it's soon!
Friday we pretty much just hung around the house, since none of us had anything planned. By the evening we had decided that we should go somewhere this weekend, so we made plans to go to the Château d'Amboise, which is just a brief train ride away.
We woke up early and managed to get out of the house by 10:25, on our way to the train station. In addition to buying my ticket, I went ahead and bought a "Carte 12-25," which is basically a train card you can get if you're between 12 and 25 years old. If you have one, you get huge discounts on most train tickets. With the card, I only paid 4 Euro for the tickets to Amboise, which would otherwise cost 7 Euro. On larger trips, like to Paris, you can save almost half the cost of a ticket.
After about 20 minutes on the train, we got to Amboise. It's a larger town, so we had to work our way through it to find the castle. We had planned to find somewhere to eat, since the castle is closed over lunch. When we crossed the bridge we found a little pizzeria called "Le Salamandre" (which is the emblem of the King François I). We all split little pizzas; mine had artichokes and green peppers and little sausages and was really good. Then for dessert I had strawberry ice cream. We kind of had a hard time figuring out how to pay, since we couldn't get the attention of the waitress, but we finally just put the money on the table and left.
When we crossed the other side of the bridge, we realised that we didn't really know how to get to the castle. It's basically just stuck in the middle of the city, with houses literally crowded up and around it. Fortunately it's France, so there were handy-dandy signs pointing out "Château" and we just followed those. We were walking along through the beautiful little streets and came to an open space where there were lots of little tourist-trap shops selling souvenir stuff. Then we looked to our left, and lo and behold, a château! There was a big long ramp leading up to a gate, but it looked closed, so we walked around the walls trying to find the entrance. We also found a bathroom, which was good for Mamie and I who hadn't gone at the restaurant. It was kind of sketch, though, and several of the stalls didn't have any toilet paper. Finally, we came across a sign that said "Entrance" and was pointing back the way we had come. We, obviously, felt brilliant.
We went back and went up the steps to the gate, but it was still closed. The sign said we had 20 minutes before they opened again, so we hung out and waited. Valeria had brought a huge blue umbrella in case it rained the way it did at Chenonceau, but it was just grey, not raining. So we took a bunch of pictures throughout the day with the umbrella, in order to not have wasted the effort. Eventually, they came back and opened the gate, so we could go in and buy our tickets.
The first thing we did was walk over to the wall overlooking the city and take lots of pictures. We went over to the little chapel, which is where Leonardo di Vinci is buried, and took more pictures there. It was really pretty, both inside and outside, and I became enamoured with the gargoyles. Then we went over to a little lookout point and ran into a couple of girls (we thought they were Italian) who took some group pictures for us. Finally we went over to the actual castle part, which is actually the royal apartments. It was really beautiful, and had a lot of cool stuff inside. I once again was a complete heraldry geek, so the room where *everything* was covered with fleur-de-lis and ermines made me very happy. We also got to go up the tower and see the entire city from on high. Then we went out and walked through the beautiful gardens and took even more pictures. We ran into the "Italian" girls again, and they took a couple more pictures of our group. It turns out that they're from Argentina; we talked to them a little bit. Then we finished wandering through the rest of the castle (I found more gargoyles) and the gift shop, where everything was super expensive.
After we left, we still had a couple hours before our train would leave. We wandered around looking for a little coffee shop or boulangerie where we could hang out for a bit, and ended up going into a bar. Unfortunately they weren't serving food anymore, since it was the afternoon, so we just got Cokes and Oranginas and stayed there for a while. Mamie told us a scary story about a girl who went missing in Mexico and then later her friends saw her sitting in the back of a car and called the police. It turns out she'd been killed and they were trying to use her body to transport drugs across the border. We were all really freaked out, and we've resolved never to let anyone go missing ever (not that we would have anyway, but still). Finally we headed back to the train station and waited a bit longer for our train, and came back to Tours.
That night we had some kind of beef wrapped in something else for dinner, with little potatoes and rice. I don't really know what it was, but it was delicious. Xavier's friend Daniel came to dinner again, and they talked politics for a while. None of us knew what they were talking about, which was a little awkward. After dinner, we girls decided to go out again. Romain and Alban were bringing some friends, so there would be more people to talk to and Valeria and I wouldn't be left out. Sierra did my eyeshadow and Valeria did my hair, so it looked completely different and really cute. We went to a couple bars but they were really crowded, and finally we found a spot in the back of one, called L'épée royale (The Royal Sword). We hung out for a bit, waiting for the boys, and finally when the bar closed we waited in Place Plumereau. Finally they showed up, and I met Aurélien and Théodore (who goes by Ted). We went to a bar where there's a dancing floor in the back and had a really good time. We didn't come back until 5:30am, and were unfortunately really loud outside before we came back in. Jacqueline poked her head out to tell us to come inside, and we were ridiculously embarrassed. We thought about not going to brunch, since we were so worried about what she'd say.
This morning I slept like a rock; Valeria woke me up when she came in to ask if I was coming to brunch, so I had to hurry and put on clothes and brush my hair. We had some kind of baked egg thing, which was kind of strangely spiced but good. Sierra, Aaron, and Grant went to Chenonceau since they'd missed it, and the rest of us just basically lounged around and talked to Luzé for a while. I'm super hungry, so now we're just waiting for dinner. I hope it's soon!
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Trains, Plains, and Chrysanthemums
Yesterday was the first day of my translation class, which I was really looking forward to! Turns out half our group is going to take it; Grant, Joel, Aaron and I all walked over to Rue des Tanneurs together. When we got to the room, we went in and specifically sat down in different parts of the room, hoping to mingle with the French. Unfortunately; a couple of them kept looking in, and they assumed that we were part of a different class and didn't come in. Finally Grant went and opened the door and let the teacher in; her name is Martine Pelletier, and she came to Moorhead in October and met most of the Concordia students. (I had the flu at the time, so I didn't meet her myself.) Then the rest of the students flooded in after her; the class looked like it had 30-some students. The class itself went well; she had the anglophones spread out in groups with the French students, and we started trying to translate a news article about the earthquake in Haiti from English into French. I'm looking forward to that class next week, especially with how little homework they give you here.
After our class, Grant and Joel and I went to Monoprix and made sandwiches again for lunch. Mathias invited us to come watch him at his Judo class, but we were already eating. I think it'd be really fun to go next week, though, and I can post pictures on facebook! Once we'd eaten and washed dishes, I went and napped a bit, having nothing else to do that day. Almost everyone had either classes or choir until late, so it was just Aaron, Luzé, Jacqueline, Mathias and I for dinner, which was chicken and broccoli.
This morning we had to get up early-ish, since we had to go to the CUEFEE building on Rue des Fromonts for our placement test. We're pretty much all taking four CUEFEE classes, but there are three levels of classes you can take based on your skill in French. The test was at 1:30, but it's a half-hour walk from our house. When we got there we met up with another girl from the States named Kate. The test itself took 3 hours, which was ridiculous. There was a listening section and a reading section, and then a break. And then there was a short grammar section and two short essays. It really wasn't very hard, but there were a couple of tricky questions. We get our results next week, when we find out what classes we can take.
After the test, we walked up to Rue des Tanneurs to try out the school cafeteria, which is supposed to be both really good and really cheap. Unfortunately, it was long closed, so we ended up going back to Delhi's again. Those guys must think we don't ever go anywhere else! I got a croque poulet, which was a kind of baked cheese and chicken sandwich thingy. It's really really good. After stuffing our faces, we came back to the house. Dinner was way too soon for us, after having such a late lunch, but we rallied enough to eat anyway. We had salmon on toast with sauce, and then the actual dinner was ravioli again, with caramel flan for dessert. Tonight I think we're going out with some girls from the CUEFEE and some people the choir kids met there. Should be fun!
After our class, Grant and Joel and I went to Monoprix and made sandwiches again for lunch. Mathias invited us to come watch him at his Judo class, but we were already eating. I think it'd be really fun to go next week, though, and I can post pictures on facebook! Once we'd eaten and washed dishes, I went and napped a bit, having nothing else to do that day. Almost everyone had either classes or choir until late, so it was just Aaron, Luzé, Jacqueline, Mathias and I for dinner, which was chicken and broccoli.
This morning we had to get up early-ish, since we had to go to the CUEFEE building on Rue des Fromonts for our placement test. We're pretty much all taking four CUEFEE classes, but there are three levels of classes you can take based on your skill in French. The test was at 1:30, but it's a half-hour walk from our house. When we got there we met up with another girl from the States named Kate. The test itself took 3 hours, which was ridiculous. There was a listening section and a reading section, and then a break. And then there was a short grammar section and two short essays. It really wasn't very hard, but there were a couple of tricky questions. We get our results next week, when we find out what classes we can take.
After the test, we walked up to Rue des Tanneurs to try out the school cafeteria, which is supposed to be both really good and really cheap. Unfortunately, it was long closed, so we ended up going back to Delhi's again. Those guys must think we don't ever go anywhere else! I got a croque poulet, which was a kind of baked cheese and chicken sandwich thingy. It's really really good. After stuffing our faces, we came back to the house. Dinner was way too soon for us, after having such a late lunch, but we rallied enough to eat anyway. We had salmon on toast with sauce, and then the actual dinner was ravioli again, with caramel flan for dessert. Tonight I think we're going out with some girls from the CUEFEE and some people the choir kids met there. Should be fun!
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
It's All Greek To Me
The sushi we had on Sunday night was absolutely fantastic! The Dhommées also had their friend Daniel over, and he had brought homemade tiramisu for dessert, which was amazing. I was so incredibly happy with that dinner.
Yesterday I had my first class, which was "Reinforced initiation to Greek" at 1pm. I got up, got ready, and had breakfast, and then walked the 20 minutes or so to the building at Rue des Tanneurs. I found the class without a problem. There was another girl waiting, so I started talking to her a little and found out that her name was Corinne. She's a French student from Mauritania or something; it was some DOM-TOM (one of the French-run overseas territories). She was really nice, and was telling me about the class. They had apparently started last fall, and were already on Chapter 10, which kind of worried me, but she offered to give me photocopies of everything I'd missed for Wednesday and kind of help me with the class, so I was hopeful. The teacher came in several minutes late, and told us that there had been a mix-up in the administration and that we had been told the wrong classroom. There were only six of us, so we followed her to the other classroom and sat down. The first sign I had that this would be hard was when she started talking and I wasn't sure what she wanted us to do. Apparently we were to write our names, emails, and level on a piece of paper, in addition to how much Greek we had taken so far and what our expectations were for the class. Then she had us open our books (I didn't have one, obviously, but Corinne let me glance at hers) and start on that lesson. I became increasingly worried when she started writing on the board in Greek, doing various conjugations of something into various declensions, and I had no idea what she was talking about. After about 10 minutes of increasing terror and feeling absolutely lost, I raised my hand and said that I was probably in the wrong class, since I'd never taken Greek at all before and didn't even know the alphabet. She agreed with me, seeming surprised, and I said I would have to talk to Carine Berberi, the person who had signed me up for classes.
That was when I fled, and went back home. I felt awful, of course, since my first class had basically turned out to be an abject failure. Fortunately the others had planned on going out anyway, and I came with since I had a couple more postcards that I haven't quite gotten mailed out yet. I was also worried, since there seemed to be a very real possibility that my Italian class that evening would also be in the middle of the semester, in which case I would have to relive the morning's experience. We were all hungry after doing some errands, so we went to the Delhi café again, since we'd liked it and it was so cheap. This time we got to sit in the front, which was much nicer. I got a burger and a giant plateful of fries and a pile of lettuce. The burger was delicious (cooked pretty rare, which you can't usually get in restaurants, but which I actually prefer), although they put a little hashbrown round in it, which was kind of weird. The other thing that was funny was that in the US you would never think to eat a pile of just lettuce as a salad, but that's basically what it was.
After eating we came back to the house and bought more postcards on the way (I have a whole second round of people to send them to; I've just been slow since they're expensive when you add postage). Grant and I had to leave almost immediately once we'd gotten back, since our Italian class started at 6pm. We're taking it together and usually we're planning on going to the sessions on Thursday, since they're at the building on Rue des Tanneurs, which is closer. But this week we have the CUEFEE test on Thursday, so we would have missed the class. The Monday session is at Rue des Fromeurs (or something like that, I don't really remember the name). That's where the CUEFEE classes are all held, and is a half-hour walk from Le Nonante.
When we got there, a couple groups of people were standing around, and some of them seemed to speak English. We didn't really know where our class was, since the way Carine had written it on our sheet looked like FR ss (FR standing for Fromeurs, the site of the building). I ended up asking one of the people there, who turned out to also be an American, and she realised better than we did that it said FR 11; it was just that the handwriting made it look like a lowercase cursive s. So Grant and I found the classroom just fine after that, and went in and waited. We were worried, and so had decided to talk to the teacher before class started, to make sure that it was absolutely a class for beginners and not halfway through a longer class. She asked the students, and we were reassured that the class was for Débutants Débutants, absolute Beginning Beginners.
When the class actually started, it turned out to be a ridiculous amount of fun. The teacher kind of jumped around a lot; she ended up teaching us five different verbs with their present indicative conjugations, how to say "My name is," your nationality, and where you're from, and then towards the end she taught us the alphabet and the numbers from 0 to 10. Of course, it wasn't nearly in that order; like I say, she jumped around a lot. Grant and I were really excited after we left, and we spent the whole long walk back to Le Nonante repeating the letters and numbers and spelling out our names in Italian. I'm really looking forward to having that class again next week.
Grant and I had gotten back late for dinner, but Jacqueline had saved some for us. We had salad and hard-boiled eggs, then strips of roasted duck with a big pile of cooked vegetables, and applesauce for dessert. It was all really delicious, especially since we were so hungry after our long walk home. We hung out for a while, and a few people went to the café for ice cream. I didn't really want to keep spending money, so I stayed home and ended up playing some Dungeons & Dragons through AIM with a friend from back in the States. I have to keep in practice, after all, if I'm going to start up again when I come back!
This morning we all got up early-ish and headed to Rue des Tanneurs since we had a meeting with Carine to go over classes again. I had set up the meeting through email, since we still haven't figured out exactly how things are going to transfer back to Concordia when we go back. Dr. Rawson told us that we need 200 hours of classes this semester to equal four Concordia class' worth. But Martine and the people at the Université told us that we need 20 class credits, and whenever we say anything about class hours they just repeat that the French system doesn't work that way and tell us that class hours mean nothing. It's basically all a big mess, and nobody seems to know what we should do with it.
Since Mamie and Valeria still didn't have any classes set up and haven't heard anything about the art classes they wanted, they were going to come with me. And when Grant emailed Carine about meeting with her to pick some other classes himself, she told him to come with us too. So I was assuming the four of us were going to go. I was a little surprised when it turned out that all seven of us were going to go all together; apparently everyone had something they needed to talk to her about. We got there a little early and met with her. I managed to find a Greek class that is (like my Italian class) for absolute beginners, to replace the class that didn't work out so well. Half the group had missed breakfast, so they went to that same restaurant to eat lunch while I stayed with Valeria and Mamie while they discussed their issues. After they finished talking to her, the three of us girls went to talk to Caroline and got some paperwork we needed to figure out our Université email addresses. Since they were gone for lunch, we wandered around Old Tours for a while and went into Saint Martin's Basilica. We sat in the little crypt for a while, and it was nice and peaceful. We were able to get the paperwork we needed upon our return to Tanneurs, and that was cool.
For lunch, we three bought ham and a baguette at Monoprix, and made sandwiches at home. It was really good, and we had chips and pop with it. Now we're basically hanging out and napping before dinner, which will be another surprise!
Yesterday I had my first class, which was "Reinforced initiation to Greek" at 1pm. I got up, got ready, and had breakfast, and then walked the 20 minutes or so to the building at Rue des Tanneurs. I found the class without a problem. There was another girl waiting, so I started talking to her a little and found out that her name was Corinne. She's a French student from Mauritania or something; it was some DOM-TOM (one of the French-run overseas territories). She was really nice, and was telling me about the class. They had apparently started last fall, and were already on Chapter 10, which kind of worried me, but she offered to give me photocopies of everything I'd missed for Wednesday and kind of help me with the class, so I was hopeful. The teacher came in several minutes late, and told us that there had been a mix-up in the administration and that we had been told the wrong classroom. There were only six of us, so we followed her to the other classroom and sat down. The first sign I had that this would be hard was when she started talking and I wasn't sure what she wanted us to do. Apparently we were to write our names, emails, and level on a piece of paper, in addition to how much Greek we had taken so far and what our expectations were for the class. Then she had us open our books (I didn't have one, obviously, but Corinne let me glance at hers) and start on that lesson. I became increasingly worried when she started writing on the board in Greek, doing various conjugations of something into various declensions, and I had no idea what she was talking about. After about 10 minutes of increasing terror and feeling absolutely lost, I raised my hand and said that I was probably in the wrong class, since I'd never taken Greek at all before and didn't even know the alphabet. She agreed with me, seeming surprised, and I said I would have to talk to Carine Berberi, the person who had signed me up for classes.
That was when I fled, and went back home. I felt awful, of course, since my first class had basically turned out to be an abject failure. Fortunately the others had planned on going out anyway, and I came with since I had a couple more postcards that I haven't quite gotten mailed out yet. I was also worried, since there seemed to be a very real possibility that my Italian class that evening would also be in the middle of the semester, in which case I would have to relive the morning's experience. We were all hungry after doing some errands, so we went to the Delhi café again, since we'd liked it and it was so cheap. This time we got to sit in the front, which was much nicer. I got a burger and a giant plateful of fries and a pile of lettuce. The burger was delicious (cooked pretty rare, which you can't usually get in restaurants, but which I actually prefer), although they put a little hashbrown round in it, which was kind of weird. The other thing that was funny was that in the US you would never think to eat a pile of just lettuce as a salad, but that's basically what it was.
After eating we came back to the house and bought more postcards on the way (I have a whole second round of people to send them to; I've just been slow since they're expensive when you add postage). Grant and I had to leave almost immediately once we'd gotten back, since our Italian class started at 6pm. We're taking it together and usually we're planning on going to the sessions on Thursday, since they're at the building on Rue des Tanneurs, which is closer. But this week we have the CUEFEE test on Thursday, so we would have missed the class. The Monday session is at Rue des Fromeurs (or something like that, I don't really remember the name). That's where the CUEFEE classes are all held, and is a half-hour walk from Le Nonante.
When we got there, a couple groups of people were standing around, and some of them seemed to speak English. We didn't really know where our class was, since the way Carine had written it on our sheet looked like FR ss (FR standing for Fromeurs, the site of the building). I ended up asking one of the people there, who turned out to also be an American, and she realised better than we did that it said FR 11; it was just that the handwriting made it look like a lowercase cursive s. So Grant and I found the classroom just fine after that, and went in and waited. We were worried, and so had decided to talk to the teacher before class started, to make sure that it was absolutely a class for beginners and not halfway through a longer class. She asked the students, and we were reassured that the class was for Débutants Débutants, absolute Beginning Beginners.
When the class actually started, it turned out to be a ridiculous amount of fun. The teacher kind of jumped around a lot; she ended up teaching us five different verbs with their present indicative conjugations, how to say "My name is," your nationality, and where you're from, and then towards the end she taught us the alphabet and the numbers from 0 to 10. Of course, it wasn't nearly in that order; like I say, she jumped around a lot. Grant and I were really excited after we left, and we spent the whole long walk back to Le Nonante repeating the letters and numbers and spelling out our names in Italian. I'm really looking forward to having that class again next week.
Grant and I had gotten back late for dinner, but Jacqueline had saved some for us. We had salad and hard-boiled eggs, then strips of roasted duck with a big pile of cooked vegetables, and applesauce for dessert. It was all really delicious, especially since we were so hungry after our long walk home. We hung out for a while, and a few people went to the café for ice cream. I didn't really want to keep spending money, so I stayed home and ended up playing some Dungeons & Dragons through AIM with a friend from back in the States. I have to keep in practice, after all, if I'm going to start up again when I come back!
This morning we all got up early-ish and headed to Rue des Tanneurs since we had a meeting with Carine to go over classes again. I had set up the meeting through email, since we still haven't figured out exactly how things are going to transfer back to Concordia when we go back. Dr. Rawson told us that we need 200 hours of classes this semester to equal four Concordia class' worth. But Martine and the people at the Université told us that we need 20 class credits, and whenever we say anything about class hours they just repeat that the French system doesn't work that way and tell us that class hours mean nothing. It's basically all a big mess, and nobody seems to know what we should do with it.
Since Mamie and Valeria still didn't have any classes set up and haven't heard anything about the art classes they wanted, they were going to come with me. And when Grant emailed Carine about meeting with her to pick some other classes himself, she told him to come with us too. So I was assuming the four of us were going to go. I was a little surprised when it turned out that all seven of us were going to go all together; apparently everyone had something they needed to talk to her about. We got there a little early and met with her. I managed to find a Greek class that is (like my Italian class) for absolute beginners, to replace the class that didn't work out so well. Half the group had missed breakfast, so they went to that same restaurant to eat lunch while I stayed with Valeria and Mamie while they discussed their issues. After they finished talking to her, the three of us girls went to talk to Caroline and got some paperwork we needed to figure out our Université email addresses. Since they were gone for lunch, we wandered around Old Tours for a while and went into Saint Martin's Basilica. We sat in the little crypt for a while, and it was nice and peaceful. We were able to get the paperwork we needed upon our return to Tanneurs, and that was cool.
For lunch, we three bought ham and a baguette at Monoprix, and made sandwiches at home. It was really good, and we had chips and pop with it. Now we're basically hanging out and napping before dinner, which will be another surprise!
Friday, January 15, 2010
Classes and Frustrations
So yesterday, like I said, we had our meeting for registration. The meeting was at 11, but Fréderic (who works with Caroline, and was supposed to talk to us on the first day, but he was ill) had sent an email saying that they had found the little books of offered courses that we needed to look at to choose what we were going to take. So we went to that office to look at the little books again, which wasn't really all that helpful. I think I'm the only one who found one of the classes I wanted, and only after Caroline showed me. Then we had to find the office where we were having the meeting, with another woman named Carine Berberi. We ended up in the wrong place, but fortunately the people in that office called her and we got set up in her office. She tried to go through and figure out what each person was taking, but there were a lot of problems.
First off, there are apparently two institutions where we can take classes. There's the actual Université de François Rabelais, which is where we'd take regular college classes on any subject, but taught in French with actual French students. And then there's also the CUEFEE, which stands for the Centre Universitaire d'Enseignement du Français aux Etudiants Etrangers (the University Center for the Teaching of French to Foreign Students) and that is where we would take classes in learning French itself, depending on our level. They pronounce it Kwehf, and it's apparently what Dr. Rawson told us was the Franco-American Institute. We can take classes at either, but there are certain qualifiers involved in studying at the CUEFEE, like the 40 Euro fee that no-one told us about. Also the CUEFEE doesn't start until after we take the placement test next week, so we can't even think about what classes we'd theoretically take.
Carine works for the Université, so she was only giving us information about those specific classes. But, at this point those aren't even all figured out. Valeria and Mamie were told they could take specific art classes, but we found out that those are apparently not usually offered to exchange students and no-one has yet figured out where, when, or if that's going to be possible. Grant got a bunch of classes, but doesn't really know if he's going to take them, and Joel is apparently taking some of the same classes, but I have no idea. Aaron and Sierra seem fine, which is lucky for them. They had emailed their department people and apparently done this already. I managed to get three classes at the Université: beginning Greek, beginning Italian, and a French-English translation course. Hopefully I'll also take two classes at the CUEFEE (if you take any classes there at all, they require two obligatory ones, so that's the plan). I have absolutely no idea whether I'll be able to transfer all five of those home, due to credit hour issues, but we'll see.
After we talked to Carine, everyone was ridiculously frustrated, to the point where we didn't know what to do with ourselves. We had to go back to talk to Frédéric about the CUEFEE stuff (like when the test was, and where the test was, and when the classes start) because apparently he's in charge of that. Who knew? But they were on lunch break or something, because we couldn't get in the office. So we decided to go and get our own lunch, and calm down a bit.
The other girls had found a nice little restaurant where you could get a big sandwich, a plateful of fries, and a drink for 4.5 Euro. We went there, and they ended up having to seat us in the back, which was a kind of little gaming room. It was a lot nicer after the people playing pool and fuzzball left; before that I was getting really annoyed at the girl who kept hitting the back of my chair. The food was really good, though, and it was worth the bit of a walk. Rejuvenated and calmed, we went to talk to Frédéric and got the information we needed. (Unfortunately, the test is at the same time as my first Italian class, which is something I'm going to have to figure out.)
Then we went back to the house and hung out for the evening. Dinner was sort of strange; cucumbers in a slightly acidic creamy sauce and what was apparently shepherd's pie. It seemed more like a cream sauce with bits of ham and what might have been potatoes, I wasn't really sure. After dinner, we had decided we needed to get out of the house and have fun, or the stupid Université would drive us crazy. So we all got ready and went to a bar in the Place Plumereau. It was one of the same places we'd gone the other night, since we'd really liked it. While we were there, we met some cute French guys named Roman, Alban, and Thomas. We wanted to go dancing with them, since they knew where there were some discothèques in the area. The boys decided to stay, instead, so the four of us girls went.
Unfortunately the club was really ridiculously crowded, and kind of expensive. It was 10 Euro just to get in, and wall-to-wall packed. They played a lot of techno, which I didn't really mind, but it could've been more fun. Thomas didn't dance at all, and Sierra and Mamie ended up dancing with the other two. Valeria and I quickly got tired of dancing by ourselves and weren't really enjoying the club, so we walked home. We stayed up just to make sure that everyone got home alright, and then went to bed.
This morning, we slept in really late. A couple hours ago Valeria and Mamie and I got up and went to Rue Bordeaux for paninis and something to drink. We've been trying to get in touch with Dr. Rawson about our problems with classes and stuff, so hopefully that'll happen today.
First off, there are apparently two institutions where we can take classes. There's the actual Université de François Rabelais, which is where we'd take regular college classes on any subject, but taught in French with actual French students. And then there's also the CUEFEE, which stands for the Centre Universitaire d'Enseignement du Français aux Etudiants Etrangers (the University Center for the Teaching of French to Foreign Students) and that is where we would take classes in learning French itself, depending on our level. They pronounce it Kwehf, and it's apparently what Dr. Rawson told us was the Franco-American Institute. We can take classes at either, but there are certain qualifiers involved in studying at the CUEFEE, like the 40 Euro fee that no-one told us about. Also the CUEFEE doesn't start until after we take the placement test next week, so we can't even think about what classes we'd theoretically take.
Carine works for the Université, so she was only giving us information about those specific classes. But, at this point those aren't even all figured out. Valeria and Mamie were told they could take specific art classes, but we found out that those are apparently not usually offered to exchange students and no-one has yet figured out where, when, or if that's going to be possible. Grant got a bunch of classes, but doesn't really know if he's going to take them, and Joel is apparently taking some of the same classes, but I have no idea. Aaron and Sierra seem fine, which is lucky for them. They had emailed their department people and apparently done this already. I managed to get three classes at the Université: beginning Greek, beginning Italian, and a French-English translation course. Hopefully I'll also take two classes at the CUEFEE (if you take any classes there at all, they require two obligatory ones, so that's the plan). I have absolutely no idea whether I'll be able to transfer all five of those home, due to credit hour issues, but we'll see.
After we talked to Carine, everyone was ridiculously frustrated, to the point where we didn't know what to do with ourselves. We had to go back to talk to Frédéric about the CUEFEE stuff (like when the test was, and where the test was, and when the classes start) because apparently he's in charge of that. Who knew? But they were on lunch break or something, because we couldn't get in the office. So we decided to go and get our own lunch, and calm down a bit.
The other girls had found a nice little restaurant where you could get a big sandwich, a plateful of fries, and a drink for 4.5 Euro. We went there, and they ended up having to seat us in the back, which was a kind of little gaming room. It was a lot nicer after the people playing pool and fuzzball left; before that I was getting really annoyed at the girl who kept hitting the back of my chair. The food was really good, though, and it was worth the bit of a walk. Rejuvenated and calmed, we went to talk to Frédéric and got the information we needed. (Unfortunately, the test is at the same time as my first Italian class, which is something I'm going to have to figure out.)
Then we went back to the house and hung out for the evening. Dinner was sort of strange; cucumbers in a slightly acidic creamy sauce and what was apparently shepherd's pie. It seemed more like a cream sauce with bits of ham and what might have been potatoes, I wasn't really sure. After dinner, we had decided we needed to get out of the house and have fun, or the stupid Université would drive us crazy. So we all got ready and went to a bar in the Place Plumereau. It was one of the same places we'd gone the other night, since we'd really liked it. While we were there, we met some cute French guys named Roman, Alban, and Thomas. We wanted to go dancing with them, since they knew where there were some discothèques in the area. The boys decided to stay, instead, so the four of us girls went.
Unfortunately the club was really ridiculously crowded, and kind of expensive. It was 10 Euro just to get in, and wall-to-wall packed. They played a lot of techno, which I didn't really mind, but it could've been more fun. Thomas didn't dance at all, and Sierra and Mamie ended up dancing with the other two. Valeria and I quickly got tired of dancing by ourselves and weren't really enjoying the club, so we walked home. We stayed up just to make sure that everyone got home alright, and then went to bed.
This morning, we slept in really late. A couple hours ago Valeria and Mamie and I got up and went to Rue Bordeaux for paninis and something to drink. We've been trying to get in touch with Dr. Rawson about our problems with classes and stuff, so hopefully that'll happen today.
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