This weekend I'm staying in Tours, but Monday is when I'm going out to Carnac, for the second part of my vacation.
On Saturday, I got up and showered, and then hung out until brunch, enjoying the quiet house. I found out at brunch that Anika had planned to take Mathias to the swimming pool that day just as a fun outing, and he asked if maybe someone would want to go with him. I figured it might be fun, and although Tess didn't seem at all interested (I get the feeling she doesn't interact with the family much, although a lot of that is because she doesn't really speak French) I volunteered to go. I had to find my swimming suit, which I had fortunately brought, and set off with the other two.
We ended up taking the bus, which was a first for me. When we finally got there they hadn't yet opened for the afternoon. We only waited for about five minutes before they opened; unfortunately we then had to wait in line for a really long time before we finally got through into the swimming center. One thing I thought was interesting was that they have no kind of gender-based different changing rooms. Instead they just have a big hallway with dressing-room style "cabanes" that you go into to change, and then you go out the other side to where they have machine-controlled storage lockers. We left our stuff, rinsed briefly, and went into the pool area. It was actually fairly large and complex; I was impressed. There's a large pool outside, plus another regular 4-10-foot-style pool, a children's pool that wasn't more than three or so feet deep, a bi-level waterslide (the top level goes outside, then dumps into the pool that feeds into the lower level), and a big warm pool that had a fun sort of strong current path you could follow as well as several different areas with different massaging jets. Mathias and Anika and I played around for an hour or two, and then went to change and leave.
We took the bus back, stopping at one point when Anika bought us pastries to eat on our way. Mathias and I both got these sort of sandwich-shaped ones made of pastry with a layer of melted chocolate chips in the center. When we got back, I rinsed out my suit and hung it up, then collapsed on my bed and took a nap for about an hour. I actually overslept; I had made plans to meet up with Giovanni to go to some concert he had mentioned, and had to rush to get myself ready. When I met him at his house, we still had time to talk a little and have something to drink (I've discovered I actually really like water with mint syrup; it's very fresh) before heading over to the bar where they were playing. The group was put together by a friend of his who is also from Réunion, and they apparently play typical music from the island (there's a word for the musical style, but I can never remember what it is). After a little bit, though, I decided that I would just go back; the music was good, but the whole bar thing wasn't too appealing.
That night, we had rice with shrimp (heads and all, on some of them :P) for dinner, which was really good. Grant came back later in the evening, and he and I had a fun time just talking about our trips and what we'd done and seen. I also got to call Gramma and talk a bit, and tried to call Aunt Roxy, but she was apparently out clearing brush or something, and not available.
This morning I didn't have anything planned, so I slept in a bit, and then we had brunch. Grant and I looked over our stuff for Italian a little, and I now have a sheet of most of the grammar and notes that I need to have down. There's another girl here for a couple weeks, as well. Her name is Ladina, and she's from the German-speaking part of Switzerland. We had a fun time at dinner, joking around and talking. It was fun to have Grant back. Tonight I need to pack, since I'm leaving for Carnac tomorrow! I also need to try again to get a hold of Aunt Roxy, and hopefully I'll have more luck.
Showing posts with label grant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grant. Show all posts
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Rain, Ravens, and A Round Theatre
This morning, I was planning on getting up very early and heading out so that I could be at the Tower of London right around when they opened. That... didn't so much happen. Grant was debating coming with me; his Mini U.N. stuff starts today, so he didn't know if he'd be busy; but he decided to sleep in instead. When I stepped outside, however, it was already starting to rain. I was very glad today that I had my umbrella to hand.
The Tube trip down to the Tower Hill stop also took a lot longer than I was hoping. They were having problems with various lines; there had been signaling problems on the Central line, and so Circle and District (the only two that service Tower Hill) were both suffering severe delays and I had a heck of a time figuring it out. Finally I got there, just after 10. Walking over to the Tower itself was like swimming with all the rain, so once I had bought my ticket I decided to eat something and dry out a bit before going into the Tower itself. There's a company I keep seeing around London called "Eat.", and they had a store in the little shopping complex just outside the Tower. I got a chicken, tomato, and pesto sandwich, which was really good. There were green lettuce-y type leaves and pine nuts and it was very well done. Then I went over and got in line to go in. The thing about being in London right now, though, is that everyone is on vacation from school, not just me. The entire place was swarming with people.
I went inside, and started with the walkway and the walls. I basically went in and out of several towers along the outside walls, and took lots of pictures. One tower had a replica of the king's bed (which made me feel right at home, after Chenonceau and Amboise!), one had various English monarch's crowns (with all the jewels removed, or with paste replicas), one had examples of weaponry the Tower Guards would've used and talked a little about when the peasants revolted and stormed the Tower (remarkably, the only time it had ever been breached). When I descended down into the inner courtyard, the first place I went was the House of Jewels, where the real Crown Jewels of England are kept. It was very tightly secured (as you can imagine). They don't allow photographs inside, but it was absolutely marvelous. Everything was sumptuous and brilliant (literally) and beautiful. I don't think I've even imagined of so many gems in one place at the same time. After I left there, I wandered around some more. I saw the place where Anne Bolyn and many others were beheaded. I saw the various graffiti on the walls where people had been kept prisoner. I had to search around a bit, but I eventually found the torture exhibit (ironically not in the Bloody Tower), which turned out to just be a Scavenger's Daughter, a Rack, and a set of Manacles. It was still pretty cool, though, and considering how many kids were around, I thought it was really tastefully done.
The thing that I got really excited about, though, and the thing I was not leaving the Tower without seeing, were the ravens. It is said that if the Tower Ravens ever leave the Tower, then England will fall. So, they keep the requisite six around, plus a seventh, just in case. They do clip the birds' wings, though, so there's no real chance of them just flying away. They also have a little caged enclosure where three of them were hanging out. I saw one sitting on a wall first, quite a bit away from the cages. He was watching people go by and talking to them and making noises and I took a bunch of pictures. Then I went over by the cages, where there were three enclosed and three more just walking around outside. I took a bunch more pictures; ravens are really very photogenic birds. When I counted later, I ended up with 25 pictures of just those seven birds.
I ended up spending over three hours in the Tower of London, and enjoyed every minute. Eventually, though, I did manage to see it all, and so I headed back to the Tube. It was raining really hard by then, and all the walking around meant that my feet and the bottoms of my pants were getting really wet. I had some more problems with the Tube when I tried to get to Mansion House, which the internet had told me was about a ten minute walk from Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. I found Mansion House alright, but then had more problems trying to figure out how to get to the Globe itself. There was construction in the middle of the roads, so I walked up and down and around and crossed the streets where there were no lights (a very dangerous thing in London). Every once in a while I came across a map that pointed the way to the river, and eventually I got to the bank.
From the bank, I could actually see the Globe, finally; and I could see the footbridge that would let me get to it. At that point, it was just a matter of getting to the bridge and crossing. I also passed St. Paul's Cathedral, which is on the opposite side of Millennium Bridge from the Globe, and I decided I'd have to take pictures after.
The Globe itself was pretty cool; I didn't know much about the actual building, so I learned a lot. I bought my ticket and just glanced briefly at the exhibits before my tour started. The guy took us inside the theatre itself, sat us in the seats, and talked to us for a while. I really got the impression from him that the only way to fully experience the Globe is to see a performance there. I was kind of sad, since by the time they're doing shows I'll be going back home, so even if I wanted to come back I wouldn't be able to. He told us that the Globe itself is a reconstruction, not built even on the exact site of the old one (which is now apparently covered by a pub). It's an educated guess of what the building would've looked like, based on what we know of the two sister theatres, the Rose and the Swan. It is also the third Globe; the first one was burned down in a fire during a performance, when they shot off a cannon (sans cannonball) and a piece of cloth from the explosion set the thatched roof on fire. Fortunately, no-one was hurt, and the worst casualty was a bottle of beer that a man used to douse his pants when they had caught on fire. It was rebuilt, and still very successful, until the Puritans took over London and it was shut down by Parliament. For all that it is mostly educated guesswork, they took great pains to make it as true to the spirit of the original as possible. It is the first fully wooden building with a thatched roof since the Great Fire of London, and was made using techniques and materials from Shakespeare's time. After the tour, I wandered through some more and saw the exhibits, which included live demonstrations of woodworking, stage combat, and Elizabethan costuming.
When I left the Globe, I went back across the Millennium Bridge to St. Paul's Cathedral. I didn't go inside, mostly because I didn't want to spend the money, but I did take a lot of pictures of the outside and some cool stuff around it. Then I realised that I didn't actually have pictures of Wyndham's Theatre, where I'd seen "An Inspector Calls," so I went back there, took the pictures, and headed home. It was about then (well on to 4 or 5 pm) that I realised I hadn't eaten all day apart from the sandwich at the Tower. So when I got to Totteridge and Whetstone (the Tube station closest to Katie's house) I decided to go to a grocery store and buy some dinner. I also stopped by a flower stall and got them a bunch of tulips as a thank-you for letting me stay this week.
When I left the grocery store, however, the fairly constant rain had turned into a veritable downpour. I fought my way through the flood to get back, and was very happy to change my wet shoes, socks, and pants and warm up again. Katie and Allan were there, so I talked with them for a while and then they went to dinner and I stayed and ate the one I had just bought. While they were gone, Grant called. He had accidentally left his passport in their scanner when he made copies for his hostel stay, and needed to come back out to grab it. Right when he got out here, Katie and Allan returned as well, so we talked for a while.
The rest of my evening has been spent relaxing and catching up on the internet, which I have not really had time to check the past couple of days. Now, I am off to bed once more. Tomorrow: Westminster, Buckingham Palace, and hopefully the Changing of the Guard!
The Tube trip down to the Tower Hill stop also took a lot longer than I was hoping. They were having problems with various lines; there had been signaling problems on the Central line, and so Circle and District (the only two that service Tower Hill) were both suffering severe delays and I had a heck of a time figuring it out. Finally I got there, just after 10. Walking over to the Tower itself was like swimming with all the rain, so once I had bought my ticket I decided to eat something and dry out a bit before going into the Tower itself. There's a company I keep seeing around London called "Eat.", and they had a store in the little shopping complex just outside the Tower. I got a chicken, tomato, and pesto sandwich, which was really good. There were green lettuce-y type leaves and pine nuts and it was very well done. Then I went over and got in line to go in. The thing about being in London right now, though, is that everyone is on vacation from school, not just me. The entire place was swarming with people.
I went inside, and started with the walkway and the walls. I basically went in and out of several towers along the outside walls, and took lots of pictures. One tower had a replica of the king's bed (which made me feel right at home, after Chenonceau and Amboise!), one had various English monarch's crowns (with all the jewels removed, or with paste replicas), one had examples of weaponry the Tower Guards would've used and talked a little about when the peasants revolted and stormed the Tower (remarkably, the only time it had ever been breached). When I descended down into the inner courtyard, the first place I went was the House of Jewels, where the real Crown Jewels of England are kept. It was very tightly secured (as you can imagine). They don't allow photographs inside, but it was absolutely marvelous. Everything was sumptuous and brilliant (literally) and beautiful. I don't think I've even imagined of so many gems in one place at the same time. After I left there, I wandered around some more. I saw the place where Anne Bolyn and many others were beheaded. I saw the various graffiti on the walls where people had been kept prisoner. I had to search around a bit, but I eventually found the torture exhibit (ironically not in the Bloody Tower), which turned out to just be a Scavenger's Daughter, a Rack, and a set of Manacles. It was still pretty cool, though, and considering how many kids were around, I thought it was really tastefully done.
The thing that I got really excited about, though, and the thing I was not leaving the Tower without seeing, were the ravens. It is said that if the Tower Ravens ever leave the Tower, then England will fall. So, they keep the requisite six around, plus a seventh, just in case. They do clip the birds' wings, though, so there's no real chance of them just flying away. They also have a little caged enclosure where three of them were hanging out. I saw one sitting on a wall first, quite a bit away from the cages. He was watching people go by and talking to them and making noises and I took a bunch of pictures. Then I went over by the cages, where there were three enclosed and three more just walking around outside. I took a bunch more pictures; ravens are really very photogenic birds. When I counted later, I ended up with 25 pictures of just those seven birds.
I ended up spending over three hours in the Tower of London, and enjoyed every minute. Eventually, though, I did manage to see it all, and so I headed back to the Tube. It was raining really hard by then, and all the walking around meant that my feet and the bottoms of my pants were getting really wet. I had some more problems with the Tube when I tried to get to Mansion House, which the internet had told me was about a ten minute walk from Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. I found Mansion House alright, but then had more problems trying to figure out how to get to the Globe itself. There was construction in the middle of the roads, so I walked up and down and around and crossed the streets where there were no lights (a very dangerous thing in London). Every once in a while I came across a map that pointed the way to the river, and eventually I got to the bank.
From the bank, I could actually see the Globe, finally; and I could see the footbridge that would let me get to it. At that point, it was just a matter of getting to the bridge and crossing. I also passed St. Paul's Cathedral, which is on the opposite side of Millennium Bridge from the Globe, and I decided I'd have to take pictures after.
The Globe itself was pretty cool; I didn't know much about the actual building, so I learned a lot. I bought my ticket and just glanced briefly at the exhibits before my tour started. The guy took us inside the theatre itself, sat us in the seats, and talked to us for a while. I really got the impression from him that the only way to fully experience the Globe is to see a performance there. I was kind of sad, since by the time they're doing shows I'll be going back home, so even if I wanted to come back I wouldn't be able to. He told us that the Globe itself is a reconstruction, not built even on the exact site of the old one (which is now apparently covered by a pub). It's an educated guess of what the building would've looked like, based on what we know of the two sister theatres, the Rose and the Swan. It is also the third Globe; the first one was burned down in a fire during a performance, when they shot off a cannon (sans cannonball) and a piece of cloth from the explosion set the thatched roof on fire. Fortunately, no-one was hurt, and the worst casualty was a bottle of beer that a man used to douse his pants when they had caught on fire. It was rebuilt, and still very successful, until the Puritans took over London and it was shut down by Parliament. For all that it is mostly educated guesswork, they took great pains to make it as true to the spirit of the original as possible. It is the first fully wooden building with a thatched roof since the Great Fire of London, and was made using techniques and materials from Shakespeare's time. After the tour, I wandered through some more and saw the exhibits, which included live demonstrations of woodworking, stage combat, and Elizabethan costuming.
When I left the Globe, I went back across the Millennium Bridge to St. Paul's Cathedral. I didn't go inside, mostly because I didn't want to spend the money, but I did take a lot of pictures of the outside and some cool stuff around it. Then I realised that I didn't actually have pictures of Wyndham's Theatre, where I'd seen "An Inspector Calls," so I went back there, took the pictures, and headed home. It was about then (well on to 4 or 5 pm) that I realised I hadn't eaten all day apart from the sandwich at the Tower. So when I got to Totteridge and Whetstone (the Tube station closest to Katie's house) I decided to go to a grocery store and buy some dinner. I also stopped by a flower stall and got them a bunch of tulips as a thank-you for letting me stay this week.
When I left the grocery store, however, the fairly constant rain had turned into a veritable downpour. I fought my way through the flood to get back, and was very happy to change my wet shoes, socks, and pants and warm up again. Katie and Allan were there, so I talked with them for a while and then they went to dinner and I stayed and ate the one I had just bought. While they were gone, Grant called. He had accidentally left his passport in their scanner when he made copies for his hostel stay, and needed to come back out to grab it. Right when he got out here, Katie and Allan returned as well, so we talked for a while.
The rest of my evening has been spent relaxing and catching up on the internet, which I have not really had time to check the past couple of days. Now, I am off to bed once more. Tomorrow: Westminster, Buckingham Palace, and hopefully the Changing of the Guard!
Stones, Sheep, Splendid Sights
I didn't get a chance to recap yesterday, so I'll start with that! Grant and I woke up early in the morning, to try and go to Westminster Abbey when it opened. Unfortunately we were a little slower to get moving than we'd hoped (and I also had some trouble with the shower curtain rod; I didn't know where else to hang my towel to dry, but it fell down...) and took our time getting into town. We went along the Thames and by Parliament, and took bunches of pictures of Big Ben and stuff. By the time we got to the Abbey itself, we'd have only had an hour or so to look around before we'd have to leave, so we glanced at St. Margaret's Church nearby and took pictures, and then headed down Victoria to find the hotel where we were supposed to meet our tour bus to go to Stonehenge.
It turned out that Victoria is a *very* long street, full of shopping and restaurants and things to see. We made it down to Victoria Station, which is basically a giant mall as well as a Tube and bus station, and had to ask directions to finally find the Grosvenor Victoria Hotel. It's pronounced "GRAHV-ner," apparently; and people say French has too many silent letters! Once we knew where it was, we still had a while before we had to be there to meet the bus. We got some Subway for lunch in the Victoria mall thing, because it was decently inexpensive, then Grant and I split up to wander and do some shopping. I picked up a couple of pretty pashmina scarves and walked back up Victoria to find a little street market we'd passed before. The boots I bought in Tours are already starting to wear out from all the walking we do all the time, so I bought a new pair for when they completely fall apart.
At 12:30, Grant and I met up back at the Grosvenor Hotel. We were waiting for a while, and ended up talking to a couple of women from Connecticut who were also waiting for the tour. Finally the bus showed up, they checked our names and we got on, and we were off! It seemed to take forever to leave London, and then it was about an hour and a half's drive to get to Stonehenge. Grant and I both fell asleep, and it was really cold in the bus, so my nose was numb when we got there.
The first thing they kept pointing out were the barrow mounds that apparently are really common around that area. We saw lots of them before finally entering the site itself. Everyone tells you that Stonehenge is a lot smaller than they expected. Maybe because I've heard that so often, I wasn't actually surprised at all. It was a gorgeous day for photography, and I took countless pictures. I also took lots of general pictures of the English countryside, and the flocks of sheep that were right nearby. The crowds of tourists (of which I was obviously one) kind of ruined any mystery the site might have had, though. Also the audio guide didn't really tell me anything I hadn't heard before. Still, it was an experience just to walk around and see a monument that old and that puzzling, and I'm very glad I went. It also didn't hurt that what must have amounted to several murders of crows apparently lived there, and you could see them occasionally wheeling around and being ominous. On our way out we touched the blue stone and sarsen stone that they set up at the exit; the blue stone is supposed to be warm to the touch no matter the weather. I couldn't really tell too much of a difference, except that the sarsen seemed to leech away my body heat the way sitting on concrete does, and the blue stone didn't at all.
Then, we were back on the bus, and back to London. Grant and I hadn't officially planned anything after the 'henge, but we figured we might as well go around and see some more things, since we could. We went to Trafalgar Square and took pictures, and got some souvenir stuff. I, of course, as a self-respecting Neil Gaiman fan who adores the book "Neverwhere," had to find myself a "Mind the Gap" t-shirt. We also stopped by Piccadilly Circus and took more pictures, and then since we were there we decided to indulge our inner twelve-year-old. We took the Piccadilly Line all the way to Cockfosters at the end, took pictures, and rode back. When we got to King's Cross we realised there was another important sight to find: Platform 9 3/4! So we got off, and went to find it. Unfortunately it's kind of hidden away; they've put up a sign and installed a cart stuck halfway through the wall, but we had to ask one of the employees to point out the way. He was kind of funny; when we asked, he scoffed a little and said "Oh, you don't really want to see that, do you?" We kind of looked at each other, laughing, and said "Yeah!" Maybe you weren't eleven when the books came out, guy, but we were!
After our various photo ops, we finally got back on the Northern Line and came back to Katie and Allan's house. It ended up being almost midnight when we got there, so we paused long enough to check facebook and fell into bed.
It turned out that Victoria is a *very* long street, full of shopping and restaurants and things to see. We made it down to Victoria Station, which is basically a giant mall as well as a Tube and bus station, and had to ask directions to finally find the Grosvenor Victoria Hotel. It's pronounced "GRAHV-ner," apparently; and people say French has too many silent letters! Once we knew where it was, we still had a while before we had to be there to meet the bus. We got some Subway for lunch in the Victoria mall thing, because it was decently inexpensive, then Grant and I split up to wander and do some shopping. I picked up a couple of pretty pashmina scarves and walked back up Victoria to find a little street market we'd passed before. The boots I bought in Tours are already starting to wear out from all the walking we do all the time, so I bought a new pair for when they completely fall apart.
At 12:30, Grant and I met up back at the Grosvenor Hotel. We were waiting for a while, and ended up talking to a couple of women from Connecticut who were also waiting for the tour. Finally the bus showed up, they checked our names and we got on, and we were off! It seemed to take forever to leave London, and then it was about an hour and a half's drive to get to Stonehenge. Grant and I both fell asleep, and it was really cold in the bus, so my nose was numb when we got there.
The first thing they kept pointing out were the barrow mounds that apparently are really common around that area. We saw lots of them before finally entering the site itself. Everyone tells you that Stonehenge is a lot smaller than they expected. Maybe because I've heard that so often, I wasn't actually surprised at all. It was a gorgeous day for photography, and I took countless pictures. I also took lots of general pictures of the English countryside, and the flocks of sheep that were right nearby. The crowds of tourists (of which I was obviously one) kind of ruined any mystery the site might have had, though. Also the audio guide didn't really tell me anything I hadn't heard before. Still, it was an experience just to walk around and see a monument that old and that puzzling, and I'm very glad I went. It also didn't hurt that what must have amounted to several murders of crows apparently lived there, and you could see them occasionally wheeling around and being ominous. On our way out we touched the blue stone and sarsen stone that they set up at the exit; the blue stone is supposed to be warm to the touch no matter the weather. I couldn't really tell too much of a difference, except that the sarsen seemed to leech away my body heat the way sitting on concrete does, and the blue stone didn't at all.
Then, we were back on the bus, and back to London. Grant and I hadn't officially planned anything after the 'henge, but we figured we might as well go around and see some more things, since we could. We went to Trafalgar Square and took pictures, and got some souvenir stuff. I, of course, as a self-respecting Neil Gaiman fan who adores the book "Neverwhere," had to find myself a "Mind the Gap" t-shirt. We also stopped by Piccadilly Circus and took more pictures, and then since we were there we decided to indulge our inner twelve-year-old. We took the Piccadilly Line all the way to Cockfosters at the end, took pictures, and rode back. When we got to King's Cross we realised there was another important sight to find: Platform 9 3/4! So we got off, and went to find it. Unfortunately it's kind of hidden away; they've put up a sign and installed a cart stuck halfway through the wall, but we had to ask one of the employees to point out the way. He was kind of funny; when we asked, he scoffed a little and said "Oh, you don't really want to see that, do you?" We kind of looked at each other, laughing, and said "Yeah!" Maybe you weren't eleven when the books came out, guy, but we were!
After our various photo ops, we finally got back on the Northern Line and came back to Katie and Allan's house. It ended up being almost midnight when we got there, so we paused long enough to check facebook and fell into bed.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
European Public Transit Has Earned My Love Forever
Today, I finally started my adventure in London! Yesterday was spent in a rush of finalising plans, information, tickets, packing, etc, and then this morning Grant and I woke up bright and early so that we could leave the house by 6:30am. We had to walk down to the Gare (the train station), and our train was leaving at 7:06am.
We ended up being about 15 minutes early, and found the train easily enough. When we got on and sat down at first, though, the lights were out in the car. It was kind of creepy and weird, so Grant checked it out and we moved down to a different car. That one had little eight-seat compartments rather than the usual seats, so the two of us took a car together, put up the arm rests, and mostly slept on our way to Orléans. It was kind of funny; at one point when we were both almost asleep and the train was going decently fast, a TVG passed us going the opposite direction and it sounded like a dragon howling past right by our heads! Grant screamed, and we both bolted straight up! We were a little confused about what the train was doing when we sat in Orléans for a long time, and a couple of women joined us in our car since the train was filling up more. Getting to Paris was pretty uneventful, except that we were about 12 minutes late; which is unheard of in the French train systems.
Once in Gare Austerlitz in Paris, we found the Métro to take us to Gare du Nord, where we were going to catch the Eurostar. We were briefly above ground, and managed to see the tops of the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame, but that was the extent of our Parisian experience. I'm really going to have to go back; I missed it even just from the Métro itself.
The Gare itself wasn't that hard to navigate, although I hadn't really thought about the security necessary since we were going to another country. We had to fill out a card for non-UK residents. Then we got our passports stamped by the French border patrol (my first passport stamp with a train on it!) and had to talk to the British border patrol about 5 feet further on. The X-ray and stuff was ridiculously simple, and then we were through to the boarding lobby. Grant had had some kind of mix-up with his ticket and was scheduled to be on the 12:13 train rather than the 11:13 with me, but we talked to the desk and they got him on the earlier train, although not in the same car. I was in Carriage 1, the very first on the train. There were a couple of French girls sitting beside and across from me, a British girl across diagonally, and there was a Spanish couple with their two young boys across the aisle. The father was cute; he kept trying to mind the two boys, calling them "mi amor" and stuff.
The Eurostar was pretty nice, as trains go. Grant and I both realised that when we didn't know whether we'd crossed the Channel yet all we had to do was see which way people were driving on the freeways. I was expecting the Chunnel to be more of a big deal, but it was basically just a long black tunnel; I honestly didn't even notice we were through until I looked up from my book and everything was grey and misty and *so* typically obviously England. The Eurostar was also about 15 minutes late (we had bad luck, I guess), but we still managed to get out of the St. Pancras station, cross over and find King's Cross, and meet up with my Aunt Roxanne's friend Katie in front of the appointed Burger King. Grant and I both got some British pounds from the ATM, got some lunch (mmm, traditional pasty with beef and potatoes and onions...), and went with Katie to the Underground.
Katie is American, but her new husband Allan is from Scotland and works in the Royal Air Force, so she moved to London after their wedding. She very graciously agreed to let me and Grant spend a few days with her during our vacation, and she seems to be purely adorable and sweet. I went ahead and bought a 7-day pass for the Underground, since I'm planning to ride it everywhere the whole few days I'm here, and it's just simpler. Katie showed us how to take the Northern Line (which is actually one of the more confusing, since it splits and meets up and splits again) up to her house. It's an adorable little two-bedroom apartment (I'm sleeping in the guest bedroom and Grant agreed to take the air mattress in the living room) where there's apparently mixed civilian and military housing. We also got to meet Mazzie, who is Katie's wiener-dog mutt. I'll have to take pictures of her before I leave, because she is adorable.
After dropping off our luggage and settling in a bit (and I changed, because it was pouring down rain and I was soaked), the two of us headed off on our own again to see a little bit of the city. We went to Embankment, which is right on the bank of the Thames, and took brief little pictures of the London Eye and Big Ben. The main reason I wanted to go was to see Cleopatra's Needle, which is an Egyptian obelisk that was taken from Egypt when the British defeated Napoleon and now sits in the center of London. We took a couple pictures, but it was very cold and rainy, so we quickly headed back down into the Tube. We went up to the theatre district, near Leicester Square. On Monday we'd decided that it would be fun to see a show, but before it began we walked around a bit. It was amazing to see all the lights and posters for all the various shows that are playing: Lion King, Phantom of the Opera, Wicked, Les Misérables, Billy Elliot, and a hundred others.
For dinner we decided on a little Italian restaurant. It was really small and close, but cute. Grant got a pizza, and I had Penne Marco Polo, which was penne pasta with duck and mushrooms in a plum sauce. It was really, really good, and really sweet, which was interesting. I also tried something called Fruitisa, which was some sparkling pomegrante juice, and that was okay. What absolutely made the restaurant, though, was the dessert. We split a piece of cheesecake with red berries and sauce on top, and it was absolutely the lightest, sweetest, most heavenly piece of cheesecake I have ever tasted; and the berries were sweet and tart and added just the right touch of flavour.
After dinner, we headed back towards the Wyndham's Theatre, which was where our show was. The website had said that you come out of the Tube station and the theatre was right there, and they weren't lying; you could basically walk 5 steps from the station awning to the theatre awning without even getting wet! The show we went to see was called "An Inspector Calls," and is a British play about a well-off British family whose dinner party is interrupted by a strange Inspector Goole, who shows up and starts asking questions in regard to the suicide of a working-class girl, Eva Smith. We had considered going to something more well-known, but a friend of mine who's in theatre told me that the best thing to do in London was to see British theatre, rather than a show that you could see any time back in the States. It definitely paid off, too! The theatre itself was obviously a little old (there was a renovation fee included in our ticket price), but it was elegant and the seating was perfect. We were in the very last row in the very top balcony, but we could see and hear everything just fine.
The show itself is extremely different. It kind of plays tricks with your mind, and you're not really sure what to believe at certain points. They had magnificent effects, though; the stage was built so that half of it was this huge mechanised cutaway house, which could open up so that you could see the inside, and had a staircase that moved up to lock in place and connect it with the rest of the stage. At one specific part in the play, they used pyrotechnic explosions and the mechanics made the house fall down, and it was really startling and a little terrifying for a second. The plot is really twisty, and it's definitely not what you might expect it to be. I left at first going "what the...?" and it wasn't until I'd really thought it over a bit more that I decided I actually liked it quite a lot. The actors were fantastic (in my, admittedly very limited theatrical opinion), especially the Inspector himself.
After the show, Grant and I took the train back to Katie's house, where we got to meet Allan for the first time. We sat up and talked for a while, and then they told me how to use the internet here. Now, I need to go to bed. Tomorrow we have even more things planned, and I need to get some sleep!
We ended up being about 15 minutes early, and found the train easily enough. When we got on and sat down at first, though, the lights were out in the car. It was kind of creepy and weird, so Grant checked it out and we moved down to a different car. That one had little eight-seat compartments rather than the usual seats, so the two of us took a car together, put up the arm rests, and mostly slept on our way to Orléans. It was kind of funny; at one point when we were both almost asleep and the train was going decently fast, a TVG passed us going the opposite direction and it sounded like a dragon howling past right by our heads! Grant screamed, and we both bolted straight up! We were a little confused about what the train was doing when we sat in Orléans for a long time, and a couple of women joined us in our car since the train was filling up more. Getting to Paris was pretty uneventful, except that we were about 12 minutes late; which is unheard of in the French train systems.
Once in Gare Austerlitz in Paris, we found the Métro to take us to Gare du Nord, where we were going to catch the Eurostar. We were briefly above ground, and managed to see the tops of the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame, but that was the extent of our Parisian experience. I'm really going to have to go back; I missed it even just from the Métro itself.
The Gare itself wasn't that hard to navigate, although I hadn't really thought about the security necessary since we were going to another country. We had to fill out a card for non-UK residents. Then we got our passports stamped by the French border patrol (my first passport stamp with a train on it!) and had to talk to the British border patrol about 5 feet further on. The X-ray and stuff was ridiculously simple, and then we were through to the boarding lobby. Grant had had some kind of mix-up with his ticket and was scheduled to be on the 12:13 train rather than the 11:13 with me, but we talked to the desk and they got him on the earlier train, although not in the same car. I was in Carriage 1, the very first on the train. There were a couple of French girls sitting beside and across from me, a British girl across diagonally, and there was a Spanish couple with their two young boys across the aisle. The father was cute; he kept trying to mind the two boys, calling them "mi amor" and stuff.
The Eurostar was pretty nice, as trains go. Grant and I both realised that when we didn't know whether we'd crossed the Channel yet all we had to do was see which way people were driving on the freeways. I was expecting the Chunnel to be more of a big deal, but it was basically just a long black tunnel; I honestly didn't even notice we were through until I looked up from my book and everything was grey and misty and *so* typically obviously England. The Eurostar was also about 15 minutes late (we had bad luck, I guess), but we still managed to get out of the St. Pancras station, cross over and find King's Cross, and meet up with my Aunt Roxanne's friend Katie in front of the appointed Burger King. Grant and I both got some British pounds from the ATM, got some lunch (mmm, traditional pasty with beef and potatoes and onions...), and went with Katie to the Underground.
Katie is American, but her new husband Allan is from Scotland and works in the Royal Air Force, so she moved to London after their wedding. She very graciously agreed to let me and Grant spend a few days with her during our vacation, and she seems to be purely adorable and sweet. I went ahead and bought a 7-day pass for the Underground, since I'm planning to ride it everywhere the whole few days I'm here, and it's just simpler. Katie showed us how to take the Northern Line (which is actually one of the more confusing, since it splits and meets up and splits again) up to her house. It's an adorable little two-bedroom apartment (I'm sleeping in the guest bedroom and Grant agreed to take the air mattress in the living room) where there's apparently mixed civilian and military housing. We also got to meet Mazzie, who is Katie's wiener-dog mutt. I'll have to take pictures of her before I leave, because she is adorable.
After dropping off our luggage and settling in a bit (and I changed, because it was pouring down rain and I was soaked), the two of us headed off on our own again to see a little bit of the city. We went to Embankment, which is right on the bank of the Thames, and took brief little pictures of the London Eye and Big Ben. The main reason I wanted to go was to see Cleopatra's Needle, which is an Egyptian obelisk that was taken from Egypt when the British defeated Napoleon and now sits in the center of London. We took a couple pictures, but it was very cold and rainy, so we quickly headed back down into the Tube. We went up to the theatre district, near Leicester Square. On Monday we'd decided that it would be fun to see a show, but before it began we walked around a bit. It was amazing to see all the lights and posters for all the various shows that are playing: Lion King, Phantom of the Opera, Wicked, Les Misérables, Billy Elliot, and a hundred others.
For dinner we decided on a little Italian restaurant. It was really small and close, but cute. Grant got a pizza, and I had Penne Marco Polo, which was penne pasta with duck and mushrooms in a plum sauce. It was really, really good, and really sweet, which was interesting. I also tried something called Fruitisa, which was some sparkling pomegrante juice, and that was okay. What absolutely made the restaurant, though, was the dessert. We split a piece of cheesecake with red berries and sauce on top, and it was absolutely the lightest, sweetest, most heavenly piece of cheesecake I have ever tasted; and the berries were sweet and tart and added just the right touch of flavour.
After dinner, we headed back towards the Wyndham's Theatre, which was where our show was. The website had said that you come out of the Tube station and the theatre was right there, and they weren't lying; you could basically walk 5 steps from the station awning to the theatre awning without even getting wet! The show we went to see was called "An Inspector Calls," and is a British play about a well-off British family whose dinner party is interrupted by a strange Inspector Goole, who shows up and starts asking questions in regard to the suicide of a working-class girl, Eva Smith. We had considered going to something more well-known, but a friend of mine who's in theatre told me that the best thing to do in London was to see British theatre, rather than a show that you could see any time back in the States. It definitely paid off, too! The theatre itself was obviously a little old (there was a renovation fee included in our ticket price), but it was elegant and the seating was perfect. We were in the very last row in the very top balcony, but we could see and hear everything just fine.
The show itself is extremely different. It kind of plays tricks with your mind, and you're not really sure what to believe at certain points. They had magnificent effects, though; the stage was built so that half of it was this huge mechanised cutaway house, which could open up so that you could see the inside, and had a staircase that moved up to lock in place and connect it with the rest of the stage. At one specific part in the play, they used pyrotechnic explosions and the mechanics made the house fall down, and it was really startling and a little terrifying for a second. The plot is really twisty, and it's definitely not what you might expect it to be. I left at first going "what the...?" and it wasn't until I'd really thought it over a bit more that I decided I actually liked it quite a lot. The actors were fantastic (in my, admittedly very limited theatrical opinion), especially the Inspector himself.
After the show, Grant and I took the train back to Katie's house, where we got to meet Allan for the first time. We sat up and talked for a while, and then they told me how to use the internet here. Now, I need to go to bed. Tomorrow we have even more things planned, and I need to get some sleep!
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Vacation Already
I've really been slowing down on blogging, mostly because not as much has been happening recently. This past week I've had classes and stuff, of course. Except for Science; that was canceled this week since the professor was gone, and we're just going to have to add time on to subsequent classes to make up for it. I need to start writing a journal for school outlining what I do in each class; Rawson wants it so that if we end up with a bad grade or something doesn't transfer, she can give us the benefit of the doubt and add on points from the journal.
Sunday we four girls kind of hung out. The Musée des Beaux Arts (which is a museum that's literally a five minute walk from our house) has free admission on the first Sunday of every month, so we went over there after brunch. The first thing that really strikes you is the giant tree in the courtyard; at some point I need to put the pictures I took of it on facebook. The actual museum itself was a little boring; lots of random paintings. There were some kind of interesting sculptures of fish and animals and things that were pretty cool. One of these days I need to go back and walk through the grounds, though; there are these gardens that people wander through and walk their dogs and stuff, and it looked really pretty through the windows. On the other side of the courtyard from the entrance is a random little exhibit with what might very well be a fake elephant. It's supposed to be Fritz; a Barnum & Bailey circus elephant that went crazy in 1904 and had to be put down. The circus donated the body to the city, and the skeleton was in some museum until it was lost in a fire. It was kind of cool, but random. Most everything is closed on Sundays, usually, but we wandered past the little park in front of the museum and saw that there was a little antiques market in the street. We also found a patisserie that was open. It's a really cool place; they make gigantic pastries but charge about the same as any other patisserie in town. We bought a little chocolate & cherry tart thing for a treat and shared it between the four of us back at the house. Then we decided to watch The Notebook, which I had never seen before. It was an interesting experience; any girl who's seen it knows that it is impossible not to cry at multiple points throughout that movie. Unfortunately the bell for dinner rang just as the movie was finishing, so we all had to go down with tear stained faces; of course that would be a night that Daniel would come to dinner! They all thought we were crazy emotional females, but whatever; dinner was paella again and that made me happy.
The rest of the week was less interesting, so I'll just give quick rundown of the highlights:
Monday was relaxing; in Greek I decided that my professor is cute (lol!), but only when he's talking about Greek. Linguistic passion? Definitely a turn-on. After class, I was talking to Giovanni on the way back towards home, and we made a date to go get a drink after class when we come back from vacation. That should be fun; he really seems to like talking to people from all over the world.
On Tuesday Valeria was sick, so she stayed home most of the day. I kind of missed my day of solitary relaxation, but that's okay; I have vacation coming up!
Wednesday was nice, since I didn't have Science. My translation class continues to be slow, and actualités continues to require no actual work, so that's good.
Grant decided to come with me to the Italian class on Thursday, which was fun. It was really cold and snowy, though; the temperature has plunged again this whole week, and I really want it to be spring finally. We ended up walking through some little shopping centers to warm up on our way back home from class. Thursday was also when Valeria left for Paris to meet up with her family, who had flown to Europe to visit during our vacation.
Friday I had class early, as usual. There were just six of us; I'm guessing most of the others had already left to start their vacation. She had us listen to some weird songs in French, but the class went fine.
Yesterday I did very little; Xavier and Jaqueline woke me up early wondering where Mamie and Sierra were, since they'd stayed out all night with the French boys. So I spent my day enjoying vacation, relaxed, and worked a bit on planning my trip to London. Yesterday evening was also when Alexandra came to the house. She's also a Cobber, but she's been studying abroad in Germany and is only here for a couple months during her school's vacation.
Today one of Geneviève's friends (I think her name was Michelle) came to brunch to meet us all. She was really sweet, and really talkative. Xavier kept going on about how much she talked, but I think that's just because she's the only person I've met so far who can talk more than him. She asked us all what we were studying, and told us about her life and her family. Apparently she was 18 and had three kids when her husband died, and in France at the time the age of majority was 21. So she was telling us about the house she had her son build, which has a bedroom for every one of her kids in case they ever need to come home. She kind of reminded me of my own grandmother, and I really liked her. After brunch, Grant and I took Alex on a tour of the city, to start her getting oriented. I finally took a bunch of pictures, since I haven't really gone around and done that much yet. We went inside the walls of the Musée des Beaux Arts, although not in the actual museum, and also looked at the cathedral. One whole section is closed off for construction and upkeep work, but it was still beautiful. I'm nothing near a Catholic, but I absolutely love cathedrals. Tonight, Daniel visited again and we had puréed vegetable soup and quiche for dinner, with tiramisu that Daniel had made for dessert. He's really good with desserts; it had too much cream and kind of fell apart, but it tasted really good. After dinner, I stayed downstairs for a little bit and watched some of Ice Age 2 in French with Mathias.
Tomorrow, I need to pack and make sure I'm ready for London, since Tuesday is when I leave! I'm really excited!
Sunday we four girls kind of hung out. The Musée des Beaux Arts (which is a museum that's literally a five minute walk from our house) has free admission on the first Sunday of every month, so we went over there after brunch. The first thing that really strikes you is the giant tree in the courtyard; at some point I need to put the pictures I took of it on facebook. The actual museum itself was a little boring; lots of random paintings. There were some kind of interesting sculptures of fish and animals and things that were pretty cool. One of these days I need to go back and walk through the grounds, though; there are these gardens that people wander through and walk their dogs and stuff, and it looked really pretty through the windows. On the other side of the courtyard from the entrance is a random little exhibit with what might very well be a fake elephant. It's supposed to be Fritz; a Barnum & Bailey circus elephant that went crazy in 1904 and had to be put down. The circus donated the body to the city, and the skeleton was in some museum until it was lost in a fire. It was kind of cool, but random. Most everything is closed on Sundays, usually, but we wandered past the little park in front of the museum and saw that there was a little antiques market in the street. We also found a patisserie that was open. It's a really cool place; they make gigantic pastries but charge about the same as any other patisserie in town. We bought a little chocolate & cherry tart thing for a treat and shared it between the four of us back at the house. Then we decided to watch The Notebook, which I had never seen before. It was an interesting experience; any girl who's seen it knows that it is impossible not to cry at multiple points throughout that movie. Unfortunately the bell for dinner rang just as the movie was finishing, so we all had to go down with tear stained faces; of course that would be a night that Daniel would come to dinner! They all thought we were crazy emotional females, but whatever; dinner was paella again and that made me happy.
The rest of the week was less interesting, so I'll just give quick rundown of the highlights:
Monday was relaxing; in Greek I decided that my professor is cute (lol!), but only when he's talking about Greek. Linguistic passion? Definitely a turn-on. After class, I was talking to Giovanni on the way back towards home, and we made a date to go get a drink after class when we come back from vacation. That should be fun; he really seems to like talking to people from all over the world.
On Tuesday Valeria was sick, so she stayed home most of the day. I kind of missed my day of solitary relaxation, but that's okay; I have vacation coming up!
Wednesday was nice, since I didn't have Science. My translation class continues to be slow, and actualités continues to require no actual work, so that's good.
Grant decided to come with me to the Italian class on Thursday, which was fun. It was really cold and snowy, though; the temperature has plunged again this whole week, and I really want it to be spring finally. We ended up walking through some little shopping centers to warm up on our way back home from class. Thursday was also when Valeria left for Paris to meet up with her family, who had flown to Europe to visit during our vacation.
Friday I had class early, as usual. There were just six of us; I'm guessing most of the others had already left to start their vacation. She had us listen to some weird songs in French, but the class went fine.
Yesterday I did very little; Xavier and Jaqueline woke me up early wondering where Mamie and Sierra were, since they'd stayed out all night with the French boys. So I spent my day enjoying vacation, relaxed, and worked a bit on planning my trip to London. Yesterday evening was also when Alexandra came to the house. She's also a Cobber, but she's been studying abroad in Germany and is only here for a couple months during her school's vacation.
Today one of Geneviève's friends (I think her name was Michelle) came to brunch to meet us all. She was really sweet, and really talkative. Xavier kept going on about how much she talked, but I think that's just because she's the only person I've met so far who can talk more than him. She asked us all what we were studying, and told us about her life and her family. Apparently she was 18 and had three kids when her husband died, and in France at the time the age of majority was 21. So she was telling us about the house she had her son build, which has a bedroom for every one of her kids in case they ever need to come home. She kind of reminded me of my own grandmother, and I really liked her. After brunch, Grant and I took Alex on a tour of the city, to start her getting oriented. I finally took a bunch of pictures, since I haven't really gone around and done that much yet. We went inside the walls of the Musée des Beaux Arts, although not in the actual museum, and also looked at the cathedral. One whole section is closed off for construction and upkeep work, but it was still beautiful. I'm nothing near a Catholic, but I absolutely love cathedrals. Tonight, Daniel visited again and we had puréed vegetable soup and quiche for dinner, with tiramisu that Daniel had made for dessert. He's really good with desserts; it had too much cream and kind of fell apart, but it tasted really good. After dinner, I stayed downstairs for a little bit and watched some of Ice Age 2 in French with Mathias.
Tomorrow, I need to pack and make sure I'm ready for London, since Tuesday is when I leave! I'm really excited!
Friday, February 5, 2010
Io Mi Chiamo Hallie; Sono Americana
Yay, I actually have all my classes now! Although getting there was a struggle. Basically there are four different Italian groups, three of which meet at the same time on Thursdays. Grant and I had tried one group, and the teacher told us it was full. He'd emailed the teacher for another group, and she'd said hers was full as well. He hadn't gotten a response from the third teacher, but then he found out that he didn't need Italian anyway, so he wasn't going to go. I decided to try that class anyway, and hopefully there would be room. When I talked to the teacher, however, she told me that the class with Madame Zapparatta was the one I should go to, and she took me over there and made sure it was okay. Basically I didn't end up in the class I expected, but it worked out eventually. The professor seems to be Italian, rather than French, which is cool. The only thing I didn't like is that she quickly found out that I was American and kept calling on me specifically for stuff and asking me if I understood what was going on (which I did; it really wasn't that hard and was mostly review of stuff I'd learned from attending the other two classes).
After class, I headed back to the house, and did a little bit of shopping up Rue Nationale on the way. The sales are almost over (they end tomorrow, I think) so everything is at its cheapest. This also, of course, means that most stuff is pretty picked over, so it can be hard to find the right size or exactly what you want. I ended up getting a pretty teal shirt, a cute gray button-up, and a black vest/overshirt thing. Having a limit on how much I could bring was really hard, and I constantly feel like I have nothing to wear, so yay, new clothes!
This morning I had to get up early, of course, to go to my Writing/Oral class. It was pretty interesting; we ended up talking about the nature vs. nurture debate, which seems to be a topic that Beatrix really likes. She also let us go an hour early, which was pretty awesome. I'm not sure if she did it on purpose or if she'd lost track of time, but nobody wanted to say anything. When I came back I was pretty tired, so I took a nap. When I woke up I found out that we were supposed to go to some exchange student party for the galette des rois; apparently Jacqueline wanted us to go and thought it would be fun. So I quickly got ready and we headed all the way to Les Halles, which this big shopping complex building thing across town. When we got there we found the room where it was supposed to be held, but we didn't recognise anyone there. We waited for a bit, and then Jacqueline and Mathias showed up and they didn't know anyone there either. We figured there must have been some mix-up, so we came back to the house and Jacqueline made dinner. We had our own galettes (for what's probably the eighth time). This time, Joel, Mathias, and I found the little favours, and they told me I should keep mine. We're all hanging out around the house, and we're getting up early tomorrow. Maybe we'll go to bed soon.
After class, I headed back to the house, and did a little bit of shopping up Rue Nationale on the way. The sales are almost over (they end tomorrow, I think) so everything is at its cheapest. This also, of course, means that most stuff is pretty picked over, so it can be hard to find the right size or exactly what you want. I ended up getting a pretty teal shirt, a cute gray button-up, and a black vest/overshirt thing. Having a limit on how much I could bring was really hard, and I constantly feel like I have nothing to wear, so yay, new clothes!
This morning I had to get up early, of course, to go to my Writing/Oral class. It was pretty interesting; we ended up talking about the nature vs. nurture debate, which seems to be a topic that Beatrix really likes. She also let us go an hour early, which was pretty awesome. I'm not sure if she did it on purpose or if she'd lost track of time, but nobody wanted to say anything. When I came back I was pretty tired, so I took a nap. When I woke up I found out that we were supposed to go to some exchange student party for the galette des rois; apparently Jacqueline wanted us to go and thought it would be fun. So I quickly got ready and we headed all the way to Les Halles, which this big shopping complex building thing across town. When we got there we found the room where it was supposed to be held, but we didn't recognise anyone there. We waited for a bit, and then Jacqueline and Mathias showed up and they didn't know anyone there either. We figured there must have been some mix-up, so we came back to the house and Jacqueline made dinner. We had our own galettes (for what's probably the eighth time). This time, Joel, Mathias, and I found the little favours, and they told me I should keep mine. We're all hanging out around the house, and we're getting up early tomorrow. Maybe we'll go to bed soon.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Daily Grind?
The past few days have gone by fairly quickly, mostly in a haze of classes and gradually getting well again. On Sunday morning, after I had taken the magic medicine Jacqueline gave me, my fever was gone and I just had a sore throat and cough to worry about. That day, I mostly just stayed in bed and willed the sick away.
Monday I was pretty productive. I don't have class until late, but before then I went to the train station and got tickets for my trip to London during break. I'm really excited! I get to stay with a friend of Aunt Roxy's who lives there now, and Grant's coming for part of the time. Grant and Valeria had come with me, and after we went to the station we got sandwiches and sat on a bench to eat them. We had time to kill, so we went into a Hallmark that we saw, kind of out of curiosity. We quickly discovered, thanks to the rack of sexual gag gift stuff right next to the door, that Hallmark in France is very different than in the US. It was pretty funny, actually. After spending a while in there, I realised I had to get to class, so I walked up Rue National to the Tanneurs building for Greek. While waiting for the classroom to open up, I started talking to a nice guy named Giovanni, who's from a tiny French-owned island near Madagascar (I never really caught the name). That class was actually pretty brutal; they move along really quickly in French classes, and you have to keep up or be lost. We were starting Greek declensions, which are really complicated and difficult, and I'm going to have to review a bunch before next week. Giovanni and I exchanged phone numbers after class, so I'm looking forward to having a friend in that class.
Tuesday is, again, my off day. So I slept, did some of the little homework I had, and didn't do much. I'm really starting to enjoy the relaxed atmosphere here.
Yesterday was Wednesday, when I make up for Tuesday. I had to get up early to go to my translation class. At one point, it was looking like everyone here except for Sierra was going to have to take that class, but the other two girls decided to wait and see, so they didn't come. Also, Grant was feeling sick, so Aaron and Joel and I were the only ones going. We finished the English-French article we were translating and started one for French-English, and the professor was really depending on the British and American students to help her. I'm a little worried, if we keep having class at this slow pace. After class, I bought a sandwich on Rue National, on my way to Actualités. We didn't do much in that class, either; we mostly just debated about the roles of women and men and something to do with soccer teams in Africa, and then read an article about CD copyright issues. My French Sciences class added a couple people- one of them from Colorado, which is cool. We talked a little bit about how to write a summary of a scientific article (the French have really strict rules about how to write specific things, so there's formatting and word choice and different stuff like that to learn). Then we learned some vocab in preparation for watching a video called "From Conception to Birth". It was basically the same video everyone watches in 7th grade sex ed classes, complete with the moment where they show the actual birth itself and everyone looks away in horror. I really didn't think it was necessary for my French education to have that experience in French, but oh, well. On the way back home after class, I went into the Simply (which is a grocery store by Rue Bordeaux) and got some snacks for my room, since I assumed that we would once again wait for everyone to get back from classes and choir before eating dinner. That turned out to be incorrect; those few of us who were here at 7:30 ate then, and the rest just ate when they got home. It was a delicious dinner, though; breaded calamari with roasted potatoes and some mayonnaise sauce with lemon in it. I was very pleased.
Last night I also started planning out my London trip, with all the stuff I want to go and see and do. I got as far as making a list, booking a tour of Stonehenge, and figuring out all the information on the Globe before I got bored, and went to bed. This morning I got up late and went down for breakfast. I don't have class until 2, but since it's my Italian class and still pretty up in the air, we'll see what happens.
Monday I was pretty productive. I don't have class until late, but before then I went to the train station and got tickets for my trip to London during break. I'm really excited! I get to stay with a friend of Aunt Roxy's who lives there now, and Grant's coming for part of the time. Grant and Valeria had come with me, and after we went to the station we got sandwiches and sat on a bench to eat them. We had time to kill, so we went into a Hallmark that we saw, kind of out of curiosity. We quickly discovered, thanks to the rack of sexual gag gift stuff right next to the door, that Hallmark in France is very different than in the US. It was pretty funny, actually. After spending a while in there, I realised I had to get to class, so I walked up Rue National to the Tanneurs building for Greek. While waiting for the classroom to open up, I started talking to a nice guy named Giovanni, who's from a tiny French-owned island near Madagascar (I never really caught the name). That class was actually pretty brutal; they move along really quickly in French classes, and you have to keep up or be lost. We were starting Greek declensions, which are really complicated and difficult, and I'm going to have to review a bunch before next week. Giovanni and I exchanged phone numbers after class, so I'm looking forward to having a friend in that class.
Tuesday is, again, my off day. So I slept, did some of the little homework I had, and didn't do much. I'm really starting to enjoy the relaxed atmosphere here.
Yesterday was Wednesday, when I make up for Tuesday. I had to get up early to go to my translation class. At one point, it was looking like everyone here except for Sierra was going to have to take that class, but the other two girls decided to wait and see, so they didn't come. Also, Grant was feeling sick, so Aaron and Joel and I were the only ones going. We finished the English-French article we were translating and started one for French-English, and the professor was really depending on the British and American students to help her. I'm a little worried, if we keep having class at this slow pace. After class, I bought a sandwich on Rue National, on my way to Actualités. We didn't do much in that class, either; we mostly just debated about the roles of women and men and something to do with soccer teams in Africa, and then read an article about CD copyright issues. My French Sciences class added a couple people- one of them from Colorado, which is cool. We talked a little bit about how to write a summary of a scientific article (the French have really strict rules about how to write specific things, so there's formatting and word choice and different stuff like that to learn). Then we learned some vocab in preparation for watching a video called "From Conception to Birth". It was basically the same video everyone watches in 7th grade sex ed classes, complete with the moment where they show the actual birth itself and everyone looks away in horror. I really didn't think it was necessary for my French education to have that experience in French, but oh, well. On the way back home after class, I went into the Simply (which is a grocery store by Rue Bordeaux) and got some snacks for my room, since I assumed that we would once again wait for everyone to get back from classes and choir before eating dinner. That turned out to be incorrect; those few of us who were here at 7:30 ate then, and the rest just ate when they got home. It was a delicious dinner, though; breaded calamari with roasted potatoes and some mayonnaise sauce with lemon in it. I was very pleased.
Last night I also started planning out my London trip, with all the stuff I want to go and see and do. I got as far as making a list, booking a tour of Stonehenge, and figuring out all the information on the Globe before I got bored, and went to bed. This morning I got up late and went down for breakfast. I don't have class until 2, but since it's my Italian class and still pretty up in the air, we'll see what happens.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Finally Accomplishing My Reason For Being Here
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!
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!
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.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Walking in a Winter Wonderland
Last night after we went shopping we pretty much just hung out in our room. Valeria, Joel, and I napped, and then in the evening we went downstairs and hung out and talked to people in the salon. There's another girl here named Flabiola, who's from Peru, and right before dinner Lucé returned from Belgium. Lucé is Canadian, but born in Mexico, and she'd already been staying here. Mathias did his puzzle that Valeria had brought, and we watched some of Charmed, which was really strange because it was dubbed into French.
Then we had dinner, which was interesting with everyone at the table. I'm not really sure how we're going to fit twelve people in that dining room, but I'm sure we'll manage. Xavier had made a chocolate cake for dessert, which was fantastic. Everyone was talking about the fact that it was supposed to snow last night, and they were all freaking out. It reminded me of Seattle, where the possibility of snow was the top headline on the news. We helped clean up, and went back upstairs. Mamie and Grant were supposed to come in last night, but their plane was delayed, so we didn't know when they would be here. I finally got to take a shower (yay, buying shampoo!), and even caught Gramma on the phone and talked to her briefly. Around midnight, Joel came to our room and we just kind of talked about internet fads and things.
I had a really hard time going to sleep, for some reason. I think it was because I'd napped longer than I intended. I finally got to sleep around 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning, but I woke up completely at 4:30, and then woke up a couple other times through the night. This morning I woke up around 9:00, but Valeria and I were both really tired. We were getting dressed and thinking about going downstairs, when the doorbell rang! Valeria and I both looked at each other in confusion for a second, and then she burst out with "Grant and Mamie!" and ran downstairs. I followed after, and sure enough it was them, arrived bright and early in the morning. With them had also come the snow; there was thin blanket of white over everything; maybe an inch, probably not even that much.
Poor Jacqueline and Mathias must have thought we were crazy; they came after us a bit later, still dressed in their pajamas. That was good, though, because neither of us knew where the new arrivals were supposed to go. Turns out Grant and Aaron are sleeping on the third floor as well, and Mamie is on the second. All of the bedrooms have specific names, which is adorable. Valeria and I are in Les Marguerites, Grant and Aaron are in Les Pigeonniers, and Mamie and Sierra are in La petite Marie. Joel's by himself, so his room doesn't have a name that I know of. Flabiola is also on the third floor, on the other side of the water closet. I have no idea where Lucé's room is.
After Grant and Mamie had gotten settled a little bit, and we had talked and shared stories, we all went downstairs for breakfast. Mathias didn't have school today (apparently French kids don't on Wednesdays) and Jacqueline was home from work, so she told us that she could take us on a little tour of Tours. We finished, cleared the table, got ready, and headed out into winter!
She took us a different way than we had gone yesterday, through the little streets and older parts of Tours. We went by the Musée des Beaux Arts, and the Cathédral de Tours, and then went through what is apparently the antiques district to get to the Théâtre Municipale, or the City Theatre. After that we headed more towards the Rue Nationale, which is full of stores and boutiques, and that led us straight to the Loire river. That whole part of the city was bombarded during WWII, so it's all been rebuilt and is fairly modern. Tours is apparently a city in three parts, divided by the Cher river and the Loire. Le Nonante and everything we've seen so far is in Tours-Centre, the middle part of the city. We took some pictures, and Jacqueline took a picture of the four of us, where I look pretty much translucent.
After the river, we turned and went through another older district, built in the 13th century (or something like that; I didn't quite catch what Jacqueline told me). It was amazing; I think I could spend entire days just taking pictures of the architecture in this city. We found a Monoprix, which is a supermarché where I was able to buy some slippers to wear inside the house. The staircase is old and kind of slippery; Joel fell down most of the bottom flight yesterday, so we've all been treading with trepidation since then. Hopefully with the slippers it won't be so treacherous.
We walked back to the house, and Jacqueline was helping me orient myself. I think I pretty much understand Tours-Centre, at least, and with a map I shouldn't have any problems at all. I might restrict more ranging to when it's not so wet out, though; my socks and the bottoms of my pants are soaked, and my feet were half-frozen by the time we got back to the house.
Since then, we've been hanging out still. We can hear Mathias playing in the house; he is so ridiculously adorable. Mamie gave him a little hamster toy that scoots around, and we can hear him playing with it. I really kind of want a nap, but I know it'll just make me tired again tomorrow. Such a conundrum. :P
Then we had dinner, which was interesting with everyone at the table. I'm not really sure how we're going to fit twelve people in that dining room, but I'm sure we'll manage. Xavier had made a chocolate cake for dessert, which was fantastic. Everyone was talking about the fact that it was supposed to snow last night, and they were all freaking out. It reminded me of Seattle, where the possibility of snow was the top headline on the news. We helped clean up, and went back upstairs. Mamie and Grant were supposed to come in last night, but their plane was delayed, so we didn't know when they would be here. I finally got to take a shower (yay, buying shampoo!), and even caught Gramma on the phone and talked to her briefly. Around midnight, Joel came to our room and we just kind of talked about internet fads and things.
I had a really hard time going to sleep, for some reason. I think it was because I'd napped longer than I intended. I finally got to sleep around 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning, but I woke up completely at 4:30, and then woke up a couple other times through the night. This morning I woke up around 9:00, but Valeria and I were both really tired. We were getting dressed and thinking about going downstairs, when the doorbell rang! Valeria and I both looked at each other in confusion for a second, and then she burst out with "Grant and Mamie!" and ran downstairs. I followed after, and sure enough it was them, arrived bright and early in the morning. With them had also come the snow; there was thin blanket of white over everything; maybe an inch, probably not even that much.
Poor Jacqueline and Mathias must have thought we were crazy; they came after us a bit later, still dressed in their pajamas. That was good, though, because neither of us knew where the new arrivals were supposed to go. Turns out Grant and Aaron are sleeping on the third floor as well, and Mamie is on the second. All of the bedrooms have specific names, which is adorable. Valeria and I are in Les Marguerites, Grant and Aaron are in Les Pigeonniers, and Mamie and Sierra are in La petite Marie. Joel's by himself, so his room doesn't have a name that I know of. Flabiola is also on the third floor, on the other side of the water closet. I have no idea where Lucé's room is.
After Grant and Mamie had gotten settled a little bit, and we had talked and shared stories, we all went downstairs for breakfast. Mathias didn't have school today (apparently French kids don't on Wednesdays) and Jacqueline was home from work, so she told us that she could take us on a little tour of Tours. We finished, cleared the table, got ready, and headed out into winter!
She took us a different way than we had gone yesterday, through the little streets and older parts of Tours. We went by the Musée des Beaux Arts, and the Cathédral de Tours, and then went through what is apparently the antiques district to get to the Théâtre Municipale, or the City Theatre. After that we headed more towards the Rue Nationale, which is full of stores and boutiques, and that led us straight to the Loire river. That whole part of the city was bombarded during WWII, so it's all been rebuilt and is fairly modern. Tours is apparently a city in three parts, divided by the Cher river and the Loire. Le Nonante and everything we've seen so far is in Tours-Centre, the middle part of the city. We took some pictures, and Jacqueline took a picture of the four of us, where I look pretty much translucent.
After the river, we turned and went through another older district, built in the 13th century (or something like that; I didn't quite catch what Jacqueline told me). It was amazing; I think I could spend entire days just taking pictures of the architecture in this city. We found a Monoprix, which is a supermarché where I was able to buy some slippers to wear inside the house. The staircase is old and kind of slippery; Joel fell down most of the bottom flight yesterday, so we've all been treading with trepidation since then. Hopefully with the slippers it won't be so treacherous.
We walked back to the house, and Jacqueline was helping me orient myself. I think I pretty much understand Tours-Centre, at least, and with a map I shouldn't have any problems at all. I might restrict more ranging to when it's not so wet out, though; my socks and the bottoms of my pants are soaked, and my feet were half-frozen by the time we got back to the house.
Since then, we've been hanging out still. We can hear Mathias playing in the house; he is so ridiculously adorable. Mamie gave him a little hamster toy that scoots around, and we can hear him playing with it. I really kind of want a nap, but I know it'll just make me tired again tomorrow. Such a conundrum. :P
Monday, January 4, 2010
Sitting In My Bedroom, Finally!
I made it! Yes, folks, I am now secure in the little bedroom where I will be living for the next five months! It's really exciting.
The flight out was nothing special. Aunt Roxy got me to Sea-Tac and saw me off, and I went through security without any problems. I'd never flown Icelandair before. The guy sitting next to me was very pleasant; he'd been born in Wisconsin, lived in Australia for 10 years and so got dual citizenship, and had now lived in Stockholm, Sweden for 3 1/2 years. They don't serve complimentary food, so I had eaten before I left and bought a sandwich and orange juice to take with me. Of course, I got so absorbed in my book on the flight that I didn't think to eat or sleep until I was done, at which point there was only 1 1/2 left in the flight. I tried to take a nap anyway, but that was when an old guy in the row behind me and across the aisle fainted, and there was quite a crowd trying to make sure he was okay. The paramedics took him as soon as we landed, so I'm just wishing him all the best.
The annoying thing about the flight was that I didn't know I'd have to go through another (EU-sanctioned) security check when I got to Reykjavik. It was full-on; metal detector, shoes off, laptops out, no liquids. They even made you take all your electronics out of the bags to scan more closely. I didn't have a problem with the scanning, I just wish I'd known; then maybe I would've drank my orange juice and not had it taken away! After going through, they stamped my passport and I wandered through the deserted 6am Keflavik airport, trying to find my flight, which was an hour delayed and at a different gate than my boarding pass said. Nearly missed the boarding call, but got on the flight okay and was off again. This time I slept most of the way to France, although I was awake when we came across the Channel to see the coastline come up beneath us. I once again forgot to eat my sandwich (which they did not confiscate), making it a good 9 or 10 hours since I'd eaten.
Wandered through the labyrinth that is Charles de Gaulle, found my baggage, and by a stroke of good fortune had no problems at all meeting up with Valeria. She and I had decided to take the train together, to ease any problems aside with strength in numbers. We ended up sitting in the Charles de Gaulle/Roissy train station for two hours, which wasn't unpleasant except you had to pay for the bathrooms and there was no heat. Boarding the warm train was wonderful, although we ended up in separate cars. I mostly dozed on the way to our connection in St. Pierre des Corps, being too nervous about missing the stop to actually sleep. I *did* finally remember my sandwich, and felt much less dizzy after eating it.
When I departed the train in St. Pierre des Corps, Valeria had picked up another fellow traveler; Joel was arriving the same day. Our now trio made the connecting five minute train hop, and came out into the splendorous darkness of our first day (evening) in Tours. I proved my skills as a nimble navigator and we walked the rest of the way to Le Nonante, where we'll be staying.
Jacqueline answered the door, after a slightly nervous moment where we thought maybe no-one would. She's the daughter-in-law of the woman who used to own Le Nonante. Unfortunately that lady, Madame Genevieve Dhommée, died a few weeks ago. Jacqueline and Madame Dhommée's son Xavier have decided to run the place now, and moved in for the purpose. We were shown our bedrooms and told about the rules (always lock the door when you leave, don't tie up the phone lines, turn all the lights out if you're the last one awake). I'm sharing a room with Valeria, which isn't necessarily ideal, but not because I don't like Valeria; only because I'd rather be alone. If it comes to roommates, though, Valeria and I seem to get along pretty well. She's really nice, and we had fun being camwhore tourists on the way out.
The bedroom itself is adorable. The walls are some kind of burlap-y fabric, and there are several landscapes on the walls, in addition to a copy of Café la Nuit. It's small, but in a cozy way, and the house has the particularly personable kind of smell and feel and character that only comes with age. Also, the beds are very squishy. I sat down on mine and I swear I sank in a foot.
When Xavier and Mathias got home (Mathias is their seven-year-old boy), Xavier repeated much of what Jacqueline had said and we had dinner. The meal was good, although I'm really noticing the flaws in my French. This semester is exactly what I need to get myself turned around right again. After dinner we helped wash up and set the table for breakfast (a cool little time-saving chore). Then we went upstairs and put our stuff away and started to settle. I tried to put pictures on facebook, but it was being annoying. I'll try again before I go to bed.
Tomorrow, my mission is to take pictures of the house and some of the surrounding area and possibly go exploring a little. Grant and Mamie get in tomorrow night, which should be lots of fun. Grant always makes everyone feel more at ease, and at this point in the semester, when we're all still a little shy and not quite at home, that should be just the thing.
One day down, five wonderful months to go!
The flight out was nothing special. Aunt Roxy got me to Sea-Tac and saw me off, and I went through security without any problems. I'd never flown Icelandair before. The guy sitting next to me was very pleasant; he'd been born in Wisconsin, lived in Australia for 10 years and so got dual citizenship, and had now lived in Stockholm, Sweden for 3 1/2 years. They don't serve complimentary food, so I had eaten before I left and bought a sandwich and orange juice to take with me. Of course, I got so absorbed in my book on the flight that I didn't think to eat or sleep until I was done, at which point there was only 1 1/2 left in the flight. I tried to take a nap anyway, but that was when an old guy in the row behind me and across the aisle fainted, and there was quite a crowd trying to make sure he was okay. The paramedics took him as soon as we landed, so I'm just wishing him all the best.
The annoying thing about the flight was that I didn't know I'd have to go through another (EU-sanctioned) security check when I got to Reykjavik. It was full-on; metal detector, shoes off, laptops out, no liquids. They even made you take all your electronics out of the bags to scan more closely. I didn't have a problem with the scanning, I just wish I'd known; then maybe I would've drank my orange juice and not had it taken away! After going through, they stamped my passport and I wandered through the deserted 6am Keflavik airport, trying to find my flight, which was an hour delayed and at a different gate than my boarding pass said. Nearly missed the boarding call, but got on the flight okay and was off again. This time I slept most of the way to France, although I was awake when we came across the Channel to see the coastline come up beneath us. I once again forgot to eat my sandwich (which they did not confiscate), making it a good 9 or 10 hours since I'd eaten.
Wandered through the labyrinth that is Charles de Gaulle, found my baggage, and by a stroke of good fortune had no problems at all meeting up with Valeria. She and I had decided to take the train together, to ease any problems aside with strength in numbers. We ended up sitting in the Charles de Gaulle/Roissy train station for two hours, which wasn't unpleasant except you had to pay for the bathrooms and there was no heat. Boarding the warm train was wonderful, although we ended up in separate cars. I mostly dozed on the way to our connection in St. Pierre des Corps, being too nervous about missing the stop to actually sleep. I *did* finally remember my sandwich, and felt much less dizzy after eating it.
When I departed the train in St. Pierre des Corps, Valeria had picked up another fellow traveler; Joel was arriving the same day. Our now trio made the connecting five minute train hop, and came out into the splendorous darkness of our first day (evening) in Tours. I proved my skills as a nimble navigator and we walked the rest of the way to Le Nonante, where we'll be staying.
Jacqueline answered the door, after a slightly nervous moment where we thought maybe no-one would. She's the daughter-in-law of the woman who used to own Le Nonante. Unfortunately that lady, Madame Genevieve Dhommée, died a few weeks ago. Jacqueline and Madame Dhommée's son Xavier have decided to run the place now, and moved in for the purpose. We were shown our bedrooms and told about the rules (always lock the door when you leave, don't tie up the phone lines, turn all the lights out if you're the last one awake). I'm sharing a room with Valeria, which isn't necessarily ideal, but not because I don't like Valeria; only because I'd rather be alone. If it comes to roommates, though, Valeria and I seem to get along pretty well. She's really nice, and we had fun being camwhore tourists on the way out.
The bedroom itself is adorable. The walls are some kind of burlap-y fabric, and there are several landscapes on the walls, in addition to a copy of Café la Nuit. It's small, but in a cozy way, and the house has the particularly personable kind of smell and feel and character that only comes with age. Also, the beds are very squishy. I sat down on mine and I swear I sank in a foot.
When Xavier and Mathias got home (Mathias is their seven-year-old boy), Xavier repeated much of what Jacqueline had said and we had dinner. The meal was good, although I'm really noticing the flaws in my French. This semester is exactly what I need to get myself turned around right again. After dinner we helped wash up and set the table for breakfast (a cool little time-saving chore). Then we went upstairs and put our stuff away and started to settle. I tried to put pictures on facebook, but it was being annoying. I'll try again before I go to bed.
Tomorrow, my mission is to take pictures of the house and some of the surrounding area and possibly go exploring a little. Grant and Mamie get in tomorrow night, which should be lots of fun. Grant always makes everyone feel more at ease, and at this point in the semester, when we're all still a little shy and not quite at home, that should be just the thing.
One day down, five wonderful months to go!
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