This week has been interesting; it's the first week since I got here that I have an actual (mostly) stable, normal class schedule. Monday morning I slept in, since I didn't have class until late evening. I went out with the others to buy sandwiches for a late lunch, and then we found a little art supply store where we found folders and paper for classes. The artistes (Valeria and Mamie) needed sketchbooks and pencils for their drawing class, so they found those and everyone went back. I, however, had class to go to.
My new Ancient Greek class goes from 5-7pm, so I made my way up to Rue des Tanneurs and found the classroom. I made sure to ask the professor what class it was, to verify that it was definitely for beginning beginners and not halfway through. I had missed the first class period, but it turned out that several other people had too, so at least I wasn't alone. He briefly went over what he'd talked about last time and gave us the book list, the Greek alphabet, and a couple of worksheets. I quickly discovered that he is extremely fond of photocopies; I left the class with 8 or 10 pages of worksheets and other random things. After getting briefly lost in the Tanneurs building (they apparently close stuff down by 7pm, and it was hard to figure out where to go) I headed back to Le Nonante. Since it was the first time I'd had to walk around the city at night by myself, I was a little paranoid. I ended up taking the longer way around down the larger streets, rather than going through the little tiny old ones.
When I got home, everyone was just finishing with dinner. Jacqueline had saved some for me, though, and I was ravenous. I had to hurry, since we had planned on going to the Café des Langues again. We went with Luzé and her friend Sarah again and managed to get there before it was crowded with people. The group basically got split in two, and our end became the "English" table. I talked to some nice Swedish and Danish girls, who were in Tours doing mission work, and some creepy French guys who seemed to be there to try and pick up Americans; one of them kept trying to say that he knew Sierra, when obviously he didn't. After a while we left and came back to the house.
On Tuesdays I don't have any classes at all, but everyone else does. So I slept in, relaxed, and did my Translation homework for Wednesday. It was really nice to have a chill, solo time. I did go out briefly for some shopping and to get a brioche, though. Yay, brioche! That evening, Mamie and Aaron found out from some German girls that there was an event planned for exchange students, so they went to check it out. Apparently we were all supposed to go; they had our named on lists along with our French buddies, and they had sign-up sheets for the various school events throughout the semester. We hadn't heard anything about it, which was a little frustrating, but we didn't really know if there was a reason why we were left out.
Wednesdays, in contrast, are my intense days. I had a meeting at 9am over at the Fromont building to sign up for my CUEFEE classes, so I hurried through breakfast and made the half-hour walk in record time. Kate and I both needed to sign up, so it was cool to see her. We finished early enough that I came back to the house before Translation and walked to class with the boys. It was a fun enough class; we mostly finished the article we were translating from French to English and have one going the opposite direction for next week. Pelletier talked to us after class about not going to the event Tuesday night; we explained that we hadn't heard about it and got that taken care of. Now we should hear about things when they happen!
Then Grant and I walked down Rue Nationale on our way to Fromont, for my first CUEFEE class, and got delicious "complete ham sandwiches" on our way (the complete part is the mayo, and tomatoes, and lettuce, and stuff). It turns out that the little sandwich stall is La Grignotine, the same business as on Rue Bordeaux. I like them a lot. The CUEFEE class was called "Actualités," which means Current Events. It seemed like it'd be a pretty easy class, although it'll require more work. Kate and her friend Christina are in the class, as well as a Swedish girl that Grant knows from choir, so we even have people to talk to! We had a brief discussion about the metric system and conversions, as well as how cold it gets at Concordia. Don't we Cobbers love our school; we complain about the location constantly! ;-P
After class, Grant had to hurry home to check his email (RA stuff, apparently. He had ants in his pants all class about it.) so I waited the half hour for my second CUEFEE class: French Sciences. I ran into Sierra, who had a different class at that time. The Sciences class turned out to have less than 10 students, and most of them were older. There was a British girl named Natasha there who's also in my Translation class, so we talked a bit. The topic of the period was global warming; apparently the first unit will focus on the environment. I kind of felt like I was back in 9th grade, it was so easy, but whatever. I'm really only taking it because it fits my schedule. We're also doing some work on constructing a scientifically well-composed written argument, so that should help me improve my writing skills. When I got back to the house after dinner everything was weirdly quiet; most everyone had either class or choir, so they were all gone. I was starving after all my day's walking, so dinnertime seemed to be forever away. In the future, I think I might have to buy snacks at the store and come up with things to do on Wednesday nights.
Today I was pretty tired, since I'd stayed up really late. That was okay, though, since I didn't have class until 2pm. I dragged myself out to Tanneurs for Italian, which we thought would be the actual class we would take. It turns out, however, that the session we wanted is also really full and there wasn't space. Grant and I stayed anyway, figuring that the extra exposure to the language would be good, especially if we're going to have to transfer to a different group. Now we have to email one professor to see if she has space, and if not there's one last group we can hope for. Still, that'll be next week's concern, and at least the different groups are at the same time so our schedule won't change, just the classroom. He and I went and took care of some other administrative stuff we still needed to do, and bought sandwiches on our way back to the house (ham pizza panini om nom nom!).
Dinner tonight was chicken and some cooked vegetables that were really delicious. It was a little awkward, though; Xavier decided that the topic for the dinner conversation would be gender equality, in his continuing efforts to get people to speak up in French. No-one wanted to say anything, though. Valeria and Luzé and I spoke some, but a lot of people didn't say anything. I'm not sure if it was the topic or Xavier's intimidating insistence that kept them quiet. After dinner and dishes we came back upstairs. Everyone else went out, since they don't have classes on Friday and their weekend is already started. Since I tested into a higher level on the CUEFEE test, though, my written and oral classes are bright and early at 9am over at Fromont. I'm not looking forward to it.
Bonne nuit, tout le monde. Dormez-vous bien!
Showing posts with label luzé. Show all posts
Showing posts with label luzé. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
New Places, New People
Thursday night was cool; we did end up going out and met up with Kate, who's another American girl from the CUEFEE, and with Romain and Alban and their friends. The other girls left first; Sierra and Mamie have now gone out with their two boys a few times, so they were planning on finding them. Aaron and Joel and I met up with them at our favourite bar: Le Puits Sait Tous (The Well Knows All). We didn't stay very long, though, before coming home.
Friday we pretty much just hung around the house, since none of us had anything planned. By the evening we had decided that we should go somewhere this weekend, so we made plans to go to the Château d'Amboise, which is just a brief train ride away.
We woke up early and managed to get out of the house by 10:25, on our way to the train station. In addition to buying my ticket, I went ahead and bought a "Carte 12-25," which is basically a train card you can get if you're between 12 and 25 years old. If you have one, you get huge discounts on most train tickets. With the card, I only paid 4 Euro for the tickets to Amboise, which would otherwise cost 7 Euro. On larger trips, like to Paris, you can save almost half the cost of a ticket.
After about 20 minutes on the train, we got to Amboise. It's a larger town, so we had to work our way through it to find the castle. We had planned to find somewhere to eat, since the castle is closed over lunch. When we crossed the bridge we found a little pizzeria called "Le Salamandre" (which is the emblem of the King François I). We all split little pizzas; mine had artichokes and green peppers and little sausages and was really good. Then for dessert I had strawberry ice cream. We kind of had a hard time figuring out how to pay, since we couldn't get the attention of the waitress, but we finally just put the money on the table and left.
When we crossed the other side of the bridge, we realised that we didn't really know how to get to the castle. It's basically just stuck in the middle of the city, with houses literally crowded up and around it. Fortunately it's France, so there were handy-dandy signs pointing out "Château" and we just followed those. We were walking along through the beautiful little streets and came to an open space where there were lots of little tourist-trap shops selling souvenir stuff. Then we looked to our left, and lo and behold, a château! There was a big long ramp leading up to a gate, but it looked closed, so we walked around the walls trying to find the entrance. We also found a bathroom, which was good for Mamie and I who hadn't gone at the restaurant. It was kind of sketch, though, and several of the stalls didn't have any toilet paper. Finally, we came across a sign that said "Entrance" and was pointing back the way we had come. We, obviously, felt brilliant.
We went back and went up the steps to the gate, but it was still closed. The sign said we had 20 minutes before they opened again, so we hung out and waited. Valeria had brought a huge blue umbrella in case it rained the way it did at Chenonceau, but it was just grey, not raining. So we took a bunch of pictures throughout the day with the umbrella, in order to not have wasted the effort. Eventually, they came back and opened the gate, so we could go in and buy our tickets.
The first thing we did was walk over to the wall overlooking the city and take lots of pictures. We went over to the little chapel, which is where Leonardo di Vinci is buried, and took more pictures there. It was really pretty, both inside and outside, and I became enamoured with the gargoyles. Then we went over to a little lookout point and ran into a couple of girls (we thought they were Italian) who took some group pictures for us. Finally we went over to the actual castle part, which is actually the royal apartments. It was really beautiful, and had a lot of cool stuff inside. I once again was a complete heraldry geek, so the room where *everything* was covered with fleur-de-lis and ermines made me very happy. We also got to go up the tower and see the entire city from on high. Then we went out and walked through the beautiful gardens and took even more pictures. We ran into the "Italian" girls again, and they took a couple more pictures of our group. It turns out that they're from Argentina; we talked to them a little bit. Then we finished wandering through the rest of the castle (I found more gargoyles) and the gift shop, where everything was super expensive.
After we left, we still had a couple hours before our train would leave. We wandered around looking for a little coffee shop or boulangerie where we could hang out for a bit, and ended up going into a bar. Unfortunately they weren't serving food anymore, since it was the afternoon, so we just got Cokes and Oranginas and stayed there for a while. Mamie told us a scary story about a girl who went missing in Mexico and then later her friends saw her sitting in the back of a car and called the police. It turns out she'd been killed and they were trying to use her body to transport drugs across the border. We were all really freaked out, and we've resolved never to let anyone go missing ever (not that we would have anyway, but still). Finally we headed back to the train station and waited a bit longer for our train, and came back to Tours.
That night we had some kind of beef wrapped in something else for dinner, with little potatoes and rice. I don't really know what it was, but it was delicious. Xavier's friend Daniel came to dinner again, and they talked politics for a while. None of us knew what they were talking about, which was a little awkward. After dinner, we girls decided to go out again. Romain and Alban were bringing some friends, so there would be more people to talk to and Valeria and I wouldn't be left out. Sierra did my eyeshadow and Valeria did my hair, so it looked completely different and really cute. We went to a couple bars but they were really crowded, and finally we found a spot in the back of one, called L'épée royale (The Royal Sword). We hung out for a bit, waiting for the boys, and finally when the bar closed we waited in Place Plumereau. Finally they showed up, and I met Aurélien and Théodore (who goes by Ted). We went to a bar where there's a dancing floor in the back and had a really good time. We didn't come back until 5:30am, and were unfortunately really loud outside before we came back in. Jacqueline poked her head out to tell us to come inside, and we were ridiculously embarrassed. We thought about not going to brunch, since we were so worried about what she'd say.
This morning I slept like a rock; Valeria woke me up when she came in to ask if I was coming to brunch, so I had to hurry and put on clothes and brush my hair. We had some kind of baked egg thing, which was kind of strangely spiced but good. Sierra, Aaron, and Grant went to Chenonceau since they'd missed it, and the rest of us just basically lounged around and talked to Luzé for a while. I'm super hungry, so now we're just waiting for dinner. I hope it's soon!
Friday we pretty much just hung around the house, since none of us had anything planned. By the evening we had decided that we should go somewhere this weekend, so we made plans to go to the Château d'Amboise, which is just a brief train ride away.
We woke up early and managed to get out of the house by 10:25, on our way to the train station. In addition to buying my ticket, I went ahead and bought a "Carte 12-25," which is basically a train card you can get if you're between 12 and 25 years old. If you have one, you get huge discounts on most train tickets. With the card, I only paid 4 Euro for the tickets to Amboise, which would otherwise cost 7 Euro. On larger trips, like to Paris, you can save almost half the cost of a ticket.
After about 20 minutes on the train, we got to Amboise. It's a larger town, so we had to work our way through it to find the castle. We had planned to find somewhere to eat, since the castle is closed over lunch. When we crossed the bridge we found a little pizzeria called "Le Salamandre" (which is the emblem of the King François I). We all split little pizzas; mine had artichokes and green peppers and little sausages and was really good. Then for dessert I had strawberry ice cream. We kind of had a hard time figuring out how to pay, since we couldn't get the attention of the waitress, but we finally just put the money on the table and left.
When we crossed the other side of the bridge, we realised that we didn't really know how to get to the castle. It's basically just stuck in the middle of the city, with houses literally crowded up and around it. Fortunately it's France, so there were handy-dandy signs pointing out "Château" and we just followed those. We were walking along through the beautiful little streets and came to an open space where there were lots of little tourist-trap shops selling souvenir stuff. Then we looked to our left, and lo and behold, a château! There was a big long ramp leading up to a gate, but it looked closed, so we walked around the walls trying to find the entrance. We also found a bathroom, which was good for Mamie and I who hadn't gone at the restaurant. It was kind of sketch, though, and several of the stalls didn't have any toilet paper. Finally, we came across a sign that said "Entrance" and was pointing back the way we had come. We, obviously, felt brilliant.
We went back and went up the steps to the gate, but it was still closed. The sign said we had 20 minutes before they opened again, so we hung out and waited. Valeria had brought a huge blue umbrella in case it rained the way it did at Chenonceau, but it was just grey, not raining. So we took a bunch of pictures throughout the day with the umbrella, in order to not have wasted the effort. Eventually, they came back and opened the gate, so we could go in and buy our tickets.
The first thing we did was walk over to the wall overlooking the city and take lots of pictures. We went over to the little chapel, which is where Leonardo di Vinci is buried, and took more pictures there. It was really pretty, both inside and outside, and I became enamoured with the gargoyles. Then we went over to a little lookout point and ran into a couple of girls (we thought they were Italian) who took some group pictures for us. Finally we went over to the actual castle part, which is actually the royal apartments. It was really beautiful, and had a lot of cool stuff inside. I once again was a complete heraldry geek, so the room where *everything* was covered with fleur-de-lis and ermines made me very happy. We also got to go up the tower and see the entire city from on high. Then we went out and walked through the beautiful gardens and took even more pictures. We ran into the "Italian" girls again, and they took a couple more pictures of our group. It turns out that they're from Argentina; we talked to them a little bit. Then we finished wandering through the rest of the castle (I found more gargoyles) and the gift shop, where everything was super expensive.
After we left, we still had a couple hours before our train would leave. We wandered around looking for a little coffee shop or boulangerie where we could hang out for a bit, and ended up going into a bar. Unfortunately they weren't serving food anymore, since it was the afternoon, so we just got Cokes and Oranginas and stayed there for a while. Mamie told us a scary story about a girl who went missing in Mexico and then later her friends saw her sitting in the back of a car and called the police. It turns out she'd been killed and they were trying to use her body to transport drugs across the border. We were all really freaked out, and we've resolved never to let anyone go missing ever (not that we would have anyway, but still). Finally we headed back to the train station and waited a bit longer for our train, and came back to Tours.
That night we had some kind of beef wrapped in something else for dinner, with little potatoes and rice. I don't really know what it was, but it was delicious. Xavier's friend Daniel came to dinner again, and they talked politics for a while. None of us knew what they were talking about, which was a little awkward. After dinner, we girls decided to go out again. Romain and Alban were bringing some friends, so there would be more people to talk to and Valeria and I wouldn't be left out. Sierra did my eyeshadow and Valeria did my hair, so it looked completely different and really cute. We went to a couple bars but they were really crowded, and finally we found a spot in the back of one, called L'épée royale (The Royal Sword). We hung out for a bit, waiting for the boys, and finally when the bar closed we waited in Place Plumereau. Finally they showed up, and I met Aurélien and Théodore (who goes by Ted). We went to a bar where there's a dancing floor in the back and had a really good time. We didn't come back until 5:30am, and were unfortunately really loud outside before we came back in. Jacqueline poked her head out to tell us to come inside, and we were ridiculously embarrassed. We thought about not going to brunch, since we were so worried about what she'd say.
This morning I slept like a rock; Valeria woke me up when she came in to ask if I was coming to brunch, so I had to hurry and put on clothes and brush my hair. We had some kind of baked egg thing, which was kind of strangely spiced but good. Sierra, Aaron, and Grant went to Chenonceau since they'd missed it, and the rest of us just basically lounged around and talked to Luzé for a while. I'm super hungry, so now we're just waiting for dinner. I hope it's soon!
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Trains, Plains, and Chrysanthemums
Yesterday was the first day of my translation class, which I was really looking forward to! Turns out half our group is going to take it; Grant, Joel, Aaron and I all walked over to Rue des Tanneurs together. When we got to the room, we went in and specifically sat down in different parts of the room, hoping to mingle with the French. Unfortunately; a couple of them kept looking in, and they assumed that we were part of a different class and didn't come in. Finally Grant went and opened the door and let the teacher in; her name is Martine Pelletier, and she came to Moorhead in October and met most of the Concordia students. (I had the flu at the time, so I didn't meet her myself.) Then the rest of the students flooded in after her; the class looked like it had 30-some students. The class itself went well; she had the anglophones spread out in groups with the French students, and we started trying to translate a news article about the earthquake in Haiti from English into French. I'm looking forward to that class next week, especially with how little homework they give you here.
After our class, Grant and Joel and I went to Monoprix and made sandwiches again for lunch. Mathias invited us to come watch him at his Judo class, but we were already eating. I think it'd be really fun to go next week, though, and I can post pictures on facebook! Once we'd eaten and washed dishes, I went and napped a bit, having nothing else to do that day. Almost everyone had either classes or choir until late, so it was just Aaron, Luzé, Jacqueline, Mathias and I for dinner, which was chicken and broccoli.
This morning we had to get up early-ish, since we had to go to the CUEFEE building on Rue des Fromonts for our placement test. We're pretty much all taking four CUEFEE classes, but there are three levels of classes you can take based on your skill in French. The test was at 1:30, but it's a half-hour walk from our house. When we got there we met up with another girl from the States named Kate. The test itself took 3 hours, which was ridiculous. There was a listening section and a reading section, and then a break. And then there was a short grammar section and two short essays. It really wasn't very hard, but there were a couple of tricky questions. We get our results next week, when we find out what classes we can take.
After the test, we walked up to Rue des Tanneurs to try out the school cafeteria, which is supposed to be both really good and really cheap. Unfortunately, it was long closed, so we ended up going back to Delhi's again. Those guys must think we don't ever go anywhere else! I got a croque poulet, which was a kind of baked cheese and chicken sandwich thingy. It's really really good. After stuffing our faces, we came back to the house. Dinner was way too soon for us, after having such a late lunch, but we rallied enough to eat anyway. We had salmon on toast with sauce, and then the actual dinner was ravioli again, with caramel flan for dessert. Tonight I think we're going out with some girls from the CUEFEE and some people the choir kids met there. Should be fun!
After our class, Grant and Joel and I went to Monoprix and made sandwiches again for lunch. Mathias invited us to come watch him at his Judo class, but we were already eating. I think it'd be really fun to go next week, though, and I can post pictures on facebook! Once we'd eaten and washed dishes, I went and napped a bit, having nothing else to do that day. Almost everyone had either classes or choir until late, so it was just Aaron, Luzé, Jacqueline, Mathias and I for dinner, which was chicken and broccoli.
This morning we had to get up early-ish, since we had to go to the CUEFEE building on Rue des Fromonts for our placement test. We're pretty much all taking four CUEFEE classes, but there are three levels of classes you can take based on your skill in French. The test was at 1:30, but it's a half-hour walk from our house. When we got there we met up with another girl from the States named Kate. The test itself took 3 hours, which was ridiculous. There was a listening section and a reading section, and then a break. And then there was a short grammar section and two short essays. It really wasn't very hard, but there were a couple of tricky questions. We get our results next week, when we find out what classes we can take.
After the test, we walked up to Rue des Tanneurs to try out the school cafeteria, which is supposed to be both really good and really cheap. Unfortunately, it was long closed, so we ended up going back to Delhi's again. Those guys must think we don't ever go anywhere else! I got a croque poulet, which was a kind of baked cheese and chicken sandwich thingy. It's really really good. After stuffing our faces, we came back to the house. Dinner was way too soon for us, after having such a late lunch, but we rallied enough to eat anyway. We had salmon on toast with sauce, and then the actual dinner was ravioli again, with caramel flan for dessert. Tonight I think we're going out with some girls from the CUEFEE and some people the choir kids met there. Should be fun!
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
OMG New Phone!!
So yesterday morning we were supposed to get up early, since we had errands to accomplish and wanted to still be back by 2pm when Sierra's suitcase was supposed to be delivered. It was lost by her airline, so she's had to deal with being here without any clothes or most of the things she packed. We all woke up early to shower, but then her suitcase arrived anyway, so we didn't have to worry! We took our time eating breakfast, and headed out!
First we went down the Boulevard Heurteloup, which is one of the main arteries in Tours, and visited La Poste (the post office). We all had some immigration paperwork to mail in to the government, and then Valeria and I had post cards to mail as well. It was a lot cheaper than we thought, though; we were worried that it'd be a whole Euro to mail each post card and it was only about half that. Then we walked up the Rue Nationale to the Orange phone store.
Apparently Orange is the best company to go with in France, at least if you only want to do a pay-as-you-go temporary thing. The poor guy must've felt a little overwhelmed when 6 of us descended upon him, all wanting new phones. We explained what we wanted and got phones for fairly cheap; they were only 29 Euro. I was pretty ridiculously excited to get the phone; I finally will be able to tell the time when I'm out and about! We went home and spent a while exchanging our numbers and playing with the new toys, trying to figure them out. The one thing that is strange about doing pay-as-you-go in France is that they never give you your remaining phone time in minutes; they give it in Euros. I imagine that's because you can use that credit for surfing the web and sending texts as well as actual phone conversations, but it makes it really hard to know how much you have left.
After we spent a while playing, we got ready to go back outside to get lunch, shop and hang out. We ended up at Rue Bordeaux again; it's kind of becoming our default place to go. We got delicious panini sandwiches for lunch. Mine was tomato and mozzarella, and it was really good and hot! We then wandered around a bit. We went in Sephora, which is a perfume and make-up store that I'm pretty sure we have in the US. Sierra wanted to look at perfume, but she didn't end up finding anything she liked. The rest of us wandered around and tried all the testers. Then we went down the street farther, and into a little store called Dress Code's. They had clothes and shoes, and I found an adorable pair of boots that were on sale for 9 Euro! I was really excited; the only shoes I brought with me are ballet flats and my high-heel boots, which are cold and heels respectively. Now I have warmer feet! I also went to a tabac (which is a place where they sell drinks and cigarettes and lotto tickets and other little things- they're everywhere in France) and bought some more minutes for my phone.
After a brief stop at a little grocery store to get snacks to have back in our rooms, we went home again. I tried to figure out how to reload my phone, and I think I did it right. We hung out and tried to find classes on the Université website, which has proved to be almost impossible. Apparently you pretty much have to just email the head of the department and they can send you the classes you're interested in. Dinner last night was a little strange; first lentils in some kind of slightly acidic sauce with a bit of lettuce, and then endives wrapped in ham with hard-boiled eggs. It was okay, but strange; I couldn't identify a lot of it myself. For dessert we had chocolate pudding, which was good.
After dinner Luzé had said she would take us to a café in town where they have a sort of cultural exchange evening thing. Basically a lot of students (especially exchange students) will come, and people will speak lots of different languages at different tables. You're supposed to just go and join in a conversation somewhere, so you can meet new people and talk. It apparently fills up really quickly, though; we left the house at about 9pm and it was way too packed when we got there. We ended up having to sit downstairs since there wasn't any room, and so we mostly just talked to each other. It was fun though; I got the first actual Diabolo grenadine I've had since July 2006, and it made me ridiculously happy. (A Diabolo's basically a combination of limonade and grenadine syrup, kind of like a Shirley Temple. My host mother in the south introduced me to them, and they're fantastic.)
Luzé introduced us to her friend Sarah, who is on an exchange from a little school in New York. She'd been here since September, which was cool. We also met another friend of Luzé's named Charlotte, who is from Belgium. She had only been here for about a week, like we have. I think she kind of struggled with the fact that we were speaking English, but she seemed pretty nice. It was really fun to meet new people and just hang out for an evening. When we walked back I was really tired, and ended up falling asleep.
This morning Valeria, Mamie, and Sierra went out because they wanted to go shopping and find somewhere to get identification photos taken. In France you apparently need passport photos for practically every single piece of official paperwork you do. I brought a few extras with me (I have seven; that should last me at least the first couple weeks of school!) so I decided to sleep in instead of joining them. I didn't wake up until 10; it's one of the few times so far I've been able to actually sleep for more than 6 hours at a time. I took a shower and ate breakfast downstairs, and now I'm waiting until 2ish, when we're going to the Université again to figure out our classes finally. Wish me luck!
First we went down the Boulevard Heurteloup, which is one of the main arteries in Tours, and visited La Poste (the post office). We all had some immigration paperwork to mail in to the government, and then Valeria and I had post cards to mail as well. It was a lot cheaper than we thought, though; we were worried that it'd be a whole Euro to mail each post card and it was only about half that. Then we walked up the Rue Nationale to the Orange phone store.
Apparently Orange is the best company to go with in France, at least if you only want to do a pay-as-you-go temporary thing. The poor guy must've felt a little overwhelmed when 6 of us descended upon him, all wanting new phones. We explained what we wanted and got phones for fairly cheap; they were only 29 Euro. I was pretty ridiculously excited to get the phone; I finally will be able to tell the time when I'm out and about! We went home and spent a while exchanging our numbers and playing with the new toys, trying to figure them out. The one thing that is strange about doing pay-as-you-go in France is that they never give you your remaining phone time in minutes; they give it in Euros. I imagine that's because you can use that credit for surfing the web and sending texts as well as actual phone conversations, but it makes it really hard to know how much you have left.
After we spent a while playing, we got ready to go back outside to get lunch, shop and hang out. We ended up at Rue Bordeaux again; it's kind of becoming our default place to go. We got delicious panini sandwiches for lunch. Mine was tomato and mozzarella, and it was really good and hot! We then wandered around a bit. We went in Sephora, which is a perfume and make-up store that I'm pretty sure we have in the US. Sierra wanted to look at perfume, but she didn't end up finding anything she liked. The rest of us wandered around and tried all the testers. Then we went down the street farther, and into a little store called Dress Code's. They had clothes and shoes, and I found an adorable pair of boots that were on sale for 9 Euro! I was really excited; the only shoes I brought with me are ballet flats and my high-heel boots, which are cold and heels respectively. Now I have warmer feet! I also went to a tabac (which is a place where they sell drinks and cigarettes and lotto tickets and other little things- they're everywhere in France) and bought some more minutes for my phone.
After a brief stop at a little grocery store to get snacks to have back in our rooms, we went home again. I tried to figure out how to reload my phone, and I think I did it right. We hung out and tried to find classes on the Université website, which has proved to be almost impossible. Apparently you pretty much have to just email the head of the department and they can send you the classes you're interested in. Dinner last night was a little strange; first lentils in some kind of slightly acidic sauce with a bit of lettuce, and then endives wrapped in ham with hard-boiled eggs. It was okay, but strange; I couldn't identify a lot of it myself. For dessert we had chocolate pudding, which was good.
After dinner Luzé had said she would take us to a café in town where they have a sort of cultural exchange evening thing. Basically a lot of students (especially exchange students) will come, and people will speak lots of different languages at different tables. You're supposed to just go and join in a conversation somewhere, so you can meet new people and talk. It apparently fills up really quickly, though; we left the house at about 9pm and it was way too packed when we got there. We ended up having to sit downstairs since there wasn't any room, and so we mostly just talked to each other. It was fun though; I got the first actual Diabolo grenadine I've had since July 2006, and it made me ridiculously happy. (A Diabolo's basically a combination of limonade and grenadine syrup, kind of like a Shirley Temple. My host mother in the south introduced me to them, and they're fantastic.)
Luzé introduced us to her friend Sarah, who is on an exchange from a little school in New York. She'd been here since September, which was cool. We also met another friend of Luzé's named Charlotte, who is from Belgium. She had only been here for about a week, like we have. I think she kind of struggled with the fact that we were speaking English, but she seemed pretty nice. It was really fun to meet new people and just hang out for an evening. When we walked back I was really tired, and ended up falling asleep.
This morning Valeria, Mamie, and Sierra went out because they wanted to go shopping and find somewhere to get identification photos taken. In France you apparently need passport photos for practically every single piece of official paperwork you do. I brought a few extras with me (I have seven; that should last me at least the first couple weeks of school!) so I decided to sleep in instead of joining them. I didn't wake up until 10; it's one of the few times so far I've been able to actually sleep for more than 6 hours at a time. I took a shower and ate breakfast downstairs, and now I'm waiting until 2ish, when we're going to the Université again to figure out our classes finally. Wish me luck!
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