Jill ne sais quoi

Le retour!

2010-06-18T12:57:00.003+01:00

Yep, that's right.

I'm breaking out the blog again for my next Francophone adventure: a summer in Quebec!

I will be working at an English immersion camp as a counselor. Tomorrow I am making the five and a half hour trek into the North, and if all goes well, will be settling in around 7 o'clock.

La fin

2009-05-14T00:28:00.001+01:00

Au revoir.

Blog Fail

2009-05-08T08:57:00.003+01:00

I did not blog about our end of semester activities because doing so would have meant facing the fact that there is absolutely no time left.

But since I'm leaving tomorrow, I figure there's no point in pretending anymore.

Here's what we've done in the past two weeks:

-- went to Grenoble. Pictures are here.

-- saw a movie. This one.

-- went on a dinner cruise. Pictures are in this album.

-- had a picnic on the Champs de Mars and then walked around at night. Pictures are here.

-- Monica and co. came to visit, but we didn't see that much of them since we were working on our final project and had our last week of internship.

-- had dinner at Hippocampus with Trevor's entire family (well, minus the part of it that was here earlier in the semester)

-- had a photo shoot in front of the Eiffel Tower

-- drank THE worst wine I have ever had in my life

-- had our final presentations.

-- had our last day of our internships

-- was forced to sing Paradise by the Dashboard Light at BU karaoke with French professors (with Sam, of course)

-- had one last round of Mark Anthony's famous hot chocolate and pain au chocolat.

And today Sam and I are eating lunch with Trevor and MA and then heading out to Montmartre and hopefully hitting up one last museum before meeting up with some of my co-workers for dinner and jazz.

Phew. Luckily I'm almost all packed.

Fine, Erin wins.

2009-04-20T19:07:00.005+01:00

But only because I have to tell you about what a debacle this weekend was.

Sam and I had wanted to go to Normandy. We were planning on going Saturday, but we got an e-mail from BU telling us that the cultural event thing they had planned was mandatory, so we booked our train tickets for Sunday.

So Saturday morning we wake up and see that it is miserable and rainy outside. What a lovely day to go around with BU and take pictures! We debate skipping it, but the e-mail said "rain or shine" and Sam has too much of a conscience, so we trek out in the digusting weather to the meeting point. And there's no one there! We wait and we walk back and forth through the passageway we were supposed to meet in. Nope. No one. Awesome.

Sam and I are kind of really unhappy, but we find a cafe near L'Opera and get some wine and some fondant au chocolats. Then we catch a movie back at Montparnasse. Which was FABULOUS. Here's the trailer:

So Sunday, I wake up late. I must have hit the snooze button without realizing it. But so we kind of rush to the train station. When we get there, the ticket machines won't recognize our credit cards so we have to sprint to a ticket counter to get our billets printed out. We just barely make the train.

Once on the train, I realize that I have forgotten my 12-25 card, the one that gets you discounts. An hour and 45 minutes into the 2 hour train ride and the conductor hasn't checked tickets yet, so I think I'm in the clear. Not the case. With 10 minutes until we stop, he comes down the aisle and makes me pay an extra 25€. Awesome. When I get off the train and find Sam (who was one car behind me), she exclaims, "That's ridiculous! They didn't check our tickets at all!" Uber awesome.

But whatever. We're in Normandy! In Caen. We step out of the train station and look around the tiny town before us. We both declare that we love it here, and we go to buy day passes for the bus, like the Normandy tourism website recommended. Then we hop on and ride it to the office of tourism.

We decide that it's best to just ask the girls at the tourism office how we should go about getting to the cemetary and the beaches. Their reply? "It's Sunday. There's only one bus running. You can only get to this beach. And the bus only runs every 2 hours."

"Can we walk to the American cemetary?"

"No. It's many kilometers."

"Oh."

"...It's Sunday."

Sam and I realize that even if we are to take this bus, we have just missed the 11h25 one and now will have to wait 2 hours. So we find a restaurant and settle down for a long, hearty lunch.

We also pore1 over the maps and the schedules, trying to figure out a way we can possibly get up to where we want to go. We decide that are going to get there, no matter what the tourism women have said. We also decide to go back to the train station to ask for their advice.

After our long, relaxing lunch, we take an extremely long way through the market back to the train station. Once we get there, we ask the employees at the ticket counter how we can get up to the beaches. They tell us that there is a train that goes up to a town, Bayeux, that is closer to the beaches and that has a museum. We ask about a bus line that is going up to that town also, and they tell us to check out the bus station a few buildings over.

We head over to the bus station, but surprise! It's closed on Sundays! We finally find the schedules that are posted outside and eventually figure out that that bus isn't running either. So we head back to the train station, where we buy the train tickets to Bayeux.

After waiting for 20 minutes or so, we hop on the train and get to see some more of the lovely French countryside. I swear, train is my favorite way to travel. But the ride is only 15 minutes, and soon we're stepping off the train and looking at each other in horror.

"Where the hell are we?"

We are basically in the sticks. But we see signs for the war museum, so we follow them. It's a good 25 minute hike to the museum, but we got to see some cows, which was fun. We got to the museum around 2:45, I want to say. There were some tanks outside, so we felt better about ourselves, after having been in Normandy for over 3 hours and not seeing anything war related.

We entered the museum and before buying tickets, we asked if it was possible to get to the American cemetary.

"Oh yes!" was the reply.

Sam and I looked at each other in relief.

"You just take this road..." then the woman stopped. "You have a car, right?"

Fail. Was there any other way to get there?

"By cab..." was the cautious reply. "Would you like us to call one for you?"

Sam and I looked at each other. Did we want to stay here and look at the museum? The cemetery closes at 5. It's already almost 3. It'll take at least half an hour to get there. How much will it cost? OH WHAT THE HELL, WE CAME ALL THE WAY HERE.

"Sure, would you call one for us?"

45€ and half an hour later, we FINALLY get to the cemetery. As we step out of the cab, we see our first glimpse of the ocean and instantly decide that it was all worth it.

It was gorgeous. The beach was wonderful and gorgeous and the cemetery was moving and incredible. Nothing I can write will describe what being there is like, so I won't even try. You can see my pictures here.

We spent a good hour and a half there and then had to make our long trek back to the Bayeux train station and then back to Caen, where we grabbed some pizza before catching our train back to Paris.

It was a very long, frustrating and exhausting day, but the almost two hours we spent at the beach and the cemetery were incredible.

Ask Erin why

2009-04-18T18:10:00.001+01:00

I won't be updating for a bit.

On mange, les filles?

2009-04-08T11:59:00.000+01:00

This is by far my favorite saying at work. One, because it means that we will be injesting food within the next half hour, two, because it means that I will get a little break and three, because it shows the importance of punctuation. Speaking of punctuation, I had no idea what to do with it in that last sentence. I think maybe I should have made it a list? I'm a little tired.

That is really I have to say. I am exhausted . But this weekend will be better.

This blog entry format copyrighted by Trevor Taylor.

Grammar Shmammar

2009-04-06T21:13:00.002+01:00

I love writing linguistics papers because you get to insert snarky sentences for examples and no one can call you out on it. For example:

In English, commentary adverbs are placed at the start of a sentence:
Unfortunately, this paper is due Wednesday.

Week #2 of my Stage

2009-03-28T08:35:00.002Z

During the second week of my stage, I:

- met my boss
- answered the phone and completely embarrassed myself
- tried to find the New Zealand kids jobs
- spend 4 hours erasing folders (by hand)
- answered the phone and DIDN'T completely embarrass myself!
- tripped over my own desk
- brought in sour patch kids for the girls to try-- they were a hit!

I enjoy my stage for the most part. And I enjoy being in a routine. I just woke up on this lovely Saturday morning and was like "oh no, it's probably noon and I'm going to have to take a shower and then rush off to BU", but then I look at my watch and it's only 9h30! Heck yes for my body's clock adjusting.

My stage is infinitely better than Trevor's, who is now in the process of switching internships because his was so miserable, and Sam's whose stage is so intense that she doesn't get home until 20h some nights! And she's working her fingers to the bone! On the plus side, she got to see Carla Bruni talk, and was sitting like 5 feet away from her!

A bientot!

2009-03-20T17:57:00.002Z

My stage is going great. I really enjoy it. I don't really know what else to tell you about it right now, except that my co-workers invited me (and, consequently, Emily) out bar-hopping tomorrow night! So excited!

Anyway, it's been a really long week, but I had fun. And now Emily is here for the weekend, so I'll have even more fun!

Stage!

2009-03-17T20:55:00.002Z

Today was my second day at my internship at Aquarius Abroad.

So far, so good. My co-workers (all three of them) are really nice and I feel pretty comfortable around them already, but my boss is away this week, so it's kind of weird. I'm hoping that once he gets back I'll have more to do. I mean, they gave me a huge list of things to do, but I have no idea how to start/when to start with some of them. But today I completely redid the Job postings in Paris board. Tomorrow I'm going to tackle the Jobs in province board.

I've seen a few students/program participants, which is kind of cool. I'm supposed to be handling the WIFs (WIF stands for Work in France) and tomorrow we're going to do an orientation type thing for 4 new arrivals, so that'll be fun.

Spring Break!

2009-03-14T14:48:00.006Z

I just got back from Prague! It was great.

I'm now going to go into some detail about my vacation, but I have to warn you: the two friends I spent break with are named Kati and Katie. It can get rather confusing.

So Kati got in to Paris (from Boston) on Saturday. We spent a great three days together here, doing tons of touristy stuff, including some things I hadn't done before: la Tour de Montparnasse et l'Opera Garnier, both of which were incredible! Pictures of our few days in Paris together are here and here.

On Tuesday we hopped on a plane for Prague, and landed there around noon. Katie, who had flown there ahead of us, as her family lives in Prague for part of the year, met us at the airport with her mom, which was great. We then got a mini-tour of some of Prague on the ride to her house.

The view from the plane

That afternoon Katie took us down to the town and we walked around until we got sick of the rain and found a cafe. We saw some absolutely gorgeous buildings and a really cool mechanical clock that reminded me a lot of the one in Strasbourg. However, Katie said that it couldn't be made by the same man because the story is that this clockworker was blinded after he build the clock in Prague so that he could never make another, but he was so talented that he somehow got into the clock and screwed all the machinery up, just so they'd have to hire him back to fix it all.The clock in Old Town

Anyway, we then went out to dinner at one of Katie's favorite restaurants and then went to an old bar that she used to go to in high school. Katie wasn't feeling that great so we headed back relatively early, but Kati and I didn't mind-- we were pretty exhausted from our early flight.

The next day, Katie's cold was back in full force. Her parents had planned a nice evening out for us, so Katie decided to stay in and rest and Kati and I went out exploring on our own. We visited the Prague castle, the cathedral of St. Vitus, the Basilica of St. George, the Church of St. Nicholas and the Tin Cathedral. We got quite a bit accomplished! But then it started to rain, so we headed back to Katie's house, where we all got ready for the crazy nice dinner.

The Cathedral of St. Vitus

The car (the car?! Whaaat!) picked us up at 5:30. We were dropped off at l'Hotel de Paris, where we met Katie's dad in the lounge. We sat there for a good hour, drinking champagne and chatting with Katie's parents, which was really nice. Then we walked just around the corner to this absolutely gorgeous restaurant called Francouzska Restaurace, which was decorated in this gorgeous Art Deco style. And I tried escargot! Katie was ordering it, and she talked me into getting some myself and I must say, it was rather delish! I also tried chicken liver and was not such a fan. But the main course I ordered, some other chicken dish, was absolutely divine.

The inside of the restaurant.

We then headed back to Katie's house, where she heated up some Oplatky, delicious traditional Czech cookies and we watched The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming. I'd never even heard of this movie before, but it was fantastic! Anyway, we then we exhausted and completely stuffed, so we went to bed pretty early.

Katie with some Oplatky!

The next day, Katie was feeling much better so the three of us headed into town around noon. We walked around the opera house, we explored the old Jewish part of town and went inside the synagogue that is supposedly home to the golem. Then we wandered around and found a bakery that Katie's friend's family owns and we all went in and bought something to snack on.

Katie and Kati in front of the oldest synagogue in Prague.

We also found a candy shop that makes these intricate hard candies by hand. There were a few guys making some when we were there, so we stopped and watched for a while. It was really neat.

Making the crazy candies.

We then hit up St. Nicholas's Church #2. Yes, there are two of them. It's very, very confusing. Anyway, this one was much better than the first one, and THIS is the one that Mozart played in, which is very exciting. It was really gorgeous inside.

The organ in the Church of St. Nicholas

By this point, we were pretty hungry, so we stopped into a restaurant that served traditional Czech food. I order the roast duck, not expecting an ENTIRE duck to come out of the kitchen.

Before

I did a pretty good job though. And it was delicious! As were the bread dumplings. The beer I was not a huge fan of, but it was better than anything I've had in the States.

The remains! Delicious looking duck carcass.

After this, we headed back to Katie's house, where we relaxed and hung around until her mom called us down for appetizers and dinner. After eating the delicious fajitas and this magical hors d'oeuvre with philo dough she had made, we headed out for a night of dancing. Katie has always talked about this 7 story dance club in Praha, where each floor has a different theme, and we were pretty excited to finally see it for ourselves. Let's just say: the oldies floor was AWESOME. Katie made me (Kati kind of refused) try Becherovka, the Czech liquor, and absinthe. I at least could swallow the Becherovka. The absinthe was so harsh! It felt like that horrible "cherry" medication I took as a little girl. You know, the one that we realized a year or so ago that I was supposed to drink with 2 cups of water because it was so corosive? Yeah. Delicious.

Our big night out.

The dance club during the day. See all the floors?

Friday, we slept in, which was great. When we'd all woken up and gotten ready, we headed downtown again and just wandered. We stopped for lunch at a pizza place, met up with an aquaintance of Kati's mom for coffee, met Katie's parents for a beer at their favorite local place (they affectionately call it "Man Food", since all you can apparently get is unpasteurized beer, cabbage and really fatty pork) and then met up with Katie's high school friend for a few drinks.

Phew, that sounds exhausting! Fortunately, I'm not really tired, now that I'm back. And it definitely is good to be back. We left around 8:00 this morning and we got into Paris around 12:00. I didn't really get a chance to say goodbye to Kati and Katie since they had to run to catch their flight to Boston, which was kind of disappointing, as I'm not going to see Katie until the summer and I won't see Kati until next January. But it was really great to see both of them again, even if it was just for a short time. I was pretty homesick for BU while we were together, but now that I'm back in my room here, I'm just really excited for my internship on Monday.

Oh, p.s. more pictures of Prague are here and here.

J'ai fini!

2009-03-06T19:46:00.003Z

I'm done with class! Until September! Very exciting.

Trevor and Claire came over today for a celebratory cheese/wine/movie party, which was fun.

Kati is getting here ridiculously early tomorrow, so I am hitting the hay pretty bientôt.

But! Exciting news: my stage is awesome!

The Dangers of Disorganization

2009-03-05T20:56:00.003Z

I guess the other day I was a little haphazard with my note-taking, because as I was reading through my notebook today I noticed two little notes in the margin that had been squished together so that they read:

"Envoyer un e-mail à Lionel après le 2eme guerre mondiale"

The sun will come out tomorrow...

2009-03-05T20:05:00.002Z

Exams: Take 2!

2009-03-04T22:47:00.005Z

Right now I'm studying for finals and getting ready for spring break. I was just in the middle of making myself a study guide PowerPoint for my art history course, and I thought I'd share with you one of the most painful pieces of art I have ever laid eyes on:

Arman, Chopin's Waterloo, 1962, Paris, MNAM

I will admit, the title is clever.

Dueling AIM convos

2009-03-03T00:53:00.000Z

GFlood9712: are you still up???

FlashFlod: Mom is nagging you from the other side of the world!!! You can't escape!!!

GFlood9712: now, is time to go to bed...!!!! Jilli Lilli needs sleep..

jllybeanie: oh wow, you spell it with an "i"?

jllybeanie: i always imagined it with a "y" when you said it

GFlood9712: pour quoi non...(and the way I type, you can get all sorts of inter4esting combos!)

jllybeanie: haha

GFlood9712: of cousre, I alswyas mena it with a Y..

jllybeanie: oh

jllybeanie: PHEW

GFlood9712: am I affecting your self-image..?

jllybeanie: Jilly is bad enough...Jilli just looks RIDICULOUS

FlashFlod: jillie

jllybeanie: AHHH being ambushed

An excellent weekend

2009-03-01T23:42:00.002Z

This weekend was absolutely wonderful. It was so warm it felt like spring! Friday I went walking around by l'Opera Garnier by myself. I bought some books and stumbled upon la place Vendome, which was a pleasant surprise.

Gerald and I (Sam went to London for the weekend) then went out for dinner at this Indian restaurant, grabbed dessert and caught a movie. It was a relaxing but fun Friday night.

On Saturday, it was absolutely gorgeous outside, so Gerald and I got lunch and then met Mark Anthony and Trevor at the Luxembourg Gardens, which were lovely. We then wandered down the Champs Elysees and went up the Arc de Triomphe. The view was amazing! I like it much better than the view from the Eiffel Tower. Mostly because you can see the Eiffel Tower!

Trevor and Mark Anthony then invited us over for dinner, which was super nice and once again really fun. We got to go out on their family's balcony which was fantastic. Also I got to wash a lot of dishes, which I do enjoy from time to time (that does NOT mean that Erin should leave them all for me). Their host family ended up coming home while we were still there, which was a bit awkward, but they were really nice and we cleaned up everything quite quickly, so I don't think they hate us. Also, their host brother Stanislas (did I spell that right?) is the cutest thing in the world. He waddled by the kitchen on his way to bed while I was mid-dish. Super adorable.

Today I hung around, like most Sundays. But the BU program took us to la Comedie Francaise tonight. We saw Cyrano de Bergerac, which was uh...interesting. That is, it probably would have been if I could've understood even a quarter of what was being said. The best thing about it was that they played Ravel's Bolero for a good 25 minutes towards the end during the battle sequence, which was obviously an awesome choice on their part.

But now I am exhausted and achy from ridiculously uncomfortable chairs that probably haven't been upholstered or recushioned since 1680 when the theater was built. Adieu, mes amies, adieu!

But there are green lines!

2009-02-27T10:21:00.003Z

Last night, Sam, Gerald and I went to Mark Anthony and Trevor's apartment for dinner. It was wonderful. The full five courses plus a bonus hot chocolate (Mark Anthony's signature dish) and pain au chocolat! It was the best meal I've had this semester, partly because it felt homey and relaxed. And it was so much fun, we had great conversation despite a few glitches in communication and I found myself laughing so hard that I almost spit out my wine at least ten times. We tried to play both Mille Bourne and Tabou (in French) and failed miserably, but it was all good and all hysterical.

Here are some pictures:

A Retrospective.

2009-02-25T20:10:00.003Z

We had another field trip to the Centre Georges Pompidou today, but this time we got to see a special new exhibit, La Vide: Un retrospective. In English it is called "Voids". You might say it would be better to call it "Emptiness". Yves Klein called it "The Specialization of Sensibility in the Raw Material State Into Stabilized Pictorial Sensibility". I call it, quite simply, bullshit.

Here is what this lovely, 11 room exhibition consisted of:

Got the picture? There was absolutely nothing in any of the rooms. Rien. Zip. Nada. Oh, except for a freshly sprayed line of grafitti in the Yves Klein room. Now, I'm not a big grafitti advocate, nor am I a huge fan of vandalism, but those illegible scribbles that were scrawled across the huge expanse of nothingness were without a doubt the closest thing to art in this entire "exhibit".

Han Solo was frozen in graphite.

2009-02-22T17:17:00.003Z

Whoa, sorry for not writing anything for two whole weeks! That's the longest I've gone without writing in here (besides over break!) since September! But thankfully I'm done with most of my work now, so there'll be no excuses from here on out.

Becky was here last weekend and Lori was here this weekend. Both visits were fun and we did a bunch of touristy stuff and somehow I think I managed to not do the same stuff both weekends.

I've only got two weeks left of class! I can't believe it!

Pictures of various weekend excursions are here and here. Oh and with Becky we went to Versailles. Pictures of that are here.

Word to the Wise

2009-02-18T10:45:00.003Z

Note to sketchy man on the metro:

Starting a conversation with "Don't be afraid", in French or in English is not going to work.

P.S. Sorry, Mom, I promise I'll really update soon!

Je suis française! Bon, presque...

2009-02-13T10:57:00.004Z

Stayed up until 3h00 discussing anything but Art History with Trevor, and then woke up at 7h00 to go to midterms. Hmm...definitely not a good idea.

But midterms were crazy easy and I'm pretty sure I did well anyway, although my handwriting was not so awesome towards the end.

BUT this is not what I want to talk about, because it is not NEARLY as exciting as what happened to me when Sam and I stopped in the boulangerie for some breakfast. Sam ordered and then I did, and the guy behind the counter was like "Oh, française!" And I, a little confused, asked him to please repeat himself. And he was like, "Vous êtes française, elle est anglaise!"

My brain and heart went: !!!!!!!!

But I said, very calmly, "Oh non, je suis américaine!"

He was surprised, said that my accent was very French and then said, "Goodbye!"

AHHHH! A FRENCH PERSON THOUGHT I WAS FRENCH! EVEN AFTER I OPENED MY MOUTH! THIS IS FANTASTIC! BEYOND AWESOMENESS! J'M MA VIE, MÊME SI JE SUIS TELLEMENT FATIGUÉE QUE JE PEUX TOMBER SUR MON LIT MAINTENANT ET MOURIR!

Anyway, je vais chercher Becky a la gare! A + tard, mes amies! Bisous!

i <3 lists

2009-02-12T16:37:00.003Z

Tomorrow I have my midterms and then Becky will be here for the weekend.

Unfortunately, after this weekend, my assignments multiply.

Everything I have to do in the next week and a half:

-- Make corrections and hand in final copy of my lit paper
-- Prepare a vocab sheet for a debate on whether Turkey should be admitted into the EU
-- Write a paper on Cubism or Dadaism. Mmm...such tantalizing options.
-- Interview a French person about something professional (wow, vague enough?) and write a 500 word article about it
-- Prepare a presentation on an abstract painter no one has ever heard of
-- Prove that Turkey should not be admitted into the EU during what I'm sure will be a thrilling debate

Oh well, after next week there won't be anything to do! Oh, except study for finals.

"Claire, you are clapping two pieces of bread together, you don't get to decide who you're friends with."

2009-02-11T19:57:00.002Z

Had class today and prepared for midterms.

Also had a field trip to le Musee D'Orsay again (for literature this time!) but I remembered my camera! Pictures are here!

Un blog entry anglais avec un titre ennuyeux angais.

2009-02-10T18:02:00.006Z

Yesterday I went to the Picasso Museum with my Art History class. Now, I'm not a huge a cubism person, and to be completely honest, I don't really like Picasso, but I actually really enjoyed the museum. If you ever come to Paris for a reasonably extended period of time and get all the touristy, Parisian stuff out of the way, I'd definitely recommend going there.

My favorite thing in the museum was a painting that Picasso did when he was 13. It was absolutely gorgeous, and I guess I never realized that he was capable of painting dans le style classique.

Unfortunately no pictures were allowed, but I did get some cool photos of the outside of the museum, where there's a temporary "installation" of these crazy mirrors and colored panes of class. I was a fan.
Then after returning to BU for my literature class, we went to a tiny theater in the Latin Quarter and saw La Cantatrice Chauve (The Bald Soprano), a piece of absurdist theater by Ionesco. It was fantastic! It's been playing every night at the same theater for 50 years now. Isn't that incredible?

Anyway, afterwards we came back here and I finished my paper (you already know how that went!).

Today I only had one class and --miracle of miracles!-- there was no conference tonight so I thought it would be a great time to finally go visit the Louvre (I know, I know, I've been here a month, it's terrible...): I had plenty of free time, I didn't have any huge assignments due, it was rainy and gross...

So I left BU, hopped on the metro, got to the pyramid, met Sam and then we discovered that, oh, the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays. Fantastic.

Le Louvre!

By now it was raining quite hard, but we decided to walk through les Tuilieries anyway, since we were right there. So we trudged through them for a bit before finding a little cafe in the middle and stopping for some hot chocolate.

After our little break from the rainstorm, we headed back out and continued walking, with the intention of crossing the river and hitting up some museum by the Palais de Justice. But we got distracted by this interesting looking building a few blocks up, and decided to find out what it was.

Sam kept saying that it was the Grand and Petit Palais, but I was convinced they were somewhere else. Lessons learned today: I never should doubt Sam, and I definitely should never rely on my horrid sense of direction.

Sam outside the entrance to le Petit Palais.

We went inside le Petit Palais, which contains the Museum of Fine Arts. It was a gorgeous building and had some interesting stuff in it, but of course as soon as we went inside, the sun came out.

When we left the sun was setting, the sky was clear and we had a gorgeous view from le Pont Alexandre III of the Eiffel Tower and Les Invalides.

Very, very pretty.

But as we were standing on the bridge, admiring the view, we noticed that there was a line of about 40 police vehicles coming across the bridge from Les Invalides, heading towards le Petit Palais, where we had seen at least 10 other vehicles amassed earlier. The line of trucks went flying over the bridge and then we realized there was another huge line of police going over the next bridge as well! It was absolutely crazy!

See that line of white trucks? All police!

As we were a little freaked out, we decided to head home. But all in all, it was a very enjoyable afternoon. It's gorgeous.

You can find the pictures I took today here, and you can see other pictures I've taken recently here.

P.S. Just did a little research and apparently the police were getting ready for an education manif. The article I'm reading says there were 17,000 police and 50,000 protesters. Wonderful.

Je suis dans la lune, papa!

2009-02-09T22:25:00.005Z

I just finished BSing the crappiest French essay of my life, and as a reward I am letting myself blog.

Can you see the snow?

This weekend was fun, although after Friday night not much was done. Saturday it was snowing like crazy, but we trekked across Paris to grab lunch at an American-style diner and all got delicious American breakfasts at around 13h30. It was really, really yummy but I don't think I'm going to go back. I'm only going to be here once, I should really take advantage of it and save my bacon and eggs (and two chocolate chip pancakes with maple syrup and lots of butter), since I can have that any time I'd like in the States.
Mmmm...delicious.

Gerald and I then went to Shakespeare & Co, a really cool bookstore in the 1ere arrondissement, right across from Notre Dame, where they sell used and new English books. I know, I know, I shouldn't be buying books in English, but the store is just so amazing and cozy that I had to. But I did compromise, and bought two French authors: Dumas and Stendhal. I'm a big fan of both books so far.

We then found a little cafe, bought some hot chocolate and sat out the snow storm for a few hours, reading our new books. It was a very lazy afternoon, but it felt very French, so ca va.

Sunday nothing of great excitement happened, but I got a lot of work done, which was excellent. Getting ready for midterms this week! Nice!

I hear babies cry....WAH!

2009-02-07T10:29:00.007Z

Yesterday BU took us to the wine museum of Paris, which is in this big, ancient cellar. It was pretty neat, we each sat down in front of 5 wine glasses and then listened to the woman talk about oenology and the history of the place. Then, of course, we got to smell things and taste things and then (finally) we got to taste the wine. Here's what we tried:

a 2007 Chablis -- I found this too acidic and tangy to finish.
a 2004 Burgundy (ROTY) -- this was much more to my liking and tasted strongly of pears
a 2005 Pouliac -- Probably my favorite, once the cheese came out. Red wine without cheese is just not the same.
a 2001 Beaune -- Not a fan. Too acidic for a red, in my opinion.
a Galliac sparkling wine -- DELISH.

After the wine tasting, we got to walk through this museum, which was kind of creepy because there were wax figures hidden in little alcoves and around corners. So we went through it pretty quickly and then came home.

Sam and I decided that we wanted to get a nice dinner, as we'd been eating Fondation food all week, so we found a place in le Marais (in the 3eme arrondissement) called Page 35, which was great. It was a cozy yet really modern restaurant that doubled as an art gallery, so the walls were covered with a series of photos.

I ordered the boeuf bourgignon with house fries and Sam got a parmesean chicken dish. Mine was phenomenal, even with the few bits of mushroom I spotted, and the French Fries were incredible! Sam's dish was also superb, although the roasted potatoes almost stole the show, they were so delicious. For dessert, I got a fabulous creme brulee and Sam got some ice cream.

Then we headed over to the 6eme to meet Gerakd, Trevor and Mark Anthony at Hippocampus for some jazz. When we got there, Gerald the only person sitting inside, and a trumpet player and pianist were jamming in the middle of the room. We sat down, ordered some drinks and waited for Trevor, Mark Anthony, and all the customers that had crowded the place last weekend to arrive. Well, Trevor and Mark Anthony finally showed up, but no one else did. We had the entire place to ourselves! The musicians were talking to us and once they found out we were American, they decided to give us a lesson in French standards. It was awesome. A woman vocalist/clarinetist showed up and an old guy with a banjo played a few songs before he headed out.

When the band said goodnight around 23h30, the singer/trumpet player came over and gave us a free CD, which of course, being nerds, we (and by we I totally mean Sam. Not about the being nerdy bit, but about getting it autographed. She's clearly the one with the guts.) got it autographed! So now we have this sweet Parisian jazz CD with a "To Samantha..." and some indecipherable scribbles. So awesome!

Il était une fois un vigneron qui avait 7 filles...

2009-02-04T20:14:00.006Z

Today my literature class had a field trip to the galleries and passageways of Paris. Unfortunately, as soon as we headed out, it started snowing. Luckily it didn't stick around very long, but it was pretty chilly. However, it was incredibly interesting and some of them were absolutely gorgeous. You really could see how people would have been drawn to them (and to commercialism!) in the 1800s.

I bought an interesting Cabernet Sauvignon today for about 3€. For the price, it tasted pretty excellent, but what really was interesting was the label/marketing idea. The company, "Les 7 Soeurs", apparently makes seven different types of wine, which are each named after the supposed seven daughters of the winemaker. For example, the Cabernet Sauvignon I bought was named Madeleine, who apparently is "generous" and "well-balanced", two adjectives that I assume are supposed to describe the wine as well, although I don't really know how one would judge that. I'm really terrible at degustering. Guess it's a good thing I'm going to a wine museum on Friday!

In case you haven't noticed from my entries, I've been on a crazy jazz kick. Thanks to this sweet website, ruckus.com, I have legally (what?! craziness!) downloaded approximately a million wonderful songs and have compiled a "Paris" playlist of piano solos, Gershwin medleys and old French artists. Did you know that "My Way" and "Beyond the Sea", made popular by Frank Sinatra and Bobby Darin, respectively, were both originally French songs? I highly recommend downloading "Comme d'habitude" ("My Way") par Claude Francois. C'est vachement mieux en francais! Je l'adore!

"Les francais parlent de sex et de quoi? La politique!" -- My TP professor

2009-02-03T14:53:00.003Z

I'm assuming the groundhog saw his shadow yesterday, seeing as we woke up to snow. Luckily, it's all pretty much melted, but still? Snow in Paris? Come on...

I'm thoroughly enjoying myself here, but we all have a ridiculous amount of work to do for our classes. Cramming in an entire semester's worth of work into 6 weeks is just not an excellent idea. I'm so preoccupied with my classes and assignments that a lot of the time I forget I'm even in Paris. So every day on my way home from BU, I pause at this one spot where the gap in between buildings is perfect and, looking back, I can see the Eiffel Tower. It reminds me that, oh yeah, my life is awesome.

Finally, some information.

2009-02-01T14:55:00.003Z

Here's a news article on what Sam stumbled upon yesterday. I know it's in French, sorry. However, some general info:

8 Police officers were hurt, 2 hospitalized
It is estimated that there were 1,200 rioters, self-proclaimed "anarchists"
They were protesting the anti-terrorism laws

Oh mon dieu, ça va?! Vous n'êtes pas mort?!

2009-01-31T18:53:00.008Z

So. Interesting.

Today Trevor, Sam and I went to Les Invalides, which was clearly awesome, as Napoleon is involved. I took lots of pictures, you can look at them here and here.

On the way home, Sam and I stopped at the grocery store, but I was taking a bit longer so Sam left a few minutes before me.

So I'm riding the metro, almost home. One stop away from the stop I need to transfer at. My phone rings.

"Jillian, don't get off at Denfert-Rochereau! There's tear gas and police everywhere!"

"Oh my god, are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm trying to get out, just don't get off here, find another way home!"

Two seconds later, my metro pulls up to Denfert-Rochereau. The doors slide open, the sound of people coughing and crying on the platform wafts into the car, along with the sharp smell of cayenne pepper. I pull my scarf over my nose and stay seated, clutching my groceries. Mercifully, the doors slide shut and the metro starts moving. I lower my scarf and sigh in relief.

Suddenly, there is some sort of very loud explosion. The metro, only having moved a few inches, screeches to a stop. Everyone stands up.

What the hell was that?! I think. Then, Oh my god, Sam's still there!

Fingers shaking, I hit redial. Ring. Ring. Ring. Finally, she picks up. She is relatively safe, she's gotten out of the station, she did not hear any explosion. She's barricaded in by police, but at least she's above ground.

I, however, am trapped on the metro. The doors have slid open again, and the tear gas has entered the car. Luckily, before I have enough time to panic, the driver gets on the PA system and thanks us for our patience, and the doors slide shut.

I get off at the next stop, a stop I've never been at before. I find a map and see that I can walk home pretty easily, but the only way home I know is by the metro stop where all the crazy shit is going down. Oh well, I guess I'll have to risk it.

So I'm walking by tons of police officers and there are lights flashing everywhere and it's pretty scary,but at least I'm above ground and it doesn't look like the road I need is blocked off. As I walk through the square though, a column of around 30 police officers is marching into the bus station.

Don't worry, I had a nice, boring walk home with my huge bag of groceries, and I am totally fine, just a little shaken. Sam and I broke out our bottle of wine and had some cheese and crackers. I'm going to attack my bar of chocolate in approximately .05 seconds.

So, moral of the story = Paris is scary. And now I never want to ride public transportation by myself ever again.

2009-01-31T00:41:00.004Z

My day/night was pretty excellent.

I went into BU for a practice run of a presentation Marion and I are doing for our literature class on an excerpt from a Zola book. We totally owned it. We are super good at literary analysis. The professor was very impressed.

Then the sun was out, so Marion and I decided to go back to Montmartre to try to get some decent pictures of the sunset for our presentation (the last time we went, it was cloudy and gross). It was fun, Montmartre is one of my favorite areas of Paris so far. We got some great pictures, listened to some street musicians, bought a crepe and then got some hot chocolate in a little cafe on our way down.

Came back to La Fondation for dinner with Sam and Gerald, and then Sam and I headed out to the 6eme arrondissement where we met some friends for some jazz at this tiny club called Hippocampus. It was incredible. Piano, clarinet and washboard. The music was phenomenal (especially when Papy Cravatte started playing his washboard tie!) and the people were really friendly. Next weekend is Golden Oldies night, so we're totally going back.

Internship Decision

2009-01-29T11:45:00.002Z

It's official! I will be interning with Aquarius Abroad starting in March. The interview went great and the place seemed very friendly and welcoming. They're a really small team so I'll be able to do a lot of hands-on work and I'll be the only native English speaker, which means I'll be able to speak French without feeling awkward.

I had an interview with Ubisoft also, which went well, the woman was really nice and understanding, but I think I'll get more out of working in a small business environment, rather than being just another intern in a huge corporation. It would have looked awesome on my resumé though.

J'm les grèves!

2009-01-27T21:55:00.004Z

The French love to publicly express their displeasure. They do this, typically, by making everyone else miserable. In other words, they go on strike.

Thursday is a nationwide let's-make-everyone-miserable day. What are they protesting this time? The economic situation. Clearly not doing the work you're lucky enough to have in this recession is going to fix things. Do they really think that the government doesn't know that everyone is unhappy?

I just read an article (www.lefigaro.fr) and here is a list of who will be striking on what they're calling "Black Thursday":

the train system
the metro system
the bus system
the postal service
national radio
public schools
hospitals
naval construction sites
airports
national television
all banks
all magistrates
all automobile manufacturers
and MORE!

Classes have been canceled for us, which is very exciting. We'll be able to explore our arondissement a little bit, but most likely, nothing will be open. Very sad.

J'ai un autre entretien...?

2009-01-27T20:07:00.004Z

What the hell?

I know that I should be grateful, because as Sam very kindly reminded me, everyone in the program would love to have options vis-a-vis their internships, but Jill hates making decisions. Jill would rather have just been thrown into the first internship BU found for her and then if things were terrible, she could just blame them for the rest of her life. But oh no, now Jill has to take responsibility. Now she must also stress not only about prepping for her crazy French interview in the middle of sketchville-that-is-not-Paris, but she has to worry about contacting some other company about a possibly better intership that she probably won't have time to look into before she has to make a decision about the first one.

Okay, sorry. You're all probably asking yourselves two very important questions: 1. What the hell is Jill talking about? and 2. Why is Jill referring to herself in the third person?

I will answer question 2. first because it is much easier: Sam says I need to do it more often because it is très amusant.

Reponse à question numero un:

I have recieved an e-mail from another company (Ubisoft) that the internship coordinator at BU has been trying to get in touch with for months. In the e-mail (which was in English, with a Chinese phone number--sketch, right?), the woman says that she found my CV interesting and thinks I would be a good match for a Paris internship. She does not say anything about my possible position or even the location in Paris, but would I like to make an appointment for a phone interview?

Umm...would I? I don't know! What the hell is going on?

So I go talk to the internship coordinator (Julie), who is extremely nice and helpful, and she agrees that this is very very bizarre. She says that students have worked with Ubisoft in the past and that it would be mostly straight up translation and it would be more commerical than the other internship, and she says that if I want to look into it I can, but that due to the agreement BU has with the companies that provide internships, she would like to have an answer about the first internship by tomorrow afternoon.

SO. Jill's day tomorrow is this: 10h00 interview in the middle of nowhere, 11h45 field trip class to Musee D'Orsay, 15h00 Literature class

When exactly during all of this is Jill supposed to call said company and have said possible crazy phone interview, provided they are even available? Also how could Jill possibly make an educated decision after a PHONE interview?

What the hell.

I'm hoping that the first interview tomorrow will be mindblowingly awesome and so I'll be able to take it and know that I won't regret a thing.

OH and this would all be alright if the e-mail I had recieved about this being a competitive internship was true, but Julie apologized and told me that she'd been mistaken, they definitely want me. So. Now I just feel terrible.

Also I scoped out the place of the first internship and it is in a very, very sketchy neighborhood. The building itself is fine and respectable looking, but je ne sais pas... However, Julie tells me that Ubisoft is in Montreuil also, so that at least won't factor into my decision.

J'ai un entretien!

2009-01-26T21:42:00.002Z

I've got an interview! I'm very excited about it, it's for a company that organizes languages exchanges for students, interns and companies. It seems pretty great, and the website comes in English, French and Russian, so you can take a gander, if you're so inclined. It's here.

Unfortunately, this company is not in Paris. It's just outside in a suburb called Montreuil. I'm going to check it out tomorrow after class so I'll be able to gauge how early I'll need to get up on Wednesday, but I think it's going to take me at least an hour to get there. Which is kind of a bummer. Mais ca va! Je suis contente!

Chantilly

2009-01-24T19:13:00.006Z

We woke up at some unholy hour this morning to leave for Chantilly on our day trip (the program told us that we could go on a trip today and they would reimburse us 30€). Luckily, I was feeling much better and so it was not terrible.

It took us about an hour to get to Chantilly, this tiny town outside of Paris, with a relatively well-known Chateau. We walked around and followed the signs for the castle, which led us to this pretty gorgeous, pretty impressive building. So we took a bunch of pictures in front of it and then walked around the back to try to get in for a tour. Come to find out, this immense marble building is only the stable. So ridiculous.

Sam and Gerald in front of the massive stable.

Another view of the horse palace.

But then we saw the actual castle and felt kind of silly. Of course that was only the stable!

It even had a moat!

Sam and Gerald in front of the chateau.

The inside of the castle had been turned into a museum, which was pretty cool. There were a few paintings I recognized, such as the one of Napoleon touching the leper and a portrait of Louis XVI, which was neat.

The building itself was magnificent. Also, there was a fantastic library that I snuck a picture of. So cool.Sam and Gerald near the entrance to the museum.

The picture I snuck of the sweet library!

After finishing inside, we walked around the gardens. I saw a sign labeled "Kangaroo Enclosure", but Gerald and Sam just laughed at me and said there was no way there could possibly be kangaroos there.

Why would there possibly be kangaroos in the "kangaroo enclosure"?!

We did walk to le hameau, a sort of ancient playground for rich people, with cute little cottages and a fun man-made island that we climbed on. It was beautiful and we had practically the whole place to ourselves.

Walking around le hameau.

On the way out, I made one last attempt for the kangaroos, but was talked out of it. Very sad.

We then wandered back into the center of town where we found a great little restaurant and grabbed a late lunch/early dinner. I had a croque bacon, which was basically a croque monsieur but instead of gross, disgusting ham, they put bacon in it! It was wonderful. And then of course, we got ice cream with whipped cream (the French word for whipped cream is chantilly, because surprise, surprise, it was invented there!). It was delicious.

Chantilly!

Then we walked back to the train station and headed home, full and exhausted. When we got back to La Fondation, I jumped on-line and found out that there weren't kangaroos there, but there were WALLABIES (apparently "kangourou" means both wallaby and kangaroo)! So upset.

And now I've got to do some of this homework so that tomorrow night I'll be able to hit up a jazz club/go see the sunset from Montmartre for my Lit presenation! Au revoir, mes amis!

Lame, lame, lame, lame, lame!

2009-01-23T08:28:00.004Z

France apparently cures me of my long-term illnesses: my random bouts of nausea, stomach issues, etc. (which, by the way, came back when I was home for break, albeit on a much smaller scale), which fools my immune system into thinking that it can go on vacation, and so I am bombarded with head cold after head cold. At least, I was in Grenoble. And if this little sniffle/cough/sneeze thing morphs into something, I'm pretty sure it's going to be the same old routine here.

Anyway, I am clearly bitter about this and so am not going to tell you what I did yesterday. Also, I didn't do anything yesterday except go to class and take a nap to try to stave off aforementioned diseases. So there, I did tell you. Happy?

I love Paris, I promise!

Update of Today in List Form parce que je suis fatigue!

2009-01-20T22:24:00.003Z

1. went to Travaux Practiques. Our professor seems nice, but we have tons of work to do! For Thursday I must translate my resume into French, write a cover letter for my (as of now) undetermined internship and do some grammar exercises.

2. Went shopping for some essentials: tissues, paper towels, notebooks, folders, etc. Then bought Bienvenue Chez les Ch'tis, that crazy movie I talked about last semester and that is not available in the US anywhere. So. I'm very happy. Also it was not too expensive and I had a lovely chat with the check out guy about how the American remake with Will Smith will probably not be anywhere near as good as the original. Mais "on verra"!

3. Went back to BU center for a conference that was scheduled at the exact time of the inauguration. Luckily, they pushed back the conference and set up the big screen so that we could watch the speech. However, before that we were crowded around a tiny computer in the professors' room and Sam and I were trapped behind these heinous girls who kept making fun of Aretha Franklin and whispering and giggling to each other (and oh my gosh, one of them was actually twirling her hair. I kid you not.) and saying things like "the only reason I wanted to watch this was to see what Michelle Obama is wearing" and "Why isn't [Obama] smiling? Shouldn't he be happy?" UGH. I am SURROUNDED by MORONS (this idiocy is the main reason living at La Fondation is not so wonderful. I will eventually talk about this, I promise. For now, I will just tell you that my entire hallway is filled with BU girls and that they've already brought home French guys and the walls here are really, really thin. Get the picture?)

4. The conference itself, on the education system in France, was completely pointless, as we are following an American program and the professors here have been forced to adapt to our way of grading/teaching/etc. Also it was really dull and, as Sam put it, Obama's inauguration speech was kind of a hard act to follow.

5. Bought plane tickets to Prague for Spring Break! Very excited!

Alright, time to shove the earplugs in (thank you, Trevor!) and hit the sack! A demain!

Sunday & First Day of Classes

2009-01-19T18:10:00.003Z

Woke up really late on Sunday since after our night of Jazz I was so excited that I couldn't sleep for a good 2 hours, and then as soon as I climbed into bed (vers 4h00), all the girls on my floor decided to come back too. Awesome.

So, I woke up really late on Sunday, took a shower and then was lounging about checking my e-mail when Trevor sent me a text message saying "Gershwin concert at 4?!" Clearly, I was so down, but unfortunately I had, like, no time at all. However, we made it and got fantastic seats in this tiny club.

The music was phenomenal! There was a bassist, a pianist and a drummer. It was wonderful. Absolutely fantastic. So mind-blowingly cool that we decided that we were going to come back at 21h00 for the "jam session". So we got dinner at this so-so restaurant, went to a cafe for a bit and then went back. The drink prices had been jacked up, but admission was free so it evened out.

We got home early(ish) so as to get a good night's sleep in before our first day of class.

I had my two electives today: art history and literature. They both seem pretty excellent. The literature class seems like a hefty amount of work, but the readings seem really fantastic. I'm excited to get started.

Tomorrow I have my Travaux Practiques, so we'll see how that goes! I imagine it will be fun.

I'm off to dinner at the cafétéria! A plus tard, j'espère!

"Dude, we're in a jazz club in Paris!"

2009-01-18T12:41:00.006Z

So, yesterday was one of the best days of my life (I have a feeling I'm going to have a lot of those here). Gerald and I went out around noon to meet up with the 3 other girls in our group for our scavenger hunt around Belleville. Belleville is France's most diverse district (le 20eme arrondissement) as there are lots of immigrants. Some of the streets the paper sent us down were not so pretty and were probably not places you'd want to be walking alone at night, mais ca va. There was some cool grafitti.
Some cool artwork (?) on one of the sketchy streets in Belleville

On our scavenger hunt we saw the house were Edith Piaf was born, we bought croissants, we found this park with a gorgeous panoramic view of Paris (unfortunately it was pretty overcast and we could barely see the Eiffel tower) and we saw a nice church.

Where Edith Piaf was born.

The Panoramic view!

The pretty cool church

The final stop on our scavenger hunt was Pere Lachaise cemetary. This was on my personal list of places to go/things to see while I was here, so I was pretty excited. However, it was not as cool as I expected, and I don't know if I'm going to go back to see the graves we missed yesterday (Chopin, Champollion, Proust, etc.). We DID see: Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf and Oscar Wilde. So that was cool. Although Jim Morrison's grave was uber lame after hearing so much about it and about all the craziness surrounding it. Also, the Doors suck.

Jim Morrison. So unimpressive, right? What's the big deal? Get over it, he was an idiot.

Oscar Wilde, on the otherhand, was an actual genius, and he deserves all the kisses that are planted on his grave.

After our scavenger hunt, we met the rest of the program near Place de la Republique in the 3eme arrondissement and saw a hysterical play, Couscous aux Lardons, which was about a French catholic and Arab couple.

Then Sam, Gerald and I headed out to meet Mark Anthony and Trevor in the 6eme arrondissement for some jazz! Unfortunately, the place we found wasn't opening until 11 o'clock, so we had some time to kill. We wandered around the 6eme, strolled into the 7eme and finally settled down at this pretty upscale restaurant (I hadn't realized it was such a ritzy neighborhood!), where I ordered French fries, a fondant au chocolat and a kir. Delicious.

We killed at least an hour and a half sitting in this lovely restaurant and didn't end up paying that much, which was exciting. We then headed back to the jazz club, which was the coolest place ever! It was a hole-in-the-wall place called Chez Papa, and the atmosphere was incredible! We ordered a bottle of Rose and just sat and listened to this fantastic jazz trio. It was so unreal. And also relatively inexpensive, so we're definitely going to go back!

I think I may have made a wrong choice in choosing la Fondation...I'll talk about it later, I'm too exhausted now.

2009-01-16T22:48:00.006Z

Had a bunch of orientation crap today, Sam and I went out for a pretty decent lunch (steak frites et un fondant au chocolate!) and then we went back for more orientation stuff. Orientation was so tiring. I'm so glad it's over. Tomorrow we have a little scavenger hunt with a few kids from our language class, and Gerald and I are in the same group so that should be fun.

After orientation stuff, we had two hours to kill before meeting up with the group to see a movie. So Gerald, Sam and I found the theater and then wandered around that arondissement (le 5eme in case you were curious). We kind of stumbled upon Notre Dame, which was exciting and we got some pretty awesome pictures. Quote of the day: We were standing, staring at the back of the cathedral, which is terrible impressive, and Gerald says, "Whenever I see things like this, I'm always like 'Wow, this is really pretty'. And then I'm always like 'Wow, what a waste of money'."

We met the program at this quaint little indie movie theater on a cobblestone street and we watched Paris, je t'aime, a film composed of a bunch of little vignettes (Sam kept using that word and I think it's pretty excellent) made my different directors. I liked the majority of them and overrall I think it was a fantastic film. I'm definitely going to have to watch it at the end of the semester too, just to see if I can find more places I recognize.

After the movie we went out for a crepe dinner with the program, which was delicious. Although my butter and sugar dessert crepe was burnt. Sad. But check out our new friends! See? I told you we had some!

Second Real Day in Paris!

2009-01-15T17:43:00.003Z

Went to orientation today (it takes about 25 minutes to get to BU's office from our dorm) and took a fun placement test. Sam and I both placed into the higher level and so we're able to take two electives. I'm taking a literature course and an art history. Literature should be really fascinating and I'm taking art history to acquire some sort of appreciation for paintings, etc, because I really am just not a fan, and I probably should be. At least while I'm in Paris.

After orientation stuff, Sam and I went out for a lovely walk. We walked down le Champs de Mars and all around the Eiffel Tower. We got some fabulous pictures. Here's a sampling:

We're probably going to grab dinner at the cafeteria on campus here because it's ridiculously inexpensive. We ate there last night with some new friends (yes, we've made some! It's very exciting!) and while it wasn't exactly Dad or Christine's home cooking, it was edible. And did I mention that it's incredibly cheap?

Je suis a Paris!

2009-01-14T17:08:00.005Z

Bonjour mes amies!

I'm in Paris! We got here yesterday after a decent flight, but we were so exhausted that after running out to find a baguette for dinner, we collapsed at 19h30 and slept for a full 12 hours.

I'm living in la Fondation des États Unis at Cite Universitaire in the 14eme arrondissement. It's a lovely building and the common areas are absolutely gorgeous, but the individual chambres leave something to be desired. However, it is a dorm and I shouldn't be spending that much time here anyway.

My desk area.

My sink

My bed. Check out the blanket I stole from AirFrance!

Today we went to the BU center (which is huge and absolutely gorgeous!) and we did some orientation stuff. Then we had lunch and went on a bus tour of the city, which was really fun. I got a few decent pictures, but the lighting wasn't so good.

This program is a lot bigger than Grenoble (60 students compared to the 23 last semester) and so it's a lot different. Also, none of the program people are speaking French to us (they're trying to "ease us into French life") so it's really weird.

Mais ca va! Everything is pretty good (except my internet, which keeps cutting off on me and rendering my AIM useless) and I just bought some Etorki and so am completely content!

The Last Supper

2008-12-18T09:25:00.008Z

I forgot to tell you about our last meal with Claude and Christine!

Sam and I head down on Tuesday night around 18h30. We met Christine in the kitchen and got down to business. On the menu was: some type of winter salad, salmon and ravioles lasagna and chocolate tart. I worked on the salad (also Claude had to come slice some veggies with this sweet gadget that Christine doesn't know how to use, and doesn't WANT to know how to use, since it gets Claude in the kitchen) while Sam worked on the lasagna, and then we both worked on the cake. Here are some pictures of the prep work:

Sam preparing the raviole/salmon lasagna!

Claude using his crazy shredding thing.

Sam and Christine working on the cake.

Christine using the food processor!

Pouring the cake into the mold.

After preparing the food (we finished around 20h30), we went into the salon for our apperatif. Christine broke out a bottle of champagne and we chatted with her mother who came to eat with us, which was very nice. Claude was, of course, fiddling with the music, and he actually broke out Christine's old records and put them on. It was fun. Also Christine gave us each a CD of classic (unfortunately, English) love songs as a Christmas/going-away present.

Sam and Plume!

Champagne!

Sam with the petit cadeau!

Have I ever mentioned that I love the Bee Gees?

We went to the table around 21h00. At some point during the meal, I turned to Claude and said, "This is the last time you'll be able to make fun of me!" and he shook his head, all seriousness, and said "Oh no. I will send you e-mails."

La table!

The delicious salad!

Sam with the finished product!

The cake!

We came upstairs around midnight. It was a great evening, and I will really miss eating with them.

Farewell

2008-12-17T23:44:00.005Z

I took my last exam today. Overall, they were not bad. My grades are going to at least be decent this semester and even if they're a little below usual, I'm not really concerned. It was totally worth it.

Julia and I spent the equivalent of 5 consecutive days together this semester in our Travaux Practiques class. It will be sad/strange without her next semester. 10 hours a week is a lot.

We had our last dinner together at Marie-Eve's apartment tonight. I was not very upset/sad to leave. I've made a lot of friends here this semester, but to be honest, there are also a lot of people I'm really happy about never having to see again. Is that mean?

I thought I would be a lot more excited to come home, now that the end is really near. Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm really happy about seeing everyone and being able to sleep in my bed and drink water with ice cubes, but right now I'm just so tired from...well, from the whole experience I guess. I would say it's post-exam exhaustion, but honestly, I didn't study as hard as I could have/would have if I were at BU. I actually don't know what's come over me, but I've just become completely apathetic.

Haha, alright, not completely. I am very sad to be leaving Grenoble and all the friends I've made here, particularly the ones who don't go to BU and who the chances of me seeing again are slim to none, no matter how much they try to pretend otherwise. But I guess that's what facebook is for, right?Eric and Kristen, students at St. Mike's and Johns Hopkins, respectively. Who I will never see again (they get very angry and both promise that they're coming to Boston, but I'm just being realistic, if not a little pessimistic).

Sorry this was probably not the best mood in which to blog, but I said I'd update on Wednesday, and I'm a girl who keeps her word.

Finals. I'll update on Wednesday.

2008-12-14T21:57:00.000Z

Mmm...pancakes...

2008-12-10T18:15:00.003Z

A few days ago, one of the Chinese students in our Travaux Practiques class gave us some gorgeous chopsticks (called baguettes in French!) from China as a little Christmas gift. We thought this was extremely nice, as we'd only spoken to her a few times before, and so we invited her to our little "American breakfast" date.

So this morning, because our class was cancelled (Madame is in the hospital again, so yesterday was our last class with her, which was very sad) we trudged to Julia's house (it snowed again! and continued snowing all day long!) and made some pancakes and scrambled eggs. Julia and I had managed to find some maple syrup at the grocery store, and it was actually really good. It was Yu's first time trying all of the food mentioned above, so it was very exciting.

2008-12-07T09:32:00.003Z

Last night I ate dinner with the Parks (the family of the girl I tutor). It was excellent. Mrs. Park cooks the most delicious food! She made this kiwi salad dressing that was out of this world. She promised she'd send me the recipe, so I'm definitely going to try to make it back home. Also we had macaroni and cheese with shrimp and then we had spaghetti with shrimp and some unidentifiable mollusk.

After eating, Ha-jeong put on a little concert (she plays violin), which was really really excellent. She's been taking lessons since she was 6, so it was very impressive. Her little sister, You-shin then decided that she wanted to perform too, so she sang a song for us.

After the concert, the girls came up to me with a Zara bag and were like, "open it!" I pulled out a Korean Christmas card, in which Ha-jeong had written:

Hi Jillian,
It's Ha-jeong
I am very happy to know you
I had lots of fun with you these past months
We can still chat on MSN
I am sure that we will see each other again one day
We will send each other cards, stickers and other things
This present is a souvenir of us
This card too.
I hope you have a merry Christmas and a happy new year.
Say hello to your family.
We wish you the best of luck with your studies.
Gros bisous xxxx,
(You-shin drew you a picture)
Ha-jeong

I translated it from French, so some of it might sound awkward. But isn't that the sweetest thing you've ever read in your life? "Yes" is the answer. But oh no, it does not end there! The girls continued with their, "open it, open it!" and so I looked into the bag to find this really nice box, which contained this really gorgeous floral tissue paper which was wrapped around this amazing jewelry box. I was speechless. Apparently this is a traditional Korean gift, boxes with shell inlays. It was absolutely incredible. Oh and then they also gave me a Christmas ornament of traditional Korean dress shoes. It was really way too nice.

OH! So the story I wanted to post about tutoring.

So Thursday, Ha-jeong shows me a card she got from her grandmother in Korea. It's in English. The front is all pink and sparkly and it says "On your birthday, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for being such a great daughter..."

"Can you translate it for me?" Ha-jeong asked.

"Oui, bien sur!" I responded, and did so. Then I opened the card. Written in huge letters is the end of the sentence: "...and waiting until after I'm dead to have SEX." After the printed bit, Ha-jeong's grandmother had written a bunch of stuff in Korean. I was flabbergasted.

"Does your grandmother speak English?!" I asked, already knowing the answer. "I'm sorry Ha-jeong but I cannot translate this for you. It's not a card for kids."

Haha I was so surprised and then of course, I couldn't stop laughing for a good five minutes because the situation was just so funny. The girl is 10 years old, and the poor grandmother! Oh, if she knew what she'd sent! But the thing is, the word "sex" is the same in French, so I'm pretty sure Ha-jeong has a general idea. But oh, it was hysterical. After dinner last night when the girls left the room I brought it up, and we laughed about it, because Mr. Park knows a decent amount of English, and so he got the meaning of the whole thing right off the bat. Good times.

Florence Post

2008-12-06T15:49:00.012Z

Friday, November 28th

Woke up to snow! Everyone had told us that we wouldn't see snow in downtown Grenoble, but when I threw my shutters open circa 8 am, I was hit in the face with a mini blizzard. We probably had about an inch and a half on the ground and Sam and I were uber excited until we remembered that we were leaving for the weekend.

We hopped on our train around 9h30. It took an hour to get to Chambery, where we waited 20 minutes before getting on our train to Milan. We had been sitting next to these mad annoying Italian people for about half an hour when an announcement was made: due to "material problems", we were stopping at this platform in the middle of nowhere and waiting for another train. It wasn't that bad though, it wasn't too cold, there were pretty mountains and we only had to wait about 15 minutes. And when we got on the new train, we were no longer sitting next to the obnoxious Italian people. So it was probably all for the best.

A little while later they stopped the train again at this little depot (where it was snowing like crazy!) and we were concerned, but it turned out they were just checking passports.

We got to Milan 55 minutes late and raced to the board to find our train to Firenze. There wasn't one. "Oh no, we've msised our train!" was immediately what I thought, but we still raced around, hoping for the best. Five people told us five different things and none of them actually seemed to know what they were doing. Finally we found a customer service booth and showed them our ticket. We were supposed to board the train for Napoli, which we should have gotten from the little "N" on our ticket. Luckily said train to Napoli was 20 minutes behind schedule and so we were able to make it.

When we finally got to Florence (around 20h30), it was raining. We decided to take a cab to the hostel instead of walking or searching for a bus route. Clare asked the driver to reccommend a place for dinner and he pointed out "the Yellow", whih was only a five minute walk from our hostel.

The hostel was really nice and we seemed to be the only people there. Our room was big with an old fashioned bed (and another single bed crammed in the corner) and a big armoire.

We were pretty hungry and it was already 9, so we dumped our stuff on the beds and headed out to "The Yellow". We were seated at one end of a big table, and shortly after, a group of three guys (we guess they were aged 27-35) were seated at the other end . Immediately, one of the guys (who kind of looked like my 8th grade math teacher) asked us where we were from and starting chatting. By the end of dessert, all three of them had moved to our end of the table and were talking with us.

Note: Everything people say about Italian men being very forward/kinda sketchy/touchy-feely is absolutely true.

There guys didn't seem too skethcy and we made it pretty clear that we were not going to go out dancing and drinking with them afterwards, so it was just nice to have a conversation. The guy who attached himself to my side (his name was Simone) taught me some Italian vocab and I even got him to go over some grammar! Very exciting. When we were leaving, he gave me his e-mail address and then said, very dramatically, "write me!" as I walked away. Definitely one of the funniest moments of my life.

But! I forgot to talk about the food! We were all really excited to get pasta our first night in Italy. I ordered gnocchi (pronounced [gnyuki], according to our Italian friends), Sam ordered spaghetti and Clare got ravioli with a butter sauce. It was all delicious, but the gnocchi was by far my favorite.

I suppose I should also mention the dessert. I didn't get any since I was absolutely stuffed, but I did try a bie of Clare's tiramisu and Sam's "bongos" and both were absolutely fantastic.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel where we collapsed.

Saturday, November 29th

We woke up around 7h, took showers and were out on the streets around 8h15. We bought some excellent croisants (Sam's was filled with nutella, mine with cream and Clare's with rasperry jam) and then we walked towards the Ufizi, but got distracted by the Piazza de la Signoria. It was incredible. Absolutely magnificent. We walked around there for half an hour before heading to the Ufizzi museum. Everyone had told us to get there really early because as soon as the doors open, there's a huge line and you have to wait for hours, but there was absolutely no one there. We walked right in.

The museum was incredibly impressive. You could spend weeks in there and still not see everything. We got to see some Boticelli (like The Birth of Venus) and some Da Vinci and one Michelangelo. My favorite was a painting by Boticelli, The Calumny of Apelles.

But my favorite part of the musem was a room called "Niobe". It was this grand hall with really high ceilings. In the hall there were around a dozen marble statues of people and these huge paintings. They told the story of Niobe, a woman who boasted that she had more children than the goddess Leto. This of course infuriated the gods, who subsequently killed all of her children. There was a sculpture for each one of the children and a sculpture of Niobe, attempting to protect her youngest daughter. It was very impressive. Pictures were forbidden, but I found one on Google.
After the Uffizi, we walked to the Duomo, which was absolutely gorgeous in the daylight. We then decided to climb the 463 steps up to the top. About 5 minutes into the climb I decided I hated it (the stairs were narrow and twisting and it felt like they went on forever) and was about to have a panic attack when heureusement we found ourselves on a landing with a few museum pieces. The rest of the climb was the same-- just when you felt like you couldn't go on, a big window would appear or you'd find a landing.

And then just like that we were inside the dome. It was incredible. The painting was so intricate and complicated, we wanted to stay there for hours, but unfortunately there were people pushing past us in the narrow corridor so we had to continue. Up, up and up we went, inside the rounded ceiling of the dome. It was kind of sketch climbing up with tons of people coming down the same narrow stairwell, but the view from the top was well worth the terror. It was absolutely incredible. And when we got to the top, it was noon, and so church bells started ringing out all across the city. C'etait merveilleux. Here, I took a video. Very exciting. Actually, I took two videos. One has my fun and yet incredibly awkward narration. The other is just a rather shaky panorama.

We stayed at the top for about 15 minutes or so and then we headed back down. We were then able to see the opposite side of the (inside of) the dome and we also were able to stand off to the side for a good extra 15 minutes so we could stare some more. It really was amazing.

After walking all the way back down, we walked around to what we then realized was the front of the cathedral. We were not prepared for the facade at all. It was absolutely gorgeous.

Just opposite the facade was St. John's baptistry (where Dante was baptized) which had these gorgeous golden doors that we looked at for a few minutes before realizing that we were starving. So we went and found a pizza place that was delicious. I discovered that salami picante is basically the equivalent of pepperoni.

After lunch we got some gelato and then ambled along towards the Accademia di Belle Arti, where Michelangelo's David is. I was a little leery of the 10€, because seriously? One statue? 10€? I mean, there was other artwork, but no one was really there for that.

So we walk in and Sam looks at the map of the museum. "Okay, so if we walk through this room and then go down this hall, the David is all the way at the end here, so do you guys want to head that way?" Clare and I are all for this and so we go through to the next room, see some half-finished sculptures and then Sam says, "Oh wow."

"What?" Clare asks, as she and I both turn to see what Sam is looking at. And right there, at the end of this very very short hallway that looks much longer on paper, is this gargantuan, wonderful sculpture. We spent half an hour gazing at the David, and then 20 minutes wandering through the rest of the museum, which really just could not compare. I can't describe how amazing it was. Even writing about it now, I've got the chills. And I'm not really a huge art person. Also, sorry for the lack of pictures, but you know, they're kind of forbidden. Sam managed to sneak one, I'll see if I can steal it.

After leaving the Accademia, we made our way to Santa Croce, which I was souped for because, you know, I would be In Santa Croce with No Baedecker. The basilica was pretty impressive in and of itself, and the tombs of Michelangelo, Dante and Galileo were really interesting.

By the time we left Santa Croce, it was dark, but we wanted to walk to the Ponte Vecchio. So we walked along the Arno until we got to this famous covered bridge. It was magical. The bridge was lined with tres expensive jewelry shops and decorated with Christmas lights, so it was like the entire thing was sparkling. We walked up one side of the bridge, window shopping, and then back down the other. It was really fun.

After this we were exhausted, as we'd been on our feet since approximately 8h00, so we headed back to the hostel, where we relaxed for a good 45 minutes before heading out to dinner. We found a place by Santa Croce (only a 3 minute walk from our hostel) and ordered more pasta and some Chianti. It was delicious. I had tortellinis with meat sauce and then for dessert this delicious cheesecake.

We then headed back to the hostel and went to bed.

Sunday, November 30th

Woke up early again (7h20) and headed out to the Medici palace. We had the choice of visiting either the gardens or the mansion, but because the mansion also contained a modern art museum, we opted for the gardens. Which was definitely an awesome choice.

Of course, as soon as we entered the garden, it started to rain. But it wasn't too bad, Sam and Clare had an umbrella and I was quite content in my hood. Maybe it was because of the rain, or maybe it was because of the early hour, but we had the entire garden to ourselves. It was incredible. There were fountains and hidden sculptures and secret paths and stairs and benches and it was just unbelievable. And there was no one else there! We wandered around for an hour and a half and got completely soaked, but it was so worth it. It was probably the best part of the trip.

After leaving the gardens, we walked into a little bit of a museum inside the mansion. We weren't sure if we were allowed in, but no one stopped us, so whatever. We saw some of Galileo's instruments and a bunch of maps and things. It was pretty neat.

After squelching through the little museum, we walked back out onto the streets, only to find that the Florentine Marathon had begun. We were basically trapped on the wrong side of the street, but it was cool cause we got to watch the marathon for about 15 minutes, until we saw a gap in the runners and then bolted across the street.

We walked to the market, did some Christmas shopping and then headed to catch our train.

We got back to Grenoble vers 22h30. And that's about it!

I have tons more photos. They can be found here and here.

Mes parents d'acceuil me manqueront beaucoup

2008-12-04T23:27:00.003Z

So Claude's favorite thing is to make fun of me, which I'm totally okay with because he does it out of love, obviously. Also it's hysterical. But today, it crossed a line.

Scene: Sam and Jill are being very giggly and silly at the Cours du Cuisine. Jill realizes that Christine is staring at her. She stops.

Christine: Jillian est déchainée!
Jillian is crazy/has gone wild. literally: Jillian is unchained.

Claude: Comment?
What?

Christine: Jillian est déchainée!

Claude: Qu'est ce qu'elle a fait comme bêtise encore?
What stupid/foolish thing has she done now?

I died. Hysterical.

OH! Also. Remind me to write my story about tutoring. I really want to write it now but I've got to finish this project for tomorrow! A demain, j'espère!

I know, I know...

2008-12-03T22:30:00.003Z

I haven't posted in a while, I'm sorry. I've been trying to finish my accent project. After this Friday I will have enough time to write about Florence, I promise.

We just watched this fantastic French film though. Enjoy.

Thank You!

2008-11-26T18:14:00.004Z

Um so I got an EXCELLENT package today! Mike sent me the Ryan's (oh I'm sorry-- Fishing with Finnegan's) CD! I was so excited that Claude and Christine asked if I wanted to listen to it on their sound system, which of course I did. They were very impressed. It is super good. You all should listen to some demo tracks on their website.

"That Al Gore guy doesn't know what he's talking about!"

2008-11-25T20:16:00.003Z

Last week Eric invited Sam and I to this "experimental music" concert/show. We thought it could be interesting, and were all for it. So today we get on the tram, meet Eric and he tells us that he neglected to read the French description (only the English bit at the bottom) and it turns out that this show is for ages 4+. We decide that we fall into the "+" category, so what the hell.

When we get to the place, it's like a family center and all the children look like they're 4-, so we're kind of alarmed. But we buy tickets anyway and get ready for the show.

Oh my god. I can't even describe how strange it was. There were three people on stage: a woman with this weird instrument who kept chanting/making strange noises, a drummer and a guy with a laptop. In the middle of the stage was this large screen that displayed this horrible video which alternated between shots of a badly animated polar bear and an elephant figurine and actual footage of icebergs/jungles. It was like watching a kid playing with his action figures in the bathtub.

At about halfway through I just started giggling uncontrollably. The polar bear was floating down the Amazon or whatever and the elephant was zooming along in her lotus flower and the woman was making crazy motor boat noises and it was all just too much. I couldn't stop laughing. I started saying "Sorry, I love you baby, but I just can't smile," over and over again (I HATE being in the middle!) and that would work for a few minutes, but then I'd see Sam's shoulders start to shake or hear Eric snort, and then I was off again. It was bad.

Afterwards we all kind of just looked at each other and were like, "um?". Eric thinks that the morale of the story is that global warming won't drown the polar bears because flying elephants will save them. Sam thinks that it was a terrifying portrayal of the world and all its problems. i think it was a complete waste of time. And 6€.

Haha oh but no, it was totally worth it for the laughs. I will never ever forget Nanuq and Ganesh!

And aren't you just uber lucky? I found an excerpt for you! Wow...it looks semi-normal.

Cours de Cuisine et Vendredi Soir!

2008-11-22T11:50:00.004Z

Evan cooked the entrée: un quiche.

Julia cooked the plat principal: boudin (blood sausage) Note her expression.

Close up!

Rachel made the dessert: pears and ice cream covered with this delicious chocolate sauce

Friday night we went to Memento for our soon-to-be weekly Fajitas and 'Ritas dinner. It was delicious. Clare and Jillian (yes, I have a friend named Jillian! Very exciting!) were going dancing and so the rest of us decided to join. We went to Bukana Pub in centre ville, where Brittany kept being approached by sketchy French guys, and so she told them that I was her very jealous lesbian lover. Which kind of worked, except one of the guys thought I looked too "relaxed and nice" to be really jealous, so for the rest of the night I had to have this crazed scowl on my face. It was pretty hysterical. Then we went to a discotheque called Le Vieux Manoir which was looked like it was in a dungeon. It was cool, but I wasn't a huge fan of the music. Around 3h30, Jillian and I were too exhausted to dance anymore, so Sam and the two of us headed home. It was definitely a good night.

Pronounciation Exercise

2008-11-20T06:30:00.002Z

Chez les Papous, il y a des Papous papas et des Papous pas papas et des Papous à poux et des Papoux pas à poux. Donc, chez les Papous, il y a des Papous papas à poux et des Papous papas pas à poux et des Papous pas papas à poux et des Papous pas papas pas à poux.

He's not really my type. What is your type, ugly?!

2008-11-19T21:53:00.005Z

We went to the office tonight for the Paris program meeting/interview/dinner. It was a lot of fun. The interview went great, the woman was really nice and really helpful. Apparently there are tons of options for an internship in languages, but she split them into three categories:

1. translation
2. teaching
3. language and cultural exchange programs

She asked me to order them in terms of my interest, but I am so torn. I have time to think about it, so if you have any ideas, please, let me know.

After the interview, I was sitting in the office waiting for Sam to finish before the meeting when all of a sudden I hear "Jillian Flood!". I sat up straight. What the hell? Then the voice shouted "Smithfield, Rhode Island!" Everyone was staring at me. Then Marie-Eve came in and was like "Viens-ici!" so I got up and went into her office, completely befuddled. She then introduced me to the program director for the Paris program, Renee, who was like (in English!) "Guess where I'm from?" and I was like "uhh I don't know?", (but in my head I was thinking, Rhode Island, obviously) and she was like, "Lincoln!" It was CRAZY. We chatted about home for a bit, and it was so nice. She's really friendly and I think next semester will be tons of fun. It's such a small world.

We then all went out to a fondue place for dinner. It was great. All we had to eat was bread and cheese, but it was incredibly delicious. And then for dessert, Sam and I decided (okay, I kind of coerced her into it) to split a "Mr. Jekyll" which was described as a "lobotomy". Basically, it was like an ice cream surprise. We were kind of nervous, especially when we thought the waitress asked us if we were vegetarians after ordering it (it turns out she actually asked us if we were allergic to anything). It turned out to be really gross, but not in a it-had-meat-and-other-things-that-don't-belong-in-ice-cream-in-it sort of way. It was just weird, with gross candies and tons of fruit and some kind of liquor and blech. We did get some excellent pictures though.

After this we headed home. While waiting at Chavant, Sam and I were hit on by some sixteen year olds. These guys sit down next to us and start talking English. So we kind of humor them and answer their questions, etc. Then their other friend wearing this hideous blue track suit (what is with the French guys thinking that track suits are attractive?) saunters over and the guys on the bench are like "Hey! These girls are American!" and so he comes over to talk to us. He asks us how old we are and then he asks us if we know some singer, who we don't. Then he says, "Oh because he says in English, "I want to fuck you", and I want to fuck you." He laughs and is like "Oh no, just kidding" and hits me on the arm as I grimace rather politely and we walk away.

THEN we're sitting on the tram, and some guy sits down next to me. I am talking to Sam and do NOT look at this guy, because I can tell that he is staring at me, and making eye contact only invites conversation. And after our last French male interaction, Sam and I weren't exactly feeling friendly. So I kept talking, hoping that if I didn't stop, this guy would never get a chance to interrupt. Unfortunately, I ran out of things to say, and he butted in. Sighing internally, I turned to look at him and I almost screamed. IT WAS THE SKETCHY MOROCCAN MAN WHO WAS HITTING ON ME LIKE A MONTH AGO AND WHO I GAVE MY E-MAIL ADDRESS TO IN A PANIC BEACUSE I COULDN'T THINK FAST ENOUGH TO INVENT A FAKE ONE AND WHO E-MAILED ME TWO TIMES BEING REALLY SKETCHY AND TO WHICH I NEVER RESPONDED, OBVIOUSLY, BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO END UP ON A MILK CARTON. Oh my god. Longest 5 minute tram ride of my life. Luckily he didn't talk that much. But seriously. Just my luck.

2008-11-18T18:42:00.004Z

I am feeling sick again, which is very exciting and fun. It's actually not too bad, I just feel feverish and gross.

But last night we went out for Anna's birthday. She turned 21, which was kind of sad because it just doesn't matter here. But I took a picture for her anyways. We went to L'atmosphère, where we (when in doubt, we = Sam and I) ate with Kristen and Gerald a few weeks ago. It was delicious. I got the same thing as last time: salmon on a bed of ravioles. So amazing. I'm going to try to find a recipe for homemade dauphinois ravioles for when I come back. I'm not a huge pasta person, but these are just super fantabulous.

Today was alright, nothing very exciting happened. I took a midterm which was TERRIBLE. But I'm not going to moan about it because last time I did that, it turned out I actually owned it. And it was in my FAC class. I got a higher grade than a lot of the French students! Ownage!

Weekend in Alsace

2008-11-16T22:25:00.011Z

Woke up mad early on Friday to get to the bus at 7h15. We were on time. The bus was late. We drove for 2.5 hours, had a stop in some crazy chicken place (Brest) and then got back on the road for another 3 hours. We arrived in Colmar around 13h30 (we were supposed to be there at 12h), where we met Doug (former president of the BULA...I think I mentioned him earlier) who is teaching there. We had half an hour for lunch and then went on a little tour of the town. I don't really know what was so special about it. Apparently there is a big Christmas market, which was just being set up when we were there. Oh, and also the guy who built the Statue of Liberty is from there. Very exciting. I can never remember his name. B-something.

There were a bunch of old buildings and there was a really nice cathedral. It was a pretty cute town. And then we went to a museum to see a "famous" retable. What is a retable? Wikipedia says: "an architectural feature set up at the back of an altar, and generally taking the form of a screen framing a picture, carved or sculptured work in wood or stone". It was very strange, and I wasn't a huge fan. But whatever. Culture, I suppose. Also, no one had heard of it, so we were all kind of wondering just how famous it actually was. I mean, if even Anna and Andrew hadn't heard of it...

We then jumped on the bus and headed off to a little village where we stopped to look at a winery. It was a lot smaller than I expected and there were flies everywhere, but it smelled delicious. I did swallow a bug, which was not fun. And then two landed in my wine glass, which was also not pleasant. But the wine was really really good. They specialized in white wines and it was just rather fantastic.

By the time we left, it was dark. We headed out for the last hour and a half of the bus ride to Strasbourg. When we got there, we had 10 minutes to find our hotel rooms and freshen up before meeting downstairs for dinner. We walked for what seemed like ages, but was actually only probably 20 minutes. Julia and I were chatting, following Patrice and then all of a sudden he brought us around a corner and we both stopped in surprise/shock/awe. Towering above us was the cathedral. It came out of nowhere. And at night it was terribly impressive. I tried to take a picture, but the night setting on my camera is absolute crap. But after that, we were like, "wow, Strasbourg is alright."

This opinion was reinforced by the excellent dinner we (finally) had in the Brasserie. We sat in the basement of what was basically a bar. Monica and I were once again stuck at the not-cool table (i.e. with the adults), but this time we had Sam, Clare and Geoffrey so it was alright. Also Patrice (our academic advisor/history professor) got a little tipsy, which was hysterical. We ate flammekueche, which is basically an Alsacian pizza. It's dough with cheese, ham and onions. Sauerkraut is optional, but strongly recommended. Some of us do not LIKE pickled cabbage however, and chose to be lame and not uber Alsacian. Some of us also do not like beer, and so were not souped about the endless amount of pitchers. This brasserie was an all-you-can-eat place, so the food and drink just kept coming.

And there was a band! It was great. They played American music (good American music!) and we all sang along. It was so much fun.

Then the group of young people next to us clambored onto their table, chanted "un...deux...trois!" and all snorted coke. Clearly inspired, the band burst (2 minutes later, I kid you not) into a rousing rendition of Eric Clapton's Cocaine.

When the band got off to take a half-hour break, we decided to head back to the hotel. There we got into our pjs and Clare, Geoffrey and Julia came over for some cookies and story-telling. It was fun.

I then--best part of the trip!--took a shower for HALF AN HOUR. With SCALDING water. I washed my hair twice, just so I could stay in there longer. It was amazing (if it seems bizarre to you that I am all excited about this, you should know that the French are very water-concious and so showering chez nous is not really encouraged, especially if you're using hot water).

The next day (Saturday) we headed out for a boat tour on the Ill, a river which runs through the city. It was cool and the buildings were gorgeous, but I can't really remember anything of interest that was said, except that Mozart once performed in Strasbourg and that the European Parliament is currently housed there.

After the boat tour, we went inside the cathedral and looked at this mad sweet mechanical clock. At 12:30 different parts of the clock started to move. The creepy figure of death started ringing his bell and then the apostles all moved past Jesus to receive their blessings. It was just really cool, I thought.

We then had some free time, so we went to the market, where Geoffrey tasted some cheese and bought this pear yogurt, and we found a kebab place to eat. Nothing very exciting, I'm afraid.

Then we walked back to the bus and headed home. For 7 hours. Death.

Sunday we slept relatively late, and then ate a delicious raclette for lunch with the family. After eating so much, we didn't really feel like moving, but we were taken country dancing with Christine and Christine! It was so much fun, but it was ridiculous. I have never seen so many cowboy hats in my life! And there was an American flag hanging on the wall and, oh, it was just nuts. Unfortunately, everyone already knew all the steps, so I was lost 95% of the time. Sam, however, is an amazing dancer, and caught on really really fast. I took a video. Muwhaha...

I hope you noticed Christine's fabulous outfit. Just in case you didn't catch it, here you go:
I have tons more pictures of the weekend in Alsace! You can find them here and here.

2008-11-13T14:19:00.004Z

Yesterday was pretty decent. Class was especially excruciating because our regular professor is away on business until next week, and the substitute just isn't as fun.

After class, I went to tutoring, which was fun. Ha-jeong's grandmother sent her some English Brain Quest cards (do you remember those?) and so we went through a bunch of them together. It was a pretty excellent tutoring session: Ha-jeong and I had lots of fun, You-Shin drew me a picture (of me), and the family gave me a bottle of new Beaujolais from the harvest festival.

Sam and I then went to Pasta Via for dinner, which was delicious.

Today has been alright. It's really cold and kind of unpleasant, but I only had class until 10h30 so that was good. Monica came over and we watched some television.

I'm going to tutoring in a little while, and I'm so excited because Dad's package of sour candy just arrived today! I was complaining to Ha-jeong about France's lack of bonbons acides a few weeks ago and it turns out she's never tried sour patch kids, which is just tragic. So. I now have a great package of classic, American, super sour candy. And some not so sour, but just excellent and non-European.

This weekend we are going to Strasbourg. I am not really sure how I feel about this trip. Okay, that's a lie--I'm not looking foward to it. I'll just come out and say it. Why, you ask? Because apparently there is a conference in town and so we are only to stay one night in the hotel. This would not be such a huge deal if it wasn't a 7 hour bus ride. Here's the schedule:

Friday:
7h15 -- leave Grenoble
12h00 -- lunch break in Colmar
15h00 -- wine tasting in Kientzheim
18h00 -- arrive in Strasbourg.

Saturday:
15h00 -- leave Strasbourg
22h00 -- get back to Grenoble

So. It should be interesting. But don't worry, I'll make the best of it.

Today = Blah

2008-11-11T22:58:00.005Z

Last night I went to dinner and then out for a drink with Barbara (my language partner). I tried kir, which Barbara described as a "delicious girly drink". It's made with white wine and blackcurrant liqueur. I was a fan. We had lots of fun, sharing gossip and planning adventures for when I'm in Paris and when she'll be on the east coast. We had made plans to go hiking today, but then the weather turned out to be absolute crap.

Today was just not such a good day. It was pouring and gray, I couldn't concentrate on my schoolwork, I didn't feel like doing anything, etc. etc. Just one of those days.

But can we talk about how cute our host family is? They brought us a mid-afternoon snack!

Vocab Lesson!

2008-11-11T09:17:00.002Z

Our literature professor is always very concerned that we do not understand what she is saying. She very kindly spends a lot of time defining some of the really difficult vocab she uses. I've been writing these words down and now I'm going to share them with you because you'll probably find them interesting. Oh and don't worry, I've written the English equivalent for you!

diplômât -- diplomat
guillotine -- guillotine
métaphore -- metaphor
baroque -- baroque
mythe -- myth
intermédiaire -- intermediary
niche -- niche
ironie -- irony
tragédie -- tragedy
tailler -- tailor
carafe -- carafe
pantomime -- pantomime
manipulation -- manipulation
héros -- hero
personnification -- personification
autobiographie -- autobiography
vocation -- vocation
interprétation -- interpretation
strophe -- strophe
bohémien -- bohemian
péjoratif -- pejorative
fugue -- fugue
rébellion -- rebellion

The Weekend

2008-11-09T22:28:00.004Z

Aloha! Sorry I haven't written in a while. I don't really have an excuse.

Friday night was fun, we went bowling with Claude and Christine (and Christine and Andre, our host parents' friends). We only played one game, and I did terribly. Oh well. It was fun anyways. The French all bowl RIDICULOUSLY. I don't mean ridiculously GOOD, I just mean plain old RIDICULOUSLY. Maybe I will describe them when I have more energy later. I'm pretty zonked right now.

Saturday we went to the wine and cheese tasting at Celine's house. Her husband is a Michelin critic, so he knew what he was talking about. We tried four different wines and a champagne. They were all really good, and the cheese was also all absolutely delicious. Especially the brebis. Mmm...

And today we went to Lyon to see the ballet Romeo and Juliet. Sam and I got there a little early so we could walk around a bit, and we ended up sitting at a kebab shop in the big square for an hour. It was so nice-- the sun was shining, we had a gorgeous view and we felt really European. Besides the fact that we were speaking English and laughing hysterically/obnoxiously.

The ballet however was not so awesome. The outside of the Opera is gorgeous, but the inside is all modern and dark. And the ballet was exactly the same way! The set was weird and futuristic and they cut out like half the play/music/thing. It was very bizarre. If you hadn't read Romeo and Juliet, you wouldn't have been able to follow anything. It just didn't make sense. And the dance was all modern and weird. We were not fans.

Then Monica, Sam and I found a little cafe where we got some hot chocolate and sat for a little bit, before running to catch an earlier train home.

And now I'm sitting here "doing homework". But I'm about to give up in a few minutes and go to sleep.

Sorry this post is not very exciting, I'll write more interesting things this week, I promise!

For more of my pictures from Lyon today, go here.

Cours de Cuisine

2008-11-08T08:07:00.002Z

Lauren and Aly with Plume

Lauren prepared the salad.

Canaan cooked the main dish: chicken, potatoes, artichokes...I'm sure it has some French name, but I don't know what it is.

And Aly cooked the dessert, which was a dauphinois apple cake.

2008-11-06T11:19:00.003Z

For election day, Monica came over and slept on the canape. We woke up at 4h00 (Sam had woken up at 2) and turned on the French TV and then found coverage on CNN.com. We stayed up and then went to class for 10h30. I had bought champagne/candy necklaces/chips for celebration, but after only 4 hours of sleep we all felt pretty gross and didn't end up eating anything.

The day was kind of rough, we were all pretty zonked. But it was totally worth it to watch the speeches and then to watch the French newscasters reactions to everything. The caption on the French TV started out with "Goodbye Mr. Bush!" and then quickly changed to "Good morning Mr. Obama!" Everyone here was so excited. The French love him.

But back to the day after. We struggled through class, and then went to the office where we got some of the Paris program paperwork debacle sorted out. I'm still really nervous because apparently the Paris coordinator sent Marie-Eve an e-mail saying "Oh hey, so I'm going to come meet with the three Grenoble students who are coming to Paris next semester!", to which Marie-Eve swiftly replied. "Umm...what? There are six of them." It's so ridiculous. But now that I've faxed a bunch of stuff in, I'm much less stressed.

Also I went to tutoring, and felt terrible because my brain was NOT functioning and I just couldn't speak. But the family had gone to Switzerland for the weekend, and the bought me a box of Swiss chocolate! So super nice. See? I don't need euros, they pay me in delicious food.

Names I was called this past weekend because the French cannot pronounce (and therefore cannot remember) my name:

2008-11-05T22:16:00.001Z

Joe
Jilliam
Jane
Jessica
Gigi
Gelliane
Jillin
Tisane
Jim
Cheryl

Weekend Update

2008-11-03T21:25:00.004Z

Thursday:

Woke up this morning to find the mountains covered with snow! So gorgeous.

Mary and the kids picked me up around 2 o'clock. We went grocery shopping and bought a bunch of food for the weekend. There was a dead shark on display in the fish section. So strange.

After our shopping adventure, we went to Mary's house, where we ran around packing things, doing laundry and cooking the potatoes for dinner. We left around 6 I think, and we drove to Christophe's work. I then moved to the back of the minivan with Madeline and William and watched Return of the Jedi dubbed in French. It was very bizarre.

We arrived around 9 PM, ate a delicious raclette with Christophe's father. His dad owns two little ski apartments down the hall from each other in a small town called Argentiere, about 10 minutes away from Chamonix. His father (Papi Claude) lived in London for most of his childhood and so his English was flawless, and he had some interesting stories about his contracting polio and biking around France.

After dinner we went to the other apartment, put the kids to bed (they slept in two bunk beds) and I set up my bed in a little nook near the kids. Then Mary, Christophe and I went back to Papi Claude's apartment for a cup of tea before bed.

Friday:

Woke up this morning to Amelia crying "Maman! J'ai eu un accident!" Great start to the day.

I played Polly Pocket (they've gotten a lot bigger since I was a kid) and Legos with the kids while Mary got things together. When everything was set we went for a walk through the town. Not much was open, but the mountains are gorgeous and there wasn't only snow on the slopes, there was snow on the ground! It really felt like winter.

After our walk we came back to the apartment, ate lunch (delicious ravioles) and then I taught Madeline and Edward rummikub while the grown-ups took a nap with Amelia.

After everyone had rested, we went down to Chamonix. It was really cute and the view of the mountains was incredible.

On the way home, we stopped at the micro brasserie, a Canadian-themed brewery/restaurant. It was decorated for Halloween, so the kids were souped. The waitress gave them (and me!) a mask. And the best thing of all was that the food was all American (or Canadian, I suppose): nachos, fajitas and chips w/ salsa. Wow, okay, that just sounds Mexican, not American, but you know what I mean-- no baguettes, no cheese course, etc. It was like what you'd get at Applebee's or Chili's. It was awesome.

After this we were way too stuffed to eat dinner (we had just stopped for apperatifs), so we just went back to the apartment where Mary had a little something planned for Halloween. She had the kids put on their masks and grab a hat and then I took them to Papi Claude's apartment, where Christophe opened the door, wearing a dishtowel as a shawl, pretending to be an old woman. The kids were delighted and he gave them some candy and then they scampered back to the other apartment, where Mary opened the door and gave them some more candy. This went on for 5 minutes or so, until the kids had amassed a pretty decent amount of bon bons. Then everyone settled down with their treats and watched Star Academy, which is pretty much the French equivalent of American Idol. Miley Cyrus and Akon were guest starring. It was bizarre to see them on French TV.

Saturday:

Awoke to Mimi shouting, but luckily there had been no accident. Excellent.

It was William's birthday. He was pretty excited about this.

We decided to go into Italy for the day! We just drove right in, through the Mont Blanc tunnel. Mont Blanc is the tallest mountain in the Alps, and it's right on the border between France and Italy. I'm not a huge fan of tunnels so it wasn't such a good time, but Mimi kept distracting me by asking me to play with her. All weekend she kept asking me "T'es ma copine?" and it was pretty much the cutest thing ever.

It was William's birthday.

We just went to a little town right over the border, called Aosta (Aoste in French). It was nice and we walked around for a bit and then ate at a pizza parlor. Now I can say that I've eaten pizza in Italy, but to be honest, I've had better pizza here in France.

It was William's birthday.

We found this sweet chocolate market in a huge square, but it was kind of overwhelming and I can't speak Italian, so I didn't get anything. Kind of sad. It all looked so amazing.

Did I mention it was William's birthday? You might have forgotten.

After walking around a bit more, we headed back to France. The drive back through Italy was incredible. The views were gorgeous and every five seconds you would see another castle plastered against a cliff. And there were hundreds of vineyards on the mountainsides, all changing colors. It was amazing.

When we got back to France, we wandered around Chamonix a bit more. Since it was William's you-know-what, the kids got to go to the little arcade in town, while I went shopping for a little gift, because I hadn't known that this special special day was this weekend. By the time I returned, the kids had won 10 stuffed animals from the little claw game, and everyone was super excited. I bought William a round of DDR and we both were pretty terrible. But it was very fun.

William really really wanted to go back to the Brasserie with the amazing "American" food, and no one seemed to mind. We ordered onion rings and then Mary and I split the most mouth-watering cheeseburger. It was my first cheeseburger in France and it was probably the best burger I've had in my life. Such a good choice. William then opened his presents and got a piece of chocolate cake. It was lots of fun, but it made me miss my family a little bit.

Sunday:

Last day of vacation! We woke up and decided to go swimming at the town pool. It was such a good idea! The pool was amazing. It was a kids pool, max 4.5 feet deep, but there were sweet things such as a current hidden behind a little wall (we timed ourselves swimming against it, my best was 15 seconds), a bubble shelf and some geysers. It was super fun.

We stayed at the pool for a little over an hour, and then we went back to the apartment where we ate lunch (tartiflette, kind of), packed up the car, cleaned the apartment and then headed out. The drive home was gorgeous. The mountains in this region are absolutely breathtaking.

I have a lot more pictures on my Facebook account, but after working for the YMCA, I have become really paranoid about posting photos of children on the internet, so I've restricted them to friends only.

Rain, rain, go away

2008-10-29T23:45:00.004Z

The weather is disgusting. I am not a fan.

But today wasn't bad! I had ~ 6 hours of class which stunk, but my presentation went pretty well and Sam and I had an awesome lunch at the restaurant on campus, so it was bearable.

After class I went to tutoring, which was fun. I taught her Row, Row, Row Your Boat and we read a page from the book I gave her.

Then I headed to the BU office, where I was surprised to see Doug (last year's president of the Boston University Undergraduate Linguistics Association), who upon graduating in May decided to move to Alsace and become an assistant English teacher in a local high school. He's visiting Grenoble for the weekend, and had stopped at the office to chat with Marie-Eve (he did the Grenoble program a few years ago). It was very strange to suddenly see someone from back home here, but it was kind of reassuring to know that you CAN get a job with an undergraduate degree in linguistics.

Good news! Marie-Eve gave me my grades for Travaux Practiques and she says I'll probably end up with an A! I was souped.

Sam, Monica and I then head out to Clare's house, where she was throwing a little birthday dinner for her mother who is visiting for the week. She and Geoffrey cooked a delicious meal and we sat around the table chatting with Mrs. Murphy (who was super nice) for a while. Then Geoffrey and I spent an hour or so goofing off at the piano, which was fantastic. Mrs. Murphy joined us and shortly everyone was gathered in the living room, belting the lyrics to Piano Man and Tiny Dancer. It was so much fun.

Tomorrow I leave for Chamonix with Mary & Co. I will be back on Sunday! Bon week-end!

Warning: Some Foul Language. Not an excellent day

2008-10-28T22:41:00.005Z

Woke up to pouring rain and large gusts of wind. Did not want to go outside. But did. Because I am a good doobie. Then I broke my 13€ umbrella.

Class was okay. Translation was torture though. I really do not understand why people cannot chew gum quietly. It's really not that hard. If I had my way, I would uninvent gum. No one NEEDS gum. I sure could live without it. Especially if it meant I would never have to suffer through two hours of chomping and popping ever again. Seriously though! It's along the same lines as biting your fork when eating. THIS IS SO EASY TO AVOID, YET EVERYONE DOES IT. AND IT IS THE WORST SOUND IN THE WORLD. IF YOU DO THIS, YOU NEED TO STOP. IT IS TERRIBLE AND NOT CLASSY AND CAN'T YOU FEEL THE AWFUL METAL-SCRAPING-AGAINST-BONE SENSATION?! DOESN'T THAT CREEP THE SHIT OUT OF YOU?! WHY THE HELL DOES THIS NOT BOTHER PEOPLE?! THERE ARE TEARS IN MY EYES RIGHT NOW JUST THINKING ABOUT IT, IT IS SO ABSOLUTELY HORRIFIC AN IMAGE/SENSATION. Seriously. People. It is extremely easy to eat without EVER letting the fork touch your teeth. Why, WHY do you insist on producing this atrocious, bone-chilling sound? (Oh Katie, where are you when I need to rant about the fork-teeth thing? You're the only one who understands.)

After class went grocery shopping with Eric and Kristen and bought way too much junk food. Then went back to Kristen's house, watched a few episodes of the Office and then headed home, where I worked on my exposé until it was time for dinner.

We ate dinner with the fam tonight (the fam plus their two nieces) and it was fun, but not delicious. Some kind of sausage and lentils thing. Not such a fan. Can we talk about the texture of lentils? So gross. But we chatted and it was nice.

After dinner I brought the text for my exposé (a presentation, which I am giving tomorrow) downstairs and Claude helped me correct it. It wasn't too bad and he told me that my French has improved a lot since the start of the semester! Which made my night a lot better. But overall, today still kinda sucked.

2008-10-27T17:12:00.002Z

All the French students have this week off. We do not. However, some of our professors have canceled class, so it's not too bad. I only had one class today, which was fabulous. But since the cafeteria is closed for the week, we had to go into Centre Ville to get lunch.

After lunch I came home to find Christine, her niece Diane (who is staying with us for the week), and Christine's friend Christine (the wording for this sentence was so difficult) at the table playing a game, which they invited me to join. It was called "Oui et Non" and you were asked a serious of bizarre questions like "Is it raining? Do you know if it will rain tomorrow? Do you like the sun or the rain better? Did you say rain? Are you sure?" The thing is that you are not allowed to respond with "oui" or "non", you can't repeat answers and you can't shake or nod your head. It was very hard, but really fun.

Then Diane came upstairs and hung out with me for a bit. She's 10. I let her use my sweet marker-pens (I'll post a picture of them soon, I promise. They're so fabulous) and we chatted while I did some homework and she drew. Then we watched some French TV together. Tomorrow we're all going to eat dinner together, which should be fun.

Day Trip to Lyon

2008-10-26T09:06:00.010Z

Yesterday Sam and I went to Lyon with two girls from my Travaux Practiques, Kristen and Laura. we caught the 9h44 train, and got into the city around 11h15. We then took the metro to Place Bellecour, the largest open square in Europe. The maison du tourisme was there, so we grabbed some maps and then headed off to find a restaurant.

We ended up eating in a quaint little place called La Traboulerie that served traditional Lyonnaise food. Lyon is considered to be the gastronomical capital of France, so we were really excited about eating. Sam got a delicious salmon dish, Laura and Kristen got Gratinee Lyonnaise (basically French onion soup) and a traiditional chicken dish, and I got this amazing grill-it-yourself meat platter. I wasn't expecting it at all, I just ordered "grill boeuf", thinking it would be some sort of steak think, but no. I was given 7 pieces of raw meat and a hot stone with salt on it which I could grill the beef to my own liking. It was really cool and aboslutely delicious. I was a little concerned because they only gave me one set of utensils so I was eating with the silverware that I used for the raw meat, but there wasn't really much I could do about it. And I'm not dead yet.

After lunch we walked to the old portion of the city, where everything is cobblestoned. We went into a few shops and in one ethnic shop I bought an "egg surprise" for 3€ which I will tell you about later.

We also poked our heads into the preview of a miniature museum, which houses miniatures used for various films. The few we could look at for free were amazingly detailed and realisitic. The museum also displays props from movies too, but we couldn't see any without paying.

After wandering around old Lyon, we walked up to the Basilica Notre-Dame de Fourviere, which towers above the city. Along the way we walked through a garden of the rosary, which had gorgeous views, although they were nothing compared to the view at the top.

The inside of the Basilica was stunning. Everywhere there was gold and mosaics and colors. It was incredible. It's a relatively new church, being built at the end of the 19th century, so I suppose that accounts for its immpecable interior. Outside in the courtyard, there was a huge golden statue of Mary enclosed in a glass case. There were a bunch of people around it so we didn't get close enough to read about it.

After that we walked to the Roman ruins. There were a bunch of little tunnel systems and stones everywhere, and of course, there was an amphitheater. We sat here for a while and I opened my "egg surprise" which was amazing. It was basically a huge hollow chocolate egg, and the "surprise" was a toucan finger puppet. It was so incredible. Definitely worth 3€.

We then headed out to find the trompe-l'oeils, optical illusion murals, basically. We walked for a while until we found them, but when we did, it was totally worth it. Here are some pictures:

More pictures of the trip are here.

Cours de Cuisine #4

2008-10-24T09:48:00.004+01:00

This week there were only two students cooking because Rachel stayed home sick. So you'll see Christine carrying out a dish!

For the apperatif we sat in the salon, ate roasted chestnuts and drank cider around the fire.

Max prepared l'entree, a sardine spread of some sort. It was pretty good.

Christine served l'entree: fish filets stuffed with prunes and cheese.

Marion baked the dessert: a yogurt cake.

After dessert, we watched Christine's David Bowie DVD.

And Max and Claude bonded over films.

2008-10-23T05:57:00.004+01:00

I am not sure why I am up so early. I remember my alarm going off, but apparently I was hallucinating. I woke up, got dressed and washed my face, came back into the room and saw that it was 6h20, not 7h20. My alarm is still set to go off at 7h10. I am so confused. But now I'm awake, so might as well update the blog.

Yesterday was pretty great. It was rainy and gross and I had 6 hours of class, but whatever. My Travaux Practiques professor and I are like BFFLs now, I don't know why but we just get along really well. At my mid-semester check-in, Marie-Eve was shocked when I told her that I really liked my professor because apparently all students in the past years have said that she's really strict and kind of mean. I don't see that at all. She was so concerned for my health yesterday, she opened the window in the room and then saw that I was sitting there and was like, "Oh no! You're sick, we don't want to make it worse!" and she shut it. I feel like if you come to class every day, do the work, participate and just generally be nice, she'll like you/be very concerned about your health when you miss class.

Also in Travaux Practiques, Julia and I sat with one of the girls from China, qui s'appele Yu. She taught us how to write our names in Chinese and also she made us little Chinese phrase sheets. It was pretty cool.

After classes, I went to the BU office to drop off some stuff for our projects and to pick up the weekly newsletter. I hung around there for a bit and chatted with Canaan, the program assistant, about eating bone marrow and oysters.

Then I went to tutoring, which was fun. Ha-jeong is being tested on the numbers 1-20, so we did some dictation exercises with ces chiffres. Then she showed me the Christmas catalog, which is basically the Toys R'Us wishbook but French-style. It was awesome! There are some sweet-looking toys out there!

After tutoring, I ate dinner with the family. We had salad and then these two Chinese dishes, one with chicken and one with pork and they were delicious. I asked Boo-young (Mme Park) for the recipe, and she was so excited. Everyone was really impressed that I could eat with chopsticks (thanks, Dyer family!). Then for dessert we had yogurt. We sat at the table for a while, chatting and it was just really nice. The family is great and it's so different to eat dinner with them because I'm so used to the quiet dinner with Christine and Claude. It's a completely different feeling to eat with the kids. It's like being a part of an actual family here. I mean, I'm really happy in this house, and I'm grateful that Claude and Christine give us a lot of independence, but sometimes I think I would enjoy it more if I were living in a house with kids. But then I probably wouldn't be living with Sam, and what would I do without her?!

2008-10-21T21:50:00.005+01:00

The wine tasting and concert on Sunday were great. The evening started with a piece for harpsichord and violin, which I enjoyed. That was followed by a few intense piano pieces, my favorite being Prelude to an English suite. Then there was a pretty excellent cello piece and we went into the foyer for a brief intermission to taste some white Corsican wines. We bought glasses (6€) with Bach's face engraved on them, which allowed us to taste all the wine we wished at the concert and if we bring them with us to other events at the festival (which is going on until Sunday), we won't have to pay again. Very exciting.

After the intermission we returned to our seats and watched this crazy woman play the piano. I have never seen someone play so...enthusiastically. In fact, the only person I've seen come close is Victor Borge. She kept throwing her head back, pretending to sing, conducting herself when she had a hand free, and at one point she actually leapt off her seat! I kid you not! Now I am all for getting into your music, but this woman just looked ridiculous.

After her, there were a few other ensembles, and then we went back into the foyer where we tasted 2 reds, a rose and a white dessert wine. They were all really good, but I couldnt' really detect any distinct scents, so I guess it was a failure. They had all these charts up showing the different parts of the tongue and these huge lists of possible "aromas" in wine, some of the categories being: "vegetal", "animal" and "milk products". Maybe it's a good thing I couldn't smell that much.

To top off our classy night, we grabbed Pizza Hut (hey--it was 21h30 on a Sunday. NOTHING was open!) and came back here to eat.

Yesterday I woke up ill. Again. Very exciting. Nothing really happened, I went to class, etc. etc.

Today I skipped my Travaux Practiques and studied for my midterms. One of which I had today. It was Literature, and it was very very easy. Our professor thinks we're kind of dumb simply because we don't speak French. I will write more about that at a later date.

Sam and I had dinner with Claude tonight (Christine is on vacation for a couple days with her mother) . We ate a Quiche Lorraine which was quite delicious. And Claude gave me a burned copy of the soundtrack to Les Demoiselles de Rochefort which he just bought! So excited. We have the best host parents ever. Christine was NOT happy when he bought the CD though. "I've been asking for that for YEARS and NOW you buy it?!" she said.

A Really Good Weekend!

2008-10-19T09:34:00.004+01:00

Friday night, Christine took Sam and I out to see a movie, Faubourg 36. It was by the same director as les Choristes, and it had a bunch of the same actors, so we were pretty excited. I enjoyed it a lot, but I still can't decide if it was as good as Les Choristes because it was so completely different.

Last night I went to dinner at my tandem language partner's apartment. The food was delicious and we had lots of fun chatting and stalking French boys on facebook. She invited me to her parents house in Paris in a few weeks, and I'd really love to go. She's going to clear it with her parents, and if they're okay with it, I think it would be so much fun! She was excited about it, talking about all the places we would go and the costume party we would attend, etc.

Then Barbara (my tandem) and I went to a cremailliere, a housewarming party, for one of her friends. I only stayed for a few hours, but it was fun. It was kind of alarming because someone would enter the party, come over to us, kiss, kiss, salut, and once they'd walked away, I would turn to Barbara and ask, "Who was that?!" and she would shrug and say "I have no idea."

Tonight, Sam, Eric and I are going to a Bach concert and a wine degustation. It should be fun!

Weekly Update

2008-10-17T09:38:00.003+01:00

Sorry I haven't written much this week. Here's a day-to-day summary:

Monday: Went to class, did some homework, ate dinner with the family (veggie soup, grilled chicken with peppers and zucchini, ice cream) and then watched half of a made-for-French-TV movie about the life of Francoise Sagan, famous French novelist.

Tuesday: Went to class, did some homework, went out to dinner with Sam, Gerald and Kristen (who is in a different program, we met in travaux practiques) to this wonderful (but slightly expensive) restaurant called L'atmosphere. I ordered salmon and ravioles and it was great. Kristen and I split the house speciality dessert, which was also awesome, but we had no idea what it was. However, there was definitely chocolate involved.

Wednesday: Went to class, went to tutoring, went to the BU office to get the weekly newsletter, then went to dinner with Monica, Sam and Clare in Place Grenette. I got a really good pizza, but Clare and Sam's were so much better. They both ordered the Pizza Ravioles, which was basically just pizza crust with the regional ravioles on top. Amazing.

After dinner, I went to Kristen's housemates' "American Party", which they were throwing for all their international friends. There were probably about 70 people there, and it was crazy! Kristen and I retreated into her room with two other friends and we just hung out there and chatted for a few hours. Apparently the cops came twice (that's the mark of a REAL American house party) but we were inside being anti-social and not contributing to the ruckus, so no worries. I left around midnight with Suzy and Eric (who we were chatting with) because they both live close on the tram-line, so that was fun and also reassuring, because I do not like walking alone at night.

Thursday: Class, hung around at the house, got lunch at Pasta Via with Sam, went to the office for a halfway-through-the-semester check-up meeting with Marie-Eve.

Then I went to tutoring, which was fun. I've made a date with the family, so next Wednesday I will eating dinner there. Also, next Sunday is Ha-jeong's birthday! How much fun is that? I'm going to do a whole little birthday unit next week, and I'll teach her the happy birthday song, etc. Also, I'm going to try to find her a present, hopefully English related, this weekend.

Then I rushed home for the cours de cuisine, the pictures of which you've already seen. I'm not even going to talk about the horrific bone marrow experience. Just. No. Ugh. Suffice to say they scoop it out of the bone and spread it on bread. UGH.

Random bits that I forgot:

Wednesday on my way to the party, a sketchy Moroccan man asked me for my number and asked if I wanted to get a drink with him to "help him improve his English". I told him I didn't have a cell phone that worked in France, and that he'd have to e-mail me. Which he did. And which I am NOT responding to. If I had thought faster, I would have made up an e-mail address.
I have found out the name of the cheese that Christine and Claude affectionately call "le fromage de Jillian". I am going to acheter a TON of it. And eat it all. By myself.
Mike Ryan sent me a lovely letter with some exciting news about the band possibly opening for Gaelic Storm!
I got my absentee ballot.
I'm going to Chamonix with Mary and her family the last weekend of October. That should be lots of fun.
I've been introducing myself to everyone as "Jillian", because I realized that I've never liked the name "Jill". I mean, it's not a huge deal, whenever I talk to myself, it's always: "Wow Jill, that was dumb," or "Way to make a fool out of yourself, Jill", but when I really think about it, it's a pretty ugly name. And it's absolutely hideous with a French accent. So it's kind of cool now because a bunch of my friends only know me as "Jillian", which always sounds a bit bizarre to me, but I'm starting to get used to it.

Cours de Cuisine #3 -- C'est nous!

2008-10-16T22:34:00.003+01:00

L'apperatif! Bien sur!

Sam a cuisine l'entree: les petits pains (rolls hollowed out and filled with creme anglais, cheese, ham and mushrooms)

J'ai cuisine (en fait, pas vraiment...c'etait tres/trop facile) le plat principal: veggies, mystery meat, BONE.MARROW.OF.COW.

The meal! (the marrow is that nasty yellow mush hidden in the top righthand corner)

Et Monica a fait le dessert: delicious apple cake!

Weekend in Provence

2008-10-12T20:12:00.010+01:00

This weekend we had our only overnight trip with BU. Woke up at 6h00 on Saturday and were on the bus by 7h30. We had a two hour ride, and most people just passed out. But I doodled with my excellent pens (I will rave about them later) and then Andrew lent me the book No Country For Old Men, which he had been talking about non-stop. I read 100 pages or so before we got to Arles.

In Arles, we dropped our stuff off at the really cute hotel and then walked to the market. I bought some Christmas gifts and we bought some fresh fruit, bread and potatoes for our delicious picnic lunch. I really wanted to buy a hunk of cheese, but had no idea how to go about it, since everything was priced by kg.

After the picnic, we went on a tour, led by Patrice and Marie-Eve.

We saw some ancient Roman ruins, walked past the amphitheater to this overlook with a view of the city below, which was really nice. And then we walked into the amphitheater where they were having a photo shoot for the Arles historical society. It was pretty cool, a bunch of guys dressed up as gladiators, a toreador and some women in traditional dress.

After this, we continued walking around and Patrice showed us some scenes that Van Gogh painted. We stopped at La Cafe La Nuit, which Van Gogh painted and had a drink. After the church we went to the cloitre. You're going to have to read Sam's blog to find out, I guess. It was very pretty and I wish I knew more about it, but Saturday was just not a good day for history lessons.

After this we went back to the hotel, where Monica, Sam, Anna and I were sharing a room. Anna left to go to mass and Sam and Monica and I just lay there for our two hour break, resting. Monica wasn't feeling well either and Sam was exhausted, so it was very very nice.

When it was time to go out for dinner, I still wasn't feeling that great, but once we started eating I felt a lot better. I ordered this magnificent duck cooked in honey sauce, because I'd never eaten duck before. It was wonderful and I'm definitely going to start ordering it when we go out.

After dinner Monica and I were tres fatigue and so we returned to the hotel while Sam and Anna went out. We both took nice, long showers and then crawled into bed to watch some excellent French television (I lie, it was a dubbed episode of Extreme Home Makeover ). As soon as the other two returned (around midnight, not too too late, don't worry!) we went to sleep.

The next morning, we woke up early to go get breakfast early, only to find out that breakfast didn't open until 8h00. We hung around for half an hour and then went back down a little before 8h00, and there was food (albeit not a lot).

After breakfast, we piled onto the bus and drove an hour and a half to Stes. Maries de la Mer, a little village in the Camargue (France's vast swamp land). Everyone save Andrew (who doesn't like horses either) and Julia L (who broke her arm Friday riding her bike) went horseback riding. The three of us (plus Marie-Eve and Patrice) were then driven to the center of the town, where we split up: Andrew went to mass, Julia went to go sit down at a cafe because her leg/arm/entire being was in pain and I went with Patrice and Marie-Even to the beach.

The water was wonderful! I dipped my feet in and immediately regretted not bringing my bathing suit. I picked up a few shells (souvenirs from the Mediterranean!) and chatted with Patrice and Marie-Eve for a few minutes before heading off to wander around the little streets in the village. I bought a bunch of Christmas gifts and then met up with everyone at a cafe. We sat there for a while, waiting to see if Andrew had gotten out of church yet, and then I decided to a little more wandering. In about 40 minutes we met up again and headed back to pick up the horse people.

Apparently it all went well-- the people who were more experienced riders had a great time, but some of the first-timers were not too happy. Also Clare got thrown off, so she was a little shaken. But luckily she was fine physically.

Then we all returned to the town where we bought lunches and the picnicked on the beach. It was wonderful. After eating we dipped our toes in and then got some delicious ice cream. I got 3 scoops (they were small, don't judge!): 1 scoop "brownie", 1 scoop "cookies" and 1 scoop "Bounty" (a delicious coconut and chocolate candy). You're so jealous.

After devouring our ice cream, the group went to see the shrine to Ste. Sarah in the town's really creepy church. Here's the deal with this town: Old French legends say that the three Ste. Marys who witnessed the crucifixion of Jesus set sail from Egypt after his death. They supposedly landed in Stes. Maries de la Mer (although it probably wasn't named that at the time) and many people have made pilgramages to this site and miracles have happened, etc. That's great, but who, you may ask, is Ste. Sarah? Some legends say that she was the (dark-skinned) daughter of Mary Magdalene, but most likely she was an Egyptian servant of the three saints, who became the patron saint for the gypsies. The roma people make pilgramages once a year to the site and
there's a pretty creepy statue of her in the crypt.

After this, we left. Everyone was sore from horseback riding and exhausted. As soon as we sat down on the bus, I felt so sleepy, but Andrew said, "Your mision, should you choose to accept it, is to finish this book before we get home." Now, I don't know about you but when someone uses those words, I take it seriously. Also the book was really good and I did want to see what happened. It only took me two hours to finish, and then I spent the rest of the ride chatting with Andrew about books and tv shows.

And then we were home! Oh miracle of miracles! I could finally get into my pajamas, crawl under my covers and drift-- oh wait, no. Just kidding. I had a bunch of homework that I had put off all weekend. So I trudged through that and then went to sleep.

More pictures of this lovely weekend in Provence can be found here.

Cours de Cuisine #2

2008-10-09T22:00:00.005+01:00

Des Photos

Brittany, Xiomara and Gerald

Gerald a fait l'entrée: les œufs russes.

Brittany a fait le plat: porc et les pommes de terre.

Et Xio a cuisiné la tarte de citron.

Everyone before leaving.

And Christine and Plume!

Une petite conversation

Sam: I used to think in English when speaking French, but I don't do that anymore.
Xio: You're thinking in French now? That's great!
Sam: No. Now je ne pense rien.

2008-10-09T18:05:00.004+01:00

Thursdays are pretty sweet because I only have 2 hours of class in the morning. After class I went to the cafeteria and ate a gauffre with nutella that was pretty delicious. Then I came home, where I downloaded some Sesame Street videos for Ha-Jeong.

I took the bus to the Parks' apartment and Ha-Jeong let me in, and then gave me these sweet drawings of Snoopy that she made me. Super cute. I was very excited because that pretty much means that we're friends now.

We watched the Sesame Street videos, deciphered some Peanuts strips and then went over vowel formation. Next week she wants to learn the names of animals. Should be fun.

I think I'm coming down with a cold, which would make sense, seeing as practically everyone else in the program is malade right now. But I am going to fight through dinner (it's a cooking class night!), post pictures and then I'll crash.

Wednesdays are Uber Long

2008-10-08T20:41:00.002+01:00

Today I had lots of class, which was fun. Then after class I hung around and then met up with Heui-Tae in front of the library. We went to his family's apartment in centre ville (it's really close to the BU office, which is convenient) and I met his wife and two daughters.

They are so so nice. Mme Park gave me a snack and we chatted for a while at the dining room table, and then Hajeong and I went into the study to get down to business. She's only 11 and was pretty shy, but we chatted about Harry Potter (she's read all of the books already!) so I feel like we'll become friends pretty soon.

Hajeong only knows a few words/phrases in English, so we mostly communicated in French, which is definitely good for me, but I feel like I'm not speaking enough English to actually help her. Oh well, hopefully after a few weeks, I'll have worked out a system.

She told me that she loves Snoopy and so tomorrow I'm going to bring some simple Peanuts stips and we can read through them together. It should be pretty fun. I'm also planning on doing cultural units around Halloween and Thanksgiving and we're going to make crackers for Christmas! There was a page in her English book on how to make crackers, which was fabulous. Those were so uber sweet when we were little.

After a little more than an hour, I went to the BU office, handed in my official ethnographic project proposal, and then Sam, Monica and I headed to Pasta Via, where our friend was once again working. When we entered, he shouted "Hey, girl!" which we assumed was meant to be plural, because the French do not pronounce the "s" at the end of plurals. It was awesome. He gave Monica 2 extra stamps on her card. Very exciting.

Then we headed back here to watch the presidential debate. We were not impressed. And now I'm "doing homework".

P.S. So Andrew used "donking about" again yesterday and I told him that you all had been very intrigued by the meaning, and so he defined it for me/you:

donk about: Verb phrase. Informal. to do anything that does not remotely resemble work.

What is the difference between yogurt and Americans?

2008-10-06T17:04:00.002+01:00

Today I participated in lecture twice! And was right, both times! One of these times was not by choice, but it was in my Fac class so therefore was 1000x scarier, so I still am proud of myself.

Travaux Practiques was really fun today. We're talking about stereotypes and so we went around telling ethnic jokes, which were really funny. And then the professor handed out a list of American jokes/quotes mocking the French. My personal favorite was:

"Going to war without the French is like going deer hunting without your accordion." -- Norman Schwartzkopf

After class I headed into Centre Ville to get some absentee ballot paperwork done/faxed and then I FedExed one single, stupid piece of paper to BU. Do you know how much it costs to FedEx one single, lighter-than-air piece of paper to the U.S. from France? Not even overnight delivery? 44€50. Not okay. I am not happy at all. That is like 6 meals.

I ran into a girl from the program at a cafe and so sat down and had a delicious hot chocolate with her for a little bit, which was nice. And then Brittany walked by so I joined her for a little jaunt to Monoprix, where I bought a cheap pair of gloves (I could have bought 12 pairs of gloves with the money I gave to FedEx).

And now I am home, and am looking foward to a nice relaxing evening of homework and maybe some French films.

2008-10-05T22:07:00.008+01:00

Our day trip was lovely. Being in Place Verdun at 7h30 was not the best of times, but we got to doze on the bus. Although we were woken up every 15 minutes by Vincent, the really attractive (but really annoying!) CUEF activities coordinator, who would tell us something over the microphone about the mountains/windmills/vineyards we were going by, even though he KNEW we were all trying to sleep. Now I appreciate a bit of scenery as much as, if not more than the next person, but all the French tour guides I have encountered have this really annoying habit of talking much longer than they have the right to. After about 10 minutes of talk about how delicious Grenoble's walnuts are on a salad with lettuce and peppers and sometimes you can throw a bit of egg on there and...

So by the time we got to Orange I was SO ready to get off the bus, since I wasn't being allowed to sleep. But as soon as we got off, I was incredibly ready to get back on, because--surprise!--it was freezing! We stopped at l'Arc du Triomphe (yes, there's more than one "Triumphal Arch" in France) d'Orange, which dates back from the first century, during the reign of Augustus Cesar, the first emporer of Rome. It was beautifully detailed and it's absolutely amazing that it is still standing and is still in such good condition.

After l'Arc, we went to the Roman amphitheater. The theater of Orange is one of only three Roman amphitheater's in the world whose original stage wall is still intact. It was pretty cool, but because they still use it as a theater today, there were lighting tresses and seat numbers and metal railings all over the place, which I felt really took away from the whole feeling of antiquity.

After Orange we hopped back on the bus and headed to Avignon, where we bought tickets for the ancient papal palace and then found a little restaurant, because we were starving. I had some delicious steak frites (steak, salad and french fries), but I forgot that here they like their steak bleeding. It wasn't too too red though and I ate all but a few bites, probably because I was ravenous. Then we ate this delicious molten chocolate cake dessert with real French vanilla ice cream. Apparently I had a "love connection" (Monica's words) with the waiter, which was pretty embarrassing actually. Possibly more embarrassing than the time that the creperie waiter thought that I was making googly eyes at him when really I was just trying to get the check. Obviously, Jill has issues with French waiters.

After we gorged ourselves, we headed to the palais du papes, a huge fortress which housed 7 popes during the middle ages (1300s) when the papacy was in Avignon and not Rome. The building is absolutely gorgeous, and the inside has been converted into a museum, which was pretty dull. Monica and I gave up on reading the displays/listening to our audio guides and just walked around, admiring the architecture and the paintings.

Towards the end of the visit, we walked up to the roof, where there was a gorgeous view of the city. It was amazing.

We spent about 2 hours in the palace, and then we walked to the Pont d'Avignon, which was fabulous. For any of you who've taken a French class in your life, you know why this is awesome. When we came to Avignon on my high school trip, we didn't get to go on the bridge, and so had to sing/dance sous le pont d'Avignon instead of sur, which was kind of upsetting. But yesterday we actually got to walk on top of the bridge, and it was absolutely gorgeous. The view of the Rhone was spectacular.

Then we headed to Pont du Gard, this ancient Roman aqeuduct, which was pretty sweet also. After walking on it for a little bit, Anna and I decided to take a path in the woods to a "panorama", but we walked for a while and didn't see anything promising. The sun was starting to set, there was no one else around and there were swarms of bugs, but Anna insisted on trying a little bit more, and sure enouch a few minutes later we found a really safe looking ledge with a pretty sweet view of the aqueduct. Unforunately my camera's batteries died and I was too busy freaking out about Anna's imminent demise (she should NOT have gone so far out) to change them, so I didn't get a good picture of it.

I took a bunch more pictures. Some of them are here.

Friday

2008-10-03T21:53:00.004+01:00

So totally had class today, which sucked. Okay, okay, it wasn't too bad, since it was in the afternoon. Met Monica for lunch at Sandwich Oasis and then booked it to campus.

After class, we headed to Geoffrey's house for a VP debate party. We drank some wine, ate some delicious cookies and yelled continuously at the television. It's very fun to watch political programs when you're surrounded by liberal Boston students. Also when one of said liberal Boston students has a very attractive French host brother who likes U.S. politics, because he is, as mentioned previously, French.

Sam and I then headed out to Pasta Via to grab dinner. Pasta Via is this sweet place where you basically just get a tub of pasta for take out and it is delicious. We were trash talking Palin when the guy behind the counter (who is always working there, and who recognized Sam because she had been in there two days earlier) said, in English, "I understand what you are saying." He was very proud of himself for being able to understand English, but we weren't exactly being very nice to the poor governor of Alaska, so it was kind of embarassing. But we're totally friends now because he stamped our little frequent customer cards twice. It was very exciting.

Enfin, today was pretty boring and we we're not doing anything exciting on our Friday night because we're getting up at 6h15 tomorrow to go to Avignon, Pont du Gard and Orange with the CUEF. Expect lots of pictures!

Le Premiere Cours de Cuisine!

2008-10-02T22:26:00.004+01:00

Ma mere d'acceuil (Christine) et Clare.

Clare a cuisiné l'entrée.

Anna a fait le plat

Et Geoffrey a cuisiné le dessert.

Can we talk about Geoffrey's dessert for one second? Seriously? Ridiculous.

First Post of October!

2008-10-02T17:53:00.004+01:00

Yesterday I took a day off from life, because I was feeling pretty crappy. Not quite sure why. But I stayed at home, caught up on some much-needed sleep, and got a bunch of work done for school. And then I went to bed at 21h30, which was awesome.

Today I felt much better and headed off to my Travaux Practiques class. We discussed our countries' stereotypes of the French, and it was really amusing. One of the groups said that France is supposed to be the "country of love" and they supported this claim by mentioning all the PDA. And my professor said, "That is true. But I think my generation was even more open about their displays of affection."

WHAT?! Julia B (a girl from BU who is in my Travaux Practiques) and I looked at each other in horror. How could anyone possibly be more demonstratif?! Oh good lord. Ugh.

After class, Sam, Monica, Julia B and I grabbed lunch at Quality Burger, which was a little like a McDonalds. It was pretty decent, and there was this sweet thing like the Monopoly game at Mickey-D's, but it was a poker thing. Sam is now collecting them.

I then went back to the campus to meet with Heui-Tae Park, the Korean man who had asked about the English lessons for his daughter. We sat in the university library and discussed what he was looking for, which is basically just help with her pronunciation. He thinks that French accents (when speaking English) are atrocious. I asked if he would like me to help with her grammar, and he was like, "No, not really. The important thing is the pronunciation." So. That'll be interesting. And it will probably also help with my project about accents!

We ended up chatting for an hour and a half because he was asking me questions about my program and what I'm doing here in France, and I found out that he's doing his doctorate here on French film, and that when he finishes (he's in his final year), he wants to teach at a university. He was really nice and I do not get any creepy vibes, which is good. He also wants to pay me 10€ an hour, but we'll see how that goes, because you know, Jill always feels bad when people try to pay her and offers to do things for free because she's nice/irritating like that.

After this, I met up with my Intègre partner at her apartment. We sat in her kitchen, drank tea and chatted for a little more than an hour. She was really nice and we had fun, switching between English and French. She's going to come here next Tuesday and we'll chat again. I feel like it really will help, being able to talk one-on-one with someone once a week. Especially when that someone is a student and understands what you're going through.

I came home to find Clare, Geoffrey and Anna in the kitchen with Christine! The cooking classes start tonight! Sam and I are really excited because we thought that we didn't get to eat when students from the BU program came to cook because that would mean a lot of food (dinner for seven!). But Christine assured us that there would be plenty and that it would be delicious, alors, who are we to say non to free food? Tonight will be a vegetarian meal because Geffoire and Clare are veggies, so we will have to see what marvelous dishes Christine has whipped up!

A bientôt!

A Brief Entry

2008-09-30T15:45:00.002+01:00

Today has not been super great, for no reason in particular. It is just one of those days¹. So because I do not feel like writing a lot, I have decided to update in list form.

Yesterday we watched an excellent German film (dubbed in French and with French subtitles, don't worry) called La vie des autres. In English, The Lives of Others. It was very, very good. Except for this one completely unneccessary sex scene with a really obese woman. Here is the trailer:
Last night we also ate the most amazing dish: Salmon and ravioli casserole. I do not even know how to describe it, because I know it sounds gross. But it was delicious. So, so good.
I hate clicky retractable pens. They should be outlawed. People should not be allowed to use clicky pens in class. Ever.
A South Korean/French guy (not quite sure) asked me if I would be interested in teaching his 11 year old daughter English. I gave him my e-mail address, so hopefully that pan out.
10 hours a week with the same people really starts to get to you. I am starting to find things that I hate about more and more people in my Travaux Practiques class. On the other hand, I did make a new friend in it today, which was exciting. I'm all about the making friends thing.
Also...8h30 class four days a week is not fun. I am not a fan.
Tomorrow I am meeting my Integre language partner! Very exciting. I will let you know how it goes.

¹ I need to learn how to say this in French. I have been out shopping and dropped all my stuff at least three times now and these French people have just kind of stared at me. And so I start to do what I would aux Etats-Unis: I give a self-deprecating smile, shrug and then...I freeze, because I realize I have no idea how to say "one of those days". I end up standing there with this goofy look on my face and this group of French people watching me, waiting for me to say something. It's very uncomfortable.

Chartreuse

2008-09-28T19:21:00.010+01:00

Brittany: Tomorrow my legs are going to be like, "Excuse me, you did what yesterday?!"

Today we went hiking in the Chartreuse mountain chain. We drove up to this little farm/cafe place in these green mountains that were so reminiscent of the hills in the Sound of Music, that I almost burst into song.

From there we hiked for about an hour up to this lookout from where we could see the Chartreuse monastery way down below. It was absolutely gorgeous, and there were people paragliding near where we were picnicking, which was pretty fun to watch.

Unfortunately, right before eating our lunch, Sam fell in a sink hole and twisted her ankle, and so the walk down was a little scary, but after that, she felt much better and later on, she was practically perfect.

After hiking back down, we had some hot chocolate at the little farm/cafe place, with the cows wandering on the hillside behind it. The cocoa was alright, but way too milky for my taste, and not chocolatey enough. Also it was weird to, like, see the cows whose milk you were most likely drinking.

After our coffee break we hopped back on the bus, which went careening back down the windy mountain road (which was a little terrifying). We then stopped at a church in a little village which doubles as a "contemporary religious art museum". It was okay. I wasn't a huge fan. Also I didn't take any pictures, cause there was a scary Frenchwoman who I did NOT want to yell at me if photos were forbidden, but I think Sam snuck some, so you'll probably be able to go to her blog soon and look at them there.

After the church we drove up to the Chartreuse museum. The Chartreuse is not only the name of the mountain chain, it is the name of a silent order of monks which was founded here in 1080 by Saint Bruno. The order is famous for their liquor, which is appropriately called--you guessed it!--Chartreuse. It's a chartreuse (ha!) colored liquor made from a secret recipe of herbs. Only 3 monks know the recipe, and they each only know part of it, so no one in the world knows the whole thing.

Marie-Eve bought us chartreuse candies, which were delicious on the outside but then very very strange on the inside, because they were filled with what I'm assuming is the liquor. As Monica put it, it was "like licking the earth, but prickly and gross". Another girl in the group described it as "vegetal". It was rather unpleasant.

The museum was pretty interesting, and it was absolutely gorgeous. After we had finished wandering around, we hiked up to the actual monastery, which you obviously cannot get into, but we got to look at the buildings and then we walked up this hill with a gorgeous view. It was really lovely, but our group was being pretty loud and it's one of those places I would have rather visited by myself. I'm not religious in the least, but I can understand why you would want to not speak in such a spot. It's so much prettier in silence. Next time, I'm definitely not going with BU students.

After this, we headed back and grabbed dinner, and now I'm finishing up some homework for class tomorrow.

I took a bunch of gorgeous pictures, if you'd like to see them, they are here.

All day today I kept thinking about how much Grandma would love all of this-- the mountains, the gorgeous buildings, the hiking, everything. If any of you are going to see her soon, maybe you could bring your laptop and show her my pictures? I would really appreciate it, but if it's too much of a hassle, tant pis! I'll show her at Christmas!

2008-09-26T23:07:00.007+01:00

Today was an excellent day. Sam and I went out to lunch with Monica and then Mary picked us up and brought us to a little path in the mountains near her house with gorgeous views. We only walked for 45 minutes because she had an appointment to run to, but it was nice.

While Mary was at her appointment, Sam and I walked through the village and bought some groceries that were needed for dinner. 20 minutes later, Mary was finished and we went to pick the kids up from school.

The school system is so cute here! The parents go and they watch the kids play in the playground until the bell rings and the gates open, and the kids come running out. It was heart-warming, seeing all the kids talking to their parents (in French!) about what they did that day and showing them their drawings, etc.

Back at the house, we ate snack with the kids and then Mary asked if we could watch them while she went to a meeting with Edward's teacher. This was not a problem, and we played a game William invented for a while, and then played football (soccer) for a good hour or so, until it got too chilly and we went inside to watch TV and play video games. I played Star Wars Battlefront Deux with William, and I died approximately a thousand times. But I am getting better! Since this seems to be William's favorite game I think I might get quite good at it by the end of the semester.

Christophe and Mary got home later than expected and so we ended up eating pretty late (even for a French family), but it was absolutely delicious. We had crepes with ham and cheese and then for dessert we had crepes with butter and sugar (or nutella, if you wanted, which Amelia DEFINITELY did). It was wonderful. After eating the ham and cheese crepes, the kids all disappeared to watch Camp Rock (which has just come out in France) and so we were able to have a nice conversation with Mary and Christophe while we ate our dessert for a good 40 minutes or so before the kids came running back for theirs. Christophe said, "Mary always says that we need to have family dinners where we sit down as a family. But then after we have a dinner like this, she says 'We'll never do this again!'" Haha, but it was so much fun. The kids are great.

We didn't end up leaving until 11 o'clock at night! We couldn't believe it was so late. But it was gorgeous, being in the mountains at night, seeing the hazy light of Grenoble in the distance, and being able to look at a million stars that we can't see from here in the city. It was absolutely beautiful.

Mi fa sol la mi re

2008-09-24T20:30:00.007+01:00

FlashFlod: Sheesh...all ya do is watch movies & drink wine!!!

Last night Sam and I were lucky enough to watch the best French film ever (I'm so sorry that this blog is turning into a collection of movie reviews, but seriously, Claude LOVES to watch movies, and Christine is so impressed that we understand them, so they keep making us watch more). It was called Les Demoiselles de Rochefort, and it was a musical comedy from the 1960's. The score was written by Michel Legrand, and it was super amazing. I mean, the movie itself, plot-wise and "dialogue"-wise was pretty terrible, but it was so much fun. I can't really describe it. So I will give you another YouTube link, and maybe you'll understand.

P.S. Look at how pretty Jacques Perrin is in this film.

P.P.S. Gene Kelly was in it!

P.P.P.S. When Sam and I told Marie-Eve (the BU program coordinator) that we had watched this movie she said "Oh! That's Claudius' favorite film!" Hahaha...

Okay, I'm done with the film bit, I promise.

Today Sam and I went to eat at this little family-run restaurant a block away from our house. They served us the same thing that we had eaten our first day in France (the stuffed tomato dish) and I asked the woman what it was called and she said "tomate farcie". Definitely am going to look for some recipes when I get home.

Today Christine gave the BU students a presentation about the French cooking classes that she teaches (out of her kitchen here) and we signed up for what days we wanted to do it. It should be pretty fun. But at the meeting she was telling Marie-Eve how impressed she was with us and how we're the first students they've had who like watching movies with them and how we're basically just the coolest kids ever (which is obviously true). It was pretty embarassing. Sam and I were both just sitting there with our cheeks burning. It was really nice and it made us feel great about ourselves and our French skills, but it was so awkward.

A few days ago, I had signed up on-line for a language partner here through a program called Integre, and today I got an e-mail from both the program and my partner! She seems really nice, so hopefully we'll be able to meet up soon.

My favorite thing about being here is probably eating outside. It's so wonderful. Here is a picture of me with my GROSS dessert. It sounded pretty good: white chocolate ice cream with melted chocolate and more chocolate and Grand Marnier. But it tasted like rubbing alcohol with a vaguely pleasant chocolate aftertaste.

As I write this, I can hear Claude whistling a song from the movie. This is the best family ever.

The French are obsessed with American politics. Today we saw a car with an Obama bumper sticker. And there are posters here with his face plastered all over them. Sam is constantly saying, "They know they can't vote for him, right?" It is true, they are completely enamoured.

2008-09-23T16:14:00.002+01:00

Yesterday I had my first Fac class (which means that it is through the actual Universite, and not through the international program). I was supposed to have it last Monday, but the professor never showed up, which was pretty disappointing/stressful.

But it went great yesterday! The course is basically an Intro to Syntax, and we're starting off by reviewing just basic linguistic info. The professor speaks slowly and clearly, which is awesome, and when Monica and I went to talk to her after class to let her know that we're foreign students taking the class, she was really nice and seemed really excited to have us in her class.

Last night Sam and I had dinner with our fam, which was super fun. For the appetizer we had this delicious pumpkin soup (I'll admit it, I was pretty nervous about it, as I'm not really into the whole creamy-soup thing, but it was amazing.) and then for the main course we had this omelette-esque thing with potatoes. It was uber-delicious.

After dinner Christine and Claude showed us a film called Plein soleil. It was the Frenchest French film I have seen yet. So much angst and death and love and craziness. It was actually a really good film, critically, but it wasn't exactly my cup of tea. Although I think I would like to watch it another time with English subtitles.

Apparently it is called Purple Noon in English. Here is the trailer (in English! Hurrah!):

Today I ate lunch with my French pen-pal Marion in one of the cafeterias on campus. It's fun to chat with her because whenever I can't find a word in French, I can explain it (slowly) in English and she understands. And she can do the same, but vice-versa, obviously. She says she has a hard time understanding the American accent because all the English teachers and professors here are British or Australian, so she's not used to it.

It's really funny hearing professors here speak English (especially the translation professors, because their English is almost perfect) because they all speak with British accents, which makes sense, considering the proximity of the countries. But it's very strange! The translation professor for the other class has almost a Cockney accent, but my professor has this lovely upper-class way of speaking, and sometimes I think that he's actually British, his accent is so perfect. I hope one day my French accent will be as flawless as that.

Tonight we're eating dinner with Claude and Christine again! I'm very excited! But now I must go do some homework.

Annecy

2008-09-21T20:55:00.004+01:00

"On y va, y'all!" -- Geoffrey

Today we woke up early (for a Sunday) and met the group to go on our day trip to Annecy. It took around an hour and a half to get there from Grenoble.

Every Sunday morning in Annecy they have a market in the street, with cheese, fruit, clothes, cheese, bread, jewelry, cheese, trinkets, more cheese, etc. I bought some sweet Christmas presents for 5€.

We then went to a restaurant where we ate Raclette, which is a type of cheese but also apparently a whole meal thing. It wasn't explained to us very well, so I'm still kind of unsure. But basically, we had a bowl of potatoes and a huge wheel of cheese stuck on a thing that melted part of it at a time, which then was supposed to be scraped onto your plate of potatoes. It was absolutely delicious, but very time consuming, and at the end I was still a little hungry.

After the meal (which of course took 2 hours), we walked up to a castle which was used as a barracks from the 1700s until the end of WWI. From there we had some terrific views of Annecy. Unfortunately, my camera was on the wrong setting, so my pictures are all weird, grainy and black and white.

After this, we had a boat tour of the lake, which was really nice. The place is absolutely beautiful, and the lake is huge. It was great.

I'm sorry this entry is pretty short, but not much happened, I just took a bunch of pictures, which you can find here.

2008-09-20T21:01:00.010+01:00

Today we woke up late and hung around until finally exploring our neighborhood a bit more and finding a place to eat. Turns out we chose the wrong place, and ended up sitting next to these sketchy (and old!) French men who asked us for our numbers and who tried to buy us drinks and lottery tickets. They were playing what I can only imagine is the French equivalent of Keno, and they tried to get us to play, but we (very politely) refused. And then ran away as fast as possible.

I then went downtown to meet Anna, who was going on a tour of old buildings in Grenoble. The buildings were cool, but the tour guide was very old and spoke very softly and I couldn't hear what he was saying half the time. Some of the buildings here date back to the 300s, but most of the ones we saw today date back to the 16th and 17th centuries.

After this, I bought some books that I need for class, and then met Monica and Sam at the mall a little ways away on the tram. It's really big, but most of the stores are too expensive to actually shop in. But halfway through our shopping excursion, I felt the blood sugar drop and so went into the McDonalds thinking I could quickly grab some french fries and be good to go.

However, it is clear that in France, even "fast food" must be an ordeal. I stood in line for 20 minutes (10 of those minutes were waiting for the same woman to 1. decide what she wanted, 2. order, 3. change her order 4. hand the cashier the wrong change, 5. fumble in her purse for the correct change, 6. hand the cashier the correct change 7. wait for her HUGE tray of food.

So, this woman FINALLY goes away and there's one couple in front of me, so I'm almost there-- they seem reasonably competent and the food is being assembled quickly. And then I feel someone next to me. "Oh absolutely not!" I think to myself, because I know the French have an issue with lines (i.e. they do not think they need to follow them, they feel that they can just cut in front of you whenever), and so I turn to see who is touching me. It's this young woman with this, like, I'm-so-much-better-than-you smile on her face, and she asks me something, but I'm so surprised that she's not trying to cut me, that I don't understand.

"Comment?" I ask.

"Can my friend and I get in front of you? She's pregnant," she asks me, in all seriousness.

I am flabbergasted. Really? Since when does being pregnant mean that you are allowed to cut to the front of the line at McDonalds? Should you even be eating McDonalds if you are pregnant? And if you are seriously asking me this, shouldn't you be a little nicer?

"Comment?" I ask again.

"Parlez-vous francais?" she asks.

"Non, non..." I say, and the girl immediately leaves and goes back to her friend, where I can hear them laughing.

By this time, the couple in front of me has gone and I am able to order my medium fries. The cashier laughs a little.

"You've waited a long time just for a medium fry."

"I know, " I say, in French, hoping the girl with the pregnant friend doesn't hear me.

When I get my fries (two milliseconds later!), I turn and start to leave, and I see the pregnant friend, who is seriously 2 people behind me in line. 2 people! I'm so over it. If her friend was so concerned, why didn't she just order for the both of them, and let her friend sit down in one of the booths? Seriously. I do not understand.

After the mall we came back here and watched a French movie called Les Choristes. It was wonderful. Absolutely magnificent. Here is the English trailer for you to watch. I 100% recommend this film, to all of you. Super super good.

2008-09-20T10:50:00.001+01:00

Yesterday we went downtown for lunch and met Monica and Anna. The Italian restaurant we were hoping to go to looked like it wasn't open so we walked around before finally finding a relatively inexpensive Indian place. I was very excited, because I'd been waiting to try the Indian food here. It was pretty good! Definitely different though. And the waiter told me I was eating the food wrong. He said, "Use your fingers! You don't need a fork!"

Sam and I then rushed off to a meeting with our academic advisor, Patrice, to discuss our ethnographic project topics. I'm going to be researching how the French perceive an American accent, and what words and sounds anglophones typically have difficulty pronouncing. I think it should be really interesting. I mean, it probably sounds really dull to all of you (well, mainly my parents), but it'll be lots of fun for me.

We then participated in a scavenger hunt around the city that was being hosted by the International Center. Sam and I were in a group with a Russian student named Xenia and a Chinese student whose name I can pronounce but have no idea how to spell. We had fun walking around the city because it was a gorgeous day, but the scavenger hunt itself was awful. The directions were confusing and the answers to some of the questions were nowhere to be found. At the end of the three hours, we were exhausted, and so cheated a bit and took the tram to our final destination. When we got there, our guide, Olivier, greeted us and asked us how everything went. When we told him that we had gotten turned around a few times, he drew us the route we should have taken¹ on our map. When he came to the end, he smirked a bit and said, "You should have come from that direction, but instead you came from the other way. How did that happen?"

We all kind of looked at each other, and then Xenia said, "It's a little secret."

"Like this?" he asked, and then he tapped his heels together three times and pretended to open a Mary Poppins umbrella and float away.

Anyway, apparently a bunch of the other groups just gave up anyway, so we're hoping that we will win. There are prizes! Unfortunately, we will not know until 2 weeks from now. And also Olivier would not tell us what the prizes are. Sam thinks that they will be pens or something equally lame. I personally would be SOUPED if we won pens. But seeing as we made up like half of the answers on the questionnaire because we were so fed up, I seriously doubt that we will gagner anything.

After this, we were pretty exhausted, and so came back here to rest for a bit. Around 18h30, Claude came up and said that we wanted to show us a movie. So we went down and drank some wine and ate some more of that fancy trail mix and Claude showed us Et Dieu...créa les femmes², a Bridgitte Bardot film made in '56. Claude told us that this movie changed French cinema, and I guess I can kind of see why. Unforunately we didn't get to watch the whole thing, as Claude enjoys fast fowarding through movies to show us the parts he wants us to see (usually the parts with really good shots of the Riviera) and then talking to us during these parts. So we didn't actually watch this movie, but we did get a synopsis. At first it seemed like just an excuse for the director to show his then-wife off naked, but after discussing the actual plot with Claude (we missed big chunks due to his fast-fowarding, apparently) and remembering the few scenes we did see, it seems like a really good film, and I would definitely like to watch the whole thing.

One thing we thought was particularly strange was when Claude said, "At the time, Bridgitte Bardot was considered really pretty." Sam and I just kind of looked at each other. Later, we were like, "At the time?!" We'd never seen her in a film, but she was gorgeous.

Anyway, after doing some film analysis, Sam and I went to Centre Ville to have dinner with Anna and Monica. We ate outside (but under heat lamps, which was super sweet!) in Place Grenette, and had delicious pasta. Then we walked around for a really long time, trying to find a bar or a club that had people in it. We finally ended up a block away from where Monica lives, and there was a bar called Subway (once again, that is not the English translation, that is the name painted on the side of the building) with a huge crowd of young French people sitting outside.

Here is the deal with most "bars" in Grenoble, as far as I can tell: they are like cafes, only with alcohol. So, inside there is an actual little bar, where you go up and order a drink, and then you can sit inside on one of the 3 chairs, or you can go sit at one of the tables outside on the sidewalk. We chose the sidewalk, and sat there, sipping our drinks (which all had suggestive English names) for an hour or so, when we decided to go home. It was pretty fun, but the whole "cafe" style isn't exactly conducive to meeting French people, which is sad.

¹ Let me just tell you, the expected route was horrific. There is no WAY anyone could have covered all of that in 3 hours, unless they were a native French speaker and also Clark Kent.
² The English title is: "And God created Woman"

2008-09-18T22:02:00.010+01:00

Today I only had one class, which was uber sweet. It was my Travaux Practiques, the French language class that I have 10 hours a week. The professor is really nice and we do fun exercises that make the time fly by. For a few days last week we split up into groups and wrote little skits, and today our professor mixed up all the skits and gave them to different groups. Then we had 20 minutes to "rehearse" before going before the camera (and the class) and performing. Next week we will get to watch ourselves and correct our pronunciation.

After class, I came home and Sam and I ate lunch. Then we decided to do laundry, which was a debacle. We ended up sitting in the laundromat for 2 hours, and at the end, our jeans still were soaking wet. If you came upstairs earlier this evening, you would have thought you had entered a jungle of pants. They were dangling from every possible door and chair.

Since January I have been e-mailing back and forth with a French student named Marion in Grenoble who wanted to improve her English (I met her through the website speakmania.com, which I strongly recommend if you would like to practice a foreign language), and earlier this week we had decided that we would meet up on campus today. It was very strange to meet in person, but she was really nice and we went to a cafe and chatted. We alternated between French and English, but she had a hard time understanding our English because all the English professors here are British or Australian, alors the accent is very different. But we're going to get lunch on campus sometime next week and she's going to bring some of her French friends, which should be fun. Above is a picture of Sam and Marion sitting on what I imagine is the French equivalent of a "quad".

After this we bought some pizza from Speed Rabbit Pizza (this is the actual name of the pizza chain, not the English translation), which was delicious, and the guys behind the counter were super nice, and tried speaking English with us. When we said we were from Boston, one of them exclaimed "Les Celtics!! That's my team!" He was really souped. I tried to ask about the Red Sox, and he was like "Basketball?" and I just sighed. The French hate baseball.

Here are some pictures I've taken of our gorgeous campus:

I'm just "donking about"

2008-09-17T18:15:00.002+01:00

Sam: Everyone you see here is either smoking or making out. I'm waiting to see a couple making out with their cigarettes dangling out of their mouths.

Sorry I have not updated recently. I have been pretty exhausted all week. I am not used to getting up so early, so with 8h30 class every morning, I've been kind of zonked.

My classes have been going really well. I like them all. I will talk more about them soon, I promise.

Right now I want to talk about dinner. Christine wasn't here because she had her line dancing class (she came in later wearing uber-cute cowboy boots and a plaid shirt. Even like this she looked so chic.) and so it was just the three of us. Claude served us the main dish, but he didn't know what it was. There was rice and cheese and some mystery vegetable that was leafy, brownish and soggy. After taking a bite or two, Claude said, "I think I know what this is! I think it's seaweed!"

"Yes!" I exclaimed "That's what I thought it was!"

So we¹ continued eating our lovely seafood dish , which actually tasted really good, but the texture freaked me out. We chatted about seafood and seaweed and the ocean and sharks because we were all thinking, wow we're eating seaweed². Claude told us that it was good to try new things and eat different things because you get sick of the same old thing all the time. It was pretty obvious that he had never eaten seaweed either.

After we had finished cleaning up, Christine got back and she came into the kitchen to get herself some food. "We didn't like the seafood tonight," Claude teased.

Christine looked puzzled. "The seafood?"

"Oui, the seaweed!" he said.

"The seaweed?!" she asked. Then she uncovered the pot and looked in. Then she started laughing. "That's not seaweed! Those are Chinese mushrooms."

I was laughing pretty hard at this point. Sam was not, on account of feeling a little nauseous. But then Claude said, "Well, Jillian said they were intéressant and Sam didn't say anything, which means she really didn't like them."

After this debacle, we came upstairs and I finished my essay, which I then brought downstairs, as Claude had said that he would look over it. He helped me fix a bunch of sections, which was really great. And he seemed really impressed with my written language, I guess because he's so used to me resorting to wild hand gestures when I forget some vocab or fumbling over my conjugations at the dinner table. It was just really nice of him to help me out.

But now I am v. v. tired and am going to go to sleep. Goodnight!

¹ Claude and I. Sam kind of pushed it around her plate. But I mean, she ate that whole fish thing last week, so I guess we're even now, in terms of not eating the gross food.
² Except Sam, obviously. She was NOT eating seaweed. At all.

Sunday

2008-09-14T19:52:00.004+01:00

Today was freezing. Again. It wasn't pouring though, it was just misting slightly. Sam and I found a place that was open for lunch and then we went to see a French movie (at a French movie theater) with Monica. The film was called Comme Les Autres and it was about a gay pediatrician who wants to be a father, but his partner doesn't want a child at all. It was funny and cute and everything needed to make an excellent feel-good movie. But it was French, so there were of course a few very sad moments.

Here is the trailer, if you would like to watch:

It was very exciting, because I understood almost all the dialogue!

Rainy Weekend

2008-09-13T09:50:00.005+01:00

This weekend has been fun, despite the crappy weather. On Friday, I woke up late since I didn't have class, which was very nice. Then Sam and I met Monica for lunch on campus. After lunch we came back here, and Monica hung out with us all afternoon. We pretty much just chatted for five hours, but it was pouring outside and we didn't feel like exploring the city.

Around four o'clock Christine came upstairs with a tray of cookies, chocolate and this drink she made herself. The cookies were amazing, and the drink was good, but it had an aftertaste that reminded me a little too much of amoxicillin.

We hung about for a bit more, and then went to the supermarket, bought some sandwiches, salad, peaches, bread, cheese, chocolate mousse and wine (all for 15€!) and brought it back to our house and had a little wine and cheese party. It was very fun. A relatively quiet Friday night, but we had a great time nonetheless.

Yesterday we woke up to worse rain and lots of wind! We said to ourselves, "We cannot just sit around again today", and so we went to the Musée de la Resistance et la Deportation with Monica and Clare.

Here's the deal: the name of the museum is really long and so on most maps/books/info things/etc. it is simply written "Musée de la Resistance". And when you think of the French Resistance, you think of excitement and intrigue and the good guys fighting against the Nazis and triumphing over evil, etc. But when you realize that the museum is pretty much all about the deportation bit that is conveniently left off your guide book to Grenoble, you're pretty alarmed.

The museum was a large, dimly-lit building, full of shadows and Bose® speakers blasting chants of "Vive la France!" and Nazi propaganda. It was very creepy. At one point I was in a room, looking at this scrolling text of Liberté Égalité Fraternité while watching video clips of Neo-Fascist demonstrations and hate crimes still going on today, and I was so appalled that I didn't realize I had stepped onto a little raised platform. When I pulled my eyes away from the horrific images in order to glance down, I realized I was standing on a huge Nazi flag. I was so shocked and disgusted that I instinctively leapt back, to the safe carpet area. I was very surprised that I had had such a strong reaction, but when we spoke about it afterwards, the other girls had had similar feelings. Perhaps it was the combination of all the horrible images and sounds that we were being exposed to.

At another point, after looking at 30 odd images of children from Grenoble who died in concentration camps, I meandered over to this wall full of shadow-boxes containing trinkets and mementos of times spent in the camps. I bent down to look at one of the lower boxes, which held a small mirror and some innocent-looking chess pieces, but when I straightened up, I was faced with the most frightening thing I have ever seen. Staring at me, at eye-level, was this horrific sculpture of an emaciated prisoner's head. I almost screamed. The eyes were bulging out of their sockets, and the look in them was so full of fear, resentment and resignation. I will never forget those eyes. They were worse than the images of the bodies being burned in ovens, worse than the photos of children's corpses being thrown into the ground with no ceremony or decorum. Oh man, I'm shivering just thinking about it.

It is amazing that after all the school lessons, the PBS documentaries, the Anne Frank books, the trips to Holocaust Museums and memorials, you still can be shocked by the monstrosity of it all. "No matter how much you see, you can never become desensitized to this," Clare said to me when we were looking at a list of the dead from Grenoble. I really think she is right. There's just something so horrific about the fact that humanity could commit such atrocities...ugh...anyway, this is way too depressing and serious for my blog. So I will stop. Suffice to say, it was a very interesting afternoon. The museum was definitely very interesting, but it was not what we had expected at all.

It did lend to some interesting conversation over lunch though, when we finally found a place that was serving food at 15h. We went to this little shop called "Sandwich Oasis", and that is really what it was: an oasis of food in a desert of restaurants that don't open until 17h, but still like to keep their doors open to fake you out and make you feel like an idiot when you stand there in the doorway expectantly and they let you stand there for like 5 minutes before telling you that there is no food.

Yes, so anyway, we ate lunch (I had a sandwhich with French fries and mayonnaise on it, and it actually was really delicious, I was surprised) and discussed everything we had seen at the museum, which was interesting because Sam is a history major, so she provided us with some additional information and some interesting ideas on the idea of war and how it's changed.

After lunch we all went our separate ways, and Sam and I came back to the house and on the stairs were two envelopes, one for Sam and one for me! Sam's Mom sent me a birthday card, because we're obviously best friends and she reads my blog (Hi Mrs. Ducey!) and is super awesome. It was really really nice of her.

For the rest of the afternoon, we watched French game shows, which were really fun! There is one called Les Chiffres et Les Lettres (Numbers and Letters) and it's a combo of math class and Scrabble. There are two contestants and in one round they are given a bunch of numbers. For example,

9, 7, 1, 10, 8, 8

And then they are given a total number. The total given for the numbers above was:

128

Then they have less than a minute to use any combination (the less numbers used, the better, I think) of the original numbers to arrive at the total. I don't remember how they got the answer to the problem above, but if you're the first one to post a solution as a comment and no one else can find a faster way (using less numbers) to get the total, I will give you a prize. Like, for reals.

Anyways, Sam and I tried to play along but were terrible. With the letters part, we didn't even try to play. They're given 10 letters and have less than a minute to come up with the longest word they can find. The player who has the longer word wins the points. The really interesting thing about this part was that instead of having a computer generate all the possible answers for the select number of letters, there were two people flipping through dictionaries, and they would announce if a word was correct or not and they would define it. It was very interesting, and the man and woman who were doing the dictionaries would occasionally have a little banter on the side, to take up time. It was so random.

Sam and I then went to the supermarket to buy food for a little dinner here. Clare, Monica and Julia B came, and we just sat around, ate, and gossiped. It was also very fun. We had really wanted to go out to a discotheque, but it was freezing outside and windy and wet. Obviously the kind of weather that makes you want to put on your hot pants and minidress and meet French men. So we all threw on some sweat pants and lounged about.

Today it is not raining (yet), but it is very gray and cold. It is also Sunday which means that everything is closed, but we're going to go hunting for food. Worst comes to worst, we will go to McDonalds.

2008-09-11T15:51:00.003+01:00

I have crazy busy these past few days and have not had enough time to write. Classes started the day before yesterday and we have to go to all the classes that are offered through the international program for the first two weeks. After this trial period, we can decide which ones we want to take for reals, but in the meantime we're spending all day at the Universite and only getting out of class at around 17h30.

I tested into the lower language level, which I was a little disappointed about, but I'm in one of the higher lower (ha!) levels, I like my professor and I have no class on Fridays! So I'm pretty happy about it now. The only thing that being in B1 really messes up is my Arabic class. I will have to wait until coming back to BU in order to finish. That will be really rough, but I'm going to try to find a way to keep up with it while I'm here, and who knows, maybe I'll be able to have Amine or Bekkai again.

These past few days have been crawling by because I've been going to all these classes that I know I don't want to take (French economics, French art history, etc.). Here are the classes I am going to take:

French and Francophone Literature
Translation (into English)
Contemporary French History
French Language Level B1.7
an undetermined Linguistics course

I can't wait to get into some sort of routine. These random hours are killing me.

P.S. Withdrawing 100€ from the ATM and watching $140 disappear from your bank account really stinks.

P.P.S. Can we look at the title of "Dan in Real Life" en francais? It means: love at first sight in Rhode Island.

Mais...c'est ton anniversaire aujourd'hui?!

2008-09-08T21:24:00.004+01:00

Today started out as a crap day. We had to meet at la Maison du Tourisme at 8h15 to go to the Universite for our placement test, so I woke up at 6h45 to take a shower. Let us pause for a moment to discuss the whole shower situation. Sam and I have discovered pourquoi the French have a reputation for being hairy and smelly: it is IMPOSSIBLE to bathe without catching pneumonia. I cannot imagine what it will be like in the winter.

ANYWAYS, after taking a shower, I got ready to face the day, and it wasn't until 7h42 that I realized that I hadn't heard Sam go into the bathroom (we were planning on leaving at 7h50). I ran to her room and pounded on her door. She had woken up two minutes before. I thought I was having a hard time getting used to the black-out shutters, but compared to Sam, c'est rien! She took a shower faster than I thought humanly possible (especially in the European-style shower) and we were out the door at 8h52.

This morning we took our placement tests for the program. There were three portions of the test: written, oral comprehension and oral presentation (in interview format). This test determines what program level we are in. There are two: B1 and B2. If you are in B1, you take the mandatory language course, and then 3-4 electives in the CUEF (the International Center of the University) with other international students. If you are a little more advanced you can take 1 class in the FAC, with the French students. If you are in B2, you take the mandatory language course, 1-2 courses in the CUEF with other international students, and 2-3 classes in the FAC, with the French students. Taking courses with French students, in French, would be challenging, but very rewarding, I think. I hope I get into B2, but if not, I should still be able to graduate early, alors je n'inquiete pas.

After the test and more boring stuff at the Universite, some of the students from the program came to our house to eat my birthday cake that Sam and I never got around to eating yesterday. It was delicious!

When Christine came home from work and saw Sam and I in the living room, discussing the DVD collection with Claude (he loves movies), she cried, "Happy Birthday!" and she gave me a French hug. When I told her it was yesterday, she looked a little crest-fallen, but after a little reassuring she announced that we would drink the champagne anyway. And so it was that around 19h we were sitting at a table in the garden, sipping some very good champagne and eating something that can only be described as a hoity-toity trail mix.

And my family got me a gift! It was terribly nice of them, they really shouldn't have (I could not think of how to say this en francais, but I think my facial expression and my profusely repeated "merci"s got the meaning across). They got me a lovely eyeglasses case, which will be excellent for my sunglasses, and a little manicure set. It is magnifique.

Christine's mother came for dinner and champagne and tonight she is sleeping the guest bedroom on our floor. She is really nice and she talked with us a great deal. She and Christine took pictures of our petite fete. When I said my hair looked bad in the picture, Christine said that Americans always have nice hair and nice teeth, and they always look fabulous in pictures. She thinks this is because they all want to be movie stars.

The champagne was a little strong so Sam and I were more talkative than usual, which I think was a good thing. Of course Christine broke out the vintage wine (1993) for my birthday, but when they opened it, Christine's mom informed us that it was approximately 2 years past its prime, because it was more maroon than red. But everyone drank it anyways, and soon they were all laughing and chatting. I asked about a English class that Claude had taken and he said he learned a song, which he promptly started singing. It was "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean". Christine knew it as well, and so joined in. I thought things couldn't get any more hysterical, but since we were on the topic of English songs, they somehow jumped to "Roxanne" by the Police, and both started screeching "Roooooxxxxanne". Sam and I almost died from lack of oxygen.

Also: Claude loves Bob l'Eponge (Spongebob). Claude is sixty-five. Christine does not think that this is appropriate. She does, however, think that it is hysterical.

We had such a great dinner tonight, conversation-wise and food-wise. For those of you who are interested in le gastronomie francais, here is the menu:

Cantaloupe

Pork with Ratatouille and Wild Rice

Cheese Platter (mais, bien sur!)

Honey cake with Creme Anglaise

Tomorrow we find out the results of our placement test and then we go to all the possible electives. All week we will go to each elective offered for our level and then will be able to choose which ones we would like to take for the remainder of the semester. It should definitely be interesting. I can't believe that classes are finally starting. However, these are only the classes at the CUEF (the International Center). The French students do not start classes until the 15th. So if I am in B2, the majority of my classes will not start until then. Keep your fingers crossed!

Bonne nuit!

P.S. I apologize for all the errors I am making with my grammar and my awkward sentences. I know I'm writing some strange stuff, but I'm always posting when it's late at night and when I've been speaking French for hours. My brain is half-asleep and the half that is awake is half-thinking in French. Alors, I am writing with a quarter of my brain. It is not easy.