Brag time

So...

I'm in Florence right now. It's pretty much the best ever. I'll write more later...

Vacation!!

Long time no post!!

Things here are going well - busy of course! This week was just a normal week, nothing too special. I started my Intercultural Research Project (one of my K credits), which is exciting. I go a couple times a week to help french middle-schoolers with their english homework. They're pretty cute. Other than that, I really don't know what I've done. Saturday night I went to see a play - a comedy. My face hurt so much afterwards from laughing. Luckily it was really more physical comedy than anything, which made for easy comprehension on my part. My host parents had gone to see it the night before and they came back raving about it, so I decided to check it out the next night. A good decision indeed.

Our fall break is this week and next week (really just next week; the French kids have exams this week but since we don't have exams, we have an extended vacation). This means that tomorrow night I'm leaving Cl-Fd and heading to Paris, then to Rome on Wednesday. We'll stay there for a few days with Whitney, my roommate from Kalamazoo, then move on to Florence for a couple of days, then Venice for a couple days. Therefore, no more posts for a while! I won't be back to Cl-Fd until the 5th! I'll have lots of adventures to catch up on when I get back. Everyone have a fabulous week and a half and I'll talk to you later!

Perigord Excursion

Just incase anyone was worrying, my social awkwardness is still alive and well, as I continue to fumble and falter with the bises (pronounced beezes - the two cheek kisses used to greet EVERYONE). You’d think it wouldn’t be that hard, but it is. I’m doing alright in the realm of cultural misunderstandings. Nothing too grave lately, especially now that I’m starting to get this whole friend thing figured out (or at least I think I am). Language barriers are still tricky from time to time. For example, today I tried to ask my friend Junior if he was feeling better (he’s got a cold). Thinking that this is what I was saying, I asked “est-ce que tu sens mieux?” Jokingly, he lifted his arm, smelled his pit and said yes. I then realized I’d asked “do you smell better?” and not “do you feel better”, which is really “est-ce que tu te sens mieux?” Luckily, Junior is used to my mistakes and corrected me, as usual. Other than that, things are going well :)

This past weekend was really great. The 7 of us K kids went on a 3 day excursion with M. Faure and his wife to Périgord, a region of France which is more southwest than Auvergne. M. Faure rented a minibus and was our chauffeur, which was fun since he tended to get lost every couple of hours. With the help of iTrip and our iPods, we managed to have the world’s longest sing-along during the bus ride. All we were missing was the bouncing red ball. At one point, M. Faure pulled over to the side of the road, stopped the bus, unbuckled his seatbelt, and turned around to tell us that he had a really great idea on how we could pick up guys (he’s always looking out for us). His thought was that we needed to go out onto the street in front of the school with our phone numbers hanging on signs around our necks and sing together. He then proceeded to turn around, start up the car, and drive on. I was teasing him later, saying that I couldn’t believe he stopped the car to tell us that and he said that it’s not very often that he has such great ideas which lead me to believe that he may have actually been serious.

We stopped for lunch at a really neat old town called Sarlat. The region of Périgord is famous for its food and its wine! In particular, Périgord is famous for its duck, fois gras, and gateau aux noix (nut cake). So what did I eat at lunch? Duck and gateau aux noix, and it was divine. Our next stop was in a town (I forgot the name) where the homes were built into the side of a cliff. They had normal looking exteriors, just built into the side of a cliff. We took a guided boat tour that traveled along the face of the cliff. I’ll post pictures soon. We continued onward and arrived later that evening in Périgueux, which is the largest city in Périgord. That night, we ate dinner out in the country at a family run place. The dinner was prearranged for us, and man did we eat well. The first course was a delicious soup, which was unfortunate because we all ate two bowls, thus leaving less space for what was to come. The next course was a salad that had duck gizzards, duck bacon, and fois gras in/on it. Not gonna lie; despite its deliciousness, this one was a little hard to eat, but I did it anyway, and cleared my plate at that. The next course was, yet again, duck. And dessert? Nut cake. That’s okay, it was all so delicious. Unfortunately, it was all so greasy and rich that I was soo sick that night! All I could do was curl up in a ball and groan.

The next day, we ventured out to see the city, which is made up of two sections: the medieval renaissance quarter and the Gallo-Roman quarter. We did a guided tour of the medieval renaissance quarter which was amazing and included lots of narrow streets full of awesome architecture and a cathedral that served as the model for Sacré-Coeur. The tour also included seeing a white-marble bust of a Roman emperor called Marc Aurele who at first glance I could have mistaken for my brother, Nat. That afternoon we went to a museum full of “tromp-l’oeil” paintings, or the best I can come up with is magic-eye/ trick-eye paintings? I don’t know! What are they called in English? They’re paintings in which the objects look so real that you’re convinced that they just might not be paintings. The artists also paint all kinds of little overlooked details into their pieces. It was fun. Afterwards, I took myself on a self-guided tour of the Roman quarter, which was full of cool Roman ruins, like an old temple, parts of an amphitheatre, as well as parts of a wall that bordered the area. Pictures to come.

On our way home the next day, we stopped at St. Emilion (very famous for its wine) and took another guided tour. On this tour, we saw an underground cathedral, catacombs, and all kinds of other fun stuff. In the afternoon, we took a ride through the vineyards on a little trolley thing and saw several chateaus and famous wineries. Sarah and I bought a bottle to take back to the States with us and drink in a year when we’re feeling sad and wishing we were in France. We’ve just got to figure out a way to get it home…

That was my weekend! I’m looking forward to getting this week over with because next week is our fall break and I’m going to Italy! Rome, Florence, and Venice (with a little Paris before and after). I feel like such a brat. I don’t care! I’m in Europe, damn it, and I’m going to enjoy it! I just can’t forget about this whole school thing…

Last Week Part II

...Wednesday was pure hell. We had one class for 6 hours: Marketing. This is the only class we have with all of the other French first year students. The lecture portion was not bad because I had a PowerPoint to stare at, but the small group sessions were terrible. The lecture is about 200 students or so, and then we have smaller groups of about 40. Within the groups of 40 we had to get in even smaller groups of about 5 students and give presentations before the other 35 people in our class. Talk about stress. I don’t know the French vocabulary that goes along with Marketing. I guess I’ll be learning it quickly. I went home that night and gorged myself with chocolate and took a two and a half hour nap. I was not a happy camper.

I can’t complain about Thursday. I turned in a paper for my European civ class. Sarah and I went to lunch beforehand with our French friend Arnaud, who was so kind as to offer to proofread our papers. After much laughter at our creative French, he helped us make our corrections. I think he’s only our friend because we’re absolutely ridiculous/pathetic and he keeps us around for laughs.

Friday was rather non-eventful. We had our language class in the morning with our program director M. Faure and then I had a Pépinière meeting. My group handed me a thick packet of information completely in English and told me that they couldn’t understand it and that I needed to read it and explain it to them. I spent my whole Sunday afternoon reading that packet and let me just say, it is extremely technical. We’re talking like photodetectors, light emitting devices, circuits, and external vs. internal power sources. We’re working on marketing a small roadside safety device that both reflects the light from car headlights back onto the car for oncoming traffic to see and also emits light in the opposite direction so that the driver of the first car can better see oncoming traffic. Sounds like a great way to blind both drivers to me.

Our friend Arnaud had a buddy visiting from Lyon for the weekend, so he invited Sarah and me to go out with them on Friday night. Thibault is the name of Arnaud’s friend, and he is gorgeous. After hanging out with the two of them for a bit, we met up with the rest of the guys (the same ones as before). Sarah and I are starting to feel less awkward with them and think they might actually be starting to consider us friends. It’s still really strange to us to be just two girls hanging out with a group of 4-5 guys, but something Arnaud said that night lead us to believe that they don’t like hanging out with French girls as much because they are either too shy or too reserved. I can’t afford to be shy or reserved here, and besides, I like to laugh too much. It’s working out in my favor anyway – I get to spend my weekends hanging out with four gorgeous French guys!

Saturday was spent shopping for school supplies (among other things) and running around town. It was a gorgeous fall day not to be wasted. Sunday was spent doing homework all day long, with little breaks for painting my nails and looking at pictures from the last two autumns on my computer. I miss fall in Michigan so much! Okay, that's enough for now! Sorry to bore you all!!

Last Week Part I

Well hello there!

Last week was terrifying, and as a result, this is bound to be a long one. I’m kind of frightened. Maybe I’ll break it up into two entries. Here’s the first one J

I guess I should start with the good part. The weekend after my birthday was very enjoyable. Saturday the 30^th was spent with the other international students exploring the Auvergne region. This included a visit to a medieval castle called chateau Murol, a visit to a cathedral called Orcival, a traditional Auvergnat lunch of truffade (a dish composed of potatoes and the region’s most popular cheese, St. Nectaire), a visit to St. Nectaire cheese farm and a tour of the cheese caves (once also medieval underground dwellings). It was a day well spent, but it got even better because by the time we returned to Clermont, a friend from K had arrived by train from her study abroad spot in Bonn to stay for the weekend. Sunday and Monday were spent showing Suzy our favorite spots in Clermont (and making new ones). I was quite sad to see her go on Tuesday, but it just means I have to get my butt over to Germany.

School this week sucked a lot. I should back up and say that the Friday before; we had to sit through several hours of a conference on business ethics during which the speaker proceeded to bash America in many ways. I’ve never been more uncomfortable in my life. Monday was frustrating as well. My French civilization and culture class in the morning was pretty uneventful. I had another Pépinière meeting in the afternoon, during which I kept making a complete ass out of myself. Afterwards, I had my second violin lesson, which was even more of a failure than the first one. It was yet another 15 minute lesson. He had me sight-read a piece that started on B # and had many double sharps and called for many odd positions. That pissed me off, especially since in France, it’s not B #, it’s “Si dièse”, or something, so I couldn’t even tell him that I hate B #’s because I didn’t even know how to say B #. The French don’t use the letter note system… C D E F G A B C. They use solfedge here, like Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do, only it’s not even that. In France, Ti is Si.

Tuesday was Native Speaker Day, which meant that all of the French students at l’ESC who are taking English classes could sign up with myself or any of the other 6 K kids for hour long sessions to do nothing but talk in English. Each group had about 5-6 kids and we did this 3 times throughout the day. Let’s just say it was awkward. Some of the groups just didn’t want to talk. I don’t know if they were shy and unsure of their English level or what, but I ended up doing a lot of talking, and they would just sit there and stare at me. I’d ask them questions, and they would respond, but it never went any further than that. When they did ask me questions, they were horribly awkward, like about French-American politics. Unfortunately, I’m doing this all day today as well...

I guess that’s enough for a first entry. The second half of the week will follow :)