Getting in the Habit of Things

Wednesday was our first day of language classes, called propédeutiques. These are classes into which we were placed after taking a language exam. I'm pretty sure I'm in the second highest level, which is a preparation for traduction (translation). The propédeutiques we're in now are temporary- they end next Thursday. Then the REAL classes begin- language, subject and exterior classes. So far I think my classes will look like:
-Traduction
-Bandes-Dessinées et Société (Cartoons like TinTin and Astérix and how they relate to French society)
-Paris Francophone (How Paris is developing and dealing with the influx of immigrants)
-Cultural Geography (At the Sorbonne, why people decide to go one place over another)
-And I need to find some fifth class to replace what was going to be an internship seminar.

After going to the information session on les stages (internships), I learned that I would basically have to give up all of my Fridays while I'm here, plus lots of time during the week. While I really really want to have a cool job in France, I just don't think right now is the time. I want to be able to spend lots of time with my family and boyfriend when they come to visit, and I'll already have to be taking mid-terms while they're here. I had a lot of anxiety about this, so after talking to my mom for awhile about it, I decided not to do it. Soooo if anyone has internship ideas for the DFW area or Austin during the summer, let me know! :)

Let's see, what have I eaten since I last wrote... Wednesday night Fanou fed us left-overs that compromised a filet-mignon of porc, wrapped in bacon, and then covered in pâté, at least, Fanou said it was pâté, but it had more of a cornbread texture and taste to it than a veal, rabbit, or foie gras-with-other-unknown-ingredients flavor. I asked her for the recette (recipe) and she said that it was too complicated for the United States! She didn't mean to offend, she simply meant we didn't have the right ingredients here, so it wouldn't work. She spent some time that evening bashing pasteurization of cheese, because it ruins the flavor so much. She said her friend had sold "Camambert" in the U.S. but her friend said it tasted awful and nothing like the real stuff. I haven't eaten enough Camambert in my life to know the exact way it's supposed to taste, so I don't know if I can really be a judge of that.

Speaking of cheese, the other day (during la grève, the strike, which is another story) I walked into a fromagerie, a cheese store, thinking that it would be heavenly. Actually it was really overwhelming! I ended up walking out empty-handed because I had no idea where to start. There were cheeses from all over the place and I didn't have all the vocabulary to explain what I like and don't like. I'll have to work on that and soon, I'll go to a fromagerie and walk away with something wonderfully smelly and delicious!

Tonight for dinner, the Schumachers had a guest over- a friend of one of their children- so we had a really good meal. We had a ratatouille-type of things with aubergines (eggplants), tomates (tomatoes), pimenthes (red pepper), mozzarella, and some other things. It had to be vegetarian for Nicté to be able to eat it. The Schumachers (and I) really want Nicté to try some of the meat dishes, but we'll see if it actually happens. Nicté doesn't eat meat simply because that's how she was raised. I think that of any time in our lives, now is the time to branch out. We're in Paris!!! I promised myself I'd eat whatever was put in front of my or specifically recommended, which I've stuck to so far, and it has served me well. Anyway, we also had the usual salade, fromage, etc., but for dessert we had homemade crème renversée, which is like Mexican flan but without the farine (flour). It was incredible!!! Adding another thing to my list of recipes to bring home...

Another awesome thing I tried the other day, because Nicté bought it, was la galette des rois (King Cake). Unlike the green, yellow and purple cake of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, this is flat and flaky and normal-colored. It's like a twist on a crêpe, so you know it has to be good! In France, it's a tradition to eat galettes des rois on or right around Epiphany. Like the New Orleans King Cakes (which are based on these), these galettes also have a little porcelain or plastic figurine inside them, which is supposed to represent Jesus. The person who finds the figurine is crowned the roi (king) and gets the paper crown that comes with all of the cakes. The cakes are basically only sold in January, and since there is one more day in January, perhaps I can find one more to eat. I seriously could eat these all year- they're delicious!!!

Late in the afternoon today Nicté and I met some other girls at La Basilisque du Sacré-Coeur, at the Butte Montmartre- what a wonderful view of Paris! Nicté and I got off of the metro at the Anvers station, at the base of the butte, to find a really lively and kind of sketchy Montmartre. Montmartre is the traditional red light disctrict of Paris, where one can find the Moulin Rouge and other such cabarets. I'm not totally sure, but I don't think the whole red light thing really happens any more... We walked around Montmartre for a little bit, looking at all the touristy things and the colorful atmosphere. I'm definitely going to have to go back there just to get more of the feel of it.

So lastly, I'll talk about la grève (the strike). The strike took place on Thursday- six or eight syndicats (unions), decided to stop working for a day to protest the government for higher wages and better pensions and things like that. I don't want to make light of the plight of the workers of France, but honestly striking is the national sport. Workers get paid strike days!!! It happens all the time. My professor lives in the Banlieue (the outskirts of Paris, outside the Peripherique, the highway that separates Paris Proper from Greater Paris), and since she depends on the RER (the commuter train) and the metro to come to work, she moved Thursday's class to Friday. This meant a free day for me on Thursday! I slept till 1:30, then took my time taking a shower and getting ready for the day, then I went walking around the neighborhood for about two hours. I just took in all the shops- the patisseries (pastry shops), the boucheries (butchers), the epiceries (specialty grocers), etc, and bought a few things from the soldes (the massive sales that take place in January. It was the first beautiful day in Paris, without many clouds, but it was still 39 degrees Fahrenheit. It was a perfect day for a strike to happen, at least for me! It just turned out to be a nice, relaxing day- one that allowed me to do some catching up on sleep and rest and knowledge of my whereabouts.

I don't really have plans for the weekend- some friends and I might go to some flea markets (they started here, you know) or to some museums or to the movies. We'll see. But that's all for now!

Bonsoirée,
Ellie

Death by Cheeseballs.

So today I'm writing at the IES Paris Center on a French keyboard- worst little machine in the world. They are so frustrating! Where our shift key is, there is a weird backward slash:\. So whenever I try to type a capital letter, a dash comes before a lower case letter.

Last night we ate le raclette at the Schumachers' house. As you can see on the Wikipedia link I just gave you, le raclette is the name of both a smoky French cheese with Swiss origins and a French meal with Swiss origins. Raclette literally means scraper/squeegee (thanks, Dad). We had this portable grill/oven that came with six little plastic pans. One puts le fromage raclette (raclette cheese) in their individual pan and places that in the oven for a minute so that it fond (melts, like fondue). Then you take your cheese and scrape it out of the pan with a little wooden squeegee onto a piece of viande séche (dried meat) like prosciutto or viande des grissons (I have no idea what grissons means, but I ate it anyway) or pomme de terre (potato), or you could even have a spread of vegetables. We ate this meal with croqs-vertes (little bumpy pickles). It was pretty cool because my dad has been telling me for a long time that the Swiss and French like to eat fondue and pickles in the winter, et voila! I ate just that in the French winter! It was delicious!!

At all the other dinners we've eaten at the Schumachers' house, they have only brought out one bottle of wine for the entire dinner. Last night two were brought out, and it was funny because Fanou and Jean-Pierre got a little more chatty than usual :)

Yesterday afternoon, Nicté and I decided that since we had paid 16euro40 for our Navigos (unlimited metro passes), we needed to use them and go explore some place in Paris. We decided on Notre Dame, on Isle-de-la-Cité. I've been to Notre Dame before, but it still took my breath away. Walking inside and seeing the soaring arches and huge stained glass windows is really incredible, as are the gigantic bell towers and the gargoyle statues on the outside. We stayed long enough to catch the beginning of a mass, and then went back to the Schumachers' place.

Since I've already started this backward description of yesterday, I'll continue with it. IES (my academic program) continued with orientation at a place called FIAP which had an auditorium big enough for all 70-ish of us to sit in together. We took our placement test and they went over courses at exterieur universities (like the Sorbonne and the Catholic Institute), as well as intercultural competence and homestay information. We learned some interesting stuff in the intercultural competence portion:

1. The French don't smile because they were raised not to smile. Mothers constantly keep their children right by their sides and freak out about letting their children wander away or try new and possibly dangerous things (like at the playground). In school, humiliation is a common teaching tool, so French children learn to be extremely humble. On the other hand, American children are told to go slide down the slide, even if they might scrape their elbow. We are also praised for every little thing we do (example: when John brings a leaf to show-and-tell, the teacher tells him how wonderful it is and how great he is for bringing it). These comments about how American children are raised in the eyes of a French person made all of us Americans laugh. I think I was laughing at how idiotically praiseful we Americans can be, but also how absurd it is for a French parent to be so overly-cautious. In the end, we Americans end up walking with our chests out because we have learned to be proud and to go out in the world to conquer it, while the French avert their eyes and keep to themselves because they are more cautious.

2. The French don't talk to strangers because conversation is reserved for good friends. When you're on the metro, NO ONE talks except people who got on together, and they talk quietly. The other day an African man was talking really loudly on his phone, and it was kind of a big deal. The lecturer made fun of both French and Americans by talking about how she might go to a store in the U.S. and an American might make a comment like "Oooh you bought soy sauce! What are you going to do with that?!" and she might think to herself "Why is it anyone else's business what I'm going to do with my soy sauce?" I think this is awful because it prohibits me from learning as much as I can about the French, and they, by nature, refuse to respond. Even though I might be sitting less than a foot away (as I was at lunch today) from a French person, and she might eye me and study me (as she did at lunch today), she won't say a word to me. It's really just bizarre.

3. French showerheads are always on hoses and places towards the bottom of the wall. They can't stand the idea of having water all over them the whole time they shower. They like to have their time out of the water to lather soap on their bodies and then choose when and where to have the water go. I hate this! When I take showers here, I freeze! I'm not going to get into this very much, but this is one thing that seems just dumb to me. Just step out of the way of the water to put your soap on and then you don't have to mess with holding the shower head. Oh also, they have the shower heads at the bottom of the wall to avoid having the water squirt out of the shower head above them and surprise them. I thought to myself, just do that before you get in the shower if it's that big a deal. Weird.

4. The French NEVER use toilet paper as kleenex. To them, this is incredibly dirty. I do it all the time, but I guess I'll have to be on my guard for the next four months.

We were told in the info session about homestays that there were certain topics that are considered taboo to talk about with our French families- religion, salaries, money in general, politics, and sexuality/sexual orientation. Nicté and I have managed to talk about religion, money in general and politics with our family. Maybe they should have done that info session before the weekend. Oh well, the Schumachers still seem to like us.

This morning on our way to school, Nicté and I walked down Rue de Levi to get to Métro Villiers so we could stop at the mini-department store, Monoprix. Rue de Levi is a street that's well known in the 17e arrondisement for its boutiques, specialty stores, and food stands. It's kind of like Portobello Road in London, but without the antique shops (more clothing shops on Rue de Levi). Anyway, I saw something you don't see everyday- a truck full of full pigs and other boucherie (butcher shop) things. I just thought it was interesting. Today I ate my first croque-madame (ham sandwich with melted cheese and an egg on top) on this trip to Paris- so good! I also walked through the Tuileries, the gardens of an "ex-palace," which were pretty bare since it's January. It's supposed to be beautiful in the spring, so we'll see! It's right next to the Louvre, which is always exciting to see since it's enormous.

Afterward, we walked along the Seine to get to the Metro, so we saw the sunsetting next to the Eiffel Tour. Très magnifique!

A bientôt,

Ellie

Mon Week-end

So Saturday morning Nicté and I met a group of girls at la Tour Eiffel for an open bus tour around the city of Paris. We all climbed up to the top, because how can you go on one of those and only sit in the bottom? Well! It was 36 degrees and windy!! We stayed up there for most of the trip, just to find ourselves mostly getting to know each other and randomly taking (bad quality) pictures of the monuments of Paris (see picture below of les Invalides, where Napoleon is buried).
We didn't get off of the open bus tour anywhere for two reasons: 1) We figure we have four months to see these things, so this was rather a good opportunity to get our bearings of where things are and 2) we didn't realize we could get off and on until we were more than halfway through, so we used the first reason as justification not to get off :)

When we finally did get off, it was to get a different view of the Eiffel Tower, from across the Seine, and to find some hot lunch. We walked around the 8th arrondisement around Rue Kléber looking for a hole in the wall, and when we finally found one, it was absolutely packed with locals. That can be a good sign, but also a bad sign. Good because it means quality food, but bad because the French take forever to eat, so eight girls were not going to find any tables there. We ended up getting hot chocolate at the bar and then Nicté and I left to go back to our place and eat lunch there.

Soon after we got there, one of Jean-Pierre and Fanou's daughters arrived with her husband and two little daughters, Chloé, 2, and Charlotte, 1. Charlotte, who has some lung problem and therefore takes up a lot of her parents' time, was to stay with her grandparents while her parents spent the evening and next morning with Chloé (who *understandably* was jealous of her sister). So we got to hear the babbling French of a one and two year old around the apartment for awhile, which was fun! I normally know what to say to a little American toddler, but I couldn't automatically think of things to say to a French toddler, so that was a little strange. But they were adorable.

Last night around 7pm, I left the apartment by myself for the night to go to my friends' apartment (they are living in a private apartment without a family) which is waaay in South Paris, in the 14e arrondisement at the Porte d'Orléans metro stop. It took me about an hour to get there, and when I got out of the metro, I couldn't find any street names. So there I was with an overnight bag, in my grandmother's long, nice, black coat with jeans and sneakers (egads!!! sneakers with an overcoat in Paris?!!), lost. Fortunately, another girl, Nikki, who was also going to the same place gave me a call and told me she had found our friends' apartment but couldn't get in, so we could meet up. She lived about 15 minutes away walking, so she had just turned around and walked back. She told me to wait for her on the corner outside of the metro stop and she would take the metro back, since it was too late to be safe to walk back. What was supposed to take 10 minutes turned into 35, so I got to watch the happenings in South Paris- a crêperie stand, police directing traffic, a pickpocketing (I'm absolutely serious- I watched a man come out of the metro and walk through a group of young black men at the top of the stairs, one of whom managed to pull the man's wallet out of his coat without the man realizing it!), the usual. I was actually mistaken for a French woman by a man who was supposed to meet someone. That was flattering.

Nikki finally arrived and we spent awhile trying to figure out how to get into the apartment. When we got in, the girls made dinner for us and we got ready to go out to the Champs Elysées. One of the girls at the apartment, Dominique, said she her Parisian friend had told her about this great club there called 67. So off we went, most of us in heels, towards the grande avenue (quick side note: the metro started pretty abruptly for some reason, and I found myself flying about 8 feet through the car and was only stopped by a man who put his arm out and caught me. Pretty embarassing but apparently the Parisians in that car had a laugh, so I'm not too worried about it).

Once we got there Dominique discovered she had forgotten the address. She was absolutely determined to find this place, so even though the rest of us wanted to sit and have a glass of wine somewhere and then maybe look for a club, we marched up and down the Champs Elysées looking for this club. Finally, we convinced her to go into a place called Club 65 that we were told was free to enter. She was mad that we had "given up so easily" but once she got in she realized that there was actually dancing. We wonder if she possible got the name of the club wrong and the place was really just Club 65. Whatever.


Club 65 had a coat check and a dance floor with tables around it and, of course, a bar, with unbelievably expensive drinks (8€/beer), but that's what you get on the Champs Elysées. No one really cared about drinking anyway, as we just wanted a Parisian club experience. It turned about to be a great night- they played a lot of American 90's hits, nobody at the club was visably drunk, no creepers came up and tried to dance with us- it was just a lot of good fun. Walking up the stairs turned out to be a little harder than we thought, because walking around the streets of Paris and dancing for 4 hours in heels really does a number on your feet. We hobbled our way to the metro pretty quickly because the metro closes at 2am on Saturday nights. We were able to make the last train to Porte d'Orléans.

After we boarded the metro, a group of young black guys got on. They seemed pretty harmless: they had two nice looking girls with them and they were all eating McFlurries. One went to sit down in a four seater area, and tried to wake up a girl who was there sleeping so she would move her legs off of the seat across from her. This girl would not wake up. She was probably around our age, but she definitely had something wrong with her. After the first guy failed to wake her up, the others joined in, banging on the window above her head and clapping. She kind of lifted her head and opened her eyes a little bit, but barely noticed what was happening. Finally, she got up and moved, but she was not too steady and she had white powder all over the back and side of her black coat. We're pretty sure she was coked out. Sad story. Again, though, I felt pretty safe as there were six of us and no one had any interest in us at all. I don't want to get too confident about using the metro, at any time of the day, let alone 2am, but I did feel safe last night.

Nikki and I slept on the floor of our friends' apartment. Worst idea ever! I had a seat cushion and a neck pillow I had brought from home, and I put some sheets under me. All I had over me was my grandmother's coat. I think from 3am to 8am I got maybe two hours of bad sleep. At 8am Nikki and I decided to walk to her place, where she had a trundle bed. I slept like a baby there until 11:30, when I went back to my apartment. All in all, the night was worth it, but next time Nikki and I will probably go to her place to sleep.

After I got home, Nicté and I went to the metro station to buy Navigo passes, today's equivelant to the Carte Orange (an unlimited metro pass). As it was 16,40€ for the week, I am thinking I might start taking the metro for fun just to get my money's worth! But really, with all the time I'll spend on the metro to and from school and for other excursions, I think I will easily get my money's worth.

Although tonight wasn't one of our pre-arranged dinners with our family, Fanou and Jean-Pierre gave me some home-made soupe de la citrouille (pumpkin soup), saucisson sec (dry sausage- similar to the one we ate with all the pepper on it, Dad), pâté, and vin rouge (red wine). Jean-Pierre explained that Sunday evenings were a time for French families to relax before the start of a new week. Sunday evenings, French families rarely make their food and eat left-overs or pre-made food and pass out in front of the TV. I responded that Sundays evenings in the U.S. mean football for a lot of people, but that mornings are reserved for church. He then told me about how, in his native region around Toulouse, Sunday mornings and afternoons were spent at church and then gathered around the long table of the grandparents. It was cool learning about that Southern French tradition and discussing the reasons it doesn't happen as much anymore, particularly in Paris. He told Nicté and I all about the Basque region of France and the Pyrenées, where he and Fanou have a house. It turned out to be a nice relaxing evening, which is good because I have my language placement exam in the morning. Speaking of which, I should probably go to bed!

Adieu,
Ellie

Ma Première Journée

So today was my first whole day, and it wasn't that exciting. We (Nicté and I) got up and ate toast with Nutella and drank chocolat chaud (hot chocolate) and jus d'orange (orange juice). I don't know if it's because I'm in France or what, but somehow everything tastes really really good! Then our host father, Jean-Pierre, took us to the IES Paris Centre which is about 40 minutes away by métro. He's not going to do this every day, but he went with us today because we would not have had any clue about where to go! I was actually scheduled to be in the second orientation group, but I wanted in on the chaufeurage.

The métro in Paris is really strange because absolutely no one talks, and you get to see all kinds of people. I even saw a French person reading Tom Sawyer (America is moving back up in the world standings?) Also, it was really cold today (upper 30s/low 40s I think), but the métro was soooo hot, especially with the coats and scarves everyone (including myself) was wearing. Nicté, being from Chicago, is really used to riding mass transit, but I am from Texas, which could really rank dead last in mass transit. It's going to be neat making that a part of my everyday life.

At the orientation, we were told that we must speak only French inside the IES Paris Centre, which is good because I came here to learn French. In fact, our host family is really impressed that Nicté and I mainly speak in French to each other, even when our host family is not around. Apparently, we're their first (out of 10+) to do so. I think that it's not only beneficial for our French, but it's also the polite thing to do. I know that I like it when my bilingual friends switch to languages I know around me, so I feel like I should do the same thing here. It might mean that I look like a fool sometimes (a pharmacist responded to me in English today, the jerk!) or that people may use vocabulary that I don't know, but the point is I'm going to get better all the time. I will say that it's nice to talk on Skype to my family and Taylor because that's just about the only English I have gotten to speak so far.

Let's see, food-wise I had a baguette with oeufs (eggs), gruyère, tomates (tomatoes) and beaucoup de mayonnaise (that's the same thing in English and I'm not a big fan of it in either language!). For dinner, we had zucchini soup, a fluffy quiche-y thing, salad (with "French dressing," as Fanou put it last night with a laugh), cheese, bread and fruit. Fanou just keeps bringing food out, which is fine by me! Don't worry, Dad, I'm going to get some of these recipes.

At dinner, we talked about all kinds of things. According to Jean-Pierre and Fanou, the Académie Française, which I've always held in such high esteem, is just a bunch of old writers that come out with an unseen dictionary every year. We also spent awhile talking about Mont Saint Michel, a community in Normandie that becomes an island when the tide comes in. Jean-Pierre and Fanou absolutely adore it, and they said they love the hike up the rocky hill to the church as well as the cloisters inside it. Jean-Pierre said that while you hike up to the church, all of the little problems of life seem to go away. It's a good four hour trip from here, and it's necessary to rent a car, so my family probably won't get to go this time. But IES offers a trip in late April to Mont Saint Michel, and there is an essay contest to decide who gets to go. I'll definitely enter it, so hopefully I'll get to go.

In the morning, Nicté and I are meeting up with some other girls at the Eiffel Tour to go on an open bus tour of Paris. Quite touristy, yes, but it's a great way to see the city quickly, and it's free because IES got us the tickets. After looking at French cell phone plans all evening, free is really cool :)

Bonsoirée!
Ellie

My Departure and Arrival

With overstuffed bags and a fistful of Euros, I boarded my plane to Paris yesterday around 5pm. As always, finding my seat and getting situated was a hassle, and, although there were plenty of open seats, the two seats next to my window seat were both about to be occupied by two girls who looked to be around my age. I soon learned that these two girls, Sarah and Dominique, were going to study abroad in Paris in my same program, IES! It was so cool to get to meet and talk with some people who are in my program before I arrived. I had been freaking out that everyone in my program would be mutants or something, so it was nice to know that there were going to be at least two normal girls. These two go to the University of Puget Sound up in Washington, but both live near L.A. It was just random that we happened to be on the same plane, sitting together! I didn't hear much of the safety precautions or anything because we discussed our upcoming adventure for the next two and a half hours.

I was able to sleep a fair amount on the plane, thanks to a neck pillow, eye mask, and Benedryl. When I woke up we were about an hour out from Paris. I looked outside and was taken back by how level with the moon I was, and how I could see light beginning to appear over the horizon of clouds. I watched the sun come up, ate breakfast, watched the sun disappear again behind lots of clouds, and landed safely at Charles de Gaulle Airport. The three of us did the whole customs thing, got our bags and walked out of security.

The first thing I saw was a piece of paper with my name on it being held my an older, stout man. This man was Jean-Pierre Schumacher, and the women next to him were his wife, Fanou, and an American, Nicté, i.e. my host family and my roommate. I was greeted entirely in French and have spoken only a few phrases of English (to Nicté) since then. We put the bags in the Schumacher's van (they all fit!!) and started off towards Paris, passing Ikea on the way. Apparently, the ride was a lot longer than it should have been at 45 minutes, but being so fresh off the plane, I didn't really care.

We got to our street, Rue de Saussure, in the 17e ("dix-septieme") arrondissement (district), and Jean-Pierre pulled the van onto the sidewalk! Oh those Frenchies :) We unloaded and went up to the appartement on the 6e ("sixieme") étage (floor). The apartment is two stories, and it has a very small kitchen that houses a sink, microwave, fridge and freezer, washing machine, and a whole bunch of pictures of grand-children. Nicté and my rooms are upstairs, across the hall from Jean-Pierre and Fanou's offices. I immediately noticed that my desk is the Mikael from Ikea- some things are universally recognizable. Nicté and I have a shared balcony that overlooks the Rue de Saussures, although it's too rainy right now for the balcony to be of any use. My bed is litte, but comfortable. I got Jean-Pierre to help me put up my Dallas Cowboys calendar that Taylor gave me. Things are looking homier and homier!

We ate lunch with Fanou downstairs in the séjour (living room). She made le chou rouge (red cabbage) with a vinaigrette, du poisson blanc (white fish, I forgot the actual name), and des pommes de terres à l'air (baked potatoes, I think). We also ate bread she bought on the way home and four different types of cheese for dessert- emmenthal, camambert, and two other kinds of which I didn't really catch the names. Afterwards, she suggested we take a short nap. I made sure to set my alarm for an hour, but Nicté is still sleeping, so I hope her sleep cycle won't be all messed up. When Nicté does wake up, I think we're going to walk around the block and maybe try to find the metro stations and the bus stop. Hopefully we'll get all of our transportation mildly figured out today.

I think I have to be at the IES orientation tomorrow at 1:30pm. I'll let you know all about it!

Au revoir,
Ellie