galavanting can be tiring

So I think I've finally recovered from my week-long trip around France and Poland. It was tiring, but worth it. If you're reading this, you may want to grab a snack or something, cuz you may be here for awhile! This post is pretty long. Here are some of the highlights of my vacation:

Rachelle and I left Bordeaux at 5:30am to take the train to Paris. Consequently, we had to take the bus de nuit at 4:30am to get to the station on time. Here was where our adventures began. The bus driver was driving like a maniac the entire time: I don't exactly know where he had to be or what schedule he had to keep, but that bus hardly slowed down until it stopped to let us off. If you've ever seen Harry Potter 3 when Harry is riding the night bus, you'll have an idea of what this ride was like. And to make matters worse, it was a doubly-long bus joined by an accordion-type middle and Rachelle and I were facing the back end, watching the accordion compress and contort while a pile of pamphlets flew and slid around everywhere the entire time. We both got off the bus feeling a little ill... not a great start to a holiday.

We arrived in Paris without much mishap (and thankfully the Paris night bus to the airport 2 days later was a calm and comfortable ride!), and spent our first day, Rachelle's birthday, at Versailles, which was beautiful but packed with tourists. Later we found a restaurant that her godsister had recommended to us to try, saying it was "the best restaurant in Paris." I don't know if Chez Gladine was the BEST restaurant in the city, but it certainly was the restaurant that gave you the most bang for your buck! Rachelle ordered a salad for 6€ and got a huge metal mixing bowlful of it. It was amazing! We also ended up sitting beside a mother and daughter from Australia (the mother was visiting the daughter in France), and had a really good talk with them, so now if we ever go to Australia, we'll have a place to stay! (Can I just say I love traveling and making connections like this?)

The second day in Paris was good too. It was bright and sunny and we visited the Eiffel Tower, Sacré-Coeur, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Champs-Elysées, where we attempted to track down the Starbucks but failed. That day we were also super-tired already so we ended up going back to our hostel around 7ish and going to sleep really early. After all, we had to wake up again at the crack of dawn to catch our night bus to go to our next destination: Krakow!

We arrived in Krakow after a smooth Easyjet flight just before noon. Although we were both hungry and tired, our first task was to take a bus from the airport to the Old Town to find our hostel. Luckily a lady at the info desk explained to us, in English, how to get there. I guess I didn't quite realize what I was getting myself into, going to Poland, and Rachelle thought it was funny how stressed out I was about not being able to speak the language. But this was the first situation I've ever been in where I felt absolutely helpless when trying to communicate. At least in France I knew enough French on my arrival to get by. Here I had to depend on a little phrasebook and people's abilities to speak English. Nevertheless, I forced myself to learn several words: thank you, hello, excuse me, yes, no, and English. Just the basics. I never thought I would long for the familiarity of France so much!

Despite the language barrier, our time in Krakow was amazing! The city is beautiful, with clean buildings painted every colour you can imagine without looking too tacky, and it feels small, even though it has a population of 800,000. We spent the majority of our time in the Old Town, which is surrounded by the Planty, a park which was formerly a moat, and contains two castles, a huge square that's existed since medieval times, and tons of little boutiques, souvenir shops, and restaurants, most of which thankfully had menus in both Polish and English. Whenever we could, we ordered perogies and cabbage rolls and sausage. We thought it was funny that the Polish always tried to translate "perogies" into English, by describing them as "dumplings filled with..." or "pockets like ravioli filled with...". I guess we can't just assume that everyone will know what perogies are. Us Winnipeggers are used to eating them, but I guess others aren't. My favourite type we ordered was blueberry perogies with cream drizzled on top. We had these for dessert and we're going to try to replicate them this summer when we're both back in the Winnipeg.

Our second day in Poland, we caught a bus going to Oswiecim, the town where Auschwitz-Birkenau is located. There we went on a 3-hour tour of both parts of the camp. Although I've studied a lot about the Holocaust over the years, I learned some new things while touring the camp, as our tour guide was extremely knowledgeable. It's hard to describe what I felt going through a place like that, but mostly it was just really surreal, because I've seen so many pictures and images of it and it was a really strange feeling to be there for real. It was emotional, but I'm really glad that I went. It was something that I've wanted to do for a really long time and it's not something that I would have the opportunity to do every day. Although the camp was such a place of death, it was good to hear about some of the stories of resistance and triumph, and we also watched a short video filmed while the camp was getting liberated. These images and stories gave us hope. While we were in Krakow, we also found out that Oskar Schindler's factory is a museum now, but when we tried to visit it the next day we found out it was closed for renovations. We still took pictures of the outside of it though, as that place also carries a message of hope and life.

All in all the Krakow part of our trip was really awesome. I forgot to mention that we stayed in an absolutely amazing hostel. It was super clean, and we had our own private bathroom and shower, comfortable beds and a little table, chairs, and a wardrobe in our room. We also had a radio that played lots of classical music and Polish hip-hop and we shared a little kitchen with 2 other rooms. They'd even put candies on our pillows for when we arrived! We actually didn't want to leave Krakow to go back to Paris, but alas, we had to.

Our last day back in Paris was spent relaxing as much as possible. We visited the Père Lachaise cemetery and saw Jim Morrison and Edith Piaf's graves, and other than that we didn't do much. The next morning I left early to catch my train to Arles and Rachelle flew back to Korea.

My stay in Arles lasted just one night but I was there for almost 2 full days. Arles is a little city in Provence, a province in the south of France. There are tons of Roman ruins there, and I bought a pass to visit them all. It was pretty cool and really relaxing to just have some down time exploring a new city. Arles is also a really cool city, and it's easy to see why van Gogh and other painters found so many subjects to paint there (and by the way, I have Bonnie to thank for helping me find this city!). I visited a few places where he painted some of his famous works, including "Café Terrace at Night" (which inspired me to go to Arles in the first place) and "Starry Night over the Rhone." I loved Arles' narrow, winding streets whose old buildings opened all their colourful wooden shutters out onto the streets. Both days I was there were warm, sunny and beautiful. One of my favourite things that happened there was on the first day when I bought a huge pizza from a pizzeria and I took it to eat by the river. There were no fewer than four people who walked by and wished me "Bon appétit!" I love France! I also went to a market on Saturday which was massive. I bought a bunch of things, including a 1/2 loaf of bread, a new kind of cheese, some fruit, etc. and made myself a little picnic. For dessert I bought 2 lavender-- yes, that's right, lavender--- cookies. They grow a lot of lavender in Provence, so it's a specialty of the region. It may sound gross but the cookies were delicious! They tasted the way lavender smells, with just a hint of sweetness. Mmm!

Below are just a few of the many pictures I took on my trip: The first 2 are self-explanatory. The third one is the main square in Old Town Krakow and the fourth is a bird’s eye view of the city. The fifth one is me pretending to ring the bell in the bell tower of Wawel Castle, one side of which you can see in the next pic. The seventh picture shows a random little castle just outside of the Old Town in Krakow. It reminded Rachelle and me of a Paper-Bag Princess castle. The last 5 pics are in Arles: a street, the Roman Amphitheatre, the Café la Nuit (look at the bottom right-hand corner and you’ll see a copy of van Gogh's original painting), me and the Rhone River, and finally part of the remaining ramparts, which used to encircle the entire town.

So there you have it! Bye for now!

wine tasting and scary controleurs... just another day in bordeaux

So, I'm off on my next big trip outside of Bordeaux! My friend Rachelle got in from Korea on Tuesday and I went to meet her at the train station (only I couldn't find her for 1/2 hr, which is next-to-impossible because the Gare St-Jean is super small as far as gares go... Turns out Rachelle was waiting in a Centre d'Acceuil which I didn't know existed). Just to make it clear, Rachelle is my friend from Winnipeg but she's teaching English for another year in Seoul, and for her vacation she came to France to visit me!

So, we've had a few adventures over the last few days, including a run-in with the Tram Police that fortunately ended with Rachelle not getting a ticket despite a super-huge mistake on my part. (it's a long story, but if you ever want to hear it, I can tell it). Today we went to a vineyard for a free tour and a free dégustation of 4 different wines afterwards. It was pretty awesome. Tonight we're heading to bed early so we can get up at 3:30am to get to the train station to catch our 5:52am train ride to Paris. It should be pretty fun. In fact, our whole trip is going to consist of early morning traveling. We're spending 2 nights in Paris and then flying to Krakow to stay for 3 nights. After spending one more night in Paris, Rachelle is heading back to Korea and I'm going to Arles, a city in the south of France, for one night before I head home. It's going to be a pretty fun and but pretty exhausting at the same time. But we'll be in Poland! I'm pumped for that. We're going to try to brush up on our basic Polish before we get there (well, in all reality it won't be brushing up... it'll be learning from scratch), which is exciting for me, because, well, you know me and languages.

So, just a little update in regards to my last posting: things are going better for me in regards to my language use here. Rachelle and I have been speaking French to each other and we've been in lots of situations to practice it (and she even has a franco-manitobain accent, and I'm really proud of myself that I've been able to understand everything she's said so far!). I think that last week I was just in a little bit of a rut and was feeling overwhelmed and just needed to get over it. I guess I'm bound to have some moments like that. Thank you to everyone who've written me encouraging messages in regards to the post (and previous ones, too!). It's helped a lot!

I've attached a few pictures below. I tried to post a little video of me singing in the choir at church last Friday, but I couldn't get it to work, so I guess you'll have to see me singing in French when I get home. The first one is me and Rachelle in front of a random building in Bordeaux. The other two are from the Chateau: I'd like to say that we drank those huge wine bottles we're holding, but they really are just props sitting in the boutique for the purpose of taking pictures. However it is possible to purchase wine in that size... The other one is just funny. If you look closely at the picture beside Rachelle, you may recognize Gerard Depardieu with the proprietor of the vineyard. His expression is priceless. Well that's all for now!

not as easy as i thought

I don't really know what I expected this time in France to be. I knew it was going to be challenging, adapting to a new culture and trying to live my life in French. I guess I just didn't realize how much of a challenge it would be. Every day is somewhat of a struggle to speak French when all I really want to do is to take the easy way out and just speak English, especially when it comes to communicating with my fellow Winnipeggers (but we're trying our best to speak French as much as possible!).

It's pretty frustrating to me to try to formulate sentences, because to do so I'm thinking of what I want to say in English and then translating it in my head and then trying to say everything in the right order in French, while at the same time trying to have a bit of an accent so I don't sound too anglophone. As a result, I speak slowly when trying to tell a story or say several phrases at once, and in the amount of time it takes me to say 3 sentences, I probably could say 6 or even ten if I were speaking English. Also when people talk too fast, I don't understand exactly what they're saying, and that's frustrating too. I have to keep telling myself that it's not that I'm too unintelligent to comprehend, it's just that I don't catch everything, and thats why I don't get the joke. But I can say now that I truly know what it feels like to be a foreigner and will for sure never look at newly-arrived immigrants to Canada in the same way again.

Of course, not everything is hard. I've become an expert at talking about myself, my studies, my country, the weather in Winnipeg, my family, etc., etc. These are the topics I get asked about most often when I meet new people. But it's when I start to try to talk about something else where I stumble. I guess I'm mostly frustrated with the fact that I've already learned a lot of the vocabulary that I seem not to know, and I feel like I should have retained it somewhere in my head in order to use it later. The thing is, I'm also a perfectionist so I can sometimes have unreasonably high expectations for myself and subsequentially am way too hard on myself when it comes to situations like this.

So where does this leave me? Well, alone, for one. I've been spending a lot of time alone lately, doing homework, reading, writing emails and blog posts. Maybe this isn't the healthiest thing for me, but sometimes I just can't help it. I make efforts to hang out with people, but I have a really limited social network here, and we all have different schedules. Maybe something I'm supposed to learn from this time abroad is peace in solitude (well, one of the things at least).

I don't want to scare anyone: I do have friends here, and I do have stuff to do and classes to go to and church to attend (after which I always stay for lunch to talk to people) and potlucks to bring food to, but I just seem to be spending a little more time by myself than I do back home, and maybe that's not an extremely bad thing. Oh well, I guess time will tell. All I know is that I'm not getting a lot of practice speaking the language I came here to learn when I'm by myself. So let's hope that changes soon!

a hard week

So, this week has been a little more difficult than the rest of my time here in France so far. On Wednesday afternoon, I found out via email that one of my good friends, Lisa Klassen, had been in a really serious car accident on Tuesday morning. I read with disbelief the Winnipeg Free Press article about how her car was propelled up a snowbank and over the railing of a bridge, landing upside down on the Red River and cracking the ice with the force of the fall. An off-duty firefighter had been driving behind her at the time and ran down to help, kicking in the window and cutting her free from her seatbelt, then administering CPR until she began to breathe on her own. She is currently in hospital in stable condition. Miraculously, she has no brain damage (despite being under water for almost 5 minutes) and through it all has suffered a broken vertebra and tailbone. She is not in the clear yet, as there is still a chance of infection in her lungs due to the river water remaining, but she has come a long way since Tuesday.

This obviously came as a shock to everyone who knows Lisa and what an amazing person she is. The first day I found out was especially hard since it’s at times like these that you just want to be around people whom you love. That day I experienced homesickness as well as a feeling of helplessness, since there was nothing I could really do. Well, nothing except pray. So that’s what I did. Reflecting on it now, I know that if I were in Winnipeg right now, that’s all I’d be able to do anyway. So I’ve been praying more than I ever have before, and God has answered a lot of my prayers already (and I know there are tons of people back home praying for the exact same things. Oh yeah and if anyone reading this could keep Lisa in their prayers, that would be awesome!). That’s really encouraging. In all, this week has been long and emotionally draining, but through it all my feeling of isolation has disappeared and to take its place is a sense that I’m part of a bigger community of people who love Lisa and who can be spiritually united in purpose and prayer. So that was this week.

Other smaller, normal things continued to happen this week too. I had a few more classes and I started my DEFLE course. I actually found out that I won’t get as much oral practice as I originally thought I’d get from this class, but I think I’ll still stay in it, if only to learn some more vocabulary. In Phonologie, we had a petit contrôle on Thursday, which was basically a quiz on naming phonemes. It was difficult! The prof gave us a little piece of paper with 10 descriptions of phonemes, like consonne occlusive bilabiale sourde, or in English, “voiceless bilabial stop consonant”, and we’d have to write the IPA symbol for it, or [p]. Not only are there upwards of 100 phonemes to describe all the languages of the world, and not only did I spend all week trying to memorize their descriptions en français, but we only had 5 minutes to do the entire test! I think I did OK, but talk about racking my brain for the right symbols!

Other than that, I’ve had the opportunity to experience my first “administrative headache,” as the girls who came last year like to say. I’m supposed to access the texts for my translation class online on this thing called the bureau virtuel, but I just can’t get it to work for me. Why do things have to be so confusing and so hard to navigate here? I’ve tried several times to join the group for my class, just like my prof said (“Ah oui, c’est en ligne, au bureau virtuel.”) Yes, it is just so simple! No, it really isn’t actually. I can’t find my class because half the groups don’t have names or information about them, and once I join a group there’s no option to click on to join in any group activities (one of them theoretically being printing out the necessary documents). So what should have been simple turned out to be difficult, and that just made me frustrated, and then I just gave up. I’m going to try to email or visit the prof in her office on Monday, but I don’t want to look stupid. People here have a tendency to look at you as if you’re stupid if you can’t do something they think should be easy. Oh well, the foreign card may need to be played once again here. This really isn’t as big a deal as it seems to me at this moment, but that’s school for me right now. So other than all this, school is A-OK!

Lent started on Wednesday, and I decided this year to give up speaking English, but I had to attach a whole bunch of clauses, like 1) except when I’m talking to my family or friends back home; 2) except when I don’t know the French word for something; and 3) except when I’m really emotional and just can’t speak French anymore. So, this week was pretty much shot for speaking French around my fellow Winnipeggers and my American friend Danielle who goes to church with me. But amazingly I went out for supper Friday night with the other girls from Winnipeg and we spoke French almost the entire evening. And on Saturday I went to a potluck for my DEFLE class where I got by with speaking French the entire afternoon (it’s especially fun trying to explain the winter weather in Winnipeg to Europeans in French!). I’ve actually met quite a few people here already, which I’m happy about. It’s pretty cool learning about other cultures too. I got to try some different types of food at the potluck, and I in turn made pancakes from scratch for everyone to enjoy (along with some authentic Canadian maple syrup!). I was also really excited when the American girl whose place it was brought out a spinach dip in a bread bowl, a staple at any Canadian/American party. It reminded me of home.

Well, that’s it for this Sunday. I hope to do another post sometime this week, and maybe I’ll post some more pictures. I haven’t taken any in awhile, but I’ll see what I can do. Don’t worry though, there will be tons from my trip coming up in a couple of weeks. Take care and remember to pray for Lisa! Till next time.

choir is fun!

I found out yesterday that I am in Groupe C for the DEFLE evening courses, which means that I can't go back to the jazz workshop :( However, Carly and I went to check out the other choir last night, and this is the one I'm going to join. It was actually really fun-- the instructor is really funny and also really talented, and although she's not super-strict, she does expect us to listen and pay attention. It was especially funny and also a little awkward when I got there, because as I was waiting for Carly to show up, the instructor told everyone to pair up to start the "massages." So a girl came up to me and asked if I wanted to pair up with her, then proceeded to tell me to bend over and let my arms hang loose so she could do some slapping and tapping on my back. Now, I'm getting used to kissing people that I don't know (only on the cheeks: that's the French custom instead of shaking hands), but this was getting just a little too personal. Thankfully, it turned out OK and another girl joined us so that we could do the "massage" on the other girl. And Carly came soon thereafter, and the singing started.

It was cool to be somewhat of a celebrity in the class just because we spoke English. We started this English song called "Peace I Leave with You," which is a verse of the Bible put to music and repeated over and over in harmony. It actually sounds really good once it's all put together, but the only problem is that in the song, every second word has a "th" sound, either voiced or unvoiced, and as you may know, it's very difficult for a French speaker to pronounce this sound. It took me a few minutes to clue in to why when we were supposed to be singing "not as the world giveth," I was hearing "not as the world givess." And later, "neither let it be afraid" became "neizer let it be afred". I couldn't help laughing... and everyone else laughed too when the instructor pointed it out. She asked us English speakers how to properly pronounce it and we all practised sticking out our tongues to make this difficult sound. It was a pretty fun time and I'm excited to go back next Monday.

Whoa, this post is really short compared to my other ones, but I think I needed to give you all a break from the novels I've been writing evey week. So, I'll try to do this more often.

Special shout out to Melissa Moreau, who sent me my first real snail mail item from home! I was so pumped to get your card, even if it was a "Félicitations" card for my "new bundle of joy." Hey, it was in French! That's all that matters. Thanks!

no trips this week

Seeing as this week was a little less eventful than previous weeks have been, this blog post may end up being a little shorter and a little less exciting. But fret not! I promise many more exciting trips to describe in the coming weeks. My trip to Paris and Poland is coming in 2 weeks (I can’t believe how time is flying!), and we Winnipeggers have decided not to take classes on Fridays so we can do longer weekend trips this term. I guess going on trips all the time isn’t technically what my time in France is supposed to consist of, nor is going on trips the only exciting thing that can happen here. There’s school, extracurriculars, and in this blog post I’m planning on talking a bit about the food here. So stay tuned, these exciting topics (and more!) are to follow!

Let’s start with the most thrilling subject: school. Well, for me school has always been something I’ve loved. I don’t think it’s going to be all that different for me in France. I’m not really sure what I expected school to be like here. I was told on good authority that I needed to be prepared for some bureaucratic headaches and disorganized classes. I guess I can’t really judge my overall experience based on 3 days of classes, but so far it’s been OK. The profs seem normal (not sure if I was expecting them to be scary or what), and the classes are just like classes back home, except the students talk a lot more during class (this would not be tolerated at the UofW), but still manage to take crazy amounts of notes, which I don’t entirely get. It’s great that I can try out courses before “registering” (I use quotation marks because you don’t have to pay or fill out any paperwork to join a class), and so far I’ve tried out 6 courses but I’m only going to stay in 2. Next week I’ll be trying out 7 more, and I’m fairly certain I won’t be staying in all of them. Now to anyone who’s ever taken university classes, this may seem like a lot of courses, but keep in mind that each course is only 1, 2, or 3 hours per week, and many courses have 2 or more components, which I count as separate courses because you do different things in each component. This may all seem vague/confusing, and it is. I’m beginning to understand it and if you’d like I can fill you in on an individual basis. For now though, I’m taking a phonology and a translation class. On Monday and Tuesday I’ll be taking linguistic, morphology and syntax classes as well as another translation class. I’m looking forward to these classes but we’ll see how many I actually stay in. It’s ideal for me because my evening course at DEFLE will count for 3 credit hours, and beyond that, I only need 3 more credit hours to graduate, so I’m not worried about taking too many courses while I’m here.

On top of a few courses, I’d like to focus on doing extracurriculars while I’m here, because that’s something I don’t have time to do at home since I work a lot when I’m not in class. I attended a jazz workshop on Thursday night, to see if they needed singers, and I ended up singing along (in English) to a few songs while a group of people played their instruments. It was pretty awesome and I was pushed out of my choral mentality when the guy running it made me and the other new girl from Belgium (who was in the same boat as me, looking for a choir to join) sing bee bop (is that the term?), free style. There’s also a traditional choir on Mondays, and I’d also like to check this out, but on Monday morning I’ll find out what evenings my FSL class will be held, so I’m not sure I’ll be able to go to it. Beyond choir, there’s a pool on campus that has free swim times every day, so I’d like to try to swim at least once or twice a week this term (I even bought a bonnet de bain –swim cap- so I’m ready!). I don’t think it should be too hard to fit that in, because I won’t have any classes Wednesdays or Fridays. There are lots of sports I could join, but the ones that interest me the most is danse contemporaire (hopefully not too interpretive!) and danse “rock n’ roll”, which I’m just curious about. Also if I’m free Tuesday evenings there’s a Canoe-Kayak group that meets at the pool and apparently they go on regular excursions to the ocean and other lakes (and Tarin, maybe I’ll actually learn how to paddle faster in a kayak!). There are also a lot of cultural events around campus and Bordeaux that I’ll be able to attend, which will always be either free or pretty cheap because I’m a student.

On the subject of extracurriculars, there’s my church. Well, this isn’t technically an extracurricular, but it’s something outside of school. I really like the little church I’ve been attending for 4 Sundays now. I’ve met a lot of people there, mostly international students, just by staying for lunch after the service every time. On Friday I went to a soirée for university students where we ate dinner and ended up playing Taboo in French (and I thought it was challenging in English!). On the 15^th there is another soirée but this one is a little more formal and there’s going to be a speaker coming in from Bordeaux. I’m pretty excited for it. I think I can get used to being part of a small church family, even if only temporarily (don’t worry anyone from Soul reading this, I haven’t and won’t forget you!).

If you’ve scrolled ahead to check out the pictures I’ve posted in this post, you may have noticed that they are all of food or food-related subjects. Seeing as I haven’t done too many photo-taking-worthy things this week, I thought I’d talk a little bit about the food here. I really like a lot of the food I’ve eaten in restaurants, but I obviously can’t afford to eat out all of the time. I have bought quite a bit of food though, although I have been limited to buying items that haven’t needed to be refrigerated. That was, until Friday, cuz I bought a frigo, baby! I got it for 45€ from a girl in another village (our residence buildings are grouped into villages), and I don’t need to get into how I actually got it home here, but suffice it to say it was no easy task. So I went to Auchan on Saturday and bought en extension cord and some dairy products and meat and now my frigo is humming happily in the corner of my room, right by the window (little side note: I was telling Laura that my frigo wouldn’t fit in the corner by my sink, and I said, “Donc je l’ai mis par la fenêtre,” which of course made her laugh, because although I intended to say “So I put it by the window,” I actually said “So I threw it out the window,” which was hilarious to picture. Yaay for my first Anglicism blunder!). Oh and Lauren Partridge, did you notice the magnetic poetry on the fridge in the photo?

So to explain the pictures of all the food, I think it’s cool that a lot of things are tiny here. The picture with the little pitcher standing by my water bottle (that maybe holds less than a litre) was taken at the Sirtaki, a restaurant-cafeteria which in fact is the only place on campus where I can get internet reception. The pitchers are available for students to use, and they are the perfect size to fill several tiny glasses with water. People use the short, small glasses at meals rather than tall ones, which either forces one to drink less or refill one’s glass several times during the meal. The milkshake picture was taken chez McDo, and you can guess what that means. It cost 95 centimes and only came in one size: smaller than a small at a Canadian McDonald’s (and don’t get on my case about going to McDonald’s while I’m in France: I was curious to see if the food tastes the same. It does—weird). The third picture is my little kitchen corner that I’m so proud of. The fourth was a product I stumbled upon yesterday at Auchan, and it was so funny I had to buy it. “Langues de chat” translates to “Cat Tongues” which doesn’t sound as elegant as it does in French, but they are pretty good. The last picture again illustrates the size of the products I’ve bought, as well as some interesting finds (Bolognaise isn’t really a flavour I thought I’d find on chips). In France, manufacturers don’t punish you for being single like they do in Canada (I know well how at home it’s cheaper to buy everything in bigger sizes), and I’ve found the produce to be a lot fresher here, too. I still can’t believe how cheap things are here. To give you an idea of the prices, here’s a sample of what I bought yesterday (just multiply these prices by 1.5 to get the Cdn price): 1L milk (0,63€), 15 eggs (1,55€), Munster cheese (1,69€), a 16-pk, yes 16-pk, of yoghurt (2,32€), 1Kg of clementines (1,35€), a 6-pk of Lay’s chips (1,62€). Crazy, huh? The biggest milk I saw was 1,5L and milk and eggs also don’t come refrigerated when you buy them. I gave in yesterday and bought Nutella, so now I guess I’m really European (seriously, the French love their Nutella: it’s one of the only products I’ve seen that comes in a jumbo size!), but after I finish it, I’ll have another little glass to use. Living as a minimalist is challenging but I’m getting used to it.

Well, I guess I still wrote a lot despite my mostly “uneventful” week, but thanks for reading. Till next time!

look! je suis voyageuse!

So, I’d hate to be one of those people who nonchalantly says, “Yeah, I went to Spain the other day,” but I can’t help it: I did! Oh and I guess I’d hate even more to tell you all that I also went to Paris last week (yeah, a little change in plans…). But alas, I must!

Last Saturday morning, Michelle, Carly and I piled in Bertrand’s little Peugeot and drove to San Sebastián, which is about 2 ½ hours away from Bordeaux. It’s crazy that in driving such a short distance, you enter into a different country with a different culture and language (although since we were in Basque country, everything was actually written in both Spanish and Basque). When we got there, we stopped to wade in the ocean (yes, that’s right: the ocean! I was so pumped because it was my very first time ever seeing the ocean!), and then tried to find a restaurant to eat lunch at, but since lunch isn’t served until 1:00 or 1:30, we had some time to kill. What better way to spend that time than climbing up a mountain? Actually, Monte Urgull isn’t a huge mountain, and the view was spectacular from the top (see pictures below!).

After lunch (which was actually a mirowaveable pasta dinner…), we drove another hour to Bilbao, where we spent about 3 hours in the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum. The architecture of this building was probably more impressive in some ways than the works inside the museum, but that’s just my opinion. For supper that evening, we spent about an hour trying to find a place to eat downtown and then another ½ hour waiting outside for them to start serving dinner at 8:30. Seriously, why do they eat so late in Spain? And why were there so many little kids dressed so well in their petticoats that they looked like they were posing for a Sears catalogue? Yet another mystery we had to contemplate while we waited with growling tummies.

Finally we got to order and eat, which was interesting because we had trouble reading the Spanish menus and we also didn’t know what to expect in terms of the meals themselves. I guess Michelle and Carly decided to try something new and order cheese plates, and literally, that’s all they got: a plate of cheese each. At least Michelle got a few raisins and some walnuts arranged artistically on her plate along with her cheese; Carly got hers in a pile. I ended up getting a “combinado” which ended up being a rather filling compilation of eggs sunnyside up, some french fries, bacon that was half fat, a “tomato salad” which was actually just tomatoes, and some weird potato-ball-things. All in all an excellent day in Spain I do say.

I spent Sunday back in Bordeaux relaxing a bit and then hanging out with Michelle, planning our spontaneous trip to Paris. I’m kind of starting to like this spontaneity thing. It’s definitely getting me out of my comfort zone of hyper-planning but it also has forced me to see that things can really work out if you don’t stress about them months, weeks, or even days in advance. I want all my trips to be spontaneous now! Well, except maybe for that trip to Paris and Poland in February that I planned this weekend with Rachelle (my friend from Winnipeg who’s teaching English in Korea right now)… but I’ll get into that later.

So, Paris. Carly, Michelle and I were there together but Carly ended up coming later, on Wednesday afternoon for2 nights. So Michelle and I took the train on Monday morning and 3 hours later, we were in France’s capital, a center of culture and commerce for over 2000 years, a symbol of romance, revolution, heroism, and hedonism, a city twinkling with magnetic charm… OK I’ll stop now. And I must confess I got those phrases from my France guidebook. But Paris was amazing! Seeing all of the sites that I’ve seen hundreds of times in books and in friends’ pictures and on TV was surreal to say the least. We had a huge list of places to visit, and I’m happy to say that we got to see nearly all of them. We did at least one museum a day, covering the Musée Carnavalet (probably a less-known museum on the history of Paris, but it was free!), the Maison de Victor Hugo, the Louvre (and in mine and Michelle’s opinions, that museum is too big for its own good), the Musée d’Orsay (which was my favourite out of all them; it houses all of the impressionist and post-impressionist’s works), and the Musée Picasso.

As for other sites, we saw the Eiffel Tower (mais bien sûr!), the Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame, Sacré-Coeur, Place de la Bastille, Place de la Concorde, the Moulin Rouge, la Comédie Française, and walked along the Champs-Élysées. We walked a ton—I don’t think I’ve ever walked so much in my life! We also went to the Cimetière Père Lachaise, a humongous cemetery where a lot of famous people are buried, including Jim Morrison (this is how many people know this cemetery). Unfortunately we couldn’t find Morrison’s grave, as we didn’t know where to get maps and had to keep relying on our wandering skills and the other people we kept stopping to ask for directions. In all, we found Molière, La Fontaine, and Oscar Wilde’s graves, the latter which is covered in kisses (I’m not sure if you can consider that defacing a tombstone or not…). You can see a picture of it below. Something that Amélie fans will find cool: we found the Café de 2 Moulins, the café Amélie works in in the movie, and went inside to eat, but changed our minds upon seeing the prices, even though there was a sign that offered a free drink to anyone who answered 5 questions about the movie correctly. FYI, it’s actually a lot smaller than it seems in the movie.

Our hostel was nice enough too. We had a private room with a wash corner and a double bed (pretty good for 16,67€ each a night for downtown Paris). We bought fresh baguettes, cheese and fruit every morning for breakfast, took the leftovers with us for lunch, and ate out for dinner each evening. Oh and did I mention all the walking we did? We bought a week pass for the metro when we got there, but didn’t even end up using it enough to get our money’s worth because sometimes it was just easier to walk places. Plus we got to see Paris above ground, and that was a beautiful site too.

So, all in all, my trip to Paris was amazing. I’m so glad I went before school started too. I had a mission in my time between when I arrived and when school started, and that was to travel at least a little bit. I think I accomplished that. I hope to do more traveling on the weekends while I’m in school and there’s the winter break at the end of February, when I’m going back to Paris for a couple of days (to do some things I didn’t get to do while I was there last week). From Paris, Rachelle and I will fly to Krakow, Poland to stay for 3 nights. Now you may be wondering, “Why Poland? That’s kind of random,” and you’re right. However, in a conversation Rachelle and I had last week, we discovered that we both have been for years harbouring a dream to see Auschwitz-Birkenau, the concentration camp-turned-museum not far from Krakow. It turns out that both of us were thinking the exact same thing: “But who on earth would ever come with me to see a concentration camp?” Well, it seems that we are that person for the other (awkward sentence… you understand what I mean though!). So, we found a reasonable flight from Paris and we’re going! Krakow is also apparently a beautiful city, so that’s going to be awesome. Bonus: we get to learn some Polish phrases and try them out!

But before I can continue my galavanting around Europe, I must start what I came here to do in the first place: SCHOOL. Vacation’s over. School is starting on Wednesday. I’ll be going around to the different departments tomorrow to check out the course offerings to make my schedule up and on Wednesday I’ll also be writing a placement test for DEFLE, the school I’ll be taking evening FSL (French as a Second Language) classes to improve my oral and written French. I’m a little nervous for all of this to start since I don’t know what to expect in terms of the school system. But, if I’ve learned anything in my 3 weeks here, it’s that I can adapt to whatever they throw at me. I’m ready! I think…

Anyway, below you’ll find some pictures of my trips and an extra one that has nothing to do with traveling, unless you count the fact that the parmesan cheese traveled with me all the way from Winnipeg (long story). It’s especially for Leanne and Alannah (and you’d thought I’d forgotten!).

The first three photos were all taken in San Sebastián while we were by the ocean. The next one is us walking up all those steps up the mountain, and then us on top of the mountain (Michelle is on the left and Carly is on the right in the picture of the 3 of us). Don’t the trees look like the Whomping Willow from Harry Potter? The next 3 were taken at the Guggenheim Museum—I thought the giant flower dog was kind of funny. After that, there’s my spaghetti dinner with the cheese, and after that all the pictures are from Paris. The grave is Oscar Wilde’s and there’s me eating my first Kebab (very popular Middle Eastern food here). Michelle has no arms because she’s pretending to be the Venus de Milo, and I’m pointing to the Mona Lisa, even though you can’t really tell. My expression is supposed to be saying “That’s what all the fuss is about?” In the next one, Carly is supporting the Eiffel Tower on the palms of her hands (I know, amazing feat!) and the last one is one of my favourite moments in Paris. We actually found a street called rue de Steinkerque!!! Imagine my surprise when I was looking on our map for the street where the Moulin Rouge is found, and I stumbled upon a street with my name in it! So, we tracked it down and took this picture. I was doing something kind of illegal in the picture, climbing on the gate to get closer to the sign, but shhh…. don’t tell the French police! (I don’t really think it’s that bad I guess, and we could always have played the foreigner card). Till next time!

one week down...

What a difference a few days can make! It’s now Friday, and things are so much better in terms of my homesickness and my settling in. I’m almost set now with appliances in my room. All I need now is a mini fridge, so I can stop using a bag hanging out my window as one. Laura got me a microwave and is getting me a hot plate to borrow (the one in the cuisinette is upstairs and it’s a little out of the way and I think I will eventually spill my pot full of whatever all over myself due to the obstacle course that is before me as I try to get back to my room). Michelle gave me some clothesline so I’ve hung that up in my room. I did laundry for the first time the other day and again today. I need to do a little bit at a time, because I don’t have that much line. It’s weird doing laundry in the sink, but it’s not too bad. I’ve realized that there are so many things I take for granted at home, like a washer and dryer and also an oven. I was thinking the other day of making a pizza, but unless I want to cook it in the mirowave, that’s a no-go…

My appetite has come back in full force now, which I’m grateful for. I’m trying new things all the time (mostly they’re desserts, bread, cheese and wine, which I make no apologies for: I’m in France!). The other day I tried a macaron, a Bordeaux (or France) specialty, and yesterday I tried a briochette, a pastry bun topped with melted butter and big sugar granules. Yesterday I bought my first cheese since I got here. For starters I’m trying Roquefort and Chèvre doux (mild goat cheese), which are both amazing and so cheap (2,00€ for a package that would normally cost around $7 or 8.00 at home!). The wine here is incredibly cheap, too: I bought a white wine from the coast of Gascogne for 1,15€, which is roughly $2.00 CDN. I’m still in disbelief that these things are so inexpensive, but I’m not complaining, that’s for sure! Baguettes are also my new favourite thing. Everyone makes sandwiches with them here. Mmm, baguettes!

I’ve been here now for 10 days, and it’s seemed like a very long 10 days. It’s been an emotional roller coaster, but I think I’m actually going to survive. It still hasn’t really sunk in that I’ll be here for 4 more months. I still feel kind of like I’m on vacation, exploring a new city and all. But I think once school starts, that will help to establish some routine in my life and I’ll feel less like I’m floating around. It has been a long process adapting to new things, and I know that it’s not over, but I’m excited that I’m actually in a country where I get to practise my French. I have no excuse not to.

Tomorrow, Michelle and I are going to Spain for the day with her friend Bertrand, who is French and lives in Bordeaux (you have to specify which area you live here, because there’s Bordeaux the city and then all the surrounding suburb areas. The university campus is actually spread out over Pessac, Talence, and Gradignan). He has a car, so that’s a bonus. It feels weird to say that I’m going to Spain “for the day”, but since it’s so close, it’s possible. I’ll tell you all about my day trip when I get back. Also next week, I may be going to England with Carly (another girl from UofW who just arrived) and Michelle (if she wants to come too). I think we’ll be leaving on Monday and return on the weekend. I would like to visit my penpal and see London, and since there’s still a week and a half until school starts, why not?

Slowly I’m buying little things for myself and room that I didn’t bring with me. I went out and bought some gerber daisies to liven up my room, but after 3 days they are looking so pitiful that I think I may need to throw them out (which sucks but I guess it is winter here; maybe I didn’t take care of them enough though). I bought a pan and a lid and a saladier (a salad bowl, aka a bigger bowl than what I had already) yesterday, along with a corkscrew and a little rubber dish for my soap that says “savon”. Prices here are comparable to prices in Winnipeg, except on taco kits, which are in the foreign food aisle (along with peanut butter!) and cost around 7 or 8,00€. One thing I’ve noticed here is you don’t see a lot of jumbo sizes like you do in Canada. They also like little packages of everything. It’s way cheaper to buy a pack of 10 of the little packages of kleenex (I bought one for 0,69€) than it is to buy a box.

Other peculiarities about this country: all the flushers for the toilet are either on top of the tank and you have to pull up or above the toilet and you have to push the button. I’ve also seen a few instances of a huge rectangular button to push. Bathroom stalls have full doors to the floor, too, and usually have a light switch in the stall. Most of the TP that’s sold in stores is coloured and scented, but in public washrooms as well as on campus here, the TP is white and unscented. There are no toilet seats anywhere on campus… pretty strange. OK, I’ve just written a whole paragraph about bathrooms. Something else unrelated to bathrooms: the stop signs here actually say “STOP”, but there are no four-way stop signs, because every intersection either has a roundabout or traffic lights.

Well, I think that’s all I have to say for my second official installment of my blog since I’ve been in France. I’ve included a couple of pictures: the first is a picture of the gutter system here (everything drains to the middle of the street); the second is for all my fellow Parking Authority coworkers (the paystations are almost the same! But a lot of people park half on the sidewalks too); the third one I just think is humourous. I saw it near the Jardin public (Public Garden) for people walking their dogs. The last one is in the Jardin public. It’s a huge park and I saw palm trees there! I think it’ll be a lot prettier in the spring. I’ll take some more pictures then. I just think it's neat that I’m in a place where palm trees can survive.’Til next time, then!

yikes

I apologize for the crazy appearance of the picture post... I still haven't gotten the hang of this whole blog thing. You get the idea though. Here's the picture of the cookie aisle, because apparently that one didn't want to work.

some pictures

The first few photos are just a few that I took around the campus.

There's lots of graffiti everywhere here. Apparently, the students don't like Sarkozy very much.

These pics were taken when I was with Laura in downtown Bordeaux on my second night. The building is the famed Grand Théâtre, and the dessert is called "fromage blanc aux pommes caramelisées." It was delicious! The reason it's in a little casserole is because we went to a restaurant called Cassolette which serves all its courses in these dishes. I'm definitely enjoying the food so far (but I haven't tried the wine yet unfortunately).

This picture is of the cookie/brownie aisle at Auchan, a grocery/department store kind of like Walmart or Zellers. I couldn't believe how many choices I had when buying cookies!

This is rue Ste-Catherine, a pedestrian-only street filled with shops, restaurants, and markets. Laura told me it's the longest of its kind in France.

Yes, there actually is a store called Jennyfer! I was pretty pumped about it! A lot of the stores here have English names (the funniest I've found so far is Athlete's Foot), and you can almost always hear English songs playing in the stores. It kind of makes le feel like I'm at home-- almost.

Here's my room. Is you can see, it's not super huge, but it's homey now that all my stuff is unpacked. The bag hanging from the window is actually vegetables; I'm using the outdoors as a makeshift fridge until I get a real one!