sorry i can't photoblog these. i have to wait until i'm not 100% dead tired can-only-blog-the-bare-minimum. :) plus my computer sucks. you'll have to match them up to the photos i post on fb later.
another day of finding things out. and a funny story!
in the morning we had orientation. i wanted to meet everyone so bad but it was kinda awk and there's like 70 people on my program so it's not like i'm gonna meet everyone anyway...but i talked to a few people. we went into this room and just spent the whole time orientating. we had a lunch break so i bought lunch at a monoprix store (honey yogurt and fruit for around 3 Euros.) we ate it at luxembourg gardens. not gonna lie, it was kinda awk. the whole everyone-getting-to-know-eachother thing, i guess. but it was so peaceful there. after that we had homestay orientation and vie pratique and then were basically freed to do whatever. i don't know how i ended up with who i ended up with, but i did. who i hang out with feels kind of random, and there's still other people i really wanna meet more/hang out with, but whatever. anyway we just walked around and tried to find a place to charge our cartes navigos and realized we were close to the river and i was super excited and we saw the river!
AND THEN
out of the corner of my eye i saw the SPIRE
"IS THAT WAS I THINK IT IS....." i screamed.
IT WAS!
NOTRE DAME
I SAW AND WENT INSIDE NOTRE DAME.
HAAAAAHHH MAAAHHH HGAWWWWDDDD
and that was the first time i truly felt like i was in paris. on ile de la cite, with the river, and with notre dame.
(i'm gonna climb to the top! but later on.)
THEN we walked around some more and sat down and got Berthillion ice cream on ile de st. louis. everything was SO picturesque. after more walking we got dinner with everyone all together. again, it was kind of a game of who-do-i-sit-with and am-i-gonna-be-friends-with-everyone. sorry if i overanalyze this, but i do. i'm super glad they had vegetarian option :) yays.
also at dinner i met MARI who speaks japanese! HALLELUJAH. i think my brain was going to explode if i had to hold my japanese in for this whole trip. also i got to talk to two of the asians today, zhanjun (monica) and mengjie (iris.) SO GLAD. i know this is SO WEIRD but i feel weird if i don't get to talk to asians. -___-; but anyway.
MY STORY
a group of us took the metro home together, but i was the only one (besides my roommate who had already gone home) who had to take my particular line after the transfer. and it was already dark. GREAT. so i was scared and paranoid and watching my stuff VERYYY closely and hoping i did it right. well, i did it right. i was at the right track at the right time, going the right direction, and got off at the right station. yes, i did it! this metro thing isn't as bad as i thought. then i went up the stairs and out into the street.
WHAT.
THE.
FUCK.
this looks NOTHING like what i need it to look like. where was the picturesque little entrance i went in before? everything looked totally different. yet i was certain i had gotten off at the right stop. as it turns out, Gare de Lyon is BEYOND HUGE and i had gotten off at a totally different exit, across the block (or further) from where i needed to walk home. i had no effing clue what to do. i walked about a block down, realized it was fruitless, and started walking the other way. what do i do? it's night. i'm alone. this is the first thing they told us not to do. Oh fuck! Searching left and right, I saw a policeman. but he's a man. do i trust him? do i trust anyone? is my french even good enough to do this? finally, i didn't know what else to do. "excusez-moi pour vous deranger monsieur, mais j'ai un p'tit question...
and so it began. i told him i was lost and didn't know how to get to my homestay. he asked me a bunch of questions about why i was there, where i was from, etc. and eventually, seeing that i couldn't walk it on my own...got a police van to escort me. can you believe it? the kindness of a french person. oh, how i never expected to get ESCORTED home in a french police car! yet this was HAPPENING! his policeman friend was driving, him in the passenger seat, me in the back. i almost didn't trust them, since it's intuition NEVER to get in a car with strangers, but...they're policemen! they have to be honest...right? ironically enough, i think i trusted him more because he was hispanic/something non-white. while i was in the car, he was making smalltalk with me, and i ended up telling them that i sang. of COURSE, being pushy french dudes, they asked me to sing, and wouldn't stop, and kept pressing me. luckily, the song that came on the radio was "Hey Soul Sister" which i know and love.
so i sang for them.
apparently they really liked it, and were kind of rockin' out, and i have my suspicions that they were ignoring the GPS and taking a longer route until the song ended. at least they reached my house (THANK GOD, THIS IS WORKING OUT! I DIDNT GET RAPED!) then he said the words that all frenchmen say and that all girls sort of dread to hear:
on prend un verre?
it's like, do you wanna go out for a drink?
so i had to politely refuse (at least he accepted the refusal), THANK HIM PROFUSELY, and head up home.
PHEW! what an experience! and a really good day 2. starting to get situated. :)
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
day 1 addendum
(don't worry, the amount i write will get less and less as the days go on, i promise.)
showering was an interesting experience. the bathroom (which contains just a sink and shower, since there is another room which contains only the toilet) IS SMALL. like 4x4. maybe. the shower is attached via a flexible gooseneck thing (like in AV) except there's no place to hang it up. so you just hold it over your head when you need to and put it on the floor when you don't.
i was initially a little dismayed that i can't leave any of my stuff in the bathroom ("comme il est très petit chez moi" dit madame), especially since she has about 20 bottles and jars that she's not even using on the counter, but obviously in this culture that's what's considered correct and that's how rights are distributed. since she lives there, she gets all the counter space. and it's really not a big deal to have to carry in my shower + toilette stuff every time. :p
my dad's family will be glad to know that she is jewish.
JSA minna (and obvi me) will be glad to know that she and her son appreciate japanese culture :) there's a couple japanese artifacts in the living room. her son studied japanese and lived there. i'm still jealous of the girls with the japanese host family though. :p
because i'm only on the second floor, i hear people passing in the street speaking french all the time. men, boys, girls, teenagers, old ladies, etc. it's cool. :) :) i'm glad it's a pretty quiet neighborhood.
the sound of the sirens is so quintessentially european. it reminds me that i'm here. sometimes it's a tritone but sometimes it's a more pleasing interval like a minor third, always slightly out of tune due to the doppler effect.
the washing machine is in the (teeny tiny) kitchen. everything is line-dried, so my towel was hard and had no scent. it was interesting. i'm glad she gave me a towel <3 cause i forgot one.
that's about all i can think of for now. orientation tomorrow! life is gonna GET CRAZY soon!
showering was an interesting experience. the bathroom (which contains just a sink and shower, since there is another room which contains only the toilet) IS SMALL. like 4x4. maybe. the shower is attached via a flexible gooseneck thing (like in AV) except there's no place to hang it up. so you just hold it over your head when you need to and put it on the floor when you don't.
i was initially a little dismayed that i can't leave any of my stuff in the bathroom ("comme il est très petit chez moi" dit madame), especially since she has about 20 bottles and jars that she's not even using on the counter, but obviously in this culture that's what's considered correct and that's how rights are distributed. since she lives there, she gets all the counter space. and it's really not a big deal to have to carry in my shower + toilette stuff every time. :p
my dad's family will be glad to know that she is jewish.
JSA minna (and obvi me) will be glad to know that she and her son appreciate japanese culture :) there's a couple japanese artifacts in the living room. her son studied japanese and lived there. i'm still jealous of the girls with the japanese host family though. :p
because i'm only on the second floor, i hear people passing in the street speaking french all the time. men, boys, girls, teenagers, old ladies, etc. it's cool. :) :) i'm glad it's a pretty quiet neighborhood.
the sound of the sirens is so quintessentially european. it reminds me that i'm here. sometimes it's a tritone but sometimes it's a more pleasing interval like a minor third, always slightly out of tune due to the doppler effect.
the washing machine is in the (teeny tiny) kitchen. everything is line-dried, so my towel was hard and had no scent. it was interesting. i'm glad she gave me a towel <3 cause i forgot one.
that's about all i can think of for now. orientation tomorrow! life is gonna GET CRAZY soon!
day one
i am BE.YOND.TIRED. don't even ask me how i'm still functioning.
i've basically been awake since noon june 27TH and it is now 4:14 PM june 29th (france time.) i never want to sleep because i never want to stop taking it all in. but i will sleep well tonight.
on my first plane flight i sat next to an awkward indie white boy to which i did not say one word the entire time. on my NYC-CDG flight i sat next to the NICEST most HELPFUL expat ever named Taryn. she was from colorado and lived in paris to go to pastry school. cool! she told me some names and places and gave me her #.
i got off the plane and waited and met some people from my program. they were cool and i'm so excited to meet everyone. :) on the shuttle it was all american college exchange students (from different programs.) the french freeways have a serious graffitti problem, not that it's really a problem though. i got to use some french with the shuttle driver, initiating my comfort in speaking it. it's funny how scared i was compared to how i feel just a few hours later. i was the last one dropped off at my homestay. 8 rue emilio castelar, 75012. IT LOOKS JUST. LIKE. GOOGLE MAPS STREET VIEW. check it out. :)
smallest/cutest apartment i've ever seen. but that's just how they live! stack upon stack upon stack upon stack of tiny, cute apartments. every room has such a unique character. my host mom's name is veronique. she's so nice and relatively easy to talk to. i know more french than my roommate, emily (who's not really a roommate, since we both have singles) so i translate sometimes. the two cats, moustique and gala, are aborable. but hairy and sheddy. :p i'll post pictures soon! if my netbook can handle it...
there's one outlet in the entire room. so basically i have to keep on plugging and unplugging stuff and only charge/use one thing at a time. but that's not that bad, and this is how they live...all the time! so weird.
after i got to my homestay we immediately went out to have a look around the neighborhood. we walked to the train/metro station, gare de lyon, and to the marché aligre, one of the cutest open-air fruit and vegetable markets kind of like in NYC. (veronique's never been to america, so i tell her amusing anecdotes about my experiences in NY and CA. lul.) then we ate lunch at a corsican restaurant. i ate a salad but i started to feel woozy from fatigue. i still am. but i needed to write this first.
i'm actually pretty proud of my french. i'm not half bad at communicating, even if i make mistakes, i still get the point across. i felt like i gain more confidence in my french by the minute. it really IS just what i learned in school! it's not a magical mystery language, it's the same thing i've been learning for 6 years! chouette!
everything is SO. FUCKING. SURREAL. i feel like i'm not appreciating anything. here i am halfway across the world in a country i've never been to, living in this room, for a month. nothing has really sunken in yet. i've already experienced SO MUCH just in these 5-6 hours that i've been off the plane...i can't imagine 31 more days of this! aj;glakdgjf;adlfg
hopefully i will be better able to write and synthesize after a nap.
i hear the schoolchildren in the street. did you know, everyone speaks french here? :)
i've basically been awake since noon june 27TH and it is now 4:14 PM june 29th (france time.) i never want to sleep because i never want to stop taking it all in. but i will sleep well tonight.
on my first plane flight i sat next to an awkward indie white boy to which i did not say one word the entire time. on my NYC-CDG flight i sat next to the NICEST most HELPFUL expat ever named Taryn. she was from colorado and lived in paris to go to pastry school. cool! she told me some names and places and gave me her #.
i got off the plane and waited and met some people from my program. they were cool and i'm so excited to meet everyone. :) on the shuttle it was all american college exchange students (from different programs.) the french freeways have a serious graffitti problem, not that it's really a problem though. i got to use some french with the shuttle driver, initiating my comfort in speaking it. it's funny how scared i was compared to how i feel just a few hours later. i was the last one dropped off at my homestay. 8 rue emilio castelar, 75012. IT LOOKS JUST. LIKE. GOOGLE MAPS STREET VIEW. check it out. :)
smallest/cutest apartment i've ever seen. but that's just how they live! stack upon stack upon stack upon stack of tiny, cute apartments. every room has such a unique character. my host mom's name is veronique. she's so nice and relatively easy to talk to. i know more french than my roommate, emily (who's not really a roommate, since we both have singles) so i translate sometimes. the two cats, moustique and gala, are aborable. but hairy and sheddy. :p i'll post pictures soon! if my netbook can handle it...
there's one outlet in the entire room. so basically i have to keep on plugging and unplugging stuff and only charge/use one thing at a time. but that's not that bad, and this is how they live...all the time! so weird.
after i got to my homestay we immediately went out to have a look around the neighborhood. we walked to the train/metro station, gare de lyon, and to the marché aligre, one of the cutest open-air fruit and vegetable markets kind of like in NYC. (veronique's never been to america, so i tell her amusing anecdotes about my experiences in NY and CA. lul.) then we ate lunch at a corsican restaurant. i ate a salad but i started to feel woozy from fatigue. i still am. but i needed to write this first.
i'm actually pretty proud of my french. i'm not half bad at communicating, even if i make mistakes, i still get the point across. i felt like i gain more confidence in my french by the minute. it really IS just what i learned in school! it's not a magical mystery language, it's the same thing i've been learning for 6 years! chouette!
everything is SO. FUCKING. SURREAL. i feel like i'm not appreciating anything. here i am halfway across the world in a country i've never been to, living in this room, for a month. nothing has really sunken in yet. i've already experienced SO MUCH just in these 5-6 hours that i've been off the plane...i can't imagine 31 more days of this! aj;glakdgjf;adlfg
hopefully i will be better able to write and synthesize after a nap.
i hear the schoolchildren in the street. did you know, everyone speaks french here? :)
Monday, June 28, 2010
context.
*note: for every post after this one, the only computer I am guaranteed to have is my mom's netbook, which, if you don't know, is rather slow and laggy and does not have much memory on it...so I apologize if that affects future online communication. :)
anyway...
my program has about 70 students (a lot, i know!) who are mostly undergrad students from around the country + canada. we're placed into french classes by level. i got intermediate. some of the other students are taking fine arts classes, but i'm not. (i know, right?? but i didn't want extra class. i'm done with that ish.) i have class every day from 9:00-12:00 (yay for 7am metro rides!) and class on TuTh from 2:00-5:00. The other time is going to be spent traveling, exploring, etc! i have a long bucket list of all the things I want to do while in paris, and i'm sure i'll come up with many more! aah
a bit about my host "family." i live in the 12th arrondisement which is a little off the main drag but not too far from the ile de la cité. :) my host mom is a single woman, presumably middle aged, with 2 adult children who don't live there but who visit regularly. i don't know if she has or had a husband. she has 2 cats. :) i'm excited about that. i have one other roommate, but we both have singles. we get 2 meals a day. :)
a few weeks ago, when i was choosing housing, i was grappling pretty hard over homestay vs. dorm. while part of me still wishes i could be in the dorm to get to bond with people faster and have more freedom, i am still super excited for the food, care, and culture (and cats!) that a homestay will bring.
as for transporation, i can take the metro everywhere, but i still have to figure all that stuff out. in a bad way. i'm bound to get lost, but that's all part of the experience. :)
i bought a new lens for my camera. it is heavy and long compared to the kit lens. but i will tolerate it. :) i also brought my 50mm/1.8, and on lazy days i will have "50 days" with my uber-light and uber-close lens.
after my program ends on july 31st, i am going to attempt to travel to south france and italy for 10 days until i fly back on the 11th (which i had mistakenly thought was the 10th this while time.) the problem: i need someone to go with me.
i've been reading up on french politesse, such as french social customs, and what to do in certain social situations. it's pretty different from america. i hope i remember any of it, and that it helps me.
okay. i am going to update my ipod (new david guetta and chromeo yeayuhhh), go to bed, wake up at 5:00 am and get on the plane.
see you on the other side.
<3 rebecca "and they said i couldn't write a post using no capital letters" mesch
anyway...
my program has about 70 students (a lot, i know!) who are mostly undergrad students from around the country + canada. we're placed into french classes by level. i got intermediate. some of the other students are taking fine arts classes, but i'm not. (i know, right?? but i didn't want extra class. i'm done with that ish.) i have class every day from 9:00-12:00 (yay for 7am metro rides!) and class on TuTh from 2:00-5:00. The other time is going to be spent traveling, exploring, etc! i have a long bucket list of all the things I want to do while in paris, and i'm sure i'll come up with many more! aah
a bit about my host "family." i live in the 12th arrondisement which is a little off the main drag but not too far from the ile de la cité. :) my host mom is a single woman, presumably middle aged, with 2 adult children who don't live there but who visit regularly. i don't know if she has or had a husband. she has 2 cats. :) i'm excited about that. i have one other roommate, but we both have singles. we get 2 meals a day. :)
a few weeks ago, when i was choosing housing, i was grappling pretty hard over homestay vs. dorm. while part of me still wishes i could be in the dorm to get to bond with people faster and have more freedom, i am still super excited for the food, care, and culture (and cats!) that a homestay will bring.
as for transporation, i can take the metro everywhere, but i still have to figure all that stuff out. in a bad way. i'm bound to get lost, but that's all part of the experience. :)
i bought a new lens for my camera. it is heavy and long compared to the kit lens. but i will tolerate it. :) i also brought my 50mm/1.8, and on lazy days i will have "50 days" with my uber-light and uber-close lens.
after my program ends on july 31st, i am going to attempt to travel to south france and italy for 10 days until i fly back on the 11th (which i had mistakenly thought was the 10th this while time.) the problem: i need someone to go with me.
i've been reading up on french politesse, such as french social customs, and what to do in certain social situations. it's pretty different from america. i hope i remember any of it, and that it helps me.
okay. i am going to update my ipod (new david guetta and chromeo yeayuhhh), go to bed, wake up at 5:00 am and get on the plane.
see you on the other side.
<3 rebecca "and they said i couldn't write a post using no capital letters" mesch
Sunday, June 27, 2010
pre-trip
In 11 hours, I'll be on a plane going to NYC and then another plane going to Paris. Alone! In the middle of the country. I've changed planes alone domestically before, so I know what I'm doing, but I still feel a little nervous. The beauty and simplicity of the trip is buried under worry at the moment. But I'm pretty sure that once I get settled and meet everyone I will feel a lot better.
It's all surreal. This is really happening? So THIS is the study abroad experience, or one version of it. This is what it feels like? What will my LIFE be like?! How will I change?! I have no absolutely no expectations, only room to grow and learn.
Here it goes.
It's all surreal. This is really happening? So THIS is the study abroad experience, or one version of it. This is what it feels like? What will my LIFE be like?! How will I change?! I have no absolutely no expectations, only room to grow and learn.
Here it goes.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
c'est la première
Ceci c'est le journal de mes jours à Paris, la ville lumineuse, la ville d'amour. Je voulais dire la vie de mes rêves, mais je ne peux pas mentir. En tout cas, je suis sûr qu j'aimerai la ville tellement beaucoup.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)