A frenchman asked me for directions this morning. I think this is a good sign. I definitely sent him in the right direction, I hope he understood the rest...

I opened my fridge yesterday.  I counted 9 different kinds of cheese and two kinds of bread.  Did I mention that I love France?

it's possible that i've died and gone to pastry heaven

I used to be a big fan of chocolate croissants when I was in the States. Then i arrived in France where it seems chocolate croissants don't exist...? Instead, they have pain au chocolat, which is roughly the same idea with the pastry and the chocolate inside and the deliciousness, etc. The exterior is not quite the same as a croissant, but it's similar. A few days a week I go to a stand in Centre Ville for lunch. I can never remember the name of this stand, but it's French and it starts with a G so I call it the Guillotine. Needless to say, this is not its name. But that's beside the point. I like to go because I can get the formule (roughly, "meal," litterally probably "formula") for 3.50€ which comes with a sandwich, a drink, and a pain au chocolat!! Point: I did this for lunch today. Other point: An hour after lunch I was hungry again (lord knows why, lunch filled me up), so I went to Stand-Up, the campus café for a torsade. I don't quite know what all goes into the magic that is a torsade, but it's two pieces of pastry woven together with chocolate chips holding them together...something like that, anyway, it's delicious; I might have taken a picture, but I NEEDED to eat it right away, it was imperative. It was also imperative that I share this information.

also, the university

introductions

I like Sundays because they are the quiet days I have to myself, it’s a nice break from the rest of the week. The days are busy here and I like them that way, but as a result, I really enjoy my day of rest. Yesterday I went to St. Jean, a nearby church, for mass with a few friends. Unlike St. Bernadette, St. Jean is a very old, very traditional church with high stone walls and elaborate stained-glass windows. It’s beautiful and not too crowded. Angers is a pretty conservative, religious town as far as France goes, but there are so many churches within walking distance that while a lot of people go to mass, none of the churches are ever very crowded.

Other than my frustrating post office excursions, it’s been a pretty good week. Monday night I ate dinner with my host parents again. I nearly leapt out of my chair in excitement when I saw the steaming plate of vegetables for the first course, I’ve been a little veggie deprived lately. That is to say, they are somewhat expensive and difficult to prepare in my salle de bain-cuisine. I’ll get salads when I go out for lunch, but the bounty of North Dining Hall has left me pining for my nightly helping of steamed broccoli, grilled zucchini, and fresh(ish) carrots. I must have inhaled my vegetables when eating with the Laportes because they spent all of dinner encouraging me to have another helping, which I did several times. We also ate crusted chicken, bread, cheese, cookies, and cake. They gave me the rest of the evening’s baguette, which was perfect with some cheese the next day as part of both breakfast and lunch.

Tuesday night they invited me, along with Isabel and Shelle for dessert. Shelle is an American student also studying at CIDEF; she lives with the Laportes’ daughter and her family just a few blocks away. We had a great time. The five of us sat together in the living room for champagne, followed by two different kinds of cake (a chocolate ice cream cake and a creamy lemon cake), and hot chocolate. While the Laportes told us we could speak some English if we wanted to, we managed to the evening’s conversation almost exclusively in French. While we spent a lot of the evening talking about classes, student life, and our families, somewhere between the second piece of cake and hot chocolate, the conversation deepened as my host parents began sharing stories of their youth, living in occupied France around the end of WWII. I knew my host mom was from Normandy, but I hadn’t realized that she had lived through the Normandy Invasion. She was young at the time, but her home was situated in between the German front lines and the American front lines and she remembers fleeing with her parents and younger brother to Mont St. Michel to escape the immediate danger. My host dad was a little too young to join the army during the war, but after the war, while there were still many American troops stationed in France, he became friendly with them. They would take him out the bars because he could get them cheaper prices on beer. In exchange, they taught him key phrases in English, such as, “Do you have a cigarette?” and “You look beautiful tonight, my darling,” which my host dad recounted for us one by one with his charming grin and heavy French accent. All in all, the evening was superb.

Actually, before we arrived for dessert, Isabel and I had gone to the Anglophone Library. I’m not sure how frequently it happens, I wanna say once a month, but the library organizes a night of board games to bring together native English speakers and French people learning English. For 3euros you can spend the evening with old friends, new friends, board games, and pizza. Isabel and I arrived a little late, so we were the squeezed into an intense game of Pictionary with some friends from school, the director of events for the library, and two classy French people. I’ve enjoyed Pictionary in the past, but Tuesday was the most fun I’ve had playing board games in a long, long time. Because we had plans with my family, Isabel and I also had to leave early, grabbing steaming hot pizza and cramming it into our mouths as we rushed through the streets of Angers.

Friday night I went with some friends to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. One of the theaters in Angers, 400 Coups, shows films in their original language with French subtitles. I had been looking forward to seeing the film for a long time, and while it was well made and I liked it, I was also disappointed by it. This is probably simply because I’d put it off and built it up in my head for so long. Again, the film was good, it was the first time I’d seen a movie in about a month, but I didn’t leave the theater feeling satisfied. Instead I was creeped out by the relationship between Brad Pitt’s character and Cate Blanchett’s. I didn’t like her character very much and that detracted from the experience for me.

Then Saturday Isabel and I perused the local market at Place de Lafayette, before making our way to the largest open-air market in Angers on Boulevard Foch (pronounced: f-oh-sh), the biggest street in town. I didn’t buy anything, but Isabel got some fruit and we ran into some friends and made our way to a local café where I had a goat cheese salad sandwich (lettuce and goat cheese on a baguette, so fantastic) and a Viennese baguette with chocolate chips baked in (possibly even more fantastic). Then later in the day, I had some friends over and we all made dinner together (delicious and waaay less expensive than going out). While I had asked my host mom earlier in the week if I could use the kitchen on Saturday and she had said yes, it seemed prudent to call and ask again the day of just in case. That was an interesting phone call. And by interesting I mean I had Isabel standing in front of me in the frozen food section of MarchéPlus coaching me through some broken French. It probably translated to something like this (ellipses for awkward pauses), “I wanted to ask again…if I could with my friends…kitchen…use the kitchen…if it’s not a problem…tonight…if it’s not a problem.” It’s not so much that I can’t speak French (although…there’s that), I have an especially difficult time if a) I’ve been speaking English all day (which I had), b) I’m on the phone and can’t use gestures and facial expressions to help make my point, and c) I get anxious because I want to be as clear as possible. Luckily, she got the gist and we understood each other. So dinner was had and it was had well; pizza and a giant bag of veggies, mmm, this is the life.

Où est la poste?

I think it's most appropriate to start with the most important information:

Today I bought a baguette.

This was the first time I've purchased a baguette for myself, usually I hold out for Monday nights because my host mom always comes through.

And now onto other things.

I got a slip from la poste the other day informing me that someone from the post office had tried to deliver a package, but I wasn't home. It took me a few days to figure out where/when/if could pick up the package. And the short version of this long adventure:
Monday - I had an hour between Philosophy and Art History, so I tried to walk to the post office, however I had only vaguely memorized the directions and couldn't find it in time. I spent the whole hour walking, a pain because I've been fighting a cold for a while now and I didn't really have the energy to spare. However, I did discover the Géant Casino, a really really big supermarket that my host mom had recommended so the walk wasn't all in vain.
Tuesday - I got directions from my host mom, twice. She directed me to a different post office because it was closer and would therefore surely have my package. I then took my two and a half hour break between classes to find this post office. One hour and three french women later, I was no closer to having the package. I did, however, learn my way around my neighborhood much better. Unfortunately, two of the French women gave my very non-specific directions (which I didn't realize were non-specific at the time, mind you, because of the language barrier), while the third was convinced there was no post office nearby. Alas, tired and dejected, I walked home and consoled myself with a ham and cheese crêpe and two cookies from Monday night dinner with my host parents. Luckily my host mom was home, so I got directions yet again and set out once more for the stupid post office. A half hour later there it was, in all it's glory, la poste! The problem was that everyone had told me that the post office was very close to the train station, they had, however, failed to mention that they were in adjoining buildings, a small detail to a local, a large detail for me. Oh well. I had arrived.
Or rather, I had almost arrived. It was the wrong post office...
All in all, I walked for over two hours and returned to school tired and sans package. Oy.
I set out YET AGAIN after class and finally made it to the correct post office and got my package. RELIEF.

Lacking in the food deparment, I decided to console myself with a trip to Géant Casino (I had been to Petit Casino the day before, it was a bust; when they say petit, they mean petit). And oh what consolation it was! Oh the prices! Oh the selection! It seems I had died and gone to supermarket heaven. I don't think a really really big market with well priced food has ever meant so much to me in my entire life. I bought apples, I bought oranges, I bought several packages of yogurt and even some instant coffee! And the best part was? The cheese aisle. Brand after brand of dozens of cheeses I had never heard of and I didn't know what to choose, I was overwhelmed. And then Casino came to my rescue once again; they sold small, individual portions of cheese with the option to buy 6 different types for 1.50€! Mmm...
Needless to say, they are sitting in my fridge eaglerly awaiting my return. And thus the need for that most important piece of information, today I bought a baguette.

velorution

I had Fanta today, it was still, not fizzy. Granted, it said Nouveau! but still, je ne comprend pas...

Also...Vélorution!!

beginnings

Le 8 février 2009

I left Notre Dame (Indiana) a week ago, to the hour, for France and reality is only starting to sink in. As a quick play-by-play of the last week, after a few days at Notre Dame saying hello and goodbye to whole mess of fabulous people, I took a bus to O’Hare where I met up with the majority of SUNDEF 2009 (the name of our ND group in Angers). We took an 8.5 hour plane ride to Paris and then a two hour train to Angers where I was whisked away by my host mom (the lovely Madame Laporte) to settle into life in France. After several days of various orientations and small adventures, I am sitting at my computer tired, but not jet lagged, congested, but not too sick, ever so slightly homesick, but mostly very happy.

In the way of small adventures, I feel the need to begin with perhaps my greatest accomplishment on French soil thus far. I totally made myself crepes for dinner. And they were almost sort of from scratch! That is to say, I bought crepe sheets (are they called sheets? I don’t even know), sliced ham, shredded emmental cheese, and Nutella. Upon reflection, this is very much not from scratch, but I’m proud of myself nevertheless. I had a ham and cheese crepe for dinner and a Nutella crepe for dessert. It was tasty.

And now to my second greatest accomplishment, I’ve managed to figure out most of the rules of the house! I live with Monsieur and Madame Laporte in a traditional “angevine” style house. I’m not sure what this means other than it looks and feels pretty European, it has a garden in the backyard, and it shares a wall with an identical house. So far I’ve only seen Monsieur Laporte for dinner my first night here, but I see Madame for a little while every day. She is a fantastic cook, so it is with a heavy heart that I accept that I will only eat one meal a week from her kitchen. She is also a fun person to talk to, or rather, to listen to because I’m fairly certain most of my contributions to the conversation simply don’t make sense. But I’m pretty sure I’ve gleaned the gist of what the rules are, which is to say, I can come and go as I please so long as take my trash downstairs, keep my room in order, and let her know when I’m leaving town. I have my own room with a very comfy bed and plenty of space for everything I need. Not to say it’s large, but I packed modestly and I’ve managed to keep the room clean so it’s comfortable. Along with my own bedroom, I have what Isabel has named my “salle de bain-cuisine.” That is, I have my own bathroom with a microwave and refrigerator inside. Isabel also noted, if I ever got stuck inside, I’d have everything I needed to live for quite some time, which is good because the door is a little tricky to open and close.

Classes start tomorrow at the CIDEF (Centre international des études français) at the Catho (Université catholique de l’ouest). I won’t know which classes I’m taking until I get to campus tomorrow, but I do know that I did well enough on the placement exam to get into the classes I wanted, so fingers crossed. In the meantime, I’ve been washing dishes between meals and gathering my thoughts.

Today was the first day I had a chance to really sit down and take a breather. I went to mass at Sainte Bernadette with Isabel, Thomas, and John this morning. It’s a fairly modern Catholic church not far from my house. Naturally the service was in French, so I only got the gist of most of the readings and prayers, but I could understand the songs because the lyrics were printed on song sheets. After mass I went home and I’ve been lounging around ever since. I don’t have a French cell phone number yet, nor do I have television or internet access, so it’s been a quiet day, but that was exactly what I needed.

I arrived Monday and mostly ate and slept. Tuesday was mostly orientations, to the university and the city. Angers is primarily a walking city, although there are plenty of cars. I love being able to walk everywhere, but it has increased my appetite, which is good because there is a lot of delicious food, but bad because the exchange rate, while dropping, is still not in my favor. Wednesday I took the French placement exam in the morning and visited the Château d’Angers in the afternoon with SUNDEF (the Notre Dame group). Thursday there were more orientations and then a visit to Espace Anjou, the local shopping mall, with the AHA students. I still have no clue what AHA stands for, but it’s an American study abroad program that organizes American students from all different universities into CIDEF home-stay situations. Basically it’s a just another group of American students that we’ve been pal-ing around with most of the week for tours and whatnot. Friday there were more orientation meetings, but then later in the day SUNDEF went out with AHA to Grenier au Pain (I don’t know if I actually needed to italicize that, but it was italicized in my orientation packet…). And oh what an amazing experience. We went inside a hot tub/kitchen/shower store (I don’t know what to call it, but that’s what they sold, hot tubs, kitchens, and showers) where a baker (whom Isabel may or may not have been quite fond of) gave us a demonstration of how to make macaroons, complete with samples. For the first 21 years of my life, it was safe to say I was not a macaroon kind of girl; I just didn’t like them for whatever reason. But with the combination of raspberry puree, quality training, and a touch of French charm, this guy single-handedly changed my mind about macaroons; it seems they’re not all bad.

Then yesterday, Saturday, Isabel and I met up with some AHA friends for Critical Mass at the Place du Ralliment, a big square in the center of town where people gather for protests, demonstrations, etc. Critical Mass, or the Vélorution, is an event (once a month?) where a bunch of people get together and ride bicycles en masse around town to promote awareness of alternative transportation (because, to repeat myself, you can walk everywhere in Angers, but there are still a lot of cars). Having not ridden a bicycle in years and being sans vélo in Angers, I didn’t ride, but Isabel and I went to support two friends who did ride, and to take pictures because it’s an awesome event. Unfortunately our support was limited because after they left Ralliment we had no idea where they went. However, a few minutes later the two of us ran into some other friends who were retuning from an open air market and we all went to a café to warm up and relax. I’m a big fan of the cafés here; I’ve only been to a few, but they all seem simultaneously laid-back and classically charming, not at all like the hustle-and-bustle, see-and-be-seen cafés of Los Angeles. I don’t pretend to understand it, I just enjoy it.

Le 9 février 2009

I’m still typing on my computer sans internet so this is all going to feel rather strange to post retroactively, but oh well. Today I accomplished a feat that rivals crepe preparation; I carried on a conversation in French for over two hours! With my host mom!! I didn’t get home from school today until about 6:20pm, but it was Monday night so you can bet I wasn’t dragging my feet. I eat with the Laporte’s Monday nights around 7:30pm, but it felt a little strange to just show up for dinner so I stopped by the kitchen to say hello after I put my bag and coat away. I try to make a habit of saying hello when I return, but often they’re sleeping or Madame is out shopping. But today she was in the kitchen cooking dinner, so I stopped in and ended up staying and chatting. We had an Italian aperitif and discussed our lives; she told me about how she had hurt her shoulder recently and I stumbled through the list of classes I had been to and those I was planning on taking. We discussed breakfast and she told me about how most French people only eat modest breakfasts, if they eat them at all, and I told her my surprise that none of the three markets I had been to sold oatmeal. It took me a while to explain the concept of oatmeal as a hot cereal because I probably didn’t have the right vocabulary, but also because I’m pretty sure it really isn’t very popular in France. Neither is St. Valentine’s Day, or so she told me. It carries the same connotations as it does in America, but in France it’s not as big of a deal, generally a husband simply brings home flowers for his wife. A holiday which is far more popular, or at least used to be, is St. _____’s Day, a day on which single girls make extravagant hats and wear them to a dance to indicate to boys that they are available. I told her I might have to popularize this holiday in the States because it sounds like a lot of fun, but she said it was waning in popularity in France because it’s not as big of a deal to go out on a date anymore; one can go out to the movies or out to dinner easily enough, and young men and women go out much more frequently than they used to. Nevertheless, really big hats with lots of flowers and a good dance party, sounds like my kind of holiday.

Dinner was delicious again. This time I was much less shy about taking healthy portions. As a result, I had my fill and then some. We started off with bread (a fresh baguette, you don’t know how happy this country makes me) and a salad with egg, shrimp, and trout (it sounds a little strange, and it looked it, but man, it was delicious). After that we had salmon with a little lemon juice on top, along with what I believe was zucchini prepared with olive oil and/or a little butter and a touch of some spice, and ebly (I think that’s how you spell it). I’m not really sure how to explain it in English other than it’s a grain, like rice, but not. For dessert we had frozen caramel ice cream cake from the market down the street and cookies. I definitely ate too much, but I don’t care, it was delicious. Also, I told Madame that I successfully made crepes. She was proud of me.

This morning I took a reading/writing comprehension exam because I had placed “supériere” on the first exam. Basically that means I did well enough to take two language classes instead of three. It was difficult and I won’t get my results until tomorrow, but I was able to start classes in the afternoon. We have a week to shop around, so I went to three classes, even though I think I’ll only end up taking two of them, Art History and Philosophy. They are both university requirements at Notre Dame and both professors are dynamic and approachable, plus I can understand them, which is probably the most important part. Once I get the results from today’s placement exam, I will know which language classes to take and I will get a chance to try a few more classes, so after tomorrow I should have a pretty good idea of my schedule.

As for tonight, I did a little bit of laundry, but it’s going to be a quiet night because I have to get up early for class. My host parents asked me if I was going to go out with my friends, and while normally I would, tonight I am quite content to sit at home and revel in the knowledge that French people can sometimes understand what I say when I speak their language.

Le 10 février 2009

Happy birthday Madison! I’ve gotten used to using a French keyboard; now that I’m back on my own computer, I have to double check that I’ve typed everything correctly. The keyboards here aren’t terribly different, but it’s enough to make typing a lot slower. The biggest change is probably that the Q and the A reversed. That, and it took me almost a week to find the apostrophe.

Today I tried to unlock my phone and get a new SIM card so that I have a cell phone number in France because at the moment I am sans portable. Well, technically I’ve been trying to do this for several days, but today I actually called AT&T. They gave me directions for how to use my code to unlock my phone, so I rushed off to the nearest Phone House, excited and ready to communicate! Unfortunately, for whatever reason the unlock code didn’t work, so I’ll have to double check it tomorrow and try it again. Until then, I’ll spend another quiet evening at home, blissfully unaware of the goings on around town. Actually, that’s not true; I had wanted to go to Mardi Café tonight. From what I’ve heard, a bunch of students get together at a local place called Snooker to converse in French. I guess it’s a fairly popular thing to do because the students who’ve returned from Angers continue the tradition in South Bend. Maybe next week. Instead I made myself curry chicken and rice from a box. That is, it was frozen and I heated it in my microwave. I love technology. It was basically a glorified Lean Cuisine, but it was tasty, and I had Nutella crepes for dessert, so I’m happy enough.

Still, today didn’t turn out quite as well as I had planned. Among disappointments, I wasn’t a fan of Theology class. I get the impression it’s a dry history of the Church. I had wanted to take it to fulfill my second theology requirement, but I had a really hard time sitting through it; plus I hear Translation is the class to take in Angers, the professor is supposed to be fantastic. If I don’t take theology here, my schedule will be less flexible next year, but I don’t think it would be hard to find a more interesting theology class at Notre Dame. Plus, if I take Translation, I’ll basically have a French minor when I get back; and I figure learning French is why I’m here, so why not?

Today did have it’s small miracles, for example I finally learned how to get to and from Isabel’s house (mind you, I’ve already been there at least 4 times), and I got the chance to walk around town by myself and practice my French with the Phone House man. So it wasn’t entirely a loss. Plus, I took another Philosophy class today and I think I’m going to be pretty happy with it. Oh! And somehow I did really well on yesterday’s exam so I tested into a high level language class. Basically, it’s the most difficult class I can take without being required to a 15 page thesis. I was completely shocked, I’m not entirely convinced that someone didn’t make a mistake, but I’m happy. It’ll be a lot of hard work, but I love the professor and I already know some of the people in the class. What I don’t love is that on Tuesdays, class starts at 8am… but Translation starts at 8am too, on Wednesdays. Oy. I don’t think classes should start that early because the sun is barely up, it rises sometime between 7 and 8; I haven’t figured out quite when, but I’ve noticed it tends to drag its feet most days. I can’t really complain, the weather’s nice and mild; most days are a mix of sun and rain. Basically, winter here is a wimp compared to a winter in South Bend.