Such great heights

Peur du jour- 28 Janvier 2012: Tree climbin'

Okay, this was in no way scary and I had no need to overcome a fear to do this. But I just thought it I would share for the acrophobes among you. This is what happens after a very fun birthday picnic:

See if you can find me!

Can't wait to do it again!

Just keep swimming

Peur du jour- 27 Janvier 2012- Being Persistent

I was too excited to not share this information right away!

Today after my art history class at la fac (short for la faculté des lettres or another way to say UPV) I decided to just poke around the church until I found someone to love me. My emails were going unanswered and I just wanted an answer: can I find a home here?

The answer: Yes!

I knocked on the office door of a very kindly old priest and I explained who I was and what I was looking for (a group of Catholics to know in Montpellier, because I am an American far from home). He walked me over to a building behind the church where I met two older women to whom I then again explained my story. And huzzah! I found it. Where all of the catholic students have been hiding (not really, I'm just feeling a little silly right now).

This group does at least one event a week including student masses, dinners, and it even looks like I might be able to worm my way into a retreat in March! I was invited to go skiing in February (but it's the weekend I will be celebrating carnaval in Nice, so I had to politely decline).

I'm really hoping this works out. It would be so nice to feel like I am a part of this town and not just living here for four months. I will definitely keep you updated and I have high hopes that God is nudging me in the right direction!


The bottom line: Don't give up!

Missing Fall Fest

Peur du jour- 25 janvier 2012: Getting involved

This isn't as much of a peur du jour as it is a défi du jour (challenge of the day). American universities are a breeding ground for clubs, activities, and ways to meet other students. French universities... not so much. Because French students don't live on campus (remember those ugly pictures from awhile back?), there is a much more low key student life.

I came to Montpellier hellbent on joining the ultimate frisbee team. Then within the first few days I found out that it conflicted with my class schedule (major sadness). So I figured, "hey, why not basketball?" That also didn't work. "Soccer?" Yeah, still conflicts. I quickly ran out of sports that I felt confident enough to play in a foreign country and had to give up my dreams of becoming a superstar athlete at UPV-III.

All of the dances clubs that could have been fun are during dinner time. I've been sending emails to churches to see if they have youth groups and haven't had any response yet (most of my emails have actually gotten sent back because the email addresses were invalid..). Today I tried to go to the cinema club at Accent Francais, but it was really just me, my friend that I had invited to come with me, and a British guy. Not really much of a club, but we had fun watching Petit Nicolas (I had flashbacks to high school French). It seems like my only option would be to join one of the three student unions on campus (for real, these students are organized and they go on strike). Interestingly enough, the unions are the thing about which the French étudiants get the most jazzed. That said, I'm still not interested..

Something I am very excited to start soon is my volunteer work. I will be volunteering at a lycée professional for 3-4 hours a week (potentially 6-8 if I decide to commit to going in an extra day). In France there are two different types of high schools: lycée classique and lycée professional. The former is the traditional high school that prepares you for université while the latter is more of a vocational school. I've heard from former volunteers that the lycéens (high schoolers) are very excited when American volunteers are there because they don't understand why we would want to take the time to serve them. I'm expecting that I will learn a lot about France through it's school system and I'm hoping to really give as much to these kids as I can.

Right now I'm trying not to get discouraged. I'll keep trying to get involved and hopefully will eventually have something more exciting to recount than my failed attempts to get to know French people.

Make a wish in Arles and Saintes-Maries-de-la-mer

Peur du jour: 21 Janvier 2012- Eating lots of new French things

Yesterday I went on a day trip to Arles and Saintes-Marie-De-La-Mer (can we just talk about how I saw the Mediterranean sea for the first time in my life and I loved it and it was just as beautiful as I had ever dreamed it would be?). Arles is a town full of Roman Ruins, a beautiful market, and was an area in which Van Gough painted many of his works. Arles is also the town where I fell in love with French food.

My first encounter with the food in Arles was at the enormous market where they had everything from produce and olives,

Des courges muscads (a pumpkin like gourd)

 to exotic spices and honey,

Easily my favorite stand-- it's so nice to see and smell such beautiful spices!

 to baked confections and mounds of baguettes,

The Famous French Macarons

to sausages, cheeses, and different cuts of meat.

Unidentified animal leg-- any guesses?

 I tried many samples (olives, cheese, bread, macarons, sausage, honey) and even learned from an olive vendor that when one tries a new food, one is supposed to make a wish. I made so many wishes in Arles!

For lunch, I had my first traditional French meal since being here.  Our tour guide Jean-Paul invited those who were so inclined to join him to déjeuner at his favorite restaurant in Arles L'escaladou to experience la cuisine Provençale. I decided that the time had arrived to have a meal worth more than my normal under-one-euro-American-style-sandwhich (which remained isolated in my lunch bag all day).  Dining with a native (Jean-Paul is Occitan) really enhanced the cultural experience! A friend and I shared our meals so we got to try a lot of different things:

 Les Escargots de la Mer

La soupe du possoin: fish soup with crusty bread topped with Rouille (saffron and mayonaise) and Parmesan cheese
(Photo Credit to Maggie Grossman!)

Le Lapin aux herbes provençales: Rabbit with provencial herbs (this sauce was so good!)

La Boeuf Guardian: a traditional dish made with beef from the bulls which are raised in the Camargue (the delta region of the Rhone River) , olives, and rice which is grown in the Camargue

Photo Credit: Michelle Lewis

Ile Flottant: Crème Anglaise topped with meringue (whipped egg whites)- really very good

 Nougat Glace: a sort of ice cream dish with honey and whipped cream

 As you can see, I am going quite hungry in France. We all left the restaurant with stupid grins on our faces. Trying new foods that you immensely enjoy is just such a metaphor for life (it's about to get cheesy).  In a broader sense, I realize that there is so much out there in the world that I haven't even discovered and which will bring me immense joy (people, places, cultures, vocations, ministries). It's a really liberating experience and I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to experience so many new things.



One of my wishes came true (I'll keep you posted on the others):

Hodgepodge

Short post (because I said I would).

I haven't been particularly daring lately because I'm starting to get into a routine... I love my routine like my dog loves to bark (a lot). But here a few French gems:


1) A Canadian student moved in here on Sunday and has been way more stereotypically American than me. She requested bacon and eggs for breakfast, talks and laughs pretty really loudly, takes long showers, asked if she could keep alcohol in the refrigerator, and puts ketchup on EVERYTHING. Potatoes (not that weird), chicken cordon blue (getting weird), and fettucini alfredo (does not in any way need ketchup). To each her own, I guess. :)

2) The French should learn how to insulate their homes. I have two huge windows/balconies in my room and because there's no centralized heating, my room is always like an igloo. I've resorted to placing all of my clothes on the radiator (which never gets very warm) before I change into them to give me some added warmth. Right now I'm wearing three pairs of socks, two sweaters, leggings under my jeans, AND headphones as earmuffs and I can't stop shaking. It makes me miss the stifling hot hallways of Joyner hall.

3) I ran a new path by the river today! It was pretty awesome because there's this big grassy path along the river bank with a dirt trail. I need green spaces and this is definitely one of them. Exercise has earned an even dearer spot in my heart because it's the only time of day (other than when I'm snug under my covers or the moments of my shower when the water is on) when I actually feel warm.

4) I have been spending more time figuring out travel plans for our February break that I have spent studying/doing homework. This needs to stop now. Off to work on a paper!

Love from France,
Kathleen

Tastes like chicken

Peur du jour: 15 Janvier 2012- Eating squid what I thought was squid

I don't consider myself to be a picky eater. My mom insists this is because when my sister and I were babies, she would only feed us the most unpopular flavors of the gerber babies collection: les betteraves, les epinards, etc. If we didn't like something, that's all she would give us until we finally caved and did eat it. I had an insane adoration of les choux de Bruxelles when I was little. At the dinner table, my sister and I would fight over who was served more brocoli (you don't need a link for that, do you?). The only thing I really can't eat is le cantaloup (we had a falling out...it's a long and harrowing story if you'd like to ask me about it sometime).

While I have no problem eating anything that uses photosynthesis to grow, I am a little weary of certain meats and sea foods. Ever since that one Christmas at my dad's where we cooked an extravagant seven fish Christmas dinner that was sabotaged by a family member who spread the stomach flu to most of the family (and we had a good twelve people in the house), I have just not been able to eat shell fish or other creepy-crawly sea creatures. My dad tried to trick me into eating calamari once, but I saw right through the deep fried outer shell to the suckered- tentacles and wormy arms (nice try, Dad).

So tonight at dinner when no one could figure out the English translation for what we were eating, I started to get worried. "No, it's not a fish, but it does live in the sea." "It has a beak." "It's not an octopus, but it's like an octopus." I offered the English word "squid?" and received blank stares.

Screwing up my courage, I just served myself. I don't want to be "that girl." That one American that won't eat squid. That one American that thinks she's too good to eat squid. She thinks it's beneath her and that France is beneath her and now we hate America and BAHHH.

Okay, so maybe I tend to imagine worst case scenarios... but I did not want to be in any way rude, and I know that squid isn't THAT weird of a food, it's just something I've scared myself away from. And man, was it good. Or at least the sauce that it was served in was really good. I'd still take the texture of chicken over the texture of squid... but because this plat principal had no arms waving hello to me, I didn't run away screaming.

Lesson of the day: Everything is worth trying once. If you don't like it, you don't like it. Wash it down with some maronsui's and call it a night. But if you do like it, that's one more dish you can think about adding to your recipe book.



PS) Upon searching for the French translation of squid, I'm no longer certain that squid is what I ate tonight. Maybe it's better if I don't know...

PPS) It is squid, here is a picture!

Hit the ground running

Peur du jour: 13 Janvier 2011- Goin' for a run in the "big city"

So during the aforementioned talk on security that we had during our orientation period, I had asked if it was okay to go jogging. Our program director said she didn't really feel comfortable with me going alone (especially because I said I was going to run with my ipod). So I've been avoiding exercise and wavering about whether to join a sports club or a gym or something and today I decide to just do it. I just went for a jog. It was perfect.


I had one of those is-this-my-life? moments here:

Château d'eau

And here:

Les arceaux  

And here:

L'arc de triomphe (predates that of Paris)

What's more, somehow my "Welcome to France" playlist (I made it for my train ride from Paris to Montpellier) got into one of my running playlists so as I got my very first glimpse of the Mediterranean Sea, this song started playing. No, I'm not kidding. It's almost as cool as the time I was running in DC and this song came on as I passed the Ford Theatre.

So, I'll make sure to run in public and visible places during hours of the day where the sun is still smiling. But after a week and a half of not exercising, a run through MPL was just what the doctor ordered.

PS) Greetings from the future, Amber! 

Occupy the tram back to centre-ville!

J'ai fait une gaffe! (I made a mistake) I'm not exactly sure if I have people anxiously waiting on the edge of their seats on Wednesdays thinking that I am going to post (probably not), but if there are those people, I am terribly sorry that I forgot to post yesterday. I was kind of in a funky, homesick mood and all I wanted to do was climb under my covers (because it is trop froid in this house) and read Harry Potter à l'école des sorcières.

Peur du jour- 11 Janvier 2012: Knowing when to walk out 

Yesterday I attended two fairly lousy courses at the lovely UPV III. For those of you who don't have a facebook or haven't seen the pictures, here are some lovely pictures of the lovely university that will illustrate how lovely it is.

These pictures are fairly generous too. Add clouds of smoke and rowdy French étudiants to the mix and it is just downright charming. But, I am not in France to attend a beautiful University (I already have one of those!). I'm in France to learn the culture and become 10x better at speaking French and have the adventure of a lifetime. UPV III is part of this French culture. Students don't pay very much in the form of student fees so the result is a university on which there is not constantly construction and renovation. So I've come to grips with the less than idyllic campus. But yesterday, I was forced to confront another difference: French classrooms.

On Tuesday I went to a great course. The professor was easy to understand, he wrote very clear notes on the board, and I found the subject matter interesting. I'm thinking "Great! I have this course if I need it, but I also want to go to two courses tomorrow that sound just as interesting!" Wednesday morning rolls around and onto the campus saunters a bright-eyed bushy-tailed Kathleen at 8h00, ready for Droit du travail (labor law) and Crises Internationals (International Crises) . I went to the front row of the classroom and sat with my pencil poised to write down every French word emitted from the professors mouth onto my weird, French lined paper. Here are some differences I noticed:

1. Class time is more of a suggestion: At UNC, you can count on there being some people in the classroom at least 10 minutes before. The professor (unless they are just coming from another class or something else) is usually there 5 minutes beforehand. In France, it's more likely that the students will arrive between the starting time and 10 minutes late and the professor will arrive between 5 and 10 minutes late. Those of you who know how freaky I am about being on time can probably understand how troubling I found this.
2. Bibliographies (reading lists) are about 10 miles long. In one class I went to, the professor spent 45 minutes of a 3 hour class talking about what we should read. On the list was the complete memoirs of Henry Kissinger. In another class, the professor pulled out a law manual. I know that as a foreign student, I'm not expected to be able to navigate through these texts. Our program director told us to ask the professor on which texts we should focus. However, I don't understand how the average French student (who I'm told studies far less than the average American student) gets through these lists. The answer: they're not. 
3. Attention is optional: Something that I've heard is common and which I have experienced is that students do whatever they want in class. They talk (loudly), file their nails, text, and do a myriad of other distracting things (I swear I could smell nail polish). In this particular class, the professor didn't even reprimand them. She just said "there are a lot of you, so if you could maybe talk a little less, that would help me save my voice." Professor Kathleen would be kicking students out of class or at least making some sort of effort to lessen the riff-raff.

So, you're in a (3 hour long) class and its terrible. You're thinking "I could be running some errands, buying lunch, working on homework, or doing ANYTHING other than sitting here, taking notes for a class in which I have no intention of enrolling, surrounded by students who really don't care." If you find yourself in this situation, do what I did in both of my classes yesterday: leave during the break.

I have never dropped a class or skipped a class or missed a class in my college career. This isn't exactly on the same level as any of those things, but leaving the class on the first day during the break is a little uncharacteristic of me. My new phrase is "When in Montpellier."

As my friend Tyler would say, "the moral of the story is": Follow your gut. Don't waste your time. Don't be too worried about offending someone that you're likely never going to see again. Don't ever take a class where the professor spends 30 minutes talking about how great a guy Henry Kissinger is.

American and I know it

Peur du jour: 9 Janvier 2011- Just Being Me

There has been a lot of talk since we have been here about how to blend in with the French and adapt more to their culture. This is all well and good. I agree that I don't need to talk so loud in the street. I don't need to speak English with people with whom I can speak French. I left my American clothes back in America (except for my UNC t-shirts. I need those to sleep, exercise, and watch the basketball games in!).

One thing that has been particularly hard for me is to adopt the culture of barriers that many French people put up when they are in public. Our program director has said it is necessary to give up some of our freedom of personality (smiling, laughing, etc. in public) to gain some freedom of privacy and safety. When I think of Americans, I think of a big, happy golden retriever with a goofy grin on his face. Happy to see his friends, loud and raucous when he plays, and eager to meet new friends! Of course, this isn't accurate of all Americans, but I'd say it's pretty accurate to how I feel around the beautiful and reserved French toy poodles (I mean this with absolutely no malice, just trying to complete the metaphor). Though, I may just feel this way because being tall and blonde makes me stick out like a sore thumb among all of the petite, dark-haired French women. C'est la vie.

I'd say that finding the medium between walking around with dagger eyes and my normal smile-at-every-person-you-make-eye-contact-with-because-it's-nice-to-do-so-and-you-might-brighten-someone's-day philosophy is going to take a while. But just for now, I don't mind being American. Why you ask?

Yes, being obviously American can attract unwanted attention (pick pockets, unwanted advances from males, etc.)--and believe me, I take these things seriously--but it also can attract the attention of people who might like you because you are American. The other day a guy from the Netherlands wandered over to a herd of us under the Aqueduct and introduced himself. I'm assuming that if we had been acting like the discrete and somewhat-closed-off-in-public French people, he might not have been as drawn to us. Yesterday at a Crepe stand a professor from Arizona State University asked us to translate some ingredients of off the menu. He was a really cool guy and it was so nice to just see someone and have a friendly conversation and not have to feel that "what-do-you-want-from-me-because-I've-been-told-French-people-are-up-to-no-good" feeeling.


Moral of the story: I will try my best to learn and adapt in France. I will keep myself away from unsavory people and not call attention to myself at night. I will not be obnoxious or rude or anything like that. But I'm never going to wipe the smile off of my face because I feel like it makes me stand out. Je suis américaine, for better or for worse.

 

Un sandwhich américain- Hamburger patty and French fries in a baguett.

Me, living up to the stereotype (at least my pinky is out?) Bon appetit!

One God

Peur du jour: 8 Janvier 2012- Going to Mass in French

Wow. Just wow.

Mass is something that I know so well. I've been to mass nearly every holy day of obligation (Sundays and religious holidays) since I was born and even more than that when I went to Catholic school or when I have decide to go to weekday masses. We know the prayers, we know when to stand and sit and kneel, we know the songs (does this kind of stuff still freak you out, Lilli?). We Catholics went through a bit of a shock with the new translation of the liturgy, but even after a month of that it felt comfortable for me.

So here I am in a new church in a new city in a new country. The organ is playing and my friend and I found the sheets that had all of the lyrics to the songs and prayers for the day and everything seems good. Then the cantor starts speaking. And, of course, it's in French (go figure). In addition to the obvious language difference, the following stood out to me:

1. The place was empty: I am used to nearly always full churches (if you get there late, you don't have a seat, or at least not a good one). We got to the church 10 minutes early and there were maybe 20 other people there. People continued filing in until around the gospel, but it still was not anything close to the size to which I am accustomed. To give you an idea: they only needed two people to hand out the Eucharist and it took way less time that the Eucharist does in the American churches to which I have been.
   
   This is perhaps because of the time of day we chose to go. My friend and I were occupied at the most popular mass time here (11:30 AM) because we had been part of a group invited for an apératif with a charming Irish-French photographer, Claude, who graciously welcomed those of Irish descent into his home. We decided to go to the 18h00 mass on Sunday evening. My host mother told me that the morning masses are much more populated and lively.
   
   That being said, Catholicism is really in trouble in France. The shortage of priests seems to be exaggerated in this Protestant city. The church I went to today shares its priests with another cathedral in centre-ville. In addition to the lack of priests, my host mother told me there is a lack of parishioners as well. I'm not sure if it's just because the Catholics in Montpellier were unsuccessful in the Wars of Religion or if this is pretty indicative of the state of Catholicism in France. It was definitely a shock for me coming from an area of the United States with large and quickly growing Hispanic-Catholic population.
2. 
   
3. The church was clearly trying to economize: One big thing was that there was no wine at communion (which I found odd in wine country). The church was pretty dark as well (but it was old and perhaps they were trying to preserve the authenticity of the building). The church was also cold (it seems to me like most of the churches I frequent are pretty liberal with the heat and air conditioning). Also absent were the luxurious pews and kneelers. I guess in America we like our comfort because the seating arrangement in this church was rows of wooden chairs and a wooden kneeler that couldn't be rotated away from the floor (I probably looked like an idiot stumbling around the kneeler on the cobblestone floor in my high heeled boots).
   
   It's hard to tell if this was a part of the French being concerned with gaspillage (waste), the culture of going to mass in an old cathedral, or something else all together.
4. I was pretty confused at communion: America is the land of lines. We line up for everything (I love it). I had never considered that other churches might choose a less organized way to do communion. Instead of going pew by pew in an orderly fashion to walk to the front of the church, everyone seemed to just stand up at the same time and head for the priests. This put me in the awkward position of merging into the line to receive the body of Christ. "Pardon..Merci" Not a big deal, but just... different.

Some other church related things

• I definitely got my first whiff of the French body odor sitting so close to the natives. Stinky or not, we are all God's children.
• Tonight at dinner I had le galette des rois (King Cake) which is a cake served during the Epiphany (today). It's also served in some regions for Mardi Gras (which is when I have had it before--Jess and Sam had mad baking skills in high school!) Usually a trinket or a Baby Jesus is hidden in the cake and whoever gets the piece with the trinket is king for the day. In  my adventures today I saw a number of children walking around with crowns on their head (a clear sign that they had been the lucky winners!) It was almond flavored and très delicieux
• I felt the strongest surge of community when we did the Latin part of mass. There's just something about knowing that every Catholic in the world says "Amen" and sings "Gloria" and "Hosana" Super cool. 
• We "tutoyer" God. In French, like in Spanish (and Portuguese and Italian I would presume), there are both a formal and informal version of the second person. In French "tu" is familiar and "vous" is formal. Vouvoyer is the verb which means to use vous with someone. Tutoyer is the verb which means to use the tu form with someone. For example, when I first used "vous" with my host mother she said "tu peux me tutoyer" (you can use "tu" with me). Vous is used with people who are older than you, people in places of authority, strangers of whom you may want to be respectful or are meeting for the first time. I found it so interesting that the French tutoyent God. It seems like if anyone should receive the respectful vous, it would be Him. But, maybe vous would indicate some sort of barrier between God and his followers. The use of tu is perhaps meant to illustrate our friendship and intimacy with God.

The bottom line: Church isn't about the buildings or the individual differences; it's about the people, the community. Awkward situations, body odor, and foreign languages aren't nearly enough to keep me from worshiping in God's house. Besides, I spend approximately 1 hour of my week worshiping in a church and the other 167 hours worshiping elsewhere.

The Churches I plan to check out (tonight was at St. Denis):

Carré Saint-Anne

Cathédral St. Pierre de Montpellier (better pictures to come, I promise)

Cathédral St. Roch

Your kiss, your kiss is on my list

Peur du jour: 7 January 2012- Coming out of my hidy-hole

I'm pretty sure that all of you can imagine what it's like to live with a family who doesn't speak English. If you've never thought about it, just pause a few seconds and imagine how different "home" feels when you don't have anyone with whom to speak in your mother tongue. It is not a bad experience at all, but it is tiring and it makes it harder to reach out to those you live with. Not only do you have to deal with the normal apprehension you would have when forging a new relationship but now there are language and cultural barriers. You feel like maybe you can't express what you are meaning to say. You are unsure if things that are normal and polite in your country are interpreted the same way in the new country. On top of this, the other student with whom you are living with and from whom you are taking social cues is pretty solitary and only ventures out during dinner time.

For these reasons, it has not been incredibly easy to reach out to my family. My host mother is very nice and accepting. I think she is used to having students, so she's not as strict or as traditional as many other host families here seem to be. All the same, I don't feel that I have the same relationship with her that I would have if I were getting to know an American for the first time. But that day we had a big talk in our orientation program about how important it is to really make an effort to get to know our families.

That day when I got home from our scheduled activities, I spent a few minutes talking to my host mother before going to my room to relax for a little. I wasn't in my room for long when I heard the buzzer to the apartment ring. Within seconds the sounds of children laughing and french greetings were erupting in the hallway. I mustered my courage to venture out and begin the awkward introductions.

My reward: My first bises! In Montpellier, it's three (contrary to the two in Paris). I exchanged had shared... J'ai fait les bises with the daughter of my host mother. She gave me the traditional three kisses. Then her adorable 4 year old son came up to me and I kind of stood there like an idiot and smiled at him until he said "les bises?" and I instantly understood and bent down to his level. He only gave me one (maybe it's a child thing?) and I kept going for a second. Yeah, it's a little awkward, but I think it gets better. It was, however, a French experience I had not yet had but knew that other students had because I had listened enviously to their stories of their "first bises".

Moral of the story: leave you room. Good cultural things will happen.

PS) Is this stuck in your head? Because it's stuck in mine.

N'ayez pas peur

Peur du jour: 6 Janvier 2012- Reaching out to my housemate

That night I had decided to paint the town red, white, and blue with my fellow American students. This in itself is pretty new to me. Before last Friday, I'd never been to a bar or a club or anything like that with the express purpose of "going out." I'm pretty square, I know. For the record: we went to a bar called Australie (Austrailia); they played a Grease medley which we Americans totally kicked butt at singing (so much for keeping a low profile).

The real point of this post is that I invited my 18-year-old Colombian house-brother/fellow-student (I have no idea what to call him. Basically, he is another student who lives here in the house) out with us. He's pretty shy and mostly stays in his room, but I know that all of his friends left at the end of last semester and figured he might like to meet some of the Hispanic students we have on our program (there is even another girl from Colombia!). He decided to come (which I think our host mother was happy to see) and it was a rewarding experience.

The biggest advantage was that I had someone to walk home with (breath that sigh of relief, mom and dad). Earlier that day we had a very long, "scary" discussion on what we as Americans need to do to keep ourselves safe. Basically it was a great conversation to have on a Friday afternoon only several hours before most of us were planning to go out. The biggest thing Mme Huber told us was to never walk alone (which I did not have to do!).

But the other advantage was that I actually got to talk to him. I didn't know he had been here since August and that all of his friends from Colombia had left France for the rest of the year or very much about him at all. Life in the apartment has been a lot more enjoyable now that I feel I know him better and now that he's not just the mysterious boy in the other room who I only see at dinner.

Lesson learned: it's totally worth the potential awkwardness of reaching out to someone. The worst that can happen is that the status quo will be maintained and the best thing that can happen is that you can move closer to having a friend!

The Road Less Travelled

Peur du jour: Janvier 4 2012- Entertaining the possibility of getting lost

So I haven't talked about my homestay home/family yet, but I am really happy with where I am!  I live with a middle-aged woman in an appartment in centre-ville (basically, downtown). It's about a minute and a half walk from Accent Français, where I will be taking the bulk of my classes. I'm definitely fortunate to live in such a convenient location--many of the other students have to take longer walks, busses, and/or the tramway.

But, I feel the best way to discover a city is to walk through it. Because the two places I will be the most are so near each other, I know I will have to make more of an effort to get to know my way around Montpellier. It is for this reason that I offered to walk with a friend home! Michelle's place was difficult to use a map to find because she had to use two different sections of the map: one to navigate centre-ville and the other to navigate past centre-ville to her apartment. I've navigated Chicago, Washington, DC, and New York on my own, so I was pretty confident in my orienteering skills. But, as I had done little walking through Montpellier, I soon realized that it would not be as easy as I had imagined. We, as Americans, are used to cities (like Chicago, DC, and NYC) that are laid out on grids. Montpellier, an old Medieval town, is nothing like that. Centre-ville is a maze of winding alleys with street signs that are hard to find and sometimes nonexistent. I soon realized why so many people were talking about their difficulties getting around. As Michelle and I wandered our way through the alleys, I was thinking in the back of my head "how on Earth am I going to find my way back?"

Night had fallen by the time we reached Michelle's apartment. We stood in the alley for about five minutes trying to devise a plan for me to get back to la Place de la Comédie which is basically "the pit" of Montpellier (only it's much larger and cooler and way more French). I spent this time struggling with an old map (one of those ones that you can never refold) while Michelle tried to look up a route on Google maps. The route had so many road names that I thought it would be too difficult to memorize it. I decided to just go for it and try to remember my way back.

With pep in my step and my eyes fixed in a withering stare (I'm still a little hyper-cautious of unwanted advances), I successfully navigated my way back to the center of town. This time I got to enjoy how beautiful the marble alleys look at night. The shop lights glittered like jewels, the snippets of french conversation enriched my french vocabulary, and the sweet and savory smells wafting from the boulangeries (bakeries), crêperies, and cafés made me hungry for dinner! I can't wait to keep exploring MPL!

 La place de la Comédie

 L'opéra comédie

La rue de la loge (the streets I was navigating through were much narrower than this)

 Sculpture of des Trois Grâces surrounded by a fountain

Lingua Franca

Peur du jour: 3 Janvier 2012- Asking a question to a stranger IN FRENCH

Baby steps, right?


This happened several times on the TGV  ("Train of Great Velocity") from Paris to Montpellier. I needed to ask the mec (guy) next to whom I was sitting if he was getting off at the next stop and needed me to move. I asked the woman who sat next to me if she knew if the next stop was Montpellier. I asked the ticket officer if the train was running behind.

These all seem like very insignificant things, but they were scary to me. In France for the first time, using my language with natives for the first time, in a foreign country alone for the first time. Jet-lagged, nervous, on edge. But with every word I spoke in French I realized that I was doing it. I was speaking in natives in french and they understood me. This is the beginning of a great adventure, I can feel it.

 

The view from the window of the train. This was the only time I was able to sit next to the window because this was the stop where the window-seat passenger switched (seats on the TGV are assigned-thanks for the heads up, Siebert Family!)

I'm in France!

Don't Talk to Strangers?

Bonjour, toutlemonde!

Greetings from the beautiful and sunny (although, not anymore, because it's dark out...) Montpellier! I think that I am acclimating faster than I thought (we'll see about how I feel when classes start..). True to my word, I have been trying to act outside of myself and do things that scare me a little and force me to take chances. They've all been worth it thus far!

Peur du jour: 2 Janvier 2012-Asking a question to a stranger 


Okay, so I was still in Chicago when I did this. I like to think of myself as pretty outgoing but I think I actually have this innate fear of bothering and annoying other people, so I usually keep to myself with strangers and people I've just met. But just before my 5:00 pm departure from Chicago to Paris, I decided to take one last trip to the bathroom before I attempted to sleep for the 7 hour flight. When I got out they had already started boarding and I hesitated about whether it was necessary to ask a person near me who they had already called. I decided to approach a friendly looking stranger in a red jacket and he said (in a French accent) that he wasn't sure. We exchanged a few comments and that was the end of it.

So when I figured out the boarding situation and got on the plane (in my business class, emergency exit row with lots of leg room-- Thanks again, Dad!) the Frenchman in the red jacket says "you've got to be kidding! I have the seat right next to you!" We then had one of those conversations that you can only have on an airplane where you basically share the nutshell of your life story. It turns out that he is from Dijon and was visiting his fiancé from Kentucky who he met while she studied abroad there.  We talked about France and marriage visas (she is moving to France because they wanted to avoid the red tape that is the American visa process--Shout out to Lauren and Dawid!) and what I was studying and what he had studied and transportation in France. When I said the thing I was most worried about was getting from the airport to the train station, he-- who must have been mon ange gaurdien-- offered to take me there. Just like that, the most stressful part of my journey was eliminated. We went to the baggage claim, through customs, and to the Gare Charles de Gaulle where he showed me how to stamp my ticket before I got on the train.

I never actually asked his name and I don't feel like I properly thanked him, but he was a huge help in my journey. God works in mysterious and wonderful ways.