la vie quotidienne… September 30, 2008

this morning i woke up at 7:45, not intentionally but on my own. i’ve been having trouble waking up by noon so i’m hoping this is a sign my internal clock is transitioning to france time. i opened my bank account today, which was easier than expected. i’ll have my debit card in one week which will make my life infinitely easier – french debit cards have a chip in them, and most automated vending services (such as train passes) require cards that have this chip, or you have to spend forever waiting in line. so this is good.

i have orientation for work tomorrow, with 2 hours for lunch of course. the pace of everything here is so much slower than at home. every time i go to the supermarché i wait in line for 10 minutes, and no one shows any sign of being in a hurry. everyone spends hours a day eating and/or drinking. the only time i really see people rushing is on the métro.

it’s hard to believe i’ve been here for almost two weeks already, and that it’s been a month since i left minnesota. it feels pretty “home”-y here, and even the weather here is about the same as minnesota this time of year. i haven’t suffered from language burn out yet, probably because i don’t have a TV, nor do i speak a ton of french. i really need to stop speaking english with my roommates. i wish i could take a class or something, both to occupy time and force me to think in french. i’ve been trying to read, but keep getting distracted by all the newly arrived language assistants – which is okay, because they’re all very nice and it’s good to have some friends of course.

kaytee moved to paris and she’s going to come up here this weekend. who would have thought that the only time we’ve lived in the same country would be in france?

oh… September 28, 2008

i found nemo too.

balloon. September 28, 2008

i was watching this kid for awhile and she let go of her balloon. by the time i grabbed my camera, it was already too high for her to be in the picture, reaching for it…but i kinda like how it came out anyway.

brief thoughts. September 27, 2008

1. if mccain wins, i’m not coming back to america.
2. our toilet paper is pink.
3. french people love designer glasses; there are at least 6 stores on the main street in my neighborhood.
4. i’m going to sebastian/kavinsky/busy p next friday – i’ll be sure to report to HR about the status of the electrowars.
5. where should my first european adventure be? first vacation time comes at the end of october.

grocery store success. September 26, 2008

today i found these…of course total it was 10E, and they are the worst chips i’ve ever had, but i NEEDED something spicy (even if i have to settle for mild/medium salsa).

i changed the title of this so i would stop getting a million irrelevant views from google. September 25, 2008

one of my guilty pleasures is T.I. and i tend to especially love him and justin timberlake together (my love was definitely the best song on futuresex/lovesounds). lately i’ve asked anyone who will listen “when will justin timberlake stop acting in bad movies and go back to writing the jams?!”

while this time it’s JT on a T.I. song, i love it anyway, and you should too.

(via pretty much amazing)

sainghin-en-mélantois September 25, 2008

this afternoon i took the bus to sainghin-en-mélantois, a small town outside of the city where i will be teaching. i just walked around and took pictures, and the town was dead. i hardly saw anyone besides a little kid on a bike towards the end. the town is pretty easy to get to (although takes awhile), so hopefully my school will be easy to find too. my other town, peronne-en-mélantois, is even smaller than the town i was in today, so it will be interesting. i found out today that i will only be working tuesdays and fridays, from 8:30-4:30. i’m only supposed to work 12 hours a week, so i’m assuming those hours include 2 hour lunches (because the french love to have time to eat).

i had to buy a flickr pro account because i used my upload limit, but it was only $25 for the year, and i got a coupon for an extra 3 free months. all the photos i took today are up.
i think i am going to head to ikea to try and get some sort of desk-like object.

faire une bise… September 23, 2008

most of you who know me know that i don’t like touching other people or being touched, unless you fall into one of two categories: a) someone i’ve been dating or whatever or b) someone i know well enough and feel comfortable enough to be platonically affectionate. 98% of all people are not in these two categories. only since i’ve lived in minnesota has hugging become mostly acceptable to me, but i still won’t really initiate a hug.

in france, when you are friends with someone, you have to kiss them hello and goodbye on the cheek, and the number of kisses and what side you start on varies across france. there is only one person so far i have been doing this with, and it is the most bizarre thing to me. maybe it will be good for me and that i will come to like shaking hands because it means i won’t have to kiss anyone anymore once i’m home. or maybe i’ll just stop being a weirdo about these kind of things.

i am now off to meet with two french families i might work for outside of school for extra money. they both seem really nice so i’m excited and i hope it works out. citibank has managed to mess up my credit card every day i’ve been here, so i need all the cash i can get until i start getting paid.

language shock? September 22, 2008

since the only other places i’ve been in europe were english speaking countries, i expected to be hit with a large case of culture shock when i got here. but mostly for me i’ve been hit with a big case of “my academic french is good, my real-life french is horrible.” i feel like i can barely communicate anything, and since all my roommates speak english, it’s easy to fall back on it. i think it’s a combination of my last french classes being so literature/grammar based there was little opportunity for conversation, being aware of my lacking language skills which only makes things worse, and being exposed to a completely different french accent than i’ve heard. the northern part of france is known for it’s accent, and it’s often indecipherableness (is that a word? if not, i think it should be), comparable to a strong fargo/minnesota accent on crack.

it is really frustrating to know that i’ve been studying french off and on since 8th grade but i can barely order a meal, yet if you threw some camus & a pencil at me, i could analyze it until the cows come home. i can hear in my head what i want to say and how i should say it, but the link from thinking to speaking is just NOT there. and i know, i know, i’ve only been here 4 days, but i didn’t expect to be drowning in language problems.

despite that, i’m being honest when i say really like it here. i went out with a girl who helped me a lot online before i moved here. we went to an australian bar (which was full of wood & rugby), and i had some delicious drink with gin & cassis.

here’s to hoping my brain synapses start connecting so i can start speaking.

hello france part 2. September 19, 2008

today i went grocery shopping. it was interesting because…i don’t know what anything is. there were at least a 100 different kinds of cheeses, with two or three recognizable names/brands. most importantly, i found this! so now i just need to find some spicy jelly and triscuit-like crackers and i can pretend like i’m home.

one thing that is true of french people is they love to eat, and they love to eat strange things. would anyone like some cow’s tongue?

i also had no clue what all the different kinds of milk were about, so i just skipped that all together. the milk here is unrefrigerated (most of europe is like that i think) and is good for so long, although i wonder if that changes once it’s open. anyway, i successfully bought 25E of food that will hopefully last me awhile because i’m quite poor.

later i ventured into vieux lille, which is the old part of the city. i mostly just walked around aimlessly for a couple of hours. it’s not hot here (the highs are in the 60’s this week), but it FEELS hot because you’re walking so much, being crammed into a métro with no AC, stores with no AC, and too many people. it kind of sucks because i get so hot instantly but maybe i will adjust. even though i feel like i stand out a lot, i’ve had quite a few people come up and ask me for directions, unfortunately for them i have no clue. i feel like i stand out because france is a sea of neutrals; i own almost no neutrals. blacks and browns are definitely acceptable together here.

here are some pictures of the old part of the city where i wish i could live, but it is very expensive. it barely took me 15 minutes to get there though, so at least i am close.

and here is what my neighborhood looks like:

there are some more pictures on my flickr (link is on the right side of the page).

as a final note, my spoken french definitely sucks.