The weather was BEAUTIFUL this past Friday! There wasn't a cloud in the sky for the first time since I even got to France. It's been either really overcast, or raining, or partly sunny/partly cloudy. And cold. Oh, so cold. I wish I could explain how biting cold it is! I've taken to wearing some cheesy valentine's day socks with my flats just so I can feel my feet and therefore NOT trip and fall on my face on the way to class. And of course, I have to walk around to run errands, so there's really no avoiding the cold. I think I'm finally getting used to it though...Like, it's not something so bizarre to me that I don't know how to deal with it. I've more just started thinking "okay, it's cold outside, so I'd better put on a coat and gloves."
But yeah, so it was beautiful on Friday, so I took some time to walk around the city and go across the river to take some pictures. The city looks cleaner with a blue sky--the white buildings look much sharper against the blue than against gray. But this morning it was snowing when I went to breakfast! Not as much of course as back home and none of it stuck, but it was still pretty cool. It was all melted by the time breakfast was over though, otherwise I would have taken a picture. There is a single small yellow rose blooming in the courtyard, and the snow had settled on the leaves and the petals; it was very beautiful. But like I said--melted by the time I could have grabbed my camera.
My classes have worked out; I'm finally in the level that I think I belong in. So, first of all, I will be taking six hours a week of Langue, which is basically like any typical language class at a university: some grammar, vocabulary, reading and writing, etc. In addition, I'll be taking a class just for grammar, and a conversation class ("expression orale") which helped me SO much the past summer that I was here. Some people were complaining, "oh, but you have to give an oral report" to which I wanted to say, "of course. It's a class about speaking." As for my electives: History of France, and Socio-Cultural studies of France. In the socio-cultural class, we'll talk about the population, women and work, the banlieues, discrimination, and political institutions.
So now...my experiences at my first laundromat! It actually wasn't too bad at all, and I got clean clothes out of the bargain. The downside is that I am now out about 6 euros (about 8 dollars) for a single load of laundry that didn't even get dried all of the way. The laundromat is literally right next door to the foyer--we're talking ten paces from door to door, at maximum. So I had my Monoprix bag filled up with my detergent for wool clothing and the bare minimum of the clothes I needed to wash: my towels, pajamas, my jeans, and a few shirts that have been stretched out. Everything was in French, duh, so that just made it all the more difficult for me to understand how these contraptions worked. Plus, figuring out how to open and close the washing machine door was a mission in and of itself. Luckily, there was just a hooded dude chilling over by his washing machine, looking like he was sleeping standing up, and two German? Romanian? Hungarian? backpackers who were basically washing their entire stock of clothes in one go, and none of them paid much attention to me while I struggled silently with the machines.
I was kind of pissed to know that 1) the single load of clothes that I brought pretty much filled up the entire barrel of the machine and 2) that it cost 3.80 euros to wash them. But that sucker ran for a good 30 minutes and was washing and rinsing pretty vigorously, so I guess I'm satisfied. I was worried that I would feel like my clothes wouldn't seem clean, but they do. And they smell like detergent (aka: CLEAN). However, the dryer really is a rip off. 13 minutes of drying costs 1 euro, so I just put in two euros and decided whatever wasn't dry after 26 minutes could just be draped over my radiator afterwards. Buuut everything came out slightly damp...oh well. They weren't getting any more of my money!! While all this was going on, I was reading and studying for my History class.
Oh, and this old man with no teeth came in with no clothes and tried to ask me how much it cost to wash clothes. I say tried because he sounded like he spoke French, the way he was pronouncing things, but then he was like "parlez-vous anglais?" but then couldn't speak any English. I finally figured out what he wanted...and pointed to the MASSIVE sign on the wall with all of the prices. And then he tried to say "merci" and made the sign language sign for thank you, so maybe he was deaf? But he had a cell phone! I can already tell that all sorts of shenanigans are going to go down at this establishment over the semester.
Other than that, I've just been chilling out for the day, cleaning my room and doing some handwashing of other clothes. I had to fend for myself for lunch and dinner, and tomorrow I'll have to take care of all three meals. I think tomorrow I'll FINALLY write about food. I also found a flier for a place on our that makes cheeseburgers AND is open seven days a week!!
I love weekends! Miss y'all!
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