It's halftime, y'all.

I've been living in France for two months now and I have two months left to go until I go back to the States. On one hand, I think "wow, two more months!!" because the first two seemed to drag on for a while. But then I realize that when I come back from spring break, I'll only have a month left! The time is really going to fly by. Four months really does seem like the best amount of time for me to be here--I kind of wonder: If I didn't have all this stuff laid out for me to do when I get back (camp, My First Place(tm), and senior year), would I want to stay longer?

The weeks tend to fly by faster than I realize. Like, it's wednesday already! Given, I had a test yesterday and one today, but still. All of a sudden I look around and it's wednesday or thursday. I have a paper (short and handwritten, and on history, thank goodness) due on tuesday and a short oral presentation on wednesday, and I hope to get those knocked out on sunday or monday, which we have off.

MI MADRE IS COMING. I would just like to repeat this for anybody who didn't know about it yet. She's coming, I'm going to snuggle up to her the first night like a chick to a mother hen, and we're going to eat all of the bread and cheese in Paris. And then we're going to Aix, where I will continually freak out about being in the same city that Cezanne lived in, and where we will eat so much bruschetta and other Fritalian dishes. She'll be here just past half-way through the semester, so I'll get a little bit of a fresh breeze from home. Then I'll just have, what, five weeks of classes? Interspersed with two more breaks (thank God for catholic countries) and then before I know it I'll be packing up my little room and heading for Paris.

There's a new nun at the foyer and I don't think I like her. I want to know where my little white haired nun went! This one accosted me and Sara on our way out of the kitchen on a sunday after I had gone in to grab my knife, fork, and spoons from where I had forgotten them while washing dishes. I was wearing flannel pajama pants(because it was Sunday and I like to relax on the weekends) and she made some crazy face and was like "did you just come from cooking?" But, like the other nuns, she's from Spain and her accent was kind of thick, so from there on out I basically didn't understand what she was saying. And so I was like "oh, no, I had just left these in there earlier..." and she said something else that I think was somthing along the lines of "oh, I thought that you had been cooking in that," referring to my pants. It was kind of weird. Yes, I cook in comfy clothes. And what are you even doing here on a Sunday? You nuns are never here on the weekends--hence me cooking in flannel pants. I'm pretty sure she's the one that moved all of the dishes back into the locked cabinet, which annoys me because the other nuns were like "oooh the weekends you can use these dishes under here!" Hm. This is sketchy to me. She was also kind of harassing this girl at dinner last night too: handing her an envelope and then circling back around TWICE to be like "you need to take care of this" in a really serious ominous voice. I'm surprised the girl wasn't like "look. I will. But right now I'm enjoying my mashed potatoes." She clearly wasn't as fed up as I was.

I want my cute nun back: the one that laughs and is like "ahhhh the americans!" and then doesn't say anything else, or if she does I can just laugh and smile and say "oui, oui!"

On the upside, we're having potage (a smooth, creamy vegetable soup) as our appetizer tonight. Nothing can get me down on a potage night.

Some lists for you all:

Things I will miss
-Walking everywhere. 1) Because I strongly believe that it keeps me in shape here and 2) because it's nice to not have to pay for gas, or take the bus, or ride a bike.
-French specific cuisine. I'm talking about galettes, croque madames and monsieurs, and moule-frites. Yes, I can make these things at home, but I'll miss ordering it at a restaurant, or being able to buy them pre-made at the store.
-Trains. They're easy, cheap(er than a flight), and kind of fun. I don't have to check baggage, and the scenery is pretty nice.
-French notebook paper, which is basically graph paper. I like being neat, so I think I'll miss being able to perfectly indent my notes.
-The architecture. I've come to the conclution that I love French history, but not daily life (for other things that will make up a very sarcastic--not whiny!--blog post later this week), and for this reason I LOVE the architecture. I love looking out my classroom window and seeing the cathedrals, walking by the chateau, and just walking down the street and realizing that we don't have this kind of architecture in Mississippi. The white stone and the iron railings of the 19th and 20th centuries all the way back to the earth-and-wood buildings of the Middle Ages. It's amazing.
-The church bells. While they annoy me at 10:00 on a sunday morning while I'm trying to sleep, the bells have been great. They let me know what time it is as they go off every 15 minutes during the day and they're nice background noise. And I've gotten USED to them, as in, I think it's going to be weird to NOT have church bells. I think every time that the bells ring at the chapel on campus, I'll feel a bit nostalgic. I know that there are some bells in Oxford (oh, they just went off right now! It's 1:30 PM right now. Ding, dong.) but just...not like here.
-The people I've met. I've met some pretty cool people at CIDEF and I hope we stay in contact. To be honest, I haven't had the kind of connection with them like I had with the girls from 2008 (who I still talk to regularly) but they're not bad. I kid, I kid. We're going to go eat at a restaurant tomorrow that only makes soufflés. YES!
-The nuns (for the most part). They're cute--except for that new one--and I want to write a little card for them when I leave. They've been so accomodating and understanding that I have NO IDEA what they are saying most of the time, and they're always like "ahhh did you sleep well?" Adorbs. Plus I'll always be able to enjoy the look on people's face when I tell them I've lived with nuns.
-All of the cheese flavors. Notice that I did not say "types." Because let me tell you something: I thought all cheeses were made the same way here. Meaning for all of the normans who make camembert, the cheese ends up tasting the same. (Fun fact: Apparently it's not "real" camembert if it's not made in Normandy, which is weird to me. What is it called, then? It's kind of like that riddle: if a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it, does it make a noise?) But no--we are not in the land of Kraft. Every single camembert I've tasted, which is about five brands now, tastes different, has a different consistency, and different rind texture. The one that the nuns serve is drier and blander, while the one that I've picked as my favorite is soft, creamy, with an almost crumply rind and a nice nutty flavor. And that's just for ONE type of cheese. There are also Tommes, Brie, Gruyère, etc. The same with the bread: no two boulangeries produce exactly the same baguette, and the differences aren't subtle at all. I've had some amazing baguettes and some crappy baguettes, which I didn't think was possible.
-The bikes that the postmen ride. I need to take a picture eventually because they really are cute/cool/funny. They have the Hulk of kickstands too.
-The mama's walking their babies around in strollers covered in clear plastic. I just feel like they're saran-wrapping their babies, but I love it. They clearly don't want them getting wet/cold. Frenchies really do take their babies everywhere, too, and there are a LOT of babies and strollers around.

Things I can't wait for
-The food from home. Omigod, the food. I'm talking, like, a serious BBQ sandwich with potato salad and baked beans. Cobbler. Ribs. Chicken breast marinated in Italian dressing and grilled. Mom's chocolate chip cookies. Banana bread with chopped pecans. French toast (which doesn't seem to exist in France). Sausage and really crispy bacon. Overeasy eggs. Buscuits and molassas. Chicken salad. Ham and pea pasta. REAL steak. Pot Roast, brisket, pork chops. Greasy american pizza. Junior whoppers with cheese but no onions. American-style chinese food. I'm literally drooling all over my keyboard right now. (The bells just went off again...1:45!)
-Drip coffee. Yes this gets it's own hyphen. 8 o'Clock Coffee Columbian blend with two sweet n'lows and a generous splash of Land o'Lakes Fat-Free half and half. If you have never tried this coffee + this half and half, do it. Next time you go out to the store, try it. It's amazing. You can thank me later.
-Being able to understand people when they talk to me. I am getting better at inadvertantly eavesdropping because I can understand French for the most part (when I first got here I had to translate sooo much in my head and it's more second nature for me now) but I'm ready to go to a restaurant and understand what a waiter is saying to me. Subpoint: I'm ready to be able to understand people the FIRST time they talk to me, without me saying "excuse me? I didn't get that."
-Cars. I might need driving lessons when I get back though. I might just need to take a few practice laps around the neighborhood to get my sealegs back.

What I'll find/am finding really bizarre
-Not hearing chinese all the time. It's kind of becoming background noise already. I thought the other day, "wow it's going to be weird not hearing this all the time." There are a LOT of chinese students here.
-Some french words are a lot easier to say than english words. "La couverte" comes off the tongue so much easier than "the silverware." I already talk english with some French thrown in because either a) I've forgotten the english word at that moment or b) it's easier to say. "Tu rentre chez-toi?" is faster than "are you going back to your house?" and here the french version actually makes more sense because "chez" means just like, where you are staying, where you rest, while the American version of "home/house" has more of a connotation of actual ownership. So for the students staying with a family, "chez-toi/moi/lui/elle/etc" is more correct, because they just sleep and eat there, instead of owning their place. So, voilà, a little french lesson. (you also go "chez le dentiste," not "au dentiste" because you're going to see the DENTIST, not his office, but you do go "à la patisserie" because you're going to the store, not the patissier. The more you know.)

I have to get ready to go to class now, but I'll be back later to write about Normandy and other stuff I forgot to talk about. Bye!

I can't throw a rock without hitting a wheel of cheese

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!!

Today was one of the best days I've had so far, actually. It's been very relaxing. I was insanely tired yesterday evening, so I was asleep by 11:00 PM by the latest. I had my metal shutter cranked completely down, and so I didn't even budge until 7:15 this morning. I usually wake up at that time during the week, so I think my body just thought that it was time to get up. Instead, I rolled over, readjusted my weird french cylindrical pillow, and slept until 11:45. As I've said before, pretty much nothing is open on Sundays, so there was hardly any clatter or chatter on the street below to wake me up. The next problem was if I wanted any breakfast, or lunch, as it were. It took me all of 10 seconds to decide that a banana and a mandarin orange in my room would hold me over until dinner.

The main reason was this: Every meal in France is a process. One does not simply "eat" in France. So even if I was to go down to the kitchen to grab a sandwich, I would feel extremely awkward next to the girls who are always cooking pasta, soup, galettes, and cooked vegetables for lunch. And whenever possible, they sit down for meals, often in groups. I'm not talking about getting-lunch-at-the-union-between-classes kind of a meal--they take their time, talk to each other, and eat very slowly, with their courses carefully spaced out. A typical girl at the foyer may have soup, then some sort of main dish, yogurt or fruit, and finish with bread and cheese. Always the bread and cheese! Soft cheese, brie, camembert, goat cheese, mozerella, cottage cheese; you name it, they eat it.

To be honest, it is kind of nice once you get used to it. Even when I eat by myself in the kitchen at an off time, I find myself chewing slower, actually tasting the food that I am eating, and trying to add some variety to my meals. The idea of cooking meats on a hot plate doesn't really appeal to me--I'm terrified of under/overcooking it, and I don't have a lot of experience with that at home anyway--but there's plenty I can eat that doesn't require a lot of preparation. I've found pre-made galettes with ham and cheese that just need to be warmed up in the microwave that are quite tasty, actually. However, the pasta-in-a-can that I ate tonight was fairly disgusting. Ugh. Definitely not doing that again and I'm glad I didn't stock up on that because it seemed easy.

Breakfast and dinner is provided by the ladies at the foyer Monday through Friday, plus breakfast on Saturday. The breakfast has no variety at all, and it's very simple, but that's okay. I actually hate the idea of missing it, and that seems so silly because it is nothing special at all. It's just slices of french bread with butter and jelly, plus a few different drinks. In our french textbooks back home, it's been mentioned that Frenchies drink hot chocolate out of a bowl for their breakfast drink. It seemed so odd that I've never actually taken it to heart, and I've never seen it in a movie or whatever, but it's TRUE. There's even hot chocolate/powdered chocolate mix in the breakfast section of the supermarkets. So for the past two weeks, I've been drinking hot chocolate out of a big glass bowl with two or three tartines (the slices of bread + butter + jelly), And I LOVE IT. It's yummy and has just enough sweetness to get me off on the right foot. I think it's something that I'll definitely keep up when I get back home to the states. The other options are hot tea, cold milk, and coffee.

However, I think I need to cut back the amount of tartines and add some fruit into there because I feel like all I've been doing is eating bread since I've gotten here. Tartines for breakfast, generally sandwiches for lunch with what is called pains au lait (milk bread), which are essentially smaller, denser, sweeter versions of a hot dog bun, and the bread and cheese course with dinner. Maybe I should just invest in some whole wheat bread here. Oh, the supermarkets also sell sandwich bread with the crusts already cut off. It seems popular: a lot of the girls at the foyer eat it. I think it's kind of bizarre, personally.

Dinner at the foyer starts at 7:15 with an appetizer course. This has ranged from salad to sliced tomatoes and hard boiled eggs, to pureed vegetable soups, to puff pastries filled with some sort of cream cheese (it wasn't very good but whatever). There haven't been any repeats so far. There is a meat and a side for the main course, though pasta has repaced the meat at least once. The side is usually a vegetable of some kind, and once they made these amazing mashed potatoes that had to have cream or something added. YUM they were delish. On Thursday, it was couscous topped with cooked chicken and vegetables. I don't think there were any leftovers from that meal! However, Friday was a bit odd: pizza as an appetizer, chicken nuggets and a zuchinni/ham/cheese casserole, and a mish mosh of leftover desserts. Every dinner is followed by a bread and cheese course where the ladies carry around platters with individually wrapped cheeses of all different varieties, and we pile them on slices of french bread. I usually dive for the camembert, but I've been trying to expand my horizons a little bit with the goat cheeses and a few cream-cheese based types. Dessert changes from day to day: sometimes it's fruit, sometimes it's yogurt, and sometimes it's a pudding or a custard-type dish. I really, really, REALLY need to stop eating dessert every night. But every time I make this decision, they come out with something that looks absolutely divine. There really isn't much sugar added to the desserts, or to anything in general, so there are a few days where my "fat American" tooth is really craving something and ends up being unsatisfied with unsweetened pudding or fruit. Plus, if I turn down the dessert, the ladies ask me what's wrong and what they can get for me. It's nice of them, of course, but I also just want to say that I'm fine, I just feel like a fatty. The whole dinner usually runs 30 to 45 minutes, depending on how good the food/company is.

Oh, wow. My across-the-street neighbor just put out his trash. And by put out his trash, I mean he leaned out over his second-floor balcony and dropped the bag down to the street. Hm.

Anyway, a few comments about French table manners: The reach for everything. One night a girl just reached across another girl's plate without looking to grab a peice of bread. No "excuse me," nothing. Just snatched it, and the other girl didn't even blink. They also place their bread directly on the table, not on their plates. I've seen a couple girls balance their slices on the crusts so that the white centers don't touch the table surface. In America, I think we prodominately pass food dishes around the table, but here, one girl will serve the other five at the table before they place any food on their own plates. It's the same for the water pitcher and the appetizers, too. And if one girl goes for seconds, she also asks if anybody else would like some. At restaurants, you typically don't get waiters that are constantly stopping by your table. They bring you your food, will stop by maybe once to ask how it is and if you'd like any dessert, but for the most part leave you alone to enjoy your meal. I like that a lot--I can't stand it when waiters are constantly flitting around.

This is insanely long, now, so I think I'll stop here. Have a great week! I can't wait for classes next week, really. I'm such a nerd. I'm going to round out Valentine's Day by watching Pride and Prejudice and finishing off the chocolate that Sara gave to me yesterday. Bon appetit, y'all!

Are my clothes really worth this much?

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!

Adventures in Shopping

First of all, things have gotten better. I'm still just chilling in my room for the most part, but I feel better about the whole studying-abroad-for-four-months situation. I saw Sara's room today--totally jealous. I want a skeleton key for my room!! This is what I get for asking for a shower in my room haha. I could have had a room overlooking the garden too! Oh well. I guess I got what I asked for, at least!

I've been going to monoprix for the past few days and trying to do my shopping as a series of trips so I can carry it all and such. Plus I get overwhelmed with the intrinsic frenchiness of everything and I have to step back for a minute. Anyway, the other day was pretty whatev--just buying toiletries. Today was a little bit more frustrating/hilarious as I tried to find dish soaps and such. First of all, I had to hold off on buying towels because a normal towel, or "bath sheet," was 16 euros!! So, like 20 bucks. So I did all my shopping and surreptitiously checked my wallet and had to take the two towels back and this French schoolkid openly watched me as I put the towels back on the shelf. I kind of wonder if putting things back from your cart is something that is "Just Not Done" in France.

Finding the laundry detergent was fun. I came across an entire shelving unit of bottles and tablets and sheets that had labels that said either "adoucisseur" or "assouplissant," so I'm looking all over this shelf because I know that "douce" means soft or sweet, and "souple" means supple, so I wondered if I was just overlooking it. Finally I just wandered over to another shelf that had bottles that said "shampooing," and basically laughed, but in my head. I never thought that I would "shampoo" my clothes. So I grabbed the cheapest brand and took off. Of course, as I was checking out I was staring at the full label: Shampooing Laine. And there was this niggling feeling that I should know what "laine" means. But it was too late. So when I got back I looked it up and of course: laine = wool. So I would feel indignant except the rest of the label is taken up with SKEINS OF YARN. Excuse me as I go put on my "Captain Obvious" tee shirt. Whatever--I bought it and it'll work for handwashing things. And it was only like 3 euros! Cha-ching!

You would also think that buying hand soap would be easy...not really. All these different concentrations and formulas are mixed together with hand AND body soap AND hand lotion. I settled for this oxymoron of a description: creme lavant, or "cream washing." And it's made with the oil of the olive leaf, and it looks like oil. But I tested it out when I got home and yes, it does foam a bit and rinse clean.

Some surprises: A mini umbrella was my most expensive purchase, at 10 euros; these cotton pads for 99 cents that feel really firm and hard-core, like they're reusable; 3 BIC mechanical pencils for an expensive 1,95; and the two sponges for 2,50. (Remember to multiply all these prices by 1.4 to get dollar rates)

Headed off to dinner and then to bed early. I have breakfast at about 7 or 7:30 tomorrow, then my placement exam at 9:30. Til later!