Le Marché & Disneyland Paris

So this morning I got up early(ish) and headed for the second time to the market in town. I've been to a few markets before... there's one at home that mostly sells fruit/vegetables/bread, but you can also find things like SillyBandz... and there's a little one at school that's known for it's awesome pierogies (I don't think I'll ever learn how to spell that word correctly).

This market is different than those two though- it's huge and only sells food. and flowers. On the street, you can find pretty much every kind of fruit or vegetable imaginable. Everything's fresh, everything's colorful, and everyone is selling more or less the same thing, so the vendors try and dress up their stands to make them stand out more.





There are two buildings that are also used for this purpose everyone Saturday- they remind me a bit of the buildings at the Fairgrounds in NY- and are packed with people. One building is dedicated to meat- and they sell everything. And every part of everything. Many of the animals still had their heads on. Ew...

The other building is mostly bread (mmm) and cheese. I bought a bit of (very overpriced) dried fruit there. Here's a photo... dried apple and coconut.


Yes, that is my suitcase... haven't completely unpacked yet...

Outside those buildings there's a huge section dedicated to seafood. I didn't really go over there because I'm not really a big seafood girl. It's slowly starting to change... but still. Slowly. There's also a section where you can get food to eat right on the spot, or take home for lunch.


Really big woks


And flowers!

I wish I could've gotten better photos- it's tough though, because it's always soo soo busy. Oh, also a few of my friends from my group and I are planning a trip to...


Disneyland Paris!

We're going for a day a few weekends from now. Did you know that it is the most-visited attraction not just in France, but in EUROPE?! Cause it is. We're planning on taking a train to Paris early Saturday morning, going to the park, crashing in Paris, then doing some sight-seeing on Sunday before we come home. The quickest (and cheapest, I think) way to get to Paris is the TGV. Le Train à Grande Vitesse... the Really Fast Train. I bought a 12-25 discount card for 50€, which got me a 44€ discount on this trip, and is good for a year. Sweet. Anyway so yeah, I'm excited. So touristy of me. I love it.

Oh PS: Guess what I had for lunch today? Boudin Noir. You know what that is? It's blood sausage. You know what that is? It's pigs blood. and onions, lard, garlic, parsley, nutmeg, cream, egg, salt, and pepper. It was terrible. But at least I tried it. Want a photo? Oh, you don't? Well here's one anyway.

"I don't think I know you..."

This is a story about how I ended up totally out of place speaking Spanish in a French classroom with a professor who would only address me in English.

Over the past week, everyone in the group has been choosing/signing up for classes. For the most part, we sign up for classes through CIREFE- the part of the university just for foreigners. We do, however, have the option to take classes with French students if we place into a high enough level. After planning out my schedule, I saw that I was only taking 17 credits (heh) and decided that I wanted to add another class.

The longer I spend in France speaking French, the more I realize how much I miss Spanish. French was my first foreign language and is still and always will be my favorite, blah blah blah, but I really did enjoy speaking Spanish this past fall. Sorry, I digress. Anyway, I decided to take a Spanish class. There are a couple other Hispanophiles (yes, that is a word) in my group, and Monday afternoon another girl and I went to check out the course listings in the Spanish department.

And we found the [potentially] best. class. ever.
It was a translation class- which sounds fun enough as is. And it involved Spanish. And French. Yes, a two-part translation course: French -> Spanish, and Spanish -> French. No English involved at ALL. I had a huge moment of language-geekness and pretty much died on the spot.

We didn't sign up right away- we decided to check out the class first. Smart us.

The first part of the class was Tuesday afternoon- it was the Spanish -> French section. We got there early, sat way over to the side of the room, and hoped to blend in. People keep arriving, but no professor. We had hoped to talk to him/her before class started, but when he finally walked in, he started class right away. Everyone whipped out packets of Spanish lit. and they continued translating where they left off the previous week. In French.

It was kind of boring, not having the texts... and also kind of disconcerting, listening to the uber uber uber formal translating all the students were doing. I guess I was (naïvely) expecting them to be translating like novels or newspaper articles or something (yeah... now that I think about it, that was kind of dumb of me). They were using the passé simple (old French literary tense which I know how to use, I just don't like actually thinking about it) as well as really archaic words that even the French students were kind of shakey with.

After halfway through the class, the professor turns to us to ask us to translate the next part... then he kind of does a double take... "Je crois que je ne vous connais pas..." "I don't think I know you... "

My first instinct is to start rambling in Spanish, God knows why, and he looks at us funny and asks us where we're from. Los Estados Unidos. He then starts speaking English. Like... no. Just no. We're in a French/Spanish translation class, why the heck is English even an option?

Anyway, we sat through the rest of the class, and went up at the end to talk to him. I can't remember the exact order of the languages spoken, but I do know that we hit all three and the conversation ended with him speaking English with us. Just English. Sigh.


Molé
So yeah, I'm not planning on taking the class now. I really just wanted an opportunity to speak Spanish while I'm here- and considering the class is conducted in French... it wouldn't be that useful. I did see a nice Mexican restaurant in town though, so maybe I'll hit it up for some molé and a bit of práctica.

Food in Bretagne

Crêpes: Americans say cray-pes, the French say creh-pes. And the French make them better, so there you go. Crêpes actually originated in Bretange (Brittany, in English. this is the region that I'm staying in). Don't believe me? go check wikipedia because they're always right about everything. I've had at least one a day since I've been in France. Most people are familiar with sweet crêpes- ones with sugar, nutella, fruit, etc inside. But there are also savory ones. I had one the other night with cheesey sauce, chopped onion, and scallops inside. Yesterday for lunch I had one with goat cheese at a Crêperie in the center of Rennes. They're everywhere.

Cidre: Cider. It's really big in Bretagne, and the French like to drink it with pretty much any meal. Okay, well, not breakfast. But pretty much any other meal. It's hard cider, but the alcohol content is pretty low.

Macaroons: And not the coconut kind. These are everywhere. And, depending on where you go, pretty expensive. There are the standard flavors like chocolate, pistacho, and coffee... but then there are also cool ones like Earl Grey (which I bought the other day... for wayyyy too much). I had never had one before this past December when I bought two in New York City, but now I'm in love.

Bread: THE FRENCH EAT SO MUCH BREAD. I know, you're surprised, right? Well, in this case, the stereotypes are 110% true. I see people walking down the road and on the buses with baguettes all the time. Unfortunately, they normally aren't wearing berets and black/white striped shirts... but still. We always have at least three different types of bread in the house. It's usually eaten plain, or used to scrape up leftovers on a people's plates after lunch or dinner. Leftovers can be anything from mashed potatoes to gravy to... well, anything. The one thing the French do not put on their bread, however, is... PEANUT BUTTAH.


I was walking home from French Boot Camp on Friday when I passed by a grocery store. I went in... because I just generally enjoy grocery stores for no apparent reason... and started to explore. It wasn't long before I found a giant part of an aisle dedicated to Nutella and Nutella knockoffs. If you don't know what Nutella is, there is something wrong with you. It's the texture of peanut butter, but made of chocolate and hazelnuts. The French (and many Europeans) put it on pretty much anything that us Americans put pb on. It's caught on in the US in the past few years, and is definitely worth checking out.

Anyway. So seeing this giant wall of Nutella made me miss peanut butter, which I hadn't had for two weeks. So I went on a hunt for it... and was unsuccessful. I was about to give up hope when I randomly decided to ask a grocery store guy where if they sold beurre de cacahuètes. He lead me over to a tinnnnnny little "Foods of the World" section where there were two different types (smooth and chunky) of the tinnnny Skippy jars. For €5,06. That's $6.90. You see how tiny that peanut butter jar is?! Gahhh. Whatever, I bought it anyway. And started to eat it as I was walking home. American.

Here are some random photos I took at a pastry/dessert shop in Paris:





Yeah that's all I got for now. I changed my layout, and now it's easier to leave a comment. So do it. All you've got to do it click the "comment" link under the title of each entry. You do not need a Google account or any of that jazz.

Let's play catch-up

Okay so where did I leave off? Wednesday? Wednesday.

Wednesday morning most of our group went to the Louvre. I'd been once before, but it's impossible to see the whole museum in one trip... also, I just felt as if I should go. I'm in Paris. It's just something that you should do. It was free admission if you were European and under 25... alas, I am not European... but I was with two French girls, and they decided to try and see if they could get us in for free. Just as long as we didn't talk (because that would obviously ruin it). The guy at the desk didn't buy it (we needed to show our IDs), but because I had my French visa (FRENCH VISA) I got in for free. Sweet.

However, I spent like an hour walking around before I decided I was bored, and then went to the Apple store and played with the iPads. Attempt at being a cultured person = fail.

We had lunch, then went to the museum of Paris. or something. ugh fine let me look it up. le Musée Carnavalet. Afterwards we took a boat tour on the Seine, which I did do the last time I was here, but it was really cool. We got to see the Eiffel Tower, the home of the Academie Française, etc. After that, we headed out for a "real French dinner". I got a croque monsieur (a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, with cheese melted on top. so. good.)

The next morning- Thursday- you following along? we packed up all of our stuff and left Paris. We stopped at la Cathédrale de Chartres and listened to a guide (who has apparently been giving tours for about 50 years- including to people like Yo-Yo Ma and the Reagans) talk to us about the history of the church and the stained glass windows. I'm not a huge history person, but it was interesting to hear about the symbolism in the stained glass windows and statues.


The cathedral at Chartres

After eating lunch, we got back on our way to Rennes. As we were on the bus, one of the directors would pull us up one by one to tell us about our host families. Upon arriving in Rennes, the bus took us right to our university (Université de Haute Bretagne Rennes II) and we all entered this big room where a bunch of families were waiting. Middle school dance moment. All the students on one side, trying to figure out who their family was (based on the quick description we got while we were on the bus)... and the families on the other side (who had absolutely no idea who their kid was, because the families were decided less than 24 hours prior).

Once again, I'm not going to give out too many details, because I'm usually a pretty paranoid person... but my family is a retired couple living a bit north-east of the center of Rennes. They also open their house to students who need a place to stay during the week while they go to college (and then go home on the weekends), work, or look for work. So even though I'm not living with any of their biological children, I am living with 3 other 20-somethings. So that's cool. Everyone's really nice! and so is the food. I can already tell that my blog entries from France will be just as full of full-related posts as those from the Dominican Republic. OmgIlovefood.

Friday we did orientation-type stuff at the university, and tomorrow we're starting a week-long intensive French program. French language class from 9-12, Civ from 130-230, and other orientation stuff from 3-5. This 'other orientation stuff' includes info on the French education system, the French people's perception of the US/Americans, and- of course- wait for it- wait- wait- okay- culture shock. Le choc culturel. After all the meetings we had about it in the DR, I think anyone from our group would be qualified to give a 2-hour presentation on culture shock.

Expensive tea, the Sacred Heart, and Greek food en France

Tuesday/Mardi/Martes I woke up late because I was too lazy to dig out my alarm clock and set it the previous night. I managed to still grab breakfast, but I missed the optional morning excursions. It turned out for the better though probably, because I bought an internet card and went online for a bit, then explored the area outside my hotel with a few people. We hit up a Starbucks (apparently there aren’t any in Rennes, but Paris definitely had a few. Nothing like New York City though, or even Pittsburgh).

Starbucks in France is so. incredibly. expensive. I thought that I was being a smart frugal girl when I ordered tea (also… I hate coffee), but the tea was 3,10€. That’s $4.02, for all of you not following along at home. Yeah. Whatever Starbucks.

We got lunch again at the hostel, and went out afterwards for a tour of l’Hôtel de Ville. It’s this really pretty building in Paris that’s home to a lot of offices, as well as hosting tons of parties and stuff throughout the year. This is another thing that I’m not sure if I saw or not the last time I was in Paris… whoops.

Afterwards a small group of us headed out with one of the moniteurs to Montmartre. We saw the Sacre Coeur, as well as some amazing views of Paris. Then everyone went out for coffee… and I got a crêpe. MmMmm…

FYI: The Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Paris, commonly known as Sacré-Cœur Basilica (French: Basilique du Sacré-Cœur), is a Roman Catholic church and minor basilica, dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in Paris, France. A popular landmark, the basilica is located at the summit of the butte Montmartre, the highest point in the city. Just in case you didn't know. I didn't, until I few days ago. Thanks Wikipedia.


View from the Sacre Coeur


Le Sacre Coeur. I didn't take this photo. Mine were terrible quality, plus it was a really really grey day.

We had dinner free, so a group of us walked around with the moniteurs and settled on a Greek restaurant. One of the moniteurs did a bit of negotiating, and managed to get us a discount if we all ordered the same meal. We ended up paying 6€ each... otherwise, it would’ve been more like 11 or 12. I don’t think you can play that game in the US, but I had no problem with it here. We had gyros with French fries. I tried to remember some of my Greek, but that was a complete fail…

Arriving in Paris

So I wake up on the fight, after probably one of the MOST uncomfortable sleeps in my life, and I’m in Paris. I have also missed “breakfast” which was apparently an apple pie-like pastry thing. Like, the type of thing you’d find at a 7-11. Damn. Side note: I miss 7-11s.

The group was meeting between 930-1030 at like, 2C? Dude. Charles de Gaulle airport is one of the MOST confusing airports I’ve ever navigated though. And I’m proud to say that I’ve successfully navigated a fair few.

So I ended up meeting up with a few other kids from CIEE right when I got off the airplane. It took us about 30 minutes to get our bags, get through immigration, take the tram, etc etc. During these 30 minutes, I really regretted bringing two 50lb suitcases. I was always the last one in the group because I kept having to change my grip on my luggage, pick up my luggage when it fell over, or just simply take breaks. I mean, I know that this is just an issue I’m going to have to deal with my first few days moving around and also my last trip to Paris in May (to fly out), and that I won’t regret packing thoroughly… but still. It was a HUGE pain. I have a big suitcase on wheel and a huge duffel, so I usually put the duffel on top of the suitcase with wheels and wheel it around. Of course, it usually falls off every 2-3 minutes. Anyway, Katy’s poor luggage-handling skillz aside…

We finally meet up with the group, including the two coordinators, right by the Air France check-in desks. I tried to use my Verizon phone… it worked from the Dominican Republic, albeit being mad expensive… so I figured it would from France too. Nope. It doesn’t receive any signal, not even the time. So now it’s just this random hunk of plastic that I keep carrying around with me in my purse, because I forget that it will serve me absolutely no purpose in this country. I ended up using a phone card that one of the coordinators had to call my parents (it was like… 330am) and we hung out for a bit before bringing all of our stuff (more luggage issues… I still have blisters) out to the bus.

We drove from CDG about 40 minutes (I fell asleep… Colleen.) to downtown Paris and settled in at our hostel. I’d never stayed in a hostel before and I really didn’t know what to expect. There are like 38 people in our group (and we’re apparently getting 4 more once we get to Rennes), 4 moniteurs (students at our university whose job it is to help us through orientation and on-and-off during the semester…. They’re all really cool), and the 2 coordinators… so we were a large group. They broke the girls in CIEE up into bedrooms from 3 students to 10 students- mine had 7- and we brought our bags up after eating lunch.


The room I was staying in… that’s my bed


The main room in our hostel-room-thing

A couple people went out in the afternoon to explore the city… I went against my normal “I do not nap” rule and crashed for a bit. It was that or passing out somewhere on a sidewalk in Paris.

After my lovely nap, we all went out to dinner at a restaurant called Relais d’Alsace. Which I’m pretttttty sure that we went to the last time I was in Paris, but I’m not positive. Dinner was fish, which I usually don’t like… but it was covered in butter, so no complaints. We had a couple different choices for dessert, and I got the crème brûlée. I’d never had it before (I know. Foodie fail), and I figured that I’d try it. Veryyyyy good.

After dinner we headed back to the hostel. Some people went out to explore the city, but I was still dead tired.

Hmmm well that’s it for the summary of Monday, but what else can I say… so yeah, there are going to be 42? of us in the group. Right now there are only 4 guys, I’m not sure if there are going to be any guys in the group of 4 that’re (love awkward contractions) joining us. I didn’t find that too surprising- in my French classes (both in high school and at Pitt) there are never more than 3 or 4 guys. There are people from all over the US, including people from semi-nearby me: Rochester and Westchester. Most people are French majors or minors, as to be expected….

I keep wanting to compare this experience to mine in the DR, which really isn’t fair to do. So I’m going to try not to do it right now, but no promises for later on.

Longest Day Ever

Sunday morning my parents drop me off at the airport. There were 5 flights I could’ve taken to Philly to catch my 615pm flight to Paris, and I picked the second-to-earliest one at 720am. You may call me crazy, but then you obviously haven’t lived in central New York where ANY weather is possible. I would rather have a 9 ½ hour layover in Philly (which I had) then have my flight be delayed/cancelled and arrive late to Philly.

So I get to Philly and hang out for, well, 9 ½ hours. So boring. I slept for a bit (as I hugged my purse containing my visa), talked to some nice Swiss people, did a few laps across the Philly airport (exercise), got an overpriced McDonald’s salad… etc. My flight to Paris is delayed, so we end up leaving around 730pm.



The airplane is MASSIVE. At least 300 seats. I get this really nice seat with a lot of legroom… but then this old man who seems quite grumpy pulls a stewardess over to my seat and tells her that he wants my seat. Not a seat with a lot of legroom, not a seat in my aisle… MY seat. So I mean, yeah, I let him sit down and I take his seat (which is the in middle of 4 seats in the middle of a huge block of seats). Then the stewardess comes over to me, apologizes, and offers me another aisle seat. So I take that. Then another stewardess comes over and asks me if I want to move. And I’m like “No, this is fine…” “Are you SURE?” “Uh…. Yeah…?” “Wait, come here.” And she pulls me aside and tells me that the LAST person with THAT seat asked to move because someone around them smelled really bad.

So I end up getting an aisle seat in the back of the plane, away from any smelly people, but with barely any legroom and a lot of noise. It was clear that the stewardesses felt pretty bad, and kept telling me that I could get whatever I wanted to drink. I told them that I wasn’t legal and couldn’t drink. Then they were like… “Oh… do you want headphones?” I mean, I probably could have gotten away with getting a drink without an ID, but I was planning on taking a sleeping pill, so I felt it was for the best not to drink anything.

There were TVs on the back of all the seats, and there were a lot of TV shows and movies offered. I chose to watch Easy A… I tried to watch it in Spanish, but then realized I was too tired to understand. Then I tried to watch it in French… and realized I was tooo tired to understand. So I took a sleeping pill and put it on in English. Great movie. I also got dinner. Then I passed out.

END OF SUNDAY ENTRY. Even though at this point, it’s technically only like 9pm.

Désolée!

Hey all! sorry I'm terrible and haven't written yet.

and sorry that I'm not going to write at all in this post either. I'm just writing to say that I'm A) alive B) enjoying France C) really liking my family.

Oh, and, D) busy and/or tired ALL THE TIME.

On the bus on the way from Paris (to Rennes, where I currently am) I wrote 2 blog entries about my first two days in Paris... but I haven't written about my time since, yet, and I don't want to post those until I'm all caught up. So you'll have to wait a liiiiiiittle bit longer.

Not that anyone is pressuring me to blog, besides, err, myself... I just thought I'd let you all know that blogs are coming. as soon as I have time. and energy. maybe I should start drinking Diet Coke again...

I shall leave you all with a photo of me looking like a tool in front of the Lourve.

VISA: OBTAINED.

Well, to make a long story short (except for not, because I'm pretty sure it was mentioned in every blog I wrote), I did end up getting my French visa. I went back down to New York City with a friend a few weeks ago and picked it up. The scary lady was still there, of course, and still just as scary. Last time she had asked me for a letter from my university (which I didn’t have) but I gave her a copy of my Pitt ID instead. I [incorrectly] assumed that this was sufficient, because she didn’t say anything like, you know, “when you come back, bring me a letter from your university”.

So after showing up to the consulate at 9am, waiting for about an hour in the holding pen upstairs, my name gets called. I go up to the desk and give the lady my receipt and passport. She asks me if I have the letter from my university. “Uhh… no. I have my school ID?” (which I have since lost, by the way. If anyone from Pitt has found it, please let me know…)

She scowled at me and was like “No, I already have a copy of your ID. See? I need a letter.” “Oh, I’m sorry, I misunderstood. I thought that my ID was sufficient.”

And here, she turns to the woman in the booth next to her and is like “Oh, well, she misunderstood.” And tells me to sit back down. So I do, and I happen to overhear the girl next to me say that she’s leaving in two days and still doesn’t have her visa. It was her third time to the consulate. Hmm… reassuring.

After about 20 minutes of freaking out, I finally hear my name called again. I didn’t know if she was calling me up to yell at me again and tell me to come back, or what. But when I get to the window, she glares at me, shoves my passport and my OFII form through the slit under the window, and lets me go. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

On my way out of the office, I stop by the security guard’s booth thing. I ask him if he found a scarf a few weeks ago, and he turns it over. Another success. I leave with my $300+ visa and my $7 scarf.

So that was a huge load off. I’m not finished, though. of course. Once I get to France I need to go get some forms taken care of and get a medical examination and other run wastes of my time.

I would like to post of photo of my visa here- I put one up on my Facebook- but it has my full name on it, so I’ll just have to let you all leave it to your imaginations.