I have been learning Cajun/Acadian thanks to Nathan, a Cajun himself!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=XQAReQOJfX0
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vX9V7anGvsk
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Hg19pyCq7nA
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Z3gddkQcmQI
http://youtube.com/watch?v=hA3hAMBhozY
Fin.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Comme-Oddities
Notes on a Country: Comme-Oddities
Hope this is shorter for ya’ll ; ) But I make no promises ; )
Differences:
• Toilet paper goes quick here. The ply is short-lived, that is unless you buy the more expensive brands. I guess it’s the same in the states, but here, it just seems like I am ALWAYS buying it.
• Eggs and milk are bought lukewarm, outside of a freezer. We buy milk lukewarm too, soymilk and powder milk, but here you can buy cow milk and goat milk among the aisles.
• I have never seen so many sorts of prunes and grapes. My favorites are these little green prunes called “Claude Reine Vert”, which really doesn’t mean anything special… “Green Queen Claudia”. Whooo. And I also like these little bitty green grapes called “Chasselas” and these big fat green ones called “Italia”. All the grapes have seeds, and it’s funny because normally I like dark-colored grapes, but here the ones that I can find taste like muscadines, and I CAN’T stand the taste of muscadines.
• No one uses air conditioners here, unless its places like the Office of Tourism or the City Hall (la Mairie), who cater to many foreigners. Truthfully, it hasn’t been a problem for me. However, I remember one day in early September when it was a little hotter, and I was walking around on the Presqu’île and I saw some older ladies sitting together in the shade dousing their necklines and their shoulders in water. Then I remembered an essay I wrote in one of my French Lit classes at UCA about the “La Canicule” (the heat wave). In 2005, many people died (mostly the elderly) in France because of a huge heat wave that struck the nation and took by surprise those without an AC unit.
As I said, no one uses AC here, I never have. It’s the beginning of October now, and there have been a couple of days where I thought I was going to die of cold. It is gonna be a LONG winter!
• I love having the accessibility of recycling almost everything, and I love how it makes me feel. But note that the French don’t recycle aluminum. Strikes me odd. Hmmmm.
• I love getting handed a free newspaper every evening when I get off the métro. I have never read the news like I read the news now.
• People hardly ever smile at one another on the streets, in the markets, in the métros, etc. Except me. I’m a smiler ; ) Truthfully, it’s a pretty cold place, and the only thing that is keeping me going is my eternal optimism, that and the little moments that happen throughout the week that keep me smiling. Every once in a while I get some human compassion, and those brief moments make my day, each and every time.
As an exception, people smile and say hi instantly and repeatedly in my apartment complex and in the elevator-I guess because we are “neighbors”.
I have seriously said hi 5 different times (yet in the same exact manner) to a guy who lives a floor underneath me and equally to some girl that lives a floor or so above me. They seem nice, always very pleasant; it’s just very weird though. I find that people here are very stand-offish, but once you are in, you are in, and you don’t even necessarily have to know the person beforehand. For example, I recall the night of Marie-José’s son’s house-warming party when I met her other son Pierre and his girlfriend Maude for the first time. We rode in the back seat together to the party. Pierre knew before he and Maude got in the car that I was with his parents, and I think because he knew, and maybe because he knows how close Marie-José and I have become, he slid right in the backseat like we were friends, like he could slide right in and hit my hip and it wouldn’t matter. He did just that, stuck his hand out, gave me an enormous smile and that was that. I was “in”. I will never forget that feeling! I felt grand!
The same thing happened when my host Rotary club welcomed me for the first time. The president of the club, Joëlle, came right up to me, in my face (like the French do), and just started rambling, inviting me over to meet her daughters of my age. I had never emailed, never seen, never even heard of this woman, and there she was in my face kissing my cheeks because she knew who I was through Marie-José and through Rotary.
This talk of cultural barriers makes me think of first impressions and how others can talk a person up. My mom always used to tell me that a first impression is crucial. I used to shrug it off…not iron my clothes…not act like every strand of hair had to be perfectly positioned, every eyelash perfectly separated… Lol, here I’m still the same way here, but I make sure that when I go somewhere for the first time or meet someone for the first time, I put on my best face, my best outfit, and my best attitude. In fact, most of my meetings are for the first time only anyway, so you know what that means! Yup, Jessica is lookin' sexy all the time! Lol.
I have found that a first conversation is crucial. I am lucky and happy to say that most of my first conversations have been amazing! It’s funny, the first night I got to Lyon, I remember when Marie-José picked me up at the train station and then took me home to meet Jacques. They commented on how my French was very good, and for me, to hear that is bizarre because I know how many mistakes I make more than anyone else I think! Well maybe! I think that my close Anglophile friends I have here like Nathan and Karen, who are in my same boat, notice my mistakes. Of course it’s always supportive, respectful, and beneficial--We gotta learn somehow.
Haha, it’s a good thing that I showed a good potential the first day I met Marie-José et Jacques because in subsequent days, I don’t’ know how many times I have had to clarify or repeat what I want to say to them! It’s sad but true! Ahhh, c’est la vie d’une étudiante étrangère !
• Drivers are ruthless. They are out for blood here. My legs almost got forced concave the other day when some idiot driver (who was parked might I add!) backed up and nearly amputated me. She didn’t look one time to see if a) a car was coming and b) that Jessica Jones was standing there. The nerve! The same goes for bicyclers. They don’t care. They own the road just as much as the drivers. Seriously, I always look both ways at crosswalks when I have a “go” sign because there are always those idiot cyclists who “own” the road and take pedestrians out. Sure they can easily swerve, more easily than a car can, but I am convinced that they are egotistical and merciless. I’d rather not have an unforgettable story of me in a hospital bed after having been mowed down by a biker. Ha, I’d probably make up a cool story ; )
• Truthfully, public transportation is first come first serve. I don’t know how many older people, pregnant women, and moms with strollers I have seen standing in the middle of métros and tramways keeping their own bearing-without any handles. Sad but true.
Also, you had better wait for people to get off the métro/bus/tramway before you get on, or they will ram you to the nasty métro ground, or get in a tiffy and storm off mumbling to themselves.
• Speaking of pregnant moms, they get good good benefits here. Momma’s here, no matter their marital status, get money for each kid they birth. If their marriage is stable they are getting a stable monthly check. If their marriage is in shambles they are getting a stable monthly check. For-each-kid. Whoa.
• Annoying cell phone rings, and people talking on cell phones don’t annoy me here like they did stateside, instead, it’s people who blast their MP3’s or cell phone MP3’s, and expect everyone around them to already automatically love whatever it is they are listening to.
I was in a superstore called “Auchan” the other day and these two young punk high school girls were listening to some awful American music, and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Of course, with my luck, they saw, and then they continued to stand right next to me, giggling proudly at how much they must have though I hated them. I giggled later at their music choice and how banal they would appear in America. I won, and they didn’t even know it! ; )
• I have grown to hate chestnut trees and pigeons. Both of their droppings drop on my head, hurting me physically or mentally, or sometimes both.
(Cody, t’en souvient-il? Le Centre Pompidou, les serviettes, le “photo-up” du dernier siècle…)
• France has got to be the anti-aging capital of the world. I have never seen so many “anti-rides” (anti-wrinkle) formulas! The other day, I was looking for a simple daily face crème with some SPF in it (cuz I ran out of your Mary Kay goods Katie!), and I ended up standing in the aisle (mind you, an entire aisle in dedication) for 30 minutes searching out all the formulas that could “guarantee” me a diminishment in my fine lines and wrinkles. In the end, I went home with a formula specifically for 20-something year olds who need sun protection and hydration throughout the day. Believe me, it took a while to pick that out after I narrowed down “what I needed”, for then I had to pick out the brand and the price. Truthfully, I went home feeling like I made the best decision ever. Furthermore, I was trying to find some acne gel the other day, and I figured that the same store would have a lot of choices since they had everything anyone would ever want in the face cream selection. They didn’t. They had two different choices. Later, I looked at a supermarket near where I live to see their choices, and I couldn’t find a single thing. Do people not have zits here?!!
On another note, and under the same topic, I am TOO white for French face concealers! Seriously, I must be albino! I am going to have to look elsewhere for something to hide these under eye circles that will inevitably keep developing.
Also, my nail polish remover is better than yours. My nails smell like sweet lotus flowers that haven’t been poisoned by acetone (acetonic?) toxins. Seriously, I would wear the fragrance as perfume!!
• France closes on Sunday, which means I have to buy the key essentials (i.e. toilet paper, bread, coffee) on Saturday. No really, a billboard drops in front of your eyes when you step foot outside of your apartment. It says: “France is closed today; you can wait until tomorrow”. There are a few restaurants that open and I think some supermarkets open until like ten to noon-ish in the morning, but still, for the most part the State turns its cheek on you. If you “got to have” something you had better wake up at the crack of dawn to go and get it, or wait around until the shops owned by foreigners open up.
• The Master’s Degree programs work bizarrely here. You have an entire month and a week to turn in your official document saying what classes you would like to take, and in the meantime you go to those classes without having been enrolled in them first. Très très bizarre! Currently, I am pleased with four of my six of the classes I am taking, and one I am not sure about yet (a French grammaire class!) , and another one I don’t like at all ( a theater class). The teacher is “Muh-nuh-tuhn” (monotone en français), and while he teaches he pleases himself I tell ya. He smiles at a hand movement he makes or a theatrical rendition of a French play he *beautifully* recites. He is full of himself. Plus, he paces back and forth and it annoys the crap out of me. It sort of makes him look like an animal trapped in a cage, doing the only thing it can: pace and walk about. Furthermore, he gives a speech for an hour and a half (in the same tone!). I always fall asleep.
Yesterday I had my other two classes that I hadn’t started yet because the teacher was sick. She said she’d be back on Oct. 3rd. That’s right, she can predict the exact day when she can come back from a lengthy sickness.
Seems sketchy to me. I’m thinking that she’s been on the beaches of the Côte d’Azur this whole entire time. She did look pretty tan today!
• The French ask me what my country is like, not what my state is like. To give you a little history lesson…France is composed of many provinces, and many of those provinces have been around for centuries. The inhabitants of those countries are very close to their land, their “pays”, which suggests that it is not just their land, it is their country, and it is where their heritage lies. Whenever I think of this, I think of people in the US who are really tied down to their “country”, people who have produced wine in their own vineyards for many generations, people who live in the backwoods in sheltered mountainous ranges, people who live on remote islands on the Atlantic coast and still speak a different language. They are out there! I like the thought of it too ; )
• The laundry mat is a great place to meet men. Last week I did my weekly load and I met the most wonderful man in the world. Many years ago he was a “Boulanger”, a bread maker. Today he is retired, living alone in “une maison de retraite”, a residence for the elderly. The day I met him he was doing his own laundry because his caregiver was sick, and that same day he talked about how we was going to the hospital to have an operation on his knees. I helped him. Well, I DID his laundry ; )
I wonder how he is doing, and I hope that I see him again because I had my best French conversation with him yet while living here.
• I’m pretty much a loner here. I don’t have many friends yet except for Yusuke, a Japanese student at another university in Lyon who was in my class in Tours, and a married couple from Finland who have installed themselves here. Vera and Mattie. I met them my first week in Lyon at the hotel where we all stayed, and yesterday I found them on the street. They smile a lot like me, and I was so happy to find them again! We exchanged numbers immediately! I also made an American friend named Gary. We met at church two Sundays ago. I decided to start looking for a church because I thought that it would do me good. I like having a support system and people around me that care about other people. I’ve made a few friends in class, but the students are very private here and often I feel like we are in class together and that is it. And that is it. I think that they are just as busy as I am though, so I don’t hold it against them. Also, they have their friends from Undergrad school.
Although I have not yet been cheek-kissed by a classmate, I’m awaiting it, and I think it’s gonna happen next week: )
Okay, so I think I’m done with my Frenchie-Lyon thoughts, now I just have to make a comment about clones.
I had a conversation in Tours a few months ago with a fellow Rotary Ambassador Nathan, who is in Strasbourg currently, and he mentioned how he had been seeing all of his friend’s faces and/or bodies and/or characteristics in France.
It has now hit me! It’s an epidemic! I am cursed to look at a lot of my friends faces while walking around the city and I can’t a) talk to them, b) hug them, and c) exchange “how’s your mother’s”.
Let me just list you off who I have seen who has struck me as one of my friends.
1) Dustin Seaton. There was a tall guy in the metro the other day and he just looked like a regular normal bloke, and then he face squinted like Dustin Seaton. I giggled to myself : )
2) Sarah Haney. I was in MacDonald’s using their “Wifi Gratuit” their “wee-fee gratooeee” (free WIFI) and I saw this college-aged girl walk in with long blond hair and she had the face of Sarah Haney. As I examined her (stealthily of course!), I discovered that she moved her hands too much and she wanted attention. Haney, you’re not like that, but nevertheless, I thought about you the other day ; )
3) Thomas Herndon. I was on the tramway going to IKEA one day and this guy had Thomas lips! And a Thomas nose! He was even quiet and reserved like Thomas is when he’s by himself! It was crazy. He seemed really friendly too : )
4) Sarah Mason. So once this chick got off a metro and she was your short, she was wearing black leather boots that went up mid-calf (made me think of your black rain boots), she had on cool glasses, short hair with spiky ponytail things, and she looked friendly. I wanted to reach out and touch someone!
5) Andrea Jones, my mom. I saw a younger version of you, momma, and I daydreamed that if I were slimmer maybe I would look like this young woman. She must have been my age and she looked like you in photos before you married Dad. She had darker hair and she was shorter, but her eyes haunt me still.
6) Justin Jones, my brother. Every time, I tell you every time I see a normal height, square jaw, slim-Jim, military type, I do a double-mint gum. Every time! (Haha, oh Slim Jims and Justin Jones!)
7) Chris Heien. Same game- square jaw yet with a different height and long-blowy, silky locks. I see you mostly sporting loafers, nerd glasses, and a sweater coming down your back, draping your shoulders.
9) Linda Drasler. It’s your hair sweetums. There are a lot of really curly heads here. I think it’s the weather.
10) Anne Milligan. I was on the metro the other day and I saw Anne’s red hair (but it was longer), Anne’s nose and eyes, and that was all that I could see of this young woman until she got off at the stop, and I noticed that the bottom half of her face was not that of Anne’s.
11) Christian, I walked behind you the other day. The guy had a perky walk, and tight European jeans, but he sported a faux-hawk. And your mug just wasn’t the same, but your skin color was and so was your height. The faux-hawk part just made me laugh and laugh ; )
12) Julius. I saw a German the other day (and I know this because he spoke German) and he looked like you Julius. He had your rosy glow and your height, and even your facial features !
For the rest of you of whom I haven’t seen doubles (yet)…it just means that you are too unique for anyone else’s shoes : ) And when I do see you, it just means that I miss you very much : )
On a side note, I have been seeing celebrity look-alikes as well. There are two guys in two of my classes: one looks like Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the other looks like a young Eddie Veddar of Pearl Jam when the song “Jeremy” debuted. I stare too, it’s uncanny really. My Eddie Veddar look-alike is a lady-killer though. Can’t imagine how bad he’d hurt a foreigner ;) Lol. I don’t think I want to know! Crazy lady killers. How do they sleep at night? Ha, with many others, that’s how.
So, as some of you know, I went to Paris over the weekend. It was indeed as lovely as the world gives it credit for being. And for me, the second time was the charm.
City of Love= Check. City of *clean* streets= Check. City of Lights= Check. City that never sleeps=Check. City of the most memorable monuments= Check.
(PS, the streets weren’t that bad!)
In fact, I couldn’t get away from Paris!! I changed my train ticket, so that I could spend 6 more hours there! Then, I missed my changed train ticket because the city wouldn’t let me go (I got lost in the 1st Arrondissement!)!!
I ended up taking a red-eye night train to Lyon that lasted 5 and half hours (three and half hours more than usual!). I have never slept so well too, let me tell you! After this *well-rested* night of peaceful sleep, I got off the train in Lyon at a train station far away from my apartment, and I found out that because it was October 1st, my monthly transportation card had expired.
I really should have just stayed in Paris : )
I had a great time though. I was invited for the obligatory Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar Weekend Orientation. They set us up in a youth hostel for two nights, and they gave us a tour of Paris by foot and by “bateaux-mouches” (literally: fly boats--but they are slow), touristy boat rides that coast all along the Seine river. I saw many of Paris’s famous sites from the water!!! It was amazing : )
I stayed in the youth hostel with three of my good friends, which boosted my moral like nothing else could ; ) There I met two Canadian guys who were celebrating their birthdays and their drunken youth, I met a remarkably kind-hearted girl named Carly, a scholar from Austin, Texas, and I met up my friend Daniel again. I met him back in April in Kansas City when we had our Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar weekend orientation. Both he and Carly will be in Tours for three months, so hopefully we will get to see some of France and/or Europe together while they are here ; )
Friday night we had a fancy dinner at a nice hotel, and I recited “L’Albatros” by Baudelaire for all of the Rotarians, the former Rotary Ambassadorial Scholars, and for all of the current Rotary Ambassadorial Scholars. It was amazing! I have never felt so lax in front of a group of people! The former Ambassadorial Scholars, the Scholars who threw the whole weekend together, had requested before we arrived to tell them if we had any special talent. I’m not special and I don’t have any talent, but by golly, I still have my favorite poem memorized, and I was confident that I could get through it. I did : )
To all of my past students: I represented ! I stood there and recited it for them less nervous than I was when I taught it to ya’ll. Yay ; )
Just a side note—If you ever decide to arrive at the Gare de Lyon, the Lyon train station in Paris, DO make sure that you KNOW what line you are coming in on. That place is a zoo. Nathan met me there, and for an hour or so we were looking for each other! It was ridiculous and I felt dumb. Also, don’t tell someone to meet you at the welcome station because there is not one, there are several! Many several!
The weekend was great though, just what I needed to reaffirm my goals and to create many new friendships.
I am glad I painted my nails red : )
Also, anytime you want you guys can go to my Photo website and check out my photos. If you have Facebook, I’d prefer you go look at them there because there is where you can read my silly little comments under each photo. Regardless, they are both meant to let you know how I am doing, and as you may know, I LOVE taking photos! Furthermore, many of the times, if you want to know how I am doing, just go look at my photos. I upload frequently, and they tell stories within stories ; )
Mise-en-abyme ; )
http://picasaweb.google.com/BulletproofSpirit
Hope this is shorter for ya’ll ; ) But I make no promises ; )
Differences:
• Toilet paper goes quick here. The ply is short-lived, that is unless you buy the more expensive brands. I guess it’s the same in the states, but here, it just seems like I am ALWAYS buying it.
• Eggs and milk are bought lukewarm, outside of a freezer. We buy milk lukewarm too, soymilk and powder milk, but here you can buy cow milk and goat milk among the aisles.
• I have never seen so many sorts of prunes and grapes. My favorites are these little green prunes called “Claude Reine Vert”, which really doesn’t mean anything special… “Green Queen Claudia”. Whooo. And I also like these little bitty green grapes called “Chasselas” and these big fat green ones called “Italia”. All the grapes have seeds, and it’s funny because normally I like dark-colored grapes, but here the ones that I can find taste like muscadines, and I CAN’T stand the taste of muscadines.
• No one uses air conditioners here, unless its places like the Office of Tourism or the City Hall (la Mairie), who cater to many foreigners. Truthfully, it hasn’t been a problem for me. However, I remember one day in early September when it was a little hotter, and I was walking around on the Presqu’île and I saw some older ladies sitting together in the shade dousing their necklines and their shoulders in water. Then I remembered an essay I wrote in one of my French Lit classes at UCA about the “La Canicule” (the heat wave). In 2005, many people died (mostly the elderly) in France because of a huge heat wave that struck the nation and took by surprise those without an AC unit.
As I said, no one uses AC here, I never have. It’s the beginning of October now, and there have been a couple of days where I thought I was going to die of cold. It is gonna be a LONG winter!
• I love having the accessibility of recycling almost everything, and I love how it makes me feel. But note that the French don’t recycle aluminum. Strikes me odd. Hmmmm.
• I love getting handed a free newspaper every evening when I get off the métro. I have never read the news like I read the news now.
• People hardly ever smile at one another on the streets, in the markets, in the métros, etc. Except me. I’m a smiler ; ) Truthfully, it’s a pretty cold place, and the only thing that is keeping me going is my eternal optimism, that and the little moments that happen throughout the week that keep me smiling. Every once in a while I get some human compassion, and those brief moments make my day, each and every time.
As an exception, people smile and say hi instantly and repeatedly in my apartment complex and in the elevator-I guess because we are “neighbors”.
I have seriously said hi 5 different times (yet in the same exact manner) to a guy who lives a floor underneath me and equally to some girl that lives a floor or so above me. They seem nice, always very pleasant; it’s just very weird though. I find that people here are very stand-offish, but once you are in, you are in, and you don’t even necessarily have to know the person beforehand. For example, I recall the night of Marie-José’s son’s house-warming party when I met her other son Pierre and his girlfriend Maude for the first time. We rode in the back seat together to the party. Pierre knew before he and Maude got in the car that I was with his parents, and I think because he knew, and maybe because he knows how close Marie-José and I have become, he slid right in the backseat like we were friends, like he could slide right in and hit my hip and it wouldn’t matter. He did just that, stuck his hand out, gave me an enormous smile and that was that. I was “in”. I will never forget that feeling! I felt grand!
The same thing happened when my host Rotary club welcomed me for the first time. The president of the club, Joëlle, came right up to me, in my face (like the French do), and just started rambling, inviting me over to meet her daughters of my age. I had never emailed, never seen, never even heard of this woman, and there she was in my face kissing my cheeks because she knew who I was through Marie-José and through Rotary.
This talk of cultural barriers makes me think of first impressions and how others can talk a person up. My mom always used to tell me that a first impression is crucial. I used to shrug it off…not iron my clothes…not act like every strand of hair had to be perfectly positioned, every eyelash perfectly separated… Lol, here I’m still the same way here, but I make sure that when I go somewhere for the first time or meet someone for the first time, I put on my best face, my best outfit, and my best attitude. In fact, most of my meetings are for the first time only anyway, so you know what that means! Yup, Jessica is lookin' sexy all the time! Lol.
I have found that a first conversation is crucial. I am lucky and happy to say that most of my first conversations have been amazing! It’s funny, the first night I got to Lyon, I remember when Marie-José picked me up at the train station and then took me home to meet Jacques. They commented on how my French was very good, and for me, to hear that is bizarre because I know how many mistakes I make more than anyone else I think! Well maybe! I think that my close Anglophile friends I have here like Nathan and Karen, who are in my same boat, notice my mistakes. Of course it’s always supportive, respectful, and beneficial--We gotta learn somehow.
Haha, it’s a good thing that I showed a good potential the first day I met Marie-José et Jacques because in subsequent days, I don’t’ know how many times I have had to clarify or repeat what I want to say to them! It’s sad but true! Ahhh, c’est la vie d’une étudiante étrangère !
• Drivers are ruthless. They are out for blood here. My legs almost got forced concave the other day when some idiot driver (who was parked might I add!) backed up and nearly amputated me. She didn’t look one time to see if a) a car was coming and b) that Jessica Jones was standing there. The nerve! The same goes for bicyclers. They don’t care. They own the road just as much as the drivers. Seriously, I always look both ways at crosswalks when I have a “go” sign because there are always those idiot cyclists who “own” the road and take pedestrians out. Sure they can easily swerve, more easily than a car can, but I am convinced that they are egotistical and merciless. I’d rather not have an unforgettable story of me in a hospital bed after having been mowed down by a biker. Ha, I’d probably make up a cool story ; )
• Truthfully, public transportation is first come first serve. I don’t know how many older people, pregnant women, and moms with strollers I have seen standing in the middle of métros and tramways keeping their own bearing-without any handles. Sad but true.
Also, you had better wait for people to get off the métro/bus/tramway before you get on, or they will ram you to the nasty métro ground, or get in a tiffy and storm off mumbling to themselves.
• Speaking of pregnant moms, they get good good benefits here. Momma’s here, no matter their marital status, get money for each kid they birth. If their marriage is stable they are getting a stable monthly check. If their marriage is in shambles they are getting a stable monthly check. For-each-kid. Whoa.
• Annoying cell phone rings, and people talking on cell phones don’t annoy me here like they did stateside, instead, it’s people who blast their MP3’s or cell phone MP3’s, and expect everyone around them to already automatically love whatever it is they are listening to.
I was in a superstore called “Auchan” the other day and these two young punk high school girls were listening to some awful American music, and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Of course, with my luck, they saw, and then they continued to stand right next to me, giggling proudly at how much they must have though I hated them. I giggled later at their music choice and how banal they would appear in America. I won, and they didn’t even know it! ; )
• I have grown to hate chestnut trees and pigeons. Both of their droppings drop on my head, hurting me physically or mentally, or sometimes both.
(Cody, t’en souvient-il? Le Centre Pompidou, les serviettes, le “photo-up” du dernier siècle…)
• France has got to be the anti-aging capital of the world. I have never seen so many “anti-rides” (anti-wrinkle) formulas! The other day, I was looking for a simple daily face crème with some SPF in it (cuz I ran out of your Mary Kay goods Katie!), and I ended up standing in the aisle (mind you, an entire aisle in dedication) for 30 minutes searching out all the formulas that could “guarantee” me a diminishment in my fine lines and wrinkles. In the end, I went home with a formula specifically for 20-something year olds who need sun protection and hydration throughout the day. Believe me, it took a while to pick that out after I narrowed down “what I needed”, for then I had to pick out the brand and the price. Truthfully, I went home feeling like I made the best decision ever. Furthermore, I was trying to find some acne gel the other day, and I figured that the same store would have a lot of choices since they had everything anyone would ever want in the face cream selection. They didn’t. They had two different choices. Later, I looked at a supermarket near where I live to see their choices, and I couldn’t find a single thing. Do people not have zits here?!!
On another note, and under the same topic, I am TOO white for French face concealers! Seriously, I must be albino! I am going to have to look elsewhere for something to hide these under eye circles that will inevitably keep developing.
Also, my nail polish remover is better than yours. My nails smell like sweet lotus flowers that haven’t been poisoned by acetone (acetonic?) toxins. Seriously, I would wear the fragrance as perfume!!
• France closes on Sunday, which means I have to buy the key essentials (i.e. toilet paper, bread, coffee) on Saturday. No really, a billboard drops in front of your eyes when you step foot outside of your apartment. It says: “France is closed today; you can wait until tomorrow”. There are a few restaurants that open and I think some supermarkets open until like ten to noon-ish in the morning, but still, for the most part the State turns its cheek on you. If you “got to have” something you had better wake up at the crack of dawn to go and get it, or wait around until the shops owned by foreigners open up.
• The Master’s Degree programs work bizarrely here. You have an entire month and a week to turn in your official document saying what classes you would like to take, and in the meantime you go to those classes without having been enrolled in them first. Très très bizarre! Currently, I am pleased with four of my six of the classes I am taking, and one I am not sure about yet (a French grammaire class!) , and another one I don’t like at all ( a theater class). The teacher is “Muh-nuh-tuhn” (monotone en français), and while he teaches he pleases himself I tell ya. He smiles at a hand movement he makes or a theatrical rendition of a French play he *beautifully* recites. He is full of himself. Plus, he paces back and forth and it annoys the crap out of me. It sort of makes him look like an animal trapped in a cage, doing the only thing it can: pace and walk about. Furthermore, he gives a speech for an hour and a half (in the same tone!). I always fall asleep.
Yesterday I had my other two classes that I hadn’t started yet because the teacher was sick. She said she’d be back on Oct. 3rd. That’s right, she can predict the exact day when she can come back from a lengthy sickness.
Seems sketchy to me. I’m thinking that she’s been on the beaches of the Côte d’Azur this whole entire time. She did look pretty tan today!
• The French ask me what my country is like, not what my state is like. To give you a little history lesson…France is composed of many provinces, and many of those provinces have been around for centuries. The inhabitants of those countries are very close to their land, their “pays”, which suggests that it is not just their land, it is their country, and it is where their heritage lies. Whenever I think of this, I think of people in the US who are really tied down to their “country”, people who have produced wine in their own vineyards for many generations, people who live in the backwoods in sheltered mountainous ranges, people who live on remote islands on the Atlantic coast and still speak a different language. They are out there! I like the thought of it too ; )
• The laundry mat is a great place to meet men. Last week I did my weekly load and I met the most wonderful man in the world. Many years ago he was a “Boulanger”, a bread maker. Today he is retired, living alone in “une maison de retraite”, a residence for the elderly. The day I met him he was doing his own laundry because his caregiver was sick, and that same day he talked about how we was going to the hospital to have an operation on his knees. I helped him. Well, I DID his laundry ; )
I wonder how he is doing, and I hope that I see him again because I had my best French conversation with him yet while living here.
• I’m pretty much a loner here. I don’t have many friends yet except for Yusuke, a Japanese student at another university in Lyon who was in my class in Tours, and a married couple from Finland who have installed themselves here. Vera and Mattie. I met them my first week in Lyon at the hotel where we all stayed, and yesterday I found them on the street. They smile a lot like me, and I was so happy to find them again! We exchanged numbers immediately! I also made an American friend named Gary. We met at church two Sundays ago. I decided to start looking for a church because I thought that it would do me good. I like having a support system and people around me that care about other people. I’ve made a few friends in class, but the students are very private here and often I feel like we are in class together and that is it. And that is it. I think that they are just as busy as I am though, so I don’t hold it against them. Also, they have their friends from Undergrad school.
Although I have not yet been cheek-kissed by a classmate, I’m awaiting it, and I think it’s gonna happen next week: )
Okay, so I think I’m done with my Frenchie-Lyon thoughts, now I just have to make a comment about clones.
I had a conversation in Tours a few months ago with a fellow Rotary Ambassador Nathan, who is in Strasbourg currently, and he mentioned how he had been seeing all of his friend’s faces and/or bodies and/or characteristics in France.
It has now hit me! It’s an epidemic! I am cursed to look at a lot of my friends faces while walking around the city and I can’t a) talk to them, b) hug them, and c) exchange “how’s your mother’s”.
Let me just list you off who I have seen who has struck me as one of my friends.
1) Dustin Seaton. There was a tall guy in the metro the other day and he just looked like a regular normal bloke, and then he face squinted like Dustin Seaton. I giggled to myself : )
2) Sarah Haney. I was in MacDonald’s using their “Wifi Gratuit” their “wee-fee gratooeee” (free WIFI) and I saw this college-aged girl walk in with long blond hair and she had the face of Sarah Haney. As I examined her (stealthily of course!), I discovered that she moved her hands too much and she wanted attention. Haney, you’re not like that, but nevertheless, I thought about you the other day ; )
3) Thomas Herndon. I was on the tramway going to IKEA one day and this guy had Thomas lips! And a Thomas nose! He was even quiet and reserved like Thomas is when he’s by himself! It was crazy. He seemed really friendly too : )
4) Sarah Mason. So once this chick got off a metro and she was your short, she was wearing black leather boots that went up mid-calf (made me think of your black rain boots), she had on cool glasses, short hair with spiky ponytail things, and she looked friendly. I wanted to reach out and touch someone!
5) Andrea Jones, my mom. I saw a younger version of you, momma, and I daydreamed that if I were slimmer maybe I would look like this young woman. She must have been my age and she looked like you in photos before you married Dad. She had darker hair and she was shorter, but her eyes haunt me still.
6) Justin Jones, my brother. Every time, I tell you every time I see a normal height, square jaw, slim-Jim, military type, I do a double-mint gum. Every time! (Haha, oh Slim Jims and Justin Jones!)
7) Chris Heien. Same game- square jaw yet with a different height and long-blowy, silky locks. I see you mostly sporting loafers, nerd glasses, and a sweater coming down your back, draping your shoulders.
9) Linda Drasler. It’s your hair sweetums. There are a lot of really curly heads here. I think it’s the weather.
10) Anne Milligan. I was on the metro the other day and I saw Anne’s red hair (but it was longer), Anne’s nose and eyes, and that was all that I could see of this young woman until she got off at the stop, and I noticed that the bottom half of her face was not that of Anne’s.
11) Christian, I walked behind you the other day. The guy had a perky walk, and tight European jeans, but he sported a faux-hawk. And your mug just wasn’t the same, but your skin color was and so was your height. The faux-hawk part just made me laugh and laugh ; )
12) Julius. I saw a German the other day (and I know this because he spoke German) and he looked like you Julius. He had your rosy glow and your height, and even your facial features !
For the rest of you of whom I haven’t seen doubles (yet)…it just means that you are too unique for anyone else’s shoes : ) And when I do see you, it just means that I miss you very much : )
On a side note, I have been seeing celebrity look-alikes as well. There are two guys in two of my classes: one looks like Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the other looks like a young Eddie Veddar of Pearl Jam when the song “Jeremy” debuted. I stare too, it’s uncanny really. My Eddie Veddar look-alike is a lady-killer though. Can’t imagine how bad he’d hurt a foreigner ;) Lol. I don’t think I want to know! Crazy lady killers. How do they sleep at night? Ha, with many others, that’s how.
So, as some of you know, I went to Paris over the weekend. It was indeed as lovely as the world gives it credit for being. And for me, the second time was the charm.
City of Love= Check. City of *clean* streets= Check. City of Lights= Check. City that never sleeps=Check. City of the most memorable monuments= Check.
(PS, the streets weren’t that bad!)
In fact, I couldn’t get away from Paris!! I changed my train ticket, so that I could spend 6 more hours there! Then, I missed my changed train ticket because the city wouldn’t let me go (I got lost in the 1st Arrondissement!)!!
I ended up taking a red-eye night train to Lyon that lasted 5 and half hours (three and half hours more than usual!). I have never slept so well too, let me tell you! After this *well-rested* night of peaceful sleep, I got off the train in Lyon at a train station far away from my apartment, and I found out that because it was October 1st, my monthly transportation card had expired.
I really should have just stayed in Paris : )
I had a great time though. I was invited for the obligatory Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar Weekend Orientation. They set us up in a youth hostel for two nights, and they gave us a tour of Paris by foot and by “bateaux-mouches” (literally: fly boats--but they are slow), touristy boat rides that coast all along the Seine river. I saw many of Paris’s famous sites from the water!!! It was amazing : )
I stayed in the youth hostel with three of my good friends, which boosted my moral like nothing else could ; ) There I met two Canadian guys who were celebrating their birthdays and their drunken youth, I met a remarkably kind-hearted girl named Carly, a scholar from Austin, Texas, and I met up my friend Daniel again. I met him back in April in Kansas City when we had our Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar weekend orientation. Both he and Carly will be in Tours for three months, so hopefully we will get to see some of France and/or Europe together while they are here ; )
Friday night we had a fancy dinner at a nice hotel, and I recited “L’Albatros” by Baudelaire for all of the Rotarians, the former Rotary Ambassadorial Scholars, and for all of the current Rotary Ambassadorial Scholars. It was amazing! I have never felt so lax in front of a group of people! The former Ambassadorial Scholars, the Scholars who threw the whole weekend together, had requested before we arrived to tell them if we had any special talent. I’m not special and I don’t have any talent, but by golly, I still have my favorite poem memorized, and I was confident that I could get through it. I did : )
To all of my past students: I represented ! I stood there and recited it for them less nervous than I was when I taught it to ya’ll. Yay ; )
Just a side note—If you ever decide to arrive at the Gare de Lyon, the Lyon train station in Paris, DO make sure that you KNOW what line you are coming in on. That place is a zoo. Nathan met me there, and for an hour or so we were looking for each other! It was ridiculous and I felt dumb. Also, don’t tell someone to meet you at the welcome station because there is not one, there are several! Many several!
The weekend was great though, just what I needed to reaffirm my goals and to create many new friendships.
I am glad I painted my nails red : )
Also, anytime you want you guys can go to my Photo website and check out my photos. If you have Facebook, I’d prefer you go look at them there because there is where you can read my silly little comments under each photo. Regardless, they are both meant to let you know how I am doing, and as you may know, I LOVE taking photos! Furthermore, many of the times, if you want to know how I am doing, just go look at my photos. I upload frequently, and they tell stories within stories ; )
Mise-en-abyme ; )
http://picasaweb.google.com/BulletproofSpirit
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Greetings from Lyon!
Arriving in Lyon, finding an apartment in Lyon, getting lost in Lyon…it’s all part of France’s master plan to make me exhausted! Quite frankly however, France has not kicked my butt yet, I have realized after a few days that though I am not France savvy just yet, I am quickly learning that in order to be “France savvy”, one has to persevere.
This week especially, more than any other period in my life, has been full of me giving all that I’ve got, keepin’ on keepin’ on.
In this letter I hope to explain what I have been going through ;)
Oh and for those of you who don’t want to waste your time lost in my ramblings, here is the brief meltdown: I don’t have internet yet in my apartment, but hopefully by next week I’ll have it, along with a cell phone number. (In France you can get your TV, your internet, and your phone all hooked up together for a small price. It’s pretty cool : )
Oh, and I have an address:
Jessica Jones
2 Rue du Diapason A212
Lyon, 69003 France
That’s right, I live on Tuning Fork Street ; )
Oh, and I have a Skype!! Search for me:
Jessica Jones of Cabot, Arkansas or Jessicaleeambassadrice
Now, for those of you want a glimpse into my life---read on!
I left Tours after my language training last Friday to come to Lyon. I packed up all of my luggage, cursing at how much I (and Sarah Ann Mason, it’s all Sarah’s fault!) packed all along the way, and finally I arrived to greet the welcoming face of Marie-José, my host counselor, my “marraine”, that is, my God-mother. She calls me her God-daughter and kisses me tenderly on both cheeks. We have grown to like each other very much, and I have realized just how tender a “real” kiss on the cheek really is. For those of you who don’t know, there are different levels of kisses. When you don’t know someone in France, you either shake their hand or you kiss their cheeks, well, you just exchange cheeks really. The next step up is when you continue just exchanging cheeks, but you let the exchange linger a little longer. The next step up from that is when you actually kiss a cheek, and then after that you kiss a cheek a little more tenderly, and then to complete the full on exchange of how glad you are to see someone, you kiss cheeks tenderly more than two times. This is what I have gathered. I haven’t yet been cheek-kissed more than two times except from Marie-José, and that is because she is "ma marraine” and she takes care of me : )
When I arrived in Lyon, I stayed with Marie-José and her adorable husband Jacques, who is obsessed with playing tennis and watching sports. He is a classy sort of fella who mumbles a little when he talks, who dresses nicely (mostly in LaCrosse), and who drinks a glass of Bourbon before dinner for good digestion. I call him Monsieur Jock and he calls me Mademoiselle Jessica. He knows some English, and sometimes when we talk he picks out uncommonly spoken French words and asks me to translate them into English. For example, “breed” of dog = "une race” en français. Dogs have races. Heehee, Mah you will be glad to know that our precious dachshund Jasper has been the topic of discussion at least once ; )
Jacques is the principal of a public high school; Marie is the director of a private middle school, created for underprivileged youth; she is a Rotarienne. They live outside of the city and I have to take a Tramway to get to their house.
After two nights at Marie-José’s house, I moved into the Hotel Simplon, situated on the Presqu’île of Lyon (the near island-almost an island). A fellow Rotarian of my host club, Croix-Rousse (Red Cross), owns the hotel and she lodged me with a “Rotarian discount”, which means that I only had to pay half, and breakfast was included. Alix’s hotel was very homey, very comfortable…and she had decorated the whole joint in cherries! Everything was red or yellow covered in “cerises” (cherries), with “cerise” written all over it. Alix even wore cherry patterns! It was pretty adorable and she is an adorable little lady. (Thomas, her cherry obsession reminded me of your ancient Coca-Cola obsession!) Marie-José pepped me up before I left for the hotel by telling me how adorable Alix is, and truthfully when I got there I had a hard time talking to her because she is very stand-offish, very different from Marie-José. Let’s just say that she is very French! Yet, as time went on, I realized how much she cared for me by her little actions. For example, she invited me to lunch once and we ate something that I hope to reproduce because it was AMAZING! Fresh, raw salmon, mixed together with a ton of lemon juice and dill. Salmon Tartarre. It was so delicious, so simple, and so refreshing. I think that in the future when I have people over for dinner parties or whatever, I will try and always make this dish ; )
During my stay at the hotel, each and every day I woke up very early, was always the first one to breakfast, and then I ventured out alone in my new city, unknown and intriguing. I was trying to find an apartment, and boy was I trying. I came home exhausted after 10-12 hour days of walking around and getting turned down. It was draining and discouraging. I didn’t have much money either, so I ate little and kept a water bottle with me at all times, refilling it frequently. I was wind burned, sunburned, cold wind burned, river wind burned (by two rivers!), and I was washing my clothes by hand in the hotel sink. When I got back to the hotel each night, I relished in watching TV because for an entire month in Tours I was not allowed to sit in the living room at my host family’s house. Ha! And I don’t even watch much TV to begin with! I watched “Men in Black, “The Fifth Element”, and some cutesy French film about a close-knit family going on vacation and how both the mom and dad have an affair, and both didn’t know that they had the same exact story—affairs with the locals. (Justin, when I was watching “Men in Black”, I cracked up because when the mistreated housewife says “shoogur watur”, the translation was just not the same! And then I missed you brother, just a little ;]).
Also, the news stations are a little different too, here they have the normal streaming CNN-esque news, but they also have many stations that broadcast special stories in length, sort of like 20/20. They have an Oprah feel to them, very heart-wrenching and tender…I was watching a news report about a Grecian man who had lost his four generation-old family home because of the raging fires in Greece. At first I thought that they were just going to talk about the fires and drop it at that, but no, it was like they wanted your sympathy, and they got mine. I stood there in front of the TV, glued and teary-eyed.
Anyway, to continue… on the third day I finally found a student residence in a safe neighborhood with easy access to the metro system. It is an apartment with a “coin-cuisine”, which is a half kitchen with a sink, a half fridge, and a stovetop with two ranges. It also has a separate bathroom with a small shower, and it is “meublé”, which means that it is furnished-with a bed/couch, a kitchen table, a desk, a pantry, a nice big shelf, and some drawers. All of the pieces of furniture match too : ) The carpet is “moquette”, which means that if something happens to it, if I spill something or drop candle wax on it, all they have to do is pull up one square and then install another (Sarah that should interest you!). I also have a big window that opens up to a pretty little garden-like resting spot…or for the French-a smoking spot.
It sure beats the other two places that I checked out.
The first: 12 m² with a futon, a toilet without a door, a suspended, drop-down table top, a sink and two cabinets and a closet with a door that when opened hits you in the face while you are using the bathroom. Not to mention that it is on the 9th floor of a building without an elevator (and with all of my luggage!). It was horrendous. Marie-José joked about how I would always have breakfast in bed, in a bed that wasn’t even long enough for me, a 5”8’-er. It was a joke. (Katie it made me think of your old place and how your bathroom didn’t have a door! But that’s long gone for you know, you home-owner you!).
The second: 17m ² with a little more leg room and a separate bathroom (with a door!), but it was on the first floor near the entrance way where everyone would pass by. It was also in a section of town where I didn’t feel comfortable, and it was also right in front of the Tramway line. It just wasn’t working! It was a good thing that I wasn’t completely hopeless by that time; otherwise I probably would have taken it. Luckily, I persevered.
I am presently happy in my 22m² squared, best-priced and best-situated, apartment ; ) It is near Place Bir-Hakeim, a nice little park where many children pass the day by playing ball or racing on their little scooters, and I love sitting there and watching them. I am convinced that little French toddlers are the cutest of toddlers, especially when they are really small. I enjoy listening to them trying to say words, the only words that they know, because I sort of relate to them ; ) I was on the tramway the other day and this old lady started taking to a woman and her little tot. All the little one could talk about, all he was limited to talk about was how much he likes his veggies, and how much he likes the garden next to his house. Then he continued to talk really loud and tell the whole load of people on the tramway his entire address. It was hilarious! (Melissa, I sort of wish I lived with a family like the one you lived with in France! I can’t get that little tyke’s curly hair and cute little face out of my head!).
I also live one crosswalk away from a supermarket, and that makes it easy for me to carry all my goods home! As some of you may know, one of my favorite past times it to go to the supermarket and create recipes in my head as I shop. It is completely satisfying here in France to walk around searching out the super cheap French cheeses, French mustards, French breads, and French beverages. I am in love with the sparkling waters and juices that Europe has to offer! Before, I thought Orangina was good! Now, I have an abundance of assortments : )
Washing laundry here is expensive! It’s like 3 Euros for one load, which is like two loads American. It sucks too because I have to haul my big laundry bag down Cours Gambetta (the main street by my house) to get to "la lingerie”, the laundry mat. But it’s cool—I am through with washing my clothes by hand in my sink!!
My current task is to decorate! I must decorate! I went to IKEA yesterday and picked up a few things, although, I must admit, a big part of me went to eat the Swedish meatballs in the creamy sauce and in the lingnonberry sauce. I did eat them as a matter of fact, and I thought of home, Beau, Thomas, my Swede family, Anne, Sarah, Miss Jo, road trips, and Conway. I am soooo grateful to have an IKEA here, but it sort of makes me mad also, because I love the lighting section and I am forcing myself not to buy a cool lamp because I already have one and I can’t afford to carry it home when I leave. Ha, and also bedding and pillows! Hey Mason, I opened up all of my sock and hose plastic baggies and I thoroughly enjoyed all of the cutesy little notes you wrote all over them ; ) It took me back to a time when we were stuffing an entire year into three suitcases…thank you ; )
As for “the gastronomic capital of France, Lyon keeps to its title. As Lyon is a cosmopolitan city (much like Paris in fact), there are tons of Kebab, Indian, Chinese, and Moroccan restaurants. I live in a truly multi-ethnic environment where when walking down a road I see (and hear!) (and smell!) equal numbers of French, Italians, Germans, Armenians, Africans, Indians, Chinese, British, Japanese, etc… I anticipate making a lot of friends here who are as foreign as me!
I mention that I “smell” these people because NOONE hardly wears deodorant here. I have pondered this many times, in elevators, in the metro, in the shopping line while standing next to a real stinker. Do they not have the money to buy a spray can of deodorant that costs 1.50 €? Is it the fact that the French climate is generally not as scorching hot as say Arkansas's weather? Regardless, the French walk everywhere, and walking produces perspiration. I realize that pheromones are supposed to be sexy and they release one’s natural essence, but when a natural eau-of-stench is released, it’s a total turn-off for me. Furthermore, France has been nicknamed the “perfume capital of the world”, and that holds true in my opinion. If they are not stinking physically, they are reeking of perfume.
And truthfully, I’d rather die from eau de toilette than from eau-de-BO ; )
Hmmm, that might sound rude to read, but honest, if you were here, you’d understand. All too well!
Also, to continue with French stereotypes…some French women shave, some don’t. A lot of the ones who don’t are foreign. Furthermore, I think I understand why some women don’t shave—it is darn near impossible to maneuver in an apartment-size shower here! Period. When they can’t resort to the sink, when they don’t have time for the sink, they skip it, it’s that simple.
As for me being a “foreigner” among the city folk…I find that being foreign is not such a foreign concept for the Lyonnais to grasp. Lyon is full of travelers, foreign students, and foreigners interning and/or working. I don’t feel out of place and my accent is not a problem. I have always held to the idea that accents are unique, and here in Lyon, the idea still stands. I’m fine with having an accent : )
True story: One night in Tours, I went out with my two Dutch housemates, Phillip and Hein-Jan, and with the daughters of my host lady. An old man sitting near our table asked me if I was from the Québec region because I sounded French-Canadian! I laughed and told him where I came from, which was all I really could do because he was drunk and I thought he was hitting on me. Later that night while walking home, I thought to myself that my summer in Québec must have had a profound influence on my French pronunciation…and I think that is stellar! Who would have thought that merely a month’s worth of immersion would have had such an effect on me!? Hmmm. (Anna-Kate, did you ever encounter that in Québec?).
Yesterday I also had an accident in my apartment. While I was decorating, my flip-down pantry door fell and almost knocked me to the floor. I have a goose-egg the size of a large button and it hurts really badly today. It’s cool though, nothing a little Tylenol won’t fix. Or ice cream. I joke that I almost had a concussion because that was the first thing that went through my head, not the pain, not the event, it was the fact that if I had a “real” accident I wouldn’t know what the crap to do! For an American, the first thing you think of is “911”! Luckily, I know now what to do!
The same day Marie-José’s son Jerôme invited me to his housewarming party or in French “le pendaison de crémaillère”-the hanging of the trammel (some part of the chimney I think). It’s a rather weird expression in my opinion. I had fun at the party. His apartment is amazing! Very modern, very masculine, very industrial-metallic. It has a great ambiance. Jerôme is very nice to me, but sometimes I feel like he thinks that I don’t understand at all. He just hasn’t been around me enough!! He actually works for IKEA, shipping their goods to and fro. He is like 32, but he looks 26. I have noted that he is very close to Marie-José and Jacques and his brother. They were all there at the party, and all his friends from grade school, middle school, high school, college, and career where there as well. After the party I mentioned to Jacques that I didn’t have the same kind of upbringing, and I don’t have many of my friends from a very young age. But then I realized that it doesn’t matter. How many people can say that they still talk to people that they graduated HS with, really? I can at this point of my life; I can say that for at least four really close friends and two semi-close friends. That makes me happy : )
Last Friday I gave my first speech to my sponsoring Rotary club. We meet at noon-15, but as the French are always late we really meet at like noon-45. (Dr. Bailey, I had a conversation with a few Africans in Tours, and I mentioned how you told me that there is a “French time” and an “African time”, and how both equal tardiness! Needless to say, we had a few laughs!). I was the first one present aside from the Rotarian of the club who organizes the meetings, who dresses very polished-metro, with an unbuttoned shirt collar that shows off all of his manly chest hair! I was even one minute late and I was running to find the place, freakin’ out because I was going to be late. I got there to see an empty room. We meet in a fancy hotel, and we eat well. Friday’s lunch: ratatouille with a poached egg and round thinly-sliced salami as the appetizer, shrimp au gratin and buttered rice as the entrée, and for the dessert: a trilogy of crèmes brûlées. Délicieux!
My speech went well, I made a PowerPoint slide-show presentation of Arkansas, and I talked about where I come from, my sponsor club out of Conway, what I studied, what I am studying in Lyon, and what I hope to do in the future. I mentioned how Rotary’s mission for the educational scholarships is to uphold peace and harmony by respecting cultural differences and by looking for resolutions to conflicts. I explained how in the future, I would like to use my French and work for a non-profit organization that helps others and that respects other cultures while doing so.
I wasn’t nervous either, which was great because it was my first French speech in front of a group of Rotarians! Well, that is if you don’t count my scholarship interview back in May 2006, when the panel of Rotarians asked me a question and told me to respond in French!
Okay, I exaggerate. I was freaking out after I finished my speech. I sat down shaking.
I truly had a great first ambassadorial scholarship experience , and I have a very warm group of French humanitarians who have welcomed me : ) In fact, this October they invited me to go with them to Strasbourg to show me the city and to show me their partnership with an Alsatian Rotary club. I am rather excited because: 1) my new and dear friend Nathan is there, and I'll get to see what he sees, and 2) I can’t wait to see what you saw for an entire year Anna-Kate ; )
At the end of this month I HAVE to go to Paris. Darn the luck.
All of the French Rotary ambassadorial scholars “have” to go to Paris for a mandatory French orientation. They are setting us up, they are giving us tours, and they are taking us on a bateau-mouche ride (a riverboat ride) to see all the Parisian sights along the Seine river. I am stoked! I can’t wait to go back! Six years has been long enough I’d say!
This past week I basically restarted living. I searched for an apartment alone (because Marie-José’s middle school started back up), I got a French bank account, French lodging insurance, a student ID card, a transportation card for the metro/tramway/bus/funicular, French rent reduction from two different places, got a place to live, and I did all of that on foot and in 5 days, all by myself and all in French. I have never even done most of that stuff in English! It was rather difficult because if you didn’t have one thing you couldn’t get the other thing, and it took a lot of planning, a lot of lists, and a lot of talking to myself to get myself through it.
The student card is awesome. Throughout the Rhone Province, there are many different Resto-U’s, that is university restaurants…and at these locations students swipe their cards and eat good meals for like 2-4 €. I haven’t done it yet, but I hear that in Lyon we have like 25 locations. (Aurélien, à Grenoble, je peux manger avec ma carte d’étudiante ! Cool, eh ?!).
Also the card gives me many discounts on travel, on museums, on tours, etc…
Furthermore, another card, my Carte 12-25 (my French Train card for 12 to 25 year olds) gives me discounts at the grocery store near where I live, and that means that when I swipe my Carte 12-25, I automatically get “S’miles”, which are points that go towards train tickets; I get credits each and every time I go to the grocery store and I can get a train ticket even cheaper than what the card already gives me. The card only cost like $45 dollars (if I remember correctly) and it lasts for an entire year. So that means that when I go to Strasbourg, I can go cheaper, and when I go to Paris at the end of the month, I can go cheaper. Cooh, huh?
Next week will hopefully not be as stressed as the previous. I will get a cell phone, and the internet, I will go to pre-orientation at the university, and I will finish my CAF and LOCAPASS applications (my two rent reduction applications) and get them turned in.
The French government treats the students well! With the CAF (Caisse d’Allocations Familiales) Monetary Allocations for Families/students), I get money back for rent, like 158 € a month, which means that my rent is not 554€, but instead around 396€, which is ideal! The LOCAPASS reimburses your security deposit, and mine was 700€!! So, I will be reimbursed for that. Well, actually Marie-José will be reimbursed for that. She cut two checks for me to be able to live where I live. She is truly my French Guardian Angel! Without her, I would still be in the hotel, watching English movies in French, and I’d probably be sick from desperation and the elements!
I am blessed.
I start school on the 17th. Ahhh, back into the old swing of things. Except here, I have no idea what to expect! Time will tell. Inevitably, I will return back to my nerd ways and study like crazy, become a “rat de la bibliothèque” once again.
I will end here…I think this has been long enough! I want to thank you for caring about me and praying for me throughout my experiences : )
Anne, Tim, Samantha, Beau, Heien, Christian, Herring, Mary, Aurélien, and whoever else, write me back and tell me about grad school, give me some encouraging words : )
Alyssa, tell me about your first year of HS and all the boys running around circles for you;)
Grams, I bought some jelly the other day and I thought about you and your yummy rhubarb jelly. The jelly I bought isn’t as good though, and it made me want some of yours!!
Papa, tell mom to stop worrying about me, and you stop worrying about me too ! Take care of yourself okay ; )
Mah and Pah, I’m fine.
Later and take care,
Jess, your Franglophone
PS. For all of you who are going to come and visit me, I CAN’T WAIT!! I can’t wait to be your translator and your tour guide! I can’t wait to meet you at the train station and hug you long time! I can’t wait to show you how the metro works, and most especially I can’t wait to see the expressions on your faces : )
This week especially, more than any other period in my life, has been full of me giving all that I’ve got, keepin’ on keepin’ on.
In this letter I hope to explain what I have been going through ;)
Oh and for those of you who don’t want to waste your time lost in my ramblings, here is the brief meltdown: I don’t have internet yet in my apartment, but hopefully by next week I’ll have it, along with a cell phone number. (In France you can get your TV, your internet, and your phone all hooked up together for a small price. It’s pretty cool : )
Oh, and I have an address:
Jessica Jones
2 Rue du Diapason A212
Lyon, 69003 France
That’s right, I live on Tuning Fork Street ; )
Oh, and I have a Skype!! Search for me:
Jessica Jones of Cabot, Arkansas or Jessicaleeambassadrice
Now, for those of you want a glimpse into my life---read on!
I left Tours after my language training last Friday to come to Lyon. I packed up all of my luggage, cursing at how much I (and Sarah Ann Mason, it’s all Sarah’s fault!) packed all along the way, and finally I arrived to greet the welcoming face of Marie-José, my host counselor, my “marraine”, that is, my God-mother. She calls me her God-daughter and kisses me tenderly on both cheeks. We have grown to like each other very much, and I have realized just how tender a “real” kiss on the cheek really is. For those of you who don’t know, there are different levels of kisses. When you don’t know someone in France, you either shake their hand or you kiss their cheeks, well, you just exchange cheeks really. The next step up is when you continue just exchanging cheeks, but you let the exchange linger a little longer. The next step up from that is when you actually kiss a cheek, and then after that you kiss a cheek a little more tenderly, and then to complete the full on exchange of how glad you are to see someone, you kiss cheeks tenderly more than two times. This is what I have gathered. I haven’t yet been cheek-kissed more than two times except from Marie-José, and that is because she is "ma marraine” and she takes care of me : )
When I arrived in Lyon, I stayed with Marie-José and her adorable husband Jacques, who is obsessed with playing tennis and watching sports. He is a classy sort of fella who mumbles a little when he talks, who dresses nicely (mostly in LaCrosse), and who drinks a glass of Bourbon before dinner for good digestion. I call him Monsieur Jock and he calls me Mademoiselle Jessica. He knows some English, and sometimes when we talk he picks out uncommonly spoken French words and asks me to translate them into English. For example, “breed” of dog = "une race” en français. Dogs have races. Heehee, Mah you will be glad to know that our precious dachshund Jasper has been the topic of discussion at least once ; )
Jacques is the principal of a public high school; Marie is the director of a private middle school, created for underprivileged youth; she is a Rotarienne. They live outside of the city and I have to take a Tramway to get to their house.
After two nights at Marie-José’s house, I moved into the Hotel Simplon, situated on the Presqu’île of Lyon (the near island-almost an island). A fellow Rotarian of my host club, Croix-Rousse (Red Cross), owns the hotel and she lodged me with a “Rotarian discount”, which means that I only had to pay half, and breakfast was included. Alix’s hotel was very homey, very comfortable…and she had decorated the whole joint in cherries! Everything was red or yellow covered in “cerises” (cherries), with “cerise” written all over it. Alix even wore cherry patterns! It was pretty adorable and she is an adorable little lady. (Thomas, her cherry obsession reminded me of your ancient Coca-Cola obsession!) Marie-José pepped me up before I left for the hotel by telling me how adorable Alix is, and truthfully when I got there I had a hard time talking to her because she is very stand-offish, very different from Marie-José. Let’s just say that she is very French! Yet, as time went on, I realized how much she cared for me by her little actions. For example, she invited me to lunch once and we ate something that I hope to reproduce because it was AMAZING! Fresh, raw salmon, mixed together with a ton of lemon juice and dill. Salmon Tartarre. It was so delicious, so simple, and so refreshing. I think that in the future when I have people over for dinner parties or whatever, I will try and always make this dish ; )
During my stay at the hotel, each and every day I woke up very early, was always the first one to breakfast, and then I ventured out alone in my new city, unknown and intriguing. I was trying to find an apartment, and boy was I trying. I came home exhausted after 10-12 hour days of walking around and getting turned down. It was draining and discouraging. I didn’t have much money either, so I ate little and kept a water bottle with me at all times, refilling it frequently. I was wind burned, sunburned, cold wind burned, river wind burned (by two rivers!), and I was washing my clothes by hand in the hotel sink. When I got back to the hotel each night, I relished in watching TV because for an entire month in Tours I was not allowed to sit in the living room at my host family’s house. Ha! And I don’t even watch much TV to begin with! I watched “Men in Black, “The Fifth Element”, and some cutesy French film about a close-knit family going on vacation and how both the mom and dad have an affair, and both didn’t know that they had the same exact story—affairs with the locals. (Justin, when I was watching “Men in Black”, I cracked up because when the mistreated housewife says “shoogur watur”, the translation was just not the same! And then I missed you brother, just a little ;]).
Also, the news stations are a little different too, here they have the normal streaming CNN-esque news, but they also have many stations that broadcast special stories in length, sort of like 20/20. They have an Oprah feel to them, very heart-wrenching and tender…I was watching a news report about a Grecian man who had lost his four generation-old family home because of the raging fires in Greece. At first I thought that they were just going to talk about the fires and drop it at that, but no, it was like they wanted your sympathy, and they got mine. I stood there in front of the TV, glued and teary-eyed.
Anyway, to continue… on the third day I finally found a student residence in a safe neighborhood with easy access to the metro system. It is an apartment with a “coin-cuisine”, which is a half kitchen with a sink, a half fridge, and a stovetop with two ranges. It also has a separate bathroom with a small shower, and it is “meublé”, which means that it is furnished-with a bed/couch, a kitchen table, a desk, a pantry, a nice big shelf, and some drawers. All of the pieces of furniture match too : ) The carpet is “moquette”, which means that if something happens to it, if I spill something or drop candle wax on it, all they have to do is pull up one square and then install another (Sarah that should interest you!). I also have a big window that opens up to a pretty little garden-like resting spot…or for the French-a smoking spot.
It sure beats the other two places that I checked out.
The first: 12 m² with a futon, a toilet without a door, a suspended, drop-down table top, a sink and two cabinets and a closet with a door that when opened hits you in the face while you are using the bathroom. Not to mention that it is on the 9th floor of a building without an elevator (and with all of my luggage!). It was horrendous. Marie-José joked about how I would always have breakfast in bed, in a bed that wasn’t even long enough for me, a 5”8’-er. It was a joke. (Katie it made me think of your old place and how your bathroom didn’t have a door! But that’s long gone for you know, you home-owner you!).
The second: 17m ² with a little more leg room and a separate bathroom (with a door!), but it was on the first floor near the entrance way where everyone would pass by. It was also in a section of town where I didn’t feel comfortable, and it was also right in front of the Tramway line. It just wasn’t working! It was a good thing that I wasn’t completely hopeless by that time; otherwise I probably would have taken it. Luckily, I persevered.
I am presently happy in my 22m² squared, best-priced and best-situated, apartment ; ) It is near Place Bir-Hakeim, a nice little park where many children pass the day by playing ball or racing on their little scooters, and I love sitting there and watching them. I am convinced that little French toddlers are the cutest of toddlers, especially when they are really small. I enjoy listening to them trying to say words, the only words that they know, because I sort of relate to them ; ) I was on the tramway the other day and this old lady started taking to a woman and her little tot. All the little one could talk about, all he was limited to talk about was how much he likes his veggies, and how much he likes the garden next to his house. Then he continued to talk really loud and tell the whole load of people on the tramway his entire address. It was hilarious! (Melissa, I sort of wish I lived with a family like the one you lived with in France! I can’t get that little tyke’s curly hair and cute little face out of my head!).
I also live one crosswalk away from a supermarket, and that makes it easy for me to carry all my goods home! As some of you may know, one of my favorite past times it to go to the supermarket and create recipes in my head as I shop. It is completely satisfying here in France to walk around searching out the super cheap French cheeses, French mustards, French breads, and French beverages. I am in love with the sparkling waters and juices that Europe has to offer! Before, I thought Orangina was good! Now, I have an abundance of assortments : )
Washing laundry here is expensive! It’s like 3 Euros for one load, which is like two loads American. It sucks too because I have to haul my big laundry bag down Cours Gambetta (the main street by my house) to get to "la lingerie”, the laundry mat. But it’s cool—I am through with washing my clothes by hand in my sink!!
My current task is to decorate! I must decorate! I went to IKEA yesterday and picked up a few things, although, I must admit, a big part of me went to eat the Swedish meatballs in the creamy sauce and in the lingnonberry sauce. I did eat them as a matter of fact, and I thought of home, Beau, Thomas, my Swede family, Anne, Sarah, Miss Jo, road trips, and Conway. I am soooo grateful to have an IKEA here, but it sort of makes me mad also, because I love the lighting section and I am forcing myself not to buy a cool lamp because I already have one and I can’t afford to carry it home when I leave. Ha, and also bedding and pillows! Hey Mason, I opened up all of my sock and hose plastic baggies and I thoroughly enjoyed all of the cutesy little notes you wrote all over them ; ) It took me back to a time when we were stuffing an entire year into three suitcases…thank you ; )
As for “the gastronomic capital of France, Lyon keeps to its title. As Lyon is a cosmopolitan city (much like Paris in fact), there are tons of Kebab, Indian, Chinese, and Moroccan restaurants. I live in a truly multi-ethnic environment where when walking down a road I see (and hear!) (and smell!) equal numbers of French, Italians, Germans, Armenians, Africans, Indians, Chinese, British, Japanese, etc… I anticipate making a lot of friends here who are as foreign as me!
I mention that I “smell” these people because NOONE hardly wears deodorant here. I have pondered this many times, in elevators, in the metro, in the shopping line while standing next to a real stinker. Do they not have the money to buy a spray can of deodorant that costs 1.50 €? Is it the fact that the French climate is generally not as scorching hot as say Arkansas's weather? Regardless, the French walk everywhere, and walking produces perspiration. I realize that pheromones are supposed to be sexy and they release one’s natural essence, but when a natural eau-of-stench is released, it’s a total turn-off for me. Furthermore, France has been nicknamed the “perfume capital of the world”, and that holds true in my opinion. If they are not stinking physically, they are reeking of perfume.
And truthfully, I’d rather die from eau de toilette than from eau-de-BO ; )
Hmmm, that might sound rude to read, but honest, if you were here, you’d understand. All too well!
Also, to continue with French stereotypes…some French women shave, some don’t. A lot of the ones who don’t are foreign. Furthermore, I think I understand why some women don’t shave—it is darn near impossible to maneuver in an apartment-size shower here! Period. When they can’t resort to the sink, when they don’t have time for the sink, they skip it, it’s that simple.
As for me being a “foreigner” among the city folk…I find that being foreign is not such a foreign concept for the Lyonnais to grasp. Lyon is full of travelers, foreign students, and foreigners interning and/or working. I don’t feel out of place and my accent is not a problem. I have always held to the idea that accents are unique, and here in Lyon, the idea still stands. I’m fine with having an accent : )
True story: One night in Tours, I went out with my two Dutch housemates, Phillip and Hein-Jan, and with the daughters of my host lady. An old man sitting near our table asked me if I was from the Québec region because I sounded French-Canadian! I laughed and told him where I came from, which was all I really could do because he was drunk and I thought he was hitting on me. Later that night while walking home, I thought to myself that my summer in Québec must have had a profound influence on my French pronunciation…and I think that is stellar! Who would have thought that merely a month’s worth of immersion would have had such an effect on me!? Hmmm. (Anna-Kate, did you ever encounter that in Québec?).
Yesterday I also had an accident in my apartment. While I was decorating, my flip-down pantry door fell and almost knocked me to the floor. I have a goose-egg the size of a large button and it hurts really badly today. It’s cool though, nothing a little Tylenol won’t fix. Or ice cream. I joke that I almost had a concussion because that was the first thing that went through my head, not the pain, not the event, it was the fact that if I had a “real” accident I wouldn’t know what the crap to do! For an American, the first thing you think of is “911”! Luckily, I know now what to do!
The same day Marie-José’s son Jerôme invited me to his housewarming party or in French “le pendaison de crémaillère”-the hanging of the trammel (some part of the chimney I think). It’s a rather weird expression in my opinion. I had fun at the party. His apartment is amazing! Very modern, very masculine, very industrial-metallic. It has a great ambiance. Jerôme is very nice to me, but sometimes I feel like he thinks that I don’t understand at all. He just hasn’t been around me enough!! He actually works for IKEA, shipping their goods to and fro. He is like 32, but he looks 26. I have noted that he is very close to Marie-José and Jacques and his brother. They were all there at the party, and all his friends from grade school, middle school, high school, college, and career where there as well. After the party I mentioned to Jacques that I didn’t have the same kind of upbringing, and I don’t have many of my friends from a very young age. But then I realized that it doesn’t matter. How many people can say that they still talk to people that they graduated HS with, really? I can at this point of my life; I can say that for at least four really close friends and two semi-close friends. That makes me happy : )
Last Friday I gave my first speech to my sponsoring Rotary club. We meet at noon-15, but as the French are always late we really meet at like noon-45. (Dr. Bailey, I had a conversation with a few Africans in Tours, and I mentioned how you told me that there is a “French time” and an “African time”, and how both equal tardiness! Needless to say, we had a few laughs!). I was the first one present aside from the Rotarian of the club who organizes the meetings, who dresses very polished-metro, with an unbuttoned shirt collar that shows off all of his manly chest hair! I was even one minute late and I was running to find the place, freakin’ out because I was going to be late. I got there to see an empty room. We meet in a fancy hotel, and we eat well. Friday’s lunch: ratatouille with a poached egg and round thinly-sliced salami as the appetizer, shrimp au gratin and buttered rice as the entrée, and for the dessert: a trilogy of crèmes brûlées. Délicieux!
My speech went well, I made a PowerPoint slide-show presentation of Arkansas, and I talked about where I come from, my sponsor club out of Conway, what I studied, what I am studying in Lyon, and what I hope to do in the future. I mentioned how Rotary’s mission for the educational scholarships is to uphold peace and harmony by respecting cultural differences and by looking for resolutions to conflicts. I explained how in the future, I would like to use my French and work for a non-profit organization that helps others and that respects other cultures while doing so.
I wasn’t nervous either, which was great because it was my first French speech in front of a group of Rotarians! Well, that is if you don’t count my scholarship interview back in May 2006, when the panel of Rotarians asked me a question and told me to respond in French!
Okay, I exaggerate. I was freaking out after I finished my speech. I sat down shaking.
I truly had a great first ambassadorial scholarship experience , and I have a very warm group of French humanitarians who have welcomed me : ) In fact, this October they invited me to go with them to Strasbourg to show me the city and to show me their partnership with an Alsatian Rotary club. I am rather excited because: 1) my new and dear friend Nathan is there, and I'll get to see what he sees, and 2) I can’t wait to see what you saw for an entire year Anna-Kate ; )
At the end of this month I HAVE to go to Paris. Darn the luck.
All of the French Rotary ambassadorial scholars “have” to go to Paris for a mandatory French orientation. They are setting us up, they are giving us tours, and they are taking us on a bateau-mouche ride (a riverboat ride) to see all the Parisian sights along the Seine river. I am stoked! I can’t wait to go back! Six years has been long enough I’d say!
This past week I basically restarted living. I searched for an apartment alone (because Marie-José’s middle school started back up), I got a French bank account, French lodging insurance, a student ID card, a transportation card for the metro/tramway/bus/funicular, French rent reduction from two different places, got a place to live, and I did all of that on foot and in 5 days, all by myself and all in French. I have never even done most of that stuff in English! It was rather difficult because if you didn’t have one thing you couldn’t get the other thing, and it took a lot of planning, a lot of lists, and a lot of talking to myself to get myself through it.
The student card is awesome. Throughout the Rhone Province, there are many different Resto-U’s, that is university restaurants…and at these locations students swipe their cards and eat good meals for like 2-4 €. I haven’t done it yet, but I hear that in Lyon we have like 25 locations. (Aurélien, à Grenoble, je peux manger avec ma carte d’étudiante ! Cool, eh ?!).
Also the card gives me many discounts on travel, on museums, on tours, etc…
Furthermore, another card, my Carte 12-25 (my French Train card for 12 to 25 year olds) gives me discounts at the grocery store near where I live, and that means that when I swipe my Carte 12-25, I automatically get “S’miles”, which are points that go towards train tickets; I get credits each and every time I go to the grocery store and I can get a train ticket even cheaper than what the card already gives me. The card only cost like $45 dollars (if I remember correctly) and it lasts for an entire year. So that means that when I go to Strasbourg, I can go cheaper, and when I go to Paris at the end of the month, I can go cheaper. Cooh, huh?
Next week will hopefully not be as stressed as the previous. I will get a cell phone, and the internet, I will go to pre-orientation at the university, and I will finish my CAF and LOCAPASS applications (my two rent reduction applications) and get them turned in.
The French government treats the students well! With the CAF (Caisse d’Allocations Familiales) Monetary Allocations for Families/students), I get money back for rent, like 158 € a month, which means that my rent is not 554€, but instead around 396€, which is ideal! The LOCAPASS reimburses your security deposit, and mine was 700€!! So, I will be reimbursed for that. Well, actually Marie-José will be reimbursed for that. She cut two checks for me to be able to live where I live. She is truly my French Guardian Angel! Without her, I would still be in the hotel, watching English movies in French, and I’d probably be sick from desperation and the elements!
I am blessed.
I start school on the 17th. Ahhh, back into the old swing of things. Except here, I have no idea what to expect! Time will tell. Inevitably, I will return back to my nerd ways and study like crazy, become a “rat de la bibliothèque” once again.
I will end here…I think this has been long enough! I want to thank you for caring about me and praying for me throughout my experiences : )
Anne, Tim, Samantha, Beau, Heien, Christian, Herring, Mary, Aurélien, and whoever else, write me back and tell me about grad school, give me some encouraging words : )
Alyssa, tell me about your first year of HS and all the boys running around circles for you;)
Grams, I bought some jelly the other day and I thought about you and your yummy rhubarb jelly. The jelly I bought isn’t as good though, and it made me want some of yours!!
Papa, tell mom to stop worrying about me, and you stop worrying about me too ! Take care of yourself okay ; )
Mah and Pah, I’m fine.
Later and take care,
Jess, your Franglophone
PS. For all of you who are going to come and visit me, I CAN’T WAIT!! I can’t wait to be your translator and your tour guide! I can’t wait to meet you at the train station and hug you long time! I can’t wait to show you how the metro works, and most especially I can’t wait to see the expressions on your faces : )
Thursday, August 30, 2007
In Shambles.
I leave on Friday for Lyon...
I am staying with my host counselor Rotarian on Friday through Sunday and then she is gonna hand me off to another Rotarian who owns a hotel, Alix, and she is gonna set me up until I find an appt, which I hope will be soon because I need some stability in my life right now.
Tomorrow I have to sit in a phone booth for an hour and make Saturday appts for Marie and I to go appt shopping. I imagine that this will be very stressful!
Why I need some stability:
My very dear friend Nathan, a fellow Rotary ambassadorial scholar going to Strasbourg with whom I've spent the last month with here in Tours is having a Crisis.
My best friend, and her family (my family) from Conway, AR is in the middle of a huge Crisis as well.
I am very stressed out right now and I have got a lot to deal with, and all I can do is be pensive! I can't even cry yet. It's sad really. And all I want to do is hold my best friend and/or my mother and/or Nathan.
And I want to cry, but I can't. I can't because I have been practicing holding it in all week for my friend Nathan, who I see in class everyday almost on the brink of tears. It's all I can do to not cry myself. Just to see him sitting there in his own world, unaware of everything around him.
Can you please send some empathy to a fellow ambassodorial scholar named Nathan Rabalais, my friend from Lafayette, Louisiana who I met in Houston when we got our VISA's. He is here now with me in Tours at the langauge school, and we are about to wrap it up and move to our respective cities, and he got an email early this week saying that his dad has a blood clot in his head and his whole left side is paralyzed. It is completely horrible. In Lafayette, Nathan's dad fell down in the middle of the night, he had a stroke, and Nathan's poor sister found him there mumbling and nearly unconcious. Nathan found out a day later, told the teacher what happened, and then emailed me a while later. I was terrified!
I had just spent all day Sunday with him, happy as could be, going to caves and walking along the Loire River; we exchanged information about our families, him telling me about how he and his dad are best friends, me telling him how me and my mom are best friends. He talked so much about how much he loves and respects his dad, and it's just horrible that this happens...we are so far away from home and it just really hits home for me, and I am truly having a hard time with it. I have been almost in tears for the past week because of it. But I can't cry. It's pathetic really.
And then the whole Sarah situation happens days later, right after Nathan had gone through "it" and is still going through "it".
Thursday, Nathan was with me when I read Sarah's DREADFUL email about her dad and he excused himself when he saw my eyes welling up with tears and he told me he would come back and then when he did, very calmly, he asked me in a very composed manner, if Sarah's dad had passed. I looked him in the eyes and I said that I wasn't going to talk about it with him because I didn't want him to start crying, and he looked at me, saying in tender frankness: "Jess, you are such a sweet person". I said the same. Then he said: "If you want to talk about it I could be there for you." I said that I didn't want to put him through that.
Moments after it happened, I appreciated it immediately as something that I will look back on as a profound moment and conversation in my life.
We said 5 sentences tops:)
Sarah's dad died on Wednesday. He had diabetes and one leg, and his kidneys shut down. He gained 6 pounds in his stomach during the night and then they rushed him to the hospital.
After about a few days, which seemed like a year of not crying, I finally let go the night of our last dinner at my family's house in Tours. This was also, consequentially, the day Nathan left for Strasbourg (to get things straightened out in case he had to leave to go to Lafayette), the day I had to tell Nathan goodbye, and the day when I finally got to talk to Sarah. I just burst out in tears and had to excuse myself from the table. The family looked at me like I was crazy!
So, as you can see, I have a great friend named Nathan, and his life is in shambles at the moment.
Also, as you can see, my best friend's life is in shambles at the moment.
Thus, my life is in shambles as well.
On top of all that, I am moving in about three days, I don't know where I am living, and I am worried to death about Nathan's dad, who is still lying unstable in a hospital bed.
I am staying with my host counselor Rotarian on Friday through Sunday and then she is gonna hand me off to another Rotarian who owns a hotel, Alix, and she is gonna set me up until I find an appt, which I hope will be soon because I need some stability in my life right now.
Tomorrow I have to sit in a phone booth for an hour and make Saturday appts for Marie and I to go appt shopping. I imagine that this will be very stressful!
Why I need some stability:
My very dear friend Nathan, a fellow Rotary ambassadorial scholar going to Strasbourg with whom I've spent the last month with here in Tours is having a Crisis.
My best friend, and her family (my family) from Conway, AR is in the middle of a huge Crisis as well.
I am very stressed out right now and I have got a lot to deal with, and all I can do is be pensive! I can't even cry yet. It's sad really. And all I want to do is hold my best friend and/or my mother and/or Nathan.
And I want to cry, but I can't. I can't because I have been practicing holding it in all week for my friend Nathan, who I see in class everyday almost on the brink of tears. It's all I can do to not cry myself. Just to see him sitting there in his own world, unaware of everything around him.
Can you please send some empathy to a fellow ambassodorial scholar named Nathan Rabalais, my friend from Lafayette, Louisiana who I met in Houston when we got our VISA's. He is here now with me in Tours at the langauge school, and we are about to wrap it up and move to our respective cities, and he got an email early this week saying that his dad has a blood clot in his head and his whole left side is paralyzed. It is completely horrible. In Lafayette, Nathan's dad fell down in the middle of the night, he had a stroke, and Nathan's poor sister found him there mumbling and nearly unconcious. Nathan found out a day later, told the teacher what happened, and then emailed me a while later. I was terrified!
I had just spent all day Sunday with him, happy as could be, going to caves and walking along the Loire River; we exchanged information about our families, him telling me about how he and his dad are best friends, me telling him how me and my mom are best friends. He talked so much about how much he loves and respects his dad, and it's just horrible that this happens...we are so far away from home and it just really hits home for me, and I am truly having a hard time with it. I have been almost in tears for the past week because of it. But I can't cry. It's pathetic really.
And then the whole Sarah situation happens days later, right after Nathan had gone through "it" and is still going through "it".
Thursday, Nathan was with me when I read Sarah's DREADFUL email about her dad and he excused himself when he saw my eyes welling up with tears and he told me he would come back and then when he did, very calmly, he asked me in a very composed manner, if Sarah's dad had passed. I looked him in the eyes and I said that I wasn't going to talk about it with him because I didn't want him to start crying, and he looked at me, saying in tender frankness: "Jess, you are such a sweet person". I said the same. Then he said: "If you want to talk about it I could be there for you." I said that I didn't want to put him through that.
Moments after it happened, I appreciated it immediately as something that I will look back on as a profound moment and conversation in my life.
We said 5 sentences tops:)
Sarah's dad died on Wednesday. He had diabetes and one leg, and his kidneys shut down. He gained 6 pounds in his stomach during the night and then they rushed him to the hospital.
After about a few days, which seemed like a year of not crying, I finally let go the night of our last dinner at my family's house in Tours. This was also, consequentially, the day Nathan left for Strasbourg (to get things straightened out in case he had to leave to go to Lafayette), the day I had to tell Nathan goodbye, and the day when I finally got to talk to Sarah. I just burst out in tears and had to excuse myself from the table. The family looked at me like I was crazy!
So, as you can see, I have a great friend named Nathan, and his life is in shambles at the moment.
Also, as you can see, my best friend's life is in shambles at the moment.
Thus, my life is in shambles as well.
On top of all that, I am moving in about three days, I don't know where I am living, and I am worried to death about Nathan's dad, who is still lying unstable in a hospital bed.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
La Touraine, Tours, France
So, I have been in «La Touraine » now for about three weeks, and it's already left many impressions on me…
I have lived with a French family, a bizarre but normal family with normal hang-ups. The daughters speak English and we had to translate constantly for the Néerlandais who where living with us who did not speak French, so we (the daughters, and another student, a Russian named Sasha, and I) have to translate for them. They left on Saturday to go back to Les Pays Bas. I thought them tall and handsome with amazing curly blond hair, seemingly nouveaux riches, but actually vieux riches. They dressed extremely well and spent all of their money (more or less their parent's money) on clothing. One actually worked at a clothing store and the other had just gotten back from a semester abroad in California. During our long French dinners they'd sit there and jabber off in Dutch while we spoke in French, and we'd translate for them because their French wasn't as good as mine and Sasha's, our Russian roomate.
The son, Jules, is never seen and it's a shame because he is very very handsome. He lives behind us in an adjoined apartment. We always hear music coming from there. The daughters are Léa, the oldest and the one I most relate too, and Louise, who just graduated from high school. Louise left on Saturday to go to Marseilles to be with her father for a few weeks. I am sure that when she gets back I will be hearing a lot!
We have a lot of rules in the house. No using the washing machine, no going in the kitchen, no going in the living room, no internet connection, no taking showers one right after another or taking showers longer than ten minutes, etc. The rules aren't really so bad but I am just not as comfortable as I would like to be here.
It not the greatest of situations, but I am flexible, and I am making do.
It's funny because the first night I was here I took a shower and then Madame Champenois came to the bathroom door and started screaming at me, and I couldn't understand her because a) I was in the shower and b) she was frantically screaming at me in a mumbled and frenzied French. So, I turned the water off and halfway through my shower with my soapy-sudsy hair, I get out and find Léa and Madame mopping up water in the stairwell. Apparently the two Néerlandais had taken a shower each and I didn't know when I took a shower. Wrong choice! So then we had a talkin' to at diner. It's not a big deal but for 7 adults living under one roof with a water system like that, it's ridiculous! I take my showers immediately in the morning when I wake up so I can take a hot one, sans a big mess. It's a good thing that I am always the first one up!
Also, the laundry thing is a big deal…I have a shirt that I wore on the plane from America to France that is still dirty in my laundry basket. Mme Champenois is supposed to wash clothes every Tuesday, but with the smallest possible washing machine and no dryer, she has to do everything in slow motion. She will do half of my laundry and leave the other half for "another day", which means next week. It's just annoying. I have been washing several articles of clothing by hand so that I can wear them again. Tant pis, eh? I understand though...she's got to do EVERYONE'S laundry and worry about the water pressure. So...what are you gonna do, you know?
As far as my center location in France, it's lovely ! I have practically seen most of the castles la Loire has to offer and I saw the OCEAN!!! For the FIRST TIME! It was a small presque'île called Croisic. I went alone. The train ride should have only taken 2-3 hours max, but it ended up taking 5 because some idiot threw himself or herself out in front of a train: "un accident personne". I really don't know what happened but with such a vague explanation of "un accident personne", one can guess. Anyway, I got there, ate des crêpes aux pistaches flambées en Brandy. Then I went out in search of the ocean. It was amazing ; ) Go look at my pictures ; )
http://picasaweb.google.com/BulletproofSpirit
I still have a week and a half/almost two weeks here…my classes are sort of boring, but my teacher likes me because I know a lot of words and synonyms. In fact when he can't find the answer, he looks at me. He is a very nice and friendly guy, but often he gets short with the students. We have like 6 japanese students in our class and really, some of them shouldn't be in our level, but I guess they take tests well. I think the prof feels the same way. It's funny though, all of the Japanese have these portable dictionary computers with them and they set them out in front of them during every class. When they don't know the answer to something or they want to know what a word means, you see them go "click, click, click", clicking away at their little dictionary laptops. It's quite funny. I don't know what it is about the French language and the Japanese!! Yesterday we received a Japanaise in the house (to replace the Néerlandais), and she has one of those portable dictionaries. She brings it to dinner and Léa, Madame, and I just sit there and watch, trying not to crack up! It's really funny! She barely speaks French, and her English sucks, but we try to communicate nonetheless. She is an adorable little thing! She brought us gifts and photos and a survey! Needless to say, our dinner lasted for a while!
Léa and I talked about how she didn't think that the Néerlandais could have handled the little Japanaise because she is so different. We decided that there is really no way of comparing the Japanese culture with the French culture, and we left it at that.
And I will leave it that too :)
Bye for now :)
I have lived with a French family, a bizarre but normal family with normal hang-ups. The daughters speak English and we had to translate constantly for the Néerlandais who where living with us who did not speak French, so we (the daughters, and another student, a Russian named Sasha, and I) have to translate for them. They left on Saturday to go back to Les Pays Bas. I thought them tall and handsome with amazing curly blond hair, seemingly nouveaux riches, but actually vieux riches. They dressed extremely well and spent all of their money (more or less their parent's money) on clothing. One actually worked at a clothing store and the other had just gotten back from a semester abroad in California. During our long French dinners they'd sit there and jabber off in Dutch while we spoke in French, and we'd translate for them because their French wasn't as good as mine and Sasha's, our Russian roomate.
The son, Jules, is never seen and it's a shame because he is very very handsome. He lives behind us in an adjoined apartment. We always hear music coming from there. The daughters are Léa, the oldest and the one I most relate too, and Louise, who just graduated from high school. Louise left on Saturday to go to Marseilles to be with her father for a few weeks. I am sure that when she gets back I will be hearing a lot!
We have a lot of rules in the house. No using the washing machine, no going in the kitchen, no going in the living room, no internet connection, no taking showers one right after another or taking showers longer than ten minutes, etc. The rules aren't really so bad but I am just not as comfortable as I would like to be here.
It not the greatest of situations, but I am flexible, and I am making do.
It's funny because the first night I was here I took a shower and then Madame Champenois came to the bathroom door and started screaming at me, and I couldn't understand her because a) I was in the shower and b) she was frantically screaming at me in a mumbled and frenzied French. So, I turned the water off and halfway through my shower with my soapy-sudsy hair, I get out and find Léa and Madame mopping up water in the stairwell. Apparently the two Néerlandais had taken a shower each and I didn't know when I took a shower. Wrong choice! So then we had a talkin' to at diner. It's not a big deal but for 7 adults living under one roof with a water system like that, it's ridiculous! I take my showers immediately in the morning when I wake up so I can take a hot one, sans a big mess. It's a good thing that I am always the first one up!
Also, the laundry thing is a big deal…I have a shirt that I wore on the plane from America to France that is still dirty in my laundry basket. Mme Champenois is supposed to wash clothes every Tuesday, but with the smallest possible washing machine and no dryer, she has to do everything in slow motion. She will do half of my laundry and leave the other half for "another day", which means next week. It's just annoying. I have been washing several articles of clothing by hand so that I can wear them again. Tant pis, eh? I understand though...she's got to do EVERYONE'S laundry and worry about the water pressure. So...what are you gonna do, you know?
As far as my center location in France, it's lovely ! I have practically seen most of the castles la Loire has to offer and I saw the OCEAN!!! For the FIRST TIME! It was a small presque'île called Croisic. I went alone. The train ride should have only taken 2-3 hours max, but it ended up taking 5 because some idiot threw himself or herself out in front of a train: "un accident personne". I really don't know what happened but with such a vague explanation of "un accident personne", one can guess. Anyway, I got there, ate des crêpes aux pistaches flambées en Brandy. Then I went out in search of the ocean. It was amazing ; ) Go look at my pictures ; )
http://picasaweb.google.com/BulletproofSpirit
I still have a week and a half/almost two weeks here…my classes are sort of boring, but my teacher likes me because I know a lot of words and synonyms. In fact when he can't find the answer, he looks at me. He is a very nice and friendly guy, but often he gets short with the students. We have like 6 japanese students in our class and really, some of them shouldn't be in our level, but I guess they take tests well. I think the prof feels the same way. It's funny though, all of the Japanese have these portable dictionary computers with them and they set them out in front of them during every class. When they don't know the answer to something or they want to know what a word means, you see them go "click, click, click", clicking away at their little dictionary laptops. It's quite funny. I don't know what it is about the French language and the Japanese!! Yesterday we received a Japanaise in the house (to replace the Néerlandais), and she has one of those portable dictionaries. She brings it to dinner and Léa, Madame, and I just sit there and watch, trying not to crack up! It's really funny! She barely speaks French, and her English sucks, but we try to communicate nonetheless. She is an adorable little thing! She brought us gifts and photos and a survey! Needless to say, our dinner lasted for a while!
Léa and I talked about how she didn't think that the Néerlandais could have handled the little Japanaise because she is so different. We decided that there is really no way of comparing the Japanese culture with the French culture, and we left it at that.
And I will leave it that too :)
Bye for now :)
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Thursday, August 2, 2007
In France
I'm in France, I'll be in Tours, France living with my host family until the end of August.
Then it's off to Lyon to start a Master's Degree!
Then it's off to Lyon to start a Master's Degree!
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