Rude Awakenings

I think I've reached the point in this trip where I need to stop lying to myself and admit tat I've realized some discomforting truths.

1. Most of the Americans who came on this trip this semester make me ashamed to admit that I am one of them as well. Let's start with the basics. There is a general unwillingness amongst them to attempt to speak or learn the language, or to try and make it sound somewhat less American and butchered. I'm not saying that I am perfect at it, but they are absolutely atrocious. What's worse, is that many of them still expect that the native people here are going to change for them. The sense of entitlement by these folk is absolutely disgusting. Aside from that, you have the general ditzy girls who spontaneously took up smoking to look cool and fit it. SERIOUSLY? What, are we 13 still? How about try to speak French and adapt so as NOT to stick out like a sore thumb. Another pet peeve is that, being one of the older people on this trip, those who cannot legally drink in the US think that they're so cool now that they can enter a bar. They walk around completely hammered and sloppily blurt out rude things, painting quite a lovely picture of America. False. I hang out with my roommate and one other friend, the only people here I can tolerate. They keep me sane. Sometimes we feel like we are acting elitist, but in no way would we ever want to be like or associate with the ignorant jackasses we unfortunately go to school with. On weekends, I genuinely enjoy going to museums and churches to look at architecture. I don't feel like going out, buying a 500$ dress on Champs Elysee with my daddy's credit card, and buying expensive champagne, to pretend I am part of the bourgeoisie. How misinformed. SIGH.

2. I hate the smoke screen at school. What it is, is students lining the entrance ramp to one of the main buildings and chain smoking. There are several problems with this. One, the ramp is about 2.5 feet wide AND no one moves to let you pass when you try to walk by. They just blow smoke at you. Two, this is one of the main buildings on our small campus. There is a courtyard 8 feet from the ramp where people could smoke and not block people from entering the building and drench them with tar spew. I didn't know smoking still made people feel cool. They're not discreet or polite about it. They blow right into your face. It's appalling.

3. I wish France had a "pick up after your dog" rule. I step in shit about 3 times a day on average and it's really starting to get to me.

4. The French LOVE to correct you. At first, I was fine with it. I know as part of their culture it's what they do. My professor does it all the time. But she does it politely and discreetly. My last trip to the market is when this really bothered me. My roommate ordered a kilo of oranges and asked "un kilo des oranges" connecting the 's' sound and the vowel, a standard rule in French. The man at the stand laughed, mocked us in French to his colleague and said in French that it's never said like that. He was rude about it and kept mocking us. So in French I said, that he knows what we meant and if he preferred, we could speak in English, if that wasn't too difficult for him. When we left he said "sank you" trying to say thank you. This is an insult. When I am making the effort to speak the language, and I do it well, to be responded to in English is meant as an insult. So I turned to him, glared, and said, ouais. This happens a lot in the grocery store as well. The cashier knows we speak French, I speak it to her every time I go in, but when she hears us speaking it in line she will give us a hard time, glare at us, and in English, ask if we have exact change. In French, I reply that if I did I would have given it to her. Then she says "Sank you." Like, you want to talk about not pronouncing things correctly? The French can't say 'TH' and they put an 'H' in front of their A's. Yet, they're so quick to correct you so as to preserve their precious language. Now, I'm not saying all French people are like this, but an overwhelming number are. It's very tiring and draining to try and make the effort and have it not be appreciated. Lesson learned though. I know I have not always been patient to people speaking foreign languages in the states, so from now on, I think that will change.

I guess this has really turning out to be more eye-opening than I had anticipated.

Lesson #1: Not everything covered in chocolate is delicious.

Sunday night I got home late from a very enlightening weekend in Marseille. I'll need to break this down into categories.

1. Day of Departure: Thursday, I had TWO classes with Madame, the teacher who I was going on the trip with. In these two classes I had a paper due for each one AND a test in one. Immediately after my last class with Madame, we left for the train station. Upon departure, it started pouring rain. This was the beginning of an interesting trip, I was sure of it.

2. Day One of Trip: I woke up at 6:45 in the morning to I could run. Surprisingly, there were a lot of people out doing the same thing. In Paris, not many people run so if you are out jogging, people look at you like you are insane. We did a lot of walking that day around to Notre Dame de la Garde and L'Abbaye Ste Victoir, the oldest Abbey in France dating back to the 2nd century. ANCIENT! This was neat but I was exhausted. For lunch, we went to a port and in the restaurant there was a kitty. He jumped up in my lap and slept there the entire time. It melted my heart. After this, we went to a lecture with an architect of Marseille who lead us on a bus tour around the city to see the effects of urbanisation on the city. We walked up to this bastide, which is a type of mansion, that belonged to a famous French author. He left it there to rot because he lives in Paris and none of his 3 kids wanted to pay for the water to take care of and maintain the beautiful property. It was so sad to see such an incredible, bijoux cache, go to waste because of someone's selfishness.

3. Day Two of the Trip: Woke up early again to take care of business. We met with another Marseillaise named Claire who brought us to the entrepots or warehouses, and les friches which are abandoned warehouses turned into art spaces. At first we walked through the slums of Marseille. We saw the effects that rapid immigration had on certain sectors of the city. Entire blocks were deserted. We finally made it to the friches, and visited an old tobacco factory that was turned into an art space. It was designed to attract wealth to the areas to help build them up again. Here there were dance studios, a restaurant, an entire floor dedicated to graffiti, a radio station, and offices. It was interesting to see the open minded approach towards something that would, I think, not happen in the US. At night we went to a reggae concert which was actually pretty folky- they had a banjo! My professor got drunk and was dancing all over the place. She is quite the sasstress. When we left she made us all get these incredible paninis. She told us that after the trip we would either love her or hate her... I'd say I'm leaning towards love. She is quite interesting. The entire trip we were accompanied by her close friends Frederic and Francoise (siblings) who were so charming and welcoming. They were incredibly approachable and easy to talk to. I learned a lot about French culture and language because of them. Frederic works in the Foreign Ministry and has lived all over the world. He is absolutely fascinating. Needless to say, they truly made the trip for me and instilled me with more faith in French people. (I have been starting to resent the airs many of them have about them... will explain later.)

4. Day Three of the Trip: We took a boat around the callanques,which are like gigantic fjords. They stretched along 30km of beautiful coast. There were these tiny houses called Cabanons, which are tiny vacation huts, inside each inlet. When we pulled into each one, there were people sun bathing on their catamarans, people swimming, and hikers braving the mammoth cliffs. After we got back, we went to a booze artisan that makes Pastis, a provincial liquor that tastes somewhat like Absinth and Oozo. Quite frankly, it tastes like licorish. Sick. We also visited traditional pastry chefs. They make these tiny cookies called petits navettes which are out of this world. However, my world came crashing down on me when I tried the most horrifying pastry I've ever touched with my mouth. It was a ball of dark chocolate covered in crushed nuts. I sank my teeth in, anxiously awaiting gooey decadence. To my demise it tasted like rubbing alcohol dipped in sponges. Heinous. This is when my roommate and I decided: Not everything covered in chocolate is delicious. Sob. This was followed by some lunch and a trip to the Cite Radieuse, a community housing project started in the 1950s, by famous French architect, Le Corbusier. I didn't so much care for the style of the building. It's this modern, gigantic, condo, that shadows over the beautiful tiny, traditional, stucco houses of the ville. It's a monstrosity. I found this theme all over Marseille. Everything was run down, so in order to build up the economy, they turned everything into gigantic skyscrapers for housing and offices. The happenings of this trip thus far had set the tone for an eye-opening and depressing train ride home. (To be continued)

3 Weeks Later...

It’s the end of my first full week here in gai Paris. Today all of the shops were closed, as per usual, so I decided to take this time to have a break myself and reflect on the weeks events.
Although I am starting to feel like I fit in more and more each day, I’m still a bit out of place. I speak to everyone I encounter in French. Most people seem to like it. Some don’t notice a difference, some immediately want to switch to English, some look at me like I have four heads (even though they know what I am saying), but most are very intrigued. (When they ask where we’re from Andrea and I sometimes say Canada so people will be nicer). I’m sort of half kidding. I think that this will get better tomorrow, once I start my classes. I will get to speak more French with different people in a different setting.
The market has also been a great place for this. I’ve been forced to learn the different measurements people use for weight and amount of foods, as well as all of the different names for obscure foods. ( A lot of things here are candied… Not sure how I feel about it yet.) I love the market, especially the one near our apartment. It’s un marche en pleine air, or an open-air market, boasting the most delicious, organic, incredible foods of the countryside. Near my place the market is about 200m long packed with everything you could ever imagine from clothing and antiques, to bread, cheese, vegetables, fruits, and the freshest meat and seafood around. If you wait until 12:30 pm, a half hour before the market closes, you can get great deals on things. The market in general is very economic, especially for a student whose currency happens to be terrible compared to the Euro. Growl. Last week I bought lettuce and when I was preparing myself a tasty salad, found a slug inside- now that’s how you know it’s fresh!
The market is also where you get hassled by a lot of men. This holds true for Andrea especially. She has these bright ice-blue eyes and long blonde hair. Everywhere we go people comment on her gorgeous yeux. Some guys even tapped on our window (we’re street level) asking to come in. We lock the metal shutters now.
In general I've noticed that people treat each other differently here. For example, if you are dressed poorly (and by this I mean not in a dress or a suit) you will not get as good service as you would otherwise. When walking down the street or into a store, the only time people are courteous enough to move over or hold the door is if I look nice. Luckily, unlike most of the Americans here I've yet to sport the sweatpants or hoodie in public. Speaking of public displays, everyone here is overly affectionate in public. I'm not talking hand holding, hugs, or a quick peck on the cheek; No no, I'm talking full out lip locking, groping, hardcore make out sessions in the middle of the street. People will literally stop, dip, and go at it no matter who is walking behind or around them. I know that Paris is the city of love, and perhaps I am a tad bitter about being alone here myself, however this is shocking, even to a liberal lady like myself. More on this later.

Oh, la la!

The trip commenced at a chaotic and exhausting rate. To start, every time I managed to fall asleep on the plane, (which is VERY hard for me) some loud mouthed teenaged American girl would shriek, giggle, and laugh with her equally annoying friends. When we finally arrived, I had to wheel my 100+ pounds of luggage, oh, about a mile though Charles de Gaulle airport. Along my trek, I had to walk behind some slow overweight sorority girl, AND dodge dog crap in the walkway! At the end of my excursion I found myself in a two hour wait line to go through customs, where some 400-pound women smothered me the entire time. Afterwards, I found out the ridiculous line and insanity that ensued were a result of a bag that had exploded in a terminal. Great. I hadn't been in Paris for a whole day yet and already I was another negative American stepping foot in France. Luckily, this faded after finally arriving and checking into the hostel where we were put up until our move in date. This is where I finally got my first ounce of shuteye after being awake for appx. 36 hours.

After 2 nights in the hostel, roommate Andrea and I got to move into our apartment early (thanks to our lovely realtor Florence). Florence has been a dream from day one: translating and signing a lease for us, offering us a place to stay whenever we need it, bringing us a sweet coffee table, showing us around, the list goes on. Not to mention, she’s a knockout- a typical charming, sophisticated, French lady. We arrived at our place and were absolutely breathless: it’s a studio, but a large one, with crown molding, giant gold framed mirrors, antique busts of famous French people, oil paintings, marble fireplace and armoires, the list goes on! When we pulled out our futons, we were amazed at not only how comfortable they are, but also by how gigantic they are. They are queen sized futons!!! The real estate agency also provided us with brand new linens, and a kitchen stocked with everything we need and more. When I fell asleep that first night, I looked over at Andrea and we both laughed hysterically at the fact that 1. We were now living in Paris and 2. We are two petite girls in these giant princess beds. Her headboard is a gorgeous oil painting and mine is a classic French window opening into our adorable little rue. I felt like a little girl on Christmas Eve.

I really fell in love with Paris when I noticed empty bottles of Veuve Cliquot Champagne in the recycling bags, which are hung around the city. That’s not to say that everyone here is a raging alcoholic- it’s just the sense of responsibility and class that citizens as young as toddlers possess. Firstly, there is no open container law, and the drinking age is essentially nonexistent. I am of the profound belief that this is why European teens seem so much more mature than American teens: There is a level of trust and cooperation between the citizens and the law makers which is carried out in the way they enjoy life responsibly and in style. ( riots aside) Paris is nothing short of glamorous; it is as chic and sophisticated as all of the movies portray it to be. (Aside from the steaming pile of dog merde in the corridor at CDG airport. Grumble.) Every male child I see is dressed in a suit coat and tiny slacks, and every petite fille sports a charming dress. The women here are as brave as they are stylish- sporting heels on the cobblestone with the ease of a super model walking a runway. Although I am staying in the 7th and most wealthy arrondissement, this holds true for the large majority of Parisiennes.

And now for some of my most favorite and not so favorite experiences thus far:

1. Supermarkets here are categorized by meal: petit dejeuner (breakfast), dejeuner (lunch), dinner. This makes my life awesome.
2. Buying a bottle of wine in a store is appx. 1€ 60 ≈ $US 2.35 (AWESOME) I saw the same bottle of wine my mom paid about $40 for in the states for €2.
3. I hate that there’s NO peanut butter to be found in France ☹ I normally have a PBJ at least once a day minimum. Growl.
4. We have this giant clock in my apartment that is about 2 feet in diameter. It’s awesome.
5. There are a lot more runners here than I anticipated.
6. I’m running a race around the Eiffel Tower, called La Parisienne, on Sunday. I think I’m the fastest person in Paris…which is sad…. but everyone runs in long shorts and little puma bike shoes.
7. My roomie is always willing to run with me, which I think is awesome! She’s so happy and easy going and it helps motivate me to get my ass out there and run off the 2 croissants and chocolate mousse I eat daily.
8. Quiz: Does it snow in Paris?
9. A vagabond lady ran into me and even though I still said “pardon” she continued to rant at me and call me a cochon! Aka. Pig. It’s ok.. she had 4 teeth.
10. Cat calls here are peculiar. The boy across the street from us about 2 stories up quacked at me for about 10 minutes and two men Andrea and I walked by made a noise at us that I can only describe as resembling a dog in heat. Ugh.
11. I realized I’ll really miss New England Fall Foliage. But helas! It is already starting around here!
12. I think all of these olive trees are neat.
13. Apparently to get on the Metro trains, you need to open and close the doors yourself by pushing a button. Lesson learned.
14. Notre Dame makes me wish I was religious.
15. I love that the Eiffel Tower sparkles!
16. Eiffel Tower contd.: I HATE the stars on the back side of the Eiffel Tower. It looks cheap. It looks tacky. It’s like Disney and I just hate it. ☹
17. Un Café or Café double mean Espresso, not regular coffee, so beware.
18. There are recycling pod receptacles all over the place. My trash in my building is even equipped with chic bins.
19. The Italians visiting France are the rudest, most abominable people on the face of the Earth. Two men were heckling an elderly French woman they cut in line and were pushing. Rar.
20. I did my first official track workout. I can’t walk. I’m sore. But I LOVE that my track is a loop around the Eiffel Tower. You can’t beat that.

Ok, that’s a load off my chest. Enjoy!

T-minus 2 days!

A few interesting events have happened since my last blog entry. The major thing being, I already found housing! YAY! I initially wanted to live with a family for a few reasons: The first being that everyone I knew already had living arrangements. The second, I thought what better way to master the language and experience French life, than with a family. However, this option was more expensive (by about 300 -400 euro). Plus, in order to find housing, I'd have to meet with different families and endure insanely long lines and meetings with the housing office for anywhere from 1-4 days! Quel horreur!

Luckily, I received an offer from a former classmate and fellow study abroad student, to live in a beautiful little apartment right in the 7th arrondissement! The apartment is so quaint, and is as close to the university as possible. We've been messaging back and forth to brush up on our French, and we've even planned to make a rule to only speak French in our apartment. (Will let you know how this goes) Needless to say, this has made my already chaotic trip a little less stressful and gives me something to look forward to.

Now the only thing left to do before I go is to pack. Sigh.

Crunch time

Going away or having some sort of a deadline helps you realize how much you procrastinate. This week has become an epic battle of tying up loose ends: cancelling phone and cable services, paying off any bills, getting copies of every important document to ever exist in my life, filling 4 months of prescriptions, the list goes on. None of these things are colossal feats... But I feel like I'm about to spontaneously combust.

These last few weeks in the US and the first week in Paris will be the most stressful and exhausting weeks of my life, no joke. Even when I knock off about eight things from my to-do list, it seems as though eight more things just pop up out of nowhere. Sigh. Why am I even complaining... I'm going to live in Paris for four months!

So on a more cheery note, here are a few things I plan on doing whilst abroad:

(The first few are food-related, obviously)
1. Ladurée- gourmet French pastries... need I say more? http://www.laduree.fr/
2. Angelina's, which boasts the best hot chocolate in Paris. Duh.
3. Berthillon on Isle St. Louis, the best ice cream and sorbet evar.
4. Visit as many vineyards and farms as humanly possible.
5. Run up the Eiffel Tower at top speed.
6. Take a Bateau-Mouche down the Seine.
7. Do a bike tour around Paris and beyond.
8. Make friends with some locals.
9. Try to find someone to run with occasionally.
10. Travel!

Can you tell I'm excited!?

Losing my blog-ginity

Ok, so the title of this first post isn't entirely true-- I co-author a pretty sweet blog ( http://eremozoic.blogspot.com/) with my boyfriend, Tom. I've been pretty neglectful with my postings so hopefully that will change when I go abroad. Feel free to check it out.

I leave for Paris on August 29th. It seemed so far away last fall and all of a sudden the days until I leave are rapidly becoming less and less. The next few weeks are going to be insanely hectic for me: 1. I'm moving my entire life out of my apartment and into my parent's place, as well as boxing up all of the things Tom will need when I'm gone (moving in with your boyfriend = sharing things and combining 2 lives = I need to wean myself from my pack rat habits). 2. I still have a lot of academic things to figure out so I can graduate this spring instead of spring of 2010. 3.Tom is running a marathon up in Quebec four days before I leave. SO, I decided that maybe my down time at work would be best spent starting my blog.

I guess I'll start with pre-departure objectives. I don't have any goals, per se, maybe just to brush up on my French. My mom taught me the basics when I was young and I fell in love with it. I continued to study throughout high school and became practically fluent, so I decided to make it part of my major in college. I thought going to college in the city would allow me to use it more, but unfortunately that wasn't the case. Long story short: I've been dying to speak French with people-- not just a few words, but actual conversations. I went to France a few times before and never wanted to leave. Living there was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. ( I will go into more detail about this in another post). So I guess that is one goal. Another thing, which may be more of a test than a goal, is I'll try not to speak English. At all. (Will let you know how this goes as well).

I think the hardest part about this trip will be leaving the people I love behind. I think I'm the only college student who goes home to hang out with their parents every weekend. (I can't help it, they're fun). I've also never been away from Tom for more than a few days so that will be a little tough, but grace au ciel for skype and iMacs. This will save me money on phone calls for sure. I'm also hoping I can find some sweet grassy areas to run. I cannot express in words how thrilled I am to run around and explore such a beautiful country.

I guess that is it for now. Thanks for reading!