Fishy Mashed Potatoes, Literally.

Yet another day of orientation… We started with our language placement test in the morning. Abbey and I both ended up in the same class, although we’re not sure what level it actually is. I guess at least you can say the French department at UPS is consistent. The rest of the day was filled with learning that there are cultural difference between the U.S. and France and that we might get a little depressed because of all of those cultural differences. Mon dieu! It’s not like we’re in a third world country; it’s Occidental Europe!! I’m really not that worried by the fact that the French don’t smile as much as Americans. In fact I did such a good job at not smiling or making eye contact on the metro this evening that two different people asked me for directions. I could understand and respond to one of them.

For lunch today we had mushroom soup, Brandade Morue (think cheesy mashed potatoes with cod that has gone through a food processor) and a fruit and egg dessert item. It was interesting, but I definitely ate more than yesterday. Tomorrow we start our language classes: I have mine at 9am. Then I have a 4.5-hour break between that and my academic advising meeting, so I am going to find something interesting and at least somewhat touristy to do in the intervening time. I’ve come up with a couple of possibilities and just have to narrow it down. I also have to finalize my class choices.

For dinner tonight we had leftovers from last night but the salad my host mom made was a little different tonight. It had palm hearts in it; I’d never heard of them before. They were interesting and by the time I’d eaten all the ones she’d given me, I’d grown rather accustomed to them. I think I’m going to read a little Harry Potter tonight and go to bed early. Having to set my alarm clock these last couple of days has really worn me out. I should have some pictures to post tomorrow night hopefully.

What I Learned Today: You don't eat nutella after the age of 16.

Another day of orientation. It was really almost all useless. Well unless I had been planning to get super drunk every night and be rowdy around police officers, then perhaps it would have been informative. I am considering taking a class at an outside university after the academic lecture though. I’m not sure why since all she did was discuss French bureaucracy and inefficiency in action. I am still undecided at the moment. For lunch they gave us crab profiteroles, young duck with turnips and chocolate mousse. While the crab did not actually taste like crab, it was still not very appealing to me so I ate a couple bits of the profiterole part, a couple bites of the duck, some turnips (which were too sweet) and most of the mousse (but that was also too sweet).

After orientation, Abbey and Brad decided to venture out to the ‘burbs because that was the only place I knew of off the top of my head for Abbey to buy her cell phone. We had a great example of French inefficiency in action while trying to navigate the metro stop with our beloved and crippled Abbey (she’s on crutches at the moment if I haven’t mentioned that before). We took one elevator down a level and then had to change to a different elevator to go down another level (this was kind of miraculous in itself for France considering most metro stations only have stairs). We hit the elevator button and waited for it to come from below, waited some more and some more. Finally it headed up towards us, and kept going! Ok, we thought, it will catch us on the way down. So finally it comes down to us and we get on. We push the button for the level below us and watch the count down above the door for the requisite 30 seconds it remains open. Finally the doors close and guess what, we’re heading up again! We stop at the upper level, pick up some more people, make another stop at the level where we got on at and then finally down to the level we wanted in the first place.

We eventually made it to my suburb, got Abbey her cell phone and then Abbey and Brad agreed to accompany me to Monoprix so I could purchase a couple of forgotten grocery items and some tissues. After much debate I settled on some Kleenex with some sort of additive, though I don’t think they’ll be as good as my Puffs Plus Lotion and Aloe that I love so much. I’ll survive somehow (Abbey is rolling her eyes reading this, I guarantee it!). I then headed back to my apartment because my host mother was making me dinner for the evening and left Brad and Abbey planning a picnic in a nearby park.

When I got back to the apartment I collapsed on my bed and watched some more of the DVD my host mother gave me yesterday to help me improve my French. It’s a fairly recent movie called Une grande année (A Great Year) in French and has Russell Crowe in it. I’m watching it with the French dubbing and subtitles, and it’s quite enjoyable. We had dinner around 7:30 and my host mother served a delicious salad with lettuce, tomatoes and avocado with her homemade salad dressing. Then we had a casserole type dish that was cauliflower and hard-boiled eggs in a béchamel sauce with cheese on top. I ate the double scoop she gave me with a piece of bread and had an apple for dessert. We’re apparently having the leftovers for dinner tomorrow and she also made veal with carrots and onions for another night this week. During dinner my Marie-Claire spoke some about her family and also told me great stories of her and her friends sneaking out of their rooms during the summer holidays late at night to go running around with friends (notably boys – which was definitely not acceptable at the time), it was quite amusing. Apparently her father caught her and her sister once returning home at 4 o’clock in the morning!!

I have my language test in the morning so I should probably head to bed so I can get a good night’s sleep and not disappoint Michel by being placed in a remedial French course. I had wanted to review some grammar but I’m feeling too tired, perhaps on the metro tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Some Requisite Touristy-ness

So my host mother and I went to the market this morning. I got the tour of good chunk of the area while walking there and back and found a couple of places I definitely want to go back to. The market was awesome: fruits, vegetables, spices and herbs, and fresh pasta!! I think I will go back next Saturday and buy some of my groceries from there. There were also some stands with some cute sweaters and jackets, so who knows… maybe a trench coat too so I can be a real Française! On our way back we stopped in the smallest Sephora I have ever seen because Marie-Claire is looking for a new perfume. Marie-Claire also showed me the most expensive clothing store in town and the chicest butcher-esque place. We walked by a pastry store that looked out of this world; I should have taken a picture. I will definitely be going back there soon!!! We also walked past what appeared to be a kosher butcher.

My host mother was bugging me to go into Paris and Abbey was nice enough to invite me along on her adventure this afternoon so we met up with Brad (not Brand as I called him in a previous post) in front of the Church Saint Ambroise in the 11th arrondisement. After deciding that Sunday was not the day to meander around a church, we took the metro to the Trocadero/ Palais de Chaillot for one of the best views of the Eiffel Tower in town. After doing the requisite touristy things like posing in front of the Eiffel Tower for pictures, we headed to a nearby café for an afternoon coffee.

Eiffel Tower and Les Invalides (the gold dome on the left) from the Trocadero.

The Palais de Chaillot with the Eiffel Tower behind it.

My evening was pretty quite, chatted with friends online and read some more Harry Potter. I think I’m going to watch a movie my host mother wants me to see (I think to improve my French). I also need to figure out how to get to the building where we’re having orientation tomorrow. A bientôt!

Fnac and Glace Italien

This morning I had something called “Le Petit Suisse” (the little Swiss) on my bread. It tasted like a cross between cream cheese and yogurt; it was pretty tasty and was lighter feeling than cream cheese, though the container said it was 30% fat. My host mother and I discussed the rising costs of food and the overall cost of living and also paying for school with scholarships, grants and loans and how the French are having to do more of that like Americans now. We also discussed Ikea and I think taking a trip there when her car is working again!! We’re going to the “marché” tomorrow morning and I’m hoping to buy some fresh fruit and perhaps a vegetable or two ☺.

Apparently Saturday late morning is the time for all the French to take a walk with their children as I observed while walking down to the mall, which is less than 10 minutes from the apartment. It’s amazing! I will definitely be going there again. I walked all around to see the different stores; there are quite a few that I want to explore. There is one that looks like the French version of Pottery Barn, some clothing stores, a purse store, and many others (Maren - they have a Paul bakery!!! I'm definitely going to get something from there next time!). I had actually gone to the mall to buy the 6th Harry Potter book in French and to grocery shop. My host mother recommended that I go to a bookstore called FNAC, it’s incredible! Imagine Border’s and Best Buy combined in to one store! Anyway so I wandered around for a while trying to figure out where one finds a Harry Potter book in a bookstore because I always buy them on the first day when you trip over them walking into the store. Eventually I found it and then headed to Inno (a grocery store) to get some food.

Inno was also incredible! It was really big, like the size of an American grocery store almost, and had a huge selection of items. I wandered around for at least 5 minutes before I decided to finally put something into my basket. They had a “world foods” section that had things like ramen, fluff, peanut butter (6 euros!), a bunch of British stuff and some Old El Paso products. I finally decided on pasta, tomato sauce, cheese, yogurt, bread, chicken, hummus and of course some chocolate. Hopefully I’ll more creative with groceries I stop feeling overwhelmed by the French versions of items. (BTW tomato sauce comes in MUCH smaller jars here, I bought the biggest one they had and it would take at least 3 of them be equivalent to an American jar)

After I finished my grocery shopping I decided to go back the Chocolatier that I saw while meandering around the mall. It’s called Jeff de Bruges and apparently it’s Belgian. Anyway, they had soft-serve ice cream, which is called Italian ice cream here, in amazing flavors! I finally decided on the raspberry and passion fruit combination to keep me going while I walked home. It was delicious!! For only 2 euro I will definitely be doing that again soon!!

My host mother and I talked while we ate lunch, she shared her salad with me and I ate some of my bread and cheese. Apparently she knows something about Oriental rugs too, so we discussed them for most of lunch. After lunch I just hung around the apartment and talked to friends and family online. Then my host mother’s friend Skype’d me and helped me set up French TV on my computer so I can watch it. I’m still having some technical difficulties and trying to figure them out, but it’s pretty cool! Talking to someone over the phone in French though is not easy and she was correcting me whenever I made a mistake, but I guess that’s good for learning… My host mother has also offered to help me improve my French by giving me dictations from Harry Potter if I’d like. I know I should take her up on the offer. For dinner I made myself some soup and ravioli and had some yogurt for dessert. I’ve started reading my Harry Potter book and I think I’ll do that ‘til I decide to go to bed.

Photos of My Host Mother's Apartment

Here's a link to the photos I took of my host mother's apartment.  They're on facebook, but you don't need an account to view them.  Just click the title of this post and it will take you to them.

Paris Needs More Taxis!

Marie-Claire wanted me to have a “real French breakfast” today, but apparently after this I just get full access to the fridge for breakfast, which is fine with me because it was delicious! I got bread she bought at the bakery yesterday (a baguette, a croissant and these rolls with chunks of really light, airy salt on them), butter, 2 types of jam (apricot and this really yummy orange and elderflower – anyone know what that is? – jam from Sweden), honey, yogurt and tea (Sarah – it was Earl Grey).

When Marie-Claire was showing me around the apartment yesterday, she showed me where I could keep my food in the fridge and also a cabinet where I could keep non perishables and said something along the lines of “like ingredients for cake” but I was thinking things you need to make a cake like bundt pan and knives and all I could think was I don’t want to go buy a bundt pan in France!

I decided to head into Paris early before going to orientation so I could check out the famous “Pomme de Pain” that Sarah had recommended. I ended up not finding the one I was looking for and went into a Monoprix instead. This one was much more impressive than the one near my apartment and fulfilled all my expectation and more, including and ready-made food section, from which I selected an Indian Chicken Wrap.

The first day of orientation was not so much orienting and more just being spoken to about not being stupid. Oh well maybe Monday will be more interesting. They double booked my schedule and gave me two classes at the same time on the same days, so something will have to change there. I did find out that we get a pass that gives us unlimited, free visits to the Louvre the entire semester, which I am quite excited about. That almost makes up for only getting to spend an hour and a half exploring the museum the last time I was here. Also, apparently the famous French transportation strikes usually happen in October and the lady said sometimes the metro kind of works but we should be prepared to walk. I just Googled the distance between my apartment and my school, there is 8.2km between the two and Google estimates that to be a 1 hour and 50 minute walk. Can’t wait! After orientation Abbey, Brand and I headed for a lunch/ snack and then proceeded to spend a very long amount of time waiting for a taxi that would take Abbey to her apartment since she in on crutches. Paris really does need to hire more taxis.

I also bought my Passe Navigo today, which gives me unlimited access to the Paris metro and bus system. It will be nice not to have to buy a ticket every time I take the metro, but goodness plunking down 60 euros at once for transportation is hard, especially knowing that I have to do it every month! I had wanted to go grocery shopping this afternoon since I need to start providing some of my own meals soon, but by the time I finally got back to the apartment, I was just too tired, so that will be on tomorrow’s to do list. I figure Saturday is a good day for that anyway.

For dinner tonight we had ratatouille with veal, a green salad and some red wine. We discussed various fruits and vegetables and the new hybrid mixes they are coming up with. Marie-Claire once again tried to make me eat more and I was able to get away with just taking a little more salad and turned down the fruit or yogurt, but maybe I’ll have some tea in a little while. Sadly I think I’m going to try to catch up on my American TV right now, I know I’m terrible!

Getting Here

On less than 4 hours of sleep I groggily followed the steps at the American Airlines self-service station and only narrowly avoided the threat of a $10,000 fine for misread a 6 as 5. After navigating through security, I took advantage of the Sunport’s free WiFi and to my delight found Emily C. online, sitting comfortably in her hot family’s home in Nantes. Relieved and excited that one of us had already made it across the Atlantic, I was ready to start my own adventure.

The excitement faded quickly after the reality of having another 3 hours of sitting at O’hare after an already long first 2 hours. A girl about my age had asked me to keep an eye on her luggage for 2 minutes. Assuming that she was making a quick trip to the restroom or grabbing a drink at Starbuck’s, I happily agreed. Thirty minutes and one annoyed text message to a friendly face later, she finally reappeared with only a quick thanks. Desperately needing to stretch my legs, I went to buy a smoothie, what a disappointment! I could only stand a couple of sips before I threw it out and headed for Starbuck’s to make up for it. As I took a sip of my first (and quite possibly my only) Pumpkin Spice Latte of the season I spotted my fellow traveling companions from UPS: Abbey and Brad.

Time passed much faster after that between discussing living arrangements, telephone calls to friends and trying to figure out how to surf the web. Just as our flight was supposed to begin boarding we were told we were changing gates and our flight was delayed over an hour because of mechanical difficulties. After slight confusion and a minor detour we made it to our new gate and eventually on the plane.

The flight itself was non-eventful, I guess as one would hope a transatlantic flight to be. The highlight was when the pilot got on the intercom and said to look out the left side of the plane because you could see the Northern Lights!! All of the passengers jumped up and or leaned over so quickly I wouldn’t be surprised if the pilot had to readjust his steering because of a change in weight balance. The sky was gorgeous!! Shades of green in three layers reaching high into the night sky.

After landing, going through customs and collecting my baggage I proceeded to wait for my shuttle for 45 minutes after the lady had told me only 15, but oh well what can you do. I had a lady from NJ and two 20 somethings from Toronto on my shuttle and got quite the driving tour of Paris while dropping them off at hotels and apartments. Finally we made it to my apartment building, which is very cute from the outside (pictures to come soon). My suitcases and I barely fit in the elevator together and I thought for sure I was going to knock something over walking to my room with everything I was carrying. My room is small but nice, it has a wall of book shelves and a decent sized closet which easily hold all of my clothes (the hanging rack isn’t quite long enough for my dresses though). I have a small wood desk/ table. My host mother and I share a bathroom and the toilet is across the apartment and doesn’t have a sink with it.

My host mother made us lunch which included a gallette (think darker, bigger crepe) with somewhat cooked eggs in it and shredded carrot and tomato salad. She also offered my yogurt or fruit or coffee afterwards but I couldn’t fit another bite. Despite the fact that I was really only hungry enough to eat about half of my lunch, I worked hard to almost clean my plate and she later told her friend on the phone that I had a very small appetite. We then set up her internet on my computer so I could get WiFi and she left me to unpack. After unpacking I took a short walking tour of the neighborhood just to make it to Monoprix to buy some shampoo and bodywash and then to the cell phone store to buy my new phone! I was so tired from only getting 7 hours of sleep in the last 48 that I was hoping I wouldn’t faint in Monoprix. There was guy wearing a kippah in the cell phone store and I almost asked him where I should go to synagogue but I was too tired to get into a conversation.

After getting back I caplopped on my bed and talked to my mom and surfed the web until dinner. For dinner we had chicken thigh/ leg from a new butcher and potatoes au gratin that had the most wonderfully cheesy sauce (I thought of you Dad! ;) ) and a tomato, lettuce and avocado salad. Marie-Claire made me eat two helpings of the potatoes even though one was quite enough and then again tried to get my to eat yogurt or fruit or coffee!! What happened to moderate French portion sizes?! She said something to me like you should eat lots of this now because you don’t get to eat every meal with me. I guess she’s afraid I’m going to starve myself when I have to make my own food? I went to bed almost right after dinner, about 8 o’clock and slept until 6ish so I guess that’s not to bad, I would have preferred 12 hours, but what can you do? Ok that’s way too much for now, I’ll write again when I have something more relevant than my trip here to write about, and I’ll try to take some pictures soon! Love to all!