With each day comes new challenges. Right when I think I am finally getting the hang of something, BOOM! My bubble gets bursted and I come tumbling all the way back down to reality. Ouch. I have other days when I feel like I am walking on air. Days when I dance all the way home. Days when I feel included, when I feel known.
School recently let out for ten days and we all got a much needed break. For the past two months I have been walking home each day for lunch and then walking backing to school for afternoon classes. This became a little ridiculous on the days that I only have an hour for lunch, so I decided to eat at the cafeteria three out of five days of the week. My first day back after the vacation, I was terrified. I had gotten comfortable not going to school, sleeping in, spending time with my family, Paris. All my fears and bad memories of the last few weeks of October has only gotten worse. The night before school started up again, I tried to get some rest, but I woke up every single hour. My nerves were going insane. First morning that I didn't need an alarm. I jumped right out of bed . . . obviously something wasn't right. That never happens. Most mornings consist of my sister running up to my room at 740 to come wake me up because I had decided to 'just close my eyes for a few minutes' and slept for an extra hour. Whoopsies. That must be genetic.
Back to lunch. I was so nervous. I was actually wishing history class wouldn't end. I mean, yes, it is extremely fascinating to learn about the 'real' frontiers of Europe and all about why it is the biggest and the best, but most days I'm counting down the minutes until the bell rings. Lunch. I kept having those visions flash in my mind: new girl, sitting all by herself, doing everything wrong. Shit. I honestly didn't even have a clue where the cafeteria was located. I asked my friends if they were eating lunch at school, explained that I had no idea where to even begin. They happily took me along and showed my the ropes: wait in a giant mob of people for a good thirty minutes, slide a lunch card through the slot face up and make sure to get it right the first time, so the people behind you don't run you over, take a tray, teeny ting glass for water, silverware, choose a dessert (yogurt, cheese, pudding, cookies, or a pastry), main course dish, an appetizer, and of course, baguette. It's pre-sliced and most kids stack six or seven pieces onto their plates.
It was so bizarre for me to be eating at a cafeteria. I have solely been eating in an environment where the people around me always finish everything on their plates. Mainly because mom said so. At home I'm learning lots of sentences like 'Tu m'énerve!' and 'Manges ta soupe ou tu sorts la table!', which literally translate to 'you annoy me' and 'eat your soup or you leave the table'. I had forgotten that cafeterias are a place of rebellion. You can eat whatever the hell you want. No need to finish your veggies. If I wanted I could only eat dessert and bread, which is actually what most kids do anyway. Not half bad.
On to other frightening subjects. I gave a fifteen minute presentation in French class last week. Correction: I tried to give a fifteen minute presentation in French class last week. For the past month I had been reading L'Etranger by Camus. I wrote an essay (in pen and all) including a biography, summary, and explanation of the philosophy: the absurd. Now my teacher wanted me to five a presentation, orally, in front of my thirty classmates, speaking, out loud, in French. Cool. You will happy to hear I haven't changed one bit; I managed to procrastinate until the very last possible second to prepare my presentation and Carole had to stay up way too late helping me. Next time, I'm going to start much earlier and no, I do not always say that. All day people in my class were asking me if I was ready with big smiles on their faces. 'Non, pas de tout' I replied, returning the smile. My friends read my notes, making little corrections here and there and insisting on mocking my accent for a nice, long twenty minutes. So fun. It actually made me feel better knowing everyone wasn't expecting perfection. I walked to the front of class, greeted them with 'Bonjour, madames et messieurs' which made them all laugh and broke some of the ice. Nervous as hell I stumbled through the first few phrases and was then horrified when my teacher interrupted me and told the class they needed to be taking notes. Shocking, really. Well, now I have everyone's full attention to catch all of my mistakes. How lovely.
No matter the language, giving presentations are always hard at school. It's a viscous cycle. One tries very hard not to read off the paper and to really speak to the class, but looking at the class's bored (and in my case, extremely confused) faces always leads to feeling oh so very awkward and looking back down at the paper. Luckily, I distracted myself by focusing mainly on the pronunciation of words and punctuation, in desperate hopes it would help people understand some of what I was rambling on about. And after a few painful questions of which I had no idea how to answer in French, I was done. What a fun day.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Good morning y'all!
Wow. It has been forever since I have used that phrase. "y'all" doesn't exactly translate into French, such a pity. At the moment I feel a little bit like a couch potato ... and not in the good way. I actually got myself to fall asleep last night by thinking about talking a long walk in the huge beautiful park that is around the corner from my house. Yesterday was the start of two weeks of blessed vacation from school and I immediately snapped into the laziest person in the world. Not too good.
Fast forward a little bit. It is now the evening and no, I never did take that walk. Maybe, tomorrrow. :) I did however have my very first baking lesson in France! Yay! I made "Tarte au sucre". So good and it is exactly what it sounds like, a sugar tart. Who wouldn't love that.
Step 1: mix together 250 grams of flower, two tablespoons of sugar and a pinch of salt
Step 2: in a separate bowl beat together two eggs
Step 3: melt 75 grams of butter
step 4: heat up some milk and then mix in something or other to the milk that is supposed to help the pastry dough rise
step 5: (here is the very complicated part) add the eggs to the dry ingredients and mix with the hands, add the butter and continue to mix and clump, add the milk mixture and knead until everything is nice and together
step 6: spread with the palm of your hand (onto a round backing sheet covered with wax paper) the dough until it is fairly even and then let it rise for an hour ish
step 7: cover the entire thing in some kind of specialty sugar that is light brown and a really soft texture
step 8: bake for 10 minutes at 150 degrees
step 9: pour cream fresh on top of the sugar
step 10: ta da!!! tarte au sucre!
Now, I know, that is just a very, very complicated recipe, especially with my not knowing the exact measurements or amounts of time or you know, the names of certain ingredients, but hey I wanted to share :) And that is what happens when one is learning how to cook in a foreign language.
Fast forward a little bit. It is now the evening and no, I never did take that walk. Maybe, tomorrrow. :) I did however have my very first baking lesson in France! Yay! I made "Tarte au sucre". So good and it is exactly what it sounds like, a sugar tart. Who wouldn't love that.
Step 1: mix together 250 grams of flower, two tablespoons of sugar and a pinch of salt
Step 2: in a separate bowl beat together two eggs
Step 3: melt 75 grams of butter
step 4: heat up some milk and then mix in something or other to the milk that is supposed to help the pastry dough rise
step 5: (here is the very complicated part) add the eggs to the dry ingredients and mix with the hands, add the butter and continue to mix and clump, add the milk mixture and knead until everything is nice and together
step 6: spread with the palm of your hand (onto a round backing sheet covered with wax paper) the dough until it is fairly even and then let it rise for an hour ish
step 7: cover the entire thing in some kind of specialty sugar that is light brown and a really soft texture
step 8: bake for 10 minutes at 150 degrees
step 9: pour cream fresh on top of the sugar
step 10: ta da!!! tarte au sucre!
Now, I know, that is just a very, very complicated recipe, especially with my not knowing the exact measurements or amounts of time or you know, the names of certain ingredients, but hey I wanted to share :) And that is what happens when one is learning how to cook in a foreign language.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
qu'est-ce qui ya
I came to France to learn about the culture, the language, eat really yummy food all day long, make new friends, have wonderful (and plenty of difficult) experiences and everything in between. So far I think it's going pretty damn well. One of the things I wasn't expecting was to learn was so much about myself. But hey! That works too. For instance, I really, really enjoy being alone sometimes. I had no idea of this fact. My dad and I would always make fun of my mom when she would prefer to sit home and read a book by herself than come hang out with us. I mean honestly who wouldn't want to be around two very loud people, blasting the Glee soundtrack and trying to sing along for a whole day. But now, after living with a family with five other members, it is so rare to find a moment when I am actually alone. There's always someone else around, so now I appreciate those moments when the house empty and I can just sit down with a book and a stillness in the air.
This past week has been school, school, and more school. Spanish is improving, I am happy to say. My teacher didn't make me take a test that I would have completely bombed and he is helping me get some extra help during the school day, so that's really good. Grade wise, I received a 14/20 on my first math test and my first history test, both teachers were happily (I think) shocked, probably because I look completely lost during class, which most of the time I am, but throw some long hours with a lot of translating and memorization of sentences I don't understand and voila! 70% Haha not too bad, I hope the grades will continue to go up and not spiral down from there.
This afternoon I went to a fall festival with my family. For lunch I tried the different 'specialties'. Basically French food, but with a lot of ingredients substituted by pumpkin. Quite special indeed, but I am trying to be very brave in the food world. Ooo, speaking of which last week I started my favorite new thing. Ever. It's called trying a new pastry every day. :) I have always loved pain au chocolat so that's what I always get but a few weeks ago I realized how much I was missing, and decided I needed to do something about it, so new pastry every day it is. Works for me. Last night a baby sat a new family for the first time. Two little girls five and two and a half. Super adorable and couldn't stop laughing at me the entire time I was reading them their bed time story. Apparently my accent still has a long, long way to go.
AFS has planned on over night trip for the students in Paris at the end of the month. All fun touristy stuff, which I think I will be able to appreciate so much more now that I am older and well, really want to learn about it. And I get to see my AFS friends! That's about it for now. Bisous! Oh oh oh! I almost forgot, next weekend I am making my host family dinner. I'm thinking burritos, mostly just because I really miss them but I need some ideas for a yummy dessert!
This past week has been school, school, and more school. Spanish is improving, I am happy to say. My teacher didn't make me take a test that I would have completely bombed and he is helping me get some extra help during the school day, so that's really good. Grade wise, I received a 14/20 on my first math test and my first history test, both teachers were happily (I think) shocked, probably because I look completely lost during class, which most of the time I am, but throw some long hours with a lot of translating and memorization of sentences I don't understand and voila! 70% Haha not too bad, I hope the grades will continue to go up and not spiral down from there.
This afternoon I went to a fall festival with my family. For lunch I tried the different 'specialties'. Basically French food, but with a lot of ingredients substituted by pumpkin. Quite special indeed, but I am trying to be very brave in the food world. Ooo, speaking of which last week I started my favorite new thing. Ever. It's called trying a new pastry every day. :) I have always loved pain au chocolat so that's what I always get but a few weeks ago I realized how much I was missing, and decided I needed to do something about it, so new pastry every day it is. Works for me. Last night a baby sat a new family for the first time. Two little girls five and two and a half. Super adorable and couldn't stop laughing at me the entire time I was reading them their bed time story. Apparently my accent still has a long, long way to go.
AFS has planned on over night trip for the students in Paris at the end of the month. All fun touristy stuff, which I think I will be able to appreciate so much more now that I am older and well, really want to learn about it. And I get to see my AFS friends! That's about it for now. Bisous! Oh oh oh! I almost forgot, next weekend I am making my host family dinner. I'm thinking burritos, mostly just because I really miss them but I need some ideas for a yummy dessert!
Friday, October 1, 2010
Coucou!
I have not written on the blog for a few weeks, which I apologize for, but I think that's a good sign. I was using the blog as an outlet, a way for me to rant and rave, and communicate all the things I'm feeling that I don't know how to say in French yet. Therefore, me not writing on the blog means me not having a lot to complain about.
Things are still hard, but they are definitely looking up. I am slowly catching onto the language, there are things that now come to me as a reflex, no translating before in my head first, which I find really exciting. I have never realized how much time I spend only half listening to people, and when they are speaking in English, I still understand. Here I have to focus extremely hard, my brain needs to be 100% on during class and even just at the dinner table, which is new for me. My French teacher is putting a lot of time and energy into helping me learn French quickly. Instead of listening to the lectures during class, which I understand absolutely none of, he gives me elementary exercises to help with my vocabulary and grammar. So I sit through French class spending an hour with my little pocket dictionary as my right hand man working on exercises that the other kids could finish in five minutes, but hey they have already spent multiple years being drilled on their verb conjugations. I am still failing school, which is frustrating for me, but I just have to remind myself that I am here to learn about the culture and the language, not pass physics.
About a week ago, I was very close to breaking down, but just in time AFS put together a meeting for the exchange students living in the Centre Ville. We all met up in a little town named Orleans. They put together a scavenger hunt and we were separated into groups and had to go to different historical monuments and take pictures to find the next hint. It was amazingly fun and reminded me why I am doing this. It reminded me how much I love France, the culture, the language, and just the feeling in the air. One of the places on the list, was an old classic hotel. At the time, there were three weddings going on outside of it. All different stages, one just about to begin and the other almost over. It was so beautiful to see. I just wanted to walk around with a classic black and white camera and take pictures. Unfortunately, that would have been a little awkward, considering I was neither attending the weddings nor was I the photographer. I tried to sneak in a few, but they didn't show up as well as I'd hoped.
Across the street from the hotel was a very huge, beautiful church. It was so French. Every little corner perfectly sculpted and the steps designed with all the right angles. The windows were beyond beautiful. And then you bring your head down and there are all these French teenagers skateboarding, doing bike tricks, and spray painting sheets of wood at the base of the church. It was actually really cool to watch, as oxy-moronic as it was. The town was beautiful and had so many French stores, I was beside myself with sadness that we couldn't go into them, but friends and I made pact to meet up there sometime in the next few months and go on a shopping spree together, which will be fun. halfway through the scavenger hunt, my group (which consisted of my family and a friend) got tired and cold, so we got a bunch of tourist pamphlets on the town and went into a cafe to drink hot chocolate, which was just what I needed :)
I will try to write more often. It's nice to look back and reflect on whats happening. :) Tonight I am watching some French movie and baby sitting my sisters, but I am making friends and meeting new people everyday, which I love. Bisous!
Things are still hard, but they are definitely looking up. I am slowly catching onto the language, there are things that now come to me as a reflex, no translating before in my head first, which I find really exciting. I have never realized how much time I spend only half listening to people, and when they are speaking in English, I still understand. Here I have to focus extremely hard, my brain needs to be 100% on during class and even just at the dinner table, which is new for me. My French teacher is putting a lot of time and energy into helping me learn French quickly. Instead of listening to the lectures during class, which I understand absolutely none of, he gives me elementary exercises to help with my vocabulary and grammar. So I sit through French class spending an hour with my little pocket dictionary as my right hand man working on exercises that the other kids could finish in five minutes, but hey they have already spent multiple years being drilled on their verb conjugations. I am still failing school, which is frustrating for me, but I just have to remind myself that I am here to learn about the culture and the language, not pass physics.
About a week ago, I was very close to breaking down, but just in time AFS put together a meeting for the exchange students living in the Centre Ville. We all met up in a little town named Orleans. They put together a scavenger hunt and we were separated into groups and had to go to different historical monuments and take pictures to find the next hint. It was amazingly fun and reminded me why I am doing this. It reminded me how much I love France, the culture, the language, and just the feeling in the air. One of the places on the list, was an old classic hotel. At the time, there were three weddings going on outside of it. All different stages, one just about to begin and the other almost over. It was so beautiful to see. I just wanted to walk around with a classic black and white camera and take pictures. Unfortunately, that would have been a little awkward, considering I was neither attending the weddings nor was I the photographer. I tried to sneak in a few, but they didn't show up as well as I'd hoped.
Across the street from the hotel was a very huge, beautiful church. It was so French. Every little corner perfectly sculpted and the steps designed with all the right angles. The windows were beyond beautiful. And then you bring your head down and there are all these French teenagers skateboarding, doing bike tricks, and spray painting sheets of wood at the base of the church. It was actually really cool to watch, as oxy-moronic as it was. The town was beautiful and had so many French stores, I was beside myself with sadness that we couldn't go into them, but friends and I made pact to meet up there sometime in the next few months and go on a shopping spree together, which will be fun. halfway through the scavenger hunt, my group (which consisted of my family and a friend) got tired and cold, so we got a bunch of tourist pamphlets on the town and went into a cafe to drink hot chocolate, which was just what I needed :)
I will try to write more often. It's nice to look back and reflect on whats happening. :) Tonight I am watching some French movie and baby sitting my sisters, but I am making friends and meeting new people everyday, which I love. Bisous!
Monday, September 13, 2010
La Premiere Semaine
I have officially been here for one week. It's crazy. I feel like I have been through a years worth of ups and downs. So many new things and way too many emotions. Last night I made a vow to not eat anymore baguette while I was here and take it easy on the sugar filled items (I could already feel the pounds being added on). This lasted exactly 24 hours. Tonight we had pasta and it just didn't taste quite right with out the bread. :) The first day of school was painful. I felt as though I had walked into an alternate universe. Of course I knew things would be different, the language, the people, the food, the culture, etc. But it's the little things that catch you off guard; like how everyone writes in cursive all the time and when one hasn't even practiced cursive since second grade (like me) it is impossible to read, or the fact that the wonderful smell after it rains in Santa Fe isn't the same here, or that I have to walk up 3 flights of stairs to get to my first period class most days. These little things, if you let them, are the things that get to you the most.
I have since learned that my French professor is infamous for his awful handwriting, and that it's important to layer because its freezing in the morning and extremely hot in the afternoon, and that no, sadly, walking up multiple flights of stairs does not burn off all the calories from eating baguette all the time. It's the little things too, that can get you through a day (and by day I mean a few hours) like figuring out that I did indeed remember to pack my favorite pair of jeans!! or that my new little sister, Malou, gives me a thousand hugs a day, or that stupid phrase that AFS grinded into our brains "it's not good, it's not bad, it's just different".
School is hard for me on multiple levels. To begin with the way they teach sets a completely different learning environment. At prep, we sit in circle and talk, everyone talks, or to be a bit more accurate, the teachers encourage everyone to talk. In France the teachers lecture. For the first few days I sat in total and complete fear that a teacher would direct a question at me and I would have no idea what they were saying and pee in my pants. I now know that teachers don't ask questions that they are not going to answer themselves. It also very important to take notes, and not the little notes on the side of the paper or on your hand (the kind I'm used to) no, I'm talking hardcore notes. The kids here underline the different titles with a ruler, it shocked me. At prep I could have cared less how straight a line was, but not here. Each student has multiple colored pens (never, ever a pencil) and they have learned to write what the teacher is saying while he or she is saying it instead of after the teacher has messily scribbled it on the board. I am trying my best to learn to do this, but I'm still using a pencil. I happen to like having the option of making a mistake and being able to fix it. It just makes me feel better all around. (I keep two fairly large erasers with me at school)
Today I had my first test. It was for Spanish class. Definitely not level 1 Spanish. The teacher speaks in Spanish for the duration of the class and we are supposed to answer difficult question. We are not learning how to conjugate verbs (as I was expecting). My first day of Spanish class consisted of me being utterly confused, chewing my lip consistently and trying to figure out what everyone was doing. I was given a simple sheet with a translation of all the common used terms, so I slipped it into my binder and started copying notes from that day's lesson which needed to be memorized by Friday for the teacher was going to pick someone at random and orally quiz them on the subject. Holy shit. I was not chosen. Yessss! But we did start studying a ridiculously difficult exercise in the workbook and we were told that we have a test on Monday (today).
This weekend we went to visit Carole's parents (they live two hours from Chateauroux). Her brother and his wife had recently had a baby girl, Flavi and she was being baptized. Road trip!! And what was an extremely long Sunday. Carole has five other siblings and each one has multiple kids and there are many, many cousins. So sixty or more 'family members' attended this baptism. It began at 11, services ended around 1 ish and then began the feast which consisted of a lot, a lot of food and Champagne and wine and whiskey and traditional ice cream alcohol thingies. I should know the names, but by 5 I was totally fried and starting to stress about my test. After what I can only assume was hundreds of cheek kisses we started to head home around 8. We got home at 10, I drank some hot chocolate and started studying. Pierre-Yves spent a lot of time translating the exercise into French and English with me and I spent a lot of time with Sarah on line with her teaching me how to correctly answer a question.
I slept for a few hours and then drank lots of coffee (they have caramel syrup in the house so yummm) and bolted out the door. Fast forward to Spanish class. Before the professor was there I noticed some kids studying that first sheet of paper I had been given. I hadn't even glanced at it, I hoped nothing from it would be on the test but I knew that I would be fine as long as I was able to read the questions and take lots of time. I sat down and the teacher went off in Spanish and kids pulled out a sheet of paper, so I did the same. I looked at my friend, Julie and asked if the test would be given orally she looked at me like "duhh". Uh oh. I started to panic, so I just closed my eyes and took deep breathes and told myself it would be fine. Sadly while doing this I missed the directions (they were in Spanish, so I wouldn't have understood them anyway). The teacher would read us questions, we would write them down and after go back and answer them. This could have been such an easy test, you know, had I studied the correct sheets of paper and oh yeah understood the directions. So basically that equals me trying my hardest and starting to cry multiple times and then looking down really quickly so no one noticed.
I came home for lunch and of course my family asked me how my test was. My eyes were so wide. It took about five different word combinations and sentence configurations before I got my point across. I was extremely embarrassed and had no idea how everyone would react. Silence. Then Carole double checked that she had heard me right and started chuckling and then we were all laughing about it, which made me feel a million times better. Live and (burn) learn, right? Carole seems to be one of the people I communicate with very well and she is one of the people, along with my three sisters (who do really love teaching me) I connect well with. And now after two hours of sleep last night, I am exhausted so bon nuit! xx
I have since learned that my French professor is infamous for his awful handwriting, and that it's important to layer because its freezing in the morning and extremely hot in the afternoon, and that no, sadly, walking up multiple flights of stairs does not burn off all the calories from eating baguette all the time. It's the little things too, that can get you through a day (and by day I mean a few hours) like figuring out that I did indeed remember to pack my favorite pair of jeans!! or that my new little sister, Malou, gives me a thousand hugs a day, or that stupid phrase that AFS grinded into our brains "it's not good, it's not bad, it's just different".
School is hard for me on multiple levels. To begin with the way they teach sets a completely different learning environment. At prep, we sit in circle and talk, everyone talks, or to be a bit more accurate, the teachers encourage everyone to talk. In France the teachers lecture. For the first few days I sat in total and complete fear that a teacher would direct a question at me and I would have no idea what they were saying and pee in my pants. I now know that teachers don't ask questions that they are not going to answer themselves. It also very important to take notes, and not the little notes on the side of the paper or on your hand (the kind I'm used to) no, I'm talking hardcore notes. The kids here underline the different titles with a ruler, it shocked me. At prep I could have cared less how straight a line was, but not here. Each student has multiple colored pens (never, ever a pencil) and they have learned to write what the teacher is saying while he or she is saying it instead of after the teacher has messily scribbled it on the board. I am trying my best to learn to do this, but I'm still using a pencil. I happen to like having the option of making a mistake and being able to fix it. It just makes me feel better all around. (I keep two fairly large erasers with me at school)
Today I had my first test. It was for Spanish class. Definitely not level 1 Spanish. The teacher speaks in Spanish for the duration of the class and we are supposed to answer difficult question. We are not learning how to conjugate verbs (as I was expecting). My first day of Spanish class consisted of me being utterly confused, chewing my lip consistently and trying to figure out what everyone was doing. I was given a simple sheet with a translation of all the common used terms, so I slipped it into my binder and started copying notes from that day's lesson which needed to be memorized by Friday for the teacher was going to pick someone at random and orally quiz them on the subject. Holy shit. I was not chosen. Yessss! But we did start studying a ridiculously difficult exercise in the workbook and we were told that we have a test on Monday (today).
This weekend we went to visit Carole's parents (they live two hours from Chateauroux). Her brother and his wife had recently had a baby girl, Flavi and she was being baptized. Road trip!! And what was an extremely long Sunday. Carole has five other siblings and each one has multiple kids and there are many, many cousins. So sixty or more 'family members' attended this baptism. It began at 11, services ended around 1 ish and then began the feast which consisted of a lot, a lot of food and Champagne and wine and whiskey and traditional ice cream alcohol thingies. I should know the names, but by 5 I was totally fried and starting to stress about my test. After what I can only assume was hundreds of cheek kisses we started to head home around 8. We got home at 10, I drank some hot chocolate and started studying. Pierre-Yves spent a lot of time translating the exercise into French and English with me and I spent a lot of time with Sarah on line with her teaching me how to correctly answer a question.
I slept for a few hours and then drank lots of coffee (they have caramel syrup in the house so yummm) and bolted out the door. Fast forward to Spanish class. Before the professor was there I noticed some kids studying that first sheet of paper I had been given. I hadn't even glanced at it, I hoped nothing from it would be on the test but I knew that I would be fine as long as I was able to read the questions and take lots of time. I sat down and the teacher went off in Spanish and kids pulled out a sheet of paper, so I did the same. I looked at my friend, Julie and asked if the test would be given orally she looked at me like "duhh". Uh oh. I started to panic, so I just closed my eyes and took deep breathes and told myself it would be fine. Sadly while doing this I missed the directions (they were in Spanish, so I wouldn't have understood them anyway). The teacher would read us questions, we would write them down and after go back and answer them. This could have been such an easy test, you know, had I studied the correct sheets of paper and oh yeah understood the directions. So basically that equals me trying my hardest and starting to cry multiple times and then looking down really quickly so no one noticed.
I came home for lunch and of course my family asked me how my test was. My eyes were so wide. It took about five different word combinations and sentence configurations before I got my point across. I was extremely embarrassed and had no idea how everyone would react. Silence. Then Carole double checked that she had heard me right and started chuckling and then we were all laughing about it, which made me feel a million times better. Live and (burn) learn, right? Carole seems to be one of the people I communicate with very well and she is one of the people, along with my three sisters (who do really love teaching me) I connect well with. And now after two hours of sleep last night, I am exhausted so bon nuit! xx
Monday, September 6, 2010
Chapter 3 annnnd everything inbetween
Where to begin? So much has happened since I have last written anything for the blog. It really is crazy how quickly time passes by when one is having fun . . . or a nervous wreck. The day we landed in Paris involved much waiting. Waiting in the airport, waiting outside of the airport, waiting in the bus, waiting near the hostil, etc. There are 50 Americans going to France and 150 kids going to France in total. So, at the hostile, we were met by every single possible accent. It was amazing to listen to. I was, and still am completely envious that I don't have a mysterious, foreign accent. Maybe I will fake it when I get home and speak English with a French accent. Perfect! Back at the hostile I had, or I should say we, we had our first terrifying French experience. At the cafeteria. We had no idea how anything worked and all got yelled at in French multiple times. Live and burn. And we did, we never ever made the same mistake twice.
I always forget how beautiful Paris truly is. Pictures don't do it any justice. (speaking of pictures, I will try to upload some after I finish writing) Every single detail is beautiful. The cobblestone streets, lovely. The details of the sculptures and corners of every building are gorgeous. I couldn't help but be in awe every time I turned my head. Le Tour Eiffel still amazes me after multiple times of seeing it.
Le jour prochain, I woke up at the early time of 545am, but ironically I couldn't sleep anyway, so I didn't even need an alarm clock. A group of us left for the airport around 7 and you will never believe what we did at the train station. We waited! Finally, a small portion of our group was called to walk through the station and board the train that would bring us to our new homes. My name was not called, so I stayed behind with a few others. One of these people was Anna, from Budapest. We started talking and bonded over the fact that in French our names were the same. Half an hour later my liason rushed up to me and asked which family I was staying with. I quickly replied "Beuchene" and she immediately turned sheet white. "your train leaves in one minute" she said in a thick French accent. Shit. So, we ran, and I mean ran through the airport with my two extraordinarily heavy suitcases. I haven't worked out, well to be honest, in a long, long time. I though i was going to fall over. My legs felt like jello. All I wanted to do was walk and then POOF, my train magically appeared, Harry Potter style (ish). I jumped on as quickly as I could and before I could even say uncle, we were moving.
According to my infamous name tag, I was in car 4. I had hoped onto car 1, so I lugged, with much difficulties and many 'excuse-moi monsieur et madame's my suitcases, which at this pointed, I wanted to throw out of the train, to car 4. I saw my friends and waved hello asking for my passport and train ticket, which I was told one of them would have. And indeed one of them had a passport and train ticket, a Hungarian passport. Cool. So, at this point I pretty much started flipping out, but everyone calmed me down and told me it would be fine, so I sat down and closed my eyes. At this point I started picturing all those scenes from movies where people don't have tickets and the train goes to a creaking stop in the middle of no where and the people are thrown out by their ear. So, you can imagine what a calm and happy mood I was in when the ticket person came to my seat. I nervously asked him, en Francais, (just to be sure) if this train, did in fact, go to Chateauroux. "Oui, bien sur' he replied in a very deep voice, lowering his eyebrows and taking the ticket from my hands, that I had reluctantly been holding on to. He clicked it and all was well.
I got off at Chateauroux and after twenty minutes became un peau confused parce que Pierre-Yves et Carol were no where to be seen. I bought un telecarte card and tried to call them from the pay phones but there was just a lot of beeping and a French operator speaking very quickly. After taking about five minutes to summon up some courage I walked over to a friendly-enough looking French man, and in what I can only imagine sounded like jibberish, I asked him to si'l vous plait aider moi avec le telephone. Another man overheard and called Pierre-Yves number on his cell phone, the number was out of service. At this point I had been waiting for about two hours, so, I jumped into a taxi and handed the driver l'address. The house was only a few minutes away from the train station. I rang the doorbell a few times and knocked, but no one answered. Luckily I had asked the cab to wait and so I jumped back in and went back to the train station. I decided to patiently wait, so I watched Glee on my laptop and ate my lunch and just as I was about to start stressing again, a very nice man, who new my name and had my AFS application appeared.
This man was one of Pierre-Yves very good friend and explained the whole situation to me. Everyone had gone to pick up the other Anna multiple towns over and they would be back in a few hours and everything would be fixed. In the meantime we drove a few miles outside of Chateauroux to his farm where he gave me a place to sleep for an hour and then we got back in the car and drove to my new home, where everyone was waiting. It was a very happy reunion/meeting. They showed me to my room on the third floor. It is tres adorable. I immediately fell asleep and woke up at seven, just in time for dinner. Dinner was pasta and creme fresh, which erased the negative day. There is nothing like delicious pasta to cheer me up.
Everyone is extremely nice and tres gentil. I am getting very tired at the moment, but I promise to bring more details soon. About my first day of school, which was this morning and about bonding with the girls over lady gaga!! Bon nuit <3 <3
I always forget how beautiful Paris truly is. Pictures don't do it any justice. (speaking of pictures, I will try to upload some after I finish writing) Every single detail is beautiful. The cobblestone streets, lovely. The details of the sculptures and corners of every building are gorgeous. I couldn't help but be in awe every time I turned my head. Le Tour Eiffel still amazes me after multiple times of seeing it.
Le jour prochain, I woke up at the early time of 545am, but ironically I couldn't sleep anyway, so I didn't even need an alarm clock. A group of us left for the airport around 7 and you will never believe what we did at the train station. We waited! Finally, a small portion of our group was called to walk through the station and board the train that would bring us to our new homes. My name was not called, so I stayed behind with a few others. One of these people was Anna, from Budapest. We started talking and bonded over the fact that in French our names were the same. Half an hour later my liason rushed up to me and asked which family I was staying with. I quickly replied "Beuchene" and she immediately turned sheet white. "your train leaves in one minute" she said in a thick French accent. Shit. So, we ran, and I mean ran through the airport with my two extraordinarily heavy suitcases. I haven't worked out, well to be honest, in a long, long time. I though i was going to fall over. My legs felt like jello. All I wanted to do was walk and then POOF, my train magically appeared, Harry Potter style (ish). I jumped on as quickly as I could and before I could even say uncle, we were moving.
According to my infamous name tag, I was in car 4. I had hoped onto car 1, so I lugged, with much difficulties and many 'excuse-moi monsieur et madame's my suitcases, which at this pointed, I wanted to throw out of the train, to car 4. I saw my friends and waved hello asking for my passport and train ticket, which I was told one of them would have. And indeed one of them had a passport and train ticket, a Hungarian passport. Cool. So, at this point I pretty much started flipping out, but everyone calmed me down and told me it would be fine, so I sat down and closed my eyes. At this point I started picturing all those scenes from movies where people don't have tickets and the train goes to a creaking stop in the middle of no where and the people are thrown out by their ear. So, you can imagine what a calm and happy mood I was in when the ticket person came to my seat. I nervously asked him, en Francais, (just to be sure) if this train, did in fact, go to Chateauroux. "Oui, bien sur' he replied in a very deep voice, lowering his eyebrows and taking the ticket from my hands, that I had reluctantly been holding on to. He clicked it and all was well.
I got off at Chateauroux and after twenty minutes became un peau confused parce que Pierre-Yves et Carol were no where to be seen. I bought un telecarte card and tried to call them from the pay phones but there was just a lot of beeping and a French operator speaking very quickly. After taking about five minutes to summon up some courage I walked over to a friendly-enough looking French man, and in what I can only imagine sounded like jibberish, I asked him to si'l vous plait aider moi avec le telephone. Another man overheard and called Pierre-Yves number on his cell phone, the number was out of service. At this point I had been waiting for about two hours, so, I jumped into a taxi and handed the driver l'address. The house was only a few minutes away from the train station. I rang the doorbell a few times and knocked, but no one answered. Luckily I had asked the cab to wait and so I jumped back in and went back to the train station. I decided to patiently wait, so I watched Glee on my laptop and ate my lunch and just as I was about to start stressing again, a very nice man, who new my name and had my AFS application appeared.
This man was one of Pierre-Yves very good friend and explained the whole situation to me. Everyone had gone to pick up the other Anna multiple towns over and they would be back in a few hours and everything would be fixed. In the meantime we drove a few miles outside of Chateauroux to his farm where he gave me a place to sleep for an hour and then we got back in the car and drove to my new home, where everyone was waiting. It was a very happy reunion/meeting. They showed me to my room on the third floor. It is tres adorable. I immediately fell asleep and woke up at seven, just in time for dinner. Dinner was pasta and creme fresh, which erased the negative day. There is nothing like delicious pasta to cheer me up.
Everyone is extremely nice and tres gentil. I am getting very tired at the moment, but I promise to bring more details soon. About my first day of school, which was this morning and about bonding with the girls over lady gaga!! Bon nuit <3 <3
Le Transition :)
Right now I am over the Atlantic Ocean!! Ah!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I will never ever be able to fly another airline, other than Air France, with out crying. Everyone has their own individual tvs, there’s a mini bar in the back, there’s foot room, we get a four course dinner, oh and did I mention it’s double decker and I’m on the second floor?!? I really should be sleeping right now, in France it is around 600am, we are landing at 830am and I haven’t slept this entire flight. I am so unbelievably excited. When we got on the plane I couldn’t stop fidgeting I was so happy. I spoke to my seat neighbors in French and was from that point on super excited. I have come to the realization that I am really not that great at French and so I will need to put a lot of effort into it, which is fine by me.
Orientation, although quite repetitive, was an extremely nice and helpful transition period. It was so amazing to be around people that had the same feelings of excitement and anxiousness. It was so cool to hear about all the different places people were living and all about their families. My hotel roommate, Nicolette, is living very close to Germany in a town of 250 people and parents that have a one-year-old daughter! Wow. I have met so many interesting and wonderful people. I hope I will be able to keep in touch with them and hear about their experiences.
Oh my!! I completely forgot to talk about where I’m living! Sorry about that. I was truly just notified a few days ago. I will be living in a town of around 50,000 people, Chateauroux. It is only two hours south of Paris! Very exciting. My host father, Pierre-Yves speaks some English, and everyone else in the family, Carole, the mom, and Lola, Luanne, Malou, my three younger host sisters, all only speak French. Although it might be a little challenging, I am happy that it will push me to use French all the time and expand my vocabulary enormously. I can’t wait to meet them, but I’m really nervous to meet them. I’m afraid they will have high expectations of me that I will not be able to meet right away, but I’m still in phase where I have a smile on my face no matter what.
Once we land in Paris (Charles de Gaul), we will have more orientation with AFS-FRANCE, and will be spending the next few nights in a hostile. That will be a new experience for me. I can’t imagine what it will be like with fifty other exchange students. Tomorrow we will spend the day touring Paris!! And the day after that we meet our host families! It is all happening so fast, my brain can hardly catch up. Okay time to get some sleep. Bon nuit!!
(written on the plane to France)
Orientation, although quite repetitive, was an extremely nice and helpful transition period. It was so amazing to be around people that had the same feelings of excitement and anxiousness. It was so cool to hear about all the different places people were living and all about their families. My hotel roommate, Nicolette, is living very close to Germany in a town of 250 people and parents that have a one-year-old daughter! Wow. I have met so many interesting and wonderful people. I hope I will be able to keep in touch with them and hear about their experiences.
Oh my!! I completely forgot to talk about where I’m living! Sorry about that. I was truly just notified a few days ago. I will be living in a town of around 50,000 people, Chateauroux. It is only two hours south of Paris! Very exciting. My host father, Pierre-Yves speaks some English, and everyone else in the family, Carole, the mom, and Lola, Luanne, Malou, my three younger host sisters, all only speak French. Although it might be a little challenging, I am happy that it will push me to use French all the time and expand my vocabulary enormously. I can’t wait to meet them, but I’m really nervous to meet them. I’m afraid they will have high expectations of me that I will not be able to meet right away, but I’m still in phase where I have a smile on my face no matter what.
Once we land in Paris (Charles de Gaul), we will have more orientation with AFS-FRANCE, and will be spending the next few nights in a hostile. That will be a new experience for me. I can’t imagine what it will be like with fifty other exchange students. Tomorrow we will spend the day touring Paris!! And the day after that we meet our host families! It is all happening so fast, my brain can hardly catch up. Okay time to get some sleep. Bon nuit!!
(written on the plane to France)
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Chapter 1!!
So, first blog entry. pressures really on now!! I apologize for the delay in starting it, but these past few days have been craaazy. I want to thank everyone for all of the wonderful letters and supportive words. It has made leaving for what is to be a very challenging, yet wonderful, adventure, much easier. I know that when I come into tough situations, I can always look back at those letters and know that I can push through.
Packing. An unbelievable pain in the butt. I have always loved packing. When camp came around packing was the first thing I would do. Checking off clothes on the list was my favorite thing to do. Super exciting. But this time it just would not end. So much to do. So much to pack. And no checklist. Oh well. The hard part is over. . . You know, ish.
Today I woke up at 4:30am in order to shower, finish packing, and make an 8:15 flight. My mom was stressed as could be as my dad and I joked about how quickly we could get to the airport. '45 minutes' I said. My dad replied 'I bet I can do it in 40'. We start chuckling as my mom inhales deeply and leaves the room. Everything was moving in slow motion. On the drive to ABQ I had an extremely hard falling asleep, even though I had only managed to wiggle in two hours of sleep the night before. The stress was finally starting to hit me and, ironically, my mom was finally quite content. At the airport we learned that parents were not allowed past security, and having assumed my parents would be able to walk me to the gate, this was a little shocking.
The moment I gave them the last hugs and started walking through the maze of security ropes, it finally hit me. I was on my own (kinda). I was leaving for ten whole months. I was going to be living in a foreign country. Awesome. And a little scary, I have to admit. My legs started to weaken and felt like I might fall over, so I held my self up straight and tried to pull off a very confident and self assured walk. I'm still not sure if that is how I came off, but I definitely fooled myself (ish). I made it through security alive and boarded the plane a mere five minutes later. No time for breakfast, but I was too nervous to eat anyway. On the plane I re-met another AFSer, Connor. She was going to Spain. So, for the rest of the day we were airport buddies, which was really nice.
We got on the plane to New York, but soon found out that the brakes were not working, so we would be waiting for the mechanic to come and fix them. Lovely. I must have dozed off because when I woke, a few hours later, we were back on the ground! Yay! I slept through the whole flight. Not really. We still hadn't left our original departure gate. Damn. Sooner or later, we took off and back to sleep I went. An AFS staff member met us at our baggage claim and took us to a cab and we arrived at the double tree hotel at about 7:00pm. Right in time for the end of dinner.
I was quite frazzled at the point. My nerves, exhaustion, and hunger really getting to me. We registered, got our room keys along with many other papers and handouts. My hands were full with two suitcases and a heavy purse. Trying to figure out how to get all my stuff together, I forgot which room I was in. When I arrived to the 6th floor, hauling seventy or so pounds of luggage, I had no idea which way to go. So, I lugged all my crap back down stairs and asked, a little embarrassed, if she could please repeat my room number. She then pointed out that my room number was indeed written on my name card. Oh. I dropped my stuff off in my room and raced down to dinner. Every table was full, and I soon learned people were sitting with their group leaders, assigned earlier and by country. I asked a few tables whether they were France or what not. But the ones that were, were full. There was a table in the back with about five people, so I walked towards it and asked if I could sit with them. They eagerly nodded and said it would be fine. So for the next fifteen minutes I learned all about Switzerland!! It was actually quite fascinating and everyone was really nice.
After dinner, I found out my group leader and headed her way and found myself in a group with more very sweet people. I love that. Everyone is so excited to meet one another and learn about where each person is going, where they're from and their new host families. I spent the next few hours playing cards, meeting new people, and getting more and more excited. Tomorrow afternoon I am off to Paris!! Here I go!!!!!
Packing. An unbelievable pain in the butt. I have always loved packing. When camp came around packing was the first thing I would do. Checking off clothes on the list was my favorite thing to do. Super exciting. But this time it just would not end. So much to do. So much to pack. And no checklist. Oh well. The hard part is over. . . You know, ish.
Today I woke up at 4:30am in order to shower, finish packing, and make an 8:15 flight. My mom was stressed as could be as my dad and I joked about how quickly we could get to the airport. '45 minutes' I said. My dad replied 'I bet I can do it in 40'. We start chuckling as my mom inhales deeply and leaves the room. Everything was moving in slow motion. On the drive to ABQ I had an extremely hard falling asleep, even though I had only managed to wiggle in two hours of sleep the night before. The stress was finally starting to hit me and, ironically, my mom was finally quite content. At the airport we learned that parents were not allowed past security, and having assumed my parents would be able to walk me to the gate, this was a little shocking.
The moment I gave them the last hugs and started walking through the maze of security ropes, it finally hit me. I was on my own (kinda). I was leaving for ten whole months. I was going to be living in a foreign country. Awesome. And a little scary, I have to admit. My legs started to weaken and felt like I might fall over, so I held my self up straight and tried to pull off a very confident and self assured walk. I'm still not sure if that is how I came off, but I definitely fooled myself (ish). I made it through security alive and boarded the plane a mere five minutes later. No time for breakfast, but I was too nervous to eat anyway. On the plane I re-met another AFSer, Connor. She was going to Spain. So, for the rest of the day we were airport buddies, which was really nice.
We got on the plane to New York, but soon found out that the brakes were not working, so we would be waiting for the mechanic to come and fix them. Lovely. I must have dozed off because when I woke, a few hours later, we were back on the ground! Yay! I slept through the whole flight. Not really. We still hadn't left our original departure gate. Damn. Sooner or later, we took off and back to sleep I went. An AFS staff member met us at our baggage claim and took us to a cab and we arrived at the double tree hotel at about 7:00pm. Right in time for the end of dinner.
I was quite frazzled at the point. My nerves, exhaustion, and hunger really getting to me. We registered, got our room keys along with many other papers and handouts. My hands were full with two suitcases and a heavy purse. Trying to figure out how to get all my stuff together, I forgot which room I was in. When I arrived to the 6th floor, hauling seventy or so pounds of luggage, I had no idea which way to go. So, I lugged all my crap back down stairs and asked, a little embarrassed, if she could please repeat my room number. She then pointed out that my room number was indeed written on my name card. Oh. I dropped my stuff off in my room and raced down to dinner. Every table was full, and I soon learned people were sitting with their group leaders, assigned earlier and by country. I asked a few tables whether they were France or what not. But the ones that were, were full. There was a table in the back with about five people, so I walked towards it and asked if I could sit with them. They eagerly nodded and said it would be fine. So for the next fifteen minutes I learned all about Switzerland!! It was actually quite fascinating and everyone was really nice.
After dinner, I found out my group leader and headed her way and found myself in a group with more very sweet people. I love that. Everyone is so excited to meet one another and learn about where each person is going, where they're from and their new host families. I spent the next few hours playing cards, meeting new people, and getting more and more excited. Tomorrow afternoon I am off to Paris!! Here I go!!!!!
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