The List

So during my visit here, I have, obviously, noticed a few differences between the U.S. and France (or Europe in general). My friends and I sit around at lunch time and over the weekends discussing all the “weird” things the French people do or have or say or eat or whatever. And I have confirmed most of these observations with my friends so that I am sure these things are not particular to the family I live with. So I have tried to compile a list for you of all the things that I’ve noticed. It has been difficult to get all this from my eyes to my head to thoughts to words to paper to internet. I hope you find this enlightening.

1.First, and probably foremost, everything here is smaller, except maybe the household fruit platter and the refrigerator’s stock of yogurt (though the refrigerator is smaller). The cars, the buildings, the meals, everything. The glasses that we use for meals are about the size of the juice glasses that everyone in the states uses. I don’t know how French people don’t die of dehydration. The other day, my family’s fridge broke, so they had to get a new one. Their new one is bigger than the old one. Their daughter pointed it out and said, “Look, we have an American fridge.” I told her it was still smaller than fridges in America. She found it astounding that a normal fridge in the U.S. could possibly be bigger than their new monstrous fridge.

2.Cars. Hardly anybody drives an SUV. And if they do, it’s a relatively small one. And 90% of the cars in France are hatchbacks. Many people drive diesel fuel cars. Most families also have scooters (mopeds, but they don’t call them that). Scooters come in quite a variety. The family I live with has one car, which is driven to work by Mme. Gendre. M. Gendre goes to work on a scooter that’s not much less than motorcycle. (I still find it amusing to see men in business suits or women in heels riding mopeds or bikes to work.) Their daughter has a mobylette, which is not much more than a bicycle with a motor. Lots of people walk and take bikes to places. Traffic comes in all forms.


3.Milk. I could probably dedicate an entire post to the milk situation here. Where to begin. Okay, I’ll create a beginning. The sterilization of milk here is different (something about really high temperatures, but I don’t know anything about the sterilization of milk in the U.S., so I can’t give a better explanation). It is sterilized in way that allows it to stay good for a much longer time. And as far as I have seen, they don’t have different fat percentages (no skim, 2%, whole, etc.). It’s all the same. And it all tastes like half-and-half. Anyways, milk comes in liters (not gallons, but I knew it’d be like that since they don’t even have gallons in the metric system), either bottles or boxes. At the store, you buy a six-pack (non-refrigerated) of these one liter containers of milk. My family puts one or two in the fridge to have over the next few days and stores the rest of the in a basket sitting next to the fridge. My friends have told me that their families don’t store any of it in the fridge (which isn’t all that cold to begin with). Whether or not they are in the process of drinking it, it goes in the cabinet (supposedly it can stay good for up to 3 months or something like that). So milk is always lukewarm. Our professor told us that French people don’t like to drink their milk très cold because it hurts their stomachs (please go ahead and imagine me rolling my eyes, because that’s what I did when she told us this in class). Anyways, on to the use of said lukewarm milk. French people, as far as I have observed, don’t drink milk. They put it on their cereal and in their tea and coffee. They don’t just have a glass of milk. I don’t know how many of you know me and my affinity for milk, but I can go through a gallon of milk in 3 or 4 days by myself, and it only takes me that long because I ration myself. If I drank milk the way I would like to, I would go through an entire bottle or box in one day. I think I may come home with osteoporosis. So after a few weeks of being cruelly deprived of milk, my professor bought me a six pack of my very own that I can keep in the teacher’s lounge at school and drink during the day with my snacks. Chouette! I was very grateful, though my stomach is still trying to readjust to the dairy that it got used to not having regularly. Yeah, that should’ve been its own post.

4.I would like everyone to imagine the typical hobo/beggar in Atlanta or some other American city. Mostly kinda crazy. Doesn’t usually bug you too much. You feel bad for some of them. Maybe you give them something to eat or some change. Those of you who went to Paris with me, please recall those beggars. Most of them were old. Many were missing limbs or eyeballs or something. They did it right, man. They knew how to make you feel sorry for them. How could you not give a little change to an 80-year-old woman with nubs for legs? Let me describe for you the beggars in Toulouse. They range from about 20 to 50 (a perfectly reasonable working age range in my opinion). They are almost always in one piece (also perfectly reasonable working condition). They don’t seem particularly mentally unstable or emaciated or dirty or anything. So I’m not sure what the problem is. It’s hard to feel sorry for someone who appears perfectly capable of working and who seems to have no problem getting fed. Many of them have dogs too. Maybe it’s part of their tactic to get you to feel sorry for them, but it doesn’t work very well. And a lot of them are friends with each other. There are a few women who hang around the same area everyday trying to look pitiful. One day I saw all three of them walking down the street together, all with identical bags from the same store down the street. Seems to me that they are doing fine on their own and don’t need any of my spare change.

5.French people consume bread like it’s air (more evidence in favor of my theory that carbs are not what makes you fat). And not any kind of bread. Baguettes. They are everywhere. And they are all the same. You get it in restaurants, at home, for breakfast, for lunch and dinner, for snacks. Women walk around with them sticking out of their purses. One of the guys in my group got drunk one night, stumbled home, and woke up the next morning to find a huge chunk of baguette stuck to his shoe like toilet paper. And it is very difficult to find any other kind of bread. Wheat bread is nearly nonexistent. I sometimes wonder if the French people have any idea what they are missing out on by limiting the range of bread that they eat. I am hard-pressed to think that they would continue this silly baguette nonsense if they had one roll from O’Charley’s. And baguettes are hard. They’re difficult to eat. The first week here, I had a toothache that was severely bothered by the ridiculously hard bread. The only thing that I really do like baguettes for is breakfast. Saw off a chunk, saw it in half, toast it, put butter and a little bit of jelly on it (and I don’t even normally like jelly!), and you’ve got quite an enjoyable little breakfast meal (that and a bowl of cereal in order to get at least a little bit of milk in my diet). They even have a baguette setting on their toaster. It makes the toaster a little wider so that the baguette doesn’t get stuck (I, of course, was not told this until I did get my baguette stuck in the toaster). I think that the day I return I will go to the store and buy an entire package of King’s Hawaiian rolls.

6.Utensils are a little different. Spoons are ridiculously small. It takes about twice as long to eat a bowl of cereal with those tiny little spoons. And knives aren’t much in the way of knives. They are more like slabs of metal without a distinct blade, making cutting meat and fruit quite difficult. I think I make a fool out of myself anytime we have fruit. Because, of course, they don’t just pick up a piece of fruit and eat it with their hands. They always cut it into pieces to be eaten. I don’t get it. The peaches we have at dinner would be a million times easier to eat if I could just bite into it.

7.Mexican food does not exist in France. If I were to have had one meal in the U.S. before I left, I would have had Mexican food for the mere reason that I can’t here. One day at a boulangerie, I saw a sign for a quesadilla with guacamole. There’s not much in this world that is better than a quesadilla with guacamole. Cheese is only the most amazing food in the world and guacamole is not too far behind it in line. So, naturally, I ordered this quesadilla. Imagine my disappointment when it was, by no means, a quesadilla. First of all, there was no cheese in it. Last time I checked “queso” means cheese in Spanish, and a quesadilla, by the laws of physics, must have cheese. But it didn’t. It had an egg (as if that made up for it). The guacamole was a small lump of green mush absolutely unidentifiable as guacamole. It didn’t taste anything like it. And there was barely any of it. And then this quesadilla was not flat. It was wrapped up into a tube. And it had turkey or chicken (deli meat style) in it. So basically I had a wrap for lunch. It, in no way, resembled a quesadilla. Highly disappointing.

8.Toilets are an interesting concept here, especially public ones. You often have to pay for them unless they are in a restaurant or museum in which you have already paid to be there. They are also often co-ed, but that doesn’t bother me a whole lot, it just startles me a little to see a man in what I have thought to be the women’s restroom. And many public toilets do not have toilet seats or toilet paper. I inquired aloud as to why there are no toilet seats. One of my friends said it was probably to discourage people from pooping in public toilets. Soap and/or paper towels are also a precious commodity. I feel that if I pay to use the bathroom I have the right to sit my butt down on a toilet seat, poop if I feel so inclined, pipe myself with toilet paper, and clean and dry my hands with soap and paper towels or an electric hand dryer (that actually works). I feel that I have paid for that right. The French feel differently. They feel you have paid for the right to hover over a bowl, drip dry, rinse your hands with cold water and shake them dry. My favorite public bathrooms are the shower stall things. There is a hole in the ground about 8 inches or so in diameter, places for you to put your feet so they won’t slip, and handles on the wall. You are supposed to place your feet in the special spots, hang on to the handles, lean back and hover over the hole and somehow aim your pee to land in this hole. It’s ridiculous. I won’t do it. My friends and I plan our day so that we end up places with bathrooms that we can use for free. Often times we also go even if we don’t have to for fear of having to find a public restroom and hour later. (“Okay, we’ll eat lunch first and we can use that bathroom. Then we’ll go to the museum where there will probably be a bathroom for us. Then we can go back by the hotel before dinner, and we can go to the bathroom there before we leave.”) And, in all toilets, there is not much water. So whatever falls out of you has a lot of time to fall and gather speed. This makes for slightly embarrassing situations occasionally. And there is no uniform flush handle. It is different everywhere you go. Sometimes it’s a big button on the wall; sometimes a chain to pull; sometimes this weird double button thing in the top of the toilet (which apparently allows you to have two different levels of water flow); sometimes a button that you have to pull up on. Quite varied. In general, it is a miracle to have a lock on the door, a toilet seat, toilet paper, warm water, soap, AND paper towels all in one bathroom. As you can imagine, using the bathroom is always an adventure, though not one I particularly enjoy going through on a regular basis.

9.During mass, they say the short creed instead of the long one, at least at the church in Toulouse that I’ve gone to. Maybe it’s not like that everywhere.

10.Whether I’m in Toulouse or some other city, at the end of the day, my feet are filthy. I wear flip-flops everyday, but I don’t ever walk around barefoot. Still my feet are perpetually dirty. When I get back, it’ll take a week to scrub off all the grime and get my feet back into the immaculate condition they were in before coming to Europe.

11.Upon mentioning that I am from the U.S., many people immediately ask about California. I have to inform them that I am from Georgia, which is quite far away from California. Sometimes they ask about Canada. Again I tell them that Georgia is very far away from Canada. Once, at that party I went to, I told a guy I was from the state, and he immediately started talking about Arnold Schwarzenegger and some movie I had never seen before. Of course, it took me a long time to figure out who he was talking about because he was saying Schwarzenegger very strangely. My friend Mandy lives with a family who seems to think Americans are a big joke. Anytime she mentions anything about the U.S., their general response is, “Maybe that’s why all Americans are fat.” And it’s often a silly notion. Either way, it seems that we are making a great impression of the rest of the world.

12.There are not a lot of outlets in a single room. Maybe only one or two. At home it’s not a problem because I only have one adaptor. But during class, when everybody wants to plug in their computer, it becomes a little bit of a problem. And sometimes there is something in the outlet that covers the holes and won’t allow you to plug anything in. I have no idea what’s up with that. But it proved to be a pain in the butt the other day when I need to plug in my computer.

13.There are a lot of dogs in France. They seem to be generally better natured than their American counterparts. And most places are pretty tolerant of dogs. I’ve seen them in restaurants, stores, on the trains, etc. The problem with so many dogs is that there is dog crap everywhere. It’s all over the sidewalks, and I spend most of my voyages dodging dog crap. If they even have a “Do your doodie” law, it’s certainly badly enforced.

14.Everyone asks or mentions the topless beaches upon hearing that I am in or would be traveling to Europe. Most of the time people said, “Oh, nudity is different in Europe. There’s nothing sexual about the topless beaches. Everyone is much more tolerant of nudity.” Let’s start with “topless beaches”. There are no “topless beaches”. There are beaches. And there are Europeans. Which means that there are beaches with topless Europeans everywhere. Beaches are not designated one or the other. And the earlier comment about nudity less sexual. That statement is completely limited to the beach (where it is truly not a sexual thing). But Europe is more open about nudity, and it is very sexual. Ladies, I would like you all to think about all those times you stand in line at the store, looking at the magazines covered in pictures of beautiful women and celebrities. Please recall how this usually makes you feel pretty bad about yourself. Well now remove their clothes. Congratulations. You’re in Europe. Not a day goes by that I don’t see pictures of nude people. Excuse me, let me clarify, nude women. The only nude men I’ve seen were the Greco-Roman statues in the museum we went to. All the nude pictures are of women (coincidentally, all with big boobs). If I ever walk up to a magazine stand or go into a magazine and book store in a train station or something, I sometimes wonder if I accidentally stumbled into a porn shop. It’s everywhere. And it’s very sexual. If anyone tells you otherwise, they are lying out of their butt hole.

15.So America makes better movies than everybody else (for the most part at least). And people in other countries love to watch our movies, but in their own language of course. But instead of using subtitles, they dub over the voices with different voices in the country’s respective language. Well, France is no exception. They do it with all the movies and TV shows (like Friends). I don’t know about you guys, but that would drive me nuts. I would rather have subtitles that I have to read than have to listen to dubbed voices. The voices never match up quite right to the characters and, obviously, the words don’t match the lips. It makes me wonder if the French people ever get tired of this discombobulation of entertainment. I would hate it. I guess I should be thankful to the U.S. for something.

16.PDA runs rampant here in France. Couples feel the need to hang around the bus stops, buses, metros, and many other public arenas professing their love very physically. I’m a little tired of watching couples making out everywhere. And it’s not just teenagers. It’s everybody of all ages. I guess I have to hand it to the French for living up to their romantic and passionate stereotype.

17.Before leaving for France, I was told that I should use my credit card as much as possible because it would get the best exchange rate. I was told that, in general, I wouldn’t need much cash and that most places accept credit cards. So that was m general plan. Unfortunately, nobody bothered to let us know that most of the places you go on a daily basis do not accept credit cards. The vast majority of boulangeries, patisseries, sandwicheries, restaurants, etc. only take cash. Meaning that I often had to make trips to the ATM for cash. And they also don’t like to accept big bills. And by big bills, I mean anything bigger than a ten. I think if it was up to France, all money amounts would be in the form of a coin. They would love to be able to pay for everything in one and two euro pieces. Americans generally don’t like to carry change. They would rather bills. France (and most of Europe I believe) would rather coins and no bills. Additionally, all French people have a “carte bleue”, which is a kind of credit card thing that comes with a PIN. I think it makes everything easier for them, but a pain in the butt for me. There are a lot of places that accept this “carte bleue” but not regular credit cards. A lot of money borrowing and “covering” went on when we found ourselves in sticky situations of needing cash and not having it. Generally, it was not as easy as the study abroad information people made it sound.

18.Adding –erie to the end of any word makes it a shop/restaurant for that thing. Examples: boulangerie, pâtisserie, sandwicherie, chocolaterie, saladerie, crêperie, papeterie, viennoiserie, librairie, brasserie. I’m sure there are many more that I just can’t think of right now. And you can always make up new ones. I’m sure a shop for suitcases could be called a “valiserie” if the owner so chose so. And here are the translations for you (in case you couldn’t figure them out), respectively. A store for: bread, pastries, sandwiches, chocolate, salads, crêpes, paper supplies, drinks (cocktails), books, bar/restaurant (I’m not sure of a good translation for this one; it was usually a bar and restaurant combination thing).

19.The atmosphere in restaurants is generally more relaxed and laid back. In most cities, there are restaurants and cafés everywhere. You walk up, tell them how many people you have in your group, and they either tell you to sit anywhere you feel like (if the place isn’t too crowded) or set up a table for you. There is no hostess with a seating chart or anything silly like that. There is no line outside the door while people wait for a table to be empty. If a restaurant appears to be full, people just move along to the next one. After eating, there’s no rush for the check. They only bring it once you have asked for it. You can sit around and socialize for as long as you feel. And they don’t split the check for you. Most of the time people just pay their part of the check or their fraction of the check (1/4 if there are 4 people, for example). And tipping is not customary in France (or in Spain), and unfortunately customer service is not particularly customary in return. But overall it’s more relaxed. There’s no rush to get out for the next people who are standing in line or anything. It’s kinda nice.

Vive la France!

This past weekend was my last full weekend. Everyone in the group kinda split up to do their own thing. I planned to meet up somewhere near Nice with Lexi. She and her family take a big vacation every year, usually to Europe. Her parents used to live in Europe, so they love it here and return whenever they can. Plus, Lexi’s mom speaks French fluently. So, via email, she informed me that she would be in Cannes (as in the Cannes Film Festival) on Saturday sometime after leaving Italy. I went ahead and bought a train ticket to go on Friday evening and come back late Sunday night. Thursday before I left, I decided to go see Harry Potter. Ludivine had told me that the movie was in English with French subtitles. But, of course, I forgot to ask her which theater had it in English. So I just bought tickets at the theater near my bus stop. So upon arriving to the movie and sitting through the previews (in French), I began to worry that I had screwed up and that the movie was actually going to be in French. Alas, ‘twas so. So I watched the new Harry Potter movie that I was so excited to see in French. Which means I missed all the jokes and much of the sentiment. I understood the movie overall since I’ve read the book (twice I think). But I missed a dialogue. Generally, since I can’t actually think in French yet, I would try to translate a sentence, then I’d miss a sentence, and back and forth it went. And I wasn’t able to translate all of the sentences that I attempted to translate. Hence, my Harry Potter movie experience was not nearly as fulfilling as it should have been. So I plan on seeing it again when I get home.

So I left Friday morning not too long after my French family left for a two week vacation. That’s right. I’m living by myself in France for the last week. I was sad that they were leaving, though, because I was finally getting better at being able to carry on a conversation. Anyways, they left for Spain Friday morning a little bit before I left for Cannes. I took my 6 hour train to Cannes, keeping my backpack at my feet. Since I’m generally paranoid about getting my stuff stolen, I never put it on the luggage racks. On this particular trip, my paranoia earned me some dirty looks from the lady sitting across from me, since my bag was at her feet as well as mine. But I chose not having my stuff stolen over being polite to the random French lady. I eventually got to Cannes, where I promptly found my hotel and checked in (and pleased to find that I had internet in my room). Being that it was about 8:00, I set out in search for a restaurant for dinner.

I eventually found a little open porch type place next to the beach and decided that would be a nice place to eat. I walked up to a waitress and told her one person (as that is what you usually do in French restaurants, and they usually just point to the tables and tell you to pick something). Well, in response, the waitress asked me a question in French. I thought she asked me if I wanted to sit down inside, so I said yes. She indicated the tables as they often do in French restaurants. I picked a table, and the waitress promptly brought me a beer and no menu. I was pretty confused at this point considering I had never ordered a beer, don’t remember hearing the waitress ask if I wanted one, and I was hungry and wanted to eat. I decided to politely drink my beer (even though I don’t really like beer), and wait for her to bring me the menu. Instead, she brought me the check for the beer I never ordered. I began thinking that I may have accidentally walked into a beach bar that didn’t even serve food until I saw the couple at the next table receive their food order. Finally, I asked the waitress for a menu. She gave me a funny look, as if this was a weird request, but brought me a menu anyways. From this point on, some other guy became my waiter (which is common in France; since there is no tipping, somebody just serves you, nobody specific). He kept speaking to me in English even though I kept trying to speak to him in French. I guess we both just wanted to practice, but the other was not cooperating. Anyways, I ordered something that sounded good (and it was in English, so I did recognize what I was ordering). But what I was served was not what I had been expecting. There were very thin pieces of steak that looked as though they had not been cooked at all. On the steak were mushrooms, olive oil, and parmesan cheese. Raw meat, mushrooms, and olive oil don’t have much flavor on their own, so all the flavor was in the cheese. It was strange. Plus, I was still trying to finish this beer that I didn’t want and only drank because I was getting charged for it and I knew they would bring me water when I finished. Overall, not a successful dining experience. But oh well.

Anyways, I got up the next day, Bastille Day, and took my time getting ready. Eventually I got myself out the door. I got some food and went shopping but didn’t buy anything as I often was drawn to the kind of stores that I definitely could not afford. Later, I made use of the internet in my room and read my book for a little while. Mostly passing time until Lexi got into town. Eventually, early in the evening, she called to let me know that she had reached Cannes. We made plans to meet on a corner near my hotel so that we could go to dinner together. Unfortunately, nobody anticipated the traffic horror that was Bastille Day (it was probably only as bad as normal Connector traffic in Atlanta, but this is Europe, so that’s a little unusual). So I was waiting on the corner for almost an hour (finding myself silently thanking cell phone companies for the ingenious idea of putting games on your cell phone) when Lexi’s mom finally called me from a phone booth a few blocks away. So after a little confusion that eventually involved me running after their car, I caught up with them so that we could finally eat. Since Lexi and her family go to this part of Europe often, they have favorite dives where they like to eat and hang out. So Mrs. Nichols had a place in mind where she wanted to go to eat moules-frites, mussels with fries. But apparently the place had disappeared (which is fairly uncommon for Europe). So we picked some other place that said they had moules-frites, and we sat and ate and watched fireworks going off over the sea. It was nice, but afterwards, we had to battle the traffic again, putting us at home pretty late.

The next day I met up with Lexi and her family again. We drove to Èze, a little city close to both Cannes and Nice. Like many little cities, Èze had a little medieval castle and village on a hill overlooking the sea. We ate lunch there and walked around the village looking in the little shops and stuff. Afterwards, we drove down toward the water. Everybody (except Lexi’s dad) went for a run (along the coast of the sea; it was pretty amazing), and we met up again afterwards so that we could go swimming in the beautiful Mediterranean Sea. We went to a little area that Lexi and I had seen during our run that looked to have nice water and not a lot of people. The Nichols had brought their snorkeling gear with them (and apparently go snorkeling everyday while they are here; I’m so jealous). So we went in the water with the masks and flippers to explore stuff. Unfortunately, we had picked a bad spot to explore. There were hardly any fish, a lot of sea grass, and not much to look at in general. But it was still really cool and I would love to go snorkeling sometime in really clear waters again. Anyways, we went back in with the intention of going to a special place in Nice that they like to go to where we could see lots of fish and cool stuff. But at this point, it was starting to get late and I had a train to catch. So all we had time to do was go back to Cannes and eat dinner. Afterwards, I caught my train back to Toulouse, arriving just after five in the morning. Thankfully, the buses get started early, and I was able to get a bus back home. At home, I slept for about an hour and a half before having to get up to get ready for class. Needless to say, I was exhausted all day on Monday.

A Classic...

I know you have all seen this, but it's relevant, hilarious, and truly a classic. Enjoy!

Barcelona

I’m not a big believer in luck. I usually like to look at it as God dealing you certain cards for some unknown reason (or sheer coincidence). And I think He dealt me a Royal Flush this weekend in order to save my butt.

We left for Barcelona Thursday afternoon after class. We were supposed to take a train from Toulouse to Narbonne, change trains in Narbonne (about a 35 min layover), and take different train to Barcelona (the last one of that evening). We were traveling in a group of about nine, but we were kind of spread out on the train. A few of us, including myself, were all in one car, though a couple of them were not supposed to be. Well I was reading on the train and got a little sleepy, so I put my head down on the tray table, figuring that, in the off-chance that I fell asleep, my friends would let me know when we were getting close to our stop.

I’ll give you the moral of the story now: don’t rely on the group. I’m sure you can see where this is going. I fell asleep and never noticed the train stop and my friends didn’t notice that I wasn’t there until the train had already left the station. A few minutes after the Narbonne stop, my friend Roudabeh called me and asked me where I was. I then realized that she was at the station in Narbonne and I was still on the train going to Lord-knows-where, Europe. After I spent a few minutes freaking out in my head, I calmed down and realized that the worst thing that could happen would be that I would have to spend more money on another ticket and/or a hotel in some random French village and get to Barcelona late. So, about 20 min after the Narbonne station, the train stopped at Beziers. I got off the train, contemplated taking a bathroom break, but decided I couldn’t spare the time and that I should take care of more important matters first. I went to the ticket window and explained to the lady (in French; please be proud) what my problem was. She pointed to the schedule on the wall behind to indicate that there was a train for Barcelona scheduled to leave the station at 17:42. I looked at my watch, which read 17:44. The lady started running around behind the counter calling people and asking questions. A minute later she informed me that the train was there at platform B and that I just needed to show my ticket to the man at the platform. I said thanks and ran to the platform. The train pulled up as I was climbing the stairs to the platform. I showed the man at the platform my tickets and he told me to get on the train at the car right in front of us. He closed the door behind me as I climbed on, and the train pulled out of the station. This train went right back to Narbonne, where it picked up my friends so we could all go to Barcelona.

The train was crowded, so I found a seat next to a 60ish-year-old man. After hearing me talking to my friends on the phone (in English) to let them know that I was fine, the man asked me, with a British accent, what part of the states I was from. This jump-started a long conversation that took up a fair portion of the rest of his trip (he was getting off the train a few stops before mine). This is what I found out about him: he was on his way back from Malaysia; he worked in construction all over the world and only got to go home every 8 weeks for about 2 weeks at a time; he had a wife, a daughter, and a girlfriend; his wife was Italian; his girlfriend was Peruvian; he met his girlfriend on a tour in Peru when her husband had ditched her to go be with his girlfriend (did you follow that?); his girlfriend had moved to Spain, which is where he was going currently to visit her, then it was back to the U.K. to see his wife and daughter; he had a sailboat; he had a house in the country in Spain (which was solar-powered, so I thought that was pretty chouette); and he seemed to think very highly of himself. I didn’t. He merely seemed pompous (which was increased greatly by the British accent) and shallow. He could have been making it all up to look impressive for all I know. So you can imagine what kind of company he was for two or three hours.

There is a large group of students from Georgia Tech that goes to Barcelona every year, and one of my friends told me that she was going. So when I thought about going to Barcelona, I figured that my friend would probably let me stay with her (saving me the trouble of finding a hotel or hostel and saving me money). I found out a couple of days before going that she wasn’t in Barcelona or abroad at all for that matter (which is strange because I distinctly remember talking to her about it at the study abroad informational meeting in April). So I didn’t have any reservations for a place to stay. I began researching online only to find out that Barcelona is a ridiculously popular place to travel to. Everything was booked. The cheapest thing I could find with availability was about €500 (I don’t know if that was per night or for the whole weekend, but either way, I don’t have that kind of money). So I went to Barcelona without a place to stay (but knowing that my friends wouldn’t leave me to sleep in the streets of some foreign city). We got into Barcelona pretty late Thursday night, and immediately got some maps from the train station (the usual procedure upon landing in a foreign city). After a few of my friends had checked in the apartment they had rented (and let me in to put my stuff there; they were going to let me sleep on the floor the first night, and I promised that I would go hunting for a hostel the next day), we wandered around for a little bit looking for food. At this point it was after midnight, so even though a bunch of places were open, they weren’t serving food. I found that interesting. In Spain they don’t eat dinner until about 9 or 10 at night, but apparently you have to be done by midnight, leaving you a small window of time to eat dinner. No wonder everyone is skinny; they don’t have much time to eat, so they can’t eat as much. Anyways, we finally found one of those kebab type places (I don’t think those places ever close). Afterwards we returned to the apartment so that we didn’t waste all of the next day sleeping (only to be serenaded in the middle of the night by some very drunk girl in the street outside our window).

So the next day, Firday, we got up and went to the Sagrada Família, the cathedral designed by Gaudi, a famous architect from Spain who is known for his unique style. They have spent about 120 years building this church, and it’s still not done. It was so interesting though. It was clearly a cathedral, but everyone pictures cathedrals as being old and gothic. This one looked new (since it is, relatively) and had very unique, modern architecture. I liked it. We were allowed to take the elevator up to the top of the towers on the cathedral, which we did and took lots of pictures at the top. We were allowed to take the spiral stairs back down to the main floor. I got pretty dizzy just walking in corkscrew for several minutes. After we left the cathedral, we went to lunch and did a little bit of shopping. We wanted to visit this famous house in Barcelona that Gaudi had also designed for some family, but it was €13 to get in, so we decided not to go. My friends went back to fit in with the Spanish culture and take a “siesta”. I decided then to go out and look for a hostel. Most that I passed had signs indicating that they were full. Finally I found one that had two beds left (more cards in my winning hand). I went ahead and reserved the bed and returned a few minutes later with my stuff.

This was my first experience in a hostel, and I don’t know if any of you have ever stayed in one, so I’ll tell you about mine. This one was a shared hostel, so there were lots of people, who probably didn’t know each other, all in one room. You get a locker and the key to your locker. The locker wasn’t very big. Certainly not big enough to fit my entire backpack in. So I took out my more important (and expensive) things and locked them in my locker, leaving only my clothes in my backpack sitting out. There was a fitted sheet and a pillow on the bed, but no blanket. Upon request, you could get a towel. The showers were communal, but thankfully my hostel had separate ones for guys and girls(not the case in all hostels). My hostel had a couple of computers with internet, so I was actually able to check my email and facebook and such (essentials for living, of course). My first night there, I was in a room with 4 bunk beds (so 8 people). There were a couple of German girls, an Irish guy, another American girl (who just moved to Atlanta actually), and me. The other few people showed up in the middle of the night and I know nothing about them. An interesting mix, I thought. The next night I was moved to a bigger room where about 20 people could stay. Most of those people were American. It was kind of a weird experience. It almost felt like being in jail, except you were allowed to leave. So not like jail I guess. Barracks might have been a better description.

After a shower and a “siesta” of my own, our whole group (made up of the nine of us from Toulouse plus a few other people from the Spain programs that were friends with others from my group, making 12 people) went out for dinner and to hopefully go dancing. Unfortunately, as is often the case, big groups are bad at making decisions. Finally a few of us decided to take charge and go sit down in a restaurant that looked good. A lot of good that did. Most of the group thought the place was too expensive and left to go eat a few doors down. But five of us stayed. It was a little bit expensive, more than I would spend on a normal meal, but it was definitely worth it. We ordered a couple of tapas to share: mozzarella cheese with some kind of pesto sauce and salmon with something. They were both really good. But for the rest of my meal, I ordered a salad that came with pine nuts, honey dressing, and some of the best goat cheese I’ve ever had in my life. It was amazing and totally worth the few extra euros. After dinner, we met back up with our friends (who had had a much more lame meal and some blah restaurant). We started walking towards the area where someone had said there would be clubs and such. We pretty quickly realized that we had no idea where anything was and that we weren’t getting anywhere. So most of us went back to our respective places.

The next day, Saturday, I woke up in time to make sure that I still had a bed in the hostel for the next night. Once that was confirmed, I set out to spend a little time shopping and exploring by myself. Barcelona’s a pretty cool city. There’s a lot of people (most of whom are not Spanish; almost everyone in my hostel was American), and it’s busy all the time. After awhile, I headed to the beach to meet some of my friends. I didn’t find the friends I was looking for as their directions sucked (“See the plane with the yellow banner. It’s passing me…now. Okay come find me.”). But I found some other people from my group of friends, who also hadn’t been able to find the group via their crappy directions (“We’re at the beach in Barcelona. I see water and there’s people. Come find us.”) I think I got a false sense of security from the beaches in Nice that there were not as many topless Europeans as I had feared. Barcelona was very different. About half of the women were topless, of all shapes and sizes (just like you said Mom). And the half that wasn’t was probably entirely made up of Americans. And there were a lot of people at the beach. I hate to admit that I am so influenced by the environment in which I have spent my whole life (I feel as if I should be flexible enough to get past it), but it made me uncomfortable. I would probably gawk at such behavior in the states. Maybe it’s just because I can’t possibly imagine being topless in front of that many people (there were a lot of them, trust me) that it bothered me. But whatever. It’s Europe.

Anyways, after the beach we ate and again returned to our hostels and such. After a shower and a “siesta”, we went out again for dinner and hopefully something afterwards. Following dinner, we met up with the rest of our group. We went to McDonald’s because apparently in Europe you can buy beer at both McDonald’s and Burger King. I didn’t have any, so I couldn’t tell you if it was any good (though I don’t suspect that it was, not that I’d know either way with my very limited knowledge of beers). Afterwards we finally found a club to dance at. Unfortunately, the music was not very good dancing music, so we only stayed a little while before leaving in search of another club. When that attempt proved futile, I decided to head back to my hostel as it was 4 a.m. by that time and I had to check out of my hostel by noon.

The next day we had planned to go to the Picasso museum and to Gaudi’s park. But after I left my hostel, I couldn’t get hold of any of my friends (or any of you back home either; I needed a favor, but nobody answered the phone). So I sat in a park and read for a little while and read a book. After awhile, I got hold of them and found out that they were already headed for Parc Güell (Guadi’s park). I took the metro to some stop way up on the map and started following the map to the park. I quickly found myself hiking up a ridiculous hill (with my pack on my back since I had to leave my hostel). I finally made it to the top, sweating like a pig and thanking myself for being a runner. The park was very interesting and Guadi’s house was in the middle of it. There were lots of instrumentalists there playing a variety of things. (Dad, there was a guy playing “Summertime” on the trumpet, so I called you, but, again, you didn’t answer.) It overlooked the entire city and had interesting stuff to look at. I never found my friends there, so I just wandered around by myself. Eventually, I had to head back down the ridiculous hill to take the metro to the train station. The trip home was, thankfully, less eventful. I got home kinda late Sunday night and went to bed pretty soon after getting home. Overall, a good weekend.

Tres Drole!

This is a comedian named Eddie Izzard (most of you know him, I'm sure). He's got a great clip about learning French (which some of you may have seen as well). But watch this video, as it is tres drole (very funny).

Stay Tuned!

I´m in Barcelona and it´s already been interesting. I´m in a hostel right now, which is an interesting experience. Stay tuned for updates on Monday!

No hablo español

I would like to begin by saying that Jill would’ve been a very helpful commodity this weekend. But she’s inconsiderate and in Argentina, making herself useless to me. Thanks Yill.

This weekend, Mandy and I went to Madrid. Everyone else in the group had decided to go to Milan, Italy. But it was a 14 hour train ride to get there, so we decided to go to Madrid (as Spain is a lot closer to Toulouse than Italy). Well so much for that plan because, when we went to the train station to buy tickets, we found out that it was going to take about 14 hours to get to Madrid also. Oh well. We went anyways. We bought tickets to leave Thursday afternoon, arrive Friday morning, then leave Madrid Saturday night, returning to Toulouse Sunday midday. I stayed up late Wednesday night trying to book a hostel or cheap hotel. Everything was booked, and I was pretty sure there must have been something going on over the weekend (which I found out later was the Gay Pride Parade for Madrid).

So, after taking an all-day long French exam on Thursday, we went to the train station and caught our train. We had to change trains at the border between France and Spain in a town called Irún. During the next train ride (the overnight one), we realized why it was going to take 14 hours to get to Madrid. We stopped almost every hour and sat at each train station for about 20 min. And when we were moving, we moved really slow. So, as you can imagine, we didn’t get much sleep. Sometime during this trip, I called Maria to ask her if she had any family in Madrid (hoping for a possible place to stay, since we were without a hotel). But she informed me that the entire family was going to be leaving the next day to go on vacations, so no free boarding.

Almost immediately upon stepping off the train in Madrid (at 7:30 in the morning, mind you), I found myself incredibly thankful for what French I know. My single year of Spanish in high school just wasn’t cutting it, especially since I have forgotten most of it. Because now we’re in Madrid very early in the morning, we’re very hungry, and we don’t have a hotel. Luckily there was a hotel reservation lady at the train station. We managed to get a hotel booked, though it cost about twice as much as we normally would have paid, but we only had to stay there one night (since the other two would be spent on the train). We then took the metro to our hotel (since the train station is across town from everything in Madrid), and checked in. The extra money spent on the hotel ended up being worth it as it was a pretty chouette hotel.

I would like to precede the following story with a disclaimer: I don’t really know the purpose of an embassy in another country. So here’s my story. A kid in our class told us before we left for Madrid that, if we had any problems or needed any help with anything, we could go to the embassy (since Madrid is the capital). He said it was kind of like guest relations for that country. So Mandy and I decided that, since we didn’t speak Spanish or know anything about Madrid, we would go to the embassy and get some information in English. So we set out in search of the U.S. embassy (with a map in hand; we’re not that stupid). We first found the British embassy and figured it may be good enough since they also speak English. But the gates were closed (I guess we should have expected as much). There was a sign that said, “This is not the British consulate. For problems with visas, immigration, etc, go to the consulate, blah blah blah.” So we decided not to try to get help there, as we no longer knew what you were allowed to do at that embassy. We continued our pilgrimage to the American embassy. Finally, we found ourselves outside its walls, and eventually found a gate with a guard. He told us to go around the corner to the entrance. But outside the entrance is a long line of people. The line is labeled “Immigration and blah blah for non-citizens” and everybody in this line has a bunch of paperwork. There’s a much shorter line for U.S. citizens indicating that you need an appointment before you can go in. We both realize that we have no idea what an embassy is really for and decide to abandon the cause and eat lunch.

But we’re in Spain, so noon isn’t a normal time to be eating lunch. After being kicked out of a café since it was closed, we wandered around looking for a place to eat. Nothing opens until about 1:30 because this is Spain and they don’t eat any meal at any normal hour. Luckily we stumble upon the Hard Rock Café and decide to go American for lunch. It was open, and they spoke English. Afterwards, we found a tourism center that had a bunch of maps and brochures, so we stole a bunch. We decided to go to a museum that had a Van Gogh exhibit, but we have to buy tickets for a certain time frame. So, while waiting for our time frame, we took a walk to the park in Madrid. I would like to let you know that Madrid has a very chouette park with all kinds of cool crap in it. While in the park, we see a group of people watching something on the ground. We go over and see this guy painting picture. Except he’s not using any brushes. And he’s using spray paint. Just spray paint and pieces of newspaper to help create weird effects with the paint. Within minutes he turns a plain piece if poster into a mess of color and soon after an actual picture. It was super-chouette. We hung around and watched him paint a couple and, of course, bought a couple (so you’ll get to see them when I bring them home).

By that time, we had to head back to the museum. Afterward, we went to the hotel to chill for a little while before dinner. But we then encountered the same problem in a search for dinner. It was about 7:30 or 8:00 (reasonable for France), but nobody was eating in the restaurants. They were all full, but everyone was just having drinks. But we found a restaurant and ate (with very bad service; the waiter was very uninterested in helping us, as was the case in many restaurants in Madrid). Afterwards, we went to the hotel to crash as we still hadn’t actually gotten to sleep the night before on the train.

The next day was mostly spent wandering around Madrid, shopping, and looking at stuff. We went to see the Spanish castle and the large church that’s next to it. The church was really cool. It was fairly white and the ceiling was really colorful, as were the stained glass windows. I was trying to decide if it was the Spanish style or if it had been recently restored. Either way it was pretty chouette. We then took the metro across town to see the bull-fighting stadium. By the time we got there, it was closed, and there are only bull fights on Sundays. But the building itself was really awesome. After that we just headed back to the train station (after another dinner fiasco of course). We spent another mostly sleepless night on a train, arriving back in Toulouse just after noon.

I spent the rest of the day feeling exhausted and therefore very much out of my element. I rode a bike to and from church, which didn’t pair up very well with being tired and lacking balance. At some point on the way home, my foot slipped off the pedal, and my sandal fell of in the middle of the street. Luckily a bus was coming. So I pulled the bike onto the sidewalk and waited for the bus to drive over my shoe. Finally I got my shoe back and made it home (sweating of course, since it’s mostly uphill on the way home from the city). As you can imagine, I crashed pretty hard that night when I finally made it to bed.