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.

A Night on the Town!

So the family that I live with has a daughter who is 19, Ludivine. She’s pretty nice, and I like her. I had hoped we would be able to hang out more so that I’d get to know a young French person. But because she just finished her school exams and therefore the school year (as did most European students), we don’t see much of each other. I’m gone all day at class, and she’s gone all evening with her friends. My evenings are spent reading, doing homework, eating dinner, and going to bed early since I wake up at the butt crack of dawn to run (well, actually, here dawn is at about 5 in the morning, but you get the idea). I don’t really go out and do stuff on weeknights (partially because of the aforementioned reason and partially due to the fact that my family doesn’t live right in the city where all my classmates live; I also reserve going out for the weekends when we travel). But, still, I secretly hoped that Ludivine would invite me to go out with her and her friends sometime.

Well, one night at dinner last week when Ludivine was absent again, M. and Mme. Gendre (the parents of the family that I live with) mentioned that I hadn’t gone out at night with my friends and asked why. I didn’t have a good answer. I tried to tell them that some of the kids in my group from Tech are friends with each other but not with the whole group, so everyone doesn’t hang out together (the best way I could think to explain in French the weird “clique” thing going on in our group of only 13 to begin with). They seemed to understand this, but I think it may have been interpreted as, “Veronica is kind of a loser with no friends, and surely that’s the reason she never goes out and not because she wakes up way too early in the morning.” Because the next night after dinner Ludivine invited me to go out to a bar with her and her friends. Her mother stood by saying things like, “Oh I think it’s such a good idea. She is 19 and you are 20. You will be able to know some French kids. It’s a great idea.” After repeating this about 5 times, I had to chuckle a little in my head, because I couldn’t help thinking, “You put her up to this. You asked her to invite me out because I never go out.” It was handled with the kind of social grace only a mother possesses. Nonetheless, I was excited to be invited out, mother’s orders or otherwise.

So the next night, I borrowed one of their bikes and rode into town to a bar called Chez Ton Ton. (By the way, it’s kinda fun to ride a bike into town like that to meet people or do something; I took one to church this weekend as well. I’d ask to take one to school if I didn’t think—excuse me—know that I would die in the traffic of people and cars.) Anyways, Ludivine waved me down, I locked up the bike, and then I was introduced to her friends. The first thing she asked me was what I wanted to drink. She offered beer (about half the size of an American beer, by the way, so not very impressive when someone says they’ve had several beers), wine, and some weird stuff in a cup. She said cocktails were really expensive and wine and beer is pretty cheap (which I discovered in Nice is very true). So, being kind of ignorant about alcoholic beverages in general (my usual request would be “something that tastes good”, and I offer my deepest apologies to my Irish roots), I inquired about the weird stuff in a cup. She told me the name, but I didn’t recognize it. She let me try it. It had a very strong, familiar, disgusting taste that I couldn’t quite place (and still can’t). A very large portion of my brain said, “You know this tastes disgusting. Don’t request this as your drink.” A very small portion of my brain said, “Hmm. Weird. Maybe it gets better. Let’s try it.” I would like to go on record by saying that in almost every life situation, that very large (logical) portion of my brain wins. But for some reason, that night, it forfeited completely to that small portion. So I ordered this disgusting drink. It never got better. In fact, on my empty stomach, it was all that I was burping up, making it impossible to ignore. So I hurried next door and bought a sandwich, telling them that I hadn’t eaten dinner yet (the truth).

Soon after, we moved from an outside table to an inside table. There’s a rumor going around that everybody in France smokes. I am here to confirm said rumor. Especially in bars while people are drinking. When we were outside, I was fine. But moving inside where the smoke wasn’t circulating very well bothered me. I had the following conversations with one of Ludivine’s friends (all of whom were smoking and apparently only do so when they go out):
Friend: You don’t smoke?
Me: No.
Friend: Have you ever smoked?
Me: No.
Friend: Never even tried it?
Me: No.
Friend: What?!
I think this is the only time in my life (and will continue to be the only time) that I actually felt kind of embarrassed by telling someone this. I was clearly out of place by not smoking. I sort of tried to explain that I don’t even like the smell, that I’m an athlete, etc, but I gave up on that pretty quickly and just dropped it.

Eventually, we left the bar to go to a party at one of their classmate’s apartment. I’m not much of a party person myself. I’ve never been able to fit comfortably into such a scene. So I was kind of relieved when we got to the party, and I saw that it was a pretty small get-together. Not too loud. Everyone seemed to know each other. But upon arrival, the girls that I came with quickly dispersed to talk to other people, leaving me to realize that I didn’t know anybody, and, to make matters worse, didn’t speak French very well. So what do I do? Stand around awkwardly wishing I could find a seat where I could sit awkwardly (since sitting a more comfortable and less obvious way to hang around awkwardly). Eventually a space opened up on the couch, so I took it.

Finally, people had had enough to drink that it seemed okay to go talk to the random girl sitting on the couch. So I actually did get to have a few conversations with people. One guy found out that I was from Atlanta and got really excited. He kept telling me (very loudly) that he wants to go to Atlanta because it’s the “Dirty South” and all kinds of rappers are from Atlanta. He also told me that he loves black people, except he didn’t call them black people (please make an inference here). I told him that if he goes to Atlanta, he can’t call them that. He said, “But I love them.” I told him it didn’t matter, he can’t say that when he’s in the US. But he was too drunk to care all that much.

Eventually a neighbor showed up with bat (though I didn’t actually see this happen) and told us we were being too loud, so everyone started to leave. I chose this as my time to go ahead and head home, as I still had to get up at the butt crack of dawn the next day. I’m still not sure if I enjoyed myself that evening. It was interesting, and I’m glad I got to do it. If she invites me out again, I’ll probably go. Of course, I don’t think I was real fun company, so I don’t know that she’ll invite me to go out again….

Chouette!

So I haven't posted a few things that I have really been wanting to let you guys in on, so hopefully I'll get those up this week and you'll be updated on my adventures. So stay tuned!

But that's not what this post is about. This post is about the word "chouette" (pronounced shwet). It's an old school French word meaning something along the lines of "gnarley", "neato", or "rad". The French will laugh at you if you say it. So, obviously, we say it all the time. It can be paired with super or très (like super-chouette or très chouette) for some extra emphasis. So, henceforth, the word "chouette" will be used freely and without regard for your inferior french-ness, though I do expect all readers to understand said colloquialism. Merci beaucoup.