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.

Oooo, it's a castle!

So this weekend, a few of us went to Carcassonne, France. It's a small city not far from Toulouse, and it's got a medieval castle in it. Pretty cool. Since it's not far, we decided not to make a long weekend out of it. Instead of leaving Thursday night (as we normally would), we stayed in Toulouse and went to La Fete de la Musique (a music festival held in Toulouse every year). We left Friday morning instead.

Upon arrival, we realized that a)we had no idea how to get to the hotel Sara had booked for us, b)we were hungry, and c)we had to go to the bathroom. In an eventually unsuccessful attempt to kill three birds with one stone, we tried to find our hotel, eat somewhere near it, and use the bathrooms at the restaurant of our choice (we were avoiding using the public restrooms at the train station since you probably had to pay for them; more on that in another post). Anyways, after dragging our stuff around a foreign city for about half an hour (which I commend the makers of Mandy's rolling suitcase, as it was dragged across all terrains throughout the entire visit without giving out on her), we realized that we still had no idea where our hotel was, we were still hungry, and we had to go to the bathroom even more badly. We gave up on the search for the hotel and found a restaurant (and a bathroom to match). After our meal, we asked our waitress if she knew how to get to our hotel. She asked whether we were going by car or bicycle. After informing her that we were traveling au pied (by foot), she laughed at us and told us that we would need to take the bus to the stop Sylvaza (strange, since the internet had told us that the hotel was only 2 km from the train station). Little did we know what would ensue from this.

We began by finding a bus stop. At this stop, we waited for a bus. Upon its arrival, we asked the driver if his bus would take us to our desired stop. Of course not. That would have been too easy, and the adventure would have ended there. Instead he directed us down the hill to a different bus stop, but didn't give us any more helpful information (or if he did, it was in French and I missed it entirely). On the way to the next stop (still on foot, and still dragging our stuff), we saw signs for the Office of Tourism. We followed those signs to the office where, in English, a man explained which stop we were to get on at, which route we were to take (route 1 by the way, please keep that in mind), and which stop we were to get off at. These instructions came with a marked map of Carcassonne. We found the stop, and a bus marked 1 drives up. And we're golden, right? Wrong.

Unbeknownst to us, this driver changed his route number after we climbed onto the bus. (Side note: I had to look up how to spell the word unbeknownst, because math at GT has done nothing for my spelling skills.) We were now on route 2, and wondering why this bus was not following the route that our map said route 1 should be taking. Eventually Sara asked the driver if the bus was going to Sylvaza. He said no, that we were on the wrong bus, that he was driving bus 2 and we wanted bus 1. Awesome. Eventually the bus returned to the stop that we got on at, and we proceeded to get off the bus. We now wait for another bus marked 1. When this bus arrives, we get on the bus and immediately ask the driver if his bus is the correct one to take us to our stop. He said blah blah blah in French, of which I understood that no, he was not going there, but that we need to stay on his bus right now, and do something else later (though I didn't know what that something else was). So we sat down on the bus and promptly made friends with an old lady who told us that she was going to the same place and that we could follow her. She talked to us for the rest of the ride, informing us that we had bad French accents (yeah, some friend she turned out to be). Anyways, eventually the bus driver kicks everyone off his bus (which cleared the blah blah up; I guess his shift was over and he couldn't finish the route). We were told to get on whichever bus showed up next.

So bus 3 pulls up. Our old lady friend gets on the bus and tells the bus driver that we're American and basically don't know anything. We got on the bus (our third one now, mind you) only to find that the driver of this bus is the same driver from our first bus. So apparently this driver had been driving route 1, switched to route 2 while we were on his bus, made us get onto a different bus (knowing our desired destination the entire time), and was now driving bus 3, which took us to our hotel. If he had been kind enough to tell us that he would eventually be driving route 3 to Sylvaza, we could have arrived at the same time that we did.

Now it is about 4:30 in the afternoon, and we noticed on the bus schedule that the last bus runs at about 7:30. Not a problem right? I mean, surely we can eat somewhere around our hotel, and walk back afterwards. That would have been a fantastic idea if the hotel had actually been 2 km from the train station and therefore close the main part of the city. This had to be a few miles from any kind of helpful civilization. So we check in to our hotel and promptly take the bus back into the city (making sure to get to get the number for a taxi, since the bus stops running before most people in this country even eat dinner). We ate at a pizza place (I had an egg in the middle of my pizza, tres weird, I know). Afterwards we asked our waitress to call the taxi for us so that we didn't cause confusion with our bad French and not knowing where we were-ness. Upon returning to the hotel, we watched American movies with French dubbed over the voices and went to bed.

The next day we got up early so that we could go spend the day at the castle, and catch our evening train back to Toulouse. We took the bus into town, again, and headed for the train station. We were told that there were lockers that we could rent at the train station so we didn't have to lug our stuff around all day. Not so. The lockers weren't open for some security reasons blah blah (more French). So we dragged our crap up to the castle (which conveniently enough for us is built on a hill). Surely there would be a place we could check our stuff while we toured the castle.

Again, not so. The lady at the ticket office told us that the Office of Tourism (a different one than before; this one was within the fortress walls) might have a place. So we went there. They also didn't have a place for us, but try the hostel up the street, maybe they have a place. Nope. Not unless you're staying at the hostel. So in the end, we had to drag all of our crap throughout the castle and the village that's inside the fortress walls. But it was really cool. There were a bunch of cool little shops and boutiques, so I bought a couple of gifts for people. We ate lunch at La Table Ronde (The Round Table), corny I know, but it was a really cool restaurant. Eventually we headed back down the hill toward the train station and went back to Toulouse.

Saturday night and Sunday in Toulouse were pretty relaxed. I ran both days and tried to get some sleep. Sunday, I went to mass at St. Sernin, the huge old church that we took a field trip to. I didn't know most of the stuff obviously. So now I really want to learn the Our Father, the Creed (thankfully they say the short one, don't know why though), the sign of the Cross, and peace be with you all in French. It was weird though, because at the end of mass they started letting people back in to tour the church, so there were people standing around watching us hold mass. Anyways, afterward I wandered around the market that encircled the church, and eventually made my way to the park where I read for about 4 hours in the beautiful weather. Overall an enjoyable weekend. But, following suit with many other scenarios I have encountered, nothing is ever easy.

Est-ce que tu veux diner?

So I knew that meals here would be a little different. Aside from eating somewhere around bedtime (often close to 9:00, or excuse me 21:00), I knew portions would be smaller and food would be different. So I spent the first couple of days just trying to watch and learn so as not to make a fool out of myself. I always wait to see how they eat things first so that I don't go digging unattractively into something when, clearly, I should be eating it daintily. First of all, meals are oftentimes served in courses, especially those that are large and celebratory (which we've had a coupe of). If there's an appetizer or aperitif (like cheese or champagne), that comes out first. Then the plates are cleared for the main course (that's right, different courses, different plates). I told myself before meeting my family that, even if they served me a living breathing thing, I was going to eat whatever was put on my plate. Well nothing has had a pulse (yet), but I often don't know what I'm eating. The first night we had what looked like fried terds. I haven't a clue as to what they were, but I ate them and they were good. Last night we had a big log of some sort. I asked what it was, and she tried to explain it to me, but I was still puzzled (because I didn't exactly know what she was talking about, but I think it had zucchini in it). On a side note, I don't ever want to hear anyone complain that healthy isn't able to taste good, because the only thing I eat here is healthy food, and it's all good. And I never fully knew the meaning of "clearing your plate" until I came here. Nobody leaves anything on a plate. Anyways, after the main course, the plates are cleared (again) and the salad is brought out. And the salad is different every night. Sometimes it's fruit or tomatoes with some kind of cheese or sometimes regular salad greens (another side note: to those of you who cook, sliced oranges with cinnamon is an excellent salad). After that, plates are cleared again for dessert. And do you know what dessert usually is? Yogurt and fruit. Don't ever again wonder why French people are skinny (and they are). Meals are simple yet complete. Mom, you'd do just fine here.

Last night, though, I was a little embarrassed during dinner. I have told my family that I am fine with them correcting me (I am here to learn, right?). So even after all my observations during mealtime, I clearly missed a couple of things. First of all, apparently you don't put your bread on your plate; you put it on the placemat beside your plate. Didn't even notice. But they did. Also, for lack of something better to do with it, I ususally leave my left hand in my lap whenI eat unless I need it (also, we eat outised and I'm often trying to keep my napkin from blowing away). Apparently this is very "American" of me (and apparently makes me lean sideways), which stunk to hear since I'm here trying to be as French as possible. So now I have to be more aware of where my hands and bread are. Also, out of habit from talking to my friends and our professor (who i svery laid back and has been my professor before this trip at GT), I almost always say "ouay" (pronounced "way") instead of "oui" (pronounced "we", and meaning "yes" for those of you who are inferior frenchies). It basically means the same thing as "yeah". A bad habit, I know. But I've gotten to the point that I don't really notice anymore that I say it, and nobody corrects me. Until dinner last night. I was told that it's "oui", not "ouay" (reminding me eerily of Mom yelling, "Not 'yeah'! 'Yes'!"). "Ouay" is slang, so I guess that means I shouldn't use it (even though I'd love to be at the level of Frenchness to be able to use slang). I felt like had been rude, which was never my intention. So I felt bad. In general I guess I need to pay more attention. Oh, and for a fantastic end to a lovely dinner, a bird crapped right on my hand. Bon appetit!

Getting Started...

So last week was my first week being a student in Toulouse. I pretty quickly fell into a routine. I run every morning that I'm in town, then I go to class. I have to walk to the bus stop, take the bus into town, then walk from there to the school (about 45 min total). In general, class is pretty laid back, though 6 hours a day of French can get a little tedious. I also get headaches fairly frequently from thinking in another language. We go to little boulangeries and sandwicheries (adding -erie to the end of anything makes it a shop for that thing) for lunch, which there are certainly no shortage of in France. Then the problem arises that dinner isn't until about 8:30, leaving about 8 hours between lunch and dinner. But have no fear, patisseries are also in abundance (and tarts are a little piece of heaven). Still, with the small portions served here in France, I tend to spend a lot of time being hungry. Then after class, I'm hoping to make it part of my routine to have some internet time to talk to people and post on my très awesome blog. But that has been difficult with the primitive internet that my school possesses. Then I go home eventually to have dinner with my family and practice my French with them. Then I go to bed and do it all again the next day.

Most of my adventures will happen over the weekends. This past weekend we went to Nice. We went in a fairly large group of about 9 people, so as you can imagine not much got done (as groups are not good at making decisions), and a lot of beach going occurred (at all times of the day and night, mind you). The highlight of the weekend really was the trip to Monte Carlo in Monaco. We went there on a train, and as we rounded a corner and Monte Carlo came into view, we all scrambled for the window. It was so beautiful. I think all the money in the world rests in Monte Carlo. There were so many huge yachts and boats. There were some of the fanciest cars I have ever seen. I can only imagine the living expenses in a place like that. Aside from that, the beaches were beautiful, and the water was perfectly crystal clear. And mountains rose up behind the sea, and the town was built into the mountains. After we got there, we bought gelato and walked around eating it while drooling over the city. Then we went to the beach, which was beautiful of course. Unfortunately, we had to go back to Nice. That night we went searching for a discothèque, but couldn't find one. So we all went dancing at some club/bar instead. The next day, we did the beach thing again and went shopping. I got myself a couple of cute dresses that I can brag about having gotten in France. The next morning we returned to Toulouse. But the 7 hour train ride made it take up a fair portion of the day, and of course left us all tired. So what did I do upon returning to my house? That's right. I went running. *Le sigh*