Orientation

At this point, I have been through too many Orientations to count (not really). You’d think it might have lost a little bit of its lustre by now, but I still think every day of Orientation is the most exciting thing. Whereas over the weekend I could barely drag myself out of bed, these past three days I have practically bounded out the door. I showed up 15 minutes early on the first day, although those of you who know me will probably find that difficult to believe.

This orientation experience, unlike the previous three, is actually a three-week long process composed mostly of classes. Yes, there are social activities and yes, there are city explorations and yes, there are lots of new friends. But this is an academic orientation above all. I have 10 hours of class on the methodology of the French University, which is both an incredibly fascinating cultural introduction to the French and probably the most useful orientation lecture I’ve ever had. I also have 16 hours of French language instruction and 4 hours of French conversation workshop. And in between all of this, I have classes on how to select courses, immigration information sessions, university tours, and course selection meetings.

As for the food…. Yesterday, I discovered a new crêpe and panini stand with some other CUPA students. I bought a soft ham, tomato, and mozzarella baguette panini and a bunch of us ate together while wandering the Jardin de Luxembourg.

Then in the afternoon I purchased my first French crêpe from a stand on Boulevard du Montparnasse and ate it while wandering the sunny street. Buttery, sugary, and crisped to perfection.

Today wasn’t quite as pleasant outdoors; it was drizzling and so me and two other girls ended up in an indoor crêpe restaurant, ordering the prix fixe (fixed price) menu. Luckily I was very hungry, because it was a lot of food! The meal started off with a savory galette (pictured below) which was so huge I could barely finish it despite my hunger, and was followed by a sweet dark chocolate crêpe.

Even more impressive, the three of us spoke completely in French for the entire hour that it took us to eat! Yes, we’re all pretty much fluent in the language, but I still consider it an accomplishment. While meeting completely new people, it is all too easy to morph back into using English outside the CUPA offices because we don’t have the rapidity of language necessary to get to know each other as quickly as we would like. When you know that you could express yourself better in a different language and be understood better, it’s very difficult to have the willpower to keep speaking French.

French Weekly, Week 1

Note: many of these words have further meanings; these are just the meanings of them that I learned at the time!

La décalage horaire = Jetlag

Fêlé = 1. cracked (literal, as in a wine glass) 2. crazy/nuts (colloquial, as in ‘cracked in the head’)

Mouliner = 1. To turn or grind (literal, as in a windmill) 2. To think about things repetitively (colloquial, negative connotation)

Collants = tights, hose

Toboggan = playground slide

Canicule = heatwave, very hot weather

Fichu = shot, kaput, ruined (colloquial)

Carrière = 1. career, profession 2. a quarry (ex: there are carrières running underneath some of the houses in Malakoff, where the stone used to build those houses was mined from.)

Dépit = chagrin, bitter disappointment; but En dépit de = despite

SDF = Sans Domicile Fixe = homeless

Radoter = repeating things you already said, as if you’d forgotten you said them already

Borne d’incendie = fire hydrant

First Impressions

To wrap the week up, some notes on my impressions so far…

• Paris is a lot warmer than expected, although apparently this is unusual weather we’re having. It’s been a perfect 43-50°F every day so far, although the evenings are a little bit chillier, as I discovered when I ended up wandering the Rue Rivoli after dark yesterday.
• The Metro system is fantastic (buses not quite so much, but still very good), despite how crowded it gets on Saturday evening (although I have yet to experience it at rush hour – I’m not sure I want to!).
• Paris is expensive, especially compared to Pittsburgh. For the last 2 years I’ve become very used to spending $5-8 for a decent lunch, whereas here the cheapest lunch menus seem to be more like €7-9 ($9-12). In Pittsburgh you can get dinner for around the same price as lunch, but here you can expect to almost double the lunch menu price. I’m sure there are places I haven’t discovered yet, so I’m just going to have to keep an eye out for them and seek help from local students once classes start.

• That said, I love the bakeries (and their prices). I’ve only stopped in two of them so far (I know, I know, but it’s only my fourth day here!), and I’ve been more than happy with them. Pains au chocolat, baguette sandwiches with all sorts of fillings, gorgeous tropéziennes, and all sorts of unfamiliar pastries that I can’t wait to try beckon to me from the counters.
• There’s a weird mix of French and English around. Pizza places are named things like “Speed Rabbit Pizza” with menus entirely in French, while the radio announcers speak in high-speed French but play Katy Perry along with Stromae and Swedish House Mafia.

Since I’ve only been off by myself or at my new home pretty much since arriving, I haven’t had any real French immersion yet except at dinner. This will certainly change when Orientation starts tomorrow!

La Louvre, Day 1

First Day

9 janvier 2014

Today was my first full day in Paris. After a long night’s sleep I still felt tired, but I knew that I had to wake up or else I’d never get over the time difference. So I dragged myself out of bed and headed to the CUPA center using the metro system. I brought my passport for them to scan, and now I’m very relieved that I don’t have to carry that around Paris anymore!

Today’s big excitement was getting my student cards from CUPA. There are three major ones:

1. My NaviGo pass, which gets me unlimited access to all public transportation in zones 1 + 2 on weekdays, and transportation in all 5 zones on the weekends.
2. My Student Card, which says that I am a history of art student at the École Supérieure de Beaux-Arts. It gets me into many museums free or at a discounted rate.
3. My Amis du Louvre Jeune card, which is unlimited access to the Louvre. I’m especially excited to use this one!

I bought a ham + butter baguette for lunch, which I ate while wandering through a lovely park down the street from CUPA. It wasn’t until I googled it later that I realized I had been in the Jardin de Luxembourg, the second largest public park in Paris. That means it’s a lot bigger than I anticipated – I’ll have to devote more time to exploring it in the future!

 

A plus tard,

Abigail

Arrivée!

8 janvier 2014

I’ve made it! All of my checked bags actually arrived in Paris at the same time as me, it turns out that the uber-simple passport control at Keflavik airport was my entry into the Schengen zone and so I didn’t have to go through French customs, I managed to transport my luggage on the RER, and I am now slowly settling into my new home.

I will be living in the Paris banlieue of Malakoff for the next 4 months with a completely lovely host family. My room is very cheerful, with plenty of room for clothes storage and the complete Harry Potter series in French on one of its many bookshelves as an added bonus.

The not-quite-fully-moved-in look.

My host family’s son took my on a tour of the neighborhood by scooter (trotinette), which I’ll apparently have to practice because I saw so many kids riding around on them while we were out. We’ve got both a metro and a bus station just a short walk away, and so it looks like I’ll have no difficulty getting into Paris proper.

For now, I’m incredibly jetlagged. Normally I don’t have huge issues with jetlag, but today has just been so long (and for those of you asking why I don’t just go to bed now – I’m also hungry and dinner is in just 10 minutes!)

Biensoir,

Abigail

P.S. The TSA opened not one, but both of my bags! Fortunately, the first was packed with these lovely packing cubes, which ensured that my clothes are just as neat as ever. The other suitcase looks untouched — maybe they saw what a mess it was and decided they didn’t want to go to the hassle of repacking it?

Saga

7 janvier 2014

I’m finally en route to Paris! After 3 months of indecision, consternation, hope, frustrations, worries, and hecticness, I am actually on a plane. This is sort of unbelievable.

So far, IcelandAir has been pretty great. I chose them because they were the cheapest and they let you have two checked bags for free, which almost no other airline is still doing. Plus, since we have a layover in Reykjavik, I get to say that I’ve physically been in Iceland! The plane I’m on is named in honor of a volcano, the pillows have a lullaby printed on them in Icelandic and in English, and all the headrest covers have fun tidbits about the Icelandic language, or Islenska.

I’ve spent much of the last week packing. It started off so well, especially packing my clothes, which is usually the hardest part. But somewhere after that it went downhill, and I ended up with two huge suitcases that just barely come under the IcelandAir weight limit. I know I’ve brought way too much. However, I didn’t realize the magnitude of this problem until I arrived at the airport and realized that I can barely handle my hulking top-heavy backpack, let alone the addition of two gigantic suitcases. When I arrive in Paris, I will take an RER train from Charles de Gaulle to the Cité Universitaire stop, where my host mother will pick me up. I’m not quite sure how I’ll manage to get my luggage through an unfamiliar train system by myself, so we’ll have to wait and see how that goes.

A bientot,

Abigail