First Week

Alexander III bridge
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February 6, 2008

Hello all,

So the “program” officially started a little over a week ago. The first two nights they put us in a hotel while we “acclimatized.” The first day was filled with lost baggage and missed flights. (Not mine, given that I just walked three blocks with a small overnight bag.) The second day was filled with more getting lost, crepes (good ones this time), and endless hours of useful orientation information. Day three we say farewell and move in with our host families.

eiffel tower...i will probably have a picture of this thing in every blog
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My “family” lives in the 10th arrondisment near Place de la République. The family is great. It’s a mother, Natalie, and her son, Sam. Natalie is a reporter for newspaper called Libération and Sam studies biology. As we speak he’s sitting next to me, complaining about having to go back to school tomorrow for the first time in six weeks. I almost wish I were going back tomorrow. I’m starting to get bored and I still have ten days before classes start.

We’re currently watching a marathon of CSI, better know here as Les Experts, while waiting for the Super bowl to get going around midnight. Yes, they actually show it here; of course it’s sans all the good commercials.

is it just me or does cicero look like lincoln?
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So, getting back to the correct chronological order. We had the entire weekend free to do whatever we wanted. I spend Saturday going back and forth between the apartment in the Latin Quarter where Mom and I had been living and this apartment trying to bring massive amounts of things over. After that I had the weekend to myself. Natalie was working on a story all weekend and Sam was off wherever it is he disappears to. Sunday afternoon I decided to take my camera and head back to Place de la Concorde. While waiting for the sun to get lower I took a wander through the Tuileries Gardens. Let’s just say, for such a big city it often feels like a small town. Not five minutes after I walk into the park do I spot Yen and Alex lounging by the fountain, eating ham and cheese crepes.

going down the river
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We people watched for another hours before the sun disappeared and it started getting chilly. My brilliant brain remembered that we were mere yards away from Angelina’s. Want to take one guess at what we did? You go it, chocolat chaud! This time we had pastries too. What a wonderful afternoon. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

Sunday night I went with Natalie to her friends’ apartment for a bit of dinner. We started off with discussion of Sarkozy (French president) and his girlfriend Carla Bruni. To make a long story short, he was married, now he’s not. She’s an ex-supermodel turned singer. They were dating. This past Saturday they got married. And we complained when Lewinsky-gate happened.

deanna and alex braving the wind
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For dinner we ate Beef and Carrots over noodles. As menial as that sounds it’s important. As I’m munching away on my delicious dinner Natalie’s friend turns to me and asks me if I know what ‘beef and carrots’ means. Naïve me points down and my bowl. He just laughs at me. Apparently ‘beef and carrots’ is the nickname for the police squad that performs interrogations. (I didn’t understand, they might also be the IA department.) No matter, the story parents tell their kids is that the dish is named ‘beef and carrots’ because the beef comes from the unfortunate souls who didn’t survive interrogations. Let’s just say my dinner ended early.

the full painting, "lincoln" is on the right edge
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When I got home that night I was going to watch TV with Sam but he refused to change the channel. The channel he was watching was called NoLife and it only aired Japanese music videos. I went to bed. (In the past week we’ve resolved our TV disputes as can be inferred from our watching of CSI).

The weekend over, it was finally time for orientation to start. First thing up: a grammar test. I’d just like to point out the irony of the fact that our mandatory grammar test and subsequent grammar classes were located at the metro stop Volontaires which loosely translates to volunteer.

a little Monet...i miss snow
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Other parts of our orientation included a tour of the Musee d’Orsay and a ride on a riverboat down the Seine. Oh yes, and signing up for classes. They FINALLY have my classes set. It was unreasonably hard to try and convince the university to let me into a Spanish class. The history department finally relented today and allowed me into their supplemental class. I do however love my schedule. My first class of the week is Monday at 4:30pm. My last class of the week is Wednesday night until 7pm. Gotta love five day weekends. I’m taking Spanish, English-French and French-English translation, Contemporary Iconography, The Political Life and French Society at the Beginning of the 20th Century, and Cinema in French Society.

tim grinning at the eiffel tower
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Super Tuesday results came out today here thanks to Alaska and California. I voted as well. I guess the conventions decided to count votes from abroad separately. We get our own little state with 11 delegates to divvy up between the candidates.

Speaking of ‘super…’ Ahem, the Patriots. I stayed up until 4:30 in the morning. They air no good commercials over here. And I had to endure a bunch of French commentators pretending they knew or cared about American football. Then they loose in the last 30 seconds. Not cool guys, not cool.

When I was checking facebook the other day there was a banner flashing across the screen. You know those things you get that say you’ve won $1,000,000 because you’re the 1,000,000th visitor to the site? Well, I won myself a green card apparently. Goody.

Another exciting thing that happened. Yesterday I get a call on my cell phone from someone in Switzerland. She tells me that the invoices they tried to send me were returned in the mail and that I need to pay them. She had a very heavy accent and I couldn’t understand perfectly. Dad and I are going to Switzerland next month and I though maybe he had given the hotel my French cell and they were calling. So I went along with her. Nope, turns out they want $20,000 from an American named Halley who they rescued in Interlaken a few months ago. I tried to tell her it wasn’t me and she just said I had to pay. I told her it wasn’t me again so she just threatened to call my government. I told her she should because it’s not me.

So, I’m getting this up and in a few hours I will be on a train to Germany. I’m going to Berlin for a couple of days to see what I can of the Berlin Film Festival and then to Cologne to see Aline! So exciting! Everything’s all set now but when I went to buy the train tickets they thought I was German and wouldn’t stop speaking to me in German. I can’t speak German. Not a single peep. Ah well. C’est la vie.

Until next week, Moi