Well, dinner last night was not quite the interactive experience I'd hoped for, since Marie and Julien were there, and with five super-talkative Frenchies at the table it's basically impossible to get a word in. I was lost the majority of the time as far as the conversation went, and I have trouble telling when they're joking and when they're not. For example, this is the second time recently they've been here, and they keep talking about Julien's diet...I think they're kidding, but I'm not sure. I'm not a huge Julien fan, since he dominates the conversation, speaks too fast, never speaks to me, and never pours me water even though he sits next to me (I don't actually need him to pour me water, it's just customary to do so and this further affirms his lack of interest in me). He's a super-typical French young male, based on my experiences with them. He's probably 30, but he acts like a teenager. I don't know many American men in their late twenties, so maybe it's a guy thing, but the ones I've spent time with here (Julien, Jean, the son of Dad's colleague, Jeanne's friends) seem somewhat lazy, immature and Mama's boys. Now that sounds too negative, and I don't mean to hate on young French men...I just hope by the time my son is 23 he won't come home from school every weekend and dump an enormous pile of clothes on the floor for me to wash, iron, and repack in his suitcase......
Good part of the meal last night...chocolate cake! This is the third attempt by Mme. Beguin to make it (she's made it the last three times Marie has brought the baby for dinner) and it's gotten progressively better each time. Last night's was super yummy, with bits of chocolate and almond in it. Lucky for me, I got a huge hunk for breakfast too (although it was way too rich to eat in the morning, but so so good for lunch).
Friday, March 30, 2007
Thursday, March 29, 2007
French?
I think that my French has improved. Noticably, at least in my mind. After the intial huge learning spurt that came after arriving here, things have been pretty much the same, with gradual improvements, I guess. But in the past week or so (ironically since around the time my family came), French has started to become the language in my head, more and more. The past few days have been pretty intense immersion days, since I haven't spent significant time with any anglophones, and I've been either in class or working on my paper...plus my language hour with Jeanne, the meeting with Sahar, a long meeting with a tutor today, and daily chats with the host fam. I don't think my vocabulary or actual grammar/language skills have improved that drastically, but I'm becoming more and more at ease talking. At least to people I'm comfortable with. Talking to strangers is another story, but even things like ordering food are getting easier. Or at least less difficult.
Last night I had a great dinner with the host family. We ate in front of the television, but for once we weren't watching politics or an old movie that's either dubbed or French. Mme. Beguin chose a documentary on Buddhism, which was not too difficult to understand and quite interesting. I didn't know very much about Buddhism before; but I always thought of it as humanistic, peaceful, searching for zen, etc. ...all those stereotypes. Now I'm slight disillusioned with the religion, as it appears quite sexist (lots of things are forbidden for women, although that's changing). It also seems somewhat idolistic (is that word?), as they built enormous statues as tributes to the Buddha. Anyways, I had lots of reactions to the documentary, and I made several comments while we were watching. It was practically a real conversation with the host fam (lng. barriers plus their outgoingness plus my quietness make this generally super difficult). Point being, for once I had something to say during dinner, and I enjoyed being involved in the conversation, and hopefully we'll watch another documentary tonight (or at least talk about things that I understand and can comment on).
Last night I had a great dinner with the host family. We ate in front of the television, but for once we weren't watching politics or an old movie that's either dubbed or French. Mme. Beguin chose a documentary on Buddhism, which was not too difficult to understand and quite interesting. I didn't know very much about Buddhism before; but I always thought of it as humanistic, peaceful, searching for zen, etc. ...all those stereotypes. Now I'm slight disillusioned with the religion, as it appears quite sexist (lots of things are forbidden for women, although that's changing). It also seems somewhat idolistic (is that word?), as they built enormous statues as tributes to the Buddha. Anyways, I had lots of reactions to the documentary, and I made several comments while we were watching. It was practically a real conversation with the host fam (lng. barriers plus their outgoingness plus my quietness make this generally super difficult). Point being, for once I had something to say during dinner, and I enjoyed being involved in the conversation, and hopefully we'll watch another documentary tonight (or at least talk about things that I understand and can comment on).
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Hi everyone, I know I promised to update about the weekend with the family and I promise that I will try to as soon as my life slows down a bit, but for the moment, I'll post about today. nothing big happened, but it's what's in my head at the moment, as i'm avoiding writing my cinema paper.
This morning, bright and early, I had my second midterm for my french to english translation class. that's the last graded thing we have for that class, so it's basically over (although it was literally not a word of work the entire semester). He said he'd have class next week so we could continue correcting the last midterm (I think I'll take the extra hour of sleep instead of spending time learning about the correct prepositions in English). The exam itself wasn't too bad. I flat out didn't know two of the words, but other than that, I am very confident about the rest. I translated the word "curtly" as "brusquely" and I think he'll accept that one, but my translation of "folding and unfolding oneself" (in the context of sitting down) as "stretching out and lounging" probably won't get much credit. Oh well, I'm doing fine in the class.
After class I was supposed to meet with a tutor from Middlebury to review my term paper for my cinema class. At 12:30 he sent me an email saying he had class and couldn't make it. I received said email at 1:15, after I had already traveled to the Midd center. Oh frenchies and lack of sense of time...
This evening I went out with Sahar, our former exchange student. We met in a cafe and started talking and before we knew it two hours had gone by. And the conversation was entirely in French. And it was real conversation too, not the daily jibberish that normally makes up my French speaking moments. We talked about the French vs. American university system (always a topic of convo between students) and of course, politics and the election came up (obviously, since we're in France). It was a very pleasant evening, and hopefully now I can take my French speaking and translate it into a paper.....................
This morning, bright and early, I had my second midterm for my french to english translation class. that's the last graded thing we have for that class, so it's basically over (although it was literally not a word of work the entire semester). He said he'd have class next week so we could continue correcting the last midterm (I think I'll take the extra hour of sleep instead of spending time learning about the correct prepositions in English). The exam itself wasn't too bad. I flat out didn't know two of the words, but other than that, I am very confident about the rest. I translated the word "curtly" as "brusquely" and I think he'll accept that one, but my translation of "folding and unfolding oneself" (in the context of sitting down) as "stretching out and lounging" probably won't get much credit. Oh well, I'm doing fine in the class.
After class I was supposed to meet with a tutor from Middlebury to review my term paper for my cinema class. At 12:30 he sent me an email saying he had class and couldn't make it. I received said email at 1:15, after I had already traveled to the Midd center. Oh frenchies and lack of sense of time...
This evening I went out with Sahar, our former exchange student. We met in a cafe and started talking and before we knew it two hours had gone by. And the conversation was entirely in French. And it was real conversation too, not the daily jibberish that normally makes up my French speaking moments. We talked about the French vs. American university system (always a topic of convo between students) and of course, politics and the election came up (obviously, since we're in France). It was a very pleasant evening, and hopefully now I can take my French speaking and translate it into a paper.....................
Monday, March 26, 2007
Family in Paris!
Sorry for the huge delay since the last post, but the family's been here and we've been quite busy taking on Paris. I'll give the highlights for the moment, and hopefully get back here later this week with pictures and more details.
Thursday:
Family arrived. We ate our first Parisian meal in a little cafe near the hotel. Brian fell in love with croques (super-French sandwich...basically a tasty toasted ham and cheese). The cafe unfortunately didn't have french fries, but those came profusely later. That afternoon we walked from the hotel (across from the Louvre) all the way down the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe (we went up top and saw the amazing view of the city). We then continued down the road to Porte Maillot, where Dad took us to an adorable French restaurant that had a line out the door 20 minutes before it opened. The restaurant only served steak and french fries, both of which were absolutely delicious.
Friday:
Everyone was exhausted and slept in. It was rainy and gross out so we decided to hit up the Louvre. We spent a few hours there, doing a grand tour. We then headed to a fancy cafe called Angelina's, rumored to have the best hot chocolate in Paris. The hot chocolate was pretty amazing...super thick and accompanied by a cup of whipped cream. Pricey, but delicious. Afterwards we headed to Notre-Dame, hoping to go up on the terrace, but it was closed b/c of the weather. We walked around the inside of the cathedral and then back to the hotel. For dinner we went to St. Michel, to a little restaurant where we ate cheese fondue, beef fondue, and raclette. super filling but yummy.
More to come, I promise...............................
Thursday:
Family arrived. We ate our first Parisian meal in a little cafe near the hotel. Brian fell in love with croques (super-French sandwich...basically a tasty toasted ham and cheese). The cafe unfortunately didn't have french fries, but those came profusely later. That afternoon we walked from the hotel (across from the Louvre) all the way down the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe (we went up top and saw the amazing view of the city). We then continued down the road to Porte Maillot, where Dad took us to an adorable French restaurant that had a line out the door 20 minutes before it opened. The restaurant only served steak and french fries, both of which were absolutely delicious.
Friday:
Everyone was exhausted and slept in. It was rainy and gross out so we decided to hit up the Louvre. We spent a few hours there, doing a grand tour. We then headed to a fancy cafe called Angelina's, rumored to have the best hot chocolate in Paris. The hot chocolate was pretty amazing...super thick and accompanied by a cup of whipped cream. Pricey, but delicious. Afterwards we headed to Notre-Dame, hoping to go up on the terrace, but it was closed b/c of the weather. We walked around the inside of the cathedral and then back to the hotel. For dinner we went to St. Michel, to a little restaurant where we ate cheese fondue, beef fondue, and raclette. super filling but yummy.
More to come, I promise...............................
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeench
Sorry for all the anglophones out there reading the blog, but I've had a very French day today and I'd like to continue it with my blog. I also have a paper to write in French tonight, so I need to be in French mindset. If you want a translation, pop it into www.freetranslation.com.
J’avais un jour assez français aujourd'hui, donc, je veux réfléchir en français, et continuer le mieux que possible parler et penser en français. Heureusement pour moi, j’ai un devoir à écrire en français pour mon cours de cinéma, donc, j’ai plein d’opportunité d’utiliser mon français.
Je n’ai pas fait grandes choses aujourd'hui, donc, je ne comprends pas vraiment pourquoi la langue m’a frappé. Je crois que c’est parce que je n’étais jamais avec les étudiants de Middlebury, et je n’ai pas eu l’opportunité de parler anglais. J’ai passé la plupart du jour en pensant en anglais quand j’étais seule, mais je n’ai parlé qu’avec les francophones aujourd'hui. Ce matin-là, j’avais thème, ou traduction français-anglais, qui est vraiment une perte d’une heure parce que je n’apprends rien jamais. Mon prof est tellement sympa, et il m’adore puisque je suis anglophone et il peut contraster les expressions britanniques avec lesquelles américaines. Je crois que les différences entre nos expressions viennent surtout de la différence d’âge entre nous (il a 60 ans ?) et aussi du fait qu’il cherche les mots dans le dictionnaire, et il enseigne aux élèves les mots qui ne sont pas courants. Aujourd’hui, Templeton, mon compatriote de Middlebury, n’était pas là, donc, j’ai eu l’opportunité de m’installer à côté de mes « amies » françaises. Elles sont un groupe des filles qui sont vachement sympas et qui nous invitent toutes les semaines à prendre un café avec elles après le cours. Nous avons pris un café ensemble trois ou quatre fois maintenant, donc je crois que je peux commencer à les appeler amies. Enfin, je me suis installé entre deux françaises aujourd'hui, et elles ont pris les notes pendant que je lisais un article pour un autre cours. De temps en temps, le prof a dit quelque chose utile, et je l’ai écrit avec l’aide d’une française pour l’orthographe. J’avais lu le mot en français sur son fiche, et puis je l’avais écrit sur le mien, et vice-versa pour elle. C’était un très bon système d’échange linguistique. J’ai appris le mot pour Lent (Carême) et quelques autres mots utiles. Et lorsque le prof a proposé une traduction absurde ou une chose qui n’est pas de tout courante en anglais, j’ai chuchoté le mot le plus courant à mon amie. Bien que je n’aie pas envie d’y aller ce matin, je crois que c’était un cours utile.
J’avais un jour assez français aujourd'hui, donc, je veux réfléchir en français, et continuer le mieux que possible parler et penser en français. Heureusement pour moi, j’ai un devoir à écrire en français pour mon cours de cinéma, donc, j’ai plein d’opportunité d’utiliser mon français.
Je n’ai pas fait grandes choses aujourd'hui, donc, je ne comprends pas vraiment pourquoi la langue m’a frappé. Je crois que c’est parce que je n’étais jamais avec les étudiants de Middlebury, et je n’ai pas eu l’opportunité de parler anglais. J’ai passé la plupart du jour en pensant en anglais quand j’étais seule, mais je n’ai parlé qu’avec les francophones aujourd'hui. Ce matin-là, j’avais thème, ou traduction français-anglais, qui est vraiment une perte d’une heure parce que je n’apprends rien jamais. Mon prof est tellement sympa, et il m’adore puisque je suis anglophone et il peut contraster les expressions britanniques avec lesquelles américaines. Je crois que les différences entre nos expressions viennent surtout de la différence d’âge entre nous (il a 60 ans ?) et aussi du fait qu’il cherche les mots dans le dictionnaire, et il enseigne aux élèves les mots qui ne sont pas courants. Aujourd’hui, Templeton, mon compatriote de Middlebury, n’était pas là, donc, j’ai eu l’opportunité de m’installer à côté de mes « amies » françaises. Elles sont un groupe des filles qui sont vachement sympas et qui nous invitent toutes les semaines à prendre un café avec elles après le cours. Nous avons pris un café ensemble trois ou quatre fois maintenant, donc je crois que je peux commencer à les appeler amies. Enfin, je me suis installé entre deux françaises aujourd'hui, et elles ont pris les notes pendant que je lisais un article pour un autre cours. De temps en temps, le prof a dit quelque chose utile, et je l’ai écrit avec l’aide d’une française pour l’orthographe. J’avais lu le mot en français sur son fiche, et puis je l’avais écrit sur le mien, et vice-versa pour elle. C’était un très bon système d’échange linguistique. J’ai appris le mot pour Lent (Carême) et quelques autres mots utiles. Et lorsque le prof a proposé une traduction absurde ou une chose qui n’est pas de tout courante en anglais, j’ai chuchoté le mot le plus courant à mon amie. Bien que je n’aie pas envie d’y aller ce matin, je crois que c’était un cours utile.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Marty in Paris
Martha's been visiting for the past few days, so I've been Paris tour guide once again. We saw the major sights on Wednesday, and I sent to her to see a few on Thursday while I had class, and since then we've done sights of Paris that I haven't yet seen, including the Opera and Versailles.
Thursday night, my French class went on an "educational excursion" to the Opera Garnier, the old amazing Parisian opera house. The ballet was an interpretation of Proust's masterpiece In Search of Lost Time, or Les Intermittances du Coeur. Even though we read an excerpt from the book in class and we read a detailed information packet about which scenes from the book were converted into the ballet, it was still impossible to follow the storyline (assuming there was one). I think a Proust scholar might have enjoyed the experience a bit more. Nonetheless, the dancing was very impressive and powerful. We were seated in the front row of the highest balcony, which was far but we could still see well. Although the ballet is not super-interesting, it was definitely a great experience, especially to see the building itself. I may go back to see Cinderella, since I know I'll be able to follow that storyline.
Friday morning we slept in, since it looked cloudy and rainy, and when we did wake up, the sun had come out! We decided to venture out of Paris to Versailles, only a half-hour train ride away. Versailles was amazing...not much else to say about it. It is gorgeous and over-the-top in every aspect and incredibly well-maintained. It was also a zoo and there were American tourist groups everywhere (we did get to hear some interesting facts by standing next to tour groups). There was also a ton of restoration going on, including in the hall of Mirrors and the outside, which spoiled some picture-taking opportunities. My camera was not good enough to even get the entire castle in a picture, although we tried several times from the gardens. We walked all around the gardens and to some of the outer buildings. None of the fo
untains were turned on yet, and the statues weren't unveiled yet, so I may have to go back in the spring to see the gardens in all their glory.
untains were turned on yet, and the statues weren't unveiled yet, so I may have to go back in the spring to see the gardens in all their glory.Friday night we went out to dinner with Martha's friend Lisa from Hopkins, who we randomly had run into Thursday night on Blvd. St. Germain while looking for a cafe. She's here on the Columbia program, and we went with her and a bunch of kids from her program to a really cute, family-owned French bistro. The service was slow slow slow and the meal lasted 'til midnight, but the food was delicious. I started with a salad with roasted camembert on it, a yummy variation on the chevre chaud standard that I love. I had some sort of fish (loup?) for the main course. No one knew what "loup" was when we saw it on the menu, and we had to ask the waitress if we were going to be served wolf. Luckily no. For dessert I had raspberry and abricot sorbet with whipped cream. Amazing.
This morning Martha and I headed to Saint Chapelle so that Martha could see a church before leaving Paris. Saint Chapelle is famous for its 15-foot stained glass windows, which were amazing. The chapel itself is pretty small, but the windows are worth paying for.
After Saint Chapelle, we wandered onto the right bank and walked by Hotel-de-Ville, where we saw a really neat free exhibition of cartoons of Paris. The expo would have been much better had we understood the French and the jokes about Parisian neighborhoods better, but the art was good and even Martha enjoyed it. Afterwards we crossed the street to a big dept. store where Martha found a Longchamps bag on sale (!) and she and Lisa (from JHU) each got very cute, trendy Parisian bags. We then plopped down at a sidewalk cafe for lunch, which was the perfect, very Parisian way to end our visit, eating croques and quiches on the sidewalk. We ordered chocolate viennois so Martha could finally taste Paris hot chocolate, but our waiter brought us coffee viennois instead. We finally tracked him down and sent them back (although he wasn't convinced they were wrong). He came back with two new ones, and a half-apology. We started drinking them, and realized once again, we had coffee instead of hot chocolate. We gave up on fixing the situation at that point, as the waiter was nowhere to be found. When he finally came to take the money, I showed him my cup of coffee and said very clearly "this is not chocolate, this is coffee." He offered to bring me a new one, and I said we had to leave, but I didn't want to pay for it (5 euros) since I didn't get what I ordered. At that point he completely ignored me, took the money on the table, and gave us change with the coffees included on our bill. Yet anohter example of how the French have never heard of the phrase "the customer is always right." Oh well, makes a good story.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Geneva: the land of cheese and chocolate
This weekend Becky, Templeton, and i took a spur-of-the-moment trip to Geneva. Geneva is practically in France, and the train ride was only 3 hours. We left early Friday morning and arrived in Geneva at lunchtime. When we arrived at our hostel hoping to drop our bags, they had our room ready. We got lucky with the hostel - it was nice, it was clean, the workers were friendly, we didn't have to pay extra for sheets, we got free breakfast (if we got up before nine), the showers had hot water, lockers were free, the rooms were single-sex, it wasn't too loud, and it was clean. After we dropped our backpacks in the lcokers, we headed down to the lake to search for a place to eat lunch. After scanning many, many menus, we discovered that Swiss cuisine is essentially the same as French cuisine, at least in restaurants in Geneva. The major difference is that every
standard brasserie has a pizza menu (the Italian influence in Switzerland?). After lunch we wandered around the lake, took a little train tour of the major monuments in the parks and walked around the old city and the town hall area. We saw most of the old city and that side of the river, then headed back to the hostel to get ready for dinner. We also started calling Switzerland the land of cheese and chocolate, and decided we would eat primarily that for the duration of our visit. And we bought our first chocolate. For dinner we decided we had to eat some Swiss cheese, and found a place to eat fondue. Our waitress was incredibly nice, and picked out a nice local red
wine for us that went perfectly with the
standard brasserie has a pizza menu (the Italian influence in Switzerland?). After lunch we wandered around the lake, took a little train tour of the major monuments in the parks and walked around the old city and the town hall area. We saw most of the old city and that side of the river, then headed back to the hostel to get ready for dinner. We also started calling Switzerland the land of cheese and chocolate, and decided we would eat primarily that for the duration of our visit. And we bought our first chocolate. For dinner we decided we had to eat some Swiss cheese, and found a place to eat fondue. Our waitress was incredibly nice, and picked out a nice local red wine for us that went perfectly with the traditional gruyere fondue. We ate a long, relaxing meal before heading back to the hostel to get to bed early (we had left at 7:30 a.m.). Luckily for us all our of roommates were already back and sound asleep when we got back.
Saturday morning we had hoped to visit the UN, but we discovered too late on Friday that it was only open on weekdays. We had visited the tourism office and picked up lots of brochures, and we picked out a nearby town that had a Swiss history museum, a morning market and looked very cute and Swiss. We took a 20 minute train ride and arrived in a really cute, charming town called 
Nyon. There was an outdoor market that we wandered through, and we also found a super-nice grocery store (I was able to achieve one of my weekend goals of exploring a Swiss grocery store, and we all enjoyed looking at the products). We walked down to the water (this town was also on the lake) and saw the town's landmark chateau. On the chateau terrace we met a group of high schoolers from New Haven, CT. The view from the chateau looking over the water was amazing, and basically made the trip worthwhile. It was a beautiful day, with a perfect blue sky, despite the coldness and the intense wind from the lake. Weather-wise it almost felt like being back in Midd. After exploring Nyon, we hopped on a bus to the next town over and went to the Swiss history museum, which turned out to be kind of dull, but worth the adventure to the little town. When we returned to Geneva we went to a watch museum (we figured it was a very Swiss thing to do). The watch museum was also pretty dull, but we saw some interesting watches. For dinner Saturday night we chose Indian food, since the restaurant selection near our hostel was pretty slim, and there was tons of 
international cuisine. Geneva is an extremely international city - over 1/3 of its population is international, and I've never heard such a variety of languages spoken. Everything was written in the four national languages - French, German, English, and Italian. French was definitely predominant, but we heard a variety and nearly everyone we met spoke English well (I think every single visitor in our hostel spoke English very well or natively). We went to bed early again Saturday night, so we could rise early and get in a site before breakfast.
Nyon. There was an outdoor market that we wandered through, and we also found a super-nice grocery store (I was able to achieve one of my weekend goals of exploring a Swiss grocery store, and we all enjoyed looking at the products). We walked down to the water (this town was also on the lake) and saw the town's landmark chateau. On the chateau terrace we met a group of high schoolers from New Haven, CT. The view from the chateau looking over the water was amazing, and basically made the trip worthwhile. It was a beautiful day, with a perfect blue sky, despite the coldness and the intense wind from the lake. Weather-wise it almost felt like being back in Midd. After exploring Nyon, we hopped on a bus to the next town over and went to the Swiss history museum, which turned out to be kind of dull, but worth the adventure to the little town. When we returned to Geneva we went to a watch museum (we figured it was a very Swiss thing to do). The watch museum was also pretty dull, but we saw some interesting watches. For dinner Saturday night we chose Indian food, since the restaurant selection near our hostel was pretty slim, and there was tons of 
international cuisine. Geneva is an extremely international city - over 1/3 of its population is international, and I've never heard such a variety of languages spoken. Everything was written in the four national languages - French, German, English, and Italian. French was definitely predominant, but we heard a variety and nearly everyone we met spoke English well (I think every single visitor in our hostel spoke English very well or natively). We went to bed early again Saturday night, so we could rise early and get in a site before breakfast.Sunday morning we got up early enough for breakfast, and after breakfast checked out of the hostel and hopped on a tram to the Red Cross museum (all public transportation is either buses or trams that run throughout the city...way cooler than the metro - our hostel also gave us a free public transportation pass, which no one ever checked). The Red Cross museum was definitely the best museum we visisted. It basically went through the history of armed conflict and natural disasters since the founding of the Red Cross in 1857, and the museum was well-organized and very informative. I learned that the organization is actually known as the Red Cross or the Red Crescent, because Muslims were opposed to the symbol of the relief organization being a cross. The museum had a special program where students were the museum guides, which was neat and it was cute when they talked, as many of them were clearly nervous but excited to be doing this and excited whenever we had a question to ask them.
Following the museum we headed to the train station, where we used up the rest of our Swiss francs on lunch and a bit more chocolate, then boarded the train for Paris, where we returned to sunshine and blue skies, sans wind, very nice.
Overall a successful weekend. I didn't fall in love with Geneva, but I'm glad I went. I'll probably never go back, but it was definitely high on my list of cities to visit, so I'm excited I did. I really enjoyed Switzerland though, and would love to return to another one of the cities of the land of cheese and chocolate (and watches and banks).
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