Update...

So this is something I wrote the 13th of Sept. Hopefully it gives some insight to what I've been doing the past few months. I hope to update this with a super long entry. Maybe... Anyway, here's the entry!

Yes, I know, I’ve been away for a while. But to be honest, I haven’t had a free moment to sit down and write since I got to France. Every minute is filled with something, or someone, whether it’s paperwork or meeting new friends.

So right now I’m sitting in my new room on my bed with honey by my side and a huge 1,5 liter bottle of water. My allergies are attacking me horribly here! So bad that right now, I have absolutely no voice. It didn’t help that last night I met some really cool new people and forced talking in a loud bar. But I think it’s worth it to make new friends. (And don’t worry Mom J I’m fine. It’s definitely allergies because my ears and sinuses are stuffy and I don’t have a fever.)

I’m going to skip around a lot in my telling of what I’ve been up to, so bare with me.

Yesterday morning I woke up and I felt like I was going to cough my tonsils up. But of course, I didn’t. I have no class on Fridays (thank god!) so I put on some clothes and my glasses and walked to the pharmacy near the entrance to my campus. I forgot there was another about 100 ft from my dorm but oh well! Most pharmacies have a blinking green cross that is a beacon for sick or just people who think they are sick. Making a beeline through all the people accosting me with pamphlets on various groups and health care things, I made my way into a very odd looking store. I promise to go take a picture of a pharmacy at some point but at the time, that wasn’t exactly on my mind.

The pharmacy is absolutely pristine white and mostly open space. There are only a few things up around the wall and maybe one or two displays in the middle. All the boxes are white with very little writing on them and there are people nicely dressed behind a counter. No white jackets in France apparently! There was a man and a woman at the counter, both helping another customer but the man said “Bonjour,” as is customary when someone enters a store, and I attempted the customary reply. Almost nothing came out. Just a squeaky “Bon….” So immediately he looked at me and said “Vous a besoin de quelque chose” You need something. YES! So I attempted to explain my problem with hand gestures and meek sounds.

Thank god I’ve become pretty good at mouthing French! He picked up six things from behind the counter and told me about each of them. Lozenges and sprays, pills and creams. AH. So I asked which was best and ended up with a 3Euro spray can of something like Chloroseptic. For three euros it is gigantic. In the US I would estimate it to be around $10-15.

And thus with my little paper baggie of spray in hand I fought my way back through all the pamphlet people again, some of whom wished me good health because I could only manage a weak reply during the first pass.

Right outside my building I spotted another American student and asked her plans for the day. We both needed to go register for classes so we decided to go together because it’s much easier to wade through the chaotic world for French registration together (I’ll explain in a bit). So as she looked at my course book for Lettres Modernes I hopped in the shower and then we tried out my new French medicine.

It’s a menacing looking bottle when you have no idea what it is. I read all the directions in French and English and then attached the spray head. And nervously, I sprayed it into the back of my throat. First, it tastes disgusting. And it is super strong. Almost immediately my throat went numb, which was absolutely amazing and disorienting. And like magic, I could talk with ease.

But that completes the story of my pharmacy trip for now. I have a feeling I will return today to see if they have any over the counter allergy drugs. I’m not really sure how OTC works here.

So to explain how French registration works…. Well really I guess I should just start from the beginning.

Paris was awesome. I saw so much history in only a week. But I have to say my favorite things were the first full day in Paris, where we ate lunch in Champs de Mars at the base of the Eiffel Tower. Every time I would look up was a pretty LARGE reminder that I was now in France. I am REALLY here. After studying pictures of the damn thing for so long, it was an awing experience in real life.

My other favorite thing was the catacombs. We climbed down a TON of spiral stairs (which are really common in Paris, so if you hate them, you’re going to hate them even more) to a cavern underneath the city, even underneath the metro. We walked about a half mile in a dark alley, the ceiling just high enough for me to walk without bending over. Of course there were bat speakers everywhere that drove me crazy (I can hear the high pitched squeal) but after walking for a long time we came to the entrance to the catacombs. It is a really creepy looking entrance with the warning about it being the entrance to the dead above the doorway.

And when you enter, there are millions of bones surrounding you. Stacked in designs and pushed against the walls, there are millions upon millions of bones dating as far back as the 1500s, possibly even later. Even Robespierre is amongst them. But most of them are just average Parisians which is the coolest part. To think about how those people lived and how they died, it’s a pretty humbling experience. And others have thought the same thing, as little poems and quotes on plaques are placed among the stacks of bones.

The creepiest part of that was the ground had this white talcum stuff on it. Extremely slippery and it comes out with you when you leave the catacombs. I’m pretty sure that it is calcium deposits from the bones. It won’t come off my shoes so the dead Parisians are here with me in Montpellier.

Also in Paris I got to see Sebastian and meet his sister for the first time, which was amazing of course. Sebastian was an exchange student at Hendrix my freshman year and he came to visit Boston so I played tour guide for him. So he returned the favor in Paris. His sister is currently looking for an apartment in Paris so she was also free to come out with us for dinner and to walk around the city. They took us to all the places we didn’t get to see during the day. Which look even better at night, to be truly honest. Paris really is the City of Light. And by that I mean all the lights they have during the night!

My camera didn’t exactly work because I couldn’t charge my battery so Lukas has all the pictures (my traveling mate from Germany). As soon as I get them from him, I’ll post them up here.

So the morning we were leaving Paris I was obviously nervous. I ate my breakfast but very shortly it decided to leave me again. We packed up quickly and left the hotel and got to the train station. We were a bit late for my train, at least I thought, but apparently they don’t even announce which track the train is on in Europe until ten minutes before it leaves. I said goodbye to Lukas, who would be flying back to Germany, and boarded my train. Of course, I sat in the wrong seat the first time. So after moving my luggage and sitting down, the train ride began. It was nice to see the country flashing by me, to see the white cows and the vineyards. The little towns with stone churches in the distant rain finally made me say to myself “Yes, you will be here for a year.”

But upon my arrival from rainy cold Paris to tropically suppressing Montpellier, I stripped off my layers and got on the tram.

First off, the trams are adorable. There is two lines, my line being the blue one, the other line is orange and covered in flowers. Inside the tram it’s all pretty much the honors system. You get in and put your ticket in the ticket eater (composteur in French) and then just get off where you want. There are many people who have passes and many others who just get on the tram and have nothing. There are inspectors who go around randomly and check for violations and write tickets, but I’ve yet to see one though I have heard they target black women, who actually very often don’t have tickets.

Anyway, I got off at my stop, St. Eloi, with a ton of other students, who all promptly got on a bus. I didn’t want to risk going past my building, so I decided to foot it. It’s not very long and now I walk it everyday but with my luggage, it seemed like forever. I made it to campus and into the Administrative building, up the three flights of stairs (to the second floor by the way) and found my coordinator. He told me to come in and sit down and then we went over some really basic things. He sent me to my new residence and that was it. Come back tomorrow! Which seems to be the answer for everything.

So I climbed up a hill to my new residence. It’s a Cite Universitaire. Basically, it’s a gated set of buildings where students can live for next to nothing. An average French student pays about 80 Euros a month for my room, with government aid, and about 120 Euro a month for a renovated room, which includes a fridge, private bath, kitchen, and internet. Our rooms in Batiment E, the Chambre Simple, are equipped with a sink, bed, desk, and closet. No internet. To use the internet we must go to the lodge/lobby to use the free wifi there. Kinda a pain in the ass but oh well.
So my first night here, I unpacked all my things and journeyed to find something to eat. At this point my stomach was disagreeing with me but I found a grocery store and bought things to make a sandwich and some breakfast. Of course, once back in my room, I couldn’t eat a damn thing. I was so nervous and upset. And also alone. And it sucked. I was homesick for the second time since arriving to France, the first time being my first night in France, and I tried to call my friends to no avail.

I took some sleeping pills and went to sleep, waking the next morning to get to M. Amara’s office to go through paperwork. I hoped to meet other Americans but nope. I didn’t. So I went to the city center to look around and then came back to my area for dinner. Mistake number one. There is very little in the area in live in. But there is a nice little restaurant down the street that had a cheap and quick dinner. After dinner I tried to use my computer but couldn’t and eventually decided to come back to my room and sleep. The American students had a meeting the next day to talk about classes so I would meet some people then.

I got to the meeting after going downtown to buy some various things I needed and there were so many Americans there. Not just ISEP students, but a few other exchange programs. So all of the ISEP students went in to a classroom and they welcomed us and we all met each other. Then all the other Americans came in to talk about scheduling. From that point on, the ISEP students are pretty much on their own. We only get information if we ask questions. Just like Erasmus and French students. The other Americans have coordinators here who are also American or who only work with their one program.

So when all the other program students attacked the papers while we sat there not knowing what was going on, I met Kirsten Kinne. She and I had talked on the pone before coming here and I have no idea what it was but we are now attached at the hip. Maybe it’s because we speak to each other in French while all the Americans speak in English constantly (even if you speak to them in French they respond in English). I’m not sure. But now we do everything together. And it’s awesome to have her for support here.

We went to a little party the International House of Montpellier hosted for all the foreign students in Montpellier. So we met a lot of other people and then went out for dinner with another American from UPV and a Finnish guy also at UPV. Matt, the American, is a ceramics major, while the Finnish guy, Alexandre, I have no idea what he does. We ate a lovely dinner at an Indian restaurant and then afterwards joined the Erasmus group at L’Oxymore, a student oriented bar. I met so many people who were all so nice but to be honest, I have the hardest time trying to remember people’s names when they are in a different language.

Come Monday, I figured out a bit of what classes I was taking but not the times. In France, all the course descriptions are online, posted only about a week or two before school starts. Then all the times are posted in a display window (les panneaux) in the department’s building on campus. As the campus is gated on weekends, I had no idea what classes were what times. But apparently it’s the same deal for the French, who look at the sheets with the same amount of confusion as us foreign students.

In general, everyone is extremely helpful. I have yet to have anyone in Montpellier be utterly rude to me. Occasionally someone will crack a joke about the US but everyone really seems to be so polite and honest here. Sometimes I notice in the South of the US people are polite and helpful but sometimes they have a hint of being fake at the same time. People in the North are just blatantly honest and often rude because of that. But here in Montpellier, if you even look like you need help and ask with a smile, everyone is very polite and helps you, or directs you to someone who can.

For example, I just met my across-the-hall mate yesterday and she heard my voice. Immediately she gave me some home made honey to soothe my throat and some hot lemon water. She wouldn’t take no for an answer. I invited her to dinner last night, which I ended up being late for, but then she came out with us!

The same goes for all the professors here too. They are really understanding. Some more than others, but all of my professors are really nice and helpful. One even writes the words I make a strange face to on the board and if I still don’t look like I understand, she gives a quick synonym explanation. I think this semester will be hard but I can tell already my French is improving. I’ve only been here a week!

So between classes and paperwork, I’ve been meeting a lot of wonderful people, French and non-French. There are some Berbers who always hang out in the lobby on the Internet who have been really helpful to me, taught me some ins and outs of the French paperwork system, and even helped me pick out my cell phone plan (which I will buy today). They’ve let me use their computers to talk to my family and check my email when mine has had trouble. One of them is even giving me his old fridge he was going to throw away. They know what it’s like to be away from home and have nothing so they are all so nice and helpful. At this point I know about six words in Berber. Azul means hello.

In class the French students are very nice and let me copy off their notes during the class. They all find it very interesting that I come from Boston, study in Arkansas, and decided to come here. But I guess it is pretty interesting!

Because I know this is very long (sorry I’ve just got so much to say) I’m going to close it out with what I did yesterday.

After finding out that I had actually already registered for class as it’s only writing your name on the roll call, I went to lunch and found another American student named Cory waiting in line for a meal ticket. We ate lunch and then found Kirsten and we all went downtown to buy her art supplies and look for a cellphone plan. Remind me to explain how cell phones work in France at some point.

Anyway, we came back with all the information and I ran into a Berber guy whose name I have no idea to spell, we’ll call him M since it starts with an M (I think?). He sat down with me a told me which plan was best and also showed me a website that you can use to make free international calls with your cell phone. Made me pretty happy! So I then went back to downtown to try to buy mine but I forgot my passport and so I couldn’t get one. I was frustrated so I went to Mc Donald's and bought some fries.

A little taste of home and walking along the old streets and I was good as new. Someone tapped me on the shoulder and it was another American girl, Anne, who I have a grammar class with. She had just met some French people and invited me to have a drink at Fitzpatricks, an Irish bar near where she lived in downtown. So I of course said yes and had a really nice conversation with Pierre, Emeline and Anne. But that made me late for the dinner that my hall mate was so hesitant about coming to. Anne joined me and we walked as fast as we could from the tram to the caf but didn’t make it. So we went to the dorm, ran into Kirsten who was also late, and then picked up my hall mate, whose name I can’t spell. We were talking in the hallway and another French girl, whose name is a lot like Margarine, came over and asked what we were doing tonight.

At the same time another foreign student from Wales who I know joined us as he also lives in our hallway and said the Erasmus students were all meeting at the fountain in the center at ten. So we all decided to go. The three of us who hadn’t eaten picked up some sandwiches and then made our way to a Barbarous, a bar pretty close to L’Oxymore. It was jam packed with people. So much you couldn’t move, literally. So we left to go to Barbarous, leaving almost half our party. Kirsten and I dived back into the mass to find our friends, getting picked up but various different guys on the way. French guys are pretty insistent sometimes. One told Kirsten “You are now my girlfriend” in really broken English and we had to ward him off. But that’s why you never go out alone!

So we made our way home and went to bed and now here I am. I’m really happy to be here so far, except for a few minor things here and there I’m really happy. Paperwork is one of them. Also having my passport to do ANYTHING. That’s a pain because I don’t like to carry it on me. But I miss all of you and hope that wherever you are you’re having fun and learning a lot and doing well!

So it's been a while.

I just wrote a whole post and French blogger deleted it. So yeah. Haven't written in forever, sorry. I'm going to Germany this week but I promise to post entries from my journal when I get back!

A Few Moments.

I've been a bad blogger. It's been a while since I updated, I know! I've just been pretty busy. Last week I had the party on Sunday, which was a good time. I got to hang out with Dan and get all the food together first and then Ray arrived and we grilled the burgers and then the girls showed up to join in.

We sat around and watched movies and Dan ended up spending the night and while he was passed out on our pullout bed downstairs the girls and I watched American Pie and laughed about high school and past fun times. I wish I could spend more time with Ray and Lauren and Hilary because I never do! We're always in different places living busy lives. It's only a few days out of the year where our lives have the opportunity to intersect.

So my last week of work was very busy filling orders and making arrows. It was a good way to close out my summer though. James Cosimini, another archer who runs the Brandies team, will be taking my place on Saturdays, and a retired friend of my parents will be taking over weekdays when my Dad isn't around the shop. James is really knowledgeable about archery and at first I felt unsure because of some past personal issues I had with him but after watching him and training him in the store I feel a little better. I've been trying to find out more about him. He recently had a break with his long time girlfriend, who was the one who really had the problem with me. Friday night we grabbed a pizza after work and talked about breakups and watched Office Space. I had a better time than I thought I would. I kind of did it out of pity and knowing what a bad break can do and how much having someone give you the time to talk means. But it ends out that we actually had a pretty awesome time!

Saturday morning I got a text from my mom asking if I wanted to do Waterfire. It's a weekly event in Providence on the canal. Basically there's these little floating baskets that are chained to the bottom of the canal and black boats with people all dressed in black go with a torch and light them on fire and tend to the fires until just after midnight. Sometimes they light the whole canal, other times it's only a partial. Friends of my mom have been doing it for years and needed two more volunteers on their boat for their section and gave my mom a call. So after outfitting ourselves in all black we made our way to Providence to the team meeting where we were given the down low on how to stack the wood and light the fires. We were "part of the show" and were "meant to be invisible." Of course people waved but we weren't allowed to wave back, except for maybe a little shake of the hand at waist level.

We boarded our boat, which was stacked with wood on more than half of it and we all stood on the starboard side in a line facing forwards. Because it was my first time they let my light a number of baskets. We were first part of a procession down the canal to the large basin that has a circle of fire baskets. There was one boat with the flame in front of the audience and the other young guy in the boat held out the torch and lit our torch from the original one. Each boat has a torch about eight feet long and gets the flame during the procession. Then we divide up and go to our individual sections and light the baskets. We are constantly moving at about 5 mph so the torch is in the front of the boat and as soon as we get close enough, a wick made of newspaper is within reach. To lit it you have to shove the torch in as deep as you can to the wick, without knocking any of the stacked wood off the basket and keeping it on while the boat is moving away. It takes a bit of skill but it was really fun!

While going down the canal to the sounds of haunting music, I felt like a Venetian courtesan, being applauded for my skills, although mine were fire lighting and stacking on more wood, not being a woman of "entertainment" and intelligence. After lighting them we went back to the dock to take a break and wait for the fires to burn down a bit before stoking them. One of the women in our boat was named Liz and she'd been abroad for a year in college near Madrid. She told me it was the best decision of her life and told me I absolutely had to see the Prado if in Spain.

After a night of stoking fires from a boat, reaching out with two blocks of wood as far as I could reach at times, my legs are a bit bruised from falling wood and I slept today until very late. My Grandpa joined us for dinner tonight. We had my "last supper" as my parents kept dubbing it. I know they're going to miss me a lot considering every time an ad or show or movie refers to children moving on my mom starts bawling her eyes out and my dad gets teary eyed. My brother, Pat, is actually trying to be nice to me and tomorrow we're going to see Pineapple Express, my last American, non-dubbed, movie till Christmas.

Other than movie plans tomorrow will be a fun filled day of packing and getting my things settled at home. Making sure you've taken care of everything is always a worrying process. It's hard to know what you'll need to bring. I need to remember to take pictures of my family. Not that I don't have them on my computer but having an actual photo in my hand is always better.

I probably wont post until I'm in Paris, and that all depends on if internet is free at the hotel or not. Then it depends on if I can find free internet otherwise. But until then I'll be writing it out so I can post a bunch when I get internet again.

The plans so far are:

Aug 26th, depart for Paris at 10pm
Aug 27th, arrive in Paris at 2pm, go through customs and somehow find Lukas in the airport. Get to the hotel and find Sebastien and have a wonderful, Eiffel Tower filled night.
Enjoy Paris.
Sept 3rd, See Lukas off to the airport while making my way to the Gare de Lyon for a train around noontime to Montpellier. Then make my way to my new campus to meet one of the International Relations staff who will get me settled in my new dorm room.
Sept 4th, Meet the other ISEP girls and have a wonderful welcome to Montpellier, whatever that may be!

The Olympics Make Me Emotional.

For as long as I can remember (in other words, before I was born) the South Koreans have been the leaders in archery, winning the Gold in the Olympics since 1980. But this year the Chinese cracked the Korean weakness, cracking under pressure. The Koreans are so good that in the past no one came close and they never felt the pressure of a one-point win or loss.

But this year China gave them a run for their money and won the gold, putting South Korea in second and third place. Because of the time change I woke up and watched the replay coverage online from NBC. I have to stay I was next to tears when Zhang Juanjuan climbed up on the platform and knelt down to get her gold medal from the official. If China can beat Korea, we can do it too.

From The China Daily paper:

"After brushing aside all three South Koreans in her way to the Olympic victory, two-time Olympian Zhang foiled reigning champion and No. 1 seed Park Sung-Hyun's effort to defend her title with a 110-109 win in the final.
"Today's competition was very hard. I had to to face three South Koreans, all the best in the world," said Zhang.
"But I was ready to challenge them, each of them. The gold is just a reward and encouragement for Chinese involved in the sport of archery," she said. "The honor is not just for me, but for all those related to the sport. Many years' efforts from our team resulted in the gold medal."
In the semifinal, Zhang just defeated world record holder Yun Ok-Hee 115-109. The score of 115 was also an Olympic record tying result.
"To my victory, I think that's for the sake of the cheers from my home crowd," said the new champion. "My confidence and composure also played an important role for that."
Before Zhang's victory over Park, South Korea had never allowed the women's individual gold slip away from them since the 1984 Los Angeles Games.
The individual silver was not enough to meet South Korea's expectation. "Silver is good, I value my silver. But it would be a lie if I say no regret. Of course, I'm regretful. I need to get better prepared for next time," said Park, who was also in her second Olympics after Athens' double gold medals four years ago.
"Of course, it's the winner always has the say. I do regret of the result. I think I can break those archers before me, but not this time. It's a good experience for me and for other South Korean archers in the future.
"It's Ok not to win. In this way, the newcomers will get less pressurized. Our archers in South Korea will compete in better mental conditions and get better results," added Park."

So it looks like the Koreans will not let this happen again but unless they learn not to fold, I see more golds in the future for non-Koreans.


I've been shooting since I was around seven, no one is exactly sure when I started. I can't remember a time when my family wasn't involved in archery. At this point, I don't shoot much after an injury to my shoulder. It's pretty painful for me to shoot, even though I really want to. I tried to shoot this summer but ended giving up in tears. It's pretty hard to sit in an archery range all day and not be able to do something that is such a large part of my life and my family's life.


Anyway, yesterday I got to hang out with my friend Ray who I get to see only about once a year. We were best friends in high school and drove to school together everyday for the last two years. When other friends and I went out separate ways for whatever reasons, Ray was always there!

So I was pretty excited to see him for lunch. We went to TGIFriday's and enjoyed a nice lunch with a horrible waiter. Talked about what we've been up to and what we're both studying. I felt like I was talking too much but Ray didn't seem to mind, not that he ever really did though! He's in a five year program for Engineering and stayed to do research this summer with a professor.

After lunch we went to ColdStone Creamery, where I had some amazing raspberry sorbet. Then went to the store and relaxed and talked. We also listened to the Savage Love podcast because Ray was a little confused about how my last semester ended . It still makes me smile.

I also got an email from Jacques Louisin, my exchange coordinator. Housing is all set and I think I might be able to arrive one day early to my dorm instead of couchsurfing with another Montpellier III student.

Now that I don't have babysitting in the morning, I can get things done that I want, like exercising or figuring out the last things I need for France. Or even working on my French. I'm a little bit worried about my French because my skills have greatly decreased since I left school. I don't get to speak it here at all because I don't know anyone that has enough language skill to hold a conversation in French. I have a few friends that took French with me or took it in high school but none of them have enough to have a conversation that's anything more complicated than tourist stuff. Hopefully the Paris week will help me with a more gradual transition into French versus the other exchange students.

They're all arriving in Montpellier directly from their homes on the 4th. Then we have to do all of our meetings and planning things that day and the next in French, along with applying for the Carte de Sejour and all that. I think taking a week in Paris to adjust to the time change and be gradual put into French will be better. Well I hope!

I'll be with a bunch of English speakers and then be surrounded by French otherwise. Hopefully it wont be like my family's trip to Montreal, where everyone spoke in English to us automatically.

The treadmill is calling...

Two Weeks and Counting.

So it's exactly two weeks and I'll be on my first plane to France, stopping in lovely Iceland. It seemed so far away and now it's finally here!!

This weekend was probably my last at the Beach House for the summer and so we ended it with a bang. A sunburned bang to be exact! I chose to go to Crane's Beach, a hop by car away from our house, where I enjoyed the foggy, just perfect weather. It wasn't too hot, not too cold, just right. The only problem with just right weather is it tricks you into not putting on sunscreen. I put it on my arms and stomach and thighs, forgetting my lower back and backs of my thighs and face. Of course, being the Irish I am, I am now burnt in those places. Not horribly but still slightly uncomfortable. We went home after stopping for my favorite apple donuts at the farm on the way home and spent the evening watching South Pacific which my Mom was horrified to know I'd never seen.

The next day we lazed around and watched the Olympics but not archery, as it never makes it on tv. We left around noon time and stopped off at the New England Mobile Bookfair. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before but it's a gigantic warehouse of shelves upon shelves of books organized by publisher. Everything is a pretty large percentage off so it's the best place for me to go! I bought three new moleskines, a planner, an address book and a new journal, and a tiny little guide to Paris published by Blue Guides. It's their art/shop/eat series and gives a bit more info on the main sites and restos while being tiny enough to slip into a jeans pocket. Even a girl's back pocket, as tiny as it is! I haven't browsed through it all yet but it seems perfect.

I've been planning a bit more about my trip, trying to find out more info about tickets and combo tickets and times. My Let's Go guide for Western Europe is probably the worst thing to bring with me. Many of the times or prices are a bit off. Not vastly but the August hours are not what is posted on the monument's websites. But of course, I'm sure they've changed and all so I can't be too annoyed.

After the Moblie Bookfair we went to get a nibble at Fresh City, a yuppie sandwich shop that makes a mean organic hummus veggie sandwich. Definitely not a meal but a nice snack to split. I'm still a rabid meat-eater and probably always will be.

We couldn't go the way we wanted on the busy street out of Fresh City and ended up turning around in the EMS parking lot. "Why don't you go look at the jackets?" my Mom suggested because I've been looking for the perfect coat for a while without finding anything.

It had to be stylish, warm enough for Austria in the winter, waterproof, but still be able to do the brisk chill of windy spring. A cover-all jacket. And surprisingly I found one. I went and looked at the 70% off and lower rack and found a Orage Chole II jacket on sale for $139, normally $250. Jackets last a few years so I thought, why not, and decided to buy it. I'll put up pictures I'm sure at some point, but it's a tan plaid jacket with a white zip-out soft-shell. Pretty nifty for so cheap. It was so expensive that the draw ties were wrapped in tissue paper. I thought that was a bit overkill but whatever. Still interesting.

Then we finally came home and went food shopping. When we came home we had a nice family dinner and cheered on Phelps. About to set down to a movie, my brother got a call from his boss at the resto he works at about how the only other cook was getting fired. He started swearing at the top of his lungs, now being the only chef left. We keep trying to convince him to leave the place because it's so awful and they don't respect him at all there and don't pay him nearly enough. We finally had him convinced after two hours of talking. He felt obligated because the resto couldn't run without him and his co-workers would be out of jobs.

Come to find out his boss got laid off and they didn't fire the other cook. And thus, my brother is thinking about staying. Back to square one. My parents are really stressed out about my brother and whether or not he can survive on his own and if he can make ends meet. Right now he can't at this job. He couldn't pay rent and all his bills at this point. I really hope he pursues another job like he says he's going to. It worries me. Will he ever move out?

So tomorrow morning I have a fasting blood test and right now I'm starving. I see cookies calling to me. Even salad, I don't care. I'm just so hungry! I guess sleep is the best remedy to that.

Missing my "Old" Buddy.

So I rented a DVD but found that when my computer killed itself it also killed my DVD player and I do not have a disk for it. It came with my computer I guess because I didn't buy it. Now I have a DVD and no way to watch it tonight, as the TV is occupied. Guess I'll sort it out tomorrow. But I need to fix this before I leave for France!

Today was also a bit nerve-twisting. I received a message from another girl, Kirsten, going to Montpellier with me about housing. In our first email from our International Services person, Jacques, he wrote about our stipends and housing: "Housing is paid by Monique + stipend of 260 euros/month on your bank account (I can "pre-open" it if you give me a copy of your passport showing the visa stamp). The students must confirm their booking on line (by June)."

And thus, I thought it was about money not housing because Jacques is talking about money in this bullet point, non? But alas, Kirsten thought it might be about housing, which makes a lot more sense as you can't exactly get a bank account up and running without being there (or maybe you can with this pre-open deal? not sure how that works). So we both panicked a bit! I called her and we talked about it and I reassured her that ISEP is in a contract to give us housing and that this will be fulfilled. I said it really to more convince myself it was going to work out.

We talked for a while about our jitters and our plans, what we're bringing and if we should meet at the train station and go to the school together. After a while, and probably using all of my minutes for the month, I hung up a bit more confident of my French skills and ready to get going. If Ben Molini can go to France for a semester with very little French, I can do it with eight years of learning.

I messaged all the people I know going to Montpellier and got a call from Mayra and she told me she once emailed Jacques about it and never got a reply. Meanwhile I have two emails out to Jacques about things he hasn't replied to yet so I asked her when she sent it and it was shortly after we got our first email, sometime in late May. Also, he had replied to other emails she sent about other questions.

So my thinking is that it isn't important, we still have housing and also that Jacques possibly made a mistake and is ignoring it so he doesn't have to live up to it. By the culture books I've buried myself in this summer it seems about right for what a lot of researchers say about French reactions to mistakes. For one, you don't say, "I'm sorry" when you make a simple mistake but rather "Pardon."

Anyway, moving on to better things. Well, at least more interesting than my mindless worries!

I found out today that the winemakers in the Montpellier region are on strike and as it turns out, a pretty violent one by American standards, though I think normal ones for the French. I'm not sure when harvest time is for grapes for wine but shouldn't they be picking rather than striking?

Also, I found a pretty nifty thing on Assistants in France, a nice little forum of English language assistants going to France talking about French things and preparing to go teach, someone posted about a podcast about French Idioms.

http://www.katiaandkyliemac.com/
I'm listening to all of their "Learn French" ones, which about idioms, but they also have two others, one about travel and another that talks about random words.

At this point I'm writing out of books to read about France. I mean, a lot of them are exactly the same. "Oh poor me, I'm moving to retire/marry a sexy Frenchman/hang out in France. How will I ever adapt?!?" And then through a lot of awkward moments and Anti-Frog sentiment they come to love their new home. Yes, this is probably what this blog will get to but at least this is for people who actually might know me and therefore have a personal connection. I don't know these random author's little tweaks so these books get a little old after a while.

I am still shying away from history, which is bad I know as I know very little about French history. But even so, I'm not interested in history in English. So reading French history (in English as the French versions are very expensive) is not exactly my idea of fun. And there is a grammar book sitting at my side waiting to be worked on. Shame on me.

Now, back to listening to two lovely Anglo-Francophones!

Finally Offical.

So I'd say things are finally official. I have my ticket to Paris, STA finally sent it back and I got it yesterday. Today I bought my ticket from SCNF, which is actually a pretty complicated process.

The SCNF is the Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français, in other words, the French national railway. Unlike in the US where you can buy things from a bunch of different places, they are the final stop in train tickets. But being an American it's a bit different process to get your ticket outside of France.

The first option is to buy it from RailEurope.com, which is obviously more expensive because they're not SCNF. Processing fees and profit factor in!

So here's your steps to buying your ticket while not actually in France.

Number One.
Get your American credit card ready. Visa or Amex, I didn't see if they did Mastercard?

Number Two.
Select your train. If you are under 26 you can get a Carte 12-25, which saves you anywhere between 25% and even up to 60% off the ticket price. Don't believe me? Just check. Also, buying it two months in advance saves money too! DO NOT BUY IT THE DAY OF. Look at the prices for today's. They're outrageous. note: online is cheaper than at the station.
For the Carte, you don't need the number to reserve your ticket because they only check it when you're actually on the train/at the desk. Put country to pick it up in as France.

Number Three.
Pay and print out all your papers of confirmation and itinerary. You never know!

Number Four.
Get to France and your train station. Watch out in Paris. There are a bunch. Make sure to get the right one by checking your train route by the train number.

Number Five.
At the correct station find the little man/woman inside the ticket box. Buy a Carte 12-25. You'll need your passport, an id size photo (possibly two?), the card you used online to buy the card, and your address in France (or fake one, whatever). Another option is to get it taken care of at a SCNF store. Not sure how that works or where they are. I tried to find one in Paris without much luck?

Number Six.
Get your ticket! Give the little box person your reservation number, handily printed out on those papers and voila! One ticket for wherever your travels take you!


Okay, so I wont swear by this as I obviously haven't tried it yet. But everyone told me this is the way to do it. Make sure you pay for the ticket online otherwise they only keep if for a week in the box. I hope it works or I'm out 30E80!

Some other hints I picked up today. Bank of America does their fees for foreign purchases by first converting it to dollars and then applying a 3% rate (I have no idea if this is for all cards and I doubt it). So for my purchase of 30E80, I paid something like 47$. You can check for your own card, at BOA or otherwise, in either those little papers they send with the card or online. If you can't find it in your online banking, check in the space where people apply for cards.

Also BOA is part of a world ATM alliance with BNP Paribus, which means you can withdraw from their ATMS for free with just the conversion rate. Supposedly. But we'll see how that works when I get there.


On to more fun things.

A family that comes in for Saturday class at the shop visits France pretty often, the father studied in Lorraine in high school I think. So I spoke with the mom today about places I should visit while in Paris. She highly recommended the Musee Picasso, which was something I wanted to see if we had time. Picasso couldn't pay his taxes in his old age and thus gave his private collection to the city to pay it off. It's basically almost all of his work stages and shows the progression of his life's work. Pretty cool huh? She also asked if I'd bring or send her back a poster of the Sacre Coeur that Picasso painted that she just can't find anywhere else. I just looked it up online and it looks pretty intense.

She also gave me an awesome suggestion to go to the Eiffel Tour just before it lights up, as it flickers for about ten minutes (quite possibly the inspiration for the new Disney World Cinderella's Castle night show). Elena promised to bring pictures next time to show me. She also mentioned an apparently awesome ice cream place on Ile St-Louis. That we will hit up after Notre-Dame!

Right now I'm talking to AJ online and looking at packing lists of other students and assistants (people who go teach English in French schools) and people are complaining about only having 20kg of packing weight. I get 50lbs (32kg) for each of my two bags. I have no idea what airlines they're flying with but still, annually I bring two bags home that are less than that from Hendrix. Given, I did ship a lot this year but most of that will not be coming. Or I'll be buying it in France. I think they have highlighters, non? ;)

A Huge Stack.

Of papers that is! This morning, as I don't go into work now till my mom comes home to pick me up, I cleaned out my super messy room and assembled all of my papers for France. It's a huge stack of about 50 pages. Pretty ridiculous. But then again it is a life. All those papers are needed, plus more, to prove you are a person in France.

On the way home from work last night we stopped off at the bookstore and I finally found a good guide book for the south of France. Most only include Provence and Cote D'Azur. Not what I need. And the books that typically include the Languedoc have only a page on Montpellier. Even the Michelin only had three pages with very little info on things I'll want to check out.

But Cadogan Guides publishes a pretty informative "South of France" which includes all of the south. I mean from Spain all the way to Italy! It was only 20$, compared to tiny guide books that are a few bucks more that have so much less. It has 13 pages on Montpellier, including a full-page map of the city center. I plan on getting a city map from the tourist office or buying a nice one when I get there. I wish Moleskine made a city guide for Montpellier. I used one in San Francisco over spring break and it was the handiest thing ever. It had places to write addresses and reflections as well as really detailed maps with every street marked.

Anyway, this guide also has a hefty front section with local history and culture for the south. Pretty handy if you ask me! I'll definitely read it when I get a chance.

I also picked up a tiny guide book for Paris. Only being there 7 days (after travel) doesn't leave me much time to see anything more than the really big sites, the ones I've learned about for years in French class. So I got a bare basics one made by Knopf in their Mapguides series. It has 8 fold-out pages of maps and the main sites marked. Plus a subway map and general info. For instance, the Louvre is free for under 26ers on Fridays. So I think we'll be going there Friday!

Last night I wrote down a list of the places I want to see and thought about how we could get to see them all. I really would like to see Versailles but that might be a stretch as it's pretty far away and kind of expensive. I think they're having a special event there while we'll be in Paris but I'm not sure exactly.

And by we I mean a ragtag group! Lukas from Germany is coming and meeting me in Paris and we'll be staying together in Hotel de Belfort, over by the Pere Lachaise cemetery. Kind of a bit east of where we wanted to be but it's a steal money wise. Then there's Sebastien, who lives in Paris and goes to the Sorbonne. He studied at Hendrix two years ago. Then Julie, another Hendrix student, is staying with Sebastien for the week. She's on her way to go study in Germany, at the uni of another former Hendrix exchange student, Dominik, who came the same year as Sebastien. Julie and Sebastien are going to visit him, leaving the day after I have to be in Montpellier.

There's also a slight possibility that there might be another Lukas, from Austria, to join us. I haven't heard back from him yet but that would be a lot of fun to see him. He was an exchange student last year and we took economics together. We were neck and neck for the highest score and ended out being exactly even at the end of the semester. Though we did make a little game out of it!

Still in the book realm, I finally got my copy of Cultural Misunderstandings by Raymonde Carroll. I sadly had to get the translated version as the French version was really expensive. I haven't read more than a page but it looks really interesting.

So today is the first of August. It felt like this month would never get here. August always seemed so far away. I've waited about nine years to go to France, ever since I first started studying it. My fantasy trip was never given an exact date till recently and until August hit, it sure didn't feel like I am really going away to France for a year.

I remember starting college and saying I was done studying French. I moved on to German. I sucked at German, more really studying German. So I switched to French back mid-semester. Hated the class because poor Pierre was sick and didn't really teach. Told myself I wouldn't continue. But I did. Huh, how about that?

Back to Basics.

So the Taurus is dead. We scraped it on Monday. All told, minus the work we owed the mechanic, we got 100$ for it. I was hoping for more so I could get some of it but I know I probably will in the end. Now I'm back to the old bumming rides routine. Goodbye Freedom!

Last night I watched "The Chateau" while folding laundry after a boring evening at work. It was decent, comical in some really bad mishaps of cultural interactions. These two American brothers inherit a chateau in the south of France and they get, well, a lot more than a chateau. I did like the last scene though but I don't want to spoil it. It's a cute movie but I wouldn't suggest running out to get it.

So the few things I need to get together before I leave are as follows:

1- Get my ticket from STA. I called today to check on it and it should be getting here tomorrow or the next day. Icelandair changed the itinerary so I needed a new ticket and had to send it back.

2- Buy a guide book for Paris and France. I know I need to bring one but I'm not sure because they take up so much room in luggage. I could buy one there but that's always expensive. And it'd be in French.

3- Set up Power of Attorney for my mom in case she needs to sign anything for me. Not sure how I go about that. I should ask the town clerk.

4- Ask Bank of America how money transfers from my parents to my French bank account work and if there is a bank I should specifically go with. Then get the papers for Jacques, my ISEP coordinator, so he can open the account for me before I get there (handy, huh?)

5- Get the translated copy for the Town Clerk of my birth record. They say you need it for your carte de sejour (living permit) but then the Montpellier website says that you don't need that when applying. I don't know. They seem to be doing it for free so I'll just do it and go over next Monday and have them give my paper a little official looking stampy on their special paper. I was supposed to do it yesterday but my brother bitched about having to take me to the town office. Oh well. I should email the nice lady back and apologize.

Other than those things and working I need to start getting a move on AJ's book. I'm editing a book for a friend. I'll be honest and say I watched movies at work today instead of reading it. Bad I know. But I needed a break from reading.

As for reading lately, I've read a few things in French, trying to get back up to speed. I read L'Etranger this last weekend. Sad ending but definitely kept me on the edge of my seat. Well I've got to close up shortly so I'm going to start cleaning up. But here's a poem I wrote this weekend at 5am because I couldn't sleep.

"Party Politics"

Shear and

brutal Politics

cut through once

Intimately tangled

Gordian knots.

A single blow

severs twists of

cherished reminders,

giving a sour,

disdained,

frayed relation.

Blame could be placed

on the Wielder but

Politics aren't quite

as simple as a Sword.

Car Troubles, Again.

Well the lovely Taurus might be finally dead. I'm hoping it'll pull through because it only has a few weeks left till its final retirement. Tomorrow is exactly a month until I leave.

This morning I went to take care of Gunner and Boo and after pulling into the driveway and parking, my car started making a knocking noise and spitting out almost all of its coolant. I took care of Gunner and Boo, both of whom were acting bizarrely, possibly from the tornado-crazy storm we had two nights ago. I took them for a walk and let them play out in the yard for a bit and then took off to my service station to see what they could do.

July is apparently the worst month for cars but the best month for garages! They couldn't fit me in today but said it looked pretty dismal. Either the water pump or I finally blew my head gasket. If it's finally kaput it puts me in a pretty bad position, losing out on babysitting and Ocean Spray, equaling around another $250 that could have been spent to travel. Hopefully the car gods will take pity on me and grant me another few weeks.

Thanks to Ryan :), I made it to work on time. I was so frustrated I cleaned the whole stairs and the retail area; the mindless task of cleaning somehow helps center me. For dinner I spilt the whole box of tri-color rotini on the floor. Nice macaroni art but not a very nice dinner. Today just isn't my day!

Last night, when driving home in the rain, I was having a pretty hard time seeing out the window. There must be something on the windshield that makes a huge sheen across it whenever headlights shine on it. For a moment I thought about how I was completely interred in water and metal. A water coffin if I messed up and veered a bit too far to the right into a tree. Still not exactly over the nasty accident I had last fall.

I'm really looking forward to not driving at all next year. It's not that I'm scared of driving so much as it makes me very uncomfortable and nervous. I know I'm not a very good driver, even with the advanced driving class I took. I still underestimate the size of my car. This summer I scraped the side on a post when parking in a tight garage spot. My first accident was with the Prius in a parking lot where I drove straight into someone's trailer hitch because I didn't back out enough. No driving? Thank you!

But I'm pretty happy looking forward. A little scared too. A month and I'll be in France speaking a different language. It's not so much the culture I'm nervous about. If I can move to Arkansas and handle it, not without huge bumps of course, I can handle France. They're still a Western country. So the next month might be a little bit harder without a car but I'll manage somehow. I've always found someway to!

That reminds me, I need to sell those old prom dresses on ebay. Anyone interested?

Doggie Treats.

For the longest time since our lovely Puzzle left us, I've been trying to get my mother to get another dog. I firmly believe that all girls should have a reliable cuddle around accompanied by a wet nose.

And I firmly believed that till this weekend, when I dog sat what I thought were two wonderful little creatures. Could I have ever been so wrong.

We picked up the two dogs, Gunner, a Labrador retriever, and Boo, a small white lapdog, and left for the beach house. Boo was in a little kennel and Gunner lying on the car floor. At first Boo was whining but soon calmed down but Gunner, on the other hand, never did. Unless I was petting him he was showing his worry and repositioning himself around the car. We finally got to the beach house around 11:30 at night.

We let the two dogs sit in the living room after a walk, the small space being big enough for the kennel and Gunner to lie down. But Boo, as we soon discovered, likes to hump everything in sight and is also the dominate dog. Who thought a small little thing could be so awful! Every five seconds, literally, Boo would attack Gunner and I'd have to pry Boo off and tell him no, to which he rolled on his back and whined. "Please, I'm cute! Don't say no to me!"


Eventually I was fed up and put Boo in his kennel and made a bed for Gunner on the bottom bunk of my bed and showed him it was going to be his new place for the next few days. Boo was whining and Gunner did not stop pacing the whole night long. Under the bed. Whack, whack his paws on the wood frame. Scratch, stretch on the blanket. Step of the bed and make me sway above. Then click click click click on the linoleum floor. Waking up Mom with a lick in the face and then seeking more attention out with Boo and starting a whine fest. An endless cycle for a number of hours.


Around four I finally fell asleep, only to be woken by the sound of something being shredded. Gunner had gotten hold of an SOS pad from under the sink and was pulling it apart next to Boo's cage. I bolted out of bed and took it away, luckily before he had eaten any of it, and woke up Mom who had also just gotten to sleep.


After a walk and breakfast Boo was still humping the hell out of Gunner so I had had the last straw and packed everything up. We were back home, dogless, at 10. A whole twelve hours.


Needless to say, my desire to get a puppy has been slightly driven out of my mind.



Right now I'm having a conversation with a young sophomore at Hendrix who is vastly underestimating my worries about France. "You make your own meals and live really far away from your family." I think it takes a bit more than that. But yes, I adapted, although with lost of struggle, to Southern Culture. Who knows how hard it will be to adapt to French?

Adapting to Southern life was really hard for me and often times still is. My freshman year was pretty up and down and I often considered dropping out of Hendrix. I wasn't where I really wanted to be, as last minute I had gotten somewhat stuck with Hendrix. I can't say I made the best choice in going there but I can't say it's the worst either. And I think most graduates say that about their respective places. Hendrix so far has given me a pretty good education, a much better one than any of the other schools I could have gone to. But it's far away and frustrating. Especially the other people. Not that I don't love a good number of them and hold them dear but there are plenty that have made things... difficult. If you know what I mean.

But as for adapting to French life, if I can handle all of the various hardships Hendrix has thrown my way, I think I can handle French disasters. Unless of course there is a strike, in which case I'm probably going to call it quits and go somewhere else.

Strike on the Horizon?

So last year UPV, the school I'm going to in Montpellier, went on strike when Nicolas Sarkozy proposed education reforms. He started a program called Operation Campus, for which UPV, along with all of the Montpellier University schools, was selected. I have no idea what this means for my school year, if I will even have one.

Needless to say, I'm a bit nervous about UPV going on strike when we start. I'm a little hazy on the details of Operation Campus because the UPV site on it, accessable through their homepage, explains that there will be changes but not exactly what it means for the current students. I did notice that new buildings where going to be in process while I'm there. Sort of like Hendrix. Everything that's changing for the better will only be there once I've gone on my way and I'm stuck with the inconviences of construction.

Trying to look on the bright side when everything is semi up in the air is a bit hard. I called my study abroad coordinator at Hendrix and he said he'd call the central offices and put his feelers out to figure out what's going on. Still, I'm not exactly sure.

I think the funniest part of Tour de France is when they strech while peddling. They keep going with one foot while putting the other up on their seat and streching for a bit. Pretty intense because they're going around 35-40mph, as it's a flat stage and they're very close to the end.

I've been watching la Tour the past few days as they're going through the areas that are pretty close to where I'll be studying, trying to get a feel for the countryside around my soon-to-be new home.

Running away to France?

A few days ago someone told me I was running away to France because of all the stress of the past year. After everything that has happened, I couldn't be happier than going to France; this is true. But at the same time, just because I'm going to be an ocean away doesn't mean that all the stress is going to be left behind.

The idea that a year abroad is a vacation is a pretty common one but so far in all my preparations I've learned that this is certainly not the case (Although I wouldn't mind a vacation and have lingering images in my mind of sitting on a French beach with my velo locked to a bikerack and a bottle of wine snuggled down into the sand).

For instance, the amount of cultural and language misunderstandings that can occur that might inflict some pretty serious social consequences are astronomical. The simple word for a vegetable group, which includes my favorite zucchini, cucurbitacee can be pronounced incorrectly prety easily, resulting in a string of swears (ass-ass-dick-enough). Then there's the infamous tu and vous forms and when it's appropriate to use them. While tu can be something used between colleagues of equal level, it can also be used instead of the normal vous form as an insult.

Stephen Clarke gives some really good examples in his book Talk to the Snail that I picked up at the book store last night. I'm already half-way done with it and out of my post-vacation reading slump. I read too much over vacation and wore myself out!

Anyway, Clarke is a pretty tongue-in-cheek writer who mocks a lot of French cultural oddities that may well be rightly so mocked. But he does get down and dirty with a lot of things other culture books skip on, like how to get a waiter that's insulting you to serve you and that French women really can be fat. He also brings up the cucurbitacee word but I'd heard it before from Charlotte, the French girl I lived with last year.

But back to work.

I've been Missing.

Sorry I haven't been updating for almost a month. It's hard when you don't have a laptop! I'd been trying to find the time at work to update using the work computers but there's always something that needs to be done.

Right now it's my morning off from babysitting the Miller's (a new job I found in my hiatus) and I had to come into the shop to open up for the air conditioning contractor. The air conditioners have been not working quite exactly right for a while and he's finally getting the final touches on to make them work correctly! YAY!

So since my last update. I got my French Visa, along with free samples of the new M&M ice cream. It's your average novelty, a M&M shaped vanilla circle covered in that traditional M&M chocolate and candy coating. They're pretty awesome and if you have the chance, I would say to get some. If even just once. It's worth a try I think.

I went with my Mom to get my visa because we both had the day off from work and so we had a nice late lunch at Vinny T's (formerly Vinne Testa's, a Boston favorite). I can't really remember what else we did because, well, it's been a couple weeks. Oh, we also went into the Prudential Center Mall (The Pru) and looked in Sephora for a nice makeup kit for me to take to Europe. Of course they had a great one but the eye shadow colors were "Spring," in other words, purple and pink which can't be changed. As those are my least favorite colors to wear, as they often make me look like I haven't slept enough, I decided to just go for the Walgreen's makeup. Oh well.

June 28th was my 20th birthday. It's that awful year between being a teenager and being of drinking age. Of course most 20yo's drink anyway and I really don't see the point of 21 but that's another story. Lucky for me most of my 20th year will be in France enjoying lovely French wines.

For my birthday Lauren, a bud from archery, and I decided to go to the beach. And of course like we always do, we didn't make it. She was late waking up and we went to Friendly's for lunch (a local ice cream diner chain with traditionally bad service; why we still go there I have no idea but they have good ice cream). And after stuffing our faces with chicken tenders and Reese's ice cream, we were off to the beach. About half way there Lauren realized she forgot her towel.

So we were off to the mall! It was on the way and Old Navy, as Lauren so excitedly pointed out numerous times during our highway turnaround, was having a sale on flipflops. At the end of four hours neither of us bought anything. No longer can we shop at the Rave or WetSeal, the fashions aren't old enough; but neither can we afford Express or NY&C. Hopefully France, the country of fashion, will cater to my bargin hunting, classic style fashioning desires?

The present of the year is a Olympus Stylus 850 SW, that awesome camera that can go underwater!

The next day was the first day of Family Vacation. I started it off with a bang, having not gone to the post office all week. They had two packages and although we could very easily leave them there for the week my Dad was in such a tired state he couldn't think straight to know. In the end we convinced him and started our vacation as planned. A week at the beach house with my new camera yielded some pretty cool pictures that will be uploaded maybe today when I get my computer back from Best Buy.

Well, the air conditioner guy is done so I'm off to the gym, the bank, and the post office. Then back home to bask in the sun on my hammock. I like mornings off!

French Visa.

Wednesday I went into Boston for the day for a Jose Gonzalez concert at the MFA. While I was in town I planned on getting my French Visa taken care of so I could just get that over and done with.

I took the 8 o'clock train into South Station and then went straight over to the Arlington street station to try to find a place to get two more photos and find the consulate.

The consulate was pretty hard to find, possibly just because of my occasional poor sense of direction and also because they don't put the numbers on Hotels and there are a number of them on St. James St near the consulate. Expecting the consulate to have it's own building, I was looking outside all the buildings for a French Flag. Course I didn't find one.

The consulate is actually inside of a large office building, 31 St. James. I finally found it after being asked a billion questions by people passing by. "Where's the Ipod store?" "Do you know a Kinko's here?" Of course not. And the Ipod store is like six blocks that way. Do I look like I know where I am? No, because I'm looking down at a little notebook that I sketched out streets in and addresses. So should you ask me for directions? Probably not. Two young black men with heavy accents were looking for a Kinko's and I realized I could make a copy of my single passport photo and then have three.

So I went off on my own and found a Kinko's, to where I was given horrible service and wasted $2 on copies I found wouldn't work. Ironically the two young guys where there with little envelopes that passports come in when they mail them. Photos must be PHOTOS not copies. (duh)

So I went into another copy place in the same building as the Consulate to see if they had a machine that could copy photos or make more. Another girl who I had seen on the street who looked lost was behind me in line when the manager came out and said that the copier was broken and that we could go to another one one street over.

We walked together and I asked her where she went to school, obviously a college freshman or sophomore. She was at her orientation and is going a semester abroad to Spain and they didn't tell her she needed to go to the consulate today or that she needed to bring copies of everything. She was also without any money. We went down a set of stairs and into a long busy copy center and I spoke to one of the men and he suggested I just go get them redone because they might not accept a copy. One man who was there picking up copies told me to try a CVS around the corner where I could make photo copies of photos.

I said goodbye to the other girl and went over to the CVS and found that taking six more would be actually cheaper than making copies. The guy at the desk was super friendly and then after cutting them out, I skipped back to the consulate.

Going up to the seventh floor, I walked down to suite number 750, past two men speaking in French in the hallway. Ah, I am in the right place!

A little guard opened the door for me and directed me to the Visa section. It was a small little room with a closed off room attached through a glass window. I sat in one of the chairs around the outside of the room, next to a middle aged woman who struck up a conversation with me. We waited and listened to an old French woman trying to fight in English with a woman in the hallway, where the younger woman then yelled at her in French and then the old woman yelled back in English and French and then the young woman again in English. I laughed and the woman beside me said, "That's what happens after you've been here a while, you can fight in both!" she said she was from a DOM, probably la Martinique by her accent.

As I thought, the two young Kinko's men walk in and sit down after hovering by the window for a minute. "Find your Kinko's?" "Yes? Ah! It's you!" They went up to the window, turned in forms they had forgotten and were on their way "Bonne chance!"

There was one girl in front of me after la Martinique who was studying abroad in France for a semester from Uni of New Haven. Her mom was with her and they were talking about her paperwork and she was mentioning how they didn't have the financial guarantee. Out of self-interest, I asked her if she needed help, showed her my notarized form, gave her a blank copy out of the forms box and told her to go notarize it at the Post Office. Still, they didn't get out of line and went up to the window after la Martinique was finished. At the same time, a father and daughter walked in, looking like Nantucket people.

Nantucket people, for those of who don't know, are typically self-righteous rich people, dressed in casual but very expensive Polo's, khaki shorts, and boat shoes. Men always have impeccably white teeth and a short buzzed hair cut that still is long enough to style and women usually wear pearls and headbands. I kid you not. There swarm the beaches like flies in the summer.

Anyway, young miss unprepared went to the window, couldn't understand what forms he was looking for and would hold it up to the window guessing if it was the right one or not. Of course the financial guarantee is last. "Do you have you have a bank statement?" "No." "Financial Guarantee?" "No." And with that the young, obviously intern, Frenchman ran his fingers through his hair in that classic, "Agh" look. Finally, mom steps in. "If I get this notarized, will this work?" she asks, holding up the form I gave her. "Yes, that is it." "Okay, you wait here," she says, pointing to her daughter and scooping up her purse. "I'll go run to the Post Office and do this."

She is still at the window. I hop up to my feet and walk closer, nodded on by Mr. Nantucket. "Should I wait over there?" Yes, you should. She looks prepared for the long haul at the window but I walk closer and the young man seems relived to see me coming.

"Bonjour, j'espere tout va bien aujourd'hui." Hello, I hope everything is going well. I try my best to be polite and speak in French to make things easier on our young intern, who looks like he's been talking to idiots all day.

Form by form we go through the list and he inspects them, asks for a copy and gives the original back. Finally, the financial guarantee. "Avez-vous un situation de compte?" Do you have a bank statement? "Uhh, le site dit que c'est le seul chose..." The website said this is the only thing...

He jumps up, goes into a back room, and speaks in French to an obviously older man. Yes, that form is fine.

Phew. An application fee later and I'm due back Monday to get my passport and visa! Yay! One part of French bureaucracy down, a million to go. I decide to go over to the French Library, since it's in the same area. It's in a beautiful old house one street away from Beacon, where the Brown Stones are. ( Photo is from someone else. I couldn't find out who, but it's not mine. Please don't sue me!)

After going to the Library and speaking with a librarian, who took me into the Fiction room to suggest some that I might read before going next year, I went over to Cambridge to Schoenhof's Foreign Booksellers with some suggestions.

I looked through what they had, which was all really expensive. Around $35 and up! So I asked for a suggestion from the man at the counter, who didn't seem to know very much. He just kept saying "There's so much" over and over. Instead of asking questions of what I like to read, he just sighed and gave really bad answers. But he did turn out one book, Les Marins Perdus by Jean-Claude Izzo. So I bought it for 14.96, with tax, and was on my way.

I'm not really sure what it's about but it had something to do with Marseilles and sailors and sounded interesting by the staff review. I know it's also a movie.

After getting back on the Green line I went to the MFA to pick up the tickets and wander around and look at my favorite paintings. Admission was free at 4 so I sat outside on the steps, along with a lot of others. After about fifteen minutes I went in and was told I needed to check my bag.

There was a grumpy old woman at the coat check but I smiled and got my little tag and went across the museum to the box office. Of course, when I got there I realized I'd forgotten my credit card to get my tickets so I went back to get it out of my bag.

"You know it's one dollar for every time you take your bag out." The grumpy old woman said. "Really? Is that a new thing?" I reached into my wallet and pulled out a one reluctantly. "Got you!" she said, pointing at me and smiling. Sure did.

"Are you going to see El Greco?" There was a special exhibit on El Greco and other Spanish painters from the same era. "No, I'm here for Jose Gonzalez." "You're not going to see it?" "I don't know, maybe."

She reached into her chest pocket and pulled out a ticket. "You go now. And don't tell anyone," she winked. I zoomed up the stairs and into the special exhibit. The paintings were interesting, mostly religious but definitely haunting. (El Greco's Toldeo)

In the exhibit I got a phone call from my mom, who was on her way to join me for the concert and dinner. I finished looking at the paintings, thinking soon I'd be seeing paintings in Paris and Montpellier.

I waited outside the MFA for my mom and a man on a bike stopped asking for change for his ones. I didn't really catch on and ended up giving the guy a ten for "the room at the Y." Oh well, hopefully he actually spent it on that. He could probably better use ten dollars than me and besides, the special exhibit was $20 and I got it for free.

My mom arrived and we went back to the Pru and got dinner at a small Thai resto around the corner from St. James Church. Ironic to end the day where I began.

We went back to the MFA and got seats in the third row. The concert was phenomenal. Twi the Humble Feather, the openers, were awesome. Three men with guitars play sci-fi themed music about a character named Twi. Each of the men's personalities matched their guitars, the highest pitched continually nodding his head side to side with the beat, the middle man crooning melodies and tapping his feet and the bass very stoic in movement but certainly not lacking in emotional performance. At times they sounded like a group of monks in chant, other times the guitar paired with mouthed effects sounded like a spaceship whizzing by. (Twi the Humble Feather)

Gonzalez went on finally and played three encore songs. The effects were mesmerizing.

At the end of the concert my mom offered to buy a t-shirt in exchange for her ticket and I liked the t-shirt for Twi much better than Gonzalez. I went to look at them and the bandmates were jogging in place and I joined in and then my mom came over and the hyper-high tone guitar said "Aren't you going to jog too?" and she started up as well. I introduced myself and bought a shirt and left with a smile.

We walked back the the Pru and got the car out of the garage, forgetting to validate our parking we paid 34$, more than a single ticket to the concert. My mom was nevertheless pissed. I wish i had remembered we needed to do that.

All in all, regardless of being in a major city people are helpful and friendly, although so many of my peers in Arkansas say that Boston is such an unfriendly place without a communal ideal. I think they're completely wrong. You can't just approach someone on the street and expect them to welcome you into their home, as home is considered private and private space is highly cherished.

Why we desire private space is because in the city there is very little of it. On the subway bodies touch in often uncomfortable circumstances. At work we all sit in tiny cubicles with very little space and privacy, where everything said can be heard by anyone who cares to listen.

Hopefully the French feel the same way about public versus private and why that barrier exists. I've been taught a lot in school that French people enjoy their privacy and that things that may be considered common, like a store, are private in France. Bonjour always must accompany an entrance into a store.

But as I'll be a somewhat lost foreigner in France, I'm sure I might overstep the privacy bounds once or twice, although I'm going to be very gingerly about things I'm sure.

Vocabulary and Statistics.

Before going to France I'm trying to build up my vocabulary of daily terms that a lot of the time are not taught in French classes. I've found a couple useful resources so far.

http://albis.vetsin.com - This website is probably the best tool I've found thus far other than sitting down with a stack of vocab cards. It's a self-motivated game to beat the clock and survive with three lives. Each life is taken away once a mistake is made. First you click through a list of word pairs, the English and the French counterpart. Then you click start and the English word is given and you must produce the French. Articles are included but are not counted as part of the score (the only part I don't like). If you wish to go from French to English, click on the French Flag instead of the English one.

Words in a French Life by Kristin Espinasse is also a somewhat useful tool. Here's the Publisher's Weekly blurb:

Vignettes and vocabulary create the base for this lighthearted memoir by Espinasse, whose blog "French Word-A-Day" spawned three self-published books. Born and raised in Phoenix, Ariz., Espinasse followed her heart to France, where she married and started a family. Thirteen years later, she still endures being labeled l'Américaine and experiences the indignities of grammar correction (by her own children, no less). Each short chapter (some are just one page) is inspired by a French word, shares a brief anecdote about French life (incorporating French words into the text), and ends with a list of all of the vocabulary words used in the anecdote, their English translation and a list of expressions using the word. In between explaining words like complicité("closeness, complicity") and égard ("consideration"), Espinasse recounts her adventures, from fitting in with the French moms to undergoing culture shock on return visits to the States, with honesty and humor, never afraid to have a good laugh at her own expense. With its innovative and entertaining way of teaching the finer points of French, Espinasse's memoir will be popular with travelers and expats alike. (May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

It's a cutesy book, although I'm not sure about it's effectiveness. I still have to make vocab lists and cards for the book because her little stories typically don't actually include the word but rather the concept. Nevertheless it's a small little crash course in Frenchness. For example, what the tooth fairy is in France.

As for other tools, I'll let you know when I stumble across them!

Yesterday I took my ailing laptop over to Best Buy to see if they could fix it and sadly it had to be sent out to "Geek Squad City" to be fixed. I kid you not. That is the term the manager used when he was explaining where my computer was going. It wont be back for at least a week, if it even comes home at all that is. I have a feeling the motherboard is fried and that I'll be getting a brandy new one! Always buy the three-year service agreement. I've had to use it twice now.

Anyway, since my computer is M.I.A. I've been getting a bunch of reading done. Not as much time spent on the Internet researching trains and planes!

I'm about half-way done with Through French Windows by Corbett. As most books in a college library, it's certainly an academic analysis of the French people and government. But in particular the attitude and tone Corbett takes to his pursuit is something odd. In comparison, the Americans are always seen as less than wholesome relying on European stereotype of Americans rather than statistical information; as far as we can tell that is, as Corbett rarely quotes sources to back up his American bashing and I'm pretty sure he's from Unvi of Grenoble and as academics go, he does cite his stats for Frenchness. Of course, this is seen in his tone that is completely dissatisfied with present France (published 1994) and that the France of the future will be a horrible place if things don't change.

Maybe it's my optimism from my American standpoint but I think a lot of the things Corbett expounds on as being less than satisfactory are a lot better than previous years. Sure, the French nuclear family has changed in recent years but that's an international trend in developed countries. Does that mean that France's family ties are falling apart? Not necessarily, just changing.

Anyway, enough of my criticism. All told, this book is pretty useful for cold-hard facts about French policies, economics, politics and demographics. It explains a lot of how the Secu (social security) works and the problems it presents. Things like that. As for the reasons why you should keep your hands on the table, that kind of cultural talk is excluded. Don't let the first chapter that contains a picture of Asterix fool you. This is an academic study and can be just as dry as the Sahara. But if you're looking for explanations of tax brackets and the reaction to AIDS, this is the place to look.

But of course as I'm not done with the book this isn't my final review. More to come later.

A second result of the missing laptop is that although I had taken pictures to put up today it's sadly going to have to wait.