Swoop! There It Is...

It’s been a good day. This morning Sophie (host mom) and I went to the Château and then to the street market. I’d already been to the Château a week ago, but the view was beautiful and walking up a million steps….well let’s face it- after all the cheese and bread I’ve eaten here, I could use the exercise. 

The market was awesome too. It was an entire block of nothing but stands of produce, meats, cheese, bread, olives, arts and crafts…you name it. It smelled delicious and we got some tasty stuff.  After the market we stopped at a café and had coffee while we watched a group of musicians playing old American country songs.  It was great because I had the opportunity to spend some time getting to know Sophie a little bit better. I’ve been here for a week now, but everyone is so busy. I haven’t had a lot of time to talk to her one on one. 

Living with a host family is a strange experience. Add to that a slight language barrier and the situation becomes exponentially weirder. The family is fantastic and I’m 100% sure that living with a host family rather than in an apartment was the right choice, but it definitely comes with some built-in challenges. All families are so different and it’s hard to know what’s expected of you as an exchange student. Being here for 5 months, you’re not really a guest, but also not part of the family. It’s a weird in between.  They treat me like a guest, but I’m here for several months and feel like I should be doing chores or helping out around the house. But Sophie does all of the laundry and all of the cooking and seems shocked when I try to do the dishes. Sometimes she lets me, but most of the time she shoos me away and I feel like a bump on a log sitting there with a goober grin while Sophie and her daughter clear plates and do dishes. Also the apartments here are so small that congregating in the kitchen or living room doesn’t happen too often. Lori, Sam, and I used to call the kitchen in our old Maryland apartment a “one butt kitchen.” Well if that was a one butt kitchen, this one here has got to be a “half butt kitchen” or “French butt kitchen” or something (They are all so tiny here!).  Chloé hangs out in her room most of the time, and I’ve taken her lead. Most of the time I leave my door open so it doesn’t seem like I’m being antisocial, but I often wonder if they think I spend too much time (or maybe not enough time) in my room.  It’s tricky trying to strike a balance. I don’t want to inconvenience them by being in the way, but I also don’t want to seem like a hermit holed up in my room 24/7. Thursday morning I woke up at 6:45 to shower (i.e. stand in tub shivering and miserable under either no water or lukewarm water). As soon as I finished, Chloé ran in the bathroom to shower. I wondered if I had unknowingly swooped in and stolen her usual shower time. I asked her and she said no (How do you say “swoop” in French, you ask?... “Descente en piqué!), but she ended up running really behind and was late to school.  Situations like that are what make living with a family a little bit awkward, but I suppose the best thing to do is to make a note of their daily habits and try to work around them as best I can. 

Word of the day:

descente en piqué (noun)-swoop of bird, plane, or Kendall stealing shower causing everyone to run late

"If it's yellow...."

Two days ago I set a goal of writing one post per day. Well, Day 1 whizzed by and I’ve already fallen down on the job. Oh well.

Having been here for a week now, I’ve noticed quite a few oddities…like the standard paper size here is longer.  I brought a folder with me from Maryland that I have decided is useless because all the papers hang out of the top by an inch.  By the way, standard lined notebook paper is impossible to find here. All notebooks are a weird type of graph paper. Also the French keyboard is different than ours. The Q is moved down to home row, relegating the A to the upper left corner. And you have to use the “shift” key for a period, question mark, or numbers…but not for an exclamation point. But the most interesting oddity thus far is the bathroom situation.

The bathrooms here are interesting for several reasons. First of all, the toilet is in a separate room from the sink and tub. At first I thought it was odd. I didn’t really like it because you have to go in a separate room to wash your hands and it seemed like an inconvenience. What if someone’s showering and you can’t use the sink in there? But I suppose that needing to use the toilet and not being able to get to it because someone is in the bathroom is a bigger problem. And besides, there’s always the kitchen sink. So a separate room for the toilet. I can get behind that. In fact, I may even prefer it.  And it’s not just this particular apartment. It seems to be the norm around here.  

Another norm I’ve noticed is that everyone is very particular when it comes to water consumption, hot water especially. Apparently they all use electric and it’s really expensive to heat a bunch of water. When they shower they turn on the water (some hot with a bunch of cold mixed in) long enough to wet their hair, then they turn it off while they shampoo and lather up. It comes back on just long enough to rinse, and they’re done.  This is absolutely miserable. You stand there shivering in a tub, shampooing away as fast as you can. Then it’s time to rinse and the water is lukewarm. But you’re glad for the lukewarm water because it’s better than nothing. I love to take pretty long showers with scalding water and come out looking like a lobster. This “shower on the fly” business takes some getting used to. 

Another funky thing is the tub. Several other kids in the program have commented on how there isn’t a shower. They have to pretzel themselves down low enough to get their heads under the tub faucet to rinse their hair. Fortunately, the tub here at my apartment does have a shower. Unfortunately it’s below waist level. Also, I lucked out because I have a shower curtain. Apparently those are not to be taken for granted around here. So weird…

Other interesting bathroom observations:

-Toilet paper in public bathrooms isn’t on a roll. It’s more like Kleenex. You have to

  pull off individual squares.

-Often, you have to pay to use a public restroom. I kind of like this idea. They tend to

  be cleaner and less crowded.

-Flushing toilet doesn’t seem to be a top priority. Saving water, maybe? 

____

-Heather gets full credit for the title of this post. Genius.

First days in Nice

Today I set a goal. Along with a picture, I’m going to try really hard to write one relatively short post per day. Starting tomorrow.

Last night I felt a little overwhelmed because there was so much I wanted to talk about. I’ll try to finish up all of that now and start doing shorter and more frequent posts.

After settling in and stuffing myself full of cheese, chocolate, and bread, I completely crashed. I think I could have slept for days, but we had an orientation meeting the following morning with our director, Dr. Eades. Sophie, my host mom, walked me to her place and then turned me loose with a map, a set of house keys, and no phone. Her advice was “If you think you’re lost, it’s ok. You’re not lost. I’ll see you later.” Despite her confidence in my nonexistent sense of direction, I was concerned about finding my way home all day.  But orientation went well. Dr. Eades is hilarious and seems really invested in the students and the program.  I left the meeting with a ton of forms, at least 5 different city maps, and probably twice as many brochures.

Following orientation, we ventured out into the city in one giant herd. I know we stood out like a sore thumb, but I don’t think anyone was brave enough to go exploring solo at that point. We ended up on the Promenade des Anglais, which is the street lined with palm trees and fancy stores and hotels that runs right along the ocean. A lot of the pictures I’ve taken so far have been on the Promenade. You can probably tell from the pictures that in Nice the beaches are rock rather than sand. The shore is mostly covered by smooth marble or golf ball sized grayish pebbles.  I think I prefer the rocks to the sand. It’s nice because you can actually hang out on the beach and then go about business as usual without leaving a trail of sand everywhere you go for the rest of the day. No sandy towels, no sand in your eyes, and no sand castles (rock castles and pyramids are an alternative). Today I had lunch on the beach with a few other students. We all got great amusement out of skipping stones and “chucking” rocks into the ocean.  Also, laying on the smooth sun-warmed rocks feels great. Hot rock massages…don’t people pay a lot of money for those?

After the Promenade (Apparently, the locals call it “Le Prom.”), someone suggested we climb to the top of the Château de Nice, which was at the end of the “Prom” and has a great overlook. We made it to the top about a zillion steps later, and it was completely worth the hike. The pictures I took from there are some of the best so far. It had been cloudy all morning and we got to the top just as the sun was coming out. So beautiful.

By the time we made it down from the Château we realized that we were back in my neighborhood. The group walked back to my house with me to see where I lived, and we didn’t even get lost! (Although someone else was actually reading the map and navigating for me.)

Class started on Monday. The 18 of us in the UMD group have been in a test prep course all week from 9:00-noon. We have a big placement exam coming up on Monday and Tuesday. That’s where they assess our level of French so we can register for the appropriate classes. The teacher is exactly what I imagine when I think of a French woman. Her name is Letitia and she’s this beautiful, young, stylish, tiny woman. The class is ok. It’s pretty informative and a great refresher on some basic vocabulary and grammar stuff. I’m learning a lot about the culture, too. It’s just that 3 hours in the same classroom every day get a little boring. I’m looking forward to real classes starting. So far my afternoons have been spent squeezing in errands between a walking tour, a bus tour, dodging dog poop, and a nap that was absolutely necessary to my survival.  Next week should be calmer.

Glad to be living with foodies.

As most of you already know, I made it to France safe and sound. It was a really long flight and the layover in London seemed to last forever, but we made it here on schedule. We also happened to land on one of the few rainy days of the year!

My host mother, Sophie, picked me up from the airport. She was standing in a group with all of the other host families. They already had a picture of us, so she recognized me in the crowd, even though I know I looked like a wreck. I walked over to her and committed my first serious “faux pas” of the semester…I hugged her.  I’ve heard it a million times “French people DO NOT hug!”  I hear it in my head and I know. But there was this really awkward moment where she leaned in and I forgot about the kisses. So what was I supposed to do? I come from a family of huggers. It just seemed natural.  As soon as I latched on I realized what I had done. There was only one thing I could do, and that was to let go and try to move past it.  Fortunately that wasn’t too difficult. Sophie’s boyfriend came to the airport with her to pick me up. He’s this really great (slightly older) Canadian guy who is, for all intents and purposes “bilingual”, but speaks French really slowly and with an extremely thick accent.  All this time I’ve been self-conscious about my French, my accent in particular, but him being here for the first day really took the pressure off. And guess what? It turns out I speak French!

Immediately upon arrival at the apartment, Sophie wanted to have coffee (woohoo!). But not only did we have coffee…we had Reeses cups (Her boyfriend just got back from the US and brought them as a gift), almond pastries, and a chocolate torte.  I should also mention that dinner that evening included 3 types of cheese.I had a good feeling about this homestay arrangement.  The only thing that would make it better would be bacon.

The apartment is right in the middle of Vieux Nice (Old Nice), which is crammed full of tiny little shops and tons of pedestrians on windy narrow roads.  Apparently I lucked out because no one else ended up right in the middle like this and everyone seemed jealous.  It’s no secret that I have zero sense of direction, but fortunately for me it’s nearly impossible to get lost here. The ocean is in view from almost anywhere in Nice, so that definitely helps. I’ve managed to navigate all over the place, both on my own and in a group.  I haven’t even used a map in 2 days! Another great thing about Nice is that almost everything is within walking distance. Though the city recently built a tramline and the bus system seems to be pretty reliable, I really love walking around here, minus the dog poop. EVERYWHERE.

First Post: Pre-departure

The countdown begins! I’ll be in France in less than one week. Packing status: 0% complete...unless a packing list counts as progress. 

The past week has been chaotic, to say the least. Since before Christmas, I’ve been at my parents’ place in Dalton, Georgia. The past semester was a rough one. I knew I was going to be studying abroad, so I decided to quit my longtime job at Starbucks (4 and a half years!) right before final exams and spend the entire break at home and really unwind, something I’ve not been able to do since I moved to Maryland 2 and a half years ago.  I was looking forward to a month of being absolutely lazy, but knowing that I get really restless when I have nothing to do for an extended period of time, I came to my senses and was able to transfer to the Starbucks in Dalton as a temporary employee.  So I was there for a month. It was great to see all of my friends and family and I was really thankful to have a part time job to keep me from pulling my hair out. The last few days I was there were a whirlwind of goodbyes and hugs and promises to keep in touch and send lots of pictures and bring back souvenirs. 

Wednesday I made the 11-hour trek back north from Georgia to Maryland. My mom came along for the ride, mostly because she is taking my car back to Georgia for the semester, but also because my roommates and I have just moved into a new house and she wanted to check it out.  We got in around 9pm, and can I just say how horrendous it is to come back to a house in chaos? I’d been gone for a month and kind of forgot how we moved everything to the new place and then I immediately left town. There were boxes and furniture everywhere. Every surface in my bedroom was piled high with papers, mail, knick knacks, random power cords to who knows what, and boxes of things to unpack. Special thanks to my roommate, Lori, who managed to clear all the crap off my bed and throw on some sheets for me before my mom and I got into town. The funny thing is that her mom was also here visiting. So not only was the house a wreck, but the moms were here and we were playing hosts and tourists, trying to unpack in between.

The moms left yesterday and after quite a bit of groveling, my cat has forgiven me for abandoning her for a month. I’m finally settled into our new place, just in time to leave again (and hoping that Kit will forgive me a second time!).  We had a housewarming/ going away party last night, so it’s finally starting to sink in that I’m leaving. It’s been difficult, trying to squeeze in time to see everyone before I leave. I know it’s only for a few months and I’m not the homesick type, but I’d like to say goodbye to some of my friends who couldn’t come to our party last night (which is proving problematic since my car left with my mom yesterday). I’m really excited, but also a little nervous. More than anything else, I worry that my language skills aren’t as advanced as they should be. I feel pretty confident with my reading and writing skills, but oral conversation makes me nervous because I don’t have time to think everything through and rephrase and look up words and check grammar like I can do while I’m writing. I know I’m not fluent and I fully expect to make a million mistakes every day, but I hope that what I know now is enough for me to feel comfortable opening my mouth in public. I also wonder how my language skills will compare to other students in the program and if I’m fluent enough to really converse with my host family. I wonder how the classes will be at the university there. Will there be a lot of discussion and conversation? Or will they be more lecture style? I’m really looking forward to the rapid development of my language skills that can only come from immersion. I just hope that the expectations I have for myself are reasonable and that my goals are attainable.

Packing starts tomorrow...