Week 3: La Grippe

la grippe: the flu, influenza. When I first got here I had a cold and when I told my host family I had une grippe they looked at me like I had told them I didn't drink wine (oh yeah, haha, that was an interesting conversation too). I thought it meant cold, but it actually means the kind of sickness where you stay in bed for days and can't move. So what I had first was just un rhume but this week I had... une grippe. I missed a couple days of school because I was at home with a fever. So blogging has been low on my list of priorities.

An update from what should have been posted Sunday:
Last weekend our program went to the little town of Saint Emilion, very close to Bordeaux for a tour of the historic village, tour of a wine making facility, and wine tasting. I took some very pretty pictures, but for the most part was not terribly fascinated. We spent a lot of time in the underground church and the underground crypts (all very cold, dark, and humid) that the monks of the 8th century or so created. That was great, minus the cold.


I won't go too much into the wine facility because I know I have many a wine-loving afficianado reading this and I don't want to offend. But basically I was BORED TO DEATH. You know what- I love peanut butter way but I think if this had been a peanut butter factory I still think I would have been bored to death.


And then I got sick.


But yesterday I felt functional and so could go to school yesterday and today. I'll admit it- I was dreading classes. I was so anxious, I couldn't eat breakfast (though that kind of has been my M.O. since about second grade). I was so worried that I would go to class and in front of everyone a scary French teacher would say "Julia? You don't speak French. What are you doing in this school? Go back to the United States! You can't handle French school!" Yes, that entire scenario was legitimately my worry- though with many more scary details like being asked a question in front of everyone and not understanding again and again. Please don't laugh.

I had no reason to worry. I had friends in all my classes. My first class was at the center for international students so no big worry there- my biggest challenge was trying to understand French spoken with a Russian accent (actually very hard!). It's about the European Union and I definitely played the Dumb American because I knew the countries but didn't know their names in French. So I would be like "Chypre? What's that? No, I've never heard of it. No I don't know what you're talking about. OH CYPRUS! I know Cyprus!"

My second class I was really worried about because it was a discussion section. My worst fear: speaking French in public. (I'm working on it!) Turns out the class had 47 people in it because no one actually signs up for classes they just go to the ones they want to go to. So it's me and two other Berkeley girls... and then I heard English. I turned around with an excited face, "Are you English?!" Yes! Apparently there were TEN British kids in the class with us too. My sweet new English friend says, "Don't worry, we've been here since last semester- we'll take care of you."

I need to make a sidenote here. I don't have the words to explain how nice everyone has been to me here. There are just too many examples. A woman with kids on the train when I got here took me under her wing and helped me with my luggage and how to understand the seating situation- she took care of me the whole ride. People at the grocery store, people at the pharmacy, students in my classes, people visiting my host family, everyone! The French have a bad rep and in Bordeaux I find it unfounded. The one exception is the stuff guys say to me when I go out-- I actually have no idea what they're saying, so let's just assume it's nice ok?

So my class is full of foreign students and when the teacher comes in he asks "Who here is a foreign student? Who is American?" and then, very nicely, told us bienvenue and that he was very happy to have Americans in his classes- he said he was an Americanophile (or something alone those lines). He went on to teach about FDR and Wilson, and American interventionism vs. isolationism. He later said, and I kid you not, "The time of American isolationism was one of the worst times in our history. If they hadn't eventually intervened we would be nowhere now." I don't disagree with him, though I was a little embarrassed. It's not like I was the one to declare way or to fight on D-Day, you know? Still- I felt welcomed.

I could go on for much longer but I think I will save it for a later blog. People were similarly kind in my other classes and my classes are so fun. I'll save my explanation of just how fun for later but just know that I was in class today from 8:30 until 5:30 with a few half hour breaks and I loved it. I think that says enough, non?

Je vous aime et à bientôt.

Week 2: s'habituer

s'habituer: to get used to. This word could be the title of my next ten posts, I bet. There is a lot for me to m'habituer to.

To the left is my host kitty, Lily (Leelee). She sleeps in my room all the time, probably because there are no screaming or crying girls here. Usually.

My host little sisters are too cute, but constant drama. I'm pretty sure they're crying and screaming about nothing, but with them any French listening comprehension skills I might have had are out the window. Slang + tears + very high speaking speeds = pardon?

Oh, pardon. I really had no idea how often I was going to use that word here. It's constant: on the streets, in shops, people are pushing all over the place (pardon), I need help from someone (pardonnez-moi, Madame/Monsieur), and at home, when I can't understand someone in the family (pardon??? with a face of I'msosorryIthoughtIspokeFrenchbutIguessIdon't).

I'm very happy here, especially because the sun is coming out! I think the temperatures are still pretty close to freezing (0-8 degrees Celsius = in the 30s Fahrenheit), but at least now I can open my windows a little bit. I have another week of language instruction + classes in the different methods that the French use to write. Then the week after that I will start real university classes, but my school is such that they have no idea what time any of the classes will be right now, so I can't really pick my classes until Thursday, when we get a schedule.

I'm going to go take a walk and take more pictures of the park around the corner from my house (le jardin public) where the pond has been frozen all week. Everything (I mean everything) is closed on Sunday here (I think it's a law). It's time to be with family, and if that quality time has to be government-mandated then so be it. Vive la France.

Week 1: So this is what culture shock feels like

Bonjour from Bordeaux! To the right is a picture from my bedroom window. Below is the jardin, across the way is an old English couple, and to the right is my host dad's workshop.

My trip was tough- SF to London, London to Paris, a night in Paris, and then train to Bordeaux where I met up with the girl who is subletting my room in Berkeley (but who lives in Bordeaux right now). She and her family were SO SWEET to let me stay there and feed me real French food and take me shopping.

I'm now with my host family who are also very sweet- they are two artists with two little girls who are 8 and 10 years old. They bought this house in a very expensive area for cheap and then fixed it up- it was unlivable before they fixed it.

That's it for now- it's quite hard for me to blog right now because I'm just so overwhelmed by all this new information and can't process it well enough to know what a good story might be.

A Bientôt!