la première semaine

1/2/09
Our first real day in Nice (- yesterday’s jet lagged, headachy overwhelming craziness)! We didn’t have to meet until 12, thankfully, for a little brunch (pizza and focaccia and espresso drinks like cappuccino.. um I thought we were in France!) before a guided walk around the city. We got lots of info in the little meeting; Madame Letzler talked a lot about homestays and French family vs American family differences. She talked seulment en francais! We are definitely being bombarded with French… which I guess is a good thing, but its kind of hard right now after a semester of little French. The year long students are so good! And I don’t even know if they have all had as much French as me. The resident director’s child is also being raised bilingual. She is so cute (and lucky)! Then we went on a walking tour of Nice and saw the downtown area (basically where we live), Vieux Nice, the library (huge and has tons of books, movies, cds, etc) and the theatre. Then we monter’d the colline (I like franglais) and got a great view of Nice (this was in my guidebook and actually on my list of things to do). It was so pretty! But then it started to rain. It’s still beautiful here, though, even in the rain. And it’s not like the torrential downpours in Viterbo so that’s nice. After the tour we went to Spar (Despar – the de) and got some groceries, including a baguette fresh out of the oven! After that we went to the resident director’s apartment, where she graciously let us use her internet and phone. Tomorrow (and every other day this week) we’re up early for a pre-stage at the university!

2/2/09
Je veux que le soleil brille! It poured today in Nice. Like torrential downpours Viterbo-style (I guess I spoke too soon about that). I thought I had left all that behind. I soaked two pairs of pants and 2 pairs of socks and a pair of shoes. Gross. I wouldn’t even care if it wasn’t sunny, I just want to walk around and explore so badly! And take lots of pictures! Because it’s so beautiful here. Though, it would probably be hard to find time for that actually because we are really busy with this pre-stage stuff and everything else! Today was our first day and we actually got to take the bus (yes!) instead of walk 45 minutes uphill in the rain. But we did have to wait for everyone who did walk, in the “batiment h”, which was kind of boring. Oh did I mention that we had to meet at 8:45?! And that thanks to the time change, I probably didn’t fall asleep until 4. However, I have to get up even earlier tomorrow to be at the school (instead of the RD’s apartment) at 9.. aka leaving here at 8:15 to walk to catch the bus (we don’t actually know when it comes…). And I thought the pre-stage would be like an introduction to the university, but no, it’s like actual French class to get prepared for the placement exam. And we have homework! Already! Due tomorrow and Friday. Apparently the fall students asked for it (why?!). I guess it’s nice that it’s not nice out… because I can just do my homework. Well I tried to make that sound good/positive, but it’s not really. We have class again tomorrow for like 3 hours. And then something in a computer lab. Everyday! And they said we’d have afternoons free but then they added in mandatory computer lab stuff and an extra class and café polyglotte.. so we’re pretty busy. In between all that we managed to get our cell phones, sign our lease, go to a bunch of different grocery stores and unpack and make our apartment all nice (pun intended). But I still feel like I have a lot of free time, I guess traveling like every weekend and doing a bunch of schoolwork at the same time in Italy will do that to you. I want to get to the point where I really know my way around and know everyone.. basically skip past all the getting to know you/the city stuff. And have a routine. But whatever, this part isn’t all that bad either. I’m in France! I can’t really tell if it’s sunk in yet. I can tell that having been in Italy/Canada has really helped. It just doesn’t really feel like a big change (/I just feel at home here).. but that could also be because I’m really a French girl at heart ;).

I also got my cell phone (portable) today. I did this one all by myself! That was kind of nice; as I can only vaguely remember the torture that was trying to get my Italian cell phone, and of course our bff at the Tim place (really, he hated us). I ended up getting a new phone, which is even crappier (can you believe it) than my Italian one, just because it was cheaper than a sim card and came with 5 euro of credit on it already. However, I have already changed my sim card out into the old Italian phone because the French one doesn’t even have a vibrate option and I have missed calls and can’t get the alarm to work. Getting the phone was kind of fun though, I walked into the SFR store and talked to the really nice clerk who told me about how the phone was cheaper and then when he saw my American passport he got all excited. “Ohhh USA! Obama!” He commented on how the passport was so pretty, with a big picture of an eagle, and asked why it was there (national bird, I explained). He also asked if I liked Obama, if I voted for Obama, if I was in the states when Obama won.. etc. I have yet to meet a European who doesn’t like him! Apparently I also have the same birthday as his wife and he also commented on how I have a French first name. Then he decided to practice his English which was also fun (he was very good).

3/2/09
I love the soldes that are going on right now! I went into Galleries Lafayette and a bunch of stores on Jean-Medecin and everything was on sale! Oh and our H&M is like the perfect size, not too big and overwhelming, but big enough to have a good selection. I also saw a 1,90 euro store. Pretty awesome! Today we also got our bus passes and got a similar reaction to our passports as the cell phone guy gave us; he commented on the pretty pictures drawn on the passport and saw that we were from the DC area and said that we were lucky and lucky to have been there during the inauguration.

5/2/09
Café polyglotte
Today we had some French/English conversation time with French students at l’IUT. They want to practice their English and we are supposed to practice our French. We talked about a number of things with our two French students; what we were studying, films and TV in the us, music, accents and dialects of English and French, travels, and even French music/dance styles – including tektonik! I am so going to learn it this semester. The 2 hours went by really fast because it was interesting and fun and we’re going back on Monday to sit in on their classes and then on Thursday for another discussion. The only bad part is that their school is up on the top of a steep hill just like the fac and the bus stop is so far away!

7/2/09
Today we went to Cimiez, a very exclusive part of Nice to visit the Musée Matisse, the Musée Archeologique the arènes and the thermes and then a non-successful visit to the Chagall museum, which was ok since I went already. All the museums were interesting and the roman ruins were really cool (well nothing too shocking, basically what most places in Lazio look like) and pretty intact and the park that they were located in was pretty, filled with olive trees all lines in geometrical patterns (which I learned in class is how all French gardens are). After the museums we went to see the Franciscan cathedral (complete with relic, which I had to explain to my resident director, was yes, in fact an actual body) and a beautiful garden where lots of people get married all the time, since its on the top of a hill overlooking nice. There was a couple, in fact, celebrating their marriage with cake and drinks in a gazebo in the park. It was so cute and they even invited us to join them! All 27 of us! Then we walked down the hill to go to the Chagall Museum which turned out not to be free (it will be in April) so we decided against it and headed back Jean-Medecin to take advantage of the last days of soldes. Lindsay went to Carrefour and I went to some other shops on Jean-Medecin and then upon walking back I had a creepy French man experience, which I will probably end up using for my French/American differences writing for my class. So this man stops and asks me where Vieux Nice is, and he is walking in the wrong direction, so I tell him it’s the other direction. Then he asked something else so quickly in a different accent that I couldn’t understand, so I was just like I’m sorry I don’t understand. He then asked if I spoke English, and I said yes and he proceeded to continue in very poor English that I could barely understand through his weird word choices and heavy accent. I don’t know how him asking for directions turned into him interviewing me about my life, but it did. The conversation topics went something like this: oh you’re American, why are you studying in Nice, why are you studying in France, why do you like France, do you like Obama, what do you think about Obama, what do you think about Bill/Hilary Clinton, who has more experience, why does the American government feel like it needs to be involved in all of the world’s affairs, why did they go to war in Iraq, what do you think about the war in Iraq and American politics, who did you vote for, are you going to move to France (this one asked several times); then came the part of the conversation when he must have assumed that I was a travel agent in my free time, he asked: what was there to do in Nice (he is thinking of moving there), had I ever been to Marseille (he was from there),where had I been in Europe, what was the best country I had been too, where had I been in the States, what should he do when he visited the States, is it safe for him to visit the states since he is French and he heard Americans don’t like the French, is it safe in general, what about from terrorist attacks, should he stay one or two weeks, should he stay in one city or visit several, could he eat well there (because he had heard the food was horrible), did I cook, had I eaten at any good restaurants in France, why didn’t I cook more, I would need to learn to cook for my kids, which according to him I was definitely having, possibly soon (you never know, he said), had I seen any good movies lately, do I like Johnny Depp, why hadn’t I been to the movies in so long, do I not like movies, do I like French or American movies, I seemed nice and calm, my parents must be nice, my parents must be young, do I have any siblings, are they younger or older, is my sister nice, was I 23, what have I been doing in nice for the week I had been there, why do I have to go to class, am I going to travel this semester, have I been to Monaco, what is there to do in Monaco, what is there to do for Carnival, how long does Carnival last, what is there do to in Menton during the Citron Festival, etc etc etc. there’s probably more, but this is all I can remember!
Then when we finally walked by my street and I said I needed to go, he asked me to put his number in my phone, which I cleverly played by saying I didn’t have one so then he wanted to write it down but I didn’t have a pen. He seemed to think that was very stupid, but he didn’t have a pen either, so he asked an old man behind him who looked at him like he was crazy, and then he asked a person selling something in a smart car who gave him one and a piece of paper. Then he, Marco, gave me his number and said he would wait for my call!