Taking the world by storm...

     It's been another exciting week here in La Rochelle. Unfortunately the weather has kept me indoors most of the week. A light rain persists everyday, even as I write this. This wouldn't be so bad if the wind would quit trying to blow me over each time I open my umbrella. A quick note about the umbrella; it was a gift from a classmate of mine who was kind enough to grant me her spare (she picked it up in a youth hostel.) 

     As you can see by the photo, I enjoyed a delicious seafood feast this past Tuesday. It was lovingly prepared by some French students I met that very same day. Seafood here is incredibly inexpensive and fresh, since we live on the sea. It was my first real experience with oysters and mussels, but an enjoyable one. I can't say that I'm the biggest fan of seafood in general, but I found it thoroughly edible. 

     After a late lunch, we travelled to the local library (which is huge) where pictures taken by a student of La Rochelle hung in an exhibit. It wonderfully depicted the campaign trail of the 2008 election, but I could have done without seeing Sarah Palin's face again. The speech played in French on a television monitor in the center of the room, but I struggled to hear everything, so we watched it in English on a laptop instead. The French people I have met are very enthusiastic about our new president. I think they are mostly glad not to have George Bush in office any longer. At the speech's conclusion, applause emanated from the crowd and champagne and hors d'oeurves were served. I helped myself to a particularly tasty opera (a kind of French pastry.) 

      I fear might have overdone it, as I fell ill the following day. I missed a day of class, but I'm far enough along with my French that it has not been too difficult for me to keep pace with the rest of the students. I mailed out a few postcards to those of you who have sent me your address, and I invite anyone else who wants one to send me their address as well. Postage is a bit pricy though, so don't expect more than one. 

     In other exciting news, my lovely girlfriend will be visiting me in mid-march. Although I still have class during the mornings, we have a weekend in Paris planned upon her arrival. The trip coincides with her birthday. While I am struggling to come up with a good present, hopefully my presence will be gift enough. Fortunately through the miracle of the internet, I've been able to keep in touch with her and most of my friends back home. I set up an online phone number a couple of days ago, and maybe if you ask nicely I'll even give it to you. 

     Living in France is generally pretty fantastic, but when I reflect back upon the week it all seems somewhat uneventful. I've been to a few French markets this week to pick up fresh fruits and vegetables, which are delicious. Other than that I've just been reading, studying, and recovering from my brief illness. Hopefully the sun will shine a little longer today (it's been poking through the clouds a bit each day) and I can go out for a stroll in the park. Otherwise I'll just curl up inside with a good book and wait for the storm to pass. 

Faire la Féte

     So this week came at a much quicker pace than the week preceding it. I started French classes last Monday, which run from Monday through Friday, and those are going really well. I've been learning some useful French expressions and improving my conversational abilities. The other students in the class include another American from Colorado and several young women from Lithuania. I sorted out my class schedule (sort of) and so I'm all set to take other classes, but the first of them doesn't begin until February. The weather last Sunday was lovely, so I took a little walk along the beach (a frequent hobby of mine here) and watched the sunset over the ocean. 

     I've also met some different people here. I got in touch with the other two students from my university, Rachael and David, who have been living here since August. They showed me around to some of the students here. I've met people from all different parts of the world. I met an Iranian, several Mexicans, Spaniards, Germans, Brits, and even some Japanese kids. The picture above is from the start of a party we went to, with Rachael standing on the left. I went to a couple of parties this weekend where I was able to mingle and try out my French skills. My conversation skills pale in comparison to some of the other international students, but they have all been fairly impressed with my language skills when I tell them that I've only been here in La Rochelle for two weeks. 

       I couldn't possibly capture everything I've been doing in a single blog post, but suffice it to say that I'm having an awesome time. It's been warming up a bit here, and I've been meeting so many interesting people. It's nice to feel like a citizen of the world, instead of just my small corner of it. In other news, my girlfriend, Rebecca, is going to be able to come stay with me in March. I offer an open invitation to anyone reading this to come and visit me as well. I'll be happy to show you around town. 

Totally Bitchen!

      Good news everyone! I made it to La Rochelle without incident. I took the train from Paris and arrived at the train station about an hour and a half before it departed (in retrospect I might have been a bit overly concerned with making it on time.) Since then I've done very little, but wander around the city trying to get my bearings. 

        After getting lost a number of times, I feel like I'm getting the hang of this city. It's not terribly large, but it is centered around an old port which makes it a bit difficult to navigate at times. La Rochelle is a very old city, so there are lots of old buildings and structures. Fortunately for me it's a very walkable city. I've taken long walks on the beach and through one of the several parks near my house practically everyday since I've been here. It's also very cold, preventing me from leaving the house without several layers on. I don't think it has been above freezing a single day since I've been here (as evidenced by the layer of ice over every stream and pond.) I even helped the lady with whom I am staying to break up some of the ice over her fish pond. Apparently fish need oxygen to breathe, who knew? 

      Speaking of my accommodations, the lady I am staying with is very sweet. She's considerably older than myself, but a generally kind woman who picked me up from the train station. In spite of my impoverished French skills, she has very patiently answered all of my questions, speaking slowly enough that even I can understand. The French speak very quickly compared to English, so I frequently ask people to repeat themselves or slow down when they talk to me. I think that in time I'll probably develop an ear for it, but right now I feel like I'm listening to a tape in fast forward whenever anyone asks me a question. 

       As far as my actual quarters, I have a modest sized room, bigger than the bedroom in my old apartment. Attached to it is a bathroom/kitchen (I'm referring to it as a bitchen, since it's sooooo awesome.) Basically it's a bathroom that has some cabinets with cooking utensils and dishes in it, along with a hot plate for cooking. Fortunately the University mandates that its student housing must have an internet connection, including the families who house international students. This has helped tremendously, especially when it comes to keeping up with e-mail and, of course, this blog. Another advantage is that my house is extremely close to the center of town, where the central bus stop is. 

       Mostly I've just been biding my time, waiting for school to start. I contacted the lady in charge of international student affairs, picked out my courses, and I'm set to take a French placement test tomorrow to see what level of French classes I should take. In the meantime, I've been studying French on my own. I'm excellent when it comes to vocabulary, but studying all the French verb tenses makes my brain hurt. The French have fourteen verb tenses, seven simple and seven compound, whereas in English (as I'm sure all you competent English speakers know) we only have six verb tenses, three simple and three compound (for those of you who are really nit-picky, I'm not counting the imperatival forms of verbs as a tense.) Hopefully staying here will help me to improve my fluency, but I really haven't been talking to that many people as of late. Once school starts it should provide me with more opportunities to speak. 

     Anyway, I hope all of you are doing well (whoever the hell you are) and that you'll feel free to drop me a line. I haven't really been missing Oklahoma so much as some of the people in it. I'm going to try to update this blog at least once a week while I'm here, but please don't get spoiled to these longer posts. I offer no guarantees that I'll have the time.

Extended Stay In Paris

Hello everyone! I've been getting some great e-mails from all of you out there reading this blog... well, there haven't been any e-mails, but at least none of them were bad! I changed the settings so that if you want to comment on here you can. 

I finally got in touch with the lady I am to stay with in La Rochelle tonight. Turns out I was dialing number incorrectly (I feel really bad for the lady who kept getting my voicemails). She is going to pick me up at the train station tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully I'll make it to the train station tomorrow morning without incident. I must say that I am quite ready to be settled. I decided to stay an extra night at my hotel when I couldn't talk to her yesterday, so I got to change rooms for my trouble. On the plus side, there's a bunk bed in here along with a double bed, so maybe I can finally live the dream of getting to sleep on the top bunk. 

What an exhausting two days it has been. I am already tired of the commute into Paris, but it does give me an opportunity to eavesdrop on French speakers. Of course sometimes they talk to me directly, which makes me more nervous than Sylvester Stallone at a spelling bee. Most of the French people I have met are very friendly and personable. Some have even helped me, like a nice couple who sat next to me yesterday at lunch. They taught me the French word for asking for the check. Seems like the sort of thing I should know after so many years studying French, but I wasted all my time learning vocabulary for impractical things, like poetry and literature.  They sat next to me while I tried escargot for the first. The texture is surprisingly similar to sautéed portobello mushrooms, but it wasn't bad at all. 

Yesterday I went to Notre Dame (be sure to pronounce it in the bastardized American way). It was a nice change from the baroque cathedrals I saw this summer in Rome, but I didn't feel up to climbing the tower again (I've done it once before). After I left the cathedral I wandered over to the Panthéon. It was pretty cool seeing where all of my favorite Frenchmen are buried. I thought it was kind of funny that Rousseau and Voltaire are entombed right across from one another, since they were practically nemeses in life. Afterwards I took a brief walk to the Sorbonne (the major French university in Paris). It was neat, but the real treat was the philosophy bookstore that was nearby. They had an entire shelf dedicated to Quine (probably you don't care or know who I am talking about... it's never too late to crack open a book). 

I wandered around Paris a bit more before I got bored and wound up in the Jardin de Tuileries. I got some friendly Americans to snap of photo of me (see above). Parts of the garden are a bit like a carnival. I found myself getting in touch with a more childlike Logan... well, maybe he's never very far away. I went up in the giant Ferris wheel and got to see the city. The Eiffel Tower is back to its regular yellow lights, now that 2008 is over. A family with two little girls rode in my car on the way around. They started singing "Champs Elysees" in a perfectly adorable fashion. I rode back to my hotel and went to sleep, after only getting lost just a little.

Today, Jet-lag really caught up with me. I was so exhausted on the train back from Paris, I could barely keep my eyes open. I managed to make it back to my hotel without getting lost (my first time this trip). It's a shame I'll be leaving Villepinte tonight, I think I'm finally getting to know my way around. I spent all day today at the musée d'orsay. They have some really bitchin' impressionist paintings, as well as a new exhibit on Picasso's interpretation of Manet's dejeuner sur l'herbs (google it!) As well as a temporary exhibit on pastels. I know... I'm kind of a museum nerd, so much so that I wandered around in the museum for over four hours, but to be fair I spent part of that time eating in the restaurant upstairs.  There were just too many pretty things to look at. I decided to skip the Louvre on account of the fact that I've been several times and really love the musée d'orsay. Besides, La Rochelle is only about two and a half hours away by train, so I might come back to it eventually. 

Anyway, I've got to get packing for my trip to La Rochelle tomorrow. I hope you enjoy reading these posts more than I enjoy writing them. Frankly I find this whole thing to be a bit narcissistic... even for me. Oh well, at least you can comment now!

New Year's Eve in Paris

So I made it safely here to France, with only a minor delay getting out of Dallas which, fortunately, did not affect my connection. I made it to my hotel, which was only a scant ten kilometers away from Charles de Gaulle airport, in a suburb of Paris. Unfortunately I discovered that I have to take a bus to an RER station, then take that into Paris before I can get to where everything is. After I took a short nap, I headed into Paris. It takes about an hour, and the buses are very confusing... but more on that later. 

Paris is beautiful this time of year, although very cold. When I left Oklahoma it was in the seventies (Fahrenheit) whereas here it has been as cold as -10 (Celsius). I spent most of my time walking along the Champs Elysees. Trees lit up in blue christmas lights twinkled like snowfall, complete with faux christmas light icicles, which dripped at periodically. For a moment I stood at the median of a crosswalk, looking straight down the street. It was like something out of a hollywood movie, but I digress. 

I decided, undoubtedly to the disappointment of some of my more festive friends, to forego purchasing a bottle of champagne. I take very little pleasure in drinking alone, and I decided with my horrible jet-lag that it would just make me drowsy. In addition I saw police officers (and they were certainly out in force for the holiday) harassing some tourists for drinking along the street (which I learned is forbidden in that particular part of town). I did purchase a crepe for myself and simply enjoyed the scene around me. Heavily fortified against the cold, I walked under the Arc de Triomphe, saw the giant Ferris wheel, and walked across the Seine.

I decided, as midnight approached, that I should head towards the Eiffel Tower. It was all lit up in blue in recognition of the European Union. Every hour it shimmers for about five minutes in a brilliant display. The tower glittered like diamonds in the distance, and I followed it as though it were the star of david, all the way to its base. The crowds were bad everywhere, but especially at the bottom of the tower. I walked directly underneath it, but then backed up as the clock struck 23:00, so that I could see it shine. It was dazzling (as you can see in the photo I snapped up above). 

After watching it shine, I decided to try to beat the crowds and head back to my hotel early. I was exhausted after wandering around Paris for almost seven hours, as well as the journey there. At midnight I was sitting on a train, heading back to my hotel. Once I arrived at the RER station, I stepped outside into the cold night air to wait for a bus. Here is where things went horribly wrong. 

As those of you who know me well can attest, I am awful when it comes to directions. This applies equally to foreign cities (if not more so). Ordinarily I enjoy being lost in Paris, as I know their metro system so well as to be able to navigate easily throughout the city. In Paris, no matter how lost one might be, one is never more than five minutes away from a metro stop. The bus system, however, is a whole other animal. 

The bus that I was trying to take back to my hotel had stopped running at 0:30. Fortunately Paris has several night buses which run much later. I engaged in conversation with some fellows while I was waiting at the bus station, for the bus that had stopped running. They seemed friendly, in spite of my broken French, until I mentioned to them that I was an American. All of them expressed there hatred of George Bush, to which I heartily agreed. When I tried to convince them that I detest Bush as much as anyone (I think the guy should be tried for war crimes), I was reluctant to agree that he was worse than Hitler, as one of the men claimed. Upon my reluctance he became quite belligerent, and I felt a bit threatened. Panic washed over me like a bucket of icy water as I attempted to calmly excuse myself to check the bus schedules. 

After this, I called my girlfriend, Rebecca, back in the states to ask for her assistance (she is a prodigy when it comes to navigating search engines), but I accidentally hopped on the wrong bus. I hopped off at the next stop, but I was unable to find assistance from anyone I asked. I was equally unable to communicate where I was to my Rebecca, who finally managed to find the bus schedules for Paris' night buses. The other people waiting at the stop were heading to the east train station. I figured I would join them, hopping on the next bus that passed. So I rode in silence, looking out the bus window as Paris flew by. Rebecca was able to navigate me from the East Train station back to the bus stop across the street from my hotel. Thank goodness the French government made all buses and metro trains free for New Year's eve! 

In the end I wound up taking a free bus tour all over Paris. I reassured myself that this was all part of the adventure of being in a foreign country, but by the time I returned to my hotel it was five in the morning. I had spent over thirteen hours wandering the streets, riding the metro, and gallivanting in buses. Needless to say I was completely exhausted, and, after a quick internet phone call thanking Rebecca for her invaluable role in my continued survival, I crashed in a heap upon my bed. 

I awoke the next day in the late afternoon. Cursing myself for having squandered the day sleeping, I decided to take a break from Paris to see the sights around Villepinte, the suburb where my hotel is. I have to say it was pretty uninteresting. I stopped briefly to sate my hunger and find some respite from the cold at a local Turkish restaurant. After wandering around for a few more hours, I decided to return to my hotel. I did so without difficulty, having paid extra careful attention to where I was going. 

Tomorrow I hope to start earlier, venturing into Paris to see the sights. I still have not been able to contact the lady I'll be staying with at La Rochelle, but hopefully I will be able to tomorrow.