Oh La Lauren

Mes écritures de Tours

27 Aout, 19:39 PM
Location: Living room of my Tours home

Just woke up from a much needed nap! I was feeling a little queezy before, but now I feel better. I just met “bébé chat,” who doesn’t look like a bébé at all! This house has such an interesting small. In fact, it’s a heck of a house! We walk up to an inconspicuous door on Rue Bernard Pelissay (is that what it’s called?) and enter it to walk through a narrow hallway with stone floors. Then you walk into the garden full of overgrown plants—we smacked them with our suitcases when we walked through.  There are these super skinny, steep steps that we climb to get to our room which we are sharing for the week, but it’s not bad like that. Oscar, this 21-year-old Italian boy lives next door. The WC and the shower are separate, so you have to go downstairs for “faire pipi.”

The flight over wasn’t horrible. I was so glad my luggage came through after arguing with the woman at the Uniter counter in Cleveland about sending my stuff to Dulles or to Paris. It was nice not to have to deal with it in Wash DC! Air France served pretty good food, alcohol was included, and they had so many movies and TV shows to choose from for entertainment. I watched two episodes of Gossip Girl (Grant would be proud).
Speaking of Grant, this afternoon when Brittany and I went out to explore Tours, we ran into Reed (who goes to Kenyon) and Lucas, and then we ran into Sylvie who also goes to Kenyon.  Brittany and I had a pretty good conversation before we found them. I really like her—she’s down to earth and really nice. I feel like I’ve hit it off with a couple of people, and most are friendly! In fact, a couple speak VERY good French that is intimidating! I speak better than Brittany and she is feeling overwhelmed too.

Wow, Clyde is one spunky dog! I forget the name for the kind of dog he is, but he’s got a long snout and he’s a dirty white color.

Ce soir, c’est le fete de l’anniversaire de Simon, le fils de Chantal. Il a 25 ans? Nous faisons cuire des crepes avec Nutella! Je comprends beacoup de ce que Chantal dit, mais pas toutes les choses! J’espere aussi que nous verrons Oscar qui chante à une fete a l’universite.

28 Aout, 11:54 
Location: Jardin de ma maison

J’ai oublie a mentionner qu’hier Brittany, Reed, Lucas et moi, nous sommes allees autours Tours…nous avons vu le cathedral de Saint-Goutien, et c’etait magnifique. C’etait construit pendant le XVIII et XIV siecles. Nous sommes allés au café ou ils n’ont servi ni des boissons chauds ni de la nourriture—c’etait stupid.

Mais le diner hier soir était fantastique. Comme j’ai dit a Chantal, c’etait le repas parfait pour notre premier soir en France. Chantal a fait une pile des crepes très haut. Nous avions du sucre, de la confiture, du Nutella, de la crème, des fruits, tout ca. Et nous avons bu du cidre. J’en ai mange trois, et j’etais fière. J’aimais que c’etait normale de manger tant des crepes !

Hier je me suis rendue compte que j’ai pas pris de photos. C’etait bien d’etre ici et ne m’inquiete pas de photos. Je les prendrai pendant les deux semaines, bien sur.
Aujourd’hui je dois trouver un telephone mobile et des lunettes de soleil. J’ai perdu les miens pendant le voyage, ce qui m’a rendu triste ! Et c’est impossible de sembler française sans lunettes de soleil. Nous avons aussi un réunion de Sweet Briar a 14h00 pour discuter je ne sais quoi.

Oh, eh j’ai presque oublie de parler des autres gens sur la programme. J’aime bien Charles, Amadi, Christina, Alanna, Brittany, Andy, Laura (je m’assieds avec Andy et Laura dans l’avion). Ok c’est tout, on verra ce qui se passe avec les gens !

Jeudi, le 3 septembre, 2009 18:27
Location: La salle de séjour chez moi

Well the idea of keeping a journal has not been too successful thus far. It’s not that I don’t have things to write, but I just don’t want to write! Haha. Right now I should do something like go for a run or sleep. However, I showered this morning and don’t want to shower again. And I’m not super tired, but maybe after I write this I will go out for a not-sweaty walk. I realized once I stepped on Chantal’s scale that I’ve lost weight, and I want to keep losing weight! But sometimes I do eat a lot of things.  But you know what, those things are damn good!! Foods I’ve eaten in my first week:

—unknown species of fish that we probably don’t even have at home
—wine of all colors
—cassis sorbetto
—chocolate mousse made by Anne-Laure, Chantal’s daughter
—l’encornet, or le calamare. I ate calamari and it wasn’t fried!
—une galette avec fromage et oeuf
—I even tasted foie, which I really did not like. But I tasted it

My goal to eat pork is not going so well. I just don’t want to put it in my mouth! (that’s what she said, right?). I am sad that my sarcasm/humor can’t translate into French.
I’ve been placed into the highest level orientation class, the prestigious (just playin) Azay-le-Rideau castle. The classes are HARD.  Marie-Jo, the teacher of expression orale, just really likes to hear herself talk. And her corrections are not very helpful, except for this one sheet she gave us. Alexis, the langue francaise prof, is hot and rumored to be gay. However, he is very difficult to understand from across the hot rooms with horrible acoustics. The other day we reviewed the subjunctif (massacre) and “si” phrases (not bad, thanks Mme Potel). Today I had my meeting with Mme Gree and I have three solid classes I want to take and then the fourth is very much up in the air!
Things I have done in the last week:

—Saturday, visit to my first castle, Amboise. First we went to Clos Lucé, which I wasn’t really into. When you tell me I’m going to see a castle, I want to see a castle, not the place where di Vinci died. But the backyard of the place was cool. I really liked the castle, it was gorgeous.
—Sunday, large lunch and walk in the park with Chantal, Clyde, Oscar, and Britany. Chantal kinda left us in this field for an hour and a half while she caught up with a friend she hadn’t seen in 20 years.
—Yesterday night, Oscar came home in the evening and Brit asked him to play a song on guitar. He said “I uh try, but I uh drunk!” and it was hilarious. I recorded part of him singing—he hooked up his computer to the stereo and sang along with a track, I think it was a classic Italian song. Lovely!
—Nights out at Place Plume
—One night at La Guingette, which was great!

I’m starting to worry about money and think about how different things are going to be in Paris, when we’re not all living close to each other and seeing each other in class every day. I’m also curious what my host family is going to be like! Clyde is starting to annoy me. Why don’t the French neuter or declaw their pets?!

Bought my first pair of French shoes, very comfortable, moderate, patent-leather light beige heels. Also bought a black and beige scarf at the Galeries Lafayette. It was a little expensive, 24 euros, but it will go with my black trench—I will get a lot of use out of it.

5/9/09

I am just so lucky. And no, I don’t mean lucky in the met-a-hot-guy-at-the-club-and-hooked-up way. But I’ve gotten really lucky as far as my experience in Tours thus far. I was very excited to be placed into the highest level French class, even though the classes are challenging and oftentimes intimidating. But that wasn’t really luck—that was 8 years of studying.

However, my homestay situation has been absolutely wonderful. Of course I still have a couple more days here, but I’m feeling very grateful right now. Last night was Oscar’s last night here, and Brit and I stayed out with him until 2:30, a half an hour before he went back to the Institut to catch a bus to the airport.