la gastronomie.

today as i ate the best bread i've ever had, i started thinking about the gastronomical odyssey that is france. i bought this baguette from a boulangerie that appears just like the others. the baguette was still hot, fresh from the oven just in time for the lunch time crowd. it was the perfect balance of crunchy outside and chewy softness inside. i ate almost a third of it on my short walk home. and this is normal in france. last night for dinner, my host mom made some sort of fish that was lightly breaded with fresh herbs. i thought it was delicious, however my host sisters who are 12 and 9 (only 2 of the 6 kids) weren't big fans. so after arguing for several minutes about eating their fish, the parents just gave up and ordered the girls to eat dessert instead. this is so contrary to my american way of thinking, i was mildly shocked. so the girls dutifully ate cups of premade, but wonderfully rich mousse that is as common here as snackpacks are in the US. it's also incredible to think that the baby's first solid food was a buttery baguette like i described above and cheese that is far better than any cheese available in the states. then there's cyriaque, who at the ripe old age of 3 can't go to bed until he finishes his meal with a few large pieces of fresh cheese. i shudder to think a 3 year old knows more about cheese than i do. and how i can forget to mention vivianne who is 7. he loves food probably more than anyone i know. he eats his mother's creamed spinach by the gallon. his dessert of preference is 3 petite suisse (a really thick and creamy but unsweetened yogurt) which he painstakingly plops out of the little containers into a bowl then adds plenty of super fine sugar and precisely mixes it to achieve the perfect sweetness and consistency. i once asked him what his favorite food was. he remarked that that was a beautiful question but before he could respond he was whisked off to bed. breakfast is another culinary adventure consisting of fresh croissants (my favorite are the croissants almondaises which have almond paste in the middle and then an almond glaze and sliced almonds on top) madelines, and cakes and tarts left over from sunday's lunch. french families, typically eat a large meal for lunch on sundays which starts around 1 or 2 pm and stretches on until 5 or 6pm. my new favorite food is ratatouille. no, it's not a popular animated film about sewer rats in paris. it's actually a delicious dish of sauteed bell peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, and zucchini all stewed together. i could eat it by the bowl full. my family also eats a lot of fresh grapes. my host dad warned me the first time to beware of the seeds because they don't have seeds in america. i told him that there are grapes with seeds in the states and proceeded to pick out the seeds as i ate a handful of grapes. when he noticed what i was doing, he made some remark about it being because i am american and he said he just eats them. in my determination to blend in, i then started eating the seeds. unfortunately, they got stuck in my throat and gave me a bit of a stomach ache. i don't think i'll ever be able to fore go the stupid american tag. the kids even refer to me as their american. i guess i can deal with that for now.
{first course of my lunch at the musée d’orsay in paris}

source de calcium.

one thing i love about france: you can get all your calcium from milk chocolate. at least that's what the wrapper says.
p.s. i've also attached a few more pictures from paris.

unesemaine.

so despite my best intentions to post everyday with a new picture, that has been nearly impossible. last week i had class everyday. they weren't real classes though, just a program the university does for foreign students to prepare them for the real university classes. so i learned about the resources at the school, some history about the town, how to take notes, some idiomatic expressions, and some other random things. i also had quite a bit of work for our separate program with lewis and clark. oh yeah, i also went to paris for 4 days. paris was a lot of fun. our hotel was in the latin quarter which is where sorbonne university is as well as many student friendly streets filled with bars, cafes, and book stores. it is also just across the river from notre dame. it's right in the heart of the rive gauche (left bank side of paris) made famous by authors and artists alike. i spent the first afternoon wandering the banks of the seine when i happened upon a festival of food from the southwest part of the country---basically lots of apples, cheese, fois gras, and wine. it was lovely. we got really lucky with the weather because it was beautiful all weekend. after lunch i wandered over to notre dame. then we had a group dinner at an indian restaurant and saw eugène ionesco’s la leçon in a really tiny theater where it has been preformed every night for 50 years. then sunday was spent in the musée d'orsay where i had to do a presentation on one of degas's dancers, in french of course. then we had this amazing four course lunch in the museum's restaurant. afterwards i went to the louvre which is so big that after about an hour i was so overwhelmed by human existence and creation that i headed for the exit. afterwards, i wandered through the tiny streets of the latin quarter. that night i bought a sandwich from these guys in a greek restaurant and they asked where i was from and then i asked where they were from and told them my dad was from armenia like them becasue armenian and german sound incredibly similar in french. luckily i redeemed myself by saying my super sexy boyfriend is armenian. then after discovering every bar was full of people watching france destroy nambia in the rugby world cup {that's an extremely un PC statement considering france's history of colonialism in africa but they beat them 87 to 10} we then wandered the streets to find a metro line to get to the eiffel tower. it's gorgeous at night although, due to the rugby world cup being hosted by france, the bottom half was glowing green. but it was still nice, and an old homeless man told me i had a nice ass after i refused the flower i tried to give him. the next day we toured the palais garnier--the newer (1874) opera house. it's gorgeous and extravagant in the style of napoleon III. then i wandered up to monmatre, which is a hill that consists of the red light district, many fabric shops, and an enormous church on top called sacre coeur. if you've seen amelie or moulin rouge, you know monmatre, kind of. then that night we had a group dinner at this tiny southwestern style french restaurant. it was very rustic and run by this very jolly older gentleman who, when i knocked over my glass of wine, just clapped and cheerily said bravo and that it's usually our professor who does that, which ron quickly denied. then yesterday morning i walked around the campus of école des beaux arts and went to shakespeare and co. which is this bookstore that many authors and artists have frequented/lived in/wrote their names on the walls. then i had a coffee in a cafe with max. the cafe had the front door open like many do, and during our visit several pigeons decided to come on in. a scared pigeon in a tight space is a bad thing and i was startled several times by one flapping frantically right above my head. but luckily i survived. paris is a wonderful city with lots of character but i feel like it's lost some of it's charm. it is so touristy now, at least more than when i was there 6 years ago. it's very frustrating when i go into a store and the clerk here's my american accent when i try to speak in french so they immediately switch to english. i also have never hated americans more than while i was in paris. they are so impolite and make very little effort to amalgamate into the culture. they can maybe say bonjour and merci but that's about it. and then when i am trying to speak french and get a feel for the real paris, i am immediately discounted by the parisians because they assume i am an arrogant american like every other person they deal with. it makes me really glad to be studying in a place like nancy where there a very few americans and i am forced to speak french and adapt into the culture. thank god there is no starbucks here {i saw at least a dozen in paris, as well as several subways. what has the world come to?} yesterday evening we took the train back to nancy and now i am avoided the 8 pages of french papers i'm supposed to be writing.
here's some pictures from paris...more to come at some point.

les drapeaux en fleurs.

i spent sunday afternoon wandering through town. it happened to be a few rare hours when the sun was out. i walked from my house on the west side of town to the east side to place stanislas, parc pepinière, and la vielle ville. place stanislas is a large square with several fountains and statues, very fancy. la vielle ville {old town} is the oldest part of the city with small, winding cobblestone streets, a basilica, tall stone walls, and some tunnels. there was un marchée au puces {flea market} on one street, and of course because it was sunday and sunny, lots of people were out walking. the town feels rather empty during the day during the week. only on saturday and sunday afternoons do places get busy. once kids hit the equivalent of middle school, they attend school on saturday mornings. so the only real day off is sunday. i also walked through parc pepinière. this is a huge park north east of place stanislas, and of course, it's beautiful and immaculately tended. as i was walking, i noticed these small groupings of different colors of flowers. at first, i couldn't tell what they were but as i got closer i realized they were representing about a dozen european countries' flags. i guess they ran out of normal flower beds.
today i started classes at the university, but they aren't real classes, kind of. the normal university classes don't start until october, but for a couple of weeks before, the department FLE {français pour les langues étrangères---french for foreign languages} holds intensive french review courses for students arriving in nancy from other countries to study at the university. they are interesting because there are students from all over the world, south korea, japan, belgium, germany, poland, italy, and us dumb americans. i feel like an idiot as i bumble along in french while these german girls speak perfect french and it's their fourth language or something. but it was comforting for our professor to say that it's good to make mistakes because if you're perfect you have no reason to be in class. so i make mistakes and get corrected, especially by my host brothers and sisters. after 4 hours of these reveiw classes, we had our literature class which is just the LC students. this professor was very nice and she was kind enough to show us around the university campus and take us to a little cafe for a cup of coffee. the day was not that difficult, it is just long and extremely tiring to strain to listen, comprehend, respond, be corrected, and think in a foreign language. but that's why i'm here and i've already noticed that i can understand better than when i arrived.

alors, les drapeaux:




p.s. my apologies if this post makes little sense. all the jetlag i ignored last week is catching up with me.

les navajos français.

a couple of us were walking around downtown nancy yesterday afternoon. we had bought some cheese and a baguette and were going to have un petit pic nique in a little park on one of the main shopping streets. when we arrived at the park there were three or four native americans in full head dresses singing, dancing, and playing drums. some people had gathered to watch but most just went about their business. we couldn't really figure it out. we don't know if they had moved here from the US or if they were traveling and performing or what, but they were definitely not french. c'était très bizarre.

seulement à france.

i had a pretty mellow day today. i woke up at 5:30 for no comprehensible reason. so i got up and talked with some people online because it was only around 9pm on the west coast. i had breakfast with my host family. breakfast in france is a strange phenomenon. a very typical french breakfast is, of course, a croissant dipped in strong, black coffee. but this morning my host dad pulled out prepackaged brownie type snacks, madelines {soft, spongey, shortbread type cookies), and some miniature croissants. the kids each had a brownie or cookie and some warm milk. then off to school. they probably think i'm very strange because i had a yogurt and a banana. they also eat dessert, without fail, every night. les repas or meals in my family aren't the typical fancy french meals served very orderly, mostly because there are 6 youngsters running around. last night we had pork with a creamy mushroom sauce, green beans, egg noodles with tomato sauce, and left over paella {a spanish dish of rice, vegetables, and seafood}. i guess, because of the kids and the family's busy schedule the parents don't drink any alcohol with dinner. after the food they pull out the cheese. they regularly have 6 or 7 types on hand. then dessert of prepackaged pudding, mousse, or yogurt with lots of added sugar on top. they also offer fruit with dessert. i think i shocked my host dad the first night because he offered me some fruit from the fruit bowl and i took an apple and just started eating it off the core. he on the other hand, carefully washed his, then shinned it up with a papertowel, then sat and precisely peeled and sliced the whole thing. i think my way is easier, but you know.

this morning we had an early meeting with our director at les sciences po. this is short for the equivalent of political science. this is the political science school. unlike in the u.s. where we typicallys have separate areas like humanities, sciences, social scienes, arts, all in one university, in france there are separate specific schools for each. i will be attended l'université des lettres which is languages and litteratures. our director is a professor at les sciences po. i think he teaches in english and the school is very prestigious and only accepts the top 2%-3% of students in the entire country. it's not selective at all.

after the meeting we went to the bank to set up accounts. one unique thing about france is that everything requires excessive amounts of paperwork. it's a bit of a joke here. one of the girls on the trip has a visa that expires in early december, but we leave at the end of december. in order for her to be legal, she has to start a long process of filling out many forms and providing every document possible. luckily for her, the process is slow enough that she will only have to start the paperwork, because by the time the process would be complete, she will be long gone.

after the bank we walked over to the mall. it was very similar to american malls, not super exciting. i had to use the restroom, but it cost me 0.30 euros, about $0.55. this is very common all over europe, having to pay to use the restroom. public bathrooms are rare and it is even rude to ask to use someone's bathroom when you are a guest for dinner or something. i think the logic is that the homeowner may not have tidied it up and would feel very insecure about a guest seeing their home in disorder.

another thing i noticed today, walking to my meeting, was the amount of dog excrement on the sidewalk. this got me thinking about various cultural issues. for instance, it is rare to look someone in the eyes when passing on the sidewalk, especially for women. for a woman to make eye contact with a man, is considered a come on. because of this most people walk looking down at the ground. my conclusion is that people have to look down to avoid stepping in the plentiful amounts of dog poo, so if you make eye contact with someone, that means you have temporarily taken the risk of stepping in fifi's poo, so that person must be worthwhile and possibly worth pursuing. oh the thoughts that run through my head.

anyways... one of the more difficult cultural difference to adjust to, altough it is much nicer, is that nowhere has coffee to go. so in the morning if i am running late to class or a meeting, it's not possible to grab some caffeine to go {or take away, as they say here}. so instead, people spend leisurely afternoons, lingering over a cup of very strong, very good coffee out of a proper cup in a café. so i did the same, reading our assigned 'la leçon' by eugène ionesco, which we will see preformed in paris next week, in a sidewalk café, while i sipped my café crème.

l'arrivé à france.

bonjour de nancy! after a stressful and exhausting, but thankfully rather uneventful, 24 hours of traveling, i have arrived at my host family's home and the town of nancy. my host dad is very nice and explained everything to me. they have this complicated entry with a gate that is all operated electronically with these little plastic keys you touch to a pad to open it. i have my own room which is basically a studio apartment with a seperate entrance. the kids are great. lauther, 1, has huge blue eyes, chubby cheeks, and lots of blond curls, all he does is laugh. cyriaque, 2, is similar only more mobile. he loves to do laps around the kitchen table. vivianne, 7, was grilling me about harry potter. luckily, i knew enough to pass his test. i hope now he thinks i'm cool enough to hang out with. nathan, 9, is autistic. he doesn't talk much but is a sweetheart. sybil, 10, is very mature for her age. and melodie, 12, is the calmest of the bunch and the easiest to understand. she even tried out some of her english on me. the mom is more timid and reserved (very french) but still helpful. their dog is named touley and is some sort of bull dog, i think. they have a cat that i think is persian, with the grey and white fuzzy long fur, and is named tipsy. there are fish but i haven't been introduced to them yet. i arrived in nancy 6 pm wednesday night and got settled in then had dinner later. the french typically eat dinner at 8 or 9 pm, something i'll have to get used to. all the kids take baths and put on pajamas before dinner, then during dinner the mom puts them to bed by age rank, starting with the youngest. they're all pretty well behaved and fairly regimented but still silly at times. near the end of dinner when just the two eldest girls remained, they decided to try out some riddles on me. this was slightly evil of them because they were chattering away in french so it was already hard to follow and then i was expected to answer the riddles which i'm horrible at in english.
after my host parents helped make my bed and such, my host mom asked me if i needed a 'serviette.' i didn't understand her at first and then thought she was asking about a napkin which is the same word. i figured she must have been asking about a washcloth so in my jetlagged state i said no. then later i realized she had actually asked if i needed a towel for the shower, which i did, so after dinner i had to explain to my host dad that i hadn't understood and did in fact need a towel.
classes at the university start the first week of october. until then we are having some orientation meetings, we had lunch at our director ron's house today and then filled out forms to register for classes. (ron and his wife bethany who works with the students in strassborg are very nice and energetic and from new york). we're also doing things like setting up a bank account and getting aquainted with the town. we go to paris next weekend. and we are taking some remedial type classes.
some things seem very expensive, like a postcard for 90 euros (about $1.50) and others seem really cheap like a brand new large paper back book for 3 euros (less than $6). i'm frustrated by some of the other students because 4 of the girls have taken french 321 (a whole year ahead of me and max, the only boy on the trip, though we're all juniors) yet they speak english constantly. whereas, max and i who have only been through 202 are trying our best to speak in french all the time. the town itself is rather quaint but still has a decent sized center with shops, restaurants, and more importantly, bars. i've already had the customary afternoon coffee and cigarette on the rattan chairs of a sidewalk cafe.
p.s. i'm assuming blogger recognizes my new IP address as located in france, and has accordingly become entirely in french, including the spell check. because of this, and my obtuse use of french over the next few months, my spelling will probably become rather poor.
p.p.s. i will most likely be deleting my facebook in the next several days, because 1) i despise it and 2)they are opening the site up so that search engines like google will be able to find names and profiles and the last thing i need is a future employer/professor/young child i have looked after to google my name and find hundreds of drunken and not so drunken photos of me. so, au revoir facebook.
p.p.p.s. my apologies for the long post, there's just been a lot going on in the past 48 hours. future posts will probably be shorter. or maybe not.
p.p.p.p.s. the view from my bedroom window:

bonfuckingvoyage.

starting tomorrow morning i am embarking on 24 hours of travel time before i arrive at my host family's home in nancy:france. i am running the full gamut of emotions from excitement for a new adventure, to nervousness about traveling and communicating, to sadness for leaving things i love behind for the next four months. and even though i started packing roughly 6 weeks ago, i don't think i'll be completely packed until 30 seconds before i walk out the door. all part of the adventure i suppose, but to me it generally equates to a nervous breakdown. anyways, for those of you who would like to keep in touch, my cell won't work out of the country so email is the best way to get a hold of me. depending on my actual situation over there, i will probably be updating regularly here. no guarantees on facebook, mostly because i despise it. i may post pictures on flickr, if i get my act together. let me know if you want a postcard or any particular souvenir and i'll see what i can do. so to everyone in the states, au revoir, and cheers or more appropriately, salut, seeing that in about 36 hours i will probably be having my first legal drink.
see you guys in january.