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.