Orientation, Dinner with Addie

Finally, I have a reliable usage of a computer! Before getting too far ahead of myself, I will recap the past few days:

I’ve been keeping close track of my expenses so far on this trip and according to my calendar of costs, Thursday was a big day for spending. We had another day of orientation at a large meeting hall and listened to topics like safety, cell phones, how to meet French people. Some of the topics were quite useful (what is the best deal on cell phones?) and some of the topics were kind of “old hat,” (don’t use an ATM on a deserted street at 2am.) but all in all, it was nice to get familiar with the staff of my school and practice my French listening skills. For the most part, the staff made the presentations in French and when they wanted to reiterate something important they would drop English words in the middle of a sentence.

During orientation, we ate lunches together at the meeting hall’s restaurant, everyone getting the same menu of salad, main course, dessert and coffee. For some people it was difficult to spend an hour and a half eating lunch and making small talk while we waited for food, but I didn’t find it too unbearable. I’m sure lunches during the school day won’t last quite that long.

I met Madame C's son on Friday night. He goes to school in the suburbs north of Paris and comes home on the weekend to see his friends, girlfriend, etc. The three of us ate dinner together and I spent most of the meal trying desperately to understand a few words they were saying. I managed to gather that Leos, Madame C's son, is in his first year at the university and Madame C was very curious about his apartment, his classes, his friends. It was the first time he had been back from school yet this year, so I’m sure Madame C had the same curiosity my parents had when I left for college.

At times, Leos or Madame C would direct a question my way and I would be able to join the conversation, but most of the conversation was between Leos and his mom. Leos and I talked a bit about biking in Paris and he told me that he bikes everywhere and hardly uses the Metro. He much prefers biking because you can get somewhere that would take 45 minutes by Metro in just 10 minutes by bicycle. I’m not quite convinced that I’m ready to start biking around Paris by myself since I don’t exactly have a commuter bicycle and I don’t know my way around too well. Paris isn’t organized in a grid-type system that I can figure out and there are lots of one way, diagonal streets that are easy to get lost on.

I heard before I came here that a lot of socializing in France is done around the dinner table, and I am beginning to believe that. I was invited to dinner last night by a fellow IES student who studied abroad here for 6 months when she graduated from high school. We went to visit her former host family toward the outskirts of Paris and we spent a good 3 hours having dinner and talking. Dinner was held at her former host family’s house and another family attended dinner as well. In all, there were 13 people at dinner- Addie, my friend from IES, her host parents, her host parents three children, a neighboring couple who knew Addie, their three children, and another boy who may have been the neighboring couple’s son also. It was very difficult to keep up with all of the different conversations, but was a good challenge for me. Addie’s host father cooked most of the dinner, fish on a barbeque, a zucchini casserole, and salad, but they were not alarmed when I explained that I was vegetarian and didn’t eat fish. They gave me a tomato to add to my salad and offered to cook up some eggs, but I said I’d be find with salad, zucchini and all of the other food they had to offer at dinner. The food was spectacular and after the main course (fish + casserole) they brought out a platter of at least 12 different kinds of cheese. I had gotten used to seeing three, maybe four kinds of cheese on a cheese platter, but the one last night was almost overwhelming! Nearly impossible to pass around the table! I sampled a few different cheeses with bread and later had some dessert, what they called “Crumbel” (An apple crumble that doesn’t have a French name).

After dinner, Addie and I took the metro back to her apartment where we watched a movie and I spent the night, since by the time we got back to her apartment the metro lines were starting to shut down for the evening. It was kind of strange staying in yet another different apartment, but was very interesting comparing her homestay to mine. I didn’t get to meet her host family because they were out of town at a wedding, but their apartment was certainly nice.

Tomorrow I will continue taking preparatory intensive French classes at IES, and later in the evening I have a meeting with the French Cycling Federation at La Cipale, the velodrome that I visited a few days ago. At the meeting I will be able to find out more about joining a cycling league here and potentially borrowing a track bike to see if I like riding track. Also, I need to find out more information about a racing license and cost of a uniform and such. Lots to do!

I now have my computer up and running with internet access in my bedroom, so hopefully I will be able to update my blog regularly.

Love from France,
Rebecca