Vive La Revolution

Well, Tuesday is over. I've managed to survive (barely). I swear my brain hurts so much and I'm shocked that I didn't get my histories mixed up, considering I was learning both of them at the same time in French. One minute I'd be in 7th Century France and the next minute it'd be a revolution in Paris.

By the way, I noticed a large pattern of revolutions in my French history (not History of France) class. I think we covered and/or referenced a grand total of three revolutions (La Revolution, La Revolution de 1830 and La Revolution de 1848) in five class periods. Something seems fishy here to me because I'm pretty sure just because there's rioting and barricades up in Paris does not mean there's a full-blown revolution. However, I'm not going to bust their bubble about it... I'll keep it to myself.

Alors... vive la revolution! I mean, the vacation. Close enough.

Post Script: This will probably/most likely/100% be my last post before my UK trip. Hopefully when I get back I'll have loads and loads of stories... and then promptly forget them all.

Are There Any Flotation Devices Available?

You know the saying “sink or swim”, well I’ve reached that point in my academic career at La Catho. On Tuesday it’s sink or swim, it's do or die, it’s whatever clever analogy you want to place in here, I have not one but two history tests (midterms, perhaps? This was not explained, surprise, surprise) back-to-back with the same prof. I have already offered her my apologies on butchering the French language. Why am I dwelling on this? Because for the past two days I have been doing nothing but copying notes from her classes. One class, the notes are basic and a smattering of French and English mushed together on a single page. No problem. The other class, oh, that other class. I like it, I honestly love it because it combines not only history but political history. The only problem is that I have two sets of notes for that class one set mainly (98%) in English while the other set is completely in French. And despite only having the class once a week, there are a ton of notes. Times two. I suppose this is mostly hanging over my head because this is the week before our two-week break before March Midterms, rather than March Madness. There could be a little madness going on, but it will have nothing to do with basketball. I’m just concentrating on my two-week vacation.

I have decided to due a 10-day tour of the English speaking countries to my west—thus referred to as the Accent Trifecta—England, Scotland and Ireland. I’m visiting some lovely people from St. Norbert in London for a long weekend. I’m really not sure exactly what I’m going to be doing, it will partially depend where my hostel is, how much things cost and whether or not I feel like revisiting some sites or go to new ones. I’m pretty much playing the entire trip by ear and London is no exception. After the long weekend, I’m taking a train trip up to Edinburgh. I have never been to Scotland and didn’t really think about going until I realized when I was planning this trip that I had that second week off. So, Scotland here I come. It was between Edinburgh and Glasgow, and I choose Edinburgh partially because enough people have told me Edinburgh was gorgeous especially compared to Glasgow. We’ll see if they’re right. Finally, it’s off to Dublin. I really don’t know what city I’m more excited for, Edinburgh or Dublin. There’s a couple of things I want to do in Dublin and tomorrow I’m talking with an American who studied there last semester and who is currently studying in Lille. I at least know she’s marking off the “stay out after dark” parts of towns as well as things she learned over the semester she was there. And yes, Grandma, I will have a pint of Harp while I’m there especially for you.

This week was pretty non-eventful in classes despite the fact that the week went so quickly! I have no idea where these weeks are going and I’m almost panicked to think once I get back from my vacation I will have been in Europe for two months. Out of a grand total of five months… almost half way. As much as I bitch (excuse the language) about school and classes and the French bureaucracy, I love just hanging out here. I don’t know if my language skills are improving that much, but I think I’ve reached a disillusionment with the language. I maintain I should have stuck with the Spanish way back in 7th grade at East middle. But then I would have missed making those crazy videos… oh the choices.

Anyways, I do have one story from my history class, the one not for international students but rather the one where I am the only international student in the class. We were discussing changes made during the 2nd République de la France and one of those changes just happened to be outlawing slavery in their colonies in 1848. Good, glad for you France. Glad you could be so perceptive and then mention that the United States was one of the last countries to outlaw slavery. Way to put me on the defensive. And then the big question came “What’s the War of Secession?” (Also known as the Civil War to us Americans). And the prof came to explain it was it was a war over slavery on big plantations with house that had Greco-Roman columns à la Terra in Gone With the Wind. Oh, prof, I really like you and you’re super nice to me, but you cannot boil the Civil War down to slavery and then compare it to a movie. So then when I try to explain, in my limited French, that one, slaves just weren’t found on huge plantations and two, the Civil War wasn’t just about slavery… well, I don’t think it translated very well. And then my limited attempt to explain Dred Scott and the Connecticut Compromise, well I think I’ve had too much constitutional law, American history, and political science classes. Or I should just learn to let it slide in this history class and focus it more on my upcoming presentation in Question Politique where I have to explain the differences of American federalism and European federalism all within 20 minutes. But that’s not until April and I have other stuff much before that to concentrate on…

Side note, Americans + Canadians = Decent North American brunch. It wasn’t fully complete as there was no toast or any type of meat, but it probably the best breakfast I’ve had since… not including last weekend at Dan and Barb’s…leaving. There were eggs, pancakes, grits (there were Southerners at the meal), and hashbrowns (I would be more tempted to call them American fries). I did not venture and try to grits or the eggs. Sorry, not my cup of tea, but I did have an amazing big old cup of coffee that is unheard of in France. It was a wonderful end to the weekend and a good study break since I had been up since 6:30 copying notes. Fun times.

It’s Called Productivity: A lunch break in France is two hours. Two hours to eat a sandwich. I do not see the need for two hours to eat said sandwich when all I need to do is make a bank appointment. Or find shoes. Or pay 195 E for national health insurance, which I do not need but have to get because it’s illegal for me to be here without it. A half an hour should suffice to eat the sandwich and it’s not necessary for everyone to go on lunch break at the same time. At least please do not close the entire bank/store/office to me. Please?

I Thought France Was Industrialized?

I have to say that living over here is one of the most unusual experiences and I don’t know if that’s just because I am in France or what. Earlier this evening we experience a blackout… the electricity just simply shuts off for several minutes up to an hour plus. There is no reason for the electricity to shut off, especially since this is not something I have ever had to experience or thought that I would experience. To me, electricity only shuts off during storms. Oh well, it provides a good study break as well as time to catch up… unless you’re one of the unlucky ones showering or cooking.

This past weekend I visited family in the Netherlands and had a wonderful time (thanks Dan and Barb)! I have to say that I’m quite lucky to have family close to me here, probably closer than I have when I’m at St. Norbert. The train ride going to and from The Hague was much less stressful this time even with the delay on Friday afternoon. For starters, I didn’t have to worry about the train cars separating and not carrying around my life on a train is a stress reducer. I came back a lot happier and in a much better mood than when I left Lille. Traveling alone helped too, I think. It’s much easier to people-watch or simply look out the window when you travel by yourself. The train ride back home was especially entertaining as I was sitting next to an Indian man who was looking at videos from a wedding he was coming back from. It was kind of like watching my own Bollywood video on the camera next to me. Very entertaining.

I think I’m starting to get a hang of the school thing, just in time for the February break! Basically I’m not worrying too much about getting anything done and am making sure that not only do the profs realize that I’m an international student but that I print in all capitals on the tops of my papers “INTERNATIONAL”. I’m hoping that it will be helpful. As for the February break, I may have reached a final decision on at least one of the weeks. I will be spending the first weekend in London (hopefully seeing some other SNC people) before going to Dublin for a couple days. I’m not sure if I’ll end up venturing outside of Dublin, but a girl in my British Pop Culture class studied abroad the previous semester in Dublin said she’d give me all the big stops to go to. Not to worry, I’m meeting up with a couple of people from Lille that I went with to Brussels so I won’t be totally alone in Ireland.

Good Memories: It’s nice to know that Eastpack backpacks haven’t gone out of style here. Still seems to be the brand of choice…. Eaaaaastpack (especially for you, Dad)!

Class? What Class?

I have officially been in Europe for over a month and I feel like time is going so fast that I won’t be able to do everything that I want to. I can blame school for that, especially my Question Politique, which always is moving from Thursday to Friday. The prof is from Paris and commutes in for the day, but two weeks ago his son was sick and then last week he accidently mixed up which classes should be taught when so I sat through an entire pointless (but interesting) lecture and had to miss my actual class because I had other classes when he did the make-up that same day. This week, I’ll have that class twice and I can only hope he doesn’t make the same mistake again. If there’s one thing I’ve gathered from my time in France it’s that I cannot wait to get back to the American education system. It makes sense to me and it makes sense to a lot of people. Even a couple of the French people living in the residence think that the French are just being… French. That seems to be the joke of the century around here since I hear it about once a day from both international students and French people alike.

I haven’t yet dropped a course, but I sure am tempted to do so. I knew coming over here that there would be a steep learning curve, but I don’t think my French can improve that fast to deal with political philosophy in Western Democracy since that’s the class that has been giving me the most trouble. I thought Hobbes was confusing in English and now he’s ten times as confusing in French. It’s very odd for me to actually dread going to my political science classes since those are generally the ones I prefer the most back at St. Norbert. Two of them, Western Democracies and Question Politique, are pretty over my head in both content as well as language. Today I was so happy in Western Democracies that I could actually understand about 60% of the lecture. And then my one English political science class, American foreign policy, is more like a very basic history class. As in domestic history that I haven’t even covered before because it’s basically assumed that you don’t need two hours to cover Affluence and Conformity in the 1950s—especially in a foreign policy class. Never mind the fact that the prof would rather lecture about that over the Bay of Pigs… go figure. This class has, however, given me lots and lots of evidence of how certain stereotypes about America and American culture can take base with the French.

My favorite classes would have to be the two serious history classes—British history and French history. The British history is really interesting, it’s in English, and it’s pretty basic information and nothing too new. The French history is a bit more challenging as it’s all in French for two hours but the subject more than makes up for it. We’re covering the political history of France from about 1814 onward. I’m really not sure how far we’re going, but I hope at least to the Vichy government. Besides the fact, the prof of that class is a wonderful, wonderful person who said that she’ll never grade me on my French (I can use a dictionary and an occasional English word in my tests) but rather on did I understand the lecture and material covered in class. I officially love that woman.

Other than that, I’ve had a pretty low-key week. Last weekend I went to a concert as well as a party to celebrate the anniversary of one of the guy’s here announcement of coming out. If that makes sense. The concert I went to was of a band called “of Montreal”. I had no idea what to expect but the music wasn’t bad and it was one of the oddest experiences of my life. The band loves to “create” art on stage to go along with their music using human props… and they had everything including chicken and pig costumes. Go figure. Lille actually has decent concerts coming through and Joseph Arthur and his band is coming through soon so I’m going to try and check that out. The anniversary party was amazing. We all dressed up in colors of the rainbow (I was purple) and headed out on the town. I’m sure we were quite the sight. One, we were speaking English and two, we were wearing colors. Unheard of. I love the fact that all the international students hang out together in a large group, it really makes it easier to be over here plus there are some really interesting people and you never know what’s going to be the topic du jour.

One thing that is so hard to get used to here is that everything is up in the air constantly. Last week I was looking at plane tickets to Barcelona and this weekend I think I’m going to look into hostels in Dublin. Everything changes so quickly and everything moves so quickly. I honestly hope that I get to do everything I want to, but am afraid that I’m going to miss out on something eventually. There’s always some suggestion or some place that I remember I want to visit/re-visit, it makes me wish I had more time to just travel and see. Wonder what side will win out… travel or study?

Yum: Forget Erbs and Gerbs or even Yesterdog, kebabs is where it's at for late night food. Crazy Food is developing into a late night treat and I can now smell them from a kilometer away.

Waffles and Fries and Chocolate... Oh My!

I don’t even know where to begin with how the last week, specifically how the last weekend was. I was part of a group of about eight (7 when we went to Brugges) international students who ventured up to Belgium. Careful, this post could be a long one.

The venture to Belgium started early Friday morning, a little too early for me. Anyways, arriving in Brussels train station it was cold, wet, and pretty much miserable. This did not look like anything resembling any European city should look like in any of our minds. In fact, it reminded most of us of a set from a Cold War-era movie and we felt like we were in Soviet Russia. Pretty depressing. After walking around for about an hour we somehow made it to Grand Place, which is absolutely stunning. This was the Brussels I had wanted to see. This is what the “Capital of Europe” should look like. The rest of that day was spent mostly wandering around the Grand Place area and seeing the major sites before going and trying to find out hostel in the freezing rain and strong winds. It was not fun— we were all cold, wet and cranky, but the hostel was pretty nice and exactly what was needed.

The following day was the complete opposite of the first day in Brussels, pretty warm (for winter), blue skies and sunshine. This was the day where we tried to go see the city and the sites as much as possible. I did so much walking on Saturday, I’m still sore from it. There may not be as many well-known sites as like Paris, Rome or London but there is plenty to see. Since a decent majority of us are political science majors, we all decided to visit the EU headquarters, but we manage to stumble across some fairly large monuments within the city. One of the most impressive was La Palais de Justice. It is this absolutely huge building sitting on top of a hill overlooking the city. It was such a powerful site to see and very symbolic. Of course the entire time we were there it was hard not to mention why Belgium had the money to build this staggering building. Most of the larger buildings of the 19th century and early 20th are tied in very closely with wealth gathered from the Belgian colonies in Africa. It was always in the back of my mind. This was such a good day, exploring the city and actually getting to be tourists.

On that Sunday, we all left for Brugge (Bruges). This was such a beautiful city and there really isn’t any other way to describe it. It is very easy to see that the residents take pride in the city because of the lack of graffiti as well as lack of litter on the ground, even in the large tourist areas. The highlight of the day was climbing the winding staircase of the clock tower. The view from the top was magnificent and you could see all around. We even got the treat of having to hear the bells go off for what seemed too long. I can definitely tell you it was working. This was then completed by the very “Belgian” meal of fries with mayonnaise and a Bicky burger. The vendor was actually shocked that I ordered it when he realized I was an American. I think he may have thought I would have gone for the more “safe” choice, but I’m glad I didn’t. We ended up discussing politics and it seems like many people (or at least those who know I’m an American) love mentioning the fact that they approve of Obama or are glad he was elected. They definitely love him over here. (You can even buy a shirt in Brussels that says ‘Brussels’ with a picture of Obama on it—go figure).

Now for a quick (and more boring subject). I have managed to survive my classes. My political science classes are going to be my hardest ones since they are mostly in French and are dealing with some pretty difficult subjects in the fact that we’re discussing philosophies and questions of politics. It’ll be interesting to see if I can keep pace with all that is going on. It is very weird not having any reading or syllabus to follow and only meeting once a week—very, very weird. I won’t even complain about not having classes on Fridays. One of my favorite classes is shaping out to be American Foreign Policy (surprise, surprise), which is filled with a lot of French students, two of whom were exchange students at SNC last semester. We’re not covering anything too new to me so it’ll be my “fun” class. The history classes, either in French or in English, are just basic history classes though the one that’s for regular French students is way more interesting than the one for international students.

That was only a summary, and not a very brief one at that, but this week is shaping up to be a lot less busy. I’m starting to plan out my winter break trip to Barcelona and Rome (I think) as well as a couple of other shorter trips for the weekends.

Yum Yum: Belgian waffles DO taste better, in my opinion

Testing, Testing... 1,2,3.

To keep this short...

So as some and some may not know, I went to Belgium this weekend. I went with 7 other people from La Catho (again, mostly Canadians and one German) for our first weekend trip of the semester. I spent Friday and Saturday in marvelous Brussels and then Sunday in Brugges. I had an absolute blast and I don't think I can even begin to put into words what an incredible weekend this has been.

However, I don't quite have the energy to even start to write about the weekend. This is merely to inform those back home that I have managed to survive Belgium and the weekend trip with no serious injury or complaint.

To all the St. Norbert people-- have a great start to the semester!

Ready, Set, Don't Go Too Fast!

So apparently in my last post, I spoke too soon. My classes did not go according to plan and was an entire mess by the end of the week. Basically, everything went to hell on Tuesday and it took until basically the end of Wednesday to get everything figured out. By the end of the week, it was just like… this is just the French being French. There are numerous occasions where I’ve thought that something hasn’t made any sense and there’s nothing I can do about because that’s just the way things are done here. Without sense.

I have a finalized schedule that cannot change and what a schedule it is!
Monday- 16th/17th Century British History, British Popular Culture
Tuesday- 16th/17th Century British History, Western Democracies, French History for International Students, French History
Wednesday- Translation, American/British Foreign Policy
Thursday- Political Question of the EU, Geography of France for International Students and French for International Students

That’s right, I have no classes on Friday. It makes getting through those really long days that much easier. And there’s only one class where I know no one, which is very helpful. I’m already learning to depend on people for their notes and help with homework since my French skills are very lacking. We had to take a placement test for our French class and one of the parts was listening. Let’s just say my ears are very rusty, especially when the speaker doesn’t take a breath for the entire time he was talking. I don’t think I’d even have that skill in English. Clearly, the art of pronunciation has been lost. The one class I am most looking forward to is American Foreign Policy and not just because it’s a class in English on America, but because it’s a new viewpoint of the actions of the United States abroad. I’m sure that will be most interesting. So far, I already know that I’ll have several oral finals as well as a couple projects. One of the most intimidating ones is a 20- minute presentation in Political Question about the differences between American federalism and European federalism. In French. I’m just a tad nervous. We also have to read a book on political thought for Western Democracies, but I’m choosing Democracy in America—a book that I have already supposedly read for American Political Thought last year. Maybe this time I’ll actually manage to finish the entire book.

If there’s one thing that isn’t difficult, it’s meeting people. I cannot tell you how many people I have met in such a short amount of time. And it’s just not the international students either. In my residence, there’s a decent mixture of French students along with international ones (as well as international students who I think are French) and we aren’t too divided. Never mind the fact that there are several other residences for students. I have made the long journey over to Foyer International to meet up with people. The kitchens are great tools for socialization and everything that goes along with it. The biggest adjustment is definitely trying to get used to eating at around 8 o’clock instead of around 5:30ish. But now I understand how my neighbors can stay out till 4 AM easily. But me, j’adore le sieste (I love the naps)!

Interesting Fact of the Post: The residence, Foyer Internations, used to be a hospital and the kitchen (where we hang out) was the morgue. Cool digs, eh?