Oct 07

So, in other news, it's chilly. And by chilly, I mean cold. All this week the projected high is never above 55 and the lows are making it to the bottom end of the 40's. And it is October. Amanda, you can continue to be amused at this, but only because I think I laughed at you quite a bit for going from Arizona to Vermont. At the very least, it qualifies as gumbo weather, the only problem with that statement being that there are maybe 3 other people here who have even heard of gumbo and none of them quite understand the phrase. David (Irish) just looked at me quizzically the first time I said it and then asked me to repeat myself. I think he was unsure as to whether I was speaking English or French, a valid concern as I now consider myself fluent in franglais. My actual paper journal is filled with sentences like: Ce matin, je me suis réveillée à 11h30 et, as far as I am concerned, ce n'est pas un problème. It's as if I pick the word that comes to mind first, and tant pis if it is in another language.

Before the cold, it was quite lovely and I did some walking. Took some pictures.

my favorite column:

We have officially played Monopoly Lille, where all the streets are actual streets that we know. We didn't have the rules and were missing the card of the equivalent to Boardwalk, but I knew how much money to give out and Ben had Boardwalk memorized, like all good capitalists should.

I am also currently addicted to glorious treat called a chocolate covered waffle. They are sold in all the vending machines here and after one taste, I was hooked. So, I went and bought a pack at Carrefour

We also went bowling. I am still terrible at it. Fabien was the only person worse than me, but he had never bowled before, so it wasn't that much of an accomplishment. Bowling is pretty much the same in France, that is, except for the fact that when you sit down the waiter comes to ask you what you would like from the bar:

the guys, Toni, Fabien, and David

I'm feeling very cultured in my activities thus far this week. The usual poetry slam on Monday night. Wednesday saw the official welcoming of international students to Lille. That's right, the city of Lille extended a very lovely, and very official, welcome to those of us who have not had the privilege to be born French. Over 500 students showed up and it turns out there is a ridiculously HUGE number of internationals in the city. If I could remember, I would be sure and pass said information on. Anyway, Katja and I took the metro on over there, chatted with a guy from Québec for a bit (she allowed me to relish in the accent and then we discussed it for a bit afterwards, as she had never heard anything of the like) We were welcomed at the Grand Palais, which sounds really impressive, but is essentially the convention center. (Funny side story, the first week we were here, Ben and I went walking in Lille, following the signs and we decided to follow the signs to "Grand Palais" thinking it would get us somewhere pretty nifty. Yep, convention center alright)

They had us walk in and put our coats up, though I kept mine as I have never really liked the idea of handing my coat off to a random person. Plus, I make use of my pockets and they were full of important things, like my transports pass and keys and a phone. I took this oportunity to attempt tp explain "fancy schmancy" to Katja. Once we got in, Katja and I sat next to Matthias and Olmo (who asked me if I was Belgian) and rifled through the bag that was left on our seat. There was a lovely letter of welcome that I did not take the time to read and a bunch of paper that included some free coupons and the like. Did I mention that we get to keep this nifty cloth bag? I even took it shopping today. They introduced lots of important people to us, and they all spoke about how welcome we were in this lovely region, and so on. A common theme includes: "What warmth the region lacks in the air is found in the hearts of its people" and variations on it, which only served to remind me that it will get even colder. Hmmm.

As they introduced the official representatives of each country, they also provided us with some statistics. Like the fact that only 1% of the exchange students here come from North America, while most are from Northern Africa or China. The Spanish were the first people to cheer for their representative, although they were definitely given a run for their money by the Italians. It was lovely as I was flanked by Germans, a Belgian, had Italians and a Spaniard in front of me and some Chinese behind me. We had a rock band from the area entertain us for a bit, then we all made our way in a giant group to city hall. There, we were welcomed by a metal detector, a small jazz band and an organization fair. We made the rounds, picking up everything that was free. (For all their environmental awareness, the French use a TON of paper to advertise everything. Flyers are everywhere) We politely listened as the Mayor addressed us and then promptly found the free cocktail and sandwich table. But not before taking a picture beside the mini-replica of the elephant that stood at the Metro stop at Fives. Which has since disappeared. Odd.

We felt that it was appropriate to look serious. However, I kept looking for someone who was doing a discreet triplestep triplestep rockstep along with the swing music that the lovely jazz trio was providing us. I just wanted to do a little bit of swing, however, no one here seems to even be remotely familiar with it. Olmo came close to showing me something but decided that we should wait until we were not in front of 500 something people in City Hall to attempt dancing. I seconded this motion. Whilst hanging around city, our free drinks in hand, some guy came up with a video camera and asked for our nationalities. He was doing a project on cultural differences and was recording people saying their name, where they were from and what sound a rooster makes in their language. I added cock-a-doodle-doo to the collection of cocorrico and kikiriki. The fellow then asked me if I wasn't Canadian (apparently I still have a bit of said accent) and I explained that no, I wasn't. He said that he thinks Canadian French is some of the best French because it is essentially old French. He then asked me if I was familiar with the term Cajun. After a history lesson that I did my best to keep brief, I headed home.

Once at Robespierre, I realized that there was a show that evening, a stand up comic whose show is in patois. No one was all that interested in attending with me (an expected reaction) but I decided to be adventurous and head out any way. I took the metro to the very end, somewhere I had never been. I promptly asked someone for directions once exiting (I didn't want to wander around in the dark. Daylight, sure. Dark, no thanks.) He kindly pointed me in the right direction and I started out, realizing that I was on Lille I's campus. The existence of dorms on the campus made me miss that residential campus feel. No one lives on campus and most French students go home on the weekends. That is, if they don't already live at home. The show was in something kind of like a mixture between Hendrix's Burrow and a cafeteria, called the Cabaret. I went in and once again asked somebody if I was in the right place. He assured me that I was and then we started chatting, as he was from India and he heard some sort of accent in my French. We chatted like most international students do, covering the basic topics and then sat down to watch the show. "Ch'est mi qui l'dis" by M. Alain Ruysschaert.

As the show was in Patois, it was hard to follow. I tried concentrating very hard on what he was saying. Then I tried to hardly concentrate at all, to see if I could just sort of understand through osmosis or something. Eh, whichever method I used it was about equal. I understood bits and pieces and laughed when I could. I did notice some similarities between Patois and Cajun that are very interesting. Things like the pronunciation of "choses" and "asteur" just to mention a few. After the show ended, I went up to the guy and told him that I really enjoyed his show, well, what I could understand, and that I thought it was wonderful that he does it all in Patois, to keep it alive and going. We chatted for a bit about Louisiana, Cajun, and the class in Patois that I am taking. He then gave me a the book that has the transcript of the show (which he was selling for 5 Euros). For free. So I could go home and study it, he said. Very nice, no?

Speaking of my class, I had to read out loud for the first time in Patois. SCARY. I think, however, that my reading was better than my translation into actual French. Oh well, I might bring the program from the show to the professor to prove that I like the subject even if I'm not that good at it.

And tonight I went again to the little theatre that we found, l'hybride, where Matthias and I watched the children's animated film La prophétie des grenouilles.

And considering that it was a children's film, we could understand most of what happened. Hooray! We then walked around downtown for a bit as we anxiously awaited the approach of midnight. Why? Because at 12:01 the last Harry Potter book was released in French. As I had never been to a midnight release party, we decided, why not? So we hung around downtown, looking for a nice place to have a coffee. Turns out, that was harder to find than we had originally thought. But it was a clear and not so freezing night, so we walked around and found some beautiful scenery.

Eventually we found an open café. I ended up with what was essentially a café au lait and Matthias had hot chocolate and we waited for the hour to approach. With about 20 minutes to go, we made our way to Le Furet du Nord, a regional bookstore and squeezed toward the front of the line.

They had searchlights and funky green projections onto the wall

inside, just waiting for us:

Matthias was excited...

The countdown was lovely, but the crowd pushing to get inside almost crushed me against a wall. Here is an attempt at posting a video of said experience.

Matthias, in all of his toweringly tall glory, saw the wall coming and maneuvered through the crowd, getting to the books first. We then took some pictures, got our pictures taken, ran into some video cameras and checked out.

We got in and acheived our goal!

At 12:10 we caught the last metro back. The book was expensive (26 Euros, YIKES.) but definitely worth the experience.

I have officially begun to navigate through the never-ending channels of French Bureaucracy (note the root of said word is also found in the French word "bureau" meaning "desk" or "office" hmm. suspicious.) My first big step in this was laundry. Doesn't sound too bad, right? I went to the meeting where I assumed that we would go over rules and regulations for the usage of a common laundry room. We get handed a paper and told to sign and that when they get the sign up sheets we can start using the facilities. Okay, not too terrible. That is until you are ready to do laundry. I asked around to find out where the sheets were kept only to discover that only one guy has the sheets, this kid Nick. So essentially I can only sign up when he is working. Fine. Only I have no idea when he works. But no big deal, the next time that I am down at the desk, he happens to be working. I sign up for a time slot (Saturday morning. It was all he had left and I had to do laundry. ASAP, no excuses) I let the precious Euro leave my hands and into his and suddenly I am allowed to use the coveted laundry room! I go down this morning and get the key and cram as much laundry as I possibly can into an itty bitty washer. I had already gone through my clothes in my room to determine what was "necessary" and what could be washed by hand a little later, but I had to go through the triage process again as I am placing things in. I am going to have to do laundry more frequently if only as a preventative measure.

Other accomplishments is French Bureaucracy? I have turned in all of the paperwork to get my titre de séjour, am officially signed up for classes, and am now the proud owner of a SMENO student insurance card. Speaking of health insurance…

I read a while ago in Becca Mayeux's blog (for my family out there, yes, she is related to us) about the bizarre experience it is to watch Michael Moore's Sicko with Europeans. By the way, I highly suggest that everyone watch it. And I must admit it is incredibly… well, bizarre. The vast majority of Europeans really can not even begin to comprehend having to pay the way we do for health care. Ben and I left the film slightly depressed about the situation that we will be facing upon our return home and made plans to get sick in France where nearly everything is covered. On the metro back, Katja, a German, kept asking if it was really like that, that it was that complicated/expensive/ridiculous. She could not fathom it. And I struggled to answer the questions, not being terribly informed on the issue and not knowing why we are, as the film said, the only Western nation without universal health care. This film ranks pretty high up on the list of reasons to stay in Europe. Others include fresh bread and public transport. And, as was also pointed out in the film, while the US people are afraid of the government, the French government is afraid of the people. Which conveniently leads me to la grève.

It even sounds scary in French. Strike. I have no idea how often strikes occur in the states, I really don't know. But here it is a lot. An awful lot. Take this past Thursday. The public transport (as well as nearly everything else) went on strike to tell Monsieur Nicholas Sarkozy that they were NOT happy with him wanting to change their retirement age and all this fancy-ness. So around France public transportation just shut down. It wasn't so terrible in Lille, especially as I didn't have to go anywhere but to the university and I went ahead and just walked because it was a beautiful day. But the horror stories were in Paris where it is a bit more complicated to get around without the metro. Plus, all of this is coming as people are making their way in for the rugby final.

Rugby is quite possibly my new favorite sport. It's much like football only more intense. With no breaks. I mean, these guys are beasts. Take for example Ben's favorite player, Chabal:

Like I said, beast. Anyway, Les Bleus were still in the running last Saturday and we went out on the town to watch them. The plan was to go to a bar to watch them, however the closest that we got was outside of a bar, watching it on the bigscreen. Amongst many roaring locals. I achieved my goal of the night, finding someone decked out in face paint, and then surpassed it by asking the kind fellow (who also sported a tri-color hat and a flag as a cape) for face paint of my own. That's right, I supported the home team along with the best of them. All of us cool exchange kids did, except for the English girls, who were insufferable when England won. But it was a good night anyway. The atmosphere was marvelous. I think one of my favorite quotes was a Frenchman in passing who, right after the defeat, declared something to the effect of, "And now we drink to forget! "

As I was saying, this strike came conveniently at the time when all of the English are arriving to watch their team glory in the final. We're going to watch, too, of course, just cheering for the other team.

I am really starting to settle in. I'm starting to do things like go downtown just to do homework somewhere pretty. (Not that I have much homework…) And I'm really beginning to know my way around the city, finding random cool things to do. Example: Monday nights there's a poetry slam at the Moonlight Café with a pretty nifty crowd of people. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights there are different films being shown at this tiny theatre (much like Cité des Arts for you Lafayette folks, except with couches and bigger bar) You pay 4 Euros and have a three month membership to this place. You get a funky little card and they take your picture with a webcam, sort of mocking the French need for ID photos. Every month has a different theme and October is animated films. Even if the movie isn't the greatest, it's still nice to go somewhere kind of tucked away and so something without spending too much money. Sunday mornings are always reserved for Wazemmes Market. I bought all kinds of random stuff this last time: snap beans, pears, pomegranate, a roasted chicken with extra juice. Ever since the purchase of several sauces and the use of afore-mentioned extra sauce, my cooking has improved to meals. Like today's mixture of Tortellini pasta with chicken, onions, bell peppers, garlic, and Provençal tomato sauce. Or yesterday's rice, carrots, bell peppers, onions, garlic, egg, and curry sauce. Or the good old combination of pan fried potatoes and some ground beef, with the trinity of veggies, of course.

I really need to buy some cheese to start adding to things. I will confess that the cheese aisle scares the crud out of me. There are so many different kinds and I have NO IDEA what to pick. Similarly, there are 4 aisles of alcohol, including 2 complete aisles devoted to wine. There's even this handy little book at the front of the wine section to help you figure out what it is you should buy.

There's a goofy kid one floor up from me named Matthias and we are planning on doing some joint cooking sometime soon and are headed to Wazemmes to purchase ingredients. He promises a real German dessert. Should be good. He's close to convincing me to get a bike. His parents recently brought his over and I rode on the back of it the other night and loved it. Not having to make the last metro and not worrying about walking would be LOVELY. Although, I think this purchase might wait until spring because it is starting to get pretty darn chilly over here.

But today the weather was still wonderful… I went out to République Beaux Arts and just hung out by the fountain, did some work and then just sprawled out and basked in what will probably be one of the last nice days of the season. mmmmm.

One last tidbit. There's this lovely girl Bobbie who went to Sainte Annes with me ages ago. She is currently in Paris, which is awesome, and I intend to visit her soon. I've been keeping up with her blog, reading the adventures, and the other day I came across the story about how she met up with her Irish friend one night. He had someone named Eamon visiting him Brussels. I read that and thought, "wait. I have visited an Irish friend named Eamon in Brussels." After checking with the appropriate people, it turns out that Eamon was in fact in Paris that weekend meaning that Bobbie and I have both met the same Eamon. How nifty is that?

*********

So, as I have just gotten the internet back for a while, I wanted to go ahead and say that South Africa won the rugby final, which we watched in an Australian bar. Renée and I were separated from the others and we cheered for l'Afrique du Sud because that's the side we were on. Well that and nobody needed the English girls to get too much of an ego for their own good. I woke up this morning to frost on the rooftops and promptly turned up the radiator.

I just got back from my meeting with my Tandem partner. Essentially we spend 45 minutes speaking English and then 45 minutes in French and correct each other's grammar and pronunciation and the like. She's a nice kid named Mannick who lives 50 meters from the Belgian border and has pretty much promised me an outing to the coast as she has a car. Yay for meeting French people. And for getting class credit for it!

I walked back from the university today even though it looked pretty misty because I needed to stop off at the bakery to buy my allotment of bread. This is the first time in my life that I have ever had to use an umbrella because the fog was too thick.

Classes are going well. All kinds of wonderful professors. My translation class (which is helping my French out incredibly) is made up of two separate sections and two separate professors. One is American and has a terrible teaching style. I have a feeling that if I were French I would be completely lost. As it is, even as an American I don't have much respect for her. She seems to continually change the feeling of something when she translates it and constantly refers to the translation of her colleague. You'd think that if someone is a translation professor that they would do their own translating. The most recent class she used the word puny. Except she pronounced it "punny", as if it rhymed with funny. Another American, Elias, attempted to politely say, "I think it's pronounced pew-ny." And she just said, "Well maybe," and kept going. It is my only class conducted and English and I wish that it were more informative. I guess I should be happy to have a semi-easy class because the next translation one really pushes me. There, however, the professor is really adorable and mouse-like. She has some form of a British accent which in itself is entertaining to listen to. She really knows her stuff, too. She continually says stuff like, "This can't be translated as ' X Y Z' because we don't say that in French." I then look down at my paper and see "X Y Z." So she is really helping fix those Anglicisms that I've got going on. Plus, it's a real boost when I see that I've got exactly what she said written on my paper.

My phonetics teacher is wonderful to listen to. He goes off Dr. Chappell like, tangents everywhere. Except these are incredibly interesting tangents. Take last class, for example. First of all, the guy decided that class should start 15 minutes later so that everyone could have a longer lunch. He began class by picking on the row of English girls in front of me for speaking English in class. He proceeded to explain how linguistic tendencies are ingrained, so that we will always have those same tendencies even when speaking another language. This affects how we hear other languages as well. For example, the th sound in "that" and "things" are two different th sounds. He said how he has to really concentrate in order to hear the difference, and that as French as a foreign language teachers, we should all be aware of this.

We then jumped on another tangent about Ramadan. It went a little like this: Ramadan. Lent. How Lent is no longer necessary because of health reasons. The history of meat. The different meats in the different regions of France. How you can eat nearly every part of a pig. Boudin (which here is more of a blood sausage). The we took a slight break so that way he could open the window and smoke for 3 minutes. As everyone sort of giggled about the fact that we had just spent the past 45 minutes NOT talking about phonetics, he said, "mais c'est utile. Vraiment, tout ce que j'ai dit est utile. Peut être ce n'est pas la phonétique, mais c'est utile quand même." ("But it's useful. Really, everything that I said is useful. Maybe it's not phonetics, but it's still useful.)

After the pause, we discussed for a bit how he considers that time is the greatest invention of man. The creation of time allows the existence of memory, and memory serves to prepare for the future. In a way, he claimed, time exists because of language. All of this power comes from language.

The class produced gems such as:
"Je parle, j'évoque pour que les choses existent."
"Essayer de le comprendre avant de le condamner."
"Si tu ne sais pas où tu vas, n'oublie jamais d'où tu viens"
"Une langue contient toute une histoire, toute la vie d'une culture. Mais essayer de la définir. Il y a autant de culture dans Balzac que dans un repas."

Oh yeah, and then we talked about phonetics for a bit. Glorious, really.

Then comes my picard class. Officially called Les Caractères originaux de la langue et de la littérature Picardes. In other words, a class that centers around the patois that is spoken here. Look at this:

Ti, t' ouffes et' porte et te dis " rinte " !
Mettez-vous! quo qu' ch' est vous allez printe?
Te bois tin café à l'chuchete
Et te sais qu' pour un homme ou eun' biête
Eun' goutte d'iau cha n' s' arfuse point
Ouais, j' t' arconos ti, t'es de min coin.
...
N'laichez point pert' chés qualités
Qui font not' personnalité
Gins du Nord, sauver not parlache!
Donnez à chés infants ch' l'héritache!
I' s' diront, pus tard in s' veyant d' loin
Ouais, j' t' arconnos ti, t' es d' min coin.

Yup, that's a form of French. Picard, Patois, Ch'ti, call it what you like, but it is essentially a form of French much in the same way that Cajun is a form of French. In fact, when James Lee Burke's novels were translated into French, they used Picard to convey a Cajun accent. There is a man here, Guy Dubois, who is the Barry Ancelet of the Picard. He is dedicated to keeping it alive—spoken, written, sung. It doesn't matter which. At the Tourist Information center, I picked up the only pamphlet they had available in Patois… it happened to be from the Hainaut region. The same region where the DeCuirs come from. My mind is exploding with the linguistic possibilities surrounding the two languages. But I will save y'all from that one.

There's a welcome back party for the students who study English tonight. They've invited all the Anglophones. So we'll see how this one goes.