Faux Pas After Faux Pas

Yes, I've made some faux pas. However, before I go into that shpeel, I need to tell you more about my friend the bathroom cockroach. As of this week, there have been two more sightings. I'm starting to think it charming. The first time this week, maybe it was yesterday, or sometime the day before, or heck, maybe the day before that, I open the door and take a step into the toilette and out runs the cockroach! Like, "I'm blowing the mop stand." Fine with me! But just now (ok, a few minutes ago), I step into the bathroom, and by "step into the bathroom," I mean see the cockroach and step on it without realizing that my panic sensors aren't working. I move my foot and the bug kind of makes a zig-zag line at first wanting to get out, but then deciding that living under the mop isn't so bad after all. I swear to god that thing... I don't even know. I'm still not sure it's a cockroach. It has the same rusty brown coloring... It's just smaller and has more (maybe the same amount of) phalanges.

Faux Pas #1: It was probably the first or second week here, and I had an innocent question to ask my host mom. So I go upstairs and to her room where she's sitting on her bed reading some papers. I say hello, while at the same time taking a step into her room - at which point she pitched a fit. Understandably, because (as she explained to me) if she were to be naked or something that wouldn't be a favorable situation. So, in the same case the next time, I'm to stand in the hall and knock on the door or frame of the door and call for her. It wasn't such a big deal, I just think I startled her.

Last weekend we had some family friends visiting with their infant boy child (boy child horror story to follow), but when they actually came I forgot we were expecting them. When I got home from school or doing whatever, I made to take a nap. And as far as I knew nobody was home. But then I started to hear voices and creaking around. So then I started to make noise and creak around. Maybe the thief would silently leave if they suspected someone in the house. Then the thief came downstairs, and they weren't alone! And then they popped their heads in the room and I realized what was happening so we said our little hellos and they went on their way.

Faux Pas #2: Later that day when everyone was home, I was downstairs and invited by my host brother to have tea. I should have gone, but really sometimes I don't understand these cues of etiquette. So I passed and minded my business. Then, one of the family friends, the father, the guest of the weekend, actually comes downstairs, outside my room, and asks if I want tea. Surely I replied yes, and apologized for not coming sooner? Nope. Nobody said anything but next time I'm going upstairs for tea.

Faux Pas #3: Don't put your grubby fingers on the cheese. No-brainer, right? No! I don't even care, that cheese is awfully hard to cut, and I don't come from a country full of experienced cheese cutters and eaters! This happened after dinner one night with the weekend guests and I was struggling, and after I had my fingers all over the cheese my host mom sternly told me what was what so I just passed the cheese and knife to her. Humph.

Let me tell you a little about this visiting family. There was a father, pregnant mother, and young toddler boy. The father was originally from Bangladesh but moved to France as a child. He was quite nice, and taught me how to play MahJong one night with Marie Emmanuelle, Fréd, and his wife. The wife... well the wife I warmed up to. She ended up being nice but there's just something about a pregnant woman I don't like. 1. They're prone to hormonal sass. 2. There's a baby in the belly and therefore the attention isn't on me. Also, I'm not really a child person. What do you say to a child? "Hey how's it going? Man, the economy really sucks right now" isn't a popular way of getting to know a rugrat. We have nothing in common.

All in all, though, they were enjoyable. Yes the child could be obnoxious, but he was also pretty cute. Adults can be cute too. What exactly do I mean? Well, two meals in a row Fréd tied his napkin around his neck like it was no big deal, showing the child that this is how we eat! I mean, the kid had a bib... didn't everyone? Little did I know that he was placating the little one... building up a good rapport. What do I mean? Well at some point I was downstairs and all of a sudden I heard screaming from the kid upstairs. Fréd the surgeon was performing an at-home circumcision. Yes folks, this nonnewborn was getting mutilated within the reach of the ability to create a memory. In the house. In the bathroom. I didn't really know this until afterward and I put the pieces together. Shall we?

• Fréd's surgeries deal with things like that, and prostates, and reproductive health.
• The night before, when they were about to change the toddler's diaper the dad was talking to my host dad like "Oh, did you want to check... everything out?" Here I thought maybe the kid had just had his operation.
• Next day. Child screaming upstairs.
• A little after, sitting on the couch watching TV, Marie Emmanuelle now holding the kid in her lap, who has a binky in his mouth and wet eyelashes. Fréd comes and sits down and is petting the child's small hand with his finger. The kid is unresponsive. Marie says something about him not wanting to reconcile.
• BAM. CIRCUMCISION HAPPENED. IN THE HOUSE.

The end.

Four Paws

Actually, Faux Pas #4: Dinner in 10 minutes means 10 minutes. It's not a restaurant. As I was told last night.

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia is much more fun to say compared to the Czech Republic. It came up in conversation today as we were sitting in a café talking about travel; some people would like to see Prague, which is the capital of the Czech Republic. Is Yugoslavia still a country? Wikipedia tells me no, but I guess I already knew that. Before my family moved to Lake Stevens we had Yugoslavian neighbors. Apparently they'd leave food out in their backyard which attracted rats. Gotta love 'em.

So anyway, not a whole lot has happened this week that's enormously exciting to write about. Well, Wednesday was fun but I'll get to that. Classes went alright. I'm in level B1.8 now, as I may or may not have mentioned (I'm too lazy to click a few buttons and read a few lines), which is the top of the intermediate level (but also considered advanced) and my teacher is crazy. Well, ok, she's not crazy. At first she gave me the impression that she doesn't like teaching French to foreigners, but by the end of the week I felt ok about her. It's just that she'll say a sentence and leave it hanging, fishing for a word from us, and the class (probably only 14 people total) just stares at her blankly. We can't read your mind lady! And sometimes she'll help us with a sentence when we speak, but she'll do it in a sing-song condescending voice as if to say "come on... you can do it!" It irks me. For some reason she's hard to understand too. I feel pretty good about my comprehension level but when this lady opens her mouth sometimes I just don't know what she's saying.

Courtesy of Barberousse

On Wednesday night, my 26 year-old host brother, Clément, took Shawn and Ashley and I out for drinks. First of all, I already know I like this guy because he's super nice, but I also learned that he's very generous. Why do I know this? Because he bought the drinks the entire night. First, we went to a bar called Barberousse where he, Shawn, and I shared a bottle of some fruit juice/rum drink while we waited for Ashley. While we were there, he also bought us flaming shots, and even after the bartender explicitly explained how to use the straw to drink it, I still didn't do it right (at this point, Ashley called and said she'd be able to meet us in 20 minutes). In any case, each time he'd buy something, Shawn and I would look at each other like "he better stop paying for everything." We left that bar and went to a café in Place Notre Dame where the three of us each had a little glass of Ricard, which is a leading brand of pastis (it was mixed with syrup and water) and I actually quite enjoyed it! Then Ashley called and said she was almost at Victor Hugo, and when we told her she was supposed to be going to Notre Dame, she sighed "Son of a bitch" in her Northern Cities accent, and she told us she'd meet us in five minutes. And she did! And then Clément bought us all another round.

Courtesy of API

So from there we went to a bar called Le Tord Boyaux. Getting to the bar was interesting... I had started to feel dizzy. Then I bumped into a wall, at which point Shawn started laughing, saying "easy there, fella." But honestly! I didn't bump into it because I was tipsy, it was just because I had turned around to look at them, and I know mothers do, but I don't have eyes in the back of my head thankyouverymuch! This bar was fun... small, but it had good music and it wasn't touristy in the least. My host brother bought a bottle of Piña Colada for the four of us, but before that we each had a shot of I don't know what - apparently it's a Grenoble specialty and it tasted like nutmeg, or cinnamon - but it wasn't too shabby! When he went to pay, for some reason his card wasn't working and he apologized profusely and bashfully asked if we could pay; Shawn and I plunged our hands into our pockets to dig out some money (much to our relief). After a bit we decided to leave. While waiting for the tram, Clément said goodbye to us and started to walk away, but came back. He said to me "One last thing - don't tell my mom I paid for everything."

The next morning I thought I had to wake up early because of the strikes (strikes over here seem to be often... and scheduled) delaying the tram. So I got out of bed, stood in the bathroom, had an internal battle whether or not to go to school (maybe I was still feeling dizzy, I don't know - you tell me). So naturally I went back to bed and woke up in time to take a shower, figure out the trams were still running, and make it to school with time to spare. Did I have a slight headache? Yes. Did it get worse throughout the day? Yes. Did I skip the late afternoon lecture, go home for some asprin, and take a nap? Yes. I woke up feeling fancy fresh, too, thankyouverymuch.

Today some friends and I went about town, eating things, and being loud Americans. Then we went to a museum called Musée de la Résistance which was quite the mood kill but informational all the same. From there we went to the café and discussed Czechoslovakia and a variety of topics. Also, it's been raining off and on today. On that note, the wall of mountain outside my window is sometimes just a wall of cloud. Like now.

Verklemption pt. 2

Yeah, this is my second post of the day, so what, big whoop, wanna fight about it? So I'm writing this as a follow-up because after I posted about the paintbrushes and such, I'm sitting in my room minding my own business when Marie is calling about something from upstairs. So I go up there and she's like, "Do you want to see how I paint upstairs?" So I'm all "Yeah girl! [haha]" So we go up to the mysterious third floor that I've only been to four times total. Maybe three... Once when she showed me, once when I went back up alone to be Nancy Drew and dust for fingerprints, and once today. Maybe one more time dusting.

So up there she shows me this drawing she's done on tracing paper of the Virgin Mary and Jesus. On the back of it, though, she's dusting a rusty colored powder. And she's using one of my Monoprix paintbrushes! She's saying how useful it is because it covers a lot of area and her other brushes don't work as well for that. I got verklempt, I did! Then she showed me how she uses this metal wand thing to trace her lines and the red dusting makes the lines on a paper beneath the original drawing. I stayed and watched for a while and then left her to it.

Before that though she came into my room and took some pictures for some student thing or something, I don't really know because I was doing a million things at once. In fact, I think I was writing Verklemption pt. 1. This it what it looked like (I know because she sent me the pictures!):

It's good to be in the land of people with Grandpa's (and Dan's... and maybe Dad's?) coloring.

Verklemption

I'm a little verklempt, y'all. Certainly will tell you why! Certainly will! (On that note - Jill best keep our Facebook message going because as of right now it's dead! And I'm verklempt! Darn it!) As a whole, things are still going well, but I'm just going to clue everyone in on minor annoyances.

First, it was my host mother's birthday this week. That's cool, right? Right! It's so cool that I took a mental note that she likes to paint, went to the Monoprix after school, and bought her two packs of paintbrushes. "Aw, that's nice," right? No! Wrong! First of all, the Monoprix is a hard concept to explain... it's like... A clothes store/bakery/convenience store/grocery store/etc. all in one. Still somewhat classy, and far better than something like Walmart. You're just going to have to look it up if you don't already know. So anyway, my thought was just to get the presents as a nice gesture. Silly me, though, didn't notice that the packages say Monoprix on them (which is as good as saying I bought some paintbrushes that say Safeway on them). Not only that, they're made from poney, or to you, pony. And yes, she did point this out to her visiting friend, saying "I've never used pony before." Ugh. Verklempt.

Continuing on the birthday note, we had a little birthday late lunch/dinner for her today. At the table was Marie Emmanuelle, Sylvain, Sylvain's girlfriend Marion, the middle son Clément (who's quite nice - like the rest of the family - and offered to show me cool things in town this week), myself, and Fréd. This meal seemed very Dauphinois (the region of France in which I'm staying) as it was of sausage, sauerkraut, potatoes, ham, and a hotdog sausage thing. That's perfectly fine, if not filling, and afterwards Fréd brought out the dessert. This was a golden brown spongey looking cake with cream and fruit in the middle. The cake itself looked to be glazed with honey. Was it? No. The cake was in fact Rum Baba. Everything about it was delicious besides the cake being saturated in rum. If I'd have known I wouldn't be so verklempt, but honestly, when you expect honey and instead get rum it's quite the unpleasant hoodwink! Needless to say, I payed close attention to how I rationed my cream so that it would cover the rum taste. My mouth still watered like I was going to vom though. Eventually somebody offered to fill my water glass. Also! Funny thing (hardy har har): after Marie Emmanuelle and Marion were served, Fréd asked who should be served next and Marie said "le plus petit," which everyone took as "the smallest one," so naturally Fréd was about to put the piece of cake on my plate, but she started laughing and Sylvain lifted his plate as he is the youngest (which was what was originally meant). At the same time, she said guests are served first and that that wouldn't be me as I'm part of the family! Awww. Good verklempt!

We shouldn't travel in such a big group...

What next? Well I bet you're looking for some picture or something, so I can talk about Rachel's 22nd birthday. Not so bad actually, but it was raining so it wasn't too eventful. We tried to bar hop but ended up going to the London Pub which is definitely an anglophone hot spot. Some of us left and went to the... Irish Pub? I don't remember but my beer was kinda nasty (though I did order the cheapest kind). We'll find a better place sometime! Note: Those people are the ones that came out that night but it's lacking a few from our whole API group.

Classes. Oy, classes. Let me just say, humbly, that in the states I'm usually one of the top in my French class. Well! Number one, I'm a tad rusty still from the summer, and number two, I learned that my level of writing needs drastic improvement. Apparently. Also, I'm getting verklempt because what if I've reached the stasis of language learning and I don't improve so much? Linguists know that the younger you are (meaning before puberty) the easier it is to pick up a language, which is probably why I did so well with French in the first place because I bloomed late. However, what if my brain's reached the point where it doesn't pick things up as easily? Says the kid who'll probably be fluent by the time May rolls around. Verklempt. We're placed into levels here and originally I was in B1.7 but on Monday I start B1.8 because I got moved up. Apparently that's considered advanced at the CUEF, but I believe it's just the top of the intermediate. Advanced to me starts at B2.0 (which would be the next level after B1.8). I get to switch again... next semester, I think? I don't know if there's another switch period any time soon.

On those notes I'm verklempt because WWU has to evaluate my work when I get back and they ask that I'm in advanced classes. So really there's no way to tell if things are going to work out the way they should until I get back so I'm just going to forget about it. Also! Because I'm not in B2.0 I get to keep the same Vocabulary class which is great because number one, I like the teacher, and number two, as far as I've seen (class has only been held once so far) it has a linguistic aspect about it so I feel pretty smart for knowing a bunch of things. Maybe I can use that class for credit for my minor. And! If I took all the classes I thought I'd be taking I'd be over the maximum credits per semester for Western so I: don't have to take this history of film class, and can take Society and Culture instead which is what I wanted. Hopefully it won't matter that I've missed two classes. It's a lecture anyway so I don't think it will be such a big deal.

Last thing: Frédéric took me to a museum after Marie's lunch/dinner that's five minutes from my house and I absolutely loved it. It has really nice gardens to walk around in, and the paintings inside are quite nice. I'm going to go back for a while until it gets too cold. Maybe I'll do my homework there, or just people watch if I can. I've yet to do much of that. Let me just link that museum here. And! I'll go back and take pictures, but! But! This museum used to be a house and there's a showcase of a living room with furniture, and I kid you absolutely not, the chairs and couch had the same material as my yellow chair at home. I inhaled sharply when I saw it, and I swear my neck stretched out as I lingered looking at it as we walked into the next room.

Hop to Switzerland

My host parents kindly took me right on over to Switzerland today, which wasn't that long of a drive. We went to this museum to see an Edward Hopper exhibit. Edward Hopper is an American artist who's known for his melancholy, lonely scenes and his influence from impressionism. Don't take my word for it, though, as I probably have no idea what I'm talking about. Maybe this will help? Anyway, I liked most, if not all of what I saw.

There's still more to that!

The museum itself was beautiful, and it used to be this big house for people I'm too lazy to research. It's probably on the museum's website, which I've already linked. We took some pictures in the garden in the back of the house, which I know you're dying to see.

After our museum outing we were quite hungry indeed, so we went into town and had ourselves a nice meal (not before trying to leave first because they were so slow. Tell a Swiss they're not on time and they'll fix that!) of hash-browns with cheese on top. 1. If I remembered what it was called, I'd certainly put it here. 2. In the last post I talked about Amie yelling "I'm so hungry!" but all I want to yell is "I'm so full!" 'Tis true!

I've eaten a lot here. A lot of cheese, and dairy in fact. I'm full just thinking about everything... it's just so delicious! Dinner is always a delight, and tonight we had Jumbalaya.

Rusé Comme un Renard

In fact I did go to Switzerland today! That story will go at the end of this post because I know I've got some miscellaneous stuff to say that I just haven't gotten to, and really it's not all that important but still needs to be said.

• France, maybe even Europe, is the only place I get color. Now, we know I'm quite pale, and usually if I'm left out in the sun too long I burn, and I don't tan. Actually... I did get a shade darker in Chelan... But that just ruins the glamour of my skin having refined taste.

• My host family's house is located near a church. Church bell rings in the morning, and often.

• My host dad has two earpieces and therefore I have to say things to him two or three times. Naturally you'd think "Oh, good practice for speaking," to which I'd say that you're wrong because I think that each time I say it I have a thicker and thicker accent.

• On the fifth day in France my true love gave to me... feet that didn't hurt anymore.

• The French, instead of saying "uh" or "um" like we do, instead say something that kind of sounds like "bahn" with a nasal n. I've the habit of saying it now, especially starting my sentences because I process them before I speak them. So at dinner one night my host mom told me other things I could say instead because "bahn" isn't always so proper. Then my host dad chimed in and said that in fact it's very French, and I'm off to a good start, concluding (after more opinion from Marie Emmanuelle) that the only people who don't say it are kings and princes. In the end I've cut back but I still enjoy saying it.

• At dinner two nights ago, my host brother was talking about somebody he met at school and after describing him, my host mother nearly died of laughter. After Fréd explained to me what seemed to be a skunk, Sylvain told me that it wasn't and I surmised that it was a badger. "That guy's a badger." Or maybe it was something like "That guy is as mean as a badger." Either way, don't be a badger. Badger.

• One of the friends I've made here who's an API student has a family that eats very little. A group of us went out for a drink one night and she explained to us that they eat very small portions, and as soon as everyone is served, they remove the food from the table. This is incredibly strange as everyone else's family feeds them extremely well. She ended her explanation lamenting, "I'm so hungry!" Adorable.

• My host parents remind me of characters you'd find in a silent claymation movie. It's mostly their movements and the fact that I don't understand everything they say. It's hard to explain, but enormously adorable all the same. Speaking of claymation (and I should add stop-motion), last night I watched a short film called Pierre and the Wolf (Pierre et le Loup), which all of you should look in to.

No, I'm not going to talk about Switzerland yet. And look at all those bullets you read to get here! Good for you (pat yourself on the back, round of applause, etc., etc.)! I will, I promise, but I'd like to talk a bit about the Musée Dauphinois. It's quite great, and they have all kinds of cool stuff and exhibits, not to mention it's a beautiful place that used to be a convent. The gardens and views of the city is incredible as well. Also. Do you know what happened to me there? Because I'll tell you, I will. I'm just minding my own business, walking down this hall featuring this technology exhibit, when my ears perk up like a dog hearing the word "walk." Do you know why? Because I'll tell you, I will. I feel like they did this as if they knew I were coming, but they were playing on a screen in the wall of this awesome technology exhibit, the music video to one of my favorite songs by my favorite music artist. I fluttered around like a little trapped bird, I did! 

Björk: All is Full of Love

There are also some pictures:

The Long Ascent

Shawn and I

I don't like to look a tourist.

Look at this incredibly long entry! In truth, I've decided to talk about Switzerland in the next post. I'm sneaky like that! Look, though! You read all of this! As far as I know...

Sights and Sounds

Let me just talk about the toilet for a bit. So, like many homes in France, there's a room separate from the bathroom for a toilet. Fine, that's cool. The only thing problem is that the downstairs toilet (the one I frequent) is actually pretty tall. So tall, in fact, that when I sit on it, my feet aren't flat on the ground, and instead I can only reach the floor with my toes, and I end up swinging my legs a little like a toddler on the potty! I just don't know what to think!

No, I'm not done talking about the toilet because I have quite the horror story. So not long ago... maybe 12 minutes ago, I walked into the bathroom (toilette), turned on the light, and shut the door. As I was unbuckling my belt, and about to pull my pants down, I was in quite the zone of comfort. However, that all came to a screeching halt when something darted across the floor to seek solace underneath the mop that's propped against the wall. And do you know what that something was? Dare I say it was a small cockroach the size of a beadle? I don't know. I don't know if I'd say that, as I didn't get a good look at it, and it scared me so much that I jumped and hit my wrist on this metal contraption that covers the toilet paper on the wall. Suffice to say, I did my business and left. That thing better still be cowering under that mop because I do NOT want to wake up with it on my face.

I've got miscellaneous things to post about, but maybe I'll do that tomorrow as I'm getting tired and would rather tell you a little about the riveting game of Mancala Frédéric and I had this evening after dinner. First, he and Marie Emmanuelle went over the rules but they had two different sets of them so I just sat there for a while as they discussed the correct way to play. So he and I played his way and I was pretty bad at it because number one, the rules were given to me in French and I assure you I don't understand everything, and number two, I'd never played it that way before. He had to help me along the way. And sometimes I'd make a move and he'd give me that look as if to say "are you sure?" Needless to say I wasn't sure so we'd reexamine and make a move. Then we played my way, and if Caitlin's reading this she knows I cheat at that game but I promise we played the right way. It was better my way because I actually knew what was happening and I could watch the gears turn in his head as he strategized. Much unlike me when we played his way. So anyway, altogether we played four games and called it a night. Riveting tale? I think so.

Une Nouvelle Vague

Where do I even start? The plane ride to France was long, which is to be expected. What made it longer, though, was the image of my mother saying goodbye at the airport, bawling. I was considering the option of going home if I felt I needed to, but as we flew over France, and the sun was rising - lighting the country side -I knew immediately that I am supposed to be here.

After meeting many of the students at the airport in Paris, and my program managers, we headed off in shuttles to our hotel. They were four days well spent, making friends and seeing the sights. By the third day we knew how to operate the Metro completely. I don't have any pictures of Paris because apparently I forgot to check the batteries in my camera before leaving home. Needless to say, everything was beautiful, and I saw almost everything I wanted to. Maybe I'll post more about Paris later.

Ma Chambre

Yesterday we took the TGV from Paris to Grenoble, met up with our families, and moved it. My family is very nice and I feel pretty comfortable here. They have a good sense of humor, which I expected from our emails, but I think the biggest joke of the family is that Marie Emmanuelle loves ice cream. She insists she'll only allow herself ice cream once a week.

Today my host mother and father took me hiking up Charmant Som, one of the three or four outstanding surrounding mountains. At the top there's a cross, and along with that, I've a story:
Frédéric and I get to the top, and stop to have a sit, a sandwich, and a look around. (OH DEAR GOD, HE JUST WALKED IN AND GAVE ME A REPLACEMENT PLUG FOR MY MAC PLUG SO NOW I DON'T HAVE TO USE THE WATT CONVERTER. THIS IS MAGICAL). As we sat there, he pointed out the different mountains, and the little town below called St. Pierre de Chartreuse (where we eventually went and Marie Emmanuelle bought 55€ worth of cheese). As we're sitting there, this guy is making crazy grunting noises behind us. We turn around and see that this man has climbed the cross and thinks he's awesome. His daughter, pretty young, is asking him to help her up so she can sit there too but he refuses. Fréd gets up and turns around to watch, so I do the same. At this point the guy is off (or getting off of) the cross, and my host father tells him that it's a symbol to be treated with respect, and isn't for gymnastics. The man extends his arm to touch Fréd's shoulder (naturally he says "don't touch me") and asks if he's the police. Ignoring him, we begin the descent, which was much easier than going up! Oh! Speaking of going up, on the hill there were a bunch of brown cows with bells around their necks and we were so close we could almost touch them. I should have taken a picture. I do have a picture of our view from the top:

This is my life now.

At the bottom, we couldn't find Marie but eventually she came around. We got in the car and drove off where they had a little dispute about where she was supposed to be (she insisted that he said it'd take an hour so she decided to take a little walk). The important thing is that I understood 89% of it, and therefore had to keep a smile from my face. Eventually we reached a town with a church that's known for the contemporary art inside of it. It's called Église Saint-Hugues-de-Chartreuse. The art was really quite beautiful, but of course I'm not religious so I had Marie explain to me what we were looking at. We left the church, had a cup of coffee at a little restaurant (sitting down was interesting... We got stared at by the two people at the table in front of ours. I kid you not, this guy turn around in his chair and stared daggers at me when I sat down. If they can smell America from across the ocean, I wouldn't be surprised). Then we went and bought the cheese in the next town over.

I need to ask them how to get around. Things start up for real tomorrow morning, bright and early.
Next weekend we're going to Geneva, Switzerland to see a museum featuring art from an American artist whom I forget the name of, but I'll get you the information later. No big deal, just going to Switzerland.