bored at the beach

French Pop Culture: Old Cartoons!

noreply@blogger.com (Beth) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 17:24:00 +0000

I've been realizing just how many of the cartoon characters that I was into as a kid, whether from books or tv, are French! When I arrived here in September, I saw ads for the Tintin movie and was excited to see it since I remember reading all the Tintin books (in English) I could get my hands on from the public library as a kid. Well, I have learned that books like these are called "albums"

at the Marché de Noël

and there are tons of them from all kinds of series and I want to buy so many and bring so many home (stupid baggage allowance)! There is currently a "Marché de Noël" in Tours, where they sell hot wine with cinnamon (instead of apple cider like we have in Canada), crepes, arts and crafts AND there is a stall of used books where there are tons of these "albums". Of course the popular Asterix (I never did get into that one as a kid, although I tried), Boule and Bill, but I also saw Babar the elephant who I remember reading at my Great Aunt and Uncle's when I was little, but who I didn't realize, was French!

I also had an epiphany that the Barbapapas are French too! I don't know from where exactly, but I have a very faint memory of the Barbapapas...not sure if it was books or the tv show, but they were great how they could change into any shape as needed. And, now having learned more French, I realize that Barbe à Papa, mean's "Dad's beard" which also means, "Cotton Candy" or "Candy Floss"!

Sept. @ a Festival with some Barbe à Papa

The other day, my housemate, her daughter and her daughter's little friend (they are 5) got singing children's French songs and then ended up searching on YouTube for the "générique", or theme song, for various cartoons. I noticed, first of all that these cartoons seemed from the 70s or 80s and was amazed that these little girls knew them so well. So I am kind of excited to discover these little gems from "my generation" that still have a place in today's culture in France.

It is interesting too, because the three "dessins animés" that they wanted to find and sing along to are of the old Japanese animated cartoon style, like my old favourites of Astro Boy and even Inspector Gadget, although I think these ones are even older! I definitely had never heard of "Au Pays du Candy", or "Tom Sawyer" or "Heidi", but it is so cute that they are such seemingly cultural staples here, amongst all of the other cool cartoons and cartoon books. (The lyrics of the theme songs are cute too.)

Road Trip Day 7, Final Day: Return to Tours via Carcassonne

noreply@blogger.com (Beth) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 11:10:00 +0000

Tuesday, November 1 is Toussaint holiday, or All Saints Day in France and Spain and it was my last day of holidays before having to go back to school, so that day we basically just drove back to Tours. Alanna had noticed that the town of Carcassonne was somewhat en route, and since we both had heard of this place because of the board game of the same name (one of those German board games), we were intrigued. Once again, we turned to Rick Steves for an excellent tour description and we really enjoyed this amazing old, fortressed town.

Definitely take a read of the google link there about the town. Note, that the ss are pronounced as "s", not as "z". There is a folk story that tells of a woman named Carcas who, when the city was under siege, threw a pig over the wall causing the attackers to assume that the city still had enough supplies (or else why would they waste a pig?) and that there was no way that they'd be able to win so they gave up and left. Then the city sounded the bells, from which "son" came and from the two, Carcas-son, came the name. Apparently.
Here is a statue of the lady right beside the drawbridge!

Not a lot to say, just a lot of pictures to post again!

Rick informed us that we could see red bricks that are remnants from the original wall from Roman days. (See next picture.) This was consistent with what I had learned in my History of Tours class, since there are remnants of a Roman amphitheatre in Tours, and there is a noticeable difference between Roman-built walls and walls built in the Middle Ages. At Carcassonne, the second wall was added in the Middle Ages.
(These next photos are credit to Judy again because my camera battery died again at this point.)

We enjoyed some regional food at a restaurant within the walls and then realized we were kind of behind again and still had a long way to drive! (Behold the map!)

At some point when we were supposed to switch onto another autoroute, I missed the entrance and the GPS (who we had named Ginger P. Sky by this point--and had her becoming the petite-copine of Rick Steves) recalculated. We just followed along this new route and well, it was VERY dark and VERY windy (as in, winding around)! We were still a couple of hours south of Tours and, although I have no idea what roads we were on and what dark villages (small-town France is very quiet after 19:00) we went through, we never actually lost any time! Good ol' Ginger.

And thus concludes the Road Trip adventure. The next day, I went back to school (starting with another lesson out on the streets about Tours' history) and my friends went shopping! I ordered some escargots at dinner for them to taste and the following day, we had a little adventure on the Tours bus in the rain, searching for some final French wares for them.

Amazing that a month has passed already and I have since visited another castle near Tours; wandered around a nearby village, some vineyards and a wine cave; learned lots more neat things about Tours' history; had a couple of tests and a class presentation on the ban on Muslim women wearing integral veils (I forget what we would say in English instead of "integral"); ate a French seafood platter (apparently this is a thing one must do); went skating and ate some Lebanese mezzés (that was last night); and, travelled to Switzerland and had an amazing time visiting some old friends!

So there are obviously photos to share and things to write, but well, I have been seriously procrastinating studying for my upcoming exams (three next week), researching for two upcoming presentations and other homework. So those posts will come another day.

Road Trip Day 6: Barcelona

noreply@blogger.com (Beth) — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 12:55:00 +0000

For my program at Wilfrid Laurier University, I had to take a course on cultural aspects of France, Spain and Germany and from this class, I learned some about Barcelona and Catalonia. In particular, I learned a lot about the 19th-20th century architect Antoni Gaudí and had seen a lot of pictures of his unique works in Barcelona. So I recommended to the gals that we check out at least two of them: Parc Güell and Sagrada Família and on Monday morning we set out to find our way into the city by commuter train from our suburb. Before that though, I wanted to re-park. The night before had been a little stressful trying to fit into tight spaces in the underground lot. It had been impossible in fact, so I made up a space. Fortunately, there was a new one open that I could take Monday morning. Phew, European parking--stresses me out a bit even to write about it!

We found the back entrance to Parc Güell, which demanded a very long and steep climb. There were escalators, but my companions preferred the stairs (I did a combination, preferring not to start my day off all sweaty :) and I am certain they are in better shape than I!) This picture kind of shows the height and the steepness.

The park was what I expected, but the crowds were insane and we found ourselves not enjoying this introduction to Barcelona.

But it is quite pretty and unique.

Sitting on the cold benches and taking photos of the mosaic was kind of fun

We found as quiet of a way possible out of the park and wandered some streets. We noticed some graffiti in Catalan that seemed a little angry at tourists and maybe just at everything. (Interesting that both places we visited in Spain are not historically Spanish--Catalonia, like Vasco, having a history and story of its own.)

Back on a more main road, we saw loads of tourists again, including people riding double-decker tourist buses. It was a good reminder of how much I preferred our methods of touring. We carried on in search of the famous, unfinished cathedral, the Sagrada Familia. Gaudí certainly had lofty ambitions in designing this church--it is so big and sooo different.

The back

The front

The lines to go inside were too long for us, so our next destination was the famous Las Ramblas, basically a long walkway of open-air markets and such. We went to the waterfront (after reaching the Atlantic the day before, we needed to get to the Mediterranean) where we chose somewhere to eat--a Chinese restaurant! (There weren't a lot of affordable options and we did manage to try some tapas later that evening.)

See, more crowds!

This is the Catalonia flag

We tired of Las Ramblas and went in search of the Gothic Quarter of the city. We heard a commotion a little ways off and saw lots of yellow shirts and as we approached, we realized that a flash mob had broken out. I tried catching some on video.

In wandering around the Gothic Quarter, we didn't do much except a little shopping, watched some kids dressed up for Halloween and I messed around with my night time photography of the Barcelona Cathedral.

All in all, a successful day--a whirlwind tour again of a major tourist destination, but I think we were all satisfied with the taste of Barcelona we experienced. Did you notice, there was no driving this day?!

Road Trip Day 5: Pays Basque/Pais Vasco and the Pyrenées

noreply@blogger.com (Beth) — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 10:13:00 +0000

Sunday morning, we got up confused! The alarm on my iPod seemed to have sounded an hour later than I set it for, but when I looked at it, it DID say 7:00. Judy's watch said 8:00. So we turned on the tv in the hotel room and it also said 7:00. So I started thinking, did we drive across a time zone last night?! Then someone suggested (I think it was Mel, clever girl) that the clocks must have gone back--it was the last weekend in October after all. So that made sense and we carried on (although, I would find myself confused again later that evening).

We got up ready for another full day in the car, but we were anticipating some extreme beauty. A month before, when this idea for the road trip came up, I had googled "driving in Europe" and found some recommended places at this Guardian newspaper link that had one recommended drive that could work for us: Basque Country. Doing some reading in Rick Steves' again (this time, since Basque is in both countries, we had to read both the French book and the Spain book that Judy brought, although the Spain book wasn't a Rick Steves book and just wasn't the same), we learned that the people from Basque speak a language called Euskara and that this language is unique without any connection to any other languages (it is not a latin language, for example, like the French and Spanish that surround its speakers)! Very interesting. Euskara has a lot of k's and z's and here is a bilingual sign at the beach in San Sebastián.

We were not disappointed with the drive and before we arrived to our lunch destination of San Sebastián, we discovered the beauty that is Biarritz, in French Basque.

This photo does not do justice to the amazing view of the ocean and the Pyrenées. We decided that we would try to get to the beach and we did! Amazing...I was suddenly quite overdressed!

We started up really high and then made our way down. The waves were incredible and mesmerizing. Some absolutely monstrous and killer waves. I tried making a video...

We continued on in search of Spain! We arrived, but we don't know exactly when since there was no welcoming sign. We were following signs for San Sebastián, or "Donostia" as it seemed to be called in Euskara and at some point we noticed that there was no more French. San Sebastián was also gorgeous: we passed through the city centre quickly in search again of the beach, but both were beautiful. We reached our goal for lunch, but since it was a Sunday, it was hard to find anything open and we ended up only finding a döner place...really cool ordering shawarmas from a Turkish guy in Spanish Basque...he seemed to speak a zillion languages!


This is a creative shot by Judy...some girls were just wandering the streets on their own, eating ice cream

We still had a long drive ahead to make it just west of Barcelona for the night, but a beautiful drive! Albeit, kind of scary with speeds of 100 km/h through the Pyrenées! Since I was driving, these following shots are courtesy of Mel.

Photo Credit: Mel Horst

Once out of the mountains, things were a lot more barren and not so photogenic, but as the day passed on, it got pretty again.

Nice shot, Mel!

The time confusion came up again at this point, when we found ourselves crossing the Greenwich (Prime) Meridian that evening. There was a digital clock posted after we crossed it that had us all of

sudden an hour ahead of where we had just been! Then a few kms later, there was another clock that had us an hour behind again! This happened a couple of times and was very confusing!

When we finally arrived to the hotel in Rubí, a sort of suburb city to Barcelona, we were still in the time zone we left in Bordeaux that morning and the clock change theory had stuck. (It was confusing too, because in North America, the clocks didn't end up going "back" until a couple of weekends later.) How does an iPod know, by the way? It's the most amazing thing to me. When I walk around in Tours, the map application is able to locate me sometimes too! (I'm not connected to anything, so it blows my mind. Most amazing prize that I won...the dictionary apps that I bought have been such lifesavers too!)

Here is our day's long, but beautiful route.

Road Trip Day 4: Chenonceau, Chinon and driving a lot

noreply@blogger.com (Beth) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 09:47:00 +0000

I'm obviously getting further and further behind on this blog as day four of this road trip was a month ago now! And every weekend since, I've been able to do something pretty cool...so there is even more stuff to blog about and cool pictures to add! But lots of exams and things are coming too...and there is less than one month left here...I'll do my best to chip away at blogging!

So after our night at my place here in Tours, we decided to visit a couple of the famous castles in the Loire Valley (I blogged a bit about this in October). First stop was the famous Château Chenonceau.

Oh I had been able to charge my camera at this point!

There were wasp's (?) nests in the tower

Last week in my History of Tours class, we learned more about this castle, so it was neat to apply that to what I had seen a month ago. Chenonceau represents three phases of architecture: medieval, the beginning of Renaissance which is a mixture of medieval styles too and then official Renaissance style. The guy who had it built worked for various French kings, so had to earn his social status. He started building Chenonceau where a fortified castle had been and left a tower from this castle, thus representing the older architectural style.

As you move from the tower into the castle, the style is the mixed one, with Renaissance ideas brought from Italy and implemented for the first time in France. Things such as a the straight staircase--one of the first in France.

There were gorgeous flower arrangements and tapestries like this everywhere throughout the castle.

We spent ages wandering around this castle, admiring the decor and the fireplaces!

Judy loving the real fire

Mel admiring the velour walls and wood ceiling

And Alanna admiring something in the gallery

Chenonceau is also known as the Ladies Chateau since a few women had a lot of say in its construction over the years. The original guy's wife had a hand in its design. He lost ownership to the king to pay off debts and then the next king, Henri II, offered Chenonceau to his mistress, Diane de Poitiers. She was the one who wanted to add to the castle and commissioned the building of the bridge part over the river (see picture above) and she started the nice gardens. But when Henri died and his wife, Catherine, became Regent, Diane was kicked out. Catherine really took the castle over and had more added to it, such as the gallery over top of the bridge, which, being the latest addition, has a different architectural style. In the first picture above, you can see the sort-of "dormer windows" in the gallery and according to my professor, the further to the left the building goes, the more Renaissance the design is (more decorative for example).

The gardens were really nice too and we had a great time wandering around.

There you can see the original tower and then the castle (left).

From Chenonceau, we drove to the town of Chinon, known for its wine and for its castle. It is more of a defensive castle, with ramparts and walls, rather than the fancy, country-home type castle that Chenonceau is. We wandered around, trying to find our way in the walls. Took some pictures, then agreed to not bother to pay to go inside (having had our share of castle touring--there had been Versailles just a few days earlier too) and considering we had a long drive ahead.

We wanted to get as far south as possible that day, with Bordeaux as the goal, but we were way behind in our time! But we did it (sadly, our on-the-road dinner left much to be desired. The girls can attest that French mac and cheese at a service station is not so good)! And we successfully found a super cheap hotel right off the highway. Here's a nice artsy pic from the hotel window the next morning.

Road Trip Day 3: Mont-Saint-Michel and Dinan, Bretagne

noreply@blogger.com (Beth) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 14:44:00 +0000

Friday was another full day! Full of amazing sites. After a somewhat overpriced breakfast at the hotel during which I tried to get the girls to try all the cheese, no matter how smelly, we set off for the nearby Mont-Saint-Michel. Even though it was still morning, the tourists were flocking in. And once we arrived, it was not surprising to see why. What an amazing place! We just started climbing, up and up, with no clear direction and when we eventually reached the abbey (I think in English we would also call it a monastery) we started reading Rick Steves self-guided tour notes. I will just proceed to post a lot of pictures and if you want to know more about this amazing place, click on those links I just put. My camera battery was still dead at this point, so these pictures were mostly all taken by Judy.

From Mont-Saint-Michel (seriously, read those links, particularly Rick's if you want a short and interesting overview) we carried on to see what we could of Brittany (Bretagne, in French), neighbour to Normandy and home of cider and crepes!!! Again, if you don't know much about Brittany, know that the Bretons are of Celtic heritage and, take a read of the wiki link there. Since we still had to make it back to Tours Friday evening, we took the Autoroute most of the way and exited a little before Dinan so to see a little something of Brittany. The different style of architecture was very evident, particularly in that the buildings seemed made of dark, small stones. Dinan was gorgeous and there was a lot to see by just wandering around. The town is surrounded by walls and we walked along the Ramparts for awhile. (Ramparts was a word we came across more than a couple of times in our journey.) Again, here are some photos courtesy of my companions.

And of course we had to try out some cider and crepes (galettes).

Mine is the heaping one in the background

It is also important to pay attention to the people around. These are a couple of pictures I really wanted to take, so thanks once again, Judy!

There was still a three and a half hour drive left to get back to my house for the night. Yes, a full day indeed.

Armistice Day in France

noreply@blogger.com (Beth) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 23:07:00 +0000

Seeing Juno Beach just two weeks ago was quite well-timed to personally commemorate Remembrance Day this year and I also wanted to attend some kind of service today in Tours. My housemate figured there would be something, but she didn't know any details. I saw that something was happening at the Saint Martin Basilica that had a little something to do with remembering the First World War but a lot more to do with this guy around whom Tours seems to have formed (something I've been learning all about in this neat History of Tours course I'm taking and something that I will eventually blog about). Finally I found some details on the local newspaper's website and this morning I went to check it out.

Apparently there is a "Monument to the Dead" in a square I pass every day that I never noticed! I still didn't see it since there were people all around and I found myself more interested in the various French military standing around.

Air Force I think. There is a large training base near Tours and this was the largest group represented.

Regular ol' infantry I figured.

Some very young looking navy guys

We thought these would be the officers. Hanging out by the carousel

And...no idea!! But they had swords!

I missed the laying of wreaths and lighting of a flame, but saw a bunch of military personnel get decorated and heard a group of children sing the Marseillaise. There was a marching band, but they didn't seem formal enough to be military. And they played some peppy music, including something that resembled the Last Post (I just learned that that was British and Commonwealth tune). Then, we all paraded through the downtown to the City Hall where we heard the mayor give a speech. Some people looked down from balconies as we paraded by and I have images of what it might have been like on the actual Armistice Day.

There were no poppies, there was no silence at 11:00 and we were just following this marching band in a random parade down the street at that time. There weren't a lot of people overall and we were quite up close and personal with the navy hanging out at City Hall.

It's more and more apparent to me that the Second World War memory is so indeed very different in France than what I know as my own Canadian "memory" and this French commemoration of Armistice Day felt very different than what is so familiar for me in Remembrance Day. Yes, there was the same attention given to lives lost in current conflicts as is becoming more and more a part of Canadian Remembrance Day, but overall it did not feel as familiar of an event as I thought it may. Yes, we were on the same "side" in the two world wars, but the memory is different. And you might think that here in this city that was bombed and occupied, there would be a greater solemnity to the commemoration of lives lost, but I did not sense this. My reflection on this is not entirely formed, but I can't help but think of a sentence that a French person said to a British friend of mine here this week: "Oh yeah. The Second World War. We won that." To which the Brit was thinking, "Um, yeah didn't we help you out with that just a bit?!"

Road Trip Day 2: Rouen, Normandy and Juno Beach

noreply@blogger.com (Beth) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 16:00:00 +0000

Thursday morning we set to work figuring out how to get the GPS working and after reading various online forums (thanks, Google) we realized that we needed to reconfigure it for France and then we had to just wait for about 20 minutes, without moving, for it to locate itself. What a relief since our whole idea had been to just drive around and figure out our trip as we went.


Photo Credit: Alanna Martin, @ Mont-Saint-Michel

Around this time, my camera battery died and I didn't have the right charger with me. So I would have to rely on the photo-taking skills of my companions throughout our entire journey in the north. Fortunately, they are very skilled and well, we were a little paparazzi-ish sometimes! Lots of great photos to choose from. Here's some photos a couple of us took of each other taking photos throughout our trip.

@ Chenonceau

Photo credit: Judy Martin

We did some exploring on foot in Rouen, first checking out the very tall and impressive gothic church around the corner from the hotel. Turns out, it wasn't the famous cathedral, but the Abbaye Saint-Ouen. It was closed over the noon hours, so we just wandered around the outside a bit.

Rouen had a lot of medieval colombages style buildings, a lot more than Tours, and it was a very cute downtown.

Photo Credit: Judy

We continued wandering, trying to find various sites of interest, recommended by our trusty friend Rick Steves. Judy brought along the travel book we had used in 2007 and once again, Rick proved to give us some great background narrative to various places we visited. We didn't use his recommendations for accommodations in the same way we had four years ago and instead we found ourselves logging onto www.booking.com whenever we could find free WiFi, which ended up being at McDonalds more than I'd like to admit. The place we booked ON Thursday afternoon FOR Thursday night (yes, it was that kind of trip!) was through this site and it was a great little hotel in a tiny place called, Beauvoir (the place is so small that that link is actually for the hotel!).

Credit: Judy. Oh hey, that's our car there too!

But that was obviously our final destination on Thursday and there was still a lot to see on the way there. So in Rouen, we finally found the Notre Dame Cathedral of Rouen. Even though it is very, very big and very, very tall, for some reason it seemed hard to find. There were a lot of tall spires around Rouen and the entrance to this cathedral seemed to elude us!

Credit: Alanna

Then we finally found the square where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake and the church and monuments that are now there.


Credit: Judy

After burning some rubber, I did make it out of the scary, steeply-inclined parking lot and we were on to the direction of the sea! We hoped to make it somewhere near Mont-Saint-Michel (we still hadn't booked the hotel in Beauvoir and didn't until we find internet at a McDonalds around 5 pm!) and we knew we wanted to find some Normandy Beaches from WWII, particularly Juno Beach because of its Canadian significance. Rick Steves also mentioned Honfleur as being a worthwhile Normandy town to pass through, and so we did!


Credit: Judy

We also saw the impressive Bridge of Normandy from a distance.

Credit: Judy

It was a fun drive, jumping off of the Autoroutes and winding around some remote roads (still with 90 km/h speed limits!) and seeing some quaint Normandy villages.

When we finally got to the beaches, it was dark! But we made it!

Credits: more from Judy!

And then, finally in our nice quad room, Judy put the pots of gourmet French yogurt on the windowsill and we went to bed. It was the second of many more packed-full days to come.

Credit: Alanna

Road Trip Day 1: Tours to Versailles to Rouen

noreply@blogger.com (Beth) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 17:48:00 +0000

In 2007, I had the privilege of travelling around France, Switzerland and Italy with three friends and I wrote all about it in this blog starting with the post post here (click)! We ended the road trip that summer in Versailles and here are my thoughts and photos from that trip. This time in France, my slightly different group of four started our 7-day tour of France and Spain in Versailles. I rented a wonderful car from Europcar again, this time through the discounted website of Auto Europe (they served us well in 2007 and their prices are still the best)! Here are Mel and I posing beside our suave car.

It is an Opel Insignia--I finally got to drive a French car! It was very nice.

So on Wednesday, I drove Jenelle and I to Versailles (from which she was continuing on to Paris) where I was meeting Judy, Alanna and Mel. Jenelle and I were trying to avoid driving on any toll roads, but right outside of Tours, we came across a strange detour that instructed us to go back to Tours! It seemed ridiculous and we weren't the only drivers who decided to ignore the signs and find their own way. We were following this little red car and ended up at a farm! The driver of the red car was asking the farmers where to go and we learned that we really did need to follow the detour signs! I decided to just take the Autoroute with its tolls after all, at least for a bit until we could find another highway.

There's not much new to write about Versailles this time. The leaves were changing colours and there were no flowers; they'd added a couple of ugly, modern sculptures. And we were able to go inside this time. Here's a statue of the the guy responsible for Versailles with a bird on his head!

That curved copper thing in the background is one of the new items

He liked his gold.

They changed the tree pruning since last time.


My camera battery died inside Versailles right around this photo...

We ended up leaving Versailles a little later than we planned and we still had a ways to drive to our planned destination of Rouen, the "historic capital of Normandy".

We also couldn't get our GPS working right! Mel had brought a Canadian GPS on which she had made sure to upload European maps, but it wasn't locating the satellites at all! And we didn't have any maps so we had to do our best to figure out how to find the suburban hotel we had in mind. We ended up missing it and ended up in downtown Rouen. Fortunately we found a quad room available at the Hôtel Versan that was reasonably priced and right where we ended up! It also seemed to be right near the main attraction of Rouen, the cathedral. Or so we thought--that is the next day's story. The only downside was the angle of incline on their underground parking--I went to bed feeling quite nervous about the forthcoming and inevitable ascent.

But we arrived successfully, got settled in and set out to wander around and find somewhere to eat at 9:00! Something that would fit everyone's craving for vegetables and salad (apparently the other three had been lacking in this department during their three previous days of travel and in Paris). We asked some locals for their advice, but didn't end up taking it (they sent us to a place that served tapas, but no salad) and instead found the very nice Restaurant 16/9 who made some mean salads (huge!) and amazing cheese and spinach ravioli and served some nice wine! All in all, a little crazy and stressful at times (particularly concerning the GPS) but all-around good first day!

7 Days, 2807 kms, 4 Canadians around France and Spain...

noreply@blogger.com (Beth) — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 00:28:00 +0000

Some of you will know that I have been negligent in the blogging department because I have been driving a lot lately! France has holidays at the end of October and beginning of November and I had the pleasure of receiving some friends from Canada and of travelling around with them! Anticipate lots of blogs, details and photos to come!

Here we are, over-dressed on the coast of Biarritz in French Basque--this was a one of those places we pleasantly stumbled upon and loved! Picture mountains to the opposite side...more photos to come...but this was Day 5, so you will have to wait until I post deets about the North (Normandy, Brittany, etc.).

Autumn Promenade

noreply@blogger.com (Beth) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 12:27:00 +0000

The weekend was beautiful and I took the opportunity to go for some long, exploratory promenades. I found some discrete "impasses" very close to my home that are little shortcuts to the adjacent town of Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire (literally, a five minute walk to a new city) and found lots of opportunities for photo taking. There really ARE fall colours and changing maple leaves in France and I'm enjoying myself immensely in this beautiful French autumn. Enjoy some of my favourite photos.

These signs mean that I am now leaving Saint-Cyr and entering Tours

Trees seem a lot older and more interesting here.

This is someone's back garden. They had raspberries too!

There are still a lot of flowers in people's gardens--particularly roses and some hollyhocks.

There were a lot of interesting clouds combined with a lot of jet streams on Saturday.

Commercials and Cranberries

noreply@blogger.com (Beth) — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 11:41:00 +0000

I've recently had an epiphany to the fact that cranberries are native to North America. I probably already knew this, but it's striking me lately because of a commercial that is airing here a lot at the moment and because my French housemate has been buying Ocean Spray cranberry juice lately and remarking at its goodness as though it is a newly discovered thing. The bottles here are a lot smaller than in Canada and kind of expensive and the first thing I noticed was the label "Cranberry" since in Canada, our bilingual label says "Canneberge". I questioned my housemate and then my French dictionary about it and neither knew of this "canneberge" word so I made the exciting discovery that it is a Canadian word. (Seriously, I really do dig language things like this. And the origins of plants and such--kinda neat, I think.) So yeah, France says "cranberry" with a French accent.

One day I decided to find this Ocean Spray commercial online so that I could post it and that's when I found a lot of other Ocean Spray commercials...some of you may know those Straight from the Bog commercials in English with the two cranberry farmer guys standing in the bog with the cranberries...well apparently they exist in England and Australia too. In all of them, the two guys have a kind of North American farmer accent. Funnily, the French one has two guys who are meant to be from Québec, so their accents definitely stand out on tv here. I've assumed that they're not really from Québec and that they are some French actors imitating Québecois and in my YouTube search, I found that Quebec has its own version of the commercial in which they actually ARE Québec guys, with farmer accents (I'm assuming). Here they are...whether you speak French or not, you should be able to hear the difference between the two. Also, you may be able to pick out the two different ways that they pronounce "Ocean Spray"--the France one says, "Océ-an Spray" while the Québec one says it in English. The French imitation of the Québec accent commercial is actually a little easier for me to understand than the actual Québec one.

#1 Québec

#2 France

And just for fun, here's another French commercial that's on right now that's kind of fun (and there's no talking, so you'll get it)!

Modes of Transportation

noreply@blogger.com (Beth) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 12:29:00 +0000

So the other day, I saw a twenty-something women riding one of these in a skirt. -->

Then, shortly after, saw one of these weird things.

These are not things you see everyday in Canada and it got me thinking about writing this blog entry. I was just going to grab more google images, but then I looked through my own photos and realized that I already have some of my own shots of transportation methods here! I wish I had a shot of the woman on the scooter. Speaking of "scooter", I've recently realized that that word can signify many things in my Canadian English. The above, "push scooter" and then the following Vespa-type "scooter"

This is my own photo meant to display an interesting corner...a Medieval style building, and various methods of transportation. Note the car in the process of parallel parking--a staple to any driving here.

We also call these "scooters" and I've seen a couple of these here, just motoring down the road or sidewalk, whatever was most convenient.

This is not my photo obviously.

But that analysis of "scooter" types is slightly off-topic and I will continue on now...

You've seen some photos of cars (and another scooter) in this blog post and yes, cars are definitely around. As you imagine, most are a lot smaller than in North America. Here is a glimpse of the tiny Nissan I drove to La Rochelle a couple of weekends ago.

And here are some cars (a little larger), parked outside of my apartment building. (Yes this is where I live!)

Parked behind my building, are a lot of these! A classic and popular French car. I'm hoping that we get a Renault for our upcoming road trip, because I have yet to drive any French model.

Ok, then we have the ever popular bicycle! (You saw some already parked at that corner in the shot above.) Here's another attempted artsy shot from my first week here.

And, as evidence that bicycles are ridden in La Rochelle too, here was another artsy shot attempt.

Since La Rochelle is at the sea, one also finds boats! Imagine!

Above and below you can also see the always popular choice of...

This is a random man walking in Vieux Tours

...walking. In September, I was doing a lot of this! Then I got sick. And school got busier, so I bought a bus pass! And now, this is my primary method of transportation.

Notice that it is one of those "accordion" buses, AKA "articulated" buses. And notice the ever-present construction, making way for the future...

This is obviously not my photo! That is the City Hall in the background.

...TRAM!

This is the front of the Palais de Justice and behold another, yet non-articulated, bus.

Nearly every day, I go here...

...beside the Round About and bus stop called...

..."Trois Rivières. (Look, the sun isn't that high yet...it's quite cold in the mornings on my way to school.)

This is across the street, where I get off the bus (or get on, if I'm heading north to the supermarket or mall). La Chevalerie is a Tabac, or convenience store that sells tons of magazines and newspapers and it has a little bar in it too. Definitely a different combination than what one sees in Canada.

And then we have...

...the gypsy caravan! I haven't seen many of these (just this one, in fact, at a bizarre fair thing).

And finally, the bull. (Also not too common, but found at bizarre fair things.)

Un peu de musique française

noreply@blogger.com (Beth) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 21:12:00 +0000

I've been trying to get a taste for current French music, but the charts and radios are full of English and American music! There is, however, one French artist who I hear quite a bit and who I'm digging, Christophe Maé. Here is his current single Un peu de blues.

Then there is the current number one, slightly over-played, but quite fun Elle me dit which I've learned is actually by the Brit Mika!

I honestly can't really think of anything else that has caught my attention (besides the various tv programs that play old concert clips, 90s music and such, during which I find myself feeling bad that I don't know the Québecois singers besides Céline).

Well, there is this one interesting song called Double Je, which I was surprised to find out is sung by a man. Here is a bizarre video for it...obviously the radio only plays the song and not these weird video clips, but I thought this may be slightly entertaining for you.

Tomorrow night I am going to a concert on campus by Les Voleurs de Swing who are apparently originally from Tours and, from what I've read, seem to put on an entertaining show. We'll see!

Castles of the Loire Valley

noreply@blogger.com (Beth) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 13:50:00 +0000

So it's been a little while since my last blog. I've had a cold for over two weeks and that with school and language keeps me pretty tired and just wanting to watch tv when I have free time. The cold was gone I think, but then there was bit of a heat wave the last week of September, so I went to the beach! That evening, the cold came back and much worse...and it's lingering. Now it's cold here! Amazing that the temperature went from 29 degrees C to what feels like 10! (The reports say 15, but it's that damp cold I detest, so it feels colder to me I guess.)

Anyway, there have been lots of happenings and photos and such and I wasn't too sure where to start, so I thought I'd go with the castles! Tours is located in the Loire Valley, a region that is known for its wine and castles!

I have yet to go to the most famous châteaux, but I imagine the opportunities will come. I'm feeling pretty excited about the road trip some visiting Canadian friends and I are planning for the end of this month (I have a week off of school)! We will certainly be checking lots of places around France and even a little in Spain! (At least, that is the plan.)

artsy shot of tower of Château de Tours

But so far, I have visited three châteaux. The Château de Tours inside the city, which really wasn't that exciting. The inside has been made into an art gallery which I did get to see on a free day, but...picture me trying to feign interest in an art gallery at the end of an afternoon, after taking part in a two-hour walking tour that visited main points of interest of WWII of which I understood very little of what was being said...mostly cuz it was hard to focus in. (That was during the European Heritage Days in September.)

Next, I've visited the Château de la Bourdaisière around whose grounds I wandered with a couple of friends while we waiting for the jazz fest to start in the nearby village of Montlouis (see previous post).

assuming that used to be a moat

in the forest around the Château de la Bourdaisière

Finally, I went to Château du Grand-Pressigny a week ago. It was the hot weekend and I really wanted to get out of Tours and to, as you say in French, "profit" from the sun and warmth at a beach.

So I was able to convince four friends to split the cost of a car rental, gas and hotel to do a weekend trip to La Rochelle and on our way home, we decided to jump off the Autoroute (save some money and actually see something nicer) in search of a château by just following signs. Well, we found this one...about 50 km off our route!

Apparently it is now a Museum of Prehistory, but since it was Sunday evening, it was closed. We could only just wander around and take pictures. The village itself was very quaint and definitely worth the little jaunt out of the way.

Bizarre French Things

noreply@blogger.com (Beth) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 20:51:00 +0000

So with all of my travelling experience, you'd think I'd know better than to play the "Comparing Game", but embarrassingly, I regularly find myself looking at many French ways of doing things and finding them "bizarre". (That is my much-used French word in my various conversations with my French roommate/landlady when we come upon differences.) So once again (conveniently in tune with this month's Firebowl Blog topic), I'm having a couple more cents to add regarding "Crossing Cultures".

I started making notes in my iPod Touch (oh what a wonderful gift that has been...I won it in the summer...I have some multi-lingual dictionary apps, for example) over the last week, of things I observed that I found to be different, maybe bizarre, maybe annoying or maybe admirable. You can be the judge. Here is the list thus far (hopefully it is the end of keeping such a list as I think I need to just assimilate now and move on from comparing. Pointing out differences all the time, really does get old for whomever has to listen and doesn't really help with settling into a culture. Come on, Beth--you used to do workshops on this very topic!).

In no specific order, other than the order I noted them down...:

--Seeing two men do the cheek kiss greeting thing, particularly weird when one of them is quite punk-looking

--Completely empty coach buses, between cities, that are super cheap. On a Saturday! (see photo in previous post)
--Empty city streets in the evenings and on Sundays! (This is definitely not the case in Paris, I believe.)
--The infiltration of English in strange ways (definitely different than the way English appears in Quebec...my Quebec Culture prof was right!).
"parking" is used all the time and is used as a noun, ie. "I'm looking for the parking."
"stop" is on all the stop signs (in Quebec it's "Arrêt") and "stop" is spoken a lot as well.
"planning"...I saw this as the title of the Church Nursery Schedule, so again, a noun meaning the schedule
"pressing" is on signs for places that iron your clothes.
Another sign somewhere said that their place was "le must" for automobiles.
And a makeover is called a "relooking". Again, a -ing word as a noun.
There are other words that are translated differently than what we see on things in Canada (the French side of items or French-Canadian television) or that are not translated at all. Cranberries are still "cranberries" and in fact, my French dictionary doesn't list "canneberges" at all! That must totally be a Canadian French word. Desperate Housewives are still Desperate Housewives, while on Quebec channels, it's translated to Beautés Désespérées. Things like this...I find myself very frequently shocked with the appearance of English in such different and frequent ways.
--Less cell phone usage. This surprised me! Certainly they're still used, but I would gauge it to be less than in Canada. Again, might be the city I live in, not sure.
--Cheese and yogurt for dessert.
--Chocolate for breakfast. (Not chocolate croissants, but chocolate cereal or Nutella. There is even a commercial praising the goodness of Nutella in a child's wholesome breakfast!)
--Omelettes for dinner.
--Taxi drivers are classier, well-dressed and have nice vehicles.
--Mail delivery bicycles! Very cool!
--Pizza delivery scooters. I've seen this in Brazil and Guatemala too.
--Businesses you wonder how they're making a go of it.
--A lot of closing down for long holidays.
--Places closed midday.
--Hair salons everywhere.
--Roller suitcases are common. Every day that I walk to school and cross the river, there is always someone crossing the bridge dragging a roller suitcase with them. I see these suitcases at the university too.
--Surprised to discover that sometimes people don't know something you expect them to. Ie. a bus driver not knowing the name of stops on her route, or a store owner not knowing the historical significance of a tunnel beside his store, etc.

--Serious lack of free, open public toilets. Here I am at one of the vending-style ones!
--The first Wednesday of every month, sirens wail at noon. This month it happened while I was in an orientation class and the teacher explained that the "pompiers" test their sirens every month. Later, I learned that this was false (unless there is a translation for pompiers other than Firemen, that I don't know) and that it IS actually what it sounded like--a war siren and all over France they test out the war sirens on these dates.
--The lack of places to sit out and about. There are places to buy sandwiches on baguettes "to go" for lunch, for example, but there is no where to sit to eat them! (I've started hearing that it is common for people to just go home for lunch. I've started doing that this week when my school schedule allows.)
--The lack of places to sit on campus--there are no lounge areas. I ended up eating my lunch outside on a curb beside a garbage can!
--Campuses and campus libraries close at 6:30-7:00 p.m.! Jenelle and I almost got locked in the school one night!
--Televised news at 8:00 p.m.--dinner time, everyone watches.
--There are a lot of weekly publications (newspapers, magazines, etc.)
--People seem to have no qualms about following you quite closely while walking along (rather than "passing").
--Buildings start at Floor 0, rather than Floor 1.
--Places require ID photos all the time! We have to keep going and getting them taken a little booths. I need two to give to profs this week!

First French Festival...Fine French Food...

noreply@blogger.com (Beth) — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 22:17:00 +0000

I'd been seeing posters around for the last few weeks advertising the 25th Jazz Festival of this area, held in Montlouis-sur-Loire (that's a Wiki link in French because the English version has about only one sentence about the village) and meant to be an International Jazz fest. So me, a lover (and former player and singer...well in high school anyway) of jazz, was determined to go. I managed to find a couple others interested in checking it out, in combination with a search for a rumoured nearby castle.

Once again, we ran into some trouble with the bus schedules working out well; they only returned to Tours up until 18h43 (there's some 24-hr clock for you) and the first concert wasn't scheduled to start until 16h30. So, we really only had time to attend one concert. And, well, it was pretty small...not many there. And the town itself felt tiny and empty, although the festival wasn't in the downtown (presuming there is a downtown), so it's hard to know. Definitely a different festival experience than the Montreal Jazz Festival, or even the Waterloo Jazz Festival. There were later, not-free concerts, but we attended this first one, set in the "Village Gourmand" (which, by the way if you're into language, "gourmand" and "gourmandise" is used a lot here on menus, at festivals, etc and therefore isn't translated as "glutton" or "gluttony" like a standard bi-lingual dictionary may suggest and instead seems to imply something more like what anglophones mean when we say "gourmet" or "gastronomy" but not quite that fancy) where many types of foods were being served. Mostly regional foods ie. "Tourangelle" food, food from the former province of Touraine (although there was a random booth of Portuguese food and another serving Tapas).

Here I am eating some Fouée, a type of bread cooked in a wood fire oven and then filled with various items of choice. My friend chose Nutella and I chose Rillettes d'oie (oie being a word I coincidentally had just found in my dictionary this morning while trying to explain to my friend how Canada is overrun with geese and I wondered why foie gras or other uses for geese meat hasn't caught on). So Rillettes are a regional food (check out the link for an explanation) and yes, I chose the goose meat version. It was ok, but had some kind of fermented cabbage taste to it...I couldn't tell if it included cabbage or onions, but I decided it was like sauerkraut. I also tried out a Rosé Pamplemousse. Nice.

The concert itself was decent. The ensemble was Word Out and the lead guy (the pianist) was English but his French was fabulous and nous étions jalouses! We particularly enjoyed the "grimaces" of the bassist and the fact that it was nearly impossible to capture a photo of the drummer with his eyes open.

We successfully figured out where to catch the regional bus to take us back to Tours and voilà...

It was like we were riding our own private limousine: the coach was completely empty for the entire 20 minute ride! And the bus driver maneuvered some pretty tight, narrow French country roads too! And all that for only 1 Euro! For the entire day, including the city bus too because this weekend it's the European Heritage Days in France. There are a bunch of things going on and transportation is almost free! So tomorrow, we'll play tourist again and check out some of the free tours and such.

Yes, we did visit the castle today too. But I'll save those photos and comments for another post.

University in France

noreply@blogger.com (Beth) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 21:49:00 +0000

Wednesday was a difficult day because it became very apparent that I could not carry on with the Spanish courses I had selected! The level was just too hard. So, I found myself all of a sudden without 10 credits! It has been so frustrating and an awful amount of work to sift through the course options and scheduling and to try to find what works. I've pretty much given up trying to find classes that can serve as the pre-requisite courses needed for my winter term at Laurier...they just don't exist! Now having to remove some courses and find something else in their place, what a job! Then contacting profs to explain why I missed the first week and seeing if there is space in the class. Then collecting work missed.

Then there is the matter of exams. Haven't even got to figuring that out fully yet. French university classes are made up of three types of courses: Lectures (Cours Magistraux, or CM), Labs and Tutorials (Travaux Dirigés, TD, and Travaux Pratiques, TP--I haven't figured out the difference. I tried a TD and a TP required to make up one credit in Level 2 Oral Spanish, and their formats were more or less the same.) Attendance at the TDs and TPs is important because they are smallish and you are evaluated in these courses throughout the term. Apparently, they do not have a final exam in the exam period. The CMs, on the other hand, are big and there is no ongoing evaluation. There is just one big, scary exam at the end that apparently a lot of people fail. So much so, that there is a scheduled exam make-up time! Now, the final exam time isn't until January, but my term at Laurier begins right after New Years and I have a flight home right before Christmas. So I have to figure out how to write the exams for the two CM classes that I have (good thing it's only two and my other seven classes are all TDs). Both of the profs were nice enough, but don't really know how to arrange it. I think I have to talk to the "secretariat".

These two classes also have an online component, but I am unable to access it because I am not registered! And no one can register me I guess! My go-to people are the International Office (who definitely don't do things like that) and my Pedagogue Coordinatrice...I figure that's like an Academic Advisor. And she's great; even replying to emails on the weekend or in the evenings, but lots of times, she can't do anything! Apparently, I need to talk to the secretariat for that online thing too! And on and on it goes. :S

On Thursday, I arrived at school to discover the main entrance blocked by mounds of cardboard boxes and thought, here we go: my first example of a "manifestation", that is, a demonstration--something French university students are apparently notorious for. I followed others arriving to another entrance, but once inside, the halls were also filled with boxes. I asked someone what was going on and they said that it was a game. To get to class, we had to help move the boxes further along the hallways. I heard later from others that it was a demonstration, but I am not convinced because there wasn't really anything being said except, "Move the boxes along. Come on people. Get to it." At least that's what I think they were saying!

The Return

noreply@blogger.com (Beth) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 22:02:00 +0000

So in France, back-to-school time is known as The Return. It's written everywhere, I guess similar to Canada--commercials, billboards, headlines. It's just the name itself that makes it a little different. At first I had to question, what return?

First the children "returned", last week, then this week, the "students" (ie. at the Fac, as in, at the university) returned. So, I returned this Monday. Although of course for me, it was not a re-turn. It was just a turn. Or, as the word directly "rentrée" translates, "re-entry", for me it was just an "entrée" or an "entry". So, I entered this Monday.

The French language for foreigners school doesn't start until next week, so my schedule this week is pretty relaxed, with each class lasting only about an hour. And they're either in Spanish or Portuguese! (Well, I have a History of Brazil course taught in French.) It definitely has been tricky to think about those languages from a French perspective, to try to follow the profs who go back and forth between the language and French, while my head still translates to English. Then there's the matter of how long it's been since I've looked at either of those languages and I've forgotten a lot of verb conjugations and now vocabulary is all muddled between the three languages!

And then there is the issue trying to figure out what level of course I should be in. Jenelle and I had a class today about analyzing the style of Spanish poetry and it seemed a little over our heads. But it is a second-year course. Then we learned that to take Spanish at university, the French students need to have done Spanish in high school. So maybe we are at a first year level, except there aren't really enough courses offered then or that fit in the schedule we each had to work so hard to figure out. Anyway, lots of fun again! My Laurier faculty advisor even commended me for working with the "tricky uncooperative French system"...her words.

The final piece that is somewhat difficult, is the same that I find at Laurier: it's not easy being a "mature student". There is such an age gap. At Laurier, I tend to joke about how I'm old, etc.--I think that is may be my way of intentionally setting myself apart in a way (and I am proud of my age), because I really do feel quite different than nearly all of my classmates...in a different place in life (aging parents with health issues, friends with children, live on my own, etc.), have experiences (travelled, worked, etc. for over 10 years)...or my way to show that I really have little interest in making university my whole world or to find my identity in being a student. And it works fine at home because I do have my whole own world and relationships outside of school. However, being an exchange student is another identity that allows for very little. The whole idea revolves around the university and it's hard work to find a place to belong otherwise. The natural community is with the other exchange students and everyone I've met has been great and I'm sure we'll continue to hang out. But still, in the classroom, I not only have the obvious language barrier, but I have that same age gap as another point that accentuates my non-belonging. I'm sure I could just dive in and, for example, attend various organized functions for students, or even outside of school, attend the young adults weekly meeting at the church, BUT it's just really not where I'm at. I am definitely appreciative once again of my living arrangement since Christèle is actually closer to my age than my classmates. And this really is nothing new; it just struck me today that, yes once again, I feel out of place. It doesn't help either that the university building and classrooms feel like a high school! :)

Another point of interest, for those of you who know how much I love naps...I finally took my first nap today! I've resisted up to this point and have done really well with adjusting to the time change and pace of things (except for adjusting to meal times...instead, I just eat a lot :), but today, after about 2 hours of walking throughout the day, I came home spent and had a nap! (Hence, I am up awake now. Boo.)

To spice up this post, here is a photo of the Pont Wilson again. This time, looking toward North Tours, the area where I live. This was taken on one of the few sunny days. Yes, the weather hasn't been great. A lot of drizzly, rainy days. And really annoying to know how to dress, because the mornings are cold, but then, if the clouds clear, it can get quite warm later and then you're wearing too many clothes! But, it looks quite pretty in this picture so enjoy. It's my current desktop shot.

Culture Collage

noreply@blogger.com (Beth) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 21:07:00 +0000

So Chris over at the Firebowl collective blog posted a photo collage I made, meant to demonstrate the idea of Crossing Culture. In an attempt to be creative, I basically went through the photos I have on my laptop that start in 2003...what an interesting exercise: browsing through my travels and photos of myself over the years. Sometimes it's quite shocking how quickly time seems to go by. Like it was over four years ago now since I was in Europe before this trip, it was over three years ago, the last time I was in Brazil....This morning in my first Portuguese class, I was acutely aware how long it had been!

Anyway, it was neat to take some time to look at the faces of the many, many people I have encountered in many, many different places; to try to recall what I learned of their story; to feel bad that sometimes I really only just took a photo and nothing more; to realize that the photos that seem cool are the ones of the people and situations most different than me or my own and to wonder, why is that? What is the fascination with exotic-looking places and people? What makes it exotic? Why do the photos of people with different-coloured skin standing together seem the coolest? Is that really what represents crossing cultures? People in France don't look that much different than me (although I do feel stared at sometimes...there are fewer blonde-ish people here (except for all the German exchange students) yet I have most definitely crossed a culture. Yet apparently there is no cool photo that can show that! Just photos of different food, or methods of transportation or architecture. No photo of a French person with me would really show a crossing of culture. What about the photo from my last post? There were two English girls, a Spanish girl and two Canadian girls with a tapestry of an elephant behind us...does that show a crossing of cultures?

I'll never forget how my largest culture shock was actually living in England! Yet, how could that be shown in a photo? The same language, but not the same language at all! Lifestyle, weather, it all was a lot more different than I had expected and it became hard after a few months. I remember feeling relief to go to Brazil part way through and I remember feeling more at home there! Bizarre. (I was particularly happy to see some blue sky.)

(Don't take this the wrong way, dear English friends. I love your country and heck, I've even returned a few times! It was just interesting to realize that it really was a very real crossing of cultures. I'm sure my age and expectations had something to do with it too. I was 18.)

But yeah, I had no particular aim with this post. Just some thoughts spewing out. Cross-cultural experiences are certainly varied and interesting. It's been awhile since I've stayed in another culture longer than a month, ie. past the "honeymoon" stage, so I'm anticipating hitting some hard moments down the road. I certainly am thankful for all of my previous experiences though so that I am better prepared. At the same time, I need to keep in mind that each experience and each culture is unique and to not compare or anticipate something specific. For example, although I have lived away from Canada for longer than 4 months before (England and India), I didn't have to function in a language other than English. So this IS new!

Indian and Chinese food...

noreply@blogger.com (Beth) — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 15:40:00 +0000

So trying the adapter plus the converter with the straightener resulted in the ceramic plates overheating and melting the plastic in which they are encased!! In about 2.3 seconds! I guess I won't be using the straightener again. After unplugging it, I still used it in that moment and saw my hair straight for the first time since I got it cut a few weeks ago (without any frizz and the annoying kinks it is prone to)! Sigh...too bad that will be the last time for awhile. My housemate offered me her curling iron, explaining that it can also be used for straightening. I really cannot see how that is possible: the barrel is round!! I'll keep you posted. (I know you are all very interested in this.)

So I went out on Thursday with my new friends and we, true to Beth-birthday form, went out for Indian food! I overheard my new British friends talking about finding an Indian restaurant, so I figured my birthday would be a good night for trying one out. So, upon the advice of Christèle (my housemate), we checked out Surya Restaurant. When we arrived, no one was there, so we were concerned. But yes, 7:45 is apparently too early. After 8:00, the people started rolling in. We chuckled while watching two separate couples, one old and one young, assume the same positions: both arms stretched across the tables, clutching one another's hands. And their tables were beside each other, so it looked particularly funny.

So how was the food, you ask? Different. It was good, but different from other Indian food. It had flavour, but not as strong or as spicy as I think the English girls and I were looking for. It had a sweeter taste, the curries were smaller and runnier too. But we had just the right amount of food and it was good. Everything is so much more expensive here, particularly noticeable with food, but we did a good job at keeping the cost of the meal down while having a big spread.

On the topic of food, I got to accompany Christele grocery shopping yesterday so that I could pick out some things. Really the only thing that has been a bit hard is breakfast, where they tend to eat cake-type food or very chocolate-y cereal. So I picked out some nice Muesli which I had this morning...so yummy with yogurt. At the supermarket, it was interesting to see how yogurt takes up an entire aisle. So do packages of cookies (biscuit-type cookies). It has been nice to get up every morning to a fresh pot of Italian coffee (Christèle's favourite and mine too), but I'm not in the habit of drinking this much coffee. I hope I don't have withdrawal symptoms at any point. I had some pretty bad headaches last weekend, either from that or from too much sun/dehydration.

Last Sunday was a Bradérie in the downtown. Many of the streets were open only to pedestrians and it was basically like a big street flea market/clearance sale. The items for sale were very random, some as though the vender had emptied the contents of his attic. Then the shops were having street sales and there were lots of food vendors. Unfortunately, I picked the first one serving kebabs (like shawarmas) without checking out the proper food area where there was a large variety of food, including traditional food from Breton (crepes, cider, etc), Spanish paella, mussels...and what I had wasn't very good and was overpriced. Boo, I should have known better!

That morning, I attended one of the few Protestant churches in Tours (I think there are only 5). Although there is one within walking distance, I decided to go to the largest one, downtown, Eglise Evangelique de Tours. There were about 200 people there, the majority of African decent I would say. It was great! I was well-greeted and welcomed; I loved how people prayed out during the worship-time and during communion and I felt quite "stirred in my spirit" (for lack of a better expression). I knew some of the songs and the ones I didn't were easy to learn. I was even able to follow the sermon! It was interesting to me that it was based on Psalm 84 and about the House of God, since I had wavered on whether or not I was going to intentionally attend church while here. Reading the text in English, I have always interpreted it to be about living in God's presence, about spending time with God personally (like that song, Better is One Day), but hearing the pastor speak about it from the French version, I was hearing how good it is to belong to a community of believers. Isn't it interesting how easy it can be to focus on making one's faith so personal and independent, when it cannot be that alone? Even just now, doing a search for the word "dwell" in the Bible, the idea of "God dwelling within" is a communal thing! And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. Yup, together. It is always a beautiful thing to observe and to even be a part of such a community in places away from home; to observe how they worship, how they share the bread and wine (or grape juice...here, it was wine :) and how they demonstrate God's love. I'm looking forward to attending again tomorrow.

I completed a week of a 4-hour French class that was a type of orientation. Apparently I didn't do that well on my level-placement test, so in two weeks time, when the French-for-foreigners classes start, I'll be in the second level (there are four). The first week was a little too easy, so I hope those classes are ok. (Some people were surprised about some of the placements.) I don't mind if I'm in a lower level if I can do well, but I think I'll mind if it's too much review. For example, we were going over passé composé on Friday...something a lot of us started learning around grade 7 or 8! The main thing I'm concerned with, is that I am not allowed in a certain class I need because I'm not at a high enough level. I've convinced them to let me try, but that is pending if there is space. That class doesn't start until October and I figure I'll have improved by then anyway. I can already tell that I'm improving with my oral and comprehension! (Now to work on writing well under a time constraint and without a dictionary...like what was on the test I guess I bombed, AND on the exam from my summer course that I didn't do that well in.)

Figuring out courses is a bit mental! I finally have it together, but there is a conflict. I have to make up a certain amount of credits to satisfy my home university, but I am asking them if I can be a few short because of this conflict. AND because, I already have to take 11 courses! These 11 make up 16 hours of class per week. I think that's just a little bit more than at Laurier. These classes are Spanish and Portuguese and they start on Monday. We basically just show up and THEN register. Something like, we just introduce ourselves to the prof and ask to be in the class! We have until November to have our classes all figured out and decided. Pretty funny! I learned this week that university in France costs students on average 400 Euros a year!! I'm wondering where all of my tuition money is going!

Friday's last class included a bit of a scavenger hunt around the city where we learned some things and saw some neat things. I think I will pass on some of those interesting bits and photos in a future blog as this one is getting quite long! Thanks for reading!

Oh I forgot. Last weekend, I also went to a Chinese Buffet where there was karaoke in French (of course). It was huge and people were quite into it and singing along while they ate.

I also got a homemade chocolate cake, card and "Joyeuse Anniversaire" song (yes, different than "Bonne Fête" like in Québec) last night from my housemates (mom and daughter) for my birthday. C'était très gentil.

Some chuckles

noreply@blogger.com (Beth) — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 22:59:00 +0000

I got home late this evening, after spending a nice evening with my Canadian comrade, a lovely Spanish girl I met at church and ran into at a school function and two sweet English girls who I met whilst writing my entrance test for French level evaluation. Once again, I chose the wrong shoes (heels) for all the walking around. Also, during dinner (chevre salad, lamb, poached pear), I realized that I would be too late to catch the last bus (which surprisingly runs only until 9ish!) so I decided to take the bus with the English girls to their residence and call a cab from there, since it looked closer on the map. In the cab, I realized I didn't have enough money with me! I thought that I could just run up into the apartment and bring down whatever would be owing. But, the travaux (again, always "le travaux") cut off his route, so he took me as far as he could and pointed out how I could walk the rest of the way. I was almost 2 Euros short! How embarrassing! And we realized that he had driven me home on my first day with my heavy, heavy suitcase (for which he had charged me extra). But there was no choice except for me to dig out all the cash I had and hope he would be ok. He was. I guess. What choice did he have?! (He's probably shaking his head at this foreigner.) Then I get inside and take a look at the bus schedule and realize, just like the night bus I took with the others, there is one that DOES run to my area too! Erg...taxis are not cheap!! Then, just now, setting my alarm on my iPod I saw the date...oh hey, it's my birthday! Oops, I told some people that my birthday would be this Friday!

(I finally got an adapter that will fit with the outlet and with my converter. It started smelling when I used both with my computer. I knew it didn't need the converter, but the plug kept falling out without it. I've had to rig a little stand to rest the plug on. In the morning, I may try using my hair straightener....you know, since it's my birthday and all. Hopefully I don't blow anything up! It's definitely nice to have my own computer up and charged now. So I should be able to get on Skype now and to keep this blog business going. But this is all for now, since it's 1:00 a.m.)

Oui, je suis en France...

noreply@blogger.com (Beth) — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 22:52:00 +0000

I imagine that, for the next while, I will be blogging more since I think it may be the best way for me to keep people in the loop of my current adventure...
First of all, I thought I'd include a map to show you just where Tours is located in France and just where I am over these next few months. Yes, I have moved to Tours as of August 31 and will return on time for Christmas in Canada!

There are some things that Tours is known for and I figure I'll pass these things on to you over time. First of all, one of France's large rivers passes through Tours, the Loire. Here is a picture of the Pont Wilson, the stone bridge that crosses the Loire, from North Tours (where I'm living and the side from which the photo is taken) into the centre.

Since I have no idea who all is reading this blog these days, perhaps I ought to bring you up to speed...After 10 or so years with YWAM, I returned to school in 2009 with the intent to fulfill a few personal goals: achieve more competence in the three languages that I had gained some experience in over the years (Portuguese, French and Spanish) and to acquire further education. I was able to combine these all by pursuing a BA in Languages at Wilfrid Laurier University in the city I was already living in! By my second year of studies, it became clear to me that I would not be able to achieve the level of oral competency in French that I would like without an immersion experience, hence this single term of university in France! (I'm sure there is more insight to be found into this journey of mine amidst my former blog postings.)

For awhile, people were asking me if I was excited about this adventure and I honestly didn't know how to answer. I had some reservations about leaving home, etc. and, also, compared to the other university exchange students, I felt a lot of "been there, done that". Nevertheless, I did feel good about my decision to choose to live with une Française and to make a home while here, as opposed to finding myself absorbed in the student traveller life, which yes, is not at all where I am at.

And yes, it is working out well! I am living with a woman about my brother's age and her 5 year-old daughter and, well I've been forced to speak French a lot! The apartment is lovely and the neighbourhood is nice; it's removed from the downtown and the university area, but those places are still walkable. It is truly nice to share a home and meals with someone and to have an automatic companion who is able to help me assimilate!

Speaking of companions, it also has been great to know one other person, a Laurier classmate who is also here on exchange. We travelled together (which included the flight to Paris and then two trains to Tours, plus lots of fun carting around the luggage...erg, I am not a fan of packing for a longer stint and my big suitcase caused me much grief and embarrassment) and we've gotten together each day to help each other figure out things around the school and city. For example, today we successfully got ourselves some cell phone numbers, electronic bus passes and ate some amazing street baguette sandwiches. Here I am on our first day of exploring, enjoying my first quiche Lorraine. Notice the very European scooter behind me.

And here I am on some promenade of sorts. Certainly, many things remind me of the months I lived in England, yet strangely, some things actually remind me of Latin America! I can't quite explain it, just certain types of buildings, something in the air, the sound of television or radio commercials....And then there are all of the public toilets that you have to pay for! (Although, I remember that in Italy too. It's very annoying.)

It seems that Tours is a good fit for me; it's not too big, but it has lots to explore. There seems to be some neat little nooks and particularities to discover. Tomorrow is market day and there are some special open-air "clearance markets" happening in addition to the regular weekend open-air food markets.

There is also this atmosphere of students arriving and the city is bulging a bit with it, very much like this time of year in Waterloo. And just like I feel in Waterloo, I'm not a big fan of the streets crawling with students from wherever. Just like at Laurier, I'm predicting that I will find myself somewhat out of place, being an "old" student. I had a thought the other day about how nice it would be to just live and work and to get to avoid going to campus and school all together! Ahh well, I'm sure it will be fine.

It definitely is quite tricky navigating the administrative side of the school. We STILL do not know what classes we will take, when they start, when they finish, when any holidays are....! Lots of fun! :) I do know that I have a 3-hour French test on Monday, in order to assess my level and place me appropriately. I'm still really hoping (and needing because of my degree in Canada) to take Spanish and Portuguese, but I'm waiting for some direction about this.

Tours is similar to Kitchener-Waterloo as well in that they are in the process of making space for a Tram! It seems that a day does not go by without hearing some local talk about "les travaux" (the construction) and just how it's changed everyone's usual route to wherever. I can't tell if they're happy about it or not, everyone just seems rather matter-of-fact. It was our initiation to Tours as well, where, upon exiting the train station, about 10 of us stood at an empty taxi stand for over 30 minutes! "It's because of les travaux, le tram...." we were told. Here is a photo of some of les travaux (these orange and white barriers are the marker) with an interesting building behind.

I've had some neat conversations with my housemate, including one today where I learned that Tours does have bit of an aristocratic-type mindset/culture to it, so I guess in that way, it's not quite "me". But their French is considered "unblemished" (you can check out the Wikipedia article about Tours), so this should serve me well in my pursuit of French!

But wow, have I ever found myself at a loss for words...like all the time!! It is so frustrating how limited my vocabulary is! Sometimes, I really miss what people say too, even really simple things that I should know, but I just don't "hear" it. But the worst is the fumbling to be able to express myself out and about. Ironically, I feel that the clearest I have been in my expression was this evening when I was describing very detailed things to my housemate about Canadian and Quebec culture and history! Ha ha. There's our French curriculum for you...tons of reading and writing on these types of things yet no practice in how to leave a message on an answering machine, how to order a taxi, how to explain what type of adapter you need because the one you brought doesn't fit the outlets properly!!

(Yes, this is the first time I've used my laptop, because I have no way of recharging it thus far....)

Anyway, that's my update for now. Here are a couple of interesting architecture pictures for you photo lovers.

Recent reflections on the church...

noreply@blogger.com (Beth) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 00:12:00 +0000

Yup, here is a link again to The Fire Bowl group blog with my August contribution. Thanks Chris for making me sound so cool!

So, do I still blog...do music...?

noreply@blogger.com (Beth) — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 00:46:00 +0000

Well, I wrote something up last week, but it's been passed on as a contribution to The Fire Bowl group blog. I'll link to it, when it's up. And well, besides messing around on Garage Band with my nephew or with a co-worker at a training weekend, I haven't done any recording.

BUT, with another trip to Europe coming up (this time, to live there) and a new camera purchased, I expect to get back on top of this blogging business. Also, it will be my first term without a part-time job, so maybe I'll feel less busy. (Although I suspect thinking in French will make me very tired all of the time!)

Stay tuned!