Beauty in Blues

It's hard for me to believe that I left my house three weeks ago, almost to the minute (taking time zones into account). In some ways, it feels like we're been here for months. The city shrinks significantly and becomes more familiar everyday as I learn to navigate the tram, rent a bike, or take wrong turns to the point where two chunks of the city connect by winding back streets. My classes are similar day to day and I've gotten down the response to my host mom's "how was school today?" when I walk past the kitchen every evening.

Rear view of Place d'Athens on campus
(my favorite sky above it)

It also feels like I just got here. Waiting at a tram stop yesterday, a woman who was looking at the map of the tram line behind me turned and asked which one was going in a certain direction. I told her what I thought answered her question to get in response a quizzical look and: "vous etes étranger, non." In other words "you're foreign." I smiled, a little confused, and simply said "oui".
I am. No matter how hard I try to integrate into the society, the culture, their way of living, walking, speaking, there is no way that I can become French. In the small amount of time that I'm staying here anyway. Trying is all I can do but I'll admit, it's getting tough. Everyday I get better at listening and comprehending what is being said to me, but everyday I still get a confused look from my host mom when I start to explain the events of my day or when I have to repeat myself two or three times to order lunch.

Me, in Place d'Athens.
"Hi!"

Don't get me wrong; I'm having a wonderful time. Strasbourg hasn't ceased to astound me in some shape or form when I least expect it. There is one street that I pass on my way to school (named Wimpheling) that, especially in the morning sunlight, is the most beautiful city street to ever exist. And these past few days, the sky has looked absolutely heavenly; filled with my favorite wispy clouds and colored one of the prettiest blues. And the Parc de l'Orangerie never fails to raise my spirits.

Wimpheling, with no justice done to its beauty
what-so-ever.

On our way home from our last class today, my roommate and I rode her bike. Yes, she and I rode her bike.
Don't give me that look!
We were actually quite successful. One of us sat in the seat with our feet dangling while the other peddled and steered. It was so much fun and we were laughing almost the entire way. I'm planning on getting my bike tomorrow so if you're one of those people who's worrying about it (you know who you are), worry no more.
Speaking of tomorrow, we're all skipping our classes and going on the first excursion for our program. I'm so excited! We're going to (pulls out packet) le Château de Haut Koenigsbourg, an Alsace Memorial museum and Kaysersberg (a city with a castle? I don't know. that's what it looks like on the pamphlet). Can't wait! There will be many pictures and narrations soon. À plus!

Smile-lines like Canyons, Paparazzi Frowns

Salut! It has been a busy last few days. But I have no other excuses for leaving my blog in the cold for nearly a week. So, I'll pick up where I left off. Wednesday was a day of class so I won't bore you with those details, but that evening, I had dinner with the host family upstairs who is hosting two of my friends from K. I had to eat with the Dennis' (that's their name) because my host mom was busy that evening and didn't have time to cook. It was nice to meet them and even nicer to visit their apartment because they have a dog! His name is Dix [deese] and he is adorable. What made him even cuter (in a bit of a sad way) was that he was wearing a plastic "cone of shame" to keep him from licking his paws. But it didn't stop his from demanding to be petted, running full-speed around the house or from laying on my feet.
Thursday was full of more classes and a meeting with the K program coordinator about the integrative volunteer project we have to work on this semester (aka the ICRP). All in all, I was pretty frustrated with the meeting because we mostly went over information that we already know about the ICRP, but I can see how having everyone together to hear it first hand may have been necessary. Thursday was also my roommate Zena (who actually doesn't share a room with me any more)'s birthday. We bought a cheap bottle of wine to drink with dinner, and proceeded to get an ear-full from our host mom about it's origin (a mix of all the "leftovers"), the process by which it was made (cheaply), and its "horrible" taste (yeah, but we're students). She told us that she would buy a good bottle of wine for us to try so we would know what good Alsatian white wine tastes like. And holy grape batman! is it so much better. The next night at dinner we each had a French glass of wine (much smaller than the well known American glass, often filled over halfway full) and it was delicious! *makes a check on list*

The Palais de Rhine in the Place de République

On Friday morning, I got up at 6:30am (yes, it's possible for me and yes, I did have to google it to make sure it really existed) to make it to my second option class of the week: pronunciation! It was worth the early morning a hundred times over. The professor is amazing and I think the class will help me more with my speaking than I first thought possible. I also had the time to finish my homework for the weekend while I waited for my 11am class to start. Bonus! The remainder of the day was spent wondering aimlessly around downtown and shopping for clothes way out of my price range.
Saturday was my host mom's birthday so when Zena and I came home for dinner, we brought some flowers with us. It was fun sneaking them into the apartment so she wouldn't see them until she came into the dining room to eat. Our plan succeeded (though we were a mess of giggles and sudden spouts of random French words in the process) and she loved them.

Inside the Palais de Rhine

And now I come to today. This weekend was part of Heritage Week. This is an event every year in Alsace where buildings that are usually only used privately are open to the public. There are tours and special extended visiting hours all for free. So today, a few of my friends and I went around town and visited these really awesome places, some of which can only be seen during heritage week. Yeah, really cool. Our first stop this morning was the Palais de Rhine in the Place de République. After lunch, we walked around the University of Strasbourg's campus and visited the Collection of Paleontology. Best choice ever!! It was a really small exhibit, but this place was so cool. Sadly, my camera died after entering the Palais de Rhine, but my friends got some shots (I might add some on here later). There were fossils dating from plants and trilobites somewhere in the early Cambrian to dinosaur eggs and prints to tools and skulls from Neanderthals. That exhibit made my day. There was definitely some skipping and humming.
Following the event du jour, I walked through the botanical gardens on (or near) campus and had a cup of hot chocolate at Café Brant with my friend Alana. When I got home, I was greeted by my host mom and a ten minute conversation in French about my day and the places I visited. She had never heard of the Paleontology exhibit (I know! So sad.) so I had to summarize and explain. Maybe my French is improving. If not my vocab, at least my confidence in flubbing up in the name of communication. Hear, hear! All for conversing, words for all!

Chocolat chaud

Speaking of improving French... someone has homework. Or does she? Tune in next week to see if our brave heroine gets her éclairs in a row.
-What éclairs?
-Huh, I swear they were sitting right there...
À plus!

Freedom to Dance

Today was a huge success of a day. HUGE! I didn't have class until 15h00 (3pm) so I spent the morning sleeping in a bit, and just taking my time. On the spur of the moment (you will soon find that that was the theme of my day today), I decided to take the tram downtown and meet up with my friends for lunch (taking the tram was the spur of the moment thing, lunch was planned). I got there early, and while waiting for people to finish classes, I got talking to one of my friends from Lewis and Clark. She had found an African dance class with live drummers that meets on Tuesday nights! I know, so cool! Anyway, she invited me to join her and one of her classmates as they checked out the first class today. And I of course, following the theme of my day, said yes. Best decision ever. There is no way to describe how much a hardwood floor and a mirrored wall feel like home to me. Just walking into the class room and seeing everyone dressed and chatting pre-class chatter, oh! I came alive. Not that I've been dead or anything, I went to the movie instead, remember? ;)
My second best decision of the day was going to the mall with my friends for lunch. What's that? A mall in France you ask? Sadly, it's true. What made it even more weird is that throughout the entire time I was shopping, there were American songs playing. But I was able to buy notebooks and paper for classes, as well as a new bag (yes, I held out for over a week!) and a pair of cute black flats! Bags and shoes, what more could a girl want? I almost bought a pair of boots too, but I decided that I didn't want my purchasing to send up any red flags back at the ranch (and they weren't THAT cute anyway). But don't worry, I'll find some before the snow comes.
Oof, I'm tiggered. After an afternoon of shopping and learning as well as an hour and a half of dancing (not counting walking commute time) I's sleepy. But first, this post needs a picture.

The door leading into my
host mom's apartment.

There! À plus!

Where Chocolate is Sweeter and the Dead Walk the Streets

Salut! The last few days have been filled with both monotonous classes and fun adventures. Thursday was made up entirely of the former and Friday was half and half. Friday was our last day of stage class. We were tested in the last half of the morning and the afternoon, which was usually 'conference' classes (examples of courses that are offered at the university) was a two hour long test in French. The funny thing is, none of us knew for sure that we were being tested on the material from the conference classes until Thursday evening, after all the classes were over with. Luckily, most of us had been taking notes so it wasn't horrible.
Friday night was lots of fun though. Everyone on the program, including our friends from Lewis and Clark, went out to a pub called Jimmy's near the cathedral down town. It was great to hang out with everyone without the pretense of having class together. While there, I got a glass of the special beer for the evening (or the 'bière du moment') which was really good! It was called fruits rouge and tasted more like a fruity champagne than a beer. I was quite happy with my selection. Though I did try one of my friends' darker beers that was also tasty. Pretty sure that's what I'll get next week.

A few of the many people
dressed as the dead

On Saturday afternoon, MacKenzie and I walked around town, bought lunch at a market and dessert at a pâtisserie (there is one on almost every street so there's no excuse for eating mediocre desserts). After lunch, we headed down town to catch a movie in the cinema and to our surprise, came across hundreds of zombies. Yes, that's exactly what I said. Zombies. We were just as taken aback as you are (well, maybe a little more since we didn't have a witty blog title to lead us in) but we later found out that they were advertising the beginning of the fantasy film festival in Strasbourg. Just before our movie started, all of the zombies formed a parade, screaming and moaning and some looking quite disturbing. We had to leave before everyone had passed, but I was able to catch a few pictures. This would be so much fun to do in the US! Maybe I have a new calling...
Watching a movie in French without subtitles is... challenging. At least it was an American movie (The Switch) so it was at least predictable (sorry Hollywood). In the beginning, my mind was freaking out with not being able to understand exactly what words were being said, but after a while it calmed down and listened to the big picture. I actually started to understand more of what was being said. Crazy right? And it may just be me, but I feel like I'm understanding more of what my host mom is saying too. Mom, Dad: I'm going to be going to the movies a lot. It's for my education. And don't worry, I get a student discount! ;)

A man-made river with
foot bridges at one end
of the park

Today was spent reading my latest fantasy addiction, A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin, and walking through the park. It was such a beautiful day today I couldn't just sit inside. One thing I realized is that all cities need nice parks for people to go to and decompress. Nature is so important, and we often go living our fast-paced and hyper-digitalized lives not noticing how ungrounded and burnt out we are. At least, that's what I found is true for me while I was in park. Letting my feet guide me around, I found out how huge the park really is. There are so many different forms of water there too: small lakes, rivers with bridges, waterfalls, puddles etc. I have found my second favorite place (close second to any pâtisserie in the country).

There were row boats for rental off the
shore of the larger lake/pond. Very romantic.

Well, I think I've typed enough for three entries. If you made it through this entire blog, dear reader, than you a) have quite a bit of time on your hands, or b) are a dedicated fan and should receive a gold star for the day. I actually thought about finding a star image to post, but I think I'll set a quest to find one in Strasbourg and take a picture post as an award. New goal for the week! À plus!

"Chocolate Nirvana"

Ohmygodsogood.

I went to a pâtisserie today!! AHHH!!! *checks off list* It was wonderful. After our language stage in the morning, we had almost three hours to get lunch and wander the city before our boat tour, so we did. Our big group broke up into a few smaller ones and split for lunch. After eating lunch outside on a table by the streets of Strasbourg, my group found a pâtisserie and did not hesitate to take advantage of it. I bought what I believe was called une jalousie and ate it throughout the course of the next few hours (sorry Mom, I don't think I'll be able to live up to your 'pastry walking' skills). 
The "frosting" that you see on top - that was no frosting. That was thick, almost solid chocolate mousse piled on top of a thin layer of mildly sweet white cake, on top of more mousse and cake dipped in a thin layer of chocolate "paper" casing. It has risen my standards for desserts to a dangerously high level. I don't think there is any way that I'll be able to eat "French" pastries in the states again. Or chocolate for that matter, or cheese, or bread... well, there goes my chances of LIVING in the states. Might as well just stick it out here until I get sick of the food. ;) 
-And yes, I just wrote a paragraph on a chocolate cupcake.

The view from my place in line while
waiting for the boat to arrive.

The boat tour on the river today was pretty cool. It took us through the city on one of the rivers (rule #36 of living in Strasbourg: Never use the term "Oh, it's next to the river" to explain a location) while we listened on headphones to descriptions and histories of many of the buildings we could see. There were 16 different languages/channels to choose from for the tour, #3 was English. About halfway through the tour, a member of our group realized that we could choose channel 13 and listen to the "kid's channel". This consisted of an Australian  "captain" talking to two kids about the city and some of the buildings and throwing in very cheesy phrases and referring to some imaginary bird named Cocoa (which was pretty much an under-cast smoker rasping in a high pitched voice in an attempt to sound relatively avian). It made the trip much more enjoyable for us language challenged students.

Sitting in the tour boat

The day today actually started out rainy again, but as the day progressed, mostly in the afternoon, the sun won the battle with the clouds. For our tour we still rode in one of the covered boats, so my pictures have that in the way. :/ I plan on going seeing the buildings again on my own by walking so hopefully there won't be weird obstructions in those shots.
Today we were actually assigned some homework for Stage tomorrow... eek! Now that it's almost 22:00 (10pm), I might want to get started on that. You can take the K student out of Kalamazoo, but you can't take the K work ethic out of the student! À plus!

There's A Baguette in My Purse! (said like Woody from ToyStory)

La Cathedrale de Notre Dame (well, part of it).

Salut! The last few days have been wonderful! I feel so at home in Strasbourg that I can’t believe it’s only been four days since I arrived. Where to begin…

On Saturday, we met with our program coordinator a few blocks from my house in the morning for a briefing on the city, manners for living with a host family and on what to expect our first day on campus at IIEF (Institut International d'Études Françaises) in the University of Strasbourg. We played ice breakers with the students from Lewis and Clark, went through our packet of useful things (including a map of Strasbourg and a bar of chocolate) and ate lunch before heading out on a tour of the city. We located the building our classes would be in, walked past the bank where we would soon have international accounts and learned how to use the bus/tram system to get downtown. **Funny story/side note: the trams and buses have been on strike for the last few days. This mostly means that they run very irregularly during the day and stop completely early in the evening. Luckily, I haven’t had any trouble getting where I need to be, but there are a few students who live out of the city area who are finding the strike a bit of a pain. ** After the tour, most of us bought French cell phones (check out those language skills!) and made it home in time for dinner.

One of the beautiful stained
glass windows in the cathedral.

Later that night, a few of us went back to the center of town to do some exploring. The city is so different and gorgeous at night! The cathedrals and old buildings are lit and the roads are less crowded so the streets seem hauntingly wise and almost alive.

Sunday was our day off. My roommate and I along with one of the guys from upstairs found the best path from our apartment to IIEF in the morning and from there headed downtown. We bought Döners for lunch and sat outside watching the few passersby as we ate (this is kind of what they look like: http://lunchtime-in-california-daphnes-greek-cafe.2582090.n2.nabble.com/file/n2582090/doner+kebab.png ). We walked into the center of town and my roommate and I climbed to the top of the Cathedrale de Notre Dame (yes, there is also one in Paris, but I haven’t made it to that one yet). The climb was pretty long. It consisted of climbing up circular concrete stairs for about 15 minutes with only a few small windows every few steps, but it was more than worth it! The view from the roof was incredible. I could see miles and miles of city rooftops and streets as well as the distant country and mountains (not sure which ones yet. I’m working on figuring that out). I am definitely going back up again.

Through one of the stairway windows.

Yesterday, we all took our language placement test at 8:30am. After a 35 minute walk to campus and only being in a foreign city for two days before that, being up that early puts on in little mood for being tested. But it went well, despite my grumblings. We also opened our back accounts! It was against my training to sign all the papers for the account without knowing a word of what they said. I had to simply put my trust in the K program and the French banks on that one. So far so good right? ;)

After the days obligations were out of the way, a couple friends and I had a small picnic in the park across from my house. The day was perfect (sunny, warm but not hot, and with only a few clouds in the sky) and so was our snack, Brie cheese, a larger baguette and some red wine. What more could you want!

Sadly the weather did not stay. Today was rainy on and off all day. I headed to my first stage class (pronounced STAHzge) with my hair still slightly wet from my shower. My host mom didn’t hesitate to scold me for leaving the house without drying it saying that I would catch cold, I guess that’s why they call them “host MOMs”. Anyway, the humidity of the rain left my hair with a curly puffball-like appearance that I didn’t notice until returning home for dinner at the end of the day. It was quite a sight (Sorry, I don’t have any pictures). Classes today went well besides. The stage class was quite enjoyable; I didn’t even notice that it was three hours long. It was mostly review of language concepts. The classes in the afternoon were pretty neat. One was a fairly basic intro to literature and the other was on Alsacian history. The gentleman who taught the history class was so fun and animated I couldn’t stop watching him. It was like a really good story, going on for two hours straight. I hope he teaches us again.

Strasbourg from the top of the cathedral

The plan for tomorrow is to go on a boat tour of Strasbourg after our morning stage class. I’m excited! Pictures to come! I should probably charge my camera! À plus!

Squeaky Floors, Sounds Like Home

Bonjour à tous! I have arrived safely in France! The flight out of Detroit Metro departed about 20 minutes behind schedule but somehow we still arrived in Frankfurt on time! What an amazing pilot. We left around 7pm EST and tag-teamed with the sun to meet it in Germany at 8:30am CET. On our 7.5 hour flight, we were fed dinner and breakfast (both quite good). Shortly after we took off, they gave us a bag of tiny crackers shaped as the four suits in a card deck! I was quite entertained.

After arriving in Frankfurt and collecting our luggage, the K group waited for our bus to Strasbourg to show up. In that space of time, we met a few other students in our program who are from Lewis and Clark College. They are all quite nice, even when sleep deprived. The bus ride took us to the Hotel Hilton in Strasbourg where we had an exhilarating time unloading our luggage in traffic (don’t worry, it was a side street. Still fun though) and trucking it all into the lobby to meet our host families.

Some of the buildings on my street.

Let me just say that my host mom is amazing! Right now, she is hosting three international students (me and Zena from K and another girl, named Susan, from China). She’s been hosting kids for 10 years (!) which explains why she was able to tell me with such confidence that it will take about 8 days for me to get settled. On the car ride to her apartment I had the uniquely ‘big city’ experience of watching her weave in and out of lanes, bicycles and pedestrians. And at one of the stoplights, she rolled down her window and jokingly challenged her friend Michel, who is hosting two K guys, to a street race (at least, that’s what I loosely translated). He lives in the apartment upstairs so they would have had the same finish line. Also, she is preparing a cherry tart for dessert! It smells really good and I know at least the parts are delicious because as I started unpacking, she came into my room and give me a cherry saying “these are good and really common in this area” and so on.

Anyway, my host mom speaks English very well. Interestingly enough, she has already started speaking more French more quickly to me than with my roommate… I guess I put on a pretty convincing ‘I totally get what you’re saying even though I’m running on 26 hours without sleep’ face. (Well, that’s a lie. I’m pretty sure that I dozed off for about 15-20 minutes on the bus because I don’t remember an entire section of the podcast I was listening to.)

Speaking of sleep, I’m going to finish unpacking/cleaning up the two suitcases that I dumped on my bed and floor so I can lie down. I’m not horribly jetlagged, but traveling can take it out of you. À plus!