I forgot that I had one more post to put on here! Sorry to those of you who were reading this and had to wait to see the exciting conclusion. This e-mail come from December 23rd, right before I left:
I'm coming home. Tomorrow I'm waking up at 4:00 a.m., checking out, taking a taxi, bus, train, then flying from Paris to Dublin to Chicago to Indianapolis. Then I will be home, at 8:00, almost 24 hours after leaving here. It's going to be a fun journey. I am thrilled to be coming back. I've been waiting for tomorrow for weeks now. So, the point is, I'm happy. And most of the remaining NFL playoff spots are being determined tonight too, so that's also exciting.
Thank you so much to everyone who read these e-mails and expressed an interest in my travels. Every one of you helped to keep me connected to the U.S. and home and feel normal when nothing has been normal. I am especially grateful for those who responded with encouraging words. You've made my journey that much better.
I am going to miss France. Certainly not at first, when I'm so happy to be back, but I have met so many people and seen so many things. And yes, learned things, too. If I could do it all over again, I would, strikes and all. I managed to take or am going to take the tests for four out of six classes, and everything should work out at Ball State. Dr. Gilman is very understanding. It's going to be so strange to go back to BSU, and have class at all, let alone multiple times a day, every day!
I wish I could come up with some insightful wrap-up here, but now all I can think about is America and all the lovely people in it. I'm happy.
I'll see you soon,
Stephen
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
La Fin de L'année
Okay,
After a lot of ups and downs over the past week, I know what I'm doing now. Almost. I've figured out how I'm going to take exams in most of my classes, and I'm working it out with professors in the other ones. I was really stressed out this week because I thought there was a chance I could make it to Mike's wedding, and then just come home after that. But classes started up again (sort of) so now I have something to stay for. And I still need to take those tests, anyway. Three days ago, there was a possibility I'd be leaving this Thursday, but now I'm back to waiting until the 24th.
Not a whole lot has gone on since I last wrote. I had the opportunity to see the Brattains and the Bryants in Paris. It was so good to see people from home! The first night I went with Richard to the Eiffel Tower and got some beautiful pictures at night, even though it was a little cloudy. Afterwards, we walked around and saw a few things, including the Champs d'Elysées in all its Christmas splendor. The next day I went to the Louvre with Richard and Ada. That museum is incredible. I wasn't too excited about going since I've seen so many museums in the past few months, but none of them compare to the Louvre. First of all, it's humongous. There's also the history, the architecture, and, of course, many many of interesting paintings, sculptures, artifacts, etc., from all over the world. I also checked out Notre Dame and the Latin quarter that day. At night, I went to the Musée D'Orsay with the Brattains, and again I was impressed. There are a lot of Impressionist classics there. And Mrs. Brattain evidently studied a lot of art history in college, so she knew a ton about what we were seeing. Paris was a good experience. I need to get back there in the next couple weeks, if I can.
Now I have to get to working on things for school, for a change. I have a test tomorrow--my first one--and an oral presentation (which I know nothing about except my topic) due on Monday. Yeah, this is a big change.
I'll be home for Christmas,
Stephen
After a lot of ups and downs over the past week, I know what I'm doing now. Almost. I've figured out how I'm going to take exams in most of my classes, and I'm working it out with professors in the other ones. I was really stressed out this week because I thought there was a chance I could make it to Mike's wedding, and then just come home after that. But classes started up again (sort of) so now I have something to stay for. And I still need to take those tests, anyway. Three days ago, there was a possibility I'd be leaving this Thursday, but now I'm back to waiting until the 24th.
Not a whole lot has gone on since I last wrote. I had the opportunity to see the Brattains and the Bryants in Paris. It was so good to see people from home! The first night I went with Richard to the Eiffel Tower and got some beautiful pictures at night, even though it was a little cloudy. Afterwards, we walked around and saw a few things, including the Champs d'Elysées in all its Christmas splendor. The next day I went to the Louvre with Richard and Ada. That museum is incredible. I wasn't too excited about going since I've seen so many museums in the past few months, but none of them compare to the Louvre. First of all, it's humongous. There's also the history, the architecture, and, of course, many many of interesting paintings, sculptures, artifacts, etc., from all over the world. I also checked out Notre Dame and the Latin quarter that day. At night, I went to the Musée D'Orsay with the Brattains, and again I was impressed. There are a lot of Impressionist classics there. And Mrs. Brattain evidently studied a lot of art history in college, so she knew a ton about what we were seeing. Paris was a good experience. I need to get back there in the next couple weeks, if I can.
Now I have to get to working on things for school, for a change. I have a test tomorrow--my first one--and an oral presentation (which I know nothing about except my topic) due on Monday. Yeah, this is a big change.
I'll be home for Christmas,
Stephen
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Strikes
Hello all,
I haven't written in a while because it seems like there hasn't been much going on. I've lost track of how long this student strike has been going on. At least I have my exchange student classes to go to, but those aren't exactly a joy at sessions that last at least two hours (I've decided I like the American way of doing classes much better.). So there hasn't been a lot going on the past couple (?) weeks, but people around here are getting bored and going out a little more often, maybe.
Last weekend I went to Normandy with three carloads of people. First we went to a small town with some beautiful cliffs overlooking the Channel. Unfortunately, all of my pictures from that day were mysteriously erased. Anyway, we went to another small town which probably was a lot prettier a few weeks ago before all of their flowers died, and drove for another hour or so to get to our hotel in Avranches, right outside of Mont St. Michel. The next morning we went to St. Michel, which is famous for being a tidal island; until recently the causeway leading to it would be completely submerged at high tide. It's actually is a small town, but it's known for the castle monastery/prison at the top. It was fun to look around and learn some of the history. I remember learning a little about it with Mr. Johnson during World History in 9th grade, so it was one of the things I really wanted to see while I'm here.
On the way home, we stopped at a little town where a large part (most?) of Winston Churchill's floating harbor had washed up on the beach. During World War II, Churchill had the idea to create an enormous harbor in between England and France to use as a disembarking point for the D-Day invasion, I believe. I would probably have liked to see one of the landing beaches a little more, but it was still cool.
After I send this, I'm heading to Paris for (basically) the first time! I'm going to meet the Bryants (sans Adam, of course) and the Brattains and hang out with them for a day or so. I'm excited about seeing people from home (especially these ones)! I'm taking my laptop to backup the my pictures, and I'll try to make sure I don't lose three quarters of them this time.
See you all soon!
Stephen
I haven't written in a while because it seems like there hasn't been much going on. I've lost track of how long this student strike has been going on. At least I have my exchange student classes to go to, but those aren't exactly a joy at sessions that last at least two hours (I've decided I like the American way of doing classes much better.). So there hasn't been a lot going on the past couple (?) weeks, but people around here are getting bored and going out a little more often, maybe.
Last weekend I went to Normandy with three carloads of people. First we went to a small town with some beautiful cliffs overlooking the Channel. Unfortunately, all of my pictures from that day were mysteriously erased. Anyway, we went to another small town which probably was a lot prettier a few weeks ago before all of their flowers died, and drove for another hour or so to get to our hotel in Avranches, right outside of Mont St. Michel. The next morning we went to St. Michel, which is famous for being a tidal island; until recently the causeway leading to it would be completely submerged at high tide. It's actually is a small town, but it's known for the castle monastery/prison at the top. It was fun to look around and learn some of the history. I remember learning a little about it with Mr. Johnson during World History in 9th grade, so it was one of the things I really wanted to see while I'm here.
On the way home, we stopped at a little town where a large part (most?) of Winston Churchill's floating harbor had washed up on the beach. During World War II, Churchill had the idea to create an enormous harbor in between England and France to use as a disembarking point for the D-Day invasion, I believe. I would probably have liked to see one of the landing beaches a little more, but it was still cool.
After I send this, I'm heading to Paris for (basically) the first time! I'm going to meet the Bryants (sans Adam, of course) and the Brattains and hang out with them for a day or so. I'm excited about seeing people from home (especially these ones)! I'm taking my laptop to backup the my pictures, and I'll try to make sure I don't lose three quarters of them this time.
See you all soon!
Stephen
Monday, November 19, 2007
Return to France
This post is a little late; I sent the e-mail a week or two ago
***
Hey everybody,
I'm back. Last week was so much fun; I saw everything I wanted to see and more, I met new people, and I was able to speak English. It was a true vacation. Between the language and the British culture, it felt a hundred times more like home.
After I sent my last e-mail (Monday afternoon), I went to the London Museum, which was not all I had hoped it would be. It was just London history and nothing more. I did learn some stuff, and they had a really interesting exhibit about the Great Fire. That night, I had real English fish and chips. It came with mayonnaise, so I tried fries with mayo for the first time. It was good, until I saw that there was ketchup on the table.
Tuesday was interesting. I wanted to go on a walking tour, but I didn't see anyone at the place where it was supposed to begin, so I walked over to Buckingham Palace because I knew they would go by there, and the changing of the guard was taking place in a few minutes. I thought I had a great spot, because I was as close to the front gates as you could get, but they don't actually do anything right in front of the palace. It all takes place on the other side of the Victoria Memorial, so I saw almost nothing. I stayed there for a long time, hoping that they would walk around, but they didn't until the very end, over an hour later. I also stayed because I heard that the queen was coming out that day. Sure enough, she came out in her Rolls and waved to the crowd. I did have a good spot for that, so I guess that made it worth it. Well, I could see something tall far away from where I was (I think it was Big Ben, but I'm not sure), so I decided to walk over there. To get there, I had to walk out and around the road in front of Buckingham, and when I was out by that street, I saw the queen coming back, in a carriage, followed by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. That was the first of three times I saw Abdullah. I think he was following me.
Well, after I finally got to the end of this road in front of the Palace, I saw signs for Trafalgar Square, and that was on my to-see list, so I walked over there. And what should I see at Trafalgar Square, but the British National Gallery? That is a great museum. It was almost entirely painting, but there was a wide range, and a lot of classics are there. I spent hours looking around. When I came out, the sun was starting to set, and I set off again to find my tall tower, and I walked down Whitehall Road on the way. And from there, I went out to the Thames for the first time. I got some good pictures of the Eye, the Houses of Parliament, and Big Ben at night. All in all, it was a pretty good day for having no plan at all. Oh, for lunch, I had Subway, for the first time in two months. I also ate Pizza Hut while I was in London. They do have Pizza Hut in France, but I had never gotten around to eating there.
The next day, I got to go on that tour. It turns out that they just don't meet where the website says they do, but pretty close. The guide was really good, and I learned some interesting history. The tour went from Hyde Park Corner to Green Park, the Palace, the beautiful St. James's Park, by Winston Churchill's famous War Rooms, Parliament, Big Ben, Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square, 10 Downing Street, the Horse Guard Parade (where I got to see a horse guard, one of the guys who doesn't move, no matter how much tourists yell at him, poke him, and otherwise annoy him), and Diagon Alley, from the Harry Potter movies. While we were at Admiralty Arch, in front of Buckingham Palace, we saw the king of Saudi Arabia leaving. The tour group was right in the middle of the road, so we got a good look. I met several Americans and an Australian on the tour, and I went with my new Australian friend to the National History Museum, which, although free, was not that exciting at that point in the day.
Thursday, I ate lunch in Hyde Park, spent some time at Tate Modern, and went to Westminster Abbey for the All Saints' Day service. Because it was a service, I didn't get to see all of the cathedral, but I really enjoyed it. Hearing the voices of the choir echoing off the walls and ceilings was something I'll always remember. At night, I met a couple of Tony's (and Mike's friends) at dinner.
Friday I spent the day at the Tower of London, a 900 year-old castle where the monarchy used to live. The queen still has a house there, but I'm not sure how often she visits. I saw the Crown Jewels, the National Armament, and lots of history. I also had tea and scones at the restaurant there...
I had no problems getting back on Saturday. It was much smoother than the trip out there. Back in Amiens, well...that's a story for another day.
A bientôt,
Stephen
***
Hey everybody,
I'm back. Last week was so much fun; I saw everything I wanted to see and more, I met new people, and I was able to speak English. It was a true vacation. Between the language and the British culture, it felt a hundred times more like home.
After I sent my last e-mail (Monday afternoon), I went to the London Museum, which was not all I had hoped it would be. It was just London history and nothing more. I did learn some stuff, and they had a really interesting exhibit about the Great Fire. That night, I had real English fish and chips. It came with mayonnaise, so I tried fries with mayo for the first time. It was good, until I saw that there was ketchup on the table.
Tuesday was interesting. I wanted to go on a walking tour, but I didn't see anyone at the place where it was supposed to begin, so I walked over to Buckingham Palace because I knew they would go by there, and the changing of the guard was taking place in a few minutes. I thought I had a great spot, because I was as close to the front gates as you could get, but they don't actually do anything right in front of the palace. It all takes place on the other side of the Victoria Memorial, so I saw almost nothing. I stayed there for a long time, hoping that they would walk around, but they didn't until the very end, over an hour later. I also stayed because I heard that the queen was coming out that day. Sure enough, she came out in her Rolls and waved to the crowd. I did have a good spot for that, so I guess that made it worth it. Well, I could see something tall far away from where I was (I think it was Big Ben, but I'm not sure), so I decided to walk over there. To get there, I had to walk out and around the road in front of Buckingham, and when I was out by that street, I saw the queen coming back, in a carriage, followed by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. That was the first of three times I saw Abdullah. I think he was following me.
Well, after I finally got to the end of this road in front of the Palace, I saw signs for Trafalgar Square, and that was on my to-see list, so I walked over there. And what should I see at Trafalgar Square, but the British National Gallery? That is a great museum. It was almost entirely painting, but there was a wide range, and a lot of classics are there. I spent hours looking around. When I came out, the sun was starting to set, and I set off again to find my tall tower, and I walked down Whitehall Road on the way. And from there, I went out to the Thames for the first time. I got some good pictures of the Eye, the Houses of Parliament, and Big Ben at night. All in all, it was a pretty good day for having no plan at all. Oh, for lunch, I had Subway, for the first time in two months. I also ate Pizza Hut while I was in London. They do have Pizza Hut in France, but I had never gotten around to eating there.
The next day, I got to go on that tour. It turns out that they just don't meet where the website says they do, but pretty close. The guide was really good, and I learned some interesting history. The tour went from Hyde Park Corner to Green Park, the Palace, the beautiful St. James's Park, by Winston Churchill's famous War Rooms, Parliament, Big Ben, Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square, 10 Downing Street, the Horse Guard Parade (where I got to see a horse guard, one of the guys who doesn't move, no matter how much tourists yell at him, poke him, and otherwise annoy him), and Diagon Alley, from the Harry Potter movies. While we were at Admiralty Arch, in front of Buckingham Palace, we saw the king of Saudi Arabia leaving. The tour group was right in the middle of the road, so we got a good look. I met several Americans and an Australian on the tour, and I went with my new Australian friend to the National History Museum, which, although free, was not that exciting at that point in the day.
Thursday, I ate lunch in Hyde Park, spent some time at Tate Modern, and went to Westminster Abbey for the All Saints' Day service. Because it was a service, I didn't get to see all of the cathedral, but I really enjoyed it. Hearing the voices of the choir echoing off the walls and ceilings was something I'll always remember. At night, I met a couple of Tony's (and Mike's friends) at dinner.
Friday I spent the day at the Tower of London, a 900 year-old castle where the monarchy used to live. The queen still has a house there, but I'm not sure how often she visits. I saw the Crown Jewels, the National Armament, and lots of history. I also had tea and scones at the restaurant there...
I had no problems getting back on Saturday. It was much smoother than the trip out there. Back in Amiens, well...that's a story for another day.
A bientôt,
Stephen
Monday, October 29, 2007
My Facebook albums
Just thought you'd like to see some of my photos! Now that I don't have that crazy firewall to deal with, I uploaded one or two hundred pics this afternoon!
http://bsu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2144339&l=28211&id=20714806 First impressions
http://bsu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2152398&l=7072a&id=20714806 The cathedral
http://bsu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2154975&l=acb65&id=20714806 Bike trip to Naours
http://bsu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2154983&l=05f0d&id=20714806 Les hortillonages
http://bsu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2154995&l=f53f2&id=20714806 Amiens things
http://bsu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2155002&l=68c8e&id=20714806 Pastafest
http://bsu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2155006&l=dc494&id=20714806 Trip to...Amiens
http://bsu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2155009&l=6a088&id=20714806 London (first album)
http://bsu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2155010&l=ec132&id=20714806 The game
The last four albums have all the photos, but they aren't captioned and people aren't tagged in them. I'll take care of that in the next couple days.
Enjoy!
Stephen
http://bsu.facebook.com/album
http://bsu.facebook.com/album
http://bsu.facebook.com/album
http://bsu.facebook.com/album
http://bsu.facebook.com/album
http://bsu.facebook.com/album
http://bsu.facebook.com/album
http://bsu.facebook.com/album
http://bsu.facebook.com/album
The last four albums have all the photos, but they aren't captioned and people aren't tagged in them. I'll take care of that in the next couple days.
Enjoy!
Stephen
Vacances
Well, it's time for another update! So much has happened in the past week! I'm writing this in London, where I have a much better Internet connection, so I can use Skype now. More on that later...
If you've been watching the news, you probably saw that France had some pretty bad strikes going on in the transportation industry. I wanted to go to Paris a week ago Thursday, and I couldn't because everything in the country was shut down. That was the 'official' date of the strike, but on Saturday when I tried to go to Abbeville (the second largest city in Picardie), we were told that there were no trains coming back to Amiens because of the strike. But that day still was fun. We went to a little plant garden and a market in town and ended up at a café (my first time at one). I also stopped inside a pastry shop and saw some incredible French food (and bought some, too). It was a good day to see a little more of the city. That night, I went with some British and German friends to watch the World Cup final. It was not very exciting. Our football is much more exciting than soccer and rugby. Most of the time.
I had a growing experience in class last week. In my English to French translation class (which is much much harder than the other way around), all we do every week is translate. The prof calls on a student who gets to go up in front of the class, read the paragraph in English, propose a translation in French, and then work through it until we end up with a good final draft. Tuesday, that student was me. There were a couple other people that did different paragraphs, but mine was the longest, and I was in front of this class of 40 or 50 students for at least 20 minutes. It was really difficult, but I was able to talk to the professor and correct my mistakes without getting too embarrassed. There was only one time when she said "Ca ne veut dire rien en français"--"That doesn't mean anything in French." I was pretty close most of the time.
I decided that I was going to the All Saints' holiday in London. Getting here was a horrible experience. After I bought the train tickets in Amiens, I realized that I didn't have my passport. So I had to run back to my room and get it, and I missed my train. Getting from Amiens to Lille wasn't a problem. My ticket was good for all day. But from Lille I was taking the Eurostar. All of those tickets are non-exchangeable, non-refundable. I decided that I was going to go ahead and try to go, although I was expecting to have to buy another ticket. I really didn't have another choice since I'd already shelled out a lot, buying round-trip tickets. So I went to Lille. (On a side note, I ran into three of the American girls in the station. They also were taking a train to Lille on the way to Brussels.) When I was ten minutes away from the Lille station I looked at the notes I had written and saw that the last train was leaving in ten minutes. I was pretty mad, because the helpful guy at the counter at the Amiens station had told me that I'd have enough time to make the next London train. And at Lille, there are two stations. The international one is 400 meters away from the one I was arriving at. So I ran over, looked at the terminal, and (praise the Lord) I saw that there were more Eurostar trains that day. I went to the ticket office, and told an agent there my predicament, and he said, no, there's no way to exchange these tickets. He looked at other trains, and there was only one train left that day that wasn't sold out, which cost 50 Euros more than the ticket I had already bought. I just asked, "isn't there anything I can do?" and he said, "well, tell me your story..." So I told him what had happened that morning and he went and made a phone call. He came back, saying, "we never ever do this, but..." and he stamped my missed train ticket, and didn't charge me a thing to go on the other train. Let me tell you, I've never experienced relief like that before.
I got to London, and took a cab over to Tony's place. I'm staying with a friend of my uncle Mike's. Tony has been incredibly helpful so far. He showed me how the Underground works and gave me advice and probably the coolest thing about him is that he's a football fan! He's originally from Detroit, and he is still very much attached to the NFL after seven years in London. Finally, someone I can talk to about football! Oh yeah, he also got me a ticket to the game in London yesterday!! For those of you who don't watch ESPN, the first ever NFL game played outside of North America just took place at the brand new Wembley Stadium, in front of a sellout crowd. Probably half of the crowd was Americans, but there were plenty of European fans, and still more people who didn't have any idea what was going on. I helped explain the game to some of Tony's British friends. It was an experience.
London is great. I've heard a lot of languages, but it has been a huge relief to hear so much English, and to not feel guilty when I speak in English! I guess I needed this vacation. The weather here was terrible the first couple days, but today is sunny and in the 60's (Fahrenheit, of course).
I've already done some walking around and seen some great things, including St. Paul's Cathedral, the Wellington Arch, and Buckingham Palace, and I finally have some things planned out to do. When I finish writing this, I'm going to take a trip to the London Museum. And it looks like I've finished writing this now.
A bientot!
Stephen
If you've been watching the news, you probably saw that France had some pretty bad strikes going on in the transportation industry. I wanted to go to Paris a week ago Thursday, and I couldn't because everything in the country was shut down. That was the 'official' date of the strike, but on Saturday when I tried to go to Abbeville (the second largest city in Picardie), we were told that there were no trains coming back to Amiens because of the strike. But that day still was fun. We went to a little plant garden and a market in town and ended up at a café (my first time at one). I also stopped inside a pastry shop and saw some incredible French food (and bought some, too). It was a good day to see a little more of the city. That night, I went with some British and German friends to watch the World Cup final. It was not very exciting. Our football is much more exciting than soccer and rugby. Most of the time.
I had a growing experience in class last week. In my English to French translation class (which is much much harder than the other way around), all we do every week is translate. The prof calls on a student who gets to go up in front of the class, read the paragraph in English, propose a translation in French, and then work through it until we end up with a good final draft. Tuesday, that student was me. There were a couple other people that did different paragraphs, but mine was the longest, and I was in front of this class of 40 or 50 students for at least 20 minutes. It was really difficult, but I was able to talk to the professor and correct my mistakes without getting too embarrassed. There was only one time when she said "Ca ne veut dire rien en français"--"That doesn't mean anything in French." I was pretty close most of the time.
I decided that I was going to the All Saints' holiday in London. Getting here was a horrible experience. After I bought the train tickets in Amiens, I realized that I didn't have my passport. So I had to run back to my room and get it, and I missed my train. Getting from Amiens to Lille wasn't a problem. My ticket was good for all day. But from Lille I was taking the Eurostar. All of those tickets are non-exchangeable, non-refundable. I decided that I was going to go ahead and try to go, although I was expecting to have to buy another ticket. I really didn't have another choice since I'd already shelled out a lot, buying round-trip tickets. So I went to Lille. (On a side note, I ran into three of the American girls in the station. They also were taking a train to Lille on the way to Brussels.) When I was ten minutes away from the Lille station I looked at the notes I had written and saw that the last train was leaving in ten minutes. I was pretty mad, because the helpful guy at the counter at the Amiens station had told me that I'd have enough time to make the next London train. And at Lille, there are two stations. The international one is 400 meters away from the one I was arriving at. So I ran over, looked at the terminal, and (praise the Lord) I saw that there were more Eurostar trains that day. I went to the ticket office, and told an agent there my predicament, and he said, no, there's no way to exchange these tickets. He looked at other trains, and there was only one train left that day that wasn't sold out, which cost 50 Euros more than the ticket I had already bought. I just asked, "isn't there anything I can do?" and he said, "well, tell me your story..." So I told him what had happened that morning and he went and made a phone call. He came back, saying, "we never ever do this, but..." and he stamped my missed train ticket, and didn't charge me a thing to go on the other train. Let me tell you, I've never experienced relief like that before.
I got to London, and took a cab over to Tony's place. I'm staying with a friend of my uncle Mike's. Tony has been incredibly helpful so far. He showed me how the Underground works and gave me advice and probably the coolest thing about him is that he's a football fan! He's originally from Detroit, and he is still very much attached to the NFL after seven years in London. Finally, someone I can talk to about football! Oh yeah, he also got me a ticket to the game in London yesterday!! For those of you who don't watch ESPN, the first ever NFL game played outside of North America just took place at the brand new Wembley Stadium, in front of a sellout crowd. Probably half of the crowd was Americans, but there were plenty of European fans, and still more people who didn't have any idea what was going on. I helped explain the game to some of Tony's British friends. It was an experience.
London is great. I've heard a lot of languages, but it has been a huge relief to hear so much English, and to not feel guilty when I speak in English! I guess I needed this vacation. The weather here was terrible the first couple days, but today is sunny and in the 60's (Fahrenheit, of course).
I've already done some walking around and seen some great things, including St. Paul's Cathedral, the Wellington Arch, and Buckingham Palace, and I finally have some things planned out to do. When I finish writing this, I'm going to take a trip to the London Museum. And it looks like I've finished writing this now.
A bientot!
Stephen
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Octobre Part 2
Hey again,
My last update took us to Friday, leaving you to wonder what happened to me over the weekend. Well, here's the rest of the story...
Friday, before I went to my first French-as-a-foreign-language language class (as opposed to FAAFL culture) I saw an ominous notice taped to the wall in the hallway on my floor. I found out that Skype doesn't work here because they're intentionally blocking it; it's a "security threat." It's incredibly frustrating because I had this great way to communicate for free, I bought a mic and a camera, and it only lasted a week or two. Skype is the only thing that has worked reliably here, besides my cell phone, which costs people calling me 20 cents a minute. The pay phones just don't work.
I talked to Emily that afternoon and found out a few more things. The kitchens in this building are now closed after 4:30; you have to go to another building and borrow the key if you want to cook dinner. This is because people came from the other wing, which isn't completely finished, and used our kitchen, and they left two small bags of trash plus two wine bottles. It's a punishment, I think. So now the 150-plus residents here have to take an extra 10 or 15 minutes every time we want to eat dinner. Also, the kitchens are the only common areas in the building. Last week, a security guard was walking the halls and yelling at people who were outside of their rooms after 11:00. The rooms are just too small to accommodate more than four or five people, so there really was nothing we could do. I think that guard was transferred to a different building, though; there were a few complaints after he threatened, manhandled, and sexually harassed students while he was drunk on the job.
Things got better, though. Friday night, some of the exchange students were commiserating over the state of things, and once again it helps to have people going through the same thing. There really is no one here helping the exchange students. Questions go unanswered, problems remain unsolved, things go from bad to worse without any sort of administration working on our behalf. It's just so different from what I'm used to. In the U.S., it's so easy to get help when you need it, almost no matter where you are or what you're doing. Emily offered a really helpful perspective that night. She said in a book she's reading (the best book written about French culture) it was described like this: If we went to South America or Africa or China and everything was radically different, we could accept it. We would adapt. But because this is France, we expect things. We expect that, because it's a developed country, it's going to be like ours, but it's not. There are some things we just don't understand. The Polish students and the Germans and the Portuguese all feel the same way. And that bothers us. It helped to hear it from that viewpoint. I'm coming to grips with it.
Saturday was the bike ride to Naours. I went with seven other students. The way there wasn't that much fun, because the weather was bad and we weren't exactly going at a leisurely pace, so we got pretty spread out. It took a little over 2 hours to get there. When we arrived at the park/village thing, we ate lunch and waited for their lunch break to end (people work 5 hours a day in France. Literally.). We then took a tour of the underground city of Naours. I didn't really understand what was going on, but I gathered that it was a refuge during World War II and up to 2600 people lived there at one time. There wasn't a lot to see besides an occasional giant sculpture, but it was a pretty impressive setup they had. There was a lot. After the underground part, the tour progressed into a history of various Picardy occupations. After that, we visited the windmills. I'm not really sure how the three things were connected (there also was miniature golf on the property), but it was a nice little park. Actually, going up in one of the windmills was about my favorite part. The sky had totally cleared up by that point, and I could see miles of rolling French countryside. It was beautiful; I had a "I can't believe I'm in France" moment. On the way back, I had a similar moment while we were resting. I just looked out across fields, eating a baguette and taking it all in. When we got back, we ate a snack at the park in Amiens. As we were leaving, a kid checked out the bike I had rented (I think he had one from the same place) and challenged me to a race around the lake. We were leaving, I was tired from riding for almost 5 hours, and--oh yeah-- the kid was about 12, so I turned him down.
One more thing. Last night, right before I wrote my e-mail, I had an interesting experience. The day before (Monday), a French student came here yesterday with something he needed to translate into English. I told him I could help, but if he wanted it done completely, he'd need to find someone else. He said he understood and went his way. Then Tuesday night, he came back to my room with a French girl (who he had just met) who knows a little English. We looked at the essay he wanted translated, and we had barely done anything after half an hour because the grammar in the first paragraph was so convoluted. So we gave up, and he started singing songs he knew in English and the French students (he had another friend with him) talked to each other a mile a minute as I tried to keep up. It was really strange. I guess it's never a dull moment in Amiens.
A bientôt,
Stephen
My last update took us to Friday, leaving you to wonder what happened to me over the weekend. Well, here's the rest of the story...
Friday, before I went to my first French-as-a-foreign-language language class (as opposed to FAAFL culture) I saw an ominous notice taped to the wall in the hallway on my floor. I found out that Skype doesn't work here because they're intentionally blocking it; it's a "security threat." It's incredibly frustrating because I had this great way to communicate for free, I bought a mic and a camera, and it only lasted a week or two. Skype is the only thing that has worked reliably here, besides my cell phone, which costs people calling me 20 cents a minute. The pay phones just don't work.
I talked to Emily that afternoon and found out a few more things. The kitchens in this building are now closed after 4:30; you have to go to another building and borrow the key if you want to cook dinner. This is because people came from the other wing, which isn't completely finished, and used our kitchen, and they left two small bags of trash plus two wine bottles. It's a punishment, I think. So now the 150-plus residents here have to take an extra 10 or 15 minutes every time we want to eat dinner. Also, the kitchens are the only common areas in the building. Last week, a security guard was walking the halls and yelling at people who were outside of their rooms after 11:00. The rooms are just too small to accommodate more than four or five people, so there really was nothing we could do. I think that guard was transferred to a different building, though; there were a few complaints after he threatened, manhandled, and sexually harassed students while he was drunk on the job.
Things got better, though. Friday night, some of the exchange students were commiserating over the state of things, and once again it helps to have people going through the same thing. There really is no one here helping the exchange students. Questions go unanswered, problems remain unsolved, things go from bad to worse without any sort of administration working on our behalf. It's just so different from what I'm used to. In the U.S., it's so easy to get help when you need it, almost no matter where you are or what you're doing. Emily offered a really helpful perspective that night. She said in a book she's reading (the best book written about French culture) it was described like this: If we went to South America or Africa or China and everything was radically different, we could accept it. We would adapt. But because this is France, we expect things. We expect that, because it's a developed country, it's going to be like ours, but it's not. There are some things we just don't understand. The Polish students and the Germans and the Portuguese all feel the same way. And that bothers us. It helped to hear it from that viewpoint. I'm coming to grips with it.
Saturday was the bike ride to Naours. I went with seven other students. The way there wasn't that much fun, because the weather was bad and we weren't exactly going at a leisurely pace, so we got pretty spread out. It took a little over 2 hours to get there. When we arrived at the park/village thing, we ate lunch and waited for their lunch break to end (people work 5 hours a day in France. Literally.). We then took a tour of the underground city of Naours. I didn't really understand what was going on, but I gathered that it was a refuge during World War II and up to 2600 people lived there at one time. There wasn't a lot to see besides an occasional giant sculpture, but it was a pretty impressive setup they had. There was a lot. After the underground part, the tour progressed into a history of various Picardy occupations. After that, we visited the windmills. I'm not really sure how the three things were connected (there also was miniature golf on the property), but it was a nice little park. Actually, going up in one of the windmills was about my favorite part. The sky had totally cleared up by that point, and I could see miles of rolling French countryside. It was beautiful; I had a "I can't believe I'm in France" moment. On the way back, I had a similar moment while we were resting. I just looked out across fields, eating a baguette and taking it all in. When we got back, we ate a snack at the park in Amiens. As we were leaving, a kid checked out the bike I had rented (I think he had one from the same place) and challenged me to a race around the lake. We were leaving, I was tired from riding for almost 5 hours, and--oh yeah-- the kid was about 12, so I turned him down.
One more thing. Last night, right before I wrote my e-mail, I had an interesting experience. The day before (Monday), a French student came here yesterday with something he needed to translate into English. I told him I could help, but if he wanted it done completely, he'd need to find someone else. He said he understood and went his way. Then Tuesday night, he came back to my room with a French girl (who he had just met) who knows a little English. We looked at the essay he wanted translated, and we had barely done anything after half an hour because the grammar in the first paragraph was so convoluted. So we gave up, and he started singing songs he knew in English and the French students (he had another friend with him) talked to each other a mile a minute as I tried to keep up. It was really strange. I guess it's never a dull moment in Amiens.
A bientôt,
Stephen
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