la vie française....

This weekend I have decided to make American-style pancakes for all my friends. I've been wanting to for a long time, but I had to wait til my mom gave me some Baking Powder... it just doesn't exist here. Neither does buttermilk (after type "Buttermilk in France" I realised a lot of americans have given up looking and have instead added vinegar to milk... I will try using creme fraiche.)

So I have decided to make a "wish this country had this" list. Things I love but must live without this year:


1. Sandwiches to go… they do make lots “à emporter” but nobody seems to actually eat them on the go.
2. Pepperoni Pizza! (They’re not even at Pizza Hut here)
3. Fresh Skim Milk
4. Pumpkin Pie
5. Goldfish crakers
6. Shrimp that don't come with the legs and heads.
7. Crispy Bacon
8. Buttermilk
9. Baking Powder
10. Sour Cream (especially for our Mexican food nights, which are VERY exotic here… most Europeans have never heard of a burrito.)
11. And most importantly… customer service. Not a part of the French vocabulary.



Hmmm… why does my entire list concern the supermarket? Speaking of which... here are some picture of my favorite grocery store: AUCHAN! I have spent too many hours here... I took these pics back in October, can't believe it's taken me this long to post them.

( Auchan. CLICK HERE! )


Eggs aren't refrigerated, milk isn't refrigerated... There are plain-clothes supermarket workers acting as normal customers, then when they see you looking at a product, they start pushing it and trying to sell it! Crazy french people yell at passerbys about how great their products are (like in a real market.) Grocery shopping is quite the experience.

The weekend before last I went to Nantes for the day... Left at 8am and got back at 10pm. Kathrin and I had the chance to see everything that was in her guidebook! We visited the castles, parcs, and even the old LU factory that is now a modern art exhibit. We went to a very fancy restaurant and ended up not ordering anything... embarassing!

Then this weekend for easter I went with Rachel and Helen to visit our friend Jo in Gueret, a small village (pop 15000) in the middle of the French countryside. we had fun just walking around visiting, also saw Limoges. It snowed too! I was apparently an expert at snowball fights... it was really lots of fun.

I have been going to a lot of movies rercently, and hanging out with my french friends more. I am just in a generally really good mood.
Oh yeah, on Monday I am goign to Orleans to get my residency permit. That's right, I still don't have it. By the time I do it will be time to leave France!!!

Now I am trying to get all kinds of essays and homework done. I feel good about what I've already achieved since I'm ahead in some classes, but I would love to get all my essays done before Ian comes. That means one week to write three essays (just the rough drafts) then I will finish them the week after Ian leaves. We are going to spend a few days in Paris, a week in Tunisia, then come back to Tours for another week. I am VERY excited!

I just got back on wednesday from two weeks in lovely Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where my parents just recently bought a condo. My mom, my dad, my sister, my grandmother and my uncle were all there, and we visited lots of things, did boat tours, ate lots of seafood and took in lots of sun.

Now I am back in Tours already, and have been extremely busy trying to organize my time. I have millions of little administration-type things to do, I have to try and not only catch up, but get ahead (my boyfriend is coming to visit in April and I want to get all my work done before he comes) but I am also being very "active" culturally: I visited the "musee de compagnonage" and saw lots of artisan masterpieces, I went on a walking tour of Tours, I am going to see a French movie tomorrow and a play later in the week, and last night my floor ordered Chinese for a big feast.
I feel like the amount of e-mails I have to send out never gets smaller, and I keep getting mail from different people who are missing "documents" from my "portfolio" and need a picture, a letter, proof of residence, etc. etc! By the time I work it all out I will be back in Canada!!!

Anyway, I am having a blast, still learning lots about Tours and France, and now I have to go write an essay! A plus!

The french seem to have a lot of holidays lately that don't involve much more than eating. Since Christmas, there has been Epiphany, where we eat a "galette des rois" (king cake) that has a bean in one of the slices. The youngest person has to sit under the table and as someone cuts up the cake, the youngest designates who gets which slice. Whoever gets the bean in their slices becomes king (or queen) and has to choose another to be their queen (or king.) We've done it three time already in residence, and today at the market the man we bought pattisseries from gave us a free big galette when we bought a small one.
Then there is chandeleur, where you make crepes. None of the french people seem to know what it's really about besides eating crepes.
And of course Mardi Gras. Because I'm on the residence council, I helped organize a party friday night, and it was lots of fun! I was worried not many people would show up because 1) we didn't advertise it very well and 2) it's on a weekend, and the vast majority of french people go home to their parent's house on the weekend. But it turned out to be great, we played music that some people danced to, lots of people got dressed up (I found a cheap mask the day of at 40 cents) and we played board games til 4 in the morning.

Yesterday I went to visit Blois, a town not too far away that has a gorgeous castle. At the last minute, Elisa, a friend of ours who lives near Blois, decided she could drop us off on the way there. It was an absolutely beautiful drive there! The weather has been fantastic this weekend, which was nice after a week of torrential rain. Blois was so pretty, we had a picnic lunch by the river and spent the afternoon visiting the castle.

Today I woke up early and Helen and I went down to the Sunday market, we bought roast chicken and fresh vegetables for tonight to have before the galettes.

I have a lot of homework to do now. The professors expect us to spend the vacations doing our work, but because I am going to Florida to spend time with my family in our new condo, I need to work ahead and get it all done beforehand!

Our weekend in Bordeaux was a blast, I am really glad I did it... I will have to do more short trips like this!
Helen and I left Friday morning and checked into our hostel, called "Hotel Studio." It was in an old building but the rooms were clean and there was a TV in the room that we used a lot (it was cold at night so we went back to our room to watch the travel channel before bed, then woke up early in the morning.) Although I was very dispointed when the hotel clerk didn't show up for work on Sunday morning... We had already paid for breakfast, and waited outside in the cold for a while before realizing he just wasn't there....
Anyways, we did lots of amazing things in Bordeaux... Helen and I rented rollerblades and went to this nice modern boardwalk along the river and spent our first evening there. We tried lots of different restaurants (My favorite is by far Chez Edouard!)and Helen and I managed to book a vineyard tour on Saturday! Complete with tours of the chateaux, the caves and wine-tasting of course! I learned a LOT about wine that I never knew...
We also did a lot of self-guided walking tours thanks to Heritage Guides that we bought at the tourism office. The weather was amazing: we had lunch and dinner outside on the patios everyday!

I have lots of great pictures, here is the facebook album:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=89237&l=775f7&id=558830444

I would definetly go back, Bordeaux has lots to see and do!

We just had a Burrito night this week with some new American girls in the building from Alabama, and with a lot of British people. So there were 17 anglophones in the kitchen... maybe that's what scares everyone off! It's funny how exotic mexican food is to europeans, I had never realized!

In terms of classes, things aren't bad. I am doing children's litterature, linguistics, French lit, cinema, and even italian. Much to my dismay, the Sign Langauge class was full! I was heartbroken actually. It looked so great too, the prof would only speak with his hands but we still got the point: get out!

Helen and I found a little hidden square the other day, with a gorgeous little fountain called "Lover's Fountain." It even has a plaque with a legend on it. It just goes to show how much of Tours we still have to discover!

I am proud of how productive I've been: not only am I up to date in all of my classes in terms of readings, I am ahead in some of them. I am all packed and ready to go to Bordeaux, and am trying to figure out a rough itinerary with the rest of the people coming (we are 7 in all, but Helen and I are going for 3 nights wereas the others are going for only 1.)

I'll tell you all about it when I get back!

It is really getting warm out in tours: the bars and restaurants have set up chairs outside (probably also because of the new smoking ban) but we have all been sitting outside til 2am and it's still not too cold out at that time!
Because of my great schedule, and thanks to promotions I saw online for cheap train tickets, I am going to Bordeaux for the weekend! I am really excited. I don't know how many of my friends are coming, they have to plan differently because of their schedules...
I made Wonton Soup for the entire floor the other day, it was lots of fun for us to all make the dumplings together. I bought a cooking pot to put it in, but it was still too small! We made so much! I am really happy the French people interact with us much more now though. Some of them may come to Bordeaux.

I got lots of paperwork done for the semester and with Frederic Soreau for the UofC, hope everything is in order now.
I also went to a hockey game again the other night, and introduce more French people who had never been. It's strange being the only one who knows the rules!

so now i have been back in tours for a week.
i went back to canada for christmas break for a few weeks, it was great to be back and to see my friends and family! it went by really quickly. i didn't get to see as many people as i had hoped to unfortunately! but that's alright because i will be back eventually!
it's nice to know someone in paris too.. i stayed with olivier for a few days before flying to canada, and his mother is very hospitable! i tried lots of different things: rabbit, boudin blanc (a white sausage made with chicken traditionally eaten around the holidays), bar (one of the finest types of fish), and lots of great shrimp from madagascar (also the finest apparently). i saw "les vitrines des galleries lafayettes", a display that is different every year that the big department stores do for christmas, and just generally had a nice time relaxing and visiting my favorite sites after a stressful week of writing papers.
i had lots of big meals at home as well (probably too many) with my family and my boyfriend's family for chrismtas and new year's. who doesn't love the holidays?


but everything is back to normal now: i am eating at the university restaurant everyday... less than 3 euros for a HUGE meal, it's great!
trying to figure out a schedule is slightly worrying as an exchange student, because we don't sign up for classes, we just show up. but i have classes on tuesday, wednesday and thursday only this semester: 4-day weekend! i am looking VERY forward to taking my french sign language class. all my professors so far this week are very fun, happy people (contrasting those of last semester...) things are looking great!

helen and i met a finnish girl, emilia, while she was trying to move in, and showed her how to take the bus, then brought her to auchan to buy groceries. she is really sweet.
i am STILL feeling very tired and jet-lagged... but i know that will figure itself out soon!


.

I apologize for the lack of entries recently... Classes finally resumed (well some of them did.) The strike happened on the 9th of November, but since I was in Marseilles for reading week, the last class I went to was on October 31st. Then the week of December 10th I had 2 classes, and then the semester ended. (Yes only two classes... in the other classes, my profs didn't show up!)
Now it is hitting hard, as I have to write numerous end-term papers [which each count for either 50% or 100% of my grade] and I DID have exams to study for. To add to the stress of exam week, they decided to push the exam dates back due to the strike. Then they pushed them back again. I e-mailed my prof to make sure the exam dates were set, and he replied that they were. Then when I went to class he announced that they had changed again, but not before I had already booked my flight back home to Calgary for Christmas. So basically I will be in Canada during the new and improved exam week. To get my grade, I will now have to pass my exams in May instead. Boy am I looking forward to that...
But it's okay, because I am going home for the holidays! It will be nice to see family and friends again and to be back in a familiar place. I have already packed my bag (25 kilos of presents!) and am enjoying things like window shopping for gifts, hot spiced wine at the christmas market, chocolate log for dessert, stuffed turkey at the university restaurant... it is very festive over here! Although since I am leaving from Tours in two days, I need to go finish my last essay...
I will try and post pictures of my Parisian adventures and everything else! I hope I find the time!

Jacinthe and I had an amazing time in Barcelona!
I spent my frist day and a half alone, I visited the Boqueria market, the museum of contemporary art and the gothic quarter. Jacinthe and I went to the Monserat Monastery and saw most of Antonio Gaudi's work through the city...

My pictures are kind of messed up, but here is most of them... I will post the rest in another post!

I need to go back to Barcelona in 45 years when they (hopefully) finish the Sagrada Familia Temple and do things I didn't get to do (Montluic, see inside the Casa Bastilla, etc.)

( pictures of barcelona! )

I find this student strike to be an amazing phenomenon. The day I get back from Marseilles, my friends tell me that the school has been barricaded or "bloqued" by tables and chairs, and that all classes have been canceled because the students are on strike. They are opposing a law that will do man things to the universities (namely privatization and increasing tuition fees by a lot.) We saw manifestations in the streets of Tours, apparently they made it to the train station and had it shut down.
I went to the General Assembly, which was surprisingly well organized and had over 1000 people there. Some students put themselves in charge, and ask if this was okay. They then told us the order of the meeting, and the next HOUR was spent discussing the order, because some people weren't happy with it. In the end nothing was changed and they finally moved on. The way it works is there is the "Tour de Role" where everyone raises their hand to speak and has a fair chance to be heard. It is very interesting and it was a good chance to hear both sides of the debate. Every week they vote for whether they want to continue blocking the school or not. After I get back from barcelona, it will have been a month that I haven't had classes.


Also, to really get there point across, everyone is going on strike at the same time. The train workers have been on strike for a few days no, and will probably still be on strike when I try to take the train to Paris (it's going to be a nightmare!) Also on strike: public service workers, fishermen, teachers, and apparently even air traffic control. The worst is the school for me, obviously. none of the teachers have e-mailed us, so it's really hard to tell what's going on. All the information we have is by word of mouth, and sometimes you hear contradicting information! It is quite frustrating. I wanted to go to Barcelona earlier because of the student strike, but can't because of the train strike...

( photographic evidence )

So I just spent a week at my grandmother's place, which is about a 2 hour bus-ride from Marseille.
We went to buy a croissant everyday from the bakery (2 minute walk from the front door.) We went to several markets and restaurants... We went to the "lotto" which is basically bingo, and we won a huge gift basket with wine, cheese, cake, bread, coffee, fruit... and a dead pheasant. It was so nice out, we had lunch outside. I am definitely gonna go back a few times! Probably where I will end up spending Christmas!

Here are some picture, they are out of order and not yet captionned (same goes for my previous posts, sorry!) I will try and fix it soon.

( Read more... )

Hello!

Marseille was lots of fun. We had extremely fresh seafood at a restaurant by the port (oysters, clams, "sea escargot", shrimp, lobster, etc.) My mother's cup of tea cost 3 euros, while my grandmother's glass of white wine cost only 1.50. Funny stuff. We only stayed one night, since the train/bus schedule didn't correspond on the same day. We went on a boat tour in the morning, I loved it. I took about 700 pictures during! There were lots of photo ops. Here is only 35 of them :)

( Marseille pictures!! )

This afternoon my mother, grandmother and I went on an afternoon-long visit of two castles (Chenonceau and Amboise) as well as the Clos-Luce, which is the home where Leonardo da Vinci spent his last years. It was really great, a little pricey but fun (free wine tasting at the end!) Then we went to the restaurant Hippopotamus.
I am looking forward to Marseille, we are leaving on Thursday early afternoon and are spending one night there before continuing on to my grandmother's village!

Pictures of the Chateaux:

( castles! )

My mother and gradmother have been herre in Tours for a few days, and we saw a lot. They visited all of the major sites in Tours while I was in class, and we had a couple crepes and dinners out as well...

Sunday we discoevered this market that I loved and want to go back to every week. It was way busier than the other markets here that I've been to.


Pictures of their visit here:

( click! )

The British girls and I have been basically speaking to each other only in English, and sometimes I get really afraid that we are alienating ourselves from the rest of the people on our floor. I really do make an effort to try and chat them up in French! Most of them are actually studying English at the university, and they are finally starting to open up to us. Last night we all stayed in the kitchen til 11pm, then moved to my room and played UNO til 2am, it was lots of fun. Most French students go home to their parents' house every single weekend, so those of us that can't or don't decided to have a pizza party tonight! We are going to try and make a tradition out of it.

I am also going to meet my mother at the train station tonight, I hope she knows I am coming!!!

there is a flower/clothes market every wednesday downtown, which i decided to stroll through yesterday.
it looks like the pictures are small, finally.... except now they seem too small :(
you can click on them, they will open a new page with a bigger version of the picture.

( click here for flower market, etc. )

Monday Night there was a little "Pot D'Acceuil" at the town hall, some pople got dressed up expecting to meet the mayor... I think they got the French words for town hall "Mairie" and mayor "Maire" mixed up though, because he wasn't there, and it was a little disorganized (like most of the little pot d'acceuils we have been to.) But we have now all been here for well over a month, so I don't think there will be as many. We went to a chinese restaurant afterwards and had fun there. We tried frog's legs!!! They really do taste like chicken!
When I went to the bank machine to get some money out, I discovered that I had completly forgotten my password. Instead of spitting my card out, the machine asked me to try again... I didn't know there was a maximum of three times. The ATM "captured" my card!! It was humourous. I have backup plans so I'm fine, and my bank should be sending me a new one within a week.

Tuesday Night Helen, Rachel and I went to see a play. It was AMAZING! The actors were really talented, and it was really inspiring. It was called "Je suis Allain..." Going to the theatre always makes me realize how much I love live theatre. We ended up buying these "Cultural Passports" that are only 6 euro and will get us into a lot of plays for free or discounted.

There is also a new "Franglais Club", where French students studying English have asked to meet some of us anglophones to chat in either language, and every week we switch language... it's lots of fun. I am desperate to meet more francophones.. One girl, Charlene, may be going on exchange to Calgary next year!

I finally had a productive day today and got a lot of things crossed off of my to do list (writing e-mails and letters, completely cleaned my room, etc.) I made myself dinner: pan-seared salmon with forked-mashed potatoes and mixed green salad. Who says you need an oven to eat well? All you need is a little imagination... We went to an irish pub to watch the rugby match. The square was deserted (as opposed to when France was still playing) but the pub itself was packed and everyone was standing around the TV. Thankfully we only got there halfway through the game so we didn't stand very long... we just had some nutella crepes and had fun taking the night bus home. I am still meeting new people everyday, the French students on my floor are finally starting to socialize a bit more, and I feel more comfortable now because of it!
Thursday night we had some people come visit us in our residence (I live in Saint Symphorien, which is a 20 minute walk away from downtown. Most of the British Exchange students live in the hostel which is only 2 mins away from downtown.) So for once we were the hosts, and we had a wonderful burrito and chocolate fondue night!

No big plans for tomorrow, just going to be a homework day. My mom and my grandmother are coming into Tours next Saturday, I can't wait to show them around. Then we are going back down to the south of France. I also have plans to go to Strasbourg and Barcelona in November, hurray!

This time I am going to be lazy and just post the link to my facebook album, since I just spent a few hours uploading everything to there. Follow the link to see pictures! Sorry if I already posted some.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=61842&l=9e304&id=558830444

Some are about the Tours hockey game I went to, which was surpringly fun. The next day we went to watch an England vs France rugby match in the centre of Tours. I was actually afraid when it started, we were a group of about 20 English speakers sitting in the middle of a crowd of 600 French, but when England one I was surprised by how many people came to shake our hands and congratulate us! Talk about good sportsmanship! I was impressed. Who says the French are impolite?? ;)

Then on Sunday we went with the International Centre to visit Chateau Chambord! I had a great time visiting, having a picnic lunch, using the uadioguides, taking lots of pictures... a few of us even rented a boat to steer around the moat for 40 minutes. It was lots of fun!

I'm also spending a lot of time on websites like Ryanair.com looking for cheap way to travel around Europe.... I can't wait to see Germany, Italy, Morocco... Really lookign forward to it.