Merry Christmas

A puppet show for children in Liège


The Grandparents


Dinner chez Eric and Marianne, my host Aunt and Uncle


Coraline, Marianne (my host-aunt) and myself, preparing the fuit salad


Christmas Eve table, complete with Racklette



Carolin(From Panama), Nicolas, Me, and Coraline

Jean-Pierre and Corinne(my host parents), Coraline, Carolin, et Moi.



Hello my dear friends and family, Monday, December 29, 2008

Merry Christmas! I’m back in Liège, Belgium with my host family for the holidays. Since September 6th I’ve been studying in Paris, which makes almost 4 months since I left home. I can’t believe the first semester here has almost come to an end. We have one more week of school after Christmas break, and then it’s the beginning of a new semester. New students will arrive to take part in the program, a second orientation for them will take place, and we’ll all choose our new classes for the spring.
Christmas here went by calmly. Christmas Eve we had Racklette, a feast of cheese and meat that you cook yourself on a little machine in the middle of the table. I've come to love the dish, ever since my stay in Belgium in 2005/6. The cheese is placed on little individual metal spatula-like things, which are then inserted into the machine and heated until the cheese is melted and bubbly. The meat is usually cooked on the grill on top of the machine. Once cooked, the meat and cheese are eaten on top of potatoes or bread, with other things like pickles and salad on the side. The dish is usually associated with ski, since it's fun to do but takes a long time to eat. Dinner was followed by a bûche de Noel, an icecream cake in the shape of a log.
My host brother, Nicolas, and his Panamanian wife came over for the evening, and after dinner we all opened presents until late at night. In Belgium, (and possibly in other parts of Europe as well) the presents are opened at night because the early morning stockings are replaced by a holiday that happens earlier in the year, called Saint Nicolas Day (December 6th). Christmas Eve we were 6 all together: my host parents, my host sister Coraline who is one year older than me and on her 3rd year of University, Nicolas (a year younger than me and in his first year of University), and his wife, Carolin. I've attached a couple photos from that night
Christmas day we all went over to my host uncle's house for a big lunch/dinner with the whole family. We ate deer and chestnuts, among other things, and then after dinner my host family and I went to go visit the great grandmother, who lives in an assisted living center. I hadn't, of course, seen her since I was last in Belgium, and she had no idea I was coming to visit. She recognized me right away however, and wanted to know all about what I was up to. She's 96 years old and has the most incredible memory. If her body weren't weak and bent over, I would never have thought she was older than 70!
Now that Christmas is over I'm finally starting to concentrate more on my homework. I really have not gotten very far. I've been spending most of my time reading comic books, walking around town, eating, and doing activities with Carolin, Nicolas' wife (who doesn't have any exams to do in January). I told myself I would finish this giant book on food and globalization while I was here, but so far I'm not even a third of the way through. I'm really going to have to bust my butt when I get back to Paris. My train leaves Tuesday at 7:49 in the morning, and it's not at all too soon, with all the work I have to do. It'll be sad to have to say goodbye to sleeping in, getting cooked for, watching movies, and having a constant supply of chocolate on hand though. That's one amazing thing about Belgium: it's the only country I've visited where the people are as crazy about chocolate as I am or more so. I'll have to bring some back to keep me going while I'm studying back in Paris.
Well, I should get back to work. Today I spent my morning downtown at la Batte, the big Sunday market in Liège. It was a beautiful morning. Since yesterday the clouds have left and the sun has come out, although with it came the cold. There's ice on the streets even at midday, with the sun shining like nothing else. I was pretty chilled by the time I got back to the house, but I think I can say I got my dose of vitamin D today.
Happy New Year and happy holidays to you all!
Love,

Rebecca

A few more pics

classes and other things

So another month has gone by. It's been getting very cold lately, and finally feels like winter. It snowed for the second time today. Thick, wet snowflakes that melt as soon as they touch the ground. It didn't snow for very long, but it was pretty while it lasted.
I should really write more often; it would make my blog posts a lot shorter and a lot easier to write. A lot has happened this month, but where do I start? I'll start with Thanksgiving, since that was the last big event.
Turkey day took place at an American restaurant in Paris, chosen by our program. Instead of starting the feast around 4pm, which would be traditional in the US, the program Europeanized the sacred meal and made the reservations for 7:30. The food, however, was very traditional: salad with corn, unripened tomatoes and a sweet vinaigrette, soggy green beans, dry turkey breast, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and pumpkin pie for dessert. It wasn't the meal I had hoped for, but the the party was fun anyway. There was live, cheesy American music performed by a French couple, and lots of wine to go around. Because it was an American holiday, the leaders of our program decided we should speak English instead of French, and so for the first time I got to hear the chief of the program, Monique Middleton, speak English in her thick French accent. There was an after party held by some of the students later, but I didn't think I could take any more wine...
Speaking of wine, mid-november was the festival of the Beaujolais Nouveau, the very first tasting of this year's wine. Light and fruity, this wine was the occaision for many a restaurant to put on large tastings. Our program took us to a tiny restaurant called the "Verre Volé" in the 10th district, that had been temporarily turned into a wine bar. It was jam-packed with people, but was well worth the trip because the wine and the hors-d'oeuvres served with it were amazing!
School's been going well. I really spend most of my time in art studios, and spend very little time doing homework for my academic classes. All academic classes in the Sarah Lawrence program have student-teacher conferences every other week where one can ask questions about the class and do an extra project on the side. In French class, my project has been to read Tintin books, and then write a two-page analysis on each. It's really just an excuse to reread Tintin's adventures and get credit for it, but the professor doesn't seem to care so long as I'm practicing my French.
Multicultural France class has been loads of fun lately. As part of the class each student has been giving a 20 oral presentation on the subject they are studying alongside the class's theme of immigration. My subject was food and globalization, and since I couldn't stand the idea of just standing and talking at the class in my bad French for 20 min., I went out and bought exotic salad ingredients and put together the salad during my presentation. The professor, a fantastic Congolese man and a well-known figure in France, listened patiently as I talked, and then excitedly tossed the salad for me as soon as it was ready. He wasn't shocked, as most Fench teachers would be that I brought food into the classroom, but on the contrary dug-into the salad as soon as he could and proceded to serve the rest of the class. I think he was glad to have something to keep him awake while we talked. At the end of class he suggested we bring wine to the next presentation! And we did...but that's another story.
Christmas break starts on December 20th an goes until January 4th. I can't wait. I'll be spending x-mas with my host family in Liege, Belgium, from when I spent my senior year there in high school. I am very excited to see them and the city after 2 1/2 years. Then, on December 30th I'm heading back to Paris to see the new-year's celebrations and finish my end-of-semester homework.
Sending warm wishes from Paris!
Love,

Rebecca

pics

It's cold outside

I’m sitting, looking out my window at Mexico. It really is an unfortunate looking building. My room is situated right in front of it, and from my window I can only see one side of the building, giving me the impression that the Fondation de Mexico is nothing more than an ugly tower instead of the long apartment building that it is. For weeks I thought the poor Mexicans were limited to this mini version of a sky-scraper, until one day I happened to walk by it and look up to see a whole lot of building that I had never known existed.
Beside Mexico, the trees are yellow-brown, as most have already lost their leaves. The weather has finally turned cold for what seems like for good. Out on the streets, Paris is on strike once again. Every other week, at least one group of workers from a variety of jobs in Paris decides that it is time to demonstrate their rights to good pay and benefits, for France is always in a state of revolution. The most noticeable strikes are those of the transportation workers, who simply stop running the metro, RER, bus, or tram, making these modes of transportation extremely unreliable at times. Boulevard Montparnasse, the large street off of which Reid Hall is situated, is a popular spot for demonstration. Today was the second time I’ve seen people parading down it, chanting, singing, and setting off fireworks that make a loud Boom! I don’t know what it was all about this time, but a couple weeks ago it was the hospital workers who were on strike. They even had a bunch of speakers that played dance music out into the streets.
The last couple of weeks have been very busy. All of a sudden I find myself with homework to do, which hasn’t been the case in quite awhile. I spent all of Tuesday researching the topic for a class presentation on immigration’s influence on French cuisine. Since class was cancelled, (it was Armistice Day) I had no reason to leave my room, so I just studied all day until around 5 o-clock, when I started going crazy and left the building to get some fresh air. I took the metro to the Luxembourg gardens and then walked to Notre Dame. The 6pm mass had just started when I got there, so I went in and sat down. It was beautiful. The heavy chords of organ music blended with the angelic voice of a young boy who sang between the bits of the mass that were chanted by the priest. The church was peaceful, and the people all seemed to be in good spirits. I think I’ll go back again soon.
Speaking of churches, I finally went to see the Sacré Coeur, that pretty white church on top of a hill in Paris that is always pictured on postcards. I had visited the last time I came to Paris, back in 2006, but I hadn’t been back since. It was lovely, as always, but even more stunning was the view from the hill. I was amazed at how far Paris stretched into the distance, and was excited to be able to point out several monuments from where I was. The area around Sacré Coeur (Montmartre) is very touristy. It used to be the home of most of Paris’ artists, although now it is much too expensive for most artists to live there, let alone get a studio there. I took a few pictures.
At the big commercial shopping center, Galerie Lafayette, they’ve already put up lights and decorations for Christmas. It’s very pretty. It reminded me how close Thanksgiving is, and how I won’t be spending it with family this year. Our program was thoughtful enough to make plans for us to eat at a special restaurant the night of Thanksgiving, although it just won’t be the same… Halloween wasn't really the same either. There was a Halloween dance down in the basement of the Fondation, and some shops put up decorations, but other than that the French don't really celebrate the holliday. On November 1st, however, they all go and visit their ancestors and loved ones that lie in the graveyard, and put flowers on their graves. The graveyards suddenly become bright with color and busy with visitors.
Oh, and I almost forgot about the elections! Everyone in France is very happy with the results, as you can imagine. If France could have voted in our election, they would have, and they probably would have had a higher voter turn out than we did too. The night of the elections I went to a Jazz club and then stayed up until 3 in the morning watching the news reports on a laptop computer with my Sarah Lawrence friends. For the entire week afterwards, people in both of my art classes congratulated me on Obama’s election, and burst out with the occasional “Yes we can!”. I was very touched. I don’t want to imagine how I would have been treated as an American if McCain had won. Obama’s face covered at least 10 pages in Le Monde that Wednesday, as well as in every other newspaper that came out that day. The excitement still hasn’t really died down, either. Today I read an article about a black man running for some position in French government, and above his picture was the phrase, “yes we can!”
I miss you and love you all. Happy November from Paris!

Se sont les vacances

My, how I miss you all.
This week is fall break for the Sarah Lawrence Program. For me, it means little more than not having to go to French class and my Multicultural France Seminar. The art studios are still open, so I still have to go put in my hours as usual. It will be nice though, to focus only on art for once.
Even though I have oogles of free time, I still find it hard to make myself get out of my room and explore the city. There's just so much to see and visit that I don't really know where to start. It's so easy to get into a pattern of just going to the same places every week: The Cité, Reid Hall, the art studios, and back to the Cité again.
This weekend, I did managed to get out and about a little though. Saturday I went to the Louvre with my SLC buddies and Katie from Mills. It was a nice, light visit of the Louvre since we were only there for a couple of hours, and it was very enjoyable because none of us had any expectations to see the whole thing. As students we all have year-long passes to the Louvre, so we can go there whenever we want, however many times we want. It's amazing how much less stressfull the Louvre becomes when it's free! This time we sort of wandered into the ancient Egyptian collection. We gawked at painted sarcophogi, ancient tools and jewelry, and took pictures of statues that reminded us of people we knew. Here's one that resembles someone in our program... but I won't say who.

On our way out we stopped at Starbucks and watched French students enjoying their large, over-expensive cups of sweetened coffee drinks. However much I detest Starbucks as a corporation, I have to admit that there's something wonderful about being able to order a huge, iced and creamy cup of caffinated sugar, or even just a large coffee for that matter. Here coffee is served strong, condensed into little mini cups that look like they're made for a child's tea set. It's generally very good and very strong, but it's a bit like taking shots. Nowhere can I find a nice big milky version that I can sip for hours on a cold morning.
Sunday I finally made a call that I've been meaning to make since I arrived. I called up my friend Zara, a woman from Niger that I met back when I was an exchange student in Belgium, visiting Paris. She was a friend of my host mother's, who lived in Africa for several years. Zara married a French man and moved to Paris, and has been living here ever since with her husband and now three beautiful children. When I called her up she proposed an outing for the afternoon, and an hour later we were on the metro, on our way to l'arc de la défense, an area of Paris that I had never seen before. Below are a few pictures...
.....or there WOULD be, if the internet would only work!!!!!
While I'm at it, here are a few more photos from Paris.
The first is of the Luxembourg gardens, in front of the palace of the Senate. The next one is of the back of the old Paris opera house, Opera Garnier.

Autumn

It's fall in Paris. The leaves are changing colors in the parks and on tree-lined streets. Despite the best efforts of the street cleaners to keep the sidewalks free, the leaves keep falling. In the Garden of Luxembourg, the largest and most cared for park in Paris, the ground is littered with crumpled brown leaves and round, hard chestnuts from what seems to be Paris' favorite tree. Along big important streets they are carved into square shapes, for a tidy, formal, and very geometrical look. In the summer they are great for shade, and in the fall they provide street vendors with something roast and sell to tourists. Kids enjoy picking them up and throwing them around, and I like having something to kick absentmindedly as I walk to class.
The sky has been getting greyer, too, and there's been a lot of that light-but-constant rain that I saw so much of in Oregon.
For the past couple of weeks I've mostly been going to classes and hanging out with my Sarah Lawrence friends here at the Cité. There are 6 of us living at the Fondation Americaine, and it's starting to feel like a little family. We often get together in the evenings to cook dinner or drink tea in one of the little kitchens that are located on every floor. We've even had a couple of crêpe nights, (which in my opinion are really just a reason to eat a lot of nutella), and I'm starting to get pretty good at flipping crepes by tossing them in the air. None of them have gotten stuck to the cieling yet, but there's always a chance...
Oh, and I almost forgot about the cabbage! Thank you all for all of your wonderful suggestions. I finally finished off Mr. Cabbage in a stir-fry at the beginning of this week. He got put into soups, fry-ups, salads, and whatever else I could squeeze him into. I still can't believe how well it lasted. It's been almost a month since I bought the thing, but every time I went down to the fridge it was still firm and leafy-green. No wonder cabbage is what people eat during famines in cold, northern places. It lasts forever!
For classes, I finally ended up taking a print-making class, a painting class, a seminar at Reid Hall called "Multicultural France," and, of course, French. The painting class is in a little Atelier about 45 min. away from the Cité, with a model who comes in daily and 2 still-lifes set up for students to paint at any time. It's a crowded studio, with unfortunately many Americans as students, but the people are nice and I think I can do pretty much whatever I want there.
My print-making class is a ton of fun. The work is meticulous and takes a lot of patience but the ambiance in the studio is great. The students are mostly older, and very nice. I've made friends with a woman who is also a beginner like myself, and whose children both live in the US. The leaders of the studio are really the ones who give it it's character though. The head boss, Joelle, is an older lady who is very loud, opinionated, and has a rather dirty mouth. She doesn't think twice about swearing if she finds the coffee cups sitting dirty by the sink, or chewing out her poor assistant, Nicolas, for almost anything that isn't to her liking. She isn't really mean, though, she just doesn't worry about trying to be polite. This can sometimes put everyone a little on edge, but on the whole it's quite hilarious.
Besides classes, I have had a chance to do a few activities on my own. I've gone twice to this enormous flea market in the North of Paris, where they sell everything from antiques to the latest fashion knock-off. It's crowded, but fun. Last week I went with Katie(from Mills), who's taking a break from school to spend a year living and working in Paris! She's very courageous; I wouldn't have had the guts to go without a program.
The week before last the mother of the two boys I tutor in English invited me to dinner, which was very kind, and it ended up being a huge feast lasting until 11:30 or so at night.
Hmm... Well, I've got to go to class, but I love you all and will write again soon!

Cabbage soup

Hello, mes chèrs amis!
Things have been going peachily. Today was an extra good day. This morning I went out to the bakery, bought myself a baguette, made myself a super-duper sandwich, and then left for Reid Hall where Sarah Lawrence classes are.
Today we had a class on art and architecture in Paris, which was really interesting, and then we had lunch, French class, and finally a visit to the Atelier de Gravure, in other words a print-making studio!!!
This studio, unlike most, is located pretty close to the Cité Universitaire, on a cute little street full of busy boulangeries, boucheries, fruit stands, and other shops. The studio itself is small, but packed with print-making machines and materials. The two leaders of the studio were really kind and unpretentious, and spent most of the time joking with the head of my Program, Monique. It seemed like a really fun environment. The artwork they showed us was amazing. I felt like signing up right then and there! I still have to work it out with my other classes, though. I'll sign up next week.
Classes start on Monday. Yay! I'm excited to have a more normal life; orientation has been a little exhausting.
I want to take Print-making, painting, French, and a seminar called "Multicultural France." It doesn't sound like much, but I think I'll basically be living in the art studios. I have to be there 8 hours a week for printmaking, and 6 hours for painting. It should be fun though.
This evening I made myself soup for the first time here. It was very satisfying, since lately I've just been too tired in the evening to do anything more than make tea. The tale of this soup started a few days ago, however:
Last Saturday, on my way back from tutoring I found a huge and very cheap supermarket, so I went inside. I've been trying to buy healthy foods, to combat my diet of white bread (baguettes) and chocolate croissants, and so I went straight to the veggie area. The amount of money I've been spending recently is scary, so I was looking for CHEAP veggies. I finally came upon these extra green, enourmous cabbages, and something in my head said "Why not? THIS looks healthy!"
So anyway, this giant green vegetable has been sitting all week, taking up the entire bottom shelf of the communal fridge in the basement, waiting for me to be inspired by its healthy leafy-ness. Tonight I finally had the courage to take it out, take off a few of the outer leaves, and turn them into a stew, along with a few other more tastey items. It was good, and there was enough left over to save for tomorrow night. The rest of the uncooked cabbage, however, is still lurking in the depths of the downstairs fridge...
If anyone has good cabbage recipes, please let me know!
Sending love from France!

Travels around Paris

1. cruise on a tourist boat

2. Eiffel Tower and Sarah Lawrence students

3. Eiffel Tower wearing sunglasses

4. Center Les Halles, from a walk around Paris

5. Lauren and I, looking shady

Les jours du Patrimoine

It's with great relief that I greet this weekend. The Sarah Lawrence Program is great, but I need a few days of me time to do my grocery shopping, some touristy traveling around Paris, read/reply to emails, send postcards, and write in this blog! Thank you for all the lovely comments by the way; I miss you all.
Well, this week seemed to go by pretty fast. We've started our French classes, which are pretty fun. My class has a very good professor, who has us do silly things like try to read out loud in French with a pencil in our mouths, in order to work the mouth muscles that us English-speakers don't usually use. It sounds ridiculous, but actually works!
On Tuesday I went with our group to sign up for a French bank account. It cost 1 euro for a student account. We barely fit into their little office, but after we each signed and dated about 15 papers that all looked the same, they smiled and told us that we'd receive our debit cards in a week.
On Thursday afternoon I got to visit my first atelier de peinture (painting studio). It was a long and complicated metro ride, and when we got there it sadly wasnt' what I had hoped. It was a smallish room opening onto a courtyard, with what looked like children's paintings covering the walls. We later learned that the Atelier had recently put on a show, displaying everyone's latest work. The two leaders of the Atelier, an artistic couple, talked to us about their theory of discovering the creative spirit in people, and finding different ways of letting the imagination go and just having fun. This was all fine and dandy, but as a technical artistic education it won't do. This wasn't the strict, serious studio art training that I had expected to find in France. Here, their classes are not set up the same way as in US colleges. There is no "class" that you go to twice a week where a professor walks around telling you what to do. Instead, Sarah Lawrence art students are required to spend a total of 6 hours at a studio a week in order to make it the equivilant of one US art class. Somehow, I can't see myself taking a 45 minute metro ride several times a week just to do art in an Atelier. Not unless it's something that requires special equipment, like a printmaking or sculpture class. Oh well, we'll be visiting more Ateliers this coming week, so maybe I'll find one that suits me.
Also on Thursday, I did my first tutoring job! Remember that woman who I asked for directions, and who came back a couple minutes later to ask if I would tutor her kids in English? Well, I finally did. On Thursday I tutored her eldest son who is in his first year of University, and yesterday (Sat.) I got to tutor them both. It was fun. The older kid is hard to tutor because he is so advanced, but he is very nice. The younger kid, who is 14, was kind of awkward but easier to tutor.
This weekend is what Parisians call "Les jours du Patrimoine," an annual event where buildings that are normally closed off to the public are opened, and free for people to visit. Even the Palais de l'Elysée, the French equivilant to the White House, was open. The only catch is that everyone and their uncle comes out for this event. The Parisians are very proud of their town, and very appreciative of nice architecture and a chance to visit it. The lines for more important buildings could be several kilometers long, and even after a five hour wait there was a chance that you would never make it inside before it closed. I went Saturday morning with another student from the Cité Universitaire, Cyril, to try our chances at visiting one of these buildings. After seeing the line at the Elysée, we walked around and found one that was much shorter outside of a building called the Hôtel de Beauvau. We had no idea what was inside, but after about an hour and a half wait we entered, to find that it was the seat of the Ministère de l'Intérieur. It turned out to be great. The building, which is used daily for business matters, was absolutely beautiful and richly decorated. A little further into our visit we were taken to a room up on the 3rd or 4th story, which happened to be the place where French resistants of the German occupation during the 2nd World War were held captive and questioned by the Gestapo! It was a tiny room, covered with writings and drawings carved into the walls by the prisoners. One of the quotes said, "It's between these grimy walls that fought the real heart of France." I felt very lucky to have been able to visit such an important place.
Today we are going to go on a touristy boat ride on the Seine. I'm very excited.
A plus tard!
Bisous!

A few photos

1. Market at Aix en Provence
2. View of the Mediterranean from the port of Cassis
3. Streets of Cassis
4. View of Marseille from a hilltop
5. Olive orchard near the place where Van Gogh spent most of his life
6. Roman Coliseum in Nîce
7. View of the countryside from les Beaux de Provence, a Medieval town on top of a scraggly rock
8. View of le Beaux de Provence

First week

Bonjour tout le monde,

It's been so long that I don't even know where to start. After a busy week of orientation, I spent Friday through Monday in the South of France with Sarah Lawrence. It was an amazing trip; we saw many beautiful sights, visited many beautiful cities, and ate some pretty darn amazing food. The trip was exhausting though. Our leader was Madame Mole, an art history professor for the Sarah Lawrence program in Paris. She was from the south of France herself, and was energetic to the extreme. I don't think I saw her sleep a wink the entire trip. She tended to dress all in black, her white hair contrasting with her stark costume. She would walk fast, pointing out interesting architecture to those few who kept up with her, and although what she said was often interesting, I think people started tuning her out after the first two days.
Madam Mole planned the trip schedule, which often included visiting 3 cities in one day, and an art museum in each one. We visited Montpellier, Nimes, Aix-en-Provence, Cassis, Marseille, Villeneuve les Avignon, and Avignon. The schedule was often so packed that we had little or no free time to explore the cities ourselves, although there are quite a few that I would like to go back to. The only other thing that bothered me about the trip was how much it felt like we were a middle school group going on a field trip. We were constantly being told to stay out of the road and watch out for cars, not to touch the paintings in the musuems, to guard our purses, and other things of that sort. It felt as though they didn't trust us to act as the adults that we are, and I was not the only one who was frustrated and slightly insulted by this.
That having been said, it was a fantastic trip. I've uploaded a few photos of my room here and of several cities in the South. Enjoy!

Et ça commence...

Hello everyone,
During the past couple of days I've been doing a lot of what the French call flâner: to take a walk with no precise destination. I get myself lost very easily this way, but people are very helpful in giving directions, and I also get to see a lot of Parisian street life. I've run into an open air market, discovered some useful shops, and had the chance to try out several bakeries.
I'm starting to get used to life here. Today I learned where the laundry room is, and how to do it. In order to use the machines one has to buy a special tab/coin at the cashier's office, and then take that to the laundry room and insert it into the machine. Also, for my dear friends at Mills who have complained about the prices for doing laundry in the dorms, I ask you not to feel so put out. Here it costs 2.50 euros for a load of wash, and 1.50 to dry. I think I may be hand washing and drying a lot of my stuff.
Today was also the beginning of the Sarah Lawrence program. I took the metro for the first time this morning since I arrived, which was fast but stressful because of the amount of people all rushing rushing rushing to get to wherever they were going. Despite my best efforts, I still managed to be late to the 9:00 meeting at Reid Hall. I haven't yet bought a map, and the street that Reid Hall is located on is very small. No one seems to know where it is. After leaving the metro I had to ask half a dozen people for help before I encountered a kind lady with a map. It turned out to be just a couple of streets away. One of the first people I asked for directions was a woman in her 40's. She didn't know the street even though she lived in the area, but after hurrying on her way she returned a couple of minutes later to where I was still standing bewildered, and proceeded to ask me if I would be willing to tutor her kids in English. Apparently, my accent isn't as good as I thought it was. She said she had a Canadian girl the year before, but she recently returned home, and now Madame needed to find a new tutor. By this time I really was late, and to be honest I have no idea what my schedule will be like this year or how much time classes will take. I don't even know if it's legal for me to take a job like that here. She gave me her contact information however, and I told her I'd call her by Wednesday.
Once I did get to Reid Hall, I was not the only student who showed up late. Thank goodness. The leaders of the program welcomed us, bombarded us with lots and lots of information, and finally let us go at around 5:00 so that we could eat and sleep before tomorrow's French placement exam. Before I do go to bed though, I'll give a few details of the program. I will be taking 4 classes each semester, all of which will be in French. 2 of those classes will be studio art classes for me, since it's my major, and I will take them at a French art institute(I still don't know where yet; classes don't start until the 1st of October). The other 2 classes will be Sarah Lawrence seminars, on some topic of my choosing, that will take place at Reid Hall, and that will count towards my French major. We choose our classes tomorrow. I'm very excited.
Well, it is once again past my bed time. I promise that I will upload some pictures soon for all of you to see.
Good night!

First day

Saturday, September 6, 2008

I did it! I’m in Paris! After about 15 hours of flight, 4 different airports, and a trip on the Paris RER train system I arrived at 10am this morning, exhausted and a little bit dazed, in front of the American house (Fondation des Etats-Unis) on the campus of the Cité Internationale Universitaire of Paris. Here is my new address and phone number:

Rebecca Waterhouse
Fondation des Etats-Unis
15, boulevard Jourdan
75014 Paris FRANCE

Phone: 01-53-08-7330

My dear friend Chelsea drove me to the airport at 3AM (Thank you Chelse!!!) so that I could be there the recommended 3 hours before my flight. When we got there the airport was pretty much empty, and I waited with a couple of other travelers until 4:30 when the staff arrived to check us in. My first flight was from Oakland to Denver, then Denver to Washington, and from there to Paris.
The flights went pretty well, although I think I will avoid flying with United again. They’re cheap, but there’s a reason. Their service has gotten pretty terrible. They’ve cut back on things like food and drink and blankets. If you find one on your seat, lucky you. Otherwise you have to fend for youself. I spent 2 of my flights freezing to death. I felt a little sorry for the staff, too; on my last flight there were 4 flight attendants to 300 people. The French lady sitting next to me got very upset when she was forced to eat her airplane meal without any wine because they took so long to bring the drink wagon to us. She said “what kind of a place serves you food without wine?!” How very French!
My first flight was from Oakland to Denver, then
The Fondation building is very pretty on the outside; ivy-covered brick, with red curtains in all of the windows. Inside, the halls of the dormitory are pretty stark, but the rooms themselves aren’t bad. Upon entering the Fondation I was given keys to my room and mailbox, and a pamphlet of information about the building. I am on the 4th story, looking out onto a tree-covered campus and the Fondation of Mexico. Wireless internet is free here (although I have not yet managed to log into the system yet) and each room has a phone from which we can receive calls for free. To make calls, minutes can be bought at a relatively low price. Since it is the weekend I will have to wait, though, as their office is closed. There is a kitchen on every floor, and a common room in the basement that I have not yet visited.
I think that will be taking advantage of the kitchens; after getting settled I went to get something to eat at the Cafeteria in the main building on campus, and was a little disappointed. The main cafeteria seems to be closed until October and the café where I ate had little to choose from besides fried food and baguette sandwiches. It was cheap, but would get old very fast.
There are 40 different dormitory buildings on the campus of the Cité, admitting students of over 130 different nationalities. I don’t think I will have trouble staying active here. Already today I have seen a lot of students out biking, walking and running on the campus, and I think I saw two gyms marked on the map. After eating, I went for a walk around the campus and surrounding areas. I found a grocery store very close by, and got myself some shampoo and laundry soap. I walked a little farther and to my delight I discovered a boulangerie, where I promptly bought a chocolate croissant, which was perfectly crispy and wonderfully buttery. With that, I accomplished goal number 1 of this trip. I have sorely missed European pastry shops.
I have so much more to say, but for now this will have to do. I love you all and send hope to hear from you soon!
Later I'll post some pictures.

A blog of my own

Well, I created the blog, but now I'm too tired to write. Until tomorrow then...