Skim milk, ahoy!

I have little to report in this update other than the fact that I have successfully found skim milk. It took about five solid minutes of searching through the milk shelves at Shopi before I finally found it, but I was pretty excited. It can only be bought in pretty small containers--maybe a quart or so--but I bought mine and had a lovely lunch of soup, a bread that I randomly selected from the piles, and some skim milk. It had been eighteen long days without skim milk, but thankfully that has ended.

No other news, though I'm going to Nice and Antibes for the weekend to visit my roommate from MU, so I'll probably have news about that next week.

A very busy week in Avignon

First of all, all of the pictures that I've taken so far can be seen (I hope) through this link: http://marquette.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2009729&l=11810&id=1158900089

Now, on to a very long update about a very long week.

First, a moment for a very superficial but still important observation about Avignon: My hair absolutely loves it here. Anyone who has spent any amount of time with me and the frizzy mess that betrayed me when it went from straight to curly knows that my hair is constantly battling the elements. Well, it just so happens that my hair is getting on amazingly with the weather here. There’s very little humidity, it’s not cold enough to dry it out, and in conclusion, I’ve been having a week and a half’s worth of good hair days. Also worth noting is that my skin is considerably less dry here. There’s definitely something to be said for living in temperate places as opposed to the United States Midwest. However, it does seem to be drying up again, and I’m not sure whether it’s because I’m working out at a gym again or because my skin’s used to the climate now and has gotten over its culture shock. If it has gotten over its culture shock, I wish it would teach me how!

I’m also really enjoying only having classes four days a week. I’m sure with traveling that I’ll be doing in the future, I’ll appreciate it even more, but even now I’m enjoying that the extra time on weekends. L’Institut is open on Fridays, so I can go in and get some work done, as well as enjoy the internet access before the weekend really starts. It’s also a good meeting place for students who have to work on projects, as I do.

The big news of the week is that I switched host families. I was having a very hard time at the other house, and once they found out I was leaving, it got even harder for me. Thankfully that’s all over with. I’m now living outside of the city walls (no protection from Germanic tribes after all, unless they come while I’m in school), which is nice. It’s a little more spread out and I feel like I can breathe a little (please note that it is still just as crowded as your average Chicago neighborhood, and that should give you an idea of how cramped the city is). I take a bus to and from school, which is pretty easy, and L’Institut pays for it. I went to the transportation office today to buy my bus pass, which is like a Chicago Card in that you get to wave it at a sensor instead of putting it the thing next to the turnstile for it to deduct the money. I got told by the person who gave me the pass that my French was excellent, and I felt like saying, “I’m probably slaughtering your language, but thank you just the same!”

The buses here are much nicer at the ones at home, and they’re exceptionally clean. It takes about 5-10 minutes to get into the city, and then it’s just a one or two minute walk to the school. Yesterday I left the city around 6:20 and it didn’t take long to get home at all, but I discovered today that Avignon does in fact have a rush hour. I left at about 5:05, and it took me almost a half hour to get back to the house. It’s still considerably faster than the commute I was accustomed to in high school, so it didn’t bother me—I was too delighted by the knowledge that there was a rush hour. If it takes a traffic jam for me to feel at home here, then I guess that’s what it takes! The only down side of living out of the city is that it makes it a little harder to get together with the other students. I get about 10€ a week from L’Institut to use for taking a taxi, so it’ll definitely still be possible, but it will take planning. The buses stop running around 7:30, so my goal is to aim for events where I’ll only have to take a taxi one way, not both.

I went to work out at a gym today (Friday). Through L’Institut, each student has a certain amount of money that can be used for extracurricular activities—dance lessons, music lessons, yoga, museum visits, and many other options including an option of just getting free tickets to concerts, plays, and movies. I ended up deciding to get the gym membership, even though it means that’s the only thing I can do. Going today was a very interesting experience. I got semi-lost on the way there, but I called L’Institut to figure out where I’d gone wrong, and it turns out I had the right building that I’d been looking for (3h) but that the number for the gym was actually 34. They draw their fours and ones differently here—ones look like fours or sevens, and fours look like h’s.

Upon arriving, I couldn’t find anyone at the front desk to show me around, so I just hopped on an elliptical and started working out. Next time I go I want a tour, because there’s a ton of open space and I don’t know if we’re allowed to use that or if it’s for classes. Also, I wouldn’t mind knowing where the locker rooms are. There are very few weight machines that I recognized, though there were some that looked both new and familiar. However, the sign on them said we weren’t allowed to use them. I have hopes that they change that soon, because I haven’t the slightest idea how to use the other machines. I also realized I had a problem with the free weights: all the numbers were in kilograms. It’s little things like that that really throw me off here. I can deal with the language, but smaller things tend to bother me much more. The elliptical was a little bizarre as well. You couldn’t change the incline, and it told me that after 40 minutes I’d only burned 300 calories, when I’ve been doing ellipticals for a year and a half and I can always burn 450 calories in 40 minutes. I can’t decide whether the machine here was lying to me or whether I was lied to back home. Also, wiping down a machine after using it seems to be a foreign concept. Let’s hope that Merca doesn’t exist in France. I was the only female in the free weights area, which I think some guy commented on. He started to talk to me, but I never feel like having conversations in the gym so I decided to pretend I didn’t speak French well and just said “Pardonne, je ne comprends pas.” It’s nice to have that excuse to fall back on, and I think when I get back to the States and people talk to me, I’m going to pretend that I can’t speak English. The guy asked if I was from England, and I told him yes—much better England than the US.

A food update: If I let myself, it would be incredibly easy to eat Nutella on a freshly baked baguette for lunch every day. As it is, I have let myself buy neither a container of Nutella (which tastes so much better here) nor any baguettes, and instead I watch enviously as the others eat it at lunch. There’s a grocery store called Shopi not far from L’Institut, and the school has refrigerators where we can keep our food for lunches. Thus far I’ve bought fresh fruit, Greek yogurt, whole-grain bread, a low-fat chèvre (goat cheese) spread, and the only sandwich meat they have here: ham. I am eating quite healthily, and while I’m not completely immersing myself in the French food, it’s not completely American, either. Of the many cheeses I have tried, I adore chèvre (I knew that before coming here), and am quite fond of Brie and Roquefort (which tastes like blue cheese to me, but better). The only cheese I decidedly don’t like is Camembert. My wine exploration has been much less exciting. They often leave out wine for us to drink at lunch, and the one time I was feeling adventurous, I poured myself half a sip, drank it, made a face and went to get myself some water. Breakfast has been a little random, but I’m determined to find a healthy cereal here that doesn’t have dried fruit in it. I had mentioned to Mirielle, my new host mother, that I liked cereal in the mornings, and so she very kindly bought some for me. Unfortunately, she bought me something called “Pétals Sucré”. It’s essentially an off brand of Frosted Flakes, and I ate it with much guilt, as I never eat sugary cereal. I tried to tell myself that it was probably no worse than pancakes, but I nevertheless felt quite sure that it was going to rot my teeth. However, I had a banana on the cereal, and I also had a Clementine for breakfast, plus an apple with lunch and both a pumpkin soup and cauliflower at dinner dinner. That was essentially for you, dearest Mother: I’m eating my fruits and vegetables! I’ve gotten advice on my skim milk hunt (for starters, it does exist here) and when I go to Shopi next week I’ll be in search of both skim milk and healthy, dried fruit-less cereal.

Having to speak French all the time, I’ve become hyper-aware of my flaws. I’m not sure if I had these problems before coming to France, or if I just didn’t speak French often enough to realize my habitual mistakes. The first problem, which I’ve worked very hard to remedy, is my tendency to drop the pas that’s needed for a negation. When you want to say something negative, you have to put a ne before the verb and a pas after it to negate it. It’s pretty acceptable to drop the ne, but you absolutely cannot drop the pas, and whenever I get really immersed in what I’m saying I tend to change thoughts without finished the negation. Additionally, I’m absolutely dreadful at future tense. First of all, in French there are several future tenses, the most common of which are futur prôche (near future) and futur parfait (future perfect). I theoretically know how to construct the future perfect, but since I don’t think it exists in English, I never think of using it in French. Instead, I use near future, which is the ‘going to’ construction, for example, I’m going to go to London for the break. However, in French you’re only supposed to use that when it’s in the very near future, maybe a day or so. Thus, the above example should not be je vais aller à Londres pour les vacances, but instead j’irai à Londres pour les vacances. Unfortunately, I can never seem to think of the proper means of doing that in conversation, and I’m afraid I might have to start avoiding any and all conversations about the future.

That was your French grammar lesson for the day, and I am now going to take a shower before watching the European Figure Skating Championships on TV. I squealed when I saw that they were going to be on (with commentary by Philippe Candeloro!), and Mirielle wanted to know what could possibly be so exciting. She said I could watch them, and I’m very much looking forward to it. Also worth noting before I go is that I’m missing the US National Figure Skating Championships I think for the first time since 1995. This is very, very traumatic for me. My obsession with watching skating on TV has declined since 2002 when the ISU went crazy and decided that no one could know which judges gave what marks, but I always kept watching US Nationals since the money went to USFSA, not the ISU. I’m feeling quite sad about that, but I’ll have to console myself with Philippe*.

That’s about it for today (Friday). Tomorrow L’Institut takes us to Nîmes to see Pont du Gard (which I think is just an old Roman aqueduct, as that’s all they show in the pictures) and then to a Musée du Bonbons (if it really is a candy museum, I’m going to be pumped), and I’ll add information about that before I post this Monday.

*For those of you who perhaps weren’t quite as obsessed with figure skating in 1998 as I was, Philippe Candeloro won the bronze medal at the 1998 Olympics (Behind Ilia Kulik of Center Stage fame and Elvis Stojko, but before Todd Eldredge) with a Three Musketeers program where he pretended to sword-fight during his straight-line footwork sequence.

Saturday Evening:

The excursion with L’Institut was a lot of fun, but I’m now completely exhausted. I took an 8AM bus into the city and ended up arriving far earlier than I needed to. I wandered around the city for a bit, then ran into a few students from L’Institut at a café. I joined them for a chocolat chaud that was not as good as the one I had my first day here, but it was still better than American hot chocolate. Most of the other students ended up walking by us, so we walked en masse to the train station where the tour bus met us. After having a few people get lost, we were able to leave before too much time had passed for Nîmes, a town that’s a certain number of kilometers away, but since none of us know how far a kilometer is, the number meant nothing to us. Once there, we went with the tour guide to an old arena built by the Romans for bull fighting. It was absolutely huge, and it was really cool to see. After that, we went to see a temple that had been built there by a Roman Emperor before the tour guide gave us about two hours on our own to eat lunch and explore the town. I stopped at the Tourism Office with several other girls, and the women there recommended going to the gardens not far from where we were—this was an excellent recommendation. The gardens are part of an old palace, and it was absolutely beautiful. I can’t get over my surprise of seeing flowers blooming in January, and the architecture was incredible. We explored around there for a while, then stumbled across a temple built for Diana. We spent about an hour of our time there, and it was absolutely incredible.

We started to look for somewhere to eat, but one girl and I decided to find something to eat later as we were sidelined by a papeterie/librarie—essentially a book store with loads of books, craft supplies, and notebooks. I had a blast looking around, and just barely restrained myself from buying a Le Petit Nicolas calendar. Le Petit Nicolas is a French children’s chapter book that I read my senior year in high school, and it’s absolutely adorable. It’s about this little boy, Nicolas, who is probably 7 years old, and all the exploits he and his friends get into. I’m determined to find a copy here to buy, and I’d rather have that than a calendar, so I’ll have to wait until I find that. We stopped to get paninis on our way back to the bus, and they were delicious. Paninis here come on freshly baked baguettes, and the baguettes make everything else taste better.

The bus then set off for Pont du Gard, which is, as I thought, an old Roman aqueduct. However, it’s incredibly better in person than in the photos. It’s absolutely enormous, and the area around it was gorgeous. It runs over the Rhône, and there are lots of hiking paths around the area to follow. We spent a lot of time running around the different paths and taking pictures from good viewpoints. Everything was so gorgeous, and I love seeing green plants in January! We only got to spend about an hour and a half there, and I definitely would like to go back again so that I could spend more time on the hiking paths. I really was amazed by how beautiful everything was, and I took enough pictures to prove it.

After that, we set off for the Musée du Bonbons, a candy museum run by Haribo, a European candy company. It was rather like the museum in Hershey, Pennsylvania, only not as high tech. Also, this company doesn’t make any chocolate, which was simply a travesty. I fail to understand the point of candy that isn’t chocolate, and thus I was quite disappointed by the immense candy gift shop they had at the end—what’s the point of a huge room full of cheap candy if there isn’t chocolate? It definitely wasn’t the highlight of the day, but there was some interesting information there. If nothing else, they had everything translated from French into both German and English, and it was entertaining to see how badly it translated to English. We hopped back on the bus back to Avignon after that, and we had a pretty peaceful ride back. I had a nice dinner with Mirielle, who got a laugh out of my reaction when she asked if I ate rabbit. She said that she doesn’t eat it, but she always asks the study abroad students if they eat it to see their reaction.

Tomorrow I’m going to walk to church in town to see how long the walk takes, and then I’m going to grab some lunch down there before coming back to work on homework. I’m going to try a different church at a later time to see if I can find a more lively or upbeat congregation, but based on what I’ve heard about the religious in France, I’m not necessarily expecting. Hope that everyone is doing well!

More news from Avignon

A few more things about Avignon that I forgot to mention before I get into the classes: At first I found the wall surrounding the city quite charming, until I realized that that’s the reason the city is so cramped and insane; everything has to fit inside it. According to my Economics professor, most cities have gotten rid of theirs for that exact reason, but apparently in Avignon there’s a possibility that the Rhône might rise with heavy rain and start to flood the city, so they kept the walls to keep the water out. Regardless, in the event of invading Germanic tribes, never fear, I’ll be safe within these walls.

L’Institut Americain is located in an old chapel that was built in the 13^th century. Various pieces (including a wall or two and the ceiling) have collapsed since that time and been rebuilt, but the two long side walls are still original. I was talking with another student yesterday about a bunch of marks that we noticed on the walls that looked a little like Greek letters. They were all over the place, but we were trying to figure out what they meant. He went to ask the Director of the program, who explained to us that when the chapel was built, each person who worked on it had a certain mark that they would scratch on a stone. At the end of the day, their pay was determined by how many stones with their mark had been added. She also said that historians can use the symbols when comparing different buildings. For example, they can look at Le Palais de Papes, also in Avignon, and see if any of the same people who worked on this chapel worked on other buildings. I was discussing with another student whether or not the stonecutters could change the mark someone else put in to look like their own mark and thus get more pay, but we weren’t sure people were conniving enough to do that back in the 1200s.

Classes started this week and they seem fine. Two of the classes I was going to take, one that was a Philosophy and one that’s a French writing course, were scheduled at the same time, so I had to pick between the two. I eventually decided on the French writing course, not because it interested me any more than the other one did, but rather because I’d be required to take it for my French minor at some point, and I decided it’d be better to do it here rather than back at Marquette, especially since there are Philosophy classes at MU that will interest me more than the current one does. I’m also taking a Translation class, which is taught by an Anglophone and Francophone professor. Considering I’m a Writing-Intensive English major, it’s really interesting for me to talk about the nuances of words and meanings, so I’ll probably enjoy that. My Political Science class is going to be a lot of work, but the subject matter seems interesting. Economics seems very interesting as well, and I’m looking forward to everything that we’re going to learn with that. I’ve been working on the first reading, and it seems to build really well off of my Comparative Politics class from last semester. Because two of my classes were offered at the same time, I decided to pick up another class just so that I’ll have more to do here. It should count towards my French minor, so even though it wouldn’t be my first choice of classes to take (It’s on French film and culture), it won’t be a complete waste.

I’ve finally stopped getting lost on my way to and from L’Institut, which is a blessing. Because of that, I’m slowly starting to expand the number of places I’ll go to, and I’ve found some nice spots in the city. I’ve gone running around the city walls a few times, which is quite hazardous (lots of traffic, but it’s still easier than running in the city). Thursday evening, I went out to eat at a place called La Flush (We thought the name was so funny that we couldn’t resist going inside) with three other girls from L’Institut. The food was pretty good, as well as being cheap, so we’ve discussed the possibility of making that our place to go during the one night a week we don’t eat the hosts. While there, we got hit on by a drunk guy who was speaking English very poorly to us. His friends kept apologizing for the guy’s weirdness, but he wanted us to go out with him after eating. We kept trying to explain that we could speak French perfectly well, so there was no reason for him to keep trying out his English on us, but that couldn’t quite get through the haze of alcohol he had consumed. It should be no surprise that we did not join him that evening.

Today (Saturday the 19^th) I also wandered around the city for a while. This morning my hosts told me they were leaving for the weekend, which was a little sudden. I went to Les Halles, a market a bit like the Public Market in Milwaukee, where there was a cooking demonstration. They have a different chef each week who hands out a recipe, explains how to make it as he’s making it, and then there are samples for everyone to try. Four other students from L’Institut were there, and we had a good time. We bought lunch afterwards, and ate it by the Palais de Papes, which was beautiful. The weather has been amazing here; yesterday it got up to 63 and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was higher today. I was fine walking around with just a light sweater. It’s pretty easy to differentiate the visitors from the natives here, because this is the coldest time of year for the locals, so they’re all bundled up with hats and scarves and gloves. Those of us used to slightly cooler temperatures instead go around with just a sweater or light jacket. It’s pretty funny to notice that difference. We looked around the Palais de Papes, then went outside the city walls and crossed over the Rhône to L’Île de la Barthelasse, where we explored for a good hour or so. It was really calm and much more open than the city. We saw a group of British lose their soccer ball and then decide to jump in the Rhône to swim after it. They succeeded, but I couldn’t help thinking that they really ought to get a tetanus shot after that experience. We kept walking to the mainland on the other side of the island, and we looked around there for a while. The day was perfect for exploring, with a really nice temperature. The only downside is that there aren’t water fountains anywhere to be found, and a bottle of water costs about 2.50€, which is more than I usually spend on lunch. As a result, I spent most of the day dying of thirst, but aside from that it was very enjoyable. We walked by a lot of shops on our way back in, and it was much more crowded in them than it is during the week.

Tomorrow I’m going to go for a run in the morning and then try and find my way to a church. If I get lost on my way (it’s not unlikely), I have the schedule for all the masses in the city and which churches they’re at, so I can just keep moving along until I make it to a church in time for a mass. I’m looking forward to seeing how much I can understand. They have French masses at MU once a semester that I’ve been to before, but a real French mass will be quite different, I imagine. After that I’ll probably just look around for a quiet place to sit and read—I might go back to the island, since I really liked it there. I also have some work due at the end of next week, and I’m hoping to get that done this weekend. I’m not feeling very well due to a cough and a sore throat. I’m hoping it doesn’t get too much worse, though I’ll admit I’m not optimistic. I’m going to have a quiet dinner on my own now, then do a little work and be off to sleep.

I’m adding this on Sunday. I went to church this morning at St. Pierre, which is just a few blocks from where I live. The Director of L’Institut was there, and she introduced me to the priest, who’s in charge of the student masses with L’Université D’Avignon. They have mass each week on Wednesday, and I think I’m going to go this Wednesday. The mass was (as expected) very different. There was a choir there singing, but almost no one else sang along, and they didn’t tell us where in the prayer books to find the songs. It was frustrating to not be able to say the prayers along with the congregation. I found a few (the Nicene Creed, the Our Father) in the prayer book, but most of the others were nowhere to be found. I’m not sure how long it’ll take me to learn the prayers in French—I can’t remember not knowing them in English, since I’ve been going to church since birth. The average age of the congregation was probably 55 or 60. At first I was sure I was the youngest person there besides the two altar servers, but at the end I saw one other girl there with her family, and she was probably 13 or so. A very different atmosphere both from the family masses at home and the student masses at school.

This afternoon I walked over to the island again with another girl from IAU. It’s much nicer over there, away from the cramped city. Some guy was pushing his piano along the walkway next to the Rhône, and he ended up parking it and then starting to play for everyone who was walking along, and that was pretty cool. I did some reading for school and we talked for a while, but when the sun started to set it got a little cooler, so we walked back. It wasn’t quite as warm today as it was yesterday, but it was still quite nice (and much better than the high of 10 that was forecast for Chicago today). They actually covered Chicago on the French news when talking about the cold weather in the US.

One of the things that bothers me a little bit here is how infrequently the students speak French amongst themselves. Inside L’Institut, we’re allowed to speak English between noon and 2pm, but the rest of the time has to be French. That seems fair enough to me, but I’d really feel better speaking French when I’m out in the city. Speaking English feels very conspicuous, and I hate standing out in the crowds. However, I think some people have a bigger language barrier than others. One girl told me that she just can’t seem to communicate what she wants to in French, and she’s really struggling with speaking French so often. On the other end, there’s a few students who were here last semester. One was even working as a waiter last summer (he hasn’t been home since last summer), and he just got thrown into speaking the language all the time. Another girl who was here last semester has been taking French for almost ten years (compared to my meager 5 and a half), and her accent is almost perfect. Either way, I’d really rather speak French more, but I can’t control the rest of the group very well.

I hope everyone at home is doing well. I miss the States a lot, especially everyone at Marquette. I feel like I’m missing out on a lot that’s happening over there, so please keep me updated!

Days since skim milk: 10

First few days in France

I’m writing this Monday night, having finished my first day at L’Institut American.

My trip here was uneventful but exhausting nevertheless. I slept a grand total of maybe a half hour on the plane, and once in Charles De Gaulle, I had to wait about two hours for my train. I was quite pleased that I hadn’t opted with taking the later train, because that would’ve meant four hours of waiting there. Amelia, a girl who goes to Marquette, was on the same plane and train, and there were two other girls, Elle and Allison who were on the same plane. I remembered to “composter mon billet” (thanks to Paul, a friend from MU who told me to do that). It’s basically getting your ticket stamped before you board the TGV, and if you don’t do it, they don’t accept your ticket. I was exhausted on the train, and I dozed off a few times but managed to wake up in time to get off in Avignon. The scenery along the way was beautiful, but it did look an awful lot like Northern Michigan, only more green and without any snow. Due to my exhaustion, I managed to convince myself that I’d gotten on car 15 instead of car 16, and I was all set rehearsing apologies in my head before the conductor took my ticket without any problems. As though I didn’t have enough worries, I had to start inventing some myself!

My host parents, Vincent and Monique, are very nice. Their children have all left home, but they visit often with the grandchildren. After I arrived at their house, I spoke with them for an hour or so, but then Madame encouraged me to take a nap. She promised she’d wake me at 7:30 so that I could eat dinner with them. I unpacked first because I was hesitant to sleep, but around 5:30 I gave in and crashed. Despite my usual tendency to worry as I fall asleep, I didn’t get much beyond worrying that I hadn’t brought an adapter that worked and worrying that I’d used ‘la traffique’, not ‘la circulation’ when I spoke with Monsieur. I then slept for, oh, some 15 hours. Madame said that when I didn’t respond to her knock, she decided to let me sleep, and I certainly did sleep.

She knocked again the next morning (Sunday) around 8:30, and I finally woke up then. The Merciers, their daughter, their grandson (Angel), and I went to Saintes Maries de la Mer. Saintes Maries is a town on the Mediterranean, and the Merciers are going to rent a house there during the summer. They told me that though there weren’t many people there, when it gets warm out it’s packed. We stopped at a café, then they went to look at the house they were renting while I played soccer with Angel, who is soccer-crazy. After that, we went to have lunch at another café (I had a crêpe with an egg, ham, and a cheese that’s called Râpé). We walked down by the beach after that (more soccer for Angel, who not only hates losing, but he hates if the score is even close), and it was quite pretty. After wandering around town, we stopped at café #3 if you’re counting, where I had quite possibly the most amazing hot chocolate of my life. Expensive as the café life is, I’ll have to be careful to stave off a fondness for the hot chocolate. The drive back was pretty uneventful. Dinner was good, but I don’t want to know how much oil was used in its cooking. I’ve no idea how I’m going to stay in shape over here, and I think I might have to start running despite the fact that my left knee hates even the idea of running. My attempts to eat healthily are often commented on by the Merciers, who constantly tell me that I’m not eating enough. I watched the news and then the beginning of a movie with them before going to sleep a little before 10.

We didn’t have classes today, just orientation (and I use that word very loosely). I arrived around 8:30 this morning, and I met a few other students before they started at 9. The director of the center spoke to use about security and the classes, and four students who were here last semester had other things to add. They had someone come in to hook our computers up to the internet there, and we were also able to buy used cell phones. I bought a phone for €20 just so that I can have one. I’m not sure how much I’ll use it, but it was cheap enough so that I don’t have to worry if something happens to it, and I still get the security of having a cell phone. We took a test so that the director knows where we are in relation to the others, and we then left for lunch at a crêperie. The crêpes were almost exactly the same as the café I was at yesterday, just a different type of cheese, and we also had a crêpe with Nutella for dessert (Yum!). I must confess, however, that if my choices are starving for lunch every day or getting more crêpes, it’s not going to take long for me to pick starving. It also won’t be difficult, as I haven’t been hungry once since arriving here. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m so overwhelmed with other things or because I haven’t been working out, but for whatever reason, I’ve had no desire for food. It also could be that because I don’t recognize any of the food, I don’t feel the need to eat it. After a lunch that lasted until 3pm (I almost went insane, especially considering that all the girls I ended up sitting by were from the same University and the same sorority within that University, so they talked about a lot of people I didn’t know), we returned to l’Institut. I went to a store called Monoprix with several others who had to buy school supplies, and after that we went to buy ‘les cartes des recherches’, or cards with minutes for cell phones on them. I still haven’t figured out how to use mine, but I’m going to ask people tomorrow. I went back to l’Institut once more, where I used the internet before leaving for home. Unfortunately, I got veryveryvery lost on my way home, and I had to return to l’Institut to get directions. Even after that, I spent about 45 more minutes wandering around my street and desperately trying to figure out where the house was. I finally arrived after being almost in tears and convinced that I’d be forced to spend my night on the streets.

Avignon itself is a bizarre mix of the very, very old and the very, very new. There’s an actual city wall, which just seemed crazy to me. It’s not a city for the claustrophobics or those who love order. While I’m not claustrophobic, I certainly do love order, and the streets here are enough to drive me mad. I knew coming here that there are few cities like Chicago, with almost entirely straight streets. Still, I was expecting something maybe a bit like Boston, where I almost went crazy with all the curving streets. HA! I didn’t know the half of it. I’m not even sure how I’d describe the streets here, but street signs are almost non-existent (which didn’t help when I was lost), and streets curve, begin, and end constantly. The streets are also extremely small, and there are so many buildings cramped together that it’s hard to see very far at all (thus, not a city for claustrophobics). Because I’m from a big city, I’m always hearing that there isn’t room to breathe and that people need wide open spaces. All I can say is that at home, downtown is essentially a wide open space compared to here! All the people from the suburbs and country who say downtown is too cramped need to come see Avignon if they want to see cramped.

In terms of language, I’m getting along pretty well. I can usually get across what I want to say, though I often have trouble understanding the fast-paced speaking of Southern France. I definitely notice a difference between the accents here and the accents of Northern France. The hard part for me is switching between English and French. I was in French mode before writing this, so I’m still half-thinking in French, which is making it a little difficult. However, a lot of the students at l’Institut speak English, and after talking to them it’s incredibly difficult to switch back into French mode. I’m pretty sure that I’m speaking neither language well right now.

Classes at l’Institut start tomorrow, and I’m very tempted to just go to sleep now. It’s been a long, long day. I’ll post this tomorrow morning, and I hope everyone at home is doing well.

Days since skim milk: 4

It’s now Tuesday morning, and I thought I’d add a bit more before I post this. I haven’t been feeling very well this morning, probably as a result of the weird foods. I bought some stamps on my way to class this morning, and that was quite successful. After that, I successfully managed to get lost again. I wandered around for about five minutes, trying to figure out exactly why the street I was on ended suddenly and which of the five other streets near by I should continue on. Much to my relief, another IAU student was walking by, and he showed me the way to l’Institut. Unfortunately, I’m not sure I’m going to remember it. I think part of the problem is that Monsieur showed me a slightly different route yesterday morning, so it’s quite tricky. I think I’ll be able to get home tonight, but whether or not I can find my way back to school tomorrow is a different story. My first class starts at 1:30 today, but I gave myself a lot of extra time to get lost and to have trouble buying stamps. I don’t finish class until 6pm every day, which is hard for me. I thought last semester was rough finishing at 3 every day, but that’s starting to feel like nothing. It does make some sense, since most people don’t eat dinner until 8, which is another adjustment in itself. No other news since last night other than my inability to find out where the heck I’m going.

Days since skim milk: 4.5